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Fandoms: Animal Kingdom
Pairing: Andrew “Pope” Cody x Black!Fem!Reader
Summary: Father Cody was never known to be a good man before his vow to God. He still battled thoughts of violence, depression, and worst of all, lust he feels for his newest churchgoer attending service.
Chapters: 1/3 ~ Next
WC: 5.7K
Warnings: Priest!Pope, reader has priest kink, late 20s!Pope, very much so DDDNE, angst bc religious guilt (tw: self-harm in the form of flogging) and priesthood is hard (and so is he), use of she/her rather than you or y/n, slow burn, and mild smut (?, reader feels him up, Pope has dirty thoughts).
A/N: A little canon to Pope’s interest in religion, but I pictured when he met Father Kirby he left his family behind, and got help for his mental health (mostly).
Andrew was a born again Christian turned priest. His mother, if she were already dead, would roll in her grave to see him as he was. His place of solace and refuge had always been in the church. He didn’t know why Smurf ever tried to persuade him away from it—scratch that.
Andrew knew why.
Being of use to his mother was more important than her actually being a mother. Her wiring wouldn’t allow it.
And Andrew was soft at his core.
He wanted to bend and give for his mother. Julia, too. Leaving was difficult, but when Smurf tried to get him to turn his back on his sister, that was his final straw. By the time he was eighteen-going-on-nineteen, he fled. Not that Smurf couldn’t find him. He didn’t care if she did. Andrew was never going back home to have his head fucked with.
Father Kirby put him up for a while, gave him a warm bed, and a hot meal. Stability he never quite felt before then. When priesthood piqued his interest, Father Kirby looked on proudly and gave him the tools to start. He opened up further about his concerns and fears prior to a totally different way of life.
“My brain can be…loud. But, in the church it’s quiet. Everything feels okay. What if I get angry? Hurt myself or others again?” Andrew confessed and questioned.
He wrung his hands as he waited to be shunned as he had been so many other times before. Julia was the only one who never made him feel that way. She made him feel other things, too. He didn’t like to talk about it. Ever. He prayed God would make every distasteful and sinful feeling he ever felt disappear. They never did. He was convinced he needed to pray harder.
“I know some doctors in the church, son. We’ll figure it out. I’ll be with you along the way,” Father Kirby said determinedly.
Then, Andrew blinked and almost a decade passed.
He was the head of his own church, remaining on church grounds in a quaint and humble room that was easy to manage. He never needed or wanted for much. The routine was good for him. Andrew’s mind had gone quiet some odd number of years ago after the right mix of prescriptions and therapy. It took him time to not feel ashamed for seeking help. His therapist often repeated to him that his formative years were riddled with breaking down his natural coping and defense mechanisms.
While he verbally told Smurf he forgave her, begged God to help him to forgive, and in his heart knew that was the path he wanted, the human side of him wanted to see her suffer for screwing him up as severely as she had. His only contact with his mother was over the phone occasionally. Andrew checked in on Julia, but mostly by phone still.
His church was in northern California, away from the raucousness of his family. If he did speak to his brothers, they insisted on calling him ‘Pope’ and questioning if he had to abide by the whole no drinking and no sex thing.
Valid questions, but not to be ribbed about regularly. He would have been lying if he said he didn’t entertain the idea of a drink or palm himself through his pants in his bedroom when a hard-on struck. The guilt always came later, as did his confession and asking for forgiveness. Andrew had to be a man of his word—always—because he didn’t want to ever be Smurf.
Andrew stood between the pews, staring out of the beautifully stained glass windows high above, colored light shining through onto empty wooden seats. He was having a particularly difficult day. Eucharist had gone fine, always had. The way the flock looked at him so warmly used to make him anxious when he was younger. Now, he invited it because they all had a common goal, and that was God.
He didn’t notice her right away, but when Sunday School typically rendered the same faces, hers stuck out. Beautiful women came and went in the church. Nothing out of the norm. To say women didn’t try flirting with him would have been a lie also. The older women included. But, his vows meant he was to never marry or have children.
He might as well have been a eunuch compared to the truly available men in the same circles.
Adults of young and old alike sat in a circle of comfortable chairs, everyone’s eyes drawn to her as she came through the doorway. Her clothed shoulders were damp with the light drizzle that helped to cool the Summer day. He felt his eyes skim over the rest of her, the maroon skirt and her wedged heels left so little to the imagination.
As instructed by the Bible, he averted his eyes respectfully. Andrew paused his reading of the scripture from the Bible in his lap and waved a hand to entice her forward.
“Don’t be shy, please come sit,” Andrew moved to stand, offering his seat since the others were propped against the wall.
“Oh, no—I can grab a chair. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she rushed out.
“You’re not interrupting at all,” Andrew shook his head. He tucked his middle and ring fingers in between the pages so he wouldn’t lose his place. “I’m Father Cody, by the way.”
She introduced herself back and stuck out her hand with such formality he found it amusing. She wasn’t the only one that did so. Once again, Andrew got used to it. People having manners and caring about one another was strange to come by compared to how he was raised. He gave a small smile, one he had been called shy over, and shook her hand.
Andrew smoothed a hand down his perfectly starched shirt, his collar pressing at his throat.
He grabbed the chair, everyone adjusting their seats to make room for him as he took up the spot beside their newcomer. He felt an inkling of curiosity in the back of his mind as he glanced at her again. She was digging into a sizely tote bag that held her Bible, removing a highlighter and pen from the leather case attached to the book.
It all looked new and unburdened by sorrow. The sorrow bit might have been why she was new and there at all. Andrew took in a breath to refocus.
“We’re on Psalm fifty-one, if you’ll flip to there. We’re discussing burden, guilt, and sacrifice. What does it really mean to sacrifice?” Andrew looked around the group of fourteen individuals.
Some nodded, meeting his eyes as they waited and hung onto every word he said. Andrew remembered how much he needed to extend grace to those who looked to him for answers. He always clarified that he was more of a buoy of support rather than a captain steering the ship.
He flattened his Bible open onto his lap and started from the top of the page again.
“‘Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin… For I was born a sinner--yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.’ Now, I want to home in on this specific part of the scripture. If we’re honest, do we or should we look at babies as evil? No. Children are a product of their environment, are they not?” Andrew paused for responses.
Some hummed and nodded again.
She was watching him closely. He almost didn’t turn his head far enough to meet her eyes. There was that tinge of guilt he felt in his belly. Those big, dark eyes looking back at him. He knew what it was he was feeling and he needed to pack it away like everything else he successfully boxed up in his mind.
“It is our responsibility to mold children and ourselves in the image of God, to be better than we think we can be. Jesus died for our sins knowing we aren’t perfect. So, I don’t want any of you to hear this to pretend to be something you’re not. Be good and do good,” Andrew smiled briefly. “Verse seventeen: ‘The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.’ Sit with that for a moment. Let’s take a ten minute break here. Grab some water and snacks over on the table, please, there’s plenty.”
Andrew moved to stand and let out a breath. He dragged the satin bookmark in between the pages, then set the Bible onto his seat. He needed some air. Or a cigarette. Why was he letting her affect him this way? Could it have been the scripture getting under his skin, too? He didn’t like thinking too much about his former life especially when he was meant to be leading spiritually.
Oftentimes it led him to feeling fraudulent.
He left the Bible Study room to step into the hallway under the guise of using the restroom. The door shut behind him, but he heard it click open again as someone stepped into the hallway after him. Andrew naturally looked over his shoulder. It was her.
“Oh, Father,” she started and closed the distance. “I was hoping to catch you alone.”
The last thing he needed.
“Of course,” Andrew said, putting on a serious expression as he did for all matters. “I know your introduction to the group was short. It’ll dive in a bit more here in a second.”
“Right, no worries. It’s just… I’m new to all of this. I was hoping for one-on-one guidance on where to start. I feel like I’m in the middle of a very huge pond.” She spoke shyly.
The sort of shyness that always made Andrew want to step in and tell her she would be okay. He sighed internally, steeling any feelings he managed to repress for any woman and stuck those same feelings into that category within his mind.
He could handle one-on-one time with a lost member of God’s flock. That’s all she was. He would have one meeting. He could do one.
“Well, okay. Do you mind telling me a bit more about what it is that has you here? I don’t mean for it to sound accusatory or judgmental. Hell, I guess Catholicism is as judgmental as it gets. But, I’m not judging you. I want to better prepare for a meeting—actually, after Study today, come see me in my office. We can look at the schedule together and I can jot down a note or two.”
“Thank you, Father, that sounds great,” she smiled.
The pride he felt in giving her anything to smile about weighed on his chest like an anvil. He gave a tight smile that he prayed was less obvious than he felt. When she turned on her heel, Andrew’s eyes were drawn to those mahogany legs again, he forced himself to continue on his way to the restroom. A bit of cold water to the face might help him concentrate.
Bible Study came and went.
His adrenaline pitched as he attempted to look less intrigued and excited than he was. For all the therapy he attended, he never thought he would find himself as swiftly infatuated with another woman.
Andrew knew it was not only a pressure cooker for the woman, but he had nothing to offer.
Nothing he should have been offering. So, he cleaned around the space and said his goodbyes. His plan going forward was to be intentional and respectful, not a victim to his baser needs.
But, she stayed behind, and those legs of hers were in his line of sight. He plucked up pamphlets and books from seats, squaring his jaw as he began mentally reciting scripture. Andrew exhaled and turned away to place everything back onto a bookshelf.
“I thought the verses we discussed today were insightful, Father,” she said from the snack table.
Andrew was undecided if the small talk would be to his benefit or not. The way her voice, accented as if not from the local area, curled around his title in the same way he wanted to curl his tongue around hers. The feeling of disappointment rattled him again. He would get through this last obligation for the day and punish himself before anyone else could dole out any.
“I try to make it relatable. Less fear-based and more loving, as God intended,” he straightened, hyperaware of his body flexing beneath the fabric of his clothes. “I’m honored to make someone new feel…equipped.” Andrew gave a small smile.
She moved to gather her things from her chair, standing closer by doing so. Andrew visibly balled up and opened his hands as she came in close. The perfume she wore was musky, vanilla sweet, but layered with something he could only describe as brown sugar and like fresh pastries. Andrew dropped his head as he moved first to cross the room to the doorway.
“I’ll walk you to my office,” Andrew cleared his throat.
“Of course. I don’t want to take too much of your time, Father,” she agreed.
The walk was short in hindsight and his office was smaller than that of the room they were previously in. Enough space for books on religion lining a few standalone bookshelves, a tattered dark blue ten foot rug covering the creaky floorboards, and a desk with another stained glass window just behind him to allow for natural light to pour into the space. Andrew ushered her inside, and for once, considered leaving the door cracked open.
She took a seat on the opposite side of the neatly arranged desk, her eyes skimming over it. Andrew shut the door with a light click, knowing her privacy was far more important than his perceived attraction toward her. He could be a good boy and keep his hands and thoughts to himself.
Andrew sat down with a quiet grunt in the old, torn leather chair behind the desk. He plucked up a notepad and pen, leaning forward onto his forearms.
“So, my dear, how can I be of service to you?” Andrew asked genially. “I forgot if I mentioned I am an associate priest. Our head priest is always available, too.”
“Well, Father, if I’m being honest… I was hoping you could tell me. I know that I am in a position to be judged. I wanted to get you alone to hear what you think.”
Andrew’s brow ticked upward, unable to hide his surprise at the admission. He sat back in his seat, the cushion squeaking from his weight. He had to lay off the protein. Working out had become his only relief as of late.
“I struggle with promiscuity. Male validation,” she began.
Oh.
“And that’s okay, as long as you have some self-awareness,” Andrew tried.
“I want to recenter myself toward only wanting God’s validation, but it’s difficult. See… I don’t have a relationship with my father. As typical as that is, but I had a great upbringing. My expectations of what I want from life are rather…materialistic, too. I want to be more grounded and not allow myself to give myself to men who provide only material and monetary means.” She hurried to finish.
Andrew’s arousal aside, he saw her struggle. He took a deep breath and leaned forward again to jot down the notes he was provided. While he was personally understanding of sex before marriage and Earthly matters, he had to switch hats from Andrew to Father Cody.
“Have you been baptized and given yourself to the Lord?” He asked.
“Not yet… I don’t feel worthy of that just yet,” she answered meekly. “I went out just last night. Met a man who knew how to talk me into bed with him, but from your last service all I could think about was how I’m doing it in search of something. Not to strengthen something worth my time.”
Andrew’s Adam’s Apple bobbed as he wrote down the words as they flowed from her, the words spoken between them and on the page turned to images behind his eyes of her splayed open. Her legs spread with his hand under her thigh while she laid out beneath him, taking his thick cock like she was molded by God only for him.
Too obsessive—no.
Fuck.
“Well, dear, I thank you for your honesty. If this is something you’re serious about and joining the church to become a Catholic, then we must devise the right plan for you. You can come by for confession as needed. Continue attending Bible Study. Having like-minded individuals encourages following God’s path.” Andrew said.
He finally looked up at her, realizing he hadn’t in some time. Her dark eyes were lit up by the window behind him, tears bubbling and making them that much brighter. Andrew passed the nearby box of tissues across the desk and pursed his lips. She didn’t need to feel horrible about who or what she was. If only she knew Andrew and not just Father Cody.
“Can this be my confession?” She sniffled, dabbing at the corners of her eyes preemptively.
“I believe you have already done so,” Andrew nodded.
“Then, Father, forgive me for I have sinned,” her voice shook.
Andrew knew then, the line must remain drawn in the sand.
✧
For the next three nights, Andrew flogged himself.
His remorse weighed him down. He would have been without sleep if it weren’t for his medication putting in the work to drag him under to sleep. He had been relentless with his punishment until his back stung too much and the thought of thinking of her coinciding with the punishment deterred him from letting his thoughts run away from him.
Two weeks had passed since his last therapy appointment, and since then, she didn’t exist until a few days before which originally meant his therapist believed there was nothing to worry about. He had stayed the path of righteousness and mental well-being until then. His therapist tried not to show her disappointment when he said he had been self-harming.
Priests rarely flogged themselves anymore, but he had the compulsion to render himself broken and defeated under his own touch. Wasting his seed felt euphoric in the moment, picturing glossy lips wrapped around his dick only to spill into his hand.
There was only one person he wanted to confess to and while it was mildly unorthodox to go out of his way to drive down to Oceanside, he needed it. Andrew needed to be absolved or he would continue to hurt himself and looking his therapist in the eye was difficult to do for the first time in years.
Father Kirby would undoubtedly recognize him and his voice, to some extent. Andrew had changed over the years, grown up and repented. He felt he owed him a large debt he could never repay. The money that Smurf sent him was a partial donation he sent to Father Kirby’s church. He was dressed down rather than in his collar. Andrew wanted to be viewed as nothing, or a nobody.
Stepping into the box, he thought again how he couldn’t guarantee that it was Kirby at all on the other side which might be to his benefit.
Andrew signed the Cross over his chest.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…” Andrew started, wiping his clammy palms onto his pants. “It has been about a week since my last confessional. I’ve been struggling with my lustful thoughts about a young woman. She came to me for spiritual guidance, and I’m afraid of betraying her trust. I’ve hurt myself to make up for thinking of her in the privacy of my bedroom. I am wholly remorseful.”
“I can tell you are by the pain in your voice, son,” Father Kirby answered.
“I don’t want to be this evil thing for her. She’s vulnerable,” Andrew said, forcing the words past the thickness developing in his throat.
“Then, don’t. Find strength through God. Pray for forgiveness and do not bring harm to yourself. Your best asset is believing in Him, don’t you think, Andrew?”
Andrew went quiet and wrung his hands together, insecurity digging a hole into his brain like an inchworm burrowing into an apple.
“Let us pray,” Father Kirby broke the tension.
Though his gut told him not to, he stopped by his mother’s house.
He convinced himself the intent was to see his brothers, less to do with his mother, but there were days he missed her. Andrew missed the moments when she was actually his mother, and not this woman that abused him his entire life.
Another point of contention with his therapist to come.
Smurf was found in the kitchen as per her routine. The house seemed quiet, but his brothers were simply spread throughout the house. Craig was sitting in the den, his shouts almost masking his fingers jamming the buttons of whatever video game he was playing. Deran was a rare sight, holding a comic book while he dipped his feet into the pool. When Andrew pulled the sliding door leading into the kitchen, his mother looked up and clearly didn’t expect to see him, but she quickly masked it. So she thought.
“Hi, baby,” Smurf said. “You should have told me you were coming. Are you hungry?”
“If you have something I can take back home,” Andrew said slowly.
“Have some spinach dip, baby,” Smurf moved casually as she presented the snack on the island.
“Have you spoken to Julia recently?” Andrew tried for casual too.
He didn’t want to leave Oceanside without some kind of progress made within his family. The years past have shown it's been fruitless. Ever since Julia had his nephew, Smurf didn’t bother to hide her disdain, and shamelessly fed her addiction.
He kept his distance from his twin for a multitude of reasons that he felt ashamed of and didn’t discuss with anyone—including Father Kirby. He skirted by his root cause of trauma in regard to his mother and sister with his therapist with so few words. She was smart enough to see that he was enmeshed with both women.
“No, but I think you know that. She doesn’t want to be here and I don’t want to be there. Joshua was here a few months ago, cute thing he is.” Smurf turned toward the oven.
Andrew scooped a chip into the waiting dip and hummed around the bite.
“Family is important beyond what they can do for you,” he griped.
“You want to talk to me about family when you avoid all of us for a church and some sad saps that feel their wrongdoings are magically washed away because you say so?” Smurf spoke plainly, removing a steaming roast from the oven.
Andrew heard the video game pause and heavy footsteps followed. His younger brother came hobbling in, his knee wrapped up as he greeted Andrew excitedly.
“Hey, bro,” Craig leaned into the counter with a goofy smile.
“Growing out your hair, huh?” Andrew pointed a chip at the hair touching his brother’s shoulders.
“Yeah, I don’t want to look like one of the kooks anymore,” Craig scoffed.
“What’s with your leg, kiddo?”
“Craig, go grab Deran so you can set up the table for dinner.” Smurf interrupted.
“Smurf, he just got here—”
“Go. Now.” Smurf repeated passively.
Andrew exhaled harshly as he straightened and watched his brother step outside and to the poolside.
“I’m gonna go anyway. I’ll take the food to go. It’s a long drive,” Andrew contained his disgust, stepping toward the sink to wash his hands.
“Baz would be excited to see you, if you stayed.”
“Why would I want to see that deadbeat?” Andrew slipped.
His temperament was bursting through the cracks like a chipped vase one drop away from shattering. Andrew counted to ten as he moved around his mother to fill a glass dish to take with him.
“That ‘deadbeat’ is taking your place upholding this family,” Smurf checked on her cooking rice.
“Yeah, Smurf, he’s doing so well letting Julia be a single mother and dragging my little brothers into this mess. It will catch up with you all eventually. It always does,” Andrew seethed. “Tell him I said hello.”
Andrew clicked the lid to his takeaway and pursed his lips as his mother met his eyes. She stepped in toward him and he stepped away. His boundaries were firm. She was no longer allowed the same access she previously had to him that turned his head into mush.
✧
Sunday Mass was the busiest.
Andrew could have gone through the usual motions and removed himself from the process and attention, but he wanted to be present. After stopping by Smurf’s place, he felt the tendrils of her control trying to work their way back around him. Engrossed by the hymns, his eyes managed to find her among the throngs of people there. He admittedly had been following her since she approached to receive her communion and all the way back to her seat.
His guilt pitched again.
When her eyes found him, he offered a polite smile that wouldn’t be misconstrued. They had yet to sit down again and touch base. Andrew was sure she would after the service. His garments were a weighted reminder of his duty to provide her holistic guidance.
He shook hands with people at the end of service, his warm smile reaching his eyes as people exited the church. They were all so normal, some not so much. Sins confessed that, truthfully, made him feel better about himself some days. He reminded himself that others might feel the same if he went into detail about his upbringing thoroughly.
And maybe he was dragging his feet.
Because there she was, waiting for him by his office door while the heavy layers of his religious garb made his skin itch. She made his fingers itch as they refrained from reaching for her in an inappropriate manner. When he did touch her, it was because she outstretched her hand and he needed to play his role. He held her hand between the both of his, warm, and undoubtedly damp.
Andrew gestured toward his office where she stepped inside. Her clothing that day was a little more reserved than it had been previously, but the shape of her was apparent. She was beautiful all the same.
He wanted to—nothing, he wanted to do nothing.
She sat in her preferred seat, smiling warmly and clutching her things, her Bible and purse in her lap, and her posture straight. Her toned arms were hidden beneath a cardigan, the church running cool after in the height of Summertime. Her sheer blouse fell over her breasts, accentuating her waist that was tucked into a well-fitted pair of women’s slacks. For a dull look, she looked far from.
He sat down on leather that begged to be repaired.
“Today’s service was beautiful, as always,” she said softly.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Andrew admitted.
Pride was something he ran from, but her pleasure ignited it within him.
“Do I scare you?” She asked bluntly.
Andrew’s mouth parted as if to say something, but it was an astute question. She was forthright, daring, and the glint in her eye said she was assessing his every reaction. He used to be good at reining in his reactions, but he had long since untrained himself from being a robotic oddity.
“No, never.” Andrew shook his head.
“Does my past scare you?”
“No,” Andrew dipped his chin to his chest. “You are…not uncommon. What you feel that you are. Dear, you are still a person with feelings and emotions. You’re working to repent and have repented. I cannot ask you to do and be more than who you are. Why do you ask?”
“Because, I want you,” she admitted, shifting in her seat in a way that reminded him of the clench a woman needed to feel to sate the
Andrew squared his jaw, biting down so hard that the jump of muscle ached from his face up to his temple. She was a test sent by God, because for too long he was living in peace, and peace had proven to be temporary in every facet of his life.
“I don’t know what to say. I took a vow… I can’t be what you think you need.”
“What I may need is a good man who can point me in the right direction,” she said, her tone thickening with a sort of need Andrew hadn’t heard in some time. “Father, you can help me. The same way I could help you, don’t you think?”
“I… How do you think you can help me?” He contemplated.
Why was he contemplating at all? The smirk of her lips, dimples showing, made him want to falter and give her whatever she asked of him. Andrew sat upright in his chair, a bit too straight without the aid of something along his back.
“The confines of religion are stressful, as much as you tell me it isn’t from your perspective. Well, you’ve been honest that it’s a lot of pressure. How do you stop yourself from fraying?” She asked.
Moving to stand, she put her things down in her seat. Andrew felt himself gritting his teeth as he stood along with her. He had to put a stop to her decision that likely was at the hands of her week and how it had gone.
“You won’t be happy,” Andrew leaned forward onto the desk.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough. I can’t break my vows,” Andrew shook his head. “You’re a beautiful woman. But, I…”
He couldn’t believe himself and the situation she was putting him in. Andrew should have been putting his foot down even as she approached, rounding the desk, and he was growing harder in his garments. The cloths shrouded his erection, embarrassment clouding his mind. His eyes flitted to her form, his invulnerability coming to light. She was close enough now that he was worried that every step he made to stay and remain pure would be broken.
Her manicured fingers carded through ginger curls, his hair springing up unfazed by the touch he hadn’t felt in so long. Andrew sighed heavily as he pressed into her touch, and quickly flinched away. She jumped in response as he turned his head away. Andrew’s mouth turned into the slightest frown as he stared at the desktop.
“Why?” Andrew asked hoarsely.
“You’re probably the only man who won’t hurt me,” she whispered.
“I can’t,” Andrew winced and moved to back away.
“You feel whatever it is that draws us together, don’t you?” She didn’t move.
He looked at her and saw the quiet anguish that his rejection gave her. What Andrew would have given to kiss her distress away and melt into content. He knew she would detest the idea, but he would be better off directing her to another man within the church. Yet, she stepped toward him, and he was only a man.
Andrew stood up straight, taller than her though he felt so inevitably small. She was light despite her underlying anguish. Her nail dragged against the design of his robes, and still, he shivered, feeling it through his thick clothing. Andrew was insecure and inexperienced before priesthood, but not a virgin. His security came from time and ageing, and she was all woman, unlike what he was able to appreciate before.
She batted her lashes in a way that made his already-hard-cock that much harder. Andrew was too afraid to look down to see if the drapes of his garments hid the waiting stiffness. When her hand roamed down to grasp at him, he didn’t want to stop her though he knew the further they went, the worse he would later lash himself. Andrew didn’t actually know when the last time it was a woman had touched him, likely paid by Smurf, and not because a woman wanted him of her own volition.
“You have to stop,” Andrew spat out finally.
“You want me to stop?” She clarified, her hand coming to a halt.
She was present, not bothering to push the matter any further without Andrew wanting her. Maybe he wanted her to press on and he was doing his priestly duty. He inhaled sharply and decided he needed to be the adult in the room.
“Yes, we have to. I’m sorry I let it go this far… I don’t want you to think less of me.” Andrew grabbed her wrist, pushing her hand away.
He stepped back to put some more space between them. His blood pumped as if he were in the midst of a heart attack. The disappointment was clear on her face, her body straightening as the rejection settled into her bones. Maybe she did it on purpose, because the greatest validation would have been turning a priest out into this fuckable thing he shamed himself for being.
But, he never had been.
Women, in general, put the fear of God into him alone. His mother had taught him that women were to be feared and equally revered. Knowing that she was susceptible to his position in the church made him wary of her affections.
“This was stupid,” she said as it all hit her. She started to back away, fumbling in her movements as she backed away and grabbed her things.
“Wait,” he began.
There was no stopping her as she fumbled with her things and headed toward the door. There was a knock, anyhow, as Andrew’s presence unrelated to her was requested. He audibly groaned which grabbed her attention. Andrew closed his eyes after a few seconds and gathered his restraint and will to be the man people expected him to be.
“I think we’ll have to discuss this another time,” Andrew forced himself away from the desk and to the door.
They stood close together again.
Andrew looked at her one last time, unsure that he wanted her to escape his grasp. She was a pretty little thing waiting to be split open on his cock.
“Another time.” She agreed.
He had a hard time believing she would show her face again in the church after that morning.
summary: All it takes is one glance at the pretty girl who lives in the apartment across from his for Andrew Cody to become obsessed. But what begins as innocent observation from his window turns into something far more intense.
warnings: +18 MDNI. obsessive behavior, stalking, multiple scenes of male masturbation, themes of shame, reader has type b youngho vibes and andrew is stupidly into it, feminine reader who has hair and wears press on nails, unspecified but implied age gap, reader shares one kiss with a female friend (not super detailed), J pulls your cell phone records as a favor, andrew breaks into your apartment and raids your panty drawer, male masturbation with a vibrator, nipple play, alcohol consumption and mentioned drunkenness, lingerie, exhibitionism on readers part, mutual masturbation, jealousy, bratting/a touch of brat taming, reader tries to make pope jealous with another man, death threats (not to reader or pope), dirty talk, sloppy makeouts, spit swapping, over the clothes nipple sucking, finger sucking, f!use of a vibrator, clit play, rough fingering, unprotected piv, dacryphilia, light angst, insecure pope, reader matches his freak, stalker!reader, forced love confessions, begging, creampie
note: wow ok i think that might be the longest warning i've ever written whoops!! thank u sm to my angel @thykingdoncome for reassuring me through this whole process and taking a lil looksie at this for me love u 4ever
wc: 10.4k
[masterlist] [AO3]
Andrew knows it's weird.
He knows that.
But as long as you don't know he's doing it, what does it hurt?
It's not like he's doing anything weird. He's just…watching you. It almost feels like fate, the way your apartment is positioned directly across from his. There's the courtyard and a pool lying between you, but the windows of his apartment mirror yours so perfectly.
And…you don't have blinds.
No curtains, no shades. There's not even a half-effort of an old sheet hung up over the glass pane. And at night? When he can't sleep, and the moths circle the flickering porch lights, and you've got those blue or red or purple LED lights on…well.
Pope can see right into your apartment.
Can see you, watching TV on the couch or cooking boxed macaroni in nothing but a loose tank top and a pair of lace underwear.
He thinks you might be the only good thing about the apartment that Smurf forced him into only three days after he was released from prison.
It's been a long time since he's looked at a woman, you know. Longer since he's seen one as pretty as you.
He's not lacking self awareness or anything. Pope knows your open windows and ever changing LEDs aren't an invitation to stare, but…sometimes it feels like one.
You fall asleep on the couch most nights. Which is good for him, because Pope can't see into your bedroom.
Some things, he begins to realize, are a sort of chaotic routine.
You tend to fall asleep with your phone in your hand and scramble to find it each morning (it's always under the couch, beneath the hot pink throw pillow you kick off in your sleep).
You don't eat breakfast because you don't wake up early enough to (don't you know it's the most important meal of the day?). Most mornings, you wake up with just enough time to doll yourself up in the bathroom, prioritizing glittery eyeshadow and shimmering lip gloss rather than the sustenance of a bowl of cereal.
He doesn't know what you do for work, but it's something with an inconsistent schedule. You sleep until noon on your days off, which could be any day of the week, Pope learns.
Work doesn't stop you from going out, though. Saturday nights are reserved for those miniskirts and stiletto heels and all your giggling girlfriends who get ready on your living room floor with a hand mirror. You share perfume and makeup and clothes with them before you all climb into a shared uber.
A few times, Andrew finds himself tempted to follow you. He tells himself it's not like he'd be doing it for his own satisfaction. He'd just be doing it to keep an eye on you, that's all. You're a young girl (too young for someone his age). Don't you know there are predators out there?
But he never does. Because that would be weird, right? You don't even know him. But…he certainly starts to feel like he knows you.
You and your friends always stumble back to your apartment, sometimes falling up the concrete steps to the second floor. One of them will make pizza rolls or messy peanut butter sandwiches and you'll pass around cold bottles of water and spill electrolyte drink mixes on the kitchen counter.
You'll share your things with them even after the club, selfless girl. Passing out hair ties and makeup removing wipes and big t-shirts for them to sleep in. On one particular night, when most of them are passed out on the couch, legs and arms tangled together, Pope even watches you you share a kiss with one of them under pink LEDs.
That night, Andrew has to force his attention away. It feels way too close to the beginning of that porno Craig left open on the family computer years ago.
But this doesn't feel erotic. Watching your mouth move against someone else's doesn't elicit any warmth beneath the fabric of his jeans.
No, it makes Andrew...upset. Angry, even.
It makes him jealous.
He tries not to think about it again. Tries even harder (and fails, repeatedly) to give you some privacy on Saturday nights.
But Sundays…Sundays are sacred.
Both for you and for him.
So much so that he pulls out on a job when his brothers plan it for a Sunday. Tells them he has to check in with his parole officer that day. Lies to their faces, because he doesn't want to miss out on you.
Because every Sunday, without fail, Andrew gets to see you naked.
You start by cleaning your apartment. Wiping down the counters and vacuuming the carpet and dusting the top of the cabinets. Then you light the candle on the coffee table (pink champagne, he's pretty sure, after looking endlessly online to match up the glass container. Twenty six dollars. Four day shipping. Currently sitting unlit on his nightstand).
And when you're ready, you strip off all your clothes and discard them in the bathroom.
You put oil in your hair and nineties R&B on your bluetooth speaker. You paint your toes (usually white or black, occasionally an electric blue) and glue artificial nails with sparkling gems onto your fingers.
Sunday showers are the longest, Pope knows. Sometimes thirty minutes. And when you emerge from the bathroom, steam rolls out from the open door and you've got your hair wrapped up in a towel. You balance yourself with a foot on the edge of the couch and massage lotion into your skin first.
From top to bottom, moisturizing your entire body. And then you repeat the motion with an oil, and it's during this particular step that Andrew starts feeling a little lightheaded.
He'd bet you feel all smooth and soft and smell so fucking good. Maybe like vanilla or cherry or coconut. And, god. He wants to touch you. He wants to touch himself.
But he resists.
The first three times, anyway.
By the fourth Sunday, though…well. His cock gets so fucking hard in his jeans that it's leaking. Making a big fucking mess in his boxers. It hurts, you know?
And it's not like you'll know he's doing it. He's had a little over a month to perfect his setup—lights off, chair angled perfectly so if anyone glanced into his apartment they'd have to really look in order to see him.
So, he takes his cock in his hand and imagines it's your delicate fingers wrapped around him instead. Imagines it's his hands rubbing oil into your shoulders, over the swell of your breasts, pressing into your hips, squeezing at the supple flesh of your thighs.
He'd make sure to do it just how you like. And Pope wouldn't need to be told how to, either. Because he's spent so much time watching you now that he would just know.
He wonders if your head would fall back, wet hair clinging to your slick skin. He wonders if he pressed just right into that tender spot at the small of your back that you're always so gentle with if you'd moan or whine or whimper. Maybe even say his name.
Andrew cums at the thought alone, grunting low, lips parted, his release spilling over his hand and down the hard length of his cock.
The shame doesn't take hold of him for a while.
Not until later that night, when your hair is blow dried and you're dressed in a pretty silk pajama set. You've got some trashy reality show on the TV, and you're eating the pizza you had delivered right out of the box.
Andrew takes the moment to clean himself up. To change out of his clothes and into something more comfortable. He brushes his teeth and climbs in bed, but lays with his head propped up by an extra pillow so he can still see clearly out of his window.
He knows it's weird. He knows he shouldn't be staring at a naked girl who's probably half his age and doesn't know there's some fucking creep across the courtyard who watches her every fucking day. He knows he shouldn't be fucking his fist watching you put lotion on your skin. He knows he shouldn't be changing his plans with family or friends around your schedule, just so he can watch you a little longer.
He knows he should stop.
The problem, however, lies in the wanting.
Andrew's never had much. Not when it comes to women. But you…god. You're so beautiful, and so pure and so different from anything he's ever seen. You don't belong to anyone but yourself, and once he sees you, he finds it impossible to look away.
Things change late one Friday night.
Andrew gets sloppy. He gets comfortable, here in this routine he's created around you.
There's music coming from your apartment, some electronic pop ballad that's at a volume so loud he can hear it from across the courtyard (there will be complaints to the office manager tomorrow morning, he knows. But you don't have to worry. Pope will take care of it for you, baby. He'll make sure you can keep having your fun).
You're wearing just a lacy bra and a pair of linen sleep shorts. There's a seltzer in your hand, and you're singing and dancing like you've somehow summoned all the energy from the club right there in your apartment.
It's a beautiful sight, truly. You're so happy and carefree. The warmest ray of sunshine that he wants to find himself basking under.
Andrew gets comfortable, posture relaxing in the chair that now lives permanently in front of his window. He watches you dance around your apartment, the easy smile on your face reflected back on his own.
He thinks he could really take care of you. Keep you safe. Protect all that girlish whimsy that lives in your heart. He'd make you real happy, Andrew thinks. Would watch you dance with your friends at the club, leaning against the bar. He'd take you shopping and add more of those short dresses into your closet. He'd make you breakfast in the mornings before work and Christ—he'd buy you a set of fucking curtains.
Pope is so lost in the fantasy of it that he doesn't register in time that your dancing has slowed. And you've put your seltzer down on the coffee table.
And you're staring right back at him.
His heart kicks up, pounding against his chest. He knows he should move out of sight, shut his blinds, pass this off as a mistake, maybe even pretend he hadn't seen you.
But he doesn't do any of that.
He's frozen in time, terrified and exhilarated all at once by simply being perceived by you.
Pope just…stares.
It seems to be the only fucking thing he's capable of these days.
He expects you to flip him off or maybe come barreling out of the door and across the courtyard to confront him. Or maybe you'll scurry away into your room. Maybe you'll order a set of curtains online.
But you don't do any of that.
You just stare right back.
Andrew tilts his head curiously. It's an involuntary movement.
In the end, you're the first to look away. You pick up your seltzer, dump it down the drain in the kitchen, and then disappear into the bathroom to brush your teeth.
Your routine remains the exact same. You find your phone beneath the throw blanket on the couch and turn off the TV. You turn the kitchen light off and turn on the light above the stove instead. You grab a water bottle from the fridge, and then go to bed in your room.
It's not rushed, and you don't seem nervous or fearful that there's someone watching you.
And Andrew thinks to himself, see. This is why you need him. This is why you need someone looking out for you. Don't you know how dangerous he could be?
He would never hurt you, Andrew knows. But you don't know that.
He doesn't sleep that night. He doesn't sleep often as it is, but his mind is running too fast. Cataloguing all the potential scenarios in which you cut off all access he has to you, severing the comfort he finds in his new favorite, voyeuristic hobby.
And Andrew wouldn't—couldn't—blame you for it. He thinks that's what you should do.
You don't.
The following morning, your routine changes.
On the nights you fall asleep in your bed, you're usually dressed in a pair of jeans with gems decorating the pockets and a low-cut top by the time you emerge from your room.
But not this time.
No, this time you're still wearing the same clothes you'd fallen asleep in. A lacy bra and cotton shorts.
Andrew watches, freshly emerged from the quickest shower of his life, hair still wet, as you stand in front of the fridge to find the fizzy energy drink you'd brought home with you last night.
He watches you struggle for a moment to crack the seal open (Those pretty nails of yours. He could help you with that, you know). You take a slow sip, put the aluminum can down on the counter, and turn your head just enough to let Pope know you see him.
You know he's there, in the window. You know he's watching.
And then, painfully slow, you drag your shorts down your thighs. The fabric pools at your feet, and Pope loses all train of thought.
Because this is no accident. You want this. You want him to watch you.
Your bra is next. You reach around to unclasp it and soon after the lace joins the linen fabric on the linoleum floor.
Warmth blooms beneath his skin as he watches you press your hands to your abdomen, feeling your skin, running your hands up your chest and over the swell of your breasts.
You try and play it off like a stretch, lifting your arms above your head and arching your back.
Andrew knows it's not.
You get ready the rest of the morning like normal. And Andrew…God. He doesn't know what to think.
He knows he should stop this before it goes too far. He thinks it already has.
It's…it's weird, right?
Everything about it is wrong.
He doesn't want to stop, but he knows he should.
He tries, though. For what little it's worth.
Tries to busy himself building a fountain at Smurf's. Tries to find small jobs he can do himself to pass the time. He still thinks about you all hours of the day, though. Like a thorn stuck beneath his skin, aching when he moves just the wrong way.
He overhears Nicky explaining to Deran what an 'everything shower' is and thinks about your Sunday ritual. He walks into a hungover Craig making boxed macaroni in his boxers and thinks of you. Smurf lights a candle called pink cashmere and even though it's not pink champagne, it still makes him think of you.
The pretty little girl in the apartment across from his, who he finds himself certifiably, insanely, obsessed with.
One Thursday afternoon, Andrew returns home earlier than he'd planned. He tells himself he just wants to get a little glance.
Just one look. You know, to soothe the ache the thought of you brings. To see if maybe he imagined the weight of your stare.
What he finds, though, is somehow more concerning.
You're pacing your living room, cell phone pressed to your ear, still wearing jeans and your sneakers. There's tension in your shoulders and even though he can't hear the conversation you're having with the person on the other end of the phone, he can see that you're shouting.
It drags on for the better half of an hour. The pacing, the frustrated hand waving, the pinching of the bridge of your nose. Whatever it is, Andrew bets he could help with it.
He hates seeing you stressed. Thinks you should be living your fun, carefree life like normal. You shouldn't be burdened with…whatever it is that's got you so upset.
But it's not like he can go over and just ask.
So, he chooses a different path instead.
Gets the key to the office of the apartment complex from Smurf. Rummages through the paper files until he finds the lease contract linked to your apartment number.
Andrew thinks he should've done this weeks ago. He learns an awful lot about you this way. Like your name, which he begins to recite like a mantra in his head. He learns your birthday and, regretfully, your age.
But, most importantly, he discovers (and memorizes) your phone number.
And that same day, he returns to Smurf's with a torn piece of paper with the digits scribbled on it. He hands it to his nephew and says, "Need you to get a few phone call records. Can you do that for me?"
J furrows his brows in confusion. "Who's number?"
Pope shrugs. "No one," he lies. "Can you get the records or not?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, probably. Anything specific you're looking for?"
"I wanna know about a call that happened today. Around two or so. Lasted almost an hour. Just get me the number of whoever was on the other line."
J hesitates for a single moment, and then nods slowly. "Alright. I'll get back to you on it."
In the meantime, Andrew spirals.
The thought of you having a boyfriend never really crossed his mind until now. You don't really have men over. Just your girl friends.
But there are some Saturday nights you don't come home, stumbling in early Sunday morning instead with sunglasses on and your hair a mess. So, Pope thinks you very well could have a boyfriend and he never would've known it.
Pope tells himself if it is a boyfriend, he won't…he won't do anything. It's not his place to make decisions for you, right?
Still. You shouldn't let a man stress you out so much. Whoever it is, they're not worth it. You deserve better. You deserve more.
You deserve someone who knows you.
Less than two hours later, Pope gets a phone call from J, who explains that the person on the other end of that phone call wasn't a person at all.
It was your phone company.
Your stupid fucking service provider who just so happened to put an extra two hundred dollar fee on your bill this month, claiming data overages.
All that stress wasn't over a boyfriend. It was over money.
And money is something Andrew can provide.
He waits until you leave for work, locking up tight behind you. But that doesn't matter, not now. Andrew has a key to the office, which means he has access to the spare key to your apartment.
He is fully aware that he shouldn't be doing this, but ten minutes after you leave he unlocks the door and steps inside anyway.
Your apartment smells sweet. Like sugar and citrus. He wonders if you smell the same way, and the thought alone makes Andrew's mouth water.
He moves slowly into your space, fingers tracing over the TV stand, feeling the wood beneath his calloused fingertips. He straightens the crooked throw pillow on the couch and puts the lighter for your candle back into the tray on the coffee table.
Andrew knows he should just…leave the cash and go. He shouldn't be snooping around, invading your privacy.
But you left a knife point-side up in the strainer in the sink. And you could get hurt doing something like that.
And once he's already in the kitchen, turning the knife over so the sharp edge is down, well…what will it hurt if he opens a couple of drawers?
None of your silverware matches. Andrew finds this little fact sort of endearing. Messy and chaotic in the same way you are, but that's okay. Maybe he can fix that for you one day, too.
Your bathroom is cluttered. There's makeup products littering the porcelain sink and the cabinet mirror is left wide open. Andrew picks up a few different products to read the labels and finds lip liners and leave-in conditioners and powdered blush with pilled pigment on the counter.
He finds that lotion you're always using on Sundays and opens the lid. Andrew brings the container to his nose, inhales deeply, and feels suddenly too hot.
The scent of it is sweet, like you. There's notes of syrupy amber and warm florals and it has the muscles in his abdomen squeezing tight as he thinks about how potent the scent would be if he were between your legs, freshly oiled, calves resting on his shoulders as he licks and sucks at your clit.
His cock has been half hard since the moment he stepped foot in your apartment, but by the time he makes it to your bedroom?
Pope is aching.
Your clothes are strewn all over. There's t-shirts on the floor and jeans inside out near the hamper and a dress you'd worn two weekends ago lying on the edge of your unmade bed.
It smells like you in here, too. Even more so. There's less perfume, but Andrew swears he can smell the scent of your skin. Sweet and intoxicating, sending sparks of arousal straight to his groin.
Your bedside table has a lamp on it and three half-empty bottles of water. There's one drawer, and he pries it open and gives a slow exhale to see all the silk and lace inside.
Going through your underwear drawer is, quite literally, the very last thing someone like Andrew Cody should be doing.
He does it anyway.
Rummages around until he finds that little black pair you like to sleep in. He runs his fingers over the lace band, feeling the softness beneath the rough pad of his thumb. His cock is throbbing, even before he brings the fabric to his nose and inhales the scent of laundry detergent and faint mahogany from the nightstand and—there. The scent of you.
As close as he can get.
As close as he'll probably ever get.
He needs to leave. Andrew is painfully aware that this is crossing a line of a whole new degree. Levels above simply watching.
This is obsession. This is addiction. Sick and twisted and perverted.
Andrew does not leave.
He climbs into your bed instead. Kicks off his boots and discards his hoodie until he's in nothing but his jeans. He slips beneath your sheets—satin, and pink, and filled with the scent of your shampoo and your skin and—fuck.
His cock is leaking by the time he undoes his belt. Andrew reaches beneath your blankets and shoves his jeans down just enough to free himself.
And it's almost enough to blow his load right fucking there, when the underside of his heavy length brushes against the fabric of your sheets. It's almost too much, being in your room, in your bed, breathing in your scent.
But he resists. Grits his teeth and takes his cock in one hand and uses the other to wrap the soft fabric of your underwear around his aching length.
This time, there's nothing slow about the way he strokes himself to the thought of you. He's desperate for it. Release already clouds the edges of his mind and he needs the relief it'll provide.
His brain feels hazy and his vision blurs, just thinking about you, lying here, hand between your legs. He wonders how you touch yourself, if you just play with your clit or if you fuck yourself on your fingers.
The thought crosses his mind that you might be using more than just your hand, and Pope finds himself sitting up. He leans over the edge of your bed and sticks his hand back into your panty drawer, reaching to the very bottom, feeling around until the tips of his fingers brush over silicone.
His heart is beating fast.
It's a small thing. Pink, of course. With only a small, almost hidden power button.
Pope leans back in your pillows and turns the little vibrator on. It buzzes to life in his hand, and when he pushes the button again, the intensity ratchets even higher.
There's only three settings. He turns it to the highest one and imagines holding it against your swollen clit. He imagines you lying under him, thighs around his waist, hips bucking wildly, chasing the vibration that he gives and gives and then takes away.
He turns so he's lying face down in your sheets now, nose pressed into your pillow. Pope puts the vibrator between his cock and the soft expanse of his abdomen, and he feels the sensation everywhere.
He's still got your underwear wrapped around his cock, and he gives a tentative roll of his hips against the mattress.
The groan he lets out is guttural. With his eyes closed, he can imagine its not your panties he's fucking but you. The tight, wet cunt between your legs. He can imagine it's the curve of your throat he's got his nose buried in and not your pillow. He can imagine that sweet, intense vibration is reverberating through your pelvic bone, little toy pressed hard against your clit.
Pope tells himself he'd make it so fucking good for you. He'd bury his cock so deep you'd never forget the weight of it inside you. He'd whisper how beautiful you are in your ear and make you look him in the eyes while he watches you cum over and over and over.
His release is…embarrassingly fast.
A few rolls of his hips against your mattress and he's cumming into the lace fabric of your panties, the vibration of the toy milking him until he's so overstimulated it almost hurts.
Pope rolls over, turns the toy off, and buries it back in the bottom of your drawer. He gives himself a few more moments to gather himself. To catch his breath, to wipe himself clean (never mind the couple of drops that now stain your satin sheets. That could be from anything, right?).
He tucks himself back into his jeans, pulls on his boots and his hoodie, and tosses your underwear in the pile of clothes next to the laundry bin.
There's a pair of your jeans in the middle of the floor, away from the rest. One leg of the denim is inside out. Pope takes the cash from his wallet and tucks it into the pocket, leaving out just enough that he knows you'll notice it.
He leaves.
Locks the door behind him with the spare key.
Makes it halfway across the courtyard before he doubles back, lets himself back into your apartment and into the bathroom where he pockets one of the many different chapsticks on the sink.
It isn't until he's home, tucked safe back in his own apartment, that he realizes it's strawberries and cream flavored.
Andrew puts it on, swiping the transparent petroleum over his lips. He tells himself it's almost like kissing.
Later that day, Craig calls a family meeting. But you've just gotten home, and he knows you'll find the cash within a few minutes when you go to change out of your clothes.
So Andrew waits at the bottom of the stairs on his side of the courtyard. He can't see into your apartment from here, though. And he decides he'll only wait for thirty minutes.
He responds to text messages and opens his blank, photo-less Instagram (that he definitely didn't make only to look at your profile. The one filled with selfies under neon lights and bikini photos on the beach and mirror pictures in the dressing room at that one boutique in the mall).
Twenty nine minutes later, he hears an apartment door slam shut and looks up to see you.
You've got your bag over one shoulder and a grin on your face and the cash in your hand. Enough to cover the additional charges and a little extra, too.
You notice him at the bottom of the cement stairs and freeze, but you don't look…scared, like he expects. Maybe a little startled at first, but the tension bleeds from your face the moment you recognize him.
He should say something. Talk to you. Apologize, maybe, for staring at you.
But Andrew isn't sorry.
And he's never really been good at talking, anyway.
You tilt your head and give him the sweetest fucking smile he's ever seen. It's somehow innocent and knowing at the same time, and Andrew feels the corners of his mouth lifting in response.
Something passes silently between you. An understanding, maybe. You know he watches you, and he knows you know, but…you don't stop him. You just let it happen.
You smile at him from fifteen feet away.
And then you turn to leave, no doubt making your way to pay off that stupid bill that caused you so much unrest.
Pope watches you go, like always.
But this time, you glance back at him over your shoulder with…something lingering in your pretty eyes. Excitement, maybe. He can't be sure.
He needs to get closer.
During the family meeting, he isn't very present. His mind is so far away, stuck on you, that he just blindly agrees to whatever job they're doing next and trusts that it'll all work out.
When he returns to his apartment, there's a note stuck to his door.
A pink sticky note with nothing but a phone number and a heart with an arrow through it scribbled on the paper.
Your phone number, Pope knows.
He knows he shouldn't text you.
It's stupid and dangerous and god, you really shouldn't be giving your number to random men. He could be a creep. He could be a stalker or something.
His message just says,
Hello.
Your response is immediate, with no capitalization which seems quite…fitting for you. He finds it strangely endearing.
hey
are u the guy from apt 212 ???
Pope can feel that this is a bad idea already. But he's already here, and there's no going back now, is there? He doesn't want to hurt your feelings. He doesn't want to leave you on read and make you think he's not interested when the problem is the exact opposite.
Yes.
The typing bubble pops up, disappears, and appears again three different times before you send another message.
im gonna be home in like an hr
will u be watching ???
Always, he wants to say. Fucking always. He can't take his eyes off you, no matter how hard he tries. No matter how shameful it feels.
Andrew's hands shake as he types out a response.
Do you want me to be?
No hesitation this time. Your message comes through a second later.
uhmmm tbh yeah <3
He exhales a long breath. It doesn't feel real. Like he's imagining the entire thing. How could he not be? Why on earth would the sweetest, prettiest little thing want someone to watch her?
But the weight of his cell phone in his hand is real.
And the text message is real.
And this…this is real.
Then yes. I will be.
You don't reply, and Andrew's heart flutters in his chest as he takes his practiced position in the chair in front of his window and waits.
True to your word, you're skipping up the steps fifty three minutes after the last message is sent. You turn on those LEDs and and move about your apartment like normal, kicking off your sneakers and dropping your bag by the door. You change out of your clothes and put on a worn in t-shirt that's two sizes too big for you, but underneath…
Pope can see the sheer thigh highs you wear and the black, lace edge of them. He can see those strappy garters attached to them, but nothing else. The straps disappear beneath your shirt, leaving him wanting for more.
You're teasing him, Pope realizes.
He watches with bated breath as you lay on the couch, getting comfortable with the throw pillow against the arm.
And then, for the first time, Andrew watches you touch yourself.
You start slowly, hands roaming over your body, on top of the fabric, massaging gently at the inside of your thighs.
His cock's always hard watching you, truth be told. But this…
His skin feels hot. His lungs feel tight.
Your fingers curl around the edge of your t-shirt, and you pull it over your head to discard it on the floor.
Andrew hasn't seen you wear this set before, not even on those sacred Sundays.
It's pretty. Matching black lace. The bra is low cut and pushes your breasts up your chest, the soft flesh swelling over the top. The waistband of the matching panties is decorated in shining silver gems, laying so perfectly against your hips that he feels dizzy just looking at it.
The prettiest package, just begging to be unraveled by his big, mean hands.
You dressed up for him.
You dressed up for him.
Your hands start to move again, palming your breasts, pulling the lace down until they spill out of the top. Your nipples are so pretty that his mouth waters. He wants to kiss them, to feel the shape of them under his tongue. He wants to kneel over top of you and jerk himself off until they're covered in his sticky white release.
You squeeze your breasts until your nipples form pretty little peaks, and then your hands slide lower. Over your abdomen, and your hips, and then your thighs. You bring them slowly back up, only to slide them over the lace fabric of your panties, right down the center of your cunt.
Andrew thinks he could die.
He could fucking die, just looking at you.
Carefully, you unbuckle the chrome latch of your garter. The left side first, and then the right quickly follows. You leave the lace belt on, but hook your thumbs around the bedazzled lace of your panties and pull them down your thighs painfully slowly.
Your knees fall apart.
Pope swallows hard.
He can see everything from here. The seam of your thighs that he's dreamt about. The pretty shape of your pussy. The wetness that's gathered between your folds, slick and shiny with arousal. With want.
For him. It's for him.
His cock throbs so hard it hurts.
Pope doesn't touch himself. He can't. Can he? All you asked of him was that he watched.
That's what you wanted.
But wouldn't it be better if he was there? Wouldn't it be better if he could touch you, if he could taste you, if he could fuck you?
All you'd have to do is let him in.
Your fingers stroke gently over your clit in small circles, and he watches in awe as your lips part and your spine bends.
He can't hear your moans but god does he wish he could. Thinks about putting a little microphone in your lampshade the next time he sneaks into your apartment.
Your fingers drift lower, over your center, and slowly press inside.
Pope wants it to be him so fucking bad.
If not his cock inside you then his fingers. They're bigger. Longer. Thicker. They'd please you more. Reach places your fingers can't.
Maybe his tongue. He'd drink you right from the fucking source and cum in his jeans, probably. But he'd make sure to find that sweet, velvety spot inside you first and he'd spell his full fucking name over it with a pointed tongue.
Silly girl. Don't you know what he could do for you? Don't you know what he could do to you?
Pope squeezes the bulge in his jeans to try and alleviate the pain of his lust.
You fuck yourself with your fingers, stuffing in one and then two and then three, stretching yourself on them, slick dripping down the seam of your cunt. Your back arches when your free hand finds your clit, and he knows you're close.
He knows he shouldn't, but he searches frantically for his phone anyway and sends another text message.
I want to hear you.
You pause only long enough to grab your phone off the coffee table, read the text, and lay your phone on the arm of the couch behind you.
Pope's phone buzzes in his hand.
You're calling him.
He answers on the first ring, and the sounds that greet him are so erotic it steals the breath from his lungs.
You sound so pretty. So sweet and feminine, everything he's imagined yet somehow so, so much more. He's sure you can hear his heavy breaths on the other end of the phone, but Pope can't find it in himself to care. Can't think of much else besides the way you whimper and the sight of your fingers stuffed inside you.
"Oh, god—"
His inhale is shaky.
"I'm gonna cum," you choke out, words hazy with your moans. "I'm so close, I'm so fucking—hmm. Yes. What's your name?"
He almost doesn't hear you, so lost in the sight before him. Immersed in the euphoria of it. But then he says, voice a low, uncertain whisper, "Andrew."
Your spine bends and the fingers on your clit slow. "Oh my god. Fuck, Andrew—I'm cumming, I'm—yes, yes—god."
His cock twitches and when he tries to soothe it with another tight squeeze, he sends himself careening off the precipice of release instead. His head falls back and his once heavy breaths get stuck in his lungs. Pope rubs himself over his jeans, making a sticky, hot mess in his boxers, generating what little friction he can.
He watches you come down in real time. Not his dreams, not his imagination. He watches it happen. Watches that fucked-out, hazy look cross your face. Watches the tension in your muscles melt away, wishing he could kiss the junction of your throat.
Pope wishes he could worship you. Wishes he could clean you up and put on that trashy reality show you like and hold you against his chest, comforting you while your brain comes back to earth.
Instead, you lean up. Grab your phone and press it to your ear, staring right at him through his wide open window.
He doesn't know what he expects you to say, but it's certainly not, "Have you been inside my apartment, Andrew?"
For a second, he thinks about lying. Because there's no way you know, right? Not for sure. It's not like you have cameras or anything (he knows, because he checked).
But he doesn't want to lie. Not to you.
"I…might have been. Once, yes."
"Did you steal my chapstick?"
"You have ten of them."
He hears your laugh for the first time, and the sound is like sunlight in his chest. "You took the best flavor."
"I'm…I'm sorry. I'll return it."
"Keep it. I already got a new one," you say. "Cost me five hundred dollars, though."
So, you know it was him who left the cash, too.
Smart, pretty girl.
He doesn't say anything, too afraid he'll say something stupid or awkward the way he usually does. He doesn't want to ruin this moment. This absolutely perfect moment.
You smile at him, kiss your palm, and blow it towards your window. "Goodnight, Andrew."
He feels his face heat. "Goodnight."
Pope rides the high of it for days.
Can't shake the sight of you open and bare for him. Can't stop thinking about the sound of your moans or the way you'd said his name in the peak of euphoria. He fucks his first to the thought of it more times than he can count.
And Andrew's never been a really sexual person. Not unless it's with someone he loves.
But is that what this is? Love?
You've never met. Not really, not properly. How could it be something so intense? You don't know him. You don't know who he is or what he does. You don't know how he's hurt and maimed and killed.
Would you be afraid, finding out? Would you run to the police if you knew? Would you recoil away from him with terror in your eyes?
All things left unsaid. All things that may, very well, never be said.
Pope feels so uncertain with all of this that he finds himself resorting to fucking google, even. Search history littered with questions and Reddit threads that never provide any real clarity.
Define love.
Define obsession.
How to know if you're in love?
How to ask a girl out?
How to get over a girl.
Define voyeur.
Define fetish.
How big of an age gap is too big?
Apartments for sale on the east coast.
Pink champagne candle.
Strawberries and cream chapstick bulk pack.
You text him again a week after your exhibitionistic display.
do u wanna like go out sometime?? been thinking about u a lot
He's at Smurf's when he reads the message.
Pope doesn't even realize he's smiling until Deran slides a beer across the counter at him and asks, "What's got you all happy today?"
And Pope just shakes his head. Schools his features back into neutrality and says, "Nothing. Just won a bet."
He can tell his brother doesn't believe him, not even for a second. But thankfully, Deran doesn't push any further. He lets the subject go, but the question stays stuck in Andrew's head for hours.
It takes him a while to decide on a response. It's honest, and…mostly true.
We shouldn't. I'm a lot older than you.
Your response is a single, painful letter.
k
He doesn't respond to try his hand at damage control, even though he wants to. It's probably better this way, he thinks. Better that there's some distance between you. Better that you hate him and see him as the creepy neighbor he is.
But that Saturday night, when you return home, it's not with your friends.
Pope watches from his window as you guide a man up the stairs and into your apartment.
He's tall. Dark haired, with bright eyes and white teeth and a good smile. Closer to your age. Handsome like a man allowed into your space should be.
You're fumbling a little with your apartment key and Pope watches as the man stands behind you and slides his hands down the back of your thighs.
Thighs he should be touching. Thighs he's watched for months. Thighs that spread for him, long before this fucking loser ever laid his eyes on you.
He tells himself he won't interfere.
You're your own woman. You deserve to feel good, even if it's with…someone else.
And Pope knows he's just going to have to get the fuck over it.
He did it to himself, really.
He should look away.
But he watches instead.
Watches the two of you fall onto the couch. Watches another man kiss down the column of your throat and squeeze the supple curve of your ass over your sequined dress.
Your eyes find his from across the courtyard, and Pope's jaw clenches.
Putting on another show for him. Filthy, filthy girl.
And you're just going to give it to some random man? Someone who doesn't know you like Pope does? Someone who doesn't know how you like to be touched?
He needs to look away. Close his own fucking blinds for once.
But he feels frozen. Knowing this time, you're watching him. Looking for him. Goading for a reaction.
Pope watches the slow ascent of the man's hand. Promises himself he won't interfere. He'll just watch to make sure you're safe, that's all.
But the moment that greedy hand disappears beneath your dress, Andrew's moving. Throwing open his door and slamming it closed behind him. He crosses the courtyard and takes the steps two at a time.
His fist against your apartment door is incessant. He doesn't stop, even when he hears the uttered, male voice ask, "Who is that?"
When the door opens, it's you who stands in front of him, chin tilted up as you stare at him, pupils flared wide.
The man you'd brought home with you hovers over your shoulder.
Pope doesn't even look at him. He stares only at you as he says, a little snarl in his voice, "Tell him to leave."
"Dude, what the fuck? Who is this guy?"
Your lips curl at the corners. A devilish little smile. "Okay," you say, nodding, your voice soft and pliant. You turn your head to look at the man who stands behind you. "Sorry, but you've gotta go."
"You're joking," he responds flatly. "You said I could—!"
Andrew reaches past you and takes him by the collar, pulling him out of your apartment and slamming him up against the paneled siding. "I ever see you in this apartment again, I'll fucking kill you. You understand me?"
"Jesus fucking—yeah, okay. Alright. Sorry."
Pope isn't joking. Doesn't say it to scare him off but rather as a warning.
He lets him go and watches him scramble down the stairs. He doesn't turn back to face you until the little tool you used for attention gets in his car and drives away.
And when he does finally turn back to you…Christ. Your eyes are half lidded and full of lust. Pope's close enough this time that there's no mistaking it.
He should be a gentleman. Should take you out first. Bring you home and kiss you on your doorstep and leave you untouched.
He knows he should.
What he does instead is curl his hand around the back of your neck and pull you to him. He leans down, mouth hovering over yours, breathing in your panicky exhales. "This what you want?"
Your grin is immediate and undeniable. You nod and breathe out the word, "Please."
Andrew kisses you hard, crowding you back into your apartment. He kicks the door closed behind him and slides his tongue into your mouth, tasting you and groaning at the sweetness. There's mint and strawberry and you, his favorite flavor.
He feels drunk on it. On the taste of your tongue, the glide of your wet lips over his, the way your hands scramble and tug desperately at his belt.
"Fuck," he sighs, pulling back just enough to see you. "Open your mouth, baby. Wide. And stick out your tongue."
The way you immediately obey has his cock twitching. Good girl. So fucking good for him when he gives you exactly what you need.
Andrew licks the flat of your tongue once, delighting in the way you whimper in response, before bringing his hand to your mouth. He slides two fingers behind your teeth and orders, "Suck."
You do, lips closing tight around the digits, wet tongue swirling over his thick knuckles. He pushes them further down your throat, your eyes locked on his as he makes you choke on them.
"So fucking pretty," he tells you. "You always look so pretty."
Andrew pulls the straps of your mini dress over your shoulders, roughly tugging the fabric over your chest down to expose your breasts.
You're wearing the same lace bra you'd worn when you dressed up for him, he realizes. He can see the peaks of your nipples through the semi-sheer fabric, and leans down to lock his lips around the left one over the lace.
The fabric is rough beneath his tongue, a stark contrast to the softness of your skin. He sucks hard, spreading the wetness of his saliva over the lace. You push your dress further down your waist and over your hips.
Andrew slides his fingers out of your mouth, sticky and dripping with your spit. He brings them to his own lips instead and sucks them clean, watching your breath hitch and your eyes grow impossibly more hazy.
He lowers himself to his knees before you and his slick fingers work quickly at the straps of your heels, unbuckling them to free your pretty, white-painted toes.
Your hands find his shoulders for balance. "I like that you watch me," you tell him. "I think about it sometimes and it makes me so…god, Andrew. It gets me so wet."
He looks up at you from his knees, big brown eyes glassy and full of adoration. "Good," he says. "'Cause I'm gonna watch you a little closer tonight."
That pretty smile finds its way to your face again.
Andrew presses a sweet, chaste kiss to the apex of your thighs. Over your panties, right where he knows your clit lies beneath. He then stands to his feet, towering over you now without the added height of your heels, and presses you forward.
You take a careful step back, nearly losing your balance.
Andrew grins, taking another step, crowding you back towards your bedroom. He doesn't stop until the back of your knees hit the edge of your mattress.
You stumble backwards, falling into the plush sheets that he's all too familiar with. Lying on your back, propped up by your elbows, you stare up at him with wide eyes and he's reminded of a timid little animal caught in the trap of a predator.
Don't you know how dangerous he could be?
You don't look afraid. You actually look…eager.
Pope stands tall at the edge of your mattress. "Take off your clothes."
You do. Unclasping your bra first, tossing the fabric into the already existing mess on the floor. And then your panties follow, thumbs hooking around the fabric to drag it down your legs.
Andrew reaches around and fists the collar of his shirt, tugging it over his head. He feels warm all over, watching you greedily drink up the sight of him. He thinks he'd feel a little nervous, in any other setting. If it were anyone but you.
His sweet, filthy girl.
Andrew reaches into the half-open drawer of your nightstand, searching until he finds your vibrator again.
Your brows furrow as you watch him find it with practiced ease. "You went through my underwear drawer, too?"
"Did more than that," he admits.
You inhale like you're going to speak again, but the words melt to nothing when he tosses the small toy onto the bed beside you.
"Use it," Pope orders.
"What?"
He crawls onto the mattress between your legs, spreading them wide, laying your calves on either side of his hips. "Let me watch you."
There's a moment of hesitation, but you don't look nervous. Only…curious.
You pick up the vibrator and slide the pink silicone through your folds, spreading your arousal before you press the power button. You circle your clit with the tip of it a few times, teasing yourself.
When you turn the toy on, he can feel the vibration against his hands that grip your thighs. You let out a syrupy moan and turn the intensity higher, drawing tight circles around your pretty clit.
He watches you, eyes locked on the pink silicone between your legs. He watches your entrance flutter, tightening around nothing, begging to be filled. "Your pussy is so pretty," he mutters. "Do you know that?"
Your only response is a breathy whimper. You click the intensity up again, putting it on the highest setting, and Pope sighs when your legs begin to shake around him.
He wants to watch you make yourself cum. Wants another scene to fuck his fist to in the shower or in his bed or in his truck.
But he's here. Finally, finally here, in your bed, with you, and he can't help himself.
Pope grips your hips hard and pulls you closer, tilting your hips up into his lap. The vibrator falls from your hand at the sudden movement, but he's quick to return it to you. "Keep going."
You press the silicone back to your clit, and Andrew spreads you open with gentle thumbs. He gathers the spit in his mouth and lets it drip from his lips and onto the seam of your cunt.
And then he's sliding his middle finger inside of your entrance, curling it upwards, searching for that sweet spot that makes you writhe.
It doesn't take long. He's watched you. He knows just what you like and what angle to hit. And the second the tip of his finger presses hard against it, you fist your free hand in the sheets and curses fall from your sweet mouth.
Pope slides another thick finger inside, watching the way you squirm, feeling the walls of your cunt flutter around the swell of his knuckles.
"I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna—oh, fuck. Feels so good, feels so fucking—"
A long, throaty moan leaves your mouth, and he feels the warmth of your release pool in his palm. You're so slick that each wet thrust of his fingers echoes against the walls of your room.
He doesn't stop until you're twitching. Until you click the vibrator off and shove it away from you. And even then, he still gives a few, slow curls of his fingers inside of you. Not touching with intent, just…feeling. Memorizing.
Once you catch your breath, you lean up enough to find his eyes again. You say timidly, shyly, "I want…I want to feel you, Andrew. I want you inside me. Do you…do you want to fuck me?"
It's the most asinine question he's ever been asked in his fucking life. Does he want to fuck you?
He's thought of nothing else for months. Every night when he fights for sleep, it's the thought of you under him that puts him to bed.
It's such an impractical concern from his point of view that he laughs. Actually laughs, for the first time in years. "Oh, baby."
Pope takes your hands in his. He presses one to his chest, right over his heart, and the other against the hardness in his jeans.
"I have never wanted another woman as bad as I want you," he says truthfully. "But I…you…you deserve better than this. Better than me. You understand that, don't you?"
You shake your head. "You don't know me, Andrew. Not really. You don't know if—"
"No, no. I do. I know you're the kind of friend who would give the shirt off their back. The kind of girl who'd let her phone get cut off before asking for help. The kind of girl who gets up every morning and just…tries. Every day. And you fucking…you smile about it. You're good. You're so fucking good and I…"
He stops.
Remembers the last time he loved someone like this and how he'd made a stupid confession he should've taken to his grave and how it'd fucked him completely.
"You're what, Andrew?"
Pope swallows. "I'm...I'm a bad man. I've hurt people. I will…hurt people, I—" His voice cracks. He lowers his eyes, trying to turn away, unable to find the strength to face you.
But you take his jaw in your gentle hands and force him to look at you. Sweet, angel of a girl that you are. And then you say without a waver to be found in your voice, "I like who you are. Do you think I gave the man who watches me through my window my phone number because I want some guy I could match with on Tinder?"
He tries to slow the rapid pounding of his heart. He wonders if love is supposed to be like this. To feel like this. All consuming and terrifying and devastatingly hopeful above all.
You shake your head and tuck your legs beneath you, sitting up on your knees. He sits stone still as you lean forward and kiss his cheek, whispering against his ear, "I've been watching you, too, Andrew Cody."
Something shifts inside of him as you say it. Uttering his last name that he'd never given you, that isn't even on his lease because this is a fake apartment under a fake name to launder the money they steal.
Oh—sweet, smart girl. Smarter than he thought.
How silly of him to ever doubt you.
There's a newfound wildness in your eyes when they meet his again. An unveiling. Like he's seeing you for who you truly are for the first time.
And you're…god. So fucking beautiful.
And, yeah. Pope thinks he's been right this whole fucking time.
He's weird and wrong and sickly obsessed.
But you are, too.
Andrew takes you by the back of the neck and kisses you hard, desperate to taste you, to close what little physical space remains between your body and his. He pushes you back against the mattress and follows you down.
Your hands find his belt buckle before he does, and he stares down at you as your deft fingers pry the leather open and unbutton his jeans. He helps you push the denim down his legs until his cock springs free, heavy and leaking. Wanting for you, twitching as you take it carefully in your hand.
A groan reverberates at the back of his mouth. Your hands are so soft. Perfect and pliant. One day, he swears he'll show you how he likes to be touched. He'll let you sit in his lap and watch him stroke his cock for you.
But for now, he lets you touch him slowly. Experimental. Feeling the heavy weight of him in your palm. You spit on your fingertips and spread your saliva over his sensitive tip, flushed red and pulsing beneath your touch.
You lean back and guide him between your thighs, sliding the head of his cock through your syrupy folds and over your clit.
The moment you line him up at your entrance, Pope eases inside and you let out the sweetest fucking sigh he's ever heard in his entire life. Sweet and soft and so, so satisfied.
It's so beautiful. You're so beautiful. And you feel warm and heavenly and wet around him. He pulls out slowly, almost all the way, and then drives his cock back into your cunt.
You squeal and those sharp, acrylic nails dig into his spine. But your legs circle his hips, and so Pope does it again.
He fucks you hard. Claiming that spot at the back of your cunt, pressed right up against your cervix. He rolls his hips and presses his mouth to yours, swallowing up those desperate, carnal sounds he pulls out of our chest.
Sweet girl. Sweet fucking girl. He reaches between you and circles your clit. "My girl now," he says, words spoken against your lips. "You'll never need anyone else, baby. No one but me."
You nod, the velvety walls of your pussy squeezing around the hard length of his cock.
Andrew puts his whole weight on top of you, grinding himself between your thighs, giving you everything he has. Everything he is.
"I'm yours," you choke out. "I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm—"
It becomes a mantra. One that feeds his desire, in perfect sync with the rhythm of his thrusts. He watches your arousal begin to crest, nearing the summit, the muscles in your thighs twitching. "Look at me, baby," he says. "Tell me you love me when I make you cum."
You're so lost in it, head all spacey, that your eyes remain closed until he takes your jaw in a firm grip.
There are pretty tears in your eyes when you open them, but that smile on your face is present, too. He feels you pulse around him and your breath gets all shallow and then—
"I love you, Andrew, I fucking—oh my god please, please—I love you."
The words are music to his ears, tingling down his spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He thought the sound of his name in your mouth was beautiful but this…fuck. He could die.
Pope thinks he would. For you, he would.
He fucks you through it. Tastes your moans and says, "Yeah, that's it. Give it to me. Look so pretty when you cum for me."
He doesn't let his pace falter until your muscles loosen, until your nails stroke gently over his spin instead of leaving marks.
You pepper sweet kisses over his jaw, tongue sliding up the shell of his ear. "I want you to cum inside me," you tell him.
He's been fighting it the whole time, trying desperately not to blow his load before he'd at least gotten you there first.
But when you say that?
When you say, "Please, Andrew. Want you to give it to me. Want you to fill me up with your cum. Please. I need it."
He thinks about telling you that you don't have to beg. Not him, not for anything (especially this). But you just sound so pretty, begging for his cum, that he can't bring himself to do it.
So, he gives you what you want instead. Fucks his cum into you, groaning low in your ear, cock pulsing inside you. You feel so good wrapped around him it's euphoric. Otherworldly.
Your pussy grips tight, milking him dry, taking every last drop (he knows you're on birth control. Don't you know the women's clinic downtown keeps a spare key beneath the plant in front of their door?).
Andrew is careful when he slides out of you. And he wastes no time before kicking his jeans the rest of the way off and pulling you against his chest.
He pulls the blanket up around your shoulders and presses a kiss to your hairline. His voice wavers a little as he says, "Sorry if I…if I was a little rough."
You shake your head, pressing your nose to the divot between his pectorals. "It was perfect," you murmur against his skin.
Silence settles between you. Comfortable and easy, the sound of your breathing in perfect synchronization.
After some time you say, "I meant it, you know. Wouldn't have said it if I didn't. I really think I might be in love with you, Andrew. Is that…crazy?"
Yes, he wants to say.
But he feels it, too.
So instead he says, "You know, I don't…I don't have much experience with that sorta thing. Don't really know how to…to navigate it, I guess. But, uhm…yeah. Me, too."
He feels that smile of yours against his chest.
Andrew knows that this dynamic the two of you have created is weird.
tags: sammy bryant x detective fem!reader, non-linear southland seasons, timeline skip, cannon men objectifying women, men in general, tammi is also a warning, 18+ MDI
notes: so, I started southland and needed to get this out there! so if this flops, I lowkey don't care cause this was for me, "when did you get hot" by sabrina carpenter is 100% sammy bryant coded, if you'd like to join my permanent tag list, please comment here, enjoy!
word count: 3.9k
The bullpen was unusually quiet for a Wednesday afternoon, the kind of lull that settled over the station when everyone was either out chasing leads or buried beneath enough paperwork to make conversation feel like extra work. The overhead lights filled empty spaces while phone calls and distant voices drifting in from another room. You sat at your desk with a half-finished report open and front of you, through your attention had long since wandered elsewhere.
Namely, to Sammy Bryant.
He, like your other fellow detectives, sat across the room hunched forward as he stared at a case file. His tie had been loosened hour ago, sleeves rolled up his thick arms, and there was a deep crease between his brows that hadn’t left all day. You weren’t even sure he’d touched the lunch he’d brought that morning.
It wasn’t necessarily unusual for him to be this way. Lately, nothing about Sammy looked easy, especially when his phone rang and rang and rang and rang and—
The flip phone next to him started buzzing loudly on his desk, and you watched the change happen before he ever reached for it.
A minute earlier, he’d been laser focused on the report in front of him, distracted enough that he’d nearly missed the call altogether. Then his eyes narrowed, almost like he knew exactly who was calling—he did—and whatever small amount of peace he’d managed to find over the course of his afternoon disappeared completely. Tension returned to his shoulders so quickly you almost winced as it settled like a familiar weight. You noticed that he didn’t look annoyed, because you of all people had seen Sammy annoyed way too many times. An annoyed Sammy usually came with a sarcastic comment, a muttered complaint, and a dramatic roll of his eyes that had always been capable of drawing a laugh from your chest.
Annoyed Sammy never looked as exhausted as the one across from you did as he answered the phone. He had the kind of expression people wore when they already knew how a conversation was going to end before it had even begun.
You lowered your gaze back down toward your report, not wanting him to catch you watching, though your ears remained turned toward the other side of the room. Eavesdropping was never intentional; at least that was what you told yourself.
But you were a detective.
Being nosey was part of the job description even if it wasn’t explicitly written in the fine print of your contract. It was simply difficult not to pay attention when Sammy spent so much of his day carrying the weight of everyone around him and so little time allowing anyone to carry any of his.
“Hey, Tammi,” he said after opening his phone, voice gentle like it always was.
You never understood how he managed to do it.
The response that crackled through the speaker wasn’t loud enough for you to make out every word, but it was loud enough that you caught the tone: sharp, frustrated, and accusatory. Whatever was going on, it clearly wasn’t any good.
Sammy listened for nearly thirty seconds before speaking again. “No, I know.” He paused, sighing quietly away from the speaker. “I know.” His eyes squeezed shut tightly, and the fingers of his free hand drummed once against the desk before curling into a fist. “No, that’s not what I said.”
Around him, the station continued moving as if nothing was happening, as if Sammy arguing with Tammi was a normal part of the schedule (which, in a way, it was). Nate looked unphased as he flipped another page of whatever he was looking through. Behind you, the printer whirred to life and spat out a few pages. The normal rhythm of the day continued uninterrupted while Sammy sat perfectly at his desk, absorbing every word coming through that receiver like a man standing in the rain with no intention of finding shelter.
You hated that.
People got upset; Tammi got upset. Relationships, romantic or not, were always known to at least have a few complications down the line.
What you hated was that their conversations never sounded like two people solving a problem together and always sounding like one person apologize for existing.
Sammy huffed. “Tammi, I was working a homicide. I let you know that I’d be late hours earlier to make sure that you were aware.” A pause. “No, I can’t just up and leave in the middle of a case just because you made dinner for once! Why would you even make that when you knew—”
His voice remained calm even if there was a detection of strain beneath it. He had the careful balancing act of a man choosing every word with surgical precision because one wrong phrase would turn an argument into a war. For the next several moments, he didn’t speak at all, simply listening to her go on and on while his expression grew tighter and tighter. When he finally leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand across his face, you found yourself wondering when the last time had been that you’d seen him look genuinely happy.
The answer disturbed you because you couldn’t remember, and it made things worse when you were sure Sammy probably didn’t remember either.
His gaze drifted briefly across the room, hazel eyes landing on nothing in particular, and for just a second, you caught a glimpse that washed over into defeat. It made your heart hurt.
Sammy Bryant was one of the better guys you knew. He was polite, never throwing around crude remarks about women like the rest of the men of the LAPD seemed to do. He was loyal to a wife that seemed to loathe his existence while your boss was running around with another woman behind his wife that actually loved him. And while he might not have been the dictionary definition of hot with his stomach pudge that spilled over his belt and puffy cheeks that grew when he ate, you found him endearingly handsome, someone you wouldn’t mind taking to meet your parents.
Your lips tugged into a frown at the thought.
He remained frozen in place; eyes fixated on some invisible point on his desk. Slowly, he exhaled through his nose and rolled his chair backwards, hand now rubbing the back of his neck in smooth motions, his skin bunching under his thick fingers. A beat later, he pushed himself to his feet and disappeared toward the break room.
“I don’t know how he deals with her,” Nate muttered after briefly glancing up at you.
Your pen caught between your teeth. “He loves her.”
He snorted in response. “I think love flew out the window a long time ago. He deals with her cause she’s familiar. He needs to go find someone for a night.”
Your eyes rolled far into your head. “Sammy’s not that kind of guy, Nate. He’s loyal unlike the rest of you pigs.”
Across from you, Russell coughed your name loudly. “Tell us how you really feel.”
“Oh we’d be here all day if you let me,” you said with a large smirk.
“Amen, sista,” Lydia called out as she passed.
Nate finally looked at you for more than a second. “So, you’re saying you’d rather have our Sammy boy here miserable for the rest of his life with that woman?”
“That’s not what I said,” you shot back, eyes going back down to your report.
By the time Sammy returned, he was carrying a fresh cup of coffee; you’d lost count if that was his third or fifth. The cup joined his growing collection of bad coping mechanisms as he settled heavily into his chair once more, fingers reaching for a case file despite the fact that he hadn’t even finished the last one.
“You’re gonna give yourself a stomach ulcer,” you called out, eyes still cast downward.
He blinked up at you. “What?”
You pointed your pen toward the coffee. “That.”
“Oh.” A tired laugh bubbled. “Pretty sure I’m already past that point.”
“How’s the missus?” Nate asked, earning him a glare from you.
Sammy shrugged indifferently. “Same old, same old. Feels like lately everything I do pisses her off.” He started listing with his fingers. “I’m working too much, but if I’m home, I’m not helping enough.” Another finger. “If I’m helping, I’m doing it wrong.” Another. “If I miss a call because I’m working, it’s because I’m shaking up with woman; or, if I answer the call while I’m working, she gets mad because I should be more focused.”
You truly wondered if he was going to run out of fingers.
Nate let out a low whistle. “If you’re shaking up while I’m driving, let me know next time, man.”
At least his partner was able to paint a small smile on Sammy’s face, his cheeks pushing up to partly hide his eyes.
“You ever try not trying so hard?” you found yourself asking before you could stop yourself, and even Sammy looked shocked that you had. “Don’t give me that look, Bryant.”
He shook his head. “I’m not giving you a look.”
“You’re definitely giving me a look.” You pushed back slightly from your desk. “Look, if trying so hard gets you in trouble, what will not trying look like? Instead of giving your all to a woman who seems to not appreciate it, why not put that energy into yourself?”
“You always hand out life advice like a shrink, L/n?” Nate asked before you threw him a middle finger.
Sammy stayed quiet, almost as if were mulling over your advice. He clicked his pen a few times before setting it down.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he asked, a bit quieter. “What if it all just stays the same.”
You tilted your head. “Then I guess it’s time for a bigger change until something sticks.”
“Did you ever have to change?”
A loud snort flew from your nose. “How do you think I ended up here in this dump?”
“Hey!”
“Shut it, Moretta,” you snapped. “LA is a dump, and you know it.” A sigh pressed from your lungs. “My last job wasn’t doing too much for me, so I tried a bunch of different things until I found something that worked.”
Sammy looked entirely unimpressed. “Being a homicide detective in Los Angeles was it for you?”
“It was.” You went back to scribbling something on your report before standing from your chair. You lightly tapped him with the stack of papers as you passed. “You’ll find yours soon enough.”
You didn’t know, but Sammy’s eyes tracked you until you disappeared around the corner, his chest blooming with a warmth he hadn’t felt in years. When he looked over to Nate, the man was already wiggling his eyebrows at him.
“Think that’s her signal man. She wants youuuuuu,” he teased, eyes alight with humor.
Sammy scoffed. “She does not. Knock it off.”
Nate held up his hands in surrender. “Whatever floats your boat. Just saying she won’t be available for much longer. Not when she looks like that.”
Before Sammy could really think about it, Nate’s phone buzzed. His partner jumped to his feet and nodded his head toward the door. Sammy scrambled to his feet, hands grabbing at his suit coat on the way out.
But even as they rushed down the freeway, your words were stuck in his head.
_______________________
The call was nothing special, and by the time you arrived on scene, patrol had already secured the area, the initial statements had been collected, and all that remained was the tedious process of sorting through details. You knew this was going to be the kind of case that filled far more paperwork that excitement, and as you climbed out of your car into the hot California sun with your badge clipped to your waist and a clipboard tucked under one arm, you found yourself mentally calculating how long it would take before you could reasonably justify grabbing lunch from the Mexican stand on the way back to the precinct.
Sweat trickled down your back and made your blouse stick slightly to your skin as you approached the cluster of officers gathered near the patrol cars. Most of the officers loitering around were unfamiliar faces since enough transfers and promotions had shuffled people around that it felt like every week brought someone new in during the past several months. You barely glanced at them, wanting nothing more to do than get this case translated into paperwork to do at your desk with decent AC.
But then, your attention snagged on a familiar laugh, and the sound stopped you before your brain caught up. For a second you simply stood there, gaze searching through the gaggle until your eyes landed on the source once before looking away.
Every muscle in your body went tense because there was absolutely no way that the man laughing was Sammy Bryant. You took another look, and then another before you finally let your eyes roam over him.
That was definitely Sammy Bryant, with the same brownish-red hair, the same crooked-toothed smile, the same easy way he carried himself when talking to people. That man was the same man you’d spent years knowing and silently pining after.
Yet, at the same time, somehow, he wasn’t the same man at all either.
You stared at him all dressed in his uniform.
The sight wasn’t that jeering; you knew he’d transferred to patrol almost a year ago. But it was the fact that it fit him differently than his suits ever did. Where his button-up shirts always pushed out across his stomach before disappearing into his pants, the blue fabric ran almost loose and straight down below his utility belt, soft plush around his hips completely gone. His face also looked leaner; jaw more defined every time his neck stretched just slightly. His arms bulged in places that hadn’t before, and instead of fat around his biceps, your eyes traced the distinct muscle lines instead. Even his skin held a darker tint from being outside more, a large comparison to the whiter shade he had while the majority of his time had been spent at a desk.
In simple terms, he looked absolutely delicious.
However, that wasn’t what kept your attention.
Plenty of people lost weight; plenty of people changed how they looked; plenty of people seemed to be happier after a big change.
The thing that nearly knocked the breath out of you was how happy he looked.
Long gone was the crease that you used to trace when it showed between his brows. His shoulders weren’t hunched. His smile actually reached his eyes. Even standing under the hotter-than-hell sun in a patrol uniform dealing with a tedious call, he somehow looked mentally lighter than you’d ever seen him, like somebody had finally removed a weight he’d been carrying for years.
“And then, I told him to drop the gun, and you know what he did? He fell to the ground and then dropped it,” Sammy’s voice boomed through the small group, earning a few chuckles from his fellow officers.
“Hey, Bryant, you gotta bomb ass snack detective staring at you,” one of them said. “Did you get a girlfriend and forget to tell us?”
Sammy’s brow pinched in confusion, and his head snapped over in your direction. Unfortunately, you weren’t fast enough to look away in time and continued to stare right at him. For a split second, you wondered if he’d pretend to not notice and go back to joshing with his friend. But then, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.
He said your name so loudly and genuine that your heart literally fluttered. “Hey!”
He excused himself from the group without hesitation and started toward you; the officers sent out a few cat calls and jumbled garbage, but Sammy looked like a man on a mission. The closer he got, the more your cheeks flushed under his sunglasses-covered eyes.
The patrol uniform should not have been doing whatever it was doing. His sleeves were tight around his biceps. His radio rested against his shoulder and wavered with every step. His hand—left hand you noted was missing a silver band—reached up and tugged the sunglasses off his face and tucked them in a slat between buttons.
Above all, your brain stopped functioning when Sammy stopped in front of you, arms raising like he wanted to bring you in for a hug before dropping back down to his thighs.
“I didn’t know you’d been called,” he said, grin still wide as ever. “Thought this’d be handed off to Gil or Ben.”
When you failed to say anything, still staring up at him with intense eyes that made him want to melt, his smile dropped a bit. “You okay? Did someone say anything to you?” His eyes glanced over toward the group. “Those guys were just joking—”
“Bryant.”
He blinked rapidly. “Yes?”
You raked your eyes over him for good measure. “When did you get so fucking hot?”
As the world slowed down around you, for one second you seriously considered throwing yourself into traffic during busy hour. An officer who had hear chocked on his coffee. When Sammy seemed stunned before he burst out laughing. His head dropped back, and the noise was loud enough to draw attention from half the squad nearby.
“That’s one way to say hello,” he snickered.
You shoved weakly at his shoulder, briefly feeling the tight muscle underneath. “Just wasn’t expecting Sammy Bryant turned Adonis. I’m guessing patrol has been good to you?”
He smiled shyly. “Just doin’ what you told me to. Did a lot of changing before I found something that stuck.”
“I’m glad,” you breathed through a wide smile. “You look good, Sammy.”
He tisked and shook his head. “I think I recall you saying hot specifically?”
“I think you recall incorrectly, officer. Maybe need to get your hearing checked if you want to continue field work.”
From behind you, someone shouted your name, causing you to turn away from Sammy for a split second. Your partner waved you over with a head tilt toward the body on the ground. You held up your pointer before looking back at Sammy.
“Duty calls, I guess,” you muttered. “But it was good to see you.”
You took one step back before Sammy’s hand jutted out and caught your forearm between his large fingers. He had a nervous look on his face, tongue peeking out to wet his lips.
“We both have work, but uh, would you want to argue over what you called me during dinner?”
Your head bobbed before you could stop it. “Hope your phone still has my number. Call me when you’re off shift.”
A blush crept up his neck. “I will.”
“Then I will see you very soon, Officer Bryant.”
Sammy couldn’t help but laugh softly as you sauntered away, hips swaying under your dress pants that—in his opinion—hugged your figure in the best ways. When he turned back toward his buddies, the whole lot hooting and hollering at him, he couldn’t wipe away the smile that spanned his face entirely.
He’d missed you during this season of finding himself, your words always ringing in his ears as he stopped arguing, as he signed the divorce papers, as he chose to leave detective work and join patrol, as he walked over to say hi after not seeing you for close to a year, and finally as you blurted you thought he was hot even if you denied it right after.
Sammy missed out on a lot of things, but this time, he wasn’t going to miss out on you.
_______________________
“Fuck, Sammy,” you whined as his lips pressed deeply into your neck.
Dinner had been a wonderful ordeal; almost right out of a dream you’d almost given up on. Sammy had picked you up, brought you flowers, paid for the meal, and offered to walk you back up to your door.
Which, in hindsight, you should have known it wouldn’t take long for you to invite him inside or even longer for him to crowd you into the nearest wall and have his way with you.
Your fingers shook as they unbuttoned his shirt one by one before they tentatively grazed across his now-visible abs. The sound you pulled from his lips—a small whimper—made you crave him even more. While you were busy mapping his body under your palms, Sammy was busy attacking your jaw and neck, tongue lapping to taste your perfume you’d sprayed hours earlier.
“Do you wanna give up and say that you think I’m hot now?” he teased in a hot breath. “Or should I cuff you and get my confession that way? Would you like that? Couldn’t ever do this when I was a detective.” He groaned loudly when your hands squeezed his pecks. “Didn’t imagine I could have you like this.”
The idea of him placing the cold, metal bracelets around your wrists shouldn’t have turned you on as much as it did, but just thinking of Sammy that way had you tightening your legs around his hips.
Drunk on the feeling of him, you couldn’t help the next sentence that flowed from your loose lips as your head thunked against the wall.
“Could have,” you panted. “Wanted you even back then, but you were married, and I’m not a homewrecker. Always thought you were handsome, Sammy.”
He froze against you; his face tucked into your shoulder. You took the moment to lower yourself back down to the floor and place your hands on his face, fingers gently pulling him away so you could look into his confused eyes.
“What?” he asked. “What do you mean you wanted me back then.”
You licked your lips. “Sammy, you were happy, and I—”
“I wasn’t happy,” he interrupted. “Far from it. Only fucking time I was happy was when I got to see you at work, sweetheart.”
Your eyes fell down to your shoes. “Sammy.”
He pressed his forehead against yours. “Thought about you all the time,” he whispered. “You were always there. Been kicking myself for letting you slip through my fingers. I really thought that when I could get in shape and get in a better place, I could have you; I could deserve you.”
That had you looking back up at him with a frown. “No, Sammy, no.” Your hands dragged down his front and settled under the flaps of his shirt against his warm skin. “That’s not—that was never it. I was never going to overstep, but Sammy, please understand it took everything against myself to not jump you in the bullpen.”
In that moment, a wave of humiliation washed through you, but Sammy looked absolutely delighted at your confession. He dipped back down and pressed his lips back against yours. You quickly reciprocated it and opened your lips to let his tongue dive into your mouth. Air was sadly a necessity, causing you to pull back panting.
“So,” you gasped. “You said something about handcuffs.”
Sammy smirked wildly, and in the next moment, you were squealing as he hoisted you over his shoulder, stalking to your bedroom with intent.
Time for naked twister you reasoned. The plot thickens.
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Fatima is the strongest person in Fromville rn like—kidnapped, traumatized, postpartum (depression), and you don’t have the weird monster baby child you thought you were gonna have?? I would’ve kms
Summary: When you moved halfway across the world to work nights at PTMC, the last thing you expected was for your soulmate string to lead straight to Dr. Jack Abbot—who’s already happily married to his own soulmate. So you bury your feelings beneath friendship, trauma shifts, and years of silence… until tragedy changes everything, and both of you begin to realize that maybe soulmates were never about fate, but choice. Or, the Soulmate AU with Jack Abbot.
Pairing: Jack Abbot x FilipinaNurseFem!Reader (Can still be read by anyone! It’s not super specific)
Warnings: 18+ Soulmate String AU, Unrequited Love to Requited Love, Age-Gap Romance (Not Specified), Hospitals, ER, ANGST, Fluff, Crush, Blood, Friends-to-Lovers, Slow(ish) Burn, Eventual Hurt-to-Comfort, Longing, YEARNING, Major Character Death, The Pitt AU, Grief, Tragic Heroine, Tragic Hero, Widow!Abbot, Depressed!Abbot, Anger, Crying, GSW, Happily Ever After, COVID-19, Kissing,
Word Count: 22.5k
A/N: We're gonna take a break from Ducky and Robby for a bit. Welcome, Jack Abbot. You are in my domain now >:D ALSO, I HIT THE LIMIT ON SPACING SOOO THE FORMAT MIGHT BE FUCKED IDK. Sorry :(((
Side note: Gif in the moodboard from @/keeryscupid. I’m not a doctor or a nurse. I’m dyslexic, and English isn’t my first language! So I apologize in advance for the spelling and/or grammatical errors. As always, reblogs, comments, and likes are appreciated. Thank you and happy reading!
Songs: Orbiter by Noah Kahan, Brush Fire by Gracie Abrams, and If You Let Me by Maisie Peters (with Marcus Mumford)
| Jack Abbot Masterlist | Main Masterlist |
2018
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
The first thing you notice about the Pitt isn’t the noise.
It’s the pace.
Everything moves fast, but no one looks rushed. People pass each other like they’ve done this a thousand times, sliding through narrow spaces without looking, voices overlapping in half-finished sentences, monitors beeping in uneven rhythms that somehow don’t throw anyone off.
Organized disaster is exactly what an emergency department should feel like. You tighten your grip on the strap of your bag as you follow Lena down the hall, trying not to stare at everything like it’s your first day on Earth.
New country, New hospital, New job.
Night shift.
Your body still hasn’t figured out what time zone it’s supposed to be in, but adrenaline is already kicking in, that familiar hum under your skin that always comes when you step into an ER. You tell yourself you’ve handled worse. That you’ve worked typhoon nights, mass casualty drills, and overcrowded government hospitals with half the supplies you needed.
You can handle this.
Lena pushes the double doors open with her shoulder, not even breaking stride. “ER’s through here,” she says. “You said you worked trauma before, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” you answer automatically.
She glances back at you immediately, “Drop the ma’am. You’ll make everyone feel old.”
Heat creeps up your neck, “Sorry. Habit.”
“You’ll fit in,” she mutters, half amused, half distracted as she scans the room.
You step through the doors behind her—and the sound hits all at once. Phones ringing, a monitor alarming somewhere in the back, sharp and insistent. A patient down the hall is yelling that he’s been waiting for three hours and he’s going to sue somebody.
It’s loud and crowded, but very alive and all too familiar. Your shoulders drop just a little, tension you didn’t realize you were holding easing out of your spine.
Lena stops near the central desk, scanning the board, then jerks her chin toward the far side of the room, “That’s Dr. Jack Abbot. He’s on trauma tonight, so you’ll probably be with him most of the shift.”
You follow her gaze without thinking.
He stands near the counter, scrolling through a chart on an iPad, stethoscope hanging loose around his neck like he forgot it was there. Curly salt and pepper hair slightly messy, the kind of tired that comes from too many night shifts in a row.
He looks up when someone calls his name, and the moment your eyes land on him, your wrist burns.
You suck in a small breath, instinctively looking down. There’s a red string looped around your wrist, thin, bright, and impossible to miss.
Your stomach drops so fast it makes you dizzy. Because what the actual fuck? No. Not here. Not now.
At some point, you’d convinced yourself maybe you simply didn’t have one. Maybe the universe skipped you.
The thread pulls slightly, like something on the other end just moved, and your fingers curl around it before you even realize what you’re doing. A voice in your head tells you not to look… but you look anyway. The string stretches across the room, weaving through people and stretchers and equipment like it doesn’t care about physics; it never has.
Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you follow it as it leads straight to him—Jack Abbot.
Your heart stutters hard enough that you feel it in your ears.
No.
No, no, no.
Lena is still talking beside you, something about assignments, but the words blur together. “…good with procedures, just don’t let him skip charting, he tries— Abbot!”
He looks up again, this time, at you. The string pulls tight between your wrists. For a second, neither of you moves. Then he walks over, casual, pumping sanitizer on his hands like this is just another shift, just another new nurse, nothing important happening at all.
He’s taller up close.
Tired-looking in a way that somehow makes him seem softer instead of intimidating. Curly salt-and-pepper hair slightly messy, sleeves rolled to his elbows, stethoscope hanging around his neck like he forgot it was there hours ago.
“You the new one?” he asks. His voice is warm and easy. Maybe a little rough around the edges from too much coffee and too many overnight shifts.
You force your brain to function.
“Yeah,” you manage. “First night.”
He nods once, then holds out his hand.
“Jack Abbot.”
Your hand hesitates for half a second before you take it. The second your skin touches his—the string snaps tight. It feels like something deep in your bones clicks violently into place.
Your pulse jumps hard beneath your skin, and for one horrifying second you think maybe he can feel it too.
But Jack just smiles politely, completely unaffected.
Because he can’t see it, not fully. The thread only loops faintly around his wrist before disappearing, incomplete and one-sided.
You swallow hard, “Nice to meet you.”
“Welcome to the Pitt,” he says. “Try not to run.” You let out a shaky laugh before you can stop yourself, “Too late for that.”
A faint smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, like he likes your answer. By God, that tiny expression alone nearly kills you.
Then he shifts the iPad under his arm—and you see the ring.
A silver band on his left hand.
Your entire body goes cold.
For a second, you genuinely can’t process what you’re looking at. Of course, he’s married. Because, yes, the universe would do something this cruel.
You force yourself to look away before your face gives you away—and that’s when you notice her.
A woman stands near Central holding a paper bag against her hip, looking around the department with the comfortable familiarity of someone who’s been here a hundred times before.
Waiting for him.
Jack notices her immediately, and his whole face changes. It softens enough for you to understand instantly how much he loves her. “Hey,” he says quietly, already walking toward her.
The incomplete thread around his wrist brightens faintly.
She smiles the second he reaches her, “You forgot dinner again.” Jack laughs softly, taking the bag from her, “I was busy.”
“You’re always busy.”
“Occupational hazard.”
She rolls her eyes affectionately, and he leans down automatically to kiss her cheek. It’s absent-minded and natural. The kind of intimacy built over years. Loving her is as easy as breathing. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist feels unbearably tight. Because the universe already chose—it’s not you. Never you.
Lena nudges your shoulder lightly, “You good?”
You blink quickly, forcing your expression back under control before anyone notices the way your soul feels like it’s collapsing inward. “Yeah,” you say, your voice almost sounds steady. “Just jet lag.”
Lena nods distractedly and turns back toward the board.
Across the room, Jack says something under his breath that makes his wife laugh. The warm and happy sound carries across the department.
You look down at the string around your wrist one last time before pulling your sleeve over it completely.
You can do this—you’ve survived harder things than heartbreak.
You square your shoulders, take the iPad Lena hands you, and step fully into the chaos of the Pitt.
So when Jack glances back at you a moment later, smiling like you’re just another coworker starting a shift, you smile back, pretending that your heart didn’t just fall through the floor.
A FEW MONTHS LATER…
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT SHIFT
By the time the Pitt starts feeling familiar, it’s already too late. You know the rhythm of the department now, the same way you know your own breathing. Which monitor is about to alarm before it starts screaming. Which psych patient is one bad interaction away from throwing a urinal at security, or a resident is about to panic during a difficult intubation.
You know the trauma bay doors stick when it rains, and Lena hides the good coffee above the Pyxis because Ellis steals the decent stuff first, and the fluorescent lights over Hallway C flicker around three in the morning like they’re barely holding on, and you know Jack Abbot’s footsteps before you even see him.
Well, to be honest, that part happens slowly. Shift after shift. Trauma after trauma. Somewhere between your first week and your third month, working beside him stops feeling intimidating and starts feeling natural.
You know how he likes his trauma setups organized. You know he taps his pen twice against the desk when he’s thinking too hard. You know he rubs the back of his neck when he’s exhausted and trying not to show it. And worse—he knows you too.
“Lifeline!” Ellis’ voice cuts across the department as you walk out of Trauma Two carrying an empty suture tray. You stop mid-step. “You people are never letting that nickname die, are you?”
Ellis swivels around in her chair with a grin. “Absolutely not.”
The nickname started during your second week after a pediatric code that had gone catastrophically wrong.
A seven-year-old nearly drowned—no pulse on arrival. The room had dissolved into controlled chaos within seconds—respiratory trying to secure the airway while one of the newer residents nearly froze trying to place an IO line.
Shen, still early enough into residency that panic sometimes beat experience, had looked one second away from completely spiraling.
But through all of it, you had stayed calm.
You’d guided Shen through the tibial IO placement while simultaneously pushing epinephrine prep toward Jack and coordinating compression rotations so nobody burned out too early.
At one point, Ellis had looked up from the monitor and muttered, “Jesus Christ. She’s everybody’s lifeline in here.”
Unfortunately for you, the name stuck. Now, half the ED used it more than your actual name.
“Lifeline, Trauma Two,” Lena calls without looking up from the board.
“On my way.”
Jack steps out of the trauma bay at the same time you do, peeling bloody gloves off his hands. “You steal my nurse again?” he asks Lena.
Lena snorts. “You don’t own her, Abbot.”
“That’s not what I said.”
There’s something easy in the exchange that makes warmth spread unexpectedly through you.
Jack falls into step beside you automatically as you head toward Trauma Two.
“You eat yet?” he asks.
You glance at him suspiciously. “Are you asking because you care or because you need me conscious enough to survive this shift?”
“A little of both.”
You huff out a laugh. Because that’s the problem with Jack. He’s kind in ways that sneak up on you, a quiet attentiveness that drives you nuts. He notices when you haven’t sat down in seven hours or when your hands shake after a bad pediatric trauma and when you’re pushing yourself too hard, and casually hands you a granola bar like he didn’t specifically go looking for one because he knew you skipped dinner.
The kind of doctor who stays with family members after delivering bad news instead of disappearing the second the conversation gets uncomfortable, and the kind of man who wears his wedding ring like it means something sacred.
Which somehow makes all of this hurt even more. Because every soft look. Every quiet joke at three in the morning or moment beside him in a trauma bay—belongs to someone else.
And you know that.
The universe reminds you every single day that the red string hidden beneath the cuff of your scrub jacket pulls tight whenever he gets too close.
You’ve gotten good at ignoring it or pretending to.
TRAUMA ONE — NIGHT
Tonight’s MVA is a disaster. Twenty-six-year-old male. Ejected through the windshield. Hypotensive on arrival. The second EMS wheels him through the ambulance bay doors, and the department shifts gears instantly.
“BP seventy over forty,” Ellis says from the monitor. “Heart rate one-forty.”
“Breath sounds diminished on the left,” Shen adds quickly, trying to keep up.
“Alright, let’s move,” Jack says sharply.
You’re already there.
Trauma shears cut through blood-soaked clothing while respiratory preps for intubation. You place oxygen and start hanging fluids while Jack performs the FAST exam. Free fluid in Morrison’s pouch appears on the screen almost immediately. Internal bleeding, most likely splenic rupture.
“Call OR,” Jack says. “He’s going upstairs.”
“Already on it,” you answer, grabbing the phone before he even finishes speaking. Jack glances toward you over the patient. There’s blood smeared across the sleeve of his scrub top, exhaustion pulled deep into the lines around his eyes. Yet still—that small flicker of trust when he looks at you. He knows you’ll catch whatever he misses.
You hate how much that matters to you.
CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT
By four in the morning, the Pitt settles into its strange version of quiet. You’re charting near Central when the elevator doors open.
Jack’s wife walks out carrying six pizza boxes stacked in her arms.
The entire department visibly brightens.
“Oh thank God,” Ellis says dramatically. “An angel sent from heaven.”
“You people are unbelievable,” she laughs.
Ellis immediately takes two boxes from her. “Respectfully, I would die for you.”
“That’s deeply concerning,” Lena mutters.
“You’re just jealous she likes me more.”
“I absolutely am not.”
You can’t help laughing softly under your breath. There it is again— that awful ache in your heart. Because she’s truly, genuinely wonderful. The universe could’ve at least made her cold, cruel, or difficult.
Instead, she remembers everyone’s coffee orders and asks about your family back home, and brings food for the night shift because she knows none of you remember to eat unless somebody forces you.
“You must be Lifeline.”
You blink, startled when you realize she’s suddenly standing beside you.
Up close, her smile is warm and effortless. You force yourself to smile back. “That obvious, huh?”
“Oh, very,” she says easily. “Jack talks about you all the time.”
Your heart stumbles painfully against your ribs.
Before you can recover, she continues casually, “Apparently, you’re the only reason this department functions after midnight.”
You laugh weakly. “That gives me way too much credit. Obviously, Lena holds everything down.”
“Have you met these people?” she asks quietly, glancing around Central. “I’m pretty sure Shen would eat expired yogurt if left unsupervised.”
“That happened one time,” Shen shouts.
“You were hallucinating by hour two,” Ellis replies.
You laugh again before you can stop yourself, and somehow, talking to her is easy. Isn’t that cruel? Because you like her immediately, she asks about the Philippines, about your family, and how you plan on surviving Pittsburgh winters.
You’re halfway through explaining that black ice feels like a personal attack when Jack walks out of Trauma Two. He tosses his gloves into the biohazard bin before sanitizing his hands automatically. His curls are damp with sweat at the temples now, scrub top wrinkled from the shift.
Then he looks up to find the two of you talking and smiles—soft around the edges in a way that makes your eyes water.
“Well,” his wife says immediately, “there he is.”
Jack points toward the pizza boxes. “You bribing my staff again?”
“Your staff?” Lena repeats flatly from across the desk.
Jack ignores her completely.
His wife gestures toward you. “Lifeline and I decided you’re actually the problem in this department.” You blink. “We did?”
“We did now.”
Jack looks genuinely betrayed, “That was fast.”
“She’s nice,” his wife says simply. Jack’s eyes flick toward you for half a second, warm and amused. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “She is.”
Your pulse skips hard enough you nearly miss it. Coward, coward, coward.
You look away first while his wife grins triumphantly. “See? I win.”
“You gang up on me constantly.”
“Because you’re easy to bully,” you say before thinking.
Jack stares at you in mock offense. “Wow. Okay.”
“You walked into that one,” Ellis says.
“You’re all terrible people.”
His wife reaches up automatically to straighten the collar of his scrub shirt. Such a small gesture, absent-minded and intimate. The kind of touch that only exists between people who know each other completely.
Your wrist aches beneath your sleeve as the string pulls tighter. Still connected to him. So very impossible and still wrong. But somehow, standing there laughing with both of them at four in the morning, you realize something infinitely more dangerous than loving him.
You’re becoming part of their lives.
CENTRAL WORK AREA — LATER
The shift slows near dawn as you’re charting near Central when Jack drops into the chair beside you with a tired exhale.
“You ever think about leaving emergency medicine?” he asks suddenly. You glance sideways. “Every shift.”
“That’s healthy.”
“I think about becoming a florist at least twice a week.”
Jack huffs out a tired laugh. “You’d last six days.”
“Rude.”
“You yelled at a surgeon yesterday.”
“He was wrong.” You pointed out.
“He was technically right.”
“He was spiritually wrong.”
That earns a real laugh from him, the low and warm kind. God. You hold onto sounds like that more than you should. Silence settles comfortably between you afterward—the kind that only exists between people who know each other well. Then, almost absentmindedly, Jack asks, “Have you met your soulmate yet?”
Your fingers stop over the keyboard. For one horrible second, your entire body forgets how to function. But your face stays calm, because years in emergency medicine have made you terrifyingly good at composure. You keep typing as you reply, “Nope.”
Jack glances sideways at you. “At all?” You shrug lightly, forcing your voice steady. “Might just not be in the cards for me.”
Something softens in his expression immediately. Jack looks at people like he wants to understand them, not fix them. “I doubt that,” he says quietly. You stare at the chart on the screen because looking at him feels too dangerous. The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly heavy.
“I mean it,” he continues softly. “Whoever ends up with you is gonna be lucky.”
Your throat tightens painfully as you force a laugh under your breath before the emotion can show on your face. “Smooth.”
“I’m serious.”
The worst part is—he means it. You finally risk looking at him. His eyes are tired and honest in that devastating way that makes lying to him feel terrible.
“I hope whoever you love…” he says quietly, almost like he’s thinking out loud, “loves you back just as much.”
The cruel irony nearly splits you open. Because you already know exactly what loving him feels like. It feels like swallowing it down every single day, pretending friendship is enough because it has to be, while standing three feet away from your soulmate, while he talks about his wife with soft eyes and absolute devotion.
Your eyes sting suddenly, and you blink hard before he notices. “Me too, Jack,” you whisper. You mean it so much it hurts.
“Me too.”
2020, COVID PANDEMIC
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
The world changes fast. One week, people are joking about a virus overseas between trauma calls and coffee runs, and then the next week, the Pitt is overflowing.
Then, suddenly, every hallway smells like bleach and sanitizer, strong enough to burn your nose through the mask. Every shift feels like drowning—N95s cutting grooves into your skin, face shields fogging every time you breathe, and isolation gowns crackling every time you move.
The emergency department transforms into something unrecognizable almost overnight. There are no visitors or waiting rooms full of family. Alarms, intubations, oxygen sats dropping, and the sound of ventilators become part of the background noise of your life. Everyone starts looking exhausted, and then everyone starts looking haunted. You stop recognizing your coworkers without PPE. Even you stop recognizing yourself.
Through all of it, Jack keeps working.
You think maybe the entire world could collapse around him and he’d still show up for trauma shift fifteen minutes early with coffee in one hand and exhaustion carved into his face. Some nights, the two of you barely talk beyond patient updates. There isn’t time. Not anymore. Every room is full, and the waiting room looks like a war zone; people are dying faster than you can process. But even through the masks and face shields and layers of plastic, you still know him.
You know the crease between his brows when he’s worried and the exhaustion in his posture. The look in his eyes when a patient reminds him too much of somebody else.
To add to that, around the beginning of the pandemic, his wife dies. Not from COVID, which somehow makes it more merciless.
Pedestrian versus drunk driver—DOA. The call comes in just after midnight. You don’t know it’s her at first. Female in her late thirties. Severe head trauma. Massive internal injuries. CPR in progress.
The paramedics wheel her through the doors while respiratory rushes to clear Trauma One. For one horrible second, before you even see her face, the red string around Jack’s wrist burns.
You freeze, not because you understand yet. Because something deep inside you already does.
Then Jack steps into the trauma room, and everything stops. You watch recognition hit him in real time, the way his body locks up and how color drains from his face beneath the mask.
“No,” he says immediately, as if he says it softly enough, maybe reality will change its mind.
“No.”
Lena moves first.
“Jack—”
“That’s my wife.”
The room goes dead silent. Even with monitors alarming and compressions ongoing, along with Shen asking for another round of epi.
It all disappears under the sound of Jack’s voice breaking.
You’ve seen grief before—you work in emergency medicine, so you see it every day. But nothing prepares you for the sound a person makes when their entire life shatters in front of them. Jack tries to step forward, but Lena catches him immediately. “Jack.”
“No, let me—”
“Jack.”
“She’s still warm—”
His voice cracks apart on the words. The paramedic quietly says they found no pulse on scene. Prolonged downtime. Non-survivable head trauma. You can’t breathe—nobody can.
Jack looks at his wife lying on the trauma bed like he genuinely cannot understand what he’s seeing; his brain refuses to process it. Blood in her hair and on the sheet, with her wedding ring still on her hand. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist pulls painfully tight—before snapping loose.
Jack stares at his own wrist instinctively. The string tied there—gone. His face crumples. All that’s left is a man realizing the universe just took something from him that it can never give back.
COVID restrictions mean none of you are allowed at the funeral. No gathering or reception. No sitting beside him in church or placing a hand on his shoulder in comfort; bringing food to his house while relatives fill the rooms with noise and stories and grief.
Only Zoom.
Fucking Zoom.
You sit alone in your apartment at three in the afternoon after night shift, still in scrubs because you were too tired to change, laptop balanced on your kitchen table.
Everyone’s little squares flicker on-screen. Lena is crying silently, Ellis is muted, while Shen is trying and failing not to cry. Multiple other night shift staff are trying their best to pull themselves together—to be brave for Jack.
While Jack is sitting alone in a black button-down shirt in a house that suddenly looks too empty.
He looks hollow. That’s the only word for it. Hollowed out from the inside. You realize halfway through the service that he hasn’t stopped twisting his wedding ring around his finger once. Maybe he believes that if he keeps touching it, maybe she’s still here somehow.
You cry with your microphone muted.
Afterward, nobody knows what to say. There are no casseroles or hugs. No standing together in shared grief. Only little squares blink off one by one until Jack is the last person left in the call.
You stay after everyone disconnects. “You should sleep,” you say quietly. Jack lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah.”
But he doesn’t move, and neither do you. Finally, he says, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
There it is… the unbearable part, because she died instantly—no final words or closure. She was there one second—gone the next.
You press your lips together hard enough that they hurt as you faintly say, “I’m so sorry, Jack.”
He nods once because he’s heard it too many times already. Then his face folds inward suddenly, grief cracking through whatever fragile composure he’s been holding together. You’ve never seen him cry before, not really. Now he looks destroyed by it.
“I keep thinking she’s gonna walk through the door,” he whispers. “I keep forgetting for like… five seconds.”
Your lungs ache so violently that it feels unbearable.
Because despite everything—despite the string and the guilt and all the ways you tried to keep your distance—you love him. And loving someone means you cannot stand there and watch them suffer alone.
Not him.
Never him.
So you stay.
At first casually, then constantly, you start checking on him between shifts. You bring coffee, he forgets to drink, and force him to eat crackers during overnight shifts because grief has hollowed him thin. You sit beside him in the break room when he can’t sleep between traumas.
Some nights he talks, and there are nights he doesn’t. Later on, you learn grief has moods. Some days he’s numb, and some days he’s angry. Or days, a patient wearing the same perfume as his wife nearly sends him spiraling mid-shift. Once, after losing a COVID patient around his wife’s age, Jack locks himself in the stairwell for twenty minutes.
You find him there eventually. Still in PPE with his face shield shoved onto the top of his head, breathing hard like he’s trying not to come apart.
You sit beside him without saying anything. For a long time, neither of you speaks. The stairwell is cold through your scrub pants, concrete hard beneath you. Somewhere beyond the heavy metal door, the hospital keeps moving. Monitors alarming. Phones ringing. Ventilators hissing.
Life continued like his world didn’t just end.
Jack sits one step below you, elbows braced against his knees, surgical cap shoved halfway off his head. His N95 hangs loose around his neck now, leaving angry red pressure marks across his skin. He appears worn out in a manner unrelated to sleep. The type of tiredness that becomes bone-deep.
For a while, all you hear is his controlled breathing, but then, you know, if he lets himself lose control for even a second, he’ll never stop. Then quietly, without looking at you, Jack says, “I don’t know who I am without her.”
You nearly shatter at his confession, because it’s proof he loved her so completely. You saw it every day in small, ordinary ways. In the way his face softened when she walked into the department carrying takeout, or the absent-minded way he leaned toward her without realizing it. In the wedding ring, he twisted whenever he talked about her during quieter shifts. He loved her with the kind of certainty people spend their whole lives searching for, and somehow that only makes you love him more.
You look down at your hands, clasped tightly in your lap.
“At work?” you say softly after a moment. “You’re still Jack.” A weak laugh escapes him, humorless and tired, “Very inspirational speech.”
“I’m serious.”
You glance toward him carefully. Even now, he’s still wearing blood on the sleeve of his isolation gown from the code downstairs. His curls are damp with sweat, exhaustion carved deep into the lines around his eyes.
"When everything hurts," you say carefully, "you don't have to figure out how to survive the next ten years."
Jack finally looks up, with his eyes bloodshot, red-rimmed, and devastatingly tired. "You just find the next thing." His brow furrows slightly as you keep going, "The next cup of coffee that tastes okay."
A faint huff of breath leaves him.
"The next shift." You offer a small smile. "The next stupid joke Shen makes that isn't actually funny."
That earns the ghost of an eye roll—you take it.
"The next hour. The next day." Your throat tightens, but you push through it, "And eventually..." Your voice softens. "Eventually you realize you've made it farther than you thought you could."
Jack stares at you, fully paying attention and listening.
"The pain doesn't disappear," you admit quietly. "Some losses stay with you forever. But one day you wake up, and it isn't the first thing you feel."
The stairwell falls silent again, and you watch as Jack's eyes close briefly as if the possibility of hope hurts. When he opens them again, there's something unbearably raw there—something stripped bare. "You really believe that?" The question comes out almost broken, and you don't hesitate as you reply, "Yes."
Because you have to, for him, for yourself, and for every patient you've ever watched claw their way through impossible things.
"Yes," you repeat softly. Jack studies your face for a long moment—searching for something there. Maybe hope or permission. Or proof that somebody still sees him underneath all the grief. Then he gives one small, fragile nod, because he's trying very hard to believe you, too.
A softer shared silence settles between you again afterward. You remain beside him on the stairwell steps while the hospital hums around you. Two exhausted healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic. One grieving the loss of the love of his life. The other grieving quietly beside him. Then, after a long time, you speak again.
Your voice barely rises above a whisper, "I don't think there's such a thing as a good goodbye." Jack doesn't look away, but you stare at the concrete floor.
"People say it gets easier. That you find closure. That eventually you make peace with it." Your fingers tighten together. "But I think losing someone just becomes part of you. You learn how to carry it." Your throat burns, "There are days when you think you're okay. Days when you laugh and work and breathe normally." You glance toward him. "And then something happens. A song, a smell, maybe a memory.” Blinking back your tears, you revealed, "The grief finds you again."
Jack's eyes shine slightly as you continue softly, "Not because you failed to move on." Your voice wavers. "But because they mattered."
A long silence follows. Then, quietly—"So what am I supposed to do?" When he asks the question, it sounds incredibly trivial.
You look at Jack—at the man who spent years helping everyone else survive. He stayed with frightened soldiers, and loved his wife so completely that even death couldn't erase her from him.
"Keep loving her," you say softly, and Jack's breath catches. "Just don't let her be the reason you stop living, too."
The silence that follows feels sacred, somewhere beneath your sleeve, hidden from the world, the red string wrapped around your wrist aches. Not because it hurts, but because for the first time since she died, you realize you would carry his grief with him for as long as he needed.
Even if he never knew.
2021
YOUR APARTMENT — NIGHT
By late 2021, you recognize the symptoms almost immediately. The exhaustion first. Not normal exhaustion—the kind every ER nurse carries around like a second heartbeat—but something meaner. The sort that becomes deeply ingrained in your bones and wears you out just by standing straight.
Then the fever, then it’s the cough that follows soon after, and the body aches that feel like somebody took a hammer to every joint you have.
You take the rapid test in your bathroom with trembling hands, already knowing what the result will be before the second line even appears.
Positive.
You stare at it for a long moment anyway, “Fuck.”
You’d been vaccinated months ago. Healthcare workers got priority access early on, one of the very few benefits of spending every shift neck-deep in a pandemic. And thank God for that, because without it, you’re almost certain this would’ve landed you intubated in an ICU somewhere.
Still—it hits you hard.
Your immune system has never exactly been reliable. Too many years of stress, skipped meals, night shifts, and pushing yourself past exhaustion had seen to that long before COVID ever existed.
So you quarantine immediately with no qualms or arguments. Immediately, you text Lena and Dana to tell them that you’ve contracted COVID-19. Then you lock yourself inside your apartment and prepare to wait it out.
The loneliness settles in fast after that. The first day isn’t terrible, but the second day is worse. By the third day, you genuinely feel like you’re losing your mind. Your apartment suddenly feels too small and too quiet. Every surface smells faintly of disinfectant and cough drops. Empty Gatorade bottles and medication wrappers clutter your coffee table because you’re too exhausted to clean properly.
You sleep in fragments. Wake up drenched in sweat. Cough until your ribs ache. Then fall asleep again, only to wake up disoriented an hour later. You try texting your family back home once, but hearing your mother’s worried voice over FaceTime nearly makes you cry, so you stop answering calls after that.
You tell everyone you’re fine. You’re not.
One particularly bad night, you sit on the bathroom floor wrapped in a blanket because the cold tiles feel good against your feverish skin, genuinely debating at what oxygen saturation you’d finally call an ambulance.
Ninety-three? Ninety-two?
You know too much…that’s the problem. You’re aware exactly how quickly patients can crash, and what respiratory distress looks like. You know what COVID sounds like when it starts settling deeper into the lungs. And alone in your apartment at two in the morning, feverish and exhausted and struggling not to spiral, you think: If this gets worse, I’m gonna end up at Presby or PTMC.
By day five, your phone is full of unread texts. Lena is checking in, Shen is sending memes, and Ellis is threatening to physically fight you if you don’t hydrate. But then there’s Jack calling twice… then three times.
You don’t answer any of them. Not intentionally. Your brain feels too foggy to function most of the time. Looking at your phone takes effort you barely have energy for. So when there’s suddenly a knock at your apartment door that evening, you frown from beneath your blanket without moving.
Probably the wrong apartment.
Another knock. Then—your real name, muffled through the door in a voice you’d recognize half-asleep.
“Hey.”
Your stomach drops.
No.
Absolutely not.
You push yourself upright too quickly and immediately regret it when dizziness crashes over you. You stumble toward the door anyway, coughing into your elbow before peeking through the peephole.
And there he is.
Jack Abbot. Standing outside your apartment in full PPE. N95. Face shield. Gloves. Isolation gown. Holding a plastic takeout bag in one hand. You stare at him in complete disbelief before yanking yourself back from the door. “Jack?!”
“Oh, good,” his voice comes through the other side, dry with relief. “You’re alive.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” you hiss through the door. “How did you even find where I live?”
“Lena told me… and Dana.”
Traitors.
You lean your forehead briefly against the door, exhausted. “You can’t be here,” you argue weakly. “You could get sick.” Jack snorts softly from the hallway, “Lifeline, we work in an emergency department.”
“That is not comforting!”
“Also,” he continues, ignoring you completely, “is there a reason you’ve been ignoring my texts and calls?”
You close your eyes briefly. Honestly, you hadn’t even realized how many messages you missed.
“Jack—”
“Open the door.”
You blink as you screech, “Are you fucking insane? No.” His voice lowers slightly then, gentler but firmer somehow. “Lifeline.”
Somewhere behind your ribs, the moniker settles heated and perilous.
“Open the door.”
You stare at the wood for a long moment. Then, against every ounce of common sense you possess, you unlock it. The second the door cracks open, Jack’s eyes immediately scan over you clinically. You can practically see the ER doctor in him assessing your flushed skin, fatigue, and mild shortness of breath. The way you’re subtly bracing yourself against the wall to stay upright. In an instant, his face tightens.
"Oh," he murmurs. Somehow, that soft little sound embarrasses you more than if he’d outright said you looked terrible. You cross your arms defensively, “I look worse than I feel.”
“That’s concerning, because you look awful.”
You let out a tired laugh despite yourself, immediately coughing afterward. Jack’s eyes narrow behind the face shield, “How high’s the fever?”
“It’s fine.”
“Temperature.”
“One-oh-one earlier.”
“And oxygen?”
You hesitate half a second too long, and Jack notices immediately, “Lifeline.”
“Ninety-four. I’ve been checking my Apple Watch.”
His jaw tightens, “Okay.”
You step aside reluctantly. “There’s hand sanitizer and ethyl alcohol everywhere. I’ve been disinfecting the place whenever I can.”
Jack walks inside carefully, setting the takeout bag down near the kitchen counter. Your apartment suddenly feels unbearably small with him standing in it. Messy blankets on the couch. Medications scattered across the coffee table. Laundry you’ve been too sick to fold. You suddenly want the earth to swallow you whole. “Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s kind of a disaster.”
Jack glances around once before looking back at you. “I’ve seen residents cry over missing lab results. This is nothing.” That earns another weak laugh out of you while he pulls out one of the dining chairs and gestures toward it, “Sit down before you fall down.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You almost passed out opening the door.”
Rude.
You sit anyway because standing suddenly feels impossible, and Jack immediately starts fussing. Taking your temperature again. Checking your pulse ox. Asking when you last ate.
In a manner that hurts your core, it's somehow intimate. After observing him in silence for a while, you gently inquire, "Why are you here?"
Jack pauses before he shrugs one shoulder like the answer should be obvious. “Because I know you.”
“You don’t have family here,” he continues quietly. “No roommates. No neighbors you’re close enough with to help if things go bad.” He leans back slightly in the chair across from you.
“You moved halfway across the world by yourself,” he says. “So yeah. I came to do a welfare check.” Something warm and painful twists in your chest all at once, so you try covering it with humor. “Am I that unlucky or just that special?”
Jack looks at you for a long moment. Then, softly, he replies, “Just that special.” The room goes very still while your pulse stutters painfully against your ribs. Jack clears his throat first, looking away. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
He gives you a tired, unimpressed look immediately, “Don’t start with me.” You sigh, shoulders slumping. “I feel…” You swallow hard. “Honestly? Like I got hit by a truck.”
Jack nods once like he expected that answer. “My chest hurts when I cough,” you admit quietly. “And I’m exhausted all the time. Walking to the bathroom feels like running a 10k.”
Jack’s expression softens instantly to concern. “Okay,” he says gently. “That sounds about right for breakthrough COVID.”
You laugh weakly, “Reassuring.”
“You’re vaccinated. Your sats are holding. Fever sucks, but you’re stable.” His voice shifts into that calm doctor cadence you’ve heard him use with terrified patients a hundred times before.
“You’re gonna feel miserable for a little while,” he says softly. “But you’re not dying.”
The ridiculous thing is—you believe him immediately. Maybe because it’s Jack, he always sounds certain even when the world is falling apart. Or maybe because after spending almost a week alone in your apartment feeling terrified and sick and invisible—having somebody show up for you feels dangerously close to relief.
Somewhere beneath the fever and exhaustion and the red string hidden under your sleeve, you realize this is the first time since his wife died that Jack has willingly stepped into somebody else’s home again.
The thought nearly breaks your heart.
Grief has a way of shrinking people's worlds—you'd watched it happen to Jack in real time. After his wife died, he stopped inviting people over. Stopped talking about home or lingering after conversations that might eventually end with someone asking how he was doing outside of work. The walls had gone up slowly. Brick by brick. Most people probably never noticed, but you did. Yet here he is, standing in your cluttered apartment with a stethoscope in one hand and a grocery bag full of electrolyte drinks in the other.
"Drink."
You stare at the bottle he shoves toward you, "You're very bossy outside the hospital."
"Drink." He insists.
"Is this because I ignored your texts?"Jack gives you a look, the one he usually reserves for patients actively making terrible decisions. "Partly."
You sigh dramatically and take the bottle, "Happy?"
"No."
That catches your attention. You look up, and Jack is standing near the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest. The concern on his face isn't hidden anymore. Hasn't been since he walked through the door. "You should've told somebody you were this sick." Your laugh comes out hoarse, "I did."
"No." Jack shakes his head, "You told people you were fine."
"...I was trying not to worry anyone."
"You had a one-oh-one fever and couldn't walk to your bathroom without getting winded."
You look away because when he says it like that, it sounds bad. "It sounds worse when you say it."
"That's because it is worse."
You can't help smiling, but that only seems to annoy him more.
"Why are you smiling?"
"You care."
Jack stares and then immediately looks away. Your fever-addled brain doesn't miss the faint flush creeping up his neck. "Of course I care."
The answer comes too naturally, and for some reason, that makes something warm settle beneath your body. The television murmurs faintly in the background, forgotten as Jack eventually disappears into your kitchen. You hear cabinets opening and then closing. A frustrated sigh leaves him, "How do you have absolutely no food?"
"I have food."
"You have soy sauce and olive oil."
"That's food-adjacent."
Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. "You work in healthcare."
"So do you."
"I know."
"Have you seen what doctors eat?"
He points at you from across the room, "Deflection."
You grin while Jack shakes his head again, but he opens the takeout containers anyway and pours you soup. Then make sure you actually eat it and wait until you're halfway through before finally sitting down. The quiet and unexpected realization sneaks up on him that somehow—he likes taking care of you. Because it shouldn't feel this good. It shouldn't feel this natural to be here. To fuss over your fever, refill your water glass, and check your pulse ox every twenty minutes because he doesn't trust you not to lie about your symptoms.
Yet every time he glances up and sees you curled beneath a blanket on the couch, alive and stubborn and complaining—something in his heart eases. The same feeling he gets when a trauma patient finally stabilizes. When someone he was worried about turns out okay. Only different. This time, it’s more personal and complicated.
You cough suddenly, and Jack is moving before he even realizes it, quickly handing you water. Waiting until the coughing fit passes. Your eyes lift toward him over the rim of the glass. It’s soft and sleepy. "Thank you." Your words are quiet and sincere.
And God help him—that does something to him. Something he doesn't examine too closely.
Because if he does—he might have to ask himself questions he's not ready to answer. Questions like why spending an afternoon taking care of you feels better than spending it anywhere else, or why your apartment already feels strangely familiar. Why did the idea of you being here alone all week bother him so much?
Instead, he focuses on something safer—annoyance. "You know," he says, sitting back in his chair, "your soulmate's doing a terrible job."
You blink at that, frowning, "What?" Jack shrugs, "If they're out there somewhere, they're slacking." A surprised laugh escapes you. "What does that even mean?"
"It means," he says, gesturing vaguely toward your blanket burrito state, "you're sick. Alone. Living on cough drops and spite."
"I had soup."
"You had olive oil."
"That was one time."
Jack rolls his eyes, "My point stands." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "They should've shown up by now." The joke is spoken carelessly, and he doesn't know it nearly stops your heart.
You look away first, toward the rain-streaked window, literally anywhere but him. Because if you look at Jack right now—if you look at the man sitting in your apartment, taking care of you, worrying over you, complaining about a soulmate who never appeared—you might break.
The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly burdensome. But Jack doesn't notice, he's too busy opening another bottle of water and making sure your fever isn't climbing again. Somewhere in the quiet warmth of your apartment, he doesn’t realize the irony. Jack is sitting exactly where he should be. Doing exactly what he was supposed to do, and somehow, he can’t see it yet.
2023
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
Five years ago, you were the new nurse from the Philippines. Now you're simply part of the Pitt. Nobody really introduces you anymore. You're just there, part of the machinery. You know where everything is and everyone's habits. Or when Ellis is pretending to chart and is actually looking for the next best place to nap for her double. You know when Shen is about to spiral before he even realizes it himself. By now, you have memorized Lena's "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed" face is significantly more terrifying than actual anger.
Somewhere along the way—you became one of the safest places in Jack's life. Neither of you meant for that to happen.
It just did.
There are hundreds of tiny moments, none of which seem important on their own. But together, they're devastating. A patient's husband is screaming in the hallway after a failed resuscitation. Security is trying to de-escalate, family members are crying, and the entire department feels tense. Then, appearing devastated, Jack leaves the room but not in a noticeable way. Most people wouldn't recognize it, but you do.
You don't say anything; instead, you simply hand him a cup of coffee. Exactly how he takes it. He looks down at it, then at you. "Mind reader?" You shrug, "You looked like you needed caffeine." The corner of his mouth twitches, "Thanks."
Somehow, that small smile stays with him the rest of the shift.
Another night, it’s three in the morning. Everyone's fucking exhausted. You're sitting on the floor of the supply room because it's the only place nobody can find you for five minutes. Jack opens the door and stops. He finds you sitting there cross-legged, eating stale vending machine pretzels. "You hiding?"
"No."
"You are literally hiding."
You hold up a pretzel, defensive, "This is self-care." Jack stares at you, then, to your horror, he sits beside you on the floor. Like it's completely normal. "You know we're adults, right?" he asks.
"Says the man eating peanut butter crackers for dinner." Jack looks offended; he scoffs, "I had a protein bar." You roll your eyes at that, "Oh. Well, that's different."
His laugh echoes through the tiny room. It’s warm and unrestrained. The sound settles somewhere dangerous inside your chest. Then the days keep passing by, and then the days turn into months, then it’s another shift, another trauma.
Another impossible night.
A frightened little girl refuses to let go of your hand while waiting for stitches. You're sitting beside her bed, explaining every step of the procedure. Making balloon animals out of gloves while telling ridiculous stories.
By the time you're finished, she's laughing. You don't notice Jack standing in the doorway watching or the expression on his face either. The one that lingers long after he walks away. Because somewhere over the years, admiration has quietly become affection.
Affection has started becoming something else—something he doesn't have a name for yet. Jack's issue is that he doesn't immediately feel things. Without thinking, he simply begins searching for you first.
A difficult trauma comes in? His eyes automatically find yours. A bad shift? He looks for you at Central. A joke occurs to him? He wants to tell you. A patient reminds him of something sad? Somehow, you're the person he ends up talking to.
It happens gradually enough that neither of you notices.
Until everyone else does.
"You know Abbot's gonna have a breakdown if Lifeline ever leaves, right?" Ellis says it casually while charting. You nearly choke on your coffee, "What?" Across the desk, Shen immediately nods. "Oh, absolutely."
"Parker."
"I'm serious."
You point threateningly, "Stop." Parker raises both hands. "Hey, I don't make the rules."
You refuse to acknowledge the strange warmth crawling up your neck. Because if you acknowledge it—you'll have to acknowledge the way your heart still skips whenever Jack smiles at you. After all these years, that feels pathetic.
2024
PTMC, MAIN ENTRANCE — DAY
The rain starts sometime around six in the morning. Not a drizzle—a proper Pittsburgh downpour. The kind that turns streets silver and pounds against windows hard enough to drown out conversation.
After twelve hours of chaos, the entire department begins filtering out toward the parking garage and bus stops. You finally clock out around seven—exhausted and half-awake, absolutely ready for sleep.
When you step outside, you immediately spot Jack standing beneath the small emergency department awning.
Watching the rain… alone with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. Looking at him, you pause, "You're still here?"
Jack glances over, "My car's in the shop."
That explains it.
"How'd you get here?"
"Rideshare."
You look out toward the street, and the rain is somehow worse now. Jack follows your gaze, "Trying to decide how miserable walking home is gonna be." You glance over, "What happened to your ride?"
Jack lets out a tired breath, "Canceled."
"What?"
"Driver got stuck downtown." You wince at that, and he pulls his phone from his pocket and turns the screen toward you. The rideshare app is a disaster—surge pricing, long wait times. One estimate says thirty-eight minutes, while another says unavailable. Apparently, every exhausted healthcare worker in Pittsburgh had the same idea after shift. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Yeah." Jack stuffs his phone away again. "I've been refreshing it for ten minutes."
You look back toward the rain, then down at the umbrella dangling from your wrist, and then back at him. You ask, "No umbrella?"
"Nope."
You stare at him, then at the rain… and then at the very obvious lack of any workable plan. So, without thinking twice, you hold the umbrella out. Jack blinks, looks at the umbrella, and then at you. Then back at the umbrella. It's baby pink and covered in tiny Miffy rabbits. The ears are even printed around the trim—the thing looks aggressively cheerful.
"You serious?"
"Very."
A laugh escapes him, a real one. Low and surprised and completely unguarded. It's probably the first genuine laugh you've heard from him all shift, maybe longer. You feel absurdly proud of yourself as you snort, "Sorry about the color."
Jack studies the umbrella again, "I think I'll survive."
"You sure? Might destroy your reputation."
"My reputation was already questionable."
"Fair."
You press the handle into his hand without hesitation, because that's just who you are. Someone needs help, so you help; it's that simple. Jack looks genuinely baffled. "Wait."
You pause.
"What about you?" He asks, concerned. You shrug. The rain is cold, and the morning is gray. You've worked twelve hours, and your back hurts, along with your feet. But somehow none of that feels important. "I live closer than you do."
"Lifeline."
"Jack."
"You'll get soaked."
You smile, bright and softly. The same smile you've given frightened patients, overwhelmed residents, and grieving family members. You shrug, "It's rain."
His brow furrows, "You say that like hypothermia isn't a thing." You laugh at that, "I'm from the Philippines. Rain and I have a long-standing relationship."
"That's not remotely reassuring."
"It shouldn't be."
Jack shakes his head, but he's smiling now, which gives you a bit of peace. His eyes linger on you a second too long. Or maybe you're imagining it. You probably are—you usually are. Then you add quietly, "Besides, sometimes life is easier when you stop trying to avoid every uncomfortable thing."
Jack's expression softens, and you glance toward the rain. "Sometimes you just accept you're gonna get soaked and go home anyway." Neither of you says anything for a little bit. Because you both know that your words aren't really about the rain, neither of you acknowledges it. A laugh escapes him again, and he shakes his head, "You always have an answer for everything."
"No." You step backward toward the edge of the awning, and the cold rain immediately spatters against your scrub pants while you grin. "You just have to trust you'll be okay once you get there."
That gets another laugh out of him, the kind that reaches his eyes. You would do almost anything to keep hearing that sound. The umbrella remains clutched in his hand. Pink, ridiculous, and entirely yours. But for some reason, he can't stop staring at it. Or at you, standing in the rain, completely unapologetically yourself. No performance or hidden agenda. Only your kindness offered freely, as if giving away the only thing keeping you dry is the most natural decision in the world.
The thing is—Jack has spent years watching people take. Watching grief take, life and death take. And you...You are always giving… your time, your patience, and your terrible vending machine snacks. Your heart, if someone needed it badly enough. Now, it’s your umbrella.
Something warm twists unexpectedly inside of him, and he feels tingling all over his skin, as well as his mouth begins to dry. You lift a hand in farewell, "See you tomorrow, Dr. Abbot."
Then you turn and jog into the rain, water immediately drenches your hair, and you laugh when your shoe splashes into a puddle. You keep running anyway. While Jack just stands there—watching, until you disappear around the corner. Long after you're gone, he remains beneath the awning with your pink umbrella still hanging from his hand.
The rideshare app was forgotten entirely, and the rain pounded against the pavement as the morning traffic crawled by. For the first time in a very long time—the thought of going home doesn't feel quite as lonely. He looks down at the ridiculous little umbrella again. Then, despite himself, he smiles. Because somehow the damn thing feels exactly like you.
2025
NIGHTCLUB, PITTSBURGH — NIGHT
The music is loud enough to vibrate through your ribs. Honestly, you're having fun, a rare occurrence these days. Between night shifts and overtime and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life outside of the Pitt, opportunities to be a normal twenty-something are increasingly rare.
So when a few friends invited you out, you said yes. You danced, drank, and laughed. You let yourself forget about work for a few hours, and somewhere between your second drink and the realization that your feet hurt, you discovered a very important problem.
Your apartment keys were gone—completely vanished, you checked your purse three times. Your jacket pockets twice, then the bathroom counter, next the bar, and still nothing. Which is how you found yourself sitting in a booth near the back of the club with your phone pressed to your ear.
Waiting for Jack to answer.
He picks up on the second ring, "Everything okay?" You immediately relax, which is probably a problem. "Maybe."
Jack sighs, the sound of a man who has known you far too long, "What happened?" You look mournfully into your drink, "I lost my keys." A pause on the other end, and then, "You what?"
"They're gone."
"Lifeline."
"They disappeared."
"Keys don't disappear."
"They absolutely do."
The music swells around you, and someone screams happily near the dance floor. Through the phone, Jack suddenly goes quiet. He asks, "Where are you?"
You blink, "Huh?"
"Where are you?"
You frown, then glance up at the neon sign hanging over the bar, "Oh." You tell him the club's name. The silence on the other end lasts approximately two seconds before you hear him ask, "How are you getting home?"
You wave a hand vaguely despite the fact he can't see you, "M'gonna Uber." The words come out more slurred than intended. Silence... a long silence, then you hear him sigh, "Jesus Christ."
"It’s not that bad—"
"No."
You open your mouth to argue, but Jack beats you to it. "I'm picking you up." You immediately sober, exclaiming, "What?"
"Do not leave with anybody."
"Jack—"
"Do not get into a stranger's car."
"That's literally what Uber is." You throw back in response.
"Lifeline." The warning in his voice makes you sit up straighter. "I'm serious. Stay where you are."
"Jack—"
"I'm already grabbing my keys."
Your stomach flips unexpectedly as you point out, "You're working tomorrow."
"So are you."
"Jack."
His voice drops lower, gentler as he begs, "Please." And that ends the argument before it starts. You stare at your drink and reluctantly reply, "...Okay."
"Good." A beat and then you hear, "Don't hang up."
Twenty-five minutes later, Jack walks into the club and promptly forgets how to breathe, because he has never seen you like this before. At work, you're always in scrubs, with your hair pulled back, minimal makeup, and practical shoes.
Tonight—tonight you look nothing like the nurse who steals his coffee and argues with surgeons. Your hair is down, and your makeup catches the flashing lights every time you move. The outfit you're wearing should probably be illegal—at least that's what his traitorous brain immediately decides. Far too much skin and too beautiful—too distracting.
Jack stares for half a second too long, but then immediately hates himself for it. Because he's Jack and you're you. You're his friend, and he's forty-something years old and should absolutely know better. But the sudden realization that other people are staring at you, too, fills him with an entirely unreasonable amount of irritation. There are multiple reasons he hates that realization—none of them are good. You spot him immediately, and relief floods your face, "Jack!"
Somehow that's worse—because you're happy to see him, you always are. Jack pushes through the crowd toward your booth. He asks, "You okay?"
You grin, a little tipsy and a little tired, "Hi."
"That's not an answer."
"I lost my keys."
"You mentioned."
You immediately point at him, "I looked."
"I believe you."
"I looked everywhere."
Jack softens despite himself, "I know."
Just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The amount of trust you've placed in him over the years—it sneaks up on him sometimes, along with the amount he's placed in you. Neither of you ever talks about it—it's just simply there.
"Where are your friends?"
You blink.
"Oh."
You glance toward the dance floor, where your group has completely disappeared into the crowd. One of them is standing on a platform dancing with a stranger. Another appears to be attempting karaoke despite there being no karaoke machine. Honestly, nobody looks remotely concerned about your whereabouts. You point vaguely, "Over there." Jack follows your finger, and immediately regrets it. "Jesus."
You laugh, "They're having fun."
"They look like a liability."
"They are." A pause, then you smile warmly at him. The kind of smile that's become increasingly difficult for him to ignore lately.
"You ready to head home?" The question comes out gentler than he intended. Your expression softens immediately. "Mhm."
There’s no argument because the answer was always going to be yes. After all, it's him asking. Something in Jack's chest tightens unexpectedly. You climb out of the booth and wobble slightly when your heel catches on the edge of the floor. His hand is on your elbow before either of you thinks about it. It’s steady and instinctive—the contact lasts barely a second, but you both notice. Your eyes flick down to his hand, then back up to his face. Neither of you says anything, and Jack clears his throat first before he lets go, "You good?"
You nod immediately, "Mhm. Yep." Then point at him. "I need to go tell them I'm not being kidnapped by you."
The laugh that escapes him is helpless, "You go do that."
You grin, "Okay.” Before turning toward the dance floor, you lightly tap his arm. It’s a small gesture, mindless and affectionate. The kind of touch friends make without thinking. Yet Jack feels it long after you've disappeared into the crowd. He watches you weave through the dancers. Watch you throw your arms around one of your friends.
You laugh at something that makes your whole face light up, and standing there in the middle of a crowded nightclub, surrounded by strangers and flashing lights and music loud enough to shake the floor—Jack suddenly realizes he's smiling. He's smiling because you're happy and somewhere deep down, in a place he has been carefully avoiding for a very long time—he knows that's becoming a problem.
You weave your way through the crowd, dodging dancers and spilled drinks, until you finally find your friends near the center of the dance floor. One of them immediately grabs your arm, "There you are!" You laugh, "Apparently, I'm leaving."
"What?" another groans theatrically. "Already?"
You point toward the edge of the club—toward Jack. Standing near the entrance with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, waiting. The second your friends spot him, several heads swivel at once. Then all of them turn suspiciously slowly back toward you.
"Ohhh."
You immediately know that tone, you shake your head, "No."
"That's the doctor."
"No."
"The hot doctor."
You cover your face, "Oh my God." One of them leans closer, asking, "Is he your boyfriend?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Very."
"Because he definitely looks like he's here to pick up his girlfriend." Heat floods your face instantly, "No, he does not."
Across the room, Jack glances over, as if sensing he's being talked about. But when he spots you, his expression visibly relaxes. And unfortunately, your friends see that too. "Oh my God."
You groan, "Stop."
"He likes you."
"He does not."
"He drove here to rescue you from yourself."
"That's called friendship."
"That's called middle-aged pining." You nearly choke, "Please never say those words again."
Laughter follows you all the way back toward the entrance, and Jack looks mildly concerned the closer you get. "You okay?"
"Apparently not."
He narrows his eyes at your response, "What happened?"
"My friends are terrible people."
"Fair."
You point at him, "Don't encourage them."
"I'm not encouraging anybody."
"Liar."
The corner of his mouth twitches, and just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The simple fact that he's here has solved half the problem already. Then you take two steps toward the exit, but Jack is moving before he even thinks about it. One hand catches your elbow, and the other settles briefly at your waist, steadying you. The contact is innocent, but your breath catches anyway. It’s practical and necessary, at least that's what both of you tell yourselves.
"Whoa there." Jack says, and you blink up at him, then immediately start laughing, "I think the floor moved."
"The floor did not move."
"It absolutely moved."
"Lifeline."
"I'm just saying." Jack shakes his head, and his hand doesn't immediately leave your waist. Neither of you seems to notice. Or maybe both of you notice too much. "Come on."
You allow him to guide you outside, and the cool night air hits immediately. Rain lingers on the pavement, turning the streets into rivers of reflected neon. You inhale deeply, then sway again. Jack catches you before it becomes a problem. His hand settles more firmly against your side this time, and your body immediately relaxes into the contact like it's familiar.
Jack notices that too. "You good?" He asked, and you nod, "Mhm." A beat, and then you add, "The ground's still suspicious."
That earns a real laugh out of him, and you love that sound.
The parking lot isn't far, but Jack keeps his hand on your waist the entire walk there. Just in case… well, at least that's what he tells himself. Not because he likes the feeling of you beside him or how perfectly you fit there.
Just in case. That's all…. at least for tonight.
Jack sighs. The long-suffering sigh of a man who spends his life dealing with stubborn people. "Come on."
You allow him to guide you… well. at least until you nearly walk directly into a group of people entering the club. Jack catches your shoulder and redirects you gently, "Okay."
"What?"
His hand settles more firmly against your back, "Maybe we're graduating from independent walking." You gasp dramatically, "I am fully capable." But your words come out slightly slurred.
Jack raises an eyebrow, "You just tried to walk through three people."
"They were in my way."
A laugh escapes him. God. You're something truly special.
Now he has a new problem. Namely, getting you safely into his truck before you attempt something stupid.
The passenger-side door swings open, and you stare at it, then back at the seat. Jack immediately knows what's happening. "Need help?"
"No." A pause as you squint at the truck suspiciously. "Maybe."
"It's higher than it looked five seconds ago, isn't it?"
"It definitely wasn't this tall before."
Jack bites the inside of his cheek, hard, trying not to laugh.
"Okay."
Before you can protest, his firm hands settle at your waist, and suddenly you're being lifted just enough to get into the passenger seat. The whole thing takes maybe two seconds, except neither of you feels normal afterward. You freeze, and Jack also freezes. His hands are still on your waist, and you're looking directly at each other—far too close.
For a brief, dangerous moment, neither of you moves. Then Jack clears his throat, immediately stepping back. "Seatbelt."
Your brain takes several seconds to reboot, "What?"
"Seatbelt."
"Oh."
Of course, duh. You fumble with it and miss the buckle twice before Jack reaches over and clicks it into place. His face is suddenly very near again. Near enough to see the tiny scar near his jaw, and that your heart starts doing things it absolutely should not be doing. "There." His voice comes out lower than usual. You swallow, "Thanks."
Neither of you acknowledges how strange the moment felt and the warmth lingering where his hands had been. Or the way Jack has to grip the steering wheel a little tighter once he's behind it. Because some things are easier left alone. At least for now.
JACK ABBOT’S APARTMENT — NIGHT
The drive back to your apartment is quieter than the nightclub. The city has settled into that strange hour between night and morning, when the roads are mostly empty, and the traffic lights seem to change for no one. Rain taps softly against the windshield as Jack drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift. You are attempting to stay awake. Attempting being the important word here. Every few minutes, your head tips toward the window before jerking upright again.
Jack notices every single time, "You can sleep."
"I'm not sleeping."
"You were asleep thirty seconds ago."
"I was thinking."
"You were drooling."
You gasp in offense, and Jack doesn't even look at you as he commands, "Go to sleep."
"You're mean." A laugh escapes him at your comment. He realizes that he’s been doing it a lot when he’s around you.
By the time you arrive at your apartment, you’re humming a song, trying to stay awake. Then Jack pats his pocket, and freezes when he realizes, "...Shit."
You blink, "What?" He closes his eyes, "I forgot your spare key." You stare, then immediately start laughing.
Jack groans, "Oh my God."
"You drove all the way there."
“Don’t.”
"You forgot the whole reason you picked me up."
"Don't."
Your laughter gets worse, and for the first time in years, Jack lets out a full belly laugh too. He begins to drive to his apartment, and since it’s late, he offers for you to crash at his place.
By the time he pulls into his apartment complex, you're visibly losing the fight against exhaustion and alcohol—mostly alcohol. The second you step through the front door, you kick your heels off exaggeratedly. One lands near the couch, and the other somehow ends up halfway down the hallway. Jack silently watches this happen. Then watches you attempt to unbuckle whatever complicated contraption is keeping your outfit together. "Okay," he says immediately.
"What?"
"Maybe let's not do that."
You frown at him, "Why?"
Because you're drunk—very drunk, and apparently completely unaware that you're standing in the middle of his apartment trying to peel yourself out of an outfit that has occupied far too much of his attention already. Jack suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating, the wall too. Actually, maybe the floor. Anywhere except you.
"Because," he says carefully, "you need pajamas."
"Oh." You consider this, then nod solemnly. "Pajamas are smart."
"Thank you."
"I am smart."
"You are." He nods, and you point at him, "I knew you'd agree."
Jack presses his lips together. God help him. Somehow, over the years, you've become one of his favorite people. A few minutes later, after much negotiation and several failed attempts to convince you that sleeping in sequins is a terrible idea, Jack disappears into his bedroom closet. He returns holding an old Army shirt—worn soft with age, the fabric faded from years of washing, along with a pair of boxers. You stare, then grin. "These yours?" Jack immediately regrets everything, "Yes."
"Cool."
Then, before he can stop you—you start changing.
"Jesus Christ."
You blink, "What?"
Jack is staring firmly at the opposite wall. "You could've warned me."
"Why?"
Because you're still drunk enough that embarrassment hasn't caught up with you yet. Meanwhile, Jack is discovering entirely new levels of self-control.
"Bathroom," he says.
"Right." You pause, then gesture wildly. "The bathroom."
"Correct."
Five minutes later, you emerge wearing the oversized shirt. The hem brushes your thighs while sleeves hang past your hands. The sight nearly kills him, because you look comfortable—like you belong here. Which is a thought he immediately shoves into a locked box and throws into the ocean. Nope. Not touching that. Absolutely not. That’s reserved for a future therapy session. Boy, is his therapist going to love that.
"Sit."
You immediately sit on the edge of his bed.
"Drink."
You obediently accept the water bottle, and Jack blinks, "That's new."
"What?"
"You listened."
You point at him, "You're bossy."
"Drink the water."
You drink the water, then he hands you a spare toothbrush and makes sure you actually use it. Then spends several minutes making certain you don't accidentally fall asleep face-first into the sink. By the time he's satisfied you're hydrated and functional enough not to accidentally die overnight, you're sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed, wrapped in one of his old shirts and looking increasingly sleepy.
You dig through your purse. "There are makeup wipes in here."
Jack pauses, asks, "You carry those around?"
"My eyeliner smudges." You shrug. "My mascara too."
Jack shakes his head, "Prepared for everything."
"It's literally why we carry purses."
"Pretty sure that's not why."
"It absolutely is."
He finds the packet eventually and pulls one free, then gestures to you, "Come here." You blink, dazed, "What?"
"Your mascara's halfway down your face."
Well, that’s fucking mortifying—immediately you cover your face, "Oh my God." Jack laughs softly; the sound is low and warm. "You're fine."
"No, I'm not."
"You really are."
Gently, he pulls your hand away and carefully brushes the wipe across your cheek. His touch is light, patient, and unhurried. The same hands that place chest tubes and suture wounds and perform procedures under pressure somehow become impossibly gentle. They always do around people he cares about. You go strangely still, and the room suddenly feels too quiet and small. Jack is close enough that the details become impossible to ignore. The silver was woven through his hair. The exhaustion that never quite leaves his eyes. The traces of loss he carries with him even now. And still, despite all of it—or maybe because of it—he remains devastatingly, painfully beautiful.
"You've done this before." The words leave your mouth before you can stop them.
Jack's hand stills briefly, then resumes. "Mmm." His voice is soft, a little distant. "She hated taking her makeup off."
The ache arrives instantly—it’s deep and familiar.
"She'd fall asleep on the couch." A small smile touches his mouth. "Every time." His gaze drops to the wipe in his hand, "Eventually, it was easier to do it myself."
A tender silence settles over the room, and suddenly your eyes sting. Because even now—all these years later—he still misses her. Of course he does, he always will.
"Jack." He looks up, and you swallow hard. "I'm sorry."
His hand pauses, and he asks, "For what?"
Your throat tightens painfully, "I know you miss her." The words come out small, but completely honest, and are barely above a whisper. Jack looks at you, and what he sees nearly unravels him. Because you're crying for him—not for yourself, or because you're drunk. You're crying because his pain hurts you. Because somehow you've always carried pieces of everyone else's heartbreak as if it belongs to you too.
A tear slips down your cheek, and before you can wipe it away, Jack reaches up, his thumb tenderly brushes gently across your skin.
The touch lingers slightly.
"Hey." His voice is impossibly soft, "Don't cry, honey."
The endearment slips out before he can stop it. The second it does, the room changes. Your breath catches, and Jack freezes. Neither of you moves. For one suspended second, the entire world narrows to that single point of contact. His hand against your cheek, your eyes locked on his. The silence between you is suddenly filled with things neither of you knows how to say. Then Jack does the only thing he can think of—he opens his arms, and you go willingly. The hug is immediate, warm, and safe. Your forehead presses against his shoulder, and his strong arms wrap around you while you melt into him without hesitation. Trusting him completely, the way you always have. Fuck—that might be the most dangerous thing of all. For a moment, neither of you lets go, because none of you wants to. Jack can feel your heartbeat through the thin cotton of his shirt and feel your breathing gradually slowing. He can feel himself becoming far too aware of how perfectly you fit against him.
He closes his eyes for a second.
A mistake.
Because the truth waits for him there—the truth that somewhere along the way, you stopped being just his friend and just his favorite nurse. Stopped being just the person he trusted most and became something he doesn't know what to do with.
Eventually, your breathing evens out. Then slows….then slows again. Jack glances down and realizes you've fallen asleep curled against him. Carefully, he shifts and lowers you onto the bed, pulls the blanket over you, and tucks it beneath your shoulder. The motion is automatic, and for a moment, guilt rises sharp and sudden. Not because you remind him of his late wife. You don't, and you never have. You never will. But somehow that realization doesn't hurt. It simply feels true. You are different—entirely your own person. Entirely your own place in his life. Jack stands there for a long moment, watching you sleep peacefully. Then quietly, he reaches for his crutches resting beside the nightstand.
The apartment is dark now, silent, as he pauses at the doorway, looks back one last time, at you sleeping in his bed. Wrapped in his shirt, breathing softly against his pillow, and despite every effort not to—Jack smiles. Then he switches off the light and heads toward the couch. Completely unaware that he's already fallen far deeper than he ever intended to.
JACK ABBOT'S APARTMENT — MORNING
The first thing you notice when you wake up is that you're comfortable. Suspiciously comfortable. Wrapped in sheets that smell faintly of clean laundry and something familiar you can't quite place. For a few blissful seconds, you remain exactly where you are, half-buried beneath the blankets, eyes still closed. Then your brain starts working slowly… like an old computer booting up. Your mouth is dry, your head hurts, and you have absolutely no idea where the hell you are.
You crack one eye open, and a ceiling you don't recognize stares back. Your stomach immediately drops. "Oh no."
Then the memories start returning. The nightclub, losing your keys, calling Jack… Jack picking you up. The drive to his apartment, the makeup wipes, and the hug. Oh God. The hug.
Your eyes fly open, fully awake now. Mortification floods your entire body with terrifying speed. "No, no, no, no..."
You immediately bury your face in your hands. Maybe if you stay here long enough, you'll evaporate, and the earth will open up and swallow you whole. Maybe cardiac arrest—you'd accept cardiac arrest. Slowly, you peek out from between your fingers, and a glass of water sits on the nightstand. Beside it is a bottle of ibuprofen and a neatly folded note in Jack's handwriting.
Drink water before standing up.
Your heart does something deeply unhelpful as you groan, "Oh, my God."
Because that's such a Jack thing to do, he’s practical, thoughtful, and annoyingly sweet. You whimper and flop backward onto the pillow.
Unfortunately, reality remains—and reality is that you are currently in Jack Abbot's bed. His bed—his actual bed, the place where he sleeps. The place where—You immediately shove that thought into a dumpster and set it on fire. Nope. Absolutely not. Not going there.
You drag yourself upright before your imagination can make things worse. The oversized Army shirt hanging off your shoulders shifts as you move. Your eyes immediately drop. Jack's shirt. You are wearing Jack's shirt. You consider throwing yourself out of the nearest window.
The bathroom is somehow worse. Because now you're sober, fully sober. Which means you remember everything… mostly. You splash cold water onto your face repeatedly. Trying to wash away the embarrassment and the memory of crying. The image of him calling you honey and you falling asleep against him.
"Oh, I'm never recovering from this." You groan into the sink before you force yourself to look in the mirror. You survive trauma shifts and twelve-hour nights. You went through fucking COVID. So… you can survive breakfast. Probably.
After one final pep talk that accomplishes absolutely nothing, you step out of the bathroom and immediately stop. A framed photograph sits atop the dresser, Jack and his wife, both smiling. The picture looks old, well-loved, the edges slightly worn. Guilt arrives like a punch to the ribs. Because no matter how much time has passed, she's still here. In photographs, memories, and the quiet spaces, he doesn't talk about. You stare at the picture for a moment longer, then look away. The guilt lingers anyway.
The smell hits you before you reach the living room. Coffee, eggs, and toast, along with something frying in a pan. Your stomach growls traitorously, then you turn the corner, and nearly walk directly into a wall. Because Jack is standing at the stove, shirtless. You stop functioning completely. Gone. No thoughts. Head empty. Just panic. Because somehow, in all the years you've known him, you've never actually seen him like this.
At work, he's always covered by scrubs, layers, a jacket, and PPE. Now—now he's standing barefoot in his kitchen wearing nothing but athletic shorts and his prosthetic. Morning sunlight spills through the apartment windows. Across broad shoulders, freckled skin, and muscle earned through years of physical therapy, stubbornness, and sheer determination. The prosthetic is already attached as part of him, as familiar and unremarkable as breathing. You know the story and what happened, and understand now the work it takes to live with it.
Still—seeing him outside the hospital feels strangely intimate, and very human. Your jaw nearly hits the floor as Jack turns. He immediately catches your expression, and to his eternal satisfaction, you look horrified. Not by him, but by being caught staring. His mouth twitches, "Morning."
You blink once, then twice, and you begin rapidly looking anywhere else.
"Morning." Your voice cracks. Well, that’s spectacular. Jack's eyebrow rises, "Rough landing?" You clear your throat. "Oh, absolutely."
His smile grows slightly. "There are worse hangovers."
"Don't."
"You called me at midnight because you lost your keys."
"Jack."
"You accused the floor of moving."
"Jack."
"You tried to negotiate with a coat rack."
Your eyes widen as you sputter, "I did not."
"You absolutely did."
"Oh my fucking God."
Jack laughs—there it is again, a little lighter than it used to be. "Come eat." You hesitate, still standing awkwardly in his shirt, and painfully aware you're in his apartment—his space. Then Jack glances over his shoulder, "You need food before your headache gets worse."
There it is. His doctor voice—the one that brooks absolutely no argument. You sigh dramatically and obey. Because apparently that's become a habit. Jack places a plate in front of you. Eggs, toast, fruit, and a giant glass of water.
You stare, and then at him, then back at the plate, "You made breakfast."
"You sound surprised."
"You made breakfast."
"You were hungover." You blink because he says it so simply, as if taking care of you is the most natural thing in the world, and maybe that's what gets you. It's how easy it seems for him—the quiet way he shows up. Again, and again. So instead of saying any of that, you pick up a piece of toast. "Thanks." Jack glances up from his coffee, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. "Anytime, Lifeline."
You lower your gaze quickly and focus on your breakfast instead. Unfortunately, that only makes things worse because now you're sitting at Jack's dining table, in Jack's apartment—wearing Jack's shirt.
Eating breakfast, he made for you. The domesticity of it settles wrong inside your conscience. Not because you or him have done anything wrong. But because it feels like you're standing in a place that once belonged to someone else. Your eyes drift toward the bookshelf across the room. A framed photograph sits among the books, showing Jack and his late wife. They’re smiling and happy.
The familiar guilt immediately curls around your throat. You look away, and your appetite suddenly harder to find. Jack notices and asks, "You okay?"
You force a smile, "Mhm." Jack raises an eyebrow. The same look he gives patients who claim their pain is a three out of ten while actively dying. "Lifeline."
You sigh at being caught, again. "It's stupid."
"If you're saying that, it probably isn't."
The concern in his voice makes the guilt worse. You stare down at your plate, picking apart a piece of toast. "You've done so much for me."
Jack frowns immediately, "Okay."
"And I kind of crashed into your life last night."
His confusion visibly increases as he points out the obvious, "You lost your keys."
"I know."
"You called me."
"I know."
Jack waits as you groan softly because this sounds ridiculous out loud. "It just feels like I'm imposing."
Jack's expression softens as he says, "Lifeline." You hate it when he says your nickname like that—as if he's trying to talk you down from something.
"You are not imposing."
You look away, stubbornly mutter, "Still."
"No." His answer comes immediately.
You glance up, and Jack is looking directly at you now. Completely serious. "You called because you needed help. That's what people do."
"But—"
"It's not a burden."
You open your mouth; however, Jack cuts you off again. "You would've done the same thing for me."
And unfortunately—he's right. You would've, without hesitation. At three in the morning, or in the middle of a thunderstorm. Without a second thought.
Jack sees the realization cross your face. A faint smile touches the corner of his mouth.
"Exactly."
You look back down at your plate, suddenly embarrassed. Because he's making it sound so simple. Meanwhile, your brain is spiraling. You risk a glance upward and immediately regret it. Because Jack is leaning against the counter. Coffee mug in hand. Morning sunlight spilling through the kitchen windows behind him. Now that you're sober, you're trying very hard not to notice things. Like the freckles scattered across his shoulders. Or the way years of physical therapy and hospital shifts have built quiet strength into him. Maybe the fact that he looks unfairly good for someone standing barefoot in his kitchen at eight in the morning. Your eyes immediately dart back to your eggs because you’re a coward.
"So." Jack takes another sip of coffee. The amusement in his voice is impossible to miss. "You gonna keep staring at your breakfast like it’s inedible?"
You nearly choke, "What?"
"The eggs."
"Oh." Your face feels suspiciously warm. "They're intimidating."
Jack stares at you, then laughs.
Somehow and somewhere along the way, Jack stopped being your soulmate, the impossible person at the end of a red string, and became Jack. The man who remembers your coffee order, and the one who checked on you when you had COVID, who keeps spare electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at taking care of yourself. The man who made you breakfast because you were hungover, and the man who still loves his wife. The guilt returns instantly. You glance toward the photograph again. Jack follows your gaze this time. His expression changes subtly. The smile faded into something quieter, more thoughtful. Neither of you says anything for a moment. The apartment settles into a small, comfortable, sad silence. The kind that comes from old grief that never fully disappears. Finally, you clear your throat. "I'm sorry."
Jack immediately looks confused. "For what?" You gesture vaguely around the apartment. "Sleeping in your room." His expression somehow becomes even more confused. "Lifeline."
"I'm serious."
"Why?"
You stare at him, "Because it's your room."
"Correct."
"And your bed."
"Also correct."
You narrow your eyes because Jack is enjoying this. The asshole. "Jack."
"What?"
"I feel bad."
His expression softens immediately into a quiet gentleness. "It's fine." He replied. You shake your head, "But—"
"No." His voice is calm. "I wasn't going to wake you up so you could sleep on the couch." You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again. You try to rebut, "But—" Jack points toward your coffee, "You would've fallen asleep sitting upright."
"That's not true."
"It absolutely is."
"It happened one time."
"It happened three times."
"Allegedly."
Jack laughs into his coffee, and for a moment, just a moment, the guilt eases. Because he's looking at you like you're welcome here. As if your presence isn't an intrusion or that helping you wasn't an obligation. It was just something he wanted to do. That realization follows you for the rest of breakfast. Maybe that's why loving him has always felt so dangerous. It's the spare apartment key he keeps on his keyring. The electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at remembering to drink water. The bottle of ibuprofen is waiting on the nightstand before you even wake up. The way he remembers—he doesn't even realize he's doing it.
Eventually, breakfast ends, and you help carry plates to the sink despite Jack's protests. "I'm perfectly capable of washing a plate."
"I know."
"You sounded doubtful."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
Jack rolls his eyes, and you grin.
For a moment, it feels normal. As if this is something the two of you do all the time. Then Jack glances toward the hallway. "I should shower."
Your eyes immediately dart away.
Why are you suddenly embarrassed? You've seen this man covered in blood during trauma activations, and somehow, showering is what's awkward.
"Okay." Jack nods, then pauses, a small frown appearing. "You don't have clothes."
You blink, "Oh." You hadn't actually thought that far ahead. Your club outfit is currently somewhere in the apartment and likely smells like spilled alcohol, perfume, and poor decisions.
Jack disappears down the hallway before you can offer a solution. A moment later he returns carrying a pair of gray sweatpants and another shirt. You immediately recognize the Army logo faded across the front. "Here."
You stare at him, then back at the clothes. "I can't take your clothes."
"You're already wearing my clothes." Unfortunately, he has a point. You glance down at the oversized shirt hanging off your shoulders. Jack's mouth twitches, "The sweats have a drawstring."
"Oh, good."
"They should fit."
"Should?"
"Mostly." You narrow your eyes, but Jack looks entirely unapologetic. "You can keep the shirt." Your heart immediately forgets how to function, breathless, "What?" Jack casually shrugs, "It's old." You can’t fucking breathe, so you settle for, "Oh."
The thought of keeping it, taking it home, and sleeping in it. Smelling his laundry detergent every time you wear it is incredibly intimate. "Thanks."
Across his expression is as soft as his response, "You're welcome." Then he gestures toward the hallway. "I'm gonna shower."
You nod, "Okay."
"The shower chair's in my bathroom, so I'll be in there awhile." The statement is matter-of-fact and unremarkable. The same way he always talks about it. Not because it doesn't matter. But because Jack long ago learned there was no point treating every accommodation like a tragedy. It's simply part of his life—part of him. You nod again, "Take your time."
Jack studies you for a second; he's checking for lingering hangover symptoms. Then apparently decides you'll survive. "I'll drive you home after."
"Sounds good." You agree. There’s a pause before Jack says, "Try not to break anything while I'm gone." Your gasp is immediate, "Rude."
"I know you."
"You wound me."
Jack laughs, then walks down the hallway. A few moments later, you hear the bathroom door close. The apartment becomes quiet—the one that only exists in the homes of people who live alone. You wander slowly—absolutely not snooping. You were observing, there's a difference. The apartment itself feels like Jack. Comfortable, practical, and unpretentious. Bookshelves line one wall of the living room. Medical textbooks, military history, and novels with dog-eared pages. A few framed photographs scattered throughout the apartment—friends, coworkers, and people who matter.
You pause near one shelf. A photograph sits there. Jack and his late wife, when they were younger, were laughing. The picture caught in the middle of a moment rather than a pose. She has her head tipped toward him, and Jack is looking at her like she hung the moon.
Your stomach lurches. Because even now—years later—she still belongs here. Of course she does. This was their home, their life. You gently set the frame back exactly where you found it. Suddenly feeling like an intruder again, your gaze drifts around the apartment. There are signs of her everywhere if you know where to look. It isn’t overwhelming or frozen in time. There’s a photograph, a ceramic mug, and a framed postcard tucked between books. Evidence that she existed, and you hate yourself a little. Because standing here, wrapped in Jack's clothes, waiting for him to finish showering, part of you wishes things were different. Part of you wishes you weren't standing in the aftermath of someone else's great love story. The guilt settles heavily, along with the red string hidden beneath your sleeve. You glance toward the hallway, and the sound of running water. Toward the man you've loved for years. Because no matter how badly you want him—you've never wanted to replace her. Not for a second. Never. You just...wanted him to be happy, even if it was never with you.
The drive back to your apartment is quiet, but not uncomfortable. You sit curled into the passenger seat, your folded dress resting on your lap alongside your heels. The sleeves of Jack's old Army shirt hang past your wrists, and the sweatpants are too big with the drawstring pulled tight enough to keep them from falling. You feel ridiculous, like a child playing dress-up. Outside the window, Pittsburgh drifts by in shades of gray. You keep your eyes fixed on it. Because every time you glance at Jack, your heart hurts. Especially after last night… the makeup wipes, the hug, his hand on your face, honey. You don't trust yourself anymore, not even a little. Beside you, Jack steals another glance. You're unusually quiet, and that alone is enough to make him nervous. Normally, even hungover, you'd be talking, making terrible jokes, or complaining about your headache.
Instead, you're staring out the window like you're already somewhere else. His fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel as he asks, "You okay?" You nod immediately, humming, "Mhm."
A lie that Jack recognizes instantly, but he lets it go for now. When he finally pulls up in front of your apartment building, neither of you moves immediately. The truck idles softly as silence stretches, then you suddenly unbuckle. Before Jack can process what's happening, you lean across the center console and wrap your arms around him. The hug catches him completely off guard, and for a moment, he freezes. Then instinct takes over. His arms come around you automatically. Your face presses briefly against his shoulder. Jack's heart does something strange and painful. Because it feels like goodbye, and he has absolutely no idea why.
"Hey." His voice comes out softer than intended. You squeeze him once before you let go, because if you hold on any longer, you won't be able to leave.
"Thanks," you whisper. Your eyes sting immediately, but you force a smile anyway. "For everything." The words shouldn't sound final, but they do. "Anytime, honey." The endearment slips out effortlessly and naturally now. Neither of you acknowledges it. Jack studies your face, trying to figure out what's wrong, to understand why you suddenly look like you're trying not to cry. So he asks carefully, "I'll see you later at work, yeah?"
Your throat tightens while you nod. "Mhm." It's not technically a lie. The second you step out of the truck, you don't look back. You can't. Because if you do, you'll stay. So you practically run inside your apartment building.
Leaving Jack staring after you, confused, worried, and somehow strangely unsettled.
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — DAY
Dana and Lena listen quietly. The three of you sit in an empty conference room before shift change. You make it approximately halfway through your explanation before you start crying. Not graceful tears, pretty tears, but the ugly kind. The tears you've spent years swallowing, "I'm sorry."
Dana immediately reaches for you, "Hey." You shake your head, "I'm sorry."
"Hon." Dana rubs circles against your back, her voice gentle, maternal. "Why are you apologizing?" You laugh through your tears because the answer feels obvious and impossible. "Because I'm in love with him."
The room falls silent as Lena and Dana exchange a glance. A look. One that says they already knew. Everyone always knows except the people involved. "It's just for a little while," you whisper while you wipe furiously at your face. "I just need some space." Dana's expression softens. She asks, "And what about your heart?"
That's the problem, isn't it? Your heart—your stupid, stubborn heart. You stare down at your hands, "Until it relearns how to stop beating for him." Then quietly you hear Lena ask, "So you're not gonna tell him?" You shake your head immediately, "I can't."
Because how do you tell someone that you've been tethered to them for seven years? That you've loved them through a marriage, grief, and loss. Through healing. How do you tell someone that? Especially when he never chose you. So you don't.
THREE DAYS LATER…
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
Three days later, Jack notices immediately, the second he walks into the ED, you're gone. No coffee sitting beside your workstation and sarcastic comments from Central—there’s no you. He finds Lena first and asks, "Where is she?" Lena doesn't even look up from her charting, "Where's who?” Jack stares, "Lifeline."
"Oh." She clicks something on her computer. "Day shift." His stomach drops, "What?"
"She switched."
"When?" Lena shrugs at him, "A few days ago."
Jack blinks slowly. "Why?"
"Ask Dana." Suddenly, Lena becomes very interested in her chart.
A week passes, then two, and Jack begins losing his mind. Because you are avoiding him, deliberately and aggressively. You leave before he arrives, or arrive before he leaves. You disappear down hallways and take lunch at different times. Find literally any excuse not to be alone with him. The few times he manages to catch sight of you—you smile and wave.
Then vanish again, like smoke, as if you're afraid of him, and that hurts. Because Jack keeps replaying that night. The club, his apartment, the hug, and the morning after. What did he miss? What did he do? Did he cross a line? Did he make you uncomfortable? Did he somehow ruin the one friendship he can't bear to lose? Every answer leads nowhere, and every day you drift a little farther away. Three weeks later, during shift change, Jack finally spots you. Walking quickly through the corridor, badge swinging from the clip of your scrub pocket, and iced coffee in hand.
He immediately changes direction. "Lifeline." You freeze for a second, then keep walking. Fuck. Jack follows and calls after you, "Lifeline." Your pace somehow gets faster, and now he's genuinely irritated and hurt. "Hey."
Finally, you stop, turning around, with a careful smile already in place, too careful. But not him, never him, not until now. "Hi, Jack." The distance between you feels enormous as he asks, "What is going on?" Nothing. Everything. You force a shrug, "Nothing."
That’s bullshit, and Jack knows it's bullshit. You know he knows, but neither of you says it. Then somebody calls your name from down the hallway, and relief floods your face at escaping him. The realization dawns on him like a punch.
"I gotta go."
"Lifeline—"
"See you around." Then you're gone, again. Practically running.
That's when it happens—Jack stares after you, heart pounding, confused, angry, and hurt. Suddenly—pain flares around his wrist. It’s sharp and hot. He physically flinches, "What the—"
A red thread appears beneath his skin, bright and impossible, but all too real. Jack freezes as the world tilts. No. No. No. The string winds itself slowly around his wrist. As it has always belonged there, it was simply waiting.
His breath catches because he knows what it is; everybody knows what it is. His pulse begins hammering. The thread stretches down the hallway, past nurses, residents, and stretchers, straight toward—You. Jack stumbles, his hand slamming against the wall to keep himself upright as the hallway blurs and his vision tunnels.
No. No, that's impossible. His heart pounds so hard it hurts. The red string glows softly between his wrist and yours, unbroken. Years… all these years. Every conversation, every shift, every cup of coffee, and every moment. Every time you'd looked at him and then looked away, or when you'd disappeared when things became too close. All the times you'd chosen distance. The truth crashes into him all at once. You knew. Oh God. You knew, and somewhere down the hallway—completely unfazed—you kept walking.
While Jack stands frozen in place, one hand braced against the wall, staring at the impossible thread connecting him to the woman he's been desperately trying not to admit he's fallen in love with.
2025
6:00 PM
PTMC, CENTRAL WORK AREA — DAY
The emergency department shifts from busy to catastrophic in less than thirty seconds. One moment, people are charting the next—every television screen in the department lights up with breaking news.
There’s an active shooter at PittFest—mass casualty incident. Every healthcare worker in the room recognizes it instantly. The moment before impact… before disaster arrives.
"Hey, what's going on?" McKay asks.
Robby strides into Central, already moving and planning. Carrying the weight of what is coming. "Mass casualty at PittFest."
Samira looks up sharply, "How many victims?"
"We don't know." Robby's face is grim. "Expect the worst.” A terrible silence settles, while someone else immediately reaches for a phone. "Did the police find David?" McKay asks. Robby shakes his head, then raises his voice, "Okay, everybody, listen up."
Every head turns to pay attention to Robby.
"There is an active shooter at PittFest. As the nearest trauma center, we are going to be getting the majority of the victims." The room goes completely still. "We don't know yet how many we're getting, but we are instituting hospital-wide emergency protocols. We need to move every patient out of here. Either home, upstairs, or Family Medicine. Call your loved ones now if you need to."
Robby glances toward the windows, toward the city. Towards the disaster unfolding somewhere beyond it. "I can guarantee cell service will soon be overwhelmed. Eat something. Stay hydrated. Use the bathroom while there's time and meet back here for a full briefing in five minutes."
Then his gaze lands on someone entering through the ambulance bay doors, relief flashes across his face.
"Brother." Robby exhales. "I'm so fucking glad to see you." Jack, carrying his backpack and wearing his black scrubs, briefly hugs Robby, "Heard it on the scanner."
Jack drops his bag onto a workstation. "How many are we expecting?"
"I don't know." Robby's expression darkens. "But it doesn't sound good."
After placing his things down, Jack looks up directly at you. The breath leaves your lungs. Already focused entirely on you.
Your stomach drops. Oh no. No. No. No. He knows. The realization slams into you so hard it feels physical. You don't know how or when. But something in his expression tells you immediately.
He knows about the string—your secret. The thing you've spent seven years burying. Your pulse begins hammering, and blood rushes up to your ears. Across Central, Jack doesn't look away; his jaw flexes, hard, angry. You know that look—you've seen it directed at negligent parents, reckless drivers, people who made choices that hurt others.
Five minutes. That's all you have before the briefing. Before the entire hospital erupts into chaos. Apparently five minutes is all Jack needs. The second he catches you alone, a hand closes firmly around your elbow. "Lifeline." You freeze, your heart immediately dropping into your stomach. "Jack—"
"We need to talk." The words come out low and controlled. He steers you toward an empty supply room. A narrow space lined with IV fluids and sterile procedure kits. The door swings shut behind you, and the silence is deafening.
You turn toward him, trying to keep your face neutral, and completely fall apart. "What's going on?" The question sounds pathetic even to your own ears. Jack stares, and for a moment, he says nothing. Which makes everything worse, because his eyes are furious.
Furious at being hurt and at being lied to. At realizing something important happened without him knowing. His jaw clenches, "You knew." Your vision immediately blurs, "Jack—"
"You knew." The repetition is softer, devastated. You feel your tears threatening already.
"Don't." Your voice cracks. "Don't look at me like that." Something flashes across his face—pain, but then anger returns to cover it. "So what was the plan?" His words come out sharp.
"Jack—"
"What?" His voice rises, years of confusion finally boiling over. "What were you doing?"
You flinch, and Jack immediately hates himself for it, but he can't stop, not now. "Were you just waiting?" The accusation hangs between you, ugly, unfair, and born entirely from hurt. "Were you waiting for your chance?"
Your eyes widen as the tears come instantly, and suddenly you're angry too. Years of restraint snap all at once.
"No." The word echoes off the walls. "No." You step toward him, furious, heartbroken, and shaking.
"I buried it." Your voice breaks. "I buried every part of it." Jack freezes as you keep going, "You don't get to stand there and act like I wanted this." The tears are falling freely now. It’s hot and humiliating. "I buried every chance of loving you so deep I could barely breathe around it."
The room goes silent as Jack stares while you choke on the next words, because they're true, every single one. "I buried my wanting for you." Your voice cracks again. "And don't you dare accuse me of waiting." The anger disappears, leaving only raw, ancient grief. "You don't get to accuse me of that when I respected it."
Jack's face changes back to confusion and regret. But you're not finished, "I respected her." The words nearly destroy you while you wipe at your face, failing miserably. "I respected both of you."
A photograph flashes through your mind. Then she laughed in the department, bringing Jack lunch, loving him. Being loved by him, the woman you'd genuinely cared about. The woman who had never done anything except be kind to you.
"She was brilliant." You laugh bitterly as another tear slips free. "Beautiful. And I knew I'd never measure up."
Jack physically recoils, as if you'd struck him. "What?" The word comes out strangled. You look away because you can't bear seeing his face. "I know that."
"No." Pain flashes across his expression. "No, you don't." You laugh again, broken, "I do." Then quietly, you add, "The first time I saw the end of the string." Jack goes completely still at your admission.
"The first time I saw it unfinished." Your voice drops, barely above a whisper. "I knew I was going to lose you either way."
Silence—absolute silence. Jack feels like the floor has vanished beneath him, because suddenly, he understands. All those years, smiles, retreats, your careful boundaries. How you'd chosen distance instead of possibility. You weren't waiting. You were grieving the entire time.
The supply room door suddenly swings open, and Robby appears, already halfway through speaking. "Abbot, I need—"
Then he stops, immediately, because you're crying, and Jack looks wrecked. The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on.
"...Whoa." Robby looks between both of you a few times, then decides he absolutely does not want whatever this is. "What the hell is—"
You move first, past Robby and Jack. Past all of it. Your shoulder brushes the doorframe as you leave. You don't stop, and can’t look back. Because if you do, you'll fall apart. While Jack just stands there, watching you go, understanding too late. For the first time in seven years, understanding exactly how much it must have hurt. Then, somewhere outside the room—an overhead page sounds. The first ambulances are arriving, signaling that the mass casualty has begun. However, the conversation isn't over. Not even close.
7:00 PM
CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT
All at once, the emergency department is already overflowing. Trauma bays filled, hallways lined with stretchers, and blood smeared across floors that Environmental Services doesn't have time to clean. The overhead speakers haven't stopped paging for nearly twenty minutes. Victims keep coming. Gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, and crush injuries from the stampede that followed.
The air feels thick with adrenaline and fear. Every single person in the department is running on instinct, training, and experience.
You haven't looked at Jack since the supply room, not really. You can feel him occasionally, like a gravitational force somewhere at the edge of your awareness. A pull you refuse to acknowledge. Every time your eyes accidentally find his across Central, you immediately look away. You don't have the luxury of falling apart right now, because people are dying, you know that, and so does Jack.
So, whatever happened between you has been shoved aside by necessity.
"Let's go!" Langdon's voice cuts through the noise. Another victim on a gurney in Central. Male, approximately late twenties, multiple injuries, semi-conscious, and blood soaking through his shirt. Samira immediately moves to the stretcher, "Who do you have?"
"Semi-conscious. Responds only to pain. Decent carotid."
"Strip him." Mateo reaches for trauma shears, and so does Tim, "Let's go." The team descends immediately, beginning to cut clothing, assessing injuries, checking his airway, and breathing. Everything is moving with practiced efficiency. Then—something feels wrong. You don't know why, it’s just a feeling. A prickling sensation along the back of your neck.
The patient suddenly jerks, and the nurses yelp. A hand disappears beneath the shredded remains of his shirt. Langdon freezes, then shouts. "Whoa!" Everything happens at once.
"Gun!" The word detonates through Central. "Gun! He's going for his gun!"
Every person in the room reacts instantly; some hit the floor, and others dive behind workstations. The patient somehow manages to yank a handgun free. His eyes are wild, disoriented, and terrified. The muzzle swings wildly across the room and lands directly toward Robby and Jack.
Time slows for you as you watch. Later, you'll never be able to explain why you moved, whether it was instinct, training, love… or something much darker. A part of you wonders if maybe you were simply tired—tired of carrying this, of loving him, maybe of being afraid. You never figure it out, because your body moves before your brain does.
One second, you're standing near Central, the next you're running.
The gun fires, and the sound is deafening. A violent crack that echoes through the department. For one suspended moment—nobody moves or breathes. Then pain explodes through you, white-hot, blinding.
You stagger as your knees immediately buckle while the floor rushes upward. Somewhere nearby, people are screaming while others are shouting for security. The world becomes noise, blurred shapes, blood—too much blood. Then, you hear Jack scream your name, and it tears straight out of him. Raw, animal, nothing like you've ever heard before. The resident beside him barely has time to react before Jack is already moving. He’s running—ignoring everyone and everything. None of it matters, not anymore. Because you're on the floor, and you're bleeding. Suddenly, the worst thing Jack has ever imagined is happening right in front of him.Again.
He drops to his knees beside you, not caring that his stump is aching, hands immediately searching, assessing, locating the wound, trying to stop the bleeding while SWAT restrains the man who shot you. His trauma training takes over automatically, even while the rest of him is breaking apart.
"Pressure!" Somebody throws him gauze, Jack slams it hard against the wound. Too much blood—so much fucking blood, and the sight makes his stomach turn. "No."
Your vision swims, and you can barely focus. But somehow—somehow—Jack is all you see. Always him, maybe it was always going to be him. His face is pale, terrified—more terrified than you've ever seen him, and somehow that hurts worse than the bullet.
You manage a weak laugh, and blood touches your lips. Jack immediately hates the sound, "Don't." Your eyes find his, and for the first time in years, you stop hiding. "It was painful."
Jack freezes, "Lifeline—"
"When you looked at me." Your voice trembles, blood continues soaking through the gauze. "When you smiled at me."
"No." His hands shake, just slightly, but you feel it. "When you believed in me." Tears blur your vision. "It hurt."
Jack's face completely crumples because now he understands all of it.
"It tore me apart." The words barely make it out, and an unfiltered sob escapes him. Because you're dying, and he just found you. He spent seven years standing beside you without seeing it. "No." His voice breaks. "No, no, no."
Someone is calling for Trauma One and bringing a stretcher. The department is moving around him. But Jack doesn't care, because the world has narrowed to you—only you.
"I just got you." The words rip from his throat, his eyes shine, desperate, furious, and every bit terrified. "I just got you." Your breath catches. You love him, you always will. So maybe—maybe honesty won't kill you now. "I love you."
Jack closes his eyes, as if the words physically hurt. You smile weakly, doubling down, "I love you, Jack Abbot."
Silence for a moment, then, firmly, "No." The answer comes instantly, violently, as if he's rejecting reality itself. "No." His forehead presses briefly against yours. "You're not doing this."
Tears slide down his face, but he doesn't even notice. "You hear me?" His voice cracks. "You're not doing this to me."
The stretcher arrives, and Robby appears, blood on his gloves. Panic hidden beneath professionalism. "Jack." Nothing… Jack doesn't move. "Jack." Still nothing.
"Abbot!" Finally, Jack looks up, and Robby immediately understands. Oh. Oh no. "We need Trauma One." Robby's voice softens. "Now."
Jack nods once, then helps lift you onto the stretcher himself. Refuses to let go or step away. He refuses to leave your side as they race down the hallway. Trauma One is already being prepared. Blood products, thoracotomy tray, massive transfusion protocol—Everything and anything. Whatever it takes.
Dana meets them at the door, and one look at Jack's face tells her everything, every awful piece of it. "Oh, honey." Jack doesn't even hear her; his eyes never leave you, not once. Dana steps close, careful. "Jack." No response from him, so she tries again, "You need to let them work."
His jaw tightens, "No."
"Jack."
"No." His voice breaks again. Because he knows—he knows exactly how bad this is. Knows every possible complication, terrible outcome, and statistic. Every nightmare, and he cannot survive another one. Not you, God, please, especially not after all this—after finally finding you.
The trauma team begins crowding around the bed. Voices overlap, orders fly, blood pressure dropping, airway concerns, surgical consult from Garcia, massive transfusion. Yet, Jack refuses to move, standing beside your stretcher, his hand wrapped around yours. As if letting go might somehow allow death to take you, or sheer stubbornness can keep you here.
As if love might finally be enough this time around.
PTMC, ICU — DAY
The surgery lasts hours—too many hours, long enough for the adrenaline to burn away, and for exhaustion to settle into everyone's bones. Long enough for Jack to memorize every crack in the ICU waiting room floor.
The bullet had done catastrophic damage. A through-and-through gunshot wound with massive internal bleeding. Multiple units of blood transfused. Emergency surgery. Complications halfway through that had nearly sent the entire operating room into a panic. At one point, Robby had physically forced Jack to sit down because he looked seconds away from collapsing. Jack couldn't remember most of it afterward, only fragments. Your blood on his hands. Your voice. I love you, Jack Abbot.
The terror of watching your blood pressure disappear from the monitor. The awful realization that he might lose you before he'd ever gotten the chance to tell you—I love you too. But somehow, you survive. The surgeons manage to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. They brought you back. It feels less like medicine and more like a miracle.
Three days later, you're still asleep, intubated, and hooked to enough machines to make the room hum softly around you. But you're alive, and right now, that's enough.
Jack hasn't left at all. Dana, Robby, Lena, and even Whitaker—all of them fail. Because every time someone tells him to go home, he looks at you lying in that hospital bed and refuses. The man is impossible when he decides on something, and he decided he was staying.
So he stays, wearing scrubs more often than not. Surviving almost entirely on hospital coffee and vending machine food, and sleeping in the uncomfortable chair beside your bed. If you could see him, you'd probably yell at him. Tell him he's being ridiculous, and that he should shower. To stop looking like a man who personally lost a fight against a tornado. Unfortunately, you're unconscious, which means nobody can stop him.
The red string remains, that impossible thread winding around his wrist before disappearing into yours, completely visible now. Neither of you is hiding anymore. Sometimes Jack simply stares at it, as if he's afraid it'll disappear—a chance he'll wake up and discover this was some cruel fever dream. Because for years he believed he'd had his soulmate, then he lost her. And now—now the universe has somehow handed him another sacred thing. A second chance he never expected. One he's terrified of losing before it even begins.
The ICU room is quiet that afternoon as sunlight spills through the window. Your face is pale against the white pillow. Your hair is messy, and there's bruising along your neck from procedures, tape securing lines, and dressings. Evidence of how close death came for you. Jack reaches forward, his fingers brushing gently through your hair. The movement reverent, as if touching something precious. Something fragile and almost lost.
His thumb traces softly across your cheek. "You scared the hell out of me." His voice is rough, sleep-deprived, and broken around the edges. You don't answer, but that never stops him.
The door opens quietly as Robby steps inside, coffee in one hand and concern written all over his face. He pauses immediately, taking in the scene. Jack slumped beside your bed, wearing his scrubs, faintly stained with blood—your blood. His hand wrapped around yours, and the red string was visible between them. For a moment, Robby says nothing, simply watches. Understanding settling over him piece by piece. Then finally, he asks, "How's she doing?"
Jack glances up. His eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. "Stable." The word comes out cautious. Because saying it too loudly might somehow jinx everything.
Robby nods, steps closer, looking down at you, at the monitors, then at Jack. A realization flickers across his face. "Is she also..." His voice softens. "...your soulmate?"
The question hangs quietly between them, and Jack's gaze immediately drops to your hand. To the red thread wrapped around both wrists. He can't speak for a little while, then he nods once.
"I think so." The words sound ridiculous even now. "I didn't think..." His voice catches as he looks down at you. At the woman he'd spent seven years loving without understanding why it felt different. Not understanding why losing your friendship hurt more than it should, or why seeing you happy mattered so much. Why he'd kept showing up, again and again. "I didn't think it was possible."
The rRobby remains silent, letting him continue as Jack swallows. "I didn't think it would happen to me." The confession comes out almost embarrassed—he's admitting something shameful. Robby exhales slowly, nods. "There've been a few reports."
Jack glances up.
"A few studies." Robby shrugs. "The theory is that some soulmate bonds don't form immediately." His eyes drift toward the red string, toward your intertwined hands. "Sometimes they form after loss."
The room falls quiet, neither of them says the obvious thing. That his late had been Jack's soulmate too, and loving her had been real, complete, and true. That none of this erased her.
Jack looks back at your sleeping face, the rise and fall of your chest, and the steady rhythm on the monitor. Alive and still here. His fingers slide gently through your hair again, careful not to disturb anything, as his hand cups your cheek. The gesture impossibly tender. Robby immediately looks away, because some moments aren't meant for witnesses.
Jack leans forward, pressing a kiss against your forehead, lingering there for a second, eyes closed and relieved. Terrified and very in love. When he finally pulls back, his thumb brushes across your skin. And for the first time since the shooting, a small smile appears. Fragile, hopeful, like he's allowing himself to believe it. Just a little.
"Come back to me, Lifeline." His voice is barely above a whisper. The red string glows softly between your wrists, and Jack squeezes your hand gently, as if you're already listening. As if somewhere beneath the machines and medications and healing wounds, you can hear him. Maybe, for the first time in a very long time, he isn't asking fate for anything. He's only asking for you.
PTMC, ICU — DAY
The first thing you become aware of is discomfort, not pain, well, not yet anyway, just wrongness. A strange pressure lodged in your throat—something foreign. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy, as if someone glued them shut. The effort required to open them feels monumental. Slowly, painstakingly—you manage it, and the world arrives in fragments. White ceiling, muted sunlight, the rhythmic beeping of monitors, and the steady hiss of oxygen.
A hospital room—your hospital room, and immediately your nursing brain starts putting pieces together. ICU, you're in the ICU, which means—Oh. Oh no, the shooting. Memory crashes back all at once: the gun, Jack, blood, Trauma One. I love you, Jack Abbot.
Your eyes widen immediately as panic flares. Because there is definitely a tube down your throat, a ventilator tube, and suddenly every survival instinct in your body starts screaming. You try to move—a mistake, as pain explodes through your abdomen. Pain that says somebody has spent several hours trying very hard to keep you alive. A strangled sound leaves you; your heart monitor immediately speeds up.
Then you feel it, a hand, wrapped around yours. You turn your head, slowly, and there he is… Jack. Curled awkwardly in the chair beside your bed, wearing his black scrubs, asleep. His head was resting against folded arms near your mattress, one hand tangled with yours, the red string winding quietly between your wrists. For a moment, you just stare because he looks awful. His curls are a mess, dark circles shadow his eyes, his jaw is covered in stubble, his scrubs are wrinkled because he hasn't slept properly in days, and he hasn't left. This whole time, he stayed. Your fingers twitch, weakly, barely enough movement to count. Then you squeeze his hand.
Jack jerks awake instantly, years of emergency medicine, and years of sleeping lightly. His head snaps upward, disoriented and confused. Then his eyes land on yours, and the entire world stops. For a moment, he doesn't move or breathe. Doesn't seem capable of either. He just stares, afraid you're another dream, or another hallucination born from exhaustion.
"Hey." The word comes out rough, barely audible, and your eyes immediately fill with tears. Because he's crying, relief floods his face so quickly it looks painful. His hand tightens around yours.
"My Lifeline." His voice cracks completely, and suddenly, tears are sliding down his cheeks, unashamed. Jack laughs once, a choked sound halfway between a sob and a prayer. "Oh, my God."
You try to answer, then immediately regret it, because the tube is still there. Panic spikes again.
Jack notices instantly, "Hey." His hand cups the side of your face, gentle and grounding. "Hey, hey." His thumb brushes your cheek, "You're okay." Your breathing becomes faster, the ventilator alarms immediately begin protesting. "You're okay." Jack is already reaching for the call button, never taking his eyes off you. "You're okay."
Within seconds, the room fills with people. Garcia arrives first. Followed by respiratory therapy, a nurse, and half the ICU, apparently. "Well, look at that." Garcia's grin is immediate. "About time."
You want to roll your eyes, but unfortunately, you still have a breathing tube. The respiratory therapist immediately begins assessing and following commands. Checking your neurological status. Making sure you're strong enough for extubation. You squeeze hands, follow fingers with your eyes, nod appropriately. All while Jack hovers nearby. Trying desperately not to interfere, and failing miserably.
"She's ready." The therapist glances toward Garcia, and then Garcia nods. "Let's do it."
Jack immediately moves closer, instinctively. Like he physically cannot help himself. The ventilator disconnects, the securing device is removed, and the respiratory therapist gives instructions. You barely hear any of them; your entire focus is on the tube. Then—it's out. Immediately, you cough violently because your throat burns. Every breath feels strange and uncomfortable, but you're breathing on your own.
Jack is already helping support you upright, one arm behind your shoulders, the other holding a cup with ice chips. "Easy." His voice is impossibly soft. "Slow down."
You cough again, eyes watering. Jack looks ready to fight somebody on your behalf. Possibly the tube or the entire ICU. Eventually, the coughing settles enough for you to breathe comfortably, and the monitors stabilize, everyone visibly relaxing.
Garcia steps forward, professional mode fully activated. "Okay. The surgery went well." She begins carefully. "You sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen." Jack's jaw tightens visibly as she continues, "There was significant internal bleeding." Garcia continues. "We had to perform an emergency exploratory laparotomy."
Your nurse brain immediately fills in blanks, searching for damage, complications, and probabilities. Garcia notices this and says, "We repaired injuries to your small bowel and controlled several bleeding vessels."
Stable—the most beautiful word in medicine. You glance toward Jack; he's staring at the floor, hearing the details physically hurts. Garcia notices that, too, a tiny smile appears. One that says she understands far more than she's commenting on.
"Recovery's going to suck." You manage a weak laugh; the sound comes out raspy. Garcia points immediately. "There she is. Don't make me regret taking that tube out."
For the first time since waking, you actually smile. Garcia gathers her chart and steps toward the door, then pauses, looking between you. Then Jack, the red string, then back again.
"Oh." A knowing expression crosses her face. "Right."
Jack immediately looks uncomfortable, which is almost impressive considering everything that's happened.
Garcia grins. "Try not to stress her out." Then she points at you. "And try not to get shot again."
The door closes behind her, and the room suddenly feels much quieter. Much smaller and more intimate. Silence settles; neither of you quite knows what to say. Because there are too many things, seven years' worth.
Jack remains seated beside the bed, his hand never leaving yours, not once. He's afraid the second he lets go, you'll disappear again.
Your throat hurts—everything hurts, but somehow none of it matters right now. Because Jack is looking at you, really looking at you, and there are tears still caught in his eyelashes. Evidence of how terrified he'd been, your fingers tighten weakly around his. "Hi." The word comes out hoarse, barely audible. A wet laugh escapes him, disbelieving, and relieved. "Hi."
His thumb brushes across your knuckles, again and again. As if he needs the contact—he needs proof. Then Jack lowers his head, pressing his forehead gently against your joined hands, his eyes closing. Breathing shakily, and in that moment, you realize he was just as afraid of losing you as you'd always been of losing him.
Finally, Jack swallows hard, then asks quietly, "How long?" You know exactly what he means, not the shooting or the string. All of it. You stare down at your intertwined hands. At the red thread winding around both wrists, then back at him, and answer honestly. "Since my first day.”
Jack blinks, once and twice. He genuinely thought he'd misheard you, "Your first day?" You nod, a sad laugh escaping. "Yeah."
His mouth opens, then closes, and opens again. The physician in him is clearly attempting to process impossible information. Unfortunately for him, he's currently operating as a man in love, not a doctor, which means none of this is going well.
"Seven years?" The words come out strangled, and you give a tiny nod. Jack leans back in his chair, looking dizzy. "Jesus Christ."
A weak laugh escapes you. "That was more or less my reaction too." His hand tightens around yours to reassure himself.
"Why didn't you tell me?" The question is quiet, not accusing anymore, only hurt. He’s trying to understand. You look away first, toward the window. Because this part is harder. "You were married." The words are simple, obvious, and true, Jack's expression immediately softens.
"You loved her." You smile sadly. "Of course you did." Because he had, you'd seen it, every day, in every smile or phone call, at the mere mention of her.
"I wasn't going to be the woman who showed up and destroyed that." Your voice trembles. "I couldn't. It's why I never said anything." A tear slips free, and you don't bother wiping it away.
"I respected her too much." Your laugh cracks. "And honestly?" You finally look at him, unwaveringly, you admit, "I loved you too much.” Jack closes his eyes, processing the truth of it all. "I knew you were happy." You smile weakly. "I thought… I thought if I couldn't be the person you loved, then I'd settle for being someone you trusted."
Jack stares at you, completely speechless. Suddenly, every memory makes sense, every retreat or careful boundary. You chose distance over possibility. You weren't waiting. You weren't hoping for his wife to die. Goddamit. The thought makes him sick now. You were protecting him—protecting both of them, at the expense of yourself, for seven years.
"That's insane." The words slip out before he can stop them. You blink, offended. "Excuse me?" Jack actually laughs, a wet, exhausted sound. "You loved me for seven years."
"You make it sound like a disease." You frowned.
"It kind of is."
You point weakly, "I got shot."
"Exactly." For the first time since waking up—you both laugh. The sound fades slowly, leaving only the truth behind. Jack shifts closer, his chair scrapes softly against the floor, until he's sitting right beside the bed, close to you, so that there's nowhere left to hide.
"I need you to understand something." His voice lowers, gentler now, and more vulnerable than you've ever heard it. Jack looks down briefly, then back up. "She was my soulmate." The words settle softly between you, simply true and not at all cruel. You nod, because you know—you've always known.
"I loved her." His eyes shine, "I'll always love her."
You squeeze his hand, "I know." Jack exhales shakily, then continues, "But somewhere along the way..." His voice falters, and you can’t recall if you've ever seen him this scared. His thumb brushes your cheek, the same way it did the night you almost died. "You became my favorite part of the day. The first person I wanted to talk to." Another stroke of his thumb. "The person I looked for first." His eyes never leave yours. "And when you started avoiding me..."
He laughs once, humorless and every bit painful. "It felt like somebody was ripping pieces off me." The confession steals the air from your lungs, and Jack leans forward slightly, and your heart starts racing.
"I thought I was losing my mind." A tiny smile appears at the corners of his mouth. "Turns out I was just in love with you."
Everything disappears—leaving just him and tears blur your vision instantly.
"Oh." It's all you can manage. Jack smiles, soft, beautiful, it’s entirely his. "Yeah."
Suddenly, you're crying. Because after seven years—after all that grief and silence and fear—he chose you. Not because of the string or fate. Or because destiny told him to. But because he loved you.
"You idiot." Your words wobble and Jack laughs, "I know."
"You absolute idiot."
"I've been told."
You laugh through your tears, and somehow, he wipes them away before they can fall. The gentlest touch imaginable, as if you're something precious. Then his forehead rests against yours, and neither of you speaks. You don't need to. The red string glows softly between your wrists, a silent witness, and for the first time—it doesn't feel like a chain. It feels like a beginning.
Jack's gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then immediately back to your eyes. Giving you every opportunity to stop him. Every opportunity to say no. You don't. Not even a little.
So, he kisses you, softly, as if you're something holy. Something he spent seven years searching for without realizing it. His hand cups your cheek, while yours finds his wrist. Right where the string wraps around him, the kiss is gentle and tender. A promise rather than a fire.
When he finally pulls back, neither of you moves very far, foreheads touching, breathing the same air. Jack smiles, the kind of smile you've spent years secretly collecting. "Hi."
A laugh escapes you, "Hi." Then his eyes soften, filled with something warm enough to last a lifetime. "There you are."
After seven years of loving him in silence—you finally get to stay.
End Notes:
Where do I even begin? This idea has been cooking in my head for MONTHS. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I wanted this story to go. But then you know how things just suddenly click and fall into place? That’s exactly what happened.
It was absolutely euphoric—once I got the plot beats down, I just couldn’t stop writing lol.
I wanted you, the reader, to know how much you respected Jack’s wife and that you weren’t trying to replace her.
Also.. do you get it? Lifeline = Line = String…. Ha ha ha. You are his Line…
Everyone blame Noah Kahan for making me cry to Orbiter.
LOWKEY, wasn’t expecting a lot of people to read this…
It’s been a long time since a piece of angst has made me cry like this. Since a fic has resonated with me so fiercely that it left me completely winded, like it knocked me off my feet and left me disoriented while I tried to gather myself again.
When I first saw the blurb you posted for this story, I already knew it was going to be devastatingly angsty. But more than that, I knew it was going to feel human in its pain. And god, it really did.
I don’t really know how else to describe it, but I was immediately hooked by the idea of someone not being defined by a single Great Love but by multiple great loves. Relationships forged through time, effort, mistakes, grief, and perseverance—people who go through trials and tribulations together and come out the other side irrevocably shaped by all those small moments of trying.
Good lord, I’m rambling at this point, but there were so many moments while reading where I felt viscerally pulled back into my own experiences with grief and trauma through these characters. And somehow, through them, I felt like I understood parts of myself a little better too.
The section about the Zoom funeral absolutely wrecked me. The cold, unfair inhumaneness of it all immediately dragged me back to my own experiences with loss during the pandemic. I remember feeling that same sense of wrongness so vividly. Reading that scene genuinely had me crying hard enough that I had to stop and take a break before continuing.
And then there’s the reader herself—how deeply self-reliant she is after moving across the world. How instinctively she expects herself to handle everything alone, in sickness and in health, because that’s what survival has taught her to do. So watching her slowly realise that she’s actually built roots here, that she has created a support system without fully noticing it? God. That hit hard too.
And beyond the yearning that sits at the forefront of the fic, what really got to me was the growing sense of resignation she carries. That feeling that she has to accept this devastating arrangement as the price of being loved. Like this painful compromise is simply the only way she gets to have the thing everyone else in the world seems entitled to. Yes, “right person, wrong time” is such a strong thread throughout the story, but what really stuck with me was the way the reader keeps trying to move forward with the cards she’s been dealt. Trying to carve out some version of happiness, even if it comes at the cost of herself.
And fuck—Jack’s characterisation.
This is genuinely one of the best portrayals I’ve read of what love lost and love found can look like for a character like him. The way grief has fundamentally reshaped him. The way his life is so clearly divided into a before and after. The care hidden beneath his sarcasm and quips. The way his loyalty turns almost violent the second someone he loves needs him. The fact that he wears his grief openly because he genuinely can’t imagine any other way to continue living with it. These characters are all so deeply shaped by loss, but in completely different ways. They mirror each other while still reacting so differently to the same wounds, the same fears, the same longing.
I’m genuinely obsessed with this entire exploration of the soulmate trope. And honestly? I think you may have ruined future angsty soulmate AUs for me forever 😭
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Tags/warnings: Deran's friend!Reader, touch starved!Andrew (what's new), age gap (reader is mid 20s, Pope is almost 40), slow burn, friends to lovers, touchy reader, physical touch as a love language, injured!pope, a little angst cause it's Andrew, intox reader (she drinks and smokes at one of their parties and gets handsy [cute] with pope, he's a gentleman about it), Pope is just a big ol' simp, cuddling, unprotected piv sex, creampie, [inaccurate show dynamics, mostly cause I didn’t wanna deal with Cath (lover her though)]
Summary: Pope doesn't like to be touched...at least not until he met you.
a/n: my favorite touch starved boy <3
Disclaimer: YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO REPOST MY WRITING ANYWHERE ELSE WITHOUT MY CONSENT. REBLOGS ARE ENCOURAGED THOUGH. YOU MAY NOT FEED MY WORK TO ANY AI DATABASES OF ANY KIND, USE MY WORKS TO TRAIN AI OR USE AI TO TRANSLATE MY WORK. FUCK AI.
The first time it happens it's an accident.
There’s people in his house when there shouldn't be.
The music is too loud, the bodies too hot and sweaty.
He’s standing in the kitchen like a weirdo, even he can acknowledge it.
But he truly doesn’t know what to do. Where to go.
He’s been gone for three years. He doesn’t recognize anyone anymore. Where the fuck is he even supposed to start?
It’s your meek “excuse me” that breaks him out of the spell he’s under, gaze finally sharpening as he comes back down to the present moment.
Everything rushes back to him, overwhelmingly. He’s suddenly too aware of it all, especially your timid grip on his bicep as you try to move him out of the way.
The touch doesn’t linger. It’s fleeting, unlike the reality that Pope finds himself in.
You side step around his imposing frame, a shy smile on your lips, one that makes his head spin.
You shouldn’t be nice to him, hell, you shouldn’t be nice to any asshole you don’t know. Did no one teach you—
And then you turn on the kitchen sink, gently cleaning the glass you’ve been using unlike everyone’s disposable, plastic ones.
An air of familiarity courses through him. You’re…comfortable in his home. You’re taking care of the space that no one, not even his brothers, could give two fucks about.
He can’t help but stare, his thoughts rendering him unable to look the other way, to go back to being stoic and uninterested.
If you feel him glaring you don’t let him know it, your body language remaining relaxed all the way through wiping the glass dry and standing on your tip toes to place it back on the shelf above you.
That’s when he moves.
It’s instinctual. His mother’s voice clear in his ear, urging him to help a lady in need.
He steps up, crowds your personal space yet gives you room to escape if you feel uncomfortable.
You turn to him then, your bright eyes meeting his as your fingers barely touch. He instantly forces himself to look away, afraid that he’s going to let the glass fall if he loses himself in your gaze.
“Thanks,” you mumble, shooting him another smile as you settle back down on your feet, the movement shifting you closer against his chest.
It honestly makes Pope dizzy. Feeling your warmth, smelling the faint softness of your perfume.
You don’t turn to move for the millisecond it takes for him to finish pushing the glass into place, perfectly aligned with the others.
It’s only when he too settles back down that you turn to him expectantly.
“You’re welcome.”
Pope guesses that’s what you’re looking for and he’s proven correct instantly as you bless him with another blinding smile.
His stomach does another flip.
Who the fuck are you?
Before he can ask, what he believes to be your name is called because you instantly turn towards the sound.
He commits your name to memory, such a fitting one for such a—
“Angel! There you are!” Daren breaks through the crowd like a lifeline, one that you instantly take, stepping away from Pope and towards him like a magnet.
You settle against his side like you’re meant to be there, his arm leisurely draping over your shoulders in a familiarity that makes Pope’s blood boil with a flurry of emotions he simply cannot pinpoint.
“See you’ve met Pope,” Deran notes and you turn back to Pope with wide eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” you start, tone remorseful. “I had no idea you were Deran’s brother, I would’ve introduced myself.”
You genuinely mean it and it almost causes Pope to snap at you. You don’t owe him anything.
“’s okay,” Pope mumbles instead, his gaze piercing.
“Well it’s really nice to meet you,” you hold out your hand for him to take.
Pope’s jaw clenches. He makes no effort to move, to reciprocate your kind gesture. He can see the disappointment in your face, how it falls instantly. You’re not used to being denied, to being told no, and for a second Pope almost cracks.
But he can’t. He won’t let himself do it.
No, because he knows that the second you give him even an inch of familiarity he will devour you whole.
“Don’t take it personally, angel,” Deran practically glares daggers at him. “He’s not really into that.”
Your mouth curls into a silent oh and Pope shrugs in response.
It’s all he can do to not come across as a complete weirdo instantly upon meeting you, more than he already has.
You copy him, shrugging like you’re unbothered but he knows for a fact you aren’t as your hand instantly retracts back towards you, seeking Deran’s instead.
His fingers interlace with yours like it’s second nature, overly intimate. Pope’s brows scrunch in confusion, barely. Are the two of you…a couple?
“Anyway, I’ll see you around.”
Pope gives you one last grunt of acknowledgement before Deran is pulling you away, back towards the backyard where all the action is happening.
He obviously keeps his eyes trained on you as you leave, on how your jean shorts hug your ass, how your body is sun-kissed and a little burnt from the summer heat wave, how your hair flows effortlessly.
And then you turn to glance back at him for what feels like minutes, your eyes filled with nothing but curiosity.
His eyes force him to blink then and he loses you to the crowd.
Fuck.
The next time Pope sees you, you’re back at the house for a pool day with his family. It’s a small gathering this time around, just their inner circle which apparently now includes you too.
You’re in a striking blue bikini, the color contrasting beautifully against your skin. You’re sitting on one of the lounge chairs, your legs open so a hyper Lena can settle in between them.
You can barely contain your laughter as the young girl tells you a silly story from school, your fingers working overtime to braid her long hair in one of those fancy styles that Pope could never name so that it won’t get too tangled from the pool.
Your laughter hits him like a disorienting grenade. It’s like he's never heard anyone feel joy the way you do. It's infectious, making him wonder if he’s ever actually felt a real emotion in his life.
“There, all done,” you tie up Lena’s hair and give her back a little pat before the girl practically bolts from your embrace, yelling a swift thank you before cannonballing into the pool as everyone cheers.
Andrew’s about to move forward, to settle down beside you, a pull to be near you clouding his senses.
But then Craig has to go and ruin it.
“Me next,” the oaf practically towers over you, settling down between your legs like Lena had, taking advantage of how you haven't moved.
You roll your eyes playfully but don’t complain.
Pope watches as you take his hair out of the messy bun that he’s got it in, gently scratching his scalp. His younger brother moans, causing you to stop and smack the side of his head.
Pope’s lips quirk up into a smirk. Good, set his brother’s straight.
But Craig is not deterred, simply reaching back and squeezing your thigh cockily.
It takes everything in Pope not to lunge forward. He doesn’t understand it, how protectiveness practically flares up in his chest at the sight of someone else’s grubby hands on your soft flesh.
He honestly doesn’t know how Deran lets it happen. They both know his brother so why is he letting Craig be so chummy with you?
Unless…you’re not actually together, together.
Is it possible that you’re just like this with everyone?
You finish braiding his hair then, meanly tossing it over his shoulder so that the tail end of it smacks him on the face.
“There princess,” you tease. “All done.”
Craig flinches as the band hits him, bursting out into a fit of laughter as he stands up and follows Lena’s example, splashing into the pool so hard that he ends up soaking you completely.
Lena laughs as you gasp dramatically. “You meanie!”
“Payback’s a bitch—” Craig starts, quickly correcting himself as you glare at him. “Payback, angel.”
Deran snorts, taking a swig of his beer from his spot at the other side of the pool. A spark of something is set ablaze in your gaze, a playfulness that borders on mischief.
“Oh yeah?” It takes them a few seconds to process what you’re doing as you sprint towards them, throwing yourself in the pool as close to Deran as possible.
Pope audibly snickers as you drench his youngest brother.
The backyard is set ablaze with teasing soon after, every single member of his family sans him and his mother engaging in a water fight for the ages.
Pope settles on the lounge chair that you’ve vacated, your warmth still lingering on the fabric beneath him.
He’s transfixed by you. By the ease in which you can bring lightness to his family, as though you can lift the weight they all carry on their shoulders, even if it’s just for a little while.
Another thought crosses Pope’s mind then — is it possible that you could be like this with him too?
Laughter only turns even more boisterous as you enter the living room, a baking dish in hand.
“Angel!” Both Deran and Craig greet you, your smile beaming as you round the table to say hi to Smurf first. You know the rules of this house well by now, a genuine comfort to Pope who at least doesn’t have to worry about you with his family.
He watches intently as you chat with the older woman, handing her the dish, humble enough to tell her it’s not something as grandiose as the roast she has prepared but you didn’t want to show up empty handed.
His mother smiles at you, her ego fed enough as she stands up and goes to heat it up in the kitchen.
You don’t let her comments get to you, instead you go around the table, saying hello to everyone, your touch always lingering, always soft and playful.
Deran gives you a hug, Craig kisses your cheek affectionately, Baz only gives you a nod in acknowledgement and Pope can’t help but smirk satisfactorily against his beer. You ruffle J’s hair and give Nicky a kiss to her temple.
You’re comfortable, confident, secure in your place within their family. You don’t back down to his mother, you don’t shrink away to Baz’s hesitancy, you—
Your eyes catch him staring from across the room. He’s subconsciously backed away the second he saw you come in, practically hiding in the threshold.
You give him a shy wave over Nicky’s shoulder, a gesture he reciprocates with a grunt and a barely there head bob.
Fuck, he’s even worse than Baz.
But you don’t look at him with the same disdain as you do his half-brother. Instead, something else ignites in your eyes. A challenge, almost, to chip away at the ice around his heart. But little do you know that it’s already melting away, and neither of you can stop it.
You eagerly help Smurf bring the rest of the food out before the entire family sits down around the overflowing table.
You make it a point to sit next to him, to never once let him think that his presence is unwanted, even if he refuses to give you the type of relationship that you want, that you crave.
You fill up his plate without asking him and if you weren’t so damn adorable he’d be angry about it. But he simply cannot be. He just lets you, watching silently as you tell the room a story from a crazy class you had to experience the week before.
Your hands move in tandem with your voice, making it a point to not draw attention to what you’re doing, as if serving Pope food is somehow normal. And for a second he can let himself believe that it is, that you taking care of him is how things are meant to be.
It’s only when Deran whispers something to Craig that has the two snickering that Pope finally breaks free from your spell, mumbling a quick thank you under his breath before you settle down to eat as Lena tells the table what she got up to in school over the week now.
You hum in acknowledgement, listening to his niece intently, like you actually care about her babbling, because you do.
After lunch, the crowd disperses throughout the house, the kitchen settling into a comfortable silence where Pope can finally breathe again.
He’s always relegated to clean up duty, mostly because he likes it that way, it’s something he can control.
“Where do you want these?” You ask, causing him to turn to face you from his spot in front of the sink.
He stammers for a second, blinking away the brain fog that you always seem to bring with you every time you bless him with your undivided attention.
He crooks his head towards the left side of the sink and you move swiftly, placing the stack of plates you’ve gathered into the space.
You don’t linger this time, no, you make it a point to step away as soon as you can but not before Pope feels his body shifting towards you.
Oh, you definitely know what you’re doing.
He shakes his head as he returns to his task of dishwashing. You return periodically, bringing by glasses, cutlery, baking dishes and everything else his family could’ve thought to leave behind like the animals they are.
Once the entire table is cleared, you settle beside Pope, dish towel in hand and begin drying what he's just washed.
It’s…nice.
Pope’s not used to someone actually wanting to help him but he finds himself quickly falling into the rhythm of your comforting presence.
“I never really asked,” you start conversation after what feels like a small eternity, turning to face Pope curiously. “Do you prefer Pope or Andrew?”
You ask as if it’s not a loaded question. Well, to you it isn’t, there’s no way for you to know about the weight his name carries over him. To you it’s just about making sure you’re calling him by the name he wants to be called, nothing more, nothing less.
But to Pope it’s…euphoric.
He stays silent for a while, thinking, and you let him without an ounce of judgment. You return to your repetitive motions, to working side by side, in tandem, coordinated.
Meanwhile, a storm rages waste in his brain. He’s never allowed himself to want, to put himself first, and for the first time in his life, someone is allowing himself to do just that.
But is it real? Do you actually mean it?
It’s only when he’s finished washing the last plate, handing it over to you that he finally allows himself to look your way.
“Andrew,” he mumbles before he loses the courage to. “Call me Andrew.”
You turn to him, setting down the plate atop the mountain you’ve created, nodding your understanding.
“Andrew,” you repeat back to him. “It suits you more.”
He can’t help the blush that creeps up his neck and to his ears, the heat that blooms in his chest, the way his intense gaze falters like a lovesick teenager as his mouth devolves into a dopey smile.
You don’t make fun of him for it, don’t even acknowledge it. You just stay there with him, following through with your help and leaving the kitchen spotless.
A few hours later he finds himself protectively escorting you out to your car, much to the snickers and teasing of his brothers which, thankfully, you’re not privy to as you say your goodbye to Lena and Cath.
“Bye Andrew,” you call out to him, and like a moth to a flame, he can’t help but step towards you, almost expectantly.
You hugged everyone else in his family, maybe—
Your eyes sparkle with delight as his body leans towards your again, a reaction neither of you was expecting.
You close the distance without hesitation, getting back up on your tip toes to plant a soft kiss to his cheek.
It’s over as quickly as it started, no lingering, no invading his space more than needed.
He’s certain he stops breathing, his brain short circuiting as you settle into the driver’s seat and follow Baz out of the family compound.
You’re not special. He reminds himself. She’s like this with everyone.
And yet reason doesn’t quell the pounding of his heart, the way his breathing hitches as he finally wills himself to take in a deep breath, the need to see you again.
He doesn’t see you for a while, exam season taking over most of your time and planning a new job taking up most of his.
He’s just had a disagreement with his brothers, it’s the only reason why he finds himself out by the pier, supposedly clearing his head with a walk like normal people do, but instead the voices are just getting louder and louder.
“Uncle Pope!”
Lena’s voice cuts through the noise. His gaze sharpens towards it, his frame lowering, arms opening, making space for her.
She doesn’t shy away from him, embracing him lovingly because to her, he’s just her uncle, a little weird but never dangerous.
It’s only when she steps back that Pope notices you.
You walk towards them leisurely, not wanting to break apart the cute display happening before you.
“Hi,” it’s the only thing that flows from his lips.
“Hi yourself,” you reply, placing your hands on Lena’s shoulders to keep her close to the two of you. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a family meeting all afternoon.”
Pope blinks back the shock. How close are you to his family? How much do you know?
“Ended early.”
You nod, Lena squirming in your embrace, gasping as realization dawns on her.
“Can Uncle Pope get ice cream with us?”
You chuckle at her impatience, causing Pope to huff playfully at just how adorable his niece is being.
“That’s up to him, sweetie.”
And how is he supposed to say no when his niece looks up to him with the most adorable eyes ever. “Please Uncle Pope!”
He nods. “Okay.”
Lena practically jumps into him out of joy, her tiny hand wrapping around his as she drags him towards the boardwalk shops.
You laugh behind them, jogging to catch up as she pulls you towards them, wrapping her other hand in yours.
Lena’s a bubblegum flavor fiend, extra sprinkles and gummy bears. You’re classic, rich and decadent, chocolate in a cup. Pope almost feels bad for getting a simple vanilla scoop in a waffle cone.
“Tell them to dip it in chocolate,” you whisper to him. “Trust me.”
He doesn’t know how to answer, blinking at you in surprise.
Trust me. Such a simple concept and yet…there’s still something that doesn’t let him take that leap.
But what does he know about ice cream.
So he does, he tries something new.
You smile brightly as you turn to receive your sweet treats, making sure Lena’s sitting down on one of the benches before you go up to pay.
But Pope’s quicker, pulling out a bill from his pocket and taking care of it before you can even ask the cashier how much it’s gonna be.
You roll your eyes at him when she tells you you’re too late and he can’t help but smirk victoriously.
“Thank you Andrew,” you relent, accepting your cup from his outstretched hand, your fingers gently grazing as you do.
The spark of electricity that snaps down Pope’s body is life inducing.
“You’re welcome.”
You settle next to Lena who’s munching ecstatically at her sugary confection, pink already staining her shirt.
Pope takes a seat on the other side of his niece.
He settles into the simplicity of intimacy with ease again, the gentle waves crashing up ahead, the cool afternoon air filling his senses with the comfort of saltwater.
Existing has never felt as easy as this. As something pleasant and unhurried, not having to pretend to be anything other than who he is.
Pope can’t help watch the two of you in complete awe. How you dote on Lena and how she reciprocates the action, something he’s never seen her do in the months since he’s been back.
She feels free here, not like the little girl who’s quiet and reserved with her now estranged parents. No, she’s alert and alive, playful and aloof. It makes Pope’s heart soar as he watches the two of you so effortlessly blend together, his own ice cream melting and making a mess of him soon enough.
The house is uncharacteristically quiet.
He’s the only one there, he’s sure of it. Smurf left the second she got the call that the job had gone sour and they had to split up, rushing to Baz’s because she knows Pope is too spiteful to die on her. Meanwhile J has gotten really injured and Smurf’s new baby comes first now.
It doesn’t matter to Pope. At least he tells himself he doesn’t hate himself a little more the second he hears his mother’s heels retreat down the hall, her car soon only a phantom noise as she speeds off.
Alone in the house, the quiet gets to him quickly. The typically bright and spacious home constricting in on him as he struggles down the hall to his old room.
He tries not to think about how the rough concrete walls feel against his sensitive fingertips, how the familiar pain in his side hums with the pressure of painful memories, how he’s definitely not back in that tiny jail cell after he had another psychotic break in prison and got himself thrown in solitary for another week.
No, he definitely does not think about how he was left struggling with his sanity, floating aimlessly, stuck inside his own head trying to desperately find some comfort to cling to as he curled in on himself to find a position where it didn’t hurt him to breathe.
He swings the door to his room open without thinking twice about it.
It’s early in the morning, no one’s been home since the night before, and yet, the second he comes inside, he instantly notices the way the air smells different, sweeter.
He stills, his hand not clutched to his side slowly sliding to the back of his jeans to feel the comforting weight of his gun handle. Meanwhile his eyes rake over the room, the unmade bed, the clothes—his clothes—scattered on the floor.
“Andy?” Your sweet, sleepy voice calls to him from his ensuite bathroom and he turns to it like an idiot boy with a childlike crush, eyes wide and heart practically beating out of his chest as if he isn’t currently in such devastating pain but he doesn’t dare make you uncomfortable.
Fuck, why does he feel like such a creep?
A sharp inhale springs you into action, crossing into the unlit room to take him in, suddenly wide awake it seems.
He doesn’t have the heart to stop you as your soft hands come up to inspect the gash on his brow, the purpling under his eye. Timid fingertips trace a path down his chest, landing softly over the hand at his abdomen.
You don’t say anything, don’t lash out at him, don’t flinch back in fear as you slowly lift his palm, assessing the damage. He doesn’t know why he lets you, it doesn’t make any logical sense, and yet he just melts into your hands, lets you maneuver him however you desire as he finally lets the dam crack.
You remain silent as tears stain his cheeks, as you gently pull him into the bathroom and sit him down on the edge of the tub, as you wrap your hands on the hem of his shirt and pull it over his head.
He knows you feel the gun tucked into his pants but you don’t let the shock show on your face. Instead, when you turn to discard his shirt behind you, he simply pulls it out himself, placing it on top of the counter, safety on always.
You turn to assess him then. Luckily the switchblade didn’t do too much damage, just one long enough gash that has since stopped bleeding, deep enough to hurt but not deep enough to kill him.
You settle on your knees in front of him and he’s certain his heart skips a beat. You smile up at him, so unbelievably soft, like you’re trying to comfort him without touching him because you know just how uncomfortable it makes him.
And yet, he can’t help but crave your touch, like a reminder that he’s still alive, that he’s still here, with you.
He knows he can just ask. Knows he can put together a sentence, or not, just muster the courage and say please. But how can he? When not even his mother deigned him worthy of fussing over?
“You don’t have to—” another sob breaks through him and it takes everything in him not to curse and scream and scare you.
His body begins to shake, shame bubbling from his stomach across his body until he’s nothing but a quivering mess before you.
He wants to run, to hide away and never have you see him like this ever again. This was a mistake, staying here, letting you see him this vulnerable. He needs—
He’s turned to stone as you pull yourself up from sitting on your heels and lean up towards him, invading his personal space now, all the voices in his head suddenly quiet. Your hands come up to cup his face, thumbs dutifully wiping away the tears that fall.
He feels pathetic, disgusted with himself at the sight you’re beholden to. But then your sweet voice begins to shush him softly, to tell him that he’s okay, that you’ve got him, that he can let it all out, and for a second he allows himself to believe it.
Andrew Pope Cody allows himself to feel, to not hide behind what he’s been groomed to be all of his life. He breaks down and you patiently wait for him to finish so you can help him pick up all the pieces.
It’s only when you no longer feel the wetness drip against your flesh that you pull back enough to take him all in. He forces himself to make eye contact with you, to show you as much as he can that he’s alright, that he appreciates you.
You swiftly rummage through his bathroom cabinets, searching for the first aid kit you know he has. He watches you intently as you clean him up with a wet rag first, removing all the blood from his abdomen, his hands turning white as he holds onto the side of the tub for dear life.
Your tongue pokes out between your lips as you lose yourself to the task, using that glue Baz got them in Mexico to close his wound. He can’t help but smile softly at the sight, finally allowing himself to rake his gaze over your body.
For one, you’re clad in one of his old shirts, the ones that no longer fit him after prison hardened his body into a bigger size. Maybe he’s not special, but he’ll be damned if possessiveness doesn’t boil over at the mere sight of you in his clothes.
He’s already slowly losing his mind, desire threatening to make him take a leap over that invisible line he’s drawn between the two of you in his mind, and then you shift a little, showing off his boxers underneath, your bare things practically causing him to salivate.
The decision settles with him with ease, dragging him down into the depths comfortably, like a sailor that has accepted his fate because it means he’ll at least get to kiss the siren.
“There,” you hum, tracing the outline of the bandage with your fingertips before you turn to look up at him. “All done.”
“Thank you,” he manages to choke out.
“My pleasure, Andy.”
Letting you go is the hardest thing Pope has ever done. You’d insisted he needed to rest after the trauma that he’d experienced and, not wanting to be an annoying patient, he’d conceded, settling down where you had just been sleeping, the sheets still slightly warm and smelling of you.
For the first time in a long time, Pope actually slept and slept good. But the second he’d woken up, you were no longer in the house.
He thought about calling, about making sure he hadn’t scared you off, but part of him preferred it this way. He was scared of his feelings towards you, so he chose indifference.
His mood soured, however. Every little thing his brother did made him snap, every time they brought you up in conversation, every time your name entered his orbit but your body didn’t made him go crazy.
He’s aware that it’s all his fault for not checking in, for disappearing into radio silence. But in his defense, you’ve never texted before, you’ve never even given him your number for fuck’s sake! It would’ve been weird to contact you out of the blue right?
Summer is coming to an end when you finally deign him worthy of your presence again.
Deran and Craig are throwing a party. Big surprise.
The house is packed, hot and sweaty. Everyone is scantily clad, if covered up at all. Even Smurf has left the premises for the weekend so it’s just a cluster of debauchery and substance abuse.
He should’ve left, he thought about it many times. But he knows you’ll show, even if it’s just to say hello, see how quickly things are devolving, and leaving immediately.
His eyes have been trained on the entrance all night, impatiently waiting for you to walk in. It’s nearing eleven and his palms are starting to get itchy with anxiety. What if you don’t show? He hadn’t even thought about that possibility.
It’s been a few days since Deran’s mentioned you. Even longer since you’ve babysat Lena. Could something be wrong? Are you okay?
His entire body bursts with uncomfortable heat. He needs to find Deran right now, needs him to tell him your address so he can go check on you himself, needs—
A loud squeal catches his attention, swiftly turning towards the backyard to catch you swung over Craig’s shoulder, your tiny jean shorts riding further up your ass as he spins you around.
You giggle brightly, not attention seeking, just pulling everyone’s gaze towards you with the ease in which you feel joyful. He watches, entranced, as his younger brother puts you down.
Pope moves instinctively, stalking towards the living room to get a better line of sight on you. You’re at least wearing a shirt over your bikini, your beautiful skin covered from the hungry gazes of those around you. If you realize just how many men are salivating after you, you don’t let it show, not as Craig lights up a joint and passes it on to you instantly.
Something constricts against Pope’s heart as he watches you inhale deeply, a primal urge to burst through the doors, grab the joint from your hand and toss it away before bringing you into the house and hiding you away.
He settles for sitting down on the loveseat. He can keep you safe from in here, from far away, from a distance.
The house only becomes more crowded as the night goes on and he unfortunately loses track of you two hours in, only noticing the second that annoying couple in front of him moves out of the way, the warm summer air hitting him in contrast to the air conditioned interior.
He panics instantly, his eyes jumping through the hazy bodies outside as he desperately tries to find you again. He’s about to stand up, to finally make a move and search for you when your body plops down on his lap instead.
“Andy!” You shriek, an airy happiness enveloping you as you settle over this lap. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Pope swallows thickly, feeling everything all at once, his brain having trouble processing your hands over his chest, your core pressed against the bulge in his pants, your hot breath on his face.
He’s certain he’s blushing crimson but maybe you’re too intoxicated to notice.
“Were you hiding from me?”
He doesn’t answer right away, causing your pretty little mouth to get upturned into a pout.
“I knew it,” you whimper. “You do hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, angel,” the words spill out of his mouth instantly, unfiltered since his stupid brain isn’t working anymore.
Wide eyes stare at him adorably. “You don’t?”
He shakes his head.
“Then…” you huff, clearly exhausted from all the mental gymnastics you’ve been doing too. “Why didn’t you call?”
He opens his mouth to answer.
I didn’t have your number.
I didn’t know I had to.
Why didn’t you call?
But he knows it’s all lies. He knows he deliberately didn’t call.
Didn’t text.
Didn’t anything.
Your eyes flicker down to his open mouth, your own hanging open as you stare hungrily at him, your hips grinding down against him involuntarily.
He hisses at the contact, the sound so broken and foreign to him. His brows scrunch in desperation, his head angling without him noticing. And so you take the leap for him.
Your lips settle on his like a sip of water after wandering in the desert for an entire lifetime.
It takes everything in him not to kiss you back, not to run his hands over your back, not thrust his hips up into you.
He knows how high you are, knows your actions, while yours, aren’t sober ones. And he’d much rather kill himself than take advantage of you.
“Andy,” you whine into his mouth again, needy and desperate. “Please.”
He stiffens beneath you, once again gripping the chair handles like his life depends on it. You frown as the wood creaks, a wicked smile curling your lips as you realize just how much he’s holding back right now.
“You can touch me, Andy,” you whisper, your lips starting their descent from his own down to his jaw and neck.
He shakes his head softly, not cruel, not rejecting, simply stating.
If anything, it spurs you on, determined to prove him wrong, to provoke him.
He can tell as your lips lock into the base of his neck, teeth nipping meanly at his skin, desperate to leave a mark on him.
He should stop you, should pick you up and tuck you into bed. But he doesn’t. He can’t.
Instead, his eyes close in pleasure, his fists practically snapping the wood between his fingers.
You’re hungry, having been kept from touching him for so long. He’s given you an inch and you’ll be damned if you don’t steal a mile. And he honestly doesn’t care, can’t care, when the realization that you were looking for him finally catches up.
You want him.
Desperately.
Your hands roam down his arms in tandem with your hip movements, your lips trailing back up to his mouth, but instead of diving in, taking the plunge, you hover above them, your hot breath taunting him.
“You’re so pretty, Andy,” you whisper. “Need you—” you huff, frustrated. “to touch me, please.”
He shakes his head again, this time accidentally brushing his lips with yours, groaning at the fleeting contact.
“‘M not gonna take advantage of you, angel,” he presses his forehead to your cheek, almost reverent.
You let out a sigh, deep and weirdly understanding, stopping your mindless torture as his words sink in. He stares at you, his heart finally pumping blood to the rest of his body normally as it sinks with your own, the raging storm calming into a consistent thundering.
“‘M sorry,” you mumble against his chest, settling down to rest your head against the crook on his neck. “I just…” you sigh, melancholic, the words not coming to you.
“I know,” he finally lets his hands break free from his self-imposed restraints, sliding them up your legs, taking his time feeling the warmth of your exposed thighs, the comforting weight of your clothes against your skin. You hum contently, like a cat finally being given attention, practically purring against him.
He settles his touch around your body, pressing you tightly against him as you slowly doze in and out of consciousness.
“Is this good enough, angel?” He’s never felt this soft with anyone before, his jagged edges usually too sharp, drawing blood instantly. But it’s as though you’ve smoothed him down, made him into someone that’s worthy of you.
You nod against him, fingers curling into his soft shirt, most definitely wrinkling the perfectly ironed fabric and he could not give two shits about it.
He’s acutely aware of how the two of you ended up asleep together.
All he wanted was to tuck you into bed, kiss your temple and then sit across from the bed, watching you sleep all night, like a messed up version of a guardian angel.
But you’d whined oh so loudly when he tried to peel away from you, your arms wrapping around his neck, your legs tightening around his waist. He couldn’t even get his shoes off, being forced down onto the soft mattress as you rolled over on top of him.
You settled down easy after that, your even breath soothing against his neck, the patterns he kept tracing over your back lulling you even further into the depths of rest.
He’s never fallen asleep this easily before, definitely not after the peak of adrenaline you’d just put him through.
But after exactly one thousand and sixty five seconds of watching your calm face, feeling your chest rising and falling steadily, something pulled him under, his eyelids becoming so heavy he could barely register as he stopped blinking altogether.
Your squirming wakes him up the next morning.
You’ve crawled on top of him, a comforting weight over his body. That is until you started to move, seeking something to put you out of your miserable restlessness.
“What’s wrong, angel?” His voice is deep with sleep.
You lift yourself onto a sitting position, straddling his hips once more, rubbing against the growing tent in his pants.
Part of him snaps awake at the mere inkling that you’re horny, now sober and wanting to torture him for denying you yesterday. But as his eyes focus on you, he finds an even deeper feeling he simply cannot name brewing in your pretty little head.
You scratch at your shirt, the fabric constrictive, your neediness for him overwhelming.
“’s too much,” you whine and he, for some divine reason, understands what you need.
He sits up, causing you to gasp as his erection thrusts up against you.
“Meanie,” you tease, pushing him to action.
He smirks as his hands gently trail over your exposed tummy. His hands grab the hem of your shirt and pull it over your head in one swift movement, quickly untying your bathing suit top and tossing the offending fabric to the floor. He doesn’t give himself the time to stare, not when you’re so desperate and time is of the essence, he’ll have time to properly worship you later.
Your nipples do harden as the cold air hits them, and he cannot fight the urge to take one into his mouth, rolling his tongue over the bud before he detaches so he can pull his own shirt off.
Your breathing gets caught in your throat as you watch him, brain already shutting off at the sight of his bare body. So much more real estate for you to touch, he thinks.
And touch you do, eager hands trailing the hardness of his chest and stomach all the way down to his pants. You make quick work of the button and his zipper and he lifts his hips so he can pull them off, hesitating with his boxers—
“All of it.” You answer for him.
“Yeah?”
“Mhmm,” you whine. “Please.”
And who is he to deny you now?
In one quick movement, he’s complete bare beneath you. But you’re still not content, no, you won’t be until you’re right there with him.
He takes care of your remaining clothes then, urging you up with two quick taps to your outer thigh and just as quickly hooking his thumbs underneath your bikini bottoms.
Your heat is so close to his face, so puffy and needy, he simply must lean forward and place a kiss over your hip bone. You hum contently, body buzzing with excitement as you practically tackle him back down on the bed and return to your earlier position.
At first you don’t want anything other than to feel him, your cheek pressed over his beating heart, legs spread over his lower abdomen, practically purring as his own hands wisp over your back.
You lay like that for a while, enjoying the gentle sounds of crashing waves and birds singing outside his window. But then you turn to look at him with those round, puppy eyes that he’ll be damned to cave to for the rest of his life.
“Andy,” you plead. “Need to be closer to you.”
He knows what you mean without you having to explain yourself.
There’s just one more thing to do.
So he does, grabbing a hold of his rock hard cock and slowly sinking himself into your entrance. You wince at the stretch, eyes quickly becoming watery as he settles inside of you. He shushes you gently, shifting you slightly so he can reach your lips, crashing them with his in a sloppy, wet kiss that has you instantly melting into him further.
It’s only when he’s sheathed within you completely that you finally relax. But while you’ve found euphoria with such a simple action, Pope is anything but.
He lasts fifty three seconds before his hips begin shifting involuntarily. Your brow scrunches in confusion, pleasure shooting up your body when all you really wanted to feel was peace.
He coos at you softly. “I need to move, angel.”
You sigh, dramatically so, and he can’t help but smile brightly at your theatrics.
“May I move?”
You bury your face in the side of his neck, going limp over him. “I guess.”
He rolls his eyes playfully, wrapping his arms around you before he lifts his hips off the bed and begins to piston in and out of you.
You’re so wet it’s absurdly easy, the room quickly devolving into a choir of wet, slapping sounds and his moans harmonizing with your little whimpers. You hold onto him for dear life, relishing in the closeness that he’s affording you, and he…he’s certain that you’ve just unlocked something he’d buried deep in his psyche long ago.
A desire to long for someone.
An allowance to feel.
A chance to love again.
“An—dy fuck,” you choke. “‘M so close.”
He turns his head to press his cheek against your temple, tightening his hold on your body, possessive and claiming.
“Come for me angel,” he urges. “Let me make you feel good, please.”
You moan loudly, your body responding diligently to his plea. He can feel your body convulse above him, your walls tightening around him as a jolt of electricity snaps and you’re coming undone.
You cry against his shoulder, panting feverishly as he continues to pound into you, seeking his own release while also extending you own.
“In me please, Andy, need you—”
He doesn’t need to be told twice, burying himself as deep as he can inside of you before he’s spilling, locking you tightly against him and enjoying the feeling of joy that washes over his entire body.
He can’t stop kissing your cheek, his lips lapping up the wetness that has streaked like a devout man worshiping a gift from the heavens.
You stay like this until both your heartbeats return to their normal, synced rhythm, your nails scratching deliciously at his scalp while his own return to their soothing patterns against your back.
“Was that okay?” You ask him, finally returning to your senses it seems.