a/n: the pictures are used for aesthetic purposes only! reader does not have a physical description! thank you sm for the request anon!! this was very fun to do again < 3 ! my modern!dunk is a bit of a farm man okay walk with me!
MODERN!DUNK did not bother with social media much before he met you. he was a rather busy man, keeping to himself and minding his own business as much as he could. dunk was not a big fan of being perceived by the people who did not matter to him, of possible judgmental strangers having opinions on the way he lived his life or the state of his appearance. he had made a social media account to maybe get in touch with like-minded people who loved horses and enjoyed nature, not to... flaunt himself. it was once in a blue moon that he shared pictures from his daily life, and even then, they were rather candid and poorly captured. dunk was a little ashamed of his photography skills, but those would have to do. having a farmhouse and livestock to look after took most of his free time. there was little left for much else.
he meets you at the supermarket closest to his farmhouse. dunk had seen you around before, but never had the wits about him to approach or strike a conversation with you. luckily for him, it seemed you were more perceptive than he was. dunk supposes it wasn't not hard for anyone, especially you, to realize how lingering his looks were, having caught him a handful of times, big, wide baby blues trained on you in wonder and trepidation. his cheeks have been red too, dammit. but dunk wouldn't beat himself up too much for his clumsiness, for it had landed him your phone number! he could've sworn his smile was about to split his face when you pressed a slip of paper with the neat handwriting on it, urging him softly to contact you whenever he wished. your name was also scribbled on it. dunk blushed. you had such a pretty name. it was only fair of him to offer his own in response with the eagerness of a child.
he wonders, absentmindedly, if you have any social media. maybe you will be curious and look up his name? you do know what he looks like, but maybe you would be curious for more? dunk feels silly for thinking so ahead when he only now got your number. but the thought lingers.
maybe a few more pictures of him on his page wouldn't hurt. what if the pretty lady is curious, after all?
turns out, you are not fond of posting yourself on social media much, dunk learns in the following weeks he spends with you. that's alright, he thinks. nothing wrong with not wanting to be seen! he agrees, after all, more or less, but does tell you about the account he has, shy and reluctant to show you the pictures he posted, feeling like a fool under your scrutiny.
his blush only deepens when you start cooing over his pictures, praising how handsome he looks and how much you love them! dunk feels like he could combust right then and there under all the compliments. the way you pinch your fingers and zoom on some of the photos to see his face better or ogle his muscles. he almost passes out when you comment how strong he looks when he works on the farm. even offer to take his pictures for him next time he feels like snapping a few.
it'll be a win-win for both, you say. he gets to look handsome and you get to look at him.
dunk swears his ears are fuming from how flushed he is, but he nods eagerly anyway, secretly loving the concept of you being the one behind the camera, smiling so prettily at him, your eyes shining.
taking pictures becomes one of his favorite things to do.
a couple of weeks later, and dunk is fumbling with his words, expressing his feelings for you in the most ardent, clumsy way. it's sweet and lovely and so, so honest. just like him.
you two are inseparable afterwards. dunk is over the moon to have you visit his farmhouse more often, showing you every corner and crevice and getting you acquainted with the place. he loves seeing you walk around, interacting with the horses and livestock, and asking about every flower and plant you see. dunk is so in love that he feels like he could burst. you are the loveliest thing he has ever seen, and he wishes to one day take pictures of you, too, just like you do of him. but for now, he's more than happy to be on the other side of the camera, smiling at you and feeling like the luckiest man on earth.
slowly, traces of you start appearing in the pictures. it makes dunk's heart soar in his chest when he posts them for the first time. now people can see that there is someone precious helping him take such beautiful photography, even if it is mostly of himself.
more and more of you start bleeding into the photography, and dunk gets a rosy tint in his cheeks every time someone comments under his post, asking who the other person is.
dunk wants to tell everyone about you. he's not hiding you. never. he is so proud of being your lover, thanking every god out there for bringing you into his path.
he is just... a little nervous. maybe you do not want to put yourself out there so much for people to see. maybe you wish things to be more private, and dunk understands and respects that. he is happy with how things are now.
maybe in the future, he would ask if he can have one or two pictures of your pretty face on his page so people can see who owns his heart and soul.
one day, you mention offhandedly that you two barely have any pictures together, and should take more.
dunk's heart almost stops in his chest out of pure joy and delight, agreeing so, so earnestly, hands already fumbling for his phone.
he keeps all of those in a separate folder, which he names with a cute, simple heart. but it's a heart in your favorite color. he thinks it's cute and romantic. you agree.
dunk does not flood his social page with all the pictures at once. he does not want to make it too overwhelming for you, just in case.
but he cannot help himself as he drops one or two here and there every time he feels like updating his page. now people can see how beautiful his lover is! he's so happy.
sometimes, he sneaks pictures of you, candid and sweet. those might be his favourites.
you look every bit of yourself, relaxed and pretty. capturing you at your most authentic makes butterflies swarm in his stomach, threatening to choke him from how much tenderness he feels for you.
it feels like he has pieces of you with him. he does post those, but also makes sure to print them out and tuck them somewhere in his car where he can see them at all times. the lonely drives feel better now because he gets to look up and see the person he loves most.
dunk's neighbour, egg, often jokes that you two should get married soon.
"you look like those old married couples, anyway!" he would say, and every time, dunk would get this faraway look in his eyes for a few moments, as if imagining it. you, as his pretty, beautiful wife, living happily in his farmhouse and sharing your life with him.
the blush on his cheeks is so bright and warm when his eyes flit to you, already imagining waking up to you every morning and getting to kiss you silly as he comes back for dinner after a hard day of tending to the farm.
maybe he starts making cute, makeshift rings from plants or grass he picks up around his property. and maybe dodges your soft looks and inquiries as to why he suddenly picked up this cute hobby.
secretly, dunk loves feeling like he can protect you, even if you can take care of yourself. he's so proud when he sees you stand up for yourself, even though he wants nothing more than to do it for you. he respects your autonomy and encourages you to be independent.
but he loves feeling needed and wanted.
loves to see how much stronger he looks beside you. how taller. how bigger.
it's a small, shameful part of him that he keeps hidden, like a dirty little secret.
when he can clearly see the difference between your physiques in pictures, he gets so flustered, red from the tips of his ears to the valley of his pecs.
asking you to start a live together is so nerve-wracking, he feels like all the blood rushed to his face, and he cannot find the right words to express how happy that'll make him.
dunk loves you so much, and even though he is happy with how things are, he can only wish to have you closer. so much closer. much more often.
it's a greedy, selfish feeling, but he cannot help it. you are everything to him. the first rays of sunshine at dawn and all the glittering stars in the sky at dusk.
a/n: the pictures are used for aesthetic purposes only! reader does not have a physical description! thank you sm for the request anon!! this was very fun to do again < 3 ! my modern!dunk is a bit of a farm man okay walk with me!
MODERN!DUNK did not bother with social media much before he met you. he was a rather busy man, keeping to himself and minding his own business as much as he could. dunk was not a big fan of being perceived by the people who did not matter to him, of possible judgmental strangers having opinions on the way he lived his life or the state of his appearance. he had made a social media account to maybe get in touch with like-minded people who loved horses and enjoyed nature, not to... flaunt himself. it was once in a blue moon that he shared pictures from his daily life, and even then, they were rather candid and poorly captured. dunk was a little ashamed of his photography skills, but those would have to do. having a farmhouse and livestock to look after took most of his free time. there was little left for much else.
he meets you at the supermarket closest to his farmhouse. dunk had seen you around before, but never had the wits about him to approach or strike a conversation with you. luckily for him, it seemed you were more perceptive than he was. dunk supposes it wasn't not hard for anyone, especially you, to realize how lingering his looks were, having caught him a handful of times, big, wide baby blues trained on you in wonder and trepidation. his cheeks have been red too, dammit. but dunk wouldn't beat himself up too much for his clumsiness, for it had landed him your phone number! he could've sworn his smile was about to split his face when you pressed a slip of paper with the neat handwriting on it, urging him softly to contact you whenever he wished. your name was also scribbled on it. dunk blushed. you had such a pretty name. it was only fair of him to offer his own in response with the eagerness of a child.
he wonders, absentmindedly, if you have any social media. maybe you will be curious and look up his name? you do know what he looks like, but maybe you would be curious for more? dunk feels silly for thinking so ahead when he only now got your number. but the thought lingers.
maybe a few more pictures of him on his page wouldn't hurt. what if the pretty lady is curious, after all?
turns out, you are not fond of posting yourself on social media much, dunk learns in the following weeks he spends with you. that's alright, he thinks. nothing wrong with not wanting to be seen! he agrees, after all, more or less, but does tell you about the account he has, shy and reluctant to show you the pictures he posted, feeling like a fool under your scrutiny.
his blush only deepens when you start cooing over his pictures, praising how handsome he looks and how much you love them! dunk feels like he could combust right then and there under all the compliments. the way you pinch your fingers and zoom on some of the photos to see his face better or ogle his muscles. he almost passes out when you comment how strong he looks when he works on the farm. even offer to take his pictures for him next time he feels like snapping a few.
it'll be a win-win for both, you say. he gets to look handsome and you get to look at him.
dunk swears his ears are fuming from how flushed he is, but he nods eagerly anyway, secretly loving the concept of you being the one behind the camera, smiling so prettily at him, your eyes shining.
taking pictures becomes one of his favorite things to do.
a couple of weeks later, and dunk is fumbling with his words, expressing his feelings for you in the most ardent, clumsy way. it's sweet and lovely and so, so honest. just like him.
you two are inseparable afterwards. dunk is over the moon to have you visit his farmhouse more often, showing you every corner and crevice and getting you acquainted with the place. he loves seeing you walk around, interacting with the horses and livestock, and asking about every flower and plant you see. dunk is so in love that he feels like he could burst. you are the loveliest thing he has ever seen, and he wishes to one day take pictures of you, too, just like you do of him. but for now, he's more than happy to be on the other side of the camera, smiling at you and feeling like the luckiest man on earth.
slowly, traces of you start appearing in the pictures. it makes dunk's heart soar in his chest when he posts them for the first time. now people can see that there is someone precious helping him take such beautiful photography, even if it is mostly of himself.
more and more of you start bleeding into the photography, and dunk gets a rosy tint in his cheeks every time someone comments under his post, asking who the other person is.
dunk wants to tell everyone about you. he's not hiding you. never. he is so proud of being your lover, thanking every god out there for bringing you into his path.
he is just... a little nervous. maybe you do not want to put yourself out there so much for people to see. maybe you wish things to be more private, and dunk understands and respects that. he is happy with how things are now.
maybe in the future, he would ask if he can have one or two pictures of your pretty face on his page so people can see who owns his heart and soul.
one day, you mention offhandedly that you two barely have any pictures together, and should take more.
dunk's heart almost stops in his chest out of pure joy and delight, agreeing so, so earnestly, hands already fumbling for his phone.
he keeps all of those in a separate folder, which he names with a cute, simple heart. but it's a heart in your favorite color. he thinks it's cute and romantic. you agree.
dunk does not flood his social page with all the pictures at once. he does not want to make it too overwhelming for you, just in case.
but he cannot help himself as he drops one or two here and there every time he feels like updating his page. now people can see how beautiful his lover is! he's so happy.
sometimes, he sneaks pictures of you, candid and sweet. those might be his favourites.
you look every bit of yourself, relaxed and pretty. capturing you at your most authentic makes butterflies swarm in his stomach, threatening to choke him from how much tenderness he feels for you.
it feels like he has pieces of you with him. he does post those, but also makes sure to print them out and tuck them somewhere in his car where he can see them at all times. the lonely drives feel better now because he gets to look up and see the person he loves most.
dunk's neighbour, egg, often jokes that you two should get married soon.
"you look like those old married couples, anyway!" he would say, and every time, dunk would get this faraway look in his eyes for a few moments, as if imagining it. you, as his pretty, beautiful wife, living happily in his farmhouse and sharing your life with him.
the blush on his cheeks is so bright and warm when his eyes flit to you, already imagining waking up to you every morning and getting to kiss you silly as he comes back for dinner after a hard day of tending to the farm.
maybe he starts making cute, makeshift rings from plants or grass he picks up around his property. and maybe dodges your soft looks and inquiries as to why he suddenly picked up this cute hobby.
secretly, dunk loves feeling like he can protect you, even if you can take care of yourself. he's so proud when he sees you stand up for yourself, even though he wants nothing more than to do it for you. he respects your autonomy and encourages you to be independent.
but he loves feeling needed and wanted.
loves to see how much stronger he looks beside you. how taller. how bigger.
it's a small, shameful part of him that he keeps hidden, like a dirty little secret.
when he can clearly see the difference between your physiques in pictures, he gets so flustered, red from the tips of his ears to the valley of his pecs.
asking you to start a live together is so nerve-wracking, he feels like all the blood rushed to his face, and he cannot find the right words to express how happy that'll make him.
dunk loves you so much, and even though he is happy with how things are, he can only wish to have you closer. so much closer. much more often.
it's a greedy, selfish feeling, but he cannot help it. you are everything to him. the first rays of sunshine at dawn and all the glittering stars in the sky at dusk.
↳ reader feels as if she is running out of time, and asks jack to be a sperm donor so she can fulfill her lifelong dream of being a mother. surprisingly, he agrees.
summary: for the past eight long months, jack has had the twelfth floor of the orpheus building all to himself. the calmness was nice, but he missed knowing that there was a living soul next door. little did he know that, in a slow spring morning, he would meet his new neighbour. and the love of his life.
warnings: angst, fluff and smut. this series contains talks of grief, ptsd, self worth and finding love after your partner has passed. most chapters contain smut and each one is labelled with their own warnings. she/her pronouns and afab!reader. the girls used in the series moodboard are not face claims for reader, they are how i imagine them while i write, but there’s no specific descriptions of body type, race or ethnicity. all lowercase for styling purposes.
main story
⚜️ chapter one*
⚜️ chapter two *
⚜️ chapter three
⚜️ chapter four
⚜️ chapter five
companion pieces
⚜️ a new year’s interlude (set between chapters two and three)*
⚜️ theo gets a bath interlude (part of the 1k followers celebration - set between the new year’s interlude and chapter three)
* smut found in chapter.
domesticblisss 2026. comments and reblogs are appreciated. dividers by @/uzmacchiato and @/bronzewasp
Some nights rearrange everything you thought you understood about love, loss, and what your body is capable of surviving. 7.5k
⚠️ Miscarriage but happy ending
Ok so I read two pieces like this and wanted to create my own version for Rabbot!! Also saw a really funny tiktok about this circumstance so I incorporated that idea also ;)
As always please go into this knowing that these stories are mostly built from my maladaptive daydreams, knowing that most points that aren't described in detail are indications I didn’t fascinate on it enough and others over explained because I hyper fixated on that certain point, but most importantly please know I do use AI as my unpaid employee to fix things and act as my co reader. Enjoy!
The second night shift is always worse than the first.
The first one still has a thread of adrenaline running through it you’re flipping your schedule, your body hasn’t quite realised what you’re doing to it yet. But the second? The second settles into your bones. Your thoughts get slower around the edges. Your limbs feel like they’re moving through water.
By 6:41am, she feels hollowed out.
The Pitt hums around her in that strange pre dawn rhythm, fluorescent lights still too bright, monitors still chirping, the waiting room television murmuring to no one in particular. Outside the ambulance bay doors, the sky is beginning to shift from navy to pale grey, the world preparing to wake up while they are preparing to collapse.
She signs off her last chart slowly, eyes scanning lines she’s already read twice. Her shoulders ache. Her lower back burns in that dull way that comes from standing too long.
And beneath all of that, low, quiet, is the discomfort.
It started around three in the morning. A tightness low in her abdomen that felt like a muscle protesting too much caffeine and too little water. She had ignored it then. She had been triaging a chest pain in Bed 4, running labs, adjusting an IV in Bed 7. There is no room for how do I feel? in the middle of a trauma call.
But sometime around five, when the floor briefly settled and she finally leaned against the counter long enough to breathe, the tightness returned, sharper, more deliberate. She had swallowed two ibuprofen dry in the break room and chased them with lukewarm water from a paper cup.
“Period from hell,” she had muttered to herself, rolling her eyes at her own body.
Now, as she stands and pulls her jacket on, the pain flickers again, not unbearable, not enough to double her over, but enough to make her press her palm briefly against her stomach before letting it drop.
She doesn’t tell anyone.
Jack is finishing up with Mohan across the floor. She watches him absently for a moment, the way he leans in when he listens, the way he nods once when he’s decided something. He looks exhausted too, dark circles under his eyes, hair slightly flattened on one side from where he’s dragged his hand through it all night.
He glances up.
Their eyes meet.
He tilts his head slightly in question.
She gives him a small, reassuring nod.
He studies her face for one beat too long.
Then he nods back.
They’ve been together long enough that these tiny exchanges carry weight. He knows her baseline. He knows when she’s masking. He knows when she’s truly fine. She keeps her expression steady.
He doesn’t push.
Dana’s voice cuts across the floor. “Go home.”
It’s not unkind.
It’s command.
They clock out. The doors to the ambulance bay slide open with a hydraulic sigh and cool morning air rushes in. She inhales deeply and the pain hits again, this time it makes her stop walking for half a second.
Jack notices immediately. “What was that?” he asks, not even looking at her, just feeling the change in her pace.
“Nothing,” she says too quickly. “Just stiff.”
He glances at her now. Her jaw is tight.
“Cramping?” he asks.
She hesitates.
“…Yeah.”
He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t escalate. He just nods slowly. “You drink enough tonight?”
“Probably not.”
He hums like that tracks.
They walk to the car. The sky is brighter now. The world looks normal. Birds have started up somewhere beyond the parking lot.
She lowers herself into the passenger seat carefully. The second she sits, the pain sharpens. Her breath catches.
Jack’s hand is already reaching for her before she can smooth it over. His palm settles on her thigh, warm and grounding.
“You sure you’re good?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah,” she says, staring straight ahead. “Just cramps.”
He studies her profile. The line between his brows deepens slightly. But he doesn’t argue.
He starts the car.
The city is still half asleep.
Streetlights blink off one by one as the sun climbs higher, their yellow glow fading against a sky that’s softening from navy to pale peach. Traffic lights change dutifully from red to green over empty intersections. Storefront shutters remain pulled down. The world hasn’t started demanding anything yet.
It feels suspended.
Inside the car, the air is warm and close. The heater hums softly, pushing out recycled warmth that smells faintly like dashboard plastic and the coffee Jack spilled last week and swore he cleaned up.
Jack drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting casually near the gear shift. His posture is loose, tired but steady. His jaw flexes every few seconds in the way it does when he’s replaying parts of the shift in his head.
She watches the buildings slide by outside the passenger window, brick, glass, a bus stop bench with no one on it.
The pain starts as pressure. Not sharp yet. Just… weight. Low in her abdomen, like something pressing from the inside outward.
She shifts in her seat slightly, angling her hips, hoping the change in position will ease it.
It doesn’t.
It builds gradually, a tightening, a small release, then another tightening that lasts a few seconds longer. She inhales slowly through her nose, counting without thinking about it. One. Two. Three. The pressure peaks and then recedes, and she lets her shoulders drop a fraction.
Okay. That’s fine.
Jack glances at her briefly, catching the movement. “You’re quiet,” he says gently, his voice softer than it was an hour ago in the hospital. Stripped of edge. Stripped of authority. Just Jack.
“I’m tired,” she replies, eyes still on the window. It’s not entirely a lie. Her bones feel heavy. Her eyelids burn.
He gives a low huff of agreement. “Yeah. That shift was—”
He trails off when she shifts again.
The pain returns, sharper. It starts low and radiates outward in a band across her abdomen, like someone tightening a belt from the inside. Her breath catches before she can mask it, small, just a slight inhale that’s too quick.
But Jack hears it. He always hears it.
His head turns instantly. “That’s not just tired,” he says quietly.
She presses her lips together, willing her face to smooth out. “It’s fine.”
He studies her profile for a few seconds longer than usual, jaw tight, shoulders slightly lifted, hand curled loosely in her lap. He doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t escalate either.
Instead, his right hand leaves the gear shift and settles over her thigh. Warm. Solid. Familiar. His thumb brushes slow, absent circles against the fabric of her scrub pants, grounding, affectionate, checking.
She leans into it without meaning to. The warmth seeps through the thin material and into her skin. The pain loosens slightly under the contact, not gone, but dulled.
She exhales carefully.
Jack notices that too. “Better?” he asks.
She nods faintly. “Yeah.”
The lie comes easier now.
Outside, a cyclist passes through an intersection, head down against the chill. The world looks so normal.
Another tightening starts, slower, more deliberate. It doesn’t spike. It gathers, like a hand closing gradually. She shifts again, pressing her lower back against the seat, trying to counter the pressure.
Jack’s thumb pauses mid circle. “Where?” he asks quietly.
She hesitates. “Just cramps.”
He glances at the dash. “You supposed to start soon?” he asks, tone casual but probing.
She shakes her head. “It’s been irregular, since…”
He pauses, he knows, and he doesn’t want to draw attention to it, so he hums.
The pain crests. Her fingers curl tighter into her palm. She focuses on the sensation of his thumb against her thigh, trying to anchor there instead of inside her body.
It releases again, but not fully. There’s a lingering ache now that wasn’t there earlier, like the waves are stacking closer together.
She closes her eyes briefly.
Just get home. Hot shower. Sleep.
Her body is tired. That’s all.
Night shifts do this sometimes. Hormones get weird. Cycles get thrown off. She’s seen it in coworkers a hundred times.
This is explainable.
Jack squeezes her thigh once more, slightly firmer this time. “Tell me if it gets worse,” he says.
She nods.
He watches her for another few seconds, then looks back at the road. But his thumb never stops moving.
The city begins to wake slowly around them, a bakery door propped open, a delivery truck idling, a jogger crossing ahead of them. The car turns onto their street.
The pain hits again, harder. It steals the air from her lungs long enough that her head tips forward slightly.
Jack sees it in the corner of his eye. His grip on the wheel tightens.
“We’re home,” he says, tone shifting subtly. Not alarmed. But alert now.
He pulls into the driveway. Puts the car in park. Before the engine fully cuts off, he turns toward her fully.
“Talk to me,” he says.
She forces a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s just cramps.”
He studies her face. Really studies it. Then reaches over and brushes his thumb once along her cheek.
“You look pale.”
“I feel pale,” she admits softly.
He exhales through his nose.
“Okay,” he says. “Inside. Shower. Water. If it doesn’t settle, we check it.”
We. Not you. We.
She nods.
The pain recedes just enough to let her open the door and step out. The morning air hits her face, cool, fresh, normal and she tells herself again,
Nothing more.
The house greets them with warmth, not just temperature, atmosphere.
The heat clicks softly somewhere in the walls, pushing out that gentle morning warmth that lingers in the kitchen tiles. The smell of coffee is strong and rich, freshly poured. Toast hangs in the air, slightly overdone at the edges. There’s something sweet too, butter melting into something golden in a pan.
Home.
It hits her in the chest immediately.
The door closes behind them with a soft thud, sealing out the fluorescent lights and antiseptic air of the hospital.
Robby is awake. Of course he is.
He stands barefoot at the stove, one hip leaned slightly against the counter, stirring eggs slowly with a wooden spatula. His hair is slightly mussed at the crown like he ran his hands through it one too many times. He’s wearing soft grey sweatpants and one of her oversized hoodies, sleeves pushed up to his forearms.
Domestic Robby. Not Dr. Robinavitch. Not ED chief. Just him.
When he hears the door open, he turns, and his face softens instantly. There’s no calculation in it. No restraint. Just relief.
“There you are,” he says, like he’s been waiting days for them to walk through the door.
She smiles, genuinely this time, and crosses the room without thinking, dropping her bag by the door. She walks straight into him.
Robby doesn’t hesitate. He wraps around her like he always does, one arm sliding up between her shoulder blades, the other cupping the back of her head, fingers threading lightly into her hair.
She sinks into him. For a second, the pain fades into the background.
He smells like coffee and clean laundry and sleep.
He kisses her forehead first. Then her mouth. Then her temple.
“How bad?” he murmurs, voice low against her skin. He always asks that first, not “how are you,” but “how bad.” He wants to know the scale.
“Busy,” she says into his chest.
He hums softly.
Behind her ribs, another tightening begins. Low. Deliberate. She presses her face deeper into him to hide the wince that threatens to crease her brow.
Robby’s hand rubs slow circles along her back. “You’re freezing,” he says softly.
She realises she is. Her fingers are cold against his sides. “I’m fine,” she says automatically.
Jack moves past them and drops into a chair at the table, stretching his legs out and cracking his neck with a small groan.
“I’m starving,” he announces. He looks wrecked, hair flattened slightly on one side, stubble darker than usual, eyes ringed with exhaustion.
Robby snorts faintly. “Come make your own food then.”
He gently untangles himself from her and returns to the stove, sliding the eggs onto plates.
She pulls out a chair and sits slowly, anchoring herself on the table to relieve the discomfort. The pressure in her abdomen shifts when she bends at the waist, not sharp, just there. Present.
Robby sets plates down in front of them with that quiet attentiveness he doesn’t even realise he has, eggs fluffy and soft, toast cut diagonally, fruit neatly arranged.
“You didn’t have to, it’s your day off,” she says quietly.
He glances at her. “I know baby, I wanted to.”
Jack starts talking immediately, because he always does when he’s exhausted, words spilling out like he needs to empty the shift from his body before he can rest.
“You should’ve seen Mohan’s face when the second trauma was brought in,” Jack says, mouth already full. “Trauma rolls in and the resident just—gone. White. Thought he was going to faint.”
Robby huffs a quiet laugh. “Did he?”
“Almost. I told him if he passed out I was leaving him there.”
Robby shakes his head.
She smiles faintly.
The pain pulses again, longer this time. She lowers her fork for a second, shifting herself to sit slightly on her left side, pressing her thigh against the underside of the table to ground herself.
Jack keeps talking. “There was this psych patient who tried to bolt. Ran straight into a supply cart. Full speed.”
Robby snorts. “You can’t make this up.”
“I wish I could.”
They fall into their rhythm easily, conversation that’s mostly noise and comfort. Small complaints. Shared humour. Domestic planning sliding in between hospital stories.
“We need to clean the attic,” Robby says suddenly, pointing his fork at Jack.
Jack groans. “You say that every month.”
“And yet it still needs doing.”
“Because we’re never home.”
“Then we make time.”
“For dust and old boxes?”
“For organisation.”
Jack laughs. “You’re insufferable.”
Robby smirks faintly. “You love it.”
“I tolerate it.”
She listens to them go back and forth. The normalcy of it presses against her chest.
Another cramp builds. This one doesn’t release quickly. It stretches. Tightens. Holds. Her stomach twists in a way that makes her set her fork down more deliberately this time. The eggs suddenly feel heavy in her mouth, almost metallic.
She swallows with difficulty.
Robby notices immediately. “You not hungry?” he asks, not accusing, just observing.
She shakes her head lightly. “Just tired.”
He studies her face, a flicker of concern now. Her skin looks slightly too pale under the kitchen light. There’s a sheen of sweat beginning along her hairline that shouldn’t be there in a warm kitchen.
Jack is mid sentence about reorganising the shed when he trails off. “You okay?” he asks, softer now.
She forces another smile. “I’m fine,” she repeats.
The pain pulses again, lower now, deeper. She shifts in her seat and the pressure changes with it.
Jack notices. His eyes narrow slightly. “Cramping again?” he asks.
She nods because that’s the simplest explanation. “Night shifts always mess with me.”
Robby leans back in his chair slightly, studying her posture. “How bad?”
“Not bad.” It’s a lie, but not fully yet. It’s manageable. It will pass. It has to pass.
She takes another sip of water, hoping it will settle her stomach.
It doesn’t.
The pain returns again, closer together now.
Jack’s foot nudges hers lightly under the table, checking. She nudges back, and he relaxes slightly.
Robby finishes his coffee and stands, collecting plates that are barely touched.
She pushes her chair back slowly. “I’m gonna shower,” she says, voice steady.
Jack points at her with his fork, lazy but fond. “Don’t fall asleep in there.”
She rolls her eyes faintly, though her energy is thinning.
Robby crosses the kitchen in two steps and pulls her back into him briefly. His arms wrap around her again, one hand flattening against her lower back. The warmth feels good, too good.
She presses into him. Another tightening hits. She buries her face in his chest to hide the breath that stutters out.
He kisses her hair. “We’ll be up in a minute,” he says softly.
Jack calls from the table, “Save me a blanket. You always steal them.”
She lets out a weak huff of laughter. “Robby steals them,” she mutters.
“I did not,” Robby protests mildly.
She nods, forcing herself upright. “I’ll grab one,” she says, and turns toward the stairs.
Each step feels heavier than the last. Halfway up, the pain tightens again, longer, stronger. She grips the banister briefly, breathes.
The boys’ voices float up from the kitchen below, still arguing about attic boxes and garage shelves.
Normal. Safe. Unaware.
She tells herself one more time, It’s nothing.
And continues up the stairs.
The bathroom light is unforgiving.
It throws her reflection back at her in harsh detail, pale skin, faint shadows beneath her eyes, a thin sheen of sweat already gathering at her temples. She looks like someone who just worked twelve hours straight.
She does not look like someone about to fall apart.
The shower runs behind her, water hitting tile in a steady, soothing rhythm. Steam curls slowly upward, softening the mirror’s edges, blurring the sharpness of her reflection.
She grips the edge of the sink and exhales.
Another tightening begins low in her abdomen. This one doesn’t sneak up quietly. It announces itself, a slow, deep constriction that wraps around her middle and begins to squeeze.
Her fingers dig into porcelain. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out at first. The pain swells. Her body bows slightly forward.
“Come on,” she whispers under her breath, as if she can negotiate with it. “Not now.”
It doesn’t listen.
The pressure sharpens, radiating low and inward, a deep ache that feels wrong in a way she can’t fully articulate. It doesn’t feel like cramps. It feels like something working.
Her knees soften. She grips harder. Her reflection blurs. The wave peaks, then slowly, reluctantly, releases.
She inhales shakily. Her heart is racing now, too fast for something that’s “just cramps.”
She presses her palm flat against her lower abdomen. It feels warm under her touch. Tender.
Another tightening begins almost immediately, closer than before. She closes her eyes as it builds. This time it lingers longer at the peak, making her stomach clench involuntarily.
A small sound slips out, broken, breathy, and she clamps down on it instantly.
She waits for it to fade.
It doesn’t fade all the way. It just softens into an ache.
Her reflection looks back at her like a stranger now. Her breathing has changed, shallow, careful.
She reaches for the towel rack beside the shower. Her fingers close around air.
She blinks.
The rack is empty.
She stares at it a second longer than necessary. A stupid detail. A stupid inconvenience. But it feels monumental in this moment.
“Of course,” she mutters weakly.
She turns toward the hallway. The shift from warm steam to cooler air makes her skin prickle.
Each step feels measured now, intentional. Her hand trails along the wall automatically, fingers brushing over framed photos, vacations, hospital galas, small snapshots of quiet evenings at home.
Halfway down the hall, the pain surges again. Harder. It steals the air from her lungs completely.
She stops mid step. Her free hand flies to the wall. Her forehead presses against cool paint. The pulling crests fast, her abdomen tightening so sharply it feels like her body is trying to fold in on itself.
She gasps. Her nails scrape faintly against the drywall.
It releases slightly, then builds again almost immediately.
There is no long pause now. No comfortable gap. Just rhythm, building, peaking, fading, starting again.
Her stomach drops.
Cold dread creeps into her chest.
This is not random. This is not scattered. This is patterned.
She pushes off the wall and forces herself forward. The laundry room door is only a few feet away, but it feels like crossing a field.
She grips the handle and pushes it open. The smell of detergent hits her, sharp and clean, and the overhead light flickers on.
She steps inside. The floor is cool beneath her bare feet. She moves toward the folded stack of towels on top of the dryer.
Another wave begins, stronger, faster. She barely has time to reach out before it slams into her fully.
It feels like something tearing loose inside her. Not surface ache. Not muscle. Deeper.
A scream rips out of her before she can stop it. It echoes off tile and metal. Her knees buckle. Her back hits the wall hard as she slides down, impact jarring her spine.
The cold tile shocks against her legs.
She curls instinctively, arms wrapping around her stomach like she can physically hold everything in place.
The pain doesn’t pause. It crashes again almost immediately, and again, closer, tighter.
Her breathing fractures. She tries to inhale deeply. It doesn’t work. Her body tightens against her will.
Another scream tears out, louder this time.
Downstairs, chairs scrape violently. Footsteps thunder up the stairs two at a time.
“Sweetheart—!”
“Baby where are you—?”
The laundry room door slams open so hard it hits the wall.
Jack appears first.
Robby right behind him.
They both freeze for half a second, just long enough to register her on the floor, curled, crying, shaking, then they move.
Jack drops to one knee so fast his palm smacks against the tile. Robby lowers immediately behind her, sliding one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, gathering her upright without hesitation.
Her back presses into his chest. He can feel how hard she’s trembling.
“What—” Jack starts, then stops because his eyes land on her face, her posture, the way she’s curled around her stomach.
“Hey,” Robby says, voice tight. “Hey—look at me.”
She can barely see through tears. “My—” she chokes out. “My stomach. Something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean, wrong?” Jack asks, voice low but too quick.
She tries to breathe. “It hurts.”
Robby’s gaze scans her face, then her posture. “How long has it been hurting?”
She hesitates.
Jack’s eyes narrow. “Baby.”
“A couple hours,” she whispers, ashamed.
Robby’s expression changes so fast it’s almost frightening, fear, frustration, disbelief. “Hours?”
Jack’s voice goes sharp. “Why didn’t you tell me in the car?”
She sobs, shaking her head. “It wasn’t this bad. I thought—I thought it would stop.”
Robby closes his eyes for half a second, like he’s forcing himself not to spiral.
Jack shifts closer, palm finally landing on her shoulder, steadying. “Okay. Okay. We’re here. Breathe.”
Another wave hits. She cries out and curls tighter, forehead pressing toward her knees.
Robby’s hand cups the back of her head, careful, protective. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
Jack’s face goes tight with focus. “Can you straighten out a little? I need to see.”
She tries. Her body trembles as she uncurls slightly, supported by Robby’s arm behind her shoulders.
Jack’s hands move to her abdomen, gentle but assessing, pressing lightly in places that make her flinch. He feels it immediately, tightening under his palm, involuntary bearing down.
Jack’s expression shifts. Subtle, but Robby sees it.
Jack looks up over her head.
Robby meets his gaze.
It’s a silent exchange, fast and loaded. Jack looks back down, jaw set, then glances up again.
In that look is everything, calculation, recognition, a quiet dawning dread neither of them say out loud.
She doesn’t see it. She’s trying to breathe through the next wave.
“I’m going to take your pants off, okay? Just—let me.”
She nods again, breath catching, tears sliding down her cheeks. Jack’s fingers work quickly but gently at her waistband, tugging fabric down enough to see what he needs to see without exposing her to the cold air more than necessary.
Jack’s face tightens when he looks.
Robby’s breath goes shallow behind her.
They share another look over her head, quick, grim, careful, then school their expressions before she can catch it.
“Okay,” Jack murmurs. “Okay, baby. Listen to me.”
“What?” she whispers faintly.
Jack doesn’t answer right away.
Robby leans forward slightly, angling to see past her shoulder, finally seeing what Jack is seeing. He inhales sharply.
The air in the room changes.
He tightens his hold around her instinctively. She feels it.
“Why are you—” she starts, but another wave steals her voice. Her body bears down involuntarily.
Jack feels it. His hand moves quickly now, supportive, steady. He looks up at Robby again.
No hysteria. No chaos. Just confirmation.
Robby swallows hard. His cheek presses briefly to her hair.
She’s crying harder now.
“It hurts,” she sobs.
“I know,” Robby whispers.
Jack shifts closer, bracing her knee, his voice dropping into that calm, steady tone he uses when everything is seconds away from going wrong, but there’s something underneath it now.
Something breaking.
He leans forward just enough.
“Sweet girl,” he murmurs.
Another pain tears through her. Her fingers dig into Robby’s arm. Her body tightens again.
And Jack steadies her gently.
“I need you to push."
☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆
The hotel room smells like sunscreen and saltwater.
They had spent the entire day outside, walking the boardwalk, sitting too long in the sun, sharing something fried and terrible that tasted incredible in the moment. The ocean air still clings faintly to her hair, and there’s sand caught somewhere in the hem of her dress that she’ll find later.
The door clicks shut behind them, sealing out the distant crash of waves and the hum of late night traffic. Inside, the room is soft and golden under dim lamp light. Everything feels warm and suspended, like the night is holding still just for them.
She laughs as she kicks one heel off, then the other, wobbling slightly as she leans back against the wall for balance.
“I cannot feel my feet,” she groans dramatically, flexing her toes against the cool carpet.
Jack snorts as he loosens his tie, his jacket already discarded over the back of a chair. “That’s because you insist on shoes that are structurally unsound.”
“They’re beautiful,” she argues, mock offense written all over her face.
“They’re weapons,” he corrects dryly.
Robby is already crossing the room toward her, sleeves rolled up, top button undone, looking relaxed in a way he rarely does at home. Vacation has softened him. There’s no pager clipped to his waistband. No phone buzzing in his pocket. No hospital lights reflected in his eyes.
Just him.
She bends slightly to unclip the second heel, balancing on one foot. When she straightens, she exhales in relief and stretches her back, flexing her toes into the carpet.
Robby watches her like she’s something precious.
“You okay?” he asks, amused.
“I survived,” she replies, grinning.
Jack tosses his tie aside and moves closer, and the three of them fall into that unconscious orbit they’ve formed over years, always closing the space between them without thinking about it.
She tilts her head back and laughs at something Jack mutters under his breath. It feels easy. It feels light. It feels like the world has finally given them something soft.
Without warning, she rises onto her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around Robby’s neck and tugging him down slightly.
He lets her.
Always.
She kisses him slow and warm, the kind of kiss that says we’re safe here. The kind that carries sun and wine and laughter and the weightlessness of being away from real life.
When she pulls back, Jack is standing right there watching them, that soft half smile curving his mouth, the one he only wears when he sees her genuinely happy.
She doesn’t hesitate.
She hooks her fingers into his loosened shirt and tugs him down into her instead. Jack laughs softly into the kiss, his hands settling instinctively at her waist.
When she pulls away, she looks between them.
“I love you,” she says simply.
It isn’t dramatic. It isn’t whispered like a confession. It’s easy. It’s obvious.
Robby brushes her hair back from her face. “We know.”
Jack presses a kiss to her cheek. “We adore you.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s glowing.
Jack drops onto the edge of the bed and gently tugs her forward by her hand. She steps between his knees, and he rests his hands on her hips. Then his gaze lowers.
To her stomach.
She’s only eight weeks. Barely showing. If someone didn’t know, they wouldn’t see it at all.
But they know.
Jack softens in a way that is almost boyish. He leans forward and presses his lips gently to the fabric of her dress where her abdomen curves faintly beneath it.
“Your momma,” he says quietly, “is also talking to you, baby.”
She laughs, a little embarrassed and a little emotional all at once. “Jack.”
Robby steps closer behind her, sliding his arms around her middle. His hand settles over her stomach instinctively, protectively, reverently. He doesn’t speak to it out loud. He doesn’t need to.
He just presses a kiss to her temple.
The three of them stand there like that for a long moment, quiet, still, hopeful.
There are plans they haven’t said out loud yet. Names they haven’t committed to. Conversations they’ve only brushed the edges of.
But there is something blooming there. Something fragile and bright.
Jack rests his forehead briefly against her stomach again.
“We’ve got you,” he murmurs.
She presses her hands over theirs.
For a moment, the world feels simple.
☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆
The room is dark.
Only the faint orange glow of a streetlight filters through the curtains, cutting thin lines across the ceiling. The ocean is a distant, rhythmic hush beyond the glass.
She wakes suddenly, not fully, just pulled from sleep by something sharp and unfamiliar.
At first, she doesn’t know what it is. A dream, maybe. A muscle twitch.
She blinks slowly, eyes unfocused.
Then the pain hits again.
Low. Sudden. Deep enough to steal the air from her chest.
Her hand moves instinctively to her abdomen. She frowns slightly.
Cramp, she thinks blearily.
She shifts beneath the sheets.
Another spike follows.
Stronger.
Her eyes open more fully now.
The room is quiet except for the soft hum of the air conditioning and the steady rhythm of Jack’s breathing beside her. Robby’s arm is draped loosely across her waist, warm and heavy.
The pain comes again.
Sharp.
Insistent.
Her breath hitches.
She presses her palm harder against her stomach.
It feels wrong.
Not like discomfort. Not like bloating. Not like anything she can explain away.
Wrong.
Her heart begins to race.
She shifts again, and something feels… wet.
Her brow furrows.
Slowly, carefully, she slides her hand beneath the sheet.
When she pulls it back, her fingers are slick.
Sticky.
Her eyes struggle to focus in the dim light.
She lifts her hand toward the faint glow coming through the curtains.
It’s dark.
Too dark.
For a second, her brain refuses to process it.
Then it does.
Blood.
The word forms in her mind before she can stop it.
A sob tears out of her chest, raw, involuntary, too loud for the quiet room.
Jack jolts upright instantly. “What—?”
Robby is awake just as fast, already turning toward her.
She can’t speak. She can’t breathe. Her hands are shaking violently.
“Hey—hey—” Jack reaches for her shoulders.
Robby’s hand finds hers.
She shakes her head frantically.
“No,” she whispers.
Another wave of pain crashes through her.
More warmth spreads beneath her.
She knows.
She knows what it means.
“No, no, no—” she gasps, voice breaking.
Robby reaches over and flips on the bedside lamp. Harsh light floods the room.
Jack’s eyes drop immediately to the sheets. Then to her hands.
His face drains of colour.
Robby swallows hard, his jaw tightening visibly.
“Okay,” Robby says, voice steady but strained. “Okay.”
But she’s already crying harder now.
Robby moves without hesitation. He pulls the sheet back carefully. His jaw tightens further when he sees it.
Jack reaches for his leg and moves to the other side of the bed instantly.
“Bathroom,” Robby says softly.
He slides one arm beneath her knees and one behind her back and lifts her carefully. She clings to his shirt, fingers twisting into the fabric as if she’s afraid of falling.
Her sobs grow louder. Broken. Hysterical.
“Please,” she gasps. “Please.”
☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆
Jack flicks on the bathroom light ahead of them. The brightness is harsh, unforgiving against the dimness of the bedroom.
Robby lowers her gently onto the closed toilet lid.
Her hands tremble uncontrollably in her lap.
Jack kneels in front of her immediately.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Look at me.”
She can’t.
Her breathing is too fast. Too shallow. Each inhale stutters like it’s caught on something sharp.
Robby kneels beside her and presses his forehead briefly to her shoulder. His own eyes are wet now, though he’s fighting it.
“It’s okay,” he whispers.
She shakes her head violently.
“No,” she cries. “I can’t— I can’t do this again. I can’t lose another one. Please, please don’t make me do it again.”
The words tear out of her. Raw. Terrified.
Jack closes his eyes for just a second, steadying himself.
Robby’s grip tightens around her.
They both know there is no controlling this. No stopping it. No negotiating with it.
They can only hold her.
Jack reaches up and cups her face gently.
“Breathe,” he whispers.
But she’s already hyperventilating, chest rising too fast, too sharply. Her sobs turn desperate, almost animal.
Robby pulls her fully against him, pressing her head to his shoulder, holding her as tightly as he dares.
“I’ve got you,” he says.
But his voice breaks this time.
The bathroom light is too bright. The tile too cold. The night too silent.
“Please,” she sobs again.
☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆
“I need you to push.”
For a second, she just stares at Jack like he’s speaking another language.
Push?
The word doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit the context of the room, the laundry detergent smell, the tile digging into her bum, Robby’s arms braced around her. Push is something you do when you are fighting for something. Pushing the context she thinks he’s telling her to doesn’t exist in their world. Push is planned. They hadn’t planned this push.
Not this.
“No,” she whispers immediately, shaking her head hard enough that her hair sticks damply to her cheeks. “No, that’s not— no.”
Another contraction seizes her body before she can finish.
Her torso curls forward instinctively and she tries to twist away, tries to get her feet under her, tries to stand, like if she can just get upright, this will stop. Like motion might undo it.
Robby tightens his legs around her, effectively bracing her in place. One hand stays firm at her shoulder while the other cups the side of her neck, anchoring her gently but decisively.
“Hey,” he says, voice breaking but steady. “Don’t run from it.”
Jack’s hands slide more securely around her waist, holding her hips so she doesn’t topple sideways. He’s breathing through it with her, watching the rhythm of her body.
“I don’t want this,” she sobs. “I can’t— I can’t—”
“Baby,” Robby cuts in softly, pressing his forehead against her temple. “I know. I know you’re scared. But you have to listen to us. You have to push.”
She shakes her head violently, tears flying.
“This isn’t supposed to— we didn’t know, Robby, it’s not ours—”
Another contraction hits, stronger than the last, and this time her body bears down without her permission. A sound rips from her throat, something between a scream and a sob.
Jack’s voice changes. Not clinical. Not detached. Just firm and grounded.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s what we need. Don’t fight it.”
“I can’t,” she gasps.
“Yes, you can,” Robby whispers fiercely. “You already are.”
Her hands claw at Robby’s forearms. The pain is overwhelming, but underneath it is something else now. Pressure. Movement. Urgency.
It’s happening whether she understands it or not.
“Look at me,” Jack says.
She can’t focus. Everything feels distant, like she’s underwater.
“Look at me,” he repeats, firmer.
Her eyes find his through tears.
“You’re not alone,” he says quietly. “We’ve got you. We’re right here.”
Another contraction builds.
This one feels different.
Heavier.
Her body curls forward, trembling, and Robby adjusts instantly, supporting her back so she doesn’t collapse.
“Okay,” Jack says softly. “With this one. Push.”
She cries out, half protest, half surrender.
But she pushes.
Her fingers dig into Robby’s arm. Her vision goes white around the edges. The world narrows down to pressure and sound and the two men anchoring her in place.
“Again,” Robby breathes.
She shakes her head weakly.
“Again,” he repeats, gentler but unwavering.
Another surge builds.
It starts low and deep, not sharp this time but heavy, like the earth itself is pressing downward through her spine. Her muscles tremble before she even consciously decides to push. Her body knows what it’s doing before her mind catches up.
She shakes her head weakly, tears blurring her vision. “I can’t—”
“You can,” Jack breathes, one hand firm at her hip, the other bracing gently but purposefully where it needs to be. “Right now. With this one.”
Robby’s chest is solid against her back. His forearm is tight around her ribs, holding her upright as her strength wavers. He presses his mouth against her hair.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Don’t fight it. Go with it.”
The pressure peaks.
Her body folds forward involuntarily and this time she doesn’t resist it. She bears down with a broken sob that rips out of her chest. It’s not graceful. It’s not controlled. It’s primal.
The world narrows to heat and force and the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
For a split second, nothing changes.
And then,
There’s a shift.
Not dramatic. Not explosive.
Subtle.
Like something sliding into place.
The pressure that had been building for minutes suddenly moves downward in a way that feels different. Not just pain, movement. A fullness becoming release.
Jack feels it before he sees it.
His breath catches.
“Okay— okay,” he says quickly, voice cracking at the edges now.
Robby tightens his hold instinctively as her body trembles through the end of the contraction. She gasps for air, forehead damp, hands shaking.
There’s one more push, smaller, almost involuntary, her body finishing what it started.
And then,
The pressure is gone.
Not entirely, not the soreness, not the ache, but that crushing, urgent weight disappears so abruptly it leaves her dizzy.
For half a second, the room is completely silent.
Even her crying stops.
All three of them freeze.
There’s a tiny pause in the universe. A suspended inhale.
And then,
The sound.
It doesn’t build gradually.
It doesn’t hesitate.
It cuts through the laundry room sharp and clear and furious.
A cry.
Strong.
Sharp.
Immediate.
It fills the space between the washer and the dryer. It bounces off tile and detergent bottles. It drowns out the humming overhead light and the echo of her sobs.
Alive.
Jack’s head snaps up instinctively, eyes wide and already glassy. His hands move with practiced care, catching, supporting, lifting.
“Oh my God,” he breathes, voice no longer steady. “Oh my God.”
Robby exhales something that sounds like a laugh breaking in half. His entire body loosens against her back like he’s been holding his breath for hours.
She stares down, vision swimming.
For a moment, she can’t process what she’s seeing.
A tiny body, slick and squirming and loud, protesting the cold air of the world.
The cry doesn’t weaken.
It grows stronger.
Angrier.
Her hands move automatically, instinctively, gathering the baby to her chest as if she’s done this a thousand times before. The warmth against her skin is real. The weight is real. The movement is real.
“Hi,” she whispers through tears that don’t stop coming. “Hi, hi…”
Her voice breaks entirely.
The baby’s cry softens just slightly at the contact, but doesn’t disappear, still announcing themselves boldly into the morning light.
Jack laughs and sobs at the same time.
Robby’s hand cups the tiny head with reverence, his thumb brushing gently over impossibly small features as if he’s afraid they’ll disappear if he presses too hard.
And for a heartbeat, the world reorganises around that sound.
Jack shifts beside her, replacing Robby’s support so Robby can lean closer.
“Hey Stranger,” Robby breathes, like he can’t quite process it. “What are you doing here?”
She presses her chin gently to the baby’s head, overwhelmed by the warmth. The movement. The reality of it.
“I thought—” she starts, but the sentence dies.
She thought she was losing something.
Instead, she’s holding everything.
She doesn’t even register that her body hasn’t stopped.
Her entire focus is wrapped around the warm, crying weight in her arms. The sound of that first cry is still vibrating in her chest. Her fingers are trembling as they trace over tiny shoulders, a damp crown of hair, impossibly small fingers flexing instinctively against her skin.
She’s laughing and crying at the same time.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispers breathlessly, forehead pressed to the baby’s head.
The room feels too small for what just happened.
Robby’s thumb is still cupping the back of the baby’s head. Jack’s hand is firm and steady at her shoulder, grounding her in place.
For a moment, everything else disappears.
And then,
A flicker.
Low in her abdomen.
Subtle at first.
Like an aftershock.
She barely notices it.
She’s too busy memorising the weight in her arms.
But it comes again.
Sharper.
Her breath catches.
Her brows knit together faintly, confusion replacing awe.
The soreness she expected, the dull, post effort ache, is there. But this is different.
This is building.
She shifts slightly, instinctively protective of the baby against her chest.
The pressure increases.
Robby feels her tense before she says anything.
“Hey,” he says quietly, eyes snapping to her face.
She shakes her head faintly, still staring down at the baby as if refusing to look away will freeze this moment in place.
“No, no, no,” she whispers, confusion turning into dread.
Another wave rolls through her.
This one unmistakable.
Her abdomen tightens again with deliberate force.
Jack’s hand tightens on her shoulder immediately.
“Robby.”
It’s not panic.
It’s recognition.
Robby is already moving.
He gently adjusts the baby into Jack’s arms without even breaking eye contact with her. His movements are careful but swift, sliding between her knees again, his mind shifting into assessment mode without losing tenderness.
The contraction peaks.
Her body reacts automatically, a small, involuntary bearing down that makes her gasp.
Robby’s expression changes.
His eyebrows shoot up sharply.
She sees it.
And that terrifies her more than the pain.
“What?” she asks, breathless and panicked. “What is it?”
Robby looks up at her slowly.
Stunned.
Not afraid.
Stunned.
His mouth parts slightly before he speaks.
“No, baby,” he says gently, almost in disbelief himself. “I need you to push again.”
Her eyes widen immediately.
“What? The placenta already?”
Jack looks down at her from where he’s holding the baby, tears still streaming down his face but now mixed with something else, astonishment.
“There’s another baby,” Robby says.
The words land heavy.
Not chaotic.
Not frantic.
Holy.
The air in the laundry room feels like it’s shifted again, like the walls are leaning closer to hear it.
Her brain refuses to process them.
Another baby?
That doesn’t make sense.
That wasn’t part of the plan. That wasn’t part of any conversation. There weren’t two heartbeats. There weren’t two scans. There weren’t two anything.
“That’s not—” she starts.
The contraction slams through her mid sentence.
Harder this time.
Her body curls forward with a cry that sounds torn straight from her lungs.
“This can’t be real,” she sobs. “This can’t—”
“It is,” Jack says, voice thick and shaking. “It is.”
She’s barely had time to understand the first when her body demands more of her.
Everything feels unreal now.
Like she’s floating above herself.
Like she’s watching a version of her on a bathroom floor months ago.
Like she’s watching a different woman entirely, one holding a baby while being told there’s another coming.
Robby’s voice anchors her again.
“Same as before,” he says softly, one hand steady, the other bracing gently. “You did it once. You can do it again.”
Her breathing is ragged.
She looks down at the baby Jack is holding now, small, alive, crying softly.
Then back at Robby.
Then down at her own body like she doesn’t trust it anymore.
Another contraction builds.
Stronger than the first series.
She grips Jack’s forearm with one hand and Robby’s shoulder with the other.
“I can’t—” she whispers weakly.
“Yes, you can,” Robby says, steady and unshakable. “Right now.”
The pressure peaks.
She pushes.
This one hurts more.
Her body is already exhausted, trembling from the first.
A sob escapes her as she bears down again, tears streaming freely.
Jack leans closer, whispering nonsense encouragement, grounding words, her name, over and over.
“You’re doing it. You’re doing it.”
Another push.
Another wave of pressure.
And then that shift again.
That unmistakable slide downward.
Release.
Robby’s breath stutters.
“I see—” he starts, voice breaking.
And then,
Another cry.
Softer at first.
Almost questioning.
Then stronger.
A second voice joining the first.
It isn’t as loud.
But it’s steady.
Alive.
The sound splits her open in an entirely new way.
Jack lets out a laugh that cracks into a sob instantly.
“Oh my God,” he says again, like he can’t find any other words.
Robby closes his eyes briefly as he catches the second baby carefully, reverently, his hands shaking this time.
Two.
Two cries filling the same small laundry room.
Two tiny bodies wriggling and furious and real.
The world didn’t know they were coming.
Neither did she.
She stares down as Jack shifts both babies carefully toward her chest.
Her arms open automatically.
Two.
Two warm weights pressed against her skin.
She’s shaking so badly she can barely hold them.
“Oh my God,” she whispers again, tears blurring everything. “Oh my God.”
She laughs and sobs all at once.
Her mind is scrambling to rearrange itself.
One baby was a miracle.
Two feels impossible.
She looks between Robby and Jack like she’s asking them to confirm reality.
They’re both crying openly now.
And neither of them are arguing.
They just nod.
Two.
And somehow, they’re both here.
Overwhelm crashes into her.
Nine months.
All the things she did. The nights she worked. The coffee she drank. The stress. The running. The not knowing.
“I’m so sorry,” she chokes out suddenly, tears spilling harder. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
Jack immediately shakes his head and leans in, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“Baby, no,” he says firmly. “Look at them.”
Robby joins him, brushing hair off her face.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “You did everything right.”
Jack cups her cheek gently.
“They’re here,” he whispers. “Alive. Strong.”
She looks down again.
They are.
They’re moving. Crying. Breathing.
Real.
Robby inspects her quickly again, hands gentle, making sure there’s no third surprise waiting in the quiet.
She blinks at them suddenly.
“Wait,” she says faintly. “What are they?”
Jack stares at her blankly for half a second.
And then he laughs, a slightly hysterical, disbelieving sound.
“Oh my God,” he says. “We didn’t check.”
Robby lets out a breathy laugh too, grabbing a nearby towel and draping it loosely over both babies.
“We can check later,” he says softly. “I just want to look at them.”
And they do.
They stay there on the laundry room floor, her supported between them, two newborns pressed against her chest, the world outside completely unaware.
She talks to them softly through tears, voice trembling but steadying with each word.
Robby peppers kisses across her temple, her shoulder, the babies’ heads. Jack presses slow kisses along her jaw, her cheek, her hairline.
Their hands never stop touching, her, the babies, each other.
It’s messy. It’s surreal. It’s holy.
After a long moment, Robby lets out a quiet breath.
“Well,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb over one tiny cheek, “at least we’ll have time off now to clean out the attic and the garage.”
She lets out a watery, exhausted giggle.
And in the middle of the laundry room, surrounded by detergent and tile and disbelief, their world rearranges itself completely.
All I could think about writing this piece is a comment under the viral cryptic pregnancy post, "coming home with not one but two strangers 😭"
summary: a missing earring sends you down a spiral
contains: implied age gap, usual ER things mentioned, reader is implied to have previously been in an abusive relationship, victim of domestic violence is a patient, sickening hurt/comfort bullshit
a/n: I broke the seal on the bottle of jack in my mind fridge, you're welcome world! no but fr i really tried to characterize abbot to the best of my ability <3 | beautiful divider from @strangergraphics
Underneath your bed is more of a wreck than you thought it'd be. Stray, unmatched socks live among scrunchies and dust bunnies. A rogue pillowcase. A glasses case tipped on its side. You even spy a book Samira lent you that you failed to return.
But no earring.
"Shit," you murmur as you rise from your pancaked position on the floor. Defeated, you make no move to stand right away, choosing instead to dig out your phone right there on the carpet.
Trinity answers after three rings. "A cold call is a crazy move," her voice tins over the line flatly.
"Hey, you're home, right?" You ask, rather than explaining yourself. Your free hand pinches the space between your brows.
"Yeah…?" Trinity draws the word out, intrigue ascending her inflection.
"I can’t find my earring,” you hear the tremble in your voice, then the crush of embarrassment constricting your chest.
This is so stupid.
"Okay?" Trinity responds, the word an obvious placeholder for what do you want me to do about it?
You rub at your chest. "Is there any chance it's in your couch, or under it or something? Remember the last time I was there, I fell asleep on the couch and Dennis had to wake me up? So I'm thinking it might have fallen off, gotten caught in a blanket or something and—"
"Woah, hey, chill out. You're starting to sound a little cuckoo," she says, and you can practically picture the suppressed laugh bubbling in your friend's throat. "Which earrings?"
"My pearls. The gold rim. They're studs, I wear them all the time. I'll send a picture," you move the phone off your face, where the one earring you do have sits, awaiting its twin. You snap a photo of your ear with the front-facing camera, then text it to Trinity.
"I'll look for it, hang on," Trinity sighs. Then, further from the phone, you hear, "Get up, Huckleberry."
"What? Why?" is Whitaker's high-pitched reply. If you weren't on the verge of tears, you'd laugh at how he nearly always sounds like a cartoon mouse caught off-guard.
"Because, genius, today's the day I finally castrate you," Trinity deadpans, followed by a solid thirty seconds of very sibling-esque bickering. Then Trinity explains to him that you're on the phone. "She lost an earring, thinks it might be in the couch. So get up."
"What's the big deal?" Dennis addresses you. "You can't wear different earrings? Are they a family heirloom or something?"
A long sigh ekes out of you, your exasperation coming to its peak after nearly thirty minutes of scrambling around the apartment for this earring. The big deal is that you can't even bear the thought of telling Jack you lost one of them. And he'll be here any time now to pick you up.
It's not Whitaker's fault, you remind yourself, though your impatience with your friend and fellow PTMC resident still lingers.
"They were a gift from Jack," you explain, toying the bottom of your t-shirt with your fingers. You still haven't even gotten dressed for your day out with your boyfriend.
There's some rustling on the other end of the phone, what you imagine is the sounds of Whitaker and Trinity digging under the couch and between the cushions.
"Ew, Huckleberry, stop shoving your protein bar wrappers in the couch," you hear Trinity groan in disgust. "There's at least five under here."
"Least I don't cook in my underwear," is Dennis's mumbled reply.
You grit your teeth, impatience jabbing at your chest. "No luck, I take it?" Your voice comes out sharper than you intend. They're doing you a favor, after all.
The anxiety that's been compressing in your chest for the last half-hour, like a tightly packed snowball, wants to scream yes, of course he will be.
"I-I don't know," you stammer, lifting your knees to your chest. You're caught in a limbo between the knowledge that you're overreacting and the boat-sinking dread that goes hand-in-hand with the look of disappointment on Abbot's face. "Thanks for looking," you sniff, then hang up.
You toss the phone as far away from you as possible, then wrap your arms around your legs and press your face to your knees.
When Abbot gave you the earrings just a few months ago, it'd been after a particularly difficult night shift. The usual scene: the aftermath of a drunk driver, a couple of college kids needing their stomachs pumped, a little boy who'd fallen off the top bunk and broken his arm.
Burnout threatened to crush you each time something went wrong. It hit its peak when a woman, not much younger than you, came in with a couple of bruised ribs after, allegedly, falling down the stairs in her apartment building. The fresh, purple and yellow bruising on the apple of her cheek along with her hovering boyfriend spelled it all out in bright, neon letters.
You tried to get the woman alone —claiming she needed a pelvic exam, that she needed to provide a urine sample— but she was insistent to the point of snapping at you. "I'm fine," she'd hissed sharply, though her shaky hands and equally shaky breaths said otherwise. "It's none of your business."
It always feels like someone slipping through the cracks in situations like this. You saw so much of yourself in this woman. The fear driving the obstinance, insisting to herself and to everyone around her that she's fine.
You pushed too hard. You know you did, in the moment and especially looking back. The pelvic exam plus the urine sample, plus the numerous requests that the boyfriend vacate the room made it increasingly clear what you were trying to do, so the second the pharmacy dispensed the woman's pain meds, they left.
You stood there, occupying precious walkway space by the ER Heroes wall, watching the boyfriend lead the woman out the door, walking much quicker than someone with bruised ribs should be.
"Fuck," you'd said, and stomped your foot. Then pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes.
Ellis had been the one to find you after staying glued to that spot for several minutes. She'd pulled you off to the side, gave you the same old speech everyone else gave you: that you can't save everyone. That sometimes people need to hit rock bottom before they can admit they need to be saved.
Her little chat blocked the flood for the time being, enough to get you through the shift. But by the time you and Jack handed off your patients to day shift, then climbed in his car to head to your apartment, you felt completely anesthitized to any attempts at reflection or decompression.
Jack had been the one open the door to your apartment, using the spare key you'd given him just a couple weeks prior. Your feet were glued to the hallway mat, shoulders threatening to cave in on themselves.
"C'mon, sunshine," Jack's gravelly voice cracked through the glass walls of numbness, and he tugged you inside by the wrist. The door clicked, locked behind you, also Jack's doing. Then he helped you set your backpack down, tugged your jacket sleeves off your arms, and guided you to the shower.
When you came back out, scrubbed clean and wrapped in your fuzzy yellow bathrobe, the pops and sizzles coming from the kitchen lured you back to Jack. He had a stir-fry going on the stove, a usual since night shift has both of you positively sick of breakfast foods. Having changed into his sweats, Jack spared a glance over his shoulder, then to the kitchen island. You trailed those hazel kaleidescopes, made greener in the warm light of the kitchen, to a small, velvet box on the countertop.
Just like Jack to speak without really speaking. To take care of you as easily as speaking a second language.
"What's in there?" You asked, your voice small yet heavy, a stone lodged in your throat.
"Typical custom with a gift dictates the recipient actually open said gift," Jack teased, dumping the contents of the wok into a serving bowl. Your stomach rumbled, so when Jack nodded to the high-backed barstool, you perched yourself up onto one. He leaned against the other side of the island, setting the bowl in the middle and handing you a fork.
The velvet box was certainly intriguing, but you were so hungry, and the colorful vegetables and savory steak steaming in your face took priority. You and Jack silently poked at the sir fry, and after a few bites, Jack's patience waned.
"You're really gonna make me beg, huh?" Jack looked up at you from the stir fry, a brow arched. A tight-mouthed wince flickered over him when he shifted his weight, and you realized then that he had yet to take off his prosthetic since he'd been home.
"Come sit by me, handsome," you urged, dipping your chin to the empty barstool. Jack's gait as he rounded the island was certainly slower than when you left the Pitt just an hour earlier. You were about to pester him about overexerting himself when he palmed the radioactive velvet box and slid it in pointedly front of you.
"What's it for?" you squeaked, reaching hesitantly for the box, creating a square with your fingers around it.
"You had a bad night," Jack shrugged, then turned his stool to face you. He nudged your shin with his foot. "Was gonna give 'em to you for your birthday, but now seems more appropriate."
Your expression dropped a little, lips tightening. "I don't need a pity present, Jack," you gave your head a little shake, then moved to slide the box back to him.
Jack halted your hand with his own. Warm and steady, like he always was, he raised his brow authoritatively. "It's not a pity present. You had a bad day, and if it wasn't gonna be this, I was gonna go out and get you something else. Saves me a trip out."
Nonchalance practically steamed off of him, disarming and inviting, like a sauna.
You still took pause, exasperation written all over your face.
"As your attending, I'm ordering you to open it," the corners of his lips quirked up in that mildly teasing way you love so much. "You deserve a treat, sunshine. Please open 'em, for me?"
Sharply, you inhaled, then pursed your lips in such a way as to feign annoyance. "Fine," you relented, reaching over to card your fingers through his silver curls. "But you're not allowed to play the attending card for at least a month."
Just as your hand started to recede, Jack caught your wrist and kissed the inside of it, habitually, without a second thought, before releasing it.
You tilted the box open to find them. The earrings —shiny pearls wrapped in a thin band of gold— glinted in the light of the kitchen. Your shoulders slumped against the back of the stool.
"You said you can only wear the stud kind at work, right?" Jack squeezed your knee, prompting your gaze to snap back up to his.
"Yeah," you felt tears well up in your eyes in that moment, lining your irises with silver to match Jack's hair. You hopped off the stool, then clung to Jack before the tears could fall.
"Now you'll have a piece of me with you through your shifts," Jack's strong hands rubbed your back, followed closely by the soft pressure of his lips against your temple.
You think back to that morning now, as you curl up into yourself on the bedroom carpet. The thoughts of that patient, the realization that you couldn't help her as much as you'd have liked, leave you hollowed out, digging your fingernails into your pajama pants. Even though you managed to save yourself from your own terrible situation, the notion that you couldn't save that woman still haunts you.
The earrings themselves hadn't pulled you out of yourself that day, but Jack knowing what would help without even having to ask? Finding solace in his company, protection, a safe place to be vulnerable? The earrings represent one of the first times you started to think this thing with him was real, and lasting.
And now you can't find one of them.
"Fuck," you close your eyes and sigh, loosening all the breath from your tightened lungs. You feel unmoored, floating through the enemy territory of your own thoughts, no tether to keep you aground.
Jack won't be angry, you have to remind yourself. When is he ever angry, or short, or terse, outside of the Pitt? He isn't like anybody else you've been with. He won't snap at you for something so small, and even if he is upset about it, he'll handle his reaction in that calm, steady way he always does.
You're used to a partner treating you exactly the way Jack does —reverent, worthy, lovable— but then comes the inevitable switch. The nasty, sharp words that slice through you. The gifts become band-aids for behavior, the touches become a leash instead of light. It's all you've ever known, so when Jack proves every one of those rules wrong, it's unnerving. Of course it is.
He takes every rule you've ever created and snaps it in half. He's shown you, time and time again, in a thousand different, silent ways, that you're worth more to him than that.
When you feel like a crumbling, abandoned building, Jack is a long-standing, well-balanced structure. When you brace for impact, Jack surprises you by landing the plane instead of crashing it. It isn't fair to him to think he might react poorly to a lost earring. It isn't fair to yourself to think you'd get yourself in that type of situation again.
Resolve fills you —a pitcher pouring water into a glass— and you hoist yourself up off the ground. You wash your face. Take the singular earring out and set it on the sink. Run a brush through your hair. Avoid your phone and any of its potential distractions, standing in the bathroom with your emotions and giving them space to exist.
How you feel is how you feel, Jack tells you all the time. Best thing you can do for yourself is feel it.
You apply your skincare, moisture mixing in with the tears of your glassy skin. Then you take your time with makeup, and by the time you're freshly blushed and bronzed for your day out with Abbot, you realize he still hasn't arrived.
Padding back into the bedroom, you find your phone where it landed on the floor by the nightstand. You unlock it to find a text from Jack time-stamped a half-hour ago.
Unexpected errand came up. Be a little late, but we're still getting you that banana bread latte thingy from Instagram. No longer than an hour, sunshine.
It's weird, but not that weird. An 'unexpected errand' is probably a check-in with a critical patient that was admitted, even on his day off. It's an attachment to his work that's both admirable and self-destructive, and you've tried to peel him away from it, but he just won't budge. Something you've been slowly working on in the form of a long-term con.
You make yourself comfortable on the sofa, after having dressed in a pair of high-waisted jeans, a soft, lemon-colored halter top and sneakers. Jack's eyes always brighten when he sees you in yellow.
The aftershocks of your anxiety still linger, but you've got a glass of water, open windows spraying the living room in daylight, and some dumb reality TV to keep you grounded for now.
It's another excrutiatingly long forty minutes before his key turns in the door, and you pause the TV just as he steps inside.
"I'm sorry I'm so late," Jack's cheeks are kissed with sun rays, popping against the heather gray of his t-shirt. The mere sound of his raspy voice immediately releases some of the tension in your shoulders.
You stand from the sofa, then shake your head dismissively. "That's alright. Is everything okay?"
When you meet him by the door, you spy the white gift bag in his hand. You freeze, furrowing your brows. "What's that?"
"Santos texted me," Jack says simply, as though that would explain the bag. He takes you in at that moment, then adds, "You look stunning, by the way."
"Oh?" You ask, swallowing hard, ignoring his compliment, though the words send a flutter through your tummy.
"Mmhm," Jack hums, then brushes past you to set the bag on the kitchen counter. "She said you were… 'crashing out'?"
Your cheeks go red, and you open your mouth to explain, but Jack goes on.
"I don’t know what that means, but in a medical capacity it certainly doesn’t sound good," he continues with a bemused snicker, busying himself with the contents of the bag rather than looking at you.
You have the grating feeling he's putting on some sort of show, so you heave a sigh and tuck your hair behind your ears. "I wasn't…" you trail off, then exhale in defeat. "I lost one of my earrings."
Even saying it aloud opens a dark pit of fear in the deepest part of your stomach. Your breath shudders through you, and an apology starts to overflow from you. Old habits die hard. "I-I'm so sorry, Jack. I wanted to wear them today… I mean, I wear them pretty much every day, but I have no idea where it ended up. I checked under the bed, the bathroom, the couch. Everywhere.”
Jack tugs a familiar, velvet box from the bag and presents it to you. "Would you please just open the box?" A fond sort of impatience lines his tone like a scratchy sweater.
When your hands still don't move for the box, Jack tilts the top open, revealing a pair of pearls inlaid in a ring of gold. "I decided you needed another pair," he says, lowering his chin to meet your eyeline. "If you find the missing one, then you'll have two sets."
"Jack," you narrow your eyes at him, shaking your head. "That's ridiculous. You didn't have to do that."
"No," Abbot replies, reaching across the distance between you to grasp the tips of your fingers. He dwarves your whole palm in his, drawing you to him. You let him, rather than digging your heels in like instinct demands. "What's ridiculous is that you thought I'd be upset with you about a dumb pair of earrings."
"They're not dumb," you pout, to which Jack brushes the pad of his thumb over your outstretched lip. "They're my favorite earrings," you pull back your arms, guilt resurfacing like a bad cough. His hand retreats, giving you your space. "You gave them to me, Jack. They're special to me."
"Okay, fine," he relents with a shrug. "It's not dumb. I can accept that. But if you can't find 'em, honey, you can't find 'em. Simple as that."
When you cross your arms over your chest, Jack goes on. "You know I don’t care about this kind of thing, right?" He asks, and the way those hazel eyes search yours indicate he really needs to know. "I’m not gonna… lose my shit on you or anything. ‘Crash out’, whatever the kids are saying now."
The angular, lupine features of his face light up when a smile twitches over your lips. "There's my girl," he murmurs, then extends a hand. "C'mere?"
You take his hand, and he tugs you into a hug. The warm, outdoorsy scent of him swirls around you, loosening the tightness in your chest and unraveling the tangled wires in your gut. "Did I use it right? 'Crash out'?" he asks, voice rumbling low into your hair.
"Won't take away your cool card just yet, old man," you mumble as his hand applies reassuring pressure to the space between your shoulder blades. The two of you stand there for a long while, breathing each other in, the mid-morning sun warming you through the window.
"But you get what I mean, don't you?" Jack circles back as you pull your head away from his shoulder. The sun, you notice, highlights his brown and gray curls, turning them bronze and silver. Your very own Greek statue. "All the stuff we see on a daily basis, a lost earring is the least of my worries."
"I know, Jack, I—"
"I'm not quite done, sunshine," Jack tuts. His eyes maintain a taut connection with yours. His hands slide up and down your arms in an active, intentional display of comfort.
"All I worry about is your safety, and your happiness. In some cases, your pleasure," he slips in a wink, then goes on. "I know, in the past, you've been made to feel fearful to bring something like this up with a partner. But that's not me, okay? That's not what this is. I don’t want you to be afraid to bring up this kind of thing with me."
You nod in agreement, and though in the logical part of your brain, you knew all of these things, Jack's merely saying them aloud lights up a part of you that you thought would always remain in shadows. Your throat tightens, eyes prickling with tears. "I'm sorry," you whisper, though you're not sure if you mean the tears or the earrings.
"You don't need to be," he whispers back, meeting you where you're at. He thumbs your cheek, swiping at a tear over the soft skin.
"I know you wouldn't do that to me," your chin wobbles, and though it might be overkill at this point, you feel it's important to acknowledge. For Jack's sake, and for yourself. You set your palm atop where his rests on your cheek. "I just… I don't know. I panicked. It wasn't fair to you to think you'd overreact to something as small as a missing earring."
"It's okay, angel," he says in a low, rocky mumble. "Your nervous system expects the worst, because the worst is what you learned to expect."
A creak of a laugh vibrates in your throat. "Y'know, I'm a doctor, too, right?"
The lines bracing the corner of Jack's eyes crinkle, the world's most beautiful candy wrapper. "You gonna stand there and pick on me all day?" He asks, reaching out to tickle your hip. You giggle involuntarily and jerk away. "Or are you gonna try these earrings on for me?"
You follow where his eyes flick to the box on the counter. Any comments about how he shouldn't have spent the money, about how the earring is probably in his car or in your locker, get shoved from your mind. He wanted to solve this problem for you in the most direct way he knew how.
You pin the earrings in, securing them with the backs as Jack watches as intently as an acolyte might watch a sermon. "How do they look?" Your mouth stretches into a smile, stepping back so Jack can take in the outfit as a whole.
"Perfect, sunshine," Jack's smile is slow and crooked and familiar. He hooks a thumb towards the door. "How 'bout that weird banana bread latte, then?"
You hum in delight, then grab your bag. Jack's hand warms the small of your back as the two of you make your way down the hall to the elevator. He rambles on about how there used to just be cream and sugar for coffee, but in truth, you're not entirely listening.
Instead, affection swells in your chest for this man —this caring man who sees you without really trying. Who needs someone to show him it's just as important he take care of himself as well as the people around him.
You think, not for the first time, that Jack Abbot needs someone to show him that love is a two-way street.
You think, for the first time, that you wouldn't mind much being that person for a really long time.
summary: a certain pop star admits something on a day drinking segment
pairing: jack abbot x popstar!reader
warnings: mdni, cursing, no use of y/n, suggestive content, not proofread
word count: 1.3k
author's note: ig this is my new thing now hehe. ask and you shall receive part 3 ! lmk any scenarios that you want to see happen or iconic events for popstar!reader. i read every single comment and i'm so glad you love the mini series !! also do we want this pre-MBF or after its release?
part 1 part 2
"Abbot, a patient in North 5 is requesting the 'Juno' doctor," Dana shouts across the room.
Jack sighs, closing his eyes to stop them from rolling for the 100th time. Ever since your concert two weeks ago, that's been his new nickname among the PTMC. And not just from his coworkers. Patients have also been specifically asking to be seen by him.
It's mostly fans of yours that call him that, but he's had middle aged adults come in and widen their eyes when they see him saying 'Aren't you the hot doctor from the concert that went viral?'.
Needless to say, he's well known online.
"I don't have time for that right now," Jack states. Night shift is still wrapping up patients, already two hours over their shift. The E.R. has been swarmed with respiratory cases due to the change in cold weather.
Robby's standing near the hub, reading over charts to catch up. He raises an eyebrow at his friend, "You have time to keep checking your phone each time you get a notification."
Jack fumbles with the iPad in his grasp, "What are you talking about?"
The second the words leave his mouth, his phone buzzes in his pocket. His phone is on silent, but since his pocket is against the computer desk, the vibration is loud enough that he might have as well have left his ringer on. They both pause, holding each other's stare in a standoff.
It buzzes again.
"Gonna answer that, brother?" Robby knows better than to full on out Abbot out loud. Especially in front of Perlah and Princess who are standing a few feet away eagerly waiting for new gossip to drop.
Jack shakes his head stiffly, "No, I'm focused on patients. Like you should be." He places the tablet back on the charging station. He knows it's a lame excuse, but Jack just wants to keep Robby from opening his mouth any further.
Robby flips him off as Jack turns and walks off towards the North wing. He's just out of Robby's sight when he finally retrieves his phone from his pocket, his phone lighting up with 2 messages.
Of course they're from you.
did you get the chance to watch the late show?
you might find it entertaining xx
Jack quickly glanced around not wanting to get caught by Dana, or god forbid Shen, texting while he's supposed to be wrapping up.
Haven't had the time, E.R. has been slammed.
I'll watch as soon as I'm home. Promise.
There's this swarm of nerves every time he texts you, an adrenaline rush that keeps him engaged in creating any type of conversation in order to keep talking to you. It's sick, really, how every time he gets a notification on his phone there's this excitement that flutters because it might be you texting him.
Before you can respond back, he's pulled away from his phone by Dana smacking him on the back with a clipboard.
"You can text pop star at home, Abbot. Finish up your handovers and get outta here," she sighs. From her voice you would think she's annoyed, but her smirk as she passes portrays the opposite. Dana's just happy at least one attending doesn't have a stick up their ass during their shift.
"Have fun on your smoke break," Jack calls back. Rolling his neck out, he slips the phone back in his pocket. He'll just have to text you later before he gets caught again.
Jack has never been happier to be home than this moment. It's a little past 10 am, his shift had him running codes nonstop and his leg is killing him. Throwing his work backpack by the entry, he collapses onto the couch after slipping off his prosthetic.
Sleep is begging to take him, his eyes tired from staring at CT's and screens all day while running in between trauma rooms. There's only one last thing to take care of before he can hibernate before his shift the next night. His hands search across the couch for the remote, fumbling with the smart TV before pulling up YouTube.
His recommended tab is mainly just you. Sure, there are some war documentaries and medical news along his feed, but after he did a deep dive into your discography his recommended is a little… biased.
He blames it on Shen and Ellis, who after they heard about what happened after the concert, proceeded to call it a crime that he hasn't at least heard your songs.
The first couple videos are your segments on the Late Show with Seth Meyers. Day Drinking catches his eye first, the video already having a million views in the first 24 hours. The thumbnail is enticing, your hand covering your mouth in shock as Seth is frozen mid-laugh. You had texted him about being hungover, and now he has his answer why. His thumb hits play before he can swipe through the other videos.
The video starts out normal, a sober Seth Meyers introducing a sober you to the audience as you both sit in an empty bar in NYC. Jack takes a sharp inhale when it pans over to you wrapped in a fur shawl while sitting at the counter in a simple silk nightie. God, this video is going to send him to an early grave.
"Okay we're gonna play 'Spill the Tea', a game where we ask each other personal questions which neither of us have seen, and we can answer truthfully or take a huge sip from this long island iced tea." Seth pulls out a large party bowl filled with the alcohol, two Christmas tree straws sitting by the rim.
You laugh pulling the bowl closer, "Woah."
Seth pulls out his card, "Who did you write the song Dumb & Poetic about?" he reads.
Without hesitation you pull the straw to your lips taking a huge gulp. Looking at the straw in frustration you state, "This straw is a bit shitty, but the drink is good!" Pulling up your own card you clear your throat. "What does it sound like if you, Seth Meyers, very earnestly sing the national anthem?"
He takes a pause, beginning to sing the national anthem as if he's at the Super Bowl. It's slow and you keep breaking his song to laugh in his face. As he ends his rendition, you clap and cheer very loudly.
"What's the most unhinged thing you've ever done to impress a crush?" Seth asks.
You think for a moment, cheeks heating up as you recall the last thing you did that landed you a viral moment online. "I sent him tickets for him and his coworkers and then arrested him at my show," you giggle as you cover your eyes with your palms.
"And did it work?"
Peeking from in between your fingers you nod sheepishly before leaning in to take a swig of long island, "Let's just say that I now know mouth-to-mouth."
Jack pauses the video right before Seth Meyers can even respond. He's already opening his messages before he can finish the rest of the clip.
If Whitaker watches this Day Drinking video I'm a dead man.
Your response is almost instant, a purple 'HAHA' reaction hovering over his message.
was he the mousy one that gave me a sweaty hug after the show??
i hope he doesn't kill you, i would have to find another doctor to arrest :(
He doesn't really know how reactions work on iMessage, but he sends a thumbs up on your first text. Jack draws in a breath at the most recent one, jealousy curling in his chest at the thought of you flirting with someone like Shen at your show.
Don't worry, I can take him.
Besides, there's so many positions to try.
summary: you’d done an splendid job of hiding your feelings for your attending for four years, but at one fateful night, everything changes.
warnings: 18+ mdni! Smut, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, imposter syndrome, insecure? Reader, she pulls back from others, chief resident!reader, unprotected sex, DOWN BAD reader, unrequited love but not really, happy ending, English isn’t my first language<3
word count: 10.5k+
an: this is very self indulgent and I may have projected a LOT into reader. It might be a deal breaker for some of you but this reader is… very important to me, the whole fic is. Kinda probably being delusional and ooc with how Robby handles it but yeah… i hope you enjoy it!!!!
You must breathe. You must. You can’t pass out from holding your breath for too long because you are looking at him; it would be humiliating, really, awfully humiliating. You are way stronger than that. You have done this for years, you can do it for another shift.
If only your heart listened…
You feel the rise of your pulse, the thump of your heart against your ribcage, and you can even feel your stomach twisting in anxiety. Fuck. Fuck. You like this man so much that it is making your belly quiver, and butterflies flutter in your lungs.
You look away from his disheveled hair and big puffy jacket, sighing shakily as you glance down at the tablet in your hand. You have to stop thinking about him like that, he is just a man. Not any man, though; he is sad cow eye Robby, the attending, whose smile in praise makes you grin in delight.
Stooooop, you mentally curse yourself, shaking your head slightly as you try not to think about him anymore. You have patients to focus on, not how his mere presence lights up your day. Nope, you shouldn’t go there, not now anyway.
But how can you not? He is tall, broad, with a giant heart of gold that has helped you so many times when you’ve felt the horrible pressure of the job on your shoulders. He is sweet, caring, and tough when he needs to be.
He is everything, and you are just… you. Younger, unseasoned — or at least not as much as him — still a resident, less charismatic, and so not his type. You’ve seen his ex-partners, all gorgeous and way out of his league; of course, he wouldn’t look twice your way.
“Hey, kid,” Dana waves a hand in front of your face to get your attention, startling you a little, “You good?”
“Yup, just had a rough night. Didn’t get much sleep,” you smile at her, convincing enough that the Dana Evans believes you. You have gotten way too good at lying to everyone’s face, courtesy of having a fat crush on your boss. If anyone, nature fucking forbid, ever finds out, you’ll be doing the Walk of Shame very soon.
“I doubt anyone has, look at ‘em,” she scoffs, pointing at the staff who are yawning and resting their heads on their stations, “Dancin’ and drinkin’ like they didn’t have work to do next mornin’.”
“You all went out?” Big mistake, Dana’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise at your tone, and you cover the stumble with a smile, “Tequila does that. Maybe we should give fluids to everyone?”
“Honey, we thought–”
“It’s okay, I’m not that much of a party person anyway,” you bite the inside of your cheek, trying to busy yourself with the list of charts in front of you, “Besides, I had to study, like always.”
You don’t let her say anything else, walking away after you hand her the tablet, marching toward one of the rooms to check up on your patients.
It is not an unusual thing for them to have plans outside of work and not invite you. Yes, you have been here for four years, yes, you are the Chief Resident, but there is still an invisible wall between you and everybody else. You are the ‘smartass’, the perfect resident, the always studying until passing out girl, and also… someone who doesn’t think she fits into this tightly woven group of doctors and nurses.
You get along with all of them pretty well, joke around and share lunchtime together, but that doesn’t mean they are your friends. You don’t belong among these amazing people, and that’s okay. Having no strings attached to this place is for the best, because when you leave for an attending spot in another state, you can finally move on from Robby.
It’s not for the lack of trying on your end, you tried to understand them, tried to put yourself in their shoes, and see yourself from their point of view. You’ve joined them for beers a few times in the park, but they have had some inner jokes that you felt uncomfortable laughing at, thinking they might find you too intrusive.
And also… Robby. Anytime you are around him, you have to act to make sure he doesn’t see through you. This version of you that talks to him, that breathes the same air as he does, is not the real you, or maybe it is to some extent, but you can’t duel too hard on it. You are sure of one thing, though: he wouldn’t like the real melancholic in love you.
“Morning,” Perlah smiles at you, putting on the patches on the patient’s chest for an EKG, “How are you feeling today?”
“Eh, not too bad, it’s too early to start complaining,” you reply, going to the computer to see the patient’s chart, humming as you scroll through the notes the night shift has left, “We’re gonna have a hard day… It's the anniversary of Pittfest.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she shakes her head slowly, “It’s gonna be brutal, isn’t it? Robby’s…”
“Yeah, he’s gonna be a lot to handle,” you nod in agreement, giving her a small smile before looking down at your shoes, “But we can get through this, as a team. Like we always do.”
“Yeah, we had a discussion about this last night, actually– oh, fuck me… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
“Perlah, you’re fine, don’t worry,” you put on your gloves to assess the patient, sitting on the rolling stool to get closer to the bed, “I’m still studying for my Boards, so don’t sweat it.”
“You’ve been studying for nearly a year now! You’re gonna do great,” she squeezes your shoulder before stepping away to round the bed and check the patient’s vitals, “You need to relax a little…”
“Relaxing isn’t a word in my vocabulary.” You grab your stethoscope to listen to the patient’s heart and lungs, “Breath sounds are good, we just need to–”
“Hey.”
Fuck me and my life sideways.
“Good morning, Robby!” Perlah grins, following your words for the patient’s medication, giving you a little time to get your breathing back to normal.
“Fuck, sorry–” you didn’t look where Robby was standing before you stood up, and now you are standing chest to chest with your attending’s hands steadying you by gripping your arms.
He is so close, so fucking close that you can smell his woodsy cologne and aftershave. He looks way better from this angle; his nicely trimmed beard, his big brown eyes that seem more gentle than any time you’ve seen them.
“Don’t worry about it,” he gives you one of his easy smiles that makes you weak in the knees, “Just be careful next time. It could be Whitaker you knock out if you stand up like this.”
“He isn’t as fragile as you think,” you snort, acting as normal as possible at the warmth of his fingers wrapped around your biceps, trying not to faint from the close proximity, “But I keep that in mind, thank you.”
“Anytime,” he nods and lets go of you, taking a step back to give you a bit of space, and you have to ignore the ringing in your ears as you feel your nipples brush his chest when you move past him. “You’re already with a patient, I see.”
“I need the distraction before I have the next few days off,” you shrug, not daring to look at him because if you do, you might give out the tiniest clue about your feelings, so you stare at the keyboard under your fingers, “And hoping to leave on time.”
“You really don’t like this place, huh?” He chuckles as he walks behind you to look over your shoulder at the screen. He has done this before, several times in fact, but it never gets easier, and Robby doesn’t make it easier either. “I thought you’d be settling nicely after all these years.”
“This is not the time– to discuss my fucking personal life when my patient is coding, FUCK–” you run to the bed, flattening it down before starting compressions after seeing the flatline on the monitor, “Perlah—”
“Joy, Whitaker, in here!” Robby yells for the students to join you before he steps back, giving you room to work on your patient, “You got this?”
“Yeah!” You reply, not taking your eyes off your work, you’ll deal with him later. Now you have to save this poor guy; Robby can wait. He has to.
****
“Tell you what,” Donnie slides next to you with a shit-eating grin, and you roll your eyes at him so hard with a smirk on your face before resting your elbow on the countertop of the staff lounge, “A birdie told me you have the next few days off–”
“A birdie who happens to be my attending?” You ask with a soft scoff, oh boy, he was paying attention. Blinking at Donnie and waiting for him to continue, while you try to ignore the warmth growing in your belly at the thought of him listening to you.
“Mayyyybe,” he throws his hands up in defeat, “Guilty as charged, but!”
“Donnie, I can’t–”
“You don’t even know what I wanted to say!”
“I have my boards coming up in a few months–”
“You can spare us a few hours, right?”
Fucking kill me. Or him. Or both. He has to stop coming in unannounced with that beautiful smile and his dimples and...
“You need to stop snitching on me.” Turning your back to them, you reach for the coffee pot to pour yourself a cup in one of the plastic ones, “I might have a few days off, but I also need to sleep and study.”
“I promise you’ll do much better if you take a break for a few hours.” Robby leans on the doorframe, watching you closely, “They even convinced me to go out with them.”
“Wow, walking in unclaimed territory? How brave of you, Dr. Robby,” you say, looking between him and Donnie, who are waiting for an answer, “You guys are teaming against me. I’m defenseless.”
“Does this mean you’ll come tonight?” Donnie asks, raising his voice as you push past Robby slowly, ignoring how his large frame covers most of the space.
“I’ll think about it, now, please stop bothering me, I need to get back to work,” you shoo Donnie away, making your way to your work station, sitting down with a long exhale, rubbing your forehead as the image of Robby crosses your mind again.
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
You log into your account, letting go of the badge on your chest to do some charting before you hear the familiar footsteps of him walking past you to his station that is unfortunately across from yours.
You’re not gonna look at him. You won’t. You shouldn’t. Today is already sucking the energy out of you with the heavy traumas rolling in; you can’t let your stupid crush do it as well.
But how can you look away? He looks so peaceful as he types, his eyebrows relaxed for a few seconds before he frowns at the screen, reaching for his phone in the pocket of his cargo pants.
His hair is tousled a little, soft short strands in the front going in so many directions that you know is the result of him running his fingers through them over and over throughout the day.
“Hey, smartass,” Dana calls you, and you glare at her before standing up, abandoning your coffee, “Code STEMI four minutes away. Teach those kids somethin’, they’ve been wandering around like ducks.”
“Half of them were with Samira, and some with Dr. Robby. Why are they not busy?” You ask, reaching for the hand sanitizer, rubbing the liquid between your fingers and palms as you point at Joy and Javadi to join you, “Ready for some action?”
“Not really,” Joy groans, “I don’t know how you decide to wake up and do this every day.”
“Trust me, I don’t know either.” You walk with them to the gurney the EMTs are rolling into the floor, “They pay enough to keep me alive.”
“Weren’t you attacked by a patient last week?” Javadi asks, falling into a rhythm beside you, nodding when Joy gawks at her, “Yeah, she was on nights,a nd a drunk patient pushed her face-first into the ground–”
“Okay, maybe they pay enough to almost keep me alive,” you roll your eyes and nudge them forward, “Let’s move, everyone!”
****
You sigh, dropping your forehead on the locker in front of you, letting your body breathe for a second. Rough doesn’t begin to cover this shift; not many deaths, luckily, just a patient that coded, but the heavy traumas that came in were brutal.
You aced every case that was thrown into your hands, A+ work, and an amazing patient satisfaction score—a great example of how a chief resident should be, just not in your own eyes. Of course, you know you did great, but there is still this hollowness inside your heart that screams imperfect in such a high-pitched tone that sometimes you have to silence it by burying your nose into your medical textbooks.
Now, you can’t, because Donnie managed to pull a frustrated ‘yes’ out of your mouth to their tonight’s get-together. Maybe he did it out of obligation because Dana and Perlah told him how you found out about last night, or maybe he genuinely wanted you there. Either way, you are going to this bar and have a few drinks before you go home and sleep your days away.
“Are you going too?” Mel comes out of nowhere, making you jump out of fear, letting out a little scream, clutching your shirt over your heart. She grimaces a little, giving you an apologetic smile, “Sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you!”
“I know, it’s okay. I should be more aware of my surroundings,” you reach to rub her arm gently, and you relax immediately when she doesn’t pull back or flinch. The first time you tried to do that back a year ago, she wasn’t as welcoming as she is today, rightfully so, and you gave her time as she adjusted to The Pitt, and by extension, she got more comfortable with you. Not as friends, but enough to find some solace in your company, “And… yeah, I’m going. What about you? Any plans?”
“I have to pick up my sister,” she says and moves to her locker to take her backpack, “And I have to get takeout too. I might have a busy night ahead.”
“Yeah? Good for you, honestly. I could do with some sleep, but eh, promised Donnie I’d go. I don’t wanna hurt him when this is like… the first time I’m invited to a night out.”
“First time? I thought you’d join them in the park every night.”
“Not really,” you shrug, slinging your bag on your shoulder, grabbing your phone from the locker, and closing the metal door shut, “I mean, I do go out to the park with them when they mention it. Other times I just… I don’t like to intrude.”
“That’s understandable,” she nods, grinning at you before she starts walking out of the hallway, “See you in a few days!”
“See ya, have fun!” You wave at her, walking through the floor and toward the exit, ignoring the patients that are piling up because they are not your responsibility right now.
None of the crew is around, so you suspect they have already left for the bar, which is just what you want now: a little peace and quiet before you have to slide into your amazing acting role again.
The fresh air is exactly what you need; a little chilly, which raises goosebumps on your skin, but also warm enough that it doesn’t require you to layer up with a thick scarf and two shirts under your jacket. September air is always the best.
You breathe. A deep inhale that goes through your nose and cools down your face and lungs, before you exhale the warm air slowly. It is good to know you can still keep going even if you are feeling wrecked.
“Hey! Wait!”
Your ability to drop dead right now is very high. His voice… fuck. You can find him even in a concert so loud, if he just starts talking with his gravelly raspy voice that rumbles through his chest and moves past his chords. The same voice that says your name, orders the med students and keeps the ED from falling apart. The same voice you wished you could hear in a slightly different way.
“Hey,” you mutter quickly, giving him a curious nod as he jogs toward you, his backpack swinging with each step, “I thought you’d already left.”
“I wanted to, but Jack kept me behind for a patient,” he pants as he stands next to you, flushing from cheeks to neck so beautifully you have to look down at your shoes to regulate your heartbeat just as he does for an entirely different reason, “I hope… You don’t mind me joining you on your walk there?”
“What? No, no, of course not,” you say with ease, the mask coming up again, “It’s a short walk anyway. We’ll be with them soon.”
“That eager to get rid of me?” He smirks, raising his eyebrows at you, and you have to bite your tongue not to say something or worse, fucking moan at the sight, “I promise I’m good company.”
“I did not– why are you teasing me?” You shake your head and walk away from him, and Robby slides next to you, “I know you are good company, I didn’t mean that you’re not!”
“It’s okay, I took offense only a little,” he chuckles when you groan and hide your face in your hands, his arm brushing against yours as he walks side by side with you, “What do you plan on drinking?”
“Good question, I want at least ten margaritas and hopefully three gin and tonics on Donnie’s wallet because he dragged me here. You?”
“You plan on getting shit faced, I respect that,” he chuckles and his voice sends shivers down your spine, “Hmm… I don’t know. I think I could go with classic Bourbon neat, or I could have a couple of beers. Definitely no plans on getting wasted as you do.”
“Live a little,” you say, tightening your grip on your backpack. You have to stop, but you can’t, not when he is looking at you the way he always does, careful and gentle. “You could start with a good Espresso Martini.”
“Noooot a fan of my caffeine and alcohol blended together,” he shrugs, giving you one of his bear-shaped smiles and shrugs, one of those that make your pulse skyrockets, “But I never say no to a good Gin.”
“You’ve got good taste,” you nod, thanking everything between the earth and the sky when the bar comes into view, walking a little faster to get away from him, even for a second, enough to take a deep breath but he is fast and catches up with you, not leaving your side, “Ah, there they are.”
He hums and waits for you to fully go past the door before following you inside. Ever the gentleman, he even held the door for you. You have to stop, or you would one hundred percent embarrass yourself.
“Heyyyy, look! Our rockstar chief residentis finally gracing us with her presence!”
“Fuck all the way off to Mars, Donnie,” you slap his shoulder playfully, hugging him and squealing when he decides to twirl you around a little before putting you on the ground, “That was not necessary!”
“It definitely was,” he scoffs playfully, leading you to the booth everyone’s sitting in, “Enjoy the night before your four days of sleeping and laziness.”
“Hell yeah,” you groan, looking over your shoulder to look at Robby, finding him smiling and shaking his head, averting your gaze before he manages to catch you red-handed and nudge Donnie in the elbow, “You are definitely buying me my first margarita though.”
“Absolutely!”
****
“I’m g’nna get another drink!” You stumble to the bar counter after Donnie gave you a thumbs-up. With slow and unsteady steps, you manage to get yourself through the crowd and sit on one of the stools with a loud sigh, “Can I order somethin’?”
“Don’t you think you had enough?” A pretty lady comes to you, and you grin when you see her bartender badge. “I can get you your drink and a glass of water.”
“Both, please and thank you!” You rest your chin on the palm of your hand, leaning on your elbows on the countertop, “For my driiiink… hmm, I think I want a Whiskey Sour! And cold water? Please?”
“Coming right up!”
You sit silently, feeling the buzz of the alcohol in your ears. You try, you really, really do, but even laughing when Cassie and Dana laugh, or when Donnie tries to do shots on the table, it still isn’t enough to get them to fill you in on their inside jokes, or maybe they do, but you feel like an outcast. Whatever it is, you want to be a part of their group, a friend to them, more than just a smartass or chief resident to them.
But the fitting in is not because of your shy and introverted personality or them not wanting you in, maybe it is on a small scale, but it is not the main reason. It is because of him. Robby. Michael fucking Robinavitch. The man who stole your heart.
He is beautiful when he blushes, and now his cheeks are probably hurting from grinning for so long. His face is red, flushed to the chest probablyو with his lips wrapping around the rim of his glass. He is handsome, deliciously so. His beard is nicely trimmed, and his hair is cut in a way that makes his neck stand out way more.
“Here you go,” she hands you your drinks and moves to another customer, letting you drink your whiskey sour with a deep sigh.
“Enjoying the night?” Jesus fucking Christ, you can’t catch a break from him.
“Yup,” you hiccup, drowning the rest of your drink without looking at him, licking the liquid off your lips, “Love how I don’t belong anywhere. It’s so cool, it makes one wonder what they did wrong.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah, oh is right,” you scoff, glancing at him for a second, finding him exhaling before taking the empty stool next to yours.
“What’s wrong? Why do you not… feel like you belong?”
“Not the best convo to have when I’m drunk, but if you insist,” you shrug, and look at him finally, finding him listening so intently, waiting for you to fill him in. He looks exceptionally good tonight, with his cargo pants still on and a clean green long-sleeve shirt that clings to his biceps in the best way, and frames his belly just right.
“I do.”
“Ugh, it’s stupid!”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“It is! Because if it were anyone else, they’d have already made friends!” You cry out, your feelings pouring into your hands, “I’ve done everything! I thought- I thought I was enough to fit in, but fuckو it’s hard! And then there’s…” you take a deep breath and stop talking before you tell your biggest secret to your biggest secret.
“What?” He presses slightly, pushing your water towards you slowly, “Drink this for me, sweetheart.”
“Nothing,” you shake your head hysterically, reaching for the glass without further consideration, and he hums in approval as you take a large sip, letting the cool water go down your esophagus, “Nothing…”
“C’mon, you can trust me, ya know,” he leans forward a little, decreasing the distance between your bodies, “I won’t tell a soul.”
“It’s nothing, it’s stupid.”
“It’s not, I’m sure. You can tell me.”
“I can’t tell you about you–” you gasp, watching his eyes widen in shock. The reality settles in, and you feel your heart dropping to the pit of your stomach, “Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck–”
“What do you mean?” He chuckles in disbelief, a playful undertone in his voice as he looks at you a little more closely, “Come on, you’ve talked more than you wanted to already.”
“Nothing,” you hiss, drowning the rest of your water before trying to stand up, but the world gets dizzy around you for a good, lasting second. Robby is quick to grab you by the waist, holding you steady and safe between his spread legs.
Both of his large hands are gripping your hips tightly now, pulling you forward a little so you can use his shoulders to keep yourself up. He looks fucking enchanting like this, gazing up at you with concern and a boyish enthusiasm you have only seen in him when he would talk to Nurse Hastings.
He is so warm and broad under your arms, his shoulders are hard under your fingertips as you use him to stand straight, looking into his eyes with a pout. You can never have him, but if this is the closest thing you get to experience with him, then so be it.
“I could help, you know? My therapist says communication is the backbone of–”
“Shut uuup, oh my god!” You whine, pouting even harder when you see how he is trying to talk to you — or get you to talk to him — and it makes your heart clench in adoration. How you love this big, sad, pathetic, gorgeous man with chocolate pudding eyes.
“Am I the reason you haven’t found any friends yet? Because I can talk to them–”
“If I make friends, they’ll know I like you!”
You need to die. Like. Right now. Right fucking now. The ground needs to open up and swallow you whole before you melt into a puddle from embarrassment.
Fuck the Margaritas and fuck the Gin Tonic, and also fuck that Whiskey Sour you had. They had you telling your biggest secret to the last person who should have known.
Your stomach growls in disapproval, and you can feel the ball rising slowly. Pushing Robby away, you dart outside of the bar to empty your stomach, tearing up a little as the acid burns the back of your throat, but at least you feel better now.
“It’s okay, let it all out,” Robby pushes your hair out of your face, rubbing your back before handing you a wet wipe you are sure he pulled out of your bag, “You’re okay. Drink a little water for me?”
You nod silently, wiping your mouth and chin before throwing the wipe in the trash, snatching the bottle from his hands. You do not want to be rough with him, but now he knows. He knows you like him; he doesn’t know it happened in your intern year, but he knows how you feel, why you haven’t managed to find friends — not the full story, but still enough.
“I didn’t know you had feelings for me–”
“We’re not gonna talk about this.” You grab your phone and bag from his hand, marching away from the bar, but to your very unfortunate luck, he follows you, “Go inside, Robby!”
“No, come on! You can’t just tell me you like me and leave!” He yells, falling into a step behind you, “Just– wait a second!”
“Why?” You turn around suddenly, pinning him to his spot with a harsh glare, “I’ve been trying my damn hardest to keep this to myself. It’s just a crush, I can get over it, alright? You’re not that special. I’ll move on when I get my board and attending position.”
“But you haven’t made friends because of–”
“It’s my burden to bear, not yours. And as I said, it’s just a fucking crush.” You don’t explain more, groaning in frustration as you basically jog into the sidewalk and walk back home.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t know that he is that special to you; he is everything you’ve ever wanted in a man, and he is out of your league, worse, he is your fucking boss. And of course, he now knows you like him.
At least he isn’t aware that you don’t like him, but you love him.
****
“Good morning, rockstar,” Robby slides next to you against the central, a shit-eating grin on his face as he puts a coffee cup between your hands, “Did you have a good break?”
“It’s too early to deal with you, Dr. Robby.” You squeeze your eyes shut in embarrassment, remembering every word you said to him in your drunken state, and now? He is fucking smiling at you like that didn’t happen, or worse, he’s decided to torture you with that information.
You were dueling about running away on your days off. You could have easily picked up your car, a luggage full of clothes, and gotten on the road away from Pittsburgh after you quit medicine for good. Or you could show up and act like you’d blacked out.
“I got you coffee.” He pushes the cup between your fingers gently, nudging your foot with his, “I know you like it black and bitter.”
“You never get me coffee,” you squint your eyes at the cup, running a hand down your neck, “What are you doing, Doctor Robinavitch?”
“I got you coffee.”
“I see that,” you hiss at him, heart pounding against your ribs as you turn your head to look at him, “You never pay attention to how I have my coffee. You never get me coffee.”
“There’s always a first time for everything,” he leans on his palm on the central, moving a little closer and tilting his head to look you in the eye, “I thought after our last conversation–”
“Absolutely fucking not–” you grab the coffee and try to dodge his arm, but he is quicker, falling into a step next to you with ease. You can see the smugness in his face, and it only makes the butterflies in your stomach flap their wings harder and faster, “Stop following me!”
“I’m not following you, I’m walking with my chief resident to her next patient,” he pushes his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants, “You wanna tell me when everything started?”
“You wanna tell me why you are being a jerk?”
“I’m not a jerk, I’m curious–”
“Wrong thing to be curious about,” you take a sip of your coffee, melting a little inside at the thought of him buying you coffee from your favorite spot, too. “If you excuse me–”
“We gotta talk about it, rockstar–”
“We don’t. We never should. I was drunk, I wasn’t thinking correctly, I said something, and I regret ever agreeing to come to one of these shitty get-togethers after work. I need to work now, so please, let me do my job. And you don’t ever have to worry about my stupid feelings towards you.”
You march away from him, going into the closest examination room and pulling the curtains, relaxing when you find it empty.
You know you overreacted, you know you should have slowed down, but how could you really? You’ve been carrying this secret for four years, and suddenly the only person who wasn’t supposed to find out is fully aware of it.
Although you are mad at yourself and him, you catch yourself smiling at the bitter taste of coffee. Whoever has told him about this must know you very well, but you doubt anyone is close to you enough to know how you take your takeaway coffee.
If this were the first interaction after that night, you are already dreading the rest.
****
One approach turns into two, then three, and then you lose count. He is everywhere. And by everywhere, you mean it. Every turn, every room, every stop. He is just there.
It annoys you because you are sure your adrenaline levels spike when you see him way more than before. Your face burns when he catches your eyes and gives you an easy smile, or a wink — fuck, you had to make a beeline to the bathroom the first time he did that to splash water on yourself before you passed out — and worse, he stands way too close to you.
Coffee becomes a regular thing; some days it is accompanied by a croissant or an egg and bacon sandwich. He even ordered you lunch a few times, for himself too, and tried his hardest to bribe you into eating the food with him in the staff lounge, which you declined and thanked Dana for pushing you into an incoming trauma.
Never was anything physical or complimentary outside your work in the past few months, at least not until now.
“You look beautiful today.”
Simple, right? No. NO. Your eyes are probably as big as his head when you turn to look at him, but you notice something different in his smile, something shy, almost, but his eyesare twinkling in mischief as they did before.
“What?” You whisper, clutching the tablet in your hand as you stand in a secluded hallway with so little space between your bodies; he isn’t crowding you, but he isn’t standing at an appropriate distance either.
“I said you look beautiful today. I noticed your new scrubs and earrings. They bring out your features–”
“What the fuck are you doing, Robby?” Robby. Not Dr. Robby. Not Dr. Robinavitch. Just Robby. You are mad, your heart is leaping into your throat, and there is a pinkish tint on his cheeks that makes you want to reach out and kiss him right on the cheekbone. Or slap him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what, sweetheart?” He looks genuinely confused, and it only makes you whine and stomp your foot on the ground, “Am I… upsetting you?”
“No, and that’s the fucking problem!” You say with a soft whimper in your tone, “I tell you I like you, and then suddenly you are bringing me coffee, lunch, snacks, and then you start calling me beautiful.”
“I’m trying to be nice–”
“You are being cruel!” You don’t realize when tears begin to fall on your face, “You are purposefully pulling on my pigtails and do-do things that make me feel happy, and you know that I fucking like you and it’s making me go crazy! I hate that you know that, and you are using it against me! You are teasing me, and ugh! I hate it!”
You storm off, without even glancing at him, moving straight for the locker room, crying harder when he follows you with urgency.
“I didn’t mean–”
“If you keep doing this, I will quit and leave!” You grab your stuff and put on your jacket before slamming your locker room shut, pushing Robby out of your way forcefully by slamming the tablet to his chest, “Stop playing with my feelings. I’ve been doing just fine for four years! Don’t fucking make my life hell!”
“You… you’ve liked me for four years?”
“At this point, I don’t like you, I love you, but you’re making it really fucking hard to move on!” You furiously wipe your tears, staring into his eyes for a hot minute, “I will, though, I will move on when I get out of Pittsburgh.”
“What–”
“I’m done for the day,” you leave without even glancing at him anymore. He stands there, alone, with a heavy heart, before he starts to follow you, but Dana is quick to grab him by the arm when he is close. His head snaps in her direction, his eyes burning with tears.
“What?”
“What did you do?”
“I… I told her she looked beautiful?”
“You— then why the fuck did she leave?” She gawks and looks at the path you took in shock, “You told her you liked her, right?”
“I… no? I didn’t even tell you–”
“Cap, you literally circle around her like a male bird wanting to mate. I don’t know if she likes you…”
“She’s loved me… for four years,” he tears up, hot drops rolling down his cheeks, “And I tried to show her that I liked her too but–”
“Four years? And no one knew?” She drags him to his work station, pushing him down on the chair with a soft frown, “How did I not notice?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know…” he pushes the palms of his hands against his eyes after handing the tablet to Dana, groaning in frustration, anger filling his body, “I’m so fucking disgusted by myself.”
“You have to fix it, we are already down a senior resident…” Dana slips behind a computer, sighing in relief when she finds what she needs to, “After the shift… you’ll fix it after your shift.”
****
You are studying. Again. The boards can’t come any faster, it seems, and you are heartbroken and frustrated by yourself and Robby. You thought you could handle him knowing your feelings amidst the situation of him being overly doting and teasing you.
But you couldn’t, not when he was looking at you with his perfect cow eyes that could melt your heart. He was so… so frustratingly beautiful and sweet when he would hand your coffee and follow you around.
If only he felt the same.
Your nose is practically buried in your books when you hear the knock. It is slow, steady, and echoes in your apartment. With hesitation, you stand up and walk out of your reading room, your sock feet dragging across the cold floor as you approach the door.
You gasp when you open the door, eyes roaming Robby’s body as he stands with his hands in the pockets of his huge riding jacket, eyes red and wide like yours. Your heart skips a beat at the idea of him crying; the reason doesn’t matter, but this time it should, because it has led him to your door.
“Can I come in?” He sounds so small as he looks down at his shoes, waiting for you to respond before he looks up and starts rambling, “Or I can just say what I wanna say, and then you can slam the door in my face, but I have to–”
“Come in,” you step aside gently, pulling the door open for him, looking at his back as he eases into the space of your apartment, slowly taking off his riding jacket and draping it over his arm before he turns around, “What are you doing here, Dr. Robby?”
“I came here to apologize.” He runs a hand through his hair, not knowing what to do with his body as he stands tall in your hallway leading to the living room, but he knows what he wants to do with his words: “I didn’t mean to hurt you at all. That-that possibility was not even on my mind; it didn’t even come as a thought to me. I thought that your little crush was cute, and I wanted to make you happy, and in the process of that–”
“You were teasing me, Doctor Robinavitch, that’s different from trying to make someone happy,” you say in a clipped tone, hugging yourself closely as you shift your weight from one foot to the other, “You enjoyed how I… How I got distracted at my job, especially after you found out that medicine is what keeps me tied to this place, yet you used that–”
“I don’t want medicine to be the only string that ties you to The Pitt,” he takes a step forward, and you take one back, inhaling shakily when your back hits the wall, “During the past few months, I started to see you, not as my resident, definitely not like I used to. I saw you, truly, what you like to eat between traumas, what flavor of Monster you hide in your locker room in a water bottle filled with ice – which is a very strange way of keeping a beverage cool when we have a fridge – anyway, uh…”
He scratches his beard, his eyes meeting yours in an unhurried gaze, and he finds the unshed tears that you have been holding back all night in order to study, begin to wet your eyelashes.
“I began to know you, the person you have been shielding from me and everyone for years,” he takes another step closer, his free hand moving to ghost over your cheek, not knowing if he is allowed to touch you, “You are fucking brilliant, do you know it? You move like you own the department; you are unstoppable. And so, so pretty when you are teaching. Did I ever tell you how good you are at explaining procedures to interns? It feels like you have years of experience, but it’s just you. The talented, magnificent you.”
“I… I didn’t know you thought about me like that.” Your lips begin to tremble, breaths coming out in quick puffs of air, tears finally rolling down your cheeks as you stare at him with desperate anticipation, “I didn’t think you’d notice me beside my work.”
He smiles, one of his radiant smiles that warms up your body and pulls his cheek up into the most gentle expression you have ever seen. He finally lets his fingers graze your cheek, his dry knuckles move across your soft skin, and he can’t bring himself to look away from you, not even for one second.
“I always notice you because you are one of the best residents I’ve ever had,” he finally cups your cheek, leaning down a little, “But I started to… notice personal things; like every time you chew on the end of your pen when you are concentrating, or,” he chuckles a little, “Or when you’d grumble under your breath when someone had taken your snacks, or… when you try to laugh when you don’t even understand a joke.”
“I don’t–”
“I didn’t know a woman could be as adorable and beautiful as you are before.” Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you gaze into his eyes. He wipes off the small tears that stream down your cheeks with slow and delicate movements, “But you… You are captivating. And I am very sorry for being a dick to you when I really wanted to start getting to know you more and potentially asking you out if you wanted to know me too.”
“I’ve been in love with you for four years; of course I want to get to know you too.”
You lean in and capture his lips softly, hands moving up his chest slowly before wrapping your arms around his neck. He kisses you back, a little more feverish than you do, letting go of his jacket to hold on to your waist, pressing you into his body to feel every curve of your form, making you sigh into his mouth.
“I don’t want to…” You gasp when he nips at your bottom lip, his heavy lids widening as he hears your words, but you chuckle breathlessly and shake your head, “Not tonight. I don’t wanna have sex with you tonight, Robby–”
“Michael, call me Michael,” he whispers, pecking your lips a few more times before moving down to your cheek, peppering your face with kisses until your tears are dried and you are giggling, “We can do whatever you want. I can even leave–”
“No!” You whine, locking your fingers around his neck to keep him right where he is, “I don’t want you to leave, I just… not tonight. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you were hoping for–”
“I came here to grovel for making you tear up and leave the shift early today, and also how I was the reason you thought you couldn’t fit in amongst the people who love you so much,” he kisses your forehead gently, letting his lips linger on the spot, “Sex was the last thing on my mind. Whatever you’d like to do, we’ll do exactly that.”
“Do you want to stay the night?” You whisper, playing with the neckline of his scrubs, not daring to look into his eyes at the moment, fearing he’d say no and leave despite him telling you he’d do anything you say. “You could say no–”
“Sweetheart, look at me,” he cradles your face in his palms, forcing you to meet his intense eyes, “I want to stay, I want to sleep here, I want to stay with you. If I ever say no, you are allowed to slap me.”
“I won’t hurt you,” you relax immediately at his words, wrapping your arms around his middle, resting your chin on his chest, “But I will exile you to the couch.”
“Good to know,” he laughs, kissing your forehead again before he lets go of you to bend down and pick up his jacket, kicking off his shoes to the side nicely before he grabs your hand and squeezes it, “Bedroom?”
“Mhmm,” you nod and guide him through your apartment, biting your cheek to stop the grin forming on your face. Robby. In your living space. Wanting to sleep here. Wanting to know you better. Wanting to love you the right way.
“Your place is beautiful.”
“Oh, please, I can barely find time to decorate this place.” You push your door open, extending your hand to grab his jacket, leading him to sit on the edge of the bed, “You can give me your scrubs to throw in the washing machine.”
“I don’t have spare clothes with me–”
“Well, you could sleep naked–”
“And you said you didn’t want to have sex,” he pulls you into his lap with ease, holding you by his hands on your waist, “Trying to get me naked before bed.”
“I can still throw you out of my apartment, trade carefully,” you rub your nose against his, enjoying how he closes his eyes to feel the sensation even more, “But… I have spare clothes for you, I think. My father left a few things here last time he visited me.”
“Lovely,” he kisses your shoulder over your shirt, “You look tired, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, I need to get some sleep,” you lean down to rest your head on his shoulder, “I’ve been studying for hours again. My eyes are burning.”
“You are going to pass the boards, and I’m telling you as someone who’s trained residents for years,” he hugs you close, and you melt in his embrace, enjoying the way his long arms engulf you and make you feel safe, “You gonna do amazing.”
“Thank you,” you kiss his neck one last time before slowly wiggling your way onto the bed, looking at him playfully, “Go and wash up, I’m gonna find clothes for you.”
“Okay,” he brings your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles before he stands up and points at the bathroom, “There?”
“Yup, you can see the laundry basket in the corner,” you wait for him to walk into the bathroom before flopping down on the bed, panting and staring at his jacket on your bed, bringing the fabric to your nose, smelling his cologne, and grinning to yourself.
It is unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. Robby is in your bathroom, cleaning himself and changing clothes. He is going to sleep in your bed. In your house. He is going to hold you.
Fuck, he even kissed you.
This is something out of your wildest dreams. Kissing Michael Robinavitch was one of the few things you were sure you’d never experience. But he is here, telling you he likes you, telling you he wants to try, and it’s making you giddy.
You hear the water stop, and you roll out of the bed to grab the clothes you promised, finding only a gray t-shirt that could fit him after you lower his jacket on the chair in the corner of the room.
“Hey,” you turn around, finding him standing in the doorframe of your bathroom with only his boxers on, his chest turning a bright shade of red when he notices you eyeing him up and down. He chuckles a little, running a shy hand through his hair as he approaches you, “Could you find something?”
“J-just a t-shirt?” You hand it to him, turning around and making a beeline for your side of the bed, taking off your socks with your back to him, “Sorry, no pants.”
“It’s fine if you’re okay with me sleeping—”
“Yeah, yeah! It’s okay!” You try not to sound so flustered, but the reality of your crush sleeping behind you with just a shirt and his boxers on makes you dizzy. “Do you want anything?”
“No,” you can hear the smugness in his voice before you feel the bed dip under his weight as soon as you lie down. Your breath hitches when he scoots closer to the middle of the bed, wrapping an arm around your waist to tug you closer to his body, and you have to bite your tongue to stop the soft whimper from falling from your lips.
It’s not sexual. It’s warm, it is more of a purr than anything, like you are finally where you are meant to be after rejecting it for so long. Robby pulls the covers over your bodies before he cages you between his arms, burying his face into your neck.
You feel safe, and that’s more than enough to knock you out to a blissful sleep in Robby’s embrace.
****
You’re being dramatic. He wants to be here; if he didn’t, he would leave immediately after he apologized. Hell, he wouldn’t even apologize. But there is a tiny voice in the back of your head that is shouting in the distance that you need to go, you need to pull away.
You should study. Right. You can leave the room and be back before he is up. He likes you… But does he really?
You feel his arm tightening around your waist in his sleep, keeping you against him with a firm grip. How can you think he doesn’t want you? It isn’t how you can, it is the very insecurity that has been bottled over the years telling you that is the truth.
He was pressured into this. If you kept your mouth shut that night, he wouldn’t need to go out of his way to make you feel comfortable. He wouldn’t be obligated to do anything about it.
You sigh, enjoying the warmth radiating from his hand on your skin for a lasting minute before you slowly slip out of his hold. You want nothing more than to cuddle him tightly and kiss him and hold him, but the hesitation that you feel is messing with your head. What if he really came here out of force to keep you from quitting? What if–
“Hey…” Robby grumbles in his sleep, reaching for you after he blinks rapidly and finds you sitting on the edge of the bed with your back to him.
Your head snaps in his direction, lips parting in surprise as he gently grabs your wrist, a small frown making its way to his face. He looks so peaceful like this, all the grinding hard work of the ED faded away with sleep, at least for a few hours.
“Go back to sleep…” You don’t touch him back; instead, stare at his face with a deep fondness. You don’t deserve him. He isn’t the most perfect man, quite far from that actually, but he is… endearing, whole-consuming, enough to set your skin ablaze.
“Why are you up? What time is it?” He groans and sits up on his elbow, squinting to look at the watch on the wall of your bedroom before giving you an unamused look, “Five in the morning? Please, get back in bed.”
“I have to study,” you pull your hand away and try to stand up, but he is quick to wrap his fingers around your wrist again, “Robby…”
“I told you to call me Michael,” he gently tugs you down, and you let yourself be moved until he is sitting against the headboard with your back to his chest, both of his arms wrapped tightly around you as he looks down into your eyes. “You need to take a break, sweetheart. I’ve seen you studying for so long, even in The Pitt sometimes. Unless it’s not about actually studying… Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no, it’s not you, it’s–” you take a shaky breath, hands coming up to hold onto his biceps, “I… I thought you… nevermind, I let my head wander off–”
“Listen to me,” he brings his hand up to cup your face, his grip firm and steady to make sure you are listening carefully, “If I have to remind you that I like you and want you every hour of the day, I will. Because I want you, and I’m not fucking around this time.”
“I thought you were doing all of this because you felt forced to,” you rush out the words, pressing your ear to his chest, listening to the rapid beat of his heart, “It’s so fucking stupid, I know!”
“It’s not, I promise you, it is not stupid at all,” he kisses your forehead, “I’m not forced to do anything, sweetheart. If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. But I do, I want you so fucking much–”
You crash your lips into his, clinging to his arms with desperation, kissing him with all the strength you have got inside you, and he reciprocates with a small chuckle, moving his lips with yours in sync. His thumb strokes the apple of your cheek as he devours you.
You wiggle in his hold until you are straddling his hips, lips still locked and tongues tied together. You slide your palms under his t-shirt, breath shuddering when you roll your hips and find him already half-hard in his boxers.
“Hmm, you are feisty,” he groans when you scoot a little closer and start grinding over his bulge, both hands moving up to his to feel the heat of his skin, “Are you sure you wanna go this fast?”
“I need to feel you right now,” you gasp against his lips, pushing up the fabric of his t-shirt until he grabs the back of the fabric and pulls it off quickly, giving you time to breathe and take off your clothes in haste before you crawl back into his lap, underwear abandoned on the bed.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he trails his hands up and down your hips, squeezing the flesh and biting his lips as he lets his fingers wander over your exposed skin, reaching around your body to undo your bra, latching his mouth to your collarbone, “Fuckin’ love you like this…”
“Michael,” you sigh his name, enjoying the way your hands explore the broadness of his shoulders while he gets rid of your bra and starts kissing your breasts and sinking his teeth into the flesh, “Fuck, baby…”
“I got you, beautiful,” he whispers into your skin, grunting when you drag your bare pussy against his thin boxers, making his cock jump in excitement, “Jesus, you are so fucking warm.”
“Please, I need you,” you push him back a little to make room for your hands to travel down the expanse of his chest, pulling on the hem of his boxers before he starts pushing the fabric down his ass and thighs until his cock is free, bobbing with desire.
He is big. You didn’t expect anything else, but to see it finally, and not imagining it still knocks the breath out of your lungs.
“You should let me prepare you–”
“I’m not joking when I say I’ll start spiraling if you’re not inside me by the next minute,” you drop your forehead on his, locking your eyes with his as you line up his tip with your wet hole, “I’m so pent up I could probably come from just sitting on you.”
“You don’t wanna know how I’m doing, sweetheart,” He groans, gripping your hips tightly when you slide down on his throbbing cock with ease, both of your lips falling open at the sensation, “I can come just by looking at you.”
“Y–you feel so good, Mike,” your eyes roll to the back of your head, nails digging into his shoulders as you begin to roll your hips, his cock reaching deep into your core and stretching you out in the most delicious way, “I’ve always imagined doing this with you.”
“Yeah? How did you imagine it, sweetheart?” He grunts, bending his knees and leaning back against the headboard to have more space to help you bounce on his lap, his fingers digging into the flesh of your ass as he follows your movement, “How many times did you imagine it?”
“So many times I lost count," you throw your head back, closing your eyes when he starts thrusting his hips up, driving his cock deeper into you while he clings to your body, “I thought our first time would be sweet, a-and not… not rushed, fuck…”
“What is this? Another of your fantasies?” He leans forward, attacking the column of your throat with kisses and bites, groaning and squeezing your body the faster you move, “Did you think about us fucking too?”
“All the time!” You hiccup when he reaches between your bodies to play with your clit; and play he does with how he rubs quick circles then pulls back when you shudder, only resuming his attacks when you grab his wrist tightly and roll your hips in an angle that his tip nudges your sweet spots, “Fuck- fuck, baby, ‘m gonna come–”
“Come for me then,” he gasps when you clench around him, your warmth engulfing and choking his dick until he is throbbing inside you, “I’m so close too. Can you come with me, huh? I know you can, C’mon, sweetheart.”
Your orgasm washes over you intensely, making you jolt forward and hug Robby tightly while your hips stutter and thighs begin to shake. He isn’t in any better position; you are just too tight and too warm, and he is losing himself in the feeling of you.
He follows you soon, his cock twitching and filling you up with his thick load, wrapping his arms around your back and shoulders as he thrusts a few times inside you, biting your collarbone to muffle the groan that falls from the depths of his chest.
“You okay?” He asks, still breathless and sensitive as he holds you close, relaxing when he feels you nod and mutter a tired ‘yes’ under your breath, “Let’s get cleaned up and then we go back to bed.”
“You don’t have a shift tomorrow?” You ask, slowly lifting yourself from his lap to lie down on the bed, humming when he hovers over you to kiss you sweetly on the lips before he gets off the bed to find a towel in your bathroom.
“Nope,” he shakes his head as he walks back, crawling on the bed next to you to wipe off the mess he made between your legs, swiping the towel gently, careful not to touch anywhere that could be too sensitive, “I’d not be this relaxed if I had to go back there.”
“You’ll stay then?” You caress his arm when he settles back beside you, pulling you into his chest, smiling and holding you right above his heartbeat.
“Of course, sweetheart. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”
****
This has to be one of the worst shifts he’s ever had. In his top ten, definitely. Not because it is crowded or they have some horrible traumas rolling in. No. It is bad because he doesn’t have his chief resident here with him.
He should be used to this, not having you around. If it were seven months ago, he wouldn’t care really, but now he does, because he wasn’t in a relationship with you before, so the distance didn’t hurt as badly as it does today.
You are having the day to yourself, spending the hours on the bed or, as he very much insisted, using his card to buy anything you wanted because you deserve it after the hellish few weeks you had to study before your Boards.
He is walking out of a trauma when he hears your voice, mid-conversation with Santos as they make their way to the central.
“Michael!”
He has at most ten seconds to brace himself before you abandon all the HR rules and throw yourself into his arms.
“I did it! I passed the Boards!”
“You did?!” He asks, laughing in excitement before he pulls back a little to cradle your face in his hands, pulling you in for a quick yet feverish kiss in front of the entire department, “Why am I even asking? Of course you did! My brilliant girl, I knew you could do it.”
“Wouldn’t have done it without your support,” you kiss him back, grinning and rocking on your feet in happiness, “I also had an interesting interview upstairs… someone had put in a recommendation letter for me.”
“Hmm, very nice of him, you should ask him out.”
“Good thing I’m already dating him.” You wink at him, tightening your arms around his neck as he does around your waist, “Would be a shame if it was Abbot who wrote it though–”
“Don’t even think about it,” he shakes his head before he notices Dana and Donnie approaching, “What’s going on?”
“I’m gonna say something, and you can’t say no, rockstar,” Donnie starts, pointing at you, “The only answer we’ll be accepting is ‘yes, thank you, we’ll be there’, got it?”
“I don’t even know what you're gonna say!”
“We're going to throw a party for you because you passed, and we will not–” he brings his hand up to stop you from interrupting, “We will not accept no for an answer.”
“You don’t have to–”
“We want to, honey,” Dana rests a hand on your shoulder, “We love you, and we want to show it.”
“I…” you look back at Robby, and he has to stop himself from pouting at the small lingering hesitation and insecurity in your eyes. Instead, he kisses your head and squeezes your waist.
“We want to celebrate you. We can cancel it if you’d like. But we really, really want to do this for you; it’s the least we can do after all these years.”
“It won’t be a bother?” You ask in a hushed tone, blinking at him with a shy smile,” Because I’d hate if you–”
“Nothing is a bother when it comes to you, sweetheart.”
“Okay…” you turn around and look at the nurses, “I’d really appreciate it. Thank you–”
“I’m so fucking proud of you,” Dana pulls you out of Robby’s arms, hugging you tightly without even glancing at the man, “You gonna rock this job, kid.”
“You accepted the spot?” Robby smirks, crossing his arm and looking at you with playful eyes.
when the age gap isn't just hot but also angst-inducing :(
During a shift, an elderly man, eighty, in fact, is brought in by his fifty-three-year-old wife. She's a woman who has clearly spent years organizing her life around his aging body.
She hands Jack a detailed list of his medications, in what order he takes them, and his diet.
Hell, the woman monitors his symptoms better than he does.
"You're gonna worry...you're gonna worry yourself sick over me."
"You're the one with an IV line. I think I'm allowed to sweat over you a little, honey."
She loves him, that's obvious, but she's also exhausted.
"You know what? Good for him...can't imagine what they've had in common to keep their relationship thriving for the past twenty years, but good for him nonetheless..."
The jokes about the patient's age gap with his wife amongst the night crew?
They die immediately when they realize they have the exact same number of years between them as you and Jack do.
Dr. Abbot and his sunny nurse.
"Shen, not the time workshop that bit."
Jack, throughout the case, watches this woman practically dote on this man as she, really, does worry herself sick.
There's no punchline to be made here. He's smart enough to see that this is a woman who's sacrificed time for this old, old guy that she loves, to the point where she's also sacrificed pieces of herself to keep him afloat.
"Lenora, sweetheart, I think it's a good time to say that I want you to go out more. We'll get a caretaker. These are your years where you relax, you don't...you waste away because I am---"
"Stop saying things like that! These are my years? You took care of me when you were my age. It's not wrong for me to do the same."
And one day, she'll be left alone with no husband to show for it.
You catch the husband with his guard down, listening as the old guy weakly apologizes for all the work he's become, but the wife refuses to let him call himself a burden. Still, all the fatigue in her shows the truth of how much work he is.
Jack hears all of it, and the realization hits him like a fucking bullet.
This could be us, kiddo. If I'm too selfish to let you go.
He's already ruined you. He's ruined himself with the obsession with you, but that's what he wants. That he'll never regret at this point, but he's already ruined you.
He can't ruin the rest of your life, too.
No. No. Fuck that. He won't...he won't do that to you.
"They're cute, huh, Jackie?"
They're what loving him could someday cost you. Not just losing him, but slowly, wastefully spending your best years taking care of him.
"...Yeah, kid. They're cute."
Funny. For the first time, Jack's self-hatred doesn't come from his obsessiveness, resentment at your perfection, or his need for you, you, you.
It just seeps in with the absolute certainty that one day you'll ruin your life over him for the sake of devotion, like he isn't the only one who should be oh so fucking devoted in this relationship.
Like he could deserve that. What a fucking joke.
The worst part is that you'll do it willingly.
"He's right, though. They should hire a caretaker. It's too much for one person."
"Well, if she wants to---"
"It's too much. There's nothing...heroic about turning yourself into a pile of exhaustion and making the person you're taking care of guilty."
Even if it's rightful guilt.
"...Jack?"
Jack's already grey and wrinkled, and he's going to leave you alone in this world with how much closer to death he is. And he is too selfish to let you go.
He guesses he'll just have to kill himself before he gets any more grey. Save you the trouble.
A few more thoughts on this before I attempt to write a full fic, because we need more angst!!
Once the husband is of proper mind, Jack takes to asking him questions. They're the usual questions to help the crew come to a conclusion, but there's something behind them.
How long have you needed help getting dressed? How many times have you fallen this month? Do you ever get confused at night? What does your wife have to do for you at home? How often does she wake up with you? How long has she been handling your medications? How long has she been helping you bathe?
But it's obvious. He's trying to put the puzzles of his future with you togeter.
The wife ends up answering most of them.
"It's not so bad, I still work. But I...I moved to part-time, I'm working from home. Easier to keep an eye on him that way."
"...You're a very admirable woman, Lenora. He's lucky to have you."
Yeah. It's easier to spend your life as the younger half of an aging marriage when you sacrifice so fucking much.
He won't let this happen to you, kiddo. You're not gonna be fifty-three carrying around his meds and bathing him and putting yourself in a situation where you're broken and tired. He's not gonna steal from you. He'll make sure of that.
WORDS: 2.2K
SUMMARY: The Cody family finally find Pope after six years, not expecting two kids running out of a house calling him "Dad".
WARNINGS/TAGS: Established Relationship, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Slice of Life, Happy Andrew Cody Family, Kissing, Smut, Intercourse (Gender-neutral), Angst, Mention of a Gun, Shouting, Arguing, Yelling, Crying, Hurt/Comfort
A/N: Might make a part 2 to this one. Also sorry if there are any misspellings or missing words I'm really sleepy. Good luck!
SECOND PART | NEVER THEIRS
THRID PART | ONLY OURS
MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!
Bouncing the toddler on your hip, stirring the pan on the stove, hearing two screams sound behind you. Glancing at the time, reading '5:27 PM,' setting down the spatula on the cutting board, walking over to the living room.
"You boys better clean up this living room before Daddy gets home," you shout, hearing the patter of two sets of little feet. "Daddy's home?" your four-year-old son asks, stopping just behind your five-year-old son.
"Minutes away, hurry," you say, pointing at the mess of blocks on the rug in front of the TV. Watching them quickly put them away, just as Andrew taught them both. Walking back into the kitchen, turning down the heat, dinner already being done. Checking the boy's work, knowing your husband would look for anything amiss when settling down after dinner.
Marrying Andrew only a year after meeting, proposing to you after telling him you're pregnant. Thankful for the day a booked restaurant sat you across from him to allow more people in the door. Talking over a good dinner, finding out you were both traveling, seeking something in your lives on the open road. Still, after all these years, he left this past vague, seeing the hurt on his face on the topic of his family, never pushing past his robbery charge.
Hearing the familiar pairs of tires come up the driveway, the boys spring into action, following right behind them. "Daddy!" Your five-year-old yells, squishing his red-haired head into Andrew's side, leaving enough room for your other son to give him a hug.
"You two been good today?" he asks, ruffling their hair, earning pitched giggling. "Yes," they say in sync. "Good," he praises, looking to you with a smile before picking up the smaller of the two.
"Me too," your other son says, jumping up and down. Hearing Andrew groan while picking him up, finally walking over to you. Giving your lips a warm kiss, hearing the boys protest, making you both smile.
Breaking the kiss, allowing him to give a peck to the little girl on your hip. Both making your way inside, hearing the boys start to boast about their day, setting your daughter into her high chair, picking up the rubber bib, snapping the clasp into place. Walking over to the stove, turning up the heat before going to grab the plates, interrupted by Andrew's body, already grabbing them.
"Sorry, you gonna be faster than that," he teases, pulling down the ceramic plates, handing them to you with a smile. "Thank you," you say, turning away, feeling a pair of arms wrap around you.
Smiling, grabbing something to serve dinner with. Kissing the skin of your neck, reaching up to your ear, giving it small nibbles. Shoulder curling up, hearing him laugh sweetly in your ear, causing warmth to flow throughout your body.
"Andrew, I'm trying to serve dinner," you beg, receiving only a hum. "How was work?" you ask, trying to distract the man's lips. "Nothing new, only more cars to fix up," he replies, placing his lips right back on your neck.
Serving one plate, putting it off to the side atop the counter. "Has that car across the street been there all day?" He whispers into your ear. "Which car?" you ask, brows furrowing, knowing there must be at least ten cars lining the street outside your house.
"The grey SUV parked down the street," he answers with a flat voice. "No, I don't think so," you reply, hearing him give an acknowledging hum in return.
Releasing you from his arms, grabbing the now two plates sitting off to the side, severing the boys at the table. Turning around with two more, with Andrew being there to take them out of your hands, leaving you with your daughter's dinner to serve. Placing the small plate in front of her, witnessing her spoon food into her mouth, cooing at the taste. Sitting down next to her, before digging in, watching her to make sure she doesn't choke.
"I drew a rocket today, Daddy," your five-year-old speaks up, squirming in his chair, food loosely stacked onto his fork. "Yeah, you'll have to show me after dinner," Andrew says, smiling at the excited boy.
"Can you help me make another one?" he asks, receiving a nod from his dad. "When you start school, you can show more people your drawings," he says, eating another bite of food.
"I want to go," your little one speaks up. "Not for another year, buddy," Andrew explains, making the little boy frown. "But I want to go," he cries, setting down his fork, linking his arm with his brother.
Both having been attached to each other since you brought the younger one home from the hospital, never being able to bring one without the other. Andrew says it runs in his side of the family, brothers always sticking together, but you wait for the day they include their sister in the pack.
"You will when you get older," you reply, running a hand over his hair, colored the same shade as yours. "You'll see him when we drop him off and pick him up," you further explain, trying to comfort the little boy. Nodding, not knowing if he understood it all, watching him go back to eating his dinner.
Finishing at the dinner table, Andrew quickly moving into action, collecting all the plates from the table. "Go play," he tells the boys, hearing the TV turn on as soon as their feet hit the rug.
Picking up your daughter from her highchair, allowing her to rest on your chest while putting away the dishes Andrew washes and dries. Silently working together with the sound of your boys shouting in the background, laughing as they argue about the TV show playing.
Once finished, watching him dry his hands before plucking the tired toddler from your arms. Showering her in kisses, earning small tired giggles, taking her out of the kitchen and upstairs to put her to bed. Sitting with the boys in the living room, slowly calming down, full bellies starting to set in.
Sitting together on the couch, calmly watching their favorite show, their heads quickly snapping to the stairs. Andrew coming down the step, baby monitor in hand, planting himself between the both of you. Pulling your body close, head lying on his chest, pecking your forehead just as the boy curls up with him.
"Did you want to draw that rocket?" He asks the one resting on his shoulder, "Tomorrow" The boy whispers, sleep creeping in fast. Smiling to yourself, knowing bedtime would be a breeze tonight.
Watching only a few more episodes before carrying the boys up the stairs, tucking them into their beds. Kissing their cheeks, Andrew goes into the bedroom before you to shower, wanting to give a big kiss to your daughter before bed. Quietly gushing over her sleeping state, seeing Andrew in her face more than your own, down to the dark reddish-brown hair. Stirring the toddler's sleep with a light kiss to her cheek, smiling as she finds sleep again.
Walking out, closing the door behind you, making it into your shared bedroom, hearing the shower going. Sitting atop your shared bed, turning on the TV at low volume, watching until the shower turns off. Turning your attention to the man walking out of the bathroom, towel around his waist, causing you to think about adding another to the household.
Seeing the stress of a long day on his body, the shower doing more than just washing away the smell of car oil and manufactured metal. Andrew working as a mechanic down the road, starting there right after you begin to date, both staying in town just to see each other again. Buying the place only after your second son was born, money became better with time, finally purchasing a two-story home, a big upgrade from the two-bed, one-bath apartment.
Looking away, biting the smile stretching along your lips, fighting to focus on the TV ahead. Feeling the bed cave around your thighs, lips kissing, trailing up the uncovered skin of your legs.
Peering down as Andrew makes it to the hem of your shorts, attacking your lips instead. Wrapping your arms around his neck, fingers running through his short curls, opening your legs, wrapping them around his waist.
Happily trapped by his thighs, hand digging under your clothing, squeezing at the flesh underneath it. Smiling against his lips, laughing as he peels off your shorts and underwear together, hearing the fabric hit the floor.
Moaning into the kisses, fingers working between your legs, breaking your heated kisses. Bringing them up to his mouth, lubing the surface of his two middle fingers with spit before burying them in you. Head tilting back into the pillow, lips bringing you back, feeling his fingers work to stretch your walls.
Removing them, causing an emptiness his cock fills, moving your arms under his. Fingertips digging into Andrew's bare back, moans mixing between breaths of warm kisses, hips slowly thrusting. Lips trailing away from your lips, allowing moans to escape, singing a beautiful song to his ears. Hips becoming more wild, lips stopping in the nook of your neck, feeling only Andrew's hot breath.
Bitting back the louder moans that bubble up your throat, aching to call out your husband's name. Groaning in your ear, dragging your nails down his back, causing his hips to slow, trying not to cum so quickly.
Kissing your lips once again, softly moaning in them as his cock thrusts slowly, only wanting to feel every inch of you. Hands caressing the sides of your thighs, squeezing, hard fingertips digging into your hips. Moans picking back up in volume as his hip's speed grows, only to halt, pelvis pressing against you.
"Did you cum?" You moan, gripping his shoulder blades, cock buried deep within you.
"No, I heard something," Andrew replies, catching his breath, looking towards the bedroom window. "I didn't hear anything," you say, following his line of sight, finally hearing it.
Muffled voices followed by footsteps coming from the backyards, hearing them perfectly as your bedroom overlooks it.
Springing out of bed, leaving you naked, sweating body. Unable to see, only able to watch Andrew's next actions, face twisted with anger. Opening his dresser, grabbing a new pair of underwear before moving to the closet.
"Andrew, what'd you see?" You whisper, not answering you, hearing him shift things around before pulling out a shotgun.
Eyes growing wide, losing your breath, never knowing the gun was hidden in your closet. "Andre-" "Shhh." He interrupts you, loading the gun before quickly exiting the locked bedroom. Hearing his heated footsteps grow distant, leaving you behind.
Slowly getting up from the bed, cautiously looking out the window, seeing nothing. Head snapping toward the hall, hearing the loud voices coming from downstairs. Grabbing your shorts and underwear, putting them on, trying to make out the voices. Slowly walking down the hall, taking your time with each step, hearing Andrew's voice becoming clearer.
"That was the point!" He yells.
Turning the corner of the stairs, met with the back door being wide open, the porch light on, seeing your husband's figure. Stepping closer, noticing three men standing in your backyard, holding their hands up as Andrew points the gun in a scanning motion.
All three of their eyes flicker to you, alerting Andrew of your presence behind him. "Go back upstairs," he says to you, voice cold and flat, not bothering to even look at you.
"Pope, please." The one with darker, shorter hair pleads, causing your brows to furrow. Pope?
"I told you I'm done with Smurf. I left all of you in the past, accept it like I did." "Pope, please listen to him," the blonde one says.
"Andrew," you say, seeing his shoulders tense up more than they already are. "I said go back upstairs, please," he pleads, voice cracking at the end.
"So that's it, just cause you have a new family now means we're not anymore." The brown-haired one speaks again, "You stopped being my family after crushing up pills into my food after I got out," he sobs.
"I had no idea about that." "Yeah, me neither," both the long brown and blonde-haired men said. "Pope, please, you're unmedicated." "I am medicated, professionally, not taking pills with someone else's name on the bottle!" he yells, pointing the shotgun at the man with short hair.
"I'm finally doing good in my life, I'm not letting you fuck that up. Tell Smurf she can go fuck herself. I'm not her son anymore. Like I ever was," he shouts, saying the last part a bit calmer, voice still cracking with each word.
"Get the fuck out of here NOW! Never come back!" he shouts, moving forward, causing the men to move back. Disappearing the way they came, finally allowing Andrew to lower his gun, turning back, facing you across the yard. Looking as though he were a beaten puppy, tears stain your husband's cheeks as he walks across the yard, racing up the small set of stairs before closing, locking the door behind him.
"Andrew" is all you could manage as he steps forward, resting the gun on the side wall. Arms engulfing you, hearing the sobs escape his throat, dropping to his knees, hugging your legs. Softly running your fingers through his hair, shock still setting in, having just seen some of the family he's had told you little of, maybe for good reason.
"Andrew, please," you plead, cupping his cheek, causing his eyes to peer up at you. "Tell me what happened to you," you beg, knowing this would be the only time you would ever get an answer.
| NEXT PART
Hello, I hope you enjoyed if there is any grammar mistakes or misspellings sorry about that feel free to let me know in the comments, have a great day/afternoon/night!
♥ mx-pastelwriting does not consent to their fanfiction being copied, copied & credited, translated, used in videos and/or audios, screenshotted, used in AI.
Jack Abbot headcanons that are so important to me.
Major Jack Christopher Abbot, MD, 75th Ranger Regiment, Medical Officer. 46 years old.
Grew up in Oklahoma. Rode bulls in his teens. 3 brothers, all military as well. Mom is a saint, dad was a racist alcoholic asshole that never really left Vietnam.
Joined the Army straight out of high school.
Met Maggie Johnson in med school, where she was a nursing student. Married at 23, one month before deploying to Afghanistan in 2002. His dad never forgave him for marrying a black woman.
Met Robby in New Orleans in 2005 after Katrina. Stayed in touch over the years.
Did 5 tours. 3 in Afghanistan, 2 in Iraq. Lost his leg in 2015 when his Humvee rolled over an IED. He was the only survivor.
Started therapy after he woke up with his hands around Maggie’s throat, lost in a PTSD spiral. Made his first serious attempt that same night.
Maggie died in a car accident in 2017. Drunk driver. Second, and last, serious attempt the day after her funeral.
Takes sertraline for his PTSD, prazosin for nightmares, trazodone for sleep, and propranolol as needed for occasional hyperarousal. Gabapentin for phantom limb pain.
Joined PTMC in 2019 when Robby called and offered the job.
Met Samira Mohan in 2021. Fell in lust with her somewhere between 2023 and 2025. Most likely fell head over ass at Robby’s cookout the summer of 2026. Her hair was down and he’d made her laugh so hard she cried. He can’t remember what it was he said.
Went to Maggie’s grave the next day. Told her all about Samira. Let her know he’d never stop loving her, even when he loved someone new. Took his ring off that night. It stays in a keepsake box with all his most precious possessions.
eleven years ago, robby had a fling with a first year medical student, only for her to drop out and disappear without even a note. forward to present day, and a precocious 10 year old has shown up in the pitt demanding to see her dad, a photo of a familiar face gracing her phone screen.
series cw: mdni. kidfic, fem!reader, age gap (early 20s/30s, early 40s/50s), miscommunication, exes to idiots in love, romcom nonsense, medical/legal/scholastic/child-rearing inaccuracies, overuse of the word puppy, all lowercase. no physical reader description other than shorter than robby, no physical child description other than having curly hair (unspecified from whose side) and robby’s eyes. additional cw on each chapter. pics just for vibes.
summary: One glitchy tablet, one HR email, and suddenly you’re married to your attending, Jack Abbot. HR thinks it was intentional and has already started merging your records. Claim it was a mistake, and your residency could be delayed. With only three months left until you’re an attending, Jack agrees to play along. Pretending to be married might save your career—but can your heart survive the side effects?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 - ongoing
when you take into account that CM Punk would absolutely burn the world for AJ Lee and most definitely tell this any person who says anything bad about her to fuck themselves: why are you still his fan? more so: why are you writing fanfics about him? because he would definitely hate you. and if she sucks, he must suck too because birds of a feather. people are crazyyy
