thinking about a younger! yandere with an older darling.
you had barely recognised him when he had approached you in a coffee shop. it had been a while since you had both left high school, though you could remember him from the year below. he'd always had an awful habit of staring, which clearly hadn't disappeared, but other than that you couldn't remember much about him.
he was eager to get your number. he seemed nervous, though it wasn't enough to hold back the enthusiastic gleam in his eyes, his arms shaking as he handed you his phone.
you could weakly make out recognition from his features. he used to simper around you, always with the face of somebody who was mentally at war with themself. you'd always been able to tell that he wanted to approach you, but you didn't hold the care to bother with anybody who was younger than you.
it wasn't a large age difference, especially not now tuat it was less prominent seeing as you were both adults. you gave him a smile and gave him your number, and he practically leaped of joy.
he insisted to buy you another drink, picking out a sweet caramel frappe that practically melted on your tongue. he was trying his best to be a gentleman, you guessed, and you gave him a hug before leaving that he practically melted in.
he was very clingy, that much hadn't changed. it seemed that growing up had made him more bold with his advances, more confident. he wasn't ugly either, with a charming and eager smile that lit his whole face up.
he'd make sure that you enjoyed keeping him around.
⤿ chapter summary: in the quiet that follows disaster, the days stitch themselves forward. jack again holds the line beside you, while the people you love build scaffolding around your sleep. recovery isn’t swift, but it’s real and felt in laughter, in small rebellions, and in breath.
⤿ warning(s): medical talk + procedures
⟡ story masterlist ; previous I next
✦ word count: 2k
Jack jolts awake in the ICU family lounge, neck kinked, mouth sour.
The wall clock reads 09:48; he must have dozed twenty minutes topsーlong enough for caffeine to burn off and hunger to gnaw in. Beside him stands Margot, hair half-escaped her bun, night-shift badge still clipped though daylight streams through the blinds.
“That’s all the sleep you’re getting, soldier,” she murmurs, pressing a protein bar and a cup of lukewarm tea into his hands. “I’m finally going home before Ben files a missing-person report. But heads-up, your girl’s sister just texted the front desk. They’re on their way up.”
Jack scrubs his face. “You pulled a double.”
“Triple, technically,” Margot says, attempting a smile. “But she’d do it for me. Go meet the family and try not to look like a ghost.” She squeezes his shoulder, then forces herself down the corridor, coat over scrubs, exhaustion dragging at every step.
Jack first makes a beeline to the scrub-machine, the hospital’s weary confessional booth. He scans his badge; the carousel inside whirs like a tired roulette wheel and spits out a fresh packet.
In the staff bathroom he unpacks the crisp set, changes, and then leans over the sink. Cool water sluices over puffy eyes; he scrubs until the copper scent of dried blood yields to antiseptic soap and stale peppermint. A quick brush of teeth, damp fingers through unruly curls. The mirror still shows a scruffy hollow-cheeked man, but at least he’s wrapped in clean fabric and the tremor in his hands has eased.
One deep breath later he heads for the lobbyーready, as much as anyone can be, to meet your family at the doors. He doesn’t forget to shove his blood-stiffened top and pants down the machine’s return chute on his way, hears them thunk into the bin, and stands a second with palm flat to the metal. He swallows the ache that rises, hold the line he reminds himself, and heads for the elevators.
The doors part to reveal who can only be your sister and her husband. Her face is unmistakably yoursーsame determined brow, same worry etched deep. “Dr. Abbot?” Her voice quavers.
He nods and steps forward, catching her hands before she can wobble. “Jack, please. I’m glad you made it.”
They introduce themselves as Laura and Paulーhim clutching their carry-ons, eyes wide from sleepless travel.
“You saved her,” Laura whispers.
Jack’s voice comes rough. “Surgery saved her. She’s fighting hard.” He draws back enough to see her face. “Come on, I’ll explain everything as we go.”
He steers them toward a quiet alcove off the lobby. As they sit, he outlines the fall, the injuries, the long night of surgeryーstripping jargon until only truth remains. He then explains Moylan in measured strokes: a pathology tech who slipped past security, obsessed with you for months, and waiting for one vulnerable window. One which he eventually got and seized.
Laura pales but listens, knuckles tight around a travel-size tissue pack. “She never told us how bad it was,” she murmurs.
“She didn’t want the worry to cross state lines,” Jack says, voice gentle—then falters. The guilt he’s held at bay all night steals through the crack. “I kept telling myself I’d be there, I should have-”
But the words shatter in his throat.
Laura lays a hand over his. Her grip is firm, eyes bright with the same grief and strength you carry. It hurts, it really hurts.
“You saved her life down on that scaffold,” she says. “If you hadn’t been there, we’d be planning a funeral, not a recovery. Hold on to that.” She squeezes once more, anchoring him. Even Paul nods, silent reinforcement.
Jack draws a solid breath and collects himself. “She’s on medications to keep her still,” he explains, guiding them toward ICU. “It lets her body heal without fighting every tube. She can’t wake up until we dial them back, but hearing can slip through. Talk to her.”
They gown, sanitize, and step into the subdued hush of intensive care. Laura’s breath catches at the sight of so many lines feeding into youーthe ventilator’s slow hiss, the rhythmic click of IV pumps. But she masters the fear and moves to your bedside.
“Hey, trouble,” she murmurs, voice trembling yet steady. “Lily’s third volcano erupted glitter everywhere. I have pictures for when you wake up, you’re going to roll your eyes so hard.”
Paul circles to the opposite side, finds your uninjured hand, and folds it into his own. “Just rest. We’ve got everything else covered.”
Jack steps back, watches the pulse on your monitor climb half a beat—as if your heart recognizes home when it hears it. When visiting minutes dwindle, Laura turns to him.
“Thank you,” she says. “For staying.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And so, the next two weeks unspool in slow, deliberate stitchesーevery day a thread that keeps you tethered while the rest of the unit and your family hold Jack steady so he doesn’t rust in place.
Day 3
Margot slips in before dawn with contraband Earl Grey and a small Bluetooth speaker. She sets it on your table and queues the lo-fi playlist you once used to tame a jittery med-student. “White-noise with a pulse,” she tells Jack, then corners him outside the glass: “Drink some of the tea, take a shower, and write your op-notes. She’d roast you alive if you missed work rounds.” He returns three hours later, hair damp, charting tablet in handーtired, but moving.
Day 4
Dana and Robby arrive together on their post-shift shuffle. Dana reads you the day’s memes from the nurse group chat, her laughter deliberately oversized to vibrate through the mattress rails. Robby brings a ridiculous stuffed fox wearing a helmet visor. He props it by your good arm, then drags Jack to the vending machines (“Protein, brotherーstat”). Jack swallows a turkey sandwich he swears tastes like cardboard salvation.
Day 5
Garcia appears in crisp clothesーofficial day off, hair actually down. She spends exactly five minutes at your bedside, whispering numbers you used to throw at each other like darts: “Clamped in three minutes, thirty-two seconds… sponge discrepancy zero.” When she exits she pins Jack with a flinty stare: “If you skip tomorrow’s trauma board, we’ll discuss your liver with the interns.” Jack shows up to the meeting, presents Moylan’s case in objective detail, and feels the weight lessen a gram.
Day 7
Fin tiptoes in after night shift, balancing a Bento of his own makingーrice bricks and lumpy tamago. He sets it beside you, clears his throat, then counts the IV pump beeps under his breath to match your heart rate. When Jack arrives, Fin startles and blurts, “I practiced a drain label six times.” Jack claps his shoulder. “She’d be proud.”
Day 9
Jules brings a stack of ridiculous romance novels and places them on your cabinet. “Studies say read-aloud boosts neural recovery,” she claims, opening one sharply. She reads a dramatic kiss scene until Jack’s ears redden and your pulse ticks up two pointsーvisible proof, maybe, that somewhere inside the sedation fog you find the melodrama hilarious.
Day 10
Ellis barges in muttering about missing retractors. She plants a cartoon “NO KNOCK” sign on your door, then informs Jack of every supply-room scandal just to keep him irritated enough to stay sharp. He snorts, retorts, and for ten minutes forgets to track the seconds between breaths.
Day 12
Laura and Paul learnt the ICU rhythm. Laura shows you photos of Lily, some silly, some cute. Paul sets up a video call so your parents, too frail to travel, can see you, even if you can’t answer. Jack hovers in the background, translating every beep for your mother until she finally nods, comforted by the numbers. Neither of the three ever answer fully when they ask about the details of the incident. That's one place where they won't go.
Day 14
Shen drops off a thumb drive of blues classics labeled “Auditory PT.” A speech therapist confirms it’s time to start reducing sedation, test your brain’s response to sound. The first afternoon Jack plays a slow B.B. King track, your eyelashes flutter. The second song earns a faint grimace at a sour noteーtiny but seismic. Jack’s knees nearly give out.
Some nights, when the pumps are calm and the monitors steady, he leans close to your ear and recounts the smallest details: Ellis finally labeled forceps right; Fin’s drain counts perfect; the sunrise looked like mango pulp over the river. He tells you he misses arguing over music, misses the way you line up syringes by height. He tells you the rooftop is still waiting for the two of you.
And though you give no verbal answer, the trending numbers say your body is inching toward the surfaceーliver stable, chest tube output dwindling, neuro checks a touch sharper each shift. Odds are still a steep incline, but every visitor, every enforced meal, every stubborn return to the ER keeps Jack from freezing on one spot of tile. Together they form the scaffolding, a safer one, holding him steady until the day his voice alone will coax your eyes open to the light.
It happens in slow, uneven incrementsーnothing cinematic, just the body deciding it’s tired of obeying the drip.
First, your eyelids twitch. Heavy, gummy, like someone swapped them for sandbags. You drift again, surface, drift. Margot is the first to note the flicker and nudges the respiratory therapist with her. Sedation’s already tapering; they’ve been waiting for this.
Hours later your lashes sift open to a strip of ceiling tile. Light blurs at the edges. Something huge anchors your throat, hisses warm air into your lungs. You fight a gag reflex that feels a century old; hands try to rise but soft restraints remind you why they’re there.
Margot leans into view, eyes tired but bright. “Hey, there. If you can hear me, blink twice.” You manage the signalーslow, deliberate.
Then, they run the protocol: neuro checks with a penlight, squeeze tests, a pressure support trial to prove the lungs can solo without the machine. When your numbers hold, the RT deflates the cuff, tilts your chin, and the tube slides free in a hot rush that tastes of plastic and old air.
Your first breath alone rasps like tearing paper; your throat feels flayed. Someone pats saline across cracked lips. You try to ask the time, but it comes out a croakーno vowel, just static.
Margot smiles anyway, then hits the call bell. “She’s awake.”
Footsteps scramble in the hall, orders barked, shoes squeaking, but you slip sideways, exhausted by the effort, eyelids shuttering on the world again.
You wake next to silence and dim daylight. No visitors yet, just the ventilator cart pushed back in the corner and the soft beep of a minimal monitor load. Hair greasy, gown damp, arm stiff in a bulky braceーyou feel like a scarecrow after a storm. Still, you’re breathing on your own, chest aching with each expansion but gloriously alive.
Then, the door bursts open.
Jack stumbles to a halt at the threshold, beard now grown and crescent, eyes wide and disbelieving. He hesitates as if the room might vanish.
Your voice scrapes the bottom of a well. “Nice…beard.”
The words are barely there, husky, cracked, but they’re enough. Jack’s face crumples; he crosses the room in two strides and drops to one knee beside the bed. Tears spill unchecked, beard catching the shine.
“You came back,” he whispers, voice breaking on every syllable.
You lift a hand, trembling, IV tugging, and find his cheek, coarse stubble prickling your palm. It hurts to smile, but you do. In that unremarkable, throat-raw moment, no trumpets, no miracle soundtrack, life simply restarts: one ragged breath, one relieved sob, one brief laugh from Margot hitting the monitor silence button.
Outside, alarms continue in other rooms, lunch carts rattle down corridors, the city churns beyond the windows. But inside this modest square of ICU tile, beard scratches skin, tears salt the sheets, and the odds finally lean in your favor.
guys is a freshman n a junior a bad age gap? he’s 16, (turning 17 on march 30th) and im 14 (turning 15 on june 5th). genuinely curious btw bc i always hear if the grades don’t touch neither should u butttt 💔
You're a college student and you find yourself sharing an apartment with no one else than our favorite boy, Adam Sackler. He's everything you’ve ever dreamed of and more, but is there any chance he could feel the same?
Warnings - this fic will eventually turn 18+, so please respect that - minors don’t interact. Come back when you’re 18, this work will still be here, I promise.
⤿ chapter summary: you wake to the kind of news that steals the ground from under you. jack holds steady, anchoring you to the promise of now. In the warmth of his arms and the dark of the foxhole, two heartbeats remember how to stay.
⤿ warning(s): panic attacks, stalking
⟡ story masterlist ; previous I next
✦ word count: 1.7.k
Rain batters the blackout blinds like a thousand frantic knuckles, dragging you from a deep, numbing sleep. You push the quilt back, Jack’s T‑shirt clings messily to your skin, and squint at the dull gray seam around the window that passes for daylight. Your body feels wrung out but unmistakably rested; for a single breath you almost forget why you’re here.
Then your phone vibrates against the nightstand.
Seventeen missed notifications from Ramirez-Night Security glare up from the lock screen. Your stomach tightens as you swipe open the thread. A small gallery of audio clips lines the message bubble, each stamped within the last hour, but above them sits a single photo: an evidence bag spread on a stainless autopsy tray, fluorescent glare bleaching its edges. Inside, your stalker’s crumpled note is clearly visible.
See you soon, pretty girl. The handwriting is unmistakableーslanted, looping, like a child’s cursive lesson gone feral.
A cold ripple slides under your skin. You can almost smell the acrid plastic through the image. Thumb trembling, you press play on the first voice note. Ramirez’s calm baritone fills one ear:
“Morning. Update like we discussed. The kid’s story checks, unhoused, prepaid phone only two days old. Anonymous account DM’d him. Sent your picture and promised cash for a hand‑off….”
The word picture needles you. You tap the second attachment: a low‑resolution printout of you in surgical greys, snapped from behind in the hallway, circled in red ink like prey in a hunter’s manual. Someone has been close enough to even catch the tiny embroidered stitching on your scrub pocket.
The second voice clip autoplays; you scarcely register fragments, “cash drop, dumpster, service bay, widening sweep” , as a roar swallows the edges of your hearing. You are suddenly outside your body, floating just above the bed, watching your own hands start to tremble.
The phone slips from boneless fingers, thudding onto the quilt where the evidence photo still glows like a fresh wound.
Not over. Never over.
A choked whimper tears out of you, then blossoms into raw, jagged sobs. Air scrapes the back of your throat but refuses to dive deeper. Vision tunnels, wall, ceiling, rain‑streaked window all squeeze into a narrow, swimming aperture. Your chest clamps so tight it feels fused.
Some buried instinct yanks your knees to your chest; fists press into your temples as if trying to hold your skull together. But the images keep flashing: the note, the photo, shadowy hands delivering them. You shake so violently the mattress quivers with you.
Footsteps pound the hallway, and Jack crashes through the door, barefoot, eyes sweeping the scene: phone on quilt, note aglow, you folded in on yourself. Something in his gaze fractures, then sets.
He immediately drops to his knees at the bedside, palms hovering just off your shoulders. “Look at me,” he says, voice steady but edged with urgency. “In through the noseーone, two, three, four. Hold, out for six.”
You try, but air hooks against your ribs. Your lungs seize and the sobs return, sharper. Panic is a black tide, boiling up your throat.
“Plan B it is then,” Jack mutters. He whips the comforter free, wraps it around your torso with practiced confidenceーweighted pressure you didn’t know you craved.
Still, the tide keeps rising.
Jack slides an arm under your legs, the other behind your back, lifting you as though you weigh nothing. He maneuvers across the room, shoulder bumping the closet door, shoves it aside with his hip, and eases you into the carpet inside. Cedar planks and faint traces of gun oil greet your nostrils: his foxhole. He folds himself behind you, tight, like armor. The stuffed comforter makes a cocoon, pinning your arms gently. Total dark except thin light through the door crack. Rain becomes a dull, distant drum.
“This is how I ride it out,” he breathes near your cheek. “Small space, darkness, weight. Feel my heartbeat.”
He presses his chest to your back; his pulse thuds slow, resolute. One hand captures your wrist, taps a measured code, tap‑tap‑ pause … tap‑tap‑pause. His own grounding trick.
“Match the taps. In on the first, out on the pause.”
Your throat shudders. You drag in a shaky breath, pulse racing. Tap‑tap. You inhaleーone, two. Pause. You blow the air outーfive, six. Again and again. The ringing in your ears eventually softens; the closet walls feel steadier around you than the entire city outside.
Minutes spool out, and your sobs fade to hiccups, then to shaky exhales. The black tide recedes enough for you to notice his shirt is damp from your tears. When your hands relax at last, he loosens the blanket, but not his embrace.
“The kid had a photo,” you rasp. “It was sent to him. He knew my face.”
Jack’s reply is a low growl threaded with fury not meant for you. “Then they left a trace on the web. Ramirez and PD will track it. Every slip is evidence.”
A tremor still twitches through you. “I can’t…keep doing this.”
He squeezesーarms, blanket, the very air around you. “You’re not alone in the foxhole,” he whispers, voice fierce and tender all at once. “Storm hits both of us now.”
You breatheーone, two, three, four—hold—five, sixーrelease. Chest loosens fraction by fraction, the world expanding beyond the narrow circle of fear.
Jack draws you closer between his knees, tucking your wrapped form close like instinct. The comforter cocoons you as legs bracket yours, anchoring you to the slow, even tide of his breathing. His stubble grazes the side of your face as he tilts down, nuzzling almost absent‑mindedly, the faint scrape oddly soothing. Without thinking, he folds his arms around your middle and cradles you tighter, as if you’re something soft he can keep safe from every sharp edge outside the cedar boards.
“We’ll layer more security,” he murmurs, the words rumbling against your cheek. “But right now, water, food, daylight when you’re ready. One hour at a time.”
You nod against the scratch of his jaw, throat raw as sandpaper yet loosening under the steady drum of his pulse. The closet no longer feels like a tomb but a bunkerーheartbeat‑warm, his arms a barricade softer than steel yet stronger than any lock. You cling to that single hour, this dark, this storm, the unconscious way he cuddles you like a beloved talismanーtap‑tap‑ pause. One minute, one breath, one solid heartbeat at a time, while outside the rain claws the roof and fails to find a way in.
. . .
You drift off without warningーone moment answering his measured breaths, the next a boneless weight in his arms. Panic has that cruel after‑shock: it empties the body like a wrung sponge. Jack holds you a minute longer, just listening to the fragile hiss of true sleep, before easing out from under the comforter. You stirs, but never fully wake.
He pushes the door open with you gathered in his arms. The guest room seems suddenly inadequate: too many windows, too far from his reach. Instead he makes a beeline for his room, and lowers you into the center of his own bed. The mattress dips under your exhausted form. A strange relief hums through him the instant you’re there, as though the perimeter of his world has tightened to these four walls and at last, finally, he can stand watch without distance between them.
Jack tucks the comforter around your shoulders, then moving to adjust his own blackout blinds until only a thin seam of rain‑washed gray slips through. The hush grows deep, broken only by the soft rasp of your breathing. He brushes a stray strand from your brow, the pad of his finger traces the faint crow’s‑feet fanning from the outer corner of your eyeーlines he’s noticed deepening these past months, carved by sleepless shifts and too many forced smiles. They move when you dream, tiny ripples that speak of decades lived at full burn. He rests there just long enough to feel the steady pulse beneath, anchoring himself to its quiet strength, before he steps back.
He doesn’t leave.
Instead, Jack perches on the cedar trunk at the foot of the bed, hands laced, breathing slow. The weight he’s carried since the first signs settles heavier tonight, a dull iron plate behind his ribs. He has known fear, but this is different. This is fear in a hospital hallway, in one's home.
Love, he realizes, has teeth. It bites down exactly where you’re weakest.
His own phone vibrates in his pocket. Gloria’s reply to his earlier voicemail: Update when able. PD looping tech for DM trace. We’ll cover her nights-consider yourself attached to the same order.
He texts back: Understood. Off tonight; reassess tomorrow. Within seconds a second message arrivesーMargot this time, a single thumbs‑up emoji and a heart. Ben adds: Tell her I’ve restocked the lemon tea. Small gestures, but each feels like another board slid into place around the foxhole.
He stands, pacing once to bleed off tension, then thumbs Gloria again anyway: Need shift relief extended through the next cycle. Panic episode severe. She requires at least 24h decompression.
Gloria’s typing bubble appears, then: Approved. File in the morning. Take care of each other, Jack.
The administrative confirmation should calm him, but the ache behind his sternum doesn’t budge. Your phone had mercifully stayed unlocked. He forwards‑selects every voice note, screenshot, and photo Ramirez sent, and fires them to his own encrypted account before the screen can timeout. A double vibrate confirms delivery. The impulse to dismantle every security camera in The Pitt and rebuild the system from scratch surges hot beneath his skin. He drags in a breath, holds it to a four‑count, and lets it out slow.
Anger is fine; action later. Guard duty now.
He positions a chair just inside the bedroom door where he can see your face and the hallway beyond. He places his battered field notebook on the nightstand, flips to a blank page, and begins to diagram: time stamps, camera grids, staff schedules overlapped with sightlines—anything to keep his hands busy until daylight or danger, whichever comes first.
But every few minutes his eyes return to the bed. You’re curled toward his pillow, lips parted in deep sleep, lashes casting faint shadows. Each rise and fall of your chest chips the iron plate in his chest just enough to let air in. He wants to promise you that the foxhole walls will hold. He wants to tear the city apart until the stalker’s face has a name and an arrest record. He wants, selfishly, to live in that kitchen moment for one uninterrupted day.
Instead he writes, listens to the rhythm of rain, and keeps watch under the muted glow of the generator lampーbecause love may have teeth, but so does the man willing to guard its heartbeat.
