summary: you’ve always been a little clumsy, but this time it lands you in the hospital with no memory of what happened after the crash. your neighbour, jack, remembers everything though, especially what you confessed to him. (7.2k+)
pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader
content: hurt/comfort, neighbours to lovers, slow burn payoff, tension, very very light angst, protective!jack, accidental confession, mutual pining. cw: head injury, concussion, brief loss of consciousness, blood mention, medical inaccuracies, not proof read soz.
“Could you come and fix it?” you say into the phone, voice pitched just a little too casual considering the state of your living room.
You’re standing there, kind of uselessly, staring at the bookshelf you just finished building — or, well, thought you had. It had held together for a solid three seconds after the last screw went in before the entire thing gave up on life and collapsed in on itself like it had personal beef with you.
Pieces of wood are still scattered across the floor. One of the shelves is leaning against the wall at an angle that feels almost judgmental.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. You hear fabric shift, the low rustle of sheets, and then a quiet exhale.
“Yeah… yeah, I’ll come.”
His voice sounded rough through the phone, sleep heavy, a little gravelled, and guilt immediately creeps up your spine.
Shit. You definitely woke him.
You hesitate, chewing lightly at the inside of your cheek as you glance around the mess again. This wasn’t even the first time. Ever since you’d moved into the house next to his, it had somehow… become a thing. If you had a loose cabinet door, flickering light, a lock that wouldn’t turn properly, you would call him.
And every single time, he showed up.
“I’m really sorry,” you wince, pacing a small circle around the mess like that’s somehow going to fix it, “it’s just– I actually tried doing it myself this time, and it looked like it went well. Until it didn’t.”
You let out a small, embarrassed laugh, your hand coming up to scratch at your eyebrow, a nervous habit you’ve never managed to shake.
Another pause. Softer this time.
“Hey,” he says, a little clearer now, like he’s forcing himself properly awake, “it’s fine. Seriously.”
You’re not convinced.
If he was napping in the middle of the afternoon, then he was off shift, which meant this was probably one of the only quiet hours he got to himself all week. With the kind of hours he worked at the hospital, long shifts that seemed to blur into each other and never really end when they were supposed to, sleep wasn’t something he got nearly enough of.
The last thing you wanted was to be the reason he didn’t get it.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you mumble, quieter now, eyes flicking back to the mess like it might suddenly resolve itself out of pity. “I can– I can figure it out, if you want. You don’t have to come.”
There’s a brief pause. “Too late.”
You blink.
“What?”
“I’m already up,” he says, there's something dry in his voice, something faintly amused, like he’s already decided that he’s going to come over and fix it whether you like it or not. “And I’d rather fix it once than come over later when it’s somehow worse.”
“That’s very optimistic of you,” you mutter.
“Experience,” he shoots back easily.
Despite yourself, your lips twitch.
“Don’t worry about it,” he adds, softer now, and you can practically hear him dragging a hand down his face, grabbing for a shirt or whatever’s closest. “You’re not the first person to lose a fight to flat-pack furniture.”
“That makes me feel worse, actually.”
“It shouldn’t,” he says, a beat passing before his tone shifts, something lighter threading through it. “What can I say? I guess I’ve got a way with my hands.”
You go completely still.
There’s a brief, dangerous pause where your brain tries to decide whether that was a joke, a joke, or something you’re definitely overthinking.
Because there’s no way he just said that.
Right?
Your eyes flick to nothing in particular, grip tightening slightly around your phone as the words replay in your head, slower this time, like that’s somehow going to help.
I’ve got a way with my hands.
Heat creeps up the back of your neck, and you’re suddenly very aware of the fact that you’re standing alone in your living room reacting like this over a sentence that may or may not have been completely innocent.
He probably didn’t mean it like that.
He definitely didn’t mean it like that.
…He absolutely meant it like that.
You press your lips together, inhaling through your nose like that’s going to reset your brain. It doesn’t.
“Right…” You clear your throat, dragging your attention back to the mess in front of you like it might ground you. It doesn’t.
“Yeah. We’ll– we’ll see about that, Abbot. Just ring the bell when you get here.”
“Mm. Try not to make it worse before I arrive.”
“Oh, shut up–”
You hang up before he can say anything else, your mouth still slightly parted. You stand there for a good five seconds, just blinking at nothing. Then you look back at the broken bookshelf.
God help you.
A good ten minutes go by, and you still don’t listen to him.
Because of course you don’t.
You’re crouched in front of the bookshelf again, one knee pressed into the floor, the screwdriver clutched a little too tight in your hand as you try, for the third time now, to get the top shelf to sit properly. Your head is half inside the frame, eyes narrowed as you angle the screw just right, tongue pressing lightly against your cheek in concentration.
“Okay just– stay,” you mutter under your breath, like the thing might actually cooperate if you asked nicely.
It doesn’t.
The doorbell rings.
And in the exact same second, the shelf gives way.
It comes straight down, catching the top of your head with a dull thud that makes your whole body jolt forward, the screwdriver slipping from your fingers as a sharp sting spreads instantly.
“Ow, shit,” you groan, squeezing your eyes shut as your hand flies up to your head, pressing against the spot like that’s somehow going to undo it.
For a second you just stay there, hunched over, breathing through it, before letting out a quiet, annoyed exhale. “Perfect,” you mumble to yourself, pushing yourself up slowly, still a little dazed. “That’s just perfect.”
The bell rings again, longer this time.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” you call out, your voice slightly strained as you make your way to the door, your hand still resting on top of your head, your face caught somewhere between a grimace and irritation.
You open it, and there he is.
You take him in for a second without meaning to. The faint grey stubble along his jaw, his hair still slightly out of place like he didn’t bother fixing it before leaving, the simple black shirt and pants thrown on in a rush. There’s a look on his face already, caught between amusement and expectation, like he knew exactly what he was walking into before you even opened the door.
His eyes move over you quickly, taking in the hand on your head, your hair out of place, the look on your face, and you can see the moment it clicks to him.
You drop your hand a little too late to make it subtle.
A small smile threatens at his lips as he adjusts the toolbox in his hand, stepping forward when you shift to the side to let him in. You hold your breath for half a second as he passes you, the space between you just close enough to make you aware of it, before you shut the door behind him.
“Do I need to guess what happened,” he says, glancing down at you as he steps further inside, his voice still a little rough but clearer now.
You scoff softly, already turning to follow him. “Don’t start. I was trying to take matters into my own hands again, and apparently this shelf is harder to build than it looks.”
He hums like he’s not convinced, already walking into your living room, and he’s done it enough times to know exactly where he’s going. His eyes land on the mess almost immediately, taking in the scattered pieces, the half-built frame, the screw you’d dropped on the floor.
“Right,” he says after a second, one brow lifting slightly. “You tried.”
“I did try,” you shoot back instantly, crossing your arms, even though there’s still a faint sting at the top of your head reminding you how that went.
His gaze flicks back to you, slower this time, settling on your face, then your hair, then the spot your hand had been covering.
“What did you do.”
“Nothing,” you answer quickly, a little too quickly.
“That didn’t sound like nothing.”
“It’s fine,” you insist, waving it off like it’s nothing even as you avoid looking at him properly. “It just hit my head a little, it’s not a big deal.”
He doesn’t say anything straight away, and that’s almost worse.
“Let me see.”
“It’s fine, Jack–”
“Let me see,” he repeats, already stepping closer, his tone not harsh but not really leaving you much room to argue either. It’s something about the way he says it, like he’s already decided and that’s that, and then there’s the way he’s looking at you — his eyes settling on your face, focused so intently that it makes your chest feel a little too warm all of a sudden, like you’re suddenly very aware of how close he is.
You hesitate for a second before letting your hand fall away, tilting your head slightly despite yourself. “It’s not even that bad,” you mumble, though it comes out weaker than you meant it to.
He doesn’t respond, just lifts his hand and brushes your hair aside, fingers careful as he checks the spot. There’s a brief pause while he looks at it properly, his expression shifting as the earlier amusement fades.
“Yeah,” he mutters, more to himself. “That’s gonna be a bump.”
You let out a small, unimpressed breath. “Great. Love that for me.”
His hand drops away, but instead of saying anything else, he turns and heads toward your kitchen. You watch him go for a second, still standing where he left you, a little thrown off by how quickly he just takes over your space (not that you're complaining about it).
You hear the fridge door open, the low hum getting louder for a second, then the scrape of the freezer compartment, things shifting around as he moves stuff aside.
“Of course you’ve got nothing useful in here,” he mutters.
“There should be peas or something.”
“There are,” he says after a second. “Miraculously.”
You roll your eyes, even though he can’t see you.
A moment later, he’s back, a bag of frozen peas in his hand as he stops in front of you. He doesn’t hand it to you.
Instead, he steps in closer, lifting it straight to your head before you can react.
You flinch slightly at the cold. “Oh–”
“Hold it,” he says, already reaching for your hand and bringing it up, pressing your fingers around the bag so you keep it in place. His touch lingers for half a second before he lets go.
“Okay.”
He doesn’t say anything else, just turns and walks back over to where he dropped his toolbox, crouching down and flipping it open like he’s done this a hundred times before (he has.)
You don’t move.
For a second, you just stand there, hand pressed to your head, watching him. Or more specifically — You’re watching the way his back shifts under the black shirt as he bends slightly over the frame, the fabric pulling just enough across his shoulders, his arms moving as he starts sorting through the pieces, he makes it look so easy.
You blink, forcing your eyes away for a second, adjusting the peas against your head like that’s what you were focused on the whole time.
It doesn’t really work because you look back.
He’s still crouched there, focused on the shelf, completely unaware, and you’re suddenly very aware of how long you’ve just been standing there doing absolutely nothing.
You clear your throat, shifting your weight as you take a small step forward, still holding the peas to your head as you glance between him and the mess. “Do you– need help, or something, or are you just gonna do the whole thing yourself?”
He doesn’t even look up, already moving pieces back into place like he knows exactly what he’s doing, fingers working easily as he adjusts the frame. “No, you’re alright,” he says, like it’s obvious, like you asking was almost unnecessary.
And then, after a second, like it’s nothing, “Just sit and look pretty.”
You just stand there, your brain going completely fuzzy for a second as it registers what he just said, your grip tightening slightly around the bag of peas while your mouth opens a little before you can stop it.
You’re suddenly very aware of the fact that he can’t see your face right now, because if he could, you’re pretty sure he’d notice it instantly.
So you don’t say anything.
You just stand there, holding the peas to your head, trying to act like that didn’t just completely throw you off, even though it absolutely did.
He keeps going like nothing happened, adjusting the frame, tightening something into place before leaning back slightly to look at it, checking his own work.
You shift slightly, lifting the peas just a little off your head, your fingers moving to press lightly against the spot instead, testing it to see if it still hurts. The second you do, his head turns slightly over his shoulder.
“Don’t touch it,” he adds after a second, almost as an afterthought, still focused on the shelf. “Just leave it for a minute.”
You freeze for half a second before putting the peas back where they were, pressing them properly against your head doing exactly as he said.
“Okay,” you say, softer this time, a lot more normal than whatever you would’ve said earlier.
He keeps going like nothing happened, adjusting the frame, tightening something into place before leaning back slightly to look at it, like he’s checking his own work.
You watch him for a second longer than you should, adjusting the peas again just so you have something to do.
“Thank you,” you add after a moment. He pauses briefly at that, just for a second, before continuing like it didn’t affect him at all.
“Yeah of course,” he says easily.
It was an awkward predicament you found yourself in, one that seemed to happen so quickly you couldn’t even properly process how you got there in the first place. One second you were standing on the sidewalk after getting out of the sports bar you had gone to with a few friends you hadn’t seen in a while, still half caught up in the lingering conversation, your eyes scanning the street for a taxi that could take you home.
And then the next second, without even looking properly, you didn’t realise a bike was coming straight toward you along the sidewalk.
There was barely any time to react before the impact happened, the force of it knocking straight into you and sending both you and the rider crashing down onto the concrete. Your body hit the ground hard, but it was your head that took most of it, smacking sharply against the pavement that made everything jolt at once.
A loud groan leaves you instantly, the pain spreading so suddenly and so intensely that you don’t even think before running your tongue over your teeth in your mouth, checking them one by one to make sure they were still intact, still where they were supposed to be. The sensation was so overwhelming, that it made it hard for you to focus on anything else.
You don’t even register that people have started gathering around you, their voices overlapping, questions being thrown at you all at once as they hover nearby.
“Shit– I’m so, so sorry,” the man says quickly, the one who had collided with you.
You blink up at him through the blur, trying to focus your eyes enough to actually see him properly. He looks young, around your age, crouched close by, clearly shaken, his hands hovering like he doesn’t know whether to help you up or not. He looks completely fine in comparison, his helmet still strapped on, knee and elbow pads in place, protected in a way you clearly weren’t.
You try to sit yourself up from the ground, pushing against the concrete with your hands, but the second you do, a sharp sting spreads across your palms and arms. You hadn’t even noticed how badly you’d scraped yourself up until now. It barely registers though, not properly, not compared to the pounding in your head that only seems to get worse the more you try to move.
Your vision doesn’t clear either. It stays unfocused, everything still slightly out of place, and no matter how much you blink, it doesn’t quite fix itself.
You’d always been a little clumsy, always the type to trip over nothing or drop things at the worst possible time, but this was different. This wasn’t something you could laugh off later or brush away like it didn’t matter. It was worse.
“I’m okay, I think,” you mumble, the words coming out slower than you intended, your voice lacking any real certainty behind it.
The people around you don’t seem convinced.
There’s a shift in the air around you, a sudden stillness that you can’t fully understand, not when your head is still pounding and your vision refuses to cooperate.
“What?” you ask, more confused now, your brows pulling together as you try to make sense of their reactions.
You lift your hand to your head without thinking, fingers brushing against your temple as if to check it, and that’s when you feel it.
Something wet.
Sticky.
More than there should be.
Your hand comes back down into your line of sight, your eyes struggling to focus on it properly through the blur, and it takes longer than it should for your brain to catch up with what you’re seeing.
Blood.
A noticeable amount of it, smeared across your fingers and it doesn’t feel so minor anymore.
“Well, shit,” you mumble under your breath, the words barely leaving your mouth before everything around you starts to feel off again.
The noise of the crowd dulls, their voices becoming distant, like they’re being pulled further and further away from you. The ground beneath you feels unsteady, your vision darkening at the edges as the pounding in your head overtakes everything else.
Somewhere through the haze, you can hear the urgency in their voices shift. “Call an ambulance, quick—” But it all feels far away.
And then, just like that, everything goe s completely black as you fall back against the concrete.
Jack can’t quite take you off his mind.
Ever since you moved into the house next to his a couple months back, ever since that first day when you were tripping over the stairs trying to help the movers carry boxes into your place like you weren’t about to take yourself out before even settling in, he’d clocked you as someone he wouldn’t forget easily.
And it should’ve stopped there, it really should’ve, because it’s not like he doesn’t have other things to focus on, not like his job doesn’t take up most of his time anyway, but it didn’t, it just stuck. He never realised how often he was thinking about you until he caught himself doing it multiple times a day.
Robby would’ve absolutely lost it if he knew. Like actually laugh in his face, not even try to hide it.
Which is exactly why Jack never said anything.
Because it sounds ridiculous.
It feels ridiculous.
At least it did, up until the moment he sees you being wheeled into the E.R.
And for a second it doesn’t even register properly, because it’s just another stretcher, another patient coming in too fast, paramedics talking over each other, the usual noise that never really stops around here, until his eyes land on you and everything’s stopped in Jack’s world.
Your head’s turned to the side, there’s blood at your temple, too much of it, dried and fresh mixed together, your hair stuck where it shouldn’t be, and you’re not moving, not even a little, and that’s what gets him the most because you’re never still.
Robby’s saying something, holding something out to him, but Jack doesn’t take it, doesn’t even look, because his focus is completely gone, locked on you in a way that makes everything else feel like background noise.
“You alright, brother?” Robby asks, and there’s something in his voice this time, not just casual, not just checking in, because he’s clocked it straight away, the way Jack’s just stopped responding, like he’s not even there for a second.
Jack doesn’t answer him.
He’s already moving before anything else can catch up, already at your side, falling into step with the stretcher as they push you through, his eyes running over you quickly, trying to take in as much as he can at once, trying to piece it together in real time without letting it slow him down, even with that tight feeling sitting heavy in his chest.
“What happened?” he asks, already reaching for gloves, his voice coming out like it normally would, like this is routine, like it’s just another patient even when it very clearly isn’t.
“Bike collision,” one of the paramedics says, not missing a step. “She hit her head pretty hard on the pavement, was talking when we got there but not making much sense, kept drifting in and out, then stopped responding on the way here.”
Jack nods once, already there as they move you across, his hand coming up without thinking, steadying your head like it’s instinct, like muscle memory has kicked in before anything else could.
Which it has.
He’s done this a thousand times before.
Just not with you.
“Alright, get her on the monitor, let’s check her properly, and I want a scan ready,” he says, more to the room now, more to himself, slipping into it because that’s what he does, that’s what he knows, even if everything in him feels slightly off.
Robby’s there beside him again, quick like always, but there’s a look he gives Jack, brief but there, like he’s noticed more than he’s saying.
Jack doesn’t acknowledge it.
He doesn’t have the space for that right now.
Because his attention is already back on you, and this time it lingers a second longer than it should, taking you in properly, the way you look like this, the way you look too still for his liking.
He preferred you up and clumsy. Not like this.
As you’re laid down, somewhere between conscious and not, everything comes in pieces, sound first, then light, then shapes that don’t quite make sense straight away. You turn your head slightly, slower than you mean to, your mouth parting a little as your eyes try to focus, landing on him.
Jack.
He’s right there, by your side, talking to someone just out of your view, his voice low and quick, but you can’t really make out what he’s saying, it all kind of blends together in a way that makes your head feel heavier.
“Fancy seeing you here, doc,” you mumble, the words coming out a little off but still there, like you’re trying to make it sound normal even though nothing about this feels normal.
They move you properly onto the bed, and your brows pinch together almost immediately, a quiet wince slipping through as someone shines a light into your eye, then the other, the brightness too sharp for how your head already feels.
Jack’s attention shifts straight back to you the second you speak, his focus settling on your face properly now.
“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that, hm?” he replies, but it doesn’t sound like him, not really.
There’s no humour in it this time.
And you notice that.
Despite everything, you still smile at him, all teeth, like none of this is as serious as it probably should be, even with people moving around you, checking things, definitely listening even if they’re pretending not to.
“You know,” you start, your words coming out a little uneven but still very much you, “I think because of whatever they’ve pumped into me… I should probably confess my undying crush on you, Mr Abbot.”
You let out a small laugh to yourself, like the thought genuinely amuses you, your head shifting slightly against the pillow before immediately regretting it.
“I feel like this is a very good time for that,” you add, softer now, like you’ve convinced yourself it makes perfect sense. “You know… just in case I die or something.”
Jack just looks at you for a second, properly this time, like he’s trying to decide whether to humour you or shut it down completely.
“…You’re not dying,” he says, and it comes out more firm than anything else, like he’s not even entertaining that part of what you said.
You squint at him slightly. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he answers straight away.
You hum softly, like you’re weighing that up, even though you’re not really.
“Okay… but if I did,” you continue, still looking at him, “that would’ve been a really good confession. Like you would’ve thought about it for the rest of your life.”
There’s the smallest shift in his expression at that, something that almost looks like he wants to smile but doesn’t quite let himself.
“Yeah,” he says after a second, quieter now, “I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.”
You nod slightly, like that’s settled.
“Good.”
He exhales through his nose, then glances over his shoulder toward one of the residents, his focus snapping back into place.
“Keep checking her pupils,” he says, his tone shifting without effort. “She’s been in and out, so keep talking to her, make sure she’s tracking, and get her ready for a CT. I don’t want to miss anything.”
There’s a quick nod, movement picking up again around you.
When you wake up, it takes you a second to properly come to, your head feeling heavy as confusion settles in before anything else does. You blink a few times, trying to clear the haze from your eyes as you stare up at the ceiling, not fully registering where you are at first.
The room is quiet.
Not completely silent, but quiet enough that it feels strange, especially compared to the E.R. you only faintly remember being brought through, the noise and movement and voices that never seemed to stop. It’s different here, and it throws you off more than it should, like you’re expecting something else to happen even though nothing would.
You know what led you here. You remember the bike, the impact, the way everything happened too quickly for you to even react properly before you both went down onto the concrete. But after that it’s blank. Completely fuzzy. Like your brain just cut everything off. You don’t remember getting here. You don’t remember being brought in, or what anyone said to you, or how long you’ve even been here. Just bits and pieces that don’t quite connect, like you were in and out of it the whole time and your mind never fully caught up, which was what exactly happened.
The hospital bed beneath you feels stiff, uncomfortably so, and it only makes everything worse as you shift slightly, trying to sit up more properly. It’s not helping. If anything, it just makes you more aware of how off your body feels, like nothing is sitting right.
You move again, slower this time, trying to find some kind of position that doesn’t make you feel like you’re about to tip sideways or sink straight back into the mattress. The bed doesn’t cooperate, obviously.
“They really need to invest in better beds,” you mutter under your breath, more to yourself than anything, your voice still a little thick as it comes out. “People are gonna leave here with more problems than they came in with.”
You adjust again, one hand pressing lightly against the mattress to steady yourself as you sit up just a little more, even though it doesn’t actually make it any more comfortable. It just makes you more aware of everything — your head, your body, the fact that you’re here and not entirely sure how you got to this exact point.
And that part bothers you more than anything.
You don’t even realise when someone enters the room, only properly registering it when you hear the door shut. It makes you turn your head, slower than you mean to, and that’s when you see him.
Jack’s standing by the door, not fully inside yet, like he stopped himself halfway through walking in and couldn’t move himself further into the room. You don’t really understand why, but you don’t point it out.
What you do notice is the relief that crosses his face the second his eyes land on you. It’s quick, but it’s there, clear as anything, easing some of the tension that had been sitting in his expression. Like seeing you awake, sitting up, actually aware, settles something in him that had been building since you were brought in.
“Fancy seeing you here, doc,” you say repeating what you said hours ago (even though you didn’t remember saying it), a small smile pulling at your lips as you try to ease the tension that had filled the room the second you saw him.
He doesn’t answer straight away, and it gives you a second longer than you should have to actually look at him properly. His arms are crossed over his chest, his shirt pulling across his shoulders and biceps just enough that you have to stop yourself from staring any longer than you already are.
You drag your eyes back up, a little too late, and the second you meet his gaze again you can feel the heat surge through your body, because he’s already looking at you, not even pretending he wasn’t. His expression is still controlled, still holding onto composure, but there’s concern sitting there underneath it, clear in the way his hazel eyes stay on you.
“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that,” he says finally, his voice even, but not as light as it usually is with you, “I work here. You’re the one turning up as a patient.”
You don’t really know how to take that, and that’s what throws you off more than anything, because normally with him it’s easy, you know where you stand in the conversation, you know when he’s joking and when he’s not, but right now you can’t tell which one this is supposed to be.
You shift slightly against the bed, like you’re about to say something back, something quick or sarcastic just to ease it, but nothing actually comes out, and instead you just end up looking at him, the silence stretching a little longer than it should between you.
“You gave me quite the scare,” he adds after a second, and there’s no humour in it now, none of that usual back-and-forth you’re used to, just something honest that makes your expression shift without you meaning it to.
“I didn’t know you cared.” You say vulnerably.
“Of course I care,” he says, and now there’s something more familiar in his tone, something that actually sounds like him again, even if the concern hasn’t fully left his face. “Who else is going to call me every time something in your house decides to fall apart, hm.”
Your lips twitch at that despite yourself, a small breath leaving you as some of that tension in your chest eases, even if it doesn’t fully go away. “So that’s the only reason you care?” you ask, tilting your head slightly, your voice lighter than it probably should be for what you’re actually asking.
Even as the words leave your mouth, there’s a part of you that pauses, because you don’t really know where that came from. A week ago you could barely hold a normal conversation with him without overthinking every little thing he said, without second guessing the way you stood or where you looked whenever he was over fixing something in your house, and now you’re sitting here in a hospital bed questioning him like this without even hesitating.
It throws you off more than anything.
Maybe it’s the medication they’d given you earlier, still sitting somewhere in your system, loosening whatever filter you usually had, making it easier to say things you’d normally keep to yourself. That’s the only explanation you can come up with, because there’s no way you’d be this forward otherwise, especially not with him.
He watches you for a second after that, like he’s caught onto the shift just as much as you have, his gaze settling on you in a way that makes your chest feel warmer than it should.
“That’s not what I said,” he replies, his tone quieter now, but there’s something in it that makes it clear he’s not brushing you off, not really.
You watch as he finally moves fully into the room, like he’s done holding himself back, his hand reaching down to pull a chair from the wall beside the door before dragging it over and sitting right next to your bed. It’s close, closer than he needs to be, but neither of you say anything about it.
And now he’s right here, close enough that you don’t really have anywhere else to look.
His attention doesn’t leave you once.
It makes you want to look away, break it somehow, but you can’t bring yourself to. You just lay there, holding his gaze, even as it makes something in your chest tighten in a way you don’t want to think about too much.
“Do you remember anything?” he asks.
You let out a small breath, glancing down for a second like that might help you find something you missed. “I can remember the crash,” you say slowly, trying to piece it together as you speak, “like I remember the bike and hitting the ground and everything, but after that it just cuts off.”
You shift slightly against the bed, your brows pulling together. “Which I’m actually kind of thankful for, because if my head still feels like this now, I don’t even want to know how bad it was when I got brought in.”
He watches you the whole time, his gaze fixed on your face like he’s taking in every little detail, every shift in your expression, and it does something to him he doesn’t really want to sit with.
Because he remembers it.
He remembers it clearly, not in bits the way you do. He remembers the way you looked, the way you kept drifting in and out, the way you said it like it didn’t even cost you anything to say.
And he remembers exactly what you said.
“You don’t remember anything after that?” he asks again, and this time it’s not just a question, there’s something behind it, like he’s checking before he says anything else.
You shake your head, a little more sure this time even though it’s frustrating, like you should be able to remember and you just can’t. “No. Nothing. It’s just blank.”
You look at him properly then, and it’s the way he reacts that makes you pause. Not what he says, but what he doesn’t. He just nods once, like he expected that, but there’s a look on his face that says otherwise, one that you couldn’t name properly.
It doesn’t sit right with you.
“Why,” you ask, narrowing your eyes at him slightly, “did I do something?”
He huffs out a breath through his nose, like he almost laughs but doesn’t fully commit to it. “You always do something.”
“That’s not helpful,” you mutter, shifting a little on the bed as you look at him again, more serious now. “What did I say?”
He doesn’t answer straight away, which makes your stomach drop. Because if it was simply nothing, he would’ve said something, but it was as if he was holding himself back from doing so. It surely couldn’t be that bad, whatever you may have said.
“Jack,” you pressed, panic in your voice, “what did I say.”
He looks at you then.
“You told me you’re in love with me,” he says, like it’s a normal thing to say, like it didn’t just completely shift everything between you in the span of a second, “in front of half the room.”
For a second, you just look at him.
Properly look at him, like maybe if you stare long enough the words will rearrange themselves into something else, something less insane, something that actually makes sense coming out of your own mouth. Your brain lags behind, struggling to catch up, like it’s still stuck somewhere before the crash while everything else has moved forward without it.
“I what?”
“You heard me.”
Your lips part slightly, but nothing comes out straight away, because it’s hitting you in pieces now, slow and heavy, each part worse than the last as it actually starts to settle.
“Oh my God,” you say, sounding utterly horrified.
“Oh my God,” you say again, louder now, your hand lifting instinctively before dropping again when your head protests the movement, the dull ache making everything feel that much more real. “No, I didn’t– I wouldn’t–”
You stop yourself.
Because you would.
“I am so sorry,” you rush out, the words picking up pace before you can even think about slowing them down, like if you don’t get them out now he’s going to look at you differently. “I didn’t mean to say it like that, or out loud, or in front of people– especially not your coworkers, like that is actually the worst possible place that could’ve happened, I literally could not have picked a worse moment for that if I tried–”
You drag a hand down your face, pressing your palm against your cheek for a second, your thoughts already running ahead of you before you can even catch them.
“I don’t even remember saying it, which somehow makes it worse, because now I’m hearing it from you and I don’t even get to know how it came out or what I said before it or after it, and that just makes me look even more insane–”
You glance at him quickly before looking away again, your voice getting faster the longer you keep going. “Did I say anything else? Actually don’t tell me, I don’t think I can deal with that right now, like genuinely I think I’d rather not know if it gets worse than that–”
A breath leaves you, somewhere between a laugh and something closer to a groan, your head tipping back slightly against the bed.
“This is so bad,” you continue, the words tumbling over each other now, your brain refusing to slow down. “Like I’ve completely ruined it, haven’t I? I’ve made it weird now, and you’re not even gonna come over anymore, and every time something breaks in my house I’m just gonna have to deal with it myself because I decided to confess my feelings in front of an entire hospital like that’s a normal thing to do–”
You barely paused to breathe, your thoughts running ahead of you faster than you can catch them, too caught up in defending yourself, in trying to explain it away, to even realise what you’ve just done again.
Because you’ve said it again.
Just as easily.
Right in front of him.
And you don’t even notice it but Jack does.
He doesn’t interrupt you though, doesn’t point it out, doesn’t say anything at all. He just sits there, watching you, one brow lifting slightly, amusement settling into his expression the longer you keep going, like he can’t quite believe you’re doing this without even realising it.
“And now you’re just sitting there,” you add, your voice still rushing out, “like I haven’t just made everything ten times worse, and I don’t even blame you if you don’t want to come near me after this because I wouldn’t either, I’d actually avoid me at all costs–”
You stop just enough to breathe, your chest rising a little quicker, your eyes finally landing back on him properly. There’s a small shift in his expression, the corner of his mouth pulling slightly, his brows lifting just a bit like he’s watching something you haven’t caught onto yet.
It doesn’t make sense to you, the way he’s acting like this, like you didn’t just make everything awkward between you, like you didn’t just ruin whatever this was supposed to be.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, your voice softer now, more confused than anything.
What you didn’t expect was for him to suddenly lean forward, closing the short distance between you, and before you can even fully process what he’s doing, his hand comes up to your face, fingers settling along your jaw as he kisses you.
It shuts you up instantly.
Completely.
One second you were still mid-rant, the next you’re just there, kissing him, your brain trying and failing to catch up with what’s happening. Your breath catches slightly against him, your eyes fluttering shut as you lean into it without even thinking, your hand coming up to grip lightly at the fabric of his shirt like you need something to ground you.
His hand stays where it is, steady against your face, his thumb brushing just slightly against your skin as he deepens it, slow enough to make you feel it properly, like he’s been waiting to do this and finally decided to stop holding back.
And you respond just as easily to the kiss, like all that overthinking you usually do just isn’t there right now.
He tastes like coffee and mint, the faint scent of antiseptic still clinging to him from the hospital mixed with his cologne, and it settles into you in a way that makes your chest tighten, your fingers curling a little tighter into his shirt as you lean into him just a bit more.
You don’t even realise how long it lasts.
It’s only when he finally pulls back, slow and unhurried, that your head starts catching up, your breath still uneven as your eyes open and find his straight away.
You can feel it then, the heat you feel, the way everything feels just slightly off in the best way, and you’re pretty sure it shows, because there’s no way you look normal right now. A small smile pulls at your lips before you can stop it, and you try to turn your head, instinct kicking in like you suddenly remember how to be self-conscious again.
He doesn’t let you.
His hand stays where it is, steady against your face, and he dips his head just enough to keep your attention on him, his expression shifting into something that looks a little too pleased with himself, like he got exactly the reaction he wanted.
“Next time,” he says, his voice lower now, something warm sitting underneath it, “try saying it when you actually remember it.”
Dennis who has significant hearing loss after a farm accident as a kid.
Dennis who can’t afford working hearing aids, so makes do with a pair he found on Facebook marketplace.
Dennis who favours one side significantly, to the point of being convinced that everyone knows (they don’t), and they all must hate him for being useless (they don’t know).
Dennis who uses these janky hearing aids despite constantly giving him a migraine, because he can’t let anything compromise his chances of being a doctor.
Dennis who completely understands that Abbott needs a break from his prosthetic, and is often the first to volunteer to cover his charting in the middle of the shift.
Dennis who cannot give himself allowances, because he’s not properly disabled; not like Abbot is anyway.
Dennis whose hearing loss is “self inflicted” and therefore needs to deal with the consequences of his actions (he was six).
Dennis who absolutely will not let himself have hearing breaks in the middle of a shift, no matter how much pain his ears are in.
Dennis who can’t take his aids out at night because he sleeps in shelters, and his hearing is the first line of defence against an attack.
Dennis who recognises the symptoms of an ear infection, but can’t afford antibiotics and the hospital cracked down on “borrowing” medicine.
Dennis who collapses mid shift after a particularly bad bout of vertigo.
Dennis who doesn’t really remember much after this because the floor was suddenly very, very close, and he was suddenly very, very cold.
…
Robby who sees Dennis pass out on shift.
Robby who curses these damn med students for drinking too much caffeine and not eating enough food.
Robby who walks over to Dennis and tries to rouse him.
Robby who thinks Dennis looks a little too out of it for it to just be low blood sugar.
Robby who touches Dennis and notices he’s ice cold.
Robby who holds Dennis as he starts seizing.
Robby who catches a glimpse of white in his ear, surrounded by red, angry tissue.
Robby who swears loudly and violently when he realises “god-fucking-dammit he’s deaf”.
Robby who curses every god he knows the name of (and he knows a lot) for putting Dennis in this situation.
…
Dennis who wakes up with a very stressed Robby next to him, saying words like “septic shock” and “septic encephalopathy” and “infection spread” and “potential brain damage”.
Robby who raises his voice in frustration, and Dennis who flinches imperceptibly.
Robby who drags Dennis to audiologist appointments and forces him to pick multiple different types of aids so he’ll be comfortable wherever.
Robby who pays for the new aids, but lets Dennis think insurance covers them.
Abbot who forces Dennis to take hearing breaks whenever he takes leg breaks because he’s “bored” and “needs company”.
Abbott who, for the first time in Dennis’ life, sits him down and teaches him the ASL he learnt from his vet friends.
Dennis, who when he formally attends ASL lessons, realises he’s been taught to swear like a sailor, and his vernacular is entirely comprised of military slang.
Dennis who doesn’t understand why Robby and Abbott are being so nice about being deaf, and explains all about how it was his fault that he lost his hearing (he was six).
Abbot who gives Robby a look, and signs him up for therapy the next day.
Dennis, who comes to the realisation that the factors surrounding his hearing loss are heavily consistent with signs of child abuse.
Robby, who can only hug Dennis as he breaks down, mourning the childhood he thought he had.
Abbot, who makes him hot cocoa when he wakes up from nightmares and rocks him back to sleep,
And Dennis.
Who finally feels, for the first time in his life, he is not just tolerated, but wanted too.
Synopsis: A new night nurse starts in the pitt and Jack takes an instant interest in her, not in a good way.
Warnings: mean jack, age gap, reader is mid to late 20s, sunshine reader, shy reader, anxious reader, eventual smut, smut, 18+, MDNI, angst, fighting, slow burn, co-workers to enemies, enemies to lovers, blood, gore, medical inaccuracies, pittfest, panic attacks, mentions of suicide, PTSD, grief, widower jack, mentions of past military trauma, violence against medical staff, reader is described to be shorter than Jack, reader has hair past shoulders.
🦋 - fluff
🌧️ - angst
🔥 - smut
Can be read as individual, standalone blurbs, but will be written with a timeline in mind.
17.1k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: sweaty, scruffy Jack Abbot in uniform; shirtless Jack; spoilers for season 2 episode 7 (kind of? You have to know what happens for it to spoil?); doesn’t totally follow the show’s storyline; doctor!reader; anxiety; angst; fear for partner’s safety; crying; arguing(ish); reader gets in her head; very small not-quite full anxiety attack for reader; discussion of being shot, gunshot wounds, bullets, guns; oral sex (m rec.); reference to oral sex f rec.; vaginal fingering; dry humping; slight hint of soft dom!jack; hand around neck but no choking; inappropriate use of supply closet; bad puns/jokes/double entendres; no use of y/n.
Summary: Jack shows up to the Pitt sweaty, scruffy and in full uniform and you react accordingly. Until Jack tells you a little more about what happened, that is.
AN: Am I over the flu? No. Have I rested at night or taken any time off work? Also no. I just wanted this out so badly and unfortunately there is no hot doctor here to force me to rest so I was left to my own devices and poor decisions!! My turn for a sweaty uniform Jack fic? Yes. Plus he's so scruffy I can't. I probably should've waited to finish this until I was better because I wanted this to be good and it feels so wildly eh. I don't know. My head is fuzzy from the flu and I wrote a solid 65% of this while sick, fevered, and jumping back and forth between the chills and sweating into dehydration, so who knows how it actually is (certainly not I). 😂 We know I always hate my smut so there's also that factor playing into things (but also it doesn't feel like there's actually that much smut lolllll). Anyway, sweaty and scruffy Jack Abbot supremacy!!! Thank you so much for reading and all of your support!! ♥️ I hope you can enjoy and that it's okay!
You hear Jack but you can't see him.
And for some reason that makes your stomach drop and anxiety bloom icy shards through your veins. Your anxiety has been on deck, humming in the background just waiting for a reason. It found it.
You can't see him because your back is to the door of your patient's room as you work on them. You hear his voice but only just barely through the door, can only hear it because you know it, know what he sounds like. You can't make out what he's saying, can't figure out if he's a patient or doctor. It could easily be either.
There are so many things that pass through your head all at once as the sound of his voice fades. Is he hurt? Is it serious? You know he has an airway if you could hear him so that's something at least. Unless he lost it and that's why you can't hear him anymore. And he isn't screaming in pain, though you know he never would, he always gets quiet, grits his teeth, tries his hardest not to show it no matter how bad it is.
Somebody would've come and got you if it was him, if Jack was the patient. Or it would've drifted in somehow, everyone would've sounded more panicked, would've been louder. It's fine. He's fine. You're sure. You're almost sure. Almost.
You swear to christ if he's just hurt or injured non-critically you're going to go in and see him, give him a kiss and hug him if you can, tell him you love him, and then you're going to have to walk out of the room to compose yourself and go walk off…something. You're not sure what to label that emotion you think you'll have and hope you'll never have to find out.
Somewhere you find it in you to access that ability you have that you kind of really hate and tune most of that out, don't let it invade your thoughts completely so that you can return your full focus back to the patient in front of you whose problems are emergent but not imminently life threatening.
"Hey," Princess calls your name as she steps into the room. You glance over at her with furrowed brows, think you might actually be sick with the wave of panic that passes over you. What if she's here to tell you it's Jack. That Jack's the trauma patient that just rolled in. "He's fine. I asked him as they rolled in if he was injured or anything and he said he's fine. And then I told him I was going straight to tell you his answer and asked him again if he was injured or anything and he said he's fine again. He's in trauma one with Robby working on the patient he brought in."
The relief that washes over you is palpable to everyone in the room and you swear you feel tears sting for just a second. You smile at her and nod. "Thank you. I love you Princess." Your voice is somewhere between playful and thankful, and serious and sober.
She smirks at you but you can see the softness in her eyes. "I know." Her smirk drops into a smile at you and she nods before walking out of the room leaving you and the Pitt team you've assembled to continue working on your patient.
Once you finish dealing with your patient's emergent needs you walk out and turn to go to the hub. You spot Jack standing in full uniform just outside of trauma one, his profile to you as he clearly fills someone in on what just happened in there.
Your eyes run up and down his body and fuck. Fuck. To say he looks good in his uniform would be the understatement of the century. Your heart rate speeds up and you start to really feel it. How attracted you are to him. How worked up for him you are. How fucking needy you are for him in this moment.
You haven't even taken in all of him and are already nearly fucking vibrating and soaked for him, you swear.
Your eyes drag back up and take in his neck, sweat glistening on it. Sweat you'd really, really like to lick off him. His shoulders are a little tensed, which you don't like but you're sure you could suck that right out of him if he lets you. Your eyes continue up and hit his profile and hair and you think you sway. It's so overdramatic, you think to yourself, but it's fucking true.
He looks not quite angry, but so serious with a little edge of something there, lips pressed in a line and his jaw set, eyes narrowed just slightly as he looks at his friend who shares a similar expression. Jack hasn't shaved recently so his stubble is a little longer than it normally ever gets. The way it's pretty much all white now makes you shift on your feet as lust and sheer desire course through your body enough to make you breathe slightly deeper.
All that runs through your mind are thoughts of feeling his stubble all over your body again, your breasts and nipples, your neck, your jaw, the skin around your lips, your inner thighs from how long and intensely he goes down on you. You want, or need at this point, Jack to add to the stubble burn he's already in so many places.
You're the reason it's been a little over 36 hours since he's last shaved. The reason his stubble is as grown out as it is now. You're the reason he didn't get to shave this morning. He ran out of time, too lost in you and your body.
You force your eyes to move from his neck and jaw and cheeks further up. Sweat beads at his temple and you're desperate to kiss it away. And then you get to his hair. His fucking hair. Those salt and pepper curls that always drive you up a wall to half-madness because they're just so fucking hot and sexy and attractive and handsome to you. And now they're sweaty. They're so perfectly fucking messy, stuck to his forehead in places, pushed up a little on top, almost a little fauxhawk happening, the curls at the nape of his neck plastered to his skin from the sweat. His curls are fucking perfect right now.
A little piece of your heart aches with love at the same time you feel like you could come just from him touching you because that is your man. That's your Jack. The man you love more than anything and everything in the universe and who you know loves you all the same.
You're breathing harder at the sight of him and you feel absolutely fucking ridiculous at it but you're dizzy because you're so turned on for him, you can feel it everywhere, skin electric, cunt throbbing and getting your underwear embarrassingly soaked, you're sure. And you're sure every person in the place who can see him and is attracted to men is thinking about the handsome man outside the door with his scruffy neck if they're close enough to see and his perfect, sweaty curls.
It doesn't matter though. Maybe you should be jealous. A different you would for sure be jealous. But you're not. You know Jack only has eyes for you, he reminds you of it all the time, reminded you this morning when he woke you up with his tongue and cock so you could get ready together. And honestly you're too fucking smug and horny for him right now to have jealousy swimming around in your brain.
Because those perfect curls are yours. Jack is yours.
Rings on your fingers to prove it. To make sure everybody knows.
Your thumb absent mindedly plays with your diamond wedding band you wear at work, thumbs over it to rotate it around your finger, your engagement ring on a special necklace made just for the task around your neck because it rips gloves. The movement is one of those little grounding habits you have, one you know Jack has too.
You need him right now. You need to get your hands on those sweaty curls or you're pretty sure you'll die right here in your own god damn ED.
But you can't exactly go up to him and ask him to accompany you to the supply closet because he looks really hot and so now you're turned on and horny for him and are pretty sure you will actually cease to have a pulse if you don't get to run your hands through his sweaty curls and kiss him to feel his stubble. And if you go up to him and just ask him to come to the supply closet with you he'll ask why and you don't have a why. Or at least not an appropriate why.
You need to get him to follow you there without having to talk to him. But you're not sure if he'll follow you or just call across the floor and ask what you need if you look normal. Maybe if you looked sad? There's no way you can pull off sad right now, not when you're this on fucking fire for him. You're not sure looking super happy or excited will do it either. You're going to have to make it look like you're a little irritated or annoyed, not necessarily at him, though you're sure that's where his mind will go.
You set your jaw and press your lips in a line, put just a hint of irritation into your eyes that you try to make seem like annoyance so it looks like you're annoyed with something that happened here. And then you wait to catch his gaze. Your expression almost falters when you finally do because before Jack can even consciously process the expression on your face his face is lighting up as his stoic seriousness fades into a smile just at seeing you and his shoulders relax a little. A smile that lasts a second, second and a half at most before his face falls and his lips pull down, eyebrows furrowing as he realizes you look mad or irritated. Did he do something? Did something happen?
Fuck. You kind of feel like a dick.
But then you look at him again and your thoughts go back to his dick. It's not like you're keeping him in limbo. He'll know in like twenty seconds that you're not really mad. He won't even really have time to hit anxiety, he'll walk into the closet and then you'll be on him pushing him into the wall and kissing him and running your hands through his curls. And worshiping him however he'll let you.
You look over at the supply closet and nod at it, look back at him quickly and then do your best to look like you're stalking off to it.
"I've gotta go, I'll be back," Jack mutters, taking off after you before his friend can even answer.
When you get into the closet you stand a little behind the door, know Jack isn't going to fling it open so it won't hit you. This way you can be right there to push him up against the wall by the door and lock it as you start kissing him.
The door opens just a little more than enough for Jack to step through. "Hey, what's up? Did something happen? I'm okay." Jack is confused when you aren't standing right there waiting for him when he steps in the door. He sees you out of the corner of his eye as the door closes behind him but by the time it registers you're already moving, locking the door and pushing him up against the wall right next to it. Well. He lets you push him up against the wall, he could easily hold his ground if he wanted to.
"Wha-" Jack doesn't get the word out fully before your lips are on his, the hand you've slid to the back of his neck pulling his face down toward you to make it easier to kiss. You bring your elbows to rest on his shoulders, as you kiss him, lick at the the seam of his lips urgently because you need to kiss him that deeply right the fuck now, his perfect silvery white scruff scratching your skin deliciously.
Jack is a little confused about what exactly is happening and why, but he's sure as fuck not questioning it. He'll never fucking question this. One arm wraps around your body to pull you as close to him as you can get with all the gear he's wearing, the other holding one side of your face, his fingers pressed just firmly enough in an angled line down your cheek as his thumb presses up against your chin gently to help hold you in place for him and give you a little reminder that he's still very much in control.
Your fingers are finally able to run through the sweaty curls that are 95% of the reason you're in this closet doing this right now and if someone had their ear to the door and heard the moan it pulls from you they'd think you and Jack were having sex, that's how fucking erotic it sounds. Because that's how fucking erotic running your fingers through his sweaty curls is for you.
As you moan Jack drops his jaw for you, and your tongue is right there to slip inside his mouth and glide along his tongue. The moan gives you away. Jack knows immediately. Knows why you're here and that you looked irritated just to get him to follow you into the closet. You can feel the warm huff of a laugh he lets out through his nose and feel the corners of his lips pull up slightly in a smirk and it just makes you wetter and needier as you make out with him.
"Nothing's wrong," you pant against his lips when you have to part for a breath. Your lips press against his again briefly for a kiss, "I just," another kiss, "had to get you in here." You kiss him again, longer this time, eagerly open your mouth for his tongue when he runs it across your lips in a wordless question.
You kiss until you can't again, thirty seconds, a minute, two, five. Neither of you know for how long. And neither of you care right now.
"The uniform," you pant against Jack's lips as you break for air, give him a quick kiss "and the scruff and the sweaty curls." The last word is almost whined and Jack feels himself start to get hard for you. "Fuck Jack." You let one hand leave his curls only so that it can dip down and untuck all his layers, find the end of the longest layer he's wearing while you continue to kiss him. You slip your hand under it and make a clawing motion with your fingertips and nails gently at the sweaty skin just above his waistband before starting to move your hand up as much as you can to feel his sweaty abs, perfectly balanced between definition and a healthy softness, his skin even warmer than usual.
"I was pretty sure I'd die if I didn't get my fingers through them," you murmur against his lips. "If I didn't get my hands on you and your scruffy face and your sweaty body in uniform. I need you." You nibble at Jack's bottom lip and suck on it at little before kissing him again because you can't fucking stop. You need more, need him to fuck you or let you suck him off or something.
"Fuck," Jack grunts into the kiss, the groan to the word making your whole body feel electrocuted. He keeps making out with you, lets your fingers slip under the line of the vest and press into his skin far more firmly than usual from the weight of his gear. The fingers of your other hand are still running through his curls, playing with them and tugging at them. You give the softest whines and moans as you continue to kiss, sounds he knows he is pulling from you, without even trying. Sounds only he'll ever hear. The thought makes his now fully hard cock throb hard enough it almost hurts.
Jack is ready to fuck you right here, bend you over and get you to support yourself on a shelf while he fucks you incoherent from behind, the headiness of you and the situation getting to him hard, his mind hazy as he gives into it all. Or he could stick his leg out a bit so you can grind one out against him while you stroke him. It's been a bit since you've given him a pure handjob, your mouth or pussy or both or your tits usually becoming involved.
But you guys really can't and Jack knows it and deep down you know it even if you don't want to admit it. It goes against every instinct and need and desire in his body and mind but Jack knows he needs to start winding this down, that you guys need to get back onto the floor.
He pulls his head back to break the kiss and rests his forehead against yours. "Baby," Jack pants softly.
"Yeah, Handsome?" You pull your hand out from under his vest and layers and bring it to the waistband of his pants and blindly start looking for a button, hand slipping under the canvas belt you can feel sitting over the top of his pants, undoubtedly holding an unreasonable amount of supplies. You're not completely sure what's there because you didn't spend a tremendous amount of time looking at his lower body, and the time you did spend looking was mostly spent looking at his ass.
"We can't." Jack shakes his head against yours, groans about it because he fucking hates that it's the truth. He does his best to tell himself the wait will make it even better once you get home tonight.
You just hum in response, keep looking for a button and kiss Jack again.
"Hey, you," Jack mumbles against your lips, his hand on your face coming down to your hand searching for a button and pulling it away even as he continues to kiss you.
"Jack!" You break the kiss long enough to whine his name over two syllables before kissing him again.
"I want to," he groans against your lips, "god, believe me I want to." Jack moves your hand that he's still holding over his cock to let you feel how hard he is for you. "But we can't, Baby. We've gotta stop." He pulls your hand away before you can really start to palm at him and starts to pull his lips from yours.
Or tries to, at least. You chase his lips with yours, keep kissing him as much as you know he's right and you guys need to stop. "Sweetheart," Jack drawls, a warning edge to it that makes you shiver. "Seriously. We can't." He gives you one last kiss and then pulls away too fast for you to effectively chase.
"We don't have to do anything. I'm more than happy to do all the work on my knees, Baby." As much as it pains you, you pull your other hand from his curls, the thought of his cock in your mouth enough to make the loss of the feeling of his damp curls through your fingers worth it.
You use that hand to start looking for the button of his pants again, finding it easily this time. But before you can get it undone Jack's free hand is wrapping around your wrist and pulling it away.
It happens very quickly then.
Before you have time to finish whining at him for moving your hand Jack has your positions reversed, your back now against the wall, one of his hands holding both of your wrists and pinning them above your head while his other hand is wrapped just tightly enough around your throat to make sure you know who's in control.
He moves his pointer finger on your neck to press gently below your chin to get you to look up at him as he stares down at you, your faces just far enough apart to see each other. You greedily take in every detail of his handsome face, the laugh lines and crows feet you adore and are proud to have contributed to, his plush lips that are a deeper shade of pink than usual and a little swollen, unfairly long eyelashes, transfixing hazel eyes you could look into forever and study every day and find something new, a new color or fleck or crypt or furrow, and of course, his god damn fucking scruffy stubble that you need to feel everywhere.
His eyebrows raise slightly and he slowly moves his index finger back to where it was, lets his thumb brush across the skin of your neck as he loosens his grip, no longer exerting any pressure and just letting his hand rest wrapped around your throat.
"Calm. Down." Jack emphasizes each word, his voice low and even more gravelly than usual. The way he says it isn't patronizing or condescending. It's just fucking hot, a sexy, I'm in control edge to the words that does absolutely nothing to calm you down. "We can't. Not today."
You pout at him for a second and then huff. "Okay one, how are you expecting me to calm down when you pull this move with both of my wrists in one of your hands pinned above my head and your other hand on my throat? And two, when in the history of ever has telling someone to calm down made them calm down?"
Jack gives you a look. "One, it wasn't that type of calm down and you know it. I've never told you to calm down outside of a situation like this and sex and I never will." He's right of course. Jack has never told you to calm down during an argument or while you were upset or crying, for whatever reason, he's never said it in an emotional sense to you, and you know he never will. "Two, I know you have an enormous amount of self control when you want to Baby, because three, I've seen telling someone to calm down be incredibly effective with my bratty girlfriend who became my bratty fiancée who became my bratty wife when she really wants to be allowed to come."
"Well… You like that I'm a brat." You stick your tongue out at him.
Jack blurts out a laugh at the move, unable to stop himself because it's so unexpected and random and ridiculous. He smiles widely in disbelief at you. "I do love it. Did you just stick your tongue out at me?"
You shrug, do your best to look incredibly unbothered. "And what if I did?"
He laughs again, trails it off into something low from his chest. "I'll have to think about that," he bobs his head and pulls his lips down, eyes boring into yours to make it clear it's sexual.
"Oh, yeah?" you smirk, raise your eyebrows. "That a promise or a threat?"
"You know full well by now that I don't make threats, my dear," Jack murmurs, voice unfairly hot.
You nod with feigned nervousness. "Oh, I'm very scared."
Jack clenches his jaw slightly and there's a little twitch under his eye that makes you even more satisfied with yourself. His thumb stops brushing against the skin of your neck as he gives it another little squeeze while leaning in to kiss you again. "You really should be," he murmurs against your lips.
He leans into you more as he kisses you again, his vest pressing into you deliciously. Jack nips at your bottom lip as he releases your hands, a silent order to be good. His now free hand finds your hip and squeezes lovingly before pressing against it to help pin you to the wall further.
Your hands find his curls again and you sigh into the kiss, content to do this with Jack all day. You keep your eyes closed for a second after the kiss ends and then slowly flutter them open. "You're going to have to fuck me with this all on one day," you murmur, holding his gaze. "While sweaty."
A ghost of a smile crosses his face and he leans back in. "Only if you're good for me," he whispers against your lips before giving you one last lingering kiss and pulling away.
You click your tongue and tsk at him. "I'm always good for you."
Jack snorts a laugh and moves his other hand so that they're both at your hips. "Yeah, okay."
"I resent that." You bring your hands down and pat his chest above all the stuff that's attached to the front of it, glancing down at it all and it finally all clicks. You cock your head at him as your heart rate goes back up a little. "Are you armed?"
Jack doesn't miss a beat. "I'm always armed for you."
There's silence for a beat as the two of you stare at each other. "That was terrible," you start laughing, emphasizing the first syllable.
"It was so fucking bad but I had to," Jack laughs with you.
You share some lighter kisses as your laughter trails off, ones that are quicker and sweet and fit the mood. Eventually the two of you part and smile at each other.
"I just needed to get my hands on your sweaty curls. Run my fingers through them," you shrug, let out a sigh. "I thought I might drop dead if I didn't. I was so fucking turned on. I mean I still am, the kissing helped me get some of the energy out, but fuck, Jack. I'm the luckiest fucking woman. You're so hot."
Jack hums. "Good to know I can still get to you after five years together."
You roll your eyes at him playfully. "Yeah, because that's definitely news to you and something you're just now finding out, Jack rabbit." Sarcasm drips off every word.
He tilts his head and smiles at you looking so happy with himself as he leans in for another quick kiss.
You chuckle at him and shake your head. "Okay, Sweaty, when's the last time you had some water or gatorade or something? It's ridiculously hot and humid out there and you're in long sleeves and pants and layers and wearing at least 30 pounds of shit and kevlar, which I'm very thankful for and need you to be wearing, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying." You pat the top of his vest.
"I can feel it. You're running hotter than normal." One hand rests on his neck for a second and then the back of it on his forehead just to confirm what you already noticed earlier. "I got you some pedialyte and gatorade on the way in just in case you ended up here or for tonight. It's in the fridge. And I can get you some ice packs for your neck if you want."
You frown a little, know it'll only be so effective while he still has everything on. "Can you take any of it off now? Or are you going back out?" Jack stares down at you with one of the most adoring smiles you've ever seen on him, something sappy and sentimental and palpably loving about it. You give him a small, questioning smile back. "What?"
Jack shrugs, keeps smiling at you all the same. He wishes he could think of some way to articulate how you're making him feel right now, how loved you're making him feel worrying about him like this and preparing for him to be dehydrated and noticing him running hotter than normal, how good it feels to be loved that much, to know somebody cares about him that much. You always make him feel like that of course but there's something especially poignant about it in the moment, its presence heavier in Jack's mind and body.
"Nothing," he murmurs, shaking his head softly. "I just love you."
You smile back at him. "I love you too."
"I know," Jack whispers, nodding this time. "Trust me, I know."
"I'm glad you know." You raise your eyebrows slightly, a gentle, silent ask for him to answer your questions.
"No, I'm not going back out, so yes I can." He lets go of your hips and takes a few steps back so that he can start taking his vest off.
"Good," you sigh, noticeable tension dropping from your shoulders. "I'll help."
Getting Jack's vest off is pretty straightforward and doesn't take long. As he sets it on the ground you take a step back to admire him in just this part of his uniform. You should've expected the large sweat marks all over the zip up he's wearing but it wasn't something you really thought about. Seeing it though, your mouth legitimately waters.
"Oh, jesus fucking christ," you breathe, licking your lips.
"What?" Jack looks at you with furrowed brows as he stands back up straight from setting the vest down.
Seeing the sweat marks with him staring at you now just makes it all even hotter and you have to remind yourself that you're supposed to be helping him take off layers to cool down. You look up at him. "You're sweaty."
Jack looks down and grimaces. "Yeah, I probably stink. I'm surprised you couldn't smell me when we took turns against the wall."
You shake your head at him and give a single laugh, almost look dazed in an amusing way, your eyes returning to his body. "You probably smell un-fucking-reasonably good, like your body wash and deodorant and you and sweat. I'm literally salivating."
Jack lets out an amused laugh. "You're crazy."
"For you, yes," you agree, nodding at him and pulling your eyes from his sweat marks back up to his eyes.
"Ha," Jack laughs. "Yeah, smooth."
You smile and shrug at him, take a step closer and reach out to start unzipping the long sleeve, planning on smelling him to your heart's desire once all possible layers are off. But when you glance back up at him after finding the zipper and starting to pull it down Jack's face has changed and your hands and feet go cold as your heart drops because you know. You just know.
You force yourself to unzip it all the way and then help him shrug it off before you say anything. But the second that's done, you're talking.
"Tell me." The words come out just above a whisper. Jack raises his eyebrows slightly, uneasiness washing over him even more. He should've known you'd clock him this fast. Your face is largely emotionless, though the look in your eyes gives away your anxiety. "Tell me whatever it is you're thinking about how to tell me, Jack."
Jack takes a breath and licks his lips before starting. "I'm okay. I'm perfectly okay and I'm here and safe and everything is okay." Your expression remains stoic and impassive and when he realizes you're not going to say anything else Jack continues. "A bullet grazed my back just above my vest."
You don't know why but you do your best not to react to the confirmation. You know what he means. He was shot. Jack was shot.
It's an impact all of your own for you to absorb with absolutely nothing protecting your heart. And Jack, he can see it, he can see the words hit you, can tell from the way your eyes fall from him that you're distraught and struggling.
"I'm quite certain it just needs cleaned and a small dressing, if that," he offers when you don't say anything.
You nod slowly, worried that if you do too much, move too much too fast or say too many words you'll crack. "Yeah," you whisper.
"Honey,-"
Something about him calling you that snaps some little piece of you. "You told Princess you were fine." You finally look back up at him, breathing noticeably harder with glassy eyes and your mouth set in a line.
"Because I am." He says the word like he's pleading with you and in a way he supposes he is. "I promise you, I am fine. I'm okay. It grazed me."
"You were shot, Jack." It's like life and animation suddenly find their way back into your system. You scoff at him and shake your head, hold up your hands at him and shrug deeply. "You were shot and you're being so fucking blasé about it. You were fucking shot."
"At." He doesn't say it in a corrective tone, keeps it upbeat, with the smallest smile to try and keep things light. Or make them light again. "I was shot at."
It doesn't work in the slightest. If anything it backfires.
"You say that like it makes it any fucking better, like, like a fucking preposition is going to make it better! Like a bullet didn't have fucking contact with your skin!" You stop talking and hold your hands up as you take a step away from him. You know that emotion you were thinking about earlier in the day, the one you weren't sure what to label and were hoping you'd never have to find out, is taking over and that you're getting too escalated and upset for anything further to be productive. "I have to go. Like I said, there are drinks in the fridge for you. Have one please."
"Baby," Jack sighs softly, taking a single step toward you. "I was just trying to lighten the mood, I'm sorry."
"Can you just…" You drop your hands and press one to your chest and rub as you think of what you want to say. Of how much of what you want to say to actually say. "Imagine if our roles were reversed, Jack. Imagine if I told you that a bullet grazed me enough to need medical treatment no matter how little or minor. Imagine if I told someone else that I was fine and then didn't immediately tell you when I saw you. Imagine I was shot. Imagine that I was even just shot at, let alone shot at close enough to get grazed by a bullet. Just imagine that Jack."
"I… Sweetheart, please…" He holds his hand out praying you'll take it, let him pull you into him and talk this out.
"I need… I don't even know what I need Jack. Space, I guess. Time to… Calm down. Figure my head out or at least try. Just…" You shake your head as you look at the door and then back at him. "Go put your shit away or wherever it needs to go and grab a drink and find an open room. I'll come find you in a few and get it cleaned and bandaged."
You take the few steps to the door and pause at it. "You need to fix your hair." The way you say it is so truly forlorn and aching that it makes Jack nauseous, especially when you say his hair and not his curls even though he doesn't know why he noticed that nuance, why it feels like it has some sort of meaning. But at the same time there's something so incredibly sweet about you pointing it out to him even when you're this upset, looking out for him and not wanting him to be embarrassed or something, like he could ever be embarrassed of you. "I love you." Your voice sounds as small as Jack has ever heard it, and scared, a bone deep fear etched into the words.
"I love you too. More-" You walk out of the room before he can finish, leaving him alone. "More than anything," Jack whispers to the back of the door.
He stands there staring at it and does what you asked. It's the least he can do at this point. The feelings that run through him don't surprise Jack. He expected them, expected the fear and anxiety and sadness that gets close to paralyzing. But it doesn't make them easier to deal with at all and Jack has it lucky. He can snap himself out of them, remind himself that they aren't real and won't ever be.
And when he does take himself out of them it makes the reality of your situation and how you're feeling hit Jack that much harder as he imagines not being able to take himself out of it. Imagines being stuck in those feelings and having one of his worst nightmares come true. He doesn't think he'd be reacting as well as you are, he'd be a mess, a total fucking reactive mess.
He takes in and lets out a breath before he grabs his gear and leaves the closet. Jack doesn't fix his curls because you made them look however they do and he loves it and is proud of it and you, and right now he doesn't give a fuck if everyone knows you were in there making out or if they think you were doing other shit. Right now his curls have a mark of you to them and he's not getting rid of it.
You're not even sure where you're going when you step out of the closet, just let your feet take you somewhere. You end up on a bench outside the cover of the ambulance bay in the July sun. You don't do well with the heat for a number of reasons and you know Jack wouldn't want you sitting out here, especially in black scrubs, and maybe that's a little bit of why you do it. It's petty and passive aggressive and inappropriate and wrong but you stay seated.
You think about so much and yet almost nothing at all it feels like. You can't come up with a name for how you feel, can only say that it's consuming you whole at the moment. You sit in it and let yourself go through what feels like all five stages of grief, though you don't cry. You won't let yourself cry. You tell yourself it's because you're at work but really it's because that would make it too real. You'd be crying because Jack got shot. Because your best friend, your husband was shot.
As your initial, extra-heightened reaction fades you realize that continuing to sit out here isn't doing anything for you, is arguably making you worse. Because you miss him. You want to be close to him. Today could've gone so much differently and it shoves in your face even more than working at the Pitt already does the fact that time is precious and always too short. There's never enough of it with the ones you love. And you don't want to spend the time you do get with Jack away from him and upset or mad or having him think you're either of those things.
So you get up and go find him.
Jack is taking his shirt off as you walk into the room Dana mentioned seeing him go into. You shut the door before opening the curtain enough to step through and pull it back closed.
"Wish I got to walk in on you taking your shirt off every shift," you joke, half-heartedly if you're honest, trying to break what feels like tension in the room but that doesn't truly exist.
Jack looks up at you and smiles, very obviously trying to feel you out and see where you are. "Could probably be arranged," he says lowly, tossing his shirt to the side and flashing his eyebrows at you with a hint of a smile.
You let out a soft laugh through your nose and roll your eyes affectionately. Jack sits on the edge of the bed and pulls the mayo stand he's set some supplies and a bottle of pedialyte on a bit closer to him. You walk over wordlessly and set two acetaminophen tablets next to the bottle in front of him.
He knows better than to argue about whether he needs them right now. If you want or need him to take some acetaminophen for pain or swelling or whatever so that you feel like you're helping take care of him he's going to without even a questioning glance. Plus, it is a little sore and he knows it'll be worse tomorrow. He probably wouldn't bother going to find some acetaminophen for himself if you weren't here, but you are.
You watch as Jack picks up the tablets and opens the bottle, takes them easily and has a bit more to drink, just for you, you're sure.
It hits you as you study him while he drinks. "You didn't fix your curls."
Jack sighs in relief internally when you say curls instead of hair as bizarre as he knows that it. He shrugs shallowly while putting the cap back on the bottle of pedialyte and setting it back down. "I liked the way you did them for me."
You give him an amused, knowing smile and nod as you push the stand aside so you can stand between his legs. "You're sweet."
"Only on you," he murmurs, resting his hands on your hips.
You arch a brow at him and cock your head for a second, smirking as you rest your hands on top of his thighs. "Laying it on thick Dr. Abbot."
"Hey, that's the truth," his right hand leaves your hip and comes down to your left hand and plays with your wedding ring, "Dr. Abbot."
"Yeah, I know," you murmur, scrunch your nose at him and lean down for a quick kiss. "I'm sorry for walking out on you."
Jack shakes his head. "You didn't walk out. You needed space and you communicated that. You're allowed to need space, Sweetheart. It's healthy."
You shrug. It doesn't feel healthy to you in the moment. He doesn't push you to talk more, knows you will when you're ready.
"Let me take a look?" you raise your eyebrows slightly as you ask.
"'Course," Jack nods.
"Better not need more than cleaned and a small dressing." There's nothing behind your words. Because it doesn't matter what it needs, you both know you'll do it, take care of him without any resentment or true anger.
Jack squeezes your hips before releasing them so you can walk around. "It won't."
You know within seconds of looking at it that he's right, of course. You knew that all along, trusted his assessment or you never would've left him alone, never would've left his side. But seeing it makes it hit you all over again just like him telling you did.
A bullet did this to him. A bullet. A bullet you know all too well could've done so, so much fucking worse to him if the wind had blown a little harder or the shooter had turned at a slightly different angle or one of any number of small things.
You're quiet as you take it in standing behind him, trying to process through this initial part before speaking or going to stand in front of him and share eye contact with him again. Tears sting at your eyes and you finally let them but even then they don't form all the way.
Jack gives you the time and the space and the quiet that he knows you need for this. But he starts to get worried you're getting lost in your head. He's relieved when he hears you start to move and then you're standing in front of him again by the mayo stand starting to open supplies.
"Was I right?" he asks gently.
You look up at him and nod. "Yeah. Of course you were."
"Good," he whispers.
It's obvious he thinks you're mad at him and you hate that because you're not. Not truly. And you don't want something to happen and him to think that you are.
"I'm not mad at you." You still your hands and look over at him, his eyes already on you. "I'm not, Jack. I promise. I'm sorry for making you think that I am. I'm just…" You start pulling pieces of tape and let out a long sigh. Silence hangs between the two of you for a moment, it's not tense or charged or uncomfortable though, it's not fraught. It's thick with the love you and Jack share for each other and everything attendant.
"I'm just…" You're very clearly in your head. You've pulled about twelve pieces of tape when you'll need two or three, maybe four, depending on how you decide you want to dress it. You finally snap out of it and shake your head at yourself before setting the tape down and holding onto the edge of the mayo stand tightly just to have something to feel and ground yourself to. "I… I don't know, honestly. I don't know Jack."
Your face breaks like you're going to start properly crying but you keep it together and don't, just lick your lips and sniffle hard before smoothing your face back out. Two tears escape and you huff as you wipe them away.
It breaks Jack's heart.
He never likes seeing you cry or upset or sad or anxious or scared or anything like that but something about your face crumpling like that and you only letting two tears go rips a gaping hole in his chest right now.
"Baby," Jack whispers so softly, the word wrapped in a sort of ache that comes straight from the heart.
You crack a little at it and breathe back a sob through your nose before one of those broken, sad whines from trying to stop yourself from sobbing that you just can't control and can't prevent making rips from your throat. You suck in a breath through your teeth, look and sound pained as Jack watches you. "All I can imagine is never hearing that again. Never hearing you again. All I can see is you being the one brought in on a stretcher and me leaving here without you and never seeing you again and I can't fucking breathe, Jack, I can't fucking breathe."
"But I'm not mad at you Jack or upset with you, I promise. I'm like this because I'm scared and I love you. I'm really fucking scared. And," you try to sniffle hard, but it doesn't work, bigger breaths that are difficult to control coming out, "being mad or upset with you, that's not how I want to spend my time with you, it's not how I'm going to."
You swallow hard and shake your head, another distraught whine coming from the back of your throat. "Because you were fucking shot at and grazed today and if the trajectory of that bullet had been just a little different they might have been wheeling you into trauma one, or have been sending someone to pull me into the family room while taking your body away from the scene in a black fucking bag and, and then I, I, I wouldn't be trying to take your clothes off in the supply closet, I'd be picking out clothes to bury you in. Picking out the last thing you'd ever wear from our closet, and I, and, and, and…"
You finally break, clamp a hand over your mouth as you start to sob, the thoughts too much for you to continue to keep inside. You shake your head at him, move your hand just to squeak out a barely audible, "I'm sorry." There's nothing you want more than to be in his arms but you take a step away because you don't want him to have to deal with this. With you like this.
"No, Baby, don't apologize, come here." Jack slips off the edge of the bed and holds a hand out to you, pulls you toward him when you take it. "Come sit with me, yeah?"
Even though there's a huge part of you that doesn't feel like you deserve it you nod and help Jack pick you up for just a second before he sits back on the edge of the bed and scoots back a little more, your legs and arms wrapping around him tightly as you bury your face in his neck and cry, let it all out.
"Shhh," he soothes you, not at all rushing you to stop crying. He holds you close with one hand and lets the other rub circles on your back. "I've got you. It's okay, you're okay. I'm here, Baby and I'm perfectly okay."
There's so much you want to say to him but you can't stop crying long enough to get any words out for two minutes or so. And when you can force words out it's mainly to repeat the same things to him, almost a little chant as you rock yourself into him in a desperate attempt to self soothe in his arms.
"I'm sorry Jack," you choke out against his neck, moving your head so he can hear you better. "I'm, I'm so sorry. This is so unfair to you. I'm just so scared Jack," you repeat over and over.
"Everything's okay Sweetheart, you have nothing to apologize for," Jack murmurs to you just loudly enough for you to hear over your tears. "I know you're scared, I'm here though okay, you can feel me, I'm here with you and I'm okay. And there's nothing unfair about you feeling how you do, I promise. I love you. It's okay, I've got you." Like you, Jack repeats himself over and over praying that you'll be able to take his words to heart while knowing from personal experience how hard it is to do that.
After another few minutes your sobs slow to just crying into Jack's neck and then shuddery, hiccuped breaths as you sniffle and try in vain to breathe in Jack and his scent, the smell of home and comfort and safety. Jack continues to murmur little reassurances and sweet nothings to you as you come down, shifting a little at some point so that your face is less in his neck and more resting on his uninjured shoulder.
Jack grabs some gauze for you to use as a tissue off the mayo stand and smiles to himself as his heart absolutely fucking aches when you use it to wipe off his neck first before using it to clean yourself up. It takes you another moment to speak once you've got yourself a little put back together.
When you do speak your words are simple. "I'm sorry." You pull yourself away from Jack's warm skin so you can look at him.
Jack gives you a crooked smile, looks at you like you're adorable and a little crazy, his eyes squinted just a touch more than usual. "For what, Baby?"
You rest your arms gently along the top of his shoulders and let your fingers scratch and massage and play with the curls at the nape of his neck. "Being like this, sobbing into you when you're hurt and I'm supposed to be taking care of you. Making you feel bad and overreacting."
He shakes his head at you slowly. "I'm hardly hurt and you're not being like anything and you're certainly not overreacting." Jack pauses for a second as he looks you in your eyes. "I thought about it like you asked me to, our positions being reversed and I can guarantee you I'd be feeling and reacting the same way as you. I'd be just as upset. Your reaction is incredibly valid, Sweetheart."
You shrug shallowly, look down at his chest. There's something about how small the shrug is and how you won't look at him that tells Jack both not to push that topic further and that you're acknowledging that he's right. "And you know I don't care if you cry into me, Honey. You know that's where I want you to cry into if you have to cry so that I can hold you and try to help comfort you and keep you feeling safe so you can get it all out."
"I know, thank you," you murmur. You take in a deep breath and then look back up at him. "Thank you for holding me and giving me a safe space, for being my safe space."
"You're welcome. I always will be, Baby." Jack leans forward and presses a soft kiss to your forehead. "Do you want to talk about it more now?"
"No," you whisper, shaking your head. "Not really. Not today and probably not tonight or tomorrow. I just want to be with you for a bit first if that's okay."
He nods. "Of course that's okay, we can do that. I was planning on sticking around here with you until you're off anyway, pitch in where I can."
You give him a small smile. "I'd like that, thank you." You lean into him and share a few sweet kisses before you nuzzle your nose against Jack's cheek and sigh happily at the feeling of his grown out stubble against your skin which makes him chuckle.
The sound helps relax you and you press a lingering kiss to his cheek before pulling back to look at him again. "I know it hurts more than you're letting on, Jack. It was a graze, yeah, but it's still a graze and an impact."
Jack shrugs with his uninjured shoulder and pulls his lips down. "Yeah, but it's not that bad though, I promise, even with it being worse than I'm letting on to everyone except you because you see it regardless."
"You let me see it," you murmur. You bring a hand to his face and drag your knuckles down just beneath his cheekbone lightly before cupping the side of his face. Your eyes find his again. "You let your guard down with me. You let me see you. And I cherish that more than you'll ever truly know."
Jack turns his head in your hand to kiss your palm before bringing his head back to look at you. He leans into your palm and swallows thickly. "I do yeah. Because I know that no matter what, no matter how tough I am or seem or can't be or think I should be, you'll be gentle with me."
"I'm glad you know." You give him a small, soft smile.
Despite the fact that you and Jack have cleared the air and made up and things are good and okay, there's still something kind of somber and anxious in the air, augmented by how carefree and light and flirty and lusty and horny for each other you were in the supply closet. You hate it, feel like you ruined such a good thing, especially when you're still just as hot and worked up for him underneath it all.
You know you just need to chill out some and you're sure by the time you're home this fog will have passed but you still hate it in the meantime. You move your hand back to Jack's curls and continue to play with them. "I don't want us to be down like this. I want to be how we were in the supply closet," you sigh, an adorable little pout to your lips.
Jack takes in a deep breath and nods. He knows what you mean, that it's not a sad kind of down but more that you're subdued. He looks around the room just for the show of it and then cocks his head at you and smirks a little. "We could lay down and make out again."
You laugh softly and raise your eyebrows, nodding at him. "And when someone walks in?"
"They get a free show," he shrugs easily. "Tax exempt bonus compensation."
You start to giggle and Jack's heart soars at the sound even more than it did at your soft laugh. "You're ridiculous."
He doesn't deny it, but does offer more of a real answer. "We know whoever it was would be like 'Oh! Sorry!' and turn around and scurry out and go tell the first person they saw, probably."
"True," you smile at him and there's a pause as the two of you look at each other. "I'm really glad you're okay. That's such a fucking understatement actually," you laugh under your breath. "I love you Jack."
Jack returns your smile. "I love you more."
You shake your head. "Not possible."
"It is very possible and it's true and I win," he nods.
"Nu-uh."
Jack gasps overdramatically. "What do you mean 'nu-uh?' The injured person always gets to win and I'm injured." You raise your eyebrows and tilt and bob your head at him a little with an amused smirk because he's spent so much time trying to convince you he's not injured as such. But you know what he means and why he's saying it in this context. The realization passes over his face and you have to stifle your laugh. "Ish," he tries to backtrack with a slow nod. "Injured-ish."
"Injured-ish," you nod slowly, narrowing your eyes at him and smirking widely so he knows you're not upset by it. And you're not. It seems that at least for right now you really just needed to have a cry about it all to make it not so scary and something you can at least kind of joke about like this where it's not fully making light of what happened. "Well, I got told my husband was shot today."
A hint of a smirk pulls at the corners of Jack's lips as he looks at you and tries to read your reaction. You know immediately.
You shake your head at him, trying to keep a straight face and sound serious but not quite pulling it off. "Jack Abbot." His name is a little laughed, the warning edge you try to infuse belied by the smile creeping at your lips.
Your reaction tells Jack all he needs to know, that he can say what he wants without upsetting or hurting you. He leans in and gives you a kiss that's so soft it's almost more of him ghosting his lips over yours. "At," he murmurs at your lips before pulling back to look at you. "You got told your husband was shot at today."
"You are such a fucking ass sometimes," you huff, trying so hard not to laugh but unable to stop a few from coming out as you shake your head at him.
"Mm, yeah," he gives you a saccharine smile, "but you love that and I'm your ass. You're the one who decided to marry me after all."
"I really do, yeah," you laugh gently. "And yes, you are mine and I would make that choice every single time without a second thought."
"And I'll always be yours." He gives you a genuine smile this time and leans in, gives your forehead a kiss.
"We're okay?" you murmur as his lips linger against your skin.
Jack tilts his head at you when he pulls back and moves his hands to your hips, squeezes gently. "We're perfect on my end. We good on yours?" He knows that you guys are, but he still does want to check in a little and make sure his 'at' joke was really okay and not something you just swallowed down.
"Yeah," you smile widely at him, nose and lips and eyes still a little swollen from all the crying. You look adorable, he thinks. "We're perfect on mine too." Your fingers continue to play with his still damp curls as that adorable smile turns into an equally adorable pout. "But I do think we should make out again."
Jack doesn't miss a beat, you're only just able to hear his soft laugh and catch a flash of his smile because he leans into you and starts doing exactly that, his lips caressing yours as he slides his hands from your hips to your back to pull you flush against him.
You and Jack make out again, slower at first until things pick up again and you both get greedier and more escalated, start getting handsy with each other. It feels like you're back in the supply closet again.
Eventually the need for more oxygen than you can get while kissing forces you to pull your lips from each other's. "Should probably get this dealt with and back out there," Jack pants softly as he rests his forehead against yours. "As much as I'd rather do this the rest of the day and night."
"Probably, yeah." You nuzzle your nose against his and take a moment to relish in him and his smell and his hot breath against your skin, proof that despite being shot at he's still here and alive and nearly perfectly fine and with you. Because as much as you need to set a lot of it aside for the rest of today and probably tomorrow, you're not exactly over it. "But I'll spend as much time as I deem necessary taking care of my most important patient."
"Mm, yeah? That so?" Jack murmurs, smiling against you.
"Yeah, so I better finish up quickly here and go check on them," you tease.
"You're so full of shit," he huffs a laugh, smiling and squeezing your waist with one hand and pinching your ass gently with the other.
You giggle and kiss all over his face. "There could never be any patient or anybody more important than you." You press a lingering kiss to Jack's lips and share a tight hug for a few seconds before he wordlessly slides off the bed with you so that you can unwrap your legs from around him and set your feet back on the floor to stand. Jack gives you one last kiss before he lets you out of his arms and sits back on the edge of the bed for you.
As you clean and dress his wound you ask what happened and Jack explains. You know it's probably bothering and getting to him more than he wants to admit to himself or let show. And you feel incredibly selfish but you can't help but imagine Jack in his Hiro's place, especially as you tend to the injury left on his skin by a bullet. You set that aside for now though because it's not what matters. Your husband and his feelings are what matter the most to you right now.
When you're finished you bring your lips down and press a soft kiss just above the dressing you've put over Jack's wound. You peel your gloves off and toss them and everything left on the mayo stand in the trash as you walk to stand in front of him again, grabbing his shirt from the other end of the bed where he tossed it.
You scrunch up Jack's shirt to help him get it on. He doesn't really need the help of course, but you want to give it and it helps make you feel better and a little more in control and Jack certainly has no objection. Before you hold it up for him though you pause. "I'm here. If you need to talk about it," you tell him softly.
Jack shrugs, far too fast and trying far too hard to be truly unbothered. "I'm okay. We saved him. He'll be in the hospital for a while and have a long recovery obviously, but he'll be okay."
You give him the softest smile and raise your eyebrows at him slightly, effectively calling him out on what you know to be his bullshit. You expected that answer though, especially here at work. Who wants to face those emotions if they can pretend they don't need to?
He takes in a breath and nods. "Yeah," he whispers. "Not here. And probably not tonight or tomorrow. Like you said, I just want to be with you for a bit first."
"Okay," you murmur. "There's no pressure. And when you are ready to talk, it doesn't have to be with me. You've got your therapist and Robby. I just want you to know I'm here for you."
Jack laughs softly and shakes his head at you. "I know that, I always know that. I knew before you said it. You always make me feel like you're here for me. I love you and I'm so lucky to have you."
"I love you too." What you're sure can only be described as a mushy love sick smile pulls onto your face. "And I'm the lucky one in this relationship."
He shakes his head, smiling. "This is one we're always going to have to agree to disagree on, Sweetheart."
You hum at him. "I suppose it is." You lean in to take a quick kiss from him and then help him get his shirt on. "You know I'm really bummed I'm not helping you get your shirt back on because I took it off you before you fucked me."
"I thought you wanted the uniform to stay on," Jack smirks.
You click your tongue at him. "Well yeah, but a girl can still imagine getting fucked by her husband at work."
His smirk deepens. "You like imagining that sort of thing?"
"I like imagining many sorts of things with you," you smirk back at him.
"Oh yeah?" Jack flicks his eyebrows up, reaches out for your hips and pulls you closer so that you're standing between his legs. "What else do you like imagining?" he says lowly, voice dripping with want and need.
You're smiling as you lean in for another kiss, keep it almost frustratingly chaste. You kiss from his lips up his stubble covered jaw until your lips are right at his ear. "A girl also needs her secrets," you whisper.
You move quickly then, step back and out of his hands and start walking away before Jack can tighten his grip on you. Both of you know that you'll tell him everything you like to imagine at some point and that you already have told him some of those things.
Still. He doesn't get to know now like he wants, just has to imagine what you imagine. Jack whines over-dramatically as you walk away. "Tease!"
You finish throwing in a final stitch and glance up at the monitor while Garcia watches the field. The numbers start to stabilize as she announces the field is staying dry. You nod at her as you step back so that the others in the room can get ready to move the patient up to the OR quickly now that he's stable. You pull off your gown and gloves as they wheel him out, throw them in the biohazard bin, let out a long breath and then walk out like nothing happened.
Like Jack isn’t standing there in the vestibule between the two trauma rooms absolutely fucking losing his god damn mind.
Jack was in the vestibule with the doors open long enough to have heard and seen everything that just happened, to watch you pull whatever the fuck that was out of thin fucking air and save the patient from what had appeared to be close to certain death in the Pitt, give him at least a shot in the OR. Everything you do is hot in Jack's opinion. But that, that has to be one of the top ten hottest things you've ever done, that he's ever seen.
He understands your desperation from earlier when you got him to follow you into the supply closet. Because Jack needs you. Now.
You're just so fucking hot. Physically, yes, always of course, and you're wearing those scrub pants that he absolutely fucking loves because of how they make your ass look, and the cut of your scrub top emphasizes your curves in all the right places and with the bra you're wearing your tits look fucking fantastic.
But your intelligence and your capability are just as fucking hot. That was so fucking smart. You are so fucking smart. Jack doesn't think he'd have come up with that on the fly like he heard you tell Garcia you did, that you didn't read about it somewhere. You were so textbook in certain ways and creative in others, controlled in your approach but flexible and willing to fully commit and go for it to save your patient.
Realistically a small percentage of doctors probably have the skill set to do something like you just did under the kind of pressure you did it under even knowing what to do in advance, much less come up with the maneuver and adapt it as needed mid-trauma. But you did. That was all you. His girl. His woman. His wife.
And so he needs you, is already hard for you and knows he won’t be able to stop walking or anyone who looks at him will be able to see, knows the movement will hide his prominent hard on.
He turns back to the trauma room he had been in and stalks out of it with his face set, shaking his head to himself slightly. He's trying to set up his irritation in case you're out at the hub and see him walking out. Like you he feels bad using a bit of a ruse to get you to follow him but he makes sure he seems irritated and frustrated with the world and not you, though, also like you, he figures you might start to think it's at you. He'll straighten out any confusion you might have very quickly.
You are at the hub when Jack walks out of the trauma room and because you seem to have a radar for him you look up and find him easily, smile automatically just at seeing him like he did with you before you furrow your brows a little at how done with the world he looks. Did something happen? Did he get bad news about Hiro? Did you do something?
Jack's eyes find yours and he shakes his head subtly and you can see him let out a breath. He flicks his chin, a silent request for you to follow him. A request you follow without a second thought, walking off after him.
Given the fact that you did the same exact thing to him hours ago, the thought should probably occur to you that Jack is doing the same. But it doesn't because you're just not thinking about it, at least in part because you haven't done anything to earn a reaction from Jack that's similar to your reaction to him earlier today.
"Baby?" you start as you follow him in. "What-"
Jack is quick, predatorily quick, and so before your mind has a chance to catch up with anything you hear the click of the lock as he locks the door and find yourself pushed back up against the wall exactly where you were earlier, Jack's hand behind your head so that you don't hit it from the force of him nearly pinning you to the wall in one swift motion.
It steals your breath, as does the way Jack drops his head and looks at you, hazel eyes blown and almost glowing in the low light of the closet.
"You have no fucking idea, do you?" Jack laughs under his breath. "Not a single fucking clue how hot that was."
"What was?" You're still a little breathless and the sound sends a shot of pleasure through Jack, has him throbbing against his boxer briefs and cargos as he bites his bottom lip.
Jack releases his lower lip from between his teeth. "That move during the trauma. The one you just pulled out of fucking thin air."
"Oh." You laugh softly and shrug. “I was just doing my job.”
"Feel that?" Jack grabs one of your hands and brings it down and holds it over his cock, grinds his hips up against you so that you really feel how hard he is. "That's what it did to me. That's what you did to me. Your intelligence, your capability. That was so far beyond just your fucking job, Sweetheart." Jack releases your hand and kisses you hard. When he pulls away he brings his hands to your face and holds it gently, something tender to it. "That was… Only a small percentage of doctors could pull off that move if they'd been taught it, knew how to do it going into a high pressure situation like that. And you fucking came up with it off the cuff, in the middle of a fucking trauma with the pressure of knowing your patient's life likely depended on it, having to adapt and be willing to change course but also stay committed."
He drops his hips and presses into you to pin you to the wall as he kisses you again, his tongue easily slipping into your mouth when you give him the chance. You moan into the kiss softly which pulls a much louder groan from Jack who drops his hands from your face to run down the front of you and palm and squeeze at your breasts. Your hands unsurprisingly find his curls and tug at them as Jack rolls his hips against you hard.
Jack breaks the kiss for some air and trails his hands down to hold your hips as he kisses and sucks lightly at your neck, his stubble teasing your skin and making you whine for him. "You're going to publish that and we're going to go to a conference and everyone in the whole god damn room is going to want you. As a doctor and as a woman. And you're fucking mine."
"Yeah, I am yours," you pant softly. "Always will be Jack."
"I know," Jack almost growls into your neck before suddenly pulling away from you, his face leaving your neck and his hips leaving yours.
Before you can start to ask why or what happened one of Jack's hands is at the waistband of your scrub pants pulling the bow of the drawstring free and then trying to slip inside.
"Jack," you laugh breathily. You love when he gets like this, you really do. But he was right earlier and nothing has changed. And you're so fucking close to being done with your shift. As much as it pains you, you bring one of your hands down and wrap it around his wrist to stop him from sliding his hand down your pants. "What was it you said earlier? Calm down."
"I'm perfectly calm," Jack hums as he uses his other hand to cup your pussy over your pants and start rubbing, blindly seeking out your clit with his thumb. You can't lie, it's infuriatingly attractive when he succeeds in finding it in only a matter of seconds when most men couldn’t find it if you were naked and brought their finger right to it.
"Oh but when I try to suck you off or get you to fuck me in the supply closet I'm not calm?" You grab his other wrist with your other hand and pull his hand away. Really, Jack lets you do it. He could easily keep his hand there against your pull.
Jack whines a little and shakes his head. "You're thinking entirely too much, Baby."
He kisses you again before you can respond and you melt into it even more this time, release his hands for them to roam his body so yours can roam his as you make out. Jack thinks back to his earlier idea, sticking his leg out for you to grind one out on while giving him a handjob. There's also still the option of bending you over and taking you from behind as you hold onto a shelf. He could kneel and throw your legs over his shoulders to start with, get you nice and worked up and wet for him with his tongue.
"Jack," you murmur against his lips. "We can't." You're so close to being off, just have a few more things to do in your last ten minutes and then hand off and you can hopefully get out of here on time or at least within thirty minutes of on time, but not if you stay in here with your husband, as much as you want to.
You're both just as keyed up and needy and ready for each other as you were when you found yourselves in here earlier. If anything you're even more keyed up and needy and ready for each other because you've both spent the last however many hours thinking about finally getting home and having the other.
"Why not?" Jack mumbles against your lips.
You let out an airy laugh. "Because…" You realize you don't really have an answer other than you're at work technically still on shift for another ten minutes. But you sure were ready to fuck him while on shift earlier. "It'll be better at home," you offer weakly as Jack kisses you again.
"Both," Jack mumbles against your lips. "We can do both. I'm not opposed to both, I'm more than happy to have you both here and at home." He brings his lips back to your neck, makes sure his stubble scratches at your skin with just the right pressure to tease you again, his teeth nipping at you occasionally this time.
"Jack," you breathe, a hard shiver of pleasure running up your spine. "Let's finish here so we can go home."
"I'm all for finishing here," Jack murmurs into your neck.
You have to laugh a little at his comment and his ability to make something so innocuous a double entendre. You can feel Jack smile against the skin of your neck and he nips at you one last time before groaning.
"Fuck," Jack sighs into your skin. He knows you're right the same way you knew he was right earlier no matter how much you disliked it. "You're right, I just don't wanna stop," he pouts as he pulls away from your neck to look at you.
"Hey," you give him a soft, teasing smile, run your fingers through his curls. “We just have to survive ten minutes and however long it takes us to get out of here."
"Yeah, I guess," he half huffs half sighs playfully. "Still fucking sucks." Jack takes a small step back so that you can walk by him even though he wants to keep you right where he has you. "Go finish up, yeah? That way we can leave as soon as possible. I'll be out in just a minute after I chill out." He motions to his quite obvious erection straining against his pants.
"'Kay," you giggle with a nod. You give him one last lingering kiss before walking to the door. You pause there again and turn to him, smirking at him and winking as you unlock the door and go to walk out, repeating his own words back to him. "Good to know I can still get to you after five years together."
Jack closes the front door of your shared townhouse behind you, locks it and flicks on the lights and sets his backpack next to yours on the credenza as you finish toeing your shoes off and moving them on to the shoe rack with your feet. He wraps one arm around your waist and pulls you to him, his hands settling on your hips as yours splay across his chest, an amused smile pulling onto your face, eyebrows raising slightly. "Now, where were we?" he murmurs, a ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, his eyes smoldering as he looks down at you.
You tilt your head and smirk at him, the most caring edge to it. There's quite frankly absolutely fucking nothing in the world you want more than Jack right now. But. "I was thinking on the way home. You have to be absolutely exhausted from the heat, Jack, and sore. Let's get you a shower and something to drink and in bed, yeah? We have all of tomorrow." You lean up on your toes to press a soft kiss to his lips.
Your concern is genuine of course, and if what Jack truly needs is in fact to shower and get in bed, you're all for that. But you know that's not what he needs, nor what he wants. You just like making him work for it a little, know he likes the element of what almost feels a bit like chasing you.
"Oh, no," he laughs under his breath, shakes his head at you once. "You can't get me that wound up at work twice and then nothing."
Jack gives you the slightest nod as he finishes speaking, one so subtle only you would be able to see it. It's a nod he doesn't need to give you because you already know but he does anyway. A nod that says actually you could do exactly that. You could tell him no right now and he'd respect it and stop, that you don't owe him a single fucking thing and that while yeah, he loves this game and knows exactly what it is, he'll stop in a second if that's what you want or need.
You hum a little and your smirk grows. You shrug. "I mean I didn't get you wound up the second time."
He clicks his tongue. "Right, right," he drawls, hands sliding from your hips to your ass and squeezing. "Just like I didn't get you wound up the first time."
"Well," you take in a deep breath and step closer to him, and then closer again so he has to take a step back and another and another until you have him pressed up against the wall just like you did earlier at work. You both know it's exactly what he wanted. "I don't know, Baby," you murmur, syrupy sweet, "I'm not sure you can afford to lose the sodium."
Jack's eyes close slowly and he takes in a deep breath through his nose, his face turning just slightly as you giggle. The sound makes his cock throb hard against the confines of his boxer briefs and cargos, makes him get even harder for you somehow.
He still tries to keep it up though, lets out a long sigh. "A cum joke," he mutters, "oh my fucking god."
"I don't think it was that much worse than your 'I'm always armed for you' cock joke." He can hear the smirk in your voice.
He opens his eyes and looks at you and shrugs, the smile he's trying so hard to hold back peeking through in his crows feet. "It was effective, I guess. Mood ruined. No further sodium loss will happen. Let's go shower and get in bed."
You smirk and give him a look that says oh please, take a step even closer to him, your bodies pressed a little more firmly together now. One of your hands runs down his chest and abdomen, fingers skirting just under his waistband to tease him before your hand continues down and starts rubbing his fully hard and aching cock over his pants.
Jack takes in the slightest sharp breath, his hips canting against you a little before he catches himself. "You sure about that Dr. Abbot?" You find just about where the ridge of his head is and start rubbing your thumb over it, relish in the way his breath catches in his throat and you watch his eyes blow a little more as you hold his gaze. "Because I'd really, really love to have your cock in my mouth and throat."
"Fuck," Jack groans quietly, cock twitching at your insinuation that you want to take him all the way.
"I had this whole nice little plan too," you fake pout, feigned disappointment playing on your features. "Take you to the couch and get your leg taken care of and then get you to just sit back and relax and let me do all the work so you don't have to further exert yourself." You shrug and pull your hand off him, sigh dramatically. "But I guess if I ruined the mood-"
"Cock first," Jack interrupts you, missing your attention to his cock. "And yes it's okay, my leg is okay, I promise, it can wait for this." He needs you, the pleasure already racing through him so fast and so intense that he swears to god he's going to embarrass himself after five years together, three of them married, by coming a second and a half after you get your mouth on him.
You cock your head slightly, furrow your brows in confusion. "What? I don't…" you trail off, shaking your head.
"Cock first. Right here. Cock first and then deal with my leg," Jack pants at you, one hand leaving your ass to start trying to get his pants undone.
Your brows furrow further. You do a good job of keeping yourself neutral as you fuck with him again. You understood what he meant the first time he said it. "What?"
"Cock first and then leg," he repeats. "Suck my cock first and then we can deal with my leg."
"What?" you ask again, the question obviously feigned this time as a smirk ghosts your lips.
Jack rolls his eyes at you and you giggle. "Oh jesus christ woman," he brings his hands to your shoulders and pushes down on them with just the right amount of pressure, "get on your knees and suck my fucking cock."
You beam up at him as you unbutton his pants and start to sink to the floor, nodding. "Sir, yes sir," you smirk as you settle on your knees and pull his pants and boxer briefs down far enough in one go.
"That was terrible- fuck!" Jack's hips buck slightly at the absolute jolt of pleasure your lips sealing around the head of his cock and sucking hard sends through him. You expected it, move your head back in time with the motion so that he doesn't get to shove himself any further into your mouth or throat yet. "Oh fuck!" Jack groans in pleasure as he looks down at you taking his cock in your mouth.
Your head bobs up and down him shallowly at first, taking a little more of him each time but only by a centimeter or less. You love almost teasing him with it, love building it up achingly slow for him.
Once you're worked up to sucking his cock in earnest you make sure to prolong it, suck him hard and how he loves and how you know makes his mind hazy with pleasure, but back off when you know he's close until you can feel his lower abs twitching. It's your sign that he's not going to be able to last much longer with this long of a fuse for you to work with until he comes. It's your sign that he needs it.
You pull your mouth off him, swirl your tongue around his head and use the tip to flick at his frenulum. "Fuck Baby," Jack breathes, voice shuddery with pleasure as he groans softly and leaks a drop of precum for you that you're quick to clean up with the tip of your tongue at his slit before taking half of him back in your mouth. "Oh shit," Jack pants hard, a soft thump of his head hitting the wall as it falls back in pleasure, his eyes closing as he focuses on and loses himself to the sensation of your mouth around him.
You let your eyes close so that you can focus on the feeling of him in your mouth and every little groan and moan and sigh of pleasure you pull from him as you continue sucking him off like your fucking life depends on it. Eventually you're able to hear and feel Jack pull his head back up and know he's looking down at you again. Your eyes flutter open and you smile around him when you make eye contact, take more of him than you have all night as you look up at him through your lashes.
"God I can't believe I get my cock sucked this fucking good on a weekly fucking basis," Jack rasps, his cock twitching in your mouth. "Multiple times a fuckin' week."
You hum around him as your head moves back down him and then back up. You pull all the way off him, a string of saliva connecting your lips to the head of his cock that earns you a keened whine from him. "I can't believe I'm lucky enough to get to suck your cock on a weekly basis," you pant softly, move your lips closer to him so they flutter against his head with your next words. "Multiple times a week. I'm," you press a kiss to the tip of him, "so," another kiss about halfway down the top of his shaft, "lucky," a final kiss right at the base of him, your nose brushing against the silvery happy trail you adore so much. You drop your mouth and stick your tongue out, lick a hot stripe up the underside of him from his balls to his tip and then take him back in your mouth again.
"Yeah," Jack sighs all breathy, a heavy groan to it and a bit higher pitched than normal. "Yeah," he breathes out, "yeah, you're so good to me."
You hum around him again, suck as hard as you can as you pull up his cock. Jack almost laughs a groan, because how is this his fucking life, how is he so lucky. His ability to think with any level of clarity is truly starting to go as you quite literally suck it out of him. "Can't believe I'm married to someone as hot as you. As fucking…" he trails off as the pleasure your mouth brings him overwhelms him. "As," he tries again, "as…."
Very carefully and very, very lightly you scrape your teeth up him on your next pass and Jack shivers hard at the flood of intense pleasure that rushes through his system. You wrap your left hand around half of him, make sure that your wedding band and engagement ring that you put back on during the trip home are on top for him to see since he brought up being married, suck on him a little more shallowly as you stroke the rest of him.
"Oh I love you," Jack groans, watching your rings that tell everyone who sees them that you’re married to him sparkle in the light against his cock, your mouth a heaven he knows for a fucking fact he doesn’t deserve, and one you give him so, so freely. "IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou."
You're not sure why but for some reason that's always one of the hottest things Jack says to you while you're going down on him. I love you. It never fails to get to you.
You double down on your efforts and Jack lets out a strangled groan. "I'm gonna come, Baby," he pants hard, voice pure gravel. "Gonna come, where do you…where?"
Jack knows you really don't love swallowing all that much. He knows you'll do it from time to time and that you don't mind when you do because you're always the one that tells him to, who brings it up and offers to do it. And there is something so fucking attractive and hot to you about the way he knows that and always remembers it and acknowledges it and asks and never pressures you or 'accidentally' comes in your mouth 'because his orgasm surprised him.'
You let your eyes flutter closed for a few seconds and focus on keeping your throat relaxed as you take Jack all the way, gagging just once or twice before your nose is nuzzling into well kept gray hair. It's you telling him he can come in your mouth. Both of you know it.
"Yeah? You sure?" Jack's eyes search yours as his chest heaves and your head moves slowly up and down him. There's no hesitation to be found, no look that tells him you don't really want to but are doing it for him. Your eyes tell him you're more than okay with it, that you want this for him and for you.
But at the same time you can read in Jack's eyes that he wants more verbal confirmation. You nod as you pull off him, keep your lips right against his head. "Just let go for me Handsome, yeah?" you pant softly, give him a smile so breathtaking and beautiful and sexy that he's honestly impressed he doesn't lose it immediately.
You suck on his head once or twice and then bob your head up and down him all the way once. "Baby," Jack breathes. "I'm gonna come. I'm gonna come." You work your mouth down him all the way again and let your nose nuzzle into him again before you swallow around him and bring one hand to play with his balls and Jack is fucking gone.
He comes down your throat with a loud groan of your name, watches for a few seconds before his head tips back in pleasure and hits the wall gently again. Your name and a flurry of curse words drip off his tongue just before the praise starts and continues through his orgasm.
"You're so good," Jack pants, unable to catch his breath as his orgasm starts to ebb. "Oh, fuck Sweetheart you're so good, so good for me."
Tunnels start to set in at the edges of your vision as Jack finishes coming. You know he'll lose his fucking mind if you pass out so you start to pull off him, coughing a bit once he's out of your mouth and choking on air as you try to breathe it in too fast, your hands flying up to cling at his shirt to help you stay upright with the momentary dizziness that sets in. It feels fucking good if you're honest, being that light headed.
"You okay?" Jack is quick to ask, bending slightly so his hands can wrap around your forearms to help steady you. "And you sure you were okay with that? Me coming in your mouth?"
You have to laugh, let your head tilt forward to rest on his lower abdomen for a second before you look up at him. "Well, it was really more my throat now, wasn't it Baby?" You nod at him. "I'm sure. And I'm so much more than okay Dr. Abbot," you laugh a little more. "I'm fucking great."
Jack pants a laugh with you and nods. "Good." He helps you back onto your feet and pulls his pants and boxer briefs up but doesn't bother rebuttoning his pants, knows they'll stay on enough to get him to the bedroom. He kisses you as hard and deeply as he can with how hard he's still breathing. You smile against his lips and pull yours from his, move them to kiss at his face and neck and clothed chest as he comes back down. "Go get on the bed for me Sweetheart," he tells you once he's recovered and his breathing is mostly back to normal.
You pull your lips from his scruff and give him a look with a little smirk. "It was cock first, leg second," you remind him.
Jack half whines at you. "I meant to say cock first, pussy second, leg third."
You shake your head at him. "Not after today, Baby," you murmur. "We're going to take care of your leg and shower and then get in bed."
He pulls his lips down in consideration and nods once. "Alright," he acquiesces, "I like the sound of bed."
"Get in bed and sleep. You don't need to exert yourself any further today," you clarify for him with a look. But nothing about you right now is particularly firm or serious, not your tone or your expression. You're not quite fucking with him all the way because your concern is genuine of course, and he knows if he truly needed to just take care of his leg, shower and sleep, you'd be more than okay with that. It's more like you're protesting half-heartedly to give him that chance to chase you a little how you both love for him to do sometimes, the chance to persuade you to give yourself over to him. "You've already done more than enough for me, Sweetheart. I know you're sore and exhausted from the heat and then working at the Pitt for hours and getting grazed."
"I'm okay," Jack nods at you, rests his hands on your hips and kisses the tip of your nose. "I promise."
You rest your hands on his chest again and rub a little. "I know and I'd like to keep it that way."
"Sweetheart, having sex with my wife isn't going to make me not okay," Jack laughs, but it’s not at you. "You really think we're going to sleep this early?" This time it's him who gives you a look.
"We have tomorrow off, all day and night for things," you murmur, push up on your tip toes and give him a kiss.
"Exactly! We don't have to be up early! We can do whatever we want tonight and sleep in as late as we want tomorrow, spend as much time lounging in bed as our hearts desire." Jack's hands slide down to your ass and squeeze and don't let go. He pushes off the wall and takes a step forward that you match by taking one back. "And if you don't want me to exert myself you could fuck yourself on me, yeah?" he murmurs lowly as he starts to slowly walk you backwards to your bedroom. "Be in control for the night."
"There's not even a good position, Jack. You need to keep weight off your shoulder and back." It's not even a half-hearted protest anymore.
"It's okay, I promise." Jack nods slowly, his eyes locked on yours but still able to check the path in front of you to make sure it's clear and you won't trip over anything. He loves the way you trust him completely, unthinkingly, know he won’t let you trip or run into anything or hurt yourself.
You know he'll be fine if he exerts himself more or puts weight or pressure on the area he was grazed, you just worry. But he's caught you and you know he knows by that fucking smirk he's wearing. "Why do I have a feeling whatever position we start in is going to end up with you on top of me sucking as many hickeys into my chest and the top of my tits as you possibly can while you fuck me damn near as hard as you can into the mattress?" There's an obvious strain of longing and lust to your voice.
The question gives you away, whatever position we start in means you will in fact be starting, and it confirms for Jack that he's got you and that you're looking forward to it. "Because I'm just in that kind of mood for you and you know me well enough to be able to tell just from our conversation and my expressions and body language." His smirk deepens. "And I won't be fucking you damn near as hard as I can into the mattress. There won't be any near to it, I'll be fucking you as hard as I can into the mattress, until you are begging to come on my cock."
You let out a shuddery breath and shiver, swear you can feel yourself get wetter for him at your words. Jack flicks the light on as you hit your bedroom and shuts the door behind him, stops walking with you once you're at the side of the bed. "You don't have to make me come just because I made you come, Jack."
"I know," he nods, grabs the waistband of your pants and underwear and shoves them down as far as he can get without breaking eye contact with you. "And it's not about that. I'm not trying to play it tit for tat." One of Jack's hands slips between your legs and he tilts his head and smirks at you when he feels how wet you are, slides one finger and then a second inside of you with ease, stealing your breath. "I haven't stopped thinking about fucking you since the supply closet, the first time. And I'd really like to go down on you before fucking you into the mattress as hard as I can as you put it."
You clench around his fingers, couldn't stop from doing so if you'd tried. "I," you gasp slightly, Jack's smirk deepening as he makes a come hither motion with his fingers inside of you. "I suppose the oxytocin from another orgasm will help you with pain relief and healing."
"Yeah," Jack agrees in that breathy, slightly higher pitched tone he uses sometimes. "Yeah. It will. So will the oxytocin I'll get from having my tongue in your cunt."
"Jesus, Jack," you breathe, thoughts of feeling his stubble between your legs and his tongue on your clit and inside of you so heady you almost feel dizzy. "Fuck, okay. Okay, yeah. If that's what you want and need, Jack, yeah. Please."
Jack hums a single laugh, eyes sparkling and smirk still on his handsome face. "I think it's what you want and need too, Beautiful." He pulls his fingers from you and brings them up so that they're between your faces and you can both see how wet you are for him. "In fact, I know it is." And he's right, of course. It has been this entire time even though you've been making him chase you and work for it a little. Jack makes a show of sucking his fingers clean, groaning at the taste of you. "Now be a good girl and stay still while I strip you, okay?"
I need him so badly I could scream about it forever. He's just so 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠. I love him. 😭 I hope it was okay and enjoyable!! Thank you so much for reading and for all of your support! ♥️ I love hearing your thoughts and comments! ♥️
Want more Jack and the Pitt content? Check out my masterlist here. I also write for Pope from Animal Kingdom!
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➻ pairing: Jack Abbot x Single Mom!ER Nurse!Reader
➻ summary: Jack Abbot is the dad that stepped up for the sweet little girl who is the daughter of his favorite ER nurse- having been a part of her life since she was a newborn. How does he not fall for her mom?
➻ warnings: 18+ MDNI, fluff, longing, shitty bio dad to a sweet little girl, mentions of past shitty relationship, Jack’s dead wife mentioned, postpartum depression and stress mention
➻ author’s note: I’ve had this idea brewing for a while- Jack is definitely the best stepdad.
Jack Abbot is still raw and wounded from the death of his wife two years ago- closed off and sits across from his therapist while he listens to him talk about changing to the night shift for a bit. Comfort in the darkness? More like he can still pretend his wife is sleeping in bed- that he’s just working late and will see her once he gets home later. And when she’s not home after his shift? She’s left for work- she’s running errands- she’s just not home. She’s not dead. She’s not gone. She’s just left for a few hours. All while he’s getting used to the swing of the night shift Pitt crew- where the kids are over caffeinated and the chaos is constant. Where he can forget about his life for a bit- where the silence in his mind is deafened for just a bit.
Jack Abbot who was having a terrible shift. Who was going through the motions of pushing the pain from his leg down and trying to find a place to rest when he hears a soft cry, a whimper even- coming from behind the door of the supply closet. Opening it and expecting maybe the intern who got yelled at by the radiologist but it’s a nurse- and a baby. A baby who’s barely a few months old- sleeping in your arms while you cry and try to not wake the baby up after working so hard to get her to sleep. “I’m sorry Dr. Abbot, I was just-” you sob but stop when he holds his hand up- as if to say it’s okay, grunting softly when he slides down the wall next to you before sighing in relief. “Who’s this?” He asks, nodding towards the little pink bundle that your husband deposited in your arms a few hours ago- grumbling about her wanting you and won’t take the bottle and how he needed sleep while you were trying to chart on your patients.
Jack Abbot who holds your daughter for the first time that night- taking her in his big arms while you chart next to him. It was cathartic for you both- Jack hasn’t held a baby in years and she somehow made him forget about the shooting pain in his leg and heart and you haven’t had someone else hold her without her screaming or feeling anxious. She settles in his arms- doesn’t struggle the way she does with your husband. There’s silence in the supply room that night- the soft, sweet sounds of your daughter cooing or sighing in her sleep that you’ve fallen in love with while Jack rests against the wall and lets the weight of her ground him. He hasn’t felt this relaxed since his wife passed- hasn’t been able to let his mind be silent and for a minute he thinks he’s able to do this again. He’s able to live- even if she’s not there anymore with him. Who doesn’t dread going home that morning.
Jack Abbot who watches you nearly every shift- exhausted and struggling with a newborn because your husband refused to be a father. The hospital child care center won’t take infants until they’re 6 months old- you’d bring her if you could because you knew your husband didn’t love her. It became painfully obvious when you both found out it was a girl- his smile dropped, his face told you everything- he didn’t want this baby. He didn’t want your daughter. Her father rejected her- he went through the motions when you told him you were pregnant. Your husband smiled and nodded when they asked if he was excited- but he was still detached. Completely different uninterested, didn’t even help you postpartum- left you bleeding and sore and mentally exhausted but said women do it all them time. His mom did it three times- you’re fine.
Jack Abbot who sees the exhaustion on your face- who sees the way you fight to stay awake because you’ve spent all day tending to your daughter and now you’re trying to work and tend to patients now. He can’t coddle you- he doesn’t. Who knows you’re competent but he can tell you to sit down- he can tell you to eat something because you need to keep your energy up. Who slides you a coffee at 3 am, perfect temperature and made exactly how you like because he pays attention to you. Who slips protein bars in your pocket- offers you some of his dinner because he makes way too much and won’t even get to eat it all so it shouldn’t go to waste. Who trusts you- immediately finding a bond with you because you’re both passionate about what you do and- you’re both lonely.
Jack Abbot who recognizes your daughters cries now- who smiles softly when he sees her in her carrier at the nurses station with your after your husband left her there without even a text or so much as a warning. “She’s teething,” you apologize- attempting to gently shove a pacifier in her mouth but she won’t stop and her little face is scrunched up in anger and tiny fists balled up to let the entire pit know she’s upset. “C’mere- no none of that,” Jack fake chastises the baby when she whimpers- taking her out of her carrier and asking if it’s okay to take her for a moment. Who takes in your exhausted look and messy hair and the tears pooling in the corners of your eyes. Who you find 15 minutes later in the break room with your daughter in his lap- gumming on his gloved fingers and drooling all over his hand while he reads a case study out loud.
Jack Abbot who doesn’t shame you for having your daughter- who helps you in those few months until she’s able to go to the hospital’s daycare. When he’s not busy he’ll take her in his big arms and call her a baby bunny because of the way she kicks in frustration when someone takes her from him- little angry thumps that endear him. Who lets you cry on his shoulder when you find out your husband was having an affair- “you’re just not the same anymore,” his excuse when you when you confronted him about it. But you didn’t cry for your marriage- you wept for your baby. Sweet little girl with big eyes and a gummy smile- “I don’t think he ever loved her,” a confession to Jack, while wiping your face and sighing before Jack tells you “you love her- that’s enough.” Who helps you through the divorce process- even arguing on the phone with the expensive lawyer your husband hired because they were trying to leave you with nothing.
Jack Abbot who is there for all your daughter’s firsts. Her first tooth- poking out like little fangs and going “ow!” dramatically when she bites him for the first time. Her first solids- baby sat in his lap while you push a spoon of puréed veggies at her and says it looks disgusting- when you try to scold him because now the baby is making a face and- “I’m just being honest.” Who gets excited when she takes her first steps- chunky legs tentatively taking a step forward while the nurses encourage her and the only person she wants to walk towards is him. Catching her before she falls and throwing her up in the air with a laugh and a “good job baby bunny!” Who is actually her first word- not mama or dada but “ACK!” trying to mimic you saying Jack. Repeating it over and over when he says “no- Abbot,” “ACK” “Dr. Abbot,” “ACK.”
Jack Abbot who stays by her bedside when she gets sick- when you bring her into the ER because something is wrong and you know this isn’t normal. Who watches you stumble over your words while you try to take control of triage but- this isn’t someone else’s child- she’s yours. You know her breathing is off, you’ve been watching her fever and it refuses to budge, she hasn’t had an appetite or wanted water- you even tried to bribe her with popsicles or soda and she didn’t even react. Who watched you force back tears while you rattle off her vitals and didn’t stop until his heavy hand landed in your shoulder- “hey, we got her okay? I got her.” Who goes up to the peds floor to check on you both after his shift was over- leans against the doorframe when he sees you asleep with your head right next to her on the bed. Who smiles when he hears her little “rabbit?” because she still can’t say Abbot- “hey baby bunny,” with a whisper so he doesn’t wake you up. Who promises you he’s not tired- he’ll watch her while you go change and take a shower- he’ll watch her while you work that night because you can’t afford to miss a day of work since the divorce. Who spends the night reading to her- checking her vitals and monitors and coloring with her. Who gives her as many popsicles as she wants- both their mouths purple when you come in during your lunch and ask if they’ve had actual food yet.
Jack Abbot who watches her little face crumple every time she gets disappointed when her sperm donor bails on her- when he doesn’t show up to his scheduled visits because he’s busy with his new girlfriend and her son. Her son that he’s devoted to- a boy who can play catch and run around and who he can be proud of. And maybe that hurts you more than anything because his absence is purposeful- his lack of love was a choice. And Jack can’t understand how this little girl’s father can willingly leave her life. She’s so bright and sweet- has your eyes and smile and the little scrunch of her nose when he tells her she needs to do her homework- “I didn’t do my homework- that’s how I lost my leg.” Who sits her at the break room table to help her- basic math or reading but he’s encouraging her and smiling and wondering what this would have felt like if he and his wife would have had any kids.
Jack Abbot who falls for you so easily. Who’s watched you struggle for 5 years alone with your daughter. Who loves your laugh- because you still have a sense of humor and will make snide comments that have him doubled over some times. Who still has little supply room breaks with you- sitting on the floor with your backs to the wall like when you first met. Sharing a protein bar between you both and taking a minute to just breathe. Who reminds you that you’re a good mom- that you’re doing the best you can and your daughter is happy and that’s what’s important. Who makes sure you get approved off for holidays or her birthday or any little dance recital that she has- who also buys her flowers for said dance recital and watches with a smile when she demands he see her practice. Who loves your smile- soft and sweet and even amid the chaos of the ER it’s like a breath of fresh air for him. Who sits on the roof with you after a tough shift- sharing pizza and beer and watching the sunrise together with your hands dangerously close and brushing together.
Jack Abbot who knows your daughter’s favorite color is purple, that her favorite ice cream flavor is strawberry, that she hates math but loves reading so he buys her books, that she loves to color and sing and he knows her favorite song and knows the characters in her favorite movie. Who listens to you argue on the phone again when her dad says he can’t make it to the zoo date that he promised- all while she sits at the nurses hub with her backpack and a sad face and- “he’s not coming- is he?” But Jack says he’ll take her- he’ll take her to the zoo instead. Asking if she’d like that and if you would mind and the three of you spend the day together- like a family would. Where she sits on his shoulders and points out the elephants or where he helps her lean over to feed the giraffe or when he buys her as many stuffed animals as her little arms can carry. Who passes her to you- when she’s asleep and dozed off in his arms and when she settles back against you she whispers- “goodnight daddy.”
⭒ Jack Abbot ⭒ Part 02 ⭒ Part 03 ⭒ Part 04 ⭒ Part 05 ⭒ Part 06 ⭒ Part 07 ⭒ Part 08 ⭒ Part 09
boots! that’s my ego boost! | @targaryenluvs
javadi and santos whine about the seemingly never ending pairs of heels you have. is it your fault your boyfriend loves to see your ego boosted?
kissed and made up | @/targaryenluvs
after pissing off your boyfriend in the late hours of night before his shift, you decide to bring him a nice big lunch during said shift. except not one of his coworkers knew you were actually real, let alone oh so gorgeous and sweet!
beyond infatuation | @rizbert
jack abbot is obsessed with you and he’s going to make it everybody else’s problem
menace!jack | masterlist | @yournamesnob
Two idiots in love being absolutely fucking annoying with each other and making it everyone's problem
Visiting Jack at work | @dixonlvr
Secret relationship | @/dixonlvr
3 times The Pitt suspected your relationship with Jack and 1 time you revealed it.
𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐄𝐲𝐞𝐬, 𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 | @springtyme
The night takes a turn when Jack finds you in the ER hallway with two little girls who look unmistakably like you. He realizes there’s a whole part of your life he never knew about. But maybe, if you let him, he’d really like to understand it.
You better think about your next words carefully, or they will be your last ones | @savemefromanepicoftimewasted
Babies, and older children alike had always gravitated towards you, it’s why you’d chosen pediatrics. Jack had been all for it, wanting you to be happy with your choice and not end up regretting it down the line.
husband jack abbot | @satcrns
…for I am the Lord who heals you | @mercury-retrogay
Tragedy often forces action. After Jack Abbot lost his wife, he tried to raise his kid the best he could, now as a single father. And he got damn lucky with the one he got. So when you're invited to go to Pitt Fest with your friends, he isn't overly worried about you making bad choices. But it was never your choices he should have worried about.
The Pitt’s Baby | @xreader1989
My Girl | @fleurrain
The PITT didn’t expect to ever meet the girl that had changed Abbot’s mood for the better, much less under the conditions you arrived in. After a quick thinking move saves a patient’s life, Abbot can’t withhold the pride he has for you and your work.
boyfriend!jack abbot x reader fluff | @abbottini
Aces | @somethingeh
you know jack isn't looking for anything serious, so what do you do when you find yourself with a very permanent problem?
you are in love | @cowboylikemillie
Walking HR Violations | @neo-nomatrix
The Pitt knows you and Jack Abbot as two of the best emergency medicine doctors they have. They tend to see a different side when the clock hits 7:00 am. A side in which, HR should likely be involved.
a coparenting blurb | @det-loki
Staring Problem | @gemmawritess
You can’t take your eyes off your boyfriend but he can’t take his eyes off of you either
a little bit of sunshine [masterlist] | @mayfieldss
over a series of night shifts you become acquainted with your coworker Jack Abbot. He's a stranger to you more than a coworker, but as work pushes you closer together, tensions rise and what is supposed to be a friendly relationship becomes something more. Slow burn Jack abbot x sunshine!reader fem!reader
worth every penny | @euon111a
the best kind of company
Thirty Minutes to Tell the Truth | @adisillusionedauthor
My hand was the one you reached for (all throughout the great war) | @teamhappyme
nightmares, part two | @bunnywritesfanfic
i bet on losing dogs | @leviathanspain
old habits die hard
jack abbot during cuffing season | @i9chicago
Does Your Mother Know? | @punkgeekcryptid
First day [1], pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5 | @tedmustache
What was supposed to be a simple first day, turns into the kind of dramatic entrance people tend to remember… especially Dr. Jack Abbot.
Jack Abbot x Robinavitch!Reader
Your Move, Abbot | @jrabbott
Jack and reader are in a situationship, but readers ready for a relationship. Jack isnt but Liam Johnson the neonatologist is.
Embarrassed? | @/jrabbott
Reader thinks Abbot's embarrassed of her
PUPPY | @xobiggs
falling for the older guy at work.
The Bet | @alexandritte80
With Mrs. Abbot heavily pregnant, the hospital makes a bet. Who will win?
You Should’ve Asked | @deliciousangelfestival
You keep your personal life private at your new job. Until one day, your son’s innocent answers spark wild office gossip about your “mysterious” husband. Everyone thinks they’ve figured him out.
The Neighborhood Doctor | @/deliciousangelfestival
Dr. Jack Abbott can handle anything in the ER. Gunshot wounds, nonstop chaos, and barely any sleep are all part of his routine. That is his world, and he manages it just fine. What he cannot stand is something as simple as a neighborhood BBQ. But when his wife asks him to go, he shows up anyway. His plan is simple. Say a few unsettling ER stories, make his exit early, and get through the night. The outcome, however, does not go the way he expects.
No Excuses, Part 2 | @/deliciousangelfestival
Dr. Jack Abbott walks into his night shift expecting another case, until he steps into the trauma room and finds the patient isn’t a stranger, but someone from his past.
In Sickness and in Health | @moondustfairies
You didn't want to worry Jack and his overprotective nature, but when you started to feel ill, all you wanted was your husband.
Baby Blues | @/moondustfairies
Jack comes to visit you at work on his day off, bringing with him your little baby girl.
Eulogy | @porchlightfairy
while jack is at work, reader experiences undescribable pain. come to find out she was suffering from an ectopic pregnancy and is rushed into the hospital during shift.
Over It | @saccharinespring
Jack Abbot broke your heart without rhyme or reason. Now you’re just trying to get over it, despite his constant attempts in not letting you.
It Had To Be You | @munsonpetal
you and jack abbot have known each other for five years. over those five years, feelings on both ends began to bloom. will one failed date finally give one of you the courage to admit your feelings?
chain of command | @hearts4hughes
3 + 1 | @/hearts4hughes
three times jack abbot flirted with you without you realizing, and the one time you realized
casual !! | @/hearts4hughes
Burnt Toast | @bitchinbarzal
jack is on school drop off duty.
The Edge | @/bitchinbarzal
jack realises he has little eyes on him now.
my old guy | @/bitchinbarzal
jack can face a lot but your four year old is something that scares him.
Rumors | @girlmeetsworld2005
Love Burns | @lostinmyownwaves
Reader is a firefighter who is married to THE Jack Abbot. You and your team respond to a call that goes side ways. Jack comforts you through it all. Basically just Jack Abbot fluff with a smidge of angst. Also Robby acts like a big brother to you.
Emergency Cinnamon Roll | @/lostinmyownwaves
Reader meets Jack Abbot when her neighbor is in peril and sent to the ER. After he helps them out, reader wants to show her appreciation and bring him a sweet treat.
Staying Overtime | @pellucid-constellations
You and Jack had been dancing around each other for months, playing a game that neither of you would label. But then you took that leap, pushed the boundaries, and Jack had to confront just how much he cared about you. He just wished it hadn’t been like this.
secret baby with jack abbot… | @soulluvrrr
adjustment period | @whatif-ialreadydid
growing pains from your switch to the night shift with your attending come to a head
“Pearls” | @/whatif-ialreadydid
a missing earring sends you down a spiral
meet me at our spot | @/whatif-ialreadydid
after a month of meeting jack after your shifts, you finally resolve to do something about the pesky little crush on your boss
Dad jack | @richeeduvie
Jack struggles to keep his cool as he watches the chubby, perfect baby you’ve given him get her shots…
Jelly Little Baby | @/richeeduvie
Jack attempts to be kiss the love of his life, his obsession, his everything, the mother of his child, you. He attempts this in front of said chubby child. Which…was a big, big mistake.
birthday blues | @/richeeduvie
You can barely handle your excitement to give Jack his birthday cake...until you overhear him complaining about your all too peppy behavior to Robby.
cry into him | @/richeeduvie
A cruel patient has you in tears in the supply closet, and when Jack is the one to find you, the need to comfort is only made up of instinct.
SPRING INTO SUMMER MASTERLIST | @avidplutofan
first loves always come and go as the years of life ebb and flow. but one thing is constant in your life. one person, really, that refuses to leave your life completely. because no matter where you goes, jack abbot is there to remind you that he’s always there to stay.
ᴍʏ ᴏʟᴅ ᴍᴀɴ | @daehosunshine
You’re always teasing Jack about being older, but when the hospital faces a potential cyber attack and you’re the one who don't know how to use a fax machine, the tables turn.
Oblivious to Him | @mabel-777
jack likes his younger resident, but, you are completely oblivious to it, thinking he’s just a nice attending.
Keep It Secret | @/mabel-777
trying to keep a secret relationship around your coworkers.
Nothing More | @/mabel-777
jack thought you were nothing more than a casual relationship, but when he lost you, he realized how badly much he screwed up.
tick tock, biological clock | @mariasont
you’re proactively planning your fertility like a responsible med student. dr. abbot, however, would greatly prefer you planned literally anything else.
hostile work environment | @/whatif-ialreadydid
jack pushes your boundaries at work, then finds a way to make it up to you
Nightshift!sunshine!reader | @/whatif-ialreadydid
say please | @/euon111a
he can’t help that he likes you more than others
Just Tipsy | @/gemmawritess
Sleepy and totally ‘just tipsy’, your boyfriend is happy to look after you.
Leggy! | @/richeeduvie
a collection of fics where the beautiful, oddball daughter you gave Jack becomes attached to his prosthetic as much as she is attached to him…
Speaking In Plurals | @/pellucid-constellations
When Jack met you, his world shifted. He began to speak in plurals, in groups of three. It was him, and then it was you, and then it was Penny. He’d do anything for his girls, and he wanted to make that clear. Official. Concrete with titles and questions and the ring he kept mulling over. And then life happened.
Someone Noticed, Part 2, Part 3 | @/deliciousangelfestival
Jack Abbott chose the night shift for the quiet. Fewer voices. Less panic. Easier to control. He didn’t need recognition. Never asked for it. So it threw him off when someone started noticing him.
Private Patient, Part 2 | @/deliciousangelfestival
What if Jack Abbott ends up with a rich wife instead of being the provider?
When Jack catches you out walking to work in 30-degree weather alone in the fucking dark, he has no choice but to realize his feelings for you are far past romantics and hurdling towards possession. That only becomes more apparent when he catches you on Robby's motorcycle after.
WORD COUNT: 15.7K || Based on the implication we’re gonna see Robby riding a motorcycle in season 2. I am sure Reader's a nurse. dot dot dots like no tomorrow. Graphic depiction of blood, wounds, and vehicular accidents. Inaccurate medical terminology and situations. Age gap between Jack and the reader. Jealousy, possession, romantic entitlement. Dr. Robby x Reader, if you squint like there's no tomorrow. You can read this as a part of the series Lengths, but also not. Might get ocish 🥸🥸. Angst. Jack goes coo coo.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
AUTHOR MASTERLIST THE LENGTHS PART ONE SHIFTING @pearlstiare
!!!PART TWO!!!
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
Early evening on a Winter Street. Just before he’ll find you at the nurses' station with your glitter pen and the smile he can’t bear with the cheeks he tries to make blush all at once--
The city is already dipped in that steel twilight, where the breath of drunkards fog, the drunkards he’ll probably have to treat deeper in the night.
Wind cuts harshly through the collars of late commuters, but Jack? He’s gonna be early to work, probably. Name him trauma attending of the month.
You are the most ridiculous, resentfully genius nurse and woman and person I have ever met. I wish I could blame you for something.
He’s behind the wheel of his battered black truck, thermos in the cup holder, window down to breathe in the sting of the too-cool air. Jack doesn’t know why he does this, other than the fact that it’s a place where pain can feel good.
When does that happen? Not in the Pitt, that’s for fucking sure. It’s against his medical oath to claim pain can be tolerated. But…that’s only in reference to patients, not him, right?
There’s no way you’ve possibly beaten him to the E.R. One thing you resent him for? It’s the way he’s quick. Casually so. And he’s not too humble about that, if Jack says so himself.
Ah. Fuck.
Jack shakes his head stiffly; it’s more like one slight jolt to snap him out of it because thinking of you while he’s on his way to work with you is as ridiculous as you are. It’s uncharacteristically pathetic of him, maybe. There. Maybe that’s something he can blame you for.
“Nice use of your blinker, bmw-bastard-bitch.”
Jack nearly whispers it, but that asshole of a driver is what gets his mind to slip away from you, so…thank them for that. Traffic’s slow, and he begins flipping through mental protocol for the night. Staffing numbers, open beds, that critical case that might get transferred down from Fox Chapel–
“Dr. Abbot, there is no need to dryly sass me when all I’ve been doing is assisting you like a champ.”
“...You are. You are assisting me very well, which is why I need to sass you. With all the praise Dr. Robby’s been giving you, I can’t have your ego building on me.
Jack’s mouth twitches widely before he jolts his head once again to slap whatever was gonna decorate his face.
Just leave him alone, kid.
…He hopes you’re still wearing your pink shoes after he teased you about them for the fortieth time. Jack likes them. They’re…visual stimulation for the slow shifts.
Okay. Traffic? Traffic’s slow. Staffing’s short on him. Of course, but there seemed to be an endless number of open beds last night. That critical case is definitely getting transferred down from Fox Chapel, poor, bare-budget fucks–
“What the fuck?”
And there. He sees her.
You.
Across the street. Walking alone. Head down, coat zipped tight, tote bag slung over one shoulder and a thermos at your hip. But then…Jack’s focus locks in.
You’re wearing your pink sneakers and a wool beanie with little specks of glitter. Your badge is clipped to your coat, which bounces with every hurried step. You’re tugging your scarf higher, cheeks are flushed from the cold…because, of course, they are. It’s 30 fucking degrees. Your fingers–they’re bare. What the hell? Do you not own gloves?
Jack’s jaw locks. His foot eases off the gas before his eyes narrow like he’s tracking a threat. Because this, sleepy?
This isn’t cute. It isn’t quaint. It isn’t you not knowing what’s good for you because you believe the world is perfect and kind, and everything Jack could roll his eyes at you for thinking in the first place, only to let up and realize that, eventually, that’s what makes you you. That’s what been prodding at his fucking heart like a badly held needle to skin in all the months he’s known you.
This? This is dangerous.
Jack slows the truck. Stops. His fingers flex around the steering wheel, because seriously. What the hell are you doing walking alone?
He watches, heartbeat climbing—not from the initial surprise, but from…a casual, dry rage. Hey, if he weren’t in therapy, he probably wouldn’t know how to name that feeling. But you–you’re so damn feminine in the way you move, the bounce in your step, the shiny pastel accessories clipped to your grey scrubs. Even the ridiculous pink thermos swinging at your hip looks out of place in the darkening, frozen street.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He mutters his question before making the next turn hard and quick, looping the block with what’s probably muscle memory before pulling up to the curb just ahead of your path. He flashes his lights once.
If you keep walking cause you think he’s some creep, he’s going to drag you into this truck.
You’re blinking in surprise, and Jack knows you’re hesitating when you don’t recognize the truck just yet. But when you do, you smile as you pick up your pace, jogging the last few steps to him.
Jack rolls the passenger window down.
“Hey, Dr. Abbot! What are you doing out here so early? Trying to beat me agai–”
“Get in.”
Jack says it flatly. Eyes unblinking. He doesn’t care for or about your face wearing confused, slight hurt when he does.
You flutter those eyelashes quickly, and this time…isn’t gonna work on him, sleepy. Again. Not this time.
“Wait–what? Jack, I’m only five minutes from the hospital. Ain’t a big deal.”
Jack doesn’t take his eyes off you, because what is wrong with you? Why are you…out here alone, putting yourself in danger? Whether that be the cold or something–someone else. And you don’t accept his first offer?
His first order.
His voice goes sharper.
“It’s below freezing. It’s already dark. You’re walking alone. I said get in.
Jack doesn’t know there’s something in his voice that silences any further teasing from you, but his eyes flicker to the way there’s hesitation in your hands, and then he uses his to grip the wheel of his truck.
“Jack, I’m not a baby bird. It’s Pittsburgh. People walk.”
“Not women alone. Not at night. Not in that.
Jack gestures to your coat, which is too thin. Your shoes, too pink.
You frown. “What’s wrong with my coat? And…how are you still finding a moment to get on me for my shoes?”
“What’s wrong with it? Jesus,–” Your name comes out of his mouth in a near groan, and he doesn’t understand why your mouth parts slightly at that. “You dress like a candy striper in an alleyway. You ever heard of blending in? That maybe, if you’re gonna walk alone in the fucking dark, then try not wear something that screams “I’m the bubbliest woman on earth?" Seriously, sleepy.”
Your frown deepens, and maybe Jack will feel guilt over that later. But not now. He needs you to understand.
“Wow. Rude.”
You’ve never seen him like this before. Sure, he forced you to report that flirtatious old man, whom you swore was just a victim of dementia, who thought you were his wife, to HR. Sure, sometimes you catch the dry snark in his quips whenever you get “too” smiley with your Mel or Dr. Langdon. But this…this confuses you as much as it hurts you.
“You don’t get to be oblivious. Not out here. You walk like nothing can touch you, like no one’s watching. You’re you. You? You're all…pink shoes and wide eyes, and you talk to strangers like they’re already friends.”
He breathes in sharply through his nose before he’s not breathing at all.
“And that’s exactly the kind of person who doesn’t come home one night.”
The wind picks up. You stare at him. He doesn’t look away. Not now, but it’s the way there’s difficulty in that, difficulty where there never was with anyone else.
What are you doing to him?
“Jack...you think I’m that careless? I'd never...”
Jack blinks. No. Because you’re fucking perfect.
It’s nearly gritted.
“No. I think." Jack's head shifts stiffly. He swallows. "I just...think the world doesn’t deserve someone like you walking through it alone believing in it.”
You’re quiet, and Jack ignores that feeling that he purposefully doesn’t name…because it’s almost something like fear. That he went too far, which he couldn’t possibly have because you need to understand what you’re doing to him–
To yourself.
You’re quiet. Then, almost shyly–something so unlike you unless he’s confident enough to want to make your cheeks flush. “You always this dramatic?”
Jack reaches the other seat to open the passenger door.
“Get in. You need a ride, you call me.”
His eyes flicker to the hesitation in your hands, but he can tell you see there’s no point in arguing, which is good.
Because something in his voice says this isn’t up for debate.
“Thank you.”
“Do not worry about that, kid.”
Jack waits until you're buckled before he pulls back into the lane. His jaw’s still set. His shoulders are still stiff. But when he glances at you, really looks at you, there’s something in his eyes that’s closer to fear than frustration. But you don’t know that. He hopes you...or he never will.
He rolls up the passenger and driver windows. He turns on the heat with a tense grip on the wheel. His prosthetic aches—not that he feels it under the rush of adrenaline simmering through him just because he found you taking a solo stroll.
“I’ve walked that street a hundred times, Jack. I’m fine.”
“You ever hear a woman say that when we wheel her into the Pitt with a stab wound? With—”
Jack stops himself. No breath. No sigh. Just a slight head shake.
With severe injuries from sexual assault?
The rest of his question is said dryly. You falter, looking down at your hands. And quietly, almost to himself—
“You don’t get to be 'fine' when it’s dark and cold and you look like you’ve got a target on your back.”
Silence settles between them.
You don’t argue this time. You just sit beside him, small in the passenger seat, watching him out of the corner of your eye.
Jack stares straight ahead...cause he’s realizing something.
This isn’t just about attraction getting the best of his character, or admiration that’s shot in the head when he realizes the perfect, smartest nurse has the bright idea to walk in the cold streets of Pittsburgh after dark. It’s not even that reckless flutter he feels every time you brush past him in the trauma bay.
This is deeper. Sharper. Something dangerous in its own right.
Because you don’t even realize how vulnerable you are. How trusting. How bright in a world that eats people like you alive.
And Jack…he shouldn’t be at the point where he’d burn down the city if it meant keeping you safe, because that’s fucking weird. At most, he should feel…entitlement in his romantics. But this is not romantic. This is protective.
Too protective.
And that realization fucking punches him almost more than seeing you walking alone ever could.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
The hallway’s warmth fogs Mel’s glasses as you see her on her way out. She nods before she greets you and Jack brightly. The way of her adorable nature is almost enough to forget where you just came from.
But when her smile drops at Jack's inability to really greet her back, it all comes seeping through.
"Don't tell me you forgot how to smile--"
"I'm betting my other leg that that case from Fox Chapel is being transferred down. I heard it's psych-central, and that's your house. You'll be the front nurse on that, I'm sure."
You unwrap your scarf, cheeks still flushed from the cold, while Jack shrugs off his jacket without saying much. You keep glancing sideways at him.
You still carry the weight of his earlier tone, how surprised you are by how…rattled he got.
It’s usually not hard for you to make your voice sit light, but here, you push it through your smile.
“Sooo…you yell at all our nurses for walking to work?”
“No. I would if I caught them.”
You raise your brows, but he doesn’t elaborate when you do. He just fishes through his coat pocket, pulling out gloves. His.
Worn black leather, and his hands…they’re big. The gloves are too big for you by a mile. He holds them out.
You smile.
What is your doctor doing?
“Is this an apology? Or some sort of peace offering?”
You watch his eyes focus on the gloves before they flicker up into yours. And the intensity of his brown eyes is telling you he’s still serious, and you can’t have that. Not after the way he thought you were deserving of…whatever the moment on the street was.
Maybe he’s just having a bad start to his shift, and you’re receiving the brunt of it, because he cannot be this worried over you, because you’re worth Jack Abbot’s worry.
You don't deserve his worry, or his casual, dry genius. You don't, and you can't have him pretending that you do.
So, you laugh softly, but Jack doesn’t crack. He just pushes the gloves into your hands more firmly.
“Keep them.”
He says it quietly. You blink. Your voice goes startled.
“Jack, you don’t have to–”
“I said keep them.”
Your eyes lock for a heartbeat too long. You can feel it in the way yours speeds up.
You hold the gloves now, your smile gentling. Now? You’re less amused, you guess. More touched and blushed, but Jack’s already looking away, pulling open his locker and putting away his backpack like it’s just another shift, like he didn’t just nearly yell at you on the sidewalk for doing something you’ve done a thousand times before, only to then gift you with something you don’t think he’s ever lent out to anyone.
“You know, for someone who’s probably the fortieth most dramatic person in the E.R, this is kinda…reactive. Possessive, doc. Where's H.R. when I need them?”
Truly. You mean it as a tease. Just a soft joke. Not even as something to test the waters, but Jack only crosses his arms against his chest.
“Just wear them, sleepy. If you paid attention, maybe you'd see that you don't live in the Bahamas."
There. You think he's over it with his dry joke along the slight smirk on his lips.
You slip the gloves on.
"Not now, we are literally about to start our shift-"
"I know, I'm just trying them on."
They hang a little over your fingers. Loose around your palms. You flex both hands. You study the way his warmth feels on your hands.
God. You try not to blush.
What is wrong with this man? What is wrong with you?
...Nothing, really, because who wouldn't feel their heart leap out of their chest when Jack Abbot is like this in his concern? In the slight lines and strong jaw of his face.
You try not to shudder when his hands take yours, casually slipping the gloves to fold them. He shoves them in your tote bag, nothing but the word nothing on his face.
"Does it bother you?"
"What bothers me?"
Jack doesn't blink at your question.
"The reaction." His eyes take a half-second glance at someone passing by, only to face back to you, his head shifted, and his voice is slightly quieter. "Would you rather me not care about you?"
The word not is nearly dragged out in the back of Jack's throat. The entire question is joking. Not teasing. Just asked like it’s nothing.
His mouth twitches when you do end up shuddering, because how can you actually not?
"...I could take it or leave it."
Jack nods with sarcasm in his thinning lips and narrowing eyes. He crosses his arms.
"Yeah. Okay, sleepy."
And Jack doesn’t say another word—he just heads for the trauma bay with that stiff walk, the one that comes when he’s thinking too much, when the limp you wouldn't know was there if you weren't paying attention disappears because he's focused.
You watch him go before you tug out his gloves from your bag. You don't laugh. You don't roll your eyes or come up with an internal quip to lessen whatever's at the pit of your stomach now.
You just put on his gloves to feel the warmth of them.
Of him.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
Two days later. Sun is setting, but there is a resentful solace that doesn’t exist in the dark. Jack doesn’t think there’s anything about you he could call dark. He’d kill himself before betting on it.
Robby’s half-dressed in street clothes, which is pretty unusual for Jack to see. The sweat’s still clinging to the back of his neck from the shift that just ended for him. Jack leans against the lockers, arms crossed, watching his friend shove his scrub bottoms into his bag with a little too much force.
Jack’s not feeling all too swell at a quip from his friend, the friend who’s obviously in a rush to go somewhere, still had time to make.
“Didn’t know you were on hall patrol now, Abbot.”
“I’m not?”
Robby grins stupidly for a second or so. “You sure, brother? Cause I heard…what? A day? Two days ago, Dana saw you with sunshine. Thought you were gonna drag her in by the scarf.”
Jack doesn’t take to the bait, even though and because it’s fucking stupid. He just picks something off his scrub top and mutters–
“She was walking alone.”
“I know, that’s what Dana said she told her. And the scarf thing? Her words. Not mine. But uh–” Robby’s head shifts, tilting slightly with his eyes looking to the tile. He zips up his bag. “Walking alone as an adult. I know we don’t usually talk about things like this–I’m in no place to say anything–”
“And here we are.”
Jack finally takes himself away from the lockers to put his backpack in his. The pause sits for a minute, and there he thinks about it.
Justification and defensiveness comes way too easy to him.
“If it was just you peeved enough to make her roll her eyes, that would’ve been that. But with what Dana was saying, just about the way you were acting when you came in…people walk in cities. Like, millions of people do. Every day, Jack.”
Jack doesn’t turn to Robby. He stares at the bottom of his locker.
Jesus Christ, he wishes he could make this about his disbelief. He wishes how his inability to find this conversation funny and not targeted would be the result of the frustration over why everyone is questioning his frustration–his frustration over an E.R nurse who would know the dangers of walking alone at night as a woman found walking alone at night as a woman.
And sure. Yeah. It’s still there in his usual, casual confidence, but–
He knows what this is. He’s known it from the day he found you out in the street. He knows that you could’ve been walking in the middle of the day, sun down upon you and…whatever. You could’ve been with someone.
And he’d still feel this heaviness in his chest telling him to go after you.
He’d question if it’s smart for you to walk to work in the heat with scrubs and a sleeved shirt underneath. He’d question who it was you were walking with. He’d lecture you for riding with a stranger if you took an uber.
It would be easier to not feel so damn guilty about it if he knew you weren’t so damn capable and compentent. That would make his possession over you valid. But…here they are.
“You wouldn’t stop if you saw one of our nurses or residents taking a thirty minute stroll in the dark while they’re trudging through the snow? That you wouldn’t question their judgement, Robby?”
“...No. No. I would. I’d stop, I’d offer a ride. And walking by yourself when it’s dark out in the cold isn’t the best or most logical situation. Maybe I’d tell her that…I don’t know.”
Jack finally turns around, looking Robby in the eyes when he lets him. They stand under that familiar mechanical humming. The walls of the Pitt at work.
“For her sake, I’d bring up that I’d rather see her come into work in a cab and not an ambulance that had to have been called because she was robbed and hurt.”
“There. That is what I am saying. That is–” Jack crosses his arms before sitting down on the bench. “It’s freezing. And dark. And she’s...look, she’s not street-sharp. You know her. Not cautious. Not really. She probably talks to every cab driver like they’re her therapist.”
“Wouldn’t this not be a situation if she took a cab instead?”
Jack stops his breath. Smartass.
“And what about us or the place she’s dedicated her life to scream caution, brother?”
Jack shakes his head before focusing in on Robby’s face, because as much as this isn’t the most valid anger, it’s also the most valid anger and why can’t Robby see this?
“...She had no gloves.”
Jack says it curtly, only going lower and louder on the word had.
The closest he gets to turning away first is when Robby’s brows raise.
“...No gloves? That’s your breaking point?”
No. It’s the point where he realizes you matter more to him than you should, cause you have to matter to him a whole fucking lot–cause he shouldn’t feel like this and the only possible explanation as to why his heart is gonna jump out of his fucking chest at the sight of you is because you made it so he finds himself too worried at every step and too proud at every accomplishment you make with a needle or IV.
Because you’re too pretty and competent and bright and everything he can’t handle. So…the most you can do is allow him is worry.
Even when that worry scares the shit out of him.
“I am saying, statistically, women alone at night are more likely to–”
“I know, Abbot. We know. But–” Robby looks up to the ceiling before crossing his arms. Jack laxes his cross to rest his palms on his knees.
“You were worked up.”
“How could you know? I didn’t monologue in front of Dana or anyone–” Jack blinks in his breaking. His head tilts before he glances a glare at the door. “...It wasn’t just Evans who mentioned it, was it?”
Robby doesn’t nod, but his narrowing eyes give way.
And Jesus Christ, it has to be a good thing. The usual thing of his character–the guilt in the first question Jack asks in his head. The question that’s aided by his hands turning into fists for a second or so.
It’s not ‘Why would you tell Robby?’. Not ‘Did what he did bother you that much that you brought it up a day or two later?’
It’s ‘Why the fuck were you talking to Robby in the first place?’.
…The guilt makes him aware, right?
“Concern, that’s warranted, Jack. More than. Also, don’t think I’m in a place to care but…I think it’s safe with the way you two act around each other to say that you wouldn’t have reacted like that if it were anyone else. And the way you reacted was a bit…for you, for you–it was just a little over the top. I mean...with the way you've been reacting to her more aggressive patients have been...a lot."
Jack's words come out defensive, fast. And there goes the fucking guilt.
The patients? Why is he bringing up your slew of sleezy overdoses and drunks?
“You’re right, we’re good with each other, but we don’t usually talk about things like this. But if you’d like to know, I wasn’t that worked up, and even if I was, you are also right on how we don’t need our nurses hitching rides by gurnies.”
“...You’re worked up right now.”
…Is he?
Jack gives Robby a look, dry as desert from forever ago.
“She had no gloves, Robby.”
He couldn’t know that his fellow attending makes the decision to smile smally, it’s not natural, it’s a choice he makes in chance to have Jack get more worked up.
What are you exactly doing to this guy?
Maybe the smile becomes more genuine with the question popping into Robby’s head.
“This interrogation is stopping you from wherever you need to go. Go.”
It’s definitely more genuine when Jack decides he wants the previous conversation to end. Robby nods his head.
“...Date?”
Robby scoffs. “No.”
“Something with Jake?”
“...Nah–just taking the new bike out. Just got her from a guy upstate. Jack, you gotta see this thing. I’m trying to be casual about it, but I guess, uh, sly biker isn’t my style.”
…Oh God, Robby.
Jack knows this isn’t a mid-life crisis. Not really, probably. What he knows is that E.R doctors tend to be adrenaline junkies, and sometimes they tend to be adrenaline junkies with the habit of suicidal ideation. Sometimes you get MDs turning into gamblers, sex addicts, drug addicts. Sometimes they put themselves somewhere dangerous.
Sometimes they buy a motorcycle.
He watches Robby scratch the back of his neck. His own expression doesn’t shift much, but there’s a delay—just enough time for a beat of concern to flicker behind his eyes because…yeah. A motorcycle.
“You get a helmet too, or just the death wish?”
He tries to say it casually. Robby laughs with a slow blink. “You used to jump out of helicopters. Don’t come for me.”
“Yeah, with a parachute. And orders. And a med evac team on standby. And I’m not exactly bragging about my military resume–”
Not now. Jack swallows. He pretends Robby doesn’t for the sake of keeping the conversation light.
“You jealous, man?”
Jack snorts, lips twitching in something that might be a smile.
“Jealous of bugs in my teeth? No thanks.”
“You’re not invited anyway…” Robby swings his bag over his shoulder. “Grandpa.”
Jack’s head jolts back before he turns his palms up to the ceiling.
“One, you on every technicality is closer to being a papa more than me. Two, you told me I have to see it. That’s an invitation. I am welcome. Three, I’m saying–you know better. You’ve been in the trauma bay long enough to know that.”
He knows this conversation won’t exactly go anywhere, because Robby’s stubborn as shit. And that’s okay. He’s an adult. Jack’s sure he won’t be doing any BMX tricks around the block. But still, the reasoning for a sudden motorbike is obvious, and he can’t help but question. But the questions turn into quips, and he’ll…his friend will be okay.
Robby simply shrugs before grabbing his keys from the locker.
“I need something, Jack. Maybe it’s good to find an outlet that isn’t running laps around the hospital. Like you. And me. And everyone else in here. Just, gotta get the edge of somehow.”
That’s the first time Jack’s posture falters.
“The edge off what, exactly?”
He sees it quietly and again, Robby gives him a vague, dismissive shrug as he makes his way out. Doesn’t answer. Jack doesn’t push. But he watches.
We don’t need to find each other on the rooftop again.
“Just–don’t go looking for chaos. You know how it wins. Often. And usually.”
Robby pauses at the door.
“Yeah.” His voice is softer. “I know.”
Then he’s gone. Jack keeps himself there for a bit, standing up to stare at Robby’s empty locker that he never actually locks, his reflection faint in the metal, its decorations of scratches.
He’s not judging. Seriously. He just knows the feeling too well, and sometimes the feeling takes you over, promises you you deserve to feel it while telling you all the shitty ways you can get rid of it. Some of them get addicted to adrenaline. Some to noise. Some to numbness. Jack isn’t perfect in that department, he can’t be when he finds being co-dependent with his work and the Pitt ideal. That’s not healthy, right? No. It’s not. And he doesn’t care. Still, the guy’s trying to keep his addictions to minimum.
His head snaps at the sound of a familiar voice trailing past the locker room. Jack makes his way out quickly, ignoring the ache of prosthetic when his does.
He calls you out by your last name before he turns into the hall.
“When did you start gossiping with Robby–”
He stops when all he finds is Santos. A very confused looking Santos.
His mouth parts. He grips the door frame before pulling on both ends of his stethoscope.
“Sorry. I thought you were someone else. You can…continue to go wherever you were going.”
“...You thought I was sunshine?”
“Santos, I am apologizing. Do not push it.”
“You heard me and you thought I was her? I sound nothing like her...I mean, I feel complimented–”
“Go. Now. Thank you.”
Santos leaves with what Jack thinks is a smile. He blinks once.
He is trying.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
The trauma bay smells a little more like antiseptic than usual. An overhead light flickers. The night, as much as it started with Robby’s confrontation, is good. It’s been a long night, but the kind that Jack thrives in. Thrives in exhaustedly, but thrives none-the-hell-less.
And sure, even with you as his little snitch, it’s easy to stay sharp when you’re across the room.
“I think I’m having heart palpitations, Dr. Abbot. The means it’s been a good shift, right?”
You pull off a pair of blood-streaked gloves. You’re breathing a little harder than usual, but of course, you’re smiling that smile of yours that’s somehow more energizing than cocaine. He’s guessing. Whatever the comparison, it’s resentfully more energizing.
He watches you. As always nowadays. Screw you.
“I’m not saying our nurses fumble their way through central lines. But you? You, sleepy, are like a damn sniper. Solid work tonight.”
He says it dryly. You raise a brow.
“A sniper?”
“One shot. Clean. No mess. I blinked and you already had it taped.”
You snort as you toss your gloves and it’s streaky red into a bin. “I know what a sniper is. Just...that is probably the weirdest compliment I’ve ever gotten.”
Jack shrugs, eyes still on you.
It’s a compliment. His compliment. Just take it.
“I meant it as high praise. Snipers are efficient. Focused. Lethal.” He cocks his head to the side. “But unlike you, they’re usually the silent type.”
You obviously don’t get his little jab is specific to you talking about him with Robby, but he lets that go when you let out a half laugh.
In the end, he’s sure it’s good that he’d rather have you laughing that tucked away in the corner of his truck.
“Okay. Doc, you are either flirting with me or insulting me and I genuinely can’t tell which one it is.”
Jack’s mouth twitches. “That is the beauty of it. I keep you guessing.”
He doesn’t answer your quip along your grin after. There’s only something quieter in his smirk–something he’s probably not gonna name because tonight was mostly good despite everything and he doesn’t want to ruin them.
“You are definitely flirting. So, no–I’m not finishing off your charts for you.”
…Whatever’s the quiet thing in the lines of his face must against his better judgement. It’s what got him flirting with you in the first place, what makes him softly slip up and find confident justification for said slip up later.
He pretends to focus on a chart that, no, you will not finish. You are bullshitting him. He’s always finishing your ends of a chart.
“You belong on the night shift.”
It’s an efficient thing inside of him, Jack guesses. It’s really quick to make him confident in his dry, low blurtings.
You blink. He looks into your eyes.
“What?”
“You’re good. Too fast. Again, you’re from a more than capable bunch, but even the best nurses trip over themselves when they get assigned to night. You…adjusted like you didn’t have to.”
Jack won’t notice the way your smile falters just a little. If he did, there goes his chance of staying confident. But he watches you shrug with folding arms, your soft voice slipping away from him.
“I learned how to survive in chaos a long time ago.”
…Yeah. He can tell. It’s why it’s unfortunate that it takes one moment of you out in the dark to know that doesn’t make a difference.
Beautiful, capable girl.
His eyes hold yours. He’d thank you for letting him if he didn’t realize the both of you are already post-shift. The morning sky is that bruised purple…like. Lavender. Lavender-grey. There’s headlights blinking down wet, frosted streets.
“Walking again, sleepy?”
“Just to the bus station. It’s not far.”
“Still dark out.”
“Thanks for the update, Weatherman. Jack, I promise–I’ll be fine. I’m not walking home, just making my way for the bus.”
He doesn’t smile as the both of you make your way down the hall to find the nurses’s station where you tucked your bag underneath a desk. You always leave him–
The Pitt so quickly. He watches you tie your scarf with practiced hands.
He feels himself press something more firm to the bottom of his throat. “I can pick you up. Drop you off. We work the same shifts most nights anyway. It’s just convenient.”
You look at him, and he’s beginning to accept the way your gentle expressions make him…falter’s a weak word. Ew. But also, it would be you, wouldn’t it?
“Jack–”
Get in his car. Let him take you home.
“It’s not a big deal. I’m offering. That’s all.”
It’s obvious you’re hesitating on a reply, but Jack isn’t exactly sure it’s because you don’t believe the concern or…that you can see it all too well.
“I’m suggesting, really. But–so you know. You don’t need to be out like that again. Not when I’m...when you have people willing to help you out.”
The latter is a bit more heavy on his chest, because that’s more likely to scare you away from him, right?
“...Okay, Jack. If I need it. I promise.”
Jack nods once, briskly. Like it’s settled. But there’s something tight in his jaw, something he doesn’t say. Another unnameable thing.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
Another evening stroll home.
You should’ve called a car.
You’re bundled up, yes–but your pace is one of a slowpoke. You’re tired. You’ve just finished a double, and it’s cold enough to bite at the tip of your nose. That damp Pittsburgh chill that’s seeping through your coat no matter how tightly you wrap it is almost as lovable as Whitaker, or the way Jack smells.
Golly, you’re smart, aren’t you?
But you needed the walk, the quiet. The feeling, however temporary, that you can move through the world on your terms. Even if it’s just ten blocks. Even if the reason why you first walked to the Pitt and then home isn’t as poetic. You just missed the bus twice that day.
You pull your scarf higher over your mouth, hugging yourself as you pass the bar on the corner, one Heather and Co. promised they would take you out to when you first started working in the E.R. You watch a man stumble out, so you’re obviously missing all the fun.
You try not to flinch when he shouts something you can’t catch. You don’t really look up, even. It’s just a man being loud, as drunk men are.
But what’s louder is that rumble of an engine slowing behind you. You can’t help the way your heart skips with a cold spike of adrenaline. That sound–there’s no way you don’t flinch at its rumble.
…Of course.
You sigh shakily, watching your breath managing to go cool against your scarf. It’s only a strange mix of relief and frustration tightening at your chest.
You doesn’t even have to look to know who it is.
“Jeez.”
You steel yourself when Jack’s truck crawls up beside you, the window sliding down with that creaky, mechanical whine.
Quick, what’s the quickest way you can settle your doctor?
“Hey…” You look down to your bundled hands. “At least I’m wearing your gloves this time.”
Jack’s pale face wears nothing. Not even a blink.
“I–”
“I thought you said if you needed a ride, you’d tell me.”
You close your eyes for a beat at how sharp Jack’s voice is. You count to three before you look at him.
Quick, what’s the quickest way you can settle yourself?
You watch your breath fog the air, scoffing light. “Are you, like, following me now?”
Inside of you is a wanting you want to berate. That thing–that stupid, anxious flutter it always does around Jack, the thing that almost kills your quips and banter and births blushing and a shyness you can barely handle. It’s still here now. When he’s berating you. For being a grown adult, making the decision to walk home.
“I just finished a double, you’re on your way to the Pitt…wh-why would I call you? That would make me some…l-leechy asshole. And you're gonna be late for work.”
Jack nods sharply. Blinks once. Your heart speed up.
“Leechy asshole. You made a good choice becoming an E.R nurse and not a poet, sleepy. Good choice.” You watch him press a button and faintly hear something like air start to blow. Heat. “Get in.”
That thing. The flutter. As much as it infuriates you, it’s a small, pathetic part of you that makes you feel safer seeing him here. And if this was any other situation–flirtations in a trauma bay, watching him go stern when a patient hits on you and such, you wouldn’t hate that part of yourself. You usually don’t.
But that part of you is what makes you almost immediately listen to him. It’s what makes you want to please him, satisfy whatever this is. And that? As much as you like him, you can’t let that happen when it’s not right, right? The way he worries isn’t…normal, right?
And you’re almost to the point of not caring, of getting in the car, and that can’t happen.
“You walked past a drunkard stumbling around with a bottle like it’s a damn .47.”
His voice goes low, irritated. Your jaw tightens.
You’re already at the point of feeling more embarrassed he caught you walking alone than angry at how he thinks he can act this way with you. And that’s…you’re 90 percent sure that’s not right either. So.
“That guy from the bar? You noticed tha…” You shake your head. “He didn’t even look at me, Jack.”
It’s obvious Jack isn’t satisfied with your defensiveness, because his voice lifts just enough that you know this is as close as he gets to raising it.
“That is not the point. He could’ve. Or–not him, but the next night you decide to play with hypothermia, you find someone who takes advantage of the situation you put yourself in.”
And there, with Jack’s lowering eyes and stern jaw, you feel your frustration curl into something meaner. Something tired. And you think he can see that, and that he can see why.
You feel satisfaction swell against the fatigue of having to justify every step you take, of denying any justification of why Jack can act like this.
“I’m not saying it would be your fault–I will…I am going to backtrack on that.”
“Yeah, Jack. You better if you want me to get in your truck.”
You couldn’t know how he takes that as an immediate challenge, even when he cocks his head lower and stiffly.
“You’re don’t have to assume that every single being on the sidewalk is a threat. I’m just saying I’d rather…I’d rather have someone be there for you if there is.”
You watch his jaw clench, and for second, you think you see something you’ll ignore.
An actual raw, ugly fear in his eyes. That, if it’s there, it doesn’t matter how unjustified it is, you think you might have to let Jack have it.
“I’ve told you this already. You know doctors don’t like to repeat lectures.” The wind gusts between you and the truck. “Get in.”
You look down at your shoes, fighting the way your throat aches, but when you begin to speak, you already know that your voice is gonna be smaller than it wants to be.
“I said I’d ask when I needed you.”
…You know this can’t just be about tonight, or about the last time he found you one the street. It’s never just one moment about tonight.
It’s every moment and shift and look you decided to find endearing–the times where Jack is waiting for something to go wrong so he can be the one to fix it.
And with his soft curls and demanding eyes, you can’t ignore how you feel more grateful than furious.
“And I said I didn’t want you waiting to you do.”
..It’s why you get in the truck with spite and cause all at once, why you buckle your seatbelt with stiff, careful hands before Jack pulls away from the curb without a word.
“You’re freezing.”
“...You’re dramatic.”
Jack pushes the passenger vent towards you, and the other passing car’s headlights catch the faint lines around his mouth, the one’s that appear when he’s close to a smile.
“You wanna talk about dramatic? You catch Robby's ride before he left?”
Both of you. Settled.
You stifle a giggle. "Yep. It’s…nice."
You have to stifle another when Jack’s head snaps at you.
“Do not tell me you’re a biker girl. Absolutely not–”
“No. Absolutely not. They are death traps…not that I’m judging your friend!”
The headlights pass, it’s nothing but the dark. You don’t see how Jack’s mouth falters, the way the lines disappear.
“Well. He’s your friend, too.”
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
He is definitely late for his shift, like you said. But hey…it’s not exactly your fault. The heater hums low, pushing warm air towards you, and with that, the exhaustion you garnered from your double, and your strolling through snow, Jack assumes it’s why you ended up curled into the passenger seat, head tilted against the window, lips parted in a dream or whatever. He doesn’t say a word, he drives.
One hand loose on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh near where his prosthetic makes him whole. The radio is off, the scanner is off, and both his phone and pager’s been buzzing on the dashboard. Both are ignored. The hospital is long behind both of you.
And he passed your street ten minutes ago. Hence, his being late isn’t your fault.
He’ll claim that it isn’t your fault, cause that means the reason as to why he’s not at the job he needs to feel like breathing matters isn’t you. It can’t be. There can’t be any more chances to let you be the one to ruin him. That’s not really fair to you.
“Sleepy?”
You’re only stirring. Jack doesn’t sigh, and he doesn’t remember when he decided to keep going…but he did. You’re here. You’re safe. You’re asleep. And Jack…Jack can’t remember when the hell was the last time someone trusted him like this. Outside of the Pitt and off of a gurney, away from charts and recommendation letters.
He watches your chest rise and fall with every breath, watches as your hair shifts as the truck bumps along a quiet neighborhood road. And really, he’ll tell himself it’s just about the peace in the way he tells him it’s not your fault. It’s cause of the stillness, the calm before a shift full of bleeders and chaos. But shit, when the hell has he ever been one to enjoy that calm?
No. Jack deserves the truth…most of the time. So. He knows it’s not the bullshit stillness or the calm.
It’s the way you look right now.
The prettiest, most unguarded thing curled up in his truck. You’re beautiful when you’re too competent for everyone’s good and when you’re the most vulnerable thing on earth. How dare you, kid?
The realization finds that it isn’t just admiration. It’s not just protectiveness. It’s…oh. God. Fuck him. It’s in the way that says…that says–
You’re mine. And if the world’s too loud, I’ll drive us through the quiet until morning just to prove it, as if the light is where I’ve found solace all along. Crazy.
He exhales slowly. Looks at the clock. 9:38 P.M.
Yeah, he’s miles past your apartment, nearly at that overlook where he sometimes parks when the weight of the world and past won’t lift. He’ll listen to his police scanner. Eat a ham sandwich.
He lets the truck roll to a gentle stop and puts it in park. He just…sits. He watches you.
…He lets himself need you, as if it’ll only be this one, unspoken moment he’s indulging in. He lets his chest feel warm and his shoulders roll with what might be a shudder without guilt. Without denial.
How can someone so beautiful make him feel ugly things?
“You don’t even know what you’re doing to me.”
You stir faintly, nose scrunching. You don’t wake. He doesn’t really move.
He promises he’ll drive you home soon, but not yet. Not while the world still lets you sleep beside him, and not while he’ll let himself feel good about it.
"...You know nothing. How impossible is that?"
His hand flexes. His head cocks as he closes his eyes at a little noise you make. Something like a rumble.
...Not while he feels this good.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
You blink awake on your couch. Not in Jack’s truck or in your bed as if you made it there by yourself. Your couch. A blanket is tucked over yours, and it’s not the one you usually fold on your chair. It’s heavy. Wool and worn.
Like it’s from Military surplus.
You realize it has to be Jack. It smells like him–sanitizer and cedar and whatever soap you keep trying to figure out the brand of. The thing that gets Jack to call you a freak. You shift.
Your shoes at next to the door, and your scarf is folder on the coffee table with your bag and thermos. It’s the pisces your brain has to pull together through the soft haze of the morning sun.
Jack didn’t drop you off at the curb. He didn’t nudge you awake with that gruff, but not unkind efficiency you and others know. You may not remember the ride, and you certainly don’t remember being carried inside, but clearly…you were.
He took off your shoes. Placed the blanket over you. Tucked you in.
Jeez, Jack. Why, why, why?
You can’t deny him when he does shit like this, and how can you think it when you end sniffing his blanket as end up wrapping it tighter around yourself, heart pounding quietly in the hush of your apartment.
“Jack…”
If you end up wrapping yourself in his warmth again, not because he orders you to, but because you want to, then how can you deny both of you?
"Jack."
You breathe in cedar.
"Sleepy, what in the hell is this?"
The next shift is a good shift. The kind that runs smooth and quiet, and Jack feels need in his throat. What, you may ask? Good question. He doesn’t know. But he won’t go looking for an answer. It’s been a good shift.
Jack, as usual, is dry-witted, and you’ve been laughing in a way that makes Dana more than once, smiling faintly at the inside jokes and medically-based flirtations between the two of you. You bump your shoulder into his when he grumbles at your handwriting on a chart. He tries not to smile and pretends not to watch you when you turn.
The ease of it all sits under the night he dropped you off and carried you inside, where he had to press his hand against your scrub top to find your keys.
Neither of you dares to lift said ease. You both assume it’s because the other doesn’t care to. Both of you are right. So, there’s that usual, perfect rhythm of nurse and doctor, that trust, and now that quiet, dangerous acceptance of whatever the hell you two are seeping through.
“Your notes are in all caps. Again.”
“That’s just passion. You should try it sometime.”
“If I have passion, it comes in black ink. Not red or pink.”
“Pity.”
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
You swear you’re not breaking bad.
You were really planning to get to work with anything that wasn’t your two feet, this time. But for the first time ever, your luck would have you, the bus ends up being twenty minutes early, before you can catch it after you were called in.
You had to make a choice. Jack…you guess he’d be satisfied with the way you thought of his offers (demands) first, but you knew today was his one day off. You would think he appreciates the way you thought about him with consideration.
An uber would’ve taken twenty minutes to get to you when it would take you twenty or so minutes to find yourself just in time for work. You made a choice, and really, it’s not the worst when you’re walking with the sun coming up instead of going down. It’s beautiful, honestly. You nearly forget what Jack would say, and you definitely can’t focus on the ache in your feet with how the glow of golden rises over Pittsburgh’s steel and brick bones.
You almost collapse from pure frustration when you hear the rumble pull up to the curb just behind you.
How? Possibly how?
You turn, ready to find another excuse for Jack, but you don’t find him, and the slighter engine purr makes sense–because it’s Robby with his motorcycle. He kills the engine.
…His choice in transport is really something.
“Hey.” Finding him at your side is less with anxiousness and more with a pleasant, friendly curiosity. More with something casual and less with the need to grasp for what makes you feel…safe.
“Hey, Robby.”
You smile when Robby does, even though his is slight.
“Listen, I know Abbot probably sounds like a broken record by now, but I’ll have to agree with him. I don’t know how you find this sort of stroll…suitable. You good?”
“Yep, just got roped into picking up an morning half-shift. I was gonna grab a bus ride and missed it, because I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”
Robby nods, then his noses scrunches under a blink or two.
“Well, didn’t know I was gonna pick up trouble today. Come on. If you want, but I’ve already found you.”
You laugh. “You’re a menace.”
Robby’s smile grows thinner. You watch his hands on his handlebars tighten.
“You’re flattering.” He says it with a quiet, casual sarcasm before pulling out–oh. Oh no. “We’re both heading to work, and you were lucky enough to not let Pittsburgh Transit devour you up. C’mon, I’ll take you…if you’d like.”
He holds out his spare helmet. Your hand tightens over the strap of your tote.
“It hasn’t been used by anyone…so. If you’re, you know, worried about headlice. I’d, uh, hope any future person I’d potentially ride with wouldn’t be likely to have them.”
Your smile falters.
“I’ve actually never been on one of those.”
“Damn, you are a good girl.”
You roll your eyes to the point you can’t see Robby already regretting his own quip, eyes closing shut for a half-second.
“No, I get it. I’m kinda surprised by how many people at work haven’t ridden one at least once before.”
“I mean, it is a motorcycle, Robby. And they just always seemed... dangerous.”
You think Robby’s listening to you in the way he keeps a slight nod before tilting his head from side to side, but if he’s anything like Jack, which God, you know the both of them are like each other more than they want to admit, you know he won’t let it go. He probably won’t end up berating you onto his motorcycle or end up carrying into the Pitt, but you just know he’s gonna push, and it might work, because you’re you and Robby’s Robby.
Your friend whom you trust.
“I will go slow. Take no unnecessary journeys. And I…drive like I suture.”
“Jagged?”
You let yourself laugh when Robby scoffs. “Hey.”
When he hands you the helmet, you study it in your hold before looking at the sidewalk ahead.
You hear his voice in the back of your head–gruff, dry, concerned and knowing, but you push it down.
You’ve accepted whatever Jack is to you, and you’ve done more than accept whatever he makes you feel, but the fact his voice is the first to pop in your head at the fear of riding a motorcycle instead swallows you with something overwhelming.
And also, Robby’s your friend. And to deny him is to deny exceptional E.R skills, or his occasional kindness and constant sharp sarcasm, or the fact you want to get closer to him. Something like that.
“Okay. Just this once. I better not owe you anymore lemon bars."
Robby’s brows raise when you take the helmet and try to buckle it, and despite everything you just thought to justify this, you nearly regret taking up his offer at the way you’re definitely buckling this thing up wrong.
“Oh. She trusts me. Let’s not tell Abbot.”
“I won’t if you won’t.”
You can tell he’s close to sighing and you know why when his hand is hesitant to reach out.
“Help me out here, attending.”
You watch Robby smile the way one does at a stranger they accidentally make eye contact with before dropping it when he gently fixes the buckle. You climb carefully on the back–arms hesitating, then wrapping around his waist, and it’s not so awkward when you can feel his body through the layers of jackets and scrubs and long sleeves over.
You don’t feel the weight of him, really, and your mind automatically drifts to a question: How did the weight of you feel in Jack’s arms?
That swallows you too.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
There’s nothing else like spending your night off at work. Jack will feel less about it later, knowing that…what? Therapy sessions and lying at home reading or sleeping isn’t this.
Still, he’s thankful for the shift to end, at least lying at home means he can take off his prosthetic for more than ten minutes. He took a guilty twenty in pedes when it was empty.
He walks out of the entrance with Dana, who’s mid-sentence concerning something ridiculous Whitaker did with charting, because Whitaker on nightshift rotation is hilarious. Whatever the mistake, it was slight enough to go without attending reprimand and humorous enough to make Jack smirk.
That’s when his eyes flicker toward the far end of the lot.
Robby’s parking with someone pressed up against his back.
You.
You pull off a black helmet, your hair tumbling out as you laugh with cheeks flushed from the wind. Robby follows you just after. Also helmeted as he grins slight. He kicks the stand.
What in the actual fuck?
Jack takes in a breath he doesn’t let go. He slows mid-step.
“You good, Abbot?”
When his jaw locks, it almost aches as much as his leg, but he doesn’t even blink as Dana follows his gaze. Jack thinks she’s wincing dramatically in his peripheral.
“Oh. Oh…no.” Dana puts her hands on her hips. “Calling Nurse and Doctor Sunshine to trauma one, leave the ride behind. Jesus Christ, how’d he get sunbeam on that thing?
What the fuck are you doing? Why would you do this?
“He wants to die? Okay. That’s unfortunate. He does that?”
His near-casual, throaty spat comes out easier that it would’ve been keeping it in, and maybe there’s something opposite to the external telling Jack what he said was too much, because his shoulders roll, and deep down he knows he’s just being mean as hell to be mean as hell.
“Jesus, Jack.”
Evans is the external something. Jack lifts his head back. “It’s the truth. That is…absolute insanity. Dana?”
“...I think I left something inside.”
Dana disappears back into the E.R and it’s nothing but Jack’s chance to start walking towards the both of you.
For the sake of keeping his anger high, he pretends that this is solely about you getting on a fucking motorcycle. Because it is. Why are you getting on a motorcycle? You. Fucking you.
Why are you doing this to him.
“What is this, a midlife crisis field trip?”
Again. Being mean for the sake of being mean, cause Jack knows it isn’t that, but it’s what gets you to look up at him surprised with Robby sighing something low.
“Robby, what the hell, man?” His voice goes nearly high.
“Oh, c’mon, Abbot. She needed a ride–”
“No. Yeah. As she usually does. But a motorcycle? You–” His head snaps towards you. “Robby, you want to risk your own neck for a Harley, fine–but bringing someone else on that suicide ride? Why the hell would you agree to that?
The words thrown towards both you cut harder than he means it to, but it’s what he feels in his gut, because why?
He keeps himself sturdy when Robby scoffs.
“Sunshine, help me out here. She is…we’re adults.” Robby crosses his arms. “She needed a ride, Jack. It was either that or be late waiting for a cab or walking again. Which is what you were worked up about. Sooo…don’t really understand the fucking issue. This? This right here is what we talked about–”
“You talked about this?”
Robby’s reply is what Jack would expect, maybe what he deserves, that voice that’s tingy and knowing, not loud–but definite in a bite. Still. Fuck him.
His head tilts towards you, voice towards you–
“Why didn’t you call me? Seriously?”
You shift. He watches your arms cross over your chest. “I didn’t know you were working tonight, and again, wouldn’t make sense to make you pick me up to drive to the place you came from. Seriously, you’re not supposed to be working–and we were…safe, Jack. Helmets. He went slow, I held on, I–”
Just took the first chance to wrap yourself around Robby?
That thought scares Jack as much as it makes his fist clench.
“You think that matters when a car cuts you off and you skid thirty feet into a curb?” He doesn’t stop eyeing your focus when he hears Robby scoff again. “And hey, okay. You hitched a ride on the back on what you called a deathtrap because you thought you wouldn’t be caught by me?”
Robby nods shakily. It’s not from nerves, it’s from that growing, steady impatience that’ll probably make his voice go sharp.
“...Being caught? Jack, what is this? You sound like an aggressive PSA and a dad and it’s as offensive as it is confusing. Definitely wouldn’t have guessed this reaction from the first time I talked to you about my bike. Which. I do prefer honesty. But…you wanted her off the street. We were safe. You shouldn’t even be entitled to my justifications right now. I’m surprised that I even care enough to feel offended, because this conversation should be treated as bullshit…but because I wanted you settled, man–I…she did exactly what you wanted—she took help–”
His eyes don’t leave you, even when bits of Robby’s rant shakes him, triggers him.
He couldn’t know that you see something feral flickering behind them—something you can’t shake or he can’t help.
Something he wouldn’t want to help if he could.
“You think this is help?” He jabs a finger at the motorcycle like it’s something obscene. “You think putting her on the back of that thing is better than a cab? Or the bus?”
“It was explained. There was no chance for a bus or cab or uber or fucking…you, man.” Robby lifts his hands in what’s probably exasperation.
Not him. No chance for him, huh?
“I figured—”
“You figured what?” Jack cuts in, voice dropping lower, more dangerous. “That it’d be fun? That she’d enjoy it? That–”
“That she’d get to fucking work!”
Robby’s arms go up as his yell booms across the lot. Jack’s not scared by it.
…But yeah, even in his stone rage that he’s sure he’s right to have, Jack knows that was warranted.
What’s warranted to is the feeling of hot coals in his stomach when you grab Robby’s arm, comforting him–like he’s not the one that convinced you to go on a death trap.
Like Jack’s not the one who’s vision when black when the motorcycle came speeding in. Like it’s not his heart that’s slamming against his fucking ribs for you right now.
What the fuck is wrong with him? What are you doing to him?
“Robby–”
Your mutter is barely heard when Robby shifts the weight of his legs, looking up at the sky. “Nothing happened.”
Robby knows there’s more to say, that really, this shouldn’t matter in the first place, that he should not be on trial and it’s already ridiculous he’s letting himself sit in the face of Jack’s fucking jury, but that’s not gonna do any good, is it?
“Nothing. Happened.”
“...That’s not the point, Robby.”
“The point doesn’t matter, but…I’m gonna ask you what it is anyway. Just so we can get it out of the way.”
Jack opens his mouth. Closes it.
He sees the real point in the way you keep your hand, which manages to stay soft somehow even though you scrub your palms to shit with antiseptic and sanitizer like everyone else, on Robby’s bicep.
It’s not that fact something could’ve happened.
It’s the fact he can’t see you with someone else like this. Even if it’s just a ride. Even if it’s just a ride he’d rather you have than needing to walk alone in the fucking dark.
Even if it’s Robby. Especially because it’s Robby. And the guy gave you a ride. A thrill–even if he’s just taking you to work as he so humbly did today.
Something primal and ugly claws up his throat, looking at where you touch him.
“I don’t give a damn what you ride, Robby. But if you convince others to get thrown in what is a statistically dangerous hobby, try remembering they might be worth more intact.”
Robby goes still before he runs a hand down his face.
And for the first time, Jack doesn’t want to look at you.
“...Jack–”
So. He turns away, stalking back to his truck before he can say something worse and learn how to find it the right thing to say later. He climbs in, slams the door.
And when he looks in the mirror, he sees you two standing together—your hand on Robby’s arm? He finds a realization sliding sharp under his ribs.
He’s not gonna stop wanting you, even if it turns him into a fucking asshole.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
It's the next day. Or the next. Apologies are in order. Are they given? No. Jack will claim this is how men are. But shit, for men? He and Robby do a pretty good job of communicating.
The night shift has finally slowed to a manageable hum, which is not that surprising, even when Robby ended up having to share it with Abbot. They’re mature enough, yeah? Still, he’d be impressed if he found it important.
God. He’s never seen Jack like that before. Ever. There have been points of time of snappy, semi-quiet bouts of professional frustration, towards him and others, but what happened the other day was…something else. And it’s taking a hold on him.
Because Robby catches Jack in a supply closet. He’s organizing, settling a neatness between surgical gloves and IV kits–and it’s the 12th weirdest thing he’s ever seen in his life.
“We good, Abbot? You good?”
Obviously not, because one of the busiest men on earth, a man who craves chaos as much as it eats at him on occasion, is alphabetizing medical supplies. But Robby has to ask anyway.
He could pretend he’s better than the ache in his chest rising at the sight–the one that creeped in when you climbed off the back of his bike, hair tangled from the ride, cheeks flushed and alive in a way that could’ve been funny to look at.
That ache that he felt ridiculous for having in the first place when that moment was ruined with the look on Jack’s face.
Like someone had pulled a pin from a grenade he’d been holding inside. That someone being Robby when he just offered you a fucking ride.
Robby steps into the supply room, letting the door swing shut behind him before crossing his arms. He can tell Jack’s already tense in the shoulders, his back set like concrete as he rummages in the cabinet.
“I’m fine, Robby. We’re fine.”
…Robby’s gonna try for humor first. Try to pretend the knot in his own chest isn’t there and that he’s not expecting an apology.
“If organizing the supply closets was added onto attending responsibilities, I missed the memo. And I’m also fucked.”
…No answer. Jack doesn’t even glance over his shoulder. Robby leans one shoulder against the doorframe.
He should just walk away, because this will die. And it’s not important.
But he can still see your face when you thanked him for the ride. That sorta…soft and tired and relieved look. And then you looked up at Jack when he came striding across the street.
Like you knew exactly how bad you were gonna get it for accepting a ride from a person you trusted.
That can’t happen again. Not just because it’s uncharacteristically unprofessional as shit concerning Jack Abbot, but you don’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.
“You came at me like I put her on a live grenade, man. And I know we’ll get over this without dragging it back up, but if she’s gonna get lectured like she’s 12 years old every time she comes into the parking on a ride that isn’t yours–”
Jack closes the cabinet shut. Not hard enough to be a slam, but loud enough to make a point. He turns to do what he does so well, focus his eyes on anothers. Robby sighs.
He doesn’t have time for this. But he’s making time for his friend. And you.
“You put her on a machine with two wheels and no shell. Don’t act like I overreacted. I–”
…Heat crawls up his neck. It’s annoyance, yeah. Maybe, but it’s something that really doesn’t need to be as deep at it is right now.
But Jack’s a good guy, he owes Robby this much–the ability to see just how fucking annoyed his is.
“...There were parts of what I was saying that other day that were aggressively…unneeded. I’m not oblivious. The suicide ride quip, that was…”
“That kinda fucked me up, Jack.”
“I know. I know–” Jack looks to the ground, eyes straightening out on the tile. “...It’s a motorcycle, Robby. You have every right to ride one. And yeah, she has every right to accept a ride from you or from anyone…but it’s a motorcycle.”
Robby doesn’t nod or shift. He blinks once. “I know.”
Jack shakes his head stiffly as it lifts back in slight. “...And I just can’t fucking stand it. And I end up overreacting. I give a wonderful performance in our trauma center parking lot because I can’t stand it.”
“I know.”
“And…you know–” For a rare moment, Jack almost looks uncertain in what he’s gonna say. Crazy stuff, but Robby can make that…it’s not him being unsure in his words, it’s him unsure in if he should say them.
“...You know how I am with her. You know.”
Robby’s eyes narrow to the shelf beside them in an instant. He pushes himself off the doorfame, hands in his pockets.
“No, brother. I don’t.”
Jack’s brow furrows, the confusion is too obvious flickering across his face.
“Do not bullshit me, Robby. You, unfortunately, have known me longer than anyone here and it’d be you to pick out what’s exactly going on with me and her–”
“Yeah. I have. I have, man.”
He’s known Jack long enough to care about the guy. He’s known him long enough to really, really wish that whatever is going on between you and him is something he couldn’t bother to acknowledge, but it’s something else, something that he and others are gonna be able to ignore anymore.
Something that Jack stopped ignoring a long time ago, to hold it in his fists. Long, long time ago.
“I’ve known you long enough to see the way you look at her. Act around her. Sometimes it’s endearing, sometimes it’s concerning! It’s…”
Robby’s voice is flat, tired. Cause he’s really, really tired. “It’s every patient of hers you deem too aggressive when you don’t even have to be there. It’s that very, very obvious jealousy when she laughs with Whitaker or King.”
He counts it off on his fingers. Yeah. Like it’s something he’s rehearsed in his head.
“But then you’ll have dry flirtations–” He gestures vaguely to…something. “The little gifts, the dumb as shit nicknames, and it’s almost like something people can ignore.”
He pauses, he sits in what he’s just spat out in something that’s nearly facetious, but mostly something that’s making Robby realize what this is. His hands drop, his head drifts to the tile before he remembers he’s an adult, and he should look at the person he’s talking to.
Jack’s wearing the blankest expression he’s ever seen.
“...And you get at me in the parking lot because I picked her off the street, something you berated her for. And I could tell you over and over again that I rode safe. Slow, that I wouldn’t have her or anyone else in danger, but I also know that it doesn’t matter to you, because it’s not the fact she took up a ride, it’s because she held onto me. That’s what you saw? That’s what you can’t stand–”
“Robby.”
Robby stills in his breath before focusing on how his and Jack’s gaze lock. He’s obviously tired, cornered, but still sharp.
Desperate to justify something he knows he shouldn’t.
Robby blinks, his mouth thins.
“And then you look at her like you’ve already decided something for both of you.”
Jack closes his eyes. Robby regrets nothing and everyone.
You wish not to be bothered with acknowledging him and her, but you notice every bit. You are hilarious.
Jack's voice is ragged when it crawls out of his throat.
“So you do know.”
“No.” Robby drops his hands to his sides. “I know what it looks like. But I…I don’t know what to call it, Jack.”
He watches Jack search his face as he runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head.
“I don’t know the name for this because it’s not normal.” He can already feel his voice gentling without a softness Robby doesn’t think he can muster if he tried. “And even if I did know the name, it wouldn’t matter.”
Jack blinks once.
“Why?”
…Jesus fucking Christ.
Robby tries to make his gaze steady and unflinching, exhaling with every other way.
“Because the way you’re starting to act is unacceptable.”
He doesn’t catch it.
The way Jack flinches.
“You have to care about that. I’m telling you this as your friend.” He gestures between them, helpless. “This thing you’re doing—hovering over her, cutting off every exit, lashing out at anyone who gets near—”
His jaw tightens.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it. It doesn’t matter that you know how you are with her. You can’t keep going like this.”
They stand in between the humming of the walls. And yeah. Robby doesn’t feel any better with what he’s said. But hey. It’s communication.
Jack’s hand comes up on the metal shelf beside him. It flexes.
“I didn’t ask for this.”
Robby’s chest goes tight.
He thinks about the first week he met you, when your skills rivaled those of a 2nd year resident, when you put him under a load of disbelief.
He thinks about you in his kitchen for five minutes when you dropped off lemon bars just because, as if that’s an actual fucking reason. How you caught him when his loneliness was less casual and more pathetic looking, where his lone microwave was still steaming on the kitchen table, but you smile like you weren’t thinking how fucking alone he was.
It had been easy it had been to let you in, even when Robby knew he shouldn’t.
When he remembers the feel of your arms around him, your cheek resting against his back. How natural it had felt…how much he’d liked it.
Robby told himself–tells himself it didn’t mean anything. Whatever he felt.
Doesn’t have to mean anything, no matter what he feels.
But standing here, watching Jack come apart. God, kid, he’s not so sure anymore.
Yeah. None of us did.
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
It’s past midnight, and in the fluorescent glow of every floor, the Pitt feels like it always does at this hour–too bright with man-made sunlight. But earlier, you were laughing with Mel in the hallway, a giddy and awkward rush of shared jokes about a patient who swore the candlestick up his ass got there by accident.
It’s almost a normal shift, like you’re just another nurse in a chaotic E.R that you wouldn’t choose to escape. You hope your shaking hands don’t look as obvious as they feel.
But now it’s just you and Jack. And the airy silence, of course. Yippee.
You know it would’ve had to have been confronted at some point, that you would’ve had to find enough courage in you to make your anger about what happened with him and Robby known. You’re impressed, really. You didn’t think your doctor would beat you to it.
“ I wasn’t fair. About the bike. About Robby.”
He’s standing by the lockers, arms folded tight across the chest with a scratch to his elbow. He doesn’t look right away, but when he does, you feel it like always.
His stare goes straight through you. A shiver shoots down your spine.
You press your thighs together.
“No, not really.”
“I shouldn’t have…acted the way I did in the parking out. It wasn’t just unprofessional, it was…mean. See? I know enough to use a juvenile word to describe what an asshole I was.”
“And why the sudden realization?”
“...It was brought to my attention, and denial is pointless.”
You shift your weight, clutching the strap of your bag.
You feel it–the words you should say pressing down on the pink of your tongue. Something rightfully rational and grown-up.
Yes. You overreacted. You made me feel like a child. You were awful to Robby in a way I couldn’t think was possible. It isn’t fair. You were an asshole. And I know it’s coming from a place I was to crawl into, but you can’t act like this.
But no, you step closer instead, because the truth is…
You know now that that part of you is small and shameful.
It’s what makes you like how much he cares. Even if it comes out wrong or feels too big.
It’s why you’ve been sleeping with his blanket for the past week.
“Well…you were just being you.”
Your throat tightens around the softness of your words.
“It’s just another end of the gruff, quietly concerned cowboy.”
And even though you could buckle under his stare, you watch Jack blink in startle. Like he wasn’t expecting her to tease him as she always does.
Settle. Loosen.
And even when he’s the one in the wrong, find yourself wanting to make him smirk down at you.
“Cowboy again?”
Jack says it dryly. Your mouth curves.
“Big ol’ boots and an unrelenting stare. Tell me I’m wrong.”
And you’ll leave it at that, because you don’t think you’ll ever tell him that it’s that stare and the worry and that entitled, raw possession that makes you feel…seen, even when it shouldn’t.
When it makes you feel wanted.
Protected. Claimed.
God, you know–that’s not healthy. You’re not supposed to feel any of it, but hey. At least you can name that part of you now. And you know exactly all the reasons as to why you shouldn’t tell Jack about them.
Except for one, you couldn’t know. You couldn’t know that if you told him, that’d only fuel him more.
Jack’s expression softens, and you can tell that he’s trying not to smile.
He fails.
“It still doesn’t excuse how I spoke to you. Or Robby. It won’t happen again.”
The locket room hums around the both of you.
“...Unless you knowingly get on a bike you called a death trap. That, I’ll have to report your lapse in judgement to…someone.”
When he stretches his hand out to pull you up from the bench, you take the moment to study Jack’s face. The lines around his eyes, the tired and chiseled slope of his jaw and shoulders, and the way you don’t think he’ll ever not meet your gaze.
It’s all that and then some as to why you can’t help but feel warmed at everything he does–everything that should be named a mistake but isn’t.
It’s why you’ll never waste a moment to see if Jack Abbot can blush–why this moment of bravery exists.
Why you kiss the back of his hand when you take it.
His fingers are scarred and strong–and they clench when you press your lips to the soft hairs at his knuckles.
Cedar. Sweat. And everything nice.
When you realize how harshly your heart is pounding against your ears, you realize just how stupid this might’ve been. Your eyes widen.
This assurance in stupidity is especially true when Jack jerks suddenly. Smoothly, but in a second where you’re thinking–
Oh, fuck me.
You're already pressing fumbled apologies to the back of your teeth, but before you can pull away from the moment where you think it’s like your lips burned him–
Jack’s fingers wrap around your wrist.
It’s not exactly a grip, but he squeezes.
Your eyes are already locked on his, and you think they’re darker under the dim light. They have to be.
You want to collapse. There’s nothing but the feeling of fire against the pit of your belly, and your hands, and your thighs–
“Jack? I–”
Whatever you were going to say, which couldn’t have been anything at all, is broken in the air when Jack begins pulling. Not to stop you.
…But to turn your palm upward, exposing the soft center of your palm.
Your breath hitches.
He lowers his mouth to your skin.
His lips brush the base of your fingers, firm and unshaking, then trail gently to the center of your hand.
He’s returning your kiss.
“...I’m working a double. I-I know you’re not–”
“No.”
Jack’s eyes close when his mouth presses deeper, like he’s savouring something, and it takes everything in you not to slip a soft moan against this moment.
And it takes everything in you not to think about the way his voice went high and cracked when he found you on the back of Robby’s bike. How his words hadn’t sounded like anger so much as terror. As both, and how that should’ve made you mad. Maybe it did.
But it’s so easy to remember that white-hot, belly need to close the distance between the two of you. Say…
It’s okay, Jack. I’m here. And I like that you’re here for me.
“But we’re coming and leaving at the same time on Tuesday. Right?”
His eyes are unblinking against yours when he opens them again. You nod so quickly that it’ll embarrass you when you think about it before bed. But with the way his mouth feels about your flesh, his dry, deepening lips? The ends justify the means.
“Well.”
It’s only fire along every crevice of yours when his nose presses into your knuckles.
“Thank God for that.”
✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・
My girl, my girl, my girl.
Jack’s running late. Again. This time, it’s on account of you, sleepy.
You know him, if there’s anything he takes a sick pride in, it’s his punctuality–but tonight…he lingered in the front of his apartment complex. Just tapping away at the wheel at his other hand rested on the edge of his phone.
You make him feel like a little boy who can’t sit still. Absolutely ridiculous. He’s nervous. The last time he went to work nervous was…never. Not even on his first day, it’s so expected of Jack that he’s sure he doesn’t take sick pride in that.
You make him not quite brave enough to text you. Something. Anything. Anything that’ll give him more of you.
Sleepy, sleepy.
The way you looked at him yesterday, kid. Smiling in that soft, resigned way when you called him your cowboy, finding your way back to the light or something like it, letting go of his…okay. He’ll call them mistakes. For now. For your sake.
But the memory and your kiss are what makes him, for the time ever, very sure that he’s allowed to think of you on his way to work.
“Can afford those rims, but not new headlights? Right. On.”
…He’s telling himself he’ll do better. So there’s that.
He’ll stop snapping every time you step out of line when it comes to your safety. He’ll make sure there is no line. That’s weird. He’ll stop you from watching the back of your head across the trauma bay like you’re the only thing tethering him to the fucking floor.
That’s weird too, especially when he had his teaching and the good days and his crew and every slight good thing about him tethering him to the floor first.
He would do better. He will.
Jack’s not gonna risk whatever you gave me yesterday. Not any way in hell. He owes you that.
…And with the way you touched him, with the way you didn’t leave after an apology he had to burn out of him–maybe he owes himself that too.
Jack merges onto the main drag. His hand flexes. When did his hand get so hairy? And scarred?
If I can.
If I want to–
“Oh. Very nice on that turn.” He nearly whispers his road rage. “Asshat.”
…He’s not gonna look under the rug of promises. What’s that gonna do?
Under the I’ll be better’s, under the I’ll let you breathe, he’s gonna find some useless truth.
Something like the idea that he’s not going to want to stop.
That Jack…likes how it feels to be the one you look to when things get ugly. Because you do, right? You accepted his bare-bones apologies with your lips on his hand. You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t.
His eyes glance to the passenger seat, where your hair clip from the night he drove you home lies next to a folder and his ham sandwich.
He did mean to give it back.
Maybe I can still be her cowboy.
It’s a wry thought.
Just a little less fucking unhinged.
He doesn’t blink when the scanner crackles dispatch static. It’s something he’s trained himself to tune out unless it catches wind of the worst disasters.
So. Jack doesn’t know why tonight’s words cut through the air.
“Unit 14, be advised: Motor vehicle accident. Motorcycle involved. Two confirmed. Severe trauma inflicted on female passenger. EMS has arrived on scene.”
Jack’s head cocks to the side as he stares straight forward. It’s his body’s own doing, a reaction he doesn’t understand.
Because this is Pittsburgh. There’s already been a fire, a stabbing. A car flipped over on 28. It’s a city that never runs out of ways to bleed people dry and keep the beds at the Pitt full.
“Repeat: Motorcycle collision. Female passenger is unresponsive. Male rider attempting to interfere with EMS. Confirm blocking lanes and priority traffic.”
He knows better, which is why he doesn’t understand how the blood from his knuckles ends up disappearing. He doesn’t understand that until he realizes he’s been gripping the wheel.
It’s nothing. It is absolutely fucking nothing. Stop the internal panic. Stop acting like you’re gonna fucking collapse.
…Jack knows better.
“Confirm accident is at intersection of Carson and 22nd.”
And on cue, he hears the sirens four blocks away.
Jack lowers his head in one curt nod as feels his muscles tense in the way they do when he realizes a patient is gonna be more of a challenge than he first thought. That useful, nerved feeling that only gets in the way of logic and ability.
Anxiety. He can name that. You’ll be proud of him when he sees you in the Pitt.
Because you will be there, curled up at the nurses station, complaining about the cold as if you didn’t trudge the small of you through it because you’re too good. You will be there. Jack will see you.
He will see Robby there too, and he’ll pass that sorry sight of a motorcycle crash–one that he’s probably gonna be in charge of by the time he gets to work.
Yeah. This is it. A ridiculous and unneeded point of anxiety in his chest. One he’s gonna regret by the time he pulls into the Pitt because it is his fault. He shouldn’t be feeling it.
Jack presses the gas pedal. He runs a red light. He pulls out his phone, eyes flickering up at the window and down at his thigh as he types with a stiff, hot hand. His hand shouldn’t be this hot.
‘On my way. can meet me at the front ent rance?’
You’re already at the Pitt. Or hell, he’ll catch you walking the streets again. That’s fine too. That’s perfect.
‘I know this is an od d requst but can you just call me?’
‘Sleepy’
And like that, Jack doesn’t even realize he turned onto Carson until he sees the flashing lights. Two ambulances.
No. God.
He throws the truck into park. His tires scream as he does.
It’s like someone put a bomb under Robby’s motorcycle.
It’s in pieces–half crumbled against a lamppost, the other half smoking in the gutter. Glass and blood make the asphalt glitter.
The paramedics crouch over two bodies.
Jack shoves the door open as he storms forward. A red haze–red as the road, swims behind his eyes.
There’s so much blood.
More blood than he’s seen in his worst cases. Splashed up the curbs, smeared in arcs and black cracks.
How the hell is it everywhere?
Jack chokes on his own breath as he walks in a stiffened pace that’s telling the ache in his prosthetic to go fuck itself. As he does, he realizes what that cracked-open black half-moon thing is. It’s thirty feet away from the scene.
The helmet. The helmet you wore.
There’s a chunk of your hair stuck to the visor.
He shouts out your name. He doesn’t register that it’s almost a cry.
He crosses the last few feet at a run, not because he recognizes the first body to be Robby.
“Just le-let me help her, man! I promise…I-I’m a doctor, I work at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center–”
His face is ash-gray, a strip of skin peeling off his cheekbone. His scrub top is soaked near-black at the shoulder. He’s fighting the medics as they try to pull him onto a gurney. But he’s fighting none-the-fucking-less, streaky gash on the hairline and all.
The blood on the road can’t possibly all be from him. Why the fuck is there so much of it?
What did he let happen to you?
“We know who you are, Dr. Robinavitch. We’ve met a few times, remember? You need to let them help her and us help you, okay?”
No. Jack runs with his vision tunneling in and out towards the scene, because the next body he recognizes is you.
His girl. In all his failure.
You’re sprawled on your side, crumpled like someone folded you in half and dropped you to watch you spread. Your hair’s soaked red. It streaks your throat.
He can’t remember if you had your hair in a braid or ponytail yesterday.
You’re glistening and caked with blood and broken bits in the way he’s only seen patients he ends up coding for hours. You. Sunshine. Sunbeam. Sleepy.
Oh God. God. Why would you expect him to believe in you when you let this happen to her?
Why would Jack let this happen to you?
He stands over you at your right leg–right where it’s twisted at an impossible angle under your hip. Your left leg, your tibia, has snapped against your skin. Not enough to make bone jut out, but enough.
And your face, your face–
“...I could care that you’re unusually pretty.”
“No?”
“Not here. By the end of shift, that face will be covered in blood, vomit, or some other fluid you’d be better off not naming. It doesn’t matter.”
“...So you’re saying I’d trigger the senses if you took me out of here?”
“...Can you finish your chart?”
One cheek’s caked in road grime, the other’s split from eyebrow to chin with your eye swollen shut.
Jack’s focus goes black around the edges, but he catches a drop of water falling to the ground.
“...Sir?”
Your abdomen’s rising unevenly and too shallow, and Jack knows without touching you that your lung’s collapsing already.
But you’re breathing. You’re alive. His girl’s alive.
“...Dr. Abbot?”
“BP?”
He doesn’t catch the way the medic startles at the bark. He just drops to his knees to do what he does best.
“Gloves.”
“...Dr. Abbot–”
“Gloves. Now!”
If these medics were any older or more experienced enough to fight Jack’s protocol breach, they’d have a problem on their hands.
He’s given gloves in a second and putting them on in the next.
He ignores the cold under his gloves when he presses two fingers to your carotid. Rapid. Thready. He ignores anything that could make him pause or remember just how fucked this situation, because you don’t deserve that. He was already pushing it by standing over you for more than five seconds.
“Hey…Jack?”
Robby’s voice is made up of glassy shock.
And suddenly…Jack feels like his own skull is going to split.
“She–she was behind me, okay? They ran the light. She–”
It’s slurry and desperate from the throat, and Jack doesn’t look at him.
Really, he can’t even know how he doesn’t trust what he’d do if he did.
“Jack. I’m sorry–s-she–”
He can see out of the corner of his eye that Robby’s gesturing at the medic trying to staunch the blood at your scalp.
“I tried–God, I was trying to…to tell them, they need a thor–”
“Thoracostomy kit. Now.”
The medic’s blanching. Jack narrows his eyes at them.
Are you really making me take my eyes off her?
“Dr. Abbot–”
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
Jack says it low in his throat, unblinking with a tilted head forward.
He takes the oxygen mask he’s handed before the kit’s thrust into his palm.
He fits it over your mouth. Rasps out your name.
Your lashes flutter. Your eyes roll in the back of your back.
No. He’s wrong.
“Look at me.”
Jack’s not ignoring the things that could make him collapse, he’s just not collapsing.
Jack rips the kit open as your blood soaks the knees of his pants. His gloved fingers map your ribs. He counts the intercostal spaces.
He finds the fifth. He plants his palm.
He closes his eyes for a second. Then three.
For the next ten seconds, you’re waiting for him at the Pitt. You walked from your apartment. Your hair is braided.
You’ll come home with him by the end of the night, but for now, you’re where he can always find you.
Where you’ll always be able to find him.
“On my count, pressure release.”
One. Two. Three.
Jack makes the incision in a clean, practiced motion. He can hear the blood hissing around his fingers.
The chest rises a fraction deeper.
He hunches over before he can hear the medic swallow their spit.
“We’re gonna load her.”
Nine, ten.
Jack doesn’t take his eyes off you. “I’m coming.”
“Dr. Abbot–
Jack looks up. The ambulance radio crackles.
When the medic nods, he has to try his hardest not to let his prosthetic disconnect when he rises with no groan.
“I’m fine, man. I ca-can help her. Everyth-everything on me’s a clean break or a slow bleeder–”
“Dr. Robby, we’re gonna load you in too–”
“We’re going the same way–”
“Robby.”
When Robby looks up with glassy eyes and glassed skin, he sees Jack looking at him.
…Not now, because the pity and worry for Robby that evaporated at the sight of you?
Every ounce of it finds its way back to Jack when he sees his brother. Still slumped, blinking dully at the wreckage.
“Shut up and let them help you.”
…Nearly all of it.
He turns back before he can see Robby trying to peek over at where you’re being lifted, and Jack has to flex his hands not to grab onto you. But as they lift you, your limp hand falls against his chest.
Your little sniper fingers leave a smear of blood over his scrub top. And a second…he’s gotta be allowed to close his hand around yours. Just for a second, kid.
In the second, he’ll allow a thought, too. And maybe he’ll kill it with his hands. Maybe he won’t. He’s not really thinking about that when he has to make sure you’re alive. And with what Jack saw on the street…
Oh. He’s allowed.
It’s a clear thought, clear as the sirens screaming in his ears.
He’s not going to stop. He’s not going to let go. He’s not going to make himself less for the sake of anyone. Because he’d been right. Jack had always been right.
This is what happens when you pretend someone else can keep you safe. And he’s not going to stop needing to be the only one who can keep you safe.
Because…well. Look.
When he tries, the world reminds him exactly how close it is to taking you away from him.
I love the pitt fandom, it's fun but I have an issue...
No one makes Abbot as silly and awkward as he is on the show. Everyone (including me sometimes) makes him more suave and badass, which like I get, but... Mr. "Grubhub does NOT deliver to the roof" and "Well I know he's not talking about me" and "that's just not cool man" and *double thumbs up no smile* is not the smooth talking, slick, bad boy charmer we make him out to be.
