♡ Orbiter [kingdon]: Frank’s bad day unravels further as jealousy slips through at work when Mel has a flirty patient, only for the tension to follow him into the night, where they finally confront everything they’ve been avoiding.
ᝰ ⟡ His Best Girl [x reader series]: You’re Robby’s favorite reward. When his staff earns it, he doesn’t hesitate to offer you up.
⟡ bedside manner [jack abbot x reader]: you’ve been having a hard time for a few days. when you finally go to the ER as a last ditch effort, the doctor decides to give you a very thorough exam.
⟡ kiss, kiss, bang, bang [rabbot x reader]: you ask your boyfriends to kiss
⟡ something sweet [pervy!robby x jake’sgf!reader]: jake brings a visitor to the ED
animal kingdom
♡ Lucky [pope cody x reader series]: On paper, you had everything you could hope for: a track scholarship, dreams of med school, a future that looked respectable from the outside. Then the Codys make you an offer that starts to unravel everything you thought you wanted.
♡ untouched, xo [pope cody x reader]: you need help getting one of J’s asshole friends to stop hitting on you.
⤷ ⟡ young love [part two]
⟡ the animal that therefore I am [alpha!pope x omega!reader]: something is off about the codys
ᝰ thinking of you [pope cody x reader / jack abbot x reader crossover]: your first day at PTMC as a transferred resident was stressful enough without your entire past coming to haunt you.
resources: free palestine | fuck ice | black lives matter | support lebanon | love is love
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requests are currently closed, but I love hearing your ideas and am always down to chat
thank YOU for reading it !! seriously, everyone's support has meant the absolute world to me and makes me want to keep going!! knowing there’s other freaks like me who want the messy dynamics and the fun smut always makes me happy hehe
That fic where Robby and Jack are kissing cause yk readers a tad spoiled 🤭
ANYWAYS if you can please please please write more with Jack x Robby x reader where both boyfriends are kissing LIKE MAYBE they like finally admit how much they like it and you catch them on their day off just making out on the couch or smth?
TYSMMM I LOVEEEE YOUUU
THANK YOU SO SO MUCH HEHE 🩵🩵🩵🩵
I’m not doing requests at this moment but surely it would be somethin to come home and see them just MACKIN each other against the counter in the kitchen…. reader probs get really jealous and pouty and then they’d mush you between them and kiss you and apologize and then make you admit how much I liked it 🤷♀️
“isn’t this what you wanted, sweetheart? to see us kiss a little?”
“doesnt mean we dont love you more, we were just talking about how good you are to us and we got a little carried away, c’mere let us make it up to you.”
➴ hot coffee with the perfect amount of sweet cream | when my dog lays his head in my lap | when the two love interests finally kiss for the first time | uncrustables | enchiladas | indian curry | sushi | mango margaritas with a tajin rim | sour beers | when my husband laughs at my jokes | sriracha | the color pink | when my cat lays in the sun on our deck | pilates | fake dating tropes | big sad men | taco bell | concept albums | first bite of a summer watermelon | coke zero enthusiast | chipotle bitchin' sauce |
who am I ? .𖥔 ݁ ˖
➴ INFJ | 4 | virgo sun | gemini moon | sag rising | a daughter | a long distance best friend | a dog mom | a cat mom | horse girl | a survivor | dog walker | hair model | graphic designer | fit model | home owner | ACE child | a wife | a creator | liberal | old man lover | cheesy romance lover | pennsylvania resident | gamer | river rat | book worm | introvert | a writer | california native |
things I read & write ⊹₊✎⋆.
➴ romance | dirty talk extraordinaire | angst | sad men | complex scenarios | messy dynamics | m/f | morally gray characters | emotionally damaged men defender | hurt / comfort | yearning | age gaps |
what I love right now ˚₊ · »-♡→ updated 07. 16. 2026 ˚₊ ·
➴ michael robinavitch | jack abbot | mel king | cassie mckay | samira mohan | baran al-hashimi | trump having a terrible week | andrew pope cody | chia seed pudding | alani nu cherry slush or orange flavor | reading rabbot fics | lofi girl youtube station | mayor mamdani | all my friends having babies | being an auntie | sunshine | warm weather | kinktober plans | game!joel miller | playing stray | making cute collages | lux by rosalia | smosh reads reddit stories | I survived stories |
the pitt x animal kingdom crossover
|| jack abbot x reader || pope cody x reader ||
summary: your first day at PTMC as a transferred resident was stressful enough without your entire past coming to haunt you.
|| angst, crossover fic, baran al-hashimi'sfriend!reader, SR3!reader, exbf!pope cody, resident!reader, medical jargon, this follows the pitt s2 pretty closely (scenes, patients, medical jargon that I def get wrong) animal kingdom s6 spoilers!!!!!!, grief, memories, flashbacks, one could call this a soulmate au, back in the day they might say a whump fic, age gap implied but not specific, timelines are not canon, lil bit of manhandling and tough love, slightly spiritual in the end (ghosts, spirits, parallel universes) ||
a/n: all credit to this tik tok that made me cry on a monday morning and some inspo from this post // last flashback inspired by pope x angela s4e11 // thank you @pearlessance for your big beautiful brain and your unending support!!
a/n II: im serious guys if you haven't watched all of animal kingdom or havent had the internet spoil it for you like me, do not read :)
wc: 13.8k
You know, for what it's worth, your first day had started normal.
Chaotic, maybe— but normal.
You had no reason to think it wouldn't go by like any other.
Your attending, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, was scheduled at a new hospital today. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center on the Fourth of July of all days. And at seven in the morning, you'd barely gotten down your iced coffee before you were being ushered into Trauma One for a left thoracotomy on a patient with a knife wound.
You followed them into the trauma bay, everyone getting prepared with surgical gowns, blue gloves snapping, masks pulled up over noses, the metal tray beside the bed already crowded with clamps and packs of gauze. In the middle of the room, the patient was being bagged through an airway, a nurse continuing chest compressions as his skin was slicked with sterile prep procedure, people moving around him like a choreographed dance. You watched from the edge, waiting for Dr. Al-Hashimi's command to join them.
You were grateful to see a few familiar faces. Dr. Samira Mohan, for one, who was calling for a chest tube while one of the nurses cut through the rest of the patient’s shirt. Dr. Mel King was there too, though she hadn't joined for the case. Both of them great doctors who had trained at the VA with you a few years ago. Different in their approaches, but just as good under pressure.
You'd known Baran for a long time now too. Before you'd even met Samira and Mel. You'd worked with her as a medical student doing your year abroad with Médecins Sans Frontières, knew her medical background with seizures—something that you kept secret through the years—even helped her for a few days at home after her laser ablation surgery.
You and Baran were tied at the hip. You knew her, and she knew you.
Which was partially why you were able to get the PD approval and would be spending the next three months following her around a very surly male attending's emergency department.
"Is the VA even a trauma center?"
You didn't like his tone.
You glanced over through your plastic surgical glasses. He was tall, older and bearded, his arms crossed over his chest, standing at the edge of the hospital bed trying not to take as much space as he did. Robby, you remembered. Dr. Robinavitch. One of the residents—a blond-haired doctor named Whitaker—had told you he would grow on you, that he really was a great attending.
You didn't doubt it. You'd known enough great doctors to also know they could still be complete assholes too. Even on their good days.
"We took walk-ins." you said curtly.
Baran tried to hide her smile. Robby’s eyes moved to you, held there for a second, then he nodded.
"We had falls, major MVCs, GSWs." she added with a much more polite tone than you had managed.
You listened to Dr. Whitaker on your left, asking the medical students questions about the procedure, differentials. Things you knew the answers to, the words sitting right there on the tip of your tongue, but you bit them back.
Teaching hospital, you reminded yourself. More specifically, someone else's teaching hospital.
"Javadi, Whitaker, glove up." Robby said to your left.
"You too." Baran said beside you. "Start on internal compressions."
Robby looked over. "I'd rather my—"
"—she is capable." Baran cut in gently. "And a good listener."
She nodded at you, jerking her chin up. "Go on."
You obeyed, grabbing your gloves from the boxes on the wall, the latex snapping at your wrists. A nurse slid the white surgical covering over your shoulders and tied it behind your back, the paper stiff against your neck. Everything smelled like betadine, blood, and plastic tubing.
The other residents began moving around, making room for the other two that crowded the table. You stepped in close, your toe brushing someone else's as you found a place near the open chest.
"Well hello to you too." one of them said, a woman to your left, her eyes narrowed, but even with the surgical goggles and mask, you could've sworn you saw a smile.
You only looked at her, squeezing yourself past, your shoulder sliding against her chest accidentally.
"Take me to dinner first, would ya?" she teased.
"Yolanda Garcia has trouble expressing her feelings," you heard Dr. Robby say to Baran across the room.
"I sure will miss you, rabbit-bitch," she called a little too loudly in your ear to him.
You saw him and Baran step closer, the two of them side by side at the foot of the bed. Not together, exactly. More like two people standing on the same square of floor and refusing to give any of it up, leaning in and almost hitting heads as they tried to look at what was going on.
There was a lot of talking around you. Samira's phone kept going off, Garcia was opening the chest cavity, her gloved fingers moving quickly through blood and tissue, clearly an OR fellow with many, many hours on the table. Whitaker was trying to explain to the medical students what was going on, his voice steady enough, though you could hear him working to keep it that way.
"No tamponade, pretty dry in here—" Garcia said quickly, looking in. "Heart's empty. Somebody start cardiac massage."
"On it, excuse me." you said, a little more forcefully as you stepped into the space between Garcia and a nurse. There was a half-second where the room narrowed to the patient’s open chest and your own hands. You placed them carefully, exactly where they needed to be, fingers closing around the heart. It was smaller than people thought. Slick, warm, a living muscle that didn't care how many times you had practiced this in simulation. A life.
You began compressions.
One squeeze. Release. One squeeze. Release.
"Okay team, I think—" Baran began, but Robby cut her off.
"Samira?" he called, "Next steps?"
Keep transfusing. Open the right chest. Find the source. Move before he runs out of time.
There would be a lot of blood.
The blood started pouring out, pouring and pouring. Thick and red under the lights, running off the drape, splashing down into the basin below and onto the floor. Your fingers kept moving around the heart. Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release. Your forearms began to burn beneath the gown.
"There's too much blood to suction—" Javadi said, panic rising in her voice.
Where was all of this blood coming from?
"Can't locate the source—" Garcia murmured, looking into the chest cavity.
"We need to convert to a clamshell." you said, looking up at Baran, then to Robby.
He nodded, "Exactly."
"Trauma sheers." you called at the same time as Garcia.
"Jinx, now you owe me a drink with dinner." she teased.
Someone handed them over before you could even think of a retort, not that you had one. Your brain had narrowed to the heart in your hands. The life you held there, retaining it, forcing it to continue. The metal flashed in the light before Garcia took them, cutting through the chest, opening it wider. The room shifted around the decision, everyone making space for the next problem.
More talking around you, more hands moving, more suction. Someone called for more units of blood, a second MTP. You kept your hands where they were, the heart softening and filling by turns beneath your palms, never enough to make you comfortable.
"Still bleeding like a stuck pig!" Garcia called after clamping.
You did have one idea—one thing you could do to stop this. Something that could buy the patient enough time to get upstairs. But you knew Baran wasn't exactly keen on risky procedures done because the room had gotten desperate. Better to rush to the OR in her mind. Better to control what could be controlled, to keep the steps precise, to not make a bad situation worse with a move that could tear the lung off its root if done wrong.
But Robby seemed to have the same thing in mind.
"Hilum flip. Rotate the lung one-eighty degrees."
"Like putting a kink in the garden hose." you whispered to yourself.
Everyone looked at him like he was insane, but you knew there was no time to waste.
"Gently. Very, very slow." he said, his eyes on you and nodding. "Whitaker, take over compressions."
Letting go of the heart when Whitaker's hand found yours, you reached for the lung, then looked up at Dr. Robby again.
You glanced at Baran too. Her eyes were wide behind her shield. "He could die if you rip his lung off the hilum." she said.
"I won't."
You sucked in a shaky breath, nodding, and then looked back at Robby.
You looked down and—
—slowly, slowly, you turned the lung.
There were so many bloody gloved hands tucking and moving around you, Whitaker's breath heavy beside you where he'd taken the heart from your hand a moment ago. Your fingers adjusted by tiny degrees, careful around the slick weight of the organ, your wrists stiff with restraint. The room felt close behind your mask. You held your breath for a moment, feeling Dr. Robby's eyes on you. Dr. Al-Hashimi's too.
Then Javadi called, "Blood loss slowing down!"
The words moved through the room like someone had opened a door. You let out a long breath of relief.
"Okay, we fixed the leak. Now we need to refill." Robby said, standing straighter, relief dropping his shoulders too.
You pulled away from the patient, letting Garcia take your place again, Whitaker standing tall and glancing at you with an impressed gaze. You didn't look at him for long, eyes back to the patient, to the monitor, to the line of numbers that suddenly mattered more than what anyone in the room thought of you.
Once normal sinus rhythm came back, you moved to stand back beside Baran. You hadn't realized how hard you'd been clenching your jaw until it loosened.
"Hell of a way to start the day." Robby said, disrobing the white sterile surgical covering. Baran followed suit, and you did the same, peeling the gown from your sleeves and dropping it into the bin. Your gloves were dark with blood, forearms aching.
"Unconventional. But a decent outcome." Baran agreed, every consonance perfectly crisp on her tongue.
All three of you left the bay, the noise of the monitor and raised voices disappearing with a swish of the doors closing behind you.
"Why don't we split up?" Robby said. "For efficiency."
"We can certainly discuss that." Baran answered with a smile. "I'll find you in a minute. I need to speak to my resident."
Robby made a face, but nodded. "Good job back there." he said shortly to you.
You gave him a polite smile, then threw your surgical glasses down into a bin.
Baran came in front of you, watching the attending walk away.
For a moment, neither of you said anything. The bay was still noisy behind you, people cleaning, counting, calling upstairs, stripping the room down so it could become useful again now that the patient was stable enough for surgery.
"I'm sorry… for… undermining your authority in the room." you said with a sigh. "I'd thought of it before he even said anything about the flip, I felt confident enough to—but I should've asked—"
"I have always said I admire your confidence, doctor." she said gently when she turned back to you. "Just remember, you have nothing to prove to them. Or to me. I know your work."
"But they don't."
"No," she said, and smiled, chin tipping up in pride. "But they will."
You looked down for a second, trying to breathe around the adrenaline still crawling under your skin.
"Go check your other patients," she said. "And I expect to hear some updates. And…excellent work. You saved the patient's life."
You nodded, sucking in a big breath before turning and going back to your charts.
A couple hours passed in much easier quiet—though you'd never say the Q word out loud. You hadn't worked in many emergency departments, but you knew better than that in any hospital setting.
Quiet wasn't really quiet anyway. There were still labs to chase, discharge papers to fix, scans to check, patients waiting to go upstairs and heart rate monitors beeping.
Your own patients were doing fine. A few waiting on labs, one getting ready for discharge, one still up at CT. Baran had sent you through triage for a while too, helping clear out the lower acuity cases before they stacked up. It was steady, easy work. It kept you out of the way, too.
You were just making your way across the emergency department when you saw the most peculiar thing. An entire SWAT team was rushing in beside a bed, one of their members holding a breathing bag up, cursing and calling out the trauma.
"intubated neck wound—stats not great. Is there a trauma room open?!"
You ran towards the voice, listening to the story.
Dr. Robby blocked your view as he ran toward the incoming trauma as well, already cutting toward the bay, calling out orders to his residents and students.
You heard something about a high-velocity gunshot wound, the bagging not working on him. Warehouse robbery gone sideways. That piqued your interest, a flicker of memory tugging at your brain, making you smile a little as you pushed the trauma doors open.
They were putting him on the table as you pulled on a surgical gown again, blue gloves and glasses going on quickly. Your heart rate was climbing, eyes wide as you took in the victim. His shirt had already been cut open, blood running out of his mouth, over his neck, soaking into the collar bunched beneath his shoulders. Someone was calling for suction, another trying to get a pressure. The other SWAT team members filed out of the room, making space. But still one of them stayed.
"Thought you left us for the open road—" the remaining team member said from the bed as the nurses got the patient hooked up to the heart rate machine.
You couldn't quite place why his voice sounded so familiar.
"And miss seeing you in uniform?" Robby shot back as he rushed beside the bed.
"Should've seen me as a flight attendant." the other man whispered.
You had half a mind to laugh as you pushed forward toward the patient, not looking up. You moved to the side of the bed instead, checking the tube, the blood around his mouth, the barely there rise of his chest beneath the bagging. Not enough movement on the left. The wound at his neck was still pooling blood and soaking the gauze someone had pressed there, bright blood slipping between gloved fingers and down into the sheet.
"You do this intubation?" Robby asked the man.
Why was this SWAT member still here?
You needed room to work, to get closer to the patient. You stood across from the uniformed man, not bothering to look up as you reached for the suction tubing and cleared blood from the corner of the patient’s mouth. You wished he'd leave so you could see clearer around all the nurses and students, wished his vest and elbows and radio weren't taking up so much of the narrow space by the head of the bed.
"Under active fire, yeah."
Your eyes flitted up to him.
Only for a second, or what you meant to only be a second, to see if he was serious.
But for that second, your brain did something very strange.
For the first time in 7 years, you were looking at Andrew Cody.
But… not Andrew.
Andrew wasn't here. Andrew was… he was…
He was dead.
As the man turned to glance over his shoulder, it was Andrew's hair you were looking at. Graying now, still curly. The freckles on the nape of his neck you used to trace like constellations.
Your hand stayed on the suction tubing, but the room had slipped somewhere far away from you. Voices kept moving around the bed, Santos, Robby, Garcia— all of them thinned out beneath the monitor and the hard thump of your pulse in your ears.
The SWAT member was still turned slightly, glancing back at the bullet graze across his left shoulder. The fabric there was torn, dark with a splotch of blood. He looked at it like it was nothing.
He was saying something, but it joined with the rest of the voices around you—muffled in your buzzing ears. You heard something about the SATs going down, about causes of respiratory failure in intubated patients. Things you'd have answers to if you weren't looking at your dead ex boyfriend.
And he looked back at you.
It felt like someone had taken you by the shoulders and plunged you underwater.
But this man was Andrew. Older, for sure. Older than time would've allowed in those 7 years anyway. There were marks of it around his eyes, in the set of his jaw, in the heavier shape of his shoulders beneath the tactical vest. But those were Andrew's eyes. Those were his lips—lips you knew, lips you'd kissed, lips that whispered secrets in the dark, lips that had curled back and bared at you the last time you spoke.
You heard the talking around you, but you were frozen. Completely frozen as he smiled at you—this SWAT member, this stranger who wasn't a stranger. Your brain was trying to catch up to the uncanny likeness.
You wanted to cry. You felt like you might faint.
You opened your mouth, lips dry, voice tight, and said:
"Pope?"
seven and a half years earlier
"I'm nervous."
It was dark—sometime around two or three, you thought. The only time Andrew could sneak in through your window without your parents hearing the latch of the gate, the scuff of his boots on the siding, the soft creak of your floorboards when he walked across the room to sit beside you on the bed. You hadn't turned on the light, maybe some part of you thought if you did it would all be too good to be true.
"Me too."
"What do you have to be nervous for?" you breathed a little laugh that felt stale in the darkness, your hands a little shaky around the envelope.
You felt the thick sleeve of his jacket rise and fall as he shrugged, "Dunno."
He was sitting very close, his right shoulder tucked behind your left, his palm flat on the bed behind you as he leaned into you until his chest pressed against your shoulder. His jacket was rough against your skin, still cold from outside, but underneath it he was warm, the heat of him coming through by degrees.
You sucked in a shaky breath, "Big envelope usually means good news, right? Right?"
"I have no idea."
"You're so helpful."
"M'here, aren't I?"
You nodded, and then realized he might not be able to see it. "Yeah."
Shifting the envelope in your lap, you turned it over, then back again. The seal caught a thin line of moonlight from the window, your name looking so neat on the front, printed by someone who had never met you. Someone who didn’t know about the hours spent at Smurf’s kitchen table filling out applications beside J, or Andrew grabbing cash from a rubber-banded stack in his glove compartment to pay for the application. You hadn’t asked where it came from, though you'd already had a good idea.
"Are you gonna open it?" he asked.
"I'm scared."
"Do you want me to open it for you?"
You shook your head, "No, no. It's okay."
"So…"
"It's just that… my whole world is in this envelope right now." you said quickly. Admitting it felt surreal, it gave weight to the paper in your hands. You let your fingers trace over the parchment, the white address sticker peeling up a little as you picked at it. It felt as if maybe it would come up, and someone else's name would be under it. Like it wasn't meant for you after all.
He stayed quiet, waiting for you to go on.
"If this letter says I didn't get in… I don't know what my life looks like. I mean, what would I do?"
"You can stay with me." he said softly, just breath against your jaw as he leaned into you. "We would figure something out."
You nodded. "I know. But… if it says I did get in…"
"It will."
You looked over at him. You could see the outline of his face, the barely there moonlight catching the pretty light in his eyes. You leaned in further, pressing your forehead to his temple, letting out a long sigh.
His skin was warm there. A little damp near his hairline from the hood of his jacket, from the climb, from the summer night still caught on him. Your grip shifted around the envelope, paper dragging against your cotton shorts. When you spoke again, it was hardly a whisper.
"How can you be so sure?"
He rolled his head against yours, gently, sucking in a breath with you before letting it out. The smell of pine soap and minty toothpaste moved over your face with it.
"Because this is what you're meant to do. I know it. I just do."
You licked your lips, smooth with your bedtime lotion and chapstick already applied, leaning into him a little more, pausing there. You felt close enough to feel his breath touch your mouth before either of you moved.
He closed the distance, gently pressing his mouth against yours, breathing you in through the kiss.
His hand found your face—rough palm, calloused fingers, the careful cup of his touch beneath your jaw. It always did something strange to you, how gentle he could be with hands that had evidence of so many split knuckles past. His thumb moved over your cheekbone, soothing.
When he pulled away, you almost followed.
His eyes moved over your face in the dark. Searching, maybe, or checking. He said he never had the right words for this sort of thing, not really, but you didn't need them. Because he looked at you like he was trying to make sure you were still there with him. And that was more than anyone else had ever offered.
His other hand came up, fingertips light as they cupped your skull, turning your face just enough for the moonlight to catch it. To one side, then the other. It should have made you laugh, the seriousness of it, the way he studied you so intensely.
Then he leaned in one more time, pressing a featherlight kiss to the tip of your nose.
"Open it." he whispered.
You pulled in one last breath before sitting up straight, crinkling the corners of the manila envelope before flipping it over. You took your time, carefully unfolding the wire clasp, gently slipping your finger between the closure before the sound of tear of paper filled the room.
Pope's hand lifted from the bed behind you to wrap around your body, squeezing you close.
Slowly, you pulled a stack of papers out.
Your eyes immediately dropped to the first line below the greeting of the first page:
On behalf of the Committee on Admissions, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Even in the dark, there was no second guessing it. The words were there, black and perfect on the page, and your whole body seemed to understand them before your mind could.
Your vision narrowed, your world opened up, a future you had no idea how to take part in but knew you'd be there anyway. Something changing in your own chemical makeup, the feeling of Andrew's arm around you, squeezing you tighter, whispering something.
When you turned towards him, he was already looking at you—so close in the dark, eyes bright and mouth pulling wide like he couldn’t help it.
You smiled back, big and toothy and disbelieving, your throat burning as tears began to gather. The papers slipped from your hands and scattered to the floor as you threw your arms around him, pushing him back into the bedspread with a burst of hushed laughter.
now
"Pope?"
The man who looked like Andrew's lips pulled into a little smile, his head tilting at you, inquisitive.
"You know," he said, voice touched with amusement, "I never pay attention to that stuff. Can't even remember the guy’s name. He's from Chicago, right? I grew up Catholic, so really I should know."
You blinked.
"Dr. Abbot is an attending here," Robby said as he came up beside you, peeling back the soiled gauze around the patient’s throat and revealing the displaced trachea beneath.
You looked down at the patient again, and the transected trachea snapped you almost back to the present. Almost. Your hands were still shaking, your brain still scrambling to separate the man across from you from the dead one in your memory, but you had to get yourself together. The patient could die if you didn't focus.
"Baby—I need a baby—"
The SWAT member—Dr. Abbot, if you remembered right, looked at you a little funny. You shook your head sharply as if to dislodge your running thoughts and organize them with a quick jostle just as another resident moved in beside him with an air bag. The breathing tube was out now, the open wound exposed, blood spluttering from it.
"I mean, a neonatal mask. I need a neonatal mask! He's not getting any air."
You looked around, everyone was still looking at you a little weird, but Robby only nodded his head, agreeing. "Santos—go!"
"Neonatal?" she asked.
"YES!" you barked, and you were surprised to hear Robby's voice overlapping yours.
She was only gone for a moment, but it felt longer than it should have. Too many seconds with the monitor complaining, too many hands hovering over a body that had no usable airway.
The moment the mask hit your palm, you pressed it over the open wound, sealing it against his neck while someone squeezed the bag.
The monitor began to settle down to a steadier beat.
"Neo-natal mask is working," Dr. Abbot said, his voice lighter than before, almost impressed. Dr. Santos continued the EFAST while the patient was stable enough, and Abbot injected lidocaine with epi to help with the bleeders. Things felt almost normal again, or at least close enough to pause and figure out the rest.
You kept looking up at him though.
Not on purpose, and not for very long. Your eyes would lift, catch on the curve of his mouth or the set of his brow, and then you’d force them back to the patient, to the wound, to the monitor, to anything with a number attached to it. Your brain kept trying and failing to separate memory from present.
He and Robby were talking, discussing next steps around you.
"I could do a Shiley?" you offered.
"I don't like the curve of a Shiley." Dr. Abbot teased.
"Didn't know you were so picky," Robby answered. You almost had the nerve to smile.
This was turning into a very weird day.
When you looked back over to Dr. Abbot, he was looking at you. Your skin lifted in goosebumps.
"You must be Gloria's new hire," he murmured.
"One of them." you answered.
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes skating over your features. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you. Your presence didn’t seem to have the same effect. He was calm, collected, nothing like you felt.
Robby answered before he could say anything, "We were lucky enough to get two." he introduced you by name, then explained, "R3. "
He didn't sound like he felt very lucky, but you ignored that.
"Pleasure to meet you." Dr. Abbot said. You could swear there was a certain tone to his voice. Cheeky, almost. Your skin felt tingly.
Just then, you heard Baran's voice enter the room, "What is going on here? You have a field medic assisting?"
"Dr. Abbot is an attending and also a SWAT physician." Robby explained again to her.
"Transected trachea, we're working on an airway." you explained.
Dr. Abbot was moving in with his tube, explaining it to Dr. Santos, but Baran had shouldered her way between you and the resident.
"We can do this." she said stiffly.
"No, no," he said easily. "I got it. You must be Gloria's second hire. I'd shake your hand, but my tube is ready."
You felt your lips twitch in what could've been a smile if you didn't feel like you'd lost your breath entirely.
"Keep an eye on the SATs," she told you over her shoulder.
You backed away, holding your hands up to keep them from touching anything or anyone.
"What, you're gonna take away the only helpful person in the room?" Abbot asked as he inserted the tube into the retracted trachea while Robby pulled it up with forceps, Santos taking over on the air mask.
"Hey," Robby protested. "I'm the one holding this open for you."
Dr. Abbot smiled, focusing back on the patient, "I'm gonna sew this in, 2-0 silk, please?"
"End tidal, good wave form." you called out, eyes flitting from the attending to the screen.
Robby let out an impressed whistle from in front of you. "Not bad, Abbot."
You moved away, feeling a little hazy, like you were walking through water as you began stripping off your sterile surgical gear. You took in a few deep breaths, focusing on the movement. Glove off. Gown untied. Mask flicked off. Glasses lifted from your face. One thing, then the next.
But you couldn't help the way you kept wanting to look back at him.
It felt almost like you'd been transported. You weren't sure if it was back in time or forward, or to some strange parallel universe that had split open in the middle of Trauma One. Andrew Cody was standing in the room. Graying hair, stubble grown out, blood on the back of his SWAT uniform, his hands busy at a patient's throat.
Not Andrew—Dr. Abbot.
Your brain offered the correction, but it didn’t settle right.
He looked up as if you'd called his name. Those eyes followed you across the room, curious, wondering. It was the same steadiness that would study you from across the kitchen counter, the one that would sneak glances at you from the driver's seat of a car, beside you in your bed. Your stomach dipped as you remembered the last time you'd seen them.
You turned away, unconsciously reaching up to grasp the necklace that adorned your throat between your fingers as you pushed the doors open.
The ED had gotten busier than before, and you inhaled the hospital air steadily into your lungs as you looked around. Your hands still felt like they were trembling, all that adrenaline and unease working its way through your bloodstream. Epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol. You recited it just to have something you knew. Something that was real. Adrenal medulla. Sympathetic nervous system. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
Your body was doing exactly what it was built to do, flooding you with chemicals and tightening your muscles, preparing you for danger.
But instead of danger this time, it was a ghost.
Time passed strangely after that, in pieces easily measured. A CBC resulted. A urine sample collected. X-ray called to say they were ready for the wrist in triage. You'd gone back out there to let your thoughts collect, and maybe to avoid the main trauma center too.
Usually work helped. Even when you'd had bad days before, or days where you felt helpless and tired and worn out, the hours of helping other people could usually quiet whatever was wrong with you. There were orders to put in, pulses to check, nurses asking for discharge plans. There was always something that needed your hands more than your feelings did.
But now… this was different.
In every patient checked, every lab sent, you thought of Andrew Cody.
A broken wrist came in at some point, swollen at the joint and held tightly against the patient's chest, her fingers moving but stuff. Her skin was puffy where it began to swell by her apple watch she hadn't taken off. You touched two fingers to her radial pulse, asking her to wiggle her fingers, then pressed along the snuffbox until she hissed.
"Sorry," you'd murmured. You'd ordered the films and ordered a splint until ortho took a look at her, simple and easy enough.
Except as you were doing it, you felt twenty years old again in a sunken living room in Oceanside, Craig Cody's wrist tucked against his own lanky chest while Deran paced behind you, agitated and barefoot as he tried to call their doctor in Mexico.
Andrew had been standing stiffly behind your chair, one hand gripping the back of it so that when you sat up, his knuckles brushed the top of your spine.
You'd been googling how to make a splint for a broken bone while walking to the fridge for ice. You remembered Craig looking at you funny when you'd returned with one of Smurf's magazines from the bathroom and a roll of duct tape from the junk drawer, wrapping his arm with more confidence than you actually felt.
It had healed fine in the end.
Mostly.
There was a man with split knuckles from a bar fight. Typical day drinking incident for a city like this. But while you cleaned his wounds and bandaged his hand, you thought of Andrew's blood rinsing from his hands in your bathroom sink, quiet while you sat on the closed toilet seat with a towel in your lap. How he would never admit how badly it hurt. Or how badly he hadn't wanted to do it.
There was even a pair of twins, both with fevers. A boy and a girl, maybe four years old, sitting side by side while their mother tried to keep them from touching every surface in the room. They had the same flushed cheeks, the same damp hair at their temples, the same tired little lean toward each other whenever one of them started to cry.
You hadn't known Andrew that young. You hadn't even been alive. But seeing them staring up at you with those big fever-bright eyes made you think of him anyway. Andrew and Julia. Inseparable, but both destined for a tragic end.
You checked their ears, listened to their lungs, pressed gently under their jaws while they blinked up at you. Viral, probably. Nothing too bad. Tylenol, fluids, return precautions. A normal childhood illness on a normal terrible day.
On your way back into the trauma center, you sent a little prayer up that the story of Andrew and Julia would never happen to them.
By the time you made it back to your workstation that had you seated around the edges of the charge nurse area, you felt a little refreshed from your earlier encounter. You hadn't seen the SWAT member—or attending, or whatever his title really was—anywhere yet. That helped too.
You took your seat and pulled the keyboard closer, the plastic keys worn smooth under your fingertips as you brought up the charts that needed finishing. A coffee you'd grabbed on the way over sat beside the mouse, lid half off, the surface already cooling. You began finishing your charts, trying to keep your eyes on the screen and your thoughts inside the room you were in.
"You've been gone for a while."
You looked over your shoulder to see exactly who you'd expected: Baran, standing straight, looking over your shoulder, her perfume faint against the hospital smell.
"Just making myself useful in triage, I guess." you said, looking back at the screen, but you felt her eyes on you anyway.
She let the silence sit there for a moment, the way she always did when she thought you might fill it if she waited long enough. You didn't. You clicked into the next chart and pretended the cursor needed all your attention.
Finally, she sighed.
"Are you ever going to give my generative AI a chance? You could be seeing other patients right now. You could be enjoying a small break in the lounge."
You huffed a little laugh. "When I'm ready to wipe out all the wildlife for data centers, I'll let you know."
She shook her head, a little pressed smile catching at the corner of her mouth. And then, after a moment, she said: "You've been avoiding me."
You paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Damn her for being so observant. It made her a great doctor. It also made her an annoyingly keen boss. And a wonderful friend.
You turned on the rolling stool.
"I"m sorry. It's…"
"Did you know him from somewhere?"
Your eyes widened, heart dropping. Feigning ignorance, you asked: "Who?"
"The patient," she said, watching your face. "The one with the transected trachea. He's in surgery right now. I can call for an update if you'd like."
You let out your breath quickly, almost too quickly. "Oh. No, no. I didn't."
Her eyes narrowed a little, that brown gaze searching your face with a steadiness you had watched study patients, consultants, nervous interns, men who thought they could talk over her.
"Okay." she said.
You could hear the tone of disbelief under it, the things she wanted to say but wouldn't.
Clicking your tongue softly against your teeth, you looked down at your lap, at your hands folded there, at the faint red mark across the back of one finger from where one of the twins had held onto you tightly as you took their blood.
"Well…" she continued. "I trust if it's something that needs discussing, you would—"
"—Yes, yes, I promise." You looked back up at her. "I just… I needed to clear my head. I'm good. I'm back."
Baran held your gaze.
It wasn't like a typical attending, not harsh or deciding whether you were fit for work. More like Baran the friend, the one who had once shared a bowl of popcorn and Raisinets on her couch with you as you watched Love Island after her surgery. She knew what you looked like when you were lying. She knew what you looked like when you were telling only half a truth too.
"Okay." she said at last, a smile twitching back to her lips. "You can help me with a middle-aged woman with sudden-onset blindness. Mel is heading up for her deposition soon, and I need someone in there to observe."
"Sure, yeah." You nodded, turning back toward your chart before she could keep looking at you. "Give me a few minutes to finish this, and I'll be over."
She tapped two fingers against the counter beside you, then walked away. "Room 15."
You watched her reflection move across the dark edge of your computer screen before you started typing again.
The words came slower than they should have, and eventually you gave into the notion that you'd probably be spending an hour after your shift catching up, just like the rest of the residents anyway.
You closed out of the charts, and headed over.
Only, halfway across the department, you realized Baran hadn't said where the patient was. Room 15, yeah. But there were 3 different fifteens in this god damn maze. North, South, Central…
You slowed near the charge board, coffee still in your hand, eyes scanning the names too quickly to make sense of them. Looking for anything resembling blindness or vision loss, neuro, consult pending. You found none of it fast enough. You felt the department going on around you, noisy and distracting.
You gave up and walked a few steps away, looking around the different doors, and just decided you'd try all three.
Central Fifteen was closest, and the curtain was pulled all the way across, so you approached, trying to plaster on your best bedside smile.
You pulled it open.
The sight inside hit you so fast you gasped, nearly dropping your coffee as your other hand tightened around the curtain, wrenching it closed again.
Your heart felt like it had catapulted into your throat, your stomach falling the opposite way onto the floor.
Not Andrew, not Andrew, not Andrew, you kept chanting it as you squeezed your eyes shut, forcing your breath in and out of your lungs.
"You… can come in." the voice said from the bed. It was low and careful and quiet, startled too. His hazel eyes had been wide, flickering up when you'd scared him too. Those broad shoulders bare, thick muscled chest plain as day with his shirt in his hands.
You sucked in another breath and opened it slowly this time to see Dr. Jack Abott sat on the exam bed before you.
seven and a half years earlier
You weren't sure what had gotten into Andrew that day.
It had been a sunny Friday afternoon, the place already loud with music and vices carrying throughout the house. Andrew had asked you to come, and he'd sounded so serious over the phone you hadn't even hesitated.
But now he'd locked you out of his room.
At first you weren't sure if it was just because he needed a minute, or he was messing with you. But Andrew didn't mess with you like Craig or Deran did. He didn't tease just to tease or make you chase him around for the fun of it. If Andrew was making something difficult, there was usually a reason.
You knocked on the door softly at first, a gentle little C'mon, Andy, open up, before you'd started really knocking, practically shouting for him to answer you. The house went on behind you, the day drinkers enjoying summer out by the pool, drinks being poured in the kitchen, a game of kings in the living room. Music carried all through the house. It was why you'd thought maybe he'd just been overwhelmed. Usually an hour or so into a party, the both of you would retreat to the company of only each other in a quiet room.
You leaned your head against the wooden door, and listened.
He was pacing. You could hear him mumbling to himself too, what it was he was saying, you had no clue.
What was his problem?
You were lifting your head from the door, about to go join the party outside when suddenly the bedroom opened up.
"What the hell, Andr—ah!"
You squealed as he grabbed your wrist, pulling you inside roughly. Then, just as abruptly, he stood away from you, breathing hard, eyes moving over the bed, the nightstand, the floor by his shoes, anywhere but directly at your face.
"Sit." he said simply, pointing to the bed.
"What the hell is going on with you?" you snapped, folding your arms over your chest.
He was doing that thing—the puppy dog eyes, rubbing of his palms together, the eye contact flitting around to anywhere but you. It would have been irritating if it didn't make your stomach twist. You knew him angry, you knew him quiet. And you knew this version too—nervous, child-like.
Andrew could scare other people with all his silences and hard staring, but you knew the difference. This wasn’t anger. This was him getting stuck somewhere in his head, turning a thought over and over until it wore a groove.
"Hey…" you said, and then again, softer: "Hey."
He looked up at you. His big hazel eyes were wide in the afternoon light that came through the bedroom window, softened and yellow by the drapes.
"What's going on?" you murmured, stepping closer and reaching out to take the sides of his hoodie in your hands, fisting the fabric so you could pull him closer.
The fabric was warm under your fingers, the pocket stretched out where he always hooked his thumb. You could feel his breath move through him, uneven under the cotton. He stared at your hands.
"Andy…" you said, quieter.
His eyes flicked to the bed.
"Sit."
You sighed, let go of him, and obliged.
You bounced a little as you landed on the mattress, his unease making you fidget. You could smell the detergent from the perfectly made bedspread, the old wood of the house, the smell of your sunscreen wafting around you.
"You're making me nervous." you murmured.
His eyes finally landed on you and stayed there, "M'sorry. I'm sorry."
He sounded so genuine as he sat beside you finally, the mattress dipping under his weight. His knee brushed yours before he pulled it back, and his hand flattened over the seam of his jeans. You watched his thumb press into the denim, rubbing at the same spot, the skin around his nail going pale.
"Just…tell me what's goin' on." you said, laying your hand gently over his.
He was fidgeting too, pursing his lips, his eyes down turned again. Then he leaned toward his bedside table, opened the drawer, and pulled out a leather pouch. There was a gold cord wrapped tightly around it, leather softened and expensive. He held it out while not even looking at you, taking in a long shaky breath.
You took it carefully, setting it in your lap with two hands. "What's this?"
He didn't answer.
"Andy—"
"It's nothin'." His eyes stayed on the floor. "Just—well, not nothing."
"If this is what I think, I can't accept."
"Yes, you can."
You rolled your eyes.
He leveled his gaze very seriously on you, his brow set, his hands suddenly still. "Will you just open it?"
You looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. Fighting him was futile when he had something on his mind.
You looked back down at the leather pouch and untied the gold cord. The knot had been pulled tight, and it took you a second to work it loose with your nail before you unfolded the worn pieces of leather.
Something glittered beneath.
"Oh—" you gasped.
Inside was a diamond necklace.
A white-gold chain connecting to a bejeweled bail that held two small circles stacked above an oval stone, the whole pendant ringed in more diamonds, so bright that it threw little cuts of light across the inside of the pouch.
You were almost certain it was worth more than anything you had ever owned.
You looked up at him. "Andy…"
His jaw shifted, but he was looking at you differently now—those big hazel eyes stayed on you, waiting, nervous, still, but changed with a softness that often was reserved for only you.
"I wanted to get you something," he said, voice low, "for getting into the program. Do you like it?"
"Andy, I can't accept this—"
"Yes you can." he corrected. His tone was soft, hoarse like he was telling you a secret instead of trying to hand you what had to be a five-figure diamond necklace. You wondered if his brothers knew what you were given. If Smurf had any say.
"Wh—why are you even giving me this? Aren't the cops gonna be looking for it?"
He tilted his head at you and whispered, "Don't worry about that stuff. I'll handle it."
You shook your head in disbelief, fingers toying with the white gold chain in your lap. For a moment, you didn't know what to do about him. About his kindness, his generosity, the over-the-top gestures he often made without understanding they were over-the-top at all. To him, it was direct. You loved someone, so you gave. You celebrated.
You loved him for it, for him wanting to give so much. The way he made sure you understood how much you meant to him, never questioning or second guessing.
Still, you wondered if he'd taken it from under his family's noses when they weren't looking. You were almost certain you knew the job it came from, too. The mansion you'd visited under the guise of a decorating crew with a little black dress on, hair pinned and proper, clipboard to your chest while you smiled at a woman who had no idea you were memorizing the hallway behind her.
"We could've gone out for a drink to celebrate!" you said under your breath, though it wasn't mean.
He shook his head. "You worked hard to get in. You deserve more than a round of shots at Deran's shitty bar."
You stared at the necklace. He whispered your name, and you looked up.
He leaned in closer, making sure you heard every word as he said, "You deserve to be celebrated."
You pressed your lips together, your eyes moving over his face—the freckles across his nose, the little scars near his brow, the old nick at his cheek you still remembered touching the first week you knew him. You'd never seen someone flinch like that before. You thought of how he hasn't flinched from your touch in years now. It makes your chest warm as you look at his cheekbones. They were sharper than they had been a month ago, his eyes darker underneath, like he hadn’t been sleeping well.
"Do you like it?" he asked again, quieter this time, his voice losing some of its edge.
You let out a breath, smiling despite yourself. "Yes."
His shoulders eased, a small shift under his hoodie, but his eyes stayed fixed on you. Then, he smiled. Small, almost hidden at first, just the corner of his mouth lifting. And then his whole face split, his cute toothy grin, dispelling all the tension in his muscles. Your own smile grew before you could stop it.
"You do?" he asked.
"Of course I do."
He leaned in slowly, as if unsure if you'd pull away (you never, ever did) and kissed you gently. His mouth was warm against yours, chapped where he'd been most likely biting at it all day before you got to the house. You held the kiss, lips slotting together, and his hand came up to your cheek, thumb brushing along your jaw, keeping you close.
Your tongue dipped out to trace the underside of his top lip, and he opened for you, eager enough that your breath caught. His tongue slid against yours, and the kiss deepened, both of you breathing heavier as your hand moved up his chest and around his neck, fingers curling into the brown hair at his nape.
Before you could get as carried away as you wanted, he pulled back. Neither of you let go. His forehead nearly touched yours, his hand still at your face, your fingers still in his hair, both of you panting into the small space between your mouths.
"Let me put it on you." he said.
You smiled a little, leaning forward to push your forehead into his before giving in, "Fine, okay, yeah."
He straightened with the necklace in his hands, the chain flashing between his fingers before he stood and crossed to the dresser. You followed him, still breathless from the kiss, the leather pouch left open on the rumpled bed behind you.
The mirror leaned against the wall by the window, catching the softened sunlight through the curtains and spilling it warm across your face, your neck, the front of your shirt. Andrew came in behind you in the reflection, shoulders broad around yours, head bent as he lifted the necklace.
His fingers brushed your skin as he worked the clasp, so careful that you barely felt them. The chain settled cool against your neck, and the pendant rested heavy at the base of your throat, glittering in the mirror each time you breathed.
Andrew leaned into you from behind, his chin hooking over your shoulder. "There." he murmured.
It was beautiful, you had to admit. Glittering in the golden warm light.
"It's perfect, Andy." you murmured.
"You're perfect." he whispered, pressing a kiss to the side of your neck.
Heat rushed to your face, and you lifted a hand over your shoulder, pushing your fingers back through his hair as his arms wrapped around your middle. His mouth stayed at your neck, kisses soft at first, then heavier, his teeth catching lightly at the sensitive skin beneath your jaw.
"Want you to wear it," he said between little nips. "Nothing else."
"Oh, yeah?" you giggled.
"Mhm," he hummed.
He turned you around in his arms and kissed you harder, one hand going to your hair, the other low at your waist as he walked you backward toward the bed.
now
He even had the same freckles.
There was a mole on his right pec, and your eyes dropped to it before you could stop them. Andrew had one there too. You used to kiss it when he'd lead you to bed, when he'd let you kiss all his marks—scars, moles, freckles, the places violence had touched him and the places he’d simply been born with.
You blinked hard and made yourself look away.
This wasn't Pope. It wasn't Andrew.
It was strange, seeing a body you knew so well shaped by time and some other life. There was a time Andrew had started boxing because he thought it would help get out his worst thoughts, and for a while, it had. He’d built himself for muscle and strength, for something to do with his hands besides hurt people, or himself, or anyone who got too close on the wrong day. Even after he quit, he kept the shape of it, strong through the shoulders, leaner when he forgot to eat, his body always carrying whatever his mouth couldn't say.
Jack Abbot seemed similar, though broader now, thicker through the chest and middle, less carved by violence and more by age, work, routine. The same kind of body built to carry too much. The same kind of shoulders that looked like they were holding a door shut from the inside.
You wondered if he was trying to outrun scary thoughts too.
"I'm… sorry." you said, breath uneven as your eyes went back up to his face.
There, some of the freckles were different. Less sun maybe, no California sunshine out here in Pennsylvania, no Oceanside glare to leave burns on the skin year round. But still. There were too many similarities, the kind your brain kept trying to make sense of and failing. Your blood thrummed in your ears again, warm and rushing.
"I was just… looking for a patient."
Jack looked at you funny again, his eyes scanning you, trying to read the messy thoughts behind your eyes, you figured. You probably looked insane.
"It's okay."
"Are you okay?" you asked, jutting your chin up toward his shoulder. Focusing on something you could see, understand.
He glanced back at it as he opened the kit on the medical tray in front of him. "Yeah, bullet just grazed me."
"Jesus."
"S'nothin'." He picked through the supplies with one hand, tearing open a packet with his teeth before thinking better of it and using his fingers. "Geniuses thought it was a good day to rob a goods warehouse. Didn’t think about how much time it would take to load everything up."
You nodded, your throat beginning to burn. You wondered who the kids were, if they were another crew like the Codys had been, sitting around a kitchen table with beer bottles and a map, thinking through cameras, doors, exits, timing. Or if they were idiots with guns and no plan, chasing the rush before they’d learned how much a bad one could cost.
"Did… you catch them?"
"Yep."
You huffed a little laugh despite yourself. "Well… I should probably—"
But when you looked up, he was trying in vain to reach the wound, his shoulder rolling forward, arm lifted awkwardly behind his head. The graze sat high along the back of his right shoulder, too far around for him to clean well. He tried anyway, jaw set, antiseptic swab pinched between two fingers, his back arching a little to reach.
Your mouth was opening before your brain could stop you, "Give me that."
"I'm fine."
"I'll start your chart, then."
"No, no. Don't need the paperwork."
You held out your hand, "Our little secret then?"
He looked up at you, stalling, those hazel eyes searching your face again. So familiar, so steady. Your hand stayed out between you.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Goosebumps rose along your skin. You gave him your name.
"No, I mean…" his eyes narrowed, but he shook his head, sighing.
He handed over the Qtip with the antiseptic.
"Promise I won't tell." you said gently, stepping around him.
"Better not." he huffed with a half smirk.
You moved behind him and set the supplies in order on the exam bed: saline flushes, gauze, chlorhexidine swabs, a small packet of bacitracin, nonadherent dressing, tape. This would help. It had to. Simple stuff, cleaning a wound, knowing the steps. Just doing the work. The exam light above him hummed softly, casting a flat white square over his shoulder and the metal tray.
Both of you were quiet, but you saw his eyes slide around to you every once in a while.
You started with saline, flushing the graze from the cleanest edge outward, watching diluted blood run over his shoulder blade and into the gauze you had tucked beneath it. The wound was shallow, ugly more than dangerous, a raw red track through skin with darker bruising already starting around it. No embedded fragments that you could see. No active bleeding beyond the surface ooze. You wiped the skin around it with gauze, then cleaned wider with chlorhexidine, careful to keep most of it around the wound instead of scrubbing straight into the open line.
You hadn't realized you'd begun to cry until Jack turned his head over his shoulder, his brows drawing together.
"Hey," he said, quieter now. "What happened?"
You shook your head, trying to swallow the burn in your throat as the sting in your eyes flooded down your face with tears. "Sorry—I'm sorry."
You took the nonadherent pad from the tray, too quick, grateful for something to do. Your fingers pressed the dressing into place over the graze, then layered folded gauze over it for a little pressure. All you could think about was a familiar freckled shoulder. A familiarly thick neck with the same curls at the name. The man you loved turning his head in your bathroom to tell you a job had gone bad like he was telling you dinner ran late. Blood on the sink. Blood under your nails. His face pale, and you had felt scared enough for both of you.
"Who…" Jack Abbot began, but bit his lip, and you saw the infinitesimal shake of his head, before he was looking up at you, and trying again. "You lost someone."
Your eyes found his, and held your breath.
He nodded, "I know that look."
You wiped your cheek with the heel of your palm, then reached for the adhesive. Jack tore off two strips for you and handed them back without looking away.
"I'm fine." you said. "It's nothing."
He sighed, hands coming together in his lap, and you saw him twist the gunmetal wedding ring on his left hand.
"I lost my wife," he said after a moment. "A few years ago."
You stared at the side of his face. "I'm sorry." it's all you knew to say in that moment.
He nodded, eyes on his own hands. "Not a day goes by I don't think of her. But today…" He looked back at you, and you stood very still with the tape half-smoothed over his dressing. His eyes moved across your face, knowing and far away. "Today I saw you and it was like she was there. In the room."
You sucked in a little breath.
"I don't know why." His mouth pressed to one side. "I guess you—"
"— look like her?" you whispered.
He nodded.
You let out the breath you'd been holding in. You finished taping the dressing, smoothing the adhesive edges against clean skin because your hands still needed something to finish. The pad sat flat over the graze, the gauze beneath it catching what little blood was left.
"You… you look like my…" you weren't sure what to call him. An ex? Dead boyfriend? "Well. He… died, a long time ago." you went on anyway. "And when I saw you, it felt like…"
"… like you'd seen a ghost."
You looked back up at him with wet eyes, voice cracking, "Yeah."
For a second, neither of you moved, neither of you spole. The exam room felt small around the two of you, the curtain drawn tight, the overhead light buzzing, the metal tray with torn packets and pink-stained gauze piled on it. His shoulder was warm under your fingertips where you hadn't yet pulled away.
How could this be happening? You kept asking yourself over and over, but you couldn't understand the cosmic irony—the idea that somehow…somehow, Andrew had lived on. Maybe not in this timeline, but another. So that you would be here. Now. With Jack.
Out of all the lives you could have lived. Out of all the turns you could have missed and the ones you chose. Your parents and your childhood home. Andrew and all the ways he had been the sweetest soul you'd ever known and the most volatile man in any room. The acceptance letter. The way you'd wanted nothing more than to go but couldn't bear to leave and…the last time you saw him. And then, after years of hard work, of trying to forget, you met Baran overseas, half a world from Oceanside, pulling you into her orbit. Then to the city, to Pennsylvania. The VA. The PTMC on the Fourth of fucking July in the middle of humid Pittsburgh.
All of it. Every terrible, ordinary, impossible thing.
"You were so calm." you said quietly. "How were you so calm earlier? If you felt—"
He shrugged, and the dressing tugged a little at the movement. "I thrive under pressure, I guess."
"That explains the SWAT thing," you murmured.
"My therapist said I needed a hobby." he said dryly.
You stared at him for half a second before a smile caught your lips, as if a string was tied to the corner, pulling it up into your cheek.
"You were great today." he said softly, turning his face toward you so that even with his chin dipped, he could still look up at where you stood beside him.
"Thanks." you murmured.
"I can tell this is…" he paused, nodding a little, like he was feeling for the right words before they left him. "This is something you were meant to do."
You squeezed your eyes shut, your lungs hitching over what little breath you'd pulled in.
It was not only the words. It was the way he said them, low and careful with his eyes moving off yours right after, his top teeth catching his bottom lip, his hands rubbing together with the black shirt bunched between them. He looked so much like Andrew then that your chest went tight and your throat thickened.
You pressed your lips together, shutting your eyes against the threat of more tears, and nodded. You wanted to say something back, like thanks or you're not bad yourself!—but the words wouldn't come. They were stuck behind the lump in your throat, and you had to swallow them down before you choked on the grief.
You moved away from him to begin cleaning up the room, taking the trash from the metal tray, feeling his eyes follow you around in silence.
When all was done and cleaned up, he was standing back up with his shirt back on, his hands shoved in the tan camo cargos, shoulders straight.
"I should… go check on my patients." you said, reaching for the curtain. "Baran is probably waiting for me."
He nodded, fidgeting a little where he stood.
You pulled the curtain, but then heard him call your name.
His head was ducked again, eyes down at his boots, one thumb moving against the seam of his pocket. Then he stood straighter and looked at you.
"We should grab a drink sometime."
Your eyebrows shot up before threading together. "Like… swap war stories, or?"
"Or." he shrugged.
You licked your bottom lip haphazardly. You weren't sure what to say. It felt like a terrible idea. Giving in to whatever weird prank God was pulling on the two of you. A man who looked like Andrew asking you out in a curtained exam room with a bullet graze under his shirt. A man who had seen his dead wife in your face and still somehow looked at you like there might be something to do with that besides run.
"I don't know…"
"If it's too much, I understand." he said softly.
"It's just—" you paused, searching for the right words as you fisted the curtain beside you tighter, looking around like the answer was in the room, "s'kinda weird, right?"
"Very weird." he agreed. "But I see no reason why we shouldn't give in. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work."
You stared at him a long moment, before he was stepping forward, his voice low. You had to hold your breath.
"One drink." he murmured. "What're you doing after your shift?"
The three B's came to mind. Bath, Book, Bed, truthfully. Maybe crying in said bath if the day kept going the way it had been and falling asleep with wet hair and waking up with sore eyes tomorrow to whatever PTMC had waiting next.
"Nothing." you said instead.
His eyes moved between yours, then down to your mouth, to the necklace at your throat, then back up again. The diamonds sat heavy beneath your scrub collar, hidden from most people, except the chain had shifted at some point while you were dressing his wound. A little flash of white gold against hospital black scrubs.
"Aren't you just… a little curious?" he asked, barely above a whisper, "About what the fuck this all is?"
You couldn't help the little huff of laughter that escaped you. He smiled back, just a twitching of his lips.
"Okay." you said. "A little."
"Then meet me at Redbeard's." he said, tipping his head. Then, after a second, quieter, "Please."
You gnawed on your bottom lip, looking past the curtain into the ED. Dana was picking up the red landline again, her other hand already reaching for a pen. A tech pushed an empty stretcher toward the elevators, the wheels clicking over the seam in the floor. Across the hallway, Robby stood in front of Santos with a chart in his hand, listening with his head tipped down while she talked.
The whole department kept moving, loud and bright, as if nothing was amiss. As if your world wasn't folding over itself, different timelines coexisting together in this strange space where time and grief took no pity.
You let out a long sigh.
"Yeah," you said, bringing your hand up to clench around the diamonds of your necklace, "Yeah, okay. Fine."
He smiled a little wider, and looked out into the same sea of chaos as you. "Okay. Go. I'll see you tonight. Redbeard's."
You looked back at him and smiled a little. "See you."
Because when you looked at him, all you could see was Andrew’s face, open in that rare way he never let last long.
seven years earlier
The house already felt out of control when you arrived. The bass rattled through the open slider and the large floor to ceiling windows as you made your way through the sea of bodies in the kitchen, the floor wet under your bare feet where someone had spilled. Beer, maybe. Something sticky that pulled faintly at your skin with each step. You made your way to the fridge anyway, pulling out a beer, the cold neck of it relieving to the touch in your hand.
When you turned around, about to open it, you saw Andrew.
He was sitting on the couch in the living room, sitting up from his laid back position, his arm coming off the back of the couch to stand up. His attention had snapped to you too quickly, and you saw his face change. Confusion first, then relief, but then something much, much harder. Something that shut everything else down.
He was up and beside you in less than ten seconds. "Why are you here?"
You blinked, but turned to walk away. “Hi to you too.”
He reached out quickly, pulling you by the arm to turn towards him. You squeaked out a little hey!
“Why are you here?” The second time was lower, meaner, his head ducking as he said the words.
Your smile faltered a little, but you tried to pull it back. “It’s Craig’s birthday, isn’t it?”
“You’re supposed to be gone.”
You swallowed hard. Your bags were packed. Sitting in the trunk of your car. You'd meant to take the exit going east but… but you couldn't. So, you shrugged as averted your eyes from his, beer pressing coldly into your palm, condensation slicking against your fingers. “Yeah, well. I’m not.”
You could feel his piercing stare on you.
The party kept moving around you, but it felt farther away now, muffled under the rush of blood in your ears. People were shouting by the pool as usual, music blaring and scores being called as idiots jumped from the pool house roof into the water. You watched Deran do a backflip, the crashing of the water making you jump.
When you looked up at Andrew finally, you were surprised to see how uncertain he looked. You could see the thoughts moving through his brain, the cogs trying to make sense of why you were here, if he'd gotten something wrong. But you knew, and you knew he knew, that you should be crossing state lines by now. As if you'd said it out loud, face went hard and strange.
Blank, almost.
“So no med school.” he said darkly. It wasn't even a question.
You rolled your shoulders, trying to make it look easy. Trying to make any part of it feel easy. "No med school."
Andrew's eyes only narrowed more, his jaw tightening.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” you said. “I’ll tell them something came up. Or I’ll defer, maybe. People do that, right? They defer.”
His hands tightened into fists at his side, fingers curling in slow, controlled increments.
“It’s fine,” you said, talking faster now because he wasn’t saying anything, and the silence was getting worse the longer he held you under his stare, no matter how loud the house was around you. “I can work. I can help more. I already know half the shit you guys need before you even ask me. Have you talked to Deran about the mattress warehouse off the 23? Because I was thinking if you hit it before—”
And then he was reaching for you, a hand closed around your wrist, and he was moving.
You stumbled one step after him, your shoulders bumping into strangers. You didn't have time to apologize because he was pulling you so quickly, his broad back making a path ahead. You set your beer down to not add to the drinks already spilled on the floor, tugging at his strong hold.
"Andrew—"
He didn't answer, nor did he stop.
"Andrew, please—wait—" and then you saw he was bee lining for the back gate, and you dug your heels into the concrete of the pool deck, the rough edge of it catching under your flip flops as you tried to hold yourself in place.
He whirled around to glare at you, his grip tightening just enough to sear your skin. You had half a mind to be a little scared, but you just looked at him back with the same iciness, refusing to give him that.
"Stop, let's stay." you said, and then, a little softer, "Let's have a drink and go hide in your room."
His lip curled, and he was reaching out to grab you again, but you slipped free.
You ran back to slip into the house, to maybe weave through the crowd and lock yourself away, but he was on you when you met a road block of bodies, his arms going around your waist, locking in before you could twist away.
To anyone else, this probably looked normal. Playful roughhousing with one of the Cody boys and their girl. And besides, no one stopped Pope Cody when he was in the middle of something. No one even really questioned it.
He manhandled you into his arms, even as you squirmed, his hold already set, already decided.
"Andrew—get off!" you yelled, trying in vain to push him. "Get off!!"
But it was no use, he was breathing heavily, his eyes a mix of muddled color and pain, something too tight behind them, like he was making himself do this, no matter how badly he didn't want to be rough with you. His hands were so big, his muscles bigger, and in no time your gravity was being lurched off its axis, and you were being flung over his shoulder.
You slammed your fist into his lower back, his hand coming over the back of your thighs to stop your kicking.
“Put me down!” you shouted, hair falling into your face, blood rushing to your head. “Andrew Cody, put me down right now!”
“No.”
You shrieked in humiliation, in frustration, and he was walking out the back gate. He carried you across the driveway while you hit at him, furious, mortified, trying to twist enough to get a knee into his chest, his side, anything. Pavement blurred beneath you. The hood of your car flashed in the moonlight. He shifted you higher when you nearly slipped, palm pressing hard into the back of your thigh, his breathing heavy but controlled, like he had shut every other part of himself off except the part that knew how to move, how to get this done.
He came around to the front of the car, and opened the driver's side door.
Gravity whirled once again and the world tilted as he brought you back upright, only to push you off balance again and into the front seat.
"No!" you exclaimed, hands hooking at the door edge.
He didn't say anything, only was shoving your limbs into the seat, hands at your shoulders when you tried pushing back, firm, unyielding, not giving you an inch to work with.
"Andrew—stop!"
"No."
"Fuck—" you tried to push him away, "—off!"
You shoved at his chest and tried to duck under his arm, but he caught you again and again, both hands closing around the caps of your shoulders, pushing you down into the seat.
“You’re going.” he finally muttered.
“I’m not!” you spat back.
“You’re going.”
You wouldn't give in, twisting in the seat so your legs were half out the car door. Trying to stand again, he stepped between your knees, his body blocking the open space, boots planted in the ground, one hand catching both of your wrists when you swung at him.
“Andrew!”
“You’re going.”
The words came out of him like he had to force them through his teeth. Like it was all he could say.
“I want to be here!” you shouted. “Why is that so fucking hard for you to understand?”
His eyes burned into yours.
He didn't say anything else, the two of you a tangle of limbs until his hands snapped over the joints of your wrists, holding them tightly between you. You were heaving in breath, your muscles aching, the hair at your cheeks sticking to your face with what you realized then were tears.
“I love you.” you croaked.
He paused for a moment, looking down at you.
“I love you,” you said again, louder, like maybe if you said it hard enough he would stop looking at you like that. “I want to be with you. I want to live with you. I want to work with you. I want this.”
Your tears began to pour hot and fast, slipping down before you could do anything about them.
“Say it back,” you begged, trying in vain to push at his chest with the hands he held firmly in his grip.
He didn’t answer. But he'd had the worst frown on his face you'd ever seen. His eyes hard, brows drawn, as you begged—
“Say it, Andy.”
His mouth pressed into a line.
Your wrists twisted under his hand, but there was no real fight in it anymore. Your whole body had gone loose in pieces, anger draining out and leaving behind a panic so raw and ugly you felt almost humiliated.
“Tell me you love me,” you begged.
His face changed.
“Say it back.” you cried.
He looked down at his feet, his mouth twisting, his brows threading.
“No.” Your pleaded, hands trying to grip at him, but he held you too tightly. "No, look at me. Tell me you love me.”
He was breathing hard through his nose. His eyes were wet and mean with the effort of keeping it in, and that hurt worse than if he had screamed at you. You wished he'd just say something.
“Please,” you said again.
His hands dropped from your wrists as fast as if they'd been burned, and came to your face instead, both palms catching your cheeks, rough and too fast, his fingers curving harshly into your hair. He pulled your face up to look directly at him, his thumbs slipping through your tear tracks.
“Of course I love you,” he snapped, voice cracking. “Of course I do. What do you think this is?”
“Andy—”
“You have to go.” His voice split again, and he looked furious, whether it was at you or himself, you couldn't tell. But it was terrifying. The tears were beginning to blur your eyes. “You have to. You’re meant to do this. You’re meant to be a doctor. You’re not meant to be here with me and this—this shit.”
"I don't care—"
"You deserve a chance at a normal life." he said tightly, more a whisper than words. "I didn't. You have to go. You have to."
He stood there, shoulders rigid, mouth flat. It was his turn to beg.
“Please, sweetheart. You have to."
You threw him off of you, shoving him away, and he let go this time. You reached for the keys where he had thrown them into the cupholder at some point. You didn’t remember him doing it. You didn’t remember anything except his face, his hands, the sound of his voice telling you no.
You slammed the door and put the car in reverse with your whole body shaking, not looking at him. The tires screeched as he stayed where he was, his chest heaving as he watched you, his face crumbling entirely.
At the end of the driveway, you took one final look back in your rearview mirror.
You could just make out the tears falling down his face, his hands in his hair, elbows flared. Panic there, in his eyes. But relief too.
Relief in watching you leave.
now
Redbeard's was a dingy thing in downtown, thankfully close to your apartment, though you didn't even stop home. As badly as you wanted—hell, needed— to wash off the day, you knew once you made it through the door the fear would keep you from walking out again. And you hadn't gotten Jack's number. Picturing him waiting alone at the bar… on his only night off… you couldn't do it. To him, to you…to Andrew.
You found him outside, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone close to his face as he read something on the screen. It was like he sensed you coming, whatever strange sixth sense the two of you had for one another prickling up his spine to make him look.
You still had to stifle the gasp that threatened when his eyes found yours.
Jack Abbot, you told yourself again and again. Jack Abbot, not Andrew Cody.
For one brief, insane moment, you wondered if Andrew was with you there. If he was standing somewhere beside Jack on that gum spotted sidewalk, looking him over with that severe set to his mouth, suspicious of the warm little smile pulling at the man's face. Or maybe he would have been looking at you instead. Maybe he would have been smiling too, pleased in that way he got when you were brave.
You didn't even believe in ghosts, or spirits, or heaven or hell. Of any afterlife in which Andrew Cody's spirit would be there that night. You believed wholly in science. In blood and oxygen and a heart and a brain to keep a person alive… And you believed that when those things stopped, when there was no blood flowing to the brain, when the cells began to starve, there was no secret door opening somewhere else.
But that night, standing outside a bar in humid Pennsylvania while fireworks whistled and cracked and died somewhere distant over the water, you felt something too strange to dismiss.
Because… what if… what if there was something? What if there was some universe in which Andrew Cody and Jack Abbot's wife could see the two of you exactly as you were. Lonely, sad people who still carried their ghosts around. Maybe they knew. Maybe they had found each other out there, wherever it was, and maybe Jack’s wife had told Andrew about the man she left behind. How good he was, how he needed you and you needed him.
What other explanation was there?
When you approached Jack, there was an awfully familiar twinkle in his eye that had your lips pulling up into a real smile.
"Hey." you sighed.
“Hi,” he said, then cleared his throat a little. “Thank you for… coming out.”
You shrugged, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jeans to mirror him. “Guess I was curious about 'what the fuck this all is',”
Jack’s smile widened. His head tipped back for half a second before it ducked, his eyes dropping toward the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” he said finally with a nod. “Me too.”
You tilted your head at him. “Shall we?”
His eyes moved over you then, from the top of your head to the toes of your shoes, then back up to your face. It wasn’t the kind of look that undressed you. It was stranger than that. Softer. As if he was trying to make sense of the person standing in front of him, alive and still somehow carrying the woman he had lost.
How two lives could run so far apart and still end up here, on the same humid night, grief and curiosity braiding curiously through the two of you like some invisible red thread.
He nodded, then turned and opened the door.
“After you.”
I’ll be honest I looked over this maybe twice before posting so please excuse any inconsistencies or grammar mistakes! ilysm and THANK YOU FOR READING 🤍
firstly i want to state for the record, having baran be my emotional support attending healed something in me 🤍🤍 the mentor of all mentors <3
SECONDLY HOW DARE YOU 😭😭😭
As the man turned to glance over his shoulder, it was Andrew's hair you were looking at. Graying now, still curly. The freckles on the nape of his neck you used to trace like constellations.
screaming crying throwing up it’s like hearing a voicemail of my dead wife
You nodded, your throat beginning to burn. You wondered who the kids were, if they were another crew like the Codys had been, sitting around a kitchen table with beer bottles and a map, thinking through cameras, doors, exits, timing. Or if they were idiots with guns and no plan, chasing the rush before they’d learned how much a bad one could cost.
fucking genius comparison im in awe right now
"— look like her?" you whispered.
OMFGGGGG THEY’RE HAUNTED BY TWIN MIRRORS IM GOING INSANEEE
wow this was the most beautiful and heartbreaking thing ive ever read 😭😭😭 the dialogue between reader & pope b4 she goes to med school made me feel the tiny pieces of my heart shattering 😭😭 her begging for him to tell her he loves her 😭😭😭😭
100000/10 fic thank u for your service to the angst-loving community
idk what episode but i remember near the end of s1 when that car ran into the gurneys and it shocked everyone who was outside but i remember replaying that scene because i swear that robby gripped both parker and john and sort of pulled them behind him, and i swear it was done in instinct because he was looking at that car in shock, and it just makes me so !!!! emotional because god wdym his instincts were to protect his kids wdym he was using himself to cover them wdym he was pushing them out of harm’s way wdym
the pitt x animal kingdom crossover
|| jack abbot x reader || pope cody x reader ||
summary: your first day at PTMC as a transferred resident was stressful enough without your entire past coming to haunt you.
|| angst, crossover fic, baran al-hashimi'sfriend!reader, SR3!reader, exbf!pope cody, resident!reader, medical jargon, this follows the pitt s2 pretty closely (scenes, patients, medical jargon that I def get wrong) animal kingdom s6 spoilers!!!!!!, grief, memories, flashbacks, one could call this a soulmate au, back in the day they might say a whump fic, age gap implied but not specific, timelines are not canon, lil bit of manhandling and tough love, slightly spiritual in the end (ghosts, spirits, parallel universes) ||
a/n: all credit to this tik tok that made me cry on a monday morning and some inspo from this post // last flashback inspired by pope x angela s4e11 // thank you @pearlessance for your big beautiful brain and your unending support!!
a/n II: im serious guys if you haven't watched all of animal kingdom or havent had the internet spoil it for you like me, do not read :)
wc: 13.8k
You know, for what it's worth, your first day had started normal.
Chaotic, maybe— but normal.
You had no reason to think it wouldn't go by like any other.
Your attending, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, was scheduled at a new hospital today. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center on the Fourth of July of all days. And at seven in the morning, you'd barely gotten down your iced coffee before you were being ushered into Trauma One for a left thoracotomy on a patient with a knife wound.
You followed them into the trauma bay, everyone getting prepared with surgical gowns, blue gloves snapping, masks pulled up over noses, the metal tray beside the bed already crowded with clamps and packs of gauze. In the middle of the room, the patient was being bagged through an airway, a nurse continuing chest compressions as his skin was slicked with sterile prep procedure, people moving around him like a choreographed dance. You watched from the edge, waiting for Dr. Al-Hashimi's command to join them.
You were grateful to see a few familiar faces. Dr. Samira Mohan, for one, who was calling for a chest tube while one of the nurses cut through the rest of the patient’s shirt. Dr. Mel King was there too, though she hadn't joined for the case. Both of them great doctors who had trained at the VA with you a few years ago. Different in their approaches, but just as good under pressure.
You'd known Baran for a long time now too. Before you'd even met Samira and Mel. You'd worked with her as a medical student doing your year abroad with Médecins Sans Frontières, knew her medical background with seizures—something that you kept secret through the years—even helped her for a few days at home after her laser ablation surgery.
You and Baran were tied at the hip. You knew her, and she knew you.
Which was partially why you were able to get the PD approval and would be spending the next three months following her around a very surly male attending's emergency department.
"Is the VA even a trauma center?"
You didn't like his tone.
You glanced over through your plastic surgical glasses. He was tall, older and bearded, his arms crossed over his chest, standing at the edge of the hospital bed trying not to take as much space as he did. Robby, you remembered. Dr. Robinavitch. One of the residents—a blond-haired doctor named Whitaker—had told you he would grow on you, that he really was a great attending.
You didn't doubt it. You'd known enough great doctors to also know they could still be complete assholes too. Even on their good days.
"We took walk-ins." you said curtly.
Baran tried to hide her smile. Robby’s eyes moved to you, held there for a second, then he nodded.
"We had falls, major MVCs, GSWs." she added with a much more polite tone than you had managed.
You listened to Dr. Whitaker on your left, asking the medical students questions about the procedure, differentials. Things you knew the answers to, the words sitting right there on the tip of your tongue, but you bit them back.
Teaching hospital, you reminded yourself. More specifically, someone else's teaching hospital.
"Javadi, Whitaker, glove up." Robby said to your left.
"You too." Baran said beside you. "Start on internal compressions."
Robby looked over. "I'd rather my—"
"—she is capable." Baran cut in gently. "And a good listener."
She nodded at you, jerking her chin up. "Go on."
You obeyed, grabbing your gloves from the boxes on the wall, the latex snapping at your wrists. A nurse slid the white surgical covering over your shoulders and tied it behind your back, the paper stiff against your neck. Everything smelled like betadine, blood, and plastic tubing.
The other residents began moving around, making room for the other two that crowded the table. You stepped in close, your toe brushing someone else's as you found a place near the open chest.
"Well hello to you too." one of them said, a woman to your left, her eyes narrowed, but even with the surgical goggles and mask, you could've sworn you saw a smile.
You only looked at her, squeezing yourself past, your shoulder sliding against her chest accidentally.
"Take me to dinner first, would ya?" she teased.
"Yolanda Garcia has trouble expressing her feelings," you heard Dr. Robby say to Baran across the room.
"I sure will miss you, rabbit-bitch," she called a little too loudly in your ear to him.
You saw him and Baran step closer, the two of them side by side at the foot of the bed. Not together, exactly. More like two people standing on the same square of floor and refusing to give any of it up, leaning in and almost hitting heads as they tried to look at what was going on.
There was a lot of talking around you. Samira's phone kept going off, Garcia was opening the chest cavity, her gloved fingers moving quickly through blood and tissue, clearly an OR fellow with many, many hours on the table. Whitaker was trying to explain to the medical students what was going on, his voice steady enough, though you could hear him working to keep it that way.
"No tamponade, pretty dry in here—" Garcia said quickly, looking in. "Heart's empty. Somebody start cardiac massage."
"On it, excuse me." you said, a little more forcefully as you stepped into the space between Garcia and a nurse. There was a half-second where the room narrowed to the patient’s open chest and your own hands. You placed them carefully, exactly where they needed to be, fingers closing around the heart. It was smaller than people thought. Slick, warm, a living muscle that didn't care how many times you had practiced this in simulation. A life.
You began compressions.
One squeeze. Release. One squeeze. Release.
"Okay team, I think—" Baran began, but Robby cut her off.
"Samira?" he called, "Next steps?"
Keep transfusing. Open the right chest. Find the source. Move before he runs out of time.
There would be a lot of blood.
The blood started pouring out, pouring and pouring. Thick and red under the lights, running off the drape, splashing down into the basin below and onto the floor. Your fingers kept moving around the heart. Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release. Your forearms began to burn beneath the gown.
"There's too much blood to suction—" Javadi said, panic rising in her voice.
Where was all of this blood coming from?
"Can't locate the source—" Garcia murmured, looking into the chest cavity.
"We need to convert to a clamshell." you said, looking up at Baran, then to Robby.
He nodded, "Exactly."
"Trauma sheers." you called at the same time as Garcia.
"Jinx, now you owe me a drink with dinner." she teased.
Someone handed them over before you could even think of a retort, not that you had one. Your brain had narrowed to the heart in your hands. The life you held there, retaining it, forcing it to continue. The metal flashed in the light before Garcia took them, cutting through the chest, opening it wider. The room shifted around the decision, everyone making space for the next problem.
More talking around you, more hands moving, more suction. Someone called for more units of blood, a second MTP. You kept your hands where they were, the heart softening and filling by turns beneath your palms, never enough to make you comfortable.
"Still bleeding like a stuck pig!" Garcia called after clamping.
You did have one idea—one thing you could do to stop this. Something that could buy the patient enough time to get upstairs. But you knew Baran wasn't exactly keen on risky procedures done because the room had gotten desperate. Better to rush to the OR in her mind. Better to control what could be controlled, to keep the steps precise, to not make a bad situation worse with a move that could tear the lung off its root if done wrong.
But Robby seemed to have the same thing in mind.
"Hilum flip. Rotate the lung one-eighty degrees."
"Like putting a kink in the garden hose." you whispered to yourself.
Everyone looked at him like he was insane, but you knew there was no time to waste.
"Gently. Very, very slow." he said, his eyes on you and nodding. "Whitaker, take over compressions."
Letting go of the heart when Whitaker's hand found yours, you reached for the lung, then looked up at Dr. Robby again.
You glanced at Baran too. Her eyes were wide behind her shield. "He could die if you rip his lung off the hilum." she said.
"I won't."
You sucked in a shaky breath, nodding, and then looked back at Robby.
You looked down and—
—slowly, slowly, you turned the lung.
There were so many bloody gloved hands tucking and moving around you, Whitaker's breath heavy beside you where he'd taken the heart from your hand a moment ago. Your fingers adjusted by tiny degrees, careful around the slick weight of the organ, your wrists stiff with restraint. The room felt close behind your mask. You held your breath for a moment, feeling Dr. Robby's eyes on you. Dr. Al-Hashimi's too.
Then Javadi called, "Blood loss slowing down!"
The words moved through the room like someone had opened a door. You let out a long breath of relief.
"Okay, we fixed the leak. Now we need to refill." Robby said, standing straighter, relief dropping his shoulders too.
You pulled away from the patient, letting Garcia take your place again, Whitaker standing tall and glancing at you with an impressed gaze. You didn't look at him for long, eyes back to the patient, to the monitor, to the line of numbers that suddenly mattered more than what anyone in the room thought of you.
Once normal sinus rhythm came back, you moved to stand back beside Baran. You hadn't realized how hard you'd been clenching your jaw until it loosened.
"Hell of a way to start the day." Robby said, disrobing the white sterile surgical covering. Baran followed suit, and you did the same, peeling the gown from your sleeves and dropping it into the bin. Your gloves were dark with blood, forearms aching.
"Unconventional. But a decent outcome." Baran agreed, every consonance perfectly crisp on her tongue.
All three of you left the bay, the noise of the monitor and raised voices disappearing with a swish of the doors closing behind you.
"Why don't we split up?" Robby said. "For efficiency."
"We can certainly discuss that." Baran answered with a smile. "I'll find you in a minute. I need to speak to my resident."
Robby made a face, but nodded. "Good job back there." he said shortly to you.
You gave him a polite smile, then threw your surgical glasses down into a bin.
Baran came in front of you, watching the attending walk away.
For a moment, neither of you said anything. The bay was still noisy behind you, people cleaning, counting, calling upstairs, stripping the room down so it could become useful again now that the patient was stable enough for surgery.
"I'm sorry… for… undermining your authority in the room." you said with a sigh. "I'd thought of it before he even said anything about the flip, I felt confident enough to—but I should've asked—"
"I have always said I admire your confidence, doctor." she said gently when she turned back to you. "Just remember, you have nothing to prove to them. Or to me. I know your work."
"But they don't."
"No," she said, and smiled, chin tipping up in pride. "But they will."
You looked down for a second, trying to breathe around the adrenaline still crawling under your skin.
"Go check your other patients," she said. "And I expect to hear some updates. And…excellent work. You saved the patient's life."
You nodded, sucking in a big breath before turning and going back to your charts.
A couple hours passed in much easier quiet—though you'd never say the Q word out loud. You hadn't worked in many emergency departments, but you knew better than that in any hospital setting.
Quiet wasn't really quiet anyway. There were still labs to chase, discharge papers to fix, scans to check, patients waiting to go upstairs and heart rate monitors beeping.
Your own patients were doing fine. A few waiting on labs, one getting ready for discharge, one still up at CT. Baran had sent you through triage for a while too, helping clear out the lower acuity cases before they stacked up. It was steady, easy work. It kept you out of the way, too.
You were just making your way across the emergency department when you saw the most peculiar thing. An entire SWAT team was rushing in beside a bed, one of their members holding a breathing bag up, cursing and calling out the trauma.
"intubated neck wound—stats not great. Is there a trauma room open?!"
You ran towards the voice, listening to the story.
Dr. Robby blocked your view as he ran toward the incoming trauma as well, already cutting toward the bay, calling out orders to his residents and students.
You heard something about a high-velocity gunshot wound, the bagging not working on him. Warehouse robbery gone sideways. That piqued your interest, a flicker of memory tugging at your brain, making you smile a little as you pushed the trauma doors open.
They were putting him on the table as you pulled on a surgical gown again, blue gloves and glasses going on quickly. Your heart rate was climbing, eyes wide as you took in the victim. His shirt had already been cut open, blood running out of his mouth, over his neck, soaking into the collar bunched beneath his shoulders. Someone was calling for suction, another trying to get a pressure. The other SWAT team members filed out of the room, making space. But still one of them stayed.
"Thought you left us for the open road—" the remaining team member said from the bed as the nurses got the patient hooked up to the heart rate machine.
You couldn't quite place why his voice sounded so familiar.
"And miss seeing you in uniform?" Robby shot back as he rushed beside the bed.
"Should've seen me as a flight attendant." the other man whispered.
You had half a mind to laugh as you pushed forward toward the patient, not looking up. You moved to the side of the bed instead, checking the tube, the blood around his mouth, the barely there rise of his chest beneath the bagging. Not enough movement on the left. The wound at his neck was still pooling blood and soaking the gauze someone had pressed there, bright blood slipping between gloved fingers and down into the sheet.
"You do this intubation?" Robby asked the man.
Why was this SWAT member still here?
You needed room to work, to get closer to the patient. You stood across from the uniformed man, not bothering to look up as you reached for the suction tubing and cleared blood from the corner of the patient’s mouth. You wished he'd leave so you could see clearer around all the nurses and students, wished his vest and elbows and radio weren't taking up so much of the narrow space by the head of the bed.
"Under active fire, yeah."
Your eyes flitted up to him.
Only for a second, or what you meant to only be a second, to see if he was serious.
But for that second, your brain did something very strange.
For the first time in 7 years, you were looking at Andrew Cody.
But… not Andrew.
Andrew wasn't here. Andrew was… he was…
He was dead.
As the man turned to glance over his shoulder, it was Andrew's hair you were looking at. Graying now, still curly. The freckles on the nape of his neck you used to trace like constellations.
Your hand stayed on the suction tubing, but the room had slipped somewhere far away from you. Voices kept moving around the bed, Santos, Robby, Garcia— all of them thinned out beneath the monitor and the hard thump of your pulse in your ears.
The SWAT member was still turned slightly, glancing back at the bullet graze across his left shoulder. The fabric there was torn, dark with a splotch of blood. He looked at it like it was nothing.
He was saying something, but it joined with the rest of the voices around you—muffled in your buzzing ears. You heard something about the SATs going down, about causes of respiratory failure in intubated patients. Things you'd have answers to if you weren't looking at your dead ex boyfriend.
And he looked back at you.
It felt like someone had taken you by the shoulders and plunged you underwater.
But this man was Andrew. Older, for sure. Older than time would've allowed in those 7 years anyway. There were marks of it around his eyes, in the set of his jaw, in the heavier shape of his shoulders beneath the tactical vest. But those were Andrew's eyes. Those were his lips—lips you knew, lips you'd kissed, lips that whispered secrets in the dark, lips that had curled back and bared at you the last time you spoke.
You heard the talking around you, but you were frozen. Completely frozen as he smiled at you—this SWAT member, this stranger who wasn't a stranger. Your brain was trying to catch up to the uncanny likeness.
You wanted to cry. You felt like you might faint.
You opened your mouth, lips dry, voice tight, and said:
"Pope?"
seven and a half years earlier
"I'm nervous."
It was dark—sometime around two or three, you thought. The only time Andrew could sneak in through your window without your parents hearing the latch of the gate, the scuff of his boots on the siding, the soft creak of your floorboards when he walked across the room to sit beside you on the bed. You hadn't turned on the light, maybe some part of you thought if you did it would all be too good to be true.
"Me too."
"What do you have to be nervous for?" you breathed a little laugh that felt stale in the darkness, your hands a little shaky around the envelope.
You felt the thick sleeve of his jacket rise and fall as he shrugged, "Dunno."
He was sitting very close, his right shoulder tucked behind your left, his palm flat on the bed behind you as he leaned into you until his chest pressed against your shoulder. His jacket was rough against your skin, still cold from outside, but underneath it he was warm, the heat of him coming through by degrees.
You sucked in a shaky breath, "Big envelope usually means good news, right? Right?"
"I have no idea."
"You're so helpful."
"M'here, aren't I?"
You nodded, and then realized he might not be able to see it. "Yeah."
Shifting the envelope in your lap, you turned it over, then back again. The seal caught a thin line of moonlight from the window, your name looking so neat on the front, printed by someone who had never met you. Someone who didn’t know about the hours spent at Smurf’s kitchen table filling out applications beside J, or Andrew grabbing cash from a rubber-banded stack in his glove compartment to pay for the application. You hadn’t asked where it came from, though you'd already had a good idea.
"Are you gonna open it?" he asked.
"I'm scared."
"Do you want me to open it for you?"
You shook your head, "No, no. It's okay."
"So…"
"It's just that… my whole world is in this envelope right now." you said quickly. Admitting it felt surreal, it gave weight to the paper in your hands. You let your fingers trace over the parchment, the white address sticker peeling up a little as you picked at it. It felt as if maybe it would come up, and someone else's name would be under it. Like it wasn't meant for you after all.
He stayed quiet, waiting for you to go on.
"If this letter says I didn't get in… I don't know what my life looks like. I mean, what would I do?"
"You can stay with me." he said softly, just breath against your jaw as he leaned into you. "We would figure something out."
You nodded. "I know. But… if it says I did get in…"
"It will."
You looked over at him. You could see the outline of his face, the barely there moonlight catching the pretty light in his eyes. You leaned in further, pressing your forehead to his temple, letting out a long sigh.
His skin was warm there. A little damp near his hairline from the hood of his jacket, from the climb, from the summer night still caught on him. Your grip shifted around the envelope, paper dragging against your cotton shorts. When you spoke again, it was hardly a whisper.
"How can you be so sure?"
He rolled his head against yours, gently, sucking in a breath with you before letting it out. The smell of pine soap and minty toothpaste moved over your face with it.
"Because this is what you're meant to do. I know it. I just do."
You licked your lips, smooth with your bedtime lotion and chapstick already applied, leaning into him a little more, pausing there. You felt close enough to feel his breath touch your mouth before either of you moved.
He closed the distance, gently pressing his mouth against yours, breathing you in through the kiss.
His hand found your face—rough palm, calloused fingers, the careful cup of his touch beneath your jaw. It always did something strange to you, how gentle he could be with hands that had evidence of so many split knuckles past. His thumb moved over your cheekbone, soothing.
When he pulled away, you almost followed.
His eyes moved over your face in the dark. Searching, maybe, or checking. He said he never had the right words for this sort of thing, not really, but you didn't need them. Because he looked at you like he was trying to make sure you were still there with him. And that was more than anyone else had ever offered.
His other hand came up, fingertips light as they cupped your skull, turning your face just enough for the moonlight to catch it. To one side, then the other. It should have made you laugh, the seriousness of it, the way he studied you so intensely.
Then he leaned in one more time, pressing a featherlight kiss to the tip of your nose.
"Open it." he whispered.
You pulled in one last breath before sitting up straight, crinkling the corners of the manila envelope before flipping it over. You took your time, carefully unfolding the wire clasp, gently slipping your finger between the closure before the sound of tear of paper filled the room.
Pope's hand lifted from the bed behind you to wrap around your body, squeezing you close.
Slowly, you pulled a stack of papers out.
Your eyes immediately dropped to the first line below the greeting of the first page:
On behalf of the Committee on Admissions, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Even in the dark, there was no second guessing it. The words were there, black and perfect on the page, and your whole body seemed to understand them before your mind could.
Your vision narrowed, your world opened up, a future you had no idea how to take part in but knew you'd be there anyway. Something changing in your own chemical makeup, the feeling of Andrew's arm around you, squeezing you tighter, whispering something.
When you turned towards him, he was already looking at you—so close in the dark, eyes bright and mouth pulling wide like he couldn’t help it.
You smiled back, big and toothy and disbelieving, your throat burning as tears began to gather. The papers slipped from your hands and scattered to the floor as you threw your arms around him, pushing him back into the bedspread with a burst of hushed laughter.
now
"Pope?"
The man who looked like Andrew's lips pulled into a little smile, his head tilting at you, inquisitive.
"You know," he said, voice touched with amusement, "I never pay attention to that stuff. Can't even remember the guy’s name. He's from Chicago, right? I grew up Catholic, so really I should know."
You blinked.
"Dr. Abbot is an attending here," Robby said as he came up beside you, peeling back the soiled gauze around the patient’s throat and revealing the displaced trachea beneath.
You looked down at the patient again, and the transected trachea snapped you almost back to the present. Almost. Your hands were still shaking, your brain still scrambling to separate the man across from you from the dead one in your memory, but you had to get yourself together. The patient could die if you didn't focus.
"Baby—I need a baby—"
The SWAT member—Dr. Abbot, if you remembered right, looked at you a little funny. You shook your head sharply as if to dislodge your running thoughts and organize them with a quick jostle just as another resident moved in beside him with an air bag. The breathing tube was out now, the open wound exposed, blood spluttering from it.
"I mean, a neonatal mask. I need a neonatal mask! He's not getting any air."
You looked around, everyone was still looking at you a little weird, but Robby only nodded his head, agreeing. "Santos—go!"
"Neonatal?" she asked.
"YES!" you barked, and you were surprised to hear Robby's voice overlapping yours.
She was only gone for a moment, but it felt longer than it should have. Too many seconds with the monitor complaining, too many hands hovering over a body that had no usable airway.
The moment the mask hit your palm, you pressed it over the open wound, sealing it against his neck while someone squeezed the bag.
The monitor began to settle down to a steadier beat.
"Neo-natal mask is working," Dr. Abbot said, his voice lighter than before, almost impressed. Dr. Santos continued the EFAST while the patient was stable enough, and Abbot injected lidocaine with epi to help with the bleeders. Things felt almost normal again, or at least close enough to pause and figure out the rest.
You kept looking up at him though.
Not on purpose, and not for very long. Your eyes would lift, catch on the curve of his mouth or the set of his brow, and then you’d force them back to the patient, to the wound, to the monitor, to anything with a number attached to it. Your brain kept trying and failing to separate memory from present.
He and Robby were talking, discussing next steps around you.
"I could do a Shiley?" you offered.
"I don't like the curve of a Shiley." Dr. Abbot teased.
"Didn't know you were so picky," Robby answered. You almost had the nerve to smile.
This was turning into a very weird day.
When you looked back over to Dr. Abbot, he was looking at you. Your skin lifted in goosebumps.
"You must be Gloria's new hire," he murmured.
"One of them." you answered.
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes skating over your features. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you. Your presence didn’t seem to have the same effect. He was calm, collected, nothing like you felt.
Robby answered before he could say anything, "We were lucky enough to get two." he introduced you by name, then explained, "R3. "
He didn't sound like he felt very lucky, but you ignored that.
"Pleasure to meet you." Dr. Abbot said. You could swear there was a certain tone to his voice. Cheeky, almost. Your skin felt tingly.
Just then, you heard Baran's voice enter the room, "What is going on here? You have a field medic assisting?"
"Dr. Abbot is an attending and also a SWAT physician." Robby explained again to her.
"Transected trachea, we're working on an airway." you explained.
Dr. Abbot was moving in with his tube, explaining it to Dr. Santos, but Baran had shouldered her way between you and the resident.
"We can do this." she said stiffly.
"No, no," he said easily. "I got it. You must be Gloria's second hire. I'd shake your hand, but my tube is ready."
You felt your lips twitch in what could've been a smile if you didn't feel like you'd lost your breath entirely.
"Keep an eye on the SATs," she told you over her shoulder.
You backed away, holding your hands up to keep them from touching anything or anyone.
"What, you're gonna take away the only helpful person in the room?" Abbot asked as he inserted the tube into the retracted trachea while Robby pulled it up with forceps, Santos taking over on the air mask.
"Hey," Robby protested. "I'm the one holding this open for you."
Dr. Abbot smiled, focusing back on the patient, "I'm gonna sew this in, 2-0 silk, please?"
"End tidal, good wave form." you called out, eyes flitting from the attending to the screen.
Robby let out an impressed whistle from in front of you. "Not bad, Abbot."
You moved away, feeling a little hazy, like you were walking through water as you began stripping off your sterile surgical gear. You took in a few deep breaths, focusing on the movement. Glove off. Gown untied. Mask flicked off. Glasses lifted from your face. One thing, then the next.
But you couldn't help the way you kept wanting to look back at him.
It felt almost like you'd been transported. You weren't sure if it was back in time or forward, or to some strange parallel universe that had split open in the middle of Trauma One. Andrew Cody was standing in the room. Graying hair, stubble grown out, blood on the back of his SWAT uniform, his hands busy at a patient's throat.
Not Andrew—Dr. Abbot.
Your brain offered the correction, but it didn’t settle right.
He looked up as if you'd called his name. Those eyes followed you across the room, curious, wondering. It was the same steadiness that would study you from across the kitchen counter, the one that would sneak glances at you from the driver's seat of a car, beside you in your bed. Your stomach dipped as you remembered the last time you'd seen them.
You turned away, unconsciously reaching up to grasp the necklace that adorned your throat between your fingers as you pushed the doors open.
The ED had gotten busier than before, and you inhaled the hospital air steadily into your lungs as you looked around. Your hands still felt like they were trembling, all that adrenaline and unease working its way through your bloodstream. Epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol. You recited it just to have something you knew. Something that was real. Adrenal medulla. Sympathetic nervous system. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
Your body was doing exactly what it was built to do, flooding you with chemicals and tightening your muscles, preparing you for danger.
But instead of danger this time, it was a ghost.
Time passed strangely after that, in pieces easily measured. A CBC resulted. A urine sample collected. X-ray called to say they were ready for the wrist in triage. You'd gone back out there to let your thoughts collect, and maybe to avoid the main trauma center too.
Usually work helped. Even when you'd had bad days before, or days where you felt helpless and tired and worn out, the hours of helping other people could usually quiet whatever was wrong with you. There were orders to put in, pulses to check, nurses asking for discharge plans. There was always something that needed your hands more than your feelings did.
But now… this was different.
In every patient checked, every lab sent, you thought of Andrew Cody.
A broken wrist came in at some point, swollen at the joint and held tightly against the patient's chest, her fingers moving but stuff. Her skin was puffy where it began to swell by her apple watch she hadn't taken off. You touched two fingers to her radial pulse, asking her to wiggle her fingers, then pressed along the snuffbox until she hissed.
"Sorry," you'd murmured. You'd ordered the films and ordered a splint until ortho took a look at her, simple and easy enough.
Except as you were doing it, you felt twenty years old again in a sunken living room in Oceanside, Craig Cody's wrist tucked against his own lanky chest while Deran paced behind you, agitated and barefoot as he tried to call their doctor in Mexico.
Andrew had been standing stiffly behind your chair, one hand gripping the back of it so that when you sat up, his knuckles brushed the top of your spine.
You'd been googling how to make a splint for a broken bone while walking to the fridge for ice. You remembered Craig looking at you funny when you'd returned with one of Smurf's magazines from the bathroom and a roll of duct tape from the junk drawer, wrapping his arm with more confidence than you actually felt.
It had healed fine in the end.
Mostly.
There was a man with split knuckles from a bar fight. Typical day drinking incident for a city like this. But while you cleaned his wounds and bandaged his hand, you thought of Andrew's blood rinsing from his hands in your bathroom sink, quiet while you sat on the closed toilet seat with a towel in your lap. How he would never admit how badly it hurt. Or how badly he hadn't wanted to do it.
There was even a pair of twins, both with fevers. A boy and a girl, maybe four years old, sitting side by side while their mother tried to keep them from touching every surface in the room. They had the same flushed cheeks, the same damp hair at their temples, the same tired little lean toward each other whenever one of them started to cry.
You hadn't known Andrew that young. You hadn't even been alive. But seeing them staring up at you with those big fever-bright eyes made you think of him anyway. Andrew and Julia. Inseparable, but both destined for a tragic end.
You checked their ears, listened to their lungs, pressed gently under their jaws while they blinked up at you. Viral, probably. Nothing too bad. Tylenol, fluids, return precautions. A normal childhood illness on a normal terrible day.
On your way back into the trauma center, you sent a little prayer up that the story of Andrew and Julia would never happen to them.
By the time you made it back to your workstation that had you seated around the edges of the charge nurse area, you felt a little refreshed from your earlier encounter. You hadn't seen the SWAT member—or attending, or whatever his title really was—anywhere yet. That helped too.
You took your seat and pulled the keyboard closer, the plastic keys worn smooth under your fingertips as you brought up the charts that needed finishing. A coffee you'd grabbed on the way over sat beside the mouse, lid half off, the surface already cooling. You began finishing your charts, trying to keep your eyes on the screen and your thoughts inside the room you were in.
"You've been gone for a while."
You looked over your shoulder to see exactly who you'd expected: Baran, standing straight, looking over your shoulder, her perfume faint against the hospital smell.
"Just making myself useful in triage, I guess." you said, looking back at the screen, but you felt her eyes on you anyway.
She let the silence sit there for a moment, the way she always did when she thought you might fill it if she waited long enough. You didn't. You clicked into the next chart and pretended the cursor needed all your attention.
Finally, she sighed.
"Are you ever going to give my generative AI a chance? You could be seeing other patients right now. You could be enjoying a small break in the lounge."
You huffed a little laugh. "When I'm ready to wipe out all the wildlife for data centers, I'll let you know."
She shook her head, a little pressed smile catching at the corner of her mouth. And then, after a moment, she said: "You've been avoiding me."
You paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Damn her for being so observant. It made her a great doctor. It also made her an annoyingly keen boss. And a wonderful friend.
You turned on the rolling stool.
"I"m sorry. It's…"
"Did you know him from somewhere?"
Your eyes widened, heart dropping. Feigning ignorance, you asked: "Who?"
"The patient," she said, watching your face. "The one with the transected trachea. He's in surgery right now. I can call for an update if you'd like."
You let out your breath quickly, almost too quickly. "Oh. No, no. I didn't."
Her eyes narrowed a little, that brown gaze searching your face with a steadiness you had watched study patients, consultants, nervous interns, men who thought they could talk over her.
"Okay." she said.
You could hear the tone of disbelief under it, the things she wanted to say but wouldn't.
Clicking your tongue softly against your teeth, you looked down at your lap, at your hands folded there, at the faint red mark across the back of one finger from where one of the twins had held onto you tightly as you took their blood.
"Well…" she continued. "I trust if it's something that needs discussing, you would—"
"—Yes, yes, I promise." You looked back up at her. "I just… I needed to clear my head. I'm good. I'm back."
Baran held your gaze.
It wasn't like a typical attending, not harsh or deciding whether you were fit for work. More like Baran the friend, the one who had once shared a bowl of popcorn and Raisinets on her couch with you as you watched Love Island after her surgery. She knew what you looked like when you were lying. She knew what you looked like when you were telling only half a truth too.
"Okay." she said at last, a smile twitching back to her lips. "You can help me with a middle-aged woman with sudden-onset blindness. Mel is heading up for her deposition soon, and I need someone in there to observe."
"Sure, yeah." You nodded, turning back toward your chart before she could keep looking at you. "Give me a few minutes to finish this, and I'll be over."
She tapped two fingers against the counter beside you, then walked away. "Room 15."
You watched her reflection move across the dark edge of your computer screen before you started typing again.
The words came slower than they should have, and eventually you gave into the notion that you'd probably be spending an hour after your shift catching up, just like the rest of the residents anyway.
You closed out of the charts, and headed over.
Only, halfway across the department, you realized Baran hadn't said where the patient was. Room 15, yeah. But there were 3 different fifteens in this god damn maze. North, South, Central…
You slowed near the charge board, coffee still in your hand, eyes scanning the names too quickly to make sense of them. Looking for anything resembling blindness or vision loss, neuro, consult pending. You found none of it fast enough. You felt the department going on around you, noisy and distracting.
You gave up and walked a few steps away, looking around the different doors, and just decided you'd try all three.
Central Fifteen was closest, and the curtain was pulled all the way across, so you approached, trying to plaster on your best bedside smile.
You pulled it open.
The sight inside hit you so fast you gasped, nearly dropping your coffee as your other hand tightened around the curtain, wrenching it closed again.
Your heart felt like it had catapulted into your throat, your stomach falling the opposite way onto the floor.
Not Andrew, not Andrew, not Andrew, you kept chanting it as you squeezed your eyes shut, forcing your breath in and out of your lungs.
"You… can come in." the voice said from the bed. It was low and careful and quiet, startled too. His hazel eyes had been wide, flickering up when you'd scared him too. Those broad shoulders bare, thick muscled chest plain as day with his shirt in his hands.
You sucked in another breath and opened it slowly this time to see Dr. Jack Abott sat on the exam bed before you.
seven and a half years earlier
You weren't sure what had gotten into Andrew that day.
It had been a sunny Friday afternoon, the place already loud with music and vices carrying throughout the house. Andrew had asked you to come, and he'd sounded so serious over the phone you hadn't even hesitated.
But now he'd locked you out of his room.
At first you weren't sure if it was just because he needed a minute, or he was messing with you. But Andrew didn't mess with you like Craig or Deran did. He didn't tease just to tease or make you chase him around for the fun of it. If Andrew was making something difficult, there was usually a reason.
You knocked on the door softly at first, a gentle little C'mon, Andy, open up, before you'd started really knocking, practically shouting for him to answer you. The house went on behind you, the day drinkers enjoying summer out by the pool, drinks being poured in the kitchen, a game of kings in the living room. Music carried all through the house. It was why you'd thought maybe he'd just been overwhelmed. Usually an hour or so into a party, the both of you would retreat to the company of only each other in a quiet room.
You leaned your head against the wooden door, and listened.
He was pacing. You could hear him mumbling to himself too, what it was he was saying, you had no clue.
What was his problem?
You were lifting your head from the door, about to go join the party outside when suddenly the bedroom opened up.
"What the hell, Andr—ah!"
You squealed as he grabbed your wrist, pulling you inside roughly. Then, just as abruptly, he stood away from you, breathing hard, eyes moving over the bed, the nightstand, the floor by his shoes, anywhere but directly at your face.
"Sit." he said simply, pointing to the bed.
"What the hell is going on with you?" you snapped, folding your arms over your chest.
He was doing that thing—the puppy dog eyes, rubbing of his palms together, the eye contact flitting around to anywhere but you. It would have been irritating if it didn't make your stomach twist. You knew him angry, you knew him quiet. And you knew this version too—nervous, child-like.
Andrew could scare other people with all his silences and hard staring, but you knew the difference. This wasn’t anger. This was him getting stuck somewhere in his head, turning a thought over and over until it wore a groove.
"Hey…" you said, and then again, softer: "Hey."
He looked up at you. His big hazel eyes were wide in the afternoon light that came through the bedroom window, softened and yellow by the drapes.
"What's going on?" you murmured, stepping closer and reaching out to take the sides of his hoodie in your hands, fisting the fabric so you could pull him closer.
The fabric was warm under your fingers, the pocket stretched out where he always hooked his thumb. You could feel his breath move through him, uneven under the cotton. He stared at your hands.
"Andy…" you said, quieter.
His eyes flicked to the bed.
"Sit."
You sighed, let go of him, and obliged.
You bounced a little as you landed on the mattress, his unease making you fidget. You could smell the detergent from the perfectly made bedspread, the old wood of the house, the smell of your sunscreen wafting around you.
"You're making me nervous." you murmured.
His eyes finally landed on you and stayed there, "M'sorry. I'm sorry."
He sounded so genuine as he sat beside you finally, the mattress dipping under his weight. His knee brushed yours before he pulled it back, and his hand flattened over the seam of his jeans. You watched his thumb press into the denim, rubbing at the same spot, the skin around his nail going pale.
"Just…tell me what's goin' on." you said, laying your hand gently over his.
He was fidgeting too, pursing his lips, his eyes down turned again. Then he leaned toward his bedside table, opened the drawer, and pulled out a leather pouch. There was a gold cord wrapped tightly around it, leather softened and expensive. He held it out while not even looking at you, taking in a long shaky breath.
You took it carefully, setting it in your lap with two hands. "What's this?"
He didn't answer.
"Andy—"
"It's nothin'." His eyes stayed on the floor. "Just—well, not nothing."
"If this is what I think, I can't accept."
"Yes, you can."
You rolled your eyes.
He leveled his gaze very seriously on you, his brow set, his hands suddenly still. "Will you just open it?"
You looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. Fighting him was futile when he had something on his mind.
You looked back down at the leather pouch and untied the gold cord. The knot had been pulled tight, and it took you a second to work it loose with your nail before you unfolded the worn pieces of leather.
Something glittered beneath.
"Oh—" you gasped.
Inside was a diamond necklace.
A white-gold chain connecting to a bejeweled bail that held two small circles stacked above an oval stone, the whole pendant ringed in more diamonds, so bright that it threw little cuts of light across the inside of the pouch.
You were almost certain it was worth more than anything you had ever owned.
You looked up at him. "Andy…"
His jaw shifted, but he was looking at you differently now—those big hazel eyes stayed on you, waiting, nervous, still, but changed with a softness that often was reserved for only you.
"I wanted to get you something," he said, voice low, "for getting into the program. Do you like it?"
"Andy, I can't accept this—"
"Yes you can." he corrected. His tone was soft, hoarse like he was telling you a secret instead of trying to hand you what had to be a five-figure diamond necklace. You wondered if his brothers knew what you were given. If Smurf had any say.
"Wh—why are you even giving me this? Aren't the cops gonna be looking for it?"
He tilted his head at you and whispered, "Don't worry about that stuff. I'll handle it."
You shook your head in disbelief, fingers toying with the white gold chain in your lap. For a moment, you didn't know what to do about him. About his kindness, his generosity, the over-the-top gestures he often made without understanding they were over-the-top at all. To him, it was direct. You loved someone, so you gave. You celebrated.
You loved him for it, for him wanting to give so much. The way he made sure you understood how much you meant to him, never questioning or second guessing.
Still, you wondered if he'd taken it from under his family's noses when they weren't looking. You were almost certain you knew the job it came from, too. The mansion you'd visited under the guise of a decorating crew with a little black dress on, hair pinned and proper, clipboard to your chest while you smiled at a woman who had no idea you were memorizing the hallway behind her.
"We could've gone out for a drink to celebrate!" you said under your breath, though it wasn't mean.
He shook his head. "You worked hard to get in. You deserve more than a round of shots at Deran's shitty bar."
You stared at the necklace. He whispered your name, and you looked up.
He leaned in closer, making sure you heard every word as he said, "You deserve to be celebrated."
You pressed your lips together, your eyes moving over his face—the freckles across his nose, the little scars near his brow, the old nick at his cheek you still remembered touching the first week you knew him. You'd never seen someone flinch like that before. You thought of how he hasn't flinched from your touch in years now. It makes your chest warm as you look at his cheekbones. They were sharper than they had been a month ago, his eyes darker underneath, like he hadn’t been sleeping well.
"Do you like it?" he asked again, quieter this time, his voice losing some of its edge.
You let out a breath, smiling despite yourself. "Yes."
His shoulders eased, a small shift under his hoodie, but his eyes stayed fixed on you. Then, he smiled. Small, almost hidden at first, just the corner of his mouth lifting. And then his whole face split, his cute toothy grin, dispelling all the tension in his muscles. Your own smile grew before you could stop it.
"You do?" he asked.
"Of course I do."
He leaned in slowly, as if unsure if you'd pull away (you never, ever did) and kissed you gently. His mouth was warm against yours, chapped where he'd been most likely biting at it all day before you got to the house. You held the kiss, lips slotting together, and his hand came up to your cheek, thumb brushing along your jaw, keeping you close.
Your tongue dipped out to trace the underside of his top lip, and he opened for you, eager enough that your breath caught. His tongue slid against yours, and the kiss deepened, both of you breathing heavier as your hand moved up his chest and around his neck, fingers curling into the brown hair at his nape.
Before you could get as carried away as you wanted, he pulled back. Neither of you let go. His forehead nearly touched yours, his hand still at your face, your fingers still in his hair, both of you panting into the small space between your mouths.
"Let me put it on you." he said.
You smiled a little, leaning forward to push your forehead into his before giving in, "Fine, okay, yeah."
He straightened with the necklace in his hands, the chain flashing between his fingers before he stood and crossed to the dresser. You followed him, still breathless from the kiss, the leather pouch left open on the rumpled bed behind you.
The mirror leaned against the wall by the window, catching the softened sunlight through the curtains and spilling it warm across your face, your neck, the front of your shirt. Andrew came in behind you in the reflection, shoulders broad around yours, head bent as he lifted the necklace.
His fingers brushed your skin as he worked the clasp, so careful that you barely felt them. The chain settled cool against your neck, and the pendant rested heavy at the base of your throat, glittering in the mirror each time you breathed.
Andrew leaned into you from behind, his chin hooking over your shoulder. "There." he murmured.
It was beautiful, you had to admit. Glittering in the golden warm light.
"It's perfect, Andy." you murmured.
"You're perfect." he whispered, pressing a kiss to the side of your neck.
Heat rushed to your face, and you lifted a hand over your shoulder, pushing your fingers back through his hair as his arms wrapped around your middle. His mouth stayed at your neck, kisses soft at first, then heavier, his teeth catching lightly at the sensitive skin beneath your jaw.
"Want you to wear it," he said between little nips. "Nothing else."
"Oh, yeah?" you giggled.
"Mhm," he hummed.
He turned you around in his arms and kissed you harder, one hand going to your hair, the other low at your waist as he walked you backward toward the bed.
now
He even had the same freckles.
There was a mole on his right pec, and your eyes dropped to it before you could stop them. Andrew had one there too. You used to kiss it when he'd lead you to bed, when he'd let you kiss all his marks—scars, moles, freckles, the places violence had touched him and the places he’d simply been born with.
You blinked hard and made yourself look away.
This wasn't Pope. It wasn't Andrew.
It was strange, seeing a body you knew so well shaped by time and some other life. There was a time Andrew had started boxing because he thought it would help get out his worst thoughts, and for a while, it had. He’d built himself for muscle and strength, for something to do with his hands besides hurt people, or himself, or anyone who got too close on the wrong day. Even after he quit, he kept the shape of it, strong through the shoulders, leaner when he forgot to eat, his body always carrying whatever his mouth couldn't say.
Jack Abbot seemed similar, though broader now, thicker through the chest and middle, less carved by violence and more by age, work, routine. The same kind of body built to carry too much. The same kind of shoulders that looked like they were holding a door shut from the inside.
You wondered if he was trying to outrun scary thoughts too.
"I'm… sorry." you said, breath uneven as your eyes went back up to his face.
There, some of the freckles were different. Less sun maybe, no California sunshine out here in Pennsylvania, no Oceanside glare to leave burns on the skin year round. But still. There were too many similarities, the kind your brain kept trying to make sense of and failing. Your blood thrummed in your ears again, warm and rushing.
"I was just… looking for a patient."
Jack looked at you funny again, his eyes scanning you, trying to read the messy thoughts behind your eyes, you figured. You probably looked insane.
"It's okay."
"Are you okay?" you asked, jutting your chin up toward his shoulder. Focusing on something you could see, understand.
He glanced back at it as he opened the kit on the medical tray in front of him. "Yeah, bullet just grazed me."
"Jesus."
"S'nothin'." He picked through the supplies with one hand, tearing open a packet with his teeth before thinking better of it and using his fingers. "Geniuses thought it was a good day to rob a goods warehouse. Didn’t think about how much time it would take to load everything up."
You nodded, your throat beginning to burn. You wondered who the kids were, if they were another crew like the Codys had been, sitting around a kitchen table with beer bottles and a map, thinking through cameras, doors, exits, timing. Or if they were idiots with guns and no plan, chasing the rush before they’d learned how much a bad one could cost.
"Did… you catch them?"
"Yep."
You huffed a little laugh despite yourself. "Well… I should probably—"
But when you looked up, he was trying in vain to reach the wound, his shoulder rolling forward, arm lifted awkwardly behind his head. The graze sat high along the back of his right shoulder, too far around for him to clean well. He tried anyway, jaw set, antiseptic swab pinched between two fingers, his back arching a little to reach.
Your mouth was opening before your brain could stop you, "Give me that."
"I'm fine."
"I'll start your chart, then."
"No, no. Don't need the paperwork."
You held out your hand, "Our little secret then?"
He looked up at you, stalling, those hazel eyes searching your face again. So familiar, so steady. Your hand stayed out between you.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Goosebumps rose along your skin. You gave him your name.
"No, I mean…" his eyes narrowed, but he shook his head, sighing.
He handed over the Qtip with the antiseptic.
"Promise I won't tell." you said gently, stepping around him.
"Better not." he huffed with a half smirk.
You moved behind him and set the supplies in order on the exam bed: saline flushes, gauze, chlorhexidine swabs, a small packet of bacitracin, nonadherent dressing, tape. This would help. It had to. Simple stuff, cleaning a wound, knowing the steps. Just doing the work. The exam light above him hummed softly, casting a flat white square over his shoulder and the metal tray.
Both of you were quiet, but you saw his eyes slide around to you every once in a while.
You started with saline, flushing the graze from the cleanest edge outward, watching diluted blood run over his shoulder blade and into the gauze you had tucked beneath it. The wound was shallow, ugly more than dangerous, a raw red track through skin with darker bruising already starting around it. No embedded fragments that you could see. No active bleeding beyond the surface ooze. You wiped the skin around it with gauze, then cleaned wider with chlorhexidine, careful to keep most of it around the wound instead of scrubbing straight into the open line.
You hadn't realized you'd begun to cry until Jack turned his head over his shoulder, his brows drawing together.
"Hey," he said, quieter now. "What happened?"
You shook your head, trying to swallow the burn in your throat as the sting in your eyes flooded down your face with tears. "Sorry—I'm sorry."
You took the nonadherent pad from the tray, too quick, grateful for something to do. Your fingers pressed the dressing into place over the graze, then layered folded gauze over it for a little pressure. All you could think about was a familiar freckled shoulder. A familiarly thick neck with the same curls at the name. The man you loved turning his head in your bathroom to tell you a job had gone bad like he was telling you dinner ran late. Blood on the sink. Blood under your nails. His face pale, and you had felt scared enough for both of you.
"Who…" Jack Abbot began, but bit his lip, and you saw the infinitesimal shake of his head, before he was looking up at you, and trying again. "You lost someone."
Your eyes found his, and held your breath.
He nodded, "I know that look."
You wiped your cheek with the heel of your palm, then reached for the adhesive. Jack tore off two strips for you and handed them back without looking away.
"I'm fine." you said. "It's nothing."
He sighed, hands coming together in his lap, and you saw him twist the gunmetal wedding ring on his left hand.
"I lost my wife," he said after a moment. "A few years ago."
You stared at the side of his face. "I'm sorry." it's all you knew to say in that moment.
He nodded, eyes on his own hands. "Not a day goes by I don't think of her. But today…" He looked back at you, and you stood very still with the tape half-smoothed over his dressing. His eyes moved across your face, knowing and far away. "Today I saw you and it was like she was there. In the room."
You sucked in a little breath.
"I don't know why." His mouth pressed to one side. "I guess you—"
"— look like her?" you whispered.
He nodded.
You let out the breath you'd been holding in. You finished taping the dressing, smoothing the adhesive edges against clean skin because your hands still needed something to finish. The pad sat flat over the graze, the gauze beneath it catching what little blood was left.
"You… you look like my…" you weren't sure what to call him. An ex? Dead boyfriend? "Well. He… died, a long time ago." you went on anyway. "And when I saw you, it felt like…"
"… like you'd seen a ghost."
You looked back up at him with wet eyes, voice cracking, "Yeah."
For a second, neither of you moved, neither of you spole. The exam room felt small around the two of you, the curtain drawn tight, the overhead light buzzing, the metal tray with torn packets and pink-stained gauze piled on it. His shoulder was warm under your fingertips where you hadn't yet pulled away.
How could this be happening? You kept asking yourself over and over, but you couldn't understand the cosmic irony—the idea that somehow…somehow, Andrew had lived on. Maybe not in this timeline, but another. So that you would be here. Now. With Jack.
Out of all the lives you could have lived. Out of all the turns you could have missed and the ones you chose. Your parents and your childhood home. Andrew and all the ways he had been the sweetest soul you'd ever known and the most volatile man in any room. The acceptance letter. The way you'd wanted nothing more than to go but couldn't bear to leave and…the last time you saw him. And then, after years of hard work, of trying to forget, you met Baran overseas, half a world from Oceanside, pulling you into her orbit. Then to the city, to Pennsylvania. The VA. The PTMC on the Fourth of fucking July in the middle of humid Pittsburgh.
All of it. Every terrible, ordinary, impossible thing.
"You were so calm." you said quietly. "How were you so calm earlier? If you felt—"
He shrugged, and the dressing tugged a little at the movement. "I thrive under pressure, I guess."
"That explains the SWAT thing," you murmured.
"My therapist said I needed a hobby." he said dryly.
You stared at him for half a second before a smile caught your lips, as if a string was tied to the corner, pulling it up into your cheek.
"You were great today." he said softly, turning his face toward you so that even with his chin dipped, he could still look up at where you stood beside him.
"Thanks." you murmured.
"I can tell this is…" he paused, nodding a little, like he was feeling for the right words before they left him. "This is something you were meant to do."
You squeezed your eyes shut, your lungs hitching over what little breath you'd pulled in.
It was not only the words. It was the way he said them, low and careful with his eyes moving off yours right after, his top teeth catching his bottom lip, his hands rubbing together with the black shirt bunched between them. He looked so much like Andrew then that your chest went tight and your throat thickened.
You pressed your lips together, shutting your eyes against the threat of more tears, and nodded. You wanted to say something back, like thanks or you're not bad yourself!—but the words wouldn't come. They were stuck behind the lump in your throat, and you had to swallow them down before you choked on the grief.
You moved away from him to begin cleaning up the room, taking the trash from the metal tray, feeling his eyes follow you around in silence.
When all was done and cleaned up, he was standing back up with his shirt back on, his hands shoved in the tan camo cargos, shoulders straight.
"I should… go check on my patients." you said, reaching for the curtain. "Baran is probably waiting for me."
He nodded, fidgeting a little where he stood.
You pulled the curtain, but then heard him call your name.
His head was ducked again, eyes down at his boots, one thumb moving against the seam of his pocket. Then he stood straighter and looked at you.
"We should grab a drink sometime."
Your eyebrows shot up before threading together. "Like… swap war stories, or?"
"Or." he shrugged.
You licked your bottom lip haphazardly. You weren't sure what to say. It felt like a terrible idea. Giving in to whatever weird prank God was pulling on the two of you. A man who looked like Andrew asking you out in a curtained exam room with a bullet graze under his shirt. A man who had seen his dead wife in your face and still somehow looked at you like there might be something to do with that besides run.
"I don't know…"
"If it's too much, I understand." he said softly.
"It's just—" you paused, searching for the right words as you fisted the curtain beside you tighter, looking around like the answer was in the room, "s'kinda weird, right?"
"Very weird." he agreed. "But I see no reason why we shouldn't give in. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work."
You stared at him a long moment, before he was stepping forward, his voice low. You had to hold your breath.
"One drink." he murmured. "What're you doing after your shift?"
The three B's came to mind. Bath, Book, Bed, truthfully. Maybe crying in said bath if the day kept going the way it had been and falling asleep with wet hair and waking up with sore eyes tomorrow to whatever PTMC had waiting next.
"Nothing." you said instead.
His eyes moved between yours, then down to your mouth, to the necklace at your throat, then back up again. The diamonds sat heavy beneath your scrub collar, hidden from most people, except the chain had shifted at some point while you were dressing his wound. A little flash of white gold against hospital black scrubs.
"Aren't you just… a little curious?" he asked, barely above a whisper, "About what the fuck this all is?"
You couldn't help the little huff of laughter that escaped you. He smiled back, just a twitching of his lips.
"Okay." you said. "A little."
"Then meet me at Redbeard's." he said, tipping his head. Then, after a second, quieter, "Please."
You gnawed on your bottom lip, looking past the curtain into the ED. Dana was picking up the red landline again, her other hand already reaching for a pen. A tech pushed an empty stretcher toward the elevators, the wheels clicking over the seam in the floor. Across the hallway, Robby stood in front of Santos with a chart in his hand, listening with his head tipped down while she talked.
The whole department kept moving, loud and bright, as if nothing was amiss. As if your world wasn't folding over itself, different timelines coexisting together in this strange space where time and grief took no pity.
You let out a long sigh.
"Yeah," you said, bringing your hand up to clench around the diamonds of your necklace, "Yeah, okay. Fine."
He smiled a little wider, and looked out into the same sea of chaos as you. "Okay. Go. I'll see you tonight. Redbeard's."
You looked back at him and smiled a little. "See you."
Because when you looked at him, all you could see was Andrew’s face, open in that rare way he never let last long.
seven years earlier
The house already felt out of control when you arrived. The bass rattled through the open slider and the large floor to ceiling windows as you made your way through the sea of bodies in the kitchen, the floor wet under your bare feet where someone had spilled. Beer, maybe. Something sticky that pulled faintly at your skin with each step. You made your way to the fridge anyway, pulling out a beer, the cold neck of it relieving to the touch in your hand.
When you turned around, about to open it, you saw Andrew.
He was sitting on the couch in the living room, sitting up from his laid back position, his arm coming off the back of the couch to stand up. His attention had snapped to you too quickly, and you saw his face change. Confusion first, then relief, but then something much, much harder. Something that shut everything else down.
He was up and beside you in less than ten seconds. "Why are you here?"
You blinked, but turned to walk away. “Hi to you too.”
He reached out quickly, pulling you by the arm to turn towards him. You squeaked out a little hey!
“Why are you here?” The second time was lower, meaner, his head ducking as he said the words.
Your smile faltered a little, but you tried to pull it back. “It’s Craig’s birthday, isn’t it?”
“You’re supposed to be gone.”
You swallowed hard. Your bags were packed. Sitting in the trunk of your car. You'd meant to take the exit going east but… but you couldn't. So, you shrugged as averted your eyes from his, beer pressing coldly into your palm, condensation slicking against your fingers. “Yeah, well. I’m not.”
You could feel his piercing stare on you.
The party kept moving around you, but it felt farther away now, muffled under the rush of blood in your ears. People were shouting by the pool as usual, music blaring and scores being called as idiots jumped from the pool house roof into the water. You watched Deran do a backflip, the crashing of the water making you jump.
When you looked up at Andrew finally, you were surprised to see how uncertain he looked. You could see the thoughts moving through his brain, the cogs trying to make sense of why you were here, if he'd gotten something wrong. But you knew, and you knew he knew, that you should be crossing state lines by now. As if you'd said it out loud, face went hard and strange.
Blank, almost.
“So no med school.” he said darkly. It wasn't even a question.
You rolled your shoulders, trying to make it look easy. Trying to make any part of it feel easy. "No med school."
Andrew's eyes only narrowed more, his jaw tightening.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” you said. “I’ll tell them something came up. Or I’ll defer, maybe. People do that, right? They defer.”
His hands tightened into fists at his side, fingers curling in slow, controlled increments.
“It’s fine,” you said, talking faster now because he wasn’t saying anything, and the silence was getting worse the longer he held you under his stare, no matter how loud the house was around you. “I can work. I can help more. I already know half the shit you guys need before you even ask me. Have you talked to Deran about the mattress warehouse off the 23? Because I was thinking if you hit it before—”
And then he was reaching for you, a hand closed around your wrist, and he was moving.
You stumbled one step after him, your shoulders bumping into strangers. You didn't have time to apologize because he was pulling you so quickly, his broad back making a path ahead. You set your beer down to not add to the drinks already spilled on the floor, tugging at his strong hold.
"Andrew—"
He didn't answer, nor did he stop.
"Andrew, please—wait—" and then you saw he was bee lining for the back gate, and you dug your heels into the concrete of the pool deck, the rough edge of it catching under your flip flops as you tried to hold yourself in place.
He whirled around to glare at you, his grip tightening just enough to sear your skin. You had half a mind to be a little scared, but you just looked at him back with the same iciness, refusing to give him that.
"Stop, let's stay." you said, and then, a little softer, "Let's have a drink and go hide in your room."
His lip curled, and he was reaching out to grab you again, but you slipped free.
You ran back to slip into the house, to maybe weave through the crowd and lock yourself away, but he was on you when you met a road block of bodies, his arms going around your waist, locking in before you could twist away.
To anyone else, this probably looked normal. Playful roughhousing with one of the Cody boys and their girl. And besides, no one stopped Pope Cody when he was in the middle of something. No one even really questioned it.
He manhandled you into his arms, even as you squirmed, his hold already set, already decided.
"Andrew—get off!" you yelled, trying in vain to push him. "Get off!!"
But it was no use, he was breathing heavily, his eyes a mix of muddled color and pain, something too tight behind them, like he was making himself do this, no matter how badly he didn't want to be rough with you. His hands were so big, his muscles bigger, and in no time your gravity was being lurched off its axis, and you were being flung over his shoulder.
You slammed your fist into his lower back, his hand coming over the back of your thighs to stop your kicking.
“Put me down!” you shouted, hair falling into your face, blood rushing to your head. “Andrew Cody, put me down right now!”
“No.”
You shrieked in humiliation, in frustration, and he was walking out the back gate. He carried you across the driveway while you hit at him, furious, mortified, trying to twist enough to get a knee into his chest, his side, anything. Pavement blurred beneath you. The hood of your car flashed in the moonlight. He shifted you higher when you nearly slipped, palm pressing hard into the back of your thigh, his breathing heavy but controlled, like he had shut every other part of himself off except the part that knew how to move, how to get this done.
He came around to the front of the car, and opened the driver's side door.
Gravity whirled once again and the world tilted as he brought you back upright, only to push you off balance again and into the front seat.
"No!" you exclaimed, hands hooking at the door edge.
He didn't say anything, only was shoving your limbs into the seat, hands at your shoulders when you tried pushing back, firm, unyielding, not giving you an inch to work with.
"Andrew—stop!"
"No."
"Fuck—" you tried to push him away, "—off!"
You shoved at his chest and tried to duck under his arm, but he caught you again and again, both hands closing around the caps of your shoulders, pushing you down into the seat.
“You’re going.” he finally muttered.
“I’m not!” you spat back.
“You’re going.”
You wouldn't give in, twisting in the seat so your legs were half out the car door. Trying to stand again, he stepped between your knees, his body blocking the open space, boots planted in the ground, one hand catching both of your wrists when you swung at him.
“Andrew!”
“You’re going.”
The words came out of him like he had to force them through his teeth. Like it was all he could say.
“I want to be here!” you shouted. “Why is that so fucking hard for you to understand?”
His eyes burned into yours.
He didn't say anything else, the two of you a tangle of limbs until his hands snapped over the joints of your wrists, holding them tightly between you. You were heaving in breath, your muscles aching, the hair at your cheeks sticking to your face with what you realized then were tears.
“I love you.” you croaked.
He paused for a moment, looking down at you.
“I love you,” you said again, louder, like maybe if you said it hard enough he would stop looking at you like that. “I want to be with you. I want to live with you. I want to work with you. I want this.”
Your tears began to pour hot and fast, slipping down before you could do anything about them.
“Say it back,” you begged, trying in vain to push at his chest with the hands he held firmly in his grip.
He didn’t answer. But he'd had the worst frown on his face you'd ever seen. His eyes hard, brows drawn, as you begged—
“Say it, Andy.”
His mouth pressed into a line.
Your wrists twisted under his hand, but there was no real fight in it anymore. Your whole body had gone loose in pieces, anger draining out and leaving behind a panic so raw and ugly you felt almost humiliated.
“Tell me you love me,” you begged.
His face changed.
“Say it back.” you cried.
He looked down at his feet, his mouth twisting, his brows threading.
“No.” Your pleaded, hands trying to grip at him, but he held you too tightly. "No, look at me. Tell me you love me.”
He was breathing hard through his nose. His eyes were wet and mean with the effort of keeping it in, and that hurt worse than if he had screamed at you. You wished he'd just say something.
“Please,” you said again.
His hands dropped from your wrists as fast as if they'd been burned, and came to your face instead, both palms catching your cheeks, rough and too fast, his fingers curving harshly into your hair. He pulled your face up to look directly at him, his thumbs slipping through your tear tracks.
“Of course I love you,” he snapped, voice cracking. “Of course I do. What do you think this is?”
“Andy—”
“You have to go.” His voice split again, and he looked furious, whether it was at you or himself, you couldn't tell. But it was terrifying. The tears were beginning to blur your eyes. “You have to. You’re meant to do this. You’re meant to be a doctor. You’re not meant to be here with me and this—this shit.”
"I don't care—"
"You deserve a chance at a normal life." he said tightly, more a whisper than words. "I didn't. You have to go. You have to."
He stood there, shoulders rigid, mouth flat. It was his turn to beg.
“Please, sweetheart. You have to."
You threw him off of you, shoving him away, and he let go this time. You reached for the keys where he had thrown them into the cupholder at some point. You didn’t remember him doing it. You didn’t remember anything except his face, his hands, the sound of his voice telling you no.
You slammed the door and put the car in reverse with your whole body shaking, not looking at him. The tires screeched as he stayed where he was, his chest heaving as he watched you, his face crumbling entirely.
At the end of the driveway, you took one final look back in your rearview mirror.
You could just make out the tears falling down his face, his hands in his hair, elbows flared. Panic there, in his eyes. But relief too.
Relief in watching you leave.
now
Redbeard's was a dingy thing in downtown, thankfully close to your apartment, though you didn't even stop home. As badly as you wanted—hell, needed— to wash off the day, you knew once you made it through the door the fear would keep you from walking out again. And you hadn't gotten Jack's number. Picturing him waiting alone at the bar… on his only night off… you couldn't do it. To him, to you…to Andrew.
You found him outside, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone close to his face as he read something on the screen. It was like he sensed you coming, whatever strange sixth sense the two of you had for one another prickling up his spine to make him look.
You still had to stifle the gasp that threatened when his eyes found yours.
Jack Abbot, you told yourself again and again. Jack Abbot, not Andrew Cody.
For one brief, insane moment, you wondered if Andrew was with you there. If he was standing somewhere beside Jack on that gum spotted sidewalk, looking him over with that severe set to his mouth, suspicious of the warm little smile pulling at the man's face. Or maybe he would have been looking at you instead. Maybe he would have been smiling too, pleased in that way he got when you were brave.
You didn't even believe in ghosts, or spirits, or heaven or hell. Of any afterlife in which Andrew Cody's spirit would be there that night. You believed wholly in science. In blood and oxygen and a heart and a brain to keep a person alive… And you believed that when those things stopped, when there was no blood flowing to the brain, when the cells began to starve, there was no secret door opening somewhere else.
But that night, standing outside a bar in humid Pennsylvania while fireworks whistled and cracked and died somewhere distant over the water, you felt something too strange to dismiss.
Because… what if… what if there was something? What if there was some universe in which Andrew Cody and Jack Abbot's wife could see the two of you exactly as you were. Lonely, sad people who still carried their ghosts around. Maybe they knew. Maybe they had found each other out there, wherever it was, and maybe Jack’s wife had told Andrew about the man she left behind. How good he was, how he needed you and you needed him.
What other explanation was there?
When you approached Jack, there was an awfully familiar twinkle in his eye that had your lips pulling up into a real smile.
"Hey." you sighed.
“Hi,” he said, then cleared his throat a little. “Thank you for… coming out.”
You shrugged, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jeans to mirror him. “Guess I was curious about 'what the fuck this all is',”
Jack’s smile widened. His head tipped back for half a second before it ducked, his eyes dropping toward the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” he said finally with a nod. “Me too.”
You tilted your head at him. “Shall we?”
His eyes moved over you then, from the top of your head to the toes of your shoes, then back up to your face. It wasn’t the kind of look that undressed you. It was stranger than that. Softer. As if he was trying to make sense of the person standing in front of him, alive and still somehow carrying the woman he had lost.
How two lives could run so far apart and still end up here, on the same humid night, grief and curiosity braiding curiously through the two of you like some invisible red thread.
He nodded, then turned and opened the door.
“After you.”
I’ll be honest I looked over this maybe twice before posting so please excuse any inconsistencies or grammar mistakes! ilysm and THANK YOU FOR READING 🤍
part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | masterlist | ao3
rabbot x reader
summary: You’re Robby’s favorite reward. When his staff earns it, he doesn’t hesitate to offer you up. Your night does not turn out how you planned.
|| smut MDNI 18+, more poly discussions, possessiveness, subspace, dom/sub dynamics, pinv [with jack], pussy slapping, crying during sex, big sub drop!!!, intense orgasm, big emotions, jack learning how to dom, m!receiving oral, aftercare, robby is a capital C cuck ||
a/n: here is that second part for you! please please please heed the crying tag, this is a very intense chapter for reader.
wc: 11k
You were grateful it wasn't a far drive. It wasn't that the trip was an awkward one, but things still felt tense. You played with a frayed edge of your sweater, trying very hard not to look over at Brendon Park in the driver's seat.
You could understand that what you and Robby had looked odd from the outside. But there wasn't a world in which you could see yourself doing anything different. What Brendon wanted… wasn't something you could give.
It hurt to think it, to think about him one day understanding and maybe finding a cute nurse or fellow surgeon to fill that space for him. Someone who could ride in the exact passenger seat you were in now, in his sleek black BMW, where he'd pull her hand up to let his lips occasionally brush over her knuckles at a red light. Someone he could laugh with and kiss softly without either of them wondering if it would be the last time. Someone who wanted dinner dates and easy goodnights and the normal, steady forward motion of a relationship that made sense to everyone looking at it.
That version of you had died in the car accident years ago, it felt like.
The version who dated because dating meant marriage one day. A house with children's voices filled the halls. Parents to take care of, holidays to split. A future like felt like tempting something cruel by wanting too much of it.
By the time you pulled up to Robby's, you were nearly in tears again, but this time it had nothing to do with Brendon saying the wrong thing. It was your own spiraling thoughts, your own grief, your own stupid imagination handing him a life without you.
"Maybe you should just—" you began, one hand already on the door handle.
But Brendon was already getting out of the car.
Shit.
You jogged up behind him to catch up, but before you could reach for the door in hopes of sneaking in without being seen, the large oak door was pulling in.
Robby stood in the threshold, one hand still on the knob, his brows pulling together at the sight of the ortho surgeon in front of you.
"Hi, honey." he said stiffly.
Except he was looking at Park.
"Hi." you said, stopping just beside the ortho surgeon.
Robby's eyes moved over you, quick at first, then again a little slower. You didn't know what he was looking for. You wondered what he saw—glossy, red eyes, a swollen mouth, if your clothes were still askew. The whole assessment made your stomach turn, mostly because you knew you were failing some part of it without knowing.
"What do we have here?" Robby asked.
"Brendon was just dropping me—"
From somewhere behind him, you heard Jack call your name, the clacking of crutches against the wood floor, and then he appeared at Robby's shoulder, his expression changing almost immediately when he saw who was standing there.
Park looked at Jack, then at Robby, and his mouth pulled into a smile that made your entire body want to leave. He looked like his coined nickname. His teeth gleaming in the dark with a smile that was not really a smile at all.
"Well," he said with a dark chuckle. "Isn't this rich."
Your eyes flitted between the three of them—Robby and Jack were looking at him strangely now, both of them wearing different versions of the same hard expression. No one explained anything. No one even really moved. The three of them just looked at one another and somehow you understood there was a conversation happening that you were not part of, some silent thing passing over your head while you tried to figure it out.
Robby leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, almost casual if not for the look in his eyes.
“Surprised you stayed long enough to walk her to the door,” he said.
Park’s smile sharpened, quick with his retort. “Surprised you let her out of the house.”
Jack gave a quiet breath through his nose. “Christ. Do you rehearse that shit on the drive over?”
Park’s eyes slid to him. “Still here, Abbot?”
“Looks like it.”
“Must be nice. Robby always did like keeping a spare around.”
Jack’s mouth pulled to one side. “And you always did mistake being tolerated for being wanted.”
“Okay,” you said, cutting them off, trying to step forward. “I’m gonna go inside now.”
But Park's hand came up before you could move far. It wasn't rough or menacing in any way, hell—he'd put his hand on the back of your neck plenty of times before, it was a touch you usually liked. But tonight it felt different. Your breath caught, more from confusion than anything else. You looked back at him just as his thumb settled on the side of your throat.
Park looked down at you. "Where's my goodnight kiss?"
The silence after that was immediate and awful.
Your lips parted, but nothing came out. You looked at Robby before you could stop yourself, then at Jack, because you had no clue where the rules were right now. You didn't know what had changed in the time between leaving earlier and now as you stood under the porch light with Park's hands on you.
Your eyes stayed on Robby—his face had gone almost amused. Brows lifting faintly, mouth relaxed in a way that could've looked calm to anyone who didn't know better. But you did. You knew better. You knew the difference between calm and deadly quiet.
Jack, on the other hand, looked like he was battling his inner most thoughts of stepping over the threshold to start throwing right hooks.
Robby looked over at him, "What do you think, Jack? Think our guy deserves it?"
Jack's head turned slightly, eyes still fixed on Park.
You looked at him too, pulse jumping. There was a beat where you almost didn't understand what Robby had done—but then you did.
Jack was part of this now. Jack got a say. Robby was giving him the space to use it.
Jack's answer came without hesitation. "Absolutely fucking not."
"Oh." Park said, glancing between them with that look that made your blood rush cold. "Big man lets you make decisions for our girl now?"
"Our girl, huh?" Jack scoffed. "Not sure you get that privilege. Look at her, Park. The hell did you do?"
Park’s thumb soothed up and down your neck. You weren’t sure if it was tender there because of his touch or because of what you knew was true.
You sniffled, the emotions ready to boil up again. You felt stupid standing there in front of two men who’d had such a good conversation with you earlier, who’d trusted you to understand what this was, and you’d gone and done this.
It was just kissing, you told yourself. Relax.
But still. Whether it looked like more or not, it still felt like crossing a line now. You were certain the argument was still all over your face, the evidence of you and Park written into your rumpled hair, your swollen mouth, the way you could barely bring yourself to look at Robby or Jack.
Robby pushed off the doorway, reaching his hand out to you, "C'mon, honey. Inside."
Park's hand tightened on your neck for a moment, just a little squeeze, before you were moving forward and accepting Robby's hand in yours. His fingers closed around you gently, but there was no mistaking the way he pulled you toward him, out of Park's reach and into the house.
You turned to say goodnight to him, heart still up in your throat.
But the front door was already closing behind you with a heavy slam.
The three of you stood silently in the foyer. You could hear Park's receding footsteps, his car starting outside, the engine revving loudly before peeling from the curb. You waited until you couldn't hear the angry thrumming of it before you spoke again, breathing uneven.
"I had no clue he was going to be there." you whispered quickly.
Robby nodded, eyes down on the floor. His weight shifted back and forth between his feet. He looked sort of folded in on himself, one arm wrapped around his middle, the other bent up with his hand over his beard, rubbing the heel of his palm against his mouth.
Jack stood just beside him, looking between the two of you, his weight a little uneven where he leaned onto his crutches. His expression was still stormy, but somehow you knew it wasn't at you.
"What the hell happened?" he asked.
"Everything was fine—" you began, swallowing hard, "I was just hanging out with Jesse and Mel mostly, and Brendon just…showed up out of nowhere. He said he wanted to talk to me."
"Just to talk, huh?" Robby asked, a little humorous.
"I thought so." you said, your voice small.
Robby's eyes lifted to yours then, and your stomach tightened at whatever he saw on your face.
"How do you explain that then?" he asked, pointing.
Your hand came up immediately, fingers pressing to the side of your neck.
Your skin felt hot beneath your touch, tender too, but you still didn't understand. You only knew that both of them had seen something there outside. That Brendon had put his hand there.
Robby reached for you with one arm, careful but firm, drawing you closer by the shoulder. He turned you toward the mirror by the front door.
For one second, all you saw was yourself.
Your cardigan pulled crooked from the drive home. Your hair a little mussed from the party. Your eyes glossy and red. Your face a little peaky and strained.
But then your eyes drifted down, and your mouth parted in surprise.
"Oh, shit." you whispered, grimacing. You touched the column of your throat again, lighter this time, and the soreness answered under your fingertips. The whole night folded backward in your head at once—Brendon's mouth on you in the bathroom, sucking and nipping hard at your neck. How he'd made sure that they'd seen it when you were being passed over like a hostage negotiation on the porch.
Robby sighed, "So? What happened?"
You turned around and headed for the kitchen before you could answer, because standing in front of the mirror with both of them looking at your bruised throat made you want to crawl out of your skin. You padded across the house, kicking your shoes off somewhere near the edge of the hallway, then flinging your cardigan over the back of a kitchen chair as you made a straight line for the cabinets.
You filled it with water, took a few sips, then filled it again and stood there with one hand braced on the counter, trying to breathe like a person who was absolutely not about to get herself in even more trouble by explaining the trouble she was already in.
Robby and Jack followed you in after a moment. Jack took the barstool closest to the end of the counter, setting his crutches carefully against it, while Robby stayed standing at the side, both hands pressed into the cool granite.
"He said—he was just apologizing for last week." you said, looking at Jack, who was grinding down on his teeth hard enough that you could see the muscles tensing under his skin. "He said he missed me, and then—" you licked your lips, "he kissed me, and things kind of got heated…"
"Did you have sex with him?" Robby asked.
"No!" you said quickly, heat flashing up your face. "No. It was just kissing. He, um—we—"
You looked at Jack, then back at Robby, because there was no good direction to send your eyes.
Robby lifted his hands to his face, rubbing them hard up and down before hooking them behind his neck. His elbows flared out, his fingers squeezing at his own nape, and heels of his palms pressing into his cheeks for a second before he dropped his hands again and looked toward Jack.
"Jack, I need to hear all of this." Robby's voice was controlled with forced calm. "If it's something that's going to upset you, you can head home. Thanks for hanging here tonight. With me. But I don't want you to get—"
Jack shook his head, "No, it's okay. I want to be part of this. The good and the bad. Go ahead."
"Are you mad at me?" you asked, your voice so small it felt childish.
Jack hesitated, but then he reached across the counter, his hand wrapping gently around your wrist. His thumb pressed at the pulse there, so warm and steady, and his head tilted until you had no choice but to meet his eyes.
"No, sweetheart." he said. "I'm not mad at you. I'm pissed at Park for acting like a possessive asshole."
Robby let out a big, heavy breath, almost a groan, his head tipping back for a second before he looked down again.
"I'm gonna need to talk to him this week." he said. "Put an end to this bullshit he keeps pulling."
"I didn't stop him, though, it's my fault too—"
Jack's hand tightened a little around your wrist. "How did he know you were even there?" he asked. "Was he there from the start?"
"I think Frankie told him." You shook your head, trying to pull the whole night into order and failing. Your brain still felt a little fuzzy, but all the chaos of the evening had sobered you up quickly. "I don't know. That part was confusing. I'm sorry. I smoked a little with Jesse, and—"
"Did anything happen with Jesse?" Robby cut in.
You bit your lip. But nodded. "We kissed."
Robby's eyes stayed on you, big and brown and hurt in a way that made your chest cave in around itself.
"Our four weeks are up, Robby." you said, trying to hold onto that even as your voice wavered. "I'm allowed to kiss people."
He shut his eyes tightly.
"We should've discussed it first." he murmured.
You looked away, shaking your head. "No, see, this is the thing—you can't just change the rules whenever you think—"
"I'm not changing rules, honey." Robby's voice climbed despite the fact that he was clearly trying to keep it steady, his hands falling back to the counter as his eyes opened on you. "But you are doing things without talking to me first. Don't you understand how that feels?"
You looked over to Jack.
"Listen," Jack sighed, shaking his head and sitting back, "I'm new to this, sure, but I agree with Robby, sweetheart. We should've talked about it before you left. But that's partially on us. On me. I got carried away, we barely talked about what that looked like going forward, especially with the others."
Your stomach sank, even as his eyes softened at the look on your face. Your hands tightened around your glass of water, condensation making it sweat a little.
"Brendon was mad because he thinks I'm…" You went on, licking your dry lips. "He thinks you—Robby, I mean—he thinks you're keeping me in something. Or making me do things. I don't know. It's like he's always trying to save me from something."
Robby looked at you.
"Do you want him to?"
When you looked back at Robby, his face was so open, so plain with hurt, with expecting the answer he always feared.
"No," you said, your voice even for the first time since you got home. "No, I don't."
Robby's breath left him slowly.
You set the glass down and took one step toward him before you could overthink it. He met you halfway, arms wrapping around you from behind, turning you so your back to was his chest in a hold that was firm enough to make your eyes sting. You let your head fall back against him, your hands closing over his forearms, feeling the comforting shape of him around you.
"You should've at least texted me." he said in your ear. His voice had settled, the hurt soothed with touch. "That he was there… that you wanted to… I don't know."
You nodded your head. "It all happened so fast. I'm sorry."
His arms tightened. For a moment, he didn't answer, and you wondered if he couldn't yet. If the apology wasn't enough, if the hickey was still too bright under the kitchen light, if Jesse's and Park's name and the porch were all sitting too heavily between the three of you.
Then his lips brushed near your ear. "It's okay, honey." he said. "Do you want to tell me what else happened?"
Your eyes opened, and you looked over at Jack, who was watching the two of you from the barstool. He gave you a small nod, his expression still tense, but steadier now.
You breathed in. "We…went into the bathroom."
Robby didn't move behind you. "Okay."
"We…there was a lot of, like, heavy petting, grinding." You whispered, your face already going hot again, because there was no way to say any of this that didn't sound awful and embarrassing in your own mouth. "He…"
Jack sat forward a little. "What did he do?"
You covered your eyes with one hand. "Um. He…finished."
Robby stilled behind you.
"But you didn't—?"
"Clothes stayed on." you said quickly.
There was a pause.
When you looked through the slats of your eyes, Jack had his lips pressed together hard, mirth clouding his eyes as he looked over your shoulder.
"Don't—" you groaned, trying to bite back your own smile.
You felt Robby try not to laugh, his chest pressing harder against your back before the sound finally broke loose into your neck. "Damn."
"He came in his pants for you?" Jack asked, his voice already shaking with the laugh he was failing to hold back.
"Jack."
"I'm just asking for clarification."
"Poor guy." Robby said, a laugh still shaking his chest behind you.
"Stop…." you groaned, feeling bad for Brendon now that you'd said it. "Be nice."
"What?" His brows lifted, but there was finally some life in his face again, something warmer creeping in around the edges of his anger. "Not like he deserves any niceties after the shit he pulled."
"He was being an asshole." Robby agreed.
"Can we please not make fun of him too much?" you asked, softer now. as you wrapped your arms around where his pressed against your chest. "I know he was being shitty outside, but he was upset. And I feel bad."
"What a sweet girl you are, feeling bad for the Shark." Robby said, then kissed near your ear again, not quite your cheek, not quite your neck.
"Anything else?" he asked.
You breathed out, fingers curling lightly around his forearm.
"No," you said. "That's it."
Robby sighed behind you, his arms adjusting tighter around your shoulders, forearms still laid firm over your chest. Comforting, somehow, even with the weight of the night still sitting around all of you. He had every reason to be upset. To feel lied to, maybe, or left out, or undermined by the way Park had stood on his porch with his hand around your neck. You had been ready for a real argument when you walked in, half from what Park had turned the night into and half from how tightly wound you had become on the ride home.
"I do think some form of… retribution is in order, though." Robby said in your ear. His lips grazed the shell of it, and goosebumps rushed up your arms before you could pretend otherwise.
You licked your lips, eyes widening as you looked over at Jack's growing grin.
"Why don't you…" Robby began, pausing to kiss your earlobe, "go into the bedroom and strip for us."
Your breath caught.
"I'd like you waiting for us on the bed when we come in." His eyes moved to Jack then, and his voice changed a little, rougher. "What do you think, Jack? Fully nude? Or should we let her keep something on?"
Jack pressed his lips together, trying and failing to tame the smile on his face.
"I think I'd like to see what color she's got on, brother." His gaze came back to you. "Panties and bra only, sweetheart."
Robby's hand moved under your chin, turning your face just enough for him to see you. "Okay?"
You nodded, breath already coming quicker.
His thumb brushed along your chin, then over your lips, parting them as his eyes grew hungrier. "Words."
"Yes," you said. "Okay."
"Good girl."
Your thighs pressed together, and Robby's arms finally dropped from around you as he said: "Go on."
You started past him, trying for dignity and not getting very far before his hand cracked lightly against your ass.
You squealed, half scandalized and half laughing, and bolted toward the main bedroom before either of them could see just how badly your legs had begun to shake.
Only a few minutes later you were sitting on the bed, only your bralette and panties on.
You'd thought about changing into something cuter, something matching or just… sexier, but thought better of it. Robby would know, and then he might add onto whatever punishment he had in store. So it was just the little blue cheekies you'd worn that day and your black bralette. You reached up to adjust the one strap that twisted slightly after pulling off your shirt.
The men had made their way in eventually, Robby taking the armchair by the door, leather made and tucked into the corner. Jack walked in, smiling down at you as he made his way around the bed. You lifted your eyes to follow him, heart jumping a little when he slowed beside you. He reached out and cupped your jaw, thumb brushing along your cheek, not saying anything. Just looking at you for one long, warm moment before he readjusted his grip on the crutches and passed.
Once he settled against the cushions of the bed, you turned your head to look at Robby, who's eyes were narrowed, but you could see the smirk pulling his lips.
"Come over here." he said, patting his thigh. Your tongue slipped over your bottom lip before you could help it. Jack's attention followed you as you stood from the bed, and you let your hips swing a little on the walk over.
You went to go to Robby's side, where you usually draped across him for these sorts of things—over his knee—but his hand shot out, only to lay gently on your hip. He squeezed, and shook his head.
"Not today. Sit up and face him."
You looked over to Jack, then back at him, your eyes clouded by uncertainty.
Robby nodded, patting his thigh again, "C'mon now. Be a good girl."
The words worked, sending a rush of tingling heat through you. All you wanted to do was make him happy when your blood began to rush like this and he got that look in his eye. So you slowly lowered yourself onto his knee, facing the bed, facing Jack, and Robby's arms closed around you from behind, forearms crossing your middle as he pulled you back to his chest. The hair on his arms brushed your bare skin, his breath against your ear.
"Can you tell Jack what your safeword is, honey?"
You sucked in a breath, nodding, "Pickleback."
Jack grimaced. "Quite the choice. I prefer Yuengling."
You smiled.
"And," Robby continued, his lips close to your shoulder now, "when you can't talk?"
You lifted your hand and snapped twice.
Robby kissed your shoulder. "Very good. Now…do you know why I need to correct your behavior?"
"Yes." you breathed. Your blood had become loud in your ears, nerves scattering through your limbs, down your belly, between your legs. Jack's eyes were darkening as he watched you from the bed.
"Why is that, honey?"
You swallowed. "I—I didn't talk to you before…before Brendon."
"Before Brendon what?"
"Before he and I…um…"
Your eyes drifted before you could stop them.
Jack had settled back against the pillows, knees parted, one hand near his lap and the other stretched over the cushions. His shirt was a little rumpled where he'd thrown it off at the edge of the bed, his mouth twitching, but the look on his face had changed. Less gentle now, less amused. He looked comfortable there, almost cocky, watching you sit half-naked in Robby's lap while you tried to confess your sins.
His staring made your pupils dilate to drink him in. He looked so good, so tempting spread over your pillows like that.
Robby's hand went to your face, and his thumb and forefinger pinched your cheeks as he shook you only infinitesimally. "I'm talking to you, young lady. Before you and Brendon what?"
Your stomach flipped.
"Before we went into the bathroom."
His hand left your face and traveled down the front of you, so slow, making you feel every rough callous of his fingertips. They ventured your throat, your chest, slipping under the edge of your bralette and traced the sensitive flesh beneath before completely sliding into the cup to massage at your breast. He hummed in approval, your head lolling a little at the feeling of his hands on you.
"Did you have fun tonight, honey?" he asked, his voice low and hoarse.
You knew better than to lie. "Kind of."
Through your half-lidded eyes, you could still see Jack. His face was amused, still watching you, but his eyes had darkened. "Kind of?" he echoed.
You nodded. "I wish… I wish I had just come home." you hiccuped as Robby pinched your nipple under the fabric. Your hands went to his legs, gripping them tightly, nails digging in. A little sound slipped out as he switched to the other side, slipping his hand under the cotton covering you again.
"Why's that?" Robby whispered.
"He was… he was such an asshole after." you breathed out.
Jack's jaw ticked.
Robby's palm flattened over your breast, holding you there for a moment before sliding down your stomach. His other arm stayed locked around you, keeping your back to his chest when your body wanted to squirm.
"S'okay, honey." he said. "I'll talk to him."
Your eyes fluttered shut.
"No more Shark tonight." His lips touched the side of your head. "You're home. You're with us now."
You nodded. "I'm sorry—I'm sorry for tonight."
You meant it for both of them, and when you looked over, Jack's features had softened. Robby kissed your shoulder again, squeezing you against him a little harder.
"I know, honey. I know. It's okay. Gonna take care of you." His mouth brushed your skin. "But first—"
His hand slid down your belly and over your thigh, hooking your knee over his and opening you up before doing the same with the other. You gasped when your balance shifted, body falling back entirely into him, spread open on his lap with nowhere to hide.
He hummed, and you watched Jack as his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. His hand went to his jeans again, not resting this time but squeezing over the growing bulge there, the heel of his palm pressing down.
"Do you wanna tell her what we're gonna do, or do you want me to?" Robby asked.
Jack's head tilted, his eyes dark as they moved over you. "Robby's gonna make sure you remember to tell us when Dr. Park shows up next time, sweetheart." His voice had dropped rougher, the sound of it making your thighs squirm over Robby's. "And then you're gonna come over here, and I'm gonna have my turn with you."
You wondered if they could see your pulse through your skin, how hard it was beating, how every part of you had gone hot and embarrassed and eager all at once.
"Wha—what's my punishment?" you asked meekly.
"Let me show you." Robby murmured.
His hand moved from your thigh to the front of your panties, his fingers soothing over the damp cotton where your arousal had already started to soak the fabric. His long digits felt so good it was almost like relief as they rubbed over your covered mound.
You barely had time to understand the change in his touch before his palm lifted.
Smack!
You lurched, stomach pitching, your heart stopping, mouth opening into an—"Ah!"
Robby groaned behind you, his chest vibrating against your back as his arm locked tighter around your middle. He gave you half a breath to settle, then lifted his hand again and brought it down in the same place, the same pressure, the sting blooming hot through the fabric. This time, your surprised gasp turned into a moan.
Jack's smile pulled wide from the bed. "Is it really a punishment if she likes it, brother?"
"Oh, yes." Robby said, voice thick with amusement. "Yes, indeed."
His fingers hooked over your panties then, pulling them aside, and Jack let out a little groan at the sight of you. Wet. Eager. "Fuckkk…" he whispered, his hand tightening at his pants.
Robby's mouth came back to your ear, low enough that only you could hear him. "Go ahead and ask him, honey. Know you want to watch."
You swallowed, breathless, eyes fixed on Jack. "Jackie, I wanna see you play with yourself. Please."
Jack smiled wider at the nickname, "Happy to, sweetheart."
He unbuttoned his jeans slowly, watching your face while he pushed them down enough to free himself. His heavy cock settled in his hand, and your breath stopped short as you watched him stroking himself there on Robby's bed, the other hand gripping into the pillows harder behind him as his head tilted back for a moment, teeth tucking over his bottom lip.
Then his eyes came back to you.
"Again." he said, looking past you to Robby.
"Hold these open for me, honey," Robby said, bringing your hand down to your center.
Jesus Christ.
You brought your own hand down and hooked your fingers into your cotton panties, holding them aside the way he asked. Your whole body burning from the position, from the exposure, from the fact this was all because of a stupid hickey and a man with an ego.
Robby's hand made contact with your waiting pussy with an even louder, wet smack!
"Fuck!" you squealed. The pain was sharper without the cotton there to soften it, the sting spreading up through your belly and down your thighs into your toes. Your knees tried to close, your grip slipped, your back curling against Robby's chest as his other hand kept you held open for him at your knee.
"Good girl, good girl." Robby soothed, mouth grazing your hair. "C'mon now. A few more."
You whined as the sting settled into heat, your breath shaky while you forced your legs open again and fixed your grip on the ruined and soaked edge of your panties.
Smack, smack, smack!
Three in a row, each one landing wet and mean against you, had your head falling back, eyes rolling as the moan tore out of you. The sting stayed, bright and pulsing, your hips trying to run from it and rock into it at the same time.
Robby's breathing had gone rough behind you.
Jack cursed under his breath, hand moving faster over his cock, his eyes fixed between your legs like he couldn't look away.
Robby let his fingers slide up and down your sopping folds, sensitive to his touch, making you moan anyway.
"You're so wet, honey. How are you so wet from just a little smacking, hm? You enjoy your punishment?"
"God, yes."
"Ask for more then."
"Please," you whispered. "Please."
"Ask Jack like a good girl."
You opened your eyes, wet with the prickling of tears from the sting. His mouth was open, his fist pumping a little faster, his chest rising and falling under the strain.
"Please, Jack, please. Can I have more?"
"Fuck, yes, sweetheart." His voice was rough, almost breaking around the words. "Go on. Give her five more. Then she's mine."
You bit on your bottom lip, your eyebrows threading, body tensing as you waited for it.
When all five came at once in a speedy rhythm—smacksmacksmacksmacksmack!—you were mewling, crying out in pain and pleasure, shutting your thighs quickly. Robby's hand was still over your pussy, the press of his fingers relieving there as he growled into your ear.
"Gooood fucking girl, takin' it so well, honey. S'okay, s'okay, you've learned your lesson, huh?"
"Yes!" you squealed.
"Okay, okay, breeeeeathe, honey." His hand stayed between your legs, rubbing now, soothing over the ache he'd put there. "Just breathe. Can you look at me?"
You did so, peeking your eyes up at him. You'd kind of fallen down his lap as your body twitched and curled in from the pain, looking up at him from where your neck was cramped against his belly. You could feel, suddenly, the bulging tent in his pants against your shoulder.
His other hand came up to cup your face, his eyes sparkling with pride. "You did so good, honey. Why don't you go over to Jack and tell him how grateful you are for your punishment, hm?"
You nodded, trying to get up on shaky legs. As you stood, you heard a click of teeth from behind you.
Robby's eyes had darkened as he looked up at you from beneath his lashes. "Crawl."
You immediately obeyed, knowing that tone, and getting on your hands and knees.
"Jesus." you heard from the bed.
Your knees touched the carpet first, your palms following. The sting between your legs made every little movement feel too shaky. Your eyes locked onto Jack, who had slowed his hand around himself now, watching you with his mouth parted and his eyes blown wide.
You began crawling toward him.
Behind you, Robby shifted in the chair, and you heard the low sound of his zipper coming down. You knew he was watching the way your ass moved, the way your panties were askew and ruined, the way your thighs trembled each time you brought yourself closer to the bed.
Jack's hand had stopped completely by the time you reached him.
You crawled up between his open legs, smiling a little at the look on his face, at the way he seemed caught between reaching for you and waiting to see what you would do first.
"Hi, handsome," you murmured.
"Hey, sweetheart." he whispered, finally reaching out to pet your face with his free hand.
You leaned into it, eyes fluttering before you remembered what Robby had told you to do. Your hands settled on Jack's thighs, fingers curling into the fabric of his jeans as you looked up at him from between his knees.
"Thank you." you said softly.
"You're very welcome, sweetheart." he murmured, "What good manners you have."
You bit down on your lip, his warm look of pride and eagerness making your belly twist on itself. You looked down at his thick, throbbing length in his hand.
"Can I help you with that?" you asked cheekily.
He smiled wider, "Think we could work something out."
You glanced over your shoulder at Robby, only for Jack's hand to move to your chin, stopping you. "Eyes on me. Don't look at him."
"Listen to Jack, honey." you heard Robby say from the corner.
"Okay," you nodded, your smile gone, your heart leaping into your throat, "yes, Jack."
His thumb brushed over your bottom lip, and you opened for him, taking it into your mouth without being told. You sucked gently, tongue moving around him, letting your teeth graze his knuckle enough to make him groan. It was a noise you missed.
"Do you want me to suck your cock, Jack?" you asked, eyes wide as you kissed his thumb.
"That what you want, sweetheart?"
You nodded.
"Go on then." he said.
He laid back into the pillows, and you lowered yourself slowly between his legs, keeping your eyes up until your mouth met the thick head of him. The first taste of him made you moan, your hand curling around his base while the other settled on his thigh. Jack whimpered with you, his hips shifting beneath you when your tongue dragged along the underside.
"Oh, fuck." he breathed, head tipping back. "Oh my god."
You let yourself sink into it, mouth stretching around him, the weight of him heavy on your tongue. Your ass stayed lifted behind you, knees spread on the bed, and you could feel Robby watching from the chair without needing to look. It made you wetter, made you work your mouth slower at first, then greedier when Jack's fingers slid into your hair.
"She gets so fucking wet sucking dick, brother." Robby said from behind you.
Your hips wiggled in response, shameless and involuntary, though you couldn't answer with Jack's cock filling your mouth.
Jack laughed under his breath, gathering your hair in his fist and pulling it clear from your face as you bobbed over him.
"Hold her down." Robby said through what sounded like gritted teeth.
Jack's grip tightened in your hair, and he guided you lower.
You gagged almost immediately, his size too thick, too overwhelming—throat fluttering around him, your nails pressing into his thigh as your eyes watered. You were nowhere near taking all of him, not really, but the sound Jack made above you was enough to make your stomach twist hot and needy.
"Looks to me like you've got some learning to do." Jack said, voice rough from above. "Can you go any deeper, sweetheart? Hm? Or does Robby not teach you these things?"
"Fuck off." you heard from the chair.
Jack chuckled again, breathless, but eased his hand when you gagged again. You pulled back with a gasp, spit slick on your lips and chin, lungs dragging in air while your hand stayed wrapped around him.
You barely had time to recover before Jack was sitting up and kissing you.
His mouth came up hard against yours, open and hungry and wanting— pushing you back into the bed as his hand moved between your shoulder blades to deftly unclasp your bra. It was dragged off with clumsy urgency, tossed somewhere near the pillows, and then he was over you, chest pressing yours, hips heavy between your thighs while he kissed you deeper.
You moaned into his mouth, hands going into his hair, nails digging into his scalp as he settled against you. He felt so good, so warm, so oddly familiar already. The push of his tongue was welcome between your lips, your mouth wet where your spit had dribbled down your lips, his cock hard against your thigh while he kissed you like he'd been waiting all night to get you under him.
"You are so beautiful," he sighed when he unlatched his lips from yours, kissing down your chin, your jaw, onto your neck.
"No, you are." you said with a smile.
"Ha, ha," he chided.
"I mean it." you said, "I'm a lucky girl." you added.
"Think we're the lucky ones." you heard from behind, and you craned your neck to look back at him.
Robby was fisting his own long cock in his hand, but he smiled at you when you met his gaze. You licked your lips, watching his hand move up and down, his other hand coming down to cup his balls. "Look at Jack, honey. Keep your eyes on him like he said. Be a good listener."
Before he'd finished, your chin was being brought down to look not just at him but between your bodies. Jack's cock was lining up with your entrance, and your eyes widened, the memory of the last time rushing up to the forefront of your mind. How big he felt—how he filled you and stretched you like your whole body felt split in half.
"Ohhh god." you breathed, muscles tightening.
Jack looked up at you, then leaned down to press a long kiss to your mouth as he nudged closer, dragging his cock through your wet folds. Both of you moaned at the feeling, your hands clutching at his shoulders, and then he was notching himself at your core.
"Breathe, honey." Robby said from the corner. "Curl your toes if you have to. Let out a long breath."
You did as he said, curling your toes into the bedding, sucking in a long breath through your nose. When you let it out, Jack joined you with a groan and pushed inside.
Your arms and legs clamped around him immediately, fingers pawing at his shoulders, ankles digging into the backs of his thighs.
"Ohgodohgodohgod—"
"S'okay, s'okay," Jack was moaning, petting your hair, his mouth held open in a perfect 'o' and his brows threaded as he pushed further in.
You whimpered as your body adjusted around him, ducking your face into his neck when his weight settled over you. He was hot everywhere, chest to chest, his arms braced around you, his breath breaking against your hair while he worked himself in slow.
"God I missed you," he whispered into your ear, half choked. "Missed you so much sweetheart."
Your belly flipped a little at that, or maybe at the feeling of overwhelming fullness, or your nerves as you felt Robby's eyes on you from behind. Jack held there when he was finally inside you, hips flush, his body pinning yours in place while you shook around him.
"How's that feel, honey?" Robby asked. "How's that big dick feel inside you, huh? Talk to us."
You nodded, clinging to Jack while you forced your shallow breathing to settle, forced your muscles to loosen around him. Finally, you let your head fall back against the bed and turned your eyes toward Robby.
He looked more wrecked than he had a few minutes ago. Before, he had been sitting back, stroking himself slowly with that narrow concentration in his eyes, but now his gaze had gone heavy, his jaw slack, his big hand tightening around the base of his cock. The tip was flushed angry red, precome pearling at the slit while he held himself back.
You licked your lips, blinking slowly.
"He asked you a question, sweetheart," Jack murmured in your ear, nipping your delicate lobe, letting his tongue peek out to trace the shell.
Your skin lit up, your eyes threatened to roll.
"Feels sooo… mmm—ah!" you gasped when he pulled out an inch, "big!"
You had half a mind to glare at both of them when you heard a resounding chuckle through the room.
"And how's she feel, Jack?" Robby asked. "God, I wanna be inside you so bad right now, honey—fuckkk…"
"Oh, our sweet girl feels like goddamn heaven." Jack sighed, pulling his cock out by inches and slowly pushing back in.
Your head knocked back, chin tipping, mouth falling open around a mewling cry as he filled you again, the stretch of him dragging in and out of your cunt, making you feel every notch and vein of his length.
"Yeah, yeah," he sighed out. "I know, I know. Takin' it real slow, getting your little pussy adjusted, right, sweetheart?"
"M-more—" you sighed, legs tightening around him. "Want more."
Jack tipped his head toward Robby, and when you looked up, there was a smirk pulling at his mouth.
"What do ya say, brother?"
"Put her leg over your shoulder." Robby demanded from the corner, the words coming out rough. "Hug it close to your chest. You can—"
"Listen to him." Jack's eyes came back to you, amusement braided through the arousal in his voice, deep and husky as his mouth tilted. "Talkin' to me like I'm one of his residents."
He clicked his teeth and pulled back from where he had been laid over you. For a second, you thought he might do exactly what Robby said, but instead he leaned to grab one of the pillows, pushing it beneath your lower back and ass with a confidence that made your stomach jump.
"He thinks I don't know how you like being fucked." Jack murmured, hands sliding down your thighs, then back up to your hips. "Isn't that right?"
You gnawed at your lip, breath snagging when the shift changed the angle of him inside you. His cock pressed up against you differently now, fuller somehow, deeper without even moving much. Jack hoisted your hips, sheathing himself all the way inside again, and your gasp tore out of you before you could swallow it down.
"He thinks I don't know exactly what angle to make you tighten up real good around me," Jack said, "How to make you see stars, sweetheart."
You heard Robby's warning from the corner: "Abbot…"
"Don't worry," he said, flitting his darkened eyes over to the other attending, "I've done this before."
"You are such a —" you shook your head with a lazy smile, but Jack moved before you could finish.
His hips swung back, and he began fucking you in earnest now, and the words breaking apart in your throat—the new angle dragging you right back to the truck a month ago, to the cramped backseat and the way he had figured out your body with an almost infuriating ease, shifting you up until he found the spot that made your breath go stupid. He found it again now, much faster this time, his hips driving into you with the pillow lifting you up to meet him, your body taking him deeper with every thrust until your vision blurred at the edges.
"Oh fuck, Jack!" you squealed.
His cock pistoned in and out of you now, hard and slick, the sound of it obscene beneath your panting. Heat coiled fast in your belly, your muscles tightening before you were ready for it. Your legs widened around him, hands losing strength where they clung to his wrists, to the sheets, to whatever you could reach as his fingers clamped around your hips and held you in place.
"She's close." Robby said through gritted teeth.
Jack's mouth pulled, the crinkles of his eyes deepening. It was a look of both fondness and cockiness you couldn't take the time to distinguish because that swell in your hips had built up, your pussy constricting his cock, sucking him in.
"You wanna come, sweetheart?" he cooed from above you, hips still snapping into that perfect place. "Been a while, huh?"
You noddded, "Oh, yes, yes—"
Jack's forehead was dappling in sweat, his top teeth hooked over his bottom lip, eyes black and glazed as he watched you under him.
"Jesus, I might—oh god—" he stuttered, lungs catching, his brows pulled together tight. He reached between your bodies, and your eyes widened.
"No no no no—don't!" you shrieked, pleasure shocking up your spine before he had even touched you the way he meant to. "I'm gonna—I can't—I can't hold it—"
"Ask real nice now, honey." Robby moaned from behind you, breathless. "Ask Jack. Ask for it, and you can come. Beg."
"Pleaaaaase!" you moaned, nearly in tears, your brain lagging behind anything that wasn't the hot, overwhelming locking up of your muscles. Your body thrashed under Jack, heels digging into the bedding, hips trying to meet him and run from him at the same time while his cock kept kissing your womb, right at the perfect spot inside you, again and again and again.
His eyes stayed locked on your face.
"Please, what, sweetheart?" His voice shook now, almost whining with you, his own restraint starting to splinter. "C'mon. I'm so close. Gonna come in your sweet pussy if you just ask real nice."
"Please let me come, Jackie, please please please—" The words tore out of you, wet and desperate, your hands clawing uselessly at his shoulders. "I'll be so good, I promise. I'll be so good—I'm—"
He was nodding down at you, breathing hard through his mouth. "Okay, sweetheart. Come for me. Go on—"
"I'm sorry." you choked suddenly, the words coming from somewhere you hadn't meant to open. "I'm sorry for being bad."
Jack's face changed. Yours felt wet and hot now, too.
"Come for us, sweetheart." he said again, softer now, but his voice sounded further away.
"Jack—" you heard Robby say from the corner.
You didn't know what the warning meant. You could barely hear it over the sound of yourself, over the blood in your ears, over the horrible, perfect pressure building too fast to survive.
"Oh fuck—please!" you wailed.
"Go on, it's okay, it's okay, come for us sweetheart."
You realized at once it was tears that were spilling hot down your temples into your hair, over your cheeks. You tried to moan and sobbed instead.
Your body locked up on you, muscles clenching down hard around him. Your back arched so hard it pulled you nearly off the bed, eyes wide open even as your vision went white, as if the whole room had been struck by lightning. The wave that had been building in you for weeks finally crested and broke, but it didn't roll through you the way it usually did. It swallowed everything. Your stomach twisted, your thighs clamped around Jack's hips, your fingers curled so hard they cramped, and Jack's cock pushed in deep, so deep it felt like he hit the center of you and split the feeling open.
When you came back down to earth, everything felt so wrong.
Your vision had cleared, and above you was Jack, his mouth open and panting, his face caught somewhere between awe and panic. His eyes were so wide and unsure.
And you were crying.
Really, really crying. Harder than you had in a very long time.
Through the sobs, you could hear Robby saying something from the corner, but Jack was all you could see. His face shifted as he realized it was not stopping, that the sounds coming out of you were not pleasure anymore. He leaned back over you, mouth parted, hand cupping the side of your head too hard before he caught himself and loosened his grip, fingers dragging into your hair instead.
Their voices came in and out of your ears, fuzzy, but there.
"Shit—shit, shit, I'm sorry—what did I do?"
"Nothing, it's okay—" you heard Robby say. "You didn't do anything wrong—"
You couldn't talk, it was just their voices swirling around you.
"Sweetheart? What's going on?"
"Jack—"
"Sweet girl, look at me, look at me now."
"Abbot."
Jack's voice went quiet, his chin lifting to look at the other attending. He sucked in a deep, calming breath, even as yours felt lost in your chest, choking and wailing and lost in the room, caught somewhere behind your chest where every breath scraped on the way up through your lungs.
Your whole body still hadn’t stopped reacting, little tremors running through your thighs, your stomach, the muscles low in your belly clenching, leaving you open and spent and helpless beneath him while your mind kept trying to catch up to the fact that it was over, that you had come, that after a month of being held back from it, the thing your body had wanted so badly had finally broken over you and left nothing solid behind.
"Breathe," Robby said, "it's okay. This is called a drop, just talk to her."
"I'm sorry!" you sobbed, the words tearing out of you before you even knew what you were apologizing for, your hands curling uselessly in the blanket, unable to grip.
"It's okay, honey, it's okay, Jack has you."
"Listen to my voice, sweetheart." Jack said, his hands petting heavier and soothing now, the heel of his palm moving over your hairline, then your cheek, then back again. Though his breath was against your mouth, too fast for someone trying to calm you, and then you felt him swallow hard, felt the effort of him trying to force himself calm.
There was no one word for the rush of emotions that swept through you like a tidal wave. You didn't even have time to try and name one of them before another took over. Relief, euphoria, then anxiety and shame, and then back to a euphoric state so sharp it almost hurt.
Tears came quick and thick down your face, sliding into your ears, wetting the bedspread beneath you, your mouth open in a wail, your head thrown back into the covers while the ceiling blurred into blocks of light and shadow. You wanted to disappear, you wished your limbs didn't feel so heavy so you could cover your face. You felt mortified, you felt ashamed. You wanted to be held. You wanted to be alone. But you couldn't stand the idea of either of them leaving, couldn’t stand the thought of Jack lifting off of you or Robby stepping away from the room, even while every part of you felt too exposed, your legs still open, your skin too sensitive where the sheets touched it, your chest heaving against Jack’s.
"Robby, brother, maybe you—"
"It's alright—just keep talking to her."
You could feel Jack lean down, lips against your ear, could hear his soothing nothings even as you hiccuped and sobbed, your chest feeling tight, your throat scraping against the sound of your cries. It was too much and too overwhelming, the mattress under your back, Jack’s weight over you, the damp press of his mouth at your temple, Robby’s voice from the corner with that steadiness that made the room feel less like it was tilting as he spoke in hushed tones to his fellow attending.
"Sweetheart, can you hear me? Listen," Jack said into your ear, his arms coming around you tightly, holding you to his chest. He was still inside of you, your legs still fallen open. "You're okay, you're such a good girl. Listen to me."
You only had half a mind to listen, your eyes still glued to the ceiling, your body sunken deep into the bed like you could never find your way out. As if a pit had opened in the covers and you'd fallen down into it, their voices far, far away up above. They kept talking, but you could hardly make out the words at all, only soothing cander, Jack’s gentle breath against your skin, Robby’s lower voice, the sound of your own breathing coming in broken little pulls that didn’t feel like enough air to live on.
This drop was like none you'd had before. Usually it came after the sex entirely, sometimes even days later. But this—the during—it was too much. There was no little pause where your body understood the scene had changed. The pleasure had crested, shattered, and then opened straight into panic, with no seam between one feeling and the next. Your body still thought it was being asked for more, still fluttering around Jack, still shaking from the release, while your mind had gone soft and frightened and far away.
"Answer me, sweetheart." Jack whispered.
A choked sob came out of you, and you finally were able to form a word: "W-what?"
"I asked if you could hear me."
"Y-yes." you whispered, squeezing your eyes shut, gulping in air, their voices becoming a little clearer, Jack’s hand finally settling at the back of your head instead of moving everywhere at once.
"Have her hold onto you—" you could just barely hear Robby's voice from the corner.
"Put your arms around me, sweetheart." Jack said gently in your ear. "Like this," and he brought one arm from around you and lifted yours around his neck, his fingers so gentle as he rubbed the skin there.
"That's a good girl, other arm too," Jack said, repositioning his hand beneath you to lift the other around his neck, "That's it."
Robby's voice was muffled behind you, "There you go. Let her just breathe, then we can check in."
"Deep breath, sweet girl, c'mon now, breathe with me, I've got you, you're safe, you're doing so good."
You shakily let air depress out of you, inhaling again slowly, even if it was a little uneven. Your mind started to come back to you in pieces: the sheet bunched under your shoulder, Jack’s hair caught between your fingers, the warm weight of him, the damp place on his neck where a cold sweat had broken out. Fresh tears no longer fell from your face, only clinging to your lashes when you blinked.
"That's it, what a good listener. Just breathe—"
You felt the mattress dip, two hands up around your face, tilting it back. Robby's eyes found yours, leaning up above you. The light above made a sort of halo around his rumbled hair. Jack's face stayed in the crook of your neck, just whispering praise.
Robby's thumbs soothed across your temple, and he made a show of breathing in and out deeply above you. You matched his rhythm, in through the nose, out the mouth. Long, long breaths until they eventually evened out, until the tight pull in your chest loosened, until the room stopped slipping at the edges and you could see the crease between his brows, the careful set of his mouth, the way he was watching you for every little change.
"Okay," Robby said, leaning back a little, but still sitting on the bed.
Jack pulled away only enough to be able to look down at you, his worried eyes skating across your face, checking your mouth, your eyes, the wet tracks down your cheeks. He still held you around your body, but eased up on the tightness, bringing one hand up to your face to soothe it where Robby's were, his thumb brushing close to the corner of your mouth before dragging back over your cheek.
"I'm okay," you whispered out your next breath, "I'm sorry—"
Both men were shaking their heads before you even finished saying it. "Don't apologize," Jack said gently, leaning down to press a faint kiss to your parted lips, barely there, more breath than anything. "Nothing to be sorry for."
"I must've really—" you breathed in again, breath still a little hard to pull, your chest hitching before it settled, "Really scared you there. It's never…never been like that before."
"Been a long time since we had a drop like that," Robby agreed, his hand now petting the bowl of your skull, fingers moving through the hair at the crown of your head. He tilted his head to find your eyes when you looked up at him, his voice staying even, careful.
"Are you alright? We're going to stop now, okay?"
You breathed in, and the question moved through you slowly, too tender to answer from. Stop sounded like relief. But stop also sounded like this was all your fault. It sounded like Jack pulling away from you, like the room going too quiet and cold. You hadn't even realized your hands had found the back of Jack's hair, wrapping a curl around your index finger, fisting the locks with a weak little grip that made him glance down at your lips before his mouth pulled into a small smile. He looked shaken still, but there, staying right where you had pulled him.
"Okay…maybe just for a little? Can we… cuddle? Maybe watch something?" you finally answered.
"Of course we can." Robby said, and then looked at Jack, nodding.
Jack began to pull away, but the second his weight shifted, the adrenaline in your blood shot up again.
"No—no—no, I'm sorry—I'm sorry, I don't want to stop, please!" you begged.
He stopped immediately, one hand braced beside your head, his face lowering back toward yours. Though he had completely softened, he was still inside of you, and the closeness of him was the only thing keeping your panic from tearing wide open again.
Robby was there in an instant, his hand finding yours before you could curl it into the sheets. "Okay, why don't we do this?" he said, his voice low and close. "I'll hold your hand, and Jack is going to sit back. He's just going to sit on the pillows, honey. He just wants to get comfortable to watch something with us, okay? I'll be right here. I'll hold you."
Your chin was wobbling, and Jack began to pepper more kisses over your face, his mouth touching your cheek, your temple, the wet corner of your eye. "I'm right here, I'm right here, we're not mad at you, sweetheart. You're so special to us, our sweet girl. My sweetheart. I'm just sitting back, you can come with me."
You nodded, though fresh, quiet tears had begun to fall from your face. You felt so silly, so stupid. Crying because he would be apart from you—for what, a second?— crying because you ruined such a good time, something they were enjoying and you had to go and cry about it, had to make both of them stop and look at you with all that worry, had to make Jack’s hands shake when he was only trying to be good to you.
"You're our best girl," Robby cooed as if reading your mind, leaning down to kiss your face, still holding your hand like he promised while Jack slowly pulled away. The air felt cold without him, and you began to cry softly again, your thighs drawing together. Your free hand searched blindly until Jack caught it and brought your knuckles to his mouth before fulling sitting back. While one hand was held in Robby's, his other continued to pet at the crown of your head soothing you gently, whispering praise and kissing your face.
"Okay," Jack exhaled against the headboard, shifting up onto the pillows, one arm already opening for you. "C'mere, come cuddle me, sweetheart."
Robby lifted you into a seated position, keeping one hand at your back until you had your bearings. The room tipped for a second, your head still light from crying, the duvet half rumbled around your hips, and then you were climbing up the bed into Jack, koala-ing yourself to him, tucking yourself into the arm he held open. He lifted the covers around you so you could get warm, his arm snug around you as you fell into him, your cheek pressing against his chest, your fingers finding the fabric at his side and holding there. It felt good, just skin on skin like that.
Robby got up with a groan as his knees cracked, standing and heading for the door.
"Robby—" you croaked, your eyes widening in panic.
He was quick to come over and lean over the bed, fists holding him up so he could lower himself to you, pressing a kiss to your cheek bone. "I'm coming right back. Just getting you some water, honey. Stay here with Jack."
His dark eyes found Jack when he pulled away, something silent passing between them. Jack’s hand moved over your back slowly, answering it without words, and Robby nodded before he lifted himself from the bed and headed for the hallway.
You felt Jack's warm kiss to the top of your head, his hand rubbing soothing circles along your spine. You tucked in closer to him, your arm draped around his middle and cheek pressed to the bare warmth of his chest. Neither of you spoke for a long moment. The room had gone quiet enough that you could hear the soft drag of his palm over your back, the shift of the blanket where it was tucked around your shoulders, the faint sound of Robby opening a cabinet in the kitchen. Jack kept his mouth near your hair, kissing you there a few more times, and you held onto him tighter when your breathing stuttered again.
Robby was back soon, three glasses of water balanced between two hands, his steps careful so the rims didn’t knock together. He bent to hand one to Jack, and put the other two on the bedside table, beside the lamp and the little mess of tissues already pulled from the box for you. Jack brought his glass down to you, holding it until your hands found it, and you sat up just enough to sip lightly at the rim.
The cool water slipped down your throat, and you felt it all the way into your chest, cutting through the heat that had climbed into your blood. Your hands were still a little unsteady around the glass, so Jack kept his fingers near yours, ready to catch it without taking it from you.
It had been such a deep drop, deeper than you knew what to do with, but the room was starting to come back now: the weight of the covers over you, Jack’s arm behind your shoulders, Robby sitting down on the edge of the mattress again, the glass leaving a cold ring of damp against your palm. You felt yourself beginning to climb out of that far-away place finally, leaning into their closeness.
Robby's arm came around you so that you were positioned between the two men, and you snuggled up closer to Jack, your leg hooking over his.
"Let's put on some of The Office, huh?" Robby murmured from behind you, "how's that sound?"
You nodded, "Good."
You saw the crinkles around Jack's eyes deepen as he gave you a small smile, leaning down to kiss your forehead once again. "I think Robby is feeling a little lonely, sweetheart, mind if he cuddles up too?"
"Yes, please," you said, turning your chin to look over your shoulder.
Robby grinned down at you, his other hand coming to rest on your hip as he leaned into the curve of your back. He kissed the crest of your shoulder before hooking his chin over it, eyes on the screen, scrolling through the list of episodes.
After a while, with the TV screen flashing blues and grays over the three of you, you had finally settled in, and your mind began to remind you of what had just happened.
"I'm sorry." you whispered into Jack's chest, because the words kept sitting there in your mouth, in your head, stirring around all useless and heavy and gnawing.
Robby's hand moved over your hip beneath the covers. "Honey."
"I know," you said, voice cracking. "I know you said it's okay, I just…"
Your throat tightened again before you could finish. You swallowed around the lump forming again, squeezing your eyes shut. Jack's arm tightened around you, and you felt the press of his mouth into the crown of your head.
"You're allowed to cry." Robby said from behind you, his voice low near your ear. "You don't have to stop yourself. It's okay that you cried earlier too. It's just release, honey."
Your face crumpled at that, embarrassed by how badly you needed permission for something already happening again.
"It'll feel good to cry a little." he murmured. "You had a big night. Your body doesn't know what to do with all of it yet."
You nodded, eyes squeezing shut as more tears slipped out. Jack's thumb moved over your upper arm slowly, while Robby's hand stayed warm as it snaked around your belly to pull you into him. There was no space where you weren't comforted, held, known. Neither of them rushed you. Neither of them tried to make you talk your way out of it.
"You did so good." Jack said quietly.
Your mouth trembled harder, and you pushed your face into his side to hide.
"I don't feel good." you admitted.
"S'the drop talking," Robby murmured, as if it wasn't meant for you, and then, his lips went to your ear, "You're the best girl, honey. You were so good, you listened to well, took those four weeks so well. You're just a little overwhelmed, huh? Lots of emotions."
You nodded.
Jack's cheek rested against the top of your head. "What do you need, sweetheart?"
You didn't know. You were not sure you could pull together an answer better than this, than the covers and their bodies around you and the distant smell of sex still in the room, Robby's warms arm around your belly and Jack's at your shoulders and his heartbeat against your cheek.
"This." you whispered finally.
Robby's hand squeezed you. "Then this is what you get."
Jack kissed your forehead again. "We're not going anywhere."
Somewhere between Jack's fingers moving gently through your hair and Robby's breathing going slow against your back, your eyes closed, and you fell asleep tucked between them.
thinking of being langdon's gf during s1 and the day that he gets found out and robby kicks him out of the hospital he comes home and is so riled up he fucks you crazy style, like manhandles you into every position till 2 orgasms later you end up with your face shoved into the bed in doggy and you just barely hear him under his breath muttering "could an addict do this?"
and you're so dazed drooling on the sheets but you still manage a shaky, "w-what?"
"nothing, baby" his hips pick up pace, fucking the question out of your head, a professional at deflecting. "let me fuck this pussy, honey. you like it? tell me."
he's fucking you so hard n fast that the headboard is slamming against the wall, "s-so good," you sob, "always fuck me so good, frankie—"
"who fucks you best, huh? can anyone fuck you better than me?"
he growls it, fingers digging into your hips like he's trying to prove a point. that he's irreplaceable. that he's the best at everything he does. "n-no, no one else no one else no one else—"
he grabs at your hair and tugs till your head is forced up to stare at the ceiling. "say it again."
"no one fucks me better than you," you're gasping, chocking on a sob, feeling so fucking good and yet... something niggles at you. your tummy turning and nervous under all the pleasure. "I promise, no one is better, promise, promise."
it's not until later, in the dark while you both pant and try to catch your breath that you finally get to ask why he's home so early. and it's also then when frank decides to lie.
