danidrabbles

He can’t. His hand is currently cradling some guy’s inferior vena cava like it’s made of glass, and one wrong twitch means this guy is leaking faster than a bullet-addled DC-10.

But the buzzing doesn’t stop.

It goes off again.

And again.

The third time it happens, Ellis glances toward the tray table. “Dr. Abbot, your phone—”

“I know,” he says, voice calm but clipped. “Ignore it. I need suction.”

It’s not that he isn’t curious. Of course he is. Jack’s phone never rings this much unless something’s on fire—or worse, you tried using his gas stove again.

But there’s a heart in his hand, so it can wait.

Probably.

Hopefully.

God willing.

And then it fucking goes off again.

“Oh my God,” he breathes out, entire body stilling with disbelief. “Can someone please answer that?”

There’s a small shuffling as Ellis obeys his command, maneuvering around the occupants of the room towards the small metal tray. Tugging off one red-streaked glove, she shimmies the small phone out of his back pocket and swipes across the screen, unlocking it.

It presses against Jack’s ear.

Silence bleeds through from the other side, softly broken by the static of a breath.

“Hey, Jack.” You voice drifts out, half-articulate, and followed by a soft smack like you were mid-snack and had a prophetic vision of him at the most inopportune moment and decided to blow up his phone. “What’s up?”

Jack blinks down at his blood-soaked gloves—at the fucking cavern his hand disappears into.

What’s up?

“Nothing crazy,” he replies mildly. Catching someone’s eye, he nods down where his hands disappear, demanding more suction. “Are you dying?”

“Only to talk to you.”

Jack sighs, wedging the device harder between his shoulder and cheek.

“Honey, I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you back.”

“No, you won’t—you always say that. There’ll be some emergency you have to tend to.”

“An emergency in the emergency room?” he asks dryly. “Imagine that.”

The doctor hears you snort, the microphone picking up the soft sound of your socks scuffling across the porcelain-disguised-as-wood floor before you grunt.

Hopping onto the counter in the kitchen, Jack assumes.

He shifts his weight, the blue fabric of his gown crinkling as he carefully pinches the artery between his fingers to further constrict blood flow.

Glancing up, he meets Ellis’ eyes and mouths, where the fuck is surgery?

Two minutes, she mouths back.

Jack huffs a breath that fogs up his glasses for a split second.

“Jack? You still there?”

“No, actually—”

“Alright, obviously you are. Anyway,” the doctor groans, but you continue as if he didn’t even have vocal chords with which to make the noise. “Medical opinion. Skipping backstory because someone is feeling bitchy today. Do penguins have depression?

Jack’s brain short-circuits.

Shaking his head minutely trying to generate any energy that would restart any mental faculty, a disbelieving laugh—more of a hwa, really—escapes him.

“What?”

“They can’t fly. Are they, like, sad because of that? I think I would be.”

He cannot fucking do this right now.

His leg is starting to ache, and his shoulder is starting to cramp from the awkward fucking position he finds himself in trying to stabilize this patient long enough to get him to surgery, and he has to subtly shift his weight in a futile attempt to relieve any of that tension—though, if he’s honest, most of that tension is coming from you—and his shoes make a sickening shweck sound when the soles of his boots slide across the blood-slicked ground. And through it all—the faint pulsing of the blood through the vein in his hand and the scent of iron wafting through the air, stealing all breath from his lungs—you’re on the other side of the phone, miles away, chirruping about the presumed mental state of Antarctic birds.

Jack’s eyes slide closed for a beat, and he takes a deep, should-be calming breath.

And then he cuts you right the fuck off.

“Sweetheart, I’m chest deep in someone who tried to merge with a semi-truck,” he bites out. “I have the only thing keeping his blood pressure in the double digits in my hand. My resident looks like she’s about cut my arm off and use it as a puppet, and I’m almost positive I just heard you lick a spoon.”

Jack takes another deep breath.

“And you called me,” he confirms slowly, the syllables taut with barely-there restraint, in an attempt to find the fucking sense in them, “to ask me if I think penguins get sad because they can’t fly?”

Someone stifles a snort across the room.

The tendon in his jaw flexes as he attempts to rein in his annoyance.

Someone's heart is literally in his hands. You’re calling inquiring about the possible chemical imbalances that may afflict flightless avians. And now there is laughter in his trauma room.

Jack makes a note for later—clean-up detail, entirely comprised of that one fucking guy. Why shouldn’t the janitor get a nice hour off?

“Yeah," you say simply. "Do they?”

“Honey. Sweetheart. Light of my life. I’m mid-vascular anastomosis,” He tilts his head, carefully balancing his phone between his cheek and his shoulder. Like a switch is flipped, his voice becomes laden with frustration. “I cannot stand here and opine on the emotional state of penguins,” Jack snaps.

The line goes silent. Jack almost feels bad.

Almost.

Then your voice—your once again snack-addled voice, thick with peanut butter or something, Jack guesses—cuts back in.

“Jack, it’s a simple yes or no,” you sigh.

Like he’s the crazy one for not wanting to have this conversation right now.

“I’m hanging up,” he decides.

“Okay, rude ass—”

“Kid, I love you,” he cuts in, catching Ellis’ eyes and shrugging the shoulder with his phone on it. “But I’m hanging up.”

Ellis grabs the phone from him, an extremely amused smile on her face.

Leaning over to him, she whispers, “I’ll make sure to chart that call as ‘urgent,’ Abbot.”

The moment Jack opens your door, he’s ready to fight.

He spent the entire drive rehearsing what he was going to say, so he could at least try to make it hard for you to twist his words and win an argument.

Jack would bring up the fact that the phone call was completely irresponsible. He would concede that, yes, you’re right, he could have hung up at any moment. He would also assert that you knew he was on-shift and that, barring any injury, major or minor, or you winning the lottery, communication should be confined to text.

He had it all planned out.

He, of course, forgot to account for the fact that your front door seems to squeak when it opens no matter how many cans of WD-40 he puts on it—he suspects that he’s keeping Home Depot in business from that alone—and the entryway looks directly into your kitchen.

His foot hovers over the threshold to your apartment, and Jack sees you freeze, half-eaten bagel hovering in the air, one of his old hoodies draped over your body barely covering your shorts, and one sock scrunched down by your ankle while the other remains glued mid-calf.

You don’t even turn toward him, but he sees your wide eyes locked on his figure from your periphery.

Without removing his eyes from you, the doctor hangs his backpack on the little hook he installed for himself.

His right foot brings him one step closer.

Then his left.

And then he starts stalking toward you.

Slowly, as casually as possible with no sudden movements, you toss your bagel down to the plate with a ping from the hard bread meeting ceramic. To your right, your arm slides across the kitchen island, your body turning toward him as it melts into the granite while your feet slink in the opposite direction.

Finally, your body reaches maximum stretch, and Jack rounds the island to rest opposite of you.

The island of burnt bagels and granite.

His new battleground.

You throw him a lopsided grin.

“Heyyyyyyyyy, Jack,” you nervously laugh out. “Looking goo—”

And suddenly, he’s angry.

Very angry.

He's angry that you can look so cute and be so nonchalant when you’ve caused him major turmoil in the past four hours. Not to mention teasing from Shen.

“Four in the morning,” he barks out.

Your shoulders hike up to your ears, smile melting down and baring your teeth in a distinct haha, you got me expression.

“You called me at four in the morning,” Abbot reiterates, “to ask me if I thought that penguins get sad because they can’t fly.”

He sticks a finger in your face. “Four in the morning.”

“Okay, well, do you—?”

“Four.”

“Established! But,” your finger lazily draws a circle on the counter, “you’re still not answering.”

Your name vibrates out of his chest in a groan. “You of all people should know the legal ramifications of stopping an emergency procedure for a phone call.”

He pauses.

Then, “Especially ones that are penguin based.”

“I don’t…” your eyes dart to the side before snapping back to him.

You squint, weaponizing confusion. “Jack, I’m not sure why you think the law explicitly prohibits penguin discussions amid emergency operations.”

“That’s not— my point is—”

“Give me one statute,” you demand.

“What?” he flounders, caught off guard.

“One. Statute.” You raise your eyebrows and shrug. “I’ll wait.” 

1. Bring up the fact that the phone call was completely irrespons–

“That’s your job—” he hears himself saying instead.

What the fuck is happening right now? Where did his bullet-points go?

“Oh, alright,” you laugh out, crossing your arms over your chest. “So, you admit you came into the operating room with zero legal grounding.”

“What? No—”

“So you knowingly performed a high-stakes medical procedure without ensuring full compliance with potential,” your voice hesitates, the last syllable wavering as you battle amusement, “penguin-related clauses in state and federal code. That’s…” You push yourself clear off the island and wave two disbelieving hands in a what the fuck gesture. “Well, that’s bordering on gross negligence, Jack.”

“I didn’t— there are no penguin clauses—”

“Oh, okay.” You nod slowly. “So now you’re just assuming legal precedent, then. On what basis? Gut feeling? Ornithological jurisprudence?”

“You’re making things up,” he snaps.

“I’m doing my job.”

“What job? It’s eight in the morning on a Saturday and you—” he hisses out, jabbing a finger in your direction, “—you’re in Whataburger boxers and mismatched socks.”

“Typical Sunday best,” you dismiss with a shrug.

Stand your ground, Jack.

“It’s Saturday, not Sunday,” he grinds out.

“Saturdays are Sundays of the weekend, everyone knows that.”

And what the fuck does that mean?

Jack groans, rubbing his temples like that’ll somehow buffer him from your logic.

“You know what?” he snaps. “I hope penguins are sad. Deeply, irreparably sad. Because if I have to suffer, they do too.”

“Wow.” You blink, head slinking back in astonishment. “Bold stance for someone claiming to be pro-bird.”

“I never claimed that!” he insists, the tendon in his neck flexing, almost to the point of pain, while he fights for his life in a court of bird law that doesn’t even fucking exist.

And, if it does, it sure as fuck isn’t taught in medical school.

“Oh, so you’re anti-bird now?”

“No! I just— God, what is happening right now?” he explodes, gesturing wildly. “You called while I had my fingers in someone’s heart to debate whether Emperor penguins have some sort of evolutionary seasonal affective disorder—”

“Well, do they?”

He closes his eyes.

Breathes in.

Out.

You lean forward, elbows on the counter in full cross-examination intensity.

“You said—and I quote—‘You of all people should know the legal ramifications.’ So, I asked you a legal question. And now,” your hand comes to rest on your heart, “I’m the bad guy?”

“I said that because you were going to kill that guy.”

“I was going to do no such thing,” you say mildly. “Because I. Respect. The law.”

The older man stares at you, jaw working, a silent plea to whatever higher power might be listening for the patience to survive this conversation.

A strange sense of calm washes over him—one that accompanies your specific brand of arguing technique.

He thinks maybe you have a point with all that amen, brother shit you throw around half-seriously.

“You know what I meant,” he says, each word a slow, deliberate exercise in self-restraint. “You can’t just twist my words because you’re bored and running on two hours of sleep and orange juice.”

You don’t bother to hide your smirk.

“I’m not twisting your words. I’m clarifying the record for the court. You know, in case this comes up during your deposition.” The sentence cuts off abruptly as you blink, holding a finger up while a thought belatedly comes in on the fax machine in your brain. “Also. I cannot drink orange juice. It interacts with my Focalin.”

“I’m not on trial.”

When he says it, he really, really tries to keep his tone resolute—clinical and I’m Mister Doctor who does doctor things.

You prod a finger at the air between you.

“Not yet. But the jury,” you gesture to the half-eaten bagel on the counter, “isn’t looking great for you, doctor.”

But, unfortunately, he's not doing doctor things. He's off the clock.

Jack stares at you for a long beat—at your wild hair that kind of resembles a lion’s mane right now, and at the amusement simmering in your eyes.

The sheer, unadulterated absurdity of this entire conversation hits him full force, all at once. Five hours ago, he was in the emergency department actually saving lives; now, he’s standing in your kitchen, tired and resigned and helpless to you, standing there wearing Whataburger boxers and arguing avian psychology with the composure of a Supreme Court justice.

Ruth Bader Gins-bird, Jack's brain helpfully supplies, inner-commentary sounding suspiciously like you.

A slow, helpless twitch tugs at the corner of his mouth. He tries to swallow it, but it’s too late. His shoulders betray him with a single shake, a breathless puff of air escaping him as his head drops forward.

You pivot on your back foot, twisting your body to put distance between the two of you, in confusion.

But when Jack looks back up, whatever annoyance—anger, whatever—that was there is completely gone. The wrinkles by his eyes deepen with an amount of affection that is, frankly, a little embarrassing.

“You’re a nightmare,” he laughs, but the bite is entirely replaced by a soft, thread of fondness, wrapping around each word. He begins a leisurely walk towards where you’re standing, before he reaches out and catches the side of your jaw. “A literal, legal nightmare.”

Looking down, he sees your cloth-enclosed toes shuffle forward until they bump his shoes. His eyes make the ascent, trailing across your socks, and your fuckass shorts, and his hoodie, until they lock onto your own.

The apartment is silent as your soft breaths mingle with his.

Jack’s thumb traces down the line of your jaw, hooking on your chin before it smooths down to rest right above your collarbone.

Slowly, he tilts your head up.

Even more slowly, because proximity to you is now just downright Pavlovian, his eyes slide shut.

Distance between the two of you becomes non-existent, the bridge of his nose gently nudging your forehead.

He’s not thinking about the semi-truck or the first-year resident he’s definitely going to be overworking tomorrow or your extremely frustrating way of doubling down even when you know you’re wrong.

He’s thinking about how your forehead feels against his and how, despite his best efforts to be a serious professional, his heart is currently doing an extremely unprofessional skip.

“I’m going to lose my license because of you, you know that?” he whispers.

Against his throat, he feels your low, vibrating hum of surrender, lips grazing the sensitive skin.

“Not even because of that stupid fucking phone call,” he says. “But because I’m currently standing in the kitchen after my shift arguing about the legality of penguins with my extremely stubborn girlfriend instead of sleeping.”

A small puff of laughter dances across his skin, goosebumps following in its wake. “Girlfriend, huh?”

Jack hums.

And then lets out a long, very self-suffering sigh as the mockery of adrenaline evaporates from his system, leaving only the comfortable weight of being home. Carefully, his body sinks into yours, nudging one foot between yours and anchoring himself to you.

“For the record,” he whispers, lips brushing your skin with every word, “your little jury is biased. I would like to request a mistrial.”

Your arms snake around his waist, hooking together and finding comfortable resting place on his spine.

Jack abruptly pulls back and you whine, a pathetic where are you going whine that tugs at his heart.

“And I want a bite of that bagel as a peace offering,” he demands.

Small arms—deceptively strong small arms—pull him back to you.

You shake your head like your trying to burrow in.

“That’s literally your bagel,” you say, words muffled from where your face presses into his chest. "I made it for you."

Jack blinks.

“You were just eating it.” He turns his head and looks at what’s left of the offending breakfast item. “I watched you eat it. It’s literally half-eaten.”

“Ohhhh my god, you are bitchy today.”

And now, as punishment for having a modicum of misplaced trust in the man—not to mention fucking blinded by the excitement of confining your interactions to when he wasn’t good enough in the emergency department—you find your hands once again choking the grip of an assault rifle, reluctant body draped in fatigues, and weighed down by more magazines full of ammo than you care for, little wires for coms tangling at the nape of your neck, and a stupid ass helmet you’ve tossed disrespectfully at your feet begging you to roleplay soldier again.

Worst of all, you have POLICE emblazoned on your chest in big, bold, green caps. And it’s not even the police that puts out bangers like Roxanne. You can’t even pretend it’s not there. Everyone can see it. That guy five blocks away probably sees it.

You’re wearing a giant, government issued sticky note that says kick me.

A neon target for Jack Abbot’s fucking idiocy.

That’s on you, really.

But at least Abbot is the one carrying the medic bag.

Hearing that same fucking buzz from that same fucking kamikaze mosquito, your hand flies up and slaps your neck. Seconds later, the high pitch bzzzzzz begins again.

Screwing your head to the side, raw anger tugs your upper lip into a small snarl, stuttering off as the wave of tension recedes backwards, incisors gnashing together, molars grinding, before bitterly anchoring into the tense tendons cradling your jaw.

“God, I could be watching Psych right now,” you scoff under your breath.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see the bastard of the hour stop rummaging through the med-kit to glance at you. “What was that?”

“Fuck you,” you snap automatically. You try to revise your statement, “Nothing. Mind your own business.”

Drawing a small circle in the dirt with the toe of your boot, you suddenly flick your ankle to the side, sending a cloud of gravel flying arbitrarily in his direction.

You huff.

You took the Hippocratic oath, too. I was there, Abbot reminded you when he saw your mouth open to yell at him upon pulling up to the trucks upon trucks of police and SWAT teams.

It was a flimsy justification for being a pawn in this excursion, sure, but it doesn’t explain why either of you needed guns.

Glancing around, you take in the cacophony of movement swirling around you. Real big men hiding behind their real big guns containing outrageous, disproportionate firepower for, what Abbot had informed you was, an empty warehouse.

Which obviously requires two medics, as well.

God, you wish you had a cigarette.

You don’t even smoke.

Across the small parking lot, you see a vague gesture from the captain—a little jerk of his head, really, saying time to go—and you both fall into practiced motion. The weight of your rifle shifts as you sling it to the side, the dull metal pressing uncomfortably against your hip, while you wiggle the toe of your left foot under the lip of your helmet. Raising your boot, you snatch the glorified hat off your neatly tied laces, fingers curling around the sides with disdain.

Beside you, Abbot—King of Jackasses, you decide—coronates himself with his helmet without ceremony, thick, gloved fingers immediately tightening down the chin strap.

With a twitch of your eyebrow, you recall the venom of his lowly muttered words while you stabilized one of his patients. Opportunistic, he had called you. Always willing to make sure you’re there for the code. At the time, you had shot back, yeah, you’d know about that intimately, huh, Abbot?

Standing next to his petrifying, creaking joints and slowly rising body, despite yourself, the corners of your mouth twitch upward in a smirk.

Opportunistic, perhaps. But who are you to resist the opportunity to get one last dig in before you put your life in his stupidly competent, bastard hands?

“You cut your own hair, Abbot?” you call over innocently.

The older man pauses, hands hovering by the sides of his Kevlar crown, as an apprehensive glare cuts to you.

“What?”

You shrug, pretending to check that the fastened buckles on the sides of your vest. “Just making small talk.”

His full body turns to yours.

“Why?” he demands.

Hook, line, and sinker.

What a dumbass.

You ignore him, feet setting aside their beef with the grey-haired man—without consulting you, by the way—with a pivot, stepping around him. Falling into an old routine, you begin to check the closures of his vest.

Starting at the shoulder armaments, you pinch the fabric between your fingers and yank. The force of it pulls his upper body back into you, boots scuffing the floor to keep balance. Abbot’s head snaps in your direction, eyes narrowed and mouth open to—you're positive—bitch at you, but you’re already moving again. Your hands fall to his side-buckles, aggressively raking over the stiff fabric of his vest. Each time you find a clip, you give the nylon webbing a punishing, body-wrenching cinch.

With a final tug that sends him stumbling, you slap his upper back twice.

“All good, here,” you announce.

You tilt your head in consideration. Then, as an afterthought, “Unfortunately.”

Abbot doesn’t dignify your comment with a verbal response, simply letting out a grunt. He turns around and motions for you to do the same.

Reluctantly obeying, you turn. His breath is warm against your neck.

Gloved hands finding your shoulder, he asks, “Why did you ask about my hair?”

“Aw, is baby insecur—? Oh, what the fuck— shit—”

Abbot cuts you off with a taste of your own medicine, his fucking Terminator arms taking the buckle webbing hostage and snapping back. Rock momentarily frictionless beneath your boots, your feet scramble to find purchase, leaving you to you fall backwards flush against his chest. Your head bounces as the top of your helmet glances off his chin.

“No,” he mutters against your ear with a small grunt. “I do not cut my own hair.”

Trying to ignore everything about your position, you hum noncommittally. Borderline innocent.

“Oh,” you say simply.

The veteran reels back, his voice sharp. “What ‘oh’?”

“Nothing,” you dismiss, fighting back a smirk you’re so fucking glad he can’t see. “Just ‘oh’.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Nothing, I just think it’s…” you trail off. “I just love your pixie cut, Abbot.”

Strong hands paw your shoulders and whirl you around, dust flying up from the ground. Hazel eyes—borderline murderous ones, though you suppose that’s usually the setting they’re on when you’re in the same goddamn zip-code—bore into yours.

“I don’t have a pixie cut.”

“That’s a pixie cut,” you insist. Looking down, you blink, small hands gingerly patting your one-thousand-fucking-tensile-strength-fiber clad stomach. “Wait, is my vest fine?”

“You’ll live,” he replies dismissively. Then, back to the pressing matter hanging between you, “This is not a pixie cut.”

You bring your hand up and knock back his helmet, revealing a tuft of sweat-soaked curls. You level an accusing finger straight at it.

“That’s exactly what I’d be showing my hair stylist if I wanted a shitty pixie cut. Also,” you draw a circle in the air pointedly, “that chinstrap is not nearly tight enough.”

Abbot swats your hand away. “Stop.”

“You look like you’re Team Edward, Abbot. Why would you do that to your hair?”

“My barber,” he emphasizes the word, “gave me a perfectly fine haircut.”

“Your barber?” you echo with faux-concern. “What does he do for a living?”

Abbot’s mouth opens, locked and loaded with a retort—probably an attempt to make you feel guilty, maybe a former soldier who has his own business, or something equally as stupid as that—but before the first sound is out, a sharp whistle cuts through the air from the captain.

Or someone, whatever. Whoever is in charge here, you guess.

Consider that curtain call on your little play.

Without speaking, you both gather your things. Reluctantly, you settle the heavy helmet on your skull and tighten down the strap. Then you’re both on the move, steps synchronized, feet carrying you across the dirt to the neat little kindergarten lines filled with SWAT officers.

Beside you, Abbot shakes his head, chuckling softly. For a moment, you’re blindsided, the sound completely devoid of the sarcasm and derision you’re accustomed to.

Staring straight ahead, you pin him with a glare out of the corner of your narrowed eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing, just…” He throws a glance in your direction. “Feels like old times, is all.”

You raise an eyebrow. “All things considered, I don’t think that’s a good thing.”

But he’s right.

Between the bickering and the safety checks, it did feel like old times.

Not a time you’d like to relive, necessarily, but old times, nonetheless.

Times when his laughter hit you straight between the ribs. Times when you always had each other’s six.

You start to fall back, but swing your arm out at the last second to grab Abbot’s shoulder. “Fix your fucking helmet. I don’t need you bleeding out all over my new shoes.”

With that, you move to stand behind him, and still. Your shoulders drain of their joking lilt, spine straightening and muscles tensing. Mindlessly, you check the safety on the rifle with your thumb, making sure it’s switched firmly over SAFE.

In front of you, Abbot steps forward and you follow, silence broken only by the rhythmic sound of the crunching gravel and the rhythmic jingle of gear. Close enough that his bag skims your thigh with every step, your bodies lower in a practiced crouch as you approach the looming doorway. Muscles tense, every sense narrowing, tuning into only the second in front of you. Your elbow comes up, fingers curling around the metal grip at the front, steadying your weapon.

Reflexively, your eyes drop to the ground in front of you, checking the slight limp in Abbot’s gait.

Annoyance floods through you and your eyes snap back up, glaring at the back of his stupid fucking helmet.

After everything, you’re still checking up on him.

The thought makes your eye twitch.

Around you, the glare of streetlights bleeding into the early morning sky dims and dies as you walk through the doorframe into the building. The smell of stagnant oil and damp mildew crowds in, suffocating your senses.

You don’t really think—feet landing in the invisible imprints that Abbot’s carves ahead.

Twenty pairs of boots shuffling against the stained concrete echoes softly through the infinite dark. You track Abbot’s silhouette, feeling the uneasy pulse of adrenaline begin to thread through your veins, prickling your fingertips as you tighten your grip on the rifle.

Finally, a dim glow bleeds through your senses, stepping out into a hallway. It stretches ahead, narrow and industrial, flanked by walls streaked with suspicious stains and ancient steel that could probably speak Sumerian. Or maybe built by someone who did.

You vaguely remember Abbot showing you a blueprint of a labyrinthine building, arms of corridors branching off and twisting around a vast antechamber. You don’t even know where you just entered, but it probably wouldn’t even help you orient yourself if you did.

Overhead, flickering bulbs cast jagged shadows that leap and dance with every movement, exposing patches of skeletal piping and wires drooping from the ceiling. The air is thick, tinged with the metallic tang of rust and the faint, persistent stench of rot. Each step echoes along the corridor’s length, amplified by the low ceiling and the emptiness, making you hyper-aware of the silence that presses in from every direction.

As you strain to listen, your nerves coil tighter, anticipation heavy in your chest. A bead of sweat slips from your temple as you level your rifle, praying to fucking God that Abbot is tuned into your same dumbass martyr frequency and hears you urging him to stay sharp, to keep moving.

Somewhere behind a distant wall, something shifts—an abrupt, faint metallic clatter, gone as quickly as it came.

You freeze, heart pounding.

Suddenly, you feel him drop down to his knee, the thud of the medic bag sending a cloud of dust into the air.

Quickly, you follow suit, a braced arm on his vest telling him you’re there.

You don’t want to sound dramatic or anything, but you both are sitting there completely exposed.

Your mouth twitches in displeasure.

Crouched down directly behind Abbot—a human shield, you think with fleeting amusement—the room shrinks to the small space between you. Your forearm presses down and tethers you to his shoulder blades. With every breath, you feel the familiar, steady expansion of his lungs against your sleeve.

He’s actually much too right, you think.

This is just like old times.

You glance around the dim interior.

One second, you’re there.

Then you blink.

Your breath catches in your throat.

You fight the urge to squeeze your eyes shut as a phantom blast of heat sears your face. The stale warehouse air is ushered out and replaced by the suffocating, metallic dust of the roadside in the middle of fucking nowhere.

All ambient noise folds to the echo of a scream—his voice, jagged and raw—as the world in front of you blew up before you even had a chance to move.

Tendrils of panic snake around your lungs and squeeze. The sensation is sharp and unyielding, as if every muscle in your chest is twisting inwards, constricting tighter with each second. Each breath becomes more frantic than the last, throat desperately dragging air in. Your vision narrows at the edges. It’s all you can do to focus on the fuckass POLICE stamped on the unyielding back under you, and you want to yell, because this is so not the time for your mind to take a little trip—and, truly, it is the most inopportune moment. The urge to escape, to claw your way free from the suffocating grip, pulses through you, but all you can manage is another quiet, desperate inhale.

Distantly, you feel the pressure of Abbot’s hand reach back and land on your calf.

His touch is tentative at first—years of hating each other will do that, you suppose—but the sudden warmth anchors you, taking your mental soiree by the scruff of the neck and slamming your soul back into your body.

The room crashes in around you. The echoing of boots on the ground in the distance. The smell of Abbot’s aftershave mixed with the stale dust suspended in the air.

His thumb moves in a slow, grounding circle. The grip around your lungs loosen, just enough for you to inhale a shaky breath. For a moment, your panic stutters, caught on the strange, fragile comfort of his grip.

You almost laugh at the familiarity of the action.

Your silent signal for, are you okay?

The seconds tick by, your body motionless.

Slowly, your fingertips twitch, tapping out a brief cadence on his right shoulder.

Of course I’m okay, you fucking idiot, you reply.

You really don’t think you are, but you’d rather die than admit that to him right now. Or ever.

You shift uncomfortably.

The heat of his hand on your calf sharpens, branding the skin under layers of fabric and poly-synthetic material.

Jesus Christ, why the fuck are you here? Why are you here, crouched behind him, the metal of a rifle bitterly pressing a temporary scar into your hand?

You’re an attending. You have a dog. You have a life—one that no longer includes the smell of gunpowder and the moral weight of fighting for a cause that you never believed in.

One that sure as fuck doesn’t include Jack Abbot as a main character.

You have a life where the only time your hands shake is when you’ve had too much RedBull, not because you’re holding a man’s femoral artery together in the back of a glorified Jeep. You have a life where you choose your own meals, can decide what side of the bed to sleep on, and can smell like vanilla if you want.

Anger, sharp and acidic, begins to transfuse through your veins. Anger at him asking you to do this. Anger at him having the audacity to ask you to join him for a round of cops and fucking robbers. Anger at him dragging you back into a world where your safety relies on the click of a safety and on him.

But even as you glare at the back of his neck, the anger does a roundabout, leisurely one-eighty and turns back on you.

Deep, unforgiving anger.

Because you could have said no.

You could have looked at the text from an unknown number, ignored it—ignored the stupid fucking way he signed his texts with JA—and just went about your day. If you saw him tomorrow, you could have played innocent.

But you didn’t.

Because for some unknown, God forsaken reason, you weren’t strong enough to say no. And you’d put money on him knowing that. You’d put money on him banking on that—on taking advantage of it.

You want to shove him, right there in that hallway. You want to scream at him and maybe throw a bite or two in for good measure. Instead, you tighten your grip on your rifle until the cool metal bites into your palms.

The mission—if you can even call it that—goes off without a hitch, which is predicable, given that it was an empty fucking warehouse. The overkill deployment of firepower and weaponry got whatever it was they were looking for.

Now you just want to get the fuck out and wash your hands of the entire damn situation.

But unfortunately, Abbot is the one who conned you into this whole mockery of an outing.

And Abbot is, at his core, a gentleman.

Which means he picked you up.

Which also means you have to wait for the bastard to flirt with everyone within a ten-mile radius before you can even go home to your trusty ceiling that’s oh, so eagerly awaiting your return for a tried and true one-hour staring session while your hand absentmindedly gives your dog’s head little scratches.

A sharp ringing begins to muffle the sounds of laughter and bitching around you.

You really need to get out of here.

Shakily, you force one foot in front of the other, unsteady hands stuttering down the body of your rifle to make sure the safety was locked on in a blind panic.

You need to get away from where the mass of toy soldiers were giggling and gossiping in the middle of the warehouse.

The fluorescent lights overhead feel like needles against your retinas.

You pick a hallway and begin your aimless stumbling, the shadows stretching and snapping at your heels with sharp teeth.

God, you’re so fucking tired.

Hand shooting out to try every door you pass, the forbidding click of a locked handle adds fuel to your quickly spreading wildfire of desperation. You just want a room that wasn’t filled with unearned—not to mention undeserving—bravado of the men in that center room.

The next door gives.

Oh, thank fucking God.

It groans on rusted hinges, opening into a small windowless room, smelling vaguely of deviled eggs and dead dreams. The dying bulb from the hallway filters through the space around your body, casting a jagged glow on a grime-streaked, rusted table that probably hasn’t seen a piece of paper in a decade.

You lean against the door with a sigh, letting it latch with a heavy, final thud.

The silence is immediate, the high-pitched ringing haunting your ears as you let your eyes adjust to the darkness.

You guess that the gravity in this room must be higher, because the rifle in your hands suddenly weighs, like, five-hundred pounds. You shuffle your boots across the ground—too tired or too heavy to even be picked up for a proper step—with a mind of their own, taking you to the ancient table ahead. Slowly, you push one knee to balance on the edge, gloved palms flat against the surface. Your other knee follows. With a small groan, you turn and maneuver yourself on your back, legs outstretched before you.

Trembling hands find your chinstrap in the darkness, gently unbuckling it and giving it a single push, sending the helmet crashing to the floor.

Just like old times.

You press your palms into your eyes so hard you see static, trying to crush the memory of Abbot’s calf-touch and the smell of his aftershave away.

You’re here.

You’re in a city where they sell pirozhkis at their baseball stadium, and where the majority don’t know the chalky texture of peanut butter from an MRE.

You have a dog. You have a life.

A small screeeech fills the air as the door to your little hideout is forced open.

You pick your head up and see Abbot lingering in the doorway, eyebrows scrunched together and mouth tugged down into a small frown.

Your head drops with a thud.

“Oh, hello. I was just,” you lazily gesture towards the table hard under your back, “assessing the supine situation. Leaving?”

Without waiting for an answer, you sit up and swing your legs over the unforgiving metal. You hop down, knees cracking with the impact of the cement floor firm under your boots.

Abbot doesn’t move.

He stays anchored in the doorway, his silhouette cutting a shockingly broad figure against the flickering light behind him.

He’s no longer wearing his helmet.

Dethroned, you idly think.

“I couldn’t find you,” he says, voice low.

You blink at him before bending to pick up your gear with a wince. “That would be because I left.”

Where the fuck is my vest? Baffled, you glance around the room. What the fuck?

You twist your body, glancing under the table.

Ah.

Stretching your leg, you hook the tip of your boot through a strap and inch it closer.

A heavy footfall fills the room, quickly followed by one lighter one, as Abbot steps across the threshold, quietly closing the door behind him. Your shoulders tense.

Your name drips from his lips hesitantly, “Are you… okay?”

“What?” Your head snaps in his direction, eyes narrowed.

“Back—” Abbot shakes his head, cutting himself off. “When we were in stack, you… are you alright?”

You stare at him blankly.

Are you alright?

Hey, I know I shoved you headfirst into an echo of possibly the worst experiences of your life—where I almost died, by the way, but you saved me! Yay!—very nonchalantly, like we were just catching the game, but, like, are you alright?

“Pristine,” you deadpan.

Abbot shifts his weight and your eyes flick to his foot.

He probably can’t be too comfortable right now.

You clench your jaw.

“I really… I mean,” you suck your teeth. “I kind of don’t want to talk to you.”

A mirthless smile twists his face. “I think you already are.”

Your eyes slowly slide closed while you try to summon all the self-restraint you harbor in your body. They slide back open on an inhale.

You snatch the vest from the ground.

“I told you,” you say, voice dangerously level. “I’m fine. Best I’ve ever been. Top of my game. Can we go now?”

You move to brush past him and turn the doorhandle, but the doctor’s stupid fucking broad shoulders don’t give, his bulky frame building the newest concrete wall in this warehouse. He stares at you, eyes searching yours.

“Don’t do that,” he says, voice dropping slightly. If you were crazy, you might say his tone is borderline pleading.

Interesting.

You huff, pinning his shoulder with a nasty look and taking a step back. “Don’t do what? Breathe? Attempt to leave a building that makes a house of cards seem up to code?”

“Don’t give me that,” he replies. “I know you—”

Your head swivels to his. “You don’t know shit, Abbot. Let’s go.”

Steel, hazel eyes level you with a glare, the concern being wrestled out and getting shot out back by anger. “Okay, what the fuck is your problem?”

“Whoa, I’m sorry, my problem?” you clarify, voice shrill and incredulous. You drop the strap of the vest, letting it hit the dusty floor with a dull slap as you square your shoulders. “My problem?”

“Yes,” he snaps, taking a step closer and shoving a finger into your chest. “Your problem.”

“No, sorry, you want to know what my problem is? My problem is—” your voice falters.

Your lamentable, death-penalty qualifying, red-flag problem is you loved him once.

Through bullets raining down on you in a metallic storm, you loved him. Through late nights, huddled in a tent with wind tearing at the fabric, making up stories about how you were going to leave all this behind and buy a castle, or an entire mountain range, or a cup of non-government issued coffee when you got home, you loved him. And in every fantasy, in every made-up scenario, you were sitting there together. Two names on the castle deed, two faces on your brand-new Mount Rushmore, two chairs pulled up to a hand-built table with two cups of coffee.

Even when he fell victim to an IED and you wrapped a tourniquet above his knee with trembling, blood-slick hands, you loved him.

And when he pulled away, angry and self-isolating, you refused to leave.

You chose him again, and again, and again.

But then he left you.

There was no last conversation, no clue to where he was, but there were years full of silence heavy enough to know exactly where he wasn’t.

No phone calls, no postcards, no trace.

And then one day, you received a wedding invitation in the mail with his name stenciled in pretty gold foil, and he officially left you—replaced your blood-soaked devotion with shiny metallic chrome.

And then his wife died.

And you had to find out from the friend of a sister whose best friend’s brother was one of his best man’s cousins.

And still he left you.

So, imagine your surprise when, on the first week of being an emergency surgery attending, you were called down for a consult and locked eyes with someone who, for all you knew, was a ghost.

Blinking rapidly—because if a tear even so much as teases your waterline, you’ll fucking kill yourself—your brain stutters back into thought production.

“My problem is that I have the word POLICE being branded into my fucking chest,” you spit.

“Oh, come off it—”

“No, sorry, I was talking,” you cut him off. “Was war not fucking enjoyable enough for you?”

Abbot opens his mouth to retort, but you keep talking like he wasn’t even born with vocal chords. “You have to come out here and cosplay tyrannical terrorist state-side, too?”

The lines around his eyes deepen, eyes narrowing to slits.

“If I recall correctly, you were there same as me,” he reminds you pointedly.

“Yeah, but I actually learned something,” you snarl, stepping into his space. “I spent the entire time saving the wrong fucking people—”

“You don’t get to—”

Your hands fly up to his chest and shove. “—fucking starting with you, apparently.”

Abbot stumbles, stepping back to right himself. Then he slowly steps closer, deliberately dipping his head to catch your gaze.

His voice is soft, placating, which somehow makes you angrier. “All this isn’t what you th—”

You cut him off, “No, I don’t care about your fucking justifications. I don’t care how well you sleep at night. I want you to leave me the fuck out of it. This—” you motion to your surroundings, “—isn’t a hobby, Abbot. It’s…” Your words trail off with a scoff. “It’s disgusting.”

“They needed support—” he tries again.

“Abbot, I do not care—”

“—I needed support—”

“—you could be on fire—”

“—and you’re the only one I trust to have my back,” Abbot finishes forcefully, hands coming up to grip your shoulders.

“No, you do not get to get to resuscitate ‘we,’” you finger wedges between your bodies and motions back and forth, “for convenience, Abb—”

“And I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

A small, pleading sound vibrates your throat before you can stop it. Your hand smears over your face, two fingers sliding between your teeth as you bite down as hard as you fucking can. You have to physically muzzle yourself—the sharp, unrelenting sting of your canines pressing into your skin in a desperate bid to stop the sentence, is that what you told your wife, too?

The words bounce off every bone in your skull, the cruel reality of what almost just came out of your mouth amplifying with each launch.

And you’re the only one I trust to have my back.

What the fuck?

You blink, eyes finding his annoyingly not-receding hairline. His right ear. The small divot where his collarbones meet beneath his shirt. Parted lips where soft pants puff out, fueled by adrenaline.

How close you were to saying that to Jack Abbot—a man that, despite your best efforts and his current life choices, you also trust with your life—makes a pit form in your stomach.

Why the fuck would he say that when you’re trying so hard to hate him, so hard to hurt him in every way that he has hurt you, and then some.

But how hard are you actually trying when, beneath it all—all the anger and the hate—is Mercy, capital M, its outline carved by a dull blade into your soul in a suspiciously Jack Abbot-esque shape. Your capacity to care defined by his mentorship and heated just enough under the blazing desert sun to be molded by his steady hands.

Look at him now.

Doctor Jack ‘It’s not what it looks like, I promise’ Abbot.

Opportunistic, Abbot had called you once.

Sure.

You’re the opportunistic one.

But he’s the one who gets to do this.

Your jaw clenches hard enough you’re worried about the structural integrity of your teeth.

“You,” you start slowly, “need to mitigate that gall right the fuck now. And get your hands off of me.”

For a beat, the man just stares at you, the grip on your shoulders tightening minutely like he’s scared the second he lets go, the distance between you will have to be explained using geographic coordinates. Then, he peels his fingers off, one by one, and steps back.

You can still feel his phantom weight pressing you down.

Abbot crosses his arms over his stupidly defined chest and shakes his head. His lips part, mouthing words he can’t force out, before he snaps it shut with an audible click.

“I don’t understand what happened,” he finally says. “With us.”

You blink, eyes downcast, tongue darting out to wet your lips.

Well, Jack, how much time do you have? you want to ask.

But you’re done talking right now. You know yourself well enough to know that any word out of your mouth after that stupid, brainless, idiotic fucking statement will completely obliterate whatever fragile demilitarized zone that exists between you.

God forbid.

Abbot huffs out a final, humorless laugh at your silence, the sound of his angry breaths filling the room.

When you hazard a glance back up, you find him already looking at you. Eyes roam over your face, connecting the constellation between every little feature.

Committing it to memory.

Abruptly, he turns on his heel, arm flinging the door open, and storms out of the room.

It slams behind him.

And I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.

You almost laugh.

He did let something happen to you, you think.

He left.

You’re not sure how much time passes—could be seconds, could be minutes, could be hours—before you start to move. You reach into your back pocket, every joint in your arm creaking from idleness, trembling fingers clumsily closing around your phone.

Quickly, and with an embarrassing lack of dexterity, you find the contact you’re looking for and tap out a message.

S-Tier horse tranquilizer: did you give that fucking idiot my phone number

emery(gency): Heyyyyyy, haha

You watch those three little bubbles appear. Disappear. And then appear again. And then disappear again. Finally, she settles on a diplomatic,

emery(gency): How are you today? Weather’s great!

emery(gency): To whom do you refer?

S-Tier horse tranquilizer: I trusted you with my number and this is how you repay me

With raised eyebrows, you watch as her desperate, panic-fueled texts roll in.

emery(gency): He made it sound important

emery(gency): He made it sound like you knew

You scoff. Fifty-fifty chance of finding who gave him your number and you nailed it first try.

You know, perhaps better than anyone else, that Jack Abbot could make ordering a fucking sandwich sound like a covert operation that you should be honored to partake in with the way he wields his gravelly voice and puppy eyes.

And Emery—strong, beautiful, always-on-your-side-and-hates-him-by-proxy Emery—walked directly into his trap.

Yeah, To whom do you refer?, indeed.

emery(gency): I thought you were in trouble!!

emery(gency): Girl you should have seen him!!!! His grey hair looked like a little storm cloud above his head!!!!!!!!!

emery(gency): I thought his eyes were about to start raining tears!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The texts stop.

They resume with notably less exclamation points.

emery(gency): You two need to fight or fuck this out as far as I am concerned.

emery(gency): I don’t know how to unsend messages don’t read that one

emery(gency): Please

emery(gency): Did you read it?

emery(gency): I feel like you read it

emery(gency): Where even are you right now

emery(gency): Your location is in an abandoned warehouse. Did you know that?

emery(gency): Hello?

emery(gency): Hello????

emery(gency): HELLO???????????

emery(gency): I AM DYING HELP ME

A puff of exhausted amusement escapes your nose.

Your phone locks with a click.

And then you groan.

Abbot was your fucking ride.

THE LOOKOUT

With closed eyes, you inhale the cool, December air, before looking down at your feet. Here, at the edge of the lookout, the grass has been trampled. You imagine friends taking bets on who dares get closest to the edge, lovers making memories, families taking pictures. It’s strangely soothing that maybe you’re not the first to stand here to do this. 

Far below your feet, the water laps at the rocks. The force of it depends on the weather and tonight it’s violent, with big splashes and crashing sounds. The wind tugs at your coat, pulling you towards the water as if to help you along, making you look up again as you hold your balance. In front of you, the line of the horizon is dark but visible – it would have been impossible to make out if the moon hadn’t been as bright as it is.

It’s like you’re looking at the edge of the world.

During the weeks that fall had made way for winter, you scoped the place out a couple times. The first time you stood at this cliff’s edge, the place it took you to mentally scared you so much that you got back into your car and broke down in tears. The next couple times, things became more and more serious, as your life crumbled around you, and your feelings numbed, and nothing seemed to matter anymore.

Something had crept in while you weren’t looking, settling somewhere behind your eyes and spreading out to make a home behind your ribs, slowly but surely changing you. And once you realized it, it was already too late. It had grown large, became jilted and jealous, like it wanted all of you. It pushed away everyone and everything you held dear, until it was just you and that… something.

Especially during the quiet of the night, the lookout became soothing, a strange sense of familiarity enveloping you each time you were here. It was addictive and pretty soon, it became a daily routine to visit. But lately it’s been losing its shine, your feelings here dulling and darkening too. You’re exhausted, fed up, tired of giving it more of you.

Today you want it to be your last time here. 

You’ve had countless hours to contemplate what it would be like, imagined – all but romanticised – how the cold water would paralyse your limbs if the impact wouldn't do the trick. You read somewhere that it’s apparently like falling asleep when the water finally fills your lungs. You’ll be gone, but the thing will be too.

The thought makes your eyes fill with tears, but not from fear. All you feel is relief, like it’s right, how it’s supposed to be. It makes you smile despite everything, and–

“Hey, stop!”

A voice behind you thunders through the silence and makes you shriek into the night, dirt toppling over the edge of the lookout below the shuffle of your foot. A string of curses follows, heavy footfalls behind you indicating that the intruder is approaching you.

“Fuck off!” you throw over your shoulder, your voice a roar with how it’s amplified by the wind. 

After, your throat closes up, fighting the angry tears over the fact that you can’t even fucking kill yourself in peace. Never have you seen anyone here at night, never. What you hate even more is how it breaks your momentum. The haze that was surrounding you is pierced, and your body’s baser instincts kick in. Adrenaline suddenly pumps through your veins, making your legs tremble, your heart hammer, your body scream for you to step back from where you’re standing. Your anger, however, has you nailed to the floor. 

You almost miss the much softer, “Hey,” as a man steps into your peripheral vision. You pretend like you don’t hear him, or see him – you simply pretend he isn’t there, focussing on getting back into your previous mindset. 

But then he takes his hands out of his pockets.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” you warn, hating how your voice comes out trembling – weak.

“Easy.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

You stand there together for what feels like hours. You will yourself to not let it affect you, setting your jaw to keep your teeth from clattering on account of the cold, allow the wind to blow your hair into your eyes without brushing it away. Even when it begins to rain, you don’t move, don’t blink even once more than you need to. From the corner of your eye you watch the man shove his hands back in the pockets of the brown leather jacket he’s wearing, and you quietly celebrate that your surroundings are fazing him more than they are you.

“You know–” he begins.

“I’m not really looking for a conversation.”

“Me neither,” he immediately counters, suddenly impatient, “so I’ll get right to it: You planning on jumping? Because if you think the water’s gonna be nice to you, you’ve got that wrong. You’ll end up in there feeling everything, that fall isn’t gonna do shit.”

Having expected a gentle approach, his bluntness and his tone knock the wind out of you. You cock your jaw, the shame creeping up your body the first bit of warmth you’ve felt in a while. Your cold fingers ball to fists as you will yourself not to care. Yes, his words and the way he's shatteríng your expectations with them sting, but you don’t even know this guy–

“And there’s nothing fuckin’ peaceful about it, it’s just panic. Right before you go too far…” He raises a fist and holds it against the center of his chest, “...there’s this burning right here that’s hell.”

“And what makes you such an expert?” you finally spit out.

“Died like that a couple times,” he says without waiting a beat.

The casual statement of something so bizarre beats your resolve before you know it, your head turning in his direction. “‘A couple times’?”

“I, uh…” You watch him hesitate, the moonlight illuminating the tick of his jaw, the bob of his throat as he swallows, the way his chest falls as he sighs, “Let’s just say I can’t die.”

Before you can stop yourself, you snort at that. “That must fucking suck.”

He barks out a laugh, “Got that right.” It startles you when his head suddenly turns to you, when he looks you in the eye for the first time. “But trust me, being down there isn’t much better.”

There’s something in the way he looks at you that makes you waver. You can’t really place it, or decipher why it makes you want to open up to him. Maybe it’s because you’re freezing and it’s your body betraying you, tricking you into moving so you can generate some warmth, moving your lips to keep them from going blue. Or maybe it’s simply because he’s a stranger and it’s so much easier to be honest when there are no consequences.

“Things just feel so…,” you begin, voice shaky. Every possible way to end the sentence crosses your mind, seemingly all wrong, before you settle on what’s closest to how you feel, “endless.”

To your relief, he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t tell you to give it time that it will get better, or any of the other bullshit you’ve heard from all the other people that had been in your life and left a long time ago. You do find something else in the shift in his eyes, something you haven’t encountered before.

Understanding.

It might be worse. If anything, it’s overwhelming, making your eyes dart away from his as you sniff. 

The wind still tugs at you, the waves still hit the rocks, but your moment seems to have passed. It’s a sobering conclusion, a twisted version of wrong place, wrong time. Or maybe it was him who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, the outcome is the same.

You take a step back, and another, but it takes considerable effort; you hadn’t taken your numb legs into consideration. You stumble, falling back on the dewy, cold grass, not quick enough to catch yourself on your hands. With a groan, you move to sit upright.

“Shit. Hey, you still with me?” The stranger kneels next to you, fingers lifting your chin to look into your eyes. “Jesus, you’re fucking freezing.”

“No s-sh-hit,” you retort.

He sighs, offering you a hand so he can pull you up. “C’mon, let's get you warmed up.”

– – – – –

Logan.

That’s his name. 

It’s how he introduced himself, anyway, after he suggested you follow him. To his credit, he did offer to drive you, but you didn’t want to leave your car in the parking lot of the lookout. Logan waited 15 minutes for you while you put the blowers on the highest, warmest setting and waited for the feeling to return to your limbs. After, his brown truck led the way here – here being some hole in the wall, 24 hour diner. You could have not followed, but the drive was kind of mesmerizing; the night seemed darker than usual, and Logan’s tail lights served as a lighthouse.

Outside, the diner is all Christmas lights and flashing signs, but the interior is like something straight out of Twin Peaks; booths to the left, red barstools to the right, a girl that looks too pretty and too young to be here standing behind the counter. There were two other patrons you spotted along the way as Logan led you to one of the back booths. Once seated, Logan studied the pamphlets–or pretended to, more like, because as soon as the waitress came up he ordered two whiskeys and nothing else.

Between then and now, as you nursed your drink sip by careful sip, you hadn’t learned much more about him other than that he could knock back a glass of whiskey like he got paid to do so. And in truth, you like it this way; preferring silent company, the droning of the machinery behind the counter and the quiet hum of a song on the jukebox next to the entrance. The white noise helps to distract from the white noise in your head. Settling back into the leather cushions of the booth, you let some warmth seep back into your body. Opposite you, Logan does the same. 

Some moments after you finish your drink, one of the waitresses walks up to your booth to ask you about a refill, like she’s asked Logan twice now. You’re handing her the glass when Logan says, “She’s had enough.”

Your head whips from her to him. “Excuse me?”

He doesn’t say anything, and from the corner of your eye, you see the girl leave. With your glass. Logan’s is on his lips, his eyes observing you over the rim, looking at you like he– Dammit. You sigh deeply, a sense of anger filling you. You don’t need this, least of all from him. When you stand from the booth, those eyes follow you, making you voice your observations,

“Quit pitying me, Logan.”

“I’m not,” he says before taking another sip. “You still have to drive.”

You quirk an eyebrow at him. “And you don’t?”

Logan shrugs. “It’s different for me.”

Anger is still prevalent in your voice when you ask, “Well, let me guess, it’s another case of ‘I died like that a couple times’?” 

He hums.

“And how does that work?”

“Regenerative ability,” he sighs. Another sip before he elaborates, “X-Gene.” 

The admission makes you plop back down in your seat. Well, that explains things – he’s a mutant. You’re not familiar with that world, but you know enough to know it meant that. It isn’t like you couldn’t have deduced it before, but truthfully, you kind of thought he was bullshiting you as part of some tactic. Now, his actions and words make more sense: He really knows what it’s like to... That’s why he had that look on his face. Suddenly, you see him in a different light–

“Now who’s pitying who, hmm?” Logan asks, giving you a thin-lipped smile that doesn't reach his eyes as he sets his glass down on the table.

“I’m not, I’m just… processing. So this...” you lift his glass, swirl the contents around, “...doesn’t even affect you?”

“It does. For a few seconds.” He plucks the glass back from your hand, and throws the whiskey back with one gulp. His pupils dilate, pushing the hazel of his irises out until his eyes are almost black for a second, two… before going back to normal. “But if I chugged the bottle, I’d pass out.”

“Well, so would I,” you say with a chuckle. “So maybe we’re not that different after all.”

Just as the corner of his mouth lifts, your smile falls, because… it isn’t true; you’re very different. You’re pretty sure you don’t have what it takes to do what he did tonight. To care enough to do it. To sit with a stranger and hear them bitch and moan about being denied a drink. A feeling creeps up on you, sticky and uncomfortable, like you’ve overstayed your welcome—burdened him.

“I should head home,” you say, standing again.

Lightning fast, Logan’s hand shoots out to close around your wrist. “That really where you’re going?”

“Yes,” you reply. When you pull your hand back, he doesn’t let up. You fish your car key out of your pocket with your free hand, voice tighter when you say, “Let me go.”

“Just promise me something,” he says, eyes as dark as they’d been earlier, yet his drink has gone untouched since. “Don’t go back there again.”

“Not making promises I can’t keep,” you say, giving him a wry smile. “To strangers, but least of all to myself.”

He sighs, and lets you pull yourself from his hold.

THE CRAVING

New Years comes and goes, and you quickly discover that it was foolish superstition to think that it might change how you feel.

You find yourself in some club, a drink in each hand. You hate to admit it, but Logan’s words scared you out of your original idea and the only time you can bear to think of how to move on from it is when alcohol soothes the embarrassing grief of your shattered, macabre fantasy. It’s not a good way to deal with things, but it works.

There’s a part of you that welcomes feeling anything at all, but that… something inside you is busy trying to squash it. 

It’s getting somewhere, because you have no idea how much you’ve already had to drink, but you’re buzzing pleasantly. Adding to it, you knock both drinks back, slamming the glasses on the bar before spinning around and facing the crowd of dancing bodies. The music sucks, the dance floor is cramped, you’re tired… The truth is that you’re too old for this, but it’s easy to escape here, surrounded by strangers. You clumsily drag the back of your hand over your wet mouth, push your sweaty hair from your eyes, and join them.

The past couple weeks, you found yourself craving something. Contact. And here is where you can get your fill; a hand on your waist, lips on your ear, the music too loud and yourself too drunk to even comprehend what’s being said, but never more. You want them to get close, but never too close.

After some time – could be an hour, could be 10 minutes – you make your way to the bathroom. It’s quieter here, the dulled thump of the music making the time you spend there feel slow and syrupy. 

When you exit the stall, you bump into someone.

It’s a man. The dark hood over his head obscures his eyes, but you can’t help but think he’s looking right at you when a bright, almost unnatural grin appears on his face. It draws you in like a magnet, more so when he says, “Need something to take the edge off?” 

Curiously, you watch as he opens his palm, long fingers unfurling slowly until they reveal a small plastic bag in his hand. 

“First time’s on the house.”

You have no idea what it is exactly, but your eyes widen. This is new territory for you, and all the possibilities it opens up are suddenly invading your mind. As if on auto-pilot, you reach for the place where you keep your money, the sound of the door opening completely lost on you.

A hand closes around your bicep, pulling you aside with a quick yank of an arm.

“She isn’t interested, pal.” 

It’s another man, who effortlessly tucks you half behind him. Before you can protest beyond an indignant huff, there’s a sound, like a sword being unsheathed, and you catch a flash of red, and of knives. Frowning, you try to get a better look, but your view is obscured by the man’s shoulder. The hooded man seems undeterred, regarding the weapons with the same sickening grin, before leaving the bathroom, muttering something that you don’t understand on the way out. The sword sound returns, the man twists around, and–

“Logan?” you slur in disbelief. 

Logan doesn’t reply, instead takes hold of your arm again, making you follow him out of the bathroom. There he stops the two of you to murmur something to a woman wearing the same clothes as him, before tugging you along again. You’re stumbling after him on account of his pace and the iron grip he has on you as he leads you to the back door. He pushes it open with enough force to make the hinges creak, a gust of wind blowing in your face. It’s a contrast to go from the crowded, sweaty club to the silent, cold back-alley where tall brick walls and employee cars cage you in. You shake your arm and Logan’s grip loosens – another and he lets you go.

“How did you even find–” You cut yourself off, eyes widening, “Oh, my god, are you following me?”

Logan scoffs, narrowing his eyes. “Oh, please, do you think I have time to follow you around all day?”

“You’re here, aren’t you? You and your fucking…,” you gesture wildly into the air at him, “savior complex.”

“I work here,” he growls. When you give him a look, he adds, “It’s temporary. ‘Sides, me and my savior complex are the reason that creep isn’t selling god knows what to you in that bathroom right now!” His voice is a roar, echoing off the walls around you.

“Maybe I wanted that creep to sell god knows what to me in that bathroom,” you say, doing a poor impression of his voice, before turning and walking away from him.

Logan sighs. “Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving.”

“And then what, huh?”

“I don’t fucking know, Logan,” you say, twisting around to face him again, arms spread out by your side. “Figure out a new way out of this.”

“Yeah? Third time’s the charm?”

“Why do you even care, huh? You don’t even know me,” you say. Almost immediately, you let out a bitter laugh as your own words hit your ears, a sad realization dawning on you. “But I guess that makes two of us.”

It’s not like you expected him to, but he doesn’t answer.

“You know I used to like myself? I used to smile, I used to have friends, I used to be more sober than drunk. But this feeling, it takes… everything.” You raise a fist, hold it to the center of your chest. “It takes everything I love, pushes away everyone I love, including myself. It eats me up, and wants more and more, until I’m something I’m not and until I’m so far away from that version of myself, my old self, that it feels easier to just fucking–” you pause with a wet gasp for air.

“Destroy yourself,” Logan finishes for you.

Your chest heaves, an unshed tear clings to your lash line. “Exactly.”

He takes a step closer to you. “Let me take you home,” he says, voice gentle. 

You should hate the implications of that gentleness, but you don’t. In your drunk state of mind, it’s easier to admit it’s nice that someone understands, that someone’s there to stop you from going too far… 

Tomorrow, when some of your pragmatism returns, you’ll deny this embarrassing thought ever occurred; if relying on other people worked, it would have worked a long time ago, and you wouldn’t be standing here with him. If you’re lucky, you might even forget this entirely, and wake up with a hangover that you’ll enjoy a little too much because it feels like a punishment–

“What about your job?” you ask with a sniff.

Logan’s palm finds the space between your shoulder blades with a gentle push, the warmth of it seeping in through your clothes, and he leads you to his truck. “They’ll manage without me.”

– – – – –

When you wake, your world is tilted sideways, a blanket is pulled up to your chin and there's a pillow under your head. They’re not your own; the blanket is itchy and the pillow’s too small. When you try to move your legs, they stick uncomfortably to the material below them, and you realize you’re on a leather couch. You squint at the light that comes in from a window across from you–

“Mornin’, sunshine.”

The voice startles you, eyes shifting to focus on the source: A man lying on his front on the floor, chin in his hands as he kicks his feet back and forth in the air. 

“Wish I could say it’s a pleasure, but it hasn’t been very pleasurable. You’ve been barfing up the place since the moment you stepped inside. Kept poor Al up all night. Her ears are sensitive,” he adds with a whisper. “But don’t worry, she left about an hour ago.”

“Who are you?” you slur, blinking against the light.

“Logan.” He sighs when you frown. “I know, not how you remember. This is what I look like during the day; blessed with incredible good looks at night and, well,” he gestures at his face that’s covered in scars, "this, during the day. Bit of a reverse Princess Fiona situation–”

“Cut it out, Wade,” comes the sharp protest from next to you. With considerable effort, you turn your head and see the actual Logan, slumped back in a recliner next to the couch, rubbing some sleep out of his eyes while motioning for the other man to go.

“I’ll let you two talk.” Wade winks.

Logan stands when Wade does, walking from your field of view. Your head is scrambling to catch up, trying to piece together what happened last night, but only coming up with bits and pieces.

“How are you feeling?” Logan asks as he makes his way back to you, handing you a glass of water.

You flinch when the front door closes behind Wade with a bang, before taking the glass from Logan and taking a few thankful sips. “Like shit.”

“Yeah,” is all he says as he sits back down.

“What–”

“You fell asleep in the car. Didn’t know where to take you, figured the couch was the safest place.”

“Oh…,” you say, voice small. 

You try not to think about being so wasted that you had to be carried out of Logan’s car, or about what Wade said earlier about the things that happened as soon as you stepped inside the apartment. During your silence, Logan’s fingers fiddle with the armrest, before his hand balls into a fist, and it unlocks something in your hazy memory.

“I have the weirdest memory of you having… a sword?”

You watch as Logan’s lips purse in amusement. His tongue rolls around in his mouth, seemingly contemplating something, before saying, “You probably saw these.” He holds up his fist, flexing his forearm before three blades shoot from between his knuckles like claws, accompanied by a shing!

“Jesus fucking Christ,” you startle, spilling some water on your blanket. Your head spins with your hangover and the bizarity of the situation. If it didn’t sound so much like how it did in your memory, you might think you were still drunk. 

There’s so many things you want to ask, your intrigue almost winning out over your hangover until the sharp start of a headache gives you pause. Instead, you take another sip of water before rubbing your temple.

“It’s a story for another time,” Logan says, like he can read your mind, and you want to ask him that, too. His claws retreat, the cuts they leave between his knuckles immediately smoothing over until they’re gone. “I gotta go check if I still have a job.”

The words make you feel warm all over, the memory of your back-alley conversation coming back in full force. The thought of the things you admitted to him and that you put him in the position that he had to risk his job for you make you feel even warmer, your gaze no doubt laced with embarrassment and worry when you look at him.

“‘S not your fault,” Logan assures, standing and fishing his car key from the pocket of his jeans. “You don’t have to rush but um, make sure you close the door behind you on the way out. Gets jammed sometimes.”

“Yeah, okay,” you say, watching as he makes his way to the front door. 

He takes a final glance at you over his shoulder, then leaves, accompanied by a bang.

THE PUZZLE

It takes you a little over a week to muster up the courage to go back. Admittedly, your courage is aided by another, foreign feeling. You don’t have a name for it yet, or maybe you’re afraid to call it what it is, but somewhere along the week, you became consumed with the thought that feeling like you did wasn’t all there was. That there is something beyond this. 

Perhaps foreign wasn’t the right way to describe it, because it is something you’ve felt before – it’s just been long dormant. The last time, it lasted about a month before it all came crashing down, and you swore you wouldn’t fall for it again, but you can’t help it. The feeling’s too sweet, and the idea that there’s still some baser instinct willing you to keep fighting for yourself makes you feel like the sun is shining on you. 

So yeah, maybe you’re just having one of your good weeks, where the thing sleeps – quiet while its presence still simmers. But you figured now’s your chance to take advantage of its unguarded moment.

Sneaking into the building is surprisingly easy. It helps that it isn’t anything fancy. You wanted to forego the humiliation of ringing the bell and him not letting you in, but standing in front of the door now, panting after climbing three flights of stairs, you don’t know if this is much better. 

Just when you’re about to knock, the door swings open. In the opening, Logan has one arm in his jacket, head twisted to watch the other that’s caught halfway in the sleeve. It takes him almost bumping into you to realize your presence. “Shit, sorry.” He steadies himself with a hand on your arm, the touch leaving you as fast as it appeared.

“Hi,” you breathe, taking a step back to give him a little more space.

He nods in greeting. “Brings you here?”

It takes you a moment, caught off guard by him skipping over pleasantries and cutting right to the chase, despite your best intentions; it’s not that he’s ever been any different in his interactions with you.

“I came by because I, um, owe you an apology, for my behavior at your workplace and for, you know…,” you trail off, gesturing at the door.

“Barfing up the place!” comes a shout from inside the apartment. 

Logan’s eyes close with a sigh, before he steps into the hallway with you and closes the door with a bang. 

“That,” you finish sheepishly. “I’m really sorry.”

He nods in acknowledgement.

“I also wanted to ask, um, if you want to come with me to get a coffee. To make it up to you.”

Logan just looks at you, the leather of his jacket creaking as he crosses his thick arms in front of his chest. He raises an eyebrow at you expectantly. You hate how he somehow can see right through you, how he makes you elaborate, and honest.

“I want to quit drinking,” you say, fiddling with the sleeve of your coat. “It doesn’t make me better, and when I don’t do it I finally feel a little… normal. Maybe coffee’s technically just as bad, but it’s the only thing that’s currently acting like… like a reverse gateway drink? And I feel like you’re the only person I know that might get that feeling of–”

“I do,” Logan cuts in, voice softer than before – assuring. His arms drop from where they’re crossed and he starts making his way to the stairs. “Let’s go.”

– – – – –

You don’t know this coffee place, and from the way he looks around and shifts around in a chair that might be a bit too small for him, neither does Logan. Main reason you picked it is because the booths remind you a little too much of a bar – and you like the tall windows. The coffee’s pretty decent.

“Did they fire you?” you ask, picking at a loose corner of one of the laminated menus before setting it back in its holder.

“Boss commended me for helping a customer, but not so much for leaving before my shift ended,” Logan replies. “Got off with a warning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Said that already, and I accepted,” he says. When he takes a sip of the coffee, he winces. “No need to worry about it anymore, okay? I would do it again.”

You nod, folding your hands around the warm cup in front of you.

“But, um, Wade hasn’t shut up about… the incident.” There’s a different tone to his voice, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. “His words.”

“You know, I kind of get the feeling that Wade doesn’t shut up about a lot of things.” It comes out a little meaner than you intend, but it makes Logan laugh and finally slump back in his chair a little. 

“You’re a quick study.”

Offering him a short smile in return, you continue with the other real reason you came to see him, before you chicken out. “I also stopped by because I wanted to, uh… because I realized I never really… I never… I never thanked you, for um… And–”

With a shake of his head, Logan sits upright. “Y’don’t–”

To your horror, your eyes brim with tears, “Logan, I’m supposed to be dead–”

“So am I,” he counters. He lets the words hang between the two of you for a moment, until you look at him, before he continues, “I’ve been where you are. Past it, even.”

You don’t know what to say to that, if the lump in your throat will even permit you to speak, but it’s impossible to look away from him. Logan’s gaze is piercing, frown ever present, but it’s not from anger. Instead, it’s like he’s searching for something, the right thing, to say. The silence doesn’t bother you; if anything, it makes his words seem more genuine when he does speak,

“I had someone who was annoying enough to not give up on me when I could really use it. If getting a coffee with you that’s, frankly…,” he makes a face as he pauses, “a horrible excuse for a coffee, helps… I can do that. I want to do that.”

The corner of your mouth lifts as you blink away your tears. “Was it Wade?”

Logan lets out a chuckle, and it’s honest – fond. “Yeah.”

“Figured,” you say. “How did you meet him?”

Across from you, Logan stills. You swallow thickly, adjusting yourself in your chair. It’s an innocent question, but maybe it isn’t something he’d like to revisit right now. Logan’s mug squeaks when he grips it tighter, and he looks at you with something like defeat– 

It makes you deflate. This must be what you looked like the night you met…

There’s no way to have prepared for what he tells you next: That he came from another timeline about three months ago, that he and Wade saved this one from being destroyed and almost got killed in the process, that he has nothing to go back to after the death of his team, so he stayed here. 

There’s hesitation in it, like he isn’t telling you the whole story, though you don’t comment on it. He doesn’t owe you anything and you’re too busy putting all the pieces in the Logan-shaped puzzle in your mind together; his words and actions towards you are starting to make more and more sense.

“It’s a very brave thing the two of you did,” you say when he’s finished.

“Hmm, it was all Wade,” Logan muses. “He did it all for the people he cares about.”

“I’m sure you would have done the same if you were in his place.”

At that, he lets out a dry laugh with absolutely no joy behind it. “Do me a favor, don’t put me on a pedestal.”

You frown, but before you can comment, he stands. A knot forms in your stomach, worried you’ve offended him, but he clears up the uncertainty immediately.

“I gotta go but um, Wade’s friends–,” he stops himself, correcting, “our friends are coming over to watch a movie, next week, 7:30. I have no idea what crap they’re going to be watching but… it’s nice. It’ll be nice to be around good people.” Logan doesn’t wait for your answer, simply takes his wallet from his pocket and leaves enough money to cover the bill.

“Wait, no, I invited you,” you protest. “I should–”

“You can pay next time.” 

When you nod, he says his goodbyes with a jerk of his head and makes his way to the door.

– – – – –

You see Logan two more times for coffee that week. He never lets you pay.

THE PANTRY

“–but it’s the best one!” Wade protests, DVD in hand.

“They fly a car into space, Wade,” Laura sighs.

“Launched off a jet,” he corrects. Like it helps.

You cover your mouth with the back of your hand, hiding the smile that appears at everyone’s babbling. Unbeknownst to you, you had found yourself invited to a double feature night, with Wade as the self proclaimed DVDJ. The credits had barely started rolling on A Good Day To Die Hard, or Wade had another DVD at the ready. It was met with the same amount of enthusiasm as when he presented the first.

It hadn’t been easy to make yourself go to this tonight. On your way, you’d thought of turning around at almost every step. Of course, that was all before you knew it would be this fun, and that you’d be relieved you hadn’t canceled last minute. Even meeting everyone hadn’t been as bad as you feared. 

There’s Peter, Wade’s friend. Ellie, another one of Wade’s friends. Yukio, Ellie’s girlfriend. Laura, Logan’s daughter. Mary Puppins, Wade’s small, disgusting but adorable dog, who had greeted you with equal amounts saliva and enthusiasm, before falling asleep next to the TV, completely unbothered by the commotion. Unlike Althea, Logan and Wade’s blind roommate, who had taken one listen to the gaggle of voices and left. The elusive Vanessa, Wade’s ex-but-we-might-get-back-together you heard about a couple times, wasn’t there.

Logan had been right, it was nice to be surrounded by good people. Especially good people who were… unconventional. It made joining them less complicated, less performative, and as the evening progressed it made you a participant instead of a silent observer. Wade even called you, “good for the group dynamic,” and it made you beam with pride.

“Don’t they have like, rockets attached to the car?” Ellie questions, to which Yukio’s eyebrows knit together.

“Exactly!” Wade exclaims, mistaking her confusion for enthusiasm. “Citizen Kane wishes.”

There’s more grumbling from everyone when Wade pops the DVD into the player, and he grumbles something back about how Logan would back him up if he wasn’t in the bathroom because he, quote unquote, goes way back with some of these dudes.

You’re pretty sure he’s the only one who knows what he’s even talking about.

An empty bowl of popcorn rests in your lap, and as you put it on the table, you notice how sticky and greasy your fingers and palms are. When the opening credits begin to roll, you get up to wash your hands, assuring Wade he doesn’t need to pause the movie before you go.

The apartment’s small, so it isn’t far to the kitchen, but it’s nice to stretch your legs. You can still hear the sounds from movie night; tell-tale action movie music, comments of disbelief and Wade shutting them down. They’re more faint, though, more so when you turn the tap on and wash your hands.

Right as you’re finished, you hear a dull thud. You turn the water off, head tilted and at attention while you dry your hands. There’s another sound, like a muffled groan. It’s coming from the pantry, you realize, noting that the door is slightly ajar. There’s a shing! sound followed by a distressed grunt, and before you know it you’re walking over, wrapping your fingers around the door to pull it open–

You’re not sure what it was you were expecting, but it wasn’t this. Logan’s sitting on the floor, uncharacteristically small, curled up against one of the walls. His chest is heaving, shoulders all but going up to his ears with how he’s trying to draw in breaths. Next to him, his fist is balled against the hardwood, claws buried in the floor.

Fuck.

Dropping to your knees, you wedge yourself between his. “It’s okay, you’re having a panic attack,” you explain, your hands landing on his shoulders with a light shake. “You need to breathe. I’ll help you, just look at me.”

Logan’s head stays tipped down, a deep, rattling breath sailing from his mouth as he curls further in on himself.

“Hey!” you say sharply, cupping his jaw with two hands and tilting his face up, “Look at me.” 

Logan’s eyes are wet when they meet yours, moving frantically as they search your face, tears spilling over when he blinks. Something changes in his gaze, like he finally sees it’s you, and his bottom lip begins to tremble. His hand lifts from where it’s buried in the floor, clutching onto your wrist like a lifeline.

“Breathe,” you instruct, trying not to flinch at the sharp claws in front of you. He doesn’t catch on immediately, so you overdo the purse of your lips when you blow out a breath before exaggerating an inhale through your nose, showing him what to do. It starts off shaky, a fresh set of tears falling from Logan’s eyes as he does as you instruct, but after a couple of times you find a rhythm together. The silver between his knuckles slowly disappears. “There you go, good job. Keep going.”

You sit like that, until the wild shift of his eyes stops, his pulse steadies beneath your fingertips, and eventually his eyes close with a deep exhale. His grip on you loosens and you take it as your cue to let go of him, slumping back against the wall opposite him with a sigh of relief. The both of you catch your breath, sitting together in silence until Logan breaks it.

“Came outta nowhere… suddenly I was back there… letting them down.”

“It caught you off guard, it happens–”

“I let them get killed,” he says, voice raw. “They were like– They were my family, they trusted me to be there for them and I… I was too caught up in my own bullshit. I should have been with them, I should be dead with them.”

Logan’s tears still come, but the words almost sound reverent; as if saying them out loud just to punish himself with his own shortcomings is a balm. He’s talking about his team from there, you realize, and something clicks. All this time, you thought this was about him being unable to die due to his mutation, but it’s more than that. It’s shame, remorse, grief, survivor’s guilt, all wrapped into one.

It’s the final piece of your mind puzzle that makes his picture appear.

“How– How can I ever atone for that?” he asks. “How can I ever–”

“Logan, you can't change your past,” you interrupt carefully. “You made your choices and they made theirs, and you honored them by– by…stepping up to the task, by doing what you did with Wade.”

“What if it wasn’t enough?”

“What if it was?” you counter. Your hand finds his knee with a squeeze, before adding, “You did what they would have done. And now you… you need to allow yourself to honor their memory without feeling like you have to destroy yourself to do it. You deserve that.”

Logan blinks at you, eyes still glossy. He looks devastated yet calmer than before, like the emotion is still there, but displaced. For a good while, you sit with him like that while his sniffles lessen and his breathing returns to normal… until there’s a loud explosion coming from the living room. It’s followed by cheers and hollers, and you’re both suddenly reminded of where you are. 

“C’mon,” you say, patting Logan’s knee before using it as leverage to haul yourself up with a groan. You give him room by holding the door open for him. “Better get back before we miss the good stuff.”

Still on the floor, Logan exhales heavily. “Think this was the good stuff.”

– – – – –

Three weeks later, on your way to your third movie night, you catch Wade and Vanessa making out in the building hallway. 

It stops you dead in your tracks and makes for an awkward meeting with Wade’s mystery woman, who is beautiful but very direct when she asks you what the fuck you’re staring at. Wade certainly has a type when it comes to the company he keeps… He quickly shushes the situation, introducing the two of you, and it immediately makes Vanessa’s expression twist into recognition. 

“Nice to meet you,” she says, followed by an apologetic smile. 

You respond in kind. 

When Wade tugs at her jacket impatiently, they brush past you and make their way to the exit. “See you around!” she throws over her shoulder.

A grin forms on your lips, realizing what you just witnessed, and you race up the stairs. With Wade gone, you’re not sure if there will be a movie, but at least you have gossip to share with your friends.

THE MEETING

April flies by, rolls into May, and thing’s are… okay.

With some help, you find a therapist. It’s good, she’s good, but it’s difficult to be confronted with things that are painful, week after week, and to keep reminding yourself it’s all part of the process you’re going through.

Last week, after a particularly difficult session, you’d left her office being auto-piloted by dark feelings, like they knew exactly when to strike. You had turned corners and crossed streets, wandering as you stewed on everything you’d discussed –  like your mind was playing a constant loop of your most painful moments. It was a small miracle you had heard your phone, and that you had the presence of mind to thumb the green button.

You’d answered without saying a word.

“Got any plans?” Logan had asked on the other side of the line.

“No,” you’d replied, coming back to yourself a little bit at the sound of his voice.

“Al’s making her meatballs – she and Wade can’t agree on if they’re famous or infamous. Thought you might like to come. If it tastes like shit, we’ll order in.”

You’d hummed, managing to ask, “What time?”

It had stayed quiet on the other end, and that’s how you’d known he was onto you, could picture the pinch of his brows, his lips forming a thin line. For the first time, you welcomed it—wanted so badly to reach through the phone, shake his shoulders, ask for his help and accept it, like he had done with you weeks ago. 

“Sounds to me like now might be good.”

“Yeah,” you had agreed, the constricting tightness in your chest easing up. “Yeah, I’ll be there soon.” You’d released a shuddering breath, ear still pressed to the phone as you took in your surroundings before you auto-piloted yourself to a different destination. 

“Logan?”

“Still here.”

“Thank you for calling.”

“‘course. Get here soon, I’ll stay on the phone.”

The afternoon had ended with Logan and yourself allowing Althea to boss you around in the small apartment’s kitchen, rolling meatballs, sharing stories — Althea’s recollection of something that happened to her in her 20s that involved her stealing a police horse while wearing nothing but a thong, made you cry from laughing.

The meatballs were the best you ever had, though you couldn’t be sure if they actually were, or if it was just the taste of the moment that was better than anything had been that day. 

Sometime after dinner, Logan had nudged your shoulder to show you a little plastic chip. He flashed it at you long enough that you could read the words one month, before he pocketed it again. Then he suggested you come with him next week. 

“I thought it was bullshit too, but it helps,” he’d explained. “Figured I couldn’t continue to drink whatever that stuff is you call coffee to… avoid my problems.”

You contemplated his suggestion. Things were going well for you in that regard, but your therapist had also recommended you go to one of these things, even if it was just for the community aspect of it. It just made it so… official. Your problems, but most of all, your recovery. You weren’t good at keeping promises to yourself, and this felt like a big commitment. Not to mention the speeches and other people’s problems...

But as Logan told you more about it, the location, how it had been for him, you sensed something else between the lines: He wasn’t just asking for you, he was also asking for himself. Maybe… this was his way of telling you he needed some support. 

That’s how you find yourself inside a high school gymnasium a week later. It’s as gloomy as you expected. Slick floors, gray fold-out chairs set in neat rows, buzzing lights in a high ceiling, and a slightly raised podium with a whiteboard that reads a welcome message in capital letters. 

Unsure of what to do, you follow Logan as he weaves through the crowd to find a seat. As you do, it strikes you that there’s a pretty even distribution of people, with many genders, ages and lifestyles represented. Eventually you take a seat; not quite in the back, but definitely not in the front. 

The whole thing goes by in a blur, but where you expected to be overwhelmed, you feel… connected. Here you are, surrounded by people with different backgrounds, different lives, but all their stories have something you can relate to. Where you thought addiction was the common denominator, it’s actually the desire to turn your lives around that unites you the most.

“Before we end the night I want to circle back to last week, when we spoke about goals, or things we want to work towards,” says the woman leading the meeting – you’re ashamed to admit you already forgot her name. “Does anyone want to share something about that?”

It takes a lot to hide your surprise when Logan raises his hand. 

“Logan! Come on up!” She sounds as surprised as you feel, beckoning him to her.

The plastic chair he sits on creaks when he stands and his boots squeak against the shiny floor as he does as she asks. He looks so out of place on a podium; both larger than life behind the lectern and lost to the space of the stage. He clears his throat as he retrieves a paper from his pocket and unfolds it while his eyes scan the room until they land on yours. You give him a little nod of encouragement, and it kicks him into gear.

“Not good at this stuff, so I’m going to keep it brief,” he starts. 

It earns him a chuckle or two from the other attendees, and you can tell he doesn’t expect it when he looks up from his paper. Your hands clasp together with nerves as you watch him divide his weight from one leg to another, before focussing his gaze back down.

“My life has changed a lot over the past few months. For the first time in a long time, it’s not all bad. Coming here has been good. I’m starting to feel more like I did before–” 

He stops his monotonous droning with a frustrated sigh, stuffing the piece of paper in his pocket and sounding considerably more lively after. 

“I have people I care about again, and um, it scares me. ‘Cause I don’t want to let them down, and every day I feel like I will because of all of my… past shit.” He pauses and swallows hard before he continues, “They show me so much kindness and understanding, that… that even though it’s fucking hard, I want to be able to see myself the way they see me. And allow them to care about me without feeling like I… have to earn it all the time, without destroying myself to do it.” 

You exhale for what feels like the first time in an eternity.

“So, that’s what I’m currently working on.” Logan sighs. “That’s it. Thank you.”

A small applause follows, and you quickly unclasp your hands to join in.

Your palms hurt after.

– – – – –

“It was really nice, what you said in there,” you say, fingers caressing a little plastic chip of your own that you keep safe in your coat pocket. You haven’t felt proud of yourself in a while, but tonight you do.

The evening is nice, the setting sun bathing the city in hues of orange and pink. Your pace is slow and comfortable, your arm occasionally brushing Logan’s when you make room for all the other pedestrians. You didn’t plan on him walking you home, but he insisted and you enjoy the company – it makes you a little sad when you turn onto your street.

Logan scoffs in reply. 

“I’m being serious,” you say, knocking your elbow against his arm on purpose now. “It was nice for people to hear a guy like you say those things. I’m proud of you.”

You swear he blushes. “A guy like me, huh?” he asks, almost amused.

It’s your turn to scoff. “You know what I mean.” 

“A mutant?” He looks at you from the corner of his eye.

“No,” you say, because it’s not what you meant, but the hint of seriousness in his voice and the fact he’s not entirely wrong make you track back. “Well, maybe that, too, but I meant someone who looks like you, allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Sets a nice example.”

Logan doesn’t shoot your comments down like you expect. Instead, he seems to consider your words, maybe he even silently accepts the compliment. “Think you have some things to say that could set a nice example, too.”

“Maybe next time.”

During the comfortable silence that follows, you’re reminded of something you’ve been considering for weeks now. You hadn’t paid much attention to it since that night, but as you worked through the feelings that got you to that point, the question kept coming back.

“I’ve been wondering something,” you begin. “The night we met... What were you doing at the lookout?”

Logan glances at you, contemplating the question. “When I had just, um, gotten here, it wasn’t always easy to adjust, you know? So I went to all these places that I knew from back there, to ground myself, to see that things may be different, but that they’re not that different.”

“You went there on your side?”

He hums.

“By yourself?”

He hums again.

“Did you…” You hesitate to finish your sentence, both because you’re not sure if you have any right to ask and because you’ve reached your building. You stop walking, and Logan follows your lead. 

“No, no, no, I… I can’t explain it, it’s just one of those places I was always drawn to,” Logan says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans with a shrug. His brows furrow suddenly, his mind seemingly lost in something before his eyes flick back to yours. “Think it took me coming over here to find reason in it.”

It’s a thought that’s equal parts sad and lovely. 

The silence that follows hangs between you, thick with something you can’t place, but Logan doesn’t look away from you, eyes scanning your face before they land back on yours. You can’t help thinking that maybe this is how he does it, and the question comes out before you can help it,

“Is mind reading part of the X-Gene thing?”

His eyes widen – amusement or surprise, you can’t say. “It can be.” 

“Can you do it?”

“No,” he says. “And it’s for the best, fucking hurts when you can’t control it.” Then the start of a smile begins to form on his lips. “‘sides, I don’t know if I would have a lot of… consideration for people’s boundaries.”

It makes you chuckle. “Right. Not to mention some minds are probably a lot – imagine reading Wade’s mind.”

“Hurts to even imagine,” Logan says, gesturing for you to be quiet as he winces, but a smile breaks through anyway. When your shared laughter dies down, he jerks his chin at the building behind you, “This your place?”

“Wha–?” Going home long forgotten in the moment, you glance over your shoulder. “Oh! Yes.”

“All right,” he nods. “See you next week?”

“Definitely,” you reply.

“Oh,” Logan says right before you turn around. “Bring coffee? You owe me.”

You make a face at him. “You don’t have to– I’ll get you something else, I know you don’t like it.”

“I like it when I drink it with you.”

It’s incredibly hard to hide your grin. “Okay, I’ll bring coffee. See you next week, Logan.”

“See you.” 

He lingers, watching you climb the steps, waiting until the door opens after you turn your key in the lock. It’s not until you close the door, when you can only make out his silhouette through the patterned glass window in it, that he walks off.

THE SUMMER

Walking back from a very successful job interview, you find yourself on your way to your friends with a big, plastic bottle of coke under your arm. It’s a warm feeling to know that you’ll soon have a job that suits you and that you have people to celebrate with; you look forward to seeing them and sharing this with them.

You’re invited inside with open arms, tight hugs, exclaimed praise and congratulations, and it makes you giddy, a feeling so foreign that you wish you could bottle it up right this instant. With a grin, you shake the Coca Cola bottle, before twisting the cap off. You let out an excited shout as you watch the foam shoot out from the top, bubbles and dark liquid pulsing down the neck of the bottle as cheers surround you.

It’s not champagne, but Althea grumbles about the soda ruining her floors, Wade gets mismatched glasses from the cupboard, and Logan clinks his glass to yours and tells you he’s proud of you.

It’s way better than champagne.

– – – – –

You’re in serious, desperate need of a new place… 

The August heat is relentless, and the entire building’s AC isn’t working. It’s with considerable effort that you manage to make your way to your friends’ place, the promise of a constant, cold stream of wind the only thing that keeps you going. But when the front door opens, it isn’t with the welcoming, cool waft of air you were hoping for. Instead, there’s no temperature change, only Wade in his underwear.

“No.” It’s a little embarrassing how you literally pout, but these are desperate times. “Here, too?”

“If it wasn’t this fucking hot I’d be offended by that greeting.” He sighs. “Come in.”

Slightly defeated, you shuffle past the threshold, while Wade lingers. Mary Puppins trots by, an ice-pack wrapped in a towel secured on her back, and you catch a glimpse of Logan exiting the bedroom. He’s in black shorts and a ribbed, sleeveless shirt, and with a desperate groan, he lets himself fall back into the recliner in the living room. 

“Tried everything, there’s no fixing that fucking thing.”

Wade makes a face, “Listen, I know what you’re thinking: Wade’s in his underwear, Logan’s emerging from the bedroom… But we didn’t fuck, it’s not that kind of st–”

“Who are you talking to?” you ask from behind him, glancing over his shoulder into the empty hallway.

“No one–You!” The door closes with a bang.

Confused, you walk further into the apartment. “Well, telling me you didn’t is just going to make me think that you did.” Wade darts past you and takes a seat on the couch, but you hang back and lean against the kitchen table to avoid sitting on leather.

Wade suddenly turns to face you. “Did I ever tell you about our time in The Void?”

“Wade,” Logan warns.

Wade’s eyes are sparkling with mischief and you can’t deny how fun it is to indulge the way he pushes Logan’s buttons. It’s a good distraction from how you’re drenched in sweat. And you’re actually curious.

You play your part, letting out a faux-scandalised gasp. “Did you..?”

“Oh, yeah, baby. Wolverine goes both ways. All the ways, really.” He grins. “We’re so alike.”

“Shut up. Both of you.” Logan groans, lacking any real threat as he adjusts in his seat and wipes some sweat off his brow. “It’s too fucking hot to be annoyed.”

It isn’t lost on you he doesn’t deny a thing.

– – – – –

Apartments look weird with nothing in them.

It’s what crossed your mind after you finished packing up your place three days ago, and it crosses your mind now as you look into the open space of your new one from the doorway. It’s a pleasant, late summer day; perfect weather to move, which was on your schedule for today.

“Incoming!” comes from behind you, followed by quick, heavy steps.

You jump aside as Ellie sails through the door, carefully setting a big box marked “Kitchen” down in its designated area, followed by Logan who is balancing three boxes at once. After a beat, Yukio follows, holding a single table lamp in her hand. It takes some effort not to laugh, not just because of how funny it looks, but also because you relate; after all the exhausting late nights you pulled packing up, that’s also the kind of energy you’re bringing to this.

It’s nice of them to help, and instead of shoving that feeling away in fear, you allow yourself to bask in it. You don’t get long, however, because more help has just arrived.

Wade. With Vanessa. Hands interlocked.

It draws everyone’s eyes to the doorway. Wade looks almost bashful, and it baffles you how someone who can say the most insane things unprompted, all without batting an eye, could blush while holding hands with a girl he likes. To his credit, he shakes it off quickly.

“All right, all right,” he says. “Stop ogling me and my girlfriend and get back to work everyone!”

– – – – –

“So it was like an experiment?” you ask, stirring the pot on your stove before taking a careful bite of food off your wooden spoon.

Tonight’s your first night hosting at your new place – Family Dinner, Wade had dubbed it. With fall setting in, you had an idea of what to make, but it still made you nervous to have everyone in your space. Logan saw right through you, offering to come over early to help you prepare. 

Once he had arrived, it hadn’t taken long for him to admit he wasn’t much of a cook, so he mainly chopped vegetables as you chatted; you about your new place, Logan about his new job as a boxing instructor, Laura going off to college. You don’t remember exactly how the subject of his adamantium came up, but he was telling you freely about it.

“They needed someone who could regenerate fast enough to bond with it,” he explains. “I was in a dark place. Figured I didn’t have anything to lose if it didn’t work.”

You nod in understanding. “Do you… remember much about it?” You put your spoon down, then put the lid back on the pan. 

Logan’s knife stops hitting the cutting board. “Yeah, I… I remember every second of it.”

You look at him then. His eyes are still cast down at his task. Unsure of what to say, you think about what you’d want to hear, and you find it might be best to say nothing at all. Instead, your hand finds his shoulder. Logan’s head turns to you, and you feel like the look you share is more important than anything you could’ve told him. His hand covers yours with an appreciative squeeze. 

“But I’m trying to leave that there so I can focus on remembering what happens to me here.” As soon as he’s said it, his hand quickly slips off yours, adding, in a rush, “Here in this timeline, I mean.” 

You smile at him, but a strange feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. “That sounds like a great idea.”

– – – – –

“I need your help with something,” you say, balancing your phone between your ear and your shoulder while you turn a birthday card over in your hand. Deciding you don’t like it, you throw it back on the pile of cards and continue your grocery shopping.

“Just say the word,” comes Logan’s reply from the other end.

“I need you to steal something out of the apartment for me.” There’s a silence, and you purposely let the feeling of trepidation linger.

“Am gonna need you to say a little more than just that.”

You laugh, “Wade’s been talking about getting a little frame for his polaroid. You know, the polaroid that you held on to for him in The Void, after the two of you fu–”

“Yes, I know the one,” he interjects with a huff. He pauses, sighs, then says, “Consider it done.”

THE PARTY

“There you are!” Wade shouts after he opens the door. He pulls you into a hug that you return with a wide smile. Over his shoulder, you see that the apartment’s crowded, bustling with people who are there for his birthday party.

“I got you something,” you say, offering the small package to him after you step inside and hang up your coat.

“Wouldn’t have let you in if you hadn’t,” he admits as he closes the door behind you with a bang. Wade takes the package from your hand, shaking it next to his ear but hearing it make no sound in response. “Is it a cock ring?”

You can’t help but laugh at that. “Unfortunately, they were all sold out.”

“They always are,” he says, making a disappointed face. Bottom lip tucked between your teeth, you watch as he tears at the wrapping paper to reveal his gift. He makes another face when he sees it. “Well, now I feel like an asshole. This is really nice.”

“Logan helped me kidnap it,” you explain, pointing at the picture. “And the little red hearts on the frame, well, they’re your color, but they also reminded me of how much you care about people.”

When he looks at you after, it’s with genuine emotion… but Wade is Wade. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of happy you walked in here barfing up the place.”

A strange mix of embarrassment and gratitude claws its way up your neck. “Thank you.”

“We should take a new one,” he decides suddenly, pointing at the picture. “You both should be in it.” His head turns, watching as Logan approaches the two of you. “But let’s be realistic, his shoulders are so broad he wouldn’t even fit in the frame, much less his bul–”

“Stop talking about my dick, Wade,” Logan snaps.

“I was saying only good things! Jeez, so sensitive…” Wade turns, putting the picture on the kitchen table behind him where it joins all the other gifts.

“Did he like it?” Logan asks, voice low.

“Yeah,” you smile.

“Good,” he replies. “Was a nice idea.”

You eye all the other gifts, some clearer who they are from than others. “What did you get him?”

The corner of Logan’s mouth lifts as he points at a roll of silver duct tape with a small red bow on top, making you fix them both with a confused look.

“It’s an inside joke,” Logan shrugs.

Wade’s eyes sparkle, but in a rare turn of events, he doesn’t elaborate, only adds, “It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.” 

“And I have top level clearance, lieutenant,” you reply. You exhale through your nose in an amused laugh when Wade makes a surprised face that indicates you’ve gotten the reference. “What, you thought a Tom Cruise impression could save you?”

“No,” he grins, and as if on cue, the doorbell rings, “but that can. Birthday Boy duty calls, but I want it on record that I could do Top Gun, easily, while Tom would never be able to pull off Deadpool.”

– – – – –

The party settles into something comfortable, soft music in the background of lively chatter. Yukio has just finished telling you about a Professor Layton cosplay she’s doing when you excuse yourself, both your glass and your social battery empty enough to look for a momentary out. Finding your way through the crowd, you make it to the kitchen, filling your glass with water and taking a few sips. 

While you do, the music suddenly gets louder, taking over for the steady chatter. You turn around, leaning back against the kitchen counter, and watch as Wade drags Vanessa to the middle of the apartment. People make room for them, exchanging looks while Wade wraps his arm around her waist, takes her hand in his and begins dancing with her. With a laugh, she slaps him on the chest, before settling into his embrace anyway. Some follow their lead, but your eyes stay glued to them. Wade spins Vanessa under his arm, the smile on her face bright enough to light up the entire room. In return, he looks at her with so much adoration he’s almost glowing himself. It fills you with warmth to see the both of them so happy.

It hits you how you haven’t thought about this in a while. You’d decided long ago that the future wasn’t something you had to worry about, but suddenly you’ve arrived, like you’re in some alternate reality where your future is now, and that it would be nice to share it with someone. The sting behind your eyes catches you a little off guard; mixed feelings of time that has been taken from you, but also of time you’re getting back with the life you now have.

For a while now, you’ve suspected the thing inside you is gone, that there isn’t much to feed off of anymore. If it is, it would make sense that there’s room for something else.

Wade and Vanessa make it look easy, even though you know it’s been far from easy for them. You suppose that’s what it’s like, especially as you get older. It’s less about big gestures, more about small ones; someone to make you laugh, to spin you under their arm, who knows how to apologize, seeks you out during your quiet moments–

“Do you dance?”

You startle, head turning towards the voice next to you– 

“Logan,” you breathe. 

It’s like you’re seeing him for the very first time. He’s standing so close, almost touching you but not quite, heat radiating off of him nonetheless. The plaid shirt he’s wearing isn’t even buttoned and still the fabric is pulled taunt over his shoulders and the thick of his biceps. He’s grinning, his nose pulled up in an adorable scrunch, the corner of his eyes crinkling - you never noticed before, but there’s a hint of green between the hazel.

It hits you so suddenly that you have to grab the counter to keep your balance. Everything that’s been happening, that you’ve been feeling, all the times something happened between the two of you that you couldn’t put your finger on… it falls into place with a well-timed, completely unrelated question and a glance at him.

You like him.

All you can do is blink at him, dazed, unable to speak, even more so when he leans in a little closer, mistaking your silence for misunderstanding. “I mean, not that I– You and Wade were doing a bit earlier, it’s a reference to–” Logan straightens suddenly, his expression slipping into concern as he watches you, “Are you okay?”

You feel warm, so aware of all his attention on you that you’re afraid he might be able to see your pulse blink rapidly below the angle of your jaw. “Yeah,” you reply, voice hoarse, looking away from him to blink the leftover wetness from earlier out of your eyes. 

Anxiety claws its way into your chest, your mind coming to terms with what it’s puzzled together at such a sickening pace that there’s an immediate knot in your stomach. The party has instantly lost its shine, and you look down at the glass in your hand, gulping down its contents. You need to be alone with your thoughts, you need to think about this before–

“I gotta go,” you say in such a rush that it almost sounds like one word while you set your glass on the kitchen counter.

Logan’s eyes follow you as you push past him, grab your coat and reach for the doorknob. “Wait–”

“Bye, Logan.”

THE TABLE

Once at home, you change into something more comfortable, your mind racing while you peel your party clothes off, toss your bra aside, change into an oversized shirt and plop down on the couch after.

Despite having already established that your mind was occupied with other things for a very long time, it’s laughable in hindsight that you never noticed your feelings before. It’s not like you don’t know what Logan’s like; he’s kind, funny, supportive…

…broad, handsome.

Shit.

Why did you have to come to your senses? Things were better before that moment. Logan’s your friend, whom you met in the most unconventional way possible. It’s ridiculous to want more than what you have when what you have is good. Or to think that he would want more.

But he might.

Because you may have been occupied with depression, anxiety, recovery, and everything in between, but you were there; you remember the time you spent with him, the way he looks at you, drinks the coffee you like, laughs at your jokes, seems to know exactly when to call you, seeks you out in a crowd.

But it would change everyth– 

Actually, not a whole lot would change, if you really think about it. You already see him all the time, you’ve seen the very worst of each other, overcome a great deal of hardship together, you make each other better, his friends are your… 

friends. 

You didn’t say goodbye to Wade.

The thought comes suddenly. It was his birthday party and you didn’t even say goodbye to him before you left. You’re a terrible friend. Dread sinks into your limbs, and you reach for your phone to type out a quick, apologetic message. Just as you hit send, there’s a series of loud knocks on the door, and it makes you freeze up where you’re seated.

“Are you in there?” a muffled voice calls out.

It’s Logan, you realize, and a plethora of fake excuses as to why you left the party early present themselves to your mind as you quickly make your way over to the door.

The first thing you notice when you open it is that he’s dripping wet from the rain, clothes soaked through and his hair flat. There’s a deep furrow in his brow, and it’s different from how he usually looks; he looks actually mad.

“Logan, is everything–” you begin, concerned, but he cuts you off by pushing past you and letting himself inside, boots stomping against the wooden floor. 

“Jesus, here you are. Why’d you leave like that, huh? Saying goodbye, your eyes all wet. I went after you and you were fucking gone, it scared the shit out of me. Didn’t see the car at the lookout, but I went to look for you anyway, and you weren’t in the water, thank fuck–”

“Wait, you went–” you pause, the mental image of Logan running out into the rain to the cliffside making your eyes widen. “Did you think..?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, shoulders slumping.

“Shit.” Your heart is racing when you step closer to him. “No, I wasn’t… I don’t want that anymore.”

“Then what the fuck was that all about?”

The desperation and misunderstanding in his eyes is unmistakable, and you hate that you made him feel like that. “I was just… I needed a moment, after seeing Wade and Vanessa like that,” you say, trying to provide yourself with more time to think, unsure if you already want to broach the subject of why you really left.

“You… like Wade?” Logan asks, his frown deepening.

You can’t help the laugh that escapes you at the unexpected question. “No. I mean, I adore Wade, but not like that. He’s with Vanessa.”

The answer does nothing to change his expression. “And you want it to be different?”

His line of questioning confuses you. “I– No. Logan, this isn’t about Wade or Vanessa, but it’s about… what they have. Something that’s real, but imperfect, and that’s what actually makes it perfect, and I just… I was in a really bad place for such a long time, I didn’t give myself time to even think about… I haven’t felt myself wanting for so long,” your gaze flicks up to his. “Seeing them just made me realize there’s so much left that I still want.” 

Internally, you curse the way he always makes you say too much, because you can see the understanding wash over his features. His expression softens, the balled fists by his side loosen, and his eyes search you, as if to see if that thing you want is him. There’s no doubt he finds his answer; you’re ever the open book when it comes to him, and your pulse quickens while he silently observes you. 

Logan reaches for you so quickly that you can barely prepare for it, a hand on your waist to pull you in, another on your cheek to tip your face up and guide your mouth to his. A shaky breath sails out through your nose when your lips meet, your eyes fluttering shut and your palms sliding up his damp but warm chest to curl in the soaked fabric of his shirt. It’s eager, and the angle is off, but it’s quickly adjusted with a brief parting and a near in-sync tilt of your heads in the other direction. 

Logan pulls away, but stays close, and you almost feel his words before hearing them, “Been… thinking about doing that.”

“Really?” you say, breathless and amused. “When did you, um, start wanting to do that?”

“Few weeks ago–Fuck, no, more than that. Almost did, that day after your first meeting, after you told me you were proud of me,” he admits. “But I wanted to give you time, space. Wasn’t sure if you felt–”

“I do. Didn’t realize it before, but I fucking do,” you assure him, another tug on his collar trying to pull him back to you. His admissions, knowing he wants you too, only make you want him more, like you have to make up for all the time you wasted not doing this sooner.

Logan’s hand on your waist holds you off. “I just don’t know how to… how to be this,” he confesses softly.

“That’s okay,” you say, your nose brushing against his. “I don’t either.”

He inches forward like he intends to kiss you again, but seems to reconsider, swallowing hard before saying, “Wouldn’t be the first time we figure it out together, huh?”

The words make you surge forward to close the gap between you, your brows creasing, attempting to convey everything you feel with one press of your lips to his. Logan’s hand slides from your cheek to the back of your head, pulling you to him in a way that seems to mirror your efforts. Something lights up inside you, something you lost long ago, and it makes you bold, opening your mouth under his to get a taste of him. 

His grip on you tightens with a groan, spurring him into action and walking you backwards into the dark kitchen, the only illumination the slivers of moonlight that come through the kitchen window. You jolt when the back of your thighs hit the table, before you’re scrambling to get on top of it, two hands at your waist helping to hoist you up. Your thighs widen to make room for Logan’s while you push the green flannel shirt off his shoulders, struggling to peel it off his arms to the point you have to break away with a laugh to really get it right. It lands on the floor with a wet sound, before he reaches for the back of his shirt, curling his fingers around the collar and pulling it over his head.

Logan’s sturdy, warm to the touch and surprisingly pliant when you can’t help but let your fingers flit along the corded muscles and protruding veins while he toes off his shoes. His hand flies to the back of your head to fist the hair at the nape of your neck when your lips explore, find his jaw, and travel down his neck. A soft sound sails from his mouth, a barely audible moan that carries over into something deeper when your lips brush a spot just above his clavicle. Using the grip he has on you, he drags you back up to his mouth, doing some more of his own exploring when his warm tongue strokes against your own. 

“You’re so good to me,” he murmurs with a buck of his hips against yours. The thrill of having him pushed up against you, half-hard, warm, full of promise, makes you moan, teeth clacking against his when you do. “Always so fucking good to me.”

It makes you want to protest, from the very moment you met, he’s the one always being that to you, but it dies on your tongue when Logan’s flicks over the tips of his fingers. His impatient hand finds its way between you, disappearing under the waistband of your underwear and stretching the material to make room. His name comes out as a whimper when his spit-slick fingers easily glide through the soft skin between your legs. He curses, another buck of his hips pressing his hand closer against you, and your kiss turns messy and uncoordinated when he dips one finger to touch your clit. 

“This okay?” Logan asks when you gasp, drawing languid circles between your legs.

“Yeah, it’s just– Oh, god.” Two thick fingers find your entrance, swirling the wetness there around. “Been a while,” you manage to finish your sentence.

“I’ll make it good for you,” he promises. “You want that?”

All you can do is nod, and Logan presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth before he pulls his hand back. It’s paired with a wet sound that makes your cheeks heat, more so when you watch him get on his knees and yank you to the edge of the table, the quick turn of events and the casual display of his strength making you a little dizzy. Logan’s nose presses into the fabric between your legs with a sharp inhale, before quick, practiced moves work your underwear down your legs. One eager hand places a thigh on his shoulder as another holds you at the bend of your knee. You lie back, arching as you hurriedly pull your t-shirt over your head, leaning up on your elbows just in time to watch him bend down. 

The feeling of Logan’s hot breath sailing out over your sensitive skin alone is enough to make you gasp. He drags his lips and nose across your folds, easing you into it as much as his lack of patience will allow before tasting you with a swipe of his tongue. It isn’t tentative or testing, but firm and sure, and clearly for his enjoyment as much as yours when he repeats his action and groans into you. The vibrations of it and the gentle scratch of his facial hair only add to the liquid feeling in the pit of your stomach. Letting go of your knee, he curls a strong arm around your thigh, spreading you open then pulling you flush against him while he sucks your clit into his mouth.

“Oh, that feels really good,” you spur him on, your heel digging in between his shoulder blades. You watch him with hooded eyes, shifting your weight to one elbow so you can cup your breast with a whine. 

Logan’s eyes slip shut in focus, working his tongue up and down your clit and making you arch into his mouth. Reaching for you blindly, he slides a hand over yours on your chest, fingers fitting between your own and squeezing while his tongue slides lower to lick over where you’re dripping for him. He lets out an appreciative hum as he repeats the move until your thighs clench and shake around his ears. His tongue dips inside you, curling up against the slick walls of your cunt, and his name tumbles from your mouth, soft, pleading, making his eyes shoot open to meet yours.

The sight of him looking up at you like that from between your thighs, with dark eyes, the tip of his nose glistening with your wetness, will probably haunt you for the rest of your life. 

Logan shushes your begging, pulling away and watching as your pussy clenches at the sudden lack of attention. “Let me give you something to come on,” he murmurs, before fitting a finger at your entrance. It meets absolutely no resistance, a second finger sliding inside with just as much ease, and he sets a steady, deep rhythm before his mouth returns to your clit.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck–” Your head rolls back between your shoulder blades, mouth open on a silent gasp, but he draws your attention back to him with a curl of his fingers, finding a spot that makes you go rigid for a second. It all builds so fast, so suddenly. The hand on your chest shakes Logan’s off, finding the crown of his head and sliding your fingers into his hair. He’s too strong to really make purchase, but you try anyway, using your grip to roll your hips against him. The sound of his groans, every flick of his tongue and every squelching, delicious curl of his fingers all send you closer and closer, until his hand presses down on your belly, and…

“Logan,” you manage, voice sharp with a warning that comes too late when he makes you tumble over the edge. 

It’s so much after so long, the force of it making you fall back against the table, something between a gasp and a shout tearing from your throat. He holds you tighter, to keep you in place and guide the desperate roll of your hips against his face. Your orgasm quickly slips into something bordering on oversensitivity, and you let out a dry sob that makes you slap a hand over your mouth when Logan’s tongue travels a path from where his stilled fingers disappear inside you, up to your clit. He stays there, gentle, uncharacteristically patient as you slowly come to a twitching halt. 

He’s a blur when he comes back into your field of view after standing up, towering over you to watch as you come back down to earth. Becoming sharper with every heavy blink of your eyes, you notice the smile on his face is smug, that the hair surrounding it is a shade darker than the rest. You sigh softly when his fingers slip from you, the feeling of them sliding wetly over your clit making you tremble, but his touch doesn’t leave you completely when he moves to stroke the outside of your thigh.

“How’s that?” Logan dares to ask.

“Hmm, no speaking yet,” you protest.

Reaching for him, you slide both of your arms up over his broad shoulders, wrists crossed in the nape of his neck to pull him in for another kiss. It’s slow, and deep, the taste of yourself shared between the two of you as your tongue slides over his. The table protests with a creak when his hands land beside your head, more when his chest pushes down on yours and you wrap a leg around his waist to get him even closer. The hair scattered across his broad chest teases your nipples and the hard ridge of his cock strains against his jeans and presses up against your slick cunt. It makes your jaw go slack, stoking your desire and making you burn with the need to make him feel as good as he just made you feel. 

With a push against his shoulders, you take him along as you sit upright again, accompanied by another creak of the table. Mouth still on his, you slide a hand down to cup him over his jeans, the weight of him against your wide open palm making you pulse. Logan grunts when your hand squeezes, and your mouth slides off his, kissing his jaw, sliding back down his neck. He cups your head, keeping you in place while watching your hand.

“Feels nice,” he husks, voice so deep it makes you want to push him aside and get on your knees for him, but then he asks, “Are you gonna let me fuck you?”

“God, yeah,” you say with a nod, watching as the mark you just sucked into his neck disappears far too soon while you continue rubbing him over the denim. “Want you inside of me.”

“Jesus–Then get it out,” he instructs, guiding your hand to his belt. 

If you weren’t so turned on you might wince at how eager you are, at how quickly you tug the buckle open and pull the leather free. Logan groans when it relieves some of the pressure, letting his forehead rest against yours. Together, you watch your hands make quick work of his zipper, your fist closing around his cock while your other hand works his pants down until he can kick it off and under the table.

He fits nicely in your palm, heavy and ready, sticky at the tip. With a purse of your lips, you let your spit trickle down in a straight line, and he hisses when it hits him. Your free hand flattens against his stomach, sliding down along the hard planes of his body and following the vein just below his belly button down, until it meets your other hand that loosely strokes up to the root of his cock. Logan arches into you when you stroke back up with a tighter grip, all but getting on his toes to chase your touch. Using both of your hands to get all of him, you twist your fists in opposite directions once, twice, before circling his tip with one thumb. Your other hand curls around the underside of him, dragging some of your spit down to his balls with the tips of your fingers.

“F–fuck,” Logan stutters when you play with him there, cupping him in your hand as well as you can and squeezing his shaft when it twitches in response. His eyes slip shut as his palms land on the outside of your thighs with a smack, fingertips digging into your soft skin. 

It makes you jolt, then grin, giddy from the sharp sting and the power you have over his pleasure. “How’s that?” you echo with a teasing lilt.

He does have the words to answer, albeit a little slurred, “‘S good, sweetheart.”

The nickname tacked on at the end takes root in your chest, blooms bright and makes you ache. You translate your appreciation into tightening your strokes and spreading more of the precome that steadily leaks from his tip around.

“C’mere,” Logan says softly, taking over for you with one hand, giving himself a few strokes before pushing your thighs further apart and shuffling closer to line himself up with you.

You’re so wet that the head of his cock is practically already slipping inside of you, but your hand clasps around his bicep when he really starts to breach you. After giving you a shallow little thrust, his hips draw back, before pushing a little further, gauging your reaction.

“Just like that,” you sigh, watching the careful slide of him in and out of you. “Keep going just like that.”

He gets you opened up like that, giving you a little more with each wind of his hips. Logan’s hand finds the back of your neck, his palm splaying out and keeping you close enough that you’re practically sharing air with each sigh and moan. Eventually, your knees have to draw up to his flanks in order for him to keep going and you wind a leg around his hip to close the final distance with a press of your heel into one of the firm cheeks of his ass. A long breath sails out from between your lips when you pulse around him, slowly adjusting to having all of him filling you up. You can tell he has to put considerable effort into letting you, wood groaning below you when he clutches onto the table.

“Fuck, it’s a lot,” you say, and when he grins against your mouth you can’t help but kiss him again – just a peck. The hand at the back of your neck squeezes in reassurance as he continues to let you lead, and it’s a small gesture, but it makes you feel warm all over. You melt into it his touch, your body relaxing as the pleasure of the stretch of him takes over.  

“Can stay like this a little longer if you want,” he says, but the strain in his voice says something different.

“Hmm, no, you can move.” You’ve barely said it, or his hips are drawing back, and it would have made you laugh if it didn’t feel so fucking incredible. He almost slips from you completely, before sliding all the way back inside with a grunt. The table scrapes along the floor, and vaguely you register one of your chairs falling over in the process. When he repeats the action, the furniture squeaks again below you. “Just don’t break my table.”

The sound he makes in response is non-commital, and when he fucks back into you and nudges against something wonderful, you can’t say you disagree. Grabbing hold of his shoulder and using the leg you have wrapped around him, you roll your hips against his, and he begins to meet you halfway until you work up a rhythm together. The table protest further, a shrill sound filling the room after each slap of skin–

With a frustrated groan and accompanied by a startled squeal from yourself, Logan lifts you. The surprised laugh that threatens to bubble up your throat quickly morphs into something heavier that comes out with a rasp when he makes it all look unusually effortless. Attempting to brace yourself, you sling one arm over his shoulders, the other winding around his neck so you can rake your fingers through the hair at the back of his head. It’s a struggle to keep your balance, a helpless heel digging into the back of his thigh to keep yourself upright. Quick to aid, Logan slides an arm under you, fingers splayed across your ass as your knee hangs off the inside of his elbow. He turns a quarter, presses you up against the wall, and doesn’t miss a beat as he continues fucking you. 

“Jesus, Logan,” you say, voice almost a growl and barely recognizable as your own.

With your new position, you can see him better, the both of you lit from the side with the window to your left. The moonlight paints him in a tapestry of light and shadows when the wind blows through the tree branches, momentarily amplifying the glint in his eyes and the flex of his chest and arms like a strobe light.

The different angle he finds with his cock is a little too good, the feeling of the thick base of him stretching you open with each thrust making you dazed and talkative, “It’s so deep like this, can–oh, my god–can feel you everywhere.” 

Logan curses at your words, squeezing your waist and pushing you harder against the wall. There’s a deep-voiced appreciation of how good you feel in there too that doesn’t quite make it from your ears to your brain because somehow he’s still speeding up. His head ducks down to your chest, mouthing at the soft skin of your breast before closing his lips around a nipple. 

You whine, using the grip you have on him to roll your hips against the piston of his while you pant into his crown. Though the sound he makes against you when you do it makes you beam with pride, it’s not something you can keep up for very long, your hold on him slacking after a few thrust until you slip back against the wall. 

Logan pulls back when you do, tightening his hold on you while his eyes glide from the bounce of your tits that glisten with his spit to down between your bodies. 

“Touch yourself,” he instructs, grunting when you immediately do as he says by bringing a hand down between where you’re joined. Your fingers spread in a V-shape around where he fucks into you, collecting some of your mixed arousal before using it to rub your clit. “That’s it, sweetheart, fuck, make yourself come.”

You nod, rapidly feeling everything zeroing in on the fingers that draw tight circles over your clit and that spot deep inside you that Logan’s finding with every thrust. “Yeah, fuck, I’m–Don’t stop, don’t stop, please–”

He’s coming before you are, tucking his head below your chin to let out a deep, drawn out moan against your neck that ends with his teeth grazing your skin. It’s so much, the pressure of him grinding himself into you with twitching, barely there thrusts, the heat of his release as it fills you where you’re gripping him like a vice, and as your fingers still twirl between your legs you come, and come, and come. 

The leg you have wrapped around his hip slips off, but before your toes can even scrape the floor, he catches your thigh, cupping your ass with both hands now to keep you up, and close. With a soft, satisfied sound, you let your forehead fall against Logan’s shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat with every light press of your lips there.

It takes you a moment to notice your back has come off the wall, that Logan is walking the both of you into your living room and to the couch. He bends his knees, dropping you between your pillows, where you land with as much grace as you can muster considering you feel like you’re made of lead. The soft couch is pleasant against your body, your sore limbs sinking into the cushions. 

Logan fits himself between your legs again, widening them around his broad shoulders before his lips find your overstretched thighs, leaving marks and kisses up up up, until his tongue slips back into your pussy. Your back arches off the couch, hands shooting down to fist his hair with a whine while Logan’s hand fists his cock. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you can tell he’s already getting hard again, and his tongue is making something swirl low in your belly that’s making you pant, and...

It’ll be a long night.

THE PEARL

It had taken a lot of convincing and downright groveling, but Wade had allowed you to bring a movie for movie night. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust your taste in movies, his main gripe with your choice was that it wasn’t a Christmas movie – mandatory for December. Wade’s right, but after you explained that it’s the movie you always watch at the end of the year (and after Logan and yourself conceded that yes, his birthday was technically also your anniversary) he’d agreed. 

Now that you’re actually watching it, you suspect he’s genuinely invested, because after a handful of comments about The Hulk, he’s been quiet for longer than you’ve ever heard him be quiet.

In the scene on the screen, Mark Ruffalo’s character Dan and Keira Knightley’s character Gretta are taking an evening walk around New York City, dancing, singing and sharing music with each other as they do. Eventually, they stop and sit next to each other on some steps, watching as the city continues to move without them.

“...the most banal scenes are suddenly invested with so much meaning, ya know? All these banalities, they're suddenly turned into these… these beautiful, effervescent pearls,” Dan says, wistfully looking on as New York bustles around him. “I gotta say, as I've gotten older these pearls are just… becoming increasingly more and more rare to me.”

The arm Logan has slung around your shoulder tightens, and the couch creaks softly as you lean further into his side, your cheek squishing against his warm chest.

“More string than pearls?” Gretta inquires with a frown.

“Yeah. You got to travel over a lot more string to get to the pearls.” There’s a pause as he turns to look at her, “This moment is a pearl, Gretta.”

She gives him a hint of a smile. “It sort of is, isn't it?”

“All this has been a pearl,” he admits, sharing a look with her.

A finger curls under your chin, tipping your head up until your eyes meet Logan’s. He gives you the same look you just saw on the screen, his eyes soft as they take you in, the hint of green between the hazel illuminated by the light of the television. A thumb swipes over your bottom lip fondly, before he leans down to kiss you.

It takes a lot of string indeed.

Sometimes even interdimensional string.

– – – – –

(THE END)

If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading. Seriously. Please come say hi and/or share your thoughts via ask/messages/reblogs/whatever you feel comfortable with. I hope to share more writing soon - emphasis on hope, I'm not making promises, just an educated wish.

– – – – –

It's Monday morning, on your day off, when you get a call about filling in for Jack Abbot. 

Apparently, he tripped and fell post-shift on the roof of the hospital. Landed on his shoulder. Split his collarbone clean in half.

Turns out that accidents happen, even if you've had military fall training–though 5'9"ish is probably nowhere near the altitude he trained at.

It's nice as far as breaks go; needs no surgery, just a sling and some rest. He's out for at least six weeks. Most likely twelve.

The call surprises you, considering you work for a different hospital, but they've given you the all clear if you want the job.

UPMC Presbyterian has enough personnel, they can absolutely afford to miss you, but they’re usually more hesitant about temporary replacements. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is… struggling, not just with the general nursing shortage and budget cuts, but rumours have long been flying about the hospital “being up for sale”, and that doesn’t exactly make physicians want to apply for a job there. Your best guess is that Presby’s only lending an attending out because they’re not fully prepared for the swarm of patients it will bring to them should PTMC’s emergency department really shut down over staff shortages. 

You wonder if they know you’re personally invested. 

You met Jack when you did a rotation at the VA years ago, when you were in medical school and he was a military medic freshly torn apart by war. His medical background made him a little different from the other vets you’d met up to that point, and he had a certain calm around him, even though he had every right to want to curse the world. Throughout your rotation, he told you both the best and most harrowing stories about emergency medicine in the field. If you were being honest, it’s probably what inspired you to pursue the specialty. 

Though it might be best he never knows, he already won’t stop saying he has “permanent stock in your medical degree” after helping you with a particularly tricky biochemistry exam.

With that in mind, and considering there's a chance, albeit a very slim one, it might shut him up, you accept the offer.

– – – – –

You meet Robby on your second day at PTMC. 

It’s right before change of shift, when you’re swamped with two separate patients in Trauma 1 and 2. You’re making your way from one trauma bay (26-year-old female, car vs. pedestrian, then face vs. pavement, A and O with good vitals, but significant facial fractures) back into the other (42-year-old male, ataxic breathing, nasal discharge, and a dorsal head wound after a fall down the stairs during a sleepwalking episode), and bump into him. Or rather, your shoulders bump when you try to take the same place by the bed to assess the next steps. 

Once you figure your patient is probably bleeding more than expected because he’s anticoagulated, Robby orders history and a four-factor PCC to be on standby before you can even speak. 

Then he asks what’s in it.

You don’t reply, figuring his question is for one of the residents surrounding you and focusing on the atrial fibrillation on the monitor instead. But then he nudges you, “Today if you can. This is a teaching hospital, so let’s hear it.”

“I’m not a– I’m the attending taking over for Abbot,” you say.

He takes you in, trailing from your crown to your toes, then back up to your eyes. You curse inwardly when you realize your badge is hidden beneath the disposable white scrubs you have on over your regular ones. “Could have fooled me,” Robby says, before raising an eyebrow as if to say, Anyway, what’s in the four-factor PCC?

“Clotting factors two, seven, nine, and ten,” you grit out, because there’s no time, and because you might have just worked a 12-hour shift, but you could answer that in your sleep. 

“Excellent,” is all he says.

And you both get back to work.

After, when your patients are in the clear, shipped off to reconstructive surgery and neurosurgery respectively, you get properly introduced and Robby realizes you are in fact the attending taking over for Abbot. He apologizes for his slip-up and compliments your work on the trauma patients. He does so with his hands buried in the pockets of a hoodie he wears over his scrubs, his shoulders drawn up to his ears and a set of brown eyes that silently ask for you to accept his apology. 

It’s not worth the argument; you’re too fucking tired and his apology seems genuine, like he’s a hardass purely for teaching purposes and not because he actually enjoys grinding people down, unlike some other doctors you’ve come across. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Learn to live with it, learn to accept it, and find balance if you can–you heard that somewhere once. “Comes with emergency department chaos, right? And with first–fuck, no, second days,” you correct with a shake of your head. 

Robby looks at you with a quick narrowing of his eyes, a corner of his mouth turning up and his eyes crinkling around a careful smile. Finally, his shoulders slump, a little relaxation slipping into his frame as he exhales. 

The board overhead flickers with change, and both your heads turn up to read it – test results from someone in Central 6 that are back – probably a UTI, nothing too exciting. Robby makes his way to one of the computers to check, fishing a pair of round reading glasses from his pocket along the way. Setting them on his nose when he arrives, he clicks around a couple times with the computer mouse, before leaning down on his forearms to look at the results.

“All right,” you say, dragging a hand down your face. “Time to go home. Have a good shift, Doctor Robinavitch.”

“Just Robby,” he reminds you, eyes still slipping from left to right as he reads.

“Right. Robby,” you nod.

“I’ll let you know if it was a good one,” he sighs, before pocketing his glasses again and finding his back with his hands, shoulders drawing together as he straightens. When you frown, he elaborates, “This shift, I mean… When I see you tonight at the next change of shift? I did see you on the schedule, right?”

“Yes. I am on schedule. Sorry about the brain fog.” You yawn, covering your mouth with the back of your hand, then using the same hand to point a finger at the ceiling with a twirling motion. “Must be the 12 hours of flickering lights, and screaming, and… general fucking agony.”

Robby snorts. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

You both look up when an announcement message echoes through the emergency department. “Attention, code STEMI. Attention, code STEMI. ETA 3 minutes.”

Something immediately changes in Robby’s demeanour, eyes flicking towards the ambulance bay before excusing himself to make his way to Dana, no doubt to figure out what room’s open. 

“Get some sleep!” he shouts over his shoulder.

Aye aye, captain…

– – – – –

You quickly fall into a routine of three on, four off, and every morning after work, you come home exhausted, but also weirdly satisfied. During one of your three’s, you’re asked to pull a double; Robby spoke at some conference in Chicago two days ago, his flight has a significant delay, PTMC is swamped… 

You like the idea of it – as much as one can like the idea of being in the emergency department for that long. It’s just that everything at PTMC is a rush in a way things at Presby aren’t. Presby is safe. Everything is by the books–everything. But emergency medicine can’t operate that way and it’s like everyone at PTMC knows that, takes calculated, sometimes even creative, risks, and gets results.

So, you agree to the double. It’s not like anyone’s waiting for you at home, anyway.

As night shift becomes day shift, you meet her. Or rather, you see her.

She comes sailing by on a gurney, on top of a patient, face scrunched up with effort as she delivers deep, steady chest compressions, presenting to you all the while as you rush after her (32-year-old male, came in with chest pain, collapsed as soon as he walked into the waiting room, no pulse).

As soon as he’s rolled into one of the rooms, you help her off him, one of the med students taking over on compressions. Everyone works fast, you hear yourself yelling out for a crash cart, one of the nurses hooks the patient up to check vitals, and as soon as you identify his rhythm as v-tach she is next to you, on standby with the paddles and waiting for the charge, voice steady when she says, “Clear.” 

It’s all it takes to get him back into normal sinus. 

Over the course of the day, you discover the morning isn’t a one-off. She’s a third year resident, quick to react, smart as hell, a bit of a blabbermouth, which she needs to work on as a professional but it mostly just makes you laugh. She sticks close in the Trauma rooms, seems to know exactly when to step in and when to let you take the reins. While waiting for surgery to come down, you talk her through an emergency REBOA on a guy with NCTH after a car accident, and she aces it.

By the end of shift, you’re running on fumes, discussing the state of the department with Shen when he arrives to relieve you, your voice rough from all the talking you did today. When you finish up with Shen, you do a quick round to make sure your dayshift is getting relieved, and find your R3 in Central 8. She’s finishing up her stitches on a guy who fell through a glass door. You take in her slumped frame, her frazzled hair, and the heavy blink of her eyes. 

Knowing when to quit is something she also needs to work on.

You pluck one of the med students from the hall, verbally walk her through bandaging the patient up and handling the discharge with Doctor Shen, then poke your head back in the door of Central 8. 

“Sir, we’ll have one of the student doctors finish up with you, is that all right?” you ask, giving the girl a little push inside when he agrees. You turn your attention to your resident. “You got a minute?”

She nods, switches places with the student, and drags a hand over her face once she’s out of her patient’s view. 

“Thanks. Thought this day would never end…,” she says as you lead her into the empty hallway. She looks at you then, like she suddenly realizes she said that to someone who has been here for over 24 hours. “Shit, sorry–”

“Don’t sweat it,” you say with a wave and a chuckle. “I did come to make sure you get some rest. And because I wanted to let you know that I think you’ve done a fantastic job today.”

She perks up, shoulders dropping, eyes wide as saucers. “You think so?” she asks. Her voice is laced with a little too much enthusiasm to just be from the adrenaline of the day. “Thank you.”

You nod, “You really impressed me.”

And, oh, the addition might be a mistake. Because after you say it, she flashes you a bright smile, like all the effort she put into today has suddenly become worth it because of your praise. She’s fucking gorgeous. You already noticed before, but it’s worse this close up; freckles dusted along her nose and cheeks, a set of sparkling, green eyes set on you. You wonder if she knows, or if she’s one of those women who have no idea how beautiful they are. And then she blushes. It’s devastating.

You can’t help yourself. Delirious on being on the receiving end of all of that, and on the hours you’ve worked, you feed her ego further, “Sorry, is Robby– Does he not tell you how great you are at this?”

“Oh, no, no, don’t worry! He does, but in his own… disgruntled way,” she laughs, then takes a step in your direction. “But I um, I really like hearing it from you.” 

You wobble where you stand, wanting to step back, but feeling like doing so gives this more weight than it should have. More than she might mean. Though deep down… you know, have gotten better at sussing it out over the years. You can tell from her airy little laugh, the hairs on her arms standing up straight, goosebumps disappearing under the sleeves of her scrubs, the way she bats her lashes while waiting for what you’ll say: she’s flirting with you. 

“From both of you.”

It unlocks something–something your fried brain can’t really provide you with a name for. Instantly, you wonder how many times a week that face gives Robby pause. How often he is on the receiving end of that smile and, fuck, this is bad. You need to keep your head on straight, you can’t let your co-workers get to you like this. 

Just teach. You are teaching. This is a teaching hospital. 

With a heavy blink, you pick your conversation back up. “But you do um, need to know when to take a break, all right? At the end of shift, find someone to take over for you. Don’t run yourself dry.”

She swallows thickly, then nods. 

“Okay, so–”

“When’s your next shift?” she cuts in. 

You bite your cheek, then say, “I don’t plan on making a habit of being on the day shift.”

She hums, sweet, high pitched, then clicks her tongue. “That’s a shame, I really like…,” she pauses, has the audacity to bite her lip and narrow her eyes at you as she scans your face, “...your teaching style.”

Christ, you’ve accidentally unleashed a monster. Or, well, not exactly accidentally, but it’s hard to hold yourself responsible when you’re spread so thin after such a long day. And when you have a pretty thing like her making advances at you. You like it, though. Like the back and forth–like it a little too much. And so does she, you can sense it radiating off of her, and you have to end this before you do something stupid, like find a rare, empty on-call room to show her exactly what your teaching style could do for her.

“That’s great to hear,” you say instead. “I’ll be sure to give Doctor Robby some pointers.”

“I’d like that,” she says.

“I bet,” you huff out, too much of a mumble for her to hear. “All right, get out of here, it’s end of shift. Go get some sleep,” you say, gathering your composure and sending her off with a jerk of your head.

As she walks away, you realize that Robby will be back tomorrow, even more disgruntled after his conference, his delayed flight, the general stress of the emergency department… and he’ll have to deal with that.

Maybe you should pity him, but you find yourself smiling instead.

– – – – –

Labour Day weekend is a shitshow. While dealing with all the madness a regular night shift entails, including a feverish toddler whose screams reach decibels previously unknown to man, and a burn victim from a house fire, there’s also the dozen or so attendees from an end of summer houseparty, where some ritalin pills were spiked with fentanyl. You see enough naloxone to last you at least a month – a lifetime if you’re honest. Four accidental overdoses don’t make it to sunrise. 

One of them is the 8-year-old brother of one of the partygoers, who had been asleep upstairs, snuck down, and most likely mistook the pill for candy.

Right before change of shift, you spot Robby by the central hub, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck while assessing the damage of the night via the board above him. Once you’ve updated him on everyone, you ask, “Do you need me to step in and help?”

He scoffs, because of course he does, especially now that he knows exactly what’s waiting for him this morning. He folds his arms in that way he always does, where they don’t quite cross and he holds one of his elbows. “Should tell you to go home.”

You open your mouth–

“But I won’t,” he says pointedly, leaning down a little to be at eye-level. “Two med students called in sick, there’s still no beds upstairs, it’s…,” he gestures at the board, “...a fucking nightmare here. Could really use an extra pair of capable hands.” 

“Thought so. I’ll stay,” you nod. 

Before you walk off, he grabs your arm, and when you turn… he asks if you’re okay. It catches you completely off guard. Not the question itself, but the way he asks; in a voice that’s so genuine and soft it cracks on every word, and with a little squeeze of his hand that makes the reassuring warmth of his palm bleed through your scrubs. Tears spring into your eyes, making Robby’s go soft in return.

“The night was um, rough,” you admit, blinking rapidly.

“Thought so,” he echoes. Then, carefully, “You should… let yourself feel it, it’s better if you let it out.”

Your head tips down with a knowing sigh. It’s not new information, but the reminder is nice. And, in a way, it’s a relief that you still haven’t become desensitized to all of this despite how many hours you’ve spent doing this job.

“Go get some cold water from the fridge in the staff lounge, sit, and don’t come back until at least an hour from now. And if you still want to stay, you can stay.”

You concede, nodding and inhaling slowly. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” he squeezes your arm, makes you look at him, eyes widening when he says, “Come find me, if you need me.”

It’s decidedly a declaration, and not a question. You blink up at him, hold his gaze for longer than necessary–longer than you should, because you can practically feel Dana’s stare and you don’t want her babying you all day because she’s worried.

“I will,” you promise.

Robby releases you, turning back to the board, and you make your way to the break room.

Exactly one hour later, you’re back on the floor.

Robby’s talking to Dana, hands in the pockets of his pants, nodding along to something she reads off her iPad. When he spots you, he cranes his neck and gives you a look. You give him a thumbs up in return and a fake smile, something that says, I’m still not okay, but doing well enough to be able to work. His reply comes in the form of a narrowing of his eyes and a huffed out breath. As soon as Dana is finished up with him, he approaches you until you’re standing shoulder to shoulder by the ambulance bay.

“We’ve got two en route, waterski vs. waterski,” Robby says.

You roll your shoulders and nod once. “I’ll take Trauma 1, you take Trauma 2?”

From the corner of your eye, you see his head turn to you, and you swear he smiles.

It’s a whirlwind after that, of screams and orders, blood, fractures, trauma. It’s a miracle you get your guy’s vitals to stabilise. The other room’s still frantic, and when you sail through the sliding doors between Trauma 1 and 2, you find it’s mostly because of how packed it is; there’s two nurses, an R1 on the phone, a med student taking notes, Robby’s listening in as Garcia from surgery fires away questions at Mr. Waterski 2, with his R3 by his side. 

You announce yourself by saying. “Other room’s stable, what can I do to h–”

“Got the blood!” comes from behind you. Another med student walks in, puts a brake on the speed with which he enters the room a little too late, and he steps on the back of your shoe as he hands the bag to one of the nurses.

You trip– or, rather, you’re shoved up against Robby’s resident. She squeaks out an, oh! when you collide with her, and your hands find her waist to keep yourself from tumbling over further. It’s no use. You’re like two dominos, your shared momentum making you crash into Robby. Her hands land on his chest to keep her own balance, and Robby stumbles backwards into the wall, a tray of medical supplies clattering to the floor. Your front is pressed against her back, your hold on her tightening as you essentially pin her up against Robby. His hands are up, blue gloved digits trembling slightly as he looks down at her, his pupils dilating, his next intake of breath sharp between his teeth. 

“Whoops,” she says between you, voice breathy, and you might have laughed, even just from the tense nerves fluttering through your body, if Robby hadn’t chosen that moment to flick his eyes up to yours over her head.

A deep, dark flush colours his cheeks, the tip of his nose, creeps down the protruding tendons in his neck and into the collar of the shirt he wears under his scrubs. Without your permission, your lip finds its way between your teeth, unable to look away from how affected he is.

Guess you aren’t the only one nursing a little crush.

But duty calls, and you untangle from each other as fast as you’d gotten pressed together. Robby sends the med student away with a curse and a barked out order that’s a little too sharp for the poor guy.

The alarms around you are still blaring, doing wonders to tuck your collision somewhere in the back of your mind and snap you back into attending physician mode. Taking the head of the bed, you keep Robby and his residents updated on vitals as they work on figuring out why they’re dropping.

Both water skiers make it.

– – – – –

After 12 weeks of alternating the night shift with Shen, you find yourself in one of the bars down the street, where the usual post-shift drink had turned into somewhat of an unofficial going away party. It's early evening and the mood is mellow, with people trickling in and out all night depending on change of shift.

Halfway through the night, when things have significantly quieted down, you spot Robby by the bar, freshly showered by the looks of it. It’s the first time you see him out of his scrubs. He’s swiveled around on his stool, bottle of beer in his hand. The moment your eyes find his, he turns his gaze away, staring straight ahead instead. He looks sad, but not in his usual puppy dog way, more like he’s… pining. When you follow his line of sight, it lands directly on–

Of course.

Before you know it, you’re making your way over with quick strides, a grin you can’t hide plastered on your face. When you reach him, you open your mouth–

“Don’t,” he begins with a scoff, “even start.”

“What?” you say innocently, tucking yourself between him and the open stool next to him, leaning back against the bar. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“Saw the little…,” he gestures at your feet, “...pep in your step as you came over. Can’t imagine what’s swirling around that head of yours.” 

“Can't help it, you have no idea what working the night shift with Ellis and Walsh as much as I have does to a person.”

“I do, that’s what’s got me worried,” he laughs. “You only have Mohan down there to keep you sane.”

Air puffs out your nose at that. “Speaking of.. What’s her deal? Sometimes she gets this… look on her face; Ellis describes it as looking like she just made the saddest realization.”

“She works in the emergency department,” Robby reasons.

“No, it’s more than that.”

Robby sets his beer down with a hum, then folds his arms like he’s hugging himself and closes one eye in thought, “Is it after someone brings up Abbot?”

Your time to think. “Now that you mention it…,” you say, going over your interactions in your head, “yes.”

He picks his bottle back up with a knowing nod. “She switched to the night shift a couple weeks before Abbot’s accident, looked real sad about his injury and the prospect of not seeing him for months. Think she’s harbouring some… warm feelings.”

“What about you?”

Robby grins. “I do not harbour warm feelings for Doctor Abbot.”

You give him an exaggerated fake laugh. “Just for someone else.” 

Robby takes a swig from his bottle, giving you a long look and swallowing thickly. It’s enough to make you straighten up, confused eyes narrowing before you use them to gesture at his resident. 

“Are you gonna make a move on her, or are you just gonna keep staring at her?”

He sighs deeply, like he knows better than to answer, but he does it anyway, “It alllll depends.”

“Oh, yeah?” You bring your drink up to your mouth. “On what?”

“If you are going to make a move on her.” 

It makes you spit your sip back into your glass with a choked sound. Fuck, okay, he’s more observant than you gave him credit for, noted. Robby smiles against the rim of the beer bottle pressed against his lips.

You gather your composure with a shrug. “It is my last day.”

“That it is,” he says with a slow nod.

Silence stretches between you when your mind prompts you with something–something you haven’t been able to stop thinking about since Labour Day weekend. This is kind of the perfect day to bring it up, to gauge Robby’s temperature and act on the tension that’s been present between the three of you ever since the incident.

You need an extra sip of your drink first, though.

As you do, you flick your eyes to the side and find Robby fidgeting with the collar of the brown button down he’s wearing.

“We could both make a move on her,” you broach carefully.

“Absolutely not,” Robby snorts immediately, turning his head to face you. Then, more seriously, “We are not… competing over one of our residents.”

“Why? Afraid you’ll lose?” you ask, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Pff, my job, maybe,” he puffs out quietly. 

“C’mon, you were with Heather and that didn’t cost you your job.”

“How do you even..? That was diff–” Realizing he took your bait, he licks his top lip, then swipes a hand down his face, scratching nervously at his beard before pointing back and forth between the two of you, “Because we’re not 20-somethings in med school, that’s why.”

You roll your eyes, take another sip. Like you need the reminder. “No one said anything about being each other’s competition.”

That catches him off-guard. The hand holding his beer hovers in the air, forgotten in its journey from his lap to his mouth.

You continue, “We could, I don’t know… double team he–”

“Please, don’t– Fuck. We can not fucking,” he lowers his voice to a hiss, “double team her.” 

Your eyes widen, and you throw your hands up in a way that says, Sorry I even considered it! With a large gulp, you finish your drink and put the glass on the bar behind you, willing the dent he put in your ego away. If Robby doesn’t want this, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. “Message received. I’ll make my move then.”

After two steps, a firm hand closes around your bicep, slowly dragging you back. Your pulse jumps as he twists you around.

“Wait… a minute. I just…” Robby’s gaze darts between her and you, and back. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable because I’m there.” 

He signals with his eyes, implies… something, but what, you have no idea. Puzzled, you look at him, your brain going over the possibilities as your tongue passes over your bottom lip. If it’s not about you, and not about her, is it a self-esteem thing? Does he not know his whole… well, everything, does it for a lot of people? 

A little flush creeps up his face the longer you wait, until he can’t take it anymore. “Oh, for the love of– I’m a man.” 

Air escapes out of your nose at the comment. He can't even look at you after he says it. A smile threatens to curl at your lips, and you bite the inside of your cheek to keep it from morphing into a full blown grin; you don’t want to make him feel bad because god, that’s actually really fucking cute…

“Robby,” you begin, stepping closer so that you’re standing in between his legs. You reach up, take the folded-over collar of his shirt between your fingers to feel if the fabric is as soft as it looks (it is). Robby’s breath hitches when you do, eyes flicking to your exploring hand for a moment. “Man, woman, anything in between… I don’t care, I like everything.”

Something changes in his eyes, like your words flip a switch in him, but not the usual switch that flips in men when you tell them you’re bisexual. This isn’t excitement over the prospect of potentially seeing you with another woman, even though that is on the table right now. It’s more about… the realization that you’re attracted to him, that you are included in the deal. It makes you shiver, more so when his eyes drop to your mouth, only for a second.

“So, unless you’re this slow in bed,” you tease, “should I go present our case to her?”

The hand around your bicep tightens, and you swear he growls. “No. I’ll settle our tabs and then I’ll fucking go to her. You go say your little goodbyes to everyone, it'd be rude not to.” He’s so close you can feel his warm breath fan out over your lips, “And once we get to yours, or mine, or hers–I don’t care where, I will show you exactly–”

“Easy,” you say, dragging the word out with a chuckle, his change in demeanour making you feel warm. “She goes first. And then we’ll see what happens.”

– – – – –

“Are you sure you’re sure?” you ask her on the way.

Robby’s behind the wheel of her car, driving towards her address she rattled off to him; he put the two of you in the back to catch up on what he told her. He hums in agreement. “Cause I can just… drive you home, we’ll get a cab, it won’t be a big deal.”

“And let you two have all the fun without me?” she laughs. Her hand finds your thigh. Unfair. “No.”

You stop her. “I’m serious.”

“And I appreciate that,” she says, voice losing its teasing lilt, turning her hand under yours and taking it with a squeeze, “but I want it, so you can stop worrying and start kissing me.”

“Okay,” you nod, watching her as she cups your cheek and leans in, a waft of her perfume, or maybe it’s the shampoo she uses, making it to your nose. Focus. “But um, anytime you want–”

“I know. I will. Now, kiss me,” she whispers, close enough that her eyes cross a little. “Please?”

A deep sigh sails from you the moment you finally close the distance, weeks of piled up tension finally coming to this moment–clearly inevitable, now that it’s here. Her lips are soft, and when you swipe your tongue over the seam of her lips, you taste a hint of some fruit-flavoured drink she had earlier tonight. She parts for you immediately, moaning as you close your lips around her bottom one with a suck, before letting your tongue meet hers.

“Fuck.” 

It comes from the front seat. Robby’s brown eyes look at you via the rearview mirror, flick to the road, and then back. 

“Are we far out?” you ask, kissing down her neck, enjoying the way she sighs, cups the back of your head, and tilts hers to give you more room.

“Almost there,” comes the gruff reply.

“Then step on it.” You make your way back up to her mouth. “You’re gonna want in on this.”

– – – – –

Her apartment is cute, quaint in an old-fashioned way, and you like it, it suits her. You stumble into the living room positioned much like that day you crashed into them in the hospital; Robby walking backwards, led by her steps as much as her kisses, and you at her back, hands on her waist and pressing your lips to her neck, her shoulder.

Before you can fully consider if her bedroom is anything like the rest of her place, Robby trips, the three of you landing on the couch instead, and you realize you’re not gonna make it to the bed. It’s impractical with three people, but there’s gentle laughter and the soft, yellow light of a lamp she flicks on, and you make it work. She certainly makes up for it in eagerness, dividing her time between you equally.

Robby manoeuvres her against one of the armrests, pulling at her clothes until her bottom half is bare, and pushing her top up to expose her tits. In no time, they’re glistening in the dim light, the skin rubbed slightly raw from the time he spends with his face all over them. Just as you've pulled your shirt off and rolled your jeans down, Robby's satisfied with his work. 

He pulls his hand from between her legs and drags you to them with a, “Got her nice and wet for you.” And as he starts unbuttoning his shirt, he moves back so you can take his place. 

To say you’re dying to taste her might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you do feel spit pooling on your tongue at the idea. You make your way down her body, soothing Robby’s assault on her skin, pressing kisses to some of the cute little freckles scattered across her torso and then on the curls that cover her pussy. 

Her legs widen to give you more room, and it really shouldn’t make you feel as smug as it does. Under other circumstances you would have taken some more time with her, but when you use two fingers to spread her open, your eyes glaze over a little at the sight of how Robby's prep has her dripping, and you can’t help yourself. 

You drag your tongue up between the V of your fingers, flattening it against her opening with a groan to really taste her. She’s sweet, soft yet slippery in a way that makes your blood pump. And she’s vocal, a little sigh or moan escaping her lips with every pass of your mouth. But it’s nothing compared to the pleased grunt she lets out when you tell her how much you’ve wanted to taste her for weeks.

Robby hovers behind you, the sound of his clothes rustling after the clink of his belt buckle filling your ears. Then the couch dips, and slowly, he plants a knee between your legs, scooting forward until his thigh meets the fabric between your legs. You can feel the line of his boxers, the press of his bulge against your ass. His hands close over your hips, pulling you harder against him and then he just… stays there, holding you in place. 

You slow down with a frown. It feels good, the little barrier between you beginning to soak through with the pressure, but–

“Just… keep going,” he says, fingers toying with the waistband of your underwear.

He’s using that voice, you realize. The kind of soothing tone that he’d use on a patient… right before pulling a dislocated shoulder back into place. He’s attempting to lull you into a false sense of security and it instantly has you on edge. 

“Fuck, please, that feels amazing,” comes from in front of you when you gently circle the tight bud under your tonue. Her hand reaches down to cup your face and hold you in place, while the other pinches at her own nipple. “Stay right there.”

Giving her your best attempt at a nod, you concentrate on keeping your rhythm instead of on Robby’s dislocated shoulder voice, to give her enough to please, but not enough to get her off just yet. But it’s hard, because Robby is still toying with the elastic on your hips, fingers dipping underneath and back out in a pattern you can't quite discern, and it’s fucking distracting.

When your resident’s hips begin bucking up, Robby’s hand finds the back of your head, his whole palm big enough to cup it, which is also very hard to push from your mind. His fingers twist into your hair and move you until you’re shaking your head between her soaking thighs, your tongue lolled out as you pass it over her clit again and again. 

It helps to get lost in her, how wet your chin is getting, how her arousal is smeared across your lips, your cheeks, your nose… until, without letting go, Robby shuffles back a little. You let out a whine, instantly chasing the pressure.

“Give me…,” he yanks your underwear down to mid thigh, “...a second,” then presses his bare thigh against your soaked folds.

You jerk against him, the surprised moan it tears from your throat filthy and loud, echoed by your resident only moments after. Robby chooses that exact moment to let go of your head, hands finding your waist to put an arch in your spine and angle you down using his bodyweight, and you’re helpless to stop it. It makes you slide along the hard muscle of his thigh, grinding you against him in a way that rubs your clit just right, and… 

You come.

It isn’t anything big, just a steady throb that comes with the friction on your clit after all that continuous pressure. It does nothing to douse the twinge of arousal pooling in your belly–borders more on the painful side of pleasure. Most of all, it pisses you off.

“I said her first,” you snarl, your head snapping back at him as you let two fingers take over for your mouth.

“Could’ve just waited,” Robby shrugs, and he looks so annoyingly smug, smiling down at you, still holding you tight against him–he can probably feel you fluttering. “I can’t help it that you’ve got such an eager pussy.”

Jesus fucking Christ, maybe you underestimated him. Maybe you should have left him in the bar. 

Then again, you’re more turned on than you ever remember being.

“When you get a taste of her you’ll see why it’s so hard to concentrate,” you attempt to quip.

“Make her come and I will,” Robby challenges, and this time when he pulls his leg back, it feels like relief.

With a huff, you turn your attention back to the woman in front of you, attempting to find your bearings by pouring equal parts arousal and frustration into doubling your efforts. Your middle finger slides inside of her with ease, and with the next thrust, you fold your ring finger over it and curl up to massage the soft walls of her cunt. The sound she makes in return is exactly what you were looking for, irritation making room for desire–to make her feel good, to make her come undone.

Having done this plenty of times, you don’t need any pointers, and you’ve barely started or she’s already begging for it. This is your favourite part, when they plead with you not to stop, ask for your mouth and “just a little more,” when you’ve got them on the precipice and it’s up to you to tip them over the edge. So, you do, sucking her clit back between your lips, and watching her intently while your fingers find that spot inside of her and push until she’s crying out.

You can feel Robby leaning over you, moving closer and closer, and if you weren’t so preoccupied with the grinding against the push of your tongue, you’d be able to come up with a clever comment about his reading glasses. After a few more passes, you pull back with a smack, her answering desperate sound music to your ears. 

“Come here,” you say, and you reach for Robby, grabbing him by the jaw to draw him in. 

Taking the spot to the left of you, he shuffles closer until her calf rests over his shoulder and you’re both on your stomach with a premium view. His large palm slowly travels along your back, sliding from left to right, fingers flitting over your ribs, using his grip to keep you pinned to his side. He’s helping you keep your balance, you realize, making sure you don’t roll off the side of the couch. It makes your eyes flutter when he takes advantage by letting his touch ghost along the side of your breast. 

“It’s not every day you see something like that,” he says, effectively redirecting your attention from his wandering hand to the two fingers that are still curled inside your resident.

Carefully, you pull them out, the both of you watching as little strings of milky-clear arousal web between your digits. You use them to find her clit, mixing your saliva with her come, watching her spit-slick hole twitch when you do. She gasps, trying to squirm away, but quickly realizes she has nowhere to go when two different hands shoot up to keep her in place.

“Stop teasing,” she protests hoarsely.

It’s hard to take it to heart when she looks dizzy with arousal, her chest still rising and falling at a rapid pace, and makes a weak attempt at closing her legs.

“You’re fun to tease,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to the inside of her thigh that's both meant to soothe and to keep her spread open. It makes her muscles jump under your touch. “So sensitive.”

Robby lets out a shaky breath. “Can’t blame her after seeing what your mouth can do.” 

The small victory makes something hum in your brain, but it’s short-lived when his fingers flex against you again.

“I want to see what your mouth can do,” you confess, head turning and watching as his jaw ticks. Your thumb strokes along his beard, nail scraping over some of the greys between the dark hair, and you struggle to fight a smirk when his lips part. “I can guarantee you she’ll love this.”

A soft little, Oh, please, sails up from above you, and you grin, using your grip on Robby to push him against her soaked folds. 

He shuffles closer after the first contact, mouth falling open to engulf her pussy when you let go of him. Pinned in place, you watch with quiet curiosity as he gets to work. 

Though there’s overlap, his technique is different from yours. Where you’re more about spit, long lines and swirled circles, using the flat of your tongue, he’s more… rigorous, harsh sucks to her clit that make her keen, quick flicks to it that he can keep up for an impressive amount of time before pushing his tongue inside of her. 

Oh, he’s… He’s good at this.

Before you can think too hard about the added sensation of the bristle of his beard on her entrance, her hand fumbles for the back of your head, pushing you down when she gets a good grip. With a muffled Hmmmpf you collide with her, lips clumsily smearing over her wet skin, your smooth cheek pressed to Robby’s rough one. He grunts when you make contact with him, before pulling away from her clit with a suck and giving you better access.

“No,” she protests, whining as she motions for him to come back. “Together.”

You realize what exactly she’s asking for, and everyone is just fuuuuull of ideas today, apparently? Good ideas… You can't deny she’s kind of an evil genius for making this work so well for her.

It’s new territory for you, but you could spend the whole night between her legs and not complain, so you look at Robby, raising your eyebrow in question to see how he feels.

There’s a lazy grin on his face, and his head cocks with a shrug, “You’re the one who wanted to double team her.” 

The chuckle you let out in response is mostly air, and you draw your lip between your teeth while shaking your head. He’s such a bastard for revealing this information to her now, when she’s spread out and desperate, all but begg–

“Fuck me,” she growls. “Then do it. Please.”

It takes a moment to find the right approach, to divide your attention equally without constantly getting in each other’s way. 

You don't want to compare it to work, nothing about this is like dealing with trauma patients, but… it is kind of like it. Let's say it’s definitely a testament to how attuned to each other you have become that you make it work. 

When he focuses his attention on her leaking entrance, your tongue finds her higher. When his mouth slides back up again, yours travels along the crease between her thigh and pelvis, down until you can suck a mark into the curve of her ass. It becomes this dance, but you're both leading, both anticipating each other's moves and adapting while your resident's moans rise in pitch.

Robby's arm curls around her thigh to keep her down when she arches up. “You wanted it like this…” he says when he pulls back, working his jaw and pursing his lips before spitting down on her, “...so take it.” 

She shrieks at the action, cursing afterwards with a shudder in her voice.

Your body, naturally, reacts more like you just got shot in the gut; a pang of arousal in your stomach that pulses and twists, a surprised intake of your breath to match.

Who the fuck is he right now?

What the fuck he does next is chase the glob of saliva as it trickles down her clit.

But you're… locked in place, following his moves until he pulls away and twists his head to you like he's wondering where you are.

His eyes are hooded, pupils pushing out the brown of his irises, and his mouth hangs open, the bottom half of his face damp and shiny. It makes whatever's been brewing between you since the revelation in the bar impossible to ignore. In another momentary lapse of reason, and thinking more with another part of yourself than with your brain, you kiss him–it’s more of a collision really, hard pressed, but that’s what makes it so good–

“Fucking… finally,” Robby growls.

Correction, that’s what makes it so good. 

You use the words to lick into his mouth with a slow flick and a sound you're not proud of, but it's all worth it when his tongue glides against yours, and you feel his facial hair brush your lips, and god, you'll never tell him but he's right, you should have done this sooner. 

He tastes like her, and there’s a conflicting feeling to it; excitement at the notion that he can probably taste the same thing on you, but also something… possessive, like you want to keep kissing him until you taste him. 

The quick reminder of her makes you slip your thumb between the slide of your tongues, before reaching blindly for her, letting Robby take control over your kiss as you press the wet digit against her clit. 

“Just like that,” she sighs, her hand finding your wrist, guiding you where she needs it and keeping you there. “‘s gonna…gonna...”

But then Robby makes a protesting sound in reply. 

He lets go of your side, pushing your hands away before cupping the back of your neck to direct you both back to her pussy. It’s a dizzying, three-way kiss; messy, and so slippery, and what the hell, for someone who shuddered at the words “double team”, Robby’s pretty fucking exceptional at it.

“Ohhhh, myfuckinggod,” she squeals, clearly in agreement, followed by a giggle that morphs into a groan. “It looks so fucking hot, please– Oh, please don’t stop, please make me come like this.”

The hand on your neck squeezes, holding you down so you can't do anything but work her together–not that you want this to stop anyway, it's a very, very clear winner in the Hottest thing that has ever happened to you-competition. 

You keep going until your head is swimming, until you have no real idea whether your tongue curls around his, or around her pulsing clit. Vaguely, you register Robby’s fingers pumping in and out of her, but don’t have much time to wonder how you missed that, because when he pulls them out with a grunt, she’s coming.

You feel her orgasm more than you hear it, warm and wet as she desperately grinds herself against your faces; the vibration of Robby’s answering groan as his hold on you wavers; the thud of your knees against the floor as you slip off the couch, gravity forcing you off her as you heave a desperate gasp.

Robby manages to chuckle, eyes flicking down at you before dedicating himself to working her through the aftershocks of her orgasm. 

“Holy shit. That was good. Thank you,” she pants, running a hand through his hair as he nips at her thigh. 

She makes an attempt to reach for you, but her arm just rolls limply off the couch, joining the leg that came down with you. 

“I need to lie flat. If only there was a doctor around…” she grins, “...it appears I've lost all sensation in my extremities.”

“I gotcha,” Robby laughs. He takes hold of her calf, wincing as he gets up on his knees, and yanks her closer to him.

A bright giggle bubbles up from her throat when she slides down, hair fanning out over the cushions. She’s glowing, with satisfaction and a thin sheen of sweat; she looks even more beautiful than she already was.

You're still kneeling next to the couch, watching as Robby does exactly what you would do: kiss his way up her body until he can press his mouth to hers. After, he whispers something you can’t hear, something that makes her cup his cheek and smile with a nod. He kisses her neck, little brushes of his mouth as he grinds himself against her. 

He's still wearing his boxers. They must be ruined by now, if not from his own arousal then definitely from the way he's rutting up against her pussy. You want to see it. Mostly to see what's under it, because he felt big against your ass, and–

You pull your underwear from your legs, giving yourself more room to push a hand between your legs. You can already feel your arousal as your fingers inch up the inside of your thighs, slippery trails of where it’s leaked down in just the short time you’ve been kneeling.

“Get back on the couch,” Robby says suddenly, head turning to you.

“I kind of like the view,” you say, grinning when his eyes drop to where you're touching yourself.

He beckons you closer with a crook of his finger while moving to sit back on his haunches.

You shuffle closer, looking up at him. “I want to watch you fu–”

“I want that, too,” he assures you, and before you can scold him for never letting you finish a thought or a sentence, he's bending down to kiss you again, and your mind goes quiet. He holds you by the neck, thumb and ring finger at the corners of your jaw, pulling until you have no choice but to stand, then murmurs, “So would you just fucking… listen to me? Be good and sit on her face.”

Your shiver at the words, eyes flicking to her, and she responds by opening her mouth and showing you her tongue, and god, yeah, another great idea.

Your legs wobble, and Robby’s hands fly to your waist, guiding you to her with an amused look on his face that shouldn’t turn you on.

You can't believe you worked with these people for a good chunk of your 12 week stint at PTMC. Earlier, you wished you’d done this sooner. Now, you’re certain you wouldn’t have survived if you had.

You can’t help but hiss when your pussy makes contact with your resident’s perfect, warm tongue. She flicks at you once, twice, before she tugs you down on top of her, that mouth that has made you laugh so much opening under you to pull a deep moan from your throat instead. 

“There you go,” Robby rasps as he lets go of you.

Their combined attention makes you melt, some of the tension that always comes with this position slipping away, making you slump and take a more firm seat. With your eyes cast down, and a hand cupping your own breast, you watch her, the pink of her tongue peeking out from between your legs every now and again. 

After a couple passes of her tongue, she suddenly moans, nails digging into your thighs. Your eyes shoot up to watch Robby, slumped over, his little quiff matted down, one thumb hooking the waistband of his boxers down far enough to have taken himself out. The condom he rolled on while you were occupied gives his shaft a shine, like he’s already covered in her slick; the tip of him pressed to her entrance definitely is. 

You were right when you felt him earlier, but maybe thick is a better word to describe him–thick in a way that… yeah, that would have you a little worried for her if you hadn’t spent the better part of this rendezvous with your tongues between her legs. Still, she squirms when he slips the head inside, one moan loud and clear in front of you, another trapped against your cunt. 

Seeing them both so affected changes your demeanour, like no longer being the very center of attention is giving you more freedom to play with them a little. To be sure, you lift a knee, plant a foot into the cushions. She gasps when you lift off her, and you can’t help but smile at the way she arches up to chase after you. 

“Are you okay, honey?” you ask, stroking her wet chin.

“Yes. It feels– It all feels too fucking good,” she manages.

“Hmm-hmm, I bet,” you nod. “But you can take it,” you say sweetly, before promptly sitting back down. The vibration of her muffled, surprised sound makes you sigh, but the answering moan comes from in front of you.

“Jesus,” Robby says, inching a little further into her. “I didn’t think you’d get… like that.”

You let out an amused huff, because the thing is, you’re not; not often, anyway. You’re content to adapt to what the situation asks of you, and this one has you floating, high on pleasure, on feeling wanted, and watched. And when you think about it, he made it this way.

Your hands find her chest, squeezing at her perfect, plush tits before using her as leverage to roll your hips along her eager mouth. Leaning forward, you let your lips meet that spot in the center of Robby’s chest, the spot where his perpetual flush seems to bloom up from. 

“Like what?” you ask anyway, looking up at him through your lashes, dragging your mouth over the coarse hair that’s scattered all over his torso until your tongue flicks at his nipple.

“So…” He hisses when you bite him, hand fisting the hair at the back of your head to pull you off, “...fucking mean.”

“Takes one to know one,” you say, enjoying the way he uses his hold on you as leverage to fuck her, subconsciously matching the rhythm of your hips to his.

With a tug, he angles your head up, kissing a path down the center of your throat. “Got that fucking right,” he murmurs, before moving to where your neck and shoulders meet and biting at the juncture.

It hurts, but the good kind, where it’s on the tip of your tongue to aks for more. The thing is, he’s been creative so far, and you’re not sure you can handle another surprise. You can feel him grin when he pulls away, like he knows exactly what you were thinking, which, at this point, wouldn’t surprise you; he’s smart, should’ve known he’d be a quick study.

Under you, your resident moves one of her arms from under your thigh, reaching between her legs with a desperate sound. Robby’s not the only quick study; you’ve figured by now she needs the stimulation to come. It isn’t surprising, it's the same for you, but it is helpful information. You reach for her, grabbing her wrist and pinning it to her belly, just out of reach.

“Wait,” you tell her pointedly, shushing her whines and reveling in the way they vibrate against you. Heat begins pooling in your belly as she slides her tongue into you, making something promising simmer deep inside.

“Please,” she murmurs between mouthfuls of your pussy, her hand twitching in your grip. “Can I come?”

It takes everything in you to conceal how affected you are by her pleading when you look at Robby. “Ask him.”

Obediently she asks, “Please, can I come?”

A snarl flickers across his features as he contemplates his answer, and without looking away from you he says, “What was that?” 

“Robby.” It doesn’t sound like her; an octave higher, drenched in desperation. “Please.”

He waits a second… two… three. “Yes,” he says, eyes glazing over with something darker when she thanks him. 

In a flash, you bring your free hand up to your mouth, getting the pads of three fingers wet before using them to strum at her clit, rapid flicks from left to right that make her writhe under you, another shriek landing muffled against your cunt. 

Robby’s reaching the end of his rope too, you can tell by the way his thighs shake as he frantically tries to keep fucking her.

You work together, looking down, leaning closer until your foreheads are pressed together, her little moans rising in pitch until she's shuddering beneath you, another orgasm pulling her under its current.

“Fuckfuckfuck, it's– She’s squeezing me so…” Robby trails off with a rumbling sound, eyes snapping shut before he pants out, “I’m gonna come. Tell me w–I need to know–oh.”

You sit up, giving her some reprieve and ask, “Where?”

“Fuck, come on my tits,” she says, pushing them together.

Robby pulls out of her, tearing his condom off with a snap!, scrambling to straddle her waist. He's red all over, his cock nearly purple at the tip, eyes glued to her chest as he strokes himself.

Your eyes zero in on the way his fist moves over his cock, quick, squelching flicks from root to tip. He’s leaking, steady drops of precome oozing from the head of his cock and the more you watch him, the greedier you get.

“Let me do it,” you say, tongue passing over your palm and reaching down.

His free hand catches it, voice straining with effort as he says, “Wait, I–”

“Robby, stop it,” you say, pulling yourself free. “Let me do it, I need to do it.”

Your hand has barely closed around his or he’s coming, a deep surprised moan tearing from somewhere deep in his chest as he twitches in your grip. Your eyes widen, tingles of excitement fluttering through you as the first thick rope of it shoots up against your belly, the rest ending up on your resident’s tits.

He exhales heavily, chest rising and falling at a rapid pace after. “I said wait,” he grits out after a couple of panting breaths, his hand slipping out from under yours.

“Could've just done that,” you retort, still milking him, enjoying the way he grunts as the last dribbles of come ooze from the head of his cock. “I can’t help it that you’re so sensitive.”

“Oh, fuck you.” It comes out half groan/half chuckle, and actually sounds like he's kind of impressed with you. Then suddenly, he's more serious, “Oh, you need to– Slower, slower,” a shaking hand closes around your wrist. “‘s too much.”

“Surprised you held out this long in the first place,” you smirk, following his instructions, slowing to a halt and letting go as he starts to soften in your hand. “Thought for sure I’d end up somehow having to finish the job.”

“Hmm, no, don’t have to worry about that with me,” he says, with a lazy grin. He redirects his attention to your resident. “You okay?”

“I’m fucking great,” she grins, still sounding a little dazed. She reaches for you, grabbing at your thighs. “I just need you to sit back down.”

Before you can properly prepare for it, you’re pulled back onto her mouth, a surprised huf sailing past your lips. Your eyes flutter shut as she laps at your swollen clit, your concern for your own pleasure rushing back to the font of your mind now that everyone else’s is taken care of.

You reach for her hand, leading it up your torso to your chest, where she squeezes your breast, massaging the soft skin before pinching at the peak. The sharp pain mixes perfectly with the swirls around your clit, and with every tweak and swipe, she makes you barrel towards the edge faster and faster. 

Your eyes fly open when Robby’s hand cups your cheek. He says nothing, seemingly just… holds you to hold you. And he watches, lets his gaze rove over your face, eyes flicking down the length of your body and back up. “Feels good, huh?”

“Yeah. We–oh, f-fuck–made the right call with her.” You barely get the words out or she wiggles her hand between your legs to let two of her fingers slip inside you. 

Robby hums, “We did.”

Slowly, you start rolling your hips, meeting the curl of her fingers. You bite your lip, a little frown forming between your brows when that familiar sense of pleasure starts blooming from somewhere deep inside of you. You don’t even really have to chase it–it’s more like it’s chasing you.

“Oh,” you gasp, clutching at Robby’s wrist to have something to hold on to. “Oh, you’re doing perfect, it’s gonna make me come.”

“Yeah?” Robby’s brow arches. “Gonna show me this time, hmm?”

Fuck. You nod as her tongue flicks faster and faster, making your hips twitch. It’s nothing like the first one–it’s the complete opposite, like it never stops building until it does, suddenly, in a way that seems to push all the air out of you as you gasp, gasp, gasp…

“C’mon, sweetheart,” Robby says, his grip on you forcing you to hold his gaze. “Show me how pretty you look when you come– There we go.”

Goddamn him.

It’s like an avalanche, a loud, vibrating groan rumbling out of your chest as your muscles clench and you push your hips down harder. It seems to reach you everywhere, your thighs quivering, heat tingling up your spine, and your hand scrambles to hold Robby by the shoulder to make sure you don’t topple over. His face becomes a little blurry as you try desperately to keep your eyes open, as the gentle strokes of her tongue start bordering on too much… until it actually becomes too much.

You scramble backwards, overstimulated, ducking down at an awkward angle towards her panting mouth and giving her a sloppy, upside-down kiss. She clutches onto you, licking into your mouth with enthusiasm as you pour praise down her throat, assuring her how good she made you feel, how beautiful she is. After a couple spit-slick kisses, you pull away, taking in her face and stroking a thumb along her freckled cheek, before kissing it and sitting back against the armrest.

Catching your breath, you watch as Robby hauls her up into a sitting position. She reaches for his face, pulling him into a kiss that’s almost chaste in comparison to the one you shared with her. 

When they part, his eyes find yours over the top of her head. He calls you over in silence, repeatedly opening and closing his outstretched hand. You take it, and he pulls you closer until you’re kneeling behind her. Then, he brings the back of your hand to his mouth, presses a kiss to it and says, “Good job, team.”

It makes all of you laugh.

The aftermath isn’t as awkward as you feared. You drink a big glass of water, share a snack in her kitchen, take turns showering, listen to her and Robby discussing their schedules to figure out when they’ll see each other next… and then you move to the front door to say your goodbyes. 

She kisses you on the mouth before you leave, thanks you as she pulls away. 

When you part ways with Robby when you exit her apartment complex, he does the same.

– – – – –

It's Monday morning, a little over a week later, on your day off. You should use the time to sleep in, not to sit behind your laptop in your kitchen before 7am, but you were up the second you were awake. As you're putting the finishing touches on the sign off of the email you're writing, your phone buzzes.

It’s Robby. 

That’s kind of freaky.

Ellis told me to tell you she misses you on the night shift, he writes.

the kids always miss the substitute once their teacher is back, you reply. how happy was samira to see abbot?

Had to talk her down from organizing a welcome back party.

A smile pulls at your lips. Of course she’d try that. Sweet. how was he? healed okay?

Busy trying not to smile too wide at the cake Samira brought in anyway. Then, Healed okay, just some expected general discomfort left. And, Why does Abbot say he has permanent stock in your medical degree?

You roll your eyes. So much for that. because he’s an asshole.

He doesn’t reply, and with a quick glance at the clock you realize his shift probably began and chaos is ensuing. You put your phone down, checking if your cover letter is in the attachment of the email, if you spelled PTMC correctly in the email address… and it looks like everything is in order. 

Then your phone buzzes again. This time, Robby’s calling.

“Do you want to hear the story that badly?” you answer with a chuckle. “Because I promise it’s not that–”

“I absolutely want to hear it, but… not why I’m calling.” You wait for him to say more, and hear him sigh deeply before asking, “Can I see you this week?”

You suck in some air through your teeth. “Missing me already, Doctor Robinavitch?”

“I uh, had this dream about you, the kind where I…,” he pauses with a chuckle, and you kind of hate how you can picture him; head tipped down, hand scratching at the short hairs at the back of his head, “...had to do something about it when I woke up. Was almost late for work.” 

Oh, fuck. You didn’t expect him to say that. Instantly, images flood your mind of a nondescript bedroom, Robby tangled in bed sheets, still sleepy, thinking about you, rutting against the mattress, maybe even with his hand around his–  

“Jesus, Robby…,” you huff, snapping yourself out of it while your cheeks begin to feel warm. Then, you think about her, and you bite your lip before asking, “What about your R3?”

“Wasn’t in my dream,” he says simply. “She’s seeing someone from neuro. At least, I believe they're neuro.”

“So I’m just second choice all across the board, huh?” You aim for a joke, but oof, ouch, you actually kind of hurt yourself with that one… Closing your eyes with a sigh, you try to come up with a way to save it, but Robby’s already speaking.

“You know,” he begins, and he sounds amused, and you hate him, “someone as smart as you should know not to make assumptions.”

“Huh?”

“I’m calling you, not her,” he says, then adds quietly, “Ellis told me I looked… sad– Actually, she said I looked like I just made the saddest realization.”

Well, first of all, few times Robby doesn’t look like that. Second, and once again: Huh? 

“After she brought you up to me,” he continues.

That makes something click in your brain: He’s talking about the Samira look, the look you told him about in the bar, about her harbouring– Wait. Your entire body goes rigid as the realization kicks in. And then it floods with something pleasant, something that tingles and makes you giddy… 

Warm feelings.

Robby’s voice sounds a little unsteady on the other side of the line when he breaks the silence you put between you, “But you can just tell me the story, and we can pretend this conversation was just that. No hard feelings.”

“I’m free tonight, if you want to hear the story. You can come over after your shift, and…” with a hum, you pretend to think, letting your mouse hover over the ‘send’ button on your job application email, then continue, “...who knows what else I might spill should I be… How should I put it, properly motivated? Suitably loose? Nicely–”

“stuffed?” he finishes for you, voice soft, and deep, because he’s at work but he can’t help himself; he’s calling you about a wet dream he had about you that was so good he had to get himself off after, and making confessions, and the whole thing is actually really getting you goi– “Yeah, text me the address, I’ll fucking be there.”

Click.

He hangs up at the same time you press ‘send’.

– – – – –

You glance up slowly, an equally confused hm? slipping out as you force your eyes to release the tablet from their gaze and lock on her.

Your brows draw together. “Sorry, what was that?”

“H-he lives in Pittsburgh,” Mel explains, voice ticking up at the end like whatever she thinks you meant has fundamentally shaken her confidence in that fact. “I don’t know if he’s been to the Middle East. Should I ask?”

You blink.

“I am so sorry,” you apologize. “What are you talking about?”

Mel doesn’t answer right away.

No matter. You can wait.

Eyes locked onto you, her head rotates in a tiny, jerky circle as she tries to triangulate your meaning.

Your eyes flick down to the tablet, silently reading her oddly thorough case notes.

And you guess she gives up, because her voice finally cuts back in.

“Why did you bring up Arabia?” she asks.

The confusion on your face gives way to realization—to mild surprise threatening to glue your eyebrows to your hairline.

You had no idea that joke had left the safe space of your mind, if you’re honest.

“Oh,” you say blinking. “Because they, uh…they invented…” You inhale deeply, her outright, earnest confusion retroactively obliterating whatever confidence you had in even thinking that joke.

Her head dips to the side, patiently waiting.

“…because they invented numbers,” you lamely finish.

Mel’s lips purse into a little o. And then she forces a single, extremely awkward ha—the kind you and Samira give men whenever they try to talk to you at your matcha place.

You try not to take it personally.

“That was a joke,” she deduces, the words a statement, but uncertain enough they land like a question.

And you’ve had jokes fall flat before, sure. Honestly, a solid ninety percent of them just receive blank stares in response. The other ten percent is new and is largely dependent on Robby’s mysterious decision to initiate an existential crisis whenever you open your mouth.

But Mel is so genuine that you’re kind of frozen. People usually just…nod and smile. You’ve never had someone try to understand.

You don’t quite know what to do with that.

“It was funny,” she decides.

Your skeleton settles. Shoulders soften. Your spine becomes something vaguely parabolic. Your mouth hangs open in a slow-forming smile, equal parts baffled and charmed.

You narrow your eyes, scrutinizing. “You’re an interesting little critter, Melissa.”

She blinks, glancing down at her toes and then back at you. You can see her actively trying to parse that new title.

“Good?” she asks.

You blink once. Slow. Borderline feline. Then you nod.

“Good,” you confirm.

She sharply nods back, pleased.

And then she just…stares at you.

Jesus Christ. You fucking swear everyone in this godforsaken hospital is an Abbot School of Staring graduate. No one here fucking blinks anymore.

“Alright, Lawrence,” Robby cuts in. “Plan of treatment?” 

You flinch so hard it’s a fucking miracle you don’t knock something over—your entire body reacts like you were just electrocuted, head whipping towards the sound of his voice on instinct.

You had no idea he was standing there.

And he’s standing close.

Like breathing-the-same-air, can-probably-see-your-pores close.

Blood rushes to your cheeks so quickly it probably tanks your blood pressure. You actually kinda feel dizzy.

You try to shift back, subtly. Coolly.

But you misjudge the angle of the counter behind you and end up nearly elbowing a pen cup to the floor.

Raising an eyebrow at you, Robby moves behind Mel, making a show of reading the chart in her hands. “Or are we waiting for a camel to come deliver the orders?”

Mel tilts her head. “Why Lawrence?”

Shooting a glance at you, his right eyebrow ticks up, joining his left.

“Of Arabia,” he clarifies.

“Oh, right,” Mel says. “On, um, account of the numbers.”

And her slight emphasis on account makes the word hang heavy with pride. 

You blink, corners of your lips twitching once more, and shift to balance your elbow on the cold vinyl-clad desk to your left.

This is Mel’s entry to inside joke club, you realize.

And she just told Robby’s little movie reference to go fucking kill itself and took your numbers joke and fed it and gave it a little blanket.

“Because…because you, uh…” A puff of air pushes through your nose. “Accounting. Math. Numbers.”

A goofy grin splits her face as her head sinks back, nodding.

Her reaction is so fucking dorky and endearing that you can’t fight the same smile from breaking across your own face. A delightfully amused chuckle bubbles out of you as you melt into the counter like it’s your couch.

Robby meets your gaze over her shoulder—eyebrows raised, head tilted, corners of his lips curved down in the way that only people trying not to smile have.

I already told you, but as soon as I saw the title, I was like, oh, of Arabia?, and let me tell you, when it WAS that very Lawrence... I chuckled. Giggled. Fully laughed, even.

I love how you wrote Mel in this!!!!!! The little misunderstandings in their humour ("He lives in Pittsburgh" I howled), how earnest Mel is about it, but it all coming together in the end. I actually cheered when Mel got a joke in. That's my girl. I love her so much.

Also love the mysterious way you intro'd Robby in this one—glad there is some form of karmic payback for him considering how many times your attorney from another universe has startled him by appearing out of thin air—and I love that he's the one who continues the joke (Plus, this "Shooting a glance at you, his right eyebrow ticks up, joining his left." is just sooooo Robby.) only for Mel to kill it with her... calculated addition. ("she just told Robby’s little movie reference to go fucking kill itself and took your numbers joke and fed it and gave it a little blanket" made me grin.)

Can't end this review without telling you how I could picture, "Robby meets your gaze over her shoulder—eyebrows raised, head tilted, corners of his lips curved down in the way that only people trying not to smile have." what a great mental image.

Your hand is wrapped in his, Robby’s index finger on top of yours to guide you through the small incision you made at the fifth intercostal space.

“Feel that?” he questions, tone low as he speaks only to you— “the way it gives under pressure?”

LOVE the mental image of this ^ And how he just can't help himself and make that comment...

A man twice your age (at least) who has no fucking business enjoying the feeling of you shuddering against him.

But, he does. He definitely does. It makes his dick twitch a little, makes a certain kind of heat travel from his neck down, makes him deepen his voice until he’s lost any real inflection, words nothing more than a low scratch.

Me when Robby does something he knows he shouldn't be enjoying, but he is enjoying it

Life in New York was not cheap and there were too many young people willing to do anything to stay, so finding a job turned to be a challenge. That’s why when the opportunity presented itself with your friend deciding to leave the Big Apple and giving you her job, you felt sad but also deeply grateful.

Your employer being the richest most sought after New York bachelor also didn’t hurt. He was also hot. The fact that your friend (now bored to death in rural Wyoming) never failed to bring up.

At first, you thought the girl had a crush on him, but when you finally confronted her she laughed so genuinely that you were forced to believe.

“What is it, then?”

Your friend's voice was distorted by your phone's speaker, even though you could still hear the familiar quirks that made Rose herself. Every time she felt anxious, she started chewing on something, whether it was apple slices or a corner of her pillowcase. And now you could hea a telling slightly muffled sound. “Ugh, I dunno, I guess it’s just because of that rumor… It just doesn’t leave my brain and I always think about it when you say you’re working.”

“Rumor? What rumor?”

“That the man’s hung like a fucking elephant.”

The rag you were using fell from your hand with a wet sound, creating a small puddle on the counter. You rarely ever managed to hear the latest gossip, most often they found you last, but you were still surprised that you hadn't heard anything of the sort in half a year of working for Mr. Castillo. It's not like you were hiding your place of work.

“What?” Your heart started racing and you wanted to open up the windows. The room began to feel stuffy.

“Yeah, there was this whole rumor going around that it was the reason he couldn’t keep a relationship. Like he was perfect but too much to handle, y’know?” 

Rose sounded distant, as if she was contemplating about what she had just said out loud. Something unpleasant curled in your chest. Harry Castillo was one of the nicest people you've ever met. Especially for a man who owned almost all of New York. You'd always admired the fact that he managed to preserve his humanity while increasing his wealth. He was kind, courteous, and always seemed to be in a good mood. You'd rarely seen him without a smile. The idea that someone would end a relationship with a man like him based on a physical fact—whatever that fact was—triggered an inexplicable anger in your chest.

“This is dumb.”

“I dunno, girl.” You could almost see Rose shrugging her shoulders, her mind already wandering to the next topic. “I saw him in sweatpants once and I think that shit’s true. The guy is definitely got a killer whale down there. Maybe you should try and Moby-Dick that dick.”

You furriwed your brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know, conquer that whale? For the team?”

“Moby-Dick was the whale.” For a woman so passionate about literature, Rose was surprisingly neglectful of the classics.

“Who cares, girl, I’m dying to know.” You wiped away the puddle that had spread onto the sparkling surface. A bunch of obsceneties were swarming in your head and you were ready to cuss your friend out for opening this Pandora's box. Now you were stuck trying to remember every time you'd seen the tall, smiling man. You always looked into his eyes, occasionally letting your gaze slide over his firm buttocks when he wasn't looking. Rose's voice took you out of it. “You’re silent. Tell me are you thinking about what‘s in them Tom Ford pants?”

“Rose, stop it!” You hissed at her, bringing the phone to your mouth. “How am I supposed to look him in the eye when I see him?”

“Don’t look him in the eye, dummy, look lower and then you can confirm or deny the rumors.”

“You’re so stupid.” You shook your head, ready to change the subject, but the thought of your employer's gossip-worthy huge dick penetrated your brain and stayed there. You thought you’d have to drink bleach to get rid of it. “Do you think it’s more than 8 inches?”

You really wished you hadn’t said that last phrase when you heard a cough behind your back and dropped the rag again. You hurried to end the phone call, your wet gloved fingers missing the button until you turned the phone off completely.

The man you’d been shamelessly discussing was standing in the doorway, barely able to contain a smile. The phone fell out of your hand and landed on the table with a loud thud. The sound brought you out of your terrified stupor and you hurried to fold and put the rag under the sink along with your gloves.

“Mr. Castillo, hello, sorry! You’re early! I’m already done here I’ll be on mu way out! Sorry again, bye!” You chattered rapidly, the words leaving your mouth faster than your brain could come up with excuses. Your chest burned with embarrassment and you did your best to avoid his brown eyes glinting with merriment. 

You scurried toward the exit, trying to circle around him and let the earth swallow you as soon as you close the door behind you, but his voice stopped you.

“Wait! You've left your phone, I recon you might need it,” you nodded. Unfortunately, you did need you phone and that's why you returned to the crime scene. You already thought that he would let you go and forget the embarrassing encounter, but you were wrong. “So, a rumor, huh?”

“Fuck,” You cussed under your breath. He'd heard even more than you thought, and if you'd been working instead of talking with your friend, you'd have noticed that he came home earlier. And then you wouldn't have to babble pathetic apologies to the man who gave you a nice place to work and a more than fair salary. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Castillo. It was so incredibly inappropriate of me to discuss this, I cannot tell you how ashamed I am -“

“It’s not the worst rumor for a man to have being spread about him.” You looked up at him and saw him shrugging his shoulders casually, as if he wasn't even thinking about being angry, didn't feel disgusted.

“Yeah, I guess… Still.” You felt the tongue of shame caressing you from the tips of your heels to the tops of your cheekbones.

“Don't worry,” he walked further into the kitchen, closing the distance between you, “honestly? It’s flattering. I’m just surprised, I guess.”

“Why?” 

“Well, a young gorgeous woman like you thinking about my dick so much she discusses it with her friend. Can’t say that happens to me every day.”

You were shocked that a man like Harry had insecurities. He was the dream of every sane woman, but here he was, baring his doubts in front of a pervert like yourself. It made you want to open up, at least a little bit, to tell him what you'd thought of him, what hundreds of other women of New York had thought of him.

“I don’t think you know how many people find you attractive and often wonder about… stuff.”

“Do you?” He tilted his head, trying to catch your gaze. And you let him, sinking into the depths of his eyes.

“What?” Your voice was barely above a whisper.

“Find me attractive and often wonder about stuff?”

“I..”

And then he asked the question that divided your life into before and after. Again, he asked it casually, as if he was inquiring about your coffee order. “You wanna know how many inches?”

And maybe the spirit of your still-living friend took over your body, but you could swear you'd seen your body from the outside. Your own soul watched your lips wrapping around a simple answer with a disturbingly exciting horror. “Yeah.”

“Then look.”

Your movements were slow, wary, as if you expected him to laugh or call you an idiot, but Harry didn't do any of that. The man waited patiently for you to come up on him. His large, broad body was leaning against the edge of the marble countertop that you were polishing moments ago. A breath stuck in your throat and your hand trembled, touching the visibly strained bulge of his cock, hidden behind his perfectly tailored Tom Ford trousers. 

It was hotter than you expected. The heat of his skin burned your palm through the material of his pants as you soaked in the courage inspired by playful gaze and squeezed his hard flesh. 

His breathing faltered and a grunt stuck in his throat.

“Come on,” he whispered into your face, fanning your lips with his warm breath, “there's no turning back.” 

It took you no more than thirty seconds to process his words, the man was right, you'd already felt his hard cock in your soft grip, it was unlikely that you could just forget it, might as well go all out.

Slowly, you ran your hand down and up, following the slight curve of his length. Your panties were stuck to your pussy, but your own discomfort didn't matter right now. On the contrary, it added the situation a special flavor. You kept your eyes on Harry's parted lips, and his tongue slid over the bottom one, lingering on the thin crack in the middle.

“Go on.”

You knew what he meant. You let go of his bulge, and both of you almost groaned in frustration, but soon enough you were trying to push your hand under the waistband of his pants. For the first time, he stopped you by grabbing your wrist.

“Let me do this.” 

You swallowed audibly and looked down at his big hands, his thick fingers surprisingly deftly handling the leather belt.

“Will you take it from here?”

You didn't return his smile, you simply forgot, instead falling to your knees in front of the man and reaching for his unbuttoned pants. You pulled them down, grabbing the soft-to-the-touch boxers along with them. When it appeared before you in all its glory, it took your breath away.

Big. Yeah, sure, he was enormously fucking big. Bigger than anything you'd seen during your somewhat active sex life. Bigger than anything you Googled with a vibrator in your hand. The most memorable cock of your life, without a doubt.

Eight inches, more or less, and a little thinner than your wrist. Damn, it was a fucking anaconda, how did that song go? If it weren't for the frightening size, you were sure you would have already pounced on the dark pink head that was already glistening with a drop of precum, making your mouth water.

His thick shaft was slightly curved to the right, and you noticed one fat vein running from the base to the tip. Your tongue twitched in your mouth, begging you to trace it, feel it pulse under your caress.

Well-groomed short dark hairs dusted around the base and you followed his thinning happy trail from the bottom up until it disappeared right under his belly button. 

Your knees were burning, but you resisted the urge to change your position. Instead, you touched his head with the tip of your index finger, smearing a drop of his stickiness and, as if hypnotized, brought it to your lips. It was salty and slightly bitter.

“Fuck,” Harry groaned, watching you suck your fingertip clean and then bringing it back to his cock. This time you traced the pulsing vein and his cock bobbed in front of your face, making you gasp.

“So pretty,” you whispered it more to yourself than to him, not even a compliment, just a fact.

“He likes you, too,” the man chuckled and when you raised a smile at him, he gave you a playful wink. “So, you think the rumors are true?”

“Just the part about you being fucking hung.” You admit, and he let out that deep, throaty laugh that made his belly jiggle and his cock sway harder in front of your face. You were mesmerized, and affected by this you licked your palm, making sure you generously lather it in your spit.

You wrapped your hand around his shaft, the tip of your thumb and your middle finger barely touching, that’s when his laugh became a moan. “And what are you doing now, hm?” Not an ounce of concern in his voice, encouragement, rather. Hope.

“Wanna see if it can grow any bigger.” You tease him. By the feel of his hardness you knew it was impossible. Still, you couldn’t not touch him now, it was almost painful.

Slowly, you moved your hand up and down, watching intently the way your palm slid along his shaft, making the man’s legs shake. You squeezed him experimentally, and he let out the prettiest moan that you had ever heard. With every movement up you swiped your thumb over his leaking head smearing more and more of his own arousal, mixing it with your spit as you pushed the man closer to the edge.

You didn't see his pearly white teeth biting the inside of his cheek until it bled in an attempt to hold back his orgasm. Harry dug his hands into the edge of the counter, his knuckles white with tension. Your little hand was jerking his cock with stunning confidence, and he thought that if he came now, then thick streams of his sperm would fall on your face in a pathetic parody of Pollock's paintings. That thought made him pull your hand away from his cock, no matter how painful it was.

“Sorry, sweetheart, ten more seconds and I’d ruin your makeup.”Harry was breathing heavily, and the surprise in your eyes was replaced by a devilish sneer. All your modesty and innocence have long since gone to hell, as if a demon pretending to be a virgin got tired of playing.

“I wouldn’t mind,” you said, and licked your lips like you wanted to taste him there already.

“But is that what you really want?” Your eyebrows shot up, your brain soaked in sexual desire feverishly tried to figure out the intention behind his words. Harry took pity, his palm cupped your chin forcing you to look away from his cock and into his eyes. “Or do you want to see if you can fit all that?” 

Your pussy pulsed at the prospect and you nodded, too eager, earning an affectionate chuckle from the man. You were anxious, true, but damn it if you wouldn’t work your hardest to feel all of it inside. 

"Well, then, what are you waiting for?"

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