in which jack gives you unsolicited advice on vibrators and how to use them.
genre: smut!! 18+ mdni!!!
(a/n: can't sleep, feeling weird. deciding to write to get my mind off things. sorry it's kinda filthy lol what can i say.)
You were running on four hours of sleep and weeks of agonizing physical frustration. So yes, technically, sitting in the breakroom with a tab open to a high rated silicone toy review page wasn't ideal workplace decorum. But you were on your break. Off the clock, tired, frustrated, and researching every available avenue to make something happen.
"That one’s no good."
You froze, every muscle locking up. You slowly turned around to see Jack leaning over, eyeing your phone screen.
Before you could scramble to lock your phone or throw it across the room, Jack gave a casual, unbothered shrug and walked right out the door.
The rest of the night was psychological torture. Back on the floor, Jack acting like he said nothing. Not a smirk. Not a lingering look. Nothing. By the time you clocked out, you were convinced you’d hallucinated the entire breakroom encounter.
…
Two glasses of wine later back at your apartment, unwinding on the couch and feeling comfortably tipsy, your phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Jack: I can make some good recommendations for you.
You snorted into your glass, staring at the screen. The wine gave you a reckless surge of courage, and your thumbs moved before your brain could filter them.
You: you gonna show me how to use it?
His reply came back within seconds.
Jack: Yeah. My place tomorrow?
…
So that’s how you were here. On Jack Abbot’s lap, writhing as his thumb guided a small, buzzy, impossibly effective vibrating bullet directly against your center. His hand was around your hip, holding you steady while his hard length pressed hot against you through the fabric of his sweatpants.
"Told you the other one was overrated." he murmured against your neck, his voice raspy.
You let out a breath, hands clutching his shoulders as you rolled your hips into his palm.
"That good?" Jack said into your skin, tightening his grip on your hip as you squirmed against him. "Need you to come all over my lap, sweetheart."
genre: gamer jk, best friends au, friends to lovers slight fluff in the form of (y/n) is literally jk’s biggest fan, smut, humor (to me lmao cause I think I’m hilarious)
warnings: 18+, nsfw, language
a/n: this is a reimagining of a fic i previously posted many years ago. it was a hit and i ended up finding it again and i extended the story and make it a more full body of work. the last fic was a bullet point fic. this is more traditional. so if you've read it before, please consider reading it again :)
“game night suddenly gets a little more interesting when Jungkook forgets to hang up from your video call.”
The blue light of the monitor was the only thing illuminating your room, casting long, flickering shadows against the walls. It was 2:14 AM. The hour where the world felt like it belonged solely to the two of you, connected by a thin fiber optic thread and the heavy plastic of your headset.
“Alright, (y/n). We are in the last half of the battle and we just about have it. I’ll be operator, you get my six.” Jungkook’s voice crackled through the comms, his tone dropping into that low, focused register he only used when he was nearing a win.
A soft exhale escaped your lips as you listened to your best friend through your headphones. Even through the voice chat, you could picture him perfectly. Brow furrowed, eyes narrowed in concentration, and that tiny, unconscious habit he had of biting his lower lip when he was stressed.
Jungkook was, in every sense of the word, endearing and annoying. He had a way of being both at the exact same time. Barking orders like a drill sergeant one moment and letting out a breathless, boyish giggle the next when you successfully covered his flank.
“Yeah, yeah, Jeon. Same old song and dance. I’ve got you,” you teased, your fingers dancing across the controller with a muscle memory built over a decade.
The game launched to life, and your character quickly rushed off to scavenge for scrap metal that could be turned into armor. The frantic clicking of buttons filled your room, a sharp contrast to the quiet stillness of the house around you.
Your mind flickered back to where this all began. It was Christmas Day, nearly twelve years ago. You remembered the smell of pine needles and the frantic tearing of wrapping paper to reveal a brand new gaming system. You and Jungkook had been inseparable even then, though back then, it was less about tactical precision and more about who could make the other person lose first. You couldn’t quite remember which game had officially introduced you to each other’s competitive streaks, but you remembered the outcome clearly.
You beat him. Tremendously so. And you never let him live it down.
“You’re lagging, (y/n)! Focus!” Jungkook’s voice snapped you back to the present.
“I’m not lagging, I’m strategizing,” you shot back.
Ever since that first Christmas, you both spent most of your time speaking to each other every night. Eventually, you teamed up and formed what you called yourselves: “The Indestructible Duo”. People grew to hate you. Once anyone saw both of your usernames enter the server, it was game over. You both loved it.
It was your typical best friend bond. The only thing separating you from everyone else was that you hadn’t ever met in person. As time went on, emails and phone numbers were exchanged. Graduations were had, colleges were trudged through, and brand new jobs were offered. But one thing remained the same. Saturday game night.
“How’s the job been going, Miss Editor?” you could hear the sarcasm dripping in his voice. Jungkook was a writer and, as far as he saw it, you worked for the enemy.
“It’s fine,” you mumbled through your sips of tea. “I keep telling you to submit your novel, but somebody’s too chicken shit”.
Jungkook scoffed as he slew the head off another forest monster. “If it’s not good enough for Harper Collins, then it’s not good enough for your publishing house”.
“Dude, you sent your first novel to a major company. All I’m saying is, in the hands of the right editor. ME. That shit would be flying off the shelves”. You jammed your thumb into the up arrow, drawing your sword to shoo away the oncoming goblins.
“You know I love you, but the only reason you think that is because you are my best friend and you know it”.
“No, I really don’t, Jungkook. Do you remember that birdhouse you made for your senior project in high school? The one you made out of floss and hot glue? Yeah, it was an atrocity. AND! I told you!!”.
The familiar warmth of his laugh filled your ears, and you sat back for a minute to relish in the sound.
“It was really bad, wasn’t it?” he asked softly.
As the victory screen finally flashed in brilliant gold, the adrenaline faded, leaving only the soft hum of the console and the sound of his breathing in your ear.
“Good game, Jeon,” you whispered.
“The best,” he replied, his voice softening, and for a second, it felt like he was standing right behind you instead of miles away.
“Ten years, Jungkook,” you said softly. “Ten years of good games and we still don't even know if I’m taller than you”.
A dry, airy chuckle vibrated in your headset. “I’m definitely taller, (y/n). I’ve told you, it’s the Busan genes. You’d probably only come up to my shoulder”.
“In your dreams, Jeon,” you shot back, though a small smile tugged at your lips.
“Sometimes it feels weird,” Jungkook murmured, his voice dropping. “Like I can see you right there, but if I reached out, my hand would just hit the glass. You’re the most constant person in my life, but you’re also..not here”.
The honesty of it stung. He had a talent for stripping away the layers until you were both just two kids sitting in the dark, wishing for something more than a stable connection.
“Hey,” you said, trying to pull the mood back from the edge of melancholy. “At least the glass doesn't talk back when you lose a 1v1. I am however the best teammate.
“Barely,” he teased, the familiar spark of mischief returning to his tone. “You’re still a loot goblin. I saw you take that extra scrap metal”.
“Tactical acquisition, Jungkook! It’s called strategy”.
You were a duo in every game, every chat, and every late night secret, but you were still waiting for the day the game finally ended and the real story began.
If Jungkook could rank the top ten most painful positions to fall asleep in, sitting upright with his head hanging over the side of his game chair would come in at number one.
This was how game nights usually ended. You slumped over in your chair miles away, and Jungkook listening intently for the sound of your soft snores through the headset. It was a sound he had grown to look forward to, a small piece of physical reality. One might even call it adoration.
He finally removed his headset, the silence of his room rushing in to replace your breathing. He untangled the controller cords from his feet, delicately setting them on his dresser as his body moved on autopilot to shut down the game. He was careful to save their progress. He had made the mistake of forgetting only once, and you had nearly had his head for it the next day.
Jungkook caught sight of his reflection in the darkened monitor, peering down at his clothes. He wondered if he really needed to change into new boxers just because he’d spilled a tiny bit of soda on them earlier. In his mind, he could practically hear your voice: “Men. They are so disgusting”. The thought made him want to defy you and just wear them anyway.
Ultimately, he opted for the easiest route, hooking his thumbs through the waistband and stripping them off before tossing them toward the dresser. He had slept like this many times before, especially during a nasty bout of the flu when any clothing made his fever skyrocket. He liked the way the cool sheets felt against his bare skin.
As he climbed into bed, his mind wandered back to your conversation about his writing. Ever since he had expressed his dream of becoming a writer, you had been his number one fan. He often felt like the two of you were destined to meet because your career and interests as an editor and a writer went hand in hand.
He felt a warmth grow in him as he thought back to your video chat sessions during college. He would read finished chapters aloud while you worked on your homework. You would laugh at the parts you were supposed to and stop him mid sentence to demand a change. A trait that might annoy some, but one Jungkook was deeply grateful for. You were just so incredible, he couldn't believe that he had you… Fuck.
Jungkook felt a familiar twitch from below. A betrayal he had grown accustomed to recently. It was happening more and more. He would think about how wonderful you were, and suddenly he was sporting a half hard tent in the sheets.
When they were younger, he’d chalked it up to hormones, but now it was every day. He would catch himself thinking about you in more lewd ways than one, sometimes letting his hand wrap around his length to relieve the ache before stopping himself with a single thought: “She’s my best friend”.
But tonight felt different. You had spent the game convincing him he was good enough. You had even told him you loved him. It was a new thing you were both doing, being adults who were comfortable sharing feelings. Platonically, of course.
Except lately, "platonic" wasn't the word for the nagging feeling in his stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut with a huff and flipped onto his side, trying to focus on his novel instead of you.
“Fuck it,” he whispered into the dark.
Jungkook kicked the sheets off his body, letting his hand creep lower on his abdomen as he envisioned your face. The one from a few nights ago when your dress strap had momentarily slipped off your shoulder. A rhythm set in as his hand moved up and down, and he wondered how your gorgeous lips would feel wrapped around him.
“Fuck, y/n” he whispered.
He could practically hear you call his name in the quiet room. How soft your whimpers would be.
“Jungkook?”
His hand dropped instantly as he tilted his head, his heart falling into his stomach.
“Are you okay? Jungkook?”
He shot up, leaning forward to see his headset glowing a bright, mocking green.
The blood drained from Jungkook’s face so fast it left him dizzy. He stared at the headset, the small LED light pulsating with a steady green glow that felt like a neon sign pointing directly at his shame. He was paralyzed, his hand still lingering near his thigh, the heat of his own skin suddenly feeling like a brand.
“Jungkook? Are you still there?” Your voice was small, hesitant.
He scrambled to grab the headset, nearly knocking his monitor over in his haste. He jammed it onto his head, his breathing coming in shallow, ragged bursts. “Yeah,” he managed to croak out, his voice sounding like it had been dragged through gravel. “Yeah, I’m here. I... I thought you were asleep.”
The silence that followed was agonizing. It wasn't the comfortable, companionable silence of their gaming sessions; it was thick, heavy, and fraught with everything he had just been doing. and everything he had been thinking.
“I was,” you said softly. “But then I heard... I heard you say my name. And you sounded... you sounded different.”
Jungkook closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool plastic of his desk. He wanted to lie.
"How..how long have you been listening?" Jungkook nearly spoke in a whisper, his breath hitching as he stared at the glowing indicator on his screen. The silence on your end felt like an eternity, every second stretching out as he waited for his life to fall apart.
"Does it matter? Tell me what you were thinking about, Jeon". You deadpanned the words into the mic, and even through the headset, he could hear the faint edge of a smirk in your voice.
Jungkook froze, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He hadn’t thought about what he would do if you ever reciprocated these feelings. He didn't even know where to start. He leaned back into his chair, letting his hands rest in the same position they were in before the panic took over.
"I. I was thinking about your lips," he finally admitted, the honesty raw and terrifying.
"My lips where?" You were pushing him, and you knew exactly what you were doing.
"Wrapped around my cock. How good they would feel".
The admission caused a rush of arousal to surge through you, a physical weight in your stomach that you hadn't expected from just words alone. Your thighs squeezed together instinctively. "You know..I’ve thought about this plenty of times," you murmured. "I think I could make you cum in zero seconds flat".
Jungkook felt like his entire world was spinning. He hadn’t been the only one harboring these thoughts, trapped and locked away for a decade. "God, I wish I knew where you lived," he whisperedinto the dark of his room. "I want to be able to touch you".
It had never felt strange before that you hadn't shared your addresses. In the digital age, you never had a reason to, not until this moment, when the distance between you suddenly felt like an ocean you were desperate to cross.
Driven by pure desire, Jungkook reached over and pressed the video call button. His body acted before his brain could catch up, and for a split second, he rushed to hit the end call button out of pure habit.
Jungkook’s brain felt like it was going into overdrive. The screen, which had been his only window into your life for ten years, was no longer showing a pixelated avatar or a dark room. Instead, he was met with a smiling, pantsless you. He watched, his pulse thundering in his ears, as you rolled your hips up toward your hand. Not only was he seeing you partially nude for the first time, but you were also touching yourself. And you were doing it while thinking of him.
“Tell me how you would have me if you were here, Jungkook,” you challenged, your voice dropping into a low, sultry tone that made the air in his room feel ten degrees hotter.
He watched hungrily as the fabric of your underwear rose up and down like a guide for your fingers. The frustration of the distance, the decade of remaining physical strangers, all came crashing down into a singular, sharp desire.
“I’d spread those pretty little legs and taste you,” he rasped, his voice thick and unguarded. “I’ve wondered what you taste like.”
“Do you want to see what you’ve been thinking of?” you asked.
“Yes. God, yes.”
He watched as you stood up, the movement fluid and deliberate. You slowly lowered your underwear, kicking them off once they were around your ankles, before looking back at the camera with hooded, heavy eyes. You kept your legs shut just enough to keep him wanting more.
“Let’s see you,” you whispered, taking your bottom lip between your teeth as you awaited his next move.
Jungkook didn't hesitate. He tilted the camera down, showing off his fully hard cock. He heard you suck in a sharp breath through the headset. You allowed your legs to open just enough to run a finger over your clit, your expression one of pure, unadulterated focus.
“Do you want to see what I do when I think of you?” Your voice came out as a soft whine.
“I’ll show you, if you show me,” he replied, a promise and a demand all at once.
The words hung in the space between you, a pact made in the quiet of the early morning. “I’ll show you, if you show me.” It was a promise and a demand all at once, the culmination of years of curiosity and suppressed longing finally boiling over.
Jungkook’s hand was steady as he adjusted the camera, but his chest was heaving. He watched his own image on the small preview screen. The sharp lines of his body, the way the blue light from the monitor caught the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. He wasn't just showing you his body. He was showing you the physical manifestation of how much he wanted you, a truth he could no longer hide.
On your end, the sight of him made your breath hitch. Seeing him fully hard, his focus entirely on you, made the distance between your two cities feel like a physical ache. You didn't look away. You didn't want to miss a single second of the way his expression shifted from cocky determination to something softer, something almost desperate.
“You’re so beautiful,” he rasped, his eyes fixed on your image. “I’ve spent so long trying to imagine this, but my imagination didn't even come close.”
You let out a soft whine as you continued to touch yourself, your fingers moving in a frantic rhythm that matched the hammering of your heart.
Every sound. The rustle of fabric, the catch in his breath, the soft whimpers escaping your lips, was amplified in the quiet of your respective rooms. You were experts in each other's voices, but these were sounds you’d never shared before. They were raw, animalistic, and entirely focused on the person on the other side of the glass.
“Look at me, (y/n),” Jungkook commanded, his voice dropping into that low register that always made your stomach flip. “I want to see your eyes when you do it.”
You forced your heavy eyelids open, locking your gaze with his.
Watching him watch you made everything feel ten times more intense. Your fingers moved in a frantic rhythm, driven by the sight of his hand moving.
"God, you're so beautiful," he rasped, his head falling back against his chair as he picked up his pace. "I'm going to.."
He didn't finish the sentence, his words dissolving into a sharp, broken groan as he finally reached his limit. You followed right behind him, your name a soft, desperate plea on his lips.
For several minutes, the only sound on the call was the heavy, uneven breathing of two people coming back down to earth. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a profound, quiet intimacy that felt even more significant than the heat of the moment.
When you regained control on your breathing, Jungkook finally whispered something that took your breath away again, his voice steady and resolute. "I'm coming to see you.”
The platform was drafty, the scent of damp concrete hanging heavy in the air as the clock ticked toward midnight. You checked your phone for the twentieth time, your thumb hovering over the familiar group chat that had been your lifeline for a decade. He was on the last train of the night, a single thread of light cutting through the darkness of the tracks.
When the engine finally groaned to a halt and the doors hissed open, your heart didn't just race, it stopped.
You spotted him immediately. He was taller than the camera ever let on, his presence commandingly solid in a black coat that caught the yellow glare of the station lights. He looked better than any stream could have captured, more real and more vibrant than pixels had promised. You took a tentative step forward, expecting the usual, cautious first meeting hug.
Jungkook had other plans.
The moment his eyes locked onto yours, he didn't hesitate. He dropped his heavy duffel bags right there on the platform, the dull thud echoing against the tiles, and lunged forward. Before you could even whisper his name, his hands were framing your face, and he was diving in for a kiss that was long overdue. It was desperate and searing.
The air inside the car was thick, charged with electricity that seemed to hum louder than the engine. Your world had been the size of a computer monitor. Now, it was the three foot gap between the driver and passenger seats. Every time you shifted gears, his arm would brush against yours, a momentary contact that felt like a lightning strike.
“You’re quieter than I thought you’d be,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead. His voice was different without a headset. Deeper, more resonant, and vibrating right through the upholstery of the car. And you.
“I’m just trying to convince myself you’re not a hologram,” you admitted, a small laugh escaping you. “I keep waiting for the lag to hit or for my internet to cut out.”
Jungkook reached over, his fingers tangling with yours on the center console. His hand was warm, his grip firm and grounding. “No lag, (y/n). I’m right here.”
When you arrived at your apartment, the domesticity of the scene felt both familiar and brand new. You had described this kitchen to him a thousand times on video calls, but watching him actually stand in it was surreal. He leaned against the counter, watching you move between the stove and the cupboards with an intensity that made your hands shake as you boiled the pasta.
“You’re staring,” you teased, dumping the noodles into the strainer.
“I’ve been staring at a digital version of you for ten years,” he replied softly, stepping closer until he was standing directly behind you. He didn't touch you, but the heat radiating from him was enough to make your breath hitch. “I’m not going to stop now that I have the real thing.”
By the time you finished dinner, the conversation had drifted into a comfortable silence. You led him toward your bedroom, the room he had seen through a webcam every night.
"It’s exactly how I pictured it," Jungkook murmured, standing in the doorway of your bedroom. He traced the edge of your desk, his fingers lingering on the headset he’d spoken into a thousand times. "I can’t believe I’m actually seeing this in person. I feel like I'm still in the call."
You sat on the edge of the bed, watching him. "Why did we wait so long, Guk? Why did we never do this?"
He didn't answer with words. Instead, he crossed the room in two strides, his expression darkening with a focused intensity. "I've been waiting all day to do something," he told you, his voice dropping low.
You leaned back, a grin tugging at your lips. "What?"
He didn't give you a chance to breathe before he was laying you back against the mattress, his weight a welcome pressure. He worked with a single minded focus, shimmying your pants down until the cool air of the room hit your skin. His breath was hot against your thighs, a sharp contrast to the soft, lingering kisses he pressed into your skin as he began to go down on you.
When you reached down, your fingers tangling in his hair as you tried to pull him up to stroke him through his jeans, he let out a strangled groan.
"Don't," he gasped against your skin, his voice strained. "If you do that, I'll come too fast. I’ve been thinking about this for too long."
You let out a breathless giggle, the sound light and airy as you sat up and pushed him back, straddling his lap.
Slowly, he began to enter you, and you couldn't help but let out a long, shaky exhale at the sheer deliciousness of the stretch. He was thick and solid, filling you in a way that made your belly flutter. The sensation was overwhelming. It was a slow, deliberate claim that erased every mile that had ever stood between you. You looked down at him, watching the way his jaw tightened as he struggled to maintain his composure.
"You're so tight, (y/n)," he rasped, his eyes dark with a mix of pleasure and desperation. "I've spent years wondering if you'd feel like this, and it’s so much better than I thought."
He moved with a careful, almost reverent rhythm, trying his best to hold back because he didn't want the moment to end.
"Don't stop," you whispered, leaning down to press your forehead against his. "I want all of you, Jungkook."
He let out a guttural sound, his hands flexing against your thighs as he gave in to the overwhelming emotion. He was so deeply in love with you that the sensation was almost too much for him to bear. Every thrust was a promise, every touch a revelation.
As the rhythm intensified, the world outside the room blurred until there was only the sound of your shared breathing and the heat of your skin. You rode him until the tension reached a breaking point, and when you finally reached that moment together, it felt as though the final barrier between your lives had completely dissolved.
"I love you," he whispered against your neck, his arms locked tight around you.
"I love you too," you breathed back.
Later, wrapped in the same blanket and sharing a single controller, you finally did what you always did on Saturday nights. You played video games, but this time, when you covered his six, you could lean over and kiss his shoulder whenever he made a particularly tactical move.
The game was the same, but the ending was finally perfect.
you always thought you were a person of logic and restraint, but running into Jack Abbot after all these years has you fighting your desire for your ex boyfriends uncle.
genre: jack abbot x reader, age gap, forbidden romance, ex's uncle, mutual pining, jack fell first, eventual smut 18+ nsfw
(a/n: I did a poll and you little freaks wanted this one the most. and i do not blame you thank you so much for picking this one because i secretly wanted to finish writing it anyways lol. hope you like it!!)
It had been over two years since the breakup, and honestly, it was for the best. Your boyfriend never really loved you, and if you were being truthful with yourself, you were only with him to keep the loneliness at bay. You’d almost managed to scrub him from your memory entirely until a clumsy trip at work landed you in the ER.
And of all the people to be on shift, it had to be Jack Abbot.
You’d always liked Jack. Back when you were dating his nephew, Jack was the one person in that family who was consistently sweet to you. He was polite, kind, and though you’d never admitted it then, devastatingly sexy.
Jack had recognized you the second you were wheeled in. He could never forget those eyes, or the curve of your lips. Back then, he’d spent countless hours reining in his thoughts while you were with his nephew.
It wasn’t always about desire. Often, it was the protective urge that spiked when he saw how poorly his nephew treated you. All he’d ever wanted was to show you how special you actually were. Of course though, he was twice your age and the messy reality of the family connection. But seeing you here, with a nasty gash on your head from your fall, those complications felt miles away. Jack had made it his personal priority to stitch you up himself.
The room had been thick with an unaddressed silence as he worked. It wasn't until he turned back to recheck the precision of his sutures that you finally broke the tension.
“Didn’t think I’d see you ever again, much less like this.”
Jack’s heart gave a wild thrum, the same frantic beat it used to give whenever you’d trail into his house behind his nephew. He cleared his throat, his voice steady but warm.
“I practically live here, so this is the only way you’d probably run into me,” Jack said. It wasn’t an exaggeration. Between the night shifts and the sleep deprived grocery runs, the hospital was his world.
You managed a weak smile as you reached down to pick your purse up from the floor. “I’ll try not to make it a habit of crashing your work.”
Jack’s smile deflated at those words. He wanted to see you every day.
Minus the head injuries, of course.
You stood up, adjusting your bag over your shoulder, and offered him a parting nod. “Don’t work too hard, Abbott.”
Something in Jack sparked at the sound of his name on your lips. It was a rekindling of a fire he thought he had tamped down for good. He watched you walk away, but this time, he wasn't sure he was going to let two years go by before seeing you again.
…
Over the next few months, it seemed as though the universe was staging a persistent intervention. Despite Jack’s insistence that he lived at the hospital, you began to see him everywhere.
It started at the park.
You were mid stride on the track path, when you saw a familiar silhouette approaching from the opposite direction. As you drew closer, Jack looked up at the exact moment you did. You locked eyes and ran past each other. The momentum carried you a few yards further before the confusion set in. You slowed to a jog, then a walk, pulling one earphone out and turning around.
You were met with the sight of Jack doing the exact same thing. He stood there, chest heaving slightly, a sheepish but warm expression on his face. Without a word, he fell into step beside you. You finished your run together in a comfortable silence, eventually parting with nothing more than a lingering wave before you climbed into your car.
Then came the grocery store. You were weighing produce when you turned to find him reaching for a bag of apples.
Then the mall. You were coming out of a department store just as he was passing by.
Then the library. You were browsing and there he was, leaning against a mahogany shelf reading.
Each time, the routine was the same. A shared look of disbelief, a small smile, and a few moments of easy company. It was becoming impossible to ignore that these weren't just coincidences.
Every time you crossed paths, Jack would change his plans and join you. He was consistently sweet and thoughtful, possessing a quiet maturity that made it harder and harder to remember why you’d ever settled for his nephew.
The contrast between the two men was so jarring that one afternoon, you couldn't help but let the thought slip. "I honestly can’t believe he came from your family," you muttered, shaking your head.
Jack let out a snort of amusement. “You’ve never met my brother,” he said, a wry glint in his eyes. “He can be a similar kind of asshole, so it makes sense his kid inherited that.”
You laughed, but internally, your mind was racing. It would be crazy to sleep with your ex’s uncle, right? Like, actually insane.
But then Jack would tilt his head back to laugh at something you said, and all logic would evaporate. You found yourself staring at the wide expanse of his neck, your pulse quickening. In those moments, you didn't care about family trees or social taboos. All you desperately wanted to do was swipe your tongue across his Adam’s apple and follow all the way up to his mouth.
Every run in had your cheeks heating up, but the next time you crossed paths absolutely took the cake.
You had always liked taking yourself out on fancy solo dates. It was a way to self indulge, but mostly, it was a perfect excuse to wear the nice dresses gathering dust in your closet. Tonight, you had chosen a delicate little black dress. One that hugged every curve perfectly and featured beautiful sheer sleeves.
As you sat at the bar, swirling the wine in your glass, the skin on your neck began to prickle.
You had become so attuned to his presence over the last few months that you knew he was there before you even saw him.
When you finally turned to look, Jack was being led past the bar by a hostess, accompanied by two other men who looked vaguely familiar. When he finally locked eyes with you, time seemed to stutter. All the two of you could do was stare, mouths slightly agape.
He was dressed in an all black button up and matching slacks, his hair styled in just the right way.
Delicious.
Once the hostess seated them, Jack found it physically impossible to keep his eyes off you. His gaze wandered over your legs, those heels, and that fucking dress. He felt a wave of internal panic.
Fuck, what are you doing to him?
He told himself he was an old man. An old man who had morals, who knew that you were not only young but strictly off limits.
But as he watched you sip your wine, he couldn't help but think that maybe that was exactly what made this feel so dangerously good.
“What’s good here?” Robby asked, scanning his menu. When Jack didn’t answer, Robby and Langdon shared a look of confusion. They followed Jack’s line of vision across the room until they landed on you, sitting alone in that devastating black dress.
“Isn’t that...” Robby started, his brow furrowing.
Langdon finished for him, “The girl you stitched up a month or two ago?”
“Yeah,” was all Jack could say. He knew he was blatantly staring. Maybe desperately, but he couldn't bring himself to stop.
Before his friends could even rib him for it, Jack stood up. He didn't really make a conscious decision to move. He felt pulled, dragged by the universe or some magnetic force he’d be stupid to fight any longer. He crossed the floor, his eyes never leaving yours.
“How is it that in all of the restaurants in Pittsburgh, you are here tonight?” he asked as he reached you.
You blinked up at him, feeling the heat of his gaze. “I don’t know, but for someone who doesn’t get out much, why do I keep seeing you everywhere?”
Jack didn't answer immediately. He just stood there, his eyes roving over you, taking in the sheer sleeves and the way the fabric held your body.
“Do you want some company?” he asked.
You glanced past his shoulder, seeing Robby and Langdon staring down the whole situation from their table. “Should you leave your friends?”
“My friends will be okay,” Jack said firmly.
You let out a soft laugh and gestured toward the empty chair opposite you. As Jack sat down, completely abandoning his party, Robby turned toward Langdon and rolled his eyes.
“Guess it’s just me and you for guys' night,” Robby muttered, reaching for the wine list.
With Jack here, that familiar bundle of nerves tightened in your chest.
“So, do you still live at the house with that big pool in the backyard?” you asked, trying to keep your voice steady.
Jack smiled. He loved that you remembered that detail. “I do. Couldn’t get me to leave for a million dollars,” he replied.
You leaned back, the memory of that house flickering through your mind. You had spent so much time there, yet it felt like you’d only ever seen it through a window. “I’m sad I never got to swim in it. It looked so nice,” you admitted. Your ex had hated swimming, so the pool had always been a look but don't touch feature.
The mere thought of you in a bathing suit, skin glistening as you climbed out of his pool, sent Jack’s body into immediate overdrive. He gripped his wine glass, trying every mental trick in the book to distract himself from the imagery, but the mental picture was too vivid.
Looking down at you, his voice dropped a fraction as he spoke. “Well, you should come by and swim.” He caught the intensity in his own tone and quickly tacked on, “If you want to.”
You took a slow sip of your wine, watching him over the rim of the glass. “I would love to.”
You couldn't get over to Jack Abbott’s house quick enough.
…
The bill was settled, and despite the lingering stares from Robby and Langdon, Jack didn't offer a single glance back at his friends. His attention was a fixed point, and that point was you.
"You didn't have to leave them," you said, though your voice lacked any real conviction. "I'm sure they had plenty more to discuss than hospital politics."
Jack shoved his hands into his pockets, his shoulder occasionally brushing yours as you walked. "Trust me, I’ve heard all their stories twice over. Besides," he glanced at you. "I think we both know I wasn't going to be much of a conversationalist over there once I saw you sitting alone."
You reached your car and turned to face him, leaning back against the driver’s side door. "So, you’re saying I’m a distraction, Abbott?"
Jack stepped closer, just enough to enter your personal space, but not enough to be improper. He looked down at you, his gaze tracing the line of your jaw before settling on your lips.
"A significant one," he admitted.
The air between you was charged, thick with the unsaid. You could see the internal struggle in the set of his shoulders.
"I'll see you at the pool then?" you whispered, the challenge clear in your eyes.
He nodded and you watched him walk back into the restaurant to find his friends. Leaving you to try desperately to cool off.
…
It had been a few weeks since you had seen or talked to Jack. He had spent most of his off hours glancing at his phone, then at the shimmering blue water of his backyard, eventually convincing himself that you had thought better of it. He figured you’d realized that showing up at your ex’s uncle’s house was a line you didn't want to cross. He told himself it was for the best, his morals were intact, even if his disappointment was heavy.
But when he woke up Saturday morning and reached for his phone, the air in his bedroom suddenly felt thin.
There it was, a notification that made his heart skip a beat. A good morning text, followed immediately by: "How’s the water feel?"
Jack sat up abruptly, rubbing a hand over his face as a grin took over. Shit was starting to feel very real.
He looked out the window at the water, reflecting the bright morning sun.
He needed to reply. He needed to find a swimsuit that didn't look like he’d owned it since the nineties. And most importantly, he needed to figure out how to keep his hands to himself when you finally showed up.
He typed back: "It’s perfect."
…
Jack felt like he was already fucking ruined.
The sight of you standing in his living room, framed by the morning light, was enough to make his pulse stutter. You were wearing a dark sundress that obscured your swimsuit, and he silently told himself that was for the best, considering he was already half hard just from the sheer fact that you were finally here.
It was strange how calm you had felt during the entire drive over. Usually, a situation this loaded would have your heart in your throat, but pulling into Jack’s driveway had just felt right.
As you followed him out toward the gleaming blue of the pool, a memory washed over you. You remembered the last time you were standing on this deck. Your boyfriend had been playing basketball with a friend, the sounds of the ball thudding against the pavement echoing through the yard. You had been sitting right there, tucked into a lounge chair with a book, trying to disappear into the pages.
Jack had come out to join you then, too. You remembered looking up and offering him a smile. The only real one you’d had all day.
Then, your boyfriend’s voice had cut through the air. “Baaaabe, can you get me some water?” He’d made a mock drinking motion with his hand, despite being stood right next to the sliding door, mere steps away from the kitchen.
“No.” you had said casually, not even shifting your weight.
Jack hadn't been able to help himself. He’d let out a barking laugh that seemed to startle even him. He watched his nephew huff and disappear into the house to get it himself, then he turned his attention back to you. He looked at the beautiful, smart girl sitting in front of him and found himself wondering aloud, “Why are you with him?”
You hadn't looked up from your book. You had just stared at the page, your eyes tracking the same sentence over and over until the words lost all meaning.
“I ask myself that every day,” you had whispered.
…
Unfortunately, of all the bad, dog shit days Jack had experienced in the ER, he had never encountered a personal hell quite like this one.
He watched, rooted to the spot, as you dipped a hand into the water to test the temperature. When you reached down and pulled the dark sundress over your head, Jack didn’t think he could speak even if he wanted to.
Of all the pure filth running through his head, and there was plenty, all he could truly settle on was the sheer fact that you were here. You were in his presence, choosing to be with him, spending your Saturday in his backyard. He had adored you from the very moment he met you, and seeing you now, you looked like sin and an angel at the same time.
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, genuinely fearing that if he didn't, he might make some sort of dumb, grabby motion toward you. The thought of losing his composure like that mortified him, yet his gaze remained hungry.
You dove in gracefully, your body cutting through the blue surface. The water felt incredible against your skin. When you broke the surface, you pushed your hair back and beamed at him with a huge smile.
“Oh my god. I never want to leave,” you laughed, treading water.
He didn't want you to leave either. Not today, and maybe not ever. When you tilted your head and motioned for him to join you, the last of his restraint vanished.
…
The sun had finally begun to dip, casting long shadows across the water. You had stayed at Jack’s all day, the hours melting away into easy conversation.
“I should be going,” you said softly, your voice carrying over the water as you sat on the top step of the shallow end. “I’ve definitely overstayed my welcome. I just, I love this pool.”
Jack, who had been doing slow laps in the deep end, turned and swam toward you. He hoisted himself up to sit on the step beside you, his shoulder inches from yours.
“Stay as long as you want,” he said. “It doesn't bother me. Not in the slightest.”
Your hands were resting near each other on the tiled step, the water lapping over your knuckles.
“You know,” you started, tracing a pattern in the water, “I think the only reason I stayed with him so long was so I could get to see you.”
Maybe it was the two drinks, or maybe you were just tired of the dance, but the confession felt like it had been clawing to get out for years. “And seeing you again, it confirmed that.”
You looked up at him and he was already looking at you, his eyes dark and unreadable. The intensity of his gaze made you flare with sudden nerves. You stood up abruptly, wading into the waist deep water of the shallow end, running your fingers over the surface as you walked away.
“That was stupid. Sorry,” you muttered, shaking your head.
But Jack didn't let you get far. He stood up, the water cascading off his chest, and followed you. He moved with a quiet intent until you were pinned against the corner of the pool. He didn't touch you at first. He just braced his hands on the stone edge on either side of your waist, trapping you into space.
“Jack,” you breathed, but you didn’t get another word out.
He dipped his head and finally took your mouth with his. It wasn't a hesitant kiss. It was years of suppressed longing breaking through the surface. You didn't hesitate, leaning into him and pressing your hands against the hard plane of his chest.
Jack let out a moan against your lips. His hands dropped into the water, his palms finding the curve of your hips and pulling you flush against him as the kiss intensified. You opened your mouth for him, and he didn't waste a second, his tongue seeking yours with a hunger that told you he couldn’t get enough.
When he finally pulled back just an inch, his chest was heaving, his forehead resting against yours. “I’ve waited so long to do that,” he rasped. “And I don’t want to stop. Do you want to stop?”
“Never,” you whispered.
He took that permission and dove back in, his kiss even more desperate this time. His hands began to roam with total abandon, sliding over the slick fabric of your suit. When his hand moved lower, pressing firmly over your center, you let out a moan directly into his mouth.
Jack pulled away again, his eyes wild and dark. “Do you want to go inside?” he pleaded, his breath hot against your skin. “Please say you want to go inside.”
You didn’t need words. You nodded, your fingers lacing through his. He gripped your hand tight, leading you out of the water and toward the house, neither of you looking back at the pool.
You and Jack were still hand in hand, skin damp and pulses racing, when you rounded the corner into the kitchen. The sound of rustling plastic stopped abruptly. Standing there, half bent over the pantry shelves with a bag of chips in his hand, was your ex.
He froze. He looked at your interlaced fingers, then up at his uncle’s face and then finally at you, standing there in nothing but a towel and a damp swimsuit.
Clock in. Find Jack Abbot. Say something that makes him squirm. Clock out. You've never claimed it means anything. You've never claimed it doesn't either. What matters is that something has shifted. Jack is off. And you are going to figure out what happened.
genre: jack abbot x reader, attending jack x attending reader, comedy, because i think i'm funny!, flirty reader makes jacky a nervous boy but he likes it, best friend john shen!!!!,banter, inaccurate medical lingo probably, eventual smut 18+ nsfw
word count: 4900
(a/n: i've had suuuuuch writers block yall. i just wanted to write something that made me giggle and so here it is.)
You were never late. Well, not usually anyways.
But the dryer had, apparently, developed a personal vendetta against you, and had eaten your scrubs. Because when you'd opened the door, there was exactly one sock.
So you'd rolled into the ER the only way you knew how, with style.
The style being your loosest, most comfortable pants and a shirt that was, objectively, enormous on you. Hair twisted up into something that could generously be called a bun, but more honestly looked like a bird had started a nest.
The automatic doors slid open and the familiar wall of antiseptic air hit you.
You were exactly twenty two minutes late.
Which, in ER terms, wasn't catastrophic. The world was still standing. But Robby was mid sentence at the nurses' station, wrapping up his final thoughts on handoff, and the whole night crew was clustered around him already tired. You lingered at the edge of the group, catching the tail end of it.
“The chest pain in bay four is probably costochondritis but we ordered a troponin series, just keep an eye. Bay seven's been waiting on CT results for two hours, she's pleasant but she's asking every fifteen minutes, and whoever takes her, just..be ready for that. And that's it from me. Night shift, she's all yours. Try not to break her.”
You were already mentally rehearsing the speech. Hey, Robby, so I know this is a weird time to ask, but I was wondering if you'd consider writing..
Except Robby was already heading for the exit. You'd missed your window. Again.
You pressed your lips together and made your way to the nurses' station. John looked up from the enormous coffee in his hand. His gaze traveled over you. "Ah," he said. "There she is." His eyes made one more pass. "In her pajamas?"
You smiled. Sweet as anything. "Aww." You reached over and plucked the cup directly from his hand. "You wish." You took a long, generous sip. Made eye contact while you did it.
"Say something else," you told him pleasantly, "and I'm taking this as mine for the rest of the shift."
John snatched the cup back with the reflexes of someone who had learned, over time, that you meant what you said. He pointed at you and walked away without another word.
Smart man.
Jack Abbot had not been looking at you during the handoff, but he looked up when John left. And then his eyes dropped, briefly, to your shirt. You watched him read it. Saw the exact moment it registered. The little grid of illustrated frogs, cheerful and green, and above them in bold block letters: Man I Love Frogs.
His expression did the thing it sometimes did, where it tried very hard to stay neutral and mostly succeeded, except for the slight tension at the corner of his jaw that gave him away if you knew where to look.
And oh you knew where to look.
"Appropriate for the ER?" he said, glancing down at a chart.
"It was either this," you said, leaning against the counter, "or me being an hour late with my scrubs crop topped because I don't know how to do laundry, apparently."
You put on your best smile then. The one you kept specifically for him. Wide and warm and just a little shameless. Weaponized, if you were being honest.
He tried to frown and he almost made it, but one corner of his mouth tipped up. Just barely. "Come on," he said, already moving. "I'll fill you in on what you missed."
He was a few steps away when he paused, and looked back at you over his shoulder. "Maybe get some new scrubs first?"
You grinned. Tongue pressed to your cheek for just a moment. "I knew you always wanted to get me out of my clothes, Abbot." You turned and walked away before he could respond.
You didn't need to see it. You already knew what was coming. The slight shake of his head, slow and resigned. You'd catalogued all his responses by now. The head shake. The exhale that was almost a laugh but never quite. And the best one, the heat that would crawl up the side of his neck, just above the collar, when you caught him off guard.
You hadn't gotten him to blush yet, but you were patient. And you were, if nothing else, extremely good at your job.
…
The guy had come in via ambulance, which was honestly a little dramatic for a dislocated shoulder, but people handled pain differently and you weren't here to judge.
The trauma bay was busy. Two nurses, Jack on your left, a med student hovering near the doorway like he wasn't sure if he'd been invited. The patient was a man somewhere in his mid fifties, broad shouldered even with one of those shoulders sitting noticeably lower than the other. He was gritting his teeth, breathing through it.
"Alright," you said, snapping your gloves on. "You took a pretty good fall. Good news is nothing's broken, your X-ray looks clean. We're just going to get that shoulder back where it belongs. I'm going to have the nurse push some morphine first so you're more comfortable, okay?"
And that was when you felt it. The way the patient's eyes moved, not to you, but past you, landing on Jack. He hadn't even opened his mouth yet, but you knew anyway. You'd gotten good at knowing.
His eyes slid back to you, then over to Jack again, and you watched him work up to it. The words forming behind his teeth like he thought he was about to ask something perfectly reasonable. "Does this nurse know what she's doing?"
Jack knew better than to speak for you. He didn't even open his mouth. He didn't have to, because you were already talking, your voice smooth and even and completely unbothered, which was an achievement you were privately proud of. "I'm a doctor," you said. "But even if I were a nurse, I'd trust them to work on you, because they are just as competent, if not better."
The patient's mouth closed. The morphine, mercifully, started doing its job about ninety seconds later, and by the time you were actually repositioning the joint, his eyes had gone soft and heavy at the edges and he'd lost most of his opinions along with the worst of his pain.
You felt the shoulder slide back into place with the satisfying give that never entirely got old. "There we go," you said quietly.
You stripped your gloves off and turned to the trash can, and maybe you threw them a little harder than the situation strictly required, but it was the fourth time this week. And it was always men. You hadn't raised your voice once. Hadn't made a single error. Hadn't given any of them a single reason to look past you for someone they'd trust more, and still.
The break room was the closest place that was a little bit quieter than the ER and you pushed through the door, let it swing shut behind you, and went straight to the sink. Bracing your hands against the edge of it, letting the cold of the basin come up through your palms.
You heard the door open and didn't turn around. "I know you'll stop me if I start," Jack said, behind you. "But please. Just listen."
You turned around.
"You are one of the most competent and skilled doctors I've ever worked with." He said it the way he said most things, plainly. No softening around the edges, no cushion. Jack Abbot did not do unnecessary cushioning. "Honestly, I'm impressed. All the time. Just.." he paused, "remember that when assholes open their yap."
You felt the corner of your mouth pull up against your will. "It's just, I keep getting these comments a lot this week. And I was going to ask Robby to write me a recommendation letter, but every time one of these fuckers says something out of pocket, I start to think.." you laughed, “yeah. Maybe they're right."
Jack was quiet for a moment and then he put his hands in his pockets. "Well," he said, "they don't know anything."
He turned to go. Which was very Jack. Say the thing, mean it completely, and then act like it had been small and not something you'd be thinking about for the rest of the week.
He was almost to the door. "And." he paused, hand not quite on the frame and he didn't turn all the way back around. "I'll write you that letter. I'd be happy to."
It was such a small thing, but the thing was it had never even occurred to you to ask Jack. Not once. Not because you thought he'd say no, but because you'd always operated under the assumption that maybe you didn't take up enough space in his head to make a letter worth anything. That he'd sit down to write it and find he didn't have as much to say as you'd hoped.
"Thank you, Jack."
“Of course.” there was that flush again. And you watched him go. Trying very hard to not let your jaw drop to the floor.
…
By hour four of the shift, you were back.
Not that you'd ever fully left, but the version of you that had let something mean from a small minded man take up real estate in her mind? She'd clocked out.
The rest of you had gotten another sip of Shen’s coffee, fixed a kid's broken arm with enough distraction that he'd barely cried, and was now feeling, frankly, pretty great about the whole situation.
Which meant Jack was in trouble. Because you had already came to work pre loaded with all the dumb flirty things you were going to say to him, they had just been briefly put on pause because of that dose of misogyny from shoulder guy
You needed gauze from the supply closet and Jack was already in there, reading a label on something, brows furrowed. They did that when he was extremely focused. Either that or he can’t see the letters anymore. Two things can be true.
"Oh good," you said, reaching past him for the gauze. "You're here. I need the tall person to reach things for me."
He looked up. "The tall person.." he glanced at the shelf in question, which was, to be fair, not that high. "You could reach that."
"I could," you agreed pleasantly. "But why would I when you're right here?"
He looked at you for a moment with the expression he reserved specifically for you and the one you adored oh so much. It was one of someone who hadn't fully decided if he was exasperated or amused and had quietly stopped trying to choose.
He reached up and got the gauze without another word. "See?" You tucked it under your arm. "This is why I keep you around, Abbot."
"Is that all I’m good for?" he said flatly.
"And the company." You smiled at him over your shoulder on the way out. "Mostly the reaching, though."
You heard the exhale behind you. That almost laugh that you had grown to love so much.
…
Charting was, genuinely, the least interesting part of the job, and your feelings about it were well documented, but it had to be done, and you were doing it.
Jack came to stand at the counter beside you to review something on his own chart, and you both existed in a companionable silence for approximately ninety seconds before you ruined it.
"Can I ask you something?" you said, not looking up from your screen.
"Hmm?"
"Do you ever think about what we could be?"
Jack’s finger paused, hovering over the tablet. "What?"
You gestured vaguely between the two of you. "In terms of, like, diagnostic efficiency. We have a really good system. I was just reflecting on it."
Jack looked at you and you kept your eyes on your screen. "Is that really what you were asking?" he said slowly.
"Obviously." You clicked to the next field on the screen. "What did you think I meant?"
Another pause. Longer this time and you bit the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling.
He looked back down at his chart. You watched, in your peripheral vision, his jaw shift. "You're a menace," he said finally.
"You're very sweet," you replied. "Thank you."
…
The next time you flirted, it wasn’t planned.
You were walking back from radiology, a set of films tucked under your arm, vaguely composing your differential in your head, when you almost walked directly into Jack coming around the corner. You both stopped. A foot of space between you, maybe less.
"Hi" you said. And then, genuinely without forethought, you looked at him standing there in the light of the hallway and something just came out of your mouth. "You know," you said, "it's actually a little unfair."
He looked at you. "What is?"
"That you're.." you made a gesture that encompassed him "like that. While we're trying to work." You shook your head. "Very inconsiderate of you."
A slow rise of color climbed from his jaw to his cheekbones, and he looked away from you for just a second, and when he looked back he was blushing.
You hadn't expected that. This was new and it did something to your chest you weren't prepared for, some sudden softness that made you forget what your face was supposed to be doing.
You looked at each other for one second longer than was necessary.
"I.." he started.
"Sorry," you said. "I've got to.." you held up the films as evidence. "Radiology."
"Right," he said. "Yeah."
And you both walked away from each other. Your cheeks also ablaze.
…
You found John at the nurses' station and walked up beside him and did grabby hands at his drink without saying a word. He looked at you and sighed while handing it over.
You took a long sip and stared at nothing in particular across the ER and the giggle that came out of you was embarrassing. You couldn't help it.
"You've been extra flirty with Abbot today," John said casually, taking his coffee back.
You blinked. "What do you mean?"
He gave you a look and you opened your mouth, but then you promptly closed it. Because okay. Yeah. You had been. You knew you had been and you could not construct a defense.
You took another sip of John's coffee instead. "Why?" you said finally. "You jealous?"
John snorted. He reached over and snagged the cup back from your hand. "You wish," he said, already walking away, " that you could handle all of this."
…
The last hour of a shift was its own specific kind of purgatory.
You were too tired to be fully functional but too close to the end to justify giving up.
Everything felt slightly underwater. Your feet had filed a formal complaint somewhere around hour ten and had not withdrawn it. And your brain, unhelpfully, had decided that the last hour was a great time to run a highlight reel of you standing in a hallway telling Jack Abbot that he was hot to his face and then watching color bloom across his cheekbones.
You had been steering clear since. Not obviously. You were a professional after all. You'd answered a consult when he'd needed you, passed him in the hall twice, existed in the same room as him without incident. But you had not lingered.
You'd drifted toward radiology mostly by accident and somehow that had turned into a conversation with the radiologist, doing the thing he always did when he got you alone for more than four minutes.
"Okay, okay last one," he said, leaning against the doorframe. He was, objectively, not bad looking. Confident in a way that was almost too polished. "Are you a 90 degree angle?"
You tilted your head.
"Because you're looking right," he finished, and pointed at you.
You laughed. You couldn't help it. "That's awful."
"But you're smiling!"
"Because it's awful," you said. He grinned at you and you shook your head again, and it was..fine. Nice, even, in the uncomplicated way that things were nice when there was nothing underneath them.
…
The consult had run long, which was the nature of consults, and Jack had made his peace with that years ago. He walked out of the room already composing the follow up notes in his head, already halfway down the mental checklist.
He turned the corner toward the nurses' station and slowed.
You were outside radiology, leaning against the wall with your arms loosely crossed, and the radiologist was saying something, and then you were laughing.
Not your polite laugh. Not the one you deployed for patients or for pharmaceutical reps or for the hospital administrator who told the same story about his boat every time he came through.
The real one.
Jack kept moving and he rounded the nurses' station and looked up at the board.
"Y/N and him are looking cozy." John said, sipping that same stupid coffee.
Jack did not look at him and John took a long drag from his cup. "Strange how she hasn't dated anyone this whole time we've worked together."
Jack moved his eyes to the next name on the board. Another long sip. "It's like she's waiting on someone."
Jack turned and faced him fully. "Is there something you would like to say?"
John held both hands up. The picture of innocence and walked away.
Jack turned back around and immediately saw the radiologist reach out and squeeze your arm. And you leaned into it.
A small thing. Maybe. The kind of thing that could be nothing.
You were a grown woman. You could laugh at bad jokes with whoever you wanted, you could lean into whoever you wanted, that was..that was good, actually. That was how things should be. No reasonable person would have any feelings about that whatsoever and Jack was, above most things, reasonable.
He did, however, make a mental note. Purely informational, the kind of thing that any colleague might pass along out of general goodwill that the radiologist had almost certainly been in a fraternity, and that radiologists as a species had a particular reputation for never fully evolving past that particular chapter of their lives, and that this was simply something worth knowing.
Useful context. That was all. He'd mention it when the moment was right.
…
You saw Dana coming through the automatic doors just as you were heading out.
"Hi, baby!" She opened her arms and you walked directly into them because you were tired and she smelled like her same perfume she'd always worn and sometimes that was exactly what a person needed at the end of a long night.
"I haven't seen you in some time," she said, squeezing you.
"I know, I know." You pulled back and held both her hands. "Drinks soon. I mean it this time."
She waved you off with a smile and pushed through into the ER and you turned and walked out.
You moved to turn around when you heard the doors open again and saw that it was Jack. You smiled at him. Big and easy. "See you later, cowboy."
And Jack just nodded. Once, a quick, terse thing. Then turned, and walked in the other direction.
You just stood there dumbfounded.
"Ouch." John had appeared at your left, which you were starting to think was just something that happened now, John materializing beside you at pivotal moments. "That even hurt me to watch."
You fell into step beside him toward the parking garage. "Shut up. I swear."
"I'm just saying.."
"John."
You walked the rest of the way to the garage in silence, and you told yourself it didn't matter, and you were so tired that your feet felt like they belonged to someone else, and by the time you got to your car you had mostly convinced yourself that if you just slept long enough you wouldn't have to think about what just happened at all.
…
Once a month, the rotating schedule aligned and you, John and Jack got a Friday through Sunday that belonged entirely to you.
It was, genuinely, the only reason you all remained functional.
And every Friday night of those weekends, without exception, since you and John had both been exhausted little residents held together by caffeine and stubbornness, was movie night.
Was it silly? Probably. Did it keep both of you sane? Absolutely.
"Can you at least listen to my argument on why we should watch Wake Up Dead Man?" John said from the couch.
You were in the kitchen, pulling the popcorn bag out of the microwave with two fingers while it finished its last aggressive pops. "Ugh," you said. "Why."
"Because I want to."
You ripped the bag open and dumped it into the bowl and then reached for the bag of peanut M&Ms on the counter and tipped a generous pour in on top. The way you'd both been eating it since forever. The only correct way.
"That isn't a valid enough reason." You picked up the bowl and walked back into the living room, dropping onto your end of the couch. "The jury vetoes your motion. We're watching Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion."
"Again?" He made a sound, a groan of disapproval and you pointed the remote at him in warning and pressed play.
Forty five minutes in you were both quoting it back at the screen in real time, finishing each other's sentences on the good parts, and John was laughing so hard at the Post-it note scene like he always did.
You knew he loved that movie.
After, the both of you being two aperol spritzes in, the thing that had been gnawing at you all night shifted forward.
"So," you said, tone maybe trying to be a little too casual. "Did Abbot say anything to you the other day?" You looked at your glass. "Like, did I do something wrong?"
John had many, many qualities that you loved about him. His loyalty. His humor. His willingness to show up. His complete inability to keep his face neutral when he knew something you didn't.
You loved him despite that last one. Usually.
His expression right now was doing approximately a million things and none of them were subtle, and the two spritzes had turned the volume up on all of it considerably.
"You guys are so stupid."
You set your glass down on the coffee table and sat up straighter. Crossed your legs and leaned on your elbow. "Go on," you said. "Do tell."
John rolled his eyes at the ceiling like he was asking it for patience. "That man," he said, "is so in love with you." He paused for a second only to shift to grab a the last handful of popcorn. "Much like you are with him."
Your heart did a funny little thing.
It was apparently connected to your arms, because they went with it. Some full body short circuit that sent your elbow off the armrest and your hand straight into your spritz glass, which tumbled in what felt like slow motion off the edge of the table.
It hit the floor and glass went everywhere.
You were already on your feet moving toward the kitchen for something to clean it up, when your sock hit the puddle of spilled liquid on the hardwood and your foot went one direction and the rest of you went another and you came down hard, knee first, directly into the broken glass.
"Oh fuck!" John said, hopping up from the couch.
You were already looking at it. Already doing the clinical assessment that your brain defaulted to. Decent sized shard. Lodged in the lateral side of your knee. Bleeding, but not alarmingly. You'd seen worse.
"It's fine," you said. "It's totally fine, we can fix this."
"We are slightly tipsy doctors," John said flatly, and you could already hear him typing on his phone. "I'm calling a car. Let's go."
…
The intake nurse at PTMC waved you through quickly. Mateo appeared from around the corner, took one look at you, and immediately gestured to a wheelchair. "Please," he said. "For me."
"I'm fine," you told him. "Get me a suture kit."
You were making your way toward the nurses' station, John's arm under yours, when you rounded the corner and looked up and.
Oh.
Of course.
Jack was standing at the nurses' station with a tablet in his hand, and he was in his SWAT uniform, which meant he was technically taking his long weekend off but physically incapable of going home and staying there like a normal person and he looked up at the exact moment you made eye contact with him and you thought, sincerely, about turning around and hobbling back out the way you came.
He let the tablet go, already moving, crossing the floor toward you and John with his jaw set and his eyes on your knee. "What the hell happened."
"Movie night happened," John said.
Jack shouldered him gently to the side and you were suddenly leaning against Jack instead of John, his arm solid and warm under your hand.
"I can walk just fine.." you started. He didn't let you finish. He bent down, got one arm under your knees and one behind your back, and picked you up like it was nothing, like he did this every day.
Your heart, which had already had a very eventful evening, did something so loud you were genuinely concerned he could hear it. It was roaring in your ears. You kept your eyes forward, trying not to think about the way Jack's grip felt on you.
John followed you down the hall, completely unbothered.
Jack set you down on the exam table with a care that was infuriatingly gentle and immediately looked at your knee, then at John.
"Would have fixed it myself," you offered, before he could say anything, "but did indulge in some libations tonight."
Jack's eyes cut to John. "And you drove?"
John stared at him. "Relax," he said. "We got an Uber, Grandpa."
Jack exhaled through his nose. It was then that he seemed to actually take in the full picture of you and John Shen on a Friday night off. Both of you in shirts that defied reasonable explanation.
Yours: an enormous grey thing, a simple heart printed on the front. Inside it in clean block letters somebody in pittsburgh thinks i'm a cunt. xoxo.
John's: all black, white block lettering: i'm with stupid and an arrow pointing downward toward what was, as far as Jack could determine, John's general groin region.
Jack looked at John. "Now you're wearing the crazy shirts?"
You sat up, affronted, a smile pulling at the corner of your mouth despite the throb in your knee. "What? You don't like them?" The spritz was warm in your blood and you felt it in the way you giggled just slightly after you said it.
"It's tradition," John said, with great dignity, crossing his arms. You reached out toward him and he came forward and took your hand without being asked, and you squeezed it and looked up at him. "Ohh, I love you," you said.
John smiled. The real one he didn't hand out to everyone. "And I love you." he said, right at the same time hid phone dinged. "But." He was pulling his phone from his pocket with his free hand. "I am going to leave you. I just got a Hinge match and I am not passing this up."
"I knew it." You pointed at him. "I knew you'd eventually leave me for another woman."
He blew you a kiss from the doorway, pocketed his phone, and was gone.
Jack pulled on gloves and began setting up around the glass, and you watched him work for a moment. "I can't seem to get a read on the dynamic you two have." he said, not looking up.
You almost laughed. "And I" the beginning of it came out easy and then his gloved hand made contact with your knee and the pain spiked sharp and sudden. “ow, fuck."
"Sorry" he said gently.
"And I," you continued, steadier, "can't get a read on you."
It came out before you'd fully decided to say it. But it was true, wasn't it. It had been true always. It wasn't fun.
Jack was quiet for a moment. "The glass didn't go too deep," he said. "I think I can bandage this. No stitches."
"Amazing," you said. "Now I just need to call a ride and then I'll be home in my bed with my popcorn and my throbbing knee."
He pulled the gloves off. Reached for the computer to type in your chart. "I'm driving you home," he said. Like it was obvious. Like it was already decided.
you agree to open your relationship after your boyfriend kept begging. at first he's on the apps getting absolutely zero matches, but then he gets a date. And the first time you go out with your friends with the full intention to find someone, you meet jack abbot. and he is hell bent on making sure you do not forget him.
genre: jack abbot x tattoo artist!reader, strangers to friends to ????, best friend trinity and by proximity dennis lol, smut 18+ nsfw
word count: 5100
(a/n: all i gotta say is hell yeah. also ignore the fact that jack is able to be around during the night even though he works night shift lmao. just use your imagination.)
The thing about opening a relationship is that someone has to actually want to be in one.
You'd been turning this thought over for three weeks now, looking for the flaw. You'd found it pretty quickly. The flaw was Derek.
Derek, who had spent four months gently, persistently, lovingly lobbying for what he called “an evolved approach to modern partnership.” Derek, who had bookmarked three articles about ethical non monogamy and left them open on the shared laptop like bread crumbs he expected you to follow. Derek, who had said, with earnest sincerity, “I just think we're evolved enough for this, babe. Don't you?”
You had said yes because you were thirty years old and had been with this man for ten of those years and somewhere along the way you had apparently misplaced the part of yourself that said no, actually, I don't.
So: open relationship. Officially, as of three Saturdays ago, you were doing this.
Derek had downloaded Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, and some other app that you'd never heard of and didn't ask about. He'd spent an entire Sunday afternoon cycling through profile photos, soliciting your opinion on which ones showed his authentic self, while you sat six feet away inking a peony onto a client's shoulder and making noises of vague encouragement.
Three weeks later, Derek had zero matches.
Not a disappointing handful. Zero.
You on the other hand, had not bothered to download any apps.
You hadn't really meant to make a statement with this. It had just been a busy three weeks. You'd finished a full sleeve on a regular, taken three new consultations, and rearranged the whole studio. There simply hadn't been time to curate a selection of photos for a profile.
This was what you told Trinity on Thursday night, sitting in the back room of your shop, eating takeout.
"You haven't downloaded any apps," Trinity said, around a mouthful of noodles, "because you don't actually want to do this."
"I've been busy."
"You know what you haven't done?" She pointed her fork at you. "Anything. You have done nothing. Derek is out there failing spectacularly at the thing he begged you for and you are pretending this is a scheduling issue."
"I just don't think apps are really my.."
"Y/N."
"..thing, I'm more of an organic.."
"Y/N."
"..meeting people naturally kind of.."
"Y/N."
You looked up.
Trinity had put down her fork, which was how you knew she was serious. "You have been with Derek since you were twenty. You have never, as an adult, gone on a date with anyone who wasn't Derek. You don't know what you like because you stopped asking yourself that question before your prefrontal cortex finished developing."
You opened your mouth.
"I love you," Trinity continued. "Derek is someone you have outgrown. You know it and I know it and I think somewhere in the part of him that isn't currently refreshing Hinge, he knows it too. This open relationship thing isn't evolution."
The shop was quiet around you. The flash art on the walls looked down from their frames.
"So," Trinity picked her fork back up. "Saturday. You and me. Roomie Dennis is meeting us at Dillon's at nine. You're going to put on something that isn't a work hoodie, you're going to go to a bar like a normal adult woman, and you are going to at least look at other human men and remember that they exist."
"I know men exist."
You thought about saying something. Several things, actually, arranged in a pretty solid argument about how you were fine, how the situation was fine, how you didn't need to go to a bar to prove you were a person. "Fine," you said.
"Saturday. Nine o'clock. Wear the black top."
…
Dillon's was a bar that had been there forever. Dark wood, low lighting, a jukebox in the corner that still worked if you fed it right, and a bartender named Pete who remembered what you ordered after the second visit. It smelled like old leather and something hoppy and wasn't trying to be anything other than exactly what it was.
You had been here maybe a hundred times. You had never once come here with the intention of meeting someone.
"You look like you're waiting for a root canal." Dennis said, appearing with a fresh drink and an easy grin. Dennis was beautiful and knew it. But he used it as a resource for other people rather than a mirror for himself. He handed you the drink. "Relax. You're not here to find a husband. You're here to remember you are your own person."
"Trinity's been talking to you."
"Trinity texts me a lot of things." He clinked his glass against yours. "Drink. Look around. Remember that the world is full of people who aren't Derek."
You drank. The world was, in fact, full of people who weren't Derek. You weren't sure what to do with that.
The three of you had claimed a corner of the bar around nine, and for a while it was just good. Trinity in her off duty clothes looking like someone had cut her loose and handed her a gin and tonic, Dennis telling a story about their neighbor's emotional support peacock that had genuinely no business being as long as it was, you laughing until something in your chest loosened a little.
This was fine.
Then, around eleven, Trinity met someone.
She was tall, with close cropped hair and had cheekbones that belonged in a museum, and she was looking at Trinity from three feet away like she had already made several decisions about the rest of their night. Trinity looked back. Something passed between them that was frankly none of your business.
"Go," you said.
"I'm not going to just leave you."
"Trinity." You pointed. "Go."
She did pause long enough to squeeze your arm and say "text me when you're home" and then she was gone, absorbed into the low light of the bar with the tall woman.
Dennis lasted another twenty minutes before he ran into someone he knew from his climbing gym, and then there were two of them, and then there were four, and then there was a whole situation happening at the other end of the bar that Dennis was at the center of like he always was, like a very charming sun with a small solar system of people around him.
You were alone at a bar for the first time in approximately a decade, with a drink that was three quarters gone and no particular plan for the next hour of your life.
You thought about going home. Derek would be awake, probably on his phone. You thought about what Trinity had said and the ten years that had quietly passed while you were busy building a life that was genuinely yours in every way except the one that mattered most.
You went to the bar top and ordered another drink.
"That's either a good sign or a bad one," said a voice to your left, "depending on what you're drinking."
The man settled onto the barstool next to you. He was older than you, late forties maybe, with salt and pepper hair that looked like it had started the evening neater than this.
He nodded at your glass. "Whiskey sour?"
"Whiskey sour" you confirmed.
"Good sign then." He caught the bartenders attention. "I'll have whatever she's having."
You should have looked back at your drink. That would have been the sensible thing. Instead you said, "Long night?"
He glanced at you, and there was something in it. A brief recalibration, like he'd expected to be left alone and had just revised his preference. "Long week," he said. "You?"
"Long decade, honestly."
The corner of his mouth moved. "That specific?"
"Very."
Once his drink came, he turned it once on the bar, a slow rotation. You noticed his hands. Large, careful, the hands of someone who used them precisely. You noticed other things too, cataloguing details. The slight wear at the collar of his shirt. The way he held himself, upright without being rigid, comfortable in his body.
"Jack," he said, and offered his hand.
"Y/N," you said, and shook it.
His grip was warm and brief. "So," he said, settling back. "The decade."
"I wasn't actually going to elaborate on that."
You looked at him. He looked back at you, and there it was the thing you hadn't been expecting, the thing that made you stay on your barstool instead of picking up your drink and relocating. He had the kind of eyes that were paying attention. Not performing attention. Actually, specifically, interested in you.
It had been a long time since someone had looked at you like you were something worth figuring out.
"Ten years with someone," you said, because apparently you were doing this. "We opened the relationship three weeks ago. His idea. He has zero matches thus far."
Jack considered this. "And you?”
"Didn’t download them. Instead, I cleaned my autoclave more times than necessary. If that gives you any indication of how I’m handling it."
Then the smile arrived "You're a surgeon?"
"Tattoo artist."
Something shifted in his expression, interest sharpening. His eyes moved briefly to your arms, to the ink there, the way people's eyes always did, and then back to your face, and unlike most people he didn't immediately start asking you what they meant or whether they hurt.
"What do you do?" you asked.
"ER attending." He paused. "And some other stuff."
"Some other stuff," you repeated.
"SWAT medic shifts. When I'm needed."
No shit. You looked at him for a moment. His strong muscles pulling at his shirt. "So.. long week."
You talked for three hours.
Not continuously but always back to each other, always the thread of it intact. He told you about his army medic deployment without making it a hero story, just a thing that had happened to him that had made him who he was. You told him about opening your studio at twenty four with nine thousand dollars and a business plan you'd written on graph paper. He asked you questions like he actually wanted the answers.
At some point you stopped thinking about the open relationship and Derek. You stopped thinking about going home. You were just here, at this bar, on this barstool, talking to this man who laughed at your jokes and it felt like something you hadn't known you'd been hungry for.
Which was exactly why, at half past one, when the bar was thinning out and the jukebox had cycled back around to something slow, you picked up your jacket. "I should go."
He didn't argue, just nodded in agreement. "Yeah."
You slid off the barstool and he stood when you did, the reflex of someone who'd been raised a certain way and hadn't bothered to unlearn it and you were suddenly aware of how much space he occupied when he was standing. How solid he was.
How close.
"It was good to meet you, Jack," you said.
"You too, Y/N."
You waited for him to ask for your number, but he didn't. He just looked at you with those eyes, easy and steady, and said "Don't forget my name."
You thought about saying something smart. Something that matched it.
Instead you just nodded, once, and walked out into the night air with your heart doing something complicated in your chest that you absolutely were not going to examine until you were home.
..
Your favorite coffee shop was four blocks from your shop, which meant you went there approximately every day and had therefore developed a loyalty that was less about the coffee and more about the fact that the barista at the counter knew your order.
Tuesday morning. Six days after the bar and you were waiting for your order, scrolling through a client's reference photos on your phone with one hand and thinking about how to translate a very detailed Japanese woodblock print into something that would read well on a shoulder, when someone stepped up to the counter beside you.
"Medium dark roast. Black."
Every single hair on your arms stood up. You looked up slowly, hoping very much to be wrong about what you were about to see.
Jack Abbot was standing inches away from you in what appeared to be post shift clothes. Dark pants, a grey fitted shirt with the sleeves pushed up. His hair was slightly disheveled. There was a tiredness around his eyes that hadn't been there at the bar.
He looked good and that was deeply inconvenient.
He turned and his eyes landed on you and did the same thing yours had just done. A half second of processing and then something that settled into warmth.
"Tattoo artist," he said.
"ER attending," you said back.
The corner of his mouth moved the way it had at the bar, that almost smile. "Small city."
"Very small, apparently."
The barista set your coffee on the counter. You picked it up and held it with both hands and tried to look like a normal person.
"How's apps going for the boyfriend?" he asked.
"Still nothing."
"And you?"
"Nope." you said. Holding your tongue back from saying and it might have something to do with you. This person standing in front of me that I can’t seem to stop thinking about.
He laughed and you couldn't stop yourself from enjoying it. Didn't want to.
His order came up. He took it, and for a moment you were both just standing there in the morning light of the coffee shop with your respective drinks, and it should have been awkward, but it wasn't.
"How's the composition coming?" he asked.
You blinked. "What?"
"The shoulder piece. You were looking at reference photos." He nodded at your phone.
You stared at him. "You could see that from over there?"
"I have good eyes." He looked down at his cup and smiled. "And..I was looking."
There it was again. That quality of attention. He'd just been looking, so he said so. Straightforward.
"The reference is very detailed. Too much for the placement. I need to pull out what matters and let the rest go."
You were embarrassed then. By how much you were talking, but with him it felt easy. Felt like he wanted to hear it.
"I have to get back," you said.
"Me too. Just got off a shift and my bed is calling my name. " He lifted his cup briefly. "Good to see you, Y/N."
"You too, Jack."
You made it exactly half a block before you stopped on the sidewalk in the thin morning sun and pressed your free hand briefly over your face and stood there for a moment, just breathing.
…
You didn't tell Trinity.
This was not a decision you made consciously. It was more that every time you opened your mouth to bring it up you got as far as so a weird thing happened and then something stopped you.
You couldn't name what the something was. Which was its own kind of answer, probably.
Derek had finally gotten a match on Hinge. He told you about it over Thai food from a spot he'd found near his office. He was nervous in the way he got when he wanted your permission for something and was working up to asking for it, and you gave it before he got there because it was easier and because part of you was simply, unexpectedly, relieved.
He went on the date on Friday. You worked late, finished a geometric back piece on a client who fell asleep halfway through.
You pulled out your phone. Derek had texted a photo from what appeared to be a rooftop bar, his arm around a woman with a bright smile, the caption reading she's really cool! Hope your night is good.
...
You were between clients on a Thursday afternoon when the bell above your shop door announced someone.
This happened sometimes. The by appointment or by chance on the door was genuine. You believed in leaving room for the unplanned, for the person who walked past a window and felt something pull at them and followed it inside.
Some of your best work had come from chance clients. Your assistant, Bella, handled walk ins on most days, did a quick consultation, got them on the books.
You were not prepared for the specific walk in that came through your door just now.
Jack stepped inside and stopped. You'd designed the space with the same intention you brought to everything, It looked like a place that felt like home. People felt that when they walked in.
Jack felt it. You could see him feeling it, his eyes moving slowly around the room, taking it in.
Bella looked up from the front desk. Looked at him and then looked at you.
"I've got it," you said.
She went back to her computer with the poorly concealed vibe of someone who was going to have questions. and lots of them.
You crossed the floor and stopped in front of him and waited for him to finish looking. His eyes landed on a woman's face in profile. One you'd drawn at twenty three. He looked at it for a long moment. "Yours?" he said.
"All of it's mine."
He nodded slowly. Then he looked at you "I was in the neighborhood." he said.
You looked at him and quirked a brow. "You were in the neighborhood?"
"Broadly speaking."
"The hospital is eleven blocks away."
"It's a big neighborhood." Not even a flicker of embarrassment. "I wanted to see your shop."
You stood there for a moment looking at this man who had walked eleven blocks out of his way on a Thursday afternoon and was telling you so without any apparent intention of making it smaller than it was.
Something in your chest made the decision your brain was still debating. "Let me show you around."
He asked questions that showed he'd already been thinking. About the difference between styles, about how you decided what went on the walls versus what stayed in your portfolio, about whether the design process started with the client or with you.
You answered them. All of them. More than you usually did.
He stopped at your station and studied it. "Organized," he said.
"Everything has a place."
"Same in an ER." He looked at the tray. "You have to be able to reach what you need without looking."
"Exactly." You paused. "Although my tools are slightly less.."
"High stakes?"
"I was going to say scary, but sure."
He laughed and you walked him back to the front and he stopped at the door and you were close enough that you were suddenly aware of the particular gravity of him, the way a room organized itself slightly around where he was standing.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card and then turned it over and wrote ten digits on the back and he held it out. "In case you need it." he said. "For anything."
You looked at the number and smiled. “Anything?”
The almost smile arrived fully this time, unhurried and genuine and just slightly devastating. "Anything."
The bell above the door announced his exit and you stood at the front of your shop turning the card over and over in your hand.
Bella appeared from the back. "Who," she said, "was that."
"Just a walk in.” you help the card up to your lips, tapping it against the smile that refused to go away.
…
It happened on a Wednesday, which felt wrong somehow. Momentous things should happen on weekends, or at least on a Friday when the week had built to something. Wednesday was for grocery runs and laundry.
And yet.
It started with a broken pipe.
Your upstairs neighbor had a pipe situation at seven in the evening that became a ceiling situation in your apartment at seven fifteen, which became a you cannot stay here tonight situation by seven thirty when the super looked at the spreading water stain above your bedroom, calculating how much this was going to cost him personally.
Derek was in Portland.
This was the other thing that had happened, quietly, over the past two weeks. Derek had matched with the rooftop bar woman, whose name was Sienna, and Sienna lived in Portland, and Derek had mentioned a visit, informing you of a decision already made. You had said have fun and meant it, or at least a part of you had meant it, and now he was in Portland and you were standing in your hallway with a go bag and nowhere obvious to go.
Trinity was on a double shift. You knew this without checking because Trinity's schedule was a fixed star in your sky, reliable and brutal. And plus she and Dennis didn’t have that much room to start with and you felt like a burden.
You sat in your car outside your building for ten minutes, bag in the passenger seat, and considered your options. You took the card out of your wallet. You had looked at it more times than you were going to admit to anyone, including yourself.
Without thinking too hard about it you said a simple fuck it and you called him.
He picked up on the second ring. "Y/N."
Just your name. Like it fit naturally.
"Hi," you said. "I have a weird situation."
"Tell me."
When you finished there was a brief pause. "I have a guest room," he said. "It has a bed and a lamp and I think a spare toothbrush somewhere. It's not exciting but it's dry."
"Jack, I cant.."
"I’m off tonight and I was going to eat leftover soup and watch something forgettable on television," he said. "You'd be doing me a favor. I hate eating soup alone."
That got a laugh from you. You sat in your car in the dark and catalogued all the reasons this was a complicated idea. There were several. They were legitimate. You thought about the water stain and about Derek in Portland with Sienna, who seemed nice, genuinely.
"I like soup." you said finally.
"Then come over."
…
His apartment was on the fourth floor of a building that was older than it looked and better than it had any right to be. High ceilings, good bones, the comfort of a space that had been lived in deliberately. Books on actual shelves, not for decoration. A kitchen that showed evidence of real use. A couch that was deep and worn in exactly the right places.
It looked like him. Everything was where it was for a reason.
You stood in his entryway with your bag and felt suddenly like you were seeing something private.
"Soup's already on the stove," he said from the kitchen. "Chicken and rice. Hope that works."
"That's..yes." You set your bag down. "You actually made soup."
"I said I had leftover soup."
"I thought that was a.." you stopped. "Never mind."
He appeared in the kitchen doorway with a dish towel over one shoulder, looking at you. "Why would that be a figure of speech?"
"People say things they don't mean."
"I don't."
He disappeared back into the kitchen, and you stood in his entryway another moment, holding that statement in the quiet.
You hung up your jacket and followed him in.
…
You ate at his kitchen table with an ease that should have required more history than you had. He told you about his recent shift. Some small victories. And you told him about the back piece you'd finished the week prior, the client who'd fallen asleep halfway through, the way people sometimes came in for ink and what they actually needed was to be still for a few hours while someone took care of them.
"That's most people," he said.
"The falling asleep part?"
"The needing someone to take care of them part." He turned his spoon once in his bowl. "People don't let themselves have that enough."
You thought about ten years of being the one who smoothed things over. Who held the shape of everything together so it didn't come apart. You thought about when the last time was that you had simply let someone take care of you.
You set your spoon down. Looked at the table for a moment, then back at him. "I want to stay tonight," you said. "Not the guest room."
His expression shifted slightly, but he didn't say anything yet, just waited, because he could tell you weren't finished.
"I'm still with Derek," you continued, keeping your voice even. "The arrangement is..we're open, that's real, I'm allowed to do this. But I need you to know that's what this is. I'm not..I can't offer you more than tonight. I don't want you to think this is something it isn't."
You held his gaze while you said it because you'd made this decision and you weren't going to look away from it now.
Understanding arrived and something careful behind it. "I'm not asking you for more than tonight," he said quietly. Then, after a second, softer, "But I want you to be sure."
"I'm sure."
He looked at you for one more moment. "Okay," he said.
…
He was unhurried in a way. Like a deliberate kindness, even as he pinned your wrists above your head with one hand.
He shifted his weight, his limb unbuckled and cast aside on the floor, leaving him balanced over you. He moved with practiced strength, using his leg to help brace his torso as he loomed over you. "You've been looking at me like you're afraid I'll break," he rasped, his voice dropping low that made your toes curl. "Stop thinking. Just feel how much I want you."
He asked without asking. It wasn't in words, but in the way he moved. He reached down, his fingers slicking through your folds.
"You're so fucking wet for me," he murmured, a smirk playing on his lips when he heard your breath hitch. "Tell me you want it. Tell me you want me inside you."
You tried to say something, a nervous joke to break the mounting intensity, but it came out as a desperate whimper. He laughed and the sound of it against your skin made the air feel safe in a way you hadn't known you needed.
"Good girl." he whispered, the praise hitting harder than the touch. "Stay right there. Don't move a muscle for me."
The sheer size of him felt like a promise kept. He positioned himself at your entrance and he paused for a heartbeat, watching your face, before he drove home in one devastating motion.
You couldn’t help your back arching off the sheets as he filled you to the absolute limit. It wasn't a sharp spike. It was a swell, an all encompassing heat that filled every hollow place you’d been hiding.
His rhythm was a punishingly beautiful cadence. Because of his reach, he leaned heavily into you, his chest crushed against yours, his skin slick with sweat. He pulled nearly all the way out before sinking back in, each stroke hitting deeper, harder, grinding his hips against yours until you were sobbing his name.
"I’ve got you," his hand leaving your wrists to cup your face, forcing you to look at him while he wrecked you. "Take it. Take all of it."
Your walls clamped down around him, the friction becoming unbearable. He didn't speed up. He simply pushed harder, his movements becoming more urgent. The tension finally snapped, shattering into a thousand points of warmth. You shook beneath him and he followed you a second later, a groan escaping him as he buried himself to the hilt.
And the only thing you could think was, Oh. This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
you agree to open your relationship after your boyfriend kept begging. at first he's on the apps getting absolutely zero matches, but then he gets a date. And the first time you go out with your friends with the full intention to find someone, you meet jack abbot. and he is hell bent on making sure you do not forget him.
genre: jack abbot x tattoo artist!reader, strangers to friends to lovers, best friend trinity, smut 18+ nsfw, lots of dialogue. sorry, i got carried away lmao
word count: 5500
(a/n: in writing this, i came to the unsurprising revelation that this character will have me in a chokehold for a while. and i'm okay with that. he's mine. that's mine. )
part 1
You had convinced yourself the guest room was a real contingency and not just a lie you’d been telling yourself to justify staying in this bed for as long as you had. Jack’s voice cut through the dark. "When did you stop?"
You turned your head, the friction of the pillow loud in the quiet. He wasn’t looking at you, he was staring at the ceiling. "Stop what?"
"Choosing things for yourself."
You tried to find an answer, but your throat was dry, your mind a terrifying blank.
You had chosen Derek. It felt like a single, monumental decision at the time, but you realized now it was actually a thousand tiny surrenders. Incrementally, year by year, you had rearranged the furniture of your entire life to fit around the shape of him.
"I don't know," you said finally.
Eventually, you did go. You waited until his breathing evened out into sound of deep sleep. You lay there long enough to know that if you didn't move in this exact heartbeat, you’d be anchored there forever.
You gathered yourself, slipping out from under the covers and retreating to the guest room. The bed was cold. You lay there, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, while his question sat open in the center of your chest.
When sleep finally pulled you under, you didn't dream about Derek.
...
It was Friday morning, two days after you’d got up and left Jack’s place early in the morning without a goodbye when he texted.
Jack: Hope your ceiling situation is getting sorted.
He was giving you an out, a way to be normal about it all. You stared at the blue bubble for a long time, the memory of his question still echoing in the back of your mind.
You: Ceiling is getting sorted. Thank you again.
His response came while you were in the middle of setting up for your first client of the day.
Jack: For you? Anytime.
An open invitation, or you guess, a door to him? You felt a traitorous curve of your lips before you could stop it.
"Stop smiling at your phone." Bella said. She was across the room, snapping on a pair of nitrile gloves.
"I'm not!" you said, quickly locking the screen and sliding the phone into your pocket.
…
Just when you thought you’d finally managed to stop the constant loop of him in your head, the texts would come in.
They were always casual, aggressively so, but they still did something to you. They made a warm feeling stir in your belly.
Jack: How are you doing?
"Fine." you typed back. Then, you paused. "Fine" felt dishonest, and for some reason, he was the last person you wanted to be dishonest with.
You: Better than fine. How are you?
Jack: Just got off. Long night. Good coffee though. Small victories.
You: Very small.
Jack: The smallest. Get some sleep tonight.
It felt mundane. The assumption that you probably hadn't been sleeping. Which you hadn't.
You: you too.
Jack: Already on it.
…
Then, a photo. A medium sized dog of indeterminate breed standing outside the hospital entrance, wearing a bright yellow raincoat.
You laughed out loud in your empty apartment.
You: Why is he dressed like that.
Jack: It's raining!
You: It is not raining enough for that.
Jack: Tell that to his owner.
…
This one almost did you in. A voice note, which surprised you. You stood outside in the afternoon sun with your phone pressed to your ear, listening to his voice.
"I'm outside a bookshop. There's a display in the window. Botanical illustration, old prints, the kind with the Latin names at the bottom. It's on the block past the coffee place. Thought you should know it exists."
You listened to it three more times before replying.
…
It was late Friday night. You were still up, not for any particular reason, just the insomnia of a brain that wouldn't stop moving, when your phone buzzed.
Jack: Are you awake?
You: yep. are you working?
Jack: I am. Thinking about food though. There's a place near my apartment that does breakfast at midnight. Eggs and everything. I've been going for years.
You looked at the text, the intimacy of the routine bleeding through the screen.
You: That's either the best or worst thing I've ever heard.
Jack: Best. Definitely best. You'd like it.
You: I do appreciate eggs at midnight.
Jack: I knew it. Then, sometime?
You: Sometime.
Jack: Good. Go to sleep.
…
The last one before everything changed came on a Thursday evening. It was ordinary in every way except that it wasn't. You were locking up the shop, keys in hand, when the phone buzzed.
Jack: I know you said that it was one night, but I would be upset with myself if I didn’t say this once. I'd like to keep seeing you. In whatever way you will have me. I just wanted to say it once. Just so you know.
You just stood there. Keys in hand. Mouth agape.
…
Derek came back from Portland all smiles. He hugged you at the door, and the first thing you noticed was the scent. An unfamiliar floral of someone else’s laundry detergent clinging to his jacket.
Over dinner, he talked about Sienna. He did it with an enthusiasm that was trying very hard to be considerate of your feelings, but his carefulness mostly just confirmed the obvious. His heart hadn't made the return flight. It was still somewhere in Portland, tucked away in a coffee shop or a rainy park with a girl you had never met.
For some reason, you did not tell him about Jack.
You were allowed to.
That was the whole point of the arrangement, the freedom you had both negotiated to keep the edges of your relationship from fraying into resentment. There was no rule against telling him. In fact, there was an implicit expectation of honesty. A pact that neither of you would have to carry the weight of a secret.
And yet, you still didn't tell him.
The words stayed locked in your throat, not because you were afraid of his reaction, but because telling him would make Jack part of the arrangement. It would categorize what was happening between you and the doctor, making it something manageable and defined. And for some reason, you weren't ready to let Derek touch whatever it was that was growing in those texts and shared photos.
…
Jack asked you to lunch a week later.
Jack: I have a two hour window free before my shift. Lunch? There's a place near your shop I've been told has good noodles.
Jack was already there when you arrived, hair tousled and he had a little tiredness settling around his eyes.
"You look tired." you said, sitting down across from him.
"I am. But feeling better now for some reason." he said smiling, his voice seemed to settle right under your skin.
He slid a menu across the table toward you. "How many times have you been here?" you asked.
He picked up his own menu, his eyes meeting yours. "A lot. I'm a creature of habit when I find something worth repeating."
A thrill went through your spine at the way he said it. You were starting to understand that with Jack, almost nothing was a throwaway line.
The pho arrived, steaming and fragrant. It was extraordinary, and when you told him so, he looked quietly pleased, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
You ate for a while in a comfortable quiet that you still hadn't fully gotten used to. The fact that silence with him didn't require anything from you.
"Can I ask you something?"
He looked up. "Anything."
"The army." You kept your voice even, curious rather than probing. "How long?"
"Eight years." He set his chopsticks down. "Enlisted at twenty two. Medic."
"What made you stay in medicine after?"
"I didn't know how not to," he said finally. He looked down at his hands. Those large, careful hands, then back at you. "It wasn't a career decision, exactly. It was just the thing that made sense to do." He paused searching your face. "You understand that."
"Yeah," you said quietly. "I do."
"When did you know?" he asked. "That it was going to be tattoo work."
"Sixteen," you said, a small smile forming. "I watched an artist work at a shop near my mom's house. Just through the window, I never went in. I went back every day for two weeks." You could almost feel the cold glass against your forehead. "She finally came out and said, 'Are you going to come in or just haunt the place?'"
Jack laughed "And?"
"I went in. I watched her work for three hours. She let me try a practice stroke on a piece of fake skin and I was terrible at it." You turned your chopsticks over in your hand, lost in the memory. "I knew right then that I was going to do it until I wasn't terrible at it."
"How long until you weren't terrible?"
"Two years of being pretty bad. One year of being okay. Then something clicked." The afternoon light moved across the table between you. "Do you miss it?" you asked. "The army."
He turned his water glass once on the table. "Parts of it. The clarity of it, sometimes. Knowing exactly what the job was. The people, too."
"The SWAT shifts.." you said. "What’s that about?"
He looked at you, and his expression shifted, hardened slightly. "The ER is..it's good work. Important work. But you're always waiting for the thing to come to you." He considered his words. "The other work, you go to it. There's a difference in how that feels."
"You like going toward things." you said.
His eyes held yours across the table, dark and certain. "Yes."
…
Outside, the afternoon was shifting into evening. His shift would be starting soon.
"Same time next week?" he said.
This was supposed to be a one time thing. You were not supposed to be in Jack Abbot’s orbit anymore. You were supposed to be safe in your own lane, tending to your own life. But as you looked at him, you found it very hard to come up with a single reason why you shouldn’t.
And you could think of more than one reason why you should. The top one, the one that caused your heart to swell when you looked at him, was simply because you wanted to.
"Yeah." you said, the word feeling like a small, reckless surrender. "Okay."
He nodded once, his smile softening the hard lines of his face. "I'll find somewhere new."
…
Trinity showed up at your apartment with a bag of groceries and the clear intention of spending her day off horizontally on your couch with bad television and zero obligations. You took one look at her and knew that you were going to tell her.
You waited until she was settled. Feet up, blanket appropriated. From the kitchen, you started the coffee. You kept your back to her, it felt safer that way. "I have to tell you something."
"Okay.." Trinity said. Her voice had shifted into that careful, neutral tone of someone who had learned in residency to assess a situation before reacting to it.
"I met someone."
"Define met."
"At the bar. The night we went to Dillon’s." You heard the rustle of the blanket as she sat up. "After you left."
"Y/N. That was six weeks ago."
"I know."
"You've known something for six weeks and you're telling me now?"
You poured the coffee into two mugs. Your hands were steady, which surprised you. "It wasn't..I didn't know what it was. I still don’t entirely know what it is."
You brought the coffee into the living room and sat on the opposite end of the couch. Trinity had pushed the blanket off, her feet were flat on the floor, fully turned towards you. "Tell me." she said.
Trinity listened. She was very good at listening when she wanted to. When you finished, the silence in the room stretched out. Then Trinity asked, "What's his name?"
"Jack." you said. "Jack Abbot."
Trinity went completely still. "ER attending?"
You looked at her, something curious moving through your chest. "How did you.."
"Y/N." Trinity set her coffee down very carefully on the coaster. "Jack Abbot is an attending at my hospital."
"He’s..what?"
"PTMC. He’s been there for years." She stopped. She pressed her hand briefly over her mouth and looked at you with disbelief, hilarity, and something almost reverent. "How bad is it?" she asked. It wasn't really a question.
"I drew his hands." you said. "From memory. So do with that what you will."
Trinity closed her eyes briefly. "And Derek?"
"Derek is in love with someone in Portland," you said. "He doesn’t know it yet. Or he does, and he’s waiting for me to..I don’t know. Release him." You looked at your hands. "It’s what we’ve been doing for a long time, I think. Waiting for the other one to say it first."
Trinity remained quiet, letting you find the rest of it.
You turned the mug in your hands, feeling the lingering warmth of the ceramic. "I think I’m the one who has to. I think I’ve been ready for longer than I want to admit, and I just didn’t have a reason to know it."
"And now you have one."
…
Derek came home in a mood you didn't recognize at first.
He came through the door, put his keys down, and stood in the entryway for a moment longer than necessary. It made you look up from the couch. "You okay?" you asked.
"Yeah." He came in, but he didn't sit next to you. He sat across from you at the kitchen table. "Sienna, uh.." He stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. "She met someone. Someone in Portland. So she ended it, with me."
"I'm sorry." You meant it. You were not a person who wanted Derek to hurt, even now, even with everything shifting beneath your feet.
He nodded, eyes fixed on the grain of the wood. "It's fine. It was.." he exhaled, a tired sound. "I don't know. It’s fine."
You’d ordered takeout earlier, optimistically, and the containers sat on the counter. You looked at Derek and he looked lost. Like someone who had reached for something and come back empty handed, unsure of what to do with his hands now.
The old version of you would have moved to fix it. You would have smoothed it over, sat beside him, and made it easier without being asked.
But you stayed where you were. "Derek."
He looked up.
"I need to tell you something."
A wariness arrived in his expression.
"I met someone," you said. "A while ago. Before Portland, before any of it got serious for you." You kept your voice even. "It started as one night. That’s all it was supposed to be. And then it just.." you paused, finding the honest word. "It grew. Into something I wasn't expecting. Something I realized I actually wanted."
Derek was very still. "Who?"
"That doesn't matter right now."
"Who." His voice was harder this time, an edge of demand bleeding through.
"His name is Jack. He’s a doctor. I met him at a bar." You held his gaze. "He's a good man. He makes me feel like someone worth paying attention to."
"That’s what this is supposed to be." Derek’s voice snapped, tight and frustrated. "It’s casual. It’s just dating, it’s just.." he stopped, shaking his head. "We were always going to come back to each other. That was always the deal."
You looked at him, the word echoing in the small kitchen. "What deal?" you asked quietly.
"That’s..you know what I mean. That’s what this was. We try things, we come back. That’s how it works."
"Derek." You kept your voice gentle. This wasn't about winning. "That wasn't a deal we made. That was an assumption you had."
"We’ve been together for ten years."
"I know how long we’ve been together."
"So you can't just.." he gestured, a frustrated, sweeping movement. "You can't just check out because you met someone at a bar."
"I'm not checking out because I met someone at a bar," you said. "I'm checking out because I spent ten years not knowing what I was missing, and then I found out. And what I'm missing isn't Jack specifically." You couldn’t help but laugh a little. "It’s being chosen. It’s someone who notices me. It’s feeling like I matter in my own relationship.”
Derek looked like he’d been slapped. "That’s not fair," he said. "I love you."
"I know you do," you said. "I love you too. But love isn't.." you started again. "You suggested this because you wanted the freedom to look around while keeping everything exactly the same at home. And I said yes because I always say yes. But I looked around, too. And what I found was a relationship that looks completely different from what we have. And I think I've wanted that for a long time."
Derek was quiet for a while. You let the silence take up the space it needed. "When did it go wrong?" he asked finally.
The honest answer was a thousand small moments where you had made yourself smaller to fit a shape that no longer fit either of you.
"I think it was over the moment you suggested this," you said gently. "Because that was the moment it became clear we were wanting completely different things."
His jaw worked. His eyes were bright, holding himself together like a man who intended to fall apart later, in private. "So that’s it?" he said.
"I think so." you said.
You reached across the table and put your hand over his. He looked at it for a moment, then turned his over and held yours, briefly. Ten years, the good parts and the long middle and the quiet end, closing softly in a kitchen on a Tuesday night.
…
Trinity: I need you to bring me my sweater. It’s an emergency. The grey one. From your apartment.
You: Why is your sweater at my apartment???
Trinity: Y/N it’s an emergency. I'm freezing.
You looked around your apartment. You were in the middle of doing nothing in particular, which was a feeling you were still getting used to. The wide open quiet of an evening that belonged entirely to you. Just you and whatever you wanted to do with it.
You found the sweater draped over your desk chair. Grey, soft, unmistakably Trinity’s. She left things at your place all the time like breadcrumbs, a trail of her belongings scattered across your life.
You: fineeee I’ll drop it off.
At the ER, you saw her turn around the corridor and spot you. She was in her usual scrubs, stethoscope around her neck, looking not even remotely cold.
"You texted me for a sweater and it feels eighty degrees in here."
"I run cold!"
A sound came from down the corridor. A laugh that you were starting to know well. A laugh you loved in fact.
You turned slowly, and there he was. Thirty feet away, in scrubs, chart in hand, laughing at something the woman beside him had said. He turned, his eyes found you, and he went still. You could see the math happening in his eyes as he walked over.
His voice was even, but his eyes were warm and confused. "How do you.." He looked at Trinity.
Trinity extended her hand. "I hear we have a person in common. Y/N’s best friend in the entire world, nice to meet you."
Jack looked at her. "Santos, I know who you are."
"She didn't know." Trinity said. "Until recently that you worked here. With me."
Jack looked at you. And you just tried to look as normal as you could. You could feel the heat crawling up your neck. "Small world," he said softly.
"Apparently." you managed.
Trinity finally took the sweater from you hands. "You're such a good friend!” Then she made it a point to speak directly to Jack. “We're taking Y/N out tonight. She broke up with her boyfriend."
You watched Jack’s face. He didn’t say anything at first. But the smile that broke across his face was quietly, deeply pleased. He absolutely could not hide it. "Have fun." he said.
Trinity was already taking your arm, steering you toward the exit. "Goodnight, Dr. Abbot!" she called.
You looked back once. He was still standing there, still smiling, and when he caught you looking, he didn't look away. You let Trinity pull you through the doors. "You are the worst person I know."
"I'm the best person you know," she said. "Also, you're welcome."
…
Jack, true to his word, had let you be the one to come to him. He’d been patient this whole time while your world shifted.
Finally, you decided you’d had enough of waiting, so you called him.
"Hi," you said. "Are you home?"
"Just got in. You okay?"
"Yes." You sat on your couch in your apartment. Fiddling with the loose fibers in the seats. "I want to see you.”
"When?" he said.
"This week. Whenever you’re free. I don’t.." You paused, laughing slightly at the nerves you hadn’t expected. "I’m not usually like this."
"Like what?"
"Nervous."
"You're nervous?" he said. There was something in his voice, a smile that wasn't laughing at you, but with you. "I find that extremely reassuring."
"You’re nervous too?"
"I’ve been nervous since the day I met you." he said.
You couldn’t help but smile. Biting your bottom lip between your teeth. "Friday?" you said. "Dinner. Somewhere I pick this time. And Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"This isn't a one night thing."
"No." he said quietly. "It isn’t."
…
Dinner was the most fun you'd had in a long time and after, Jack walked you to your car. He reached up and tucked a piece of hair back from your face. "I'd like to take you out again." he said. "As many times as you’ll let me."
"That could be a lot of times." you said.
"Good." His hand dropped to your jaw, warm. "I told you. I’m thorough.”
…
The door hadn't even fully latched before Jack had you pinned against it. The air in his apartment was cool, but his body was a furnace against yours. There was only the sound of your combined breathing and the frantic slide of hands over skin.
He guided you to the sofa, his mouth never leaving yours, tasting like the red wine from dinner and the promise he’d been making you with his eyes all night. He pushed you back onto the cushions and dropped to his knees, parting your legs with a force that made your heart hammer against your ribs.
"I’ve been thinking about this all night." he said, his voice thick and rough.
He didn't waste time. He stripped you and when he saw you, he let out a sound of approval. He leaned in, his hot breath ghosting over your sensitive skin. "Your pussy is so wet, sweetheart. So beautiful."
Then he moved in, eating you like a man starved. He used his tongue with a relentless, lapping intensity, broad strokes followed by sharp, flicking pressure that had you crying out and arching your back off the sofa. He didn't stop when you shook. He gripped your thighs tighter, drinking you in until you shattered against his mouth.
You were still gasping, your senses blurred, when he pulled you to your feet. He didn't lead you to the bedroom. He didn't want the comfort of a mattress, he wanted you right here.
"Lean over.” You obeyed, gripping the back of the sofa, your knuckles white. You heard the sharp sound of his zipper, and then the heat of him was pressing against your opening.
He drove into you in one steady, uncompromising motion. He filled you so completely it took your breath away. "You are mine." he said into your ear, his hands finding your hips to anchor you.
He began to fuck you slowly. It was deep and deliberate, each thrust a claim. He reached around to find where you were most sensitive, his fingers working in tandem with the slide of his cock, pushing you toward a second, even more delicious peak. You watched your own reflection in the darkened window, seeing the way he moved behind you, until the world narrowed down to just the friction and the heat.
…
Two hours later, the adrenaline had faded into a delicious ache. You woke up in the master suite and followed the sound of hissing water to the bathroom. Jack was sitting in the shower, his built in chair positioned under the spray.
He didn't say a word, just reached out, his hand wrapping around your waist to pull you toward him. Joining him under the warmth.
Being seated gave him a different vantage point, his eyes level with your chest, dark and appreciative. He pulled you into the space between his knees, his hands sliding up your thighs.
He guided you to straddle his lap, your knees resting on the edges of the chair. As you lowered yourself, he reached down to guide his cock into you in one deep, unhurried slide.
"You feel even better like this," he moaned, his fingers digging into your hips.
He used his arms to pull you down onto him while thrusting upward, a dual pressure that made every nerve ending scream. The chair was solid beneath you, providing a grounded leverage that let him fuck you without worry.
The water sluiced over both of you, masking your gasps as he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his movements becoming faster and more urgent until he filled you completely.
…
In the morning, Jack was at the stove, shirtless, the muscles of his back working as he moved. You were wrapped in one of his heavy button downs, sitting at the kitchen island.
He set a plate of eggs in front of you, but he didn't pick up his own fork. Instead, he watched you take a bite, his gaze dropping to your bare legs.
"Jack, eat your breakfast," you murmured, though your voice lacked any real conviction.
He pushed you to lay flat against the island and parted the hem of the shirt.
The cold air hit you for only a second before his mouth replaced it.
Right there in the morning light, with the coffee steaming and the sun rising, he went down on you again.
He was relentless, his tongue finding every sensitive spot with the ease of a man who intended to spend the rest of his life learning exactly how to make you come.
You gripped the marble edge of the counter, your breakfast forgotten, as he claimed you for the third time.
…
one year later
You had tattooed a lot of things on a lot of people.
You had never once been nervous doing it, until now.
"You're holding my hand very tightly for someone who is about to put a needle in it." Jack said.
"I'm positioning you." You looked up at him. He was watching you with those eyes, completely unbothered, which was both reassuring and deeply annoying. "You're not nervous at all?"
"No."
"This is permanent, Jack."
"I know what a tattoo is, Y/N."
"I just want to make sure you've.."
"Hey." His free hand came up and tilted your chin gently. "I know what I want."
You looked at him for a moment. Then you looked back down at his hand in yours, his left hand, ring finger, the spot you'd cleaned and prepped and stenciled with a single clean letter. Your initial. Small and precise and permanent.
He didn't flinch. You hadn't expected him to, this was a man who had been through things that made a tattoo needle a deeply unremarkable experience, but still.
Something in your chest did the warm aching thing it did sometimes when Jack was being exactly himself.
You finished in two minutes. Clean lines, your steadiest work.
You wrapped it. Told him the aftercare instructions he didn't need because he was a doctor and knew perfectly well how wounds healed, but you told him anyway because it was your job and also because you needed something to do with your mouth that wasn't saying something embarrassing.
When you finished your own and wrapped it, you looked at your finger. His initial. Small and clean and permanent.
He brought your hand up and pressed his mouth to your knuckles, just above the fresh ink, careful not to touch it.
…
Trinity and Dennis came over a few weeks later.
This had become a thing, somehow, over the past few months. A loose gathering at your apartment that involved whatever food Dennis decided to bring, which was always something excellent.
"These are incredible," Trinity said, around a dumpling. "Where did you get these."
"A place." Dennis said, a man who protected his sources.
"That's not an answer."
"That's the only answer you're getting."
You smiled at your drafting table. Jack appeared from the kitchen with two mugs and set one beside you.
When you reached for it, Trinity stopped and stared at your hand wrapped around the mug. "What is on your finger."
"Nothing," you said.
Trinity sat up fully pointing at your left hand "Is that a J?"
Dennis looked up. "Let me see."
Jack came out of the kitchen. Dennis looked at him. Looked at his left hand and then at yours.
"Is that.." Trinity started.
"Those are.." Dennis said.
"Y/N! Are you married to Jack Abbot?" Trinity grabbed your hand now, fully staring down at it.
You looked at your finger. The small clean J sitting there.
You looked at Jack and the smile that moved across his face was warm and held a mix of pride and mischief and you felt the matching one on your own face bloom and made no effort at all to stop it.
are we too late? are we too far? // jack abbot pt. 2
At nineteen, you told Jack Abbot that you’d marry him someday. He laughed it off and disappeared from your life for eleven years. Now, you’re months away from marrying a safe, stable man. Until you lock eyes with Jack across a bar, and your perfectly curated life completely shatters.
genre: dad's ex-best friend!jack x reader, age gap, forbidden romance, mutual pining, smut nsfw mdni
word count: 12k+ (holy shit i'm sorry lmao)
(a/n: ahhh thank yall so much for waiting. i've been working so hard on this one. and honestly i feel like it's my weakest, but i'm proud of this little story. i really hope you enjoy it. also totally forgot last time i was going to explain the title lol. it's a line from the song Death & Romance by Magdalena Bay. A banger and I thought about Jack whilst listening to it, so naturally I wrote an almost 15k fic. so it goes. anywhoooo thank yall again. i hope you like it. plz let me know. )
part 1
Jack decided the universe was run by an absolute sadist.
When he’d left years ago, you had been just a girl he couldn’t save. No matter how much he had wanted to. Beautiful, sure, but dangerous. You had looked at him like he held the keys to the kingdom, completely oblivious to the fact that he was barely holding his own life together.
I’m going to marry you.
He hadn't corrected you back then. Not explicitly. He’d just gently steered you away from the edge of that particular cliff.
Driving home that night, he had tucked your confession away in the darkest drawer of his mind as an impossible fiction.
But the person standing across from him now was entirely different.
And, frustratingly, exactly the same.
Adolescence had turned into something elegant, but the defensive way you crossed your arms over your chest and the stubborn tilt of your chin was identical to when you were nineteen.
The familiarity hit him in the chest. Nostalgia making a wave over him. He’d cry right now if he wasn’t so emotionally constipated.
His eyes tracked your hand as you reached for your glass and that's when the light caught it.
Everything inside him ground to a halt.
Slowly, he pointed the drink and the hand that held it toward your hand. "What's that?"
The color drained from your face so fast it made his stomach drop. You pulled your hand back, tucking it close to your body. "Oh. I'm getting married."
Well, fuck.
Jack made sure to keep his features normal. Even though some part of himself (stupid and utterly selfish as it is) feels like something has just been taken away from him.
He just let out a breath, an only slightly tortured smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Oh yeah? Thought that slot was reserved for me."
You tore your gaze away, looking at anything but his face as heat crept up your neck.
He didn't look away. He couldn't. He just stared, tracing the line of your face, waiting out the silence until you finally forced yourself to look back. "Yeah, well." you muttered, your voice tight. "That's the kind of shit you say when you're nineteen and stupid."
"Stupid?" Jack countered, leaning an inch closer. "You wound me."
"Oh, don't act like you actually believed me back then."
He tilted his head, locking his eyes onto yours. "Well..you are here at this bar with me right now. After years of never seeing each other. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the universe is incapable of keeping us apart."
Instead of answering, you flagged down the bartender, your knuckles rapping against the sticky wood of the counter as you ordered another drink, completely shutting him out.
Jack watched you take a sip.
He needed to stop. He needed to be the adult in the room, to play the role of the supportive, well meaning ghost from your past.
"So," he said smoothly, "who's the lucky guy?"
The name David slipped past your lips, followed by a laundry list of details. His job, how you met, the stable life you’d built. Jack nodded in all the right places, but truth be told, he wasn't processing a single syllable.
Fuck that guy.
Fuck David and his immaculate timing. Fuck David for being the one who got to see you grow into this version of yourself, and fuck David for having the absolute privilege of taking care of you.
But as he watched the animated way your expression softened when you spoke, a bitter ache settled deep in Jack’s stomach.
By the time the bartender did last call, the room had thinned out to a handful of stragglers.
You stood up, sliding your purse over your shoulder and Jack was up a second later, tossing a stack of crumpled bills onto the counter without looking at them. "It's late. I’m walking you home."
You blinked up at him, shifting your weight. "Jack, I'm fine. I live right around the block. It’s a four minute walk."
He didn't say anything back. He just snagged his jacket, throwing it over one shoulder with a lazy shake of his head. "Don't fight me on this, sweetheart."
The walk was quiet at first, the pavement damp from an earlier rain, but Jack had never been excellent at staying quiet around you. He kept his pace slow, matching yours perfectly, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Your shoulders brushed with every third step.
Gradually, the conversation slipped back into its old rhythm, as if the lost years never existed. He looked down at you, eyes crinkling at the corners, and for a fleeting moment, he felt completely unmoored.
God, you were sharp. You were quick, funny, delivering lines with this effortless charm that made him want to pull you into the nearest shadowed doorway and never let you go.
Before he could entirely lose his mind, you stopped in front of a brick building with a heavy iron awning. "This is me." you said, turning to face him on the steps.
Jack braced his weight on one foot, looking up at you. The easy bravado finally dropped from his shoulders, replaced by something more exposed. "Can I have your number?" He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. Jesus, now who was the one acting like a nervous teenager? "I, uh..I texted your old one a few times. Over the years. But I think you had it changed."
Your expression softened, a flicker of something complicated crossing your eyes. "Yeah, I changed it once I got to college. So my dad couldn't reach me."
The mention of your father made Jack’s jaw tighten, a protective anger flaring in his chest. He just nodded, pulling his phone from his pocket.
...
Against your better judgment, you took it. Your fingers brushed his with a brief shock of heat, as you typed in your new digits and handed it back.
"There." you whispered. "Goodbye, Jack."
You turned, key already in hand, reaching for the glass door of your building. You took one step into the warm lobby, but you turned back, looking through the open doorway at him.
He hadn't moved an inch.
He was still standing exactly where you left him.
"I missed seeing you, Jack." you said, the confession slipping out before you could think better of it.
And before he could answer, before you could see exactly what those words did to him, you turned and walked inside, letting the door click shut between you.
…
"There was nothing wrong with any of them." you said, stepping onto the sidewalk as the boutique door clicked shut. You stared blankly at a crack in the pavement. "They were beautiful dresses, Meg. They just didn’t feel right."
Meg sighed, throwing an arm around your shoulder as you both started down the block. "You’re just overwhelmed. Wedding dress shopping is less about the fabric and more about the reality of the fact that you're actually doing this. It's a lot to process." She checked her watch, her face twisting into a grimace. "Crap. Speaking of reality, I have to run. If I don't meet the florist in fifteen minutes, she's going to take several liberties that I definitely will not approve of.”
"Go, go." you urged, waving her off with a weak smile. "I'll be fine."
"Are you going straight home? Do you want me to call you later?"
"No, don't worry about it." you said, gesturing toward the diner across the street. "I think I'm just going to go sit in a corner, get a slice of pie, and read my book for a bit. Decompress."
"Good. Unplug your brain." Meg said, giving your arm a quick squeeze before jogging toward the subway.
The diner was louder than usual, packed with the early dinner rush escaping the incoming rain. The bell above the door chimed as you walked inside, and a quick scan confirmed your worst nightmare. Every single private booth was taken. The long counter was packed shoulder to shoulder.
The only available spot in the entire place was a tiny two person table near the back window, and it was currently occupied by a very large man with a leather jacket draped over the back of his chair. His head was turned toward the window, watching the starting drops of rain streak against the glass.
Curls.
Familiar curls, is all you saw first. And you should be embarrassed how much your body reacts to them. Even after all these years, he’s got your heart beating into your throat. The only thing that has changed is that he grew out of the red and exchanged it for grey.
To your disastrous conclusion, it only made him more handsome. More something. Magnetic? Maybe, but you’d always been drawn to Jack.
You should turn around. You should walk back out into the rain, go to your apartment, and eat whatever stale crackers were left in your pantry. Seeing him once at a bar was a fluke. Seeing him twice felt dangerous.
But your feet didn't move toward the door. Instead, driven by that same pull, you navigated the tight maze of tables until you were standing right at the edge of his space.
"Hey." you said softly.
Jack’s head turned immediately. The distant, checked out expression on his face instantly vanished, his eyes expanding as they locked onto yours. He took you in all at once. Your windblown hair, the slight line of stress between your eyebrows, the book clutched tightly against your chest.
A smirk slowly tugged at the corner of his mouth, though his eyes remained entirely intense. He leaned back in his chair, gesturing casually with his chin toward the empty seat across from him.
You swallowed the ridiculous spike of nerves in your throat, sliding into the chair.
Jack caught the eye of a passing waitress and raised two fingers. He looked back at you, eyes tracking the way you clutched your book like a shield. "What do you want?" he asked, his voice low.
You had spent the last twenty minutes dreaming about a thick slice of cherry pie, but suddenly, the thought of him buying it for you made your stomach do things you didn’t like. It felt too intimate. It felt wrong, like you were allowing him to fill a need he no longer had the right to.
"Oh, I'm just reading." you lied smoothly, offering a dismissive wave. "No food."
He didn't say a word, but he leveled a look at you. His eyebrows pulling down just a fraction in that knowing way he used to when he caught you in a bluff. An ache of longing bloomed in your chest. You had missed the way he had looked at you.
You missed when someone knew you so completely that you didn’t even have to say a word.
"Really?" Jack murmured, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the table. "So was cherry pie just a phase, or is that still happening?"
A smile broke across your face before you could stop it, your shoulders dropping their defensive posture. Jack caught the change instantly. "We'll take a slice of the cherry. Two forks. And a black coffee."
When it arrived, you didn't fight him on it. Instead, a comfortable silence settled over the table. The only sound was the clinking of forks against the ceramic plate as you shared the slice, both of you staring out at the rain turning the streetlights blurry.
It was nice.
It was terrifyingly easy.
"So," Jack said, breaking the quiet as he pushed the last bite of crust toward your side of the plate. "What did you do today?"
The lingering warmth from the pie evaporated, replaced by white satin and tulle. You let out a defeated sigh, leaning your chin into your hand. "Wedding dress shopping." you admitted, your voice miserable. "With Meg. It went horribly."
You expected a retort. Or for him to make a joke about you looking like a cloud or to tease you about being difficult. But when you didn't hear a reply, you looked up.
Jack wasn't smiling. He was watching you, his eyes focused on the sadness radiating from you. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." he said softly.
Your eyes screwed shut instantly, a shock running straight down your spine at the cadence of his voice. You forced them open, aggressively pointing your pie covered fork directly at his chest. "Don't call me that."
That smirk slowly worked its way back onto his face as he watched your cheeks flood with color. "Why?" he challenged, leaning an inch closer. "You like it too much?"
You tore your gaze away from him, turning your head toward the window and grumbling something under your breath just to avoid the smug, insufferable certainty in his eyes.
Then your phone buzzed against the table. “Oh, I have to take this. I'm sorry."
…
Inside, Jack was working double overtime just to keep his features flat. His jaw clenched so hard his molars ached.
God, he needed to see his therapist.
This was stupid. It was childish. It was entirely unhinged for him to feel this surge of possessiveness over a woman who wasn't even his. He had no claim over you. None at all. He was the one who had walked away eleven years ago.
But logic didn't do a damn thing to stop the way his chest constricted when you brought the phone to your ear.
Then came the blow, delivered in the sweetest tone. "Okay. Love you too."
Jack bristled. The words hit him with white hot jealousy.
You hung up, sliding the phone back into your pocket with an apologetic sigh. "Gotta go. David needs some help with something at the apartment."
You stood up, immediately reaching for your purse and unzipping it to hunt for cash. "Let me just grab some money for the pie."
Jack reached across the small distance, his hand came down over yours, his fingers completely covering your knuckles and pinning your hand to the fabric of your purse, stopping you instantly.
He would think about it later. Hours from now, lying awake in his bed, he would analyze the exact feel of your skin, the way his palm seemed to memorize the curve of your knuckles, and the buzzing that went straight up his forearm.
But right now, he just needed to keep you from drawing another boundary between you.
"Don't even think about it." Jack said, leaving no room for debate. He didn't let go of your hand right away, his thumb brushing over the soft skin of your wrist. "You don't pay for anything when you're with me."
You blinked down at his hand, then up at his face. You couldn't help the little smile that broke across your lips. "Oh, I see. Got that doctor money now and suddenly you're a big deal, huh?"
Jack laughed, his fingers reluctantly sliding off yours as he leaned back into his chair. "Are you kidding? I've always been a big deal."
You snorted, and to Jack, it was easily the best thing he had ever heard in his life. It was a sound he wanted to bottle up and keep. "Bye, Jack." you said softly, your smile lingering.
You hesitated for a fraction of a second, standing by his seat. And then, before you could talk yourself out of it, you reached out. Your hand closed briefly over his shoulder, a firm squeeze that pressed through the fabric of his shirt.
Then you turned and walked away.
He sat completely frozen, slowly bringing his left hand up to press over the exact spot on his shoulder where your fingers had just been, trying to trap the lingering warmth against his skin.
…
It had been a week since you sat across from Jack in that diner, and your brain had spent the last several days thinking of absolutely nothing else.
Even now, with the late evening sun filtering through the trees of the park near your apartment, you were miles away. You were walking hand in hand with David. The gravel of the path was crunching beneath your sneakers, and his voice was steady beside you.
You weren't listening to a single syllable.
Instead, your mind was drifting back to a particular night a lifetime ago. You remembered the feeling when Jack had pulled his truck up to your house, the shouting of your dad’s latest explosive fit still echoing through the thin walls behind you.
Jack had taken one look at your face, grabbed your wrist, and thrown you into his passenger seat.
He’d driven straight to the nearest Olive Garden and the two of you had proceeded to eat an ungodly amount of breadsticks.
Looking back, you had probably been falling in love with Jack Abbot since the very first moment he’d ever shown up at your house, but watching him sit across from you under those tacky restaurant lights, making terrible faces just to make you forget the dark world you lived in, that was the exact moment your heart had stubbornly decided it wanted him.
But you had David now. Safe, stable, predictable David. Whose hand was currently wrapped around yours. He stopped walking, tilting his head down to look at you. "Hey. Did you hear me?"
You blinked, the memory dissipating as you forced yourself back into the present. "Hmm? No, sorry. I got completely lost in thought. What did you say?"
David didn't get annoyed. He just let out a patient laugh and gave your hand a reassuring squeeze. "I was asking about our first dance song. I was thinking about it on the drive over. What do you think about Kiss Me?"
You couldn’t stop it then. Another memory slotting its way into your mind. You sitting shotgun flying down winding back roads with the windows cracked wide open. The radio blasting that exact song, the wind whipping your hair across your face while you and Jack screamed the lyrics at the top of your lungs, completely off key.
"Maybe." you forced out, the word catching uncomfortably in your throat. You swallowed hard, trying to keep your expression from cracking.
"Ah, that's okay." David said smoothly, entirely oblivious. "Don't stress. I'll make a running list of options tonight and we can go through them later..oh, shit!"
David’s foot caught on a deep lip of concrete where the park path intersected with a dirt trail. His ankle rolled inward with a crack. He pitched forward, his grip ripping away from your hand as he went down hard on his side in the grass.
"David!" You dropped to your knees beside him instantly. "Are you okay?"
He was pale, his jaw clenched tight as he clutched at his left leg, a groan escaping his teeth. "My ankle." he gasped out, his forehead breaking into a sweat. "I think I just broke the damn thing."
…
You hadn't thought anything of the location when the driver pulled up to the emergency room. It was simply the closest trauma center. Your only focus had been helping David limp through triage until they finally rolled him back into an exam room.
David was lying on the gurney, his face tight with pain as he stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the doctor on staff to see him. You stood by the edge of the bed, your hand holding his.
"Alright, let's see what we're dealing with here." The fabric of the curtain was pulled back and your eyes flew upward. Standing in the entryway, a chart clutched in his hand and a stethoscope slung casually over his shoulders, was Jack.
Of course.
Jack’s eyes were locked onto the chart as he stepped into the room, his pen clicking once, and then he stopped. He raised his head and his gaze swept over the gurney, over David, and landed right on you.
"Sorry." David panted from the gurney, his knuckles white as he gripped the metal rail. He forced a strained smile. "Didn't mean to crowd your ER today, Doc. I think I completely destroyed my ankle on a rogue piece of park pavement."
"Let's take a look." Jack said. His voice was lower than usual. You could feel it rattle all the way down to your toes. He deliberately kept his eyes on David as he rolled a stool over, snapping on a pair of gloves.
As he knelt by the foot of the bed, his shoulder brushed right against your arm. It was a fleeting contact, but it sent a jolt straight up your spine. "So,” Jack said, his large fingers gently probing the swollen, purple bruising on David’s ankle. "How exactly did it happen? Lose your footing?"
"Yeah." David groaned, flinching slightly as Jack manipulated the joint. "I was totally distracted. We were just walking, talking about our wedding, and I didn't see the drop off."
Jack’s hands stayed perfectly still on David’s leg, but slowly, his head tilted up. His eyes locked dead onto yours, carrying a challenging spark that trapped your breath in your throat.
"Right." Jack said softly, his mouth curving into an almost smirk that was entirely meant for you. "Distractions will get you. Sometimes you think you're on solid ground, and then the universe completely shifts right out from under you. Isn't that right?"
You gripped the strap of your purse so hard your fingers turned numb. "I...yeah. I guess so."
David let out a painful laugh, completely oblivious to the suffocating layers of subtext heavy in the room. "Man, you can say that again. One minute you're picking out a first dance song, the next you're in a gown."
"A first dance song?" Jack repeated. He stood up, ripping off the gloves, his gaze still pinned to your face. He stepped closer, forcing you to slightly tilt your chin up to maintain eye contact. "What was the contender?"
"Oh, I was thinking Kiss Me." David called out from the pillow, letting his head fall back with a tired sigh. "You know that old nineties track? I think it's romantic. y/n was a little unsure, though."
A wicked gleam flashed in Jack’s eyes. A look of insufferable amusement mapping itself across his handsome face. He knew exactly what that song meant to you. "Unsure? That’s surprising. Not a big fan of long drives and loud music?"
You bit the inside of your cheek so hard you tasted copper, glaring at him in a stare. "It’s a bit cliché." you managed to squeeze out, your voice tight.
Jack’s eyes dropped briefly to your mouth before snapping back to David, his professional demeanor slotting back into place like it was nothing. "Well, David, the good news is I don't think it's a fracture, but the bad news is we definitely need X-rays to check for a hairline break or ligament tears. I'm going to order them and have the tech come grab you."
"Awesome. Thank you, seriously." David said. He looked up at Jack like the man had just personally parted the sea. "Man, honey aren't we lucky? This guy is fantastic. I gotta say, Doc, your bedside manner is incredible. Super attentive."
Jack laughed and stepped back toward the door and gave a polite nod. "Don't mention it." Just before he left, he cut his eyes back to you, leveling you with one last look. "I always make sure to take extra special care of things that are important."
…
You kept running into Jack.
Not on purpose, but for a few weeks after that night at the diner, the universe just seemed entirely incapable of keeping you separate.
You were roaming through your favorite bookstore, losing yourself in the new releases, when you turned a corner into the biography aisle.
He was leaning against the wood paneling, casually flipping through a massive hardcover on the French Revolution. Typical, honestly. It made you want to roll your eyes, but before you could look away, he raised his head.
Did you proceed to sit at the tiny coffee shop inside the bookstore and talk for two straight hours? Yes. But it didn't mean anything.
Then there was the afternoon you got caught in a downpour. You stood on the sidewalk, cursing under your breath as you shoved at your umbrella, which yeah was completely broken.
A familiar truck pulled up to the curb, the passenger window sliding down smoothly. Jack leaned across the console, eyeing the way the rain was already plastering your hair to your forehead.
“Get in.” he called out over the thunder.
When you started to refuse, shaking your head and gesturing toward the short walk home, Jack didn’t argue. He just killed the engine, threw his door open, and stepped straight out into the rain.
He just reached out, his hand wrapping gently around your elbow, and guided you toward his passenger side. He practically hovered over you, using his own body to protect you from the worst of the sheets of water while he got absolutely, completely soaked.
Did you sit up until three that night thinking about the way his hair looked all messy and plastered to his forehead? Did you think about the way his shirt had been completely soaked through, clinging to his shoulders? Yes. But it didn't mean anything.
All of this was pure coincidence. A series of flukes. Not on purpose at all.
Until it wasn't.
…
David was away at a work conference in Boston. You were pulling books off your overflowing bookshelves, doing some late night reorganizing, when the banging on the front door started.
It was pounding that rattled the wood in its frame and sent panic right through you.
"I know you're in there, baby girl! Getting married without telling your old man!!"
The words through the door were slurred, thick with alcohol and malice. You froze on the spot, a book slipping from your numb fingers. How had he found you?
You frantically dialed David’s number, your hands shaking so much you almost dropped the phone. When he finally answered, you poured out the words in a breathless rush, begging him to come home, begging him to fix it.
But David was three hundred miles away, and he simply didn't realize the severity of the situation. He didn’t know the history, not all of it, so he didn’t know the monster on the other side of that door.
"Call the police." David said through the line, his voice calm and practical. "I can't leave right now."
He meant well. He really did. He just didn't know.
You hung up, the slurred shouting outside your door growing louder, followed by another heavy kick against the door.
Without thinking, you dialed Jack and he answered on the very first ring.
"My dad's here." you whispered. You didn't even say hello. Your voice fractured on the last word, and you were sure Jack could hear the muffled yelling through the background.
It took Jack no time to speak. "Stay right there. I'm coming."
David had retreated when you most needed him, hiding behind work responsibilities and distance. But Jack Abbot?
He would walk right into the fire.
…
Jack broke every speed limit getting there. He took the stairs two at a time, his feet pounding against the concrete, and when he rounded the corner into the hallway, he saw him.
Your father was swaying on his feet, one fist raised against your door, his knuckles already split and bleeding from the force of his own pounding. The smell of cheap whiskey hit Jack before he even got close.
"Hey!" Jack's voice cracked down the hallway. "Get away from that door."
Your father turned, bleary eyes struggling to focus. He blinked hard, swaying backward on unsteady feet as he took in the man closing the distance between them. "Who the hell are you?" he slurred, his words mashing together at the edges.
Jack stopped a few feet away, close enough to block him from the door, his jaw tight, hands curled into fists at his sides. There had been a time this man had known his face well. A time Jack had sat at his kitchen table, had shaken his hand, had been introduced as his friend from AA.
None of it registered. Not a flicker of recognition. Just glassy, unfocused eyes trying to place a stranger.
"Doesn't matter who I am." Jack said evenly, though his pulse was pounding in his ears. "You need to leave. Now."
Your father squinted at him a moment longer, some drunken calculation happening behind his eyes, weighing whether this stranger was worth the fight. Whatever he decided, it wasn't in Jack's favor to test. He muttered something incoherent under his breath, waved a dismissive hand through the air, and turned, stumbling back down the hallway toward the stairwell and the door banged shut behind him.
Jack stood there another few seconds, listening until the sound of uneven footsteps faded completely. Only then did he let his shoulders drop, some of the adrenaline bleeding out of him. He turned and knocked twice, soft. "It's me."
The door opened and Jack’s heart twisted. You were pale, your hand trembling on the frame, eyes glassy with barely held tears.
Jack stepped inside without a word.
You shut the door behind him, the deadbolt sliding home and the second you turned around, whatever was holding you together gave out completely. You crossed the small distance and folded into him, your face pressing into his chest, your fists curling into the fabric of his shirt. A sob broke loose, shaking through your whole body.
Jack's arms came around you immediately, one hand splayed wide across your back, the other cradling the back of your head, holding you together at the seams. "I've got you, sweetheart. You're okay."
You just shook against him, gripping tighter. "He's gone." Jack said quietly, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. "He's not coming back. I promise you that."
"I was so scared." you choked out, your voice muffled against his chest.
"I know." His hand moved in steady circles against your back. "I know, baby. But you're safe. You hear me? You're safe. I'm not going anywhere."
…
You didn't know how you'd ended up like this. Flat on your back on the couch, feet in Jack's lap, his hand wrapped loose around your ankle, thumb tracing slow circles against the bone there. His other hand rested just below your knee, warm, doing absolutely nothing except being there.
Somewhere in the deep, buried recesses of your mind, nineteen year old you was losing it.
Screaming, actually.
He hadn't said much. Just steered you gently toward the couch, dropped down at the end of it, and flipped on your favorite show without asking if that's what you wanted. You let the noise of it wash over you, let your heart rate go back down out of your throat, and for a while, neither of you said anything at all.
"I don't know how he found me." Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to. "We're 3 hours from where he lives."
Jack turned his head to look at you, his hand stilling against your ankle.
"I honestly thought he was dead." You sat up then, pulling your feet out of his lap, curling your knees against your chest instead, wrapping your arms around them like a shield.
"A neighbor called a few years ago. Said he'd been evicted from the house. The city shut it down because he let it get too run down." You sighed, staring at the carpet. "And so I just thought to myself, that's it. I have to let him go now. For real. And it was over for me then. Even if he's still alive somewhere."
Jack was quiet for a moment, just watching you, something soft and aching behind his eyes. "You did what you had to do to survive him." he said finally. "That's not something to feel guilty about. You were trying to keep your head above water with somebody who should've been protecting you instead of drowning you." He shifted closer, his knee brushed yours. "Letting go of him wasn't you giving up. It was you finally choosing yourself. That takes more strength than most people ever have to find."
You didn't say anything, just picked at a loose thread on your sleeve.
"You're doing so well." he continued, quieter now. "Look at you. You built a whole life he doesn't get to touch. And tonight, when it got hard, you didn't fall apart. You're still standing." His mouth curved, just barely. "You're gonna be okay. I mean that."
You didn't fully believe it. Not yet. But something about the way he said it, like it was fact and not comfort, made it easier to breathe.
Before you could stop yourself, you sat up and threw your arms around him.
Jack didn't hesitate. His arms came around you instantly, pulling you in tight against his chest. You tucked your face into the crook of his neck and breathed in, deep, the way you used to when you were younger.
You'd thought you hid it well back then. Some guilty part of you had always known he'd caught on anyway.
When you pulled back, you just stared at him.
For one long moment, the apartment, the show still playing, your father somewhere out there in the dark, none of it existed. There was just his face close to yours.
You cleared your throat and looked away first, scooting back to the opposite end of the couch, eyes fixed on the TV.
…
You didn't remember falling asleep.
You did vaguely register the sound of the television clicking off. You felt strong arms slide beneath you, lifting you and cradling you against a solid chest as he carried you down the hall. He laid you down in your bed and pulled the blanket up over your shoulders. You reached out before he could straighten, catching his hand. "Please don't go." Your voice was thick with sleep, barely above a whisper. "Don't leave me."
Jack went still, but then his fingers curled around yours, and he crouched down beside the bed so you didn't have to strain to see him. "I'm here. I'll always be here."
…
Jack was up before you.
He'd wanted nothing more than to climb into that bed, pull you against his chest, and hold you until the sun came up. But he wasn't that guy. Not with you asleep and vulnerable and still shaking from the night before. So he'd taken the couch instead, folding his tall frame onto cushions clearly built for someone half his size, and told himself it was fine.
Your coffee machine looked like it belonged on the bridge of a spaceship. Jack stood in front of it at six in the morning, squinting at a control panel with more buttons than his car dashboard, trying to figure out which one didn't require a PhD to operate.
That's when he heard the key turn in the lock. David stepped through the door, travel bag still slung over one shoulder, and rounded the corner into the kitchen before he saw Jack standing there. He let out a yelp, jerking backward, one hand flying to his chest. "Fuck!"
He squinted, still catching his breath, confusion slowly replacing the alarm on his face. "Dr. Abbot? What are you doing here?"
Jack had a few answers loaded and ready.
Oh I don’t know, taking care of your fiancee.
Doing your job for you.
Petty, satisfying, and exactly the kind of thing he shouldn't say out loud to the man about to marry you.
"David?" Your voice came from the hallway. You crossed the room fast, wrapping your arms around him, and Jack watched David's shoulders sag with relief as he held you. "Thank god you're here." you said into his shoulder.
Jack kept his face carefully blank, ignoring the way that sentence sliced through him.
"I know, I'm sorry. I left as soon as I could." David pulled back, and you both turned to look at Jack, still standing there with an untouched mug in his hand.
"Oh! Right, David. This is Jack." you said. "I didn't get a chance to tell you when we were at the hospital, but we've known each other a long time. He was friends with my dad briefly. He got him to leave last night."
And held her while she cried and shook until she fell asleep, Jack thought.
David's whole face opened up. "Oh, wow. Small world!" He crossed the kitchen, hand extended. "Thank you, man. Seriously."
Jack took the handshake, grip firm, and let it go. "Don't mention it."
You excused yourself to the bathroom, leaving the two of them alone in the living room. Jack figured that was his cue. He set the mug down and grabbed his jacket off the arm of the couch.
But before he headed for the door, he stopped, and let some of the easy charm drop out of his voice. "Hey. David." He waited until he had the guy's full attention. "Last night, her father was pounding on that door drunk enough to put his fist through it."
David's expression faltered.
"I get that you didn't know the whole situation." Jack tried his best to keep his tone civil. To not let the way his blood was boiling come through. "But you need to understand what you're marrying into. That man is dangerous, and he's not going to stop just because he struck out once. If he shows up again, you don't wait it out on the phone. You call me first, because I know exactly what he looks like and what he's capable of. Then you call the police. And then you get home as fast as humanly possible. She should never be alone behind that door with him on the other side of it again."
David swallowed, nodding slowly, all the earlier warmth gone out of his face, replaced by something more sober. "Of course." he said. "Yeah. You're right. I..I didn't realize how bad it was."
"Now you do." Jack said simply.
He gave the guy one last look and let himself out the door.
…
You'd decided to try veils this time, some last ditch effort to actually picture yourself walking down the aisle. You stood in front of the three way mirror, tulle pinned into your hair, and felt absolutely nothing shift into place.
You weren't sure what possessed you to do it, but you pulled out your phone. The lighting in here was stupidly flattering, if nothing else. You angled the camera, snapped a picture, and before you could think too hard about who you were about to send it to, your thumb had already done it.
Too much?
The one person on the entire planet you probably shouldn't be sending bridal photos to.
"This isn't the one either." you called out to Meg, already reaching for the zipper.
You thought you heard her sigh from the other side of the curtain.
Twenty minutes later you were back in your jeans, walking to the coffee shop around the corner to debrief, like you always did. You ordered, sat down across from her, and Meg leveled you with a look before you'd even taken a sip. "You've tried on twenty dresses this month." she said. "In the grand scheme of things that's not that many. But you'd think by now you'd have some idea of what you actually want."
You shrugged, staring into your cup.
"What's going on?"
You looked up at her, and the excuse died in your throat. You couldn't lie to her. Not about this.
So you told her. All of it.
Meg's mouth had fallen fully open. "Okay, wait." she said, holding up a hand. "Jack. The Jack? From when you were a teenager? The one you used to talk about like he hung the moon?"
"That's the one."
"And he's been what, just reappearing in your life this whole time you've been dress shopping?"
"It's not like that." you said, too fast.
Meg just stared at you, unblinking, waiting.
"It's not." you said again, weaker this time.
"So you're not going to leave David?"
"What? No." The word came out of you immediately and it was unconvincing even to your own ears. You heard it yourself, the way it hung there in the air between you.
Meg didn't say anything. She didn't have to. She just reached across the table and squeezed your hand. "I'm not going to tell you what to do." she said finally. "But I've known you a long time, and I've never once seen you struggle like this. You need to actually sit with why nothing about this is feeling right.”
She gathered her bag, dropped a kiss on the top of your head, and left you sitting there. It was only once you were alone that you remembered your phone.
You'd almost forgotten you'd sent that picture at all.
Jack: You can't just send a man a photo like that with zero warning
Jack: I had to set my phone down and collect myself.
Jack: You look stunning, sweetheart. Take a picture in every single dress you try on if it looks anywhere close to that good.
You sat there staring at the screen, feeling something warm and inconvenient bloom in your chest, right where it absolutely had no business blooming at all.
…
Jack was still staring at the picture, thumb hovering uselessly over the screen, when John's voice came from directly behind him. "Ooh, who is that?"
Jack locked the phone so fast he nearly dropped it, shoving it deep into his scrub pocket. "Someone I can't have. That's who."
John just stood there, genuinely stunned into silence. Jack Abbot didn't talk about his personal life. Ever. The man was a vault. "I have so many follow up questions."
"And I'm not answering any of them." Jack clapped him on the shoulder as he passed and left him standing there, already halfway down the hall before John could get another word out.
He took the stairwell up instead of the elevator, needing the burn, needing something physical to focus on besides the picture still branded behind his eyes. The door to the roof access swung open onto cold air and the first thin streaks of orange bleeding up over the skyline, the city still mostly asleep below him.
He braced his forearms against the railing and just breathed.
You cannot have her.
He'd known that fact for years. Had built an entire life around avoiding the truth of it, had buried it under residency and fellowships and every double shift he could volunteer for, until the burying had just become who he was.
He was so fucked.
Because the truth was that he'd never stopped. Not for one day. Somewhere in the back of his mind, you'd always been the one. The girl who told him she was going to marry him when she was young and terrified and had no business making promises like that, and he'd been arrogant enough, or maybe just honest enough with himself, to believe her.
He scrubbed a hand down his face. You had a life. A good one, from what he could see. David was steady. David showed up, mostly, and when he didn't, well, that one was on David to figure out, not Jack.
Jack was the disruption. He was the thing crashing back into your orbit and tearing it apart at the seams, one diner pie and one rescued night at a time. He didn't have the right to do that to you. Not when you'd fought so hard to build something that didn't look anything like the wreckage you came from.
He thought about the way you'd grabbed his hand last night and asked him not to leave, and he hadn't wanted to.
God, he hadn't wanted to at all.
You were supposed to be mine.
Maybe you were. Maybe in some other version of this, some world where he hadn't left, where your father hadn't been the kind of man he was, where the timing had lined up right, maybe there was a version where it was his ring on your hand and his name you said into a phone with that same soft affection.
But this wasn't that world. In this one, you were engaged.
In this one, he had a job to walk you back to your life and hand you off in one piece, not to unravel it because he couldn't get over you.
He loved you too much to be the reason you didn't get your happy ending. Even if it wasn't with him.
Stop seeing her.
The thought was simple. Easy to think and impossible, apparently, to actually do. Not when you'd called him first last night, not when your name lighting up his phone did something to his pulse he couldn't explain away as friendship.
He had to be the one to put the distance back. You wouldn't. Not with the way this thing between you kept pulling you both back together like gravity, like the two of you were simply incapable of staying apart no matter how hard either of you tried.
So it had to be him.
He just wasn't sure if he actually had it in him to do it.
…
David had been quiet all through dinner, pushing his food around his plate more than actually eating it.
It wasn't until the dishes were cleared and you were curled up on opposite ends of the couch, the TV playing something neither of you were watching, that he finally spoke.
"Can I ask you something?"
You looked over at him. "Of course."
He was quiet for a second, turning something over in his head, and when he finally looked at you, there was none of his usual easy calm in his face. Just something tired. "When's the last time you were actually excited about the wedding?"
You sat up. "What?" you managed.
"I'm not trying to start a fight." he said gently. "I just..I've been watching you for months now. Every time we talk about the venue, or the flowers, or the song, you get this look on your face." He rubbed a hand over his jaw. "And I told myself it was stress. Wedding planning is stressful, everyone says that. But it's been going on so long now that I don't think that's it anymore."
You opened your mouth to argue, some defense already forming. But nothing came out. Because he wasn't wrong, and some exhausted part of you didn't want to keep lying about it anymore.
"David."
He shifted to face you fully. "I need you to be honest with me. Do you actually want this? Do you want to marry me? Or have you just been going along with it because I'm safe, and easy, and I never gave you a reason to say no?"
The tears came before you could stop them, blurring the outline of him sitting there so patiently, waiting for an answer you didn't know how to give without breaking something neither of you could put back together.
"I don't know." The words scraped out of you. "David, I don't know. I love you. I do. You've been so good to me. You've never once made me feel unsafe, or scared, or like I had to brace myself for anything, and after everything with my dad, that meant more than I think I ever told you." You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand. "But I don't know if that's the same thing as being in love with you. And I think some part of me has known that for a long time and just didn't want to look at it too closely, because looking at it meant I had to admit I was about to marry you for the wrong reasons."
David's face didn't crumple the way you thought it might. He just nodded slowly, like some quiet piece of him had already made peace with hearing this before you'd even said it.
"I think I've known too." he admitted. "I kept telling myself it was just cold feet. That everybody gets like this before a wedding." He let out a breath that shook slightly on the way out. "But cold feet doesn't usually last eight months, does it?"
You shook your head, unable to speak past the lump in your throat.
"Is there someone else?" he asked.
You thought about Jack's hands wrapped around your ankle on this exact couch. "I don't know what he is." you said honestly. "But there's someone from a long time ago who came back into my life a few months ago, and ever since he did, I haven't been able to feel the same about anything. Including this."
David nodded again, slower this time, and reached out to take your hand. "I'm not going to pretend that doesn't hurt." he said. "But I'd rather know now than stand up in front of everyone we love and marry someone who's not sure I'm the one she wants standing there." He squeezed your hand once. "You deserve to be with somebody you don't have to talk yourself into loving. And so do I."
You cried harder then, not because it was cruel, but because it wasn't. Because David, steady and safe and undeserving of any of the mess of the last few months, had just done the bravest, kindest thing anyone had done for you in a long time.
"Go figure out what you actually want." he said softly. "I hope it's good, whatever it is."
…
The evening sun was dipping below the tree line, painting the park in golds. You walked along the path, hands shoved into the pockets of your jacket.
It was beautiful out and for the first time in what felt like forever, life had been good.
It was a strange kind of good, but it was yours. You had a new apartment now, entirely of your own making, filled with half unpacked cardboard boxes. Meg had been over earlier that afternoon, helping you put everything in its place, handing you coffee, and keeping the silence from getting to be too much.
She had a stack of dinner plates balanced in her hands and looked at you with that no nonsense gaze of hers. "Are you going to tell Jack you aren't engaged anymore?" she had asked
You had only shaken your head, looking down at the bubble wrap in your hands.
How could you? He’d been radio silent for weeks now. Almost a month had passed since you sent him that photo of you in the wedding dress.
You had figured that he was deliberately putting space between the two of you. It only made sense. Why would he ever see you as anything more? He hadn't back then, when you were nineteen and stupid, so why now?
You exited the park, taking the familiar path back toward your apartment, still turning the thoughts over in your mind.
He had probably noticed you getting too attached to him. Jack, with his observant eyes, had likely seen the way you leaned into his touch, the way you clutched his shirt when your father showed up, and decided to remove that trouble from your life before you got hurt.
But the damage was already done.
Except, as you crossed the threshold of the park and stepped onto the concrete sidewalk, you realized it wasn’t really damage at all. It was more like clarity. A newfound, stubborn sense of self.
Even if Jack wasn't going to be yours, you still had this new life. It was entirely yours. You had chosen yourself, just like he said you could.
You really shouldn't have been listening to music while walking along the busy street. The volume was up just high enough to drown out rush hour traffic. Because of it, you didn't hear the screech of tires peeling at the crosswalk.
You had the right of way. The pedestrian walk sign was white, glowing steadily, but someone wasn't paying attention.
You didn't really know what happened until the world tilted. There was a sickening impact of metal against bone, and then you were slammed down onto the pavement, hard.
Fuck, it hurt.
The breath was knocked completely out of your lungs, the cold asphalt pressing against your cheek as the music in your earbuds suddenly cut out. Your head felt dizzy, but you didn't think you’d hit it. But within seconds, shouting voices were closing in, and shadow after shadow fell over you as people rushed to your side.
"Don't move! Stay still, honey, don't try to get up!"
"Someone call 911!"
You tried to blink the blurriness from your eyes. Your right side felt like one throbbing bruise, but there was a wet warmth trickling down your shoulder. Dazed, you reached up with your left hand to touch it, your fingers brushing against the fabric of your collar.
When you pulled your hand back, your palm was bright, slick red.
The ambulance felt both like a split second and an entire lifetime. Paramedics were kneeling in the dirt beside you.
"I'm fine." you croaked, your voice sounding small and raspy even to your own ears. You tried to brace yourself on an elbow, pushing against the hands holding you down. "I can just..I can take myself to the ER. It's just my shoulder."
"Lie back." one of the medics said, his voice firm as he stabilized your neck. "We have to immobilize you. It's protocol."
You let out a defeated breath, the fight draining out of you as you nodded and let them carefully shift your body onto the rigid plastic of the stretcher.
The moment they lifted you, the shock finally caught up. Your vision began to gray out at the corners, the faces of the paramedics blurring into soft shapes. The pain in your shoulder and ribs began to fade into a dull numbness as your body finally decided to pass out, retreating into the dark.
As the darkness pulled you under, your mind clung to only one desperate thought.
I hope I'm going to see Jack.
…
Jack was standing at the nurses' station and John was going on about something dumb when he heard the incoming call being answered by Lena. When she hung up, she turned to the room. "Pedestrian was hit on the sidewalk by a car. Female. In and out of consciousness but vitals good. One minute out."
God, he had just clocked in and things were already ramping up.
"Here we go. I feel like it's going to be a spicy night." John said.
"Don't say that." Jack frowned. "You know every night is spicy when I'm here."
John just gave him a look of disgust as he sipped his coffee.
Jack snapped some gloves on right as the patient was being wheeled through the double doors. But he barely got the second glove on when his heart felt like it stopped.
You on the gurney, bleeding from your neck from a scrape, dripping down your shoulder. You, blinking slowly at John’s light that he was already flashing in your eyes.
Fucking hell, it was you.
It was all Jack could do not to grab you in his arms and yell for everyone else to get the fuck out of the room.
"Jack? Hello? You with me on this one?" John’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears.
Jack shook his head, physically forcing his brain to lock back into place. Gathering himself, he walked into the trauma bay alongside the gurney as the ambulance crew relayed their information. He didn't even realize he was doing it, but his hand found yours. He held onto it, tight, his thumb automatically brushing over the soft skin of your knuckles.
And while he was doing all this, John’s eyes darted from the monitor, to Jack’s white knuckled grip, and then back to Jack's face. The puzzle pieces were rapidly clicking together in his mind. "Uhh, is this the woman from the picture on your phone?" John asked quietly.
"Yes."
That was all Jack could say. Fuck whatever they thought about him and you. Fuck the hospital gossip, fuck the onlookers. He was staying with you.
You were slowly rousing, your eyelashes fluttering against your cheeks. The paramedics had said you hadn't passed out but the one time, but you were hurting, so you weren't saying much. Your fingers twitched weakly against his palm, and when your eyes finally found his, the quiet words that slipped past your lips almost broke Jack to pieces. "I hoped it was you."
Jack’s throat closed up. He grabbed your hand, lifting it to press it flat against his chest, right over his racing heart, needing you to feel him. "I'm here, sweetheart. I'll always be here."
John was watching you, his expression softening, well and fine with the moment, but he was already stepping toward the curtain, yelling for Parker to come in.
Jack's head snapped up, his eyes turning dark. "What?"
John shrugged. "You clearly know her, you can't work on her. Sorry, boss. Rules."
And fuck that.
Fuck that. Every protective instinct inside Jack screamed at him to push them all away and tend to your wounds himself. But the rational side of his brain knew John was right. If he stayed as your physician, his judgment would be clouded by the terror of losing you.
Jack swallowed the bitter pill, his grip on your hand never wavering. "Fine, but I'm staying."
John just held his hands up in surrender. "Not going to argue with you there."
…
When you woke, it was in a quiet room in the hospital. A warm light was coming from the lamp on the desk beside you.
Jack was sitting laid back on the chair near the wall. His eyes were closed, and he had his arms crossed over his chest. Was he sleeping sitting up?
You couldn't help but let out a quiet laugh at the sight.
His eyes opened, the sleep clearing from them quickly. The moment he saw you awake, the tension in his shoulders melted, and his eyes softened.
"Hi honey." he said.
Even in the bruised state you were in, that greeting caused your heart to feel like it was going berserk. Thank goodness you weren't actually hooked up to any heart monitors anymore, or else he would know exactly what it did to you when he called you that.
"Do you know what happened?" he asked, pushing himself up from the chair to come stand right by you.
"Yes, all of it unfortunately." you grimaced, trying to sit up.
Jack eased you back down against the pillows. "Keep laying down. They gave you pain meds, so that's why you've been out for a few hours."
"What time is it?" you asked, squinting toward the dark window.
"4 a.m." Jack said softly.
Your eyes widened. "Oh my god. I didn't mean to pull you from work. Please, go back on shift. I will be fine."
Jack just shook his head, a smile playing on his lips. "No way. I'm not leaving you. Shift or no shift, there is nowhere else in the world I'd rather be right now."
This time when you sat up, he didn't try to stop you. You reached out and grabbed his arm, tugging him down slightly so that he was close to you, your eyes locking onto his. "Thank you, Jack."
And he just smiled at you, covering your hand with his own for a brief second before gently squeezing. "I'm going to see about getting you discharged. Then we're going to my house. That sound okay?"
You didn't think you would have any words if you tried to speak, so you just nodded.
…
Jack tucked you into his bed and closed the door to let you sleep. You slept for a while, which he knew you would because of the pain meds. While the house was quiet, he’d called in a favor with Robby to help get coverage for his next two shifts.
He just wanted to be with you. He never wanted to leave your side, never again.
When you finally woke up, he was standing in his kitchen, making some tea. Your hair was a little mussed from sleep, but even then, you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. You'd always been.
"Can I have some?" you said, pointing toward the steaming kettle.
He pointed toward the two mugs already sitting on the counter. "Was already making you one too."
You smiled and walked toward him. Still sleep brained, you had to be, because that was the only reason you would have come right up to him and folded yourself into his chest.
Either way, Jack didn't care about the reason. He let his arms wrap around you, pulling you flush against him, and he couldn't help the contented hum that came from his chest.
"My hero." you whispered against his shirt.
He laughed a little. "Hardly."
You leaned back, tilting your head up to look at him. And god, he wanted to kiss you. He’d wanted to kiss you for a while, but everything felt so intensely domestic right now, the way you were just holding each other in his kitchen. This felt like some sort of future that the two of you could actually have.
It wasn't until later, when the two of you were sitting at his kitchen table and you brought your mug up to your lips, tilting it back, when Jack noticed it.
The lack of a ring on your finger.
The rush of adrenaline made him almost choke on his own sip of tea. He set his mug down and reached out, completely unable to stop himself. He gently rubbed his thumb over the exact area where the ring used to be.
You set your tea down, your gaze dropping to the table. "David and I are no longer getting married." you said softly.
When Jack didn't say anything, too stunned, too frozen by the words, you started rambling, the nervous heat creeping up your neck. "Well, actually, we're no longer anything. We broke up."
…
The confession felt terrifying and freeing all at once. You swallowed hard, staring down at your bare knuckles because looking at his face right now felt like staring directly into the sun. "I broke it off with him."
Jack didn't blink. He sat perfectly still across from you, his eyes focused on your face, tracking the slight tremble of your lower lip. "Why?"
You met his gaze then. And all you could do was smile. "Because of you, Jack." you said softly. "It's always been you. The second you crashed back into my life, everything else just completely unraveled. I couldn't stand up there and marry a good man when my entire heart was somewhere else."
Taking a shaky breath, you kept going. "When you left, I tried to bury it, I really did, but seeing you again, having you in my life again, it just made me realize that I don't want a life that doesn’t have you in it. I want.."
Before you could even finish, Jack leaned in.
His large hand came up to cup the side of your face, his thumb catching the edge of your cheek to tilt your head up.
The kiss was a breaking of a dam that neither of you could have stopped if you tried.
Jack’s fingers tangled into your hair to hold you steady as he drank you in, making up for every single day he had forced himself to stay away. You melted into him, your hands gripping the fabric of his shirt.
When you broke apart, he kept his forehead pressed against yours. "God, you have no idea," Jack breathed. He let out a small laugh, closing his eyes tightly for a moment before looking back at you. "I felt like such an asshole watching you with him. Sitting in that ER, listening to him talk about your wedding. I wanted to rip the walls down. I wanted to tell him to get his hands off what was mine."
He paused, a bitter smirk twisting the corner of his mouth. "I know I was a menace these past few weeks. I know I was pushing every single boundary you tried to set, but god, why wouldn't I be?" He leaned down, his lips brushing yours again, softer this time but no less desperate. "I love you so much. I've never stopped. Not for a single day."
…
True to his word, Jack took the whole weekend off to take care of you. He completely ignored your protests that you were totally fine and could go back to your own place to heal.
"Jack, I'm fine!" you said as he was walking out the door on Monday night to head back to the hospital for his shift.
He paused at the threshold, turning back to look at you. "I know. But stay here. Please?"
Looking up at him, you couldn't say no. You leaned in, and he caught your lips, kissing you again and leaving you breathless and wanting more.
To be honest, you had grown a little restless over the past two days. Even after everything that had been confessed, Jack still slept on the couch while he stubbornly insisted you take his bed. You were well enough after that first kiss to let thoughts start swirling in your head, keeping you wide awake in the dark.
You wondered if he was wide awake too those nights. You just kept getting woken up by visions of him, thoughts of him between your thighs, your hands tangled tightly in his curls. You wondered if he was eventually going to take that step with you, or if you’d have to be the one to make that leap first.
You didn't have to keep wondering for long.
When he finally got home in the morning you were already up. You were sitting in his living room, curled up in his comfy chair with a book in your lap.
You softly said hi, but the greeting completely died in your throat as he dropped his bag by the door without a word. His eyes were dark and fixed on you as he walked straight toward your chair.
Instead of pulling you up, he sank directly to the floor.
You parted your legs and allowed him to slot himself right in between them, he fit perfectly. "What are you reading?" he asked, his voice low.
You swallowed hard, your heart hammering against your ribs. "Nothing yet. I just started it."
"Ah." Jack murmured, his gaze dropping to your mouth before locking back onto your eyes. "Can I interrupt?"
You closed the book and set it aside blindly. He slid his hands slowly up your thighs. The warmth of his palms seared through your clothes, and you couldn't help the way you sank down a little in the seat, tilting your hips to make it even easier for his hands to roam.
He reached up, his movements unhurried as his fingers hooked at the waistband of your shorts. He paused, holding your gaze. "This okay?" he asked.
You nodded so fervently it got him to laugh, his thumbs brushing against your skin.
He pulled your shorts down and tossed them carelessly over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving yours.
Then, he leaned down, and his mouth was on you. He started low, his lips pressing warm kisses up your thighs. He took his time, kissing a slow trail up your left side before shifting over to the right, his stubble scraping lightly against your skin and leaving a wake of shivers behind.
He moved inward, placing small hot kisses right over your underwear. His breath was hot through the thin fabric, sending a wave of anticipation straight down your spine.
He pulled back just enough to look up at you, his chest heaving. "You're so beautiful." he breathed, his voice rough and undone. "Is this real?"
A breathless laugh escaped you. Instead of answering, you reached up, burying your hands deep into his hair and pulling him down to your mouth. When you finally pulled back for air, you reached for the hem of your shirt and pulled it over your head, tossing it aside.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you thought you’d be a bit more nervous for a moment like this, but you wanted him so bad the anxiety didn't even have time to grow.
Jack reached up, his hand cupping your breast, his thumb brushing slowly over your nipple as you leaned back into the chair again, letting out a soft sigh. His fingers trailed a path down your stomach, moving lower until they found the edge of your underwear, tracing a line right over the seam of you, before pulling them off.
He just sat there on the floor between your legs, drinking you in, his eyes mapping every single inch of your body. You felt an ache pool in your lower stomach, your hips involuntarily wanting to squirm under his undivided attention.
Having Jack Abbot look at you completely naked in the middle of his living room was somehow even more erotic than whatever was about to come next.
…
Jack’s hands reached up to frame the insides of your thighs, spreading you open for him. He leaned in close, his hot breath brushing over your sensitive skin before he pressed his tongue flat against your center.
His mouth worked over you with greedy focus. He took his time, sweeping his tongue up the length of you, sucking softly, his stubble scraping lightly against your thighs.
He gripped your hips to keep you still whenever you tried to squirm, humming low against your skin when you arched into him. You whimpered his name into the quiet living room as you came against his face.
When he finally pulled back, he stood up and pulled you up out of the chair. Without a word, you followed him down the hallway into his bedroom.
The moment the door swung shut behind you, Jack turned, but you didn't give him a chance to lead. You pushed him backward onto the edge of his mattress, your hands pressing against his chest until he sat back. You stepped between his legs and swung a leg over his lap, straddling him.
Jack groaned as you settled against his hips. He grabbed your waist, pulling you down into a desperate kiss. His hands roamed up your back, pulling you closer, his mouth open and hot against yours.
The taste of you was on his lips as you rocked your hips against him, feeling his cock pressing through his scrubs. You stood up then, and he shifted so that you could pull them down and off. Then he scooted back and you resumed your straddled position on him.
When he guided himself to your entrance, you paused for a second, looking down at him. You wanted to commit this to memory.
You sank down onto him in one slow push.
Jack threw his head back against the pillows. “Fuck, sweetheart.”
It was overwhelming and hot. Eleven years of ache and longing. You leaned forward, pressing your forehead against his as you began to move.
"You feel so good." Jack said, rolling his hips up to meet your thrusts, taking you deeper. His hands slid up your spine, tangling in your hair to pull you down into another kiss.
…
You fell asleep with your head on his chest only to be woken a few hours later by his mouth pressing kisses down the slope of your neck.
By afternoon, you ended up in his shower, the steam filling the small bathroom as the hot water cascaded over both of you. Jack pressed you gently against the tile, his hands slick with soap as he washed you before pulling you back against him once more.
Every touch felt like finding solid ground after years of drifting.
…
One Year Later
Jack kept one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting on your thigh in the passenger seat and he genuinely could not have told you where he was driving to. It didn't matter.
The window was down on your side and your hair was whipping across your face and you didn't even bother fixing it, just let it happen, eyes closed, singing along to whatever was playing on the radio. The sun caught the side of your face through the windshield and Jack thought, not for the first time, that he had no idea how he'd survived all these years without seeing this exact sight.
God, he loved you. It still hit him sometimes, stealing the breath right out of him completely.
You must have felt him looking, because you turned and the smile you gave him was so easy and happy that his hands nearly slipped on the wheel.
You leaned across the console then, one hand braced on his thigh and pressed your lips to his cheek. Your other hand slid up the back of his neck, fingers curling into the hair there the way you always did. You just couldn’t help it.
The small, cool press of metal against his skin from your finger thrilled him. He'd slid it onto your finger three weeks ago in his kitchen, badly rehearsed. You'd said yes before he'd even gotten the whole sentence out.
He hadn't been surprised, not really. After all, you'd always known. You'd told him so yourself, once, a long time ago, before he'd been ready to hear it.
He was the one playing catch up.
Your fingers were still tangled at the back of his neck, that ring cool against his skin, and outside the window the fields blurred in the last of the light and Jack thought that he could drive like this forever and never once feel like he was in a hurry to get anywhere else.
he eats a peach and everyone watches // jack abbot
in which everyone watches the way jack eats a peach over the sink in the breakroom. totally normal btw.
(a/n: lmao sorry i just daydreamed this and couldn't help myself)
You almost didn't clock the crowd by the break room door. You were fifteen minutes early for your shift, coffee in hand and brain still half asleep.
But then you noticed it. A cluster of nurses and residents, shoulder to shoulder, jammed into the break room doorway like it was opening night for a movie premiere. Princess was up front. Someone else had a hand clapped over their mouth. Nobody was talking.
Nobody was breathing, possibly.
You slowed down. "What's going on?"
Nobody even looked at you. Whatever was happening in that break room had apparently short circuited everyone's brain functions.
You nudged your way in between two residents, peering over a shoulder to see what fresh hospital hell had captured the entire day shift's attention.
And it was just Jack.
Eating a peach over the sink.
Except. Okay, no, it was not just that. Because Abbot was eating this peach like it owed him money. Like it was the last peach on planet Earth and he'd been lost in a desert for forty days to find it. He had one boot braced against the cabinet, sleeves shoved up to his elbows, and he was devouring it.
Slurping, biting deep enough that juice ran down his chin, down his wrist, dripped in fat little splashes into the steel sink below. He tipped his head back to chase a rivulet with his tongue before it could escape down his forearm.
Beside you, Princess had one hand clutched so tightly around her necklace you were convinced she was going to snap the chain. "Oh." she whispered, eyes wide saucers. "fuck."
You snorted. A grown man eating a peach and the entire break room had turned into a reverent congregation? Come on. You'd seen this man debride a wound without blinking. This was what broke everyone?
You opened your mouth to say something appropriately sarcastic about it.
And then Abbot took the last bite.
He worked it slow, methodical, down to nothing but the pit, juice glistening on his knuckles, on his jaw, catching the light. He tossed the pit into the trash with an easy flick.
Didn't even look, didn't even need to look, it just went in and then, like the final cruelty in a very long day, he lifted his hand and sucked the juice clean off his own fingers, one by one, unbothered and unaware of the fact that he had an audience.
The sarcastic comment died in your throat. You felt heat crawl up your neck and settle high in your cheeks, and you had approximately zero explanation for it.
That seemed to be everyone's cue. The crowd dissolved like they'd all simultaneously remembered they had jobs. Princess peeling off toward the nurses' station still fanning herself with a chart, the residents scattering back into the hallway, muttering things to each other you were positive you did not want to know.
You, for reasons you would later refuse to examine, did not move.
Abbot turned around, wiping his hand on a paper towel, and clocked you standing there alone in the doorway like an idiot.
He smiled. "The peach truck came by the hospital today. They're so good."
You nodded and that was it. That was your entire contribution to the conversation. A nod. Because what the fuck were you supposed to say to that?
Yes, I saw, the entire staff saw, several people may need to be debriefed by Psych?
He gave you a small nod back, apparently satisfied with your input, and walked past you out into the hall, smelling faintly of peach and coffee and completely oblivious to the fact that he had just ruined your entire morning.
You stood there. Gulping like a cartoon character. Your face was going hot and you were sure it was visible from space.
"Hey! You!"
Trinity's voice cut through the fog, sharp from the nurses' station. "Wipe your drool and clock in. I need your help with a patient!"
That got you moving. Fast. You speed walked toward the station praying that nobody would ask you why you looked like you'd just run a marathon.
You had a shift to get through and you were not going to think about Jack Abbot and that peach ever again.
