🕸️ Stay With Me Kid
🕷️ Synopsis: Jack knew there were dangers of you living a double life. He'd been there for the small scrapes and non-threatening injuries. However, he wasn't prepared for you to be dragged through the ER doors after a battle that leaves you fighting for your life.
🕷️ Ships: Jack Abbot x Reader / Platonic!Pitt x Reader
🕷️ Word Count: 10.2k
🕷️ AN: Just a heads up, the warnings for this are almost-fatal injuries and medical inaccuracies. So sit back and relax cause it's angsty before it gets sweet.
You didn’t see the hit coming; you only felt the aftermath of it.
One second you were moving, muscle memory carrying you from one web-line to the next, the rhythm of the fight something almost familiar despite the scare of it, and the next, your body seized mid-motion as something sharp and impossibly strong drove through you and kept going.
Not cleanly. Not quickly.
It dragged, caught, and tore.
The force of it punched the air right out of your lungs in a sound you didn’t recognize as your own.
For a moment, nothing existed but pressure.
Pain followed next, blooming slow and hot and wrong, spreading outward from where you were pinned like it didn’t know where to stop. Your hands reacted before you mind did, fingers curling instinctively around the thick, scaled forearm lodged through your front as if you could push the nails out, as if that would undo anything.
They didn’t budge.
Didn’t even tremble.
A low, rumbling breath sounded above you, close enough that you felt it vibrate through your mask.
“Still trying,” the Lizard observed, his voice rough, distorted, with a hint of thoughtfulness blooming through it. “Even now.”
Your vision stuttered.
The city blurred into fractured shaped beyond him: glass, concrete, flashing lights smeared into objects distant and unreachable. You couldn’t quite focus on his face, only the stretched outline of it, the gleam of teeth catching the light as his head tilted, studying you like a specimen in a lab.
You tried to breath.
It came shallow, uneven, catching midway on a part of your body that had shifted out of place. There was a wetness to it you didn’t like, a thickness that made every inhale feel borrowed.
“Y-yeah,” you managed to grunt, the word breaking apart on the way out. Your grip tightened weakly around his arm, stubborn more than anything else. “Kinda what heroes do.”
The attempt at humor fell flat even to your own ears, thin and strained, but you held onto it anyway. It was something familiar. Something yours to keep you going.
He hummed, throat moving with the noise.
“Fascinating,” he said. His grip sank into you lower, not enough to crush, but enough to remind you how little control you had here. “The human body is so fragile, and yet, you continue to persist.”
Your suit clung too tight. Absurdly, you knew it couldn’t possibly or physically squeeze, but it felt heavier, like it was dragging you down, like gravity had doubled its pull. You realized why moments later. Heat spread across your abdomen, slick and persistent, soaking through the spandex that had never felt anything more than a second skin until now. Now it was suffocating. Now it was wrong.
You swallowed or tried too at least. It hurt.
“Yeah, well,” you wheezed, words catching the end of your breath. “You could—cold stop testing that theory anytime really.”
A sharp exhale left him; halfway amusement halfway disbelief that you were still trying to make a joke of it all.
“I already have my answer.”
Your fingers slipped against his slick nails with the glide of your own blood
You adjusted your grip, forcing them to hold, forcing yourself to stay present. You’d been hurt before. You’d walked off worse than this—or at least, that’s what you were telling yourself, clinging to the familiarity of injury even as your body quietly disagreed. You pushed against his arm, trying to create space, trying to force his nails out of you, to move—
Nothing.
Your strength was gone.
The Lizard noticed. Of course he did.
“You weaken,” he said, almost conversationally, like he was commenting on Pittsburg’s weather. “Your movements slow. Your pulse—” His head dipped slightly, closer, as if listening to something only he could hear. “—erratic.”
Your vision swayed.
“Gonna—gonna need you,” you rasped, forcing the words out through a throat that didn’t want to cooperate, “to not narrate my death, please.”
That got a reaction.
His grip didn’t loosen, but his posture changed, interest becoming more intent, more focused in the way you writhed under him.
“Death?” he echoed, the word rolling oddly between his sharp teeth and long tongue. “You already assume the outcome. How fascinating.”
Your breath hitched again, weaker this time, your grip faltering just enough for your hand to slide an inch down his arm before you caught yourself. The motion sent a fresh wave of pain through you, the feeling sharp enough to make your vision go white for a second. When it cleared, the world didn’t quite come back the same.
Everything sounded far away; the ringing in your ear overtaking what was normal.
The city. The traffic. Even him.
Like you were already stepping out the door—
No.
No—you stay with it, stay with him.
You forced your eyes open wider, forced yourself to focus, to see, and that was when it really hit you: how much blood there was.
It wasn’t just the warmth anymore. It was movement. It was the steady, unstoppable spill of it, dark and heavy as it dribbled down, disappearing into a growing pool below you. You couldn’t even tell how deep his claws had gone, only that they were still inside, still anchoring you in place.
Your stomach twisted.
Not from the injury, but by the way you slowly realized that this wasn’t something you could shake off.
“You still persist, little spider” he continued, almost musing now, like he’d forgotten you were anything more than a subject. “Even as your systems fail, the instinct to survived overrides logic. Overrides pain.”
Your hand trembled.
“Yeah,” you whispered, barely audible now, your voice thinning out as your strength followed. “Funny how that works.”
You pushed again.
Nothing.
Your body didn’t answer.
He shifted slightly, adjusting his grip, and the movement dragged through you in a way that stole what little breath you had left, your body jerking in response. A sound tore out of you, raw and crackling, and for a second—just a second—his attention sharpened again.
“You should have fled sooner,” he said, all serious and not mocking this time. “You stayed. You chose to engage in a fight you never would have won. You chose this outcome.”
Maybe you did.
Or maybe you just hadn’t thought you’d lose.
Your head dipped forward slightly, your mask brushing against the rough scales of his arm as your vision narrowed, dark creeping in at the edges. You forced yourself to hold on, to stay conscious, to stay here—
--but your body was slipping away.
Home.
The though came instinctively, the way it always did. Get out. Get somewhere safe. Patch yourself up. Breathe. Recover.
You’d done it before.
You’d always made it back before.
“I’ve—had worse,” you tried, the words barely forming, more breath than sound now. It wasn’t convincing. Not to him; not even to you.
Above you, he went still.
“Have you?” he asked.
The question settled somewhere deep, cutting through the haze with a clarity that hurt worse than anything else. Because even as the thought of home tried to take shape again, your body answer it with something colder. Something honest that made your heart clench.
You weren’t getting out of this clean.
You weren’t getting out of this fast.
And whatever damage had been done when his claws went in, it wasn’t something you could tape up and ignore. You could feel it now in the way your limbs were starting to go numb, in the way your breaths were getting shorter and more rapid no matter how hard you tried to pull more air in.
Your hand slipped against will.
You tried to tighten it again, stubborn, refusing to let go, but your fingers didn’t listen this time, didn’t connect to what your brain was telling them. They loosened, inch by inch, strength draining out of them like everything else.
You had to move.
Now.
You gathered everything you had left, every scrap of strength, every ounce of stubborn refusal to stop and push—
Nothing.
Your grip gave out completely.
The realization of the situation settled slow and heavy, coursing through the fading ends of your consciousness with a quiet, undeniable certainty that you weren’t going to win against this. That you weren’t even going to walk away from it. The city blurred further, sound draining until even his voice felt distant, like it was coming from miles away.
“Remarkable,” he murmured, though you could barely hear him now. “Even at your end, you’re still refusing to give in.”
Your head tilted back, scalp scraping against the rooftop as the rest of your strength bled out in quiet, unstoppable waves.
Home wasn’t an option.
Not like this.
Not in time.
The thought landed, final and immovable.
You weren’t going to make it home.
_______________________
The first thing Trinity noticed was the sound.
Not loud. Not enough to set off any blaring alarms. Just a noise out of place, a dull uneven thud followed by a faint scrape that didn’t match anything in their apartment. She paused in the hallway, head tilting slightly, brows pulling together as she listened harder.
“Dennis?” she called, raising her voice just enough to carry. “If that’s you, I swear—”
No response.
Another sound followed. Softer this time. Like something dragging.
Her stomach tightened.
“Dennis?” she tried again, sharper now, already moving toward the living room. “Did you drop something?”
Still nothing.
By the time she turned the corner, accusations of stealing avocados were already forming, but they died in her throat the second she saw you.
For a moment, her brain didn’t process it correctly. It tried to fit the image into a normal picture, something explainable; someone in a costume, someone crouched low, someone not—
Blood.
Too much of it.
It soaked through your suit, dark and spreading, dripping onto their floor in a steady, horrific rhythm. You were half-collapsed against the wall, one hand braced weakly against it like it was the only thing keeping you upright, the other pressed uselessly to your side, knees buckled beneath your hunched form. Your head hung low, shoulders trembling with the effort of just . . . staying there.
“Oh, fuck,” came out barely above a whisper. “Dennis!”
Her voice cracked on his name, the kind of sound that tore through the apartment and demanded attention whether he was ready for it or not. She was already moving before she even registered it, closing the distance too fast, dropping to her knees in front of you without thinking, hands hovering uselessly like she didn’t know where to touch, what would hurt you more.
“Hey—hey, can you hear me?” she rushed, voice shaking as she tried to catch your gaze through the mask. “Oh my, fuck, you’re—there’s so much blood—”
Your head lifted slightly at the sound of her voice, slow and heavy, like it took more effort than it should have. The movement wasn’t steady. Nothing about you was.
“Trin—” you started, and even though the distortion of the mask, your voice sounded wrong in your ears. Too weak. Too thin.
Her breath hitched.
“Don’t talk,” she said, voice snapping with a waver only mixed through tears. Her hands finally settled: one on your arm, the over hovering near your side like she wanted to help but didn’t know how.
Footsteps pounded down the hall.
“What—” Dennis started, breathless, but stopped just as abruptly as she had when he saw you. “Holy—”
“Help me,” she snapped, the panic seeping through her words. “Dennis, help me—”
“I—I got it, I got it,” he said quickly, dropping beside you on your other side, his eyes scanning over you in quick, assessing movements that didn’t quite hide the shock all over his face. “Hey, hey, can you talk? What happened?”
You let out a weak, unsteady breath, your head bobbing forward before you forced it back up.
“Need—” you swallowed hard, your hand slipping slightly against your side before you pressed it back, like you could keep everything in place just by holding it there. “Need a ride.”
“A ride?” Trinity echoed, voice pitching higher. “No, no, we’re calling an ambulance—”
“No.” The word came out sharper than anything else you’d managed so far, even if it cost you. Your shoulder tensed, your grip cupping weakly against nothing on your own side. “No ambulance.”
“Are you serious?” Dennis shot back, incredulous. “You’re bleeding out on our floor—”
“Pitt,” you forced out, cutting over him, your voice faltering but insistent. “Take me to the Pitt.”
The two exchanged a look.
“Why the Pitt?” Trinity demanded, her hands finally pressing down (too gently) against your arm like she was afraid you might break under the weight. “We can go anywhere, there’s a hospital ten minutes—”
“Please,” you whimpered, stopping them both.
You lifted your head just enough to face her, and even through the mask, there was something in the way you looked at her, a familiar gaze heavy with desperation.
“Please, Trinity.”
Trinity blinked wildly. “What—” her voice dropped, confusion bleeding just as profusely as your side was. “No. You can’t—”
Her hands moved before she could stop them.
Up. To your face. To the mask.
“Wait—” you tried, weak, your hand lifting like you were meant to stop her, but it didn’t fet far. It barely made it halfway before it faltered, dropping back uselessly to your side.
“Trin—” Dennis warned, uncertain, but he didn’t stop her either.
Her fingers found the edge of the mask, stopping only for a split second before gently grabbing the fabric to pull it off.
Time didn’t stop, but it felt like it did.
The world narrowed down to the space between you and her, to the way her eyes widened, to the sharp inhale she couldn’t hold back as recognition hit all at once, fast and brutal and undeniable.
Your name came out broken.
Disbelieving.
Your face, pale, drawn tight with pain, eyes unfocused and glassy as you struggled to them open, wasn’t something she could mistake. Not even now. Not like this.
“Hey,” you tried, your mouth twitching like you meant to smile and couldn’t quite manage it. “Don’t—” A wheeze. “Don’t freak out.”
“Don’t freak—” she choked, a hysterical sound breaking through as her hands, coated in your blood, hovered again, not knowing where to go, what to do. “You’re—you’re—”
“The hero,” Dennis finished hoarsely, staring at you like he was trying to reconcile two completely different realities at once. “You’ve been—this whole time—”
“Later,” you rasped, cutting him of as best you could, your head bobbing again in a fight you were quickly losing. “Explain . . . later . . .”
“You’re not explaining anything later if you bleed out right here,” Trinity hissed, her voice cracking hard as tears finally spilled over, her hands pressing more firmly now in a desperate attempt to stop a rushing flood. “Dennis, we have to—”
“I know,” he quickly said, shaking his head to force himself past the overwhelming shock. “Okay, okay, we have to move them. Carefully. We have the truck.” He glanced at you. “No ambulance?”
You shook your head weakly. “No.”
“Okay.” He swallowed thickly. “Okay. Pitt it is.”
“Can you stand?” Trinity asked, already knowing the answer even as she said it.
You tried anyway.
Your hand pushed against the wet floor, your body shifting like you mean to lift yourself up, but the second you put any real weight on it, your elbow gave. The action had a breath tearing out of you in a broken sound that sent another wave of anguish through the roommates. Something internally, beyond what they could see, was wrong.
So, so wrong.
“I’ve got you,” Dennis said, arms catching you before you could hit the ground fully, your limp body sagging against him.
“Careful,” Trinity muttered, moving to your other side, her arm wrapping around you as gently as she could manage, even as her hands shook. “Okay, okay; we’ve got you; we’ve got you.”
Between them, you hung loosely, not even sure how much you could help drag yourself along. Everything felt like you were floating more than moving, your feet barely registering against the ground as they half-carried, half-dragged you toward the door. Every step sent a fresh wave of pain through you as your vision dipped in and out, mind fighting to stay conscious.
“Stay with us,” Trinity kept saying, over and over, her voice right next to your ear now, urgent and breaking with each syllable. “Stay with me, okay? You’re okay. You’re gonna be fine. We’re going to fix you right up.”
You wanted to believe her.
You really did.
The night air hit your face as the door opened, a contrast to the feverish shine that dampened your skin. However, the breeze didn’t clear your head in the way it should have. If anything, it made everything feel further away, like you were slipping out of your own body piece by piece.
“Backseat,” Dennis demanded, already moving ahead to open the truck, his movements quick and efficient despite the way he was trying to hide how hard he was breathing. “Lie them down—watch their side—”
“I know!” Trinity punched out. “I know, just—open the door!”
They eased you in as gently as they could, but it still hurt. Everything hurt. Your body didn’t feel like yours anymore—too heavy, too distant, almost like you could feel it shutting down with every passing minute in pulses you couldn’t keep away.
Trinity climbed in beside you, one hand still trying to press into your side, the other coming up to your waxen face, fingers brushing your hair back in gentle movements that made you ache, made you want to finally let tears spill.
“Hey,” she said softly, her voice trembling as she tried to catch your ever shifting gaze. “Hey, look at me.”
You tried, eyes barely being able to hold hers.
“Stay with me,” she echoed. “Okay? Don’t—don’t you dare pass out on me.”
From the front, Dennis slammed the door and started the truck in one quick motion, the engine roaring to life as he pulled out faster than he ever had before.
“Hold on,” he warned, more to himself than anything.
The truck lurched forward in a jerky motion before settling.
The city blurred past the window in streaks of light and showdown, too fast, too disjointed for your eyes to track something properly. The motion made your stomach twist, the pain in your side flaring with every turn, every bump in the road. Your head lolled slightly, focus slipping.
“Hey—hey!” Trinity’s voice cut through the winning fog; her hand lightly slapped your cheek to bring you back. “No, stay with me; talk to me. Say something.”
Your throat bobbed under your suit in a thick gulp, saliva now tasting metallic.
“Jack—” His name slipped out before you could stop it, quiet and broken. “Tell him I—”
She froze. “Jack?” she asked, pure confusion now evident beyond her panic. “Tell him what?”
You didn’t finish.
Your eyes slipped shut for just a second in a fluttering blink—
--and didn’t open again right away.
“No, no, no, no,” she whispered, terror surging all over again as she shook you lightly. “Hey, no, no stay with me.” Your name followed several times in that tone, wobbly and like she was barely holding on to one emotion. “Stay with me!”
“Are they—?” Dennis started, glancing back briefly, his fingers curled white-knuckled around the wheel.
“They’re not—” Trinity gasped through it, chest constricting as a pit sunk deep in her stomach. “Just drive faster!”
The truck surged forward, engine pushing against the limits as the city rushed past in a blur.
And in the backseat, you went motionless.
_______________________
The truck hadn’t fully stopped before the door was wrenched open and Trinity’s voice broke across the ambulance bay, splintering the air with dread.
“Help—please, someone help—they’re bleeding, and it’s not stopping—”
Her words tangled over themselves as hand reached in, pulling you from the backseat in one practiced motion, lifting your weight like it didn’t matter that your body should have fought it, should have reacted, should have hurt.
But your body remained still.
There was no sharp cry, no instinctive recoil. Just the loose, unresisting drop of your head against someone’s arm, your mouth parting on a soft, unfocused sound that didn’t quite become a word. Blood had soaked everything: your suit, Trinity’s hands, the backseat beneath. It kept coming, dark and sticky, slipping between gloved fingers as they transferred you onto the stretcher.
“All right, I’ve got them,” a new voice said—Mateo (the name faintly coming to the front of your mind)—calmly in a way that didn’t match the urgency of what he was doing. “Easy, watch the side, don’t shift them too much—” His gaze trailed over you quickly, already cataloging what he could see.
The suit’s tear at your torso; the way the fabric clung too quickly, the damp squish and slosh of it; the uneven rise of your chest with one side lagging behind the other; the pallor creeping beneath what little skin was visible.
“Hey,” he added, leaning in just enough for you to hear, though your glossed-over eyes weren’t really looking at any. “Can you stay awake for me?”
Your lips moved, sloppy and uncoordinated, words slipping together as if your brain had lost the path between thought and speech. “M’fine . . . jus’—just tired . . .” you slurred.
Mateo didn’t react to the words. He just nodded once, already pushing the stretcher forward, Dennis and Trinity following right behind, as the sliding doors opened up, and the ER swallowed you whole.
Inside, everything accelerated. The fluorescent lights overhead streaked through your mask’s lenses, the fractures too fast for you to hold onto them for more than a second at a time. Voices overlapped, layered into an overwhelming and nauseating sound, until one rose above the rest, familiar enough in your ears that your drifting focus tried to latch onto it.
“What’s coming in?”
Jack.
You didn’t see him clearly at first, just the shape of him stepping in with that oh so familiar gate of his. Then your head rolled slightly, your gaze catching on his dark scrubs, on the set of his broad shoulders as he moved closer, already reaching for you.
And then he noticed that it was you in the stretcher and not just another ambulance call.
The moment his eyes grabbed onto the red and blue spandex, his entire being locked up for half a heartbeat, recognition landing hard enough that it showed on his face before he buried it under clinical control. He couldn’t show it, not when you looked like you’d been swimming in a blood pool.
“Status,” he said, already stepping into position as the head attending.
“Penetrating trauma,” Trinity answered without missing a beat. “Significant blood loss, hypotensive, possible thoracic involvement. Lost consciousness on the way here.” She looked down at her soaked clothes. “Didn’t think they’d wake back up,” she whispered.
Jack nodded once. “Go get changed. Trauma bay. Move. Lena, I need two bags of O-neg.”
The transfer into the trauma room happened in a blur of coordinated motion, the stretcher locking into place before they shifted you onto the bed with practiced efficiency. The moment your weight settled, though, the illusion of stability broke. Blood began welling faster where the pressure changed, the soaked fabric peeling slightly away from the wounds just enough to reveal what lied beneath: deep, jagged punctures at your side, just below the ribs, where something unknown had driven in with enough force to split the skin and muscle cleanly apart before hooking and tearing on the way out. The edges weren’t smooth. They looked ripped, uneven, and every second that passed seemed to draw more blood up from somewhere deeper.
“Jeez,” Robby breathed under his breath as he stepped in, only on hour 2 of his double, already gloving up, his gaze flickering over the injury before he pressed gauze down hard. “That’s not shallow.”
Mateo froze, eyes catching on the mask that obstructed everyone’s ability to check your pupils. “Um, what do we do about that—”
“The mask stays on,” Jack said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Mateo looked over. “What if we need an airway—”
“We’ll deal with it when we get there,” Jack huffed back. “For now, we work around it.”
“Got it.”
Scissors tore through your suit, the spandex giving way in long, uneven strips as they worked quickly to expose the full extent of the damage. What they found only made the room tighten. Blood pooled beneath you, spreading across the bed in a slow, relentless seep.
And the wounds? The wounds told a story way worse the more they uncovered. They were deep enough to suggest internal, angled in a way that made it impossible to tell what had been hit without seeing inside.
“BP’s dropping,” Mateo announced, glancing at the monitor. “Seventy systolic.”
“I can see that,” Jack snapped, already reaching for the ultrasound. “Get me a view—now.”
Cold gel hit your skin—or it should have felt cold—but your body barely registered it. The probe pressed down, sliding carefully across your abdomen as everyone leaned in just slightly, watching the small black and white screen. Jack’s expression pinched.
“Free fluid,” he said. “A lot of it.”
“Internal bleeding,” Robby confirmed, body twisting to grab the two blood bags from a passing nurse. He moved quickly to get one hanging up and flowing as fast as possible before pressing fresh gauze against the wounds again.
Your breathing hitched shallowly, chest riding in short, incomplete movements that didn’t seem to draw in enough air. One side lagged behind, barely moving up and down like it was supposed to. Robby drew his hands away and grabbed onto his stethoscope, immediately drawing the rounded end across your chest. He hissed as he jerked it away.
“Breah sounds are diminished on the left,” Robby added, lips curling downward. “Almost nothing.”
“Collapsed lung,” Jack followed. “Likely from the trajectory of whatever went in.”
Dennis, who had trailed silently, spoke up from by the doorway, “Its fixable, right? They can’t—”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Robby tried to say, but none of his words were hitting where they should have been convincing. “You should get changed too; blood’s dripping from your pants.”
You drifted through it all, awareness slipping in and out like a loose thread. Your eyes moved, unfocused and dazed, catching on faces without recognition, on lights that blurred and doubled. Your mouth moved again, forming a broken name.
“Jack . . .” you murmured.
He stilled.
“I’m here,” he said, leaning close despite everything else that demanded his attention. The top of gloved hand rested gently against your fingers, adding any type of comfort he could without further contaminating the latex.
“Knew it . . .” you whispered, the words slurring even deeper together to the point everything dragged into one breath. “Y’fix it . . . know y’can.”
His eyes drooped with the weight of keeping you alive. “I’ll do my best,” he said under his breath.
Your head tipped slightly to the side, your focus slipping again as your body grew heavier against the bed, your limited breaths shallower, less effective. Where your eyes had been looking into Jack’s hazel, the lids slowly dragged down until all you could see what a dizzying black.
“Respirator effort’s dropping,” Mateo called out.
Robby’s hands cupped around your neck. “And they’re not protecting their airway. We’re going to lose it.”
Jack didn’t hesitate. “We intubate then.”
The room shifted with the action that was about to take place.
Jack reached forward and pulled the mask away.
There you were.
Fully exposed now, your face pale, lips tinged faintly blue, eyes fluttering and unfocused as your breathing faltered. The disconnect between the person they knew and the body on the table hit harder like this, more immediate, more real.
“Fuck, Pokey,” Robby hissed, taking you and all your past excuses for injuries in. “Damn it.”
“Tube,” Jack ordered.
The procedure was quick, precise. Robby tilted your head back, allowing your airway to visualize for the tube to glide in without resistance. Mateo counted as he pumped the plastic, blue ball, filling your lungs artificially now, forcing your chest to rise where your body had failed to do so on its own.
For a split second, it seemed like that might be enough.
Until—
The monitor changed. Subtle for a beat and then heading down faster than anyone could catch.
“Jack,” Mateo snapped.
“I see it.”
Your pulse faltered.
Dropped.
Stopped.
“Pulse?” Robby asked, already moving. “They’re in asystole.”
Nothing.
“Gimme a round of epi,” Jack snapped.
The first dose went it and failed.
“Start compressions,” Jack stated.
Robby climbed into position instinctively, hands locking over your chest as he began compressions in that numbing hard and steady rhythm. Your body jolted under the force, head rocking slightly with each push, Mateo keeping steady to breath for you in between, sternum giving way slightly under the deep motion.
“Continue compressions. Epi’s not going to work, fuck.”
“Why?” Robby grunted between compressions.
Jack shook his head. “Side effect of all this. They’re body burns through everything.”
Time stretched, distorted by repetition. Compressions. Breaths. Again.
The room grew louder, faster, the urgency building almost too big for the space.
“Hold,” Jack ordered, fingers pressed firmly under your jaw. “They’re back but going tachy. Get the cart.”
Mateo swung the cart around, grabbing the paddles after turning the machine on. “Charging.”
The defibrillator whined, rising in pitch as panic built.
“Clear.”
Robby and Jack stepped away as he pressed the paddles against your chest. The shock hit your body all at once, arching you off the bed in a violent, unnatural motion before you dropped back down, limp again and unmoving.
“Still tachy.”
“Again.”
Another rising whine.
“Clear!”
The second shock hit harder somehow, your body reacting just as violently, a brief jarring interruption in the stillness before it settled again into something far worse. For a moment, your heart steadied, and the room went still, waiting for something to go right before the same, buzzing flat line shrilled through the air.
“Damn it!” Jack yelled. “Compressions again!”
Hands were back on you immediately, pushing hard, Robby counting under his breath, forcing your heart to do something normal that it wouldn’t do on its own.
“Come on, Pokey,” Robby muttered through the counts. “Come on, don’t do this.”
Somehow, some way, the monitor came alive again.
“Wait!” Mateo said, his fingers now digging into your neck. “Wait—hold on—”
Robby stilled.
“Stay with me, kid,” Jack whispered.
The room drenched with silence before—
“There!” Mateo cried. “Weak, but it’s definitely there.”
“Not stable,” Jack added. “We don’t have time to lose it again.”
“OR’s ready,” Trinity called out despite not being on the clock.
“Then we move,” Jack replied.
You were lifted again, transferred with even more urgency now, the bed unlocking as they rushed you out of the trauma bay. Blood still seeped beneath you, slower now, but no less dangerous, your body pale and still beneath their attempts to keep you alive.
Jack stayed at your side as they pushed toward surgery, his hand braced against the bed like it was the only thing keeping him grounded.
“Stay with me,” he said even if you couldn’t hear them. “Just a little longer.”
You didn’t respond. Didn’t move, didn’t fight like he was praying you would.
And for a moment, Jack wondered if you’d even pull through.
_______________________
The chaos that had followed you through the doors—the shouting, the movement, the constant urgency—broke apart the second you were taken upstairs. What replaced it wasn’t calm, not really. It was something heavier. Thicker. The kind of silence that wasn’t empty, but stretched tight with everything no one was saying.
In the break room, Trinity sat first.
She didn’t remember deciding to; one second, she was standing, pacing in small, frantic steps like she could march right on upstairs and scrub in, and the next her knees gave just enough that the nearest chair caught her. Her hands still felt stained even though she’d washed them enough for the skin to grow red and irritated. But she kept looking at them like they were streaked with your blood.
Dennis hovered beside her for a moment before sitting too, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. He hadn’t said much since the trauma bay. Whatever he was processing, it was happening inward, but his foot wouldn’t stop bouncing: the only sign that he wasn’t nearly as calm as he looked.
The two looked up with teary eyes as Robby and Jack slipped in.
Robby was the first to break the silence with a shaky inhale, a shift forward towards a chair, his hands coming together like he was organizing his next words in his head before he spoke.
“They got them to surgery fast,” he said. “That’s what we were needing, what we want in a case like this.”
Trinity let out a shaky laugh that didn’t hold any humor.
“Pokey—” she started, then stopped, her voice catching. “They died.”
The word sat wrong in everyone’s chest. You weren’t someone capable of that. Robby didn’t flinch.
“They coded,” he corrected, ever always the teacher. “That’s not the same thing.”
“I know but,” she pressed, voice rising at the end. “The epi wasn’t working, and their heart just . . .”
“And we got them back,” he added, firm enough to anchor her without shutting her down. “We got a pulse back before they moved to surgery. That what we needed, and it held long enough.”
Trinity’s shoulder shook as she pulled in a deep breath. “But will it keep holding?”
No one had an easy answer to that.
Jack, despite the pain in his limb, hadn’t sat.
He stood near the far end of the room, arms crossed tightly over his chest, gaze fixed on the mask he held between his fingers. He hadn’t spoken since they’d taken you upstairs, hadn’t acknowledged anyone directly, but he hadn’t left either.
“You knew,” Dennis’s voice snapped him out of the stupor.
His hazel eyes lifted slowly. “What?”
Dennis licked his lips. “They said your name. In the truck. And you’re looking at that mask like you’ve seen it more than just them dropping patients off.”
Jack let out a long sigh before answer. There was no point in denying it. “Yeah.”
Trinity’s head snapped up.
“You knew?” she echoed, exhaustion bleeding through. “You knew and didn’t—what, you just let them continue doing this?”
“Trin,” Dennis cut, a warning on the edge of his tongue.
“No,” she snapped back, shaking her head, pushing to her feet again despite the way her legs wobbled. “No, you don’t get to—do you have any idea what that was like, Dr. Abbot?” she snarled his name like it personally offended her. “Watching them lose against it all—”
“I warned them,” Jack softly said. “I told them this would happen. That one day, they wouldn’t be able to shake it all off. That it wouldn’t be something they could just patch up and ignore.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. “They told me they’d come home . . . to me.”
His words hit in more ways that they should, holding a deeper meaning.
Trinity opened her mouth. Closed it. Her face melted into one of understanding.
“That’s why Pokey asked for the Pitt,” she said more to herself, realization mixing with the breath. “To somehow get back to you because they couldn’t on their own.”
Jack’s expression didn’t change.
That somehow made everything worse.
Time passed slowly, no one bothering to keep track of it.
The break room lights stayed the same sterile brightness that made it impossible to tell how late or early it was getting. Nurses came and went, other families rotated through, the quiet hum of the hospital continuing around them like nothing had changed.
Trinity and Dennis stayed put while Jack and Robby had to eventually go back into the Pitt, carrying on like you weren’t upstairs fighting for your life against more powerful outside forces.
Eventually, something did change.
The doors opened again, and this time, it wasn’t just someone coming in to grab a mediocre coffee.
Robby walked in first, Jack right on his tail, his posture straighter but expression still set int the same grounding focus he’d had in the trauma bay.
“Morning shift’s coming in,” he said, glancing between Dennis and Trinity. “We need to get a head of this.”
Dennis frowned slightly. “Get ahead of what?”
“Questions,” Robby replied. “They’re going to notice when Pokey doesn’t come in. Yes, they’re normally late, but they eventually show up. They’re going to ask why. And we’re not doing this piecemeal in the middle of a shift.”
Trinity exhaled slowly. “So what, we just . . . tell them?”
“We tell them enough,” Jack stepped in. “I’ve already updated Dana with everything. But the rest, we’re not going to give details they don’t need, not anything that compromises—” He stopped himself briefly before continuing. “But they need to know what happened. And they need to know Pokey’s not coming in.”
Trinity sank back into her chair, her energy draining as quickly as it had flared. “I don’t even know how to say it.”
Robby nodded once. “Then I will.”
_______________________
The shift change didn’t feel like one.
It wasn’t the usual slow transition, the casual greetings, the quiet handoff of patients from one resident to another. There was a tension in the air as the day shift filtered into the room. Samira first, then Victoria, Frank Mel: each of them picked up on something being off before anyone said a word.
Dana stood to the side, trying hard to keep tears at bay.
“Where’s Pokey?” Mel asked almost immediately, glancing around like she expected you to walk in late like usual. “Or is she missing the team meeting?”
No one answered right away, giving the new additions to take in how exhausted and worn the others looked. Something had happened during the night; they were all sure. Robby stepped forward instead, drawing attention with a quiet authority.
“We had an emergency case come in overnight,” he said, voice as steady as he could manage. “Severe trauma. Multiple penetrations. Almost 30% blood loss. They’re in surgery now.”
Victoria’s brows pulled together. “And that affects us how—”
“It’s Pokey,” Trinity said, cutting in before Robby could soften the blow.
Heaviness fell like an avalanche.
“What?” Frank asked, blinking like he’d misheard.
“They’re the patient,” Trinity repeated, her voice firmer this time even if it shook. “And it’s bad.”
Samira’s expression melted, concern washing over through her pinched brows. “How bad?”
Robby didn’t sugarcoat it. “Critical. They coded in the trauma bay twice, but we got them back. They went straight to surgery. We don’t have any updates yet.”
Straight silence followed.
Mel’s gaze dropped briefly, processing, before she looked back up. “What do they need from us?”
Her question was simple and exactly the right one.
“For now?” Robby said. “We do our jobs. We keep things moving, and we don’t get out of control. If someone asks, just say they needed a day off; don’t let speculation get out of control.”
Victoria nodded. “Are they going to be okay?”
Jack’s lips pursed. “We hope so.”
The next few hours were daunting.
This time, the wait settled down to their bones, making every second feel like it dragged just a little too slow. The sun settled in the blinds, pale and slow, turning the sterile lights into a softer, more alive warmth that made the exhaustion hit all at once.
Trinity had stopped crying.
Dennis hadn’t stopped watching the door.
Jack hadn’t moved.
The doors, contrast to the room, opened, revealing Emery Walsh, looking more exhausted than the rest. She pulled off her surgical cap as she slipped through, her expression drawing every eye in the room when she paused.
The sitting two stood but stayed silent.
“They made it through surgery,” she said, not rushing and not dressing it up. “They’re finally stable enough to be moved to a room. They’re not out of the woods yet. The next hours are going to be critical, but we believe they’ll pull through and make a full recovery.”
Trinity let out a breath that broke halfway into a sob.
Jack’s shoulders dropped slightly.
Dennis closed his eyes, allowing tears to spill over.
Robby nodded once, sharp and contained, but his heart thudded wildly in his chest.
Alive.
Not safe.
But alive for now.
That they could work with.
_______________________
Waking up didn’t feel like waking up.
It felt like surfacing wrong, like coming through a crashing wave only to breath in saltwater on the way up.
Your body lagged behind awareness, mind struggling to catch up with the simple act of being conscious after being under for so long. The senses came back in fragments; sound first, low and indistinct, voices blurred together like they were underwater; then touch, dull and distant, your body heavy in a way that didn’t feel entirely yours; taste, metallic iron long gone from deep in your mouth; and finally light, too soft to hurt but still but enough to make you squint beneath its glare.
You didn’t move right away.
Couldn’t.
But when something tugged at your arm when you tried, a faint resistance that didn’t make sense in your muddled mind, you pried your eyes open until the room took shape around you in the hospital walls, pale and sterile, machines humming quietly to your right, a steady rhythm marking time in a way that you were able to catch onto.
Your head turned slightly.
And that was enough to send the room into motion.
“Hey—”
The voice came quick, thick with an accent you could place anywhere no matter what happened to you.
Dana.
She was already on her feet, chair scraping softly against the floor as she moved closer, her eyes scanning your face like she was checking for something she wasn’t sure she’d find. “Hey, hun, don’t—don’t do that thing from dramas were people wake up and then immediately pass back out again.”
Her hand hovered near yours, unsure for a second before settling lightly against it, careful of the IV line taped there.
The more you blinked, the clearer her and her golden hair became. Shapes that were blurred sharpened into pictures you could take in. That’s when you realized that the room wasn’t as empty as you’d originally thought.
You tried to speak.
It didn’t come out right.
Your throat felt raw, like it had been forced open and hadn’t quite recovered yet even with the accelerated healing you possessed. The sound was rough, barely more than a vibration of vocal cords.
“Easy,” Robby said, voice coming from the foot of your bed through the haze. “Don’t try to talk yet. You’ve got time.”
You shifted your gaze toward him, his body just a fuzzy blur before he sharpened. His arms were crossed, posture relaxed in appearance only, his attention fixed on you in a way that said he hadn’t really relaxed at all.
Trinity was next to come into view.
You felt her truly before you saw her and the way the air shifted as she moved closer. Your ears caught the way she inhaled unsteadily like she was bracing herself for you to crash again. When your eyes finally found her, she looked . . . different.
Her green eyes were still the same. Her cheekbones still high. Her hair pulled back into the iconic half-pony.
But her expression, normally sharp and steeled against hard patients, had changed. Her eyebrows pulled together like someone had sewn them there. Her lips tugged down and shook in place. Her nose was bright red around the edges.
“Hey, Pokey” she said softly, voice breaking around the name she’d given you all those shifts ago, full of reverence and fear she’d never get to call you that again.
Dennis stood just behind her, one hand resting lightly at her back, his gaze on you like he was searching, like he was trying to burn this version of you—safe, alive—in his eyes rather than on the one he saw in his apartment.
Jack caught your eye next. He was sitting finally; prosthetic having gotten too much to bear and now resting against the wall. One hand rested loosely at his side, the other braced on your ankle, his finger settled against the steady hum of the posterior tibial to remind him that your heart was going.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t really need to. The way his eyes lingered said enough.
Unlike your senses, memory came back all at once.
The fight. The impact. The way the air had left your lungs when those claws went through you. The blood. The apartment. The car. The ER—
Your breath hitched.
Pain followed with the flashes, present enough to remind you exactly where you were and why.
“Hey, easy,” Dana cooed, her fingers gently rubbing across your hand. “You’re okay. You’re in a room; surgery went well. You’re not—” She stopped herself, swallowing the word down. “You’re gonna be just fine.”
You, on the other hand, weren’t sure that was entirely true.
Everyone was looking at you almost like they were waiting for something.
You knew what.
Your gaze shifted between them slowly.
They all knew. They had to.
Your fingers twitched weakly against the sheets, the movement small but enough to draw their attention.
“You don’t have to say anything right now,” Dana started, softer this time, voice relaxing the longer you stayed awake. “We can—”
“I—” The word clawed its way out of your throat, rough, gargled, stopping her mid-sentence. You swallowed, the motion careful, effectively wetting your throat enough for the next words to glide better. “I didn’t—mean for—” You paused, breath catching as you tried to piece the words together through the fog still clinging to your thoughts. “Didn’t—want you to find—out like that.”
Trinity’s lips parted slightly, like she was going to say something, but nothing followed.
Dennis looked down briefly, then back up, his jaw tightening just slightly.
Dana kept a soft smile on her lips.
Robby shifted his weight, just enough to indicate that he was still there, still listening.
And Jack; Jack watched you. You could feel it even when you weren’t looking at him directly.
“I was—going to—tell you,” you continued, spitting the words out slower than you wanted to, causing frustration to bubble.
You were a hero. You’d fought monsters. Saved lives.
And now you can’t even speak what you want.
Your tongue ran across your lips. “Eventually. Just not like that.”
Dana let out a quiet scoff. “That’s what you’re worried about right now?”
Your eyes crinkled as a weak, almost apologetic attempt at a smile pulled at your mouth. “Timing’s—bad,” you admitted.
A short, strained laugh slipped out of her before she could stop it, her free hand coming up to press briefly against her forehead. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
The rest didn’t join in on the laugh.
Trinity’s eyes stayed locked on you the entire time like you were a ticking-time-bomb about to explode in her face.
“You were—” she started before pursing her lips. She tried again. “This whole time you were out there, getting hurt, and coming back to shifts like nothing happened?”
You didn’t answer right away because there wasn’t a version of that question that didn’t have an answer she wouldn’t like.
“Yeah,” you finally said.
Her face crumpled. “You almost died,” she snapped, angrier at the situation than you. “On my floor in my arms. Do you—do you understand that we might not have made it in time?”
“I do.”
“Then why?” she pressed. “Why do you keep doing this if you understand what might happen if we aren’t fast enough next time.”
Dennis’s hand stopped its circles at her back.
You looked at her for a long moment before answering.
“Because no one else will,” you said simply. “It’s my responsibility.”
The answer wasn’t dramatic or defensive. Just the truth. But that didn’t make it easier for her to hear.
“That’s not—” she started, frustration breaking through as tears now. “That’s not a good enough reason to just throw yourself out there without telling anyone—”
“I tell Jack—”
“That’s not enough,” she snapped, face growing red. “One person isn’t enough to make sure you come back, Pokey. You came to us, and we weren’t prepared. You aren’t giving people a chance to—”
“To what?” you asked gently.
She paused. “To pick up the pieces when you can’t.”
Your heart clenched.
Dana stepped in. “You’re not going to make this call by yourself anymore,” she said, grey eyes meeting yours directly. “Not after this. Not after you ended up on that table, and I had to get a call from Jack telling me that you might not make it out.”
It was your turn to let tears fall down your cheeks.
Robby nodded slightly from where he stood.
“She’s right,” he added. “We don’t want you to stop being who you are. No one here is asking that of you. But you need to understand that sometimes you can’t reach all the wounds on our own.”
You let your gaze fall back on Jack, who hadn’t moved, hadn’t interrupted. Your bottom lip wobbled.
“I wasn’t trying to—shut people out,” you said. “What I do is dangerous. I just—I didn’t want you to have to carry the threat that something might happen.”
“Too late,” Dennis said quietly.
It was the first thing he’d said since you woke up. You looked up, and he held your eyes.
“You showed up at our apartment bleeding out,” he continued, tone level but landing more than if he’d raised his voice. “We’re carrying it now. Because the moment you came to us first, you made that decision whether or not you wanted to.”
There wasn’t anything left to argue with there.
Dana’s hand squeezed yours lightly.
“I put us all down as your emergency contact right after Abbot over there,” she said after a moment, her tone almost conversational, like she was easing them all into something more manageable. “You don’t get a say in that, by the way. It’s already on your file.”
A faint breath of amusement slipped past your lips.
“Figures,” you murmured, though there was no bite to it.
Robby huffed quietly, a small, almost approving sound. “I’m going to have Dana adjust your schedule. Non-negotiable. You’re off until you’re 100%, and when you come back, it’s lighter shifts. You push it, I pull you right back out. I can’t have one of my best residents out for the count.”
You didn’t argue even if you wanted to.
“Okay,” you settled on.
Trinity watched you for a moment longer, her expression still complicated, still trying to reconcile it all at once. Some of her sharpness had faded, the harsh lines being replaced by softer features.
“You don’t get to do any of this alone anymore,” she said. “Like we’ve said—” Her neck turned for her to quickly glance at Dennis before looking back at you, “you’re always welcome if you need a place to stay. The couch is yours, or I can always kick Huckleberry out.”
“Hey—” Dennis yelped, but his eyes were agreeing with whatever Trinity told you.
You met both their gazes, head nodding as much as you could without getting dizzy.
“Okay,” you repeated. “Thank you. I won’t eat your avocados. Promise.”
Despite the solemness, a few giggled filled the air. And for the first time in a few hours, hope filled in along with the sunbeams that stayed even through the grief.
_______________________
The room was quieter when they finally left.
Not all at once though; there had been a slow tapering of voices, soft reassurances, one last round of we’ll be back later and try to get some rest, but eventually, the room settled enough that you could actually hear the machines beside you, the steady rhythm of your own monitored breathing filling the space where conversation had been.
The door clicked shut.
And then it was just you and Jack.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
He didn’t move right away, choosing to stay seated at the end of your bed like he was recalibrating now that the others were gone, like the presence of an audience had been the only thing keeping certain things in place. Without it, his shoulders dropped, and his hand on your ankle finally lifted.
You took this time to watch him.
Really watch him this time.
The exhaustion was clearer up close in the faint shadows under his eyes, in the tension still lingering in the set of his jaw, in the way he looked at you like he was still waiting for everything to go wrong.
“Hey,” you croaked softly.
Your voice wasn’t much stronger than before, but it was yours, less strained and stronger as your body was kickstarting again. And it was enough to pull him fully back to you.
Jack’s gaze lifted, locking onto yours.
“Hey,” he echoed, quieter.
He gripped the chair’s arms as his leg pushed along the floor to scooch over until he settled closer to your head. His hand came up and rested against the edge of your bed before sliding just slightly until his fingers brushed yours.
You didn’t hesitate. Your hand turned weakly against the sheets, threading into his as best as you could with the IV in the way, your grip soft but intentional. He tightened his fingers around yours immediately, almost like he’d been waiting for permission to do exactly that.
The contact grounded you both.
Just your hand in his.
“You scared me,” he finally admitted.
Your thumb shifted against his hand, a small, careful movement. “I know.”
His jaw tightened. “No.” He shook his head once, a small, frustrated motion. “No, I don’t think you do.”
Your eyes stayed on him.
“I’ve seen bad cases,” he continued, barely holding back his tears now. “I’ve been in trauma bas where we knew from the second someone came in that we weren’t getting them back. I’ve watched people crash and not come out of it. I’ve had to call it more times than I can count—”
He stopped.
Swallowed. Hard.
“And then you came in,” he said, his hand gripping yours tighter. “And I had to stand there and pretend you were just another patient while you were bleeding out on my table.”
Your heart broke.
“I wasn’t—” you started, but the words didn’t quite come together right.
“I know,” he answered, shaking his head again. “I know you weren’t trying to end up here. That’s not the point.”
He let out a shaky breath, tears finally running down to drip onto your bed. You gently took your hand out of his and rested it against his cheek, thumb brushing away the wet tracks. His hand rose and cupped it, holding you close.
“I already lost the first love of my life,” he said, eyes glancing down to the ring on his left hand. “I can’t go through that again.”
The room stilled around his confession.
You felt it in the way his hand didn’t leave yours, in the way his eyes stayed trained on your face even as he said it, like he needed you to understand exactly what he meant.
“This isn’t just about you being reckless,” Jack continued, looking back down into a blank space. “This is about me standing there, watching you die, and knowing that if we didn’t get you back, that was it. That was—” The rest caught in his throat, refusing to flow the rest of the way.
You shifted slightly, the movement small but enough to pull his attention back to your face fully, to the way you were looking at him now.
“I’m still here,” you softly said.
“I know,” he replied. “I know you are.”
But your words didn’t undo what almost happened, that much was clear. Your fingers curled slightly around his ear with a gentle pull that coaxed him closer.
“Come here,” you murmured.
He hesitated for half a second, like he wasn’t sure if he should, like he was still half in that clinical mindset where you were a patent first and everything else second, but then he gave in, leaning closer until he was right beside you.
Your other hand lifted slowly, careful of the IV lines, finding the fabric of his shirt and curling there weakly, tugging him just enough for him to slowly lean down, like he was giving you time to stop him if you needed to.
You didn’t.
Your lips met his gently at first, soft and gently pressing, the kind of kiss that wasn’t about urgency or heat but all about reassurance, about proving something to the both of you that words couldn’t quite cover.
He responded quickly.
His other hand came up to your face, fingers brushing lightly along your jaw, holding you there like you might disappear if he let go. The kiss deepened slightly, Jack still mindful of everything you’d just been through, but he put something else in it too, something that had been held back for too long before finally breaking through.
Relief.
Fear.
Love.
When he pulled, his breath was hot and heavy against your nose. His forehead rested lightly against yours, and he stayed there for a moment, not ready to put space between you.
“Don’t do that again,” he murmured.
You huffed out the smallest hint of laugh. “I’ll try to avoid being impaled,” you said, licks of teasing cutting through.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” he replied, pulling back just enough to meet your eyes again.
“I know.” Your hand slipped from his shirt, finding his again, fingers lacing together properly this time. “But I can’t stop. Not completely. You know that.”
“I do.” He licked his lips in contemplation of what to say next. “But you’re not doing it like this anymore,” he added, his tone firm and unwilling to bend. “You don’t stay out until dawn, you don’t just go back to your house, and you don’t end up half-dead on our residents’ floor because you thought you could walk it off after. And if you try, I’ll find some way to get your sticky stuff and keep you in my bed.”
Your cheeks heated ever so slightly.
“If you do, I’ll take your leg.”
“Then we’ll both be stuck at home.”
You rolled your eyes fondly. “How tragic, Dr. Abbot.”
A whiff of a smile curled his lips. “How tragic indeed,” Jack echoed before pausing. “Move in with me.”
His words were so straightforward, so out of left field, that it took you a second to process them.
“What?” you asked, eyes wide.
“Move in with me. Not part-time, not occasionally, not living out of the one drawer you already have. Permanently.”
You blinked at him, thoughts catching up in once piece. “Jack—”
“I’m serious,” he cut you off. “I’m not doing this again: waiting for a call at work, or worse, no call at all and finding that you’re somewhere bleeding out because you didn’t want to worry anyone.”
“You being there won’t fix everything,” you pointed out gently.
His eyes swam with something you couldn’t quite place your finger on. “But it means I’m not on the outside of it anymore. It means that when something does go wrong, because it will, you’re not dealing with it alone.”
You looked at him for a moment, taking in the seriousness of it all, the weight behind what he was asking. You knew this wasn’t impulsive, this wasn’t just fear talking. This was Jack Abbot choosing something.
Choosing you.
“Okay,” you finally said, the word settling between you in full.
Relief flooded his features almost instantaneously.
“Okay.”
You raised a finger, a smile now fully stretching across your face. “But I want to join in on sunrise nude yoga.”
He nodded, a matching smile mirroring yours. “Whatever you want, baby.”
You shifted, excitement now replacing whatever dread had been left over. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”
His eyebrows pinched in a funny way, like he just caught a joke he didn’t know he knew.
“That was a pun, right? Cause you’re sticky—”
“Just kiss me again, old man.”
And this time, when he leaned in to kiss you, you finally felt alive.
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