An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: A.P. Bio (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jack Griffin/Lynette Hofstadter
Characters: Jack Griffin (A.P. Bio), Lynette Hofstadter
Additional Tags: Sickfic, Sick Character, Illnesses, Light Angst, Comfort No Hurt, Caretaking, Fluff, Established Relationship
Little death. ‘La petite mort’. The French use the phrase to describe the fleeting, almost weightless feeling one gets after an orgasm, but Jack thinks it's far more fitting to describe this feeling, the one he's experiencing right now.
OR
Jack has a hypo at Whitlock.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
“Chew and swallow, sweetheart. That's it. Nice and slow.”
Jack is sitting almost in Lynette’s lap in an otherwise empty break room, head resting on her shoulder. He’s trying desperately to force the muscles in his throat to let him swallow another small piece of banana, eyes heavy lidded, dexcom still beeping. Lynette rakes a hand through his hair, pressing kisses every so often to his temples.
“You’ll feel better soon. Just gotta let it kick in, that's all.”
OR
The quiet moments after a hypo. (more t1d Jack)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Jack doesn't like chaperoning field trips, but unfortunately this was one he couldn't claw his way out of. Perhaps he would have tried harder if he'd known it would end with Helen Henry Demarcus carrying him through the forest.
READ BELOW, OR ON AO3 HERE
By now, Jack really ought to know that things don’t go his way- not even, apparently, a simple fucking field trip.
When Durbin first broached the idea during an impromptu staff meeting in the break room, Jack hadn’t even thought he would be coming on the damn thing. After all, he’s a part time teacher who, let’s be honest, doesn’t even do that. He spends his lessons napping or planning revenge missions against those who’ve wronged him instead of educating his students, and he’s almost certain everybody in the entire school knows that. Why would anybody consider asking him to supervise on a trip outside school grounds when he can’t even be bothered to supervise on school grounds?
But of course, he’d been added to a goddamn email chain about the trip which Dave- avid nature lover, and the reason the trip’s even happening in the first place- started using as a free space to display photos of squirrels and memes of cats hanging from trees captioned ‘hang in there!” (all of which were liked by Helen) to the point that Jack had to switch his phone to ‘do not disturb’ mode in order to escape the constant stream of notifications. Of course, this naturally meant that his inevitable insistences that really, he wasn’t interested in chaperoning an outing to Wildwood Preserve were buried beneath pages upon pages of junk emails, and consequently ignored. He didn’t have a chance at escaping it.
As they pull up to the parking lot of the preserve, Jack suppresses a sigh at the way Dave immediately stands up to deliver a speech about the trip. He clearly thinks himself the Bear Grylls of Toledo, Ohio.
Lynette shoots Jack an amused glance from across the coach, and he smirks back. Clearly, she’s thinking the same.
Dave’s authoritarian regime continues way past this, though, and no sooner has Jack stepped off the coach than he’s being ushered towards ‘his group’. Well, not exactly. ‘His and Helen’s group’. Jack’s not sure exactly what he’s done to be punished like this, but before he can attempt to protest his placement with the most insufferable woman in all of Toledo, Dave is shooing the group- also including Sarika and Marcus as extra punishment- towards the woods and telling the students to document all of the plant life they see.
Fantastic. As if this trip couldn’t get any more boring.
Jack decides the best thing to do is just bite the bullet, shoving his hands in his pockets and giving Lynette a pleading look as he trails behind the group, Helen nattering incessantly in his ear.
“Y’know, it’s been yonks since I came out here- well, not came out here, I did that during my sixth grade dance recital. Did I tell you about that one? Ah, I probably have but I’ll tell y’again anyway. It was a cold and dark evening on the 28th May 1975...”
Jack inhales. It’s going to be a long, long day.
By the time Jack emerges from his haze of daydreaming, it’s already been a couple of hours. He’s leaning against a tree, arms crossed against his chest, watching lazily as the students around him pick about in the undergrowth for plants to take pictures of and wondering all the while how this can really constitute education. Sure, Whitlock wasn’t exactly high brow when he was in attendance, but at least he never had trips dedicated solely to yard work.
His phone pings.
Chair thief: U bored yet? Bcos I sure am
He grins.
Bored out of my mind. The only thing I’m glad about is that Helen’s decided to start haranguing the kids instead of me.
As if to check, he glances upwards, and is unsurprised to find her stood beside a crouched Sarika. He’s too far away to make out exactly what she’s saying, but judging by the ‘kill me now’ expression on Sarika’s face, it isn’t exactly titillating conversation.
When he looks down, another message pops up.
Chair thief: Does that count as child abuse? I think maybe you should step in, Jack.
And risk transferring her talk onto me? No way, Lyns.
He presses send with a satisfied smirk that quickly fades away as soon as a red error message appears below the text. Undelivered.
Oh, for fu-
Sighing through gritted teeth, he holds his phone aloft, waiting for the signal to repair itself. It doesn’t, of course. All it accomplishes is making him look like an idiot. Okay, you wanna play this game, phone? Fine.
He starts to wander from the clearing, still keeping his eyes fixed on the screen. Any minute now and it’ll send. Any minute now. Any... minute...
A little wheel jumps up on screen, and Jack’s so triumphant he doesn’t notice the log in front of him, his foot slamming against it the second the message finally sends. He howls out in pain, yanking his leg upwards, only to teeter right over the log anyway, landing in a crumpled mess in the leaves on the other side.
His cheeks blaze with embarrassment, but he manages to sit up, glancing around to see if he’s caught the attention of anybody. At first, it appears he escaped without consequence. But then...
“Oh, Jack, there you are! I heard ya screaming like a tomcat in a bag! You okay?”
He half-groans as Helen emerges from the trees, waddling towards him at high speed.
“I’m fine, Helen. I just-“
When he splays his fingers against the ground and tries to pull himself up, though, he’s met with an immediate wave of pain from his ankle.
“Oh, Christ. Fuck, that hurts.”
He looks down and is just a little nauseated at the sight of a bruise beginning to form on the joint. The swelling that’s starting to encase it. He hazards another small movement, grimacing and squeezing his eyes shut as it elicits the same shooting pain up his leg. He’s definitely rolled his ankle.
“Ooh. That looks nasty.”
His eyes spring open to find Helen crouched at his side, and just as his lips move to tell her not to touch it, she’s pressing a finger right against his ankle so hard he has to bite his lip not to scream. Even so, he’s pretty sure a small whimper escapes. And... ooh, he really isn’t feeling so great all of a sudden. He’s a little dizzy. Lightheaded.
“C’mon, you gotta get back to the coach- Ralph made sure we were bringing a first aid kit, because you just know how prepared he is. I mean, one time we were out for this teacher training day, and I slipped on a banana peel, right like in the movies, and Ralph-“
“Helen.” Jack grits out, eyes blazing with frustration.
“Right. Yes. Onto the task at hand. Can ya walk?”
He nods fiercely, but the moment he attempts to stand again, that same flaring pain sends him sitting back down again, blinking through spots in his vision. Reluctantly, he shakes his head.
“N-no. Don’t think I can.”
Helen smiles. A worrying sign, by all accounts. “Well, that’s just fine! Let me give you a hand.”
Jack sighs, almost ready to thank her, but instead of simply offering him some help getting up, she reaches her left arm below his knees and her right at his back, and lifts him off the ground.
“WOAH! Christ, Helen, I don’t need-“
Cheeks rouging (something he’s not entirely frustrated about considering how faint he was feeling a second ago) and stomach lurching, Jack yelps as she takes a step forward, his arms leaping around her neck to keep himself from falling. Oh no. No no no no no no no. This is not happening.
Except it is, and soon Helen is emerging into the clearing where all of his students are picking at dead leaves, immediately announcing Jack’s injury to all of them while they stand and watch, flabbergasted. Sarika has the nerve to smirk, folding her arms as he clings on to Helen like a stupid fucking spider monkey, the blazing heat he can feel in his face informing him that he definitely looks as embarrassed as he feels.
“Alright, out the way, gotta get Mr Griffin back to the coach!”
His students part like the goddamn red sea, and he wishes he were crossing an ocean so he could slip free from Helen’s grasp to drown instead. Aware that if he lets himself fall, he’ll be in for a world of pain, though, he instead opts just to squeeze his eyes shut and wait for safety.
He knows the moment he’s close to the coach when he hears the astonished laughter of someone familiar.
“Oh my God.”
“Shut up.” He murmurs to Lynette, mortification reaching an extreme.
“What happened?” she chuckles.
Helen helpfully (or not so helpfully) answers for him.
“Oh, he just tripped over a twig- it’s fine.”
Jack opens his eyes to level a glare at her, even as his arms remain hooked around her neck. “Wasn’t- wasn’t a goddamn t-twig, Helen. It was a l-log.”
“Pfft. Twig, log. Same thing.”
Lynette grins. “It was definitely a twig.”
Dave, walking out from a different patch of the woods, frowns when he sees the commotion.
“Oh, gee, did someone hurt themselves out in the wilderness? Let me go fetch the first aid kit.”
Jack swallows. No. No. Anyone but him, please.
Lynette, thankfully, rolls her eyes and addresses Dave. “It’s alright. I’ve got this one. Besides, you’ve got to keep an eye on the whole trip, right?”
Dave hums thoughtfully. “Yeah. I s’pose you’re right... Just... just walkie me if you need to.” He gestures to a device strapped to his belt, because of course he’s keeping his on there like he’s a cop, while Jack’s is shoved somewhere in his pocket where it’s been buzzing annoyingly for the past few hours.
“’Course. Will do.”
Helen sighs. “Right, then. Let’s get you back on the coach, and I’ll let the lovely Miss Hofstadter do the rest.”
Jack barely contains his smile when at last he’s placed down on one of the seats, and Helen disappears, leaving only him and...
“Hiya, Lyns.” He murmurs, leaning back. His cheeks are still flushed, but not from embarrassment this time.
Sliding into the seat next to him, Lynette places the first aid kit on her lap. Her eyes twinkle playfukly when they meet his.
“You really were bored, huh? Gave yourself a life-threatening twig injury just to get away and see me?”
He sweeps a quick glance outside to make sure they’re quite alone- they are- then turns back to her, leaning in until his breaths are ghosting her cheek.
“Life-threatening log injury, actually.” He purrs.
“Oh, right... My mistake...”
And when he closes the gap, his lips meeting hers, Jack doesn’t care anymore that he’s in excruciating pain. That he’s probably going to walk with a House-level limp until his ankle heals properly. That the stories of Helen carrying him through the forest are undoubtedly going to circulate like wildfire.
I know AP Bio lost a lot of their writing staff and crew when they got cancelled by NBC after s2 because their contracts ended. I wonder if Mike O'Brien and the writers were always planning to have Jack and Lynette break up, because even great relationships don't always last and that's just reality and adult life, or if it was scheduling issues or the actress leaving the show possibly as a consequence of getting another gig after the first cancellation. Did you have thoughts on Shayla?
Shayla's introduction weirded me out; it felt like they knew the show was ending and wanted to leave Jack with a love interest since they'd blown up Jack/Lynette. But it felt pretty rushed, given that Jack/Lynette was practically the entire subplot of season 2. I really loved Jack and Lynette's relationship (& the macdennis parallels of it all) and how we got to see them develop genuine feelings instead of rushing into romance like a lot of straight relationships are. I felt like it would've been very good character development for both Jack and Lynette to acknowledge what they did wrong in the argument and get back together, but alas, we were left with Shayla instead.
