Jul 6, 2025
reverse fake dating jegulus au—they are actually together but no one believes them
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reverse fake dating jegulus au—they are actually together but no one believes them
The One Point Difference
Chapter Three: Not Together
Med School!Jack Abbot x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 8, 635
Summary: By the first week of second year, living with Jack Abbot has become a routine. A deeply irritating routine. There’s shared coffee, shared walks to class, public denials of being together, academic one-upping, and the very inconvenient discovery that “separate lives” is getting harder to believe when he’s across the hall, asking for your help, and accepting the pasta you definitely did not make for him.
Warnings: academic rivals to lovers, roommates to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn, mutual denial, med school stress, light academic competitiveness, romantic tension, mild touch/proximity tension, domestic tension, food as care
Author's Note: Chapter three, my beloved!!! This one is very much about the mortifying ordeal of becoming routine with someone you swear you do not like. Jack and Reader are still very much in their “this is practical/logistical/not together/obviously” era, which means everyone around them is having a much better time than they are.
As always, thank you so much for reading, reblogging, commenting, and screaming with me about these two. I adore every single one of you. 🤍
Xoxo, Del
| Chpt. 1 | Chpt. 2 |
By the first week of second year, you and Jack Abbot had developed a routine.
You hated that.
It was not a friendly routine. It was not domestic. It was not sweet, comfortable, or charming in any way. It was survival. Two medical students, one bathroom, one kitchen, one coffee pot, and a shared commitment to not committing a felony before eight in the morning.
Jack showered first because he woke up earlier than any person with a soul should. You got the bathroom after, because he left it clean, the mirror wiped down, and the shower chair exactly where he needed it, which meant you had no reasonable thing to complain about.
You complained anyway.
Quietly.
To yourself.
Mostly.
By Thursday, the coffee had become communal in the least sentimental way possible. Jack made it because he was awake first. You drank it because you were not stupid. Neither of you acknowledged this as generosity. It was logistics. Survival. The roommate agreement had been very clear.
Coffee was survival.
Still, it meant that every morning, you walked into the kitchen and found enough coffee for two people.
That was irritating.
That morning, you were running exactly on time, which meant something was already wrong.
Your bag was on your shoulder, your notes were tucked under one arm, and your hair was still slightly damp because the bathroom had decided to trap steam like a personal insult. You were halfway through pulling your bedroom door shut when the door across the hall opened at the same time.
You stopped.
Jack stopped.
For one second, the two of you stood in the narrow hallway with your hands still on your doorknobs.
He had his bag slung over one shoulder, a notebook in one hand, and a travel mug in the other. His curls were still damp from the shower, darker at the ends and already falling into that unfairly boyish shape that made his face look softer than his personality had ever earned. His expression was already much too awake.
Absolutely not.
“No,” you said, your hand still wrapped around the doorknob.
Jack’s brow lifted. “No what?”
You pulled your door shut behind you. “No. I am not walking to class with you.”
Jack looked at you for a moment, then glanced toward the front door. “Fine. Stay here.”
You stared at him as he stepped past you into the hall.
“You are so irritating,” you said, following because unfortunately, class was still in the same direction.
Jack stopped at the apartment door and shifted his notebook under his arm so he could reach for the lock. “I hate to be the one to tell you this.”
“You don’t,” you said from a few feet behind him.
A small, cocky grin pulled at his mouth as he turned the deadbolt. “No. I don’t.”
You narrowed your eyes at the back of his head.
Jack pulled the door open. “But we have the same classes. At the same time. In the same building.”
You adjusted the strap of your bag on your shoulder. “That doesn’t mean we have to walk there together.”
“No,” Jack said, glancing back at you over his shoulder. “It means we’re both leaving now.”
You lifted your chin. “Against my will.”
Jack looked pointedly at the open front door. “Then don’t come.”
You stared at the hallway beyond him. “I have class.”
“So do I,” Jack said, annoyingly calm.
You took one step forward. “That is the problem.”
His grin appeared again, small and entirely too pleased. “I thought the problem was my company.”
You shifted your notes higher under your arm. “There can be two problems.”
Jack leaned one hand against the open door, his gaze steady on yours. “This will keep happening.”
You frowned. “What will?”
“This,” he said, gesturing once between you, the apartment, and the general direction of campus. “Us leaving at the same time.”
“I can leave earlier,” you said, stepping closer to the doorway.
Jack looked at you. “You’d have to get up earlier.”
You opened your mouth.
Then closed it.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours.
You hated that he had found the flaw so quickly.
“I could,” you said, though even you could hear the lack of conviction.
Jack shifted the travel mug in his hand. “You won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” you replied.
“You like sleep,” Jack said, his eyes flicking over your face.
You gripped your notebook tighter. “Everyone likes sleep.”
Jack’s gaze stayed on your face. “You like it more than you dislike walking to class with me.”
You stared at him, and the worst part was that he was probably right. Sleep was precious, and you were not prepared to lose it for the sake of avoiding a six-minute walk with Jack Abbot.
You had principles.
They had limits.
“You’re a jerk,” you said, because you had no better argument.
Jack’s grin sharpened. “And you’re a pain in my ass.”
You glared at him, but he only held your gaze with that infuriating calm, like the conclusion had already been reached and he was simply waiting for you to accept it.
“So,” Jack said, still holding the door open, “looks like we’re even.”
You glared harder.
Jack stepped into the hallway. “Lock the door.”
“Do not give me orders,” you said, following him out and reaching for the handle.
Jack looked at you, then the door. “You’re the last one out.”
You looked at him.
He looked back.
Again.
Right.
Constantly. Horrifically. Unnecessarily right.
You pulled the apartment door shut and locked it.
Jack waited while you dropped the key into your bag, which was worse than if he had just left.
“You don’t have to wait,” you said.
“I know,” Jack said, turning toward the stairs.
You followed him to the top step. “You could go.”
Jack nodded once. “I could.”
You adjusted the strap on your shoulder again. “And yet.”
Jack started down the stairs without looking back. “And yet.”
You followed him because there was literally no other way to leave the building.
Outside, the late-summer heat had already settled over the sidewalk, thick and bright and deeply committed to everyone’s suffering.
Jack walked beside you.
Not with you.
Beside you.
There was a difference.
You were very committed to the difference.
“You’re walking fast,” Jack said, his voice level beside you.
You kept your eyes ahead. “I’m walking normally.”
“You’re trying to get ahead of me,” he said, adjusting the strap of his bag without breaking stride.
“I’m trying to get to class,” you said, stepping over a crack in the sidewalk.
Jack glanced down the street. “Class is in the same direction for both of us.”
“Unfortunately,” you said, tightening your grip on your travel mug.
He glanced at you, but you did not look at him.
The sidewalk stretched ahead, familiar now in a way you resented. Three blocks to campus. One left at the corner with the uneven curb. Past the coffee shop you could not afford to stop at every morning. Across from the building with the peeling green awning. Then the medical campus, all brick and glass and fluorescent lights waiting to ruin your day.
It should have been a normal walk.
It was a normal walk.
Except Jack was beside you, his travel mug in one hand, his bag over his shoulder, his stride easy enough that you were aware of it even while pretending not to be.
You adjusted your grip on your own mug and immediately regretted having one at all.
It was not matching.
It was similar.
Shared kitchen cabinets did not count as matching.
You walked the rest of the block in silence, which would have been better if the silence had not somehow started to feel like part of the routine too.
The thought was so irritating you walked faster.
Jack kept pace without trying.
Of course he did.
By the time you reached the lecture hall, you had almost convinced yourself the walk had been normal.
Not pleasant.
Not companionable.
Normal.
You were two people with the same class, the same start time, and the unfortunate inconvenience of the same front door.
That was all.
Jack reached the lecture hall first.
Barely.
Not enough to count as winning.
His hand closed around the metal handle, and he pulled the door open before you could reach for it yourself.
You stopped short, eyes moving from his hand to the open doorway. “I can get it.”
Jack looked at you for one second, then his expression cleared in the most irritating way possible. “Okay.”
He walked inside and let the door swing shut behind him.
You stared at the closed door.
Of course.
Of course he had done that.
You grabbed the handle and pulled it open with more force than necessary, already prepared to hate him on the other side.
The first thing you saw when you stepped inside was Jack standing just beyond the entryway, waiting.
Waiting.
Like an ass.
Your hand tightened around the door handle. “You are a child.”
Jack adjusted the strap of his bag, entirely too calm for someone who had just committed an act of technical compliance. “You said you could get it.”
You stared at him.
He stared back.
You moved past him toward the rows. “I hate you.”
Jack fell into step beside you. “That keeps coming up.”
You did not look at him, but you were painfully aware of him matching your pace anyway. His shoulder stayed just behind yours for half a step, then beside yours as you moved down the aisle. Your travel mug was warm in your hand.
You aimed for your usual section.
Not because Jack was walking beside you.
Because it was your section.
Obviously.
Evan looked up from his notes as you reached the row, his pen stilling halfway across the page. “Morning.”
Jack stopped beside you and gave him a nod. “Morning.”
You shifted your notes under your arm and gave Evan something that could generously be called a greeting. “Hey.”
Evan’s eyes moved from your face to Jack’s, then down to the travel mug in your hand. Then to the one in Jack’s. Then back to the space between you, which was apparently not enough space to save you. His brow furrowed.
You knew, immediately, that something terrible was about to happen.
Evan lowered his pen. “Wait. I didn’t know you two were together.”
“We’re not,” you and Jack said at the same time.
The silence that followed was immediate.
Horrifying.
A few seats over, Taylor slowly lifted her head from her notebook. You did not look at her, but you could feel her delight from across the aisle.
Evan blinked, his eyes moving between you and Jack. “Oh.”
You set your mug down harder than necessary and reached for your notebook. “We’re roommates.”
Jack slid into the seat beside yours and set his own travel mug near the edge of the desk. “Because my roommate moved out.”
“Because my sublet fell through,” you added quickly, pulling your notebook from your bag.
Jack opened his notebook with maddening calm. “It’s practical.”
You sat down and adjusted your bag beneath the desk. “It’s logistical.”
Jack glanced at you. “A rent thing.”
You looked back at him. “A lease thing.”
Evan’s eyebrows rose slightly. Taylor’s pen had stopped moving. You still did not look at her.
Evan leaned back in his seat. “Right.”
You flipped your notebook open to a blank page. “Exactly.”
Jack set his pen neatly beside his notes. “Not together.”
You nodded once, too sharply. “Correct.”
Jack’s answer came at the same time as yours. “Obviously.”
You turned your head toward him. He turned his head toward you. For one awful second, you were both looking at each other too directly.
Taylor made a small sound. Your eyes snapped to her. She had one hand pressed over her mouth and the other still curled around her pen, shoulders held very still like she was fighting for her life.
You pointed your pen at her. “Don’t.”
Taylor lowered her eyes to her notebook, but her shoulders shook once.
Evan glanced between you and Jack with the careful curiosity of someone who had stepped onto unstable ground and chosen, unfortunately, to stay there. “So… roommates?”
Jack picked up his pen. “Yes.”
You looked down at your notebook. “Unfortunately.”
Jack looked at you. You looked back at him.
“Logistically,” you added.
You stared down at the blank page in front of you and wrote the date with enough pressure to nearly tear through the paper.
Beside you, Jack was already writing. Calmly. Neatly.
Like the last thirty seconds had not happened. Like the two of you had not just denied being together in perfect unison.
Twice.
You stared at your notebook.
We’re not.
You had said it so quickly. So had he. That should have made you feel better.
It did not.
Before you could decide what to do with that, the side door opened and Dr. Harlan walked in with a stack of notes tucked under one arm.
The room shifted immediately. Chairs scraped, notebooks opened, and conversations dropped into whispers before stopping altogether as he set his papers on the podium and turned toward the board.
You faced forward so quickly your neck almost protested, and beside you, Jack did the same.
Beside you.
The thought landed half a second too late.
Your gaze dropped to the desk in front of you, where your notebook was already open and your pen was already in your hand. The date sat at the top of the page in your handwriting, written automatically while you were busy trying not to think about the fact that Jack Abbot was sitting close enough for you to see the neat slant of his handwriting on the page beside yours.
His notebook was open too, the date already written in that neat slant of his, his pen ready beside it and his travel mug set near the upper corner of the desk.
Two dates. Two pens. Two similar travel mugs. Two people sitting side by side in the first week of second year like that was a thing you had ever done before.
It wasn’t.
You and Jack did not sit together.
You sat near each other, sometimes. Across an aisle. One row apart. Close enough to hear each other answer questions, far enough that no one could call it anything but coincidence.
This was not across an aisle.
This was not one row apart.
This was beside.
Your stomach did something deeply unhelpful.
Beside you, Jack’s pen stopped moving.
Jack kept his eyes on the front of the room when he spoke, his voice low enough to stay between you. “You okay?”
You snapped your gaze to the board and tightened your fingers around your pen. “Fine.”
Jack’s attention stayed on you even though his face remained turned forward. “Convincing.”
You shifted in your seat and pointed your pen toward the front of the room. “Pay attention.”
Jack glanced at the blank board, then back to his notebook. “I am.”
You leaned a fraction closer, keeping your voice down. “To the lecture.”
Jack’s pen tapped once against the page. “There isn’t one yet.”
You turned your head just enough to glare at him.
The corner of his mouth had curved, small and cocky and entirely too pleased.
You faced forward again before your expression could betray you. “I hate sitting here.”
Jack’s gaze stayed on the board as he answered. “You chose the row.”
You angled your notebook slightly away from him. “You followed me.”
Jack finally looked at you, that stupid grin still barely there. “We walked in together.”
Your head turned toward him before you could stop it.
Jack was already looking back at the board, but the grin remained.
At the front of the room, Dr. Harlan turned around and uncapped a marker. “All right. Let’s begin with cardiopulmonary integration.”
Good.
School.
You could do school.
School made sense. School had answers. School had diagrams and mechanisms and exams and measurable outcomes. School did not care about shared bathrooms or travel mugs or the fact that Jack Abbot was sitting beside you for the first time in your entire academic career.
Dr. Harlan wrote a pressure-volume loop on the board.
You straightened.
Finally.
Something normal.
Then Jack leaned slightly toward you, eyes still on the board. “Your date is wrong.”
You looked down.
It was.
Of course it was.
You had written yesterday’s date.
You turned your head slowly.
Jack did not look at you, but that faint, cocky curve was back at the corner of his mouth.
You crossed out the date with a hard line. “Don’t.”
Jack wrote another line in his notebook. “I didn’t say anything.”
You rewrote the date correctly, pressing harder than necessary. “You were about to.”
Jack’s voice stayed low as his pen moved across the page. “I was considering it.”
You kept your eyes on your notebook. “Consider less.”
Dr. Harlan tapped the marker against the board and turned toward the room. “Who can tell me what happens to stroke volume when afterload increases?”
Your hand moved before you could think.
So did Jack’s.
You both stopped with your hands halfway up.
A few seats away, Evan made a small choking sound and Taylor bent over her notebook.
You closed your eyes for half a second.
This was hell.
This was actually hell.
At the front of the room, Dr. Harlan looked between you and Jack with the resigned expression of a man who had already remembered what teaching your section was like.
He pointed toward you. “Go ahead.”
You lowered your hand and sat up straighter. “Stroke volume decreases, assuming contractility and preload remain constant.”
Beside you, Jack’s pen moved across his notebook.
You ignored it.
Dr. Harlan nodded. “And why?”
You kept your eyes on the board. “Because increased afterload means the ventricle has to generate greater pressure to eject blood, so less blood is ejected during systole.”
Dr. Harlan turned back to the pressure-volume loop. “Good. Mr. Abbot?”
Jack lowered his hand fully and leaned back slightly in his seat. “End-systolic volume increases.”
You looked at him.
Jack did not look at you.
Dr. Harlan nodded again. “Correct.”
Jack’s voice stayed even. “And if the system compensates, preload may increase on the next beat, which can partially preserve stroke volume through Frank-Starling.”
You hated that he was right.
You hated more that your brain immediately wanted to build on it.
Your pen tapped once against your notebook before you could stop yourself. “Unless contractility is impaired.”
Jack glanced at you then.
You kept your face forward.
Dr. Harlan looked back at you. “Go on.”
“If contractility is impaired,” you said, trying very hard not to notice Jack’s attention on the side of your face, “then the compensation is limited, and you see a more significant reduction in cardiac output.”
For one second, the lecture hall was quiet.
Then Dr. Harlan turned back to the board. “Exactly.”
You wrote the answer down even though you already knew it, mostly because your hand needed something to do that was not point at Jack’s face.
Beside you, Jack added a line to his notes.
His handwriting was perfectly neat.
Of course it was.
Taylor leaned slightly toward you, her eyes still on the front of the room. “That was cute.”
You did not turn your head. “I will end you.”
Taylor sat back, wisely silent, though you could still hear the smile she was trying to hide.
Jack’s pen paused beside you. You felt it. You did not look at him.
After a second, his pen moved again.
By the time Dr. Harlan dismissed the lecture, your hand ached from taking notes and your pride had sustained several small, unnecessary injuries.
The room came back to life around you in a wave of movement. Chairs scraped against the floor, notebooks snapped shut, and conversations rose all at once as people stood, stretched, and started gathering their things for the next class.
You packed your notebook into your bag with more force than the zipper deserved.
Beside you, Jack slid his pen into the spiral of his notebook and closed it with irritating precision.
Neither of you said anything.
That should have helped. It did not.
You stood at the same time.
You stepped left. Jack stepped right.
You stopped. So did he.
You looked up at him. He looked down at you.
You stepped right. Jack stepped left.
For one horrible second, the two of you stood there facing each other in the narrow space between desks, perfectly synchronized in your attempt to avoid being perfectly synchronized.
Jack’s jaw shifted once before he spoke, his voice low and flat. “Move.”
You lifted your chin and tightened your grip on your bag strap. “I am trying.”
Jack glanced toward the aisle, then back at you. “Try in a different direction.”
You shifted your bag higher on your shoulder. “You try in a different direction.”
Jack exhaled through his nose, and before you could argue again, his hands settled gently on your shoulders.
Your entire body went still.
His touch was not rough.
Not even close.
Just firm enough to guide you one step to the side.
Your body listened before your pride could object.
Jack released you almost immediately, but the warmth of his palms stayed there beneath the fabric of your shirt, two careful points of contact your skin seemed determined to remember.
For half a second, you could not remember any words in any language.
Jack’s eyes dropped to your shoulders for the briefest moment, like he had realized at the exact same time you had that his hands had been there.
His jaw shifted again.
Then he stepped back. Too quickly to be casual. Not quickly enough for you to miss it.
“There,” Jack said, his voice maddeningly even as he stepped past you into the aisle. “Crisis averted.”
You stared at him.
Your shoulders still knew exactly where his hands had been.
A few seats away, Taylor’s eyes flicked once to your face, then away again.
Mercifully, she did not say anything.
Before you could decide whether you were grateful or suspicious, Evan leaned over from the row behind you with his notebook open and one page folded back.
“Abbot,” Evan said, holding the notebook toward Jack, “can I ask you about the preload thing?”
Jack’s eyes flicked to you for one second.
You hated that they did.
Then he looked away and reached for Evan’s notebook. “Yeah. Show me where you got stuck.”
Just like that, he was gone from the moment.
He was still three feet away, still close enough that you could hear the lower register of his voice as he leaned over Evan’s notes and started explaining the diagram from lecture, but his attention had shifted.
That was what you wanted.
Unfortunately, your shoulders seemed to have developed their own opinion.
Taylor stepped beside you, notebook hugged against her chest. “Lunch before path?”
The normal question helped more than you wanted it to.
You adjusted your bag higher on your shoulder and nodded. “Yes. Please.”
Taylor smiled, small and easy. “Good. I’m starving.”
You stepped into the hallway beside her, grateful for the noise, the movement, the crush of students gathering in loose clusters before the next class.
Normal. This was normal. Lunch with Taylor was normal.
Then, for one terrible, humiliating, completely inexplicable second, your gaze flicked back through the open lecture hall door.
Jack was still there. Still talking to Evan. Still holding his pen loosely between two fingers while he pointed at something on the page.
You had the thought with the same automatic ease as reaching for your bag.
I should ask—
No.
Absolutely not.
Your hand froze on the strap.
Why would you ask him? Why would that even occur to you?
You were going to lunch with Taylor. Taylor, your friend. Taylor, who had found you the flyer that had ruined your life. Taylor, who had known you before you started sharing a bathroom with Jack Abbot and losing your mind in small, medically concerning increments.
Jack did not need to come. Jack had never come to lunch with you. Jack was not part of lunch. Jack was not part of anything except rent, rules, coffee, one bathroom, and apparently walking to lecture against your will.
Taylor had taken a few steps before she realized you were no longer beside her. She turned back, her brows lifting with quiet concern rather than accusation. “You coming?”
Your eyes snapped to hers. “Yes.”
Taylor’s gaze moved briefly over your face, then softened. She did not look back into the lecture hall. She did not make a joke. She only waited.
That was somehow worse.
You caught up to her and started down the hallway. “I’m coming.”
Taylor fell into step beside you. “Okay.”
For a few seconds, she let the noise of the hallway fill the space between you.
Then Taylor bumped her shoulder lightly against yours. “If we hurry, we can get actual food before pathology ruins our lives.”
You exhaled, grateful for the escape route she was giving you. “Pathology was going to ruin our lives either way.”
Taylor adjusted her notebook against her chest. “Sure, but I’d rather be fed when it happens.”
You smiled despite yourself.
Behind you, back inside the lecture hall, Jack’s voice faded beneath the noise of the hallway.
You did not look back again.
You were proud of that.
Mostly.
By the time you made it to the cafeteria, the lunch rush had already started. The line curved past the drink cooler, the smell of burnt coffee and grilled cheese hanging in the air beneath the sharper bite of cleaning spray. Someone near the register was arguing about meal cards. Someone else was trying to balance a tray, a textbook, and a pager all at once.
It was loud.
Blessedly loud.
You ordered a turkey sandwich, grabbed a bag of chips you did not particularly want, and followed Taylor to a small table near the windows. For a few minutes, she talked about pathology, Harlan’s handwriting, and the terrifying rumor that next week’s lab would involve partner assignments.
You listened. You answered. You laughed at the right places.
And you did not think about Jack.
Except when you reached for your drink and remembered his travel mug beside yours.
Except when Taylor mentioned the pressure-volume loop and you remembered his pen pausing.
Except when someone behind you laughed, low and warm, and your head almost turned before you realized the voice was not his.
That was unacceptable.
You took a bite of your sandwich with unnecessary determination.
Taylor watched you for a second, then looked down at her soup. “You know, I really am glad you found a place.”
The gentleness in her voice made you pause.
You swallowed and set your sandwich down. “I know.”
Taylor stirred her soup once, her spoon clinking softly against the bowl. “I was worried about you.”
You looked at her then.
She was not smiling now. Not teasing. Just sitting across from you with her hair tucked behind one ear and her notebook already open beside her tray because neither of you knew how to eat lunch without pretending to study.
Something in your chest loosened.
“I was worried too,” you admitted, quieter than you meant to.
Taylor’s expression softened. “I know.”
You looked down at your tray and picked at the edge of your napkin. “It’s not ideal.”
“No,” Taylor said carefully, “but it’s safe.”
Your fingers stilled.
Across the table, Taylor held your gaze for a second, then looked back down at her soup as if she had not just said something that landed directly under your ribs.
You thought about the apartment. The worn couch. The tiny kitchen. The bathroom shelf Jack had cleared without making a big thing of it. The coffee in the morning. The key in your bag.
Jack’s hands on your shoulders.
You looked away.
Taylor did not push.
That was why you loved her.
Instead, Taylor tapped her spoon against the bowl and looked back up at you. “Also, the rent is good.”
You let out a small laugh and reached for your sandwich again. “The rent is very good.”
Taylor smiled. “See? Practical.”
“Logistical,” you said automatically.
Taylor’s eyes brightened, but she only lifted her spoon. “Right. Logistical.”
You narrowed your eyes at her. “Don’t.”
Taylor took a bite of soup with great innocence.
It was fine.
Everything was fine.
Lunch was fine. Taylor was fine. The apartment was fine. Jack Abbot was not part of lunch, not part of the table, not part of the conversation except in all the ways he kept appearing anyway.
By the time you walked into pathology forty minutes later, you had almost convinced yourself you had recovered.
Then Jack was already there.
Of course he was.
He sat two rows up from where you usually sat, notebook open, one hand propped near his jaw as he read something in the margin. Evan was beside him now, still asking questions, still leaning over like Jack had become his personal cardiopulmonary translator.
You should have been relieved.
Jack had not saved you a seat.
You did not want him to save you a seat.
That would have been insane.
So you followed Taylor to your usual row, sat down, opened your notebook, and absolutely did not look two rows ahead.
Not once.
Not directly.
At least not until Jack glanced back.
It happened quickly.
A half-second look over his shoulder when Taylor dropped her bag and the chair squeaked. His eyes found yours before you were ready for them to, and for a tiny, suspended moment, the room narrowed to the space between his row and yours.
Then Evan said something, and Jack turned back around.
Taylor sat beside you and opened her notebook.
You stared at the blank page in front of you. Your shoulders remembered again.
You wrote the date correctly this time.
Small mercies.
Pathology should have been easier to survive than cardiopulmonary integration, if only because Jack was no longer sitting beside you.
He was two rows ahead.
That was distance. That was normal. That was survivable.
Then he shifted in his seat, and your eyes moved before your brain could stop them. You caught the back of his head first. The damp curls had fully dried now, falling into that unfair shape again, soft at the edges and deeply inconvenient to your peace. His shoulders were slightly hunched over his notes, one elbow propped on the desk, pen moving steadily across the page.
He was not looking at you.
Good.
Necessary.
You looked back at your notebook.
Dr. Singh began pathology with cellular injury.
You took notes aggressively.
For most of the lecture, you managed not to look at Jack. Not directly. Not enough to count. You watched Dr. Singh write on the board. You copied definitions. You underlined reversible injury twice and circled necrosis because the word looked dramatic and your notes needed structure.
Halfway through the lecture, Dr. Singh turned from the board and scanned the room. “What is the earliest reversible cellular change we expect to see with hypoxic injury?”
Your hand moved because that was what your hand did when you knew the answer.
Two rows ahead, Jack did not raise his.
Good.
Dr. Singh pointed toward you. “Go ahead.”
You sat up straighter and kept your eyes on the board. “Cellular swelling due to failure of ATP-dependent ion pumps.”
Dr. Singh nodded. “Good. What causes the swelling?”
You adjusted your pen between your fingers. “Sodium accumulates inside the cell, water follows, and the cell swells because the membrane can’t maintain normal gradients.”
Dr. Singh turned back to the board. “Correct.”
You lowered your hand and let yourself have exactly one second of satisfaction.
Then Jack’s voice came from two rows ahead, calm and precise. “You can also see ribosomal detachment from the rough ER, which decreases protein synthesis.”
Your eyes lifted before you could stop them.
Jack was still facing forward. Of course he was.
Dr. Singh tapped the marker against the board. “Yes. That’s another early reversible change.”
You narrowed your eyes at the back of Jack’s head.
He had not corrected you. Not exactly.
He had added to you.
Built on your answer like the two of you were still sitting side by side in Harlan’s lecture.
Which was somehow worse, because it meant he had been listening.
Jack’s shoulders shifted slightly.
Then he glanced back. Only for a second. His eyes found yours over his shoulder, and there it was: that small, cocky curve at the corner of his mouth.
Softer than usual. Still unbearable.
You looked down at your notebook immediately and wrote ribosomal detachment with enough force to nearly tear the page.
When Dr. Singh dismissed the class, you stayed seated for half a breath longer than usual, pretending to organize your notes while the room started moving around you.
Two rows ahead, Jack stood with Evan, his notebook tucked under one arm.
You did not look.
You were very busy putting one pen into your bag. Then another.
Beside you, Taylor zipped her bag and looked over. “Library?”
You slid your notebook into your bag. “No. I’m going home.”
Taylor’s brows lifted. “Already?”
You pulled the zipper shut and stood. “I need to unpack more before I organize my notes.”
Taylor glanced at the notebook you had just shoved into your bag, then back at your face. “That sounds responsible.”
“It is responsible,” you said, adjusting your bag on your shoulder.
Taylor’s expression stayed gentle enough that it was almost worse than teasing. “Okay.”
You looked toward the door before your gaze could betray you and drift two rows ahead. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Taylor stepped aside to let you into the aisle. “See you tomorrow.”
You did not look back.
Not at Taylor. Not at Evan. Not at Jack.
Especially not at Jack.
You left the lecture hall before you could wait and see whether he was leaving too.
That was the important part.
You chose to leave. You chose not to check. You chose the hallway, the stairs, the bright late-afternoon air outside the building, and the walk home alone.
Very mature. Very independent. Very normal.
Your shoulders still remembered his hands. Your notebook still had his addition written in your handwriting.
And by the time you reached the apartment, you were thinking about pressure-volume loops, cellular injury, and the deeply inconvenient fact that leaving first had not felt as much like winning as it should have.
The apartment was quiet when you unlocked the door.
That should have been a relief.
It was, mostly.
You stepped inside, shut the door behind you, and stood there for a second with your hand still on the knob, listening to the refrigerator hum in the kitchen and the faint traffic passing below the window.
No pen scratching at the kitchen table. No chair shifting against the floor. No dry voice telling you that you had written the date wrong.
Good. That was good. That was what you had wanted.
You dropped your bag beside the couch and looked around the living room with the grim determination of someone who had decided emotional stability could be achieved through unpacking.
There were still boxes stacked near the wall by the bookshelf. Not many, but enough to make the room feel unfinished in a way that irritated you now that you were standing alone in it. One box held notebooks from first year, another held sweaters you had not needed yet, and a third was labeled MISC, which had turned out to mean several unrelated objects your past self had apparently decided future you could suffer through.
You unpacked for exactly seventeen minutes.
That counted.
Probably.
The notebooks made it onto the shelf. The sweaters made it into a drawer. The miscellaneous box remained miscellaneous, but now it was at least miscellaneous with the lid closed, which felt like progress if you did not think about it too hard.
By the time the front door opened, you had moved to the couch with your pathology notes spread across the coffee table and your textbook open beside you.
You did not look up.
You knew it was Jack from the sound of the key, the brief pause, and the way he set his bag down with more care than most people would bother with.
That was annoying.
Knowing that was annoying.
Jack stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “You’re home.”
You kept your eyes on your notes. “Brilliant deduction.”
His bag shifted against the kitchen chair. “Observation.”
You underlined cellular swelling for the second time. “Even worse.”
Jack did not answer, but you heard the faint huff of breath that might have been amusement before he moved into the kitchen.
You stayed in the living room.
He stayed in the kitchen.
That was survivable.
For a while, the apartment settled into separate quiet. You sat on the couch with your notebook balanced across your lap and your textbook open beside your knee. Jack sat at the kitchen table, far enough away that you could pretend you were not aware of him, close enough that you could hear the scratch of his pen and the occasional turn of a page.
Separate spaces. Separate notes. Separate studying.
Separate lives, except for the lease, the bathroom, the kitchen, the coffee pot, the shared walk to campus, and the fact that half your class now knew you slept on opposite sides of the same hallway.
You were halfway through rereading the same paragraph for the third time when Jack’s pen stopped moving.
You kept your eyes on your page.
A second passed.
Then another.
From the kitchen, Jack shifted in his chair. “Can you come over here?”
Your eyes lifted from your textbook before you could stop them.
He was still looking down at his notes, one hand braced near the bottom of the page, his brow furrowed in concentration. It was the same look he got in lecture when something did not sit right with him, focused and sharp and deeply annoying because it usually meant he was about to be right.
Except this time, he was asking you.
You did not move from the couch. “Why?”
Jack tapped his pen once against the page. “I need your eyes.”
That should not have sounded the way it did.
It was practical. Clinical, even.
Still, something in your chest caught on it.
You looked back down at your notes like they had suddenly become fascinating. “Only if you say please.”
Silence.
Beautiful silence.
You let yourself enjoy it.
Then Jack exhaled through his nose, low and controlled. “Please.”
You set your textbook aside and stood from the couch. “Was that painful?”
Jack’s eyes flicked up to yours. “Extremely.”
You crossed from the living room into the kitchen. “Good.”
Jack turned his notebook slightly toward you. “It’s Harlan’s compensatory preload example.”
You stopped behind his chair and set one hand on the back of it, leaning over his shoulder to look at the page. “The one from the pressure-volume loop?”
Jack tapped the diagram with his pen. “That’s the one.”
You bent closer, following the line he had drawn. “What’s the problem?”
Jack angled the notebook toward the kitchen light. “If afterload increases here, then the end-systolic volume should increase here.”
You reached past his shoulder and pointed at the diagram. “It should.”
Your finger hovered over the page, close enough to his pen that the two of you were nearly touching.
Jack went very still.
You did not notice right away.
At first, you were looking at the diagram. At the arrow. At the loop. At the place where his notes were almost right but not quite.
Then you became aware of your hand on the back of his chair.
Of your arm near his shoulder.
Of the fact that you were leaning over him, close enough that if he turned his head too quickly, his cheek would almost brush your sleeve.
Close enough to smell the soap from his shower, clean and warm and unfairly familiar.
Your brain, traitorous and unhelpful, noticed the shape of him beneath the old T-shirt. The line of his shoulders. The reddish-brown curls at the back of his head, darker in the low kitchen light. The way his hand had gone still around the pen.
Jack noticed too.
You knew he did because his shoulders rose once with a quiet breath he did not quite finish.
Neither of you moved.
The kitchen light buzzed faintly overhead. Somewhere beneath the window, the radiator clicked once and went quiet again.
Your finger was still above the page.
His pen was still beneath it.
The apartment felt suddenly too small, the air between you too warm, your hand on the back of his chair too intentional for something you had done without thinking.
Jack turned his head slightly.
Not all the way.
Just enough.
Your eyes dropped to his mouth before you could stop them.
Horrifying. Disastrous. Medically concerning.
You straightened so quickly your hand slipped from the chair. “You’re looking at the wrong beat.”
Jack’s gaze stayed forward for half a second, but his eyes cut toward you from the corner, and his voice came out lower than before. “Am I?”
You stepped to the side because standing behind him suddenly felt like a crime. “Yes.”
You reached for his pen without thinking, then stopped before your fingers could brush his. “Can I?”
Jack looked at the pen, then at you.
The pause was small.
Long enough.
Then he held it out. “Yeah.”
You took it carefully, avoiding his fingers this time, which somehow made the whole thing worse.
You leaned over the table instead of him, putting blessed, necessary distance between your body and the back of his chair. “This is the same beat. That’s where you’re getting tangled.”
Jack leaned slightly closer to see where you were pointing. “So the preload increase is after compensation.”
You drew a small arrow beside his diagram. “Next beat. Not the same contraction.”
Jack studied the correction for a long second.
You waited. The waiting was worse than it should have been.
Then Jack nodded once. “You’re right.”
You looked at him before you could stop yourself.
There was no sarcasm in his voice. No edge. No smug little grin waiting to ruin it. Just acknowledgment. You hated that it felt better than winning.
You set the pen down beside his notebook and stepped back. “Obviously.”
That got the grin. Small. Quick. Enough to make your stomach do something humiliating.
Jack picked up the pen again, his fingers closing around the place yours had just been. “Don’t get used to hearing it.”
You folded your arms. “I’ll try to survive the deprivation.”
His eyes flicked up to yours.
For one second, it was almost normal again.
Almost.
Then the silence returned, and with it, the memory of your hand on his chair, your arm near his shoulder, his breath stopping when you leaned too close.
Jack looked back down at the page first. “Thanks.”
You nodded once, already retreating toward the living room. “You’re welcome.”
You made it back to the couch, picked up your textbook, and stared very hard at the page.
The words did not make sense.
That was inconvenient, considering you were a medical student and literacy was a fairly important part of the job.
In the kitchen, Jack’s pen moved again.
Then stopped.
A chair scraped softly against the floor.
You did not look up, but you tracked every movement anyway: the closing of his textbook, the quiet stack of paper, the click of his pen cap, the soft sound of his notebook being gathered from the table.
Jack stopped at the edge of the living room, just close enough that you could see him in your peripheral vision.
“I’m going to study in my room,” Jack said, his voice careful.
You kept your eyes on your textbook. “Okay.”
Neither of you moved.
Maybe you were simply too aware of the fact that he was still standing there, his books tucked under one arm, the space between you full of every normal thing neither of you could seem to say.
You lifted your eyes before you could stop yourself.
Jack was watching you.
Not smug. Not teasing.
Just watching, in that controlled, unreadable way that somehow felt less safe than all the banter.
You swallowed and looked back down first. “Good luck, Abbot.”
For a second, Jack said nothing.
Then his fingers shifted around the spine of his textbook. “With what?”
You kept your eyes on your page. “Surviving without my help.”
Jack’s mouth almost moved. “I’ve done it before.”
You turned a page you had not finished reading. “Barely.”
His mouth curved for half a second. “Still counts.”
Then he turned toward the hallway.
His bedroom door closed softly behind him.
Not slammed. Not abrupt. Just closed.
You stared at your textbook for exactly nine seconds before accepting that you had not read a single word.
The couch suddenly felt too open. Too exposed. Too aware of the kitchen table he had just left and the hallway he had disappeared down.
So you gathered your own notes.
It was not retreating.
It was relocating.
There was a difference.
Probably.
You carried your textbook, notebook, and pen into your room, nudged the door mostly shut with your foot, and sat cross-legged on your bed with your notes spread around you.
Your room was still half-unpacked, but at least it was yours. Your bed. Your books. Your boxes. Your little pile of sweaters on the chair because you had run out of organization twenty minutes after claiming you were going to unpack.
The quiet should have helped.
It did not.
From across the hall, you could hear almost nothing from Jack’s room. Occasionally, a page turned. Once, his chair shifted. Then silence again.
Separate rooms. Separate notes. Separate lives.
You stared at the page in front of you and realized, with a slow, sinking kind of horror, that separate was starting to feel less simple than it used to.
Your stomach growled.
Loudly.
You looked down at yourself.
Apparently, emotional distress had limits.
You closed your textbook, set your notes aside, and stood from the bed with the grim resignation of a person whose body had decided to continue needing things despite your best efforts.
The hallway was quiet when you stepped out.
Jack’s door was closed.
You looked at it for one second too long, then forced yourself toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was dim except for the weak light above the stove. The table was empty now, cleared of his notebook, his textbook, and the pen he had capped before disappearing down the hall.
Jack had taken everything with him.
Of course he had.
He was exactly the kind of person who could retreat from a room and leave no evidence behind.
Unfortunately, you still remembered the diagram.
You opened the cabinet and found pasta and a jar of sauce. Pasta was easy. Pasta was neutral. Pasta did not require feelings.
By the time the water boiled, the apartment had settled into a softer quiet. You could hear the faint sound of Jack moving in his room once, then nothing. You stirred the noodles and told yourself you were making too much because measuring pasta correctly was impossible.
That was all.
It had nothing to do with him.
Still, when you drained the pasta and stirred in the sauce, you paused.
There was too much.
Not an obscene amount. Not a tragic amount. Just enough that ignoring it would be ridiculous, and eating all of it would be medically inadvisable.
You stood at the stove with the spoon in your hand and stared down at the pot.
One bowl would have been normal.
Two felt like a statement.
You hated that there was a difference.
You served yourself, left the rest in the pot, and turned the burner off.
Then you stood there for another second.
The refrigerator hummed. The radiator clicked.
Jack’s door remained closed down the hall.
You shut your eyes for half a second, then opened them again with a quiet exhale.
This was not a gesture.
This was basic roommate decency.
Probably.
You walked down the hall before you could talk yourself out of it and knocked once on Jack’s door.
A second passed.
Then Jack’s voice came from the other side, low and muffled. “Yeah?”
You kept one hand curled loosely at your side. “I made dinner.”
Silence.
You immediately wished you had phrased that differently.
You looked toward the kitchen, then back at his closed door. “There’s pasta left if you want some.”
Another second passed.
The quiet stretched just long enough to make your face warm.
Then Jack’s voice came again, closer this time. “You made extra?”
You stared at the door.
No would have been easier.
“I made too much.”
The door opened.
Jack stood on the other side in the same old T-shirt, one hand still on the knob, his curls a little more disordered than before. His gaze moved over your face first, then toward the kitchen.
You added, because the silence was doing something dangerous, “I’m bad at measuring pasta.”
Jack’s mouth almost moved. “That’s believable.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “Do you want it or not?”
Jack’s gaze came back to yours. For once, he did not answer immediately.
Then Jack nodded once. “Yeah.”
You shifted back half a step. “It’s on the stove.”
Jack’s hand stayed on the doorknob. “Thank you.”
The words were simple. Quiet. No teasing. No edge.
You nodded, even though there was nothing to nod at, then turned back toward the living room before either of you could make it stranger.
Behind you, Jack’s door stayed open for one more second.
You felt it.
Then you heard him step into the hall.
You did not look back.
You went to the couch, picked up your bowl, and sat down with your notes still open on the coffee table.
A moment later, Jack moved through the kitchen.
Cabinet opening. A fork pulled from the drawer. The quiet scrape of a bowl being set on the counter.
You stared very hard at your own dinner.
It was only pasta.
Too much pasta, made because measuring correctly was apparently beyond you.
That was all.
Still, when Jack’s footsteps passed behind the couch and moved back toward the hall, something in your chest went soft in a way you did not appreciate.
You kept your eyes on your bowl.
He stopped at his bedroom door.
You felt that too.
For one second, neither of you said anything.
Then Jack’s voice came from the hallway, low and careful. “Goodnight.”
Your fork paused halfway to your mouth.
You did not look back. You looked down at your bowl instead, at the pasta you had made too much of, at the sauce clinging to the fork, at your notes open and unread in front of you.
Then you swallowed around the strange tightness in your throat. “Night, Abbot.”
Jack did not answer again.
His door closed softly behind him. Not slammed. Not abrupt. Just closed.
The apartment settled around you.
Your notes were still open. His were behind his door. Your dinner was in your lap. His was down the hall.
Separate.
Not separate enough.
You picked up your fork and looked back at the page in front of you.
The words were still there.
You were not.
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Pretty self-explanatory 💅
This meta is dedicated to all the Clairmy stands that I blocked throughout the years. It's my gift to you, lizards! Enjoy!
In this take, we can better appreciate the distance between Sugar and her, and that she was even a lil further back than Sugar, and there were kids between them, when we know that Sugar was standing RIGHT BEHIND Carmy, next to Pete, in the NEW BERZATTOS VIP AREA
When Carmy moved bc Syd started focusing on cutting the cake, as ONLY A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY WOULD for their "niece", in this case, which BTW Eva officialized and foreshadowed in S4 UNDER THE TABLE, calling her Antie Syd in front of the family, the C person could be seen behind Carmy trying to get his attention that at the time was focused on Eva, basking in the moment, because we know that man loves kids, since he held Sophie in his arms for the first time.
It's a matter of perspective created by camera placement, but they were not together; he was with Syd and the New Berzattos, celebrating his niece's birthday at his wife's restaurant, their restaurant, the family business. C was with her friend and her BF, third wheeling and trying to get her ex's attention when Syd was RIGHT THERE, faithful to her narcissistic style. But Sydney didn't even register her, FAMILY COMES FIRST for Syd.
Bonus track 1: He put a ring on it? Syd is clearly wearing a ring on her left hand, now bc of the camera perspective, we can't see whether it is a diamond ring or not, but it might be.
Bonus track 2: Storer used a similar method to the one used at weddings to place couples that are together, or as Hulu called it, PERFECT PAIRINGS. It stems from Classical French etiquette, and it's called "Alignement". It's also used at restaurants, for new couples or newlywed couples, or when it is desired to just optimize the closeness of any particular pairing. It's also commonly utilized at corporate events.
This can be seen in Cicero-Donna-Lee's case as well. We know Cicero wanted to ask Donna out in 5x8, and I will quote JAW directly here: When Carmy "thought he wanted to retire", but then, like IMO a couple of years later, at Eva's Bday party, Donna is in the back with Lee, and Cicero is UNALIGNED, alone, more to the front of the room, third wheeling with Tiff + Frank.
Meanwhile, DD is lurking in the background with Lee:
Away from Cicero, who seems to be flying solo, actually, unless we count his "Kelly", AKA: Computer. (so it didn't work out or he didn't even ask her out, we don't know, but we know they're not together)
This proves that C being where she was represents Carmy and her didn't end up together, were never endgame, and that Storer is a sadist who wanted to make a last DICK MOVE with this POS Schrödinger's Bday party.
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 5 · Schrödinger’s birthday party
Sorry about the guns, babes, I got to get real! 💋
having a croissant and some ramen🥹
When are you and Xeno getting together?
If I answer that, Xeno will turn it into a lecture.
I value my time too much for that.
Still my favourite Zedaph clip to date
Two of my safest safe foods of all time making me feel nauseous this week has me so deeply upset