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8:00 AM

"Are you doing better?" The voice rang familiar to your ears. While typing at the workstation down at the Pitt, you didn't even see the figure strolling up from behind you.

Craning your head to the side, looking past your shoulder you noticed Caleb rolling up, parking his wheelchair to angle in your direction. Pausing your typing, you pushed the chair back, one hand still holding the edge of the desk. You gave him a smile, letting out a deep sigh, "Alright as I can be. Haven't exactly cleared it out of my system, but I'm here."

A stomach bug was no joke, you supposed. The last thing you expected was for it to keep you locked in your apartment for a week. It was an unsettling week, but you somehow survived. Walking into the PTMC this morning felt like riding a bike. Breezing in all while your feet did most of the work.

"You sound better. I was worried I would need to make a house call the last time we spoke on the phone." Caleb chuckled endearingly. The small grin was amused, but as he looked you up and down, he really was relieved it was milder than he thought.

“I had a friend drop off some things to ale me.” You stated, hoping to calm his worry.

Which was the truth—you wouldn’t dare lie to Caleb at this point. He was right about most things, and you were comfortable enough to relearn trusting your superiors. What you were omitting from him was that the particular friend was one he had a special interest in as well.

And as if the world enjoyed playing tricks on you, that ‘friend’ came strolling towards you, hands in his green fleece jacket pocket. His eyes landed on you before shifting to Caleb, your names slipping from his mouth with ease. He had dropped the ‘Doctor’ title from your surname a while ago, since the blind-dinner-date.

He looked you up and down, eyes crinkling with familiarity. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Shoot away, Robby.” Caleb welcomed with a grin on his face as he examined you both.

He must have noticed your controlled expression. You were attempting to obscure the small, hesitant smile on your face with a quiet ‘hi’ as Robby stood across the workstation.

Truth was, you weren't sure how to act with Robby anymore.

The floodgates of your past had been opened, and at this point, there wasn't much Robby didn’t know about you—and that thought alone was chilling. You had never been this exposed, and with him having your home address, the urgency to run over rolled around your mind.

“I have a teenager in Central 14 whose mother is expressing concerns about her sudden lack of energy and inconsistent mood.” Robby shared, careful with his volume as he scanned around the department floor. “Mother stepped away for coffee. She was hoping someone could come down to talk with her.”

You hummed, nodding along with his words. Craning your head to the side, you smiled. “Let me finish up my notes for the patient in south 20, and then I will meet you with your patient.”

Robby gave you a silent nod, rubbing his hands together. “Thank you. It’s good to see you back.”

Clearing your throat, you agreed frantically, accepting the newfound compassion from him. Weird, you thought. Robby spared Caleb one last look before excusing himself. Without second thought, you bowed your head, typing away on the chart, hiding the heat rising on your cheeks from Caleb.

Caleb leaned one arm on the desk, bearing his weight to his left. You missed the not-so-subtle look he aimed at Robby who was standing by the nursing station, talking with Whitaker. “You never told me how the dinner went.”

You scoffed, playing it easy and cool. Internally, sirens were going off. It had been a couple of weeks, and you were still digesting the conversation over the meal. You both lasted longer than you had anticipated, laughing even, over your personal embarrassments like a couple of college friends—not that you knew what that felt like.

Since moving to Pittsburgh, you didn’t allot yourself time to socialize. Upon landing, you always assumed this would just be a stepping-stone to where you wanted to go. Now, it was settling too deeply in your heart for you to abandon it so mercilessly. Something too good to say goodbye to.

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked Robby yet.” You coolly deflected, your eyes laser focused on the words you were typing. Your fingers were moving fluently, but your brain was spiraling elsewhere.

It was as if the fogginess from being sick hadn’t completely left you. At least that is what you hoped it was. At least then, you could excuse yourself, more so than some sad excuse to hide your preoccupation. Why would it matter if Caleb knew? He’d be gratified that two coworkers he was invested in could mingle and bond over fact beyond their personal missions to improve patient care.

Caleb chuckled, his body rattling with the vibration. “Who’s to say I haven’t? Maybe I just want to hear it from you.”

“You make it a habit to set up people on blind-dates?” You rhetorically asked, not expecting any reply. Saving the changes on the chart, you swiftly logged off, and scooted the chair back across from Caleb.

“You made me resort to those methods.” Caleb shrugged a proud smile on his face.

God, you hated to admit he was right, especially when he was aware of the positive reaction of his actions. You rolled your neck, preventing him from reading your expression entirely. Caleb thought for a beat, before wheeling himself back. “Think of it this way: the likelier he is to endorse you, the likelier admin is to keep you. It’s convenient and logical. I thought that might appeal to your senses.”

You snorted, shaking your head. “You chose logos over pathos. Well played, Dr. Jefferson.”

Caleb bowed humorously, gracefully accepting the sarcastic compliment. You stood from the chair, playfully rolling your eyes. While looking up at you and preparing to wheel in the opposite direction, he called out for you. “This conversation isn’t over.”

“See you later, Dr. Jefferson.”

As you began walking by the nursing station, you sensed a taller presence strolling beside you. With practiced ease, you glanced beside you to see the device handed to you. Robby stared down, sporting his round glasses. “Jenny McGuire, seventeen, came in presenting abdominal rigidness. Mother expressed concerns over lack of appetite.”

“Apparently, the family experienced something traumatic, and Jenny has been secluding herself more than usual.” Robby swiftly shared, watching your fingers scroll through the annotations made by Dr. McKay.

“Did you or McKay get anything out of the mother about what happened?” You questioned, eyes peeking between your eyelashes, to guide your way through the bustling halls.

Robby hummed, shaking his head. “Nothing in specific, but she seems distraught from it, per her mother.”

You stopped before approaching the room, turning to stand in front of Robby. Eyes flicking across the floor, watching nurses and other ER personnel pass by briskly. “Based on that, it could be signs of depression or some form of PTSD, but won’t know for sure until I talk with her. Would you like to be present?”

Robby’s eyebrows shot up. His hands were on his hips and despite the green Patagonia he had, the muscles in his biceps flexed subconsciously. He stood there slightly puzzled. It wasn’t an odd question, nor a jab at the last major conflict the two of you had, but you did find value in his involvement.

Upon the blossoming trust you were slowly conforming between you and him, there were small epiphanies you had about the wise doctor he was. He was older than you were by a decade at least, which gave him an advantage you yet to have. While observing him (even sourly), there was a command he would always have in a room.

While speaking with the residents and med students, you have always noted the respect they had for him. The similarities in some of their forms of treating could be traced back to him. So even when you wanted to escape him, it was near impossible.

“If you’ve spoken with her before, I have no problem with you present. She may feel comfortable if you introduced us first, anyway.” You shared, offering some reassurance for his hesitancy.

After a beat, Robby allied with a closed smile. Mimicking the action, you spun around walking in the direction of Jenny’s room. Robby maneuvered around you, approaching the threshold of Central 14. Stopping at the door, he knocked lightly, putting on a soft smile and stepping aside once the door was wide open.

“Hi, Jenny, how are you holding up?” Robby asked softly.

Jenny, a small frail, blonde girl sat up on the bed, both hands bracing around her stomach. She tried to hide the grimace in her face, but you immediately noted the action. She shrugged, making no effort to vocalize her current condition.

While pulling up a stool at her bedside, you introduced yourself, mirroring the soft and mellow presence Robby emitted. You rested your hands still holding the tablet on your lap, providing your undecided attention to Jenny. She scooted over, staring at you with wide eyes.

“I am a psychiatrist here at PTMC. Would you like to tell me why you came to the ER?” The question came out inviting, ignoring the fact, you had already read over her chart. You figured if she could put into words what was wrong physically; it would be an indicator of whatever else was wrong.

Jenny sat there, her eyes observing you up and down. It was like she had seen a ghost, and when you turned to Robby, he caught the same vibe from her. Robby leaned forward, hands folded. “I know it seems intimidating, but sometimes talking to someone can help.”

The silence was deafening. She didn’t peel her eyes away from you, even as Robby tried to slip his presence in. Staring at her eyes, she was fixated on one physician; as if the only person that existed worth acknowledging was you. Right as you were about to continue speaking, you noticed the quick shift in her demeanor, sitting taller, face tightening.

“You were a part of my sister’s case.” She mumbled, trembling on the hospital bed. “I saw your name in an article.”

You furrowed your brows, straightening your posture. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“Diana Richards.” She croaked out, her voice firmer as it bounced off the room walls. “My sister had acid thrown in her face right before Christmas.”

Your body froze, hands tightening around the device in your lap. Shit. You hadn’t expected your name to make national news, considering the court personnel was small, and those sitting in the viewing gallery were family and friends affected. Too distracted by the question thrown from both parties, you didn’t distinguish anything past the prosecution and defense tables.

When you double-looked the chart, ‘McGuire’ on the header, you never could have assumed relation.

“I did testify at the trial,” You confirmed, nodding your head cautiously. The palpable tension between you and the distressed teenage girl was something buzzing all around your body. With the weight like a ton of bricks, the pressure in the small exam room was crushing. “I am sorry about what happened to your sister.”

“Are you?” She quipped up, her furious glare firing up as she leaned towards you. The tension was no longer concerned over what to say, it was contemplation on how to deescalate a growing fire. “The man who did that to her should be in jail. You’re the reason he’s not!”

Before you could react, she aimed cold saliva at your face, landing below your right eye. You flinched from the action, your hand instinctively reaching for your face. Completely focused on the emotional teenager, you didn’t realize Robby had moved around the corner.

Hurriedly, he pulled you up from the chair by your shoulders. Without another word, Robby led you to the direction of the door, calling out for Princess passing by. As she saw you hunched forward, she rushed over, taking you in her arms. “What happened?”

“The patient spat in her face.” Robby hurriedly mumbled, standing in front of the room, turning back to look through the window. Jenny was now sitting back on the inclined bed, staring off to the side.

“Why?” Princess questioned with obvious apprehensiveness as to what might lead a meek teenager to act as vicious as some of the grown adults they have treated. This was abnormal and out of character for a patient of her demographic.

Robby sighed, watching you carefully as Princess directed you to an office chair. He followed along; close enough to remain a reachable distance to the patient’s room. She immediately grabbed a tissue, carefully wiping away the residue on your face. “It’s a long story.”

The soft plushness scratch the surface of your skin, causing your body to shiver. Stuck in daydream, it was a bad case of Deja vu. Instead of a man insufficiently aware of his actions in one of the behavioral rooms, a disturbed teenager was trying to consolidate with the current events of her life. Regardless, you were losing both fights.

Princess craned her head, standing right in your view as she furrowed her brows at you. “Did any of it get in your eye?”

Fumbling over words, you lightly shrugged your shoulders. “I’m not sure. It happened too quickly.”

When you were able to flutter your eyes open, Robby was standing from the distance, watching Princess work vehemently. His expression hardened by the events that just unfolded. This was the most emotional you had seen him at work.

When you walked out the behavior room with blood pouring out your nose, his natural caregiver instincts kicked in. He was ordering test and examining the integrity of the bones in your face. Although he was only monitoring from the distance, the natural instinct kicked into gear. You skittishly turned away, avoiding the darkness in his eye.

As if on cue, McKay was making her way around, casually waving her arms as she strolled around the desk. Princess and a couple more nurses gathered around you. McKay’s steps faltered, and before she could utter a word, Robby called her over.

You’d flutter your eyes carefully in their direction, mostly focused on McKay’s back. You could see the hush exchange of words. She craned her neck, peeking back at you with her face scrunched in confusion. No doubt, Robby was trying to form some intervention.

If this were any other moment or patient, you would have fought against being pushed aside. Tell Robby there was no need to coddle you or deem you incapable of staying committed to your work. Sitting with Princess still gently trying to wipe away the excretion from your face, you still tried to convince yourself this was something you could overlook.

Instead, you were succumbing to the idea you had screwed up.

Some girl was sitting on a hospital bed, completely overturned by the actions of a stranger whose paths crossed hers. It didn't have to be Dianna Richards, nor her family, but it was. You had unluckily been stuck having to repent for your involvement in the matter.

Your eyes caught the dirty blonde woman, approaching Central 14. With the coat she was wearing, two disposable coffee cups in her hand, you sense your stomach drop. It was a surreal moment from the second she peered into her daughter's room to the slightly panicked expression when she looked at Robby.

With his hands on his hips, he turned to whom you presumed was Mrs. McGuire. McKay stood back, eyes flicking between the two like she was preparing for a bad movie. You sat up straighter and Princess took a step back to follow your line of sight.

“You should stay here. Robby can handle it.” Princess whispered to you, one hand on your shoulder as she pressed her lips in a thin line.

You didn’t argue or make any sudden movement. Suddenly, you were in a state of catatonic shock.

Everything was blowing up in your face. A record of your actions suddenly taking a turn for the worse. A man who you had a conflicted relationship with was managing to interfere in your life even from miles away. What you had thought was a good idea was now souring like milk.

The patience Robby was displaying made it clear he was trying to calm her down. You had suspected she was overtly distressed as her daughter from the chair you were sitting in. It wasn’t until the voices started growing louder.

Everyone in the vicinity heard it.

“I don’t care what you think about what happened to my family. I don’t want her involved with my daughter's care.” She stated definitively. You could see her motion to you in the corner and you knew your entire cover was blown. “Find someone else or we will leave.”

If her eyes were daggers, you’d be bleeding on the linoleum floors. The glare of pure fury and disgust she sent your way was enough to bury you where you sat. Without another word, she made her way into the room, sitting at her daughter’s bedside.

Your eyes remained glued to the room, suddenly cold, enough so to elicit chills down your spine. Tugging onto the cardigan you were wearing, you crossed your arms over your chest. Robby spared Mrs. McGuire one last look before slowly approaching you. There was a hesitation in his steps, as if he were approaching a stray kitten starved and scared.

Standing a couple of feet away, hovering and obscuring your figure from the room, you flicked your eyes at him. “The mother?”

He confirmed with tight lips. Rubbing his hands together, his eyes roamed over you in the similar fashion as when Mr. Richman lashed out at you. It was only saliva, but he still examined you like he would any patient. He sighed, “Look, for your safety, I think it’s best we find someone else to cover the consultation.”

“We’re a bit understaffed today.” You mumbled, sagging your shoulders as you leaned back in the chair. Princess standing behind you excused herself. You could sense she didn’t want to be caught in any animosity between you and Robby.

She knew better than to intervene between two doctors who dominated their respective fields.

“We’ll find someone.” Robby assured, glancing at McKay who was fiddling with the zipper of her gray jacket. She remained quiet yet observant of the entire interactions. You noted the small narrow of her eyes, but made no effort to ask her about it. “Things seem tense enough. You probably shouldn’t go back there.”

You opened you mouth to speak, before shutting it completely. Was it worth it? Fighting nobly over the tired out issue when forces outside were telling you otherwise? You work was meant to be charitable, but you were finding it harder and harder to give it up so willingly.

“Let me make the call. I’ll explain it to whomever I find.” You explained to Robby. Willing to listen to his advice while you were still in a place to do so.

You stood up promptly, breezing by Robby and McKay and heading straight for the elevators. With your head down, you avoided the questioning side-eyes from those who were tempted by the scene. It was as if you were sacrificing your dignity every time you came down to the Pitt. You were barring yourself to every challenge, which was starting to chip away the brick wall around your heart.

It didn’t help that someone like Robby was watching the worst of it. From the argument over patient care and the revelation of your condition. Robby was finding his way through you blindly, but he was much closer than some.

Standing in front of the elevator, it had hit you that you were losing control of the separation you meant to have from your work and personal life. The life you were trying to preserve, sensitive to the details, was merging into the professional life meant to compartmentalize. Everything was hitting you like tons of bricks, and you were only hoping things change before they get worse.

10:00 AM

If you had more to do, you wouldn’t have felt the day drag. Considering Caleb was occupied with the patients in the behavioral health ward and you had been condemned to the Pitt, it wasn’t like you didn’t have work. There were patients popping up throughout the morning rush that needed menial attention from psychiatry. Basic consultations that didn’t require follow up.

However, your mind wasn’t as focused on the patients as you should be.

You stood at the workstation, digital chart in hand, as you wrote notes from your last consultation. It appeared as you were busy, but your eyes kept wandering over to central 14, like something was called upon you from inside.

It has been over an hour since Dr. Malek had entered; a fourth year psych resident who was more interested in forensic work than critical-care. You were gnawing away the inside of your cheek, practically mutilating your mouth from the riddle of anticipation. It wasn’t your place to judge whether Malek was capable of doing the work, despite having a year of experience over him.

Caleb was solely responsible for putting the residents in line, but that didn’t stop the doubt you sensed.

While staring intensely at the door, you caught it clicking open. Malek slipped through, gently closing it behind him as he whispered farewells to the McGuire’s. Your body jolted up. Waiting like a lion on the prowl, you joined Malek as he walked past you, stepping in harmony.

“How did things go?” You asked in a hush tone. He didn’t flinch as you settled beside him, shoulders partially brushing against one another. He was expecting the ambush from the small flex of his jaw.

He barely looked at you, preferring to scroll through the device in his hand. He kept trying to advance, swerving around people as he searched for someone other than you to speak with. “I don’t know if I should be sharing this with you.”

“Consider this as consulting a colleague.”

The quickness of your comment had him halting in his steps. He turned to you, slight frustration in how you pushed for the answer. Although being a few years his senior, he exuded an energy that was fit for someone your age. He let his hands fall to his side, exasperated at this point. “The girl is depressed. Hell, the mother too.”

You tucked the device under your arm, staring at Malek with desperation that he didn’t understand. It must’ve made you look pathetic from an outsider view as he rolled his eyes in frustration. “Jenny was with her sister and her husband when the assault happened.”

The deep breath you sucked in was stuck somewhere because the tightness in your chest didn’t decompress. Your eyes darted across his face, trying to make out more with the silence. It couldn’t have been a joke, that was distasteful, even for him. He had spoken it intentionally, trying to give you what you wanted while also warning you to stay away from where you shouldn’t be.

That was your fault.

“Thankfully she didn’t see anything, but she heard her sister screaming.” He sighed, pretty devastated even while he put up the front. “Imagine having to live with that sound for the rest of your life.”

“Outside of the fact her sister won’t be able to see or recover from the injuries on her face.” The vile taste in his mouth was evident as he scowled, personally hurt by the offense.

You faced away as he narrowed his eyes at you. With the tension, you were wishing Robby would suddenly need you for a consultation or pick a fight. Something of that sort would be better than the scrutiny of a colleague who was treading towards a scarily esoteric farce.

“None of us understand why you defended that man.” Malek shrugged, lips tightening in a thin line. His nostrils flared and he shook his head.

Lifting your head, you looked at him with a blank expression. What the hell? Cocking your head to the side, you scoffed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“He assaulted a woman, and you, let us not forget.” He all but spat at you.

It was a reprimand for having come to ask questions. For lingering in a space, you knew better than to test. You should’ve known the repercussions of being a recluse, of not putting in an effort to be friendly enough was going to come back at you.

He took a step forward, and the hallway you two stood in started feeling stuffy. Retracting your neck slightly, you futilely attempted to put a boundary. Malek's forehead creased, “He had to pay for what he did.”

Smiling sarcastically, you chuckled dryly. “Because suddenly you care about my well-being.”

Malek chuckled coldly, the same detachment you had heard from Robby before. At least now, you assumed there wasn’t that animosity between you two. Malek had a fury that was unrecognizable, like he had spent time repressing that only you could pull out of him. “I think sometimes you forget you’re not as brilliant and perfect as you mistakenly think you are.”

“All because I refused to let a sick man go to jail? For a mental condition he has little control over?” You retorted. It felt obvious. All the reasons you could’ve possible defended anyone who put their hands and weight over you shouldn’t have existed,

Except, it wasn’t for you and everyone was missing the point, just as Malek was opening up wounds again.

“Because you believe you’re so virtuous. Too virtuous to put aside your beliefs and worry about how they might’ve felt about the verdict.” Malek motioned his head back to where the two of you came from. Where the McGuire’s were, confined in the same hospital Mr. Richman had unleashed a ruckus in.

Malek pointed a finger to his head, eyebrows furrowed down. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe he wasn’t the right person for you to enact your crusade of righteous indignity?”

Your head was telling you to walk away. With the sudden rise of his voice, uneasiness settled in your weak stomach. The fogginess from before was more than just brain fog from being sick. This wasn’t the typical arguments over patients and who presented the most competent plan of care. This was quite unsettling. Malek, who had kept his honest opinions about you hidden under sarcasm and cocky grins, was finally laying it thick.

“All of us tolerate you because Jefferson dotes on you, but you’d be surprised to find out how few of us want you as an attending after your fellowship is up.” He bluntly stated with no shame as he stared you in the eyes.

He was suddenly closer in proximity. From the tunnel vision you were experiencing, your body was suffocated by his .You urged your feet to step forward. To react as quickly as you did with Robby. Witty and decisive leaving no doubt of your confidence within yourself.

It was like being stuck in paralysis. You mind kept wandering at a hundred miles per hour but your body was tossed to the side of the road like a carcass.

“Dr. Malek,”

You welcomed the voice, turning away from your colleague to meet Robby’s hardened stare. Pulling yourself away, you stood meekly in between both men. If your legs hadn’t stiffened, you would’ve taken the chance to run. Instead, you stood there, in the midst of the silent standoff the two were having.

“Please show yourself out of my ED.” Robby ordered, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “I will not tolerate you degrading a fellow colleague in a department full of staff and patients to hear.”

Malek glared over to you, the tightening of his indifference to the entire situation. Chilling from the physical enmity, you learned Robby cutting swiftly through was a worse idea than you imagined. Robby inclined himself further, pushing his overbearing presence and standing prominently in Malek’s line of sight. “You can debrief with Dr. McKay once you get your fucking act together.”

Robby didn’t relent, and you were thankful once Malek resigned, huffing away with an agitated pace. You kept staring at his back, almost waiting for him to turn back and enforce himself again. When he disappeared behind the walls and into the rest of the chaos of the ER, you let a shaky breath go.

When you turned to look at Robby, he was already looking down at you. His eyebrows furrowed in the same effort he’d examine patients, sitting on a hospital bed, laying their health in his hands. You didn’t want to play that role. You weren’t defenseless as much as he saw you at the moment.

“I didn’t need you to save me.” You muttered, heading in the opposite direction of where Malek went.

Your arm barely brushed by him, and he swiftly recovered by maintaining an equal steady pace behind you. “I was mostly sparing him. I sensed you weren’t going to tolerate that shit for much longer.”

With a sour chuckle, you tried to hide how breathless you suddenly were. The stack of issues in the past three hours were losing its foundation. It was like the mountain of what was wrong with your life was crumbling with time, and you couldn’t hold up the front you had worked on for years. “Sounds a lot like an unwelcome intervention to me.”

With the speed you were walking, everyone could tell you were trying to evade Robby. Except, he was tailing you. A dog with a bone. Your eyes darted around, effectively trying to find some escape for the ER and everything reminding you of the shit-show.

“This is my ER, anyways. I should be entitled to cut bullshit when I see it.” Robby pointed up, still trailing behind you. It wasn’t a remark or sarcastic. It was a reminder that he was always aware of his department, and he didn’t take disruptions lightly.

Finally looking ahead, the elevator beside the trauma rooms was right in front of you. Stopping in frustration, you bowed your head. Your hands clammed up beside you and the weight over your chest as you tried steadying your breathing was like lifting a boulder. It came back down with each exhale unsteadily.

After a moment, you turned around carefully. Your eye landed on Robby’s feet, trailing up the dark cargo pants he wore. Eventually, when you stared directly back at him, you crossed your arm, hiding the trouble you had breathing correctly.

Shrugging, you scoffed. “He's probably right, you know?”

Robby narrowed his eyes at you, suddenly confused from the immediate switch. You let him think it was a deflection. It was easier than trying to explain why you froze up in front of a hostile colleague, when you had encountered worse patients. “Maybe I’m too holed up in my personal world to acknowledge the damage of my intentions.”

“About Mr. Richman?” Robby questioned, trying to make out from the cryptic look in your eye. He couldn’t make out anything at face-value, and you were hoping he’d just walk away. “I’m sure the judge based his decision on different testimonies made. None of us know what truly sealed the deal for him.”

“But I defended him, inside, and outside the courtroom. Morgan, you, even Jefferson warned me what might happen if I spoke out too much.” You explained, reminiscing over every occasion where you could’ve avoided this.

Mr. Richman was the catalyst for all these interactions. From Robby, to the McGuire’s, to Malek. You would never regret treating a patient, but you weren’t sure you wanted to go out on a limb ever again.

You frowned, holding onto the strings in your heart tugged into all directions. There was too much at stake, and the last thing you needed was for Robby to pull at them like a puppet master. With a shaky smile, you let your hands fall to your side. “I just wanted someone to walk away from the entire process with something positive.”

The rattle of your body scared you. It had you turning away, trying to hide in plain sight from Robby. He stood still, straightening his posture. His hands were now on his hip, and you caught the slight air stuck in his throat.

“I haven’t been able to stop looking over my shoulder since then.”

Your hand extended lazily in the direction of the patient's room. “But that girl and her sister may never be able to go out in public without fearing something of this magnitude may happen to them again.”

Robby’s stoic expression didn’t pave anything for you to rely on. It gave little insight of whether he opposed Malek’s words or found you amateurish in the face of conflict. You were hopeless. Standing in front of the one man who could ruin your position apart from Jefferson. He was right.

It was practical to play nice and feed into the role Robby would need you to act. You didn’t want to conform to giving into the challenge of the chief attending for the simple necessity of keeping a job. It was the only reason you had fought about Mr. Richman before, during, and even after the trial.

“Is it selfish to have wanted Mr. Richman to have the help he never did have?” You questioned, your wispy voice barely scratching through the noise of the ED.

Robby didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure you were searching for one. This was the one time he had seen you out of your depth in your facilitation in his department. Apart from the dinner, where you tested how close you could inch into the deep well of suppressed emotion, there wasn’t anything personal of you in your work.

There was no way you could treat patients if you were stuck in the flawed aspects of your life. Today was making all of that evident.

“The hospital where I did my residency has an outreach program. “ You explained quietly, reluctant to tell Robby.

You pursed your lips, and the heat in your cheeks contradicted the shivering down your spine and the frigid coldness of your fingers. “Their mission wasn’t just to treat- and-street patients but to meet them halfway for them to have some continuation of care no matter their circumstances.”

Robby shook his head, “Has anyone—“

“That’s beside the point.” You interrupted, fluttering your eyes close briefly. The raise of his eyebrows finished the question you cut off rudely. You didn’t need this to turn into another ‘bonding’ moment. “I was willing to do that no matter the danger of it.”

“That’s what I tried to explain to the judge and prosecution and they made it sound like I had some hero-complex I hadn’t resolved.”

The groan that escaped you was the subsided disappointment of your composure. Everyone around you had seen too much. There wasn’t much to hide from Robby at this point, and once this shift was over, you were committed to the idea of planning where to run once your fellowship was done.

Your ears were tingling from how quiet the ED became. The department was attached to your soul, which only knew how to prioritize patient care. In your years of training, you heard all about compartmentalizing as well as the consequences of burning out. You thought you had mastered the first part enough that you wouldn’t have to worry about drowning in a lake; but the rocks in your pockets were finally weighing you down.

“So, the incident with Mr. Richman had been the first time a patient had assaulted you?”

When he gauged your reaction, he had a wide eye stare that tried to hide the intensity of his personality and role in the ED. It worked with patients well enough to foster a safe space for them to grieve or release what they’ve kept inside them.

It worked on patients–but you weren’t one.

“I hadn’t been punched, pinned to the ground, and choked before if that’s what you're asking.” You scoffed, your lips curving upwards, but it missed the same sarcastic wit you would usually deflect him with. “Even when they spat, yelled, and fought the treatment, I reminded myself they were just scared people who needed help.”

Sacred. If you were treating yourself, maybe that would be the one word scribbled all over your chart.

Afraid of further repercussions from the Richman case. Frightened of how the rest of the staff would see you after Mrs. McGuire and Malek painted you out as a self-absorbed health-care worker unable to make out an indescribable debt. Terrorized by the idea Robby might concede to what he thought of you when you initially transferred to PTMC.

Months of unraveling to be burned by a spark and caught aflame.

The dinging of the elevator ringed behind you. Turning to the sound, you found a couple of respiratory therapists walking out, laughing at the conversation held. You pulled yourself aside, letting them past before stalking to the elevator.

When you faced Robby’s direction, he stood stiffly, uncertainty in whether to approach or forget the conversation occurred. You made the decision, pressing the button of your assigned floor. “Maybe, you won’t have to worry about me overstaying more than I'm welcomed.”

As the doors closed, the last thing you saw was the slight twitch of his eye

12:00 PM

In the last couple of hours since you spoke with Robby, you were almost hoping not to work with him for the rest of your shift. Not because you were offended or mad about his course of action earlier. With the buffer since Mrs. McGuire’s blowup to that of Malek’s, you came to the realization Robby was sparing your dignity from worse.

He could have thrown you into the wolves. Make you pay for all the times you blew up in his face over the executive action of patients in his ER, but treated by you. A part of you believed he should have. Maybe putting you in ‘contempt’ would teach you a lesson.

Instead, he was handling you like a box with a ‘FRAGILE’ label on the side. Wanting so desperately to open the gift, but too afraid to break it before he was safely able to.

Sitting in the ED, it was like an animal in a cage. You knew the staff passing by were likeliest engrossed in their jobs, patients, and lives to be distracted by you, but that didn’t stop the onset paranoia; sensing eyes pitying you while behind your back.

You tried to focus, rolling your shoulders rhythmically as you typed away at the workstation. Every time a resident came by to grab a device on the docks, you would flinch before refocusing on what you were doing. As McKay stopped, putting the tablet on one of the slots, her eyes found you. Attempting to hold onto the current train of thought, you continued flitting your attention across the screen.

“Mrs. McGuire is wondering when they can be discharged.” She mentioned casually, moving aside to not stand directly in front of you. She leaned forward on the nursing station counter.

When you lifted your attention from your work, she gave you a polite smile. You peeled your hands from the keyboard, which spent the better part of an hour stuck together. Returning the action rather stiffly, you tried easing your tense muscles. “I don’t know. I’m not the primary psychiatrist on their case, nor have I been updated on their plan of care.”

McKay stood there silently, letting her weight sit on the counter for a beat. She glanced around warily for anybody who might be looking for her. “I heard Robby kicked out Dr. Malek.”

Her words didn’t prompt a visible response, but from under the desk, your leg was bouncing. She leaned in closer, her voice huskier as she spoke in a hushed tone. “And I also heard what he said. What an asshole. And he’s supposed to be the girl’s psychiatrist—“

“I have another patient to check in with. Sorry.” You interrupted before McKay could utter another word.

Standing from the desk, you sauntered away as if your worst nightmare had walked into the ED. Hastily curving around McKay, you kept your head down. Your feet were practically guiding your decision. If you no longer wanted to face the music, they were moving before you could doubt the action.

Except, your feet weren’t your brain.

When you did finally bother to look up and across, you noticed they brought you by central 14 again. You cursed under your breath when you noticed the glass exposing the department outside the room. Before Jenny or her mother could assault you with their eyes, you turned your back towards them, opting for a stealthy escape.

Your brain said to ‘move forward.’ If you left up to the behavioral floor or found some other passion project to screw up, you would forget them long enough for them to leave. The hospital. The forefront of your mind. Your life.

Cutting them out like a weed in your garden.

However, your feet halted you once more. This time, you weren’t just stuck in place, you were turning back around to cross paths with central 14. With your feet moving disorderly with your brain, you hadn’t made up your purpose for having to confront the situation. You knew you had to decide once daring to step into the room.

It didn’t run as smoothly as you recklessly planned once confronted with Mrs. McGuire coming out of the room and running into you. Reacting rapidly to the intrusion, you stopped, stepping back a couple feet to provide space.

She firmed up in front of you, taking in your attire. Her eyes zeroed onto the badge clipped to the waistline of your black slacks. Hyper-aware of the conclusion she was reaching, you tried not to fuel the fire. You finally decided this wasn’t worth the fight.

“When can my daughter be discharged?” She questioned brusquely while crossing her arms.

Her stare was just as hardened as Malek’s was. A warning. You shouldn’t poke the bear and you shouldn’t have put yourself in this position again.

Clearing your throat, you shook your head. “I’m not sure, ma’am. I am not familiar with your daughter’s case. I can try to locate—“

“So, unless my daughter is a deranged lunatic, she won't be receiving immediate care here?”

Your mouth remained agape, words slipping from your mind completely. Your defenses had been at an all-time low. Every chance to defend yourself–where you would have shut down coolly and responded with the rapid professionalism Dr. Jefferson admired in you—-was just another trap to drag you through shrubbery and dirt.

This shift may just ruin you before you even make it to the end.

“With all due respect, the case was a little more complicated than that.” You mumbled in return, defeated over the same skipping record. It was painful having to remind yourself why you took an opposing stance. You could not cave in now.

Her sour scoff had you flinching slightly. “Actually, it isn’t.”

“You’re the reason that son-of-a-bitch is locked in some cushy mental hospital instead of prison.” She enunciated, one of her fingers wagging at you, like she was scolding a child. “The integrity of my daughter’s face was completely burned off by acid.”

“And all you see is some poor sick man? What about my daughters?” She begged, her voice trembling.

There were tears welling up in your tear ducts. You strained your jaw, containing the raw emotion. It had been reckoning brought by you. How dare you be sad now? Before you could open your mouth, respond with a weak excuse and weaker voice, you heard your name called from behind you.

“Is there a problem?” Robby questioned coming around you. He stood by your side, providing a shadow over your shorter stature.

You kept your eyes ahead, opting to let Mrs. McGuire paint the image. There was no repairing the damage to your reputation. It would have to linger and exist in the area, leaving everyone in the prerogative to make a narrative you had no control over.

She retracted herself, letting her arms fall to her sides in defeat. “I just want to take my daughter home.”

Knowing Robby, his eyes shifted towards you, hoping to read into the situation or possibly check in with you. The exhaustion had to feel as palpable as the bags under your eyes when you walked into the department. Avoiding his gaze shamelessly, he nodded to Mrs. McGuire. “I will go ahead and start the paperwork once I check in with behavioral health.”

Mrs. McGuire’s fury and desperation must have simmered as she dragged herself back in the room. Your body succumbed to the action of Robby, who was turning around and leading you gently away from the room. You sensed the presence of something lingering on your lower back, only hovering and not touching.

“You shouldn’t have been talking with her.” Robby warned, bringing his head closer to your ear. He remained even in his expression, just two colleagues conferring with each other closely. “That could’ve gone a lot worse.”

“I can control my emotions.” You muttered, flickering your eyes side to side. At this point, you were depending on Robby like a north star—allowing his burly body to hide and guide you elsewhere.

“That’s not what I was referring to.” He motioned softly, shaking his head slightly. “I’m not concerned over your objectivity more so her apprehension in a busy ER. You’ve dealt with enough for one shift.”

When you stopped by the elevators, the coldness of his hand coming away made you cower. It was as if the only form of physical protection from your mishaps was tearing itself away. You were a soldier stuck in a landmine without Robby. Sniffling slightly, you nodded in understanding. The meekest you have probably been taking something adjacent to a command.

“You should stay up there. I can handle whatever consultation comes in with Caleb.” Robby suggested politely.

He stared at you, taking in the daunting expression. You felt like a ghost, stumbling around the halls of the hospital, equally haunting anyone in your path. Everything you touch turning as sickly as you are. After a beat, you nodded cautiously. “This doesn’t make me incapable of doing my job.”

“I never said it did.” Robby assured quietly, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.

He reached over to press the up-arrow. With the glow of the button, he stood in wait with you. He was now sporting his black scrub top with a gray long-sleeve under top, stuffing his hands in the pocket. A silence settled. If this were any other person watching you slowly decompose, you would have escaped away and ran for the stairs.

Except this was the same person who you debated and reasoned about a plan of care for patients. Who, at times, made you feel alienated enough to push his buttons. You treated him with sarcasm and embittered his fizzling emotions, evoking responses unsuited for an attending physician who should have better governed his reactions.

He didn’t owe you kindness, and yet he was extending an olive branch for you to make peace with.

When the elevator dinged, he outstretched his arm, holding it open for you. Once settled inside, he reached in to press the numbered floor for you. Standing on the opposite side of the threshold, he smiled earnestly, lips curling upwards, crinkling the corner of his eyes. “Take care of yourself.”

Then the doors shut.

You weren’t sure that was a task you were capable of. If it were, you would have protected yourself from all the previous heartbreak. From your failed attempts at becoming a neurosurgeon, to coming to terms with your illness, to moving across the country with little emotional support. The lack of practice you had regulating your mind and body outside of working was making itself obvious and you hated the sensational need to be comforted.

When at the behavioral health floor, you walked around like a zombie straight from the ground. You beeline for the dictation room. At least you had enough charting to be done to keep you away from the public eye for the second half of your shift.

Situating yourself in the far corner of the room, you opened your laptop and went straight to the full inbox. Most of the messages you had been ignoring were requesting professional statements of Mr. Richman in a medical and observational sense. News outlets and publishing journals begging for statements to contradict one another.

You knew neither were worth participating for, with the current rising waters you were drowning.

The rest were administrative notices you’ve missed since you were gone. As you scrolled through the latest of your e-mails, you eyes landed on a new chain of a previous conversation that hadn’t existed before.

JEFFERSON, CALEB 6:46 AM (unread) FW: INTERNAL REVIEW W/ ADMIN Whenever you have the time, review the testimonies. Robby and I discussed scheduling a time to sit down to review timelines and order of events. With your unexpected absence, we were waiting until you came back to plan that out accordingly. Do not fret over the logistics. This is customary when an incident occurs, especially with the arrest of a federal crime. The objective is to protect other staff from this type of violence. This shouldn’t affect you finishing your fellowship (not if I can help it), but you will be interviewed alone with the compliance and risk management panel. They will reach out when they have the schedules available.

STILES, MORGAN 4 days ago To: ROBINAVITCH, MICHAEL, JEFFERSON, CALEB 42 attachment >>>> click to view all Attached are the current translated transcripts for the upcoming internal review. (I happen to know the stenographer closely, so appreciate this favor.) Please be made aware you will be asked about all aspects of the decisions made while Mr. Richman was under the hospital's care. Brace yourself for questions regarding the testimony of the victim and witnesses as well as those relating to the assault of hospital staff. Their testimonies were included. Thank you, Morgan Stiles, MHA, J.D., CPHRM PTMC - COMPLIANCE HEALTH ATTORNEY

ROBINAVITCH, MICHAEL 4 days ago To: STILES, MORGAN, JEFFERSON, CALEB Thank you, Morgan. Is there any legal repercussions either the ER or Psychiatry should expect up to this point?

STILES, MORGAN 3 days ago To: ROBINAVITCH, MICHAEL, JEFFERSON, CALEB The internal review is an evaluation of the course of events to analyze flaws in the plan of care for the patient (and defendant, in this case), in which the hospital may improve on. A compliance-focus meeting handled through the course of a few days by interviewing the involved personnel. The hospital will not contradict the judge’s ruling. As of now, they seem agreeable to the reason for the ruling. There are current discussions of the family suing the city for their failures during and after detainment, specifically in their failures to contain Mr. Richman while here. You will need to answer questions of the test, examination, and protocols applied regarding the incident. The hospital has been receiving criticism publicly for treating Mr. Richman. I do advise you and your staff to refrain from making public acknowledgment of the ruling, the defendant, or the actions whether they occurred in this hospital or not. I do not believe any explanation needs to be given about the matter.

JEFFERSON, CALEB 3 days ago To: STILES, MORGAN, ROBINAVITCH, MICHAEL All is appreciated, Morgan. We are mostly pleased Mr. Richman will be receiving the care he needs. We will be awaiting further instruction from admin regarding the reviews.

Your fingers scrolled up towards the attachments Morgan included. Each labeled with the name of the witness and the date of testimony. The ‘McGuire’ name stood out on the document titles. Jenny had testified a few days after all the expert witnesses including you, Robby, Jefferson, and the court appointed psychiatrist to reevaluate Mr. Richman.

The cursor of your mouse hovered over the files warily. Reproachfully, you swallowed a lump down your throat. To have access to all the testimonies as if they were secrets made you shift.

All court records are public, you reasoned.

After a beat, you decided on starting with what mattered most to the hospital admin. You did not need an awful replay of your amateur display of defensive strategy.

Your mouse moved to the right of your testimony, clicking onto the file ‘ROBINAVITCH_M.’

3:00 PM

To say your eyes were sore was an understatement. Two hours behind a computer screen, reading and logging every small detail you could devour through words was bound to do that. You hadn’t bothered to get up and do much. Once for the restroom, once to grab water, and the rest of the time you spent it stationed in the corner.

Some of the younger residents and interns came in, charted for a few minutes before leaving again at the sound of another page. None of them made too much noise to distract you, just a shy greeting as they walked in and then busied themselves with their work.

You had lost track of time as you stared down at the last few pages of Robby’s first testimony. You would have assumed you would be much farther in your preparation for the internal reviews, but the line of question and responses had you glued to the particular file.

It wasn’t questions regarding Dr. Robby’s ability to lead a department let alone his credibility as an emergency physician. They were punitive judgments they disguised as questions for Robby from the prosecution. All judgments made about you and the testimony you had given a week prior. With that understanding, you couldn’t just look away while the judge and the rest of the court had to listen to the prosecution tear your credibility without your knowledge.

Robby hadn’t bothered to bring it up either. You rubbed your eyes lazily as a way to reboot its ingrained focus. Scrolling towards the next page, you started on the first line.

MR. FOWLER: In your professional opinion, did any course of action taken by the psychiatrist involved with Mr. Richman’s care raise concern of her judgment? MR. HUDSON: Objection. Beyond the scope. Dr. Robinavitch is not a psychiatrist nor the chief of psychiatry. MR. FOWLER: Your honor, the witness is an emergency physician. His professional judgment is still pertinent to the psychiatrist involved. She is a fellow, who is specializing to work alongside the department Dr. Robinavitch supervises. THE COURT: Prosecution may proceed, but tread lightly, Mr. Fowler. Witness may answer. THE WITNESS: No. She presented reasonable judgment when she requested nurses to remain as witnesses while evaluating Mr. Richman. She consulted with the arresting officers before entering the room– MR. FOWLER: Whom she rejected the request to have inside the behavioral room the defendant was in, is that correct? THE WITNESS: I am unaware if the officers made an offer to be present. Whatever executive decision made complied with the type of care provided to any patient who comes into that ER. MR. FOWLER: But not every patient brought in is detained for a felony-level crime. Nor are they prone to having an outburst, which results in the assault of a healthcare worker, correct? THE WITNESS: Violence against healthcare workers is an ongoing issue with no resolution. Staff in my department do constantly fear the next time a patient may punch, scratch, spit, or shove them. It happens more often than I would like. MR. FOWLER: Please answer the question, Dr. Robinavitch. THE WITNESS: [pause] No. MR. FOWLER: So, did you agree with the approach taken with Mr. Richard, understanding the circumstances he came in? As you said, violence against healthcare workers is of utmost concern to you. THE WITNESS: I do believe that what occurred in my department was unfortunate, but it wasn’t an error on the decisions made in the plan of care. MR. FOWLER: [pause] Isn’t it true you and the psychiatrist involved have had previous conflicting opinions about patient care? THE WITNESS: Yes. MR. FOWLER: Enough so to question her judgment or her psychiatric opinion? MR. HUDSON: Objection. Beyond the scope, again, your honor. MR. FOWLER: Rephrase. Has it made you doubt whether the plan of care for patients, who have come to the ER needing a psychiatrist consultation, is in their benefit? THE WITNESS: No. My conflicting opinion isn’t a question of her competence, as you allude to. It is to challenge her recommendations, as I would any resident or consulting physician. That’s how we all learn. It is how I ensure enough consideration has been put in all aspects of a case. MR. FOWLER: So Mr. Richman, is what, negligence on her part? So much to ignore precautions in order to prevent the assault? What if it had been one of your doctors or nurses? MR. HUDSON: Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence. Prosecution is arguing with the witness over lack of foundation. THE WITNESS: Mr. Fowler, you are making a judgment from words on paper and images you do not have the comprehensive knowledge to understand. This delicate case was handled by someone who has more experience with patients of this caliber than you and even I have. MR. FOWLER: Your honor— THE WITNESS: Mr. Richman is an individual deemed to be in need of care from someone whose professional opinion I respect. If she sees it that way, so do I. What concurred from that was unpredictable, but in no way is it a representation of what she is incapable of doing. It should be a wake-up call about the issues in our healthcare system from those inside as well as outside the hospital. THE COURT: Please contain yourself, Doctor. [pause] Mr. Fowler, you were warned to tread light. Either move along or rest your case.

Before you could scroll to the next page, something vibrated on the table beside you. With the screen of your phone pointed up, you simply turned to the side to view the incoming message.

DR. KYLE MALEK now There are a couple consults down in the ER. Got tied up with Jefferson. Dr. Robby couldn’t reach you.

When you opened the call phone, you noticed no notification except from Malek. Pausing, you stood from the chair, wandering to where you had left your backpack across the room. When you pulled your personal phone out from the side pocket, you found the missed messages from Robby.

ROBBY 15m ago I didn’t want to bother you unless necessary, but Caleb got caught up in an emergency upstairs. Have a couple of other pediatric psych consults. Nothing urgent or serious. Just some concerned parents.

You knew it must have been a last resort if he messaged you privately. From the verbiage, he was probably agonizing whether to finally pull you down to the depths of the ER after two hours of solitude. It was considerate, which was more than anything you had received now and days.

When you made your way down, you headed straight for the nursing station, starting the manhunt for Robby. Stopping by the station, you picked up a device. Glancing around, your eyes caught Dana stalking around the station, glasses propped on the lower bridge of her nose.

She smiled when she looked at you, moving towards you. “Well, thank goodness you’re here. I have patients in need of a psych consult and we need beds.”

Trying to muster as joyous a smile as she had, you chuckled nervously. “So I heard. Who’s first on the list?”

“Central 12 is a 13-year-old boy. Dr. Mohan is the primary, but he is all yours, honey.” She instructed with a small wink.

You nodded, listening to the information. When you lifted your gaze, you noted the illuminating patient board. Fractured wrist was the primary complaint. Your eyes went further down the list to Central 14. Still occupied by the same patient.

Taking in a deep breath, you composed yourself to head in the dreaded corner of the ER. You were hesitant, hoping another altercation of some sort wouldn’t occur. That your paths would not cross to forsaken you again. Keeping your head down you thought would be a worthy way of disguising your presence.

From McGuire's accusatory stare. From Robby’s genuine concern. You needed to stay concentrated on the patient you could help. You were no use if you couldn’t unscramble your brain enough to do that.

However, to curse your already terrible day, you caught the exact people you were hoping to avoid exiting central 14 together. Slowing down your pace, you watched with careful eyes as Robby stood facing Mrs. McGuire, one arm draped across her daughter's back, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. They must have been discharging as Mrs. McGuire carried her purse with her and a packet in her hand.

Something told you there was no reason to linger. She had said her piece and there was no way to explain yourself to them. It wasn’t gallant to stumble over your words and teeter on the edge of breaking down when you came off vehement in court.

Except, despite that new look that you were sporting since then, Robby hadn’t changed from the time you met him. You had been focused too much on everything else to realize he extended that warmth towards you.

That’s when Robby’s voice cut through your indecision. His furrowed brows were trying to understand why you stood alone in the hall, device in hand. He instructed with his head to come closer, and when you woke yourself from the daydream, you approached cautiously. You tried not to zone in on the McGuire’s staring at you like a prey approaching a much smaller, weaker predator.

“Mrs. McGuire’s here wanted to speak with you.” He initiated, scratching the side of his beard. With one-step back, he let the attention be centered on the two of you, but he remained in the background. You could sense his presence like a bug on your shoulder.

Mrs. McGuire, with wet eyes, cleared her throat. She looked at her daughter before facing you with her chin held up. “I wanted to apologize early. What happened was uncalled for. You’re here to do a job.”

“Earnestly, I signed up to do this job regardless of what came with it.” You responded, hands gripping on tighter to the device.

If that hadn't been the case, you would've quit after Mr. Richman, and you wouldn't have willingly stood in front of her and Jenny--who was shrinking the pink hoodie and avoiding obvious attention on her.

She hummed, eyeing you carefully. Your body tensed, as if bracing for some blow yet to come. Your shoulder sat up higher as the silence fell. With your mouth agape, the words stopped as Mrs. McGuire sighed. “We won’t see eye to eye on the verdict made, but I am sorry he did that to you."

"In our grief of what occurred, I’ve forgotten that you also fell victim to his hands. I’ve been recently reminded of that.” Her eyes flicked to something behind you, and you knew she was staring appreciatively at Robby.

You put on a shaky smile, nodding in gratitude. The skin where the punch landed and his hands squeezed around your neck heated up. It was like his life marked you, but you did your best to hide the grimace. “Likewise. I am hoping for the best for you and your family moving forward.”

With a stiff nod, she glanced over at Robby, indicating a conclusion with actions only. You stepped aside, putting on a polite smile as Mrs. McGuire guided her daughter to where Robby was motioning. While he stepped behind them, he looked at you over his shoulder. The encouraging smile that was gently reminding you that it wasn’t ill will. There weren't huntsmen coming for you and your strong sense of identity in your work.

They were people who were confused and hurt, similar to how you were after the assault and with the reminder of the trial. He was still here telling you there was nothing wrong with you or the work, and you didn’t have to feel let down by the reaction alone. You sighed, before clearing your head once more to approach Central 12.

8:00 PM

“I don’t need to be safeguarded.” You sighed out, sitting across from Caleb in his office. You had managed to catch up with your charting at a decent time. If it hadn’t been for the emergency on the behavioral floor, you would’ve gone home an hour ago.

But you knew Caleb would need the help after sending home one of his residents.

“It’s not pity. He acted out of line for a fourth year resident and I won’t tolerate harassment in the workplace.” Caleb spoke definitely, staring at you from above the rims of his glasses. He was typing away on his computer. You didn’t want to know if it pertained to the discussion at hand.

You groaned lightly, uncrossing your legs while sitting up taller. “It's fine.”

“No, it isn’t.” Caleb emphasized, stopping his typing. He repositioned his wheelchair, before slipping off his glasses and letting them fall against his chest. “I wish you would stop pretending it is. It’s okay to be mad or upset over what he said. It was uncalled and unprofessional.”

“And he’s a fourth year resident with one foot out the door! It’s not personal, whatsoever.” You joked, chuckling tiredly as you stood up. Grabbing your backpack from the floor, you slung it on your shoulders. “His residency is almost over along with my fellowship. After that, neither of us will have to worry about the other ever again.”

Caleb sat pensively, hands folded in his lap. From the small scrunch of his face, you knew another question was brewing. He pushed his thumbs together. “And what do you plan to do after your fellowship?”

You scoffed with a tight grin on your face. “After the shit-show today? I don’t think you or Robby need me as a liability, let alone this hospital. I’ve brought on enough issues.”

“Is this about what Malek said? Or the McGuire’s?” Caleb questioned his voice softer as he probed. The same technique you used on Jenny that morning. It was a sad reminder of failures you should have been able to control on your own.

“And if it was?”

“I’d tell you not to fixate on these lapses alone.” He suggested firmly. “They are in no way an accurate representation of the type of character and work I’ve seen.”

You glanced away, the attention too centered on you for your liking. It wasn’t bad attention (compared to the scrutiny from earlier) but it was attention that focused on the part of you that didn’t belong in work. The insecurity you had walking PTMC that you had managed to keep wrapped under the fold of your personality. Cold and calculated while protecting the intimacy of your thoughts.

Or at least, what was once protected.

“I should probably head home. I have a night shift coming up soon.” You excused yourself by making your way to the door.

It was a somber conclusion, like you might never see him again. Your depleted energy had no effort to give to anything else--especially regarding your emotion convocation.

“You are good at what you do. Inside and outside of here.” Caleb announced, like it was a doorknob concern you joked patients always had. One last anchor thrown into the sea like a redeeming feature. The difference between walking out of the office with nothing and walking out with salvation from ailment.

Your hand grasped the doorknob, not turning back. You silently nodded, gesturing to him that you were listening. From the small twitch of your lips, you knew better than to turn around and worry him with your fractured emotional boundaries. Instead, you wished him a quiet ‘good night’ before closing the door behind you.

Your brain was running on autopilot and before you could process your decisions, you had taken the elevator down to the Pitt instead of the main floor to head to the parking garage.

When the elevator doors open to reveal the chaos of the night-shift settling in, you cursed under your breath. You had been too exhausted, bone-dry for too long, that you were questioning if it was a good idea to drive.

Thankfully, it was enough to obscure you from any lingering day shift. You merged around like high-traffic, curving around nurses and other ED staff. Whenever you catch wind of a night-shift doctor, you lower your head further.

Your eyes landed on Shen, who waved at you lazily while holding a Dunkin’ iced coffee. That’s when you scurried out towards the ambulance bay. As wide automatic doors slid open, the breeze hit your cheeks. Your eyes fluttered from the heaviness of the wind kissing your face.

The red lights from the ambulance glowed sitting stationary on the driveway. You proceeded carefully; making sure a couple of paramedics weren’t going to jump out the vehicle with some trauma patient. Looking around like a kid lost, you turned your head to the right.

Kneeling down, craning his head to the side, Robby was fiddling with something on a motorcycle. Despite the body of the two-wheeled vehicle, Robby taunt muscles still seemed wide in comparison to his ride.

“Do you wear a helmet with that thing?” You asked aloud, stopping away from the emergency entrance.

Robby looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. You flashed him a playful smile, tired albeit, hardly capable of synchronizing with your eyes. He still chuckled hoarsely. “Yes. I am an emergency physician. I know better.”

Tossed aside, you could see the durable backpack. Clipped to the handle at the top was the helmet in question. You hummed, nodding lazily. “So what? Your ride broke down on you?”

“Yeah. Perfect way to end a 12-hour shift.” He huffed out. “First time I test drive this thing and it fails on me.”

He cursed under his breath at the same time something clattered on the ground. You inched forward, standing beside the wall of the hospital, you could see the ratchet on the ground glinting against the light.

Scrunching your nose, you sat yourself slowly on the small ledge wide enough to sit. “This is your first time taking it out for a spin?”

Robby had grabbed the ratchet again, twisting it against something in the body. With a heavy sigh, he let go, letting his elbow rest against his one lifted knee. “Longer distance than from my house to my local grocery store. Figured it was about time to see how it ran before commuting over hundreds of miles with it.”

“You’re still adamant on that spiritual journey of yours?”

When Robby turned to look at you, he hesitated on his response. He put on a charming smile, even when his body would heave with every breath out, as if the weight of the shift was dragging him. “It’s the only thing close to a vacation I have to look forward to.”

Scoffing unconvinced, you narrowed your eyes at him. “Most people go somewhere tropical or at least choose not to bet against the odds.

“What odds?” He questioned the back of his exposed to you as he continued tightening something. His hands reached up toward the ignitions, twisting the key, the motor came to life. The low grumbled emitted loudly from where you stood. Robby smiled appreciatively at the sound, before shutting the ignition.

“The odds that the only thing guaranteed for us on this Earth won’t come get them first.” You crossed your legs, leaning forward slightly as your voice lowered. You knew the wind would carry the vibration of your voice, and Robby’s body gave him away as he squared his shoulders. “You should know the statistics of motorcycle accidents by now, Robby.”

“I’m a safe driver.” Robby assured, groaning as he pulled the ratchet off. He secured whatever area he tinkered with, standing up slowly. He reached down for his backpack, resting it over the seat of the motorcycle. “I wear my helmet. I don’t speed.”

“That’s not the point.” You mumbled. After putting the ratchet away, he slung the backpack on one shoulder, holding it up naturally. He turned his body in your direction, staring at you absentmindedly.

Sighing, you rolled your neck. It wasn’t the type of night to be picking a fight, not that you had the energy; but you’d shelf the conversation for another day when your mind wasn’t exhausted. Robby tapped one foot on the ground, watching your body slump back into the wall. “How did the rest of your shift go?”

With eyes closed, head pressed against the brick of the building, you snickered. “Fantastic. I’m excited to come back and do it all over again.”

When you opened an eye to gauge his reaction, he shook his head trying not to appear amused by your sarcasm. From the way he slouched, you assumed he felt the same after today. Playing mediator while running a department was not for the weak. You had proven you weren’t up for half the responsibilities he currently had.

“I’m sorry if I wasn’t much help today.” You apologized, while wiping your hands on the side of your pants. “I know I brought on more problems for you.”

Robby stood silently, the small crease in his forehead giving him away. He softly negated the statement with his head, “You couldn’t have predicted how today would go. I’m sorry this is how we welcome you back after being gone for a week.”

Your hands ran down your face, laughing out tired and still in denial of the entire day. Even if you had a magic eight ball that could warn you of the choices you made up to this point, you would’ve made them all over again. “I wouldn’t have expected it to go any other way.”

Cocking his head to the side, one hand gripping the strap of his backpack while the other he stuffed into his jacket pocket. “Are you starting to see the appeal of this place?”

When you pulled your hands away, you stared at Robby with furrowed brows. Over dinner, Robby had inquired of your plans. He knew you were planning to stay in a clinical setting, considering the fellowship you chose, but you made no affirmative decision of where you wanted to work.

You made it clear California was no longer an option, despite the fact you did your residency there. You could go back to Boston, where you went for undergrad or settle back in your hometown trying to remember old stopping grounds. Whenever you thought of the projection of a life like that, it didn’t align with what you had envisioned before.

Pittsburgh happens to have the best emergency-psychiatry fellowship. Even though you have spent less than a year establishing yourself, it felt more like a sanctuary than all the places you’ve been.

“I think I’ve dug myself a hole too deep to climb out of.”

Robby resonated with the statement. He examined you carefully. You were certain you looked exhausted. The bags under your eyes weighed heavier as you delayed your trip home.

Before Robby could follow up with some smooth distraction or deflect from your current disappointments, you sat up taller. “What did you tell Mrs. McGuire?”

He paused, inhaling a sharp breath. Glancing around warily, he considered his words. You chewed the inside of your mouth, bouncing the one foot on the ground rhythmically. The night was filled with dying anticipation, which sat much thicker than smog.

“You must have told her something. She was cursing my existence in the morning.” You tried to lighten the mood, but the joke didn’t land the punch.

There was a timidity in Robby as he stared down at his feet. He wasn’t the assertive chief of a bustling ER department outside under the glowing lights of the ambulance. He was irresolute because you were sitting in front of him about something. You feared he thought this was some ploy to dig venomous fangs in him.

“She asked me what I thought about your position during the trial.” He clarified, lifting his one free hand to rub the back of his head.

“And what did you tell her?” You questioned with a meek voice. The shaky breath released a clear indicator of the lump forming in your throat.

He let his head hang, the disheveled top of his head now clearly visible. “I explained that as someone who has worked with you for the few months I have, I don’t need to question your judgment.”

When he peered at you through his eyelashes, he saw you unravel your legs. Both hands grabbed the edge of the wall you sat on. You lean forward, eyes darting across his face. “Mr. Richman’s state of mind is complicated, and if anyone was more than capable of making a clear evaluation of his needs and rationale, it would be you.”

Instead of giving in to the misty sensation of your eyes, you composed yourself, glancing at a rock on the ground. “How did she take that?”

“The wound is still fresh and she may still hate him for what he did, but I think she came to terms we are all flawed individuals.” Robby’s words were melodic. It was like reading off a fortune cookie. A well-rested you might’ve made that joke out loud, instead you caved into yourself as Robby readjusted his backpack. “It won’t necessarily make sense now, but maybe in the future, when the tensions have settled.”

It was ironic, if anything. After what Malek said, it made it clear that Robby’s incessant indifference came from what he interpreted as defiance. The perfectly educated persona you put on while in the hospital to make patients trust your easier was all he saw.

He had found a weak spot, though. Even through the immaculate professionalism, he realized there were attributes within yourself you let weigh you down. It somehow didn’t confine you to the ‘FRAGILE’ box. It made him more attentive and invested in watching you succeed.

“I saw Morgan’s email this morning.” You mentioned casually, standing up tall. You inched one-step closer. “I read over the transcript.”

He simply nodded, making no indication he noticed the hints you were dropping. I know what you said about me. I know how you truly see me. “I read over the transcripts of your testimony. Most of the prosecution's questions, at least.”

With the truth out in the open, Robby straightened himself, curtly nodding. He awkwardly chuckled, finally understanding the subliminal message you were sending him with your wide, eye gaze. With his silence, he was inviting you to criticize him, even if he wasn’t sure he wanted honesty.

The part you read was familiar to the Robby you faced while in the ED. Unrestrained when pushed. Brutal honest if necessary. Except, he wasn't fervent. He didn’t tell you he pushed you while fully convinced of your training and competence to treat patients. That he never questioned whether a patient was safe under your care. He trusted you to enact respectably, and he let the court know that too.

“You shouldn’t have stuck out your neck for me.” You scolded gently, sighing in defeat.

“I didn’t do it just for you.” Robby countered, as if attempting heroism while too overworked and beat by the day would convince you both of the noble effort. He meant it though. The way the corner of his eye crinkled while his cheeks flushed a color too crimson for the spring air.

“And the stuff with Mrs. McGuire? Malek?” The questions came out like digging with desperation. You had to find something more, because you couldn’t accept the charity from a man whom you tortured for his respect.

It was as unethical as lying on the stand, swearing an oath to attest to the truth of the facts and events. You knew Robby wouldn't have lied about that. He was aware of the risk to himself and the hospital if he tried to spin what occurred, because he had thought about being in the room with you.

And if you had known what you did now, you might've initiated that conversation.

“Dr. Malek was out of line and frankly, I’ve never liked him.” Robby laughed dryly, his shoulder shrugging. You rolled your eyes at him, head cocked to the side. He scratched the side of his beard, eyes fluttering lightly. “And I was simply having a conversation with Mrs. McGuire.”

Simple. Nothing about that was simple, you thought. When you finally reached a point to be professional partners, it was like the universe was reminding you that ‘partnership’ wasn't in your vocabulary. Trusting so blindly to let yourself guide by the reasoning of another man. You hadn't given Robby an inkling of that impression. He must have known that from the times he stared at you once something else blew up in your face.

He considered turning his back and looking the other way, but some line and hook sunk him into the cold waters of your pond. It was temperatures he was learning to survive in, and you were adjusting to sharing the vast, sparse space with something other than your thoughts.

You turned to the hospital walls, scaling the sides with your eyes. He classified you the most competent person to do the work. Even when you doubted it, and even after admitting psychiatry was never your first choice. Despite that, your judgment was the one he relied on without your realizing it. “You’re making it harder to settle on where I want to go once I’m done with this fellowship.”

You raised your eyebrows at him, noticing the grin. His eyes sparkled, playfully wounded by the words. “Would it be so bad if you stayed?”

“After today, it might be.” You tried not to mellow the energy. Maybe he took it as a joke, but you knew he was reading in between lines to understand your shrewdness.

“I disagree.” Robby responded automatically. It was instinct. After spending most of his shift listening to the strong superficial beliefs of your character and intention, he must have been too used to speaking nicely about you.

Clearing your throat, you started slowly making your way closer, wrapping up the evening to just rot in the same bed you had been forsaken to a week prior. Reaching towards the side pocket of your bag, you pulled out your keys. “We shall see what the hospital review brings. Maybe then I’ll change my mind.”

“It won't be as bad as the trial, that’s for sure.” Robby assured you. With the red lights still flashing, his freckled skin stood out more with each crease and wrinkle accompanying every time he stretched his lips into a smile.

“Like I said, we shall see.”

You flashed him a tight smile, the fabric of your cardigan brushing against the thicker, canvas material of his dusty, brown jacket. Before you could disappear into the darkness of the side of the hospital, you spun back around.

Robby was already looking at you.

With your hands clasping onto your keys, you tried focusing on the smell of the metal and the cold material stabbing into your skin. “If it doesn't pan out, I still appreciate all of it. Just thought you should know.”

You didn’t clarify what ‘all of it’ was. In eight months, Robby made an everlasting mark. Whoever was supposed to follow him wouldn't get to taste the bitter sweetness of your inner soul. Robby fought for that satisfaction, and you didn't think anyone except him could attempt to do so again.

He stifled a boyish grin on his face. “I hope it isn't the last of it.”

Sighing, you crumpled the bright green plastic up before binning it on your way to the sink, making an effort to not stare at him or his beautiful, Seiko-watched hand, wrapped around a mug and dwarfing it. “Don’t think I follow.”

He set the ceramic down, turning to look at you with his hip against the counter, toned arms folded. “I know your shift yesterday was rough. Find it admirable you're doing so great today.”

Your eyebrows rose, tone deadpan, “The Michael Robinavitch expressing empathy? I must be dreaming.”

“Ah, well.. it's the eighth wonder of the world. Next best thing after the Pyramids, for sure.”

You smiled softly, shaking your head and placing a hand on his bicep. Jeez, it was solid. “Flattery and a raise is the way to a woman's heart. Not just flattery.”

“Yeah?” he scoffed, cocking his head. “Do you want me knowing the way to your heart?”

You pushed on his arm before brushing past to hide your unbidden fluster. “You’re fucking lame.”

He shrugged. “Worth a try.”

It was unfairly attractive, the manner he held himself. As such were any of his mannerisms. His condescending nature sometimes rubbed med students and interns the wrong way, but once they'd warmed up to him a little, it was undeniably alluring.

Or maybe it was just you. 

You joined the PTMC’s ED as an R3 about a year ago after a couple years up in Portland, and somehow immediately captured the attention of your attending. He always called on you for traumas, letting you take control with a smidge of criticism here and there. 

Which should've been a good thing. But with how goddamn hot he was, it wasn't very easy to be on your best behaviour when he was so constantly around; during your laps, when you were striking up some conversation with a patient..

As you left the break room more than a little flushed, Perlah and Princess both cast knowing glances your way before murmuring something in Tagalog they knew you could hear but barely decipher.

“Sa tingin mo nagawa na nila ito?”

“Not yet,” you replied dryly, grabbing an iPad from the dock. 

—

Yet another long shift; one that consisted of a record high of 4 STEMIs. Which wasn't a good thing.. obviously. But all of them were currently stable. Being an ED doctor was exhausting, and that was a colossal understatement. 

On your days off, all you could bring yourself to do was drink a few shots of espresso and curl up with some Kristin Hannah, as pretentious as that sounded. Maybe cry a little. Either that, or you ended up doomscrolling with the book in your lap.

Part of night shift rolled in just as you were making your way to your locker after finally wrapping up your charting for the day, and you keenly observed Shen’s Dunkin coffee. Definitely miles better than whatever sludge they had in the break room.

A finger poked the side of your stomach, eliciting a humiliatingly high-pitched yelp.

Dr. Abbot.

You slung your bag over one shoulder, elbowing him as he rounded on you. 

SWAT uniform.

“Still don't know why I never hear you coming.”

He stared at your exasperation for a beat, a light smile gracing his handsome features. “Same reason I'm wearing this.”

“On that note,” you said, vaguely gesturing at him. “What's with the get-up?” 

You didn't catch the way his brows furrowed when you swiped at your eyes, pinching the bridge of your nose. He leant against the lockers and scrutinised your face like he was telepathic. “Drug raid. But no one got hurt.”

“Ah. Fent or cocaine?”

“Fent,” he declared, a little absentminded as he observed the pained wince as you shifted on your feet. “How’s my favourite day shifter doing?”

You let out an amused huff. “Fuck. Don't let Robby hear that. He's already on my ass for calling him lame.”

“When is he not?” 

He pursed his lips at your tired nod. “Penny for your thoughts?”

You moved to tilt your head back against the metal with a hollow thud, eyes fluttering shut. Yesterday was finally catching up to you, and today had not made it any easier. “They'll cost a whole lot more than that.”

“I'm willing to pay.” He took your forearm and squeezed it. The contact only made your eyes flick back open. “You alright?”

“Long day. Past two days, actually,” you sighed and straightened, grimacing again. “Ankle is killing me too.”

“Sit.” He guided you to the bench adjacent to the lockers; looked down at the tops of your shoes, concealed by the hem of your scrubs. “Which one?”

You never should've told him. “Abbot, I'm fine, really—”

He placed himself next to you. “Put your leg up here,” he insisted, no room for argument as he patted his lap.

You looked incredulously at the side of his face before reluctantly hauling your leg up, sucking in a sharp breath between your teeth when your heel scarcely grazed his prosthetic. 

“Shit. Sorry. You okay?”

He finally glanced at you, concern etched into his features despite the smirk that pulled his lips as he started folding your pant leg up. “Not like I can feel it.”

Your eyes narrowed. “Only you'd be able to say that.”

“Comes with being a veteran.” His attention diverted back to your leg, hand coming down closer to your—now you noticed—swollen, reddened ankle. “Tell me when it hurts.”

He began gently prodding at the tender area—from the bottom of your shin—with his index and middle, until he reached the top of your ankle; you cursed under your breath. Again. 

“Not your ACL,” he muttered, hand hovering. 

“This is humiliating. And I would know if it was.”

“Rule out the worst first, doctor,” his fingers wrapped around it, no pressure. “You’re one of our best, you don't know this?”

“Oh, shut your fucking mouth.”

“That's no way to talk to your attending,” he looked up at you. “I'm gonna squeeze it a little in three, two..”

“It is if he's being a—agh.. dick. Robby's really rubbed off on you.”

His eyes widened a fraction, a frown overtaking his amusement. “How much have you been running around this place?”

You shrugged. “Little more than usual.”

“Tib fib hairline,” he craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of someone. “Hey! Anyone, wheelchair over here please!”

“Abbot—” your mouth opened and closed, willing yourself to form something cohesive, the noise of a nurse rushing drowned out by your thoughts. “I— fracture?”

Princess came jogging with a wheelchair rolling in front of her, gaze falling on you. “Hey, what happened?”

“I’m fine! Abbot's full of sh—”

“Thanks. Tib fib stress fracture. Ice, elevate, and set her up in Central 13. I'll be there soon.”

Before you could protest, he was whispering ‘around my neck,’ and shifting you into the chair. The push across Central was like going batshit crazy in the middle of a pin-drop silent public library.

Princess leaned down, “Has that always been an option? Do I leave too early to know about this?”

You cast her a sidelong glance. “I could so hit you right now. Why’re you still here, anyway?”

“Oh,” she prompted, pushing the door open. “I finished Love Island last night and don't know what else to do with my life.”

—

It was a fracture. You really didn't want it to be, but the thin, nearly undistinguishable crack near the edge of both bones was definitely there. And that begged the question; did Abbot have X-ray vision?

Frankly, you felt guilty for taking up a bed during night shift of all times. Sure, it was nowhere near the time where things got really crazy, but you still could've gone home with a wrapped ankle and something for the pain to clear the bed up.

Abbot was at your bedside—now in a black shirt and his army pants—taking a history that was more a verbal interrogation than anything.

That was when you saw Robby jogging across the ER from Trauma 1.

“Shitshitshit,” you inched up the bed from what exactly, you didn't know, before Abbot held you down with a hand on your knee. 

He shouldered into the room, and you could see the vaguely irritated quality of his expression. “Brother,” he said, looking over the two of you. 

Actually, why was Abbot here? 

“Why didn't you come get me?” He placed a heavy hand on the other attending’s shoulder, now focusing on you and the injury propped up on a stack of pillows.

Your brows gathered as you stared at Robby disbelievingly. What was wrong with these people? “Robby—ow—you had a trauma.”

He moved to the foot of the bed, observing your white-clad ankle. “Shen and Ellis were in there. I'm not supposed to be here anyway,” he glanced up. “Neither are you.”

You groaned; slumped backwards and stared at the ceiling. “I was leaving!”

The two men exchanged a look you didn't see. 

“Can I fill out my own chart?” 

You could feel the disagreement start to bloom in the antiseptic air, and you were about one question away from launching a pair of medical scissors at them. “There are two attendings in a senior resident’s room for a stress fracture! Are you guys hearing how fucking ridiculous that is?”

Abbot got up steadily, a sly smile gracing his face as he traded another glance with Robby. They started backing out, not breaking your gaze.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

—

A week and a half of home rest was not your forte. It was a bit much, really. Yes, hairline fractures healed fully in six to eight weeks, but you were sure you could’ve started walking just fine in a week. On crutches.

You were grateful for the break, though. It was nice getting away from the countless calamities of the ED.

What wasn't, was the ED coming to you.

Following your usual day-off routine, you were laid out on the couch of your apartment with your leg elevated on a bunch of pillows and an ice pack strapped to it—actually—reading an old paperback when there were two quick raps on the door.

It’d been about 5 days so you’d had visitors before this; Trin and Whitaker, Samira, Cassie, Dana, and a few others who'd sent ‘get-well-soon’ packages, but those were after their shifts. It was two in the afternoon.

Placing your book page-down on the coffee table, you braced yourself and got up, hopping toward your crutches before heading for the door.

You'd barely opened it to Abbot and Robby before you slammed it back in their faces. Of all people to make an appearance, you expected less of them and more of Javadi or even Donnie.

You tugged the door back open cautiously as if willing them to be a hallucination, but nope, they were still there and as tangible as the ice pack around your ankle.

Jack wore that same black T-shirt he wore underneath his SWAT uniform and a pair of dark jeans; Robby in a grey hoodie and dark cargos, glasses hooked into his neckline.

Robby seemed like he was suppressing a laugh. Had he caught you ogling him? 

“Rude. Can we come in?”

Stepping aside best you could, you reluctantly showed them in. “You’re lucky I wasn't butt-ass naked.”

“You make a habit out of that?” Abbot gave you a once-over before heading to the kitchen.

Only then did you realise the fragrance of fresh bread and the big plastic bag labelled, ‘Primanti Bros’ in his hand, and a large iced Americano in Robby’s.

“Woah,” you mused, awestruck. “Thank you. You're not the first to bring me Primanti’s, though.”

“Oh, I know.” Robby strode over to you, hand hovering above the small of your back as he handed you your coffee and guided you back down onto the couch, taking your crutches. “We figured mostly everyone came after shift, so you'd have a shit ton of sandwiches and no space to stuff them after ten at night.”

You snorted, watching as he sunk into the creaky couch. “Eleven, actually. You'd be surprised. Barely have any leftovers.”

Abbot returned from the kitchen and placed himself on your other side, and there was suddenly a very real, very present sense of wrongness in what flashed across your mind.

You sipped cold bitterness to try dissipate the heat crawling up your neck. “Are you guys allowed to do this?”

“Why wouldn't we be?” Robby grunted as he tugged the coffee table closer for Abbot, who placed a pillow for your leg. 

“I mean.. you’re my superiors,” you muttered, reaching across Abbot for the TV remote.

He leaned back to make space for you, smiling as he watched your face. “So? You're our resident.”

Our resident. 

That didn't help your state at all.

You clicked the TV on, staring at the Property Brothers on mute. It felt like you'd turn to stone if you dared look at either of the two attendings next to you in the eye. This time you went around Robby to place your coffee on the end table.

A few dreamily uncomfortable beats of silence, before something struck you. 

“Robby, did you.. take a day off?”

“Don't let it go to your head,” he huffed lightheartedly, hesitantly gesturing to Abbot. “Once in a blue moon, I take a day or two to spend with him. Just so happened it was today.”

Your brows drew up, the new info giving you the courage to look at Robby. “What?”

He playfully leaned closer, holding your gaze. “Tell anyone, I'll put you in triage the moment you come back.”

“It’s adorable, really,” you teased.

You were immensely aware of the proximity of his face and yours; Abbot shifting behind you; the faint ache already ebbing between your legs. You caught yourself and flinched the slightest bit back, eyes involuntarily flicking down to his lips. 

“Also, you wouldn't do that,” you murmured, suddenly breathless. “You need me.”

His jaw flexed, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed thickly and withdrew. He was unabashed in how he blatantly eyed your mouth. “Yeah? Why is that?”

You chewed on your lip, heat pooling low in your abdomen. Your mind had gone blank, any witty retort washed out by sheer need.

Need that was resolved when Robby's hand came up to the back of your head, yanking you forward and molding his lips to yours, groaning into your mouth at the way your touch seemed magnetised to the bulge in his cargos.

He coaxed your mouth open, and something in his restraint seemed to fissure; an arm snaked around your waist, the kiss turning all teeth and tongues lashing at the other, noses nudging as you moaned softly. He nipped at the plushness that was your bottom lip before soothing it over with a swipe of his tongue.

“Fuck,” he grunted, catching your lip between his teeth again before pulling away, panting. A flimsy string of saliva connected them, and he wasted no time in feeding it back to you with his thumb. 

“Haven't done that in a while.”

Your heated gaze landed on Abbot, who you did not notice had gotten up and was rounding on the both of you. His eyes lingered on yours; the creak of the couch as you stopped yourself from grinding down into it, before redirecting to Robby.

He'd begun kissing your neck, beard scratchy on your skin when he lightly sucked at your fluttering carotid pulse. “Want something?”

Abbot was devastatingly calm in the midst of the belligerent push-and-pull between you and Robby, moving forward and threading tender fingers into your hair. “Plan on sharing, brother?”

“Not exactly.”

But before you knew it, Abbot had taken the other man's place, the salt of Robby's finger altering the taste of him. It was a stark contrast, the manner in which he approached. He was tentative, almost reverent, apparent in his hands; pushing your hair back, cupping both sides of your neck.

Your fingers carded through his silver curls, one hand caressing his clothed stomach as you whimpered into his mouth and moved closer, “Abbot..”

He drew back, breathing hard and smiling when you seemed to chase after him. “Uh-uh,” his middle and index pressed into your lip, faintly pulling it down. His voice was hoarse and even sexier than usual. “Jack, sweetheart. Don't use my last name. Too professional.”

A knee knocking yours open distracted you from your lazy, affectionate make-out session with Jack. Robby loomed over you, lust—raw; in its absolute simplest form—engraved into the lines of his face.

“Oh, no,” he said in that all-too-familiar, patronising tone. “Keep going.”

Next thing you knew, he was knelt down in front of you, big, calloused hands rasping against your skin. He made some adjustments, discarding the ice pack and making sure your injured leg stayed static and comfortable on the coffee table, before urging your ass down and normal leg open, folding it over Jack's thigh.

It was an insane position, but you were somehow in no pain whatsoever. 

Your touch found the top of Robby's head, and you mussed up what you could of his hair. “Careful. Don't want you throwing your back out.”

He didn't even meet your eyes as he hummed a simple, “Won’t. But you can choose who blows yours out later.”

Slack-jawed and disbelieving, you decided to just.. not even try answering.

“Tell us if your ankle hurts,” Robby casually continued, glancing up at Jack; observing while abstractedly stroking your calf. Robby then placed a relatively chaste kiss on the inside of your knee, but it was Jack who asked, “You take your pain meds?”

You had to clear your throat pretty hard to get something to come out. “Yeah. After lunch. Doesn't hurt much.”

“Good girl,” Robby mumbled, lips trailing up your inner thigh. The mix of his beard and hot puffs of breath made you squirm; struggle to suppress a whine. 

Meanwhile, Jack’s fingers found either side of your jaw, turning you to face him. “Eyes on me, baby.”

Only then did it click. They were doctors. They knew every little thing about the biology of a human body just as well as you did; if not more. And they had decades of experience.

Shit.

Your mouth was occupied with messy kisses while Robby worked the same on his way up your thighs, mouthing and lapping at the saltiness. Jack kept a hand on your face and one trailing beneath your old T-shirt before flipping it up.

“You sensitive up here, baby?” he questioned, fingers brushing between the valley of your breasts to slip under your neckline and skim your jugular.

“Som—mmh..” your response dissolved into a moan as Robby cupped your clothed pussy, grounding the heel of his palm into your clit. 

He chuckled darkly. “She definitely is down here.”

A futile attempt at glaring down had Jack's grip tightening on your face, tongue clicking softly. “No. Answer me.”

Robby's finger hooked into the waistband of your shorts and you instinctively lifted your hips when he tugged. “S-sometimes.”

Jack began massaging your breast, bending to take it into his mouth while Robby yanked the garment down, draping the wounded leg over a broad shoulder. “Alright?”

You purred in preoccupied agreement, face buried in the side of Jack's head as he suckled on your taut nipple. “Mhm.. keep going,” you murmured to no one in particular.

“Cute panties,” Robby stated dryly, letting the lacy trim lightly snap against your skin. They were one of your most comfortable; dark red cotton with white lace. “I like the colour.”

You got to glare at him at last. Kicking him in the back with the heel of your good leg, you elicited a surprised laugh. “Fuck off.”

Jack abandoned your nipples in favour of kissing up your sternum and stripping your shirt fully off. “Sweetheart,” he uttered between the plethora of hickeys he was marring into your neck and collarbones. “Can I try something? Think you'd like it.”

Robby still hadn't gotten to where you wanted—his thumbs were merely kneading at the sides, barely even grazing your most sensitive. Yet, you were fairly sure you'd soaked through your underwear.

Jack straightened and tapped your cheek twice, harder than you expected from him. The silent command had you snapping out of your daze without a second thought.

His jaw tensed. “You listening? Stop getting distracted.”

You were perfectly capable of intubating someone while on the go, but how were you supposed to do that?

Robby finally dragged his thumb down your clothed slit, but it felt wrong to so blatantly whimper while staring into Jack's whirled, aggravated pupils. You opted for nodding frantically, grabbing his face and pressing an apologetic kiss to his lips. “Yes—yes. Whatever you want.”

He hummed into your mouth and licked into it, taking his time to make sure you felt how good he was with his tongue before withdrawing. His arm unfolded before you, the crook of his elbow settling directly under your chin.

You had to keep yourself from grinning. “Someone's been online.”

How many times had you caught yourself staring at those powerful, sun-freckled arms of his during an incision?

His other hand ran down your thigh, helping Robby in pushing your panties down. “I try.”

The giggle that tumbled out when he curled it was inevitable, squishing your face between his forearm and bicep—to which you clung and moaned into as Robby circled the pad of his thumb against your clit.  

“So fucking wet,” he groaned, wasting no time in leaning forward to flatten his tongue up your pussy, stopping to suckle on your puffy clit, gently swirling around the already throbbing nub. 

You whined, hands flying down to Robby's scalp, Jack's arm uncurling as your thighs tightened around his head. “Robby..”

“You like that?” he murmured condescendingly, not pulling back. His beard only added to the sensation of him eating you out; progressively insatiable; a thick finger easing inside of you, followed by another when you sucked him in with scarce friction. 

Jack traded an almost imperceptible glance with him, and you somehow caught it.

“It feels like—mmh—fuuuckk..” Robby started crooking and uncrooking his fingers, the callouses stimulating your G-spot in a way yours never could. Your hips bucked against his face, walls clamping down as he licked in expansive circles, letting his mouth envelop you. 

“Feels like what, sweetheart?” Jack cooed, lips brushing tantalisingly across your face, breath warm. You almost felt bad for him and the lack of stimulation he was receiving.

But it wasn't like you could do anything in this state.

“Like—oh.. you're plotting something. Wh-when you do that.”

Robby's fingers pumped faster, more precisely, adding a third with little resistance and burying his face further into you while shaking his head, tongue moving with single-minded focus. You cried out, grip falling to the back of his head.

“Shiiitt.. g-gonna come. Fuck—!”

The slurping between your legs reached its climax just as you did, white-hot stars bursting into fragments beneath your eyelids as your back bowed from the couch, feeling as Robby's beard rubbed your inner thighs to redness; as Jack placed a steadying palm on your stomach.

You didn't know how you came down or when it even happened. All you knew was that you suddenly weren't floating anymore, Robby's fingers had finally pulled out, and now he was staring straight at you with them dripping right in front of your face, elbows propped on your upper thighs. His beard was glistening.

Actually, both of them were staring at you.

Flames stoked up your neck. The neurotransmitters in your brain were fried and unable to give you a proper response, so all that came out was a meek, “..What?”

“What toys do you use?” Jack asked hoarsely, glancing at the mess you made.

“Uhm.. I don't.” Your face got hotter. “Never found the need for them.”

He exchanged another look with Robby. Something smugger. “Right. Okay.”

Robby moved your legs off his shoulders and got to his feet, placing his clean hand on the couch to stabilise himself. “Ankle okay?”

You nodded, regaining some sense of self and smirking up at him roguishly. “How're your knees?”

He reached out to run a thumb down your lip, coaxing your mouth open and dragging his wet fingers across your tongue. “Don't get smart with me.”

You moaned and took his fingers deeper, sucking them clean. He seemed entranced, watching the string of saliva dissolve when he pulled away. 

Jack stood abruptly; scooped you up with ease and kissed you again—rougher, deep groans into your mouth—tasting what the other attending had so much of. Your arms automatically encircled his neck. 

“Fuck,” he muttered between hungry pecks, making his way to your bedroom with Robby trailing behind him. “Greedy guy, keeping you all to himself.”

“Heard that,” came a gravelly voice. 

“You were meant to,” Jack retorted over his shoulder, toeing the door open.

He laid you out on your back parallel to the headboard, head almost dangling off the edge. Hands—palming at your breasts, tweaking your nipples—slowly made their way up, taking yours with him to place on his belt.

His tone was husky and cracked, almost desperate. “Can I fuck your throat, baby? Please?” 

You were already getting to work, letting the clink of his belt; the quiet mechanical rasp of his fly sliding down serve as an answer. How many times had you imagined tasting Jack Abbot?

You eagerly tugged at his pants, mouth already watering as you pressed your fingers to the imprint of his cock, squeezing in a way that had him gripping your wrist, but not to stop you. Your hands then trekked up, above the tantalising trail of grey leading downwards, under his shirt to scrape at his waist and along the ridges of his stomach.

“Take your shirt off.”

He huffed out his nose, reaching to yank the shirt off his back. “Yes, ma’am.”

You laughed lightly, humming a flat, “You should call me that at work,” before moving the waistband of his boxers down just enough to free his cock from its confines. 

All you could say was.. you hadn't expected any less from a man like him.

He was painfully hard and leaking, tip flushed a light red with a vein tracing up his shaft. A hand cupped the back of your head and pulled you nearer, the head of his cock brushing against your lips. 

“Smack me if you need a break, alright?”

You nodded absentmindedly, eyes landing on his leg. You sat up on your elbows and sheepishly turned to look up at him.

“Wait,” you paused, brows furrowed as you gestured at the prosthetic. “Do—do you need to, uh.. take it off?”

He pushed you back down with a hand on your chest. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Haven't been wearing it long. And I do not—” he supported your head again as he sunk into your mouth, a little deeper than before. “Want to miss this,” he grunted.

Your grip came up to his hips, eyes flickering shut at the heady—pun intended—and silken taste of him. You heard a strained “fuuckk..” from above you, feeling his length gradually sink deeper until the halfway point. By then, you knew it'd be a concerted effort to take him fully while.. well, upside down, but you'd be damned if you said you didn't want to.

The mattress dipped where your legs were; a big hand tracked up your bare thigh; coarse hair scratched up your torso and up your chest, leaving wet kisses along your stomach before liquid warmth closed around your nipple.

You whined, thighs pressing together underneath him, pushing your ass down into the bed in search of friction as Jack began thrusting into your mouth. 

You could feel Robby's eyes burning holes into the line of your throat, the way it contracted when you gagged and swallowed.

“Taking it like a fucking champ, huh?”

You could've come—untouched—right there. 

How were you ever gonna survive hearing that at work from now on?

His hand skated up your skin to just hold your neck, feeling Jack's cock slide in and out. “Ever gonna let me do this?”

Jack adjusted your head, scarcely picking up the pace, his tone low and strained, “You had your fun, brother. Don't get jealous now." His thumb joined Robby's hold on your throat, grazing the top of where your trachea was tangible.

“Just saying,” Robby muttered, retracting his touch in favour of kneading your breasts. He seemed to like off-putting what you really wanted, considering you could feel his knee between yours, just out of reach. 

“I feel like I deserve something in return for giving you the best head of your life.”

You moaned at the statement just as Jack tensed and pulled out, orgasm approaching faster than he liked. “Shit, baby,” he panted, squeezing his base to stave it off as he dragged his tip across your tongue, over your swollen lips. “Too fuckin’ good.”

A giggle tumbled out of you. “Is that a bad thing?”

His hold on your nape relented. “Anything but.” He mirrored your laugh at the pout you gave him when he urged you back up into a sitting position.

Robby's fingers immediately closed around your face, digging into your cheeks. His pupils were blown out and borderline scary, but so carnal, so hungry, you couldn't find yourself feeling anything but even more aroused. His nostrils flared, heavy breaths puffing out in quick bursts. 

You knew he wanted an answer.

And you were emboldened by the prospect of getting your brains fucked out.

“You won't get anything with that ego of yours, Robinavitch.”

His eyebrow quirked in challenge, heat licking up your spine at the danger in his gaze, the steadiness of his voice. 

“You think my ego is big?”

A smirk tugged on your mouth, revelling at how you could feel the sore muscles moving beneath his grip. “D’you plan on proving to me it's not the only thing that is?”

“Oh-ho,” he got out through gritted teeth, irritation apparent.

One moment you were in his iron grasp, the other you'd been manhandled and jostled; flipped onto your stomach and dragged to the opposite edge of the bed. He made sure your injured foot didn't hit the floor like the other, instead shoving it up, bent towards your chest to keep it from dangling.

As an added benefit, the position had your dripping pussy on full display for him.

A hand came down onto your ass with a resounding thwack. You yelped, jolted forward, fingers grappling at the sheets. 

“Do I?” He let it sting for longer than you would've liked, before massaging it to soothe the blooming heat.

The frantic clink of a belt, the shuffle of fabric being pushed down. He leant over you, forearms against the bed, chest hair peppering deliciously against your back.

Smack. Harder.

“Can you feel it, baby?” The tent in his boxers just barely ground into your pussy, making you whimper and clench around nothing. 

Smack.

“Do I still need to prove it?”

Smack—before the hand travelled up and into your hair, tangling in the locks to carelessly tug your head up.

Jack Abbot sat in your beige Ikea desk chair, a fist wrapped around his thick cock, languidly moving it up and down with a blissful yet smug expression on his face.

Robby bent lower, voice gravelly in your ear, “All for you, champ.”

One of your hands clutched at his bicep, trying to reach further down for the waistband of his boxers. His grip stopped yours, pinning both your wrists above your head.

“I was under the impression you didn't want me to fuck you?”

Your fight was definitely wavering, but not yet. Even if it did cost you more torture. “What makes you think I want you to?” you spat back.

The fingers in your hair moved to close around your throat, putting just enough pressure for you to choke back a gasp, eyes fluttering shut.

“You may be one of my brightest at work,” his grasp eased and withdrew, letting your head fall down into the mattress. “But rhetorics won't be of any use here, baby.”

He was pressed right up against your back, so you could feel when he pushed his boxers down, freeing his cock from its confines. 

His free hand appeared in front of your face again.

“Spit.”

You lifted your head from the sheets, catching a glimpse of Jack with his neck craned back, squeezing the base of his cock. You wanted to retort, but any more of this and you'd actually end up coming without any stimulation.

Reluctantly, you relaxed your jaw, letting saliva pool into your mouth, before opening it to let your spit drip onto his palm.

“Good girl,” he cooed, retracting his hand. You heard the telltale groan he let out as he spread it all over his cock; the wetness of him stroking himself. He let go of your wrists, reassuringly squeezing them briefly before pulling away.

His voice was more chaste. “Condoms?”

Fuck. 

You were too deep in your lust-filled haze to even think about not doing it.. raw. And you still were, because you barely registered how irrational it sounded when you stated—

“I-I have an implant.”

Silence. From the other side of the room too.

“I know, baby.” He cleared his throat, voice now strained. “You of all people should know why I'm asking.”

You whined, burying your face in the sheets as you pushed your ass back, grinding into his thickness. “Please, Robby.”

He let out a throaty groan, hand heavily landing somewhere beside you to stabilise himself. “Are you sure, sweetheart?”

He guided the head of his cock to gather your wetness and rub it into your throbbing clit. “Haa.. fuck—yes, please, Robby.” 

He groaned, tapping his cock against your pussy. “She's leaking, baby.”

You swore you felt the beginnings of an orgasm wash over you the moment he began inching into you, hands pressed into your waist, pushing you into the bed. 

“Look at me,” a further voice uttered.

Your head lifted again, bleary-eyed as you looked over at Jack. If you'd been enduring torture, what was he going through?

He really did have the willpower of a veteran.

Even with how soaked you were, you still felt the deliciously immense pressure of Robby's cock bullying its way past your walls. His hands skated down your back to knead your ass, spreading you apart.

“So fucking—” he buried himself to the hilt with a final drive in. “Tight.”

You cried out, tears seeping from the corners of your eyes as you pressed them shut. It didn't hurt, no, it was just.. a little uncomfortable. How could it not be when he was so deep you could almost feel it in your guts?

Two clicks of a tongue and you were looking back up at Jack with glassy eyes.

If you thought he enjoyed seeing you slowly losing your mind getting speared on the other attending’s cock, you could've only imagined what was added when he saw the shininess of your gaze.

Robby was panting, not moving, letting you acclimate to his size. The look on Jack's face couldn't have gotten any smugger. “Enjoying yourself?”

Robby slowly dragged himself out, leaving only the tip in before slamming into you with one stroke, forcing a whimper from your throat and a grunt from his. 

Your chin dug into the mattress as you tried to keep your eyes open and on Jack. He was glad you got the gist. “How—mmh.. are you—” you swallowed as Robby bracketed your torso with his forearms again. “Just.. watching?”

Robby's fingers wound across your jaw to pull you up, turning you so he could kiss you soft and sweet as he started to set a brutally slow pace that surged you forward with every thrust; that had him feeling every inch of you wrapped around him so warmly. 

“Safe word?” he mumbled against your lips, so close your breaths mingled. 

You were so deep in your sexual relief you once again forgot the small probability of this going south. 

“Uhm..” you spared a glance at Jack; patiently waiting for you to put your focus back on him. “Is it weird if I say hula hoop?”

He huffed incredulously, watching your dilated pupils like he would with a penlight. “Unless you want me thinking about this when our staff gets assaulted, then no.”

“You still will.” You whined, sensing his shift in speed. “But—fuck—uh.. watermelon?”

You took his smirk as acknowledgement. He placed a lingering kiss to your mouth before turning you to face Jack again, not letting go of your jaw. 

“I like to,” Jack continued, seemingly unfazed. Something flashed behind his eyes when Robby gave a particularly hard thrust, setting a more consistent, rough pace that had you moaning obscenely every jolt.

“And it helps me gauge what you like so I can fuck you better.”

You couldn't seem to process what he was saying anymore. 

Not with how your brain was short-circuiting, sparking like metal against metal at the knot latching into place in your stomach, at the sexiness of Jack's voice dirty-talking you. Robby let go of your jaw, and you buried your face into the sheets, suppressing your noises alongside every creak the mattress emitted.

He heaved against your back, grunting in time with each smack his pelvis gave to your ass. 

You couldn't help but imagine what Jack would do to you if Robby was already fucking you this good.

Lips trailed along the shell of your ear just as a strong arm wrapped around the circumference of your neck, putting you in a headlock and pulling you upright. The new angle had the head of his cock ramming into your G-spot with every pass. 

Sirens went off in your head when you felt something different but not unpleasurable, and you were just about to ask him to stop when—

“Have you squirted before?”

Oh.

“H-Huh?” you tried choking out; it merely ended up sounding like a moan you would hear in some low-budget porn. “No—Robby..”

His free hand trailed down your front, pressing his palm into your lower stomach. “Do you want to?”

He took your lack of a real answer as a yes. Four of his fingers tracked down, giving your clit a couple of hard pats that had you yelping before quickly starting to swipe them side-to-side, the lewd sounds of your arousal now echoing throughout the small room.

Was Jack still only watching?

Your own hands grappled at the arm around your neck, nails marring deep crescents where short red trails then followed. 

It was such an odd feeling, you instinctively tried to squirm away, thighs trembling when he went shallower, slamming directly into your G-spot. “Fuck, Robby.. wait, wait—”

He shook his head, beard scratching your shoulder as his teeth grazed over the clammy skin, all focus oriented on making you come like you literally never had before. His movements on your clit slowed into soft circles, but his hips were still relentless.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he murmured condescendingly, putting pressure on your stomach with the heel of his hand. “Let go. Come for us.”

Us.

That was what had you soaking the sheets and his cock; liquid gushing from between your legs and running down your thighs as you tensed in his hold, stuffing your face in the crook of his elbow while he fucked you through it.

“Ffuuck, baby—” You could feel the smile against your skin. “Attagirl. Keep going—shiit..”

He gave you two deep, harsh thrusts that'd given you a glimpse of overstimulation before pulling out and fucking into his fist, teeth leaving marks in the meat of your shoulder as he groaned hoarsely, leaving stripes of white across your back.

His arm uncurled, lowering you until you collapsed onto the bed. You hauled your normal leg up to fold under the injured one—which you were surprised to find was not asleep—thoroughly spent but thoroughly satiated.

The abused mattress dipped on the opposite side, and you found yourself being guided by a panting and slightly sweaty Jack Abbot up to the head of the bed.

Your eyelids were heavy despite the scorching sun outside as you laid your cheek upon his rising and falling chest, relishing the difference in scent.

He stroked and gently untangled your knotted hair; massaged your scalp; brushed his lips over your perspirated forehead. “You did so good for us, sweetheart.”

You huffed softly, squinting up at him. “You should join sometime.”

“Oh, I will.”

“Did you even—”

Your eyes then deviated to the small pile of tissues on your nightstand. And also the prosthetic propped up against it.

“Oh. Nevermind.” 

You scooched up, nuzzling your face into his neck before Robby appeared out of nowhere, springs creaking in protest as he knelt beside you with a dampened towel. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your cheek before sitting back to clean you up. 

He tossed the towel to the side, finally settling down on your other side; his front against your back, his palm running over the curve of your waist. 

“Do you own a caution wet floor sign by any chance?”

You elbowed him in the ribs as hard as you could.

“I’m never having sex with you ever again.”

Jack's shoulders shook beneath your chin as he laughed, and his arm moved from where it was in your hair.

What the fuck?

You lifted your head and looked between the two of them. “Did you guys just fucking fist bump?”

Jack smiled into your hair, briefly wrapping you up in his arms as consolation. “Are we not allowed to?”

You hit him too. In the solid wall of his chest. “I don't think it really comes with the customs of a threesome.”

“Sorry, boss.” Robby muttered flatly, pecking along the backs of your shoulders, thumbing the bite mark he left. 

He turned you over by the waist. He probably had enough of the back of you, and Jack was probably glad he finally got to feel your ass against him. “Are you okay? Did I go too hard?”

Your eyes softened as you reached out to feel his beard beneath your hands. “I'm okay. Are you?”

He nodded, leaning into your touch and looking at you with such affection it almost made you melt. “Ankle?”

“Kinda hurts. I have a spare ice pack in the freezer.” 

You glanced at Jack, suppressing a laugh.

“Not it,” you both said in unison.

Robby was already sitting up. “No shit, Sherlock.”

Your eyes lit up. “I was reading one of those, actually. Could you get that too?”

He stopped at the door with his back against it. The sight of him in only black boxers—silhouetted so largely against the white—almost made you want to pounce on him again. 

“I'll get you a glass of water and your coffee and take you to pee after too. Sound good, champ?”

You sidled back up into Jack, trying to stop yourself from grinning. “Thanks, chief.”

—

You woke up alone; groggy and disoriented and sore. You couldn't tell if the sun was rising or setting, if what happened was some really vivid, painkiller-induced wet dream.

The sun filtering through the blinds bathed your lower body in misshapen gold stripes, one of them falling precisely along your wounded ankle, illuminating the gel ice pack strapped to it and the pile of pillows underneath it.

So it wasn't a dream. And it wasn't morning.

All at once, it came rushing back to you as you sat up on your elbows. Your beige desk chair had been tucked back in, your hair towel draped along the back, a grey hoodie and a black T-shirt folded and stacked neatly upon the seat.

At your nightstand, Jack's prosthetic and pile of tissues were gone—replaced by your crutches and now watery Americano—but only now did you notice the tan-strapped Seiko wristwatch next to your lamp.

The painkillers had worn off, and the sharp pain was sorely apparent when you dragged yourself out of bed to hobble toward the door with the crutches carelessly tucked under your armpits.

As you softly pushed the door shut behind you, the familiar aroma of fresh bread wafted through the air, as if you lived in an obscure cottage in Montana and not in an overpriced apartment in downtown Pittsburgh.

You hopped to the kitchen. 

You were greeted by the sight of the PTMC’S day and night shift attendings; both shirtless and both now staring at you, sitting at your island.

You halted in your tracks, dumbstruck.

What the fuck?

There was no doubt in how comical your expression probably was when you spotted the pasta on the plates in front of them, the steaming pan with one more portion in it.

“Good evening,” Jack said breezily.

You shook your head and seriously considered going back to bed when you heard the old Bruce Springsteen song playing faintly from his phone.

“I didn't know Magic Mike did at-home performances.” 

You started toward them again, making your way to the oven. Robby stopped you and stood, taking your crutches and helping you sit instead. 

“It's more like Make-A-Wish. Since you're injured."

You watched as he bent to take your Primanti's out the oven and almost moaned when Jack began kneading your shoulders.

“That's weird. I just feel like I'm in a porn magazine.” Robby set the box in front of you, moving his plate out the way. You opened it and immediately dug in, groaning as the flavours hit your tongue.

“Please put your tits away,” you said, swallowing and pointedly glancing back at Jack. “Especially you. I'm very distracted.”

Robby blew smoke from the red-sauced pasta twirled around his fork before holding it in front of you. “Eat this first.”

You opened your mouth, letting him feed it to you and wipe some tomato off the corner of your lip. You cocked an eyebrow, chewing slowly. “Fuck, that's good. Who made this?”

A kiss was pressed into your hair as Jack got up and headed for the bedroom. “I did.”

“I might have to blow you,” you replied, voice raised so he could hear you from the room.

He chuckled as he pulled his shirt on, tossing Robby his hoodie. “I'm definitely not opposed.”

You smiled lightly, trailing him as he took his place behind you again, melting into him when he resumed massaging you. Robby leaned in to kiss you tenderly, pushing hair from your face.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like I need my meds,” you muttered, getting one last peck in before he pulled away. “Did you guys not sleep?”

Robby diverted his attention back to the food. “I did on the couch, for a bit.”

You frowned a little, unbidden disappointment twinging your throat, whether from the fact he slept separately, or the fact you passed out for so long. 

“And you woke up before me?”

He smirked. “Seems so.”

You briefly scrunched your nose. “That's embarrassing.”

Jack reached across the island for your painkillers, pushing you his half-full glass of water. “Eat.”

You eyed the rows of small, round pills. Both their eyes were on you too. You'd come full circle; both of them were in your space, expressing concern over the pain you were in.

The other pills in the foil rattled as you popped two out, casting a sidelong glance at Jack.

“Yes, chef.”

The original Post by Spookypeachpitt13

And what if Robby accidentally sent you two texts back to back that he meant to send Jack.

And what if those texts were not only sexual, but possessive and fucking borderline

And what if they turned you on?

And what if the texts said:

-There’s just something about those handful tits and those fucking hips that make me wanna keep fucking babies into her, man. Jesus Christ…imagine her breasts all fucking full…her belly all swollen? And I have to watch these small dick EMTs fail to hit on her all day?

- one night, that’s all I need. I’ll fuck into her so deep, she’ll be calling me in 5 weeks telling me she’s late …those fuckboys won’t look at her ever again.

You sat cross-legged on your bed in your old PITT t-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts. The phone burned in your hand and every time your thumb woke it up, the two texts from Robby filled the screen. They weren’t meant for you, you knew they’d probably been intended for Abbot. And nothing said they were about you. He didn’t mention your name or even that you were a resident but somehow you knew. You’d caught the older man staring at you one too many times for it to be innocent. And then there was the glare he’d given the two idiot EMTs that had flirted with you yesterday.

You read the first message again, biting your lip. The way he said it—fucking babies into her. Breasts full. Belly swollen. Jesus fucking Christ. You’d been the kid who’d googled ‘pregnancy kink’ at thirteen and hated yourself for it. You’d apparently evolved only far enough to know to delete your search history. Heat started low in your belly and climbed up, prickling your skin and making your neck flush with color.

It would be so easy to ignore. Pretend you hadn’t seen it. But the way your nipples pressed against your threadbare bra and the sweat slicking your palms told the truth. You were incredibly turned on.

You hit reply, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

Nothing.

You tried again, deleting every attempt. Sorry, wrong number lasted all of three seconds before you erased it. You weren’t sorry. You were fucking thrilled he’d sent them to you, even if you were trembling with nerves because of it. What would the right response be? What would make Robby see you as the perfect little slut? You’d never been that kind of girl, had never even been tempted. Until now.

Robby glanced at the time to find the end of his shift was creeping ever closer. His phone buzzed against his thigh and he thumbed open the lock screen. Three new messages, your name at the top. He licked his lips as his brain immediately turned to the rather vivid fantasies he’d been having of you all day.

The first five words were enough to spike his blood pressure. I want that so bad.

He sucked in a breath and scrolled through the previous messages. Shit. Those hadn’t been meant for you. He’d been blowing off steam to Jack after walking around half-hard all shift thinking of you. Jesus, you could have ended his whole career with one screen shot. But you’d replied. Holy shit, you’d replied.

He scrolled to the bottom, desperate to see all your messages.

I want that so bad.

I want you to do it all. I want to feel you dripping out of me.

Make me yours.

His cock hardened with one involuntary twitch, sending a surge up heat up his spine. His brain short-circuited. You wanted this as much as he did.

God, I’m dripping just thinking about it. Never been this wet before.

He had to move. Now.

He told Dana he was taking ten and hurried down the hall before ducking into the supply closet. He braced both hands on the shelving and sucked in a deep breath. His cock was straining, so fucking hard it hurt. He wanted you under him, over him, straddling his lap, bent over the bed in the on-call room, biting your own hand to keep from screaming as he drove into you. He wanted to ruin you. Make sure you never thought of anyone else ever again. Shit. Fuck.

He reread your last message. Never been this wet before.

His hands shook with need as he composed his response.

You have no idea what I want to do to you right now. How bad I want to fuck you. To put my hand around your throat and my mouth on your tits while my cock is so deep that you can’t think. I won’t stop even if you beg. You’ll be full of me for days.

Your response was simple and did absolutely nothing to calm him down.

Please

He had to keep pushing, to know you wanted this as badly as he did.

I want to see all of you. I want your tits in my hands, your mouth on my cock. Want you begging me to put a baby in you like I need to breathe. I want you to ride me until you can’t take anymore then I’ll hold you down and fuck you until you cum again. You’d look so perfect. Fucked out. Messy. Mine.

A beat passed then two as Robby pressed the heel of his hand into his erection, feeling the throb with every heartbeat. Then your response came, stealing his breath. Nothing more than an address, your address he assumed. Fuck yes.

Oh baby. You’re mine now.

By the time the knock came on the door, you’d cleaned your apartment twice, and given yourself a lengthy peptalk in the mirror. You’d dug out the lacy black underwear and bra you’d bought for a date you never went on then dispensed with the bra completely. You debated on what to wear before just slipping your t-shirt and shorts back on. Robby might as well see the real you, the comfortable you. Besides, you hoped you wouldn’t be wearing them very long.

You licked your lips and took a deep breath before swinging open the door. You had half a second to run your gaze over him before he stepped into your space, crowding you backward until he could kick the door shut and flip the lock. His hair was wet and his scrubs were clean so he must have showered in the on-call room and come straight from work.

In a blink he was on you, your shirt fisted in his hand as he used his grip to slam you into the wall, the air whooshing from your lungs. You made a sound, part gasp, part nervous giggle. His kiss landed hard enough to hurt, all teeth, tongue and bruised lips, like he was daring you to fight back. You moaned into the kiss, letting yourself sag against him. His beard rasped against your chin as his hand left your shirt to curl around your hip, thumb digging into your flesh hard enough to bruise.

He tasted like coffee and that nicotine gum he seemed to always be chewing. He pushed in closer, pressing his body to yours, every inch of him against your curves. You felt the heat of him, the way his chest rose and fell in quick, uneven bursts. He caught your wrists and pinned them overhead with one large hand, flattening you to the drywall. His other hand slid under the hem of your t-shirt and traced your side, palm greedy, warm, catching the underside of your bare breast.

You whimpered, twisting in his grip, wanting more, needing more. He smiled slow and dangerous at the sound. “Is my poor baby feeling needy?”

You nodded frantic.

He kissed you again, rougher. His hips pressed forward, pinning your pelvis, the length of his hard cock sending heat straight through your core. You writhed, helpless, needy, and his hand shifted to cup your breast, cradling the weight of it. His thumb circled your nipple until it peaked so hard it ached.

“Fuck,” you gasped, arching your back.

He grinned, nipped your lower lip hard enough to sting then growled in your ear. “Say it again. Louder.”

You barely managed it. “Fuck.”

“That’s more like it.” He shoved your legs apart with his knee, making room for himself. “I want to hear every filthy thing you utter.”

His mouth worked down your throat, biting and sucking a path from your jaw to your collarbone. He was marking you up and just the thought of him being that possessive over you lit up every nerve in your body. You wanted to mark him back, to claw at his back until red furrows colored his skin, but he had you trapped, your wrists pinned.

“Let go,” you protested but didn’t mean it.

“No.” He nipped at your neck again before spinning you away from the wall. His grip on your wrists never faltered as he walked you backward down the hallway, his body pushing you. Your bedroom was easy to find and he paused just inside the doorway to take everything in. You’d left the bed unmade, hadn’t seen the point after the texts.

He pulled you close, hips grinding into yours. His lips found your ear, voice gruff and low. “Did you touch yourself after you got my texts, pretty girl? Did you think about me while you did it?”

Your face burned. You tried to shake your head but he caught your chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing you to look at him. “Liar.” His mouth crashed against yours again. His free hand squeezed your ass, the grip tight, bruising. He bit at your ear. He let go of your wrists, just for a second, and your hands immediately found his waist, pulling him closer. His cock, hard as steel, pressed into your belly and your body went molten at the thought of it finally inside of you, filling you. It took everything in you not to whimper.

He pushed your shirt up and over your head. His gaze feasting at the exposed the flesh. “Fuck. Look at you. Fucking beautiful.”

You wanted to cover yourself, suddenly shy, but he caught your wrists again, pinning them behind your back this time. He pressed them against your back, making you arch into him. He dropped his head, sucking one erect nipple into his mouth, his beard irritating the skin around it. His tongue lapped the tip, once, twice. Then he bit down, gently at first then harder until you gasped at the flood of pleasure that went through you with the pain.

He released you only long enough to strip your shorts and panties in one swift movement. The heat in his eyes burnt away every ounce of your self-consciousness. He leaned in, hand sliding up your inner thigh and dragged two long fingers along your slit. “You are fucking dripping.” He gave you a smirk full of evil intentions. “You are such a mess.”

You trembled. “Only for you, Michael.” You’d never called him by his first name before but it felt wrong to call him Robby when you stood nude before him.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back with a groan. When he looked at you again, his eyes were nearly black with want. He slipped his fingers into his mouth, tasting you, then smiled wide.

“Pretty girl,” he said, “you have no idea what I’m about to do to you. He pulled off his scrub top, revealing a chest lightly dusted with hair. He peeled off the pants and boxer briefs, cock springing free, long and thick. Saliva pooled in your mouth at the sight. You’d always assumed, imagined he was packing, but damn.

He steered you to the bed, following you down and caging your body in with his. He hovered over you, breath fanning your face. “This what you wanted?”

You nodded.

“Need to hear you say it.”

“Yes. God, yes,” you stuttered out.

He kissed you again, gentler this time, then trailed his lips down your throat, over your breasts and down to your belly. He paused at the curve of your hip and gave you a wicked grin before hooking your knees over his shoulders. His lips grazed the thick, swollen heat of you. His tongue was rough, practiced, relentless and you cried out loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Not that you gave a shit.

He worked you with his mouth and fingers until you were begging, clawing the sheets and rocking your hips into his face. “Please. Please. Please,” you repeated over and over, unsure what you were even asking for. Release. Mercy. More. You’d take it all.

His beard glistened when he looked up at you and smiled. “Louder.”

You obeyed.

He continued with his exquisite torture until you broke apart with a shuddering, gasping breath. He watched, eyes bright, grin feral as if this was everything he’d ever wanted. He moved up your body, lining himself up with your entrance. “Ready for me?”

“So ready,” you breathed.

He smiled, cruel and sweet at once. “Good girl.”

He filled you slow, savoring the slide, the way your body struggled to stretch around him. He was thick. God, he was so thick. A stinging ache filled your core as your body accommodated him. You gasped, nails digging into his shoulders, biting deep. Robby braced himself above you, face so close you could see flecks of gold in his eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” he grunted, the words barely more than a breath. “You’re so fucking perfect.”

You swore you could feel him in your belly by the time he bottomed out. His hips were flush to yours, pelvis grinding into your clit. You moaned at the feeling of him so deep inside. You expected him to fuck you hard. To take what he wanted. Instead, he held you down, pinning you to the mattress with the full weight of his body.

He pulled out, then drove back in slowly, making your feel every millimeter. You squirmed and he just smiled before setting a punishing rhythm. He leaned down, bracing on one elbow and captured your nipple between his teeth, biting just shy of too hard, then soothed it with his tongue. His other hand gripped your thigh, fingers digging in, spreading you wider for him.

He fucked you like that for what felt like forever, always slowing his pace when you neared the brink of release. Denying you the one thing you craved. You whined, writhing under him as he did it again. He grinned and shook his head as he pulled out. “Not yet, pretty girl.”

He flipped you easily, rolling you onto your stomach and dragging your hips up so you were braced on all fours. He knelt behind you and you swore you could feel his eyes raking over you. He ran his hands over your curves, squeezing and spreading, thumbs digging into the dimples at the base of your spine.

“Fuck, look at this ass.” He sounded almost reverent. “It’s even better than I imagined.”

He bent over you, beard scratching as he bit the soft flesh of your ass hard enough to leave a mark. You yelped, the sting blooming into heat. He laughed, low and delighted, then slid his fingers between your thighs, spreading you wide.

“Fuck.” His voice was ragged. He traced circles around your clit, teasing, never giving you enough to let go, keeping you right at the edge. He shifted, his large hands wrapping around your hips, and drove into you with enough force you swore you could feel his cock in your throat. You released a strangled cry. He pounded into you, obscene sounds filling the air. “You ready to cum, baby?”

“Yes,” you panted. “Please.”

He chuckled, then reached around to rub your clit fast and rough. The sensation toppled you over the edge. You screamed, body convulsing, muscles clamping down so hard you felt him shudder and curse behind you. He fucked you through it, relentless. One hand traced your spine and slid around to your throat. Not choking, just holding, reminding you who was in charge. “Want me to cum in you?” he demanded, voice gravel. “Want me to fuck a baby into you, like I promised?”

You moaned, a desperate plea.

“Say it.” The fingers at your throat tightened just a little.

You gasped. “Want you to—fuck—fill me up. Want you to—ruin me—please, Michael, please.”

He groaned, the sound half animal. “You’re going to take all of it. Every fucking drop. You hear me?”

You nodded, tears blurring your vision. “Yes. Yes, please. I want it.”

He kept fucking you, harder, faster. He let go of your neck just long enough to reach around and rub your clit again and you shattered. You screamed his name, raw and helpless. He came a second later, hips jerking, cock throbbing inside of you. Hot liquid filled you and Robby stayed buried deep inside. His forehead pressed against your back as he panted, both of you shaking.

When you collapsed, he followed, not letting go. He kissed your shoulder, gentle now. “You’re mine.” It wasn’t a question.

You turned your head to look at him. “All yours.”

His smile was radiant. “Good girl.” He pulled out slow and careful and wetness dripped down your thigh. You shivered, already aching for me. Wanting him to fill you until you barely remembered your own name.

He rolled you onto your back, then leaned down and kissed every mark he’d left on your skin. He kissed your lips last, soft and sweet then rested his forehead against yours as the two of you waited for your heartbeat to return to normal.

You looked at this man, who had ruined you in the absolute best way and grinned.

It had been six weeks since Dr. Michael Robinavitch ruined you for all other men and you hadn’t spent a night alone since. He was doing his best to be a man of his word, filling you up at every opportunity. You’d done your best to remain professional at work, not wanting to deal with Gloria and her HR bullshit, but he didn’t make it easy.

Stepping up behind you while you were charting, lips centimeters from your ear as he murmured a correction or asked a question.

Placing a hand on your back as he passed behind you, or reached for something. Never necessary but he did, palm heavy and hot enough to be felt through two layers of clothing. The heat lingering long after he’d moved on.

Dark eyes, following you as you moved through the department. Winking when he caught you watching him.

Hands on yours, body curled around you as he guided you through a procedure.

He did not play fucking fair.

You stood at the hub entering information on a patient waiting for a bed upstairs when two EMTs approached you. You’d seen them before. Both of them quick with an easy smile that said they were sure they were god’s gift to woman. Both of them wrong.

The first one, buzz cut and blond, leaned on the counter beside you with one elbow. There was that stupid grin. “Some of the crew is getting together at Duke’s for drinks tonight. You should come. Unless you have plans with someone less interesting.”

You didn’t look up, just signed off on the chart before flipping to a new patient. “Not really my scene.”

His partner leaned in from beside him. “Come on. You’ll have a good time. Promise.” His eyes made a slow crawl from your head to your toes, pausing on your tits and licking his lips. “I wasn’t aware you could get scrubs that fit like that.”

You forced a smile to keep from kneeing him in the groin. “Maybe you should get back to work instead of spending your time gawking at me.”

He put a hand to his heart, mock offended. “I’m a professional. I never gawk, I admire.”

Buzzcut butted in. “Seriously though, you should come tonight. Bring a friend if you’re worried.”

The air changed before you heard the footsteps, the entire hub going suddenly quiet. You didn’t have to look to know who was there.

Robby didn’t say a word at first, just braced one hand on the counter as he loomed behind you. The medics shrank back half an inch. Not far enough.

He spoke in a low rumble. “You fellas need something or are you just bored?”

Buzzcut coughed into his hand. “Just being friendly, doc.”

Robby’s gaze never left his face. “Uh huh. Well, we have patients to see and I don’t see any point to you loitering here.”

The partner tried to protest. “We were just chatting, man. Didn’t mean to clog your workflow.”

The smile that covered Robby’s face said that something very, very bad was about to happen. “Glad to hear it.”

He turned to you and his eyes softened. “You good?”

You nodded, but before you could say anything, the buzzcut idiot put a hand on your arm to get your attention. “Don’t forget, sweetheart, we’ll be at Duke’s anytime after six.”

Robby moved faster than you thought possible. In one motion, he had shoved the idiot’s hand off of you and stepped between you and the man in question. “Don’t fucking touch what’s not yours.” His voice was glacial. “She’s not your sweetheart, she’s mine. Find someone else to hit on.”

Their hands were up in a flash as they backed away. “No offense. We didn’t know.”

Robby leaned in. “Now you do.”

He didn’t even look at you, just staring them down until they retreated, not relaxing until they were gone. He turned to you then, running his gaze over you as if making certain you were okay. “I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry in the least.”

You wanted to be mad at him for destroying any semblance of privacy you’d had left. Instead, you only felt elated that he had so publicly claimed you. You glanced at Dana to find her watching the two of you with an amused smile playing on her lips. “We’ll be right back.”

“By all means take your time,” she said as she waved you off. “It’s not like we have beds to clear or anything.” You cringed but there was no heat in her words.

You grabbed the front of Robby’s hoodie and dragged him behind you to the supply closet. You pushed him inside and followed behind. As soon as the door clicked shut, his hands were on your hips—gripping, kneading.

“What the hell was that, Robby?”

He blinked, obviously not expecting a lecture. “He touched you.”

You huffed a laugh. “You just made a scene in the middle of the Pitt. HR is going to have an aneurysm.”

He stepped forward, crowding you. “I’m tired of pretending you’re just another resident.” He ran his nose along your neck, nipping your ear. “You’re not.”

You braced a hand on his chest, half to steady yourself, half to keep him from coming closer. “I’m just saying I would prefer not to be fired, thanks.”

He scoffed. “They wouldn’t dare. I’d go with you and they can’t lose me.”

You let him stew for a second then sighed. “You’re so fucking impatient,” you said with a roll of the eyes. “If you’d just waited a few more days, you could have announced our relationship with a lot more style.”

He pulled back, brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”

You hesitated, unsure if you wanted to tell him here. Fuck it. “I’m late.”

He stared. “For what?”

You laughed. “Not for an appointment, genius. Late-late. As in you finally fulfilled your promise to fuck a baby into me.”

His eyes went wide and his hand found your stomach. “You’re pregnant?”

You shrugged. “Bought a test. It’s in my locker.”

He exhaled, shaky, His hands slid around your waist, firmer this time. “Holy shit.”

You reached up and traced your thumb along the crease in his brow. “Don’t act so surprised. This was your whole goal, wasn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Are you sure?”

“Test first, but pretty sure.”

He nodded, breathing hard. “Okay.” A wide smile covered his face and he kissed you again, softer this time before leaning his forehead against yours. His hand covered your stomach again. “Mine.”

Despite the late hour, the waiting room had been packed and any glance your way felt like something intrusive and prodding. You had been fully ready to wait the whole night before you could be seen but after your vitals had been taken and triaged, the doctor had pushed you to the front of the line and into the next available room.

So here you sit, the paper beneath you crinkling every time you squirm and try to find a far more comfortable position before giving in entirely and leaning over to your side. You support yourself with your elbow and try to ignore the prodding pain in your backside.

"Good evening, I'm Dr. Abbot, what seems to be the problem?"

Your stomach drops; just your luck that the doctor assigned to help you fish out your newest toy is panty-dropping handsome. A silver fox through and through, he looks downright delectable with those large freckled arms that seem to be bursting through those black scrubs. If it had been any other day, you might've turned on the charm, flirt your way to a dinner date or more.

But it's 1:37 AM, you have a fuzzy, bunnytail plug stuck inside you and you're desperate to just get home without your asshole gaping.

"Um." You glance at the iPad in his hand, hoping that whoever saw you first recorded it in your chart so you wouldn't have to repeat yourself. But the handsome doctor is waiting patiently. "I have something… stuck inside me."

"Ah. I'll see what I can do. Roll over for me, sweetheart."

The night shift always brings on the weirdest cases that after all his years of working, nothing could phase him at this point. Seeing you, looking so uncomfortable and startled on the exam table, ranks so low on said weird cases that he misses the note Crus had left on your chart and went right in on the usual greeting.

"… what seems to be the problem—?"

Butt plug lodged in anus, patient reports mild pain and heavy discomfort.

Jack rereads the sentence a few times before he looks up at you. Pretty albeit shy, your cheeks flushed and your gaze seemingly land anywhere but him. When you listen and roll over onto your stomach, he swallows the instinctive 'good girl' that threatens to spill from his lips.

He tugs on a fresh pair of gloves, strengthening his spine and fortifying the usual mask of professionalism he wears. You're laid out on your stomach now, the blankets of the exam table tugged down to right below your ass. Before he could ask you to lift your hips, you do so on your own, knees spread apart.

Face down, ass up.

He swallows thickly as he gently nudges the seam of the hospital gown apart at your spine. What greets him has heat boiling in his gut: a fuzzy pink, bunny cottontail buttplug nestled right in between your asscheeks.

"Alright, I'm gonna touch you back here, see how deep it's in there before we try extraction," he murmurs. You whimper when he gives an experimental but gentle tug. "Is there any stinging sensation?"

"Nuh-uh," you mumble into the pillow.

Jack swallows again as the cottontail plug gives beneath his grip, his other hand pushing your left asscheek aside. "Let me know if I pull too hard, alright?"

You nod and he sees the way your moves against the pillow.

"Words, please."

Your thighs clench as you fight off the simmering heat that your frustratingly hot doctor starts with those two simple words. "Yes, I will." An honorific sits behind your teeth (daddy? sir? whichever, it seems to fit him regardless of what you use) but you swallow it down.

Meanwhile, Jack tries to ignore the tell-tale sheen between your thighs, keeps his gloved hands where they need to be. His mind races through horrific, bloody accidents of the week prior to keep his other head from wandering. "Good," he mutters.

Silence falls between you two as Jack gently adds medical-grade lubricant, apologizing at the cool temperature of it against your heated skin. After a few rotations of the plug, you clamp your teeth around the hospital gown to stifle any wayward moans.

"Mm—" You whimper anyways and Jack stills. "I'm okay—! Just, uh— is it almost out?"

Jack clears his throat; he's grateful you can't see him or the creeping blush up his neck. "Almost. I gotta take it slow to avoid any possible injuries."

The thought makes you lightheaded but you ground yourself back into reality before your mind can start jumping to worst case scenarios. "That makes sense."

He twists the plug and a flare of arousal blooms in your core, more pleasure than pain now. "So," he clears his throat again, an attempt at normalcy. "What do you do for work?" He mentally pats himself on the back at the inane question, hoping it'll be enough to distract you as he attempts at another tug.

You squeak anyways as your ring of muscles expand at the widest part of the plug. Jack adds more lubricant. "This," you manage to say.

Jack's dick gives a willfull throb but he forces it down with the degloving case from the night before. "O-Oh?"

"I… stream? I'm an adult streamer, oh fuck—!"

Your ass is gaping slightly as Jack inadvertently tugs the whole plug out with little warning, an involuntary reaction from your reveal. "Shit— sorry, sweetheart. Don't move—"

The silicone toy hits the metal tray beside you in a dull thud, the fluffy end of it peeking above the lip of the tray, while you feel his gloved digits gently probe around the ring. "Just making sure there aren't any abrasions, any cuts or irritation before we finish up here." He sees your head nod against the pillows so he continues on with his examination.

Your ass is firm beneath his touch. Pilates, maybe. Or strength training. His jaw clenches as he forces his mind to the present again, resumes the exam before carefully covering you up with the hospital gown again. "You're all good, sweetheart, you can turn onto your back now."

A part of him feels a sick sense of satisfaction at the way you squirm from the easy use of petnames. He's always been a natural flirt, that roguish charm that calms patients enough for him to diagnose, but it's a touch more fun when it works on someone as pretty as you.

"Thank you, Dr. Abbot."

But the gentle cadence of your voice cuts through him and shame trickles in like molasses. When did he turn out to be such a perv? Maybe the night shift is getting to him. He clears his throat, assuming his professional stance, but your smile turns wicked and there's something mischievous in your gaze that he can't quite place.

"Really, I can't thank you enough," you say as you carefully roll over to settle in an upright position. "But, um… is it possible if I can keep the toy?"

He lets out a little laugh and nods. With his hands still gloved, he retrieves a plastic bag from one of the cabinets and places the toy in before handing it to you. "'course you can. Just make sure you prep yourself better next time."

Jack nearly winces at the crass statement but you reward him with a bemused giggle. "Don't worry, I learned my lesson. It's a good thing I'm testing it out first before a stream. It'd be so embarrassing if I got it stuck inside me while I was live," you share and he tries not to look too eager as you share more about your unorthodox occupation.

"Do you… do that often?" The question falls flat and he makes up for it with an embarrassed chuckle, discarding his gloves in the nearby waste basket. "Jesus, tell me if I'm overstepping here."

You laugh again and Jack's positive he isn't as funny as you make him to be but he'd gladly make a fool of himself if he got to hear that sound again. "You're fine. Trust me, I've heard worse."

"What if I want to be the best you've heard?"

Your brow rises up in mild surprise. "Was that a line, Dr. Abbot?"

"Maybe."

"It's not very good."

"It's also 2 AM, sweetheart."

You cross your arms, tilt yout head to the side and it feels like he's being taken apart. "Do you make it a habit to flirt with your patients?"

"Just the pretty ones— oh, yikes. Yeah, that one was bad," he concedes with a light laugh. "I may be a flirt, but you're trouble. Now… think you can behave while I go grab your discharge papers?"

Your smile is saccharine sweet. "Of course."

He chuckles and shakes his head, nudging the door open with his hip before he exits. The rest of the evening goes by routinely: you sign off on a few papers before changing back into your clothes. Dr. Abbot is nowhere to be seen until you're walking towards the exit, your gait a tad bit crooked, and he's leaning against the counter by the nurses' station.

"Thanks again, doctor."

The wink you give him nearly stops his heart, your easy demeanor returning now that you aren't battling the embarrassment of having a butt plug stuck inside you. When the door shuts behind you and the chaos of the emergency department resumes around him, Crus Henderson cackles behind his chart.

"What?" Jack frowns.

The smile Henderson gives him is downright sinister. "You're not slick, old man."

"It's fine." Shen materializes beside him with an obnoxiously loud slurp of his perpetually full iced coffee. "Technically, she isn't your patient anymore. And Crus and I won't tell."

"There's nothing to tell—!"

The two share knowing grins before walking off. "Sure, Abbot. Sure. Wait 'til you're off to look her up though."

Jack splutters. "I'm not going to look her up—"

In the quiet of his bedroom, Jack looks you up.

The sun's already filtering through his window blinds and it feels like some social transgression to be searching up porn during the day. But he's showered and clean with his prosthetic off, tucked under his covers and leaned against his headboard. The cursor's blinking up at him, taunting him. He doesn't even know where to begin but he's got your full name, wonders if it's enough to even catch a trace of you on social media.

He types your name in anyway on instagram and his breath leaves him in a rush when your profile sits at the top of the search results. Your profile pic is innocent enough, smiling brightly, but upon further inspection, your shoulders and collarbone is exposed right where the photo is cut off; an implication that you've got nothing on below the edge of your profile. Once he manages to tear his gaze away, his eyes snag onto the amount of followers you have. Four million. An impressed whistle escapes him as he starts to scroll.

Your photos are still pretty tame, nothing more risque than a bikini shot of you at the beach. To anyone that isn't regularly watching adult streamers, you look like any other influencer of the modern age. Wholesome photos of you are attached as well, displaying your interests and hobbies that has Jack falling deeper and deeper into your orbit.

It's nearly noon when he realized he may have spent the previous hours just looking up your social media sites. One thing that did stick out like a sore thumb (aside from your jaw-dropping photos) had been the lack of use of your real name. He understands the reasoning, knows its for safety especially with the kind of career you're in, but the affectionate nickname you use for yourself and what your subscribers use has a lick of jealousy flaring in his chest.

Dollface. Doll. Dolly.

He scrolls back up before the little monster in his chest grows and a nondescript url catches his eye, the hyperlink sitting pretty beneath your bio. Before he could secondguess himself, he taps it and his phone brings him out of instagram and into his browser app where your website loads on his screen.

While Jack isn't some tech-savvy genius, he's confident enough to say that your page must've been done by a professional. Summer pastels greet him, a variation of your profile pic on instagram (more skin, more sultry—) sitting on the top left of the screen with 'DOLL'S CORNER' splashed on the top of the page and a drop down menu that he decides to explore later.

It's arranged like some sort of blog, your most recent status marked as eight hours ago where you're complaining about some ache. He bites back a smirk before he scrolls down your older posts. There's many videos, ranging from 'get ready with me!'s and 'shopping hauls' with pretty thumbnails, but the one that steals his attention are the ones that are grayed out — almost pixelated with a pink heart-lock graphic in the center.

[ UPGRADE YOUR TIER LEVEL TO ACCESS THIS VIDEO! ♡ ]

His thumb hovers over the lock-graphic before he gives in.

The screen loads and he's taken to a new page, marked by different tiers and different price points.

BESTIES — free! access includes: - get ready with me - weekly vlogs - shopping hauls SWEETHEARTS — weekly subscription. ($) - everything besties has to offer! - short-form lewd content - locked photos from the vault - audios LOVERS — monthly subscription. ($$$) - everything sweethearts and besties has to offer! - midnight live-streams - personalized short-form videos - personalized audios

Jack blinks twice. He continues to scroll before he catches a three-day free trial for all the paid tiers. He bypasses it and taps a single month purchase for access to the LOVERS' vault (after creating a profile and naming it simply with his initials). His dick stirs in his pajamas as the screen loads before it confirms his payment.

All the grayed-out videos are unlocked but rather than an aesthetic thumbnail with pretty collages like your free content, they're blurred out images of you within the video — enough to imply exactly what's going on in each one.

He scrolls on to see another video of you trying on outfits, specifically lingerie. Figuring this is as close as it'll get to dipping his toes in the metaphorical pond of your NSFW content for now, he hits play.

The video starts off with your pretty face adjusting the camera before you settle back on a white rug, surrounded by opened boxes. You greet the camera and it feels like a blow to the gut to see you in your element. If he thought you were pretty in the emergency room, under the garish lighting of the bright fluorescents, you're a goddamn bombshell with perfect makeup and flattering lighting.

As you address the camera, he begins to wonder how exactly you could be an adult streamer when you have content like this until you bring out the haul for the video. White ivory boxes detailed with cream ribbons, baby pink boxes wrapped nicely with ebony lace and tulle. He catches a name on one of the boxes: La Perla.

Jack shifts in his seat, bats away the creeping guilt of watching a young woman try on lingerie, but the charge was confirmed on his card already; it's too late for regret.

(He fears there isn't any regret in the first place.)

Fortunately for his heart (or unfortunately for his twitching cock), you had edited the videos to cut through the actual process of changing into them and rather just show off the full sets.

You didn't seem to have a preference for color, each piece ranging from a monochromatic black to butter yellow lace. Either way, you look gorgeous in all of them and Jack isn't ashamed to admit he's about to blow in his boxers, untouched, at just the sight of you in lingerie.

When the video ends, he replays it but makes it a point to keep his hands out of his pants for now. Instead, he drops a like and a simple comment:

@.swatdoc. — You're magnificent.

Confident in the anonymity of his profile, he puts his phone away to finally catch up on sleep.

Across the city, your phone buzzes with a new notification as you have breakfast on your island counter. Despite the waves of engagement you get on your content, you still keep the notifications on and the newest one brings forth a flutter in your stomach. Compliments are a nickel apiece when it comes to your career but the simplicity of this one and the lack of crudeness that follows steals your attention.

You take a bite of your food as you tap the notif, bringing on the new account profile. While most are kept blank, this man has a profile pic of his back facing a gorgeous sunset. Despite the fact his face is unseen, you recognize those salt and pepper curls.

In the following days, Jack begins to make it a habit to check on your daily statuses. You don't post daily on instagram but you post stories and he enjoys your little activities, likes how everyone seems to be so kind to you. It makes him wonder if your followers are aware of your evening activities, of your content tucked safely away behind a paywall.

Even in the comments section in both the SFW and NSFW side of your content, he realizes you've amassed a loyal following comprised of women that it nearly hides the lewd and desperate remarks from your male subscribers.

@deathreverse : that top is gorggggg!!! ♡

@pearlessance : your makeup is stunning, drop a routine next babes!!

@enam3l: absolutely obsessed w you!! ♡

@mariasont: that shade of pink suits you BEAUTIFULLY

In your last NSFW video, it's you in bed, a thin blanket draped loosely along your frame. There isn't an intro like your lingerie haul, just getting right into it as if the viewer catches you in the middle of the act: your hand sliding beneath the fabric, the camera shaking slightly as you rearrange your position to lay back against the mountain of pillows.

Jack's mimicking the position on his day off, his own back cushioned against his headboard as he watches in rapt attention. His readers are sliding off his nose but he adjusts them as he hits the volume increase button twice. He wants to hear you, addicted to the way you sound so sweet whimpering around your fingers.

Obsessed with the way your moans can sound so goddamn endearing.

He doesn't let the video play on, his hand still sitting obediently above the waist band of his sweatpants as he tries to catch his breath. He scrolls onward instead, stops at a tamer video of you shopping at a boutique.

@.swatdoc. — Gorgeous as always, bunny.

The cursor blinks as he secondguesses the petname. No one's called you anything other than 'doll' or 'dolly' or some iteration of baby or babe. Bunny's innocuous enough, Jack decides, and taps 'comment'. It'll be an inside joke for himself, for the evening you may as well tipped his world upside down when you'd come into the pitt for a stuck bunny buttplug. You get thousands of comments a day, the likelihood of you recognizing him is abysmally low.

The little pep talk he gives himself soothe the minor anxiety spike as he continues to scroll on, amusing himself with the way your bright personality seems to shine through even with the nasty videos that has his cock twitching to life.

He distracts himself with the comments section instead of exiting the video.

@.deathreverse — jesuuus christ, ur so fucking hot

@.deathreverse — let me rip that gorgeous top off you plsplspls

@.pearlessance — let me make your moans my ringtone and i'll never miss a call

The women commenting are far more entertaining to read through, the creativity of it all always taking him aback, despite the usual stab of jealousy. At this point, his parasocial streak of possessiveness is something he's learned to ignore, to let sit beneath a layer of faux indifference.

He's just a fan now among millions, he'll bask in the anonymity your popularity affords him.

You might be obsessed with your most latest subscriber. A Mr. Swatdoc with the silver curls.

Realistically, it may be the hot doctor that had seen you through the most mortifying ordeal of taking out a buttplug at two in the morning but the profile pic doesn't give you much and his profile is blank aside from his chosen screen name (swatdoc) and his age (48).

Regardless, your heart does a funny little twist whenever he appears in your notifications (only on your SFW posts, interestingly enough) whether it's a like or an extra tip but your stomach drops when his newest comment adds a new petname.

Bunny.

You sit up in bed when the notification comes through. Gorgeous as always, bunny. The fucking bunny, cotton-tail buttplug. The same one that Dr. Abbot had all but talked you through it as he gently removed it from your asshole. You glance up to see the damned toy sitting on your dresser right across from your bed, mocking you.

The bed dips beneath as you shift your weight, rolling around in bed as you reread that goddamn nickname over and over again. Bunny.

As your eyes bore into your screen, your phone buzzes.

[@.swatdoc liked your vlog!]

[@.swatdoc commented: Can't get enough of you, bunny.]

A sudden wave of confidence (or perhaps impulsiveness) washes through you and you tap his comment. And in quick succession, you like his comment and tap on his profile. Then his inbox. And finally:

doll : doctor abbot???

Jack drops his phone like it burned him. He sits up, nearly kicks off his blankets in his chaos as his heart falls right out of his ass. He didn't even know there was a messaging system on your website but there it is, that red notification bubble on the top right. He taps it and there's the chatbox.

He contemplates on lying, on playing dumb but he respects you far too much to lie to you. A heavy sigh escapes him as he resettles back into his bed and his cock sheepishly sits limp against his inner thigh.

swatdoc : How did you know it was me?

doll : i'd recognize those silver curls anywhere ♡

Huh. The little heart emoticon blinks up at him, maybe even glows. His cock gives a hopeful twitch.

swatdoc : Let me get this right. You aren't weirded out by me finding your website?

doll : you pulled my buttplug out of my ass, doctor. i think we're even.

swatdoc : Sounds fair.

doll : i do want to ask, strictly as a survey yknow, just to make sure i'm reaching subscriber satisfaction expectations. but is my nsfw stuff not hot enough?

swatdoc : I don't know how to answer that.

doll : you aren't liking any of my nsfw videos…….. am i not your type?

He can imagine it, that wry little grin when you tease the camera, makes him want to fuck it out of you—

swatdoc : Just trying to be respectful. Or as respectful as I can be given the circumstances, sweetheart.

doll : i think you're super respectful, i see the tips you've been leaving….. thank you btw ♡

swatdoc : You're welcome, bunny. doll liked your message!

The activity light near your name goes off and he figures you might've logged off. His thumb drags up the screen to exit the page, sets his phone down and attempt at sleeping. But in the midst of his dark bedroom, there's a stirring in his gut that he can't seem to shake. An itch he needs scratching.

Time fluctuates, slips through his fingers as he finds himself on a popular porn website, the light of his phone illuminating his hazel eyes. He scrolls and scrolls past countless videos, the thumbnails made to entice anyone in his position, and yet frustration starts to grow larger than the lust that's been simmering beneath his heated skin.

None of the actresses look like you.

The thought floors him and he pauses when he finds a woman with a similar body type as you, wears her hair the same way you do. Her moans are a bit too pitchy but he punches the volume down and when his hand slides beneath his sweatpants, he doesn't feel guilt. And when he cums, it's your name spilling from his lips.

"You seeing anyone?"

Jack doesn't look up from the iPad as Robby settles in beside him, ready to take over for day shift as night shift starts to filter out. "What are you talking about?"

"Y'know. Dating? Getting out there? 'cuz Peaches has someone—"

"Not interested, brother, but I thank you for your service." Jack smiles but it's forced, halfway towards a grimace, and places the iPad down with a little too much force. He stomps off to the locker room. Robby and Dana watch his retreating back before they share a look.

"What's his problem?" Dana mutters, her glasses sitting low on the slope of her nose.

Robby chuckles and shakes his head. "No idea."

The truth is— Jack does have a problem. That problem is you.

He thought he'd been good, kept his hands to himself when he gets to his usual routine of stalking your website, and lets his fantasies run wild when he switches over to another porn site to find an actress that looks like you.

But then you had kept texting him, messaging him on your website that the line he's drawn between staying respectful and admiring you from afar against his baseless desire of wanting to fuck you 'til you cry is starting to blur. Of course you have no idea of this line, no clue of the existence of the boundaries Jack's made for himself.

You have no idea that Jack wants more than a physical interaction with you and he has no idea how to ask you out without coming off like a complete pervert.

doll: dr abbot?? swatdoc: You know you can call me Jack, sweetheart. doll: take me out first then i'll feel comfortable enough to call you whatever you want.

Jack nearly shortcircuits at your reply and he fights the urge to hide his phone, shove it in his pocket to deal with later. It'd just look too suspicious and with Shen's eyes on him, he knows he'd blab straight to Lena who'd definitely gossip with Dana. While Dana's known to keep a secret, anything involving him and a potential partner is a surefire way for her to tell Robby.

swatdoc: You mean it, bunny? doll: spending time with you? of course ♡

Jack chuckles and swipes his palm across his stubbly mouth, absolutely incredulous at your gumption.

swatdoc: I meant a date. Not just one night. This old man isn't built for casual. doll: okay old man. take me out to dinner then ♡ it'd give me a chance to redo the first impression you have of me swatdoc: I think it was a perfect first impression, bunny. doll: you saw my ass, of course you thought so!!! swatdoc: I was actually enamored by your charming personality. Your ass was a bonus. doll: … flirt. you're smooth dr abbot. doll: so when's our date? swatdoc: My next day off is in a couple days. How's saturday night looking for you? doll: i'm free !!! gonna come pick me up? swatdoc: If you're comfortable with it, I'd love to. So, saturday at 7? doll: i trust you ♡ and yes, i'll see you then.

He gets a text from you the following day (you'd admitted filching his number from the profile he's made on your website) and after a brief facetime call to prove your identity, he receives your address with a playful tag of: don't be late, dr. abbot.

Saturday's only a couple days away and yet he's fidgeting. He's got a night shift to get his mind off things but even Lena can see he's distracted. While he managed to wave away his colleagues' concerns, he wonders if he's the only one this anxious or nervous for the date.

[ Doll updated her status! ] — 2 secs ago. — Butterflies. ♡

A wave of notifications flood your phone despite the simple status update but you couldn't care less— not when you've got every possible combination of a date outfit laid out on your bed and nothing looks good. You have time, of course, there's nothing stopping you from going out shopping but the extra options might just exacerbate your indecision.

A pitiful whine escapes you as the paralysis of all your options land you flat on your back atop your mattress, clothing wrinkles be damned.

Whether or not the both of you are ready, Saturday evening arrives quickly.

The only information Jack had given you about the date aside from taking you out for a nice, classic dinner was to 'look nice'. As charming and handsome as he is, you resent the fact that he's like every other man his age: allergic to details. Somehow you manage to put on something simple but flattering, a black cocktail dress with a hemline that skims above your knee and a sweetheart neckline that teases your cleavage along with a bold, red pair of stilettos. Pairing it with a matching clutch, you deem yourself ready after a final swipe of lip gloss across your pouty lips.

"Here we go…" you murmur to yourself. Just as you dab at your lower lip with the pad of your ring finger, your doorbell rings. Seven on the dot.

Your heels click against the floor as you open your door to be greeted with Jack in slacks and a navy blue button down… as well as a bouquet of your favorite flowers. You gasp first, greetings momentarily forgotten in favor of taking the offered bouquet for a sweet sniff. Jack's compliments die on his tongue when he truly sees you, nose buried in the petals.

"How'd you know these were my favorite?" You ask as you step back, head tipping to wordlessly invite him in as you seek out a vase.

"I watched your vlogs," he shrugs with a shameless little smile. "I picked up a few details."

Maybe he shouldn't be as stunned as he is now — he's seen you in various states of dressed and undressed at this point — but you've truly left him speechless when you had opened the door, wearing that little black dress that hugs your body perfectly.

He's grateful that you notice the flowers first, cooing and gasping at the curated arrangement rather than noticing his thunderstruck stupor. It gives him a moment to clear his throat, admire the way you smile at the bouquet.

"You look divine," he murmurs as he follows you inside, watches you putter around your open space kitchen to place the flowers in water. And maybe it's his ego that's got him this taken by you; knowing that perhaps only he alone gets to see this side of you, bashful and charming. When you blush at his compliment, he feels like the king of the world.

"You don't look so bad yourself," you tease with a playful wink, taking his offered hand as he leads you out the door.

Jack's a gentleman when he helps you into his car, glancing aside momentarily when your dress rides up upon seating. He's a gentleman when you make it to the fine-dining restaurant ("Heard the new executive chef just received two Michelin stars!" you share excitedly), opening doors for you and keeping a respecful hand at the small of your back. He pulls your chair out for you, too. Perhaps the bar is in hell but you're undoubtedly impressed and giddy, basking in his undivided attention as you wear your heart on your sleeve for the rest of the evening.

"… and they all looked at it like it was something alien. It was a fax machine—!" Jack laughs, regaling you with the infamous July 4 analog nightmare from hell at the pitt. Dessert is lain between you two, half-eaten and momentarily forgotten as the two of you had been lost in conversation. He'd been worried that he might gross you out or bore you with his job as an ER physician but you had asked and prodded for more gory details, nose scrunching adorably when he explained what a degloving was.

"Okay, fax machines are basically obsolete," you counter with a giggle, lips parting as he feeds you a bite of cake. He waits patiently for you to chew before you continue on. "No one uses them anymore!"

Jack shakes his head in mock disappointment before you return the favor and feed him a bite from your own fork. "Sweetheart, these are vital skills!" Something warm flutters in his chest when you reach up to absentmindedly wipe away a bit of frosting from the corner of his lips, your painted nail skimming across his skin with the movement.

"How about this, I'll call you on the off chance I'll ever need to use a fax machine," you say dryly. A chuckle escapes Jack, low and grumbly that it has your thighs clenching together beneath the table.

"Sure. Or call me whenever, I'll always answer."

The ease of his flirting never fails to make you flustered and Jack capitalizes on it whenever he gets the chance. Like clockwork, you giggle and glance aside, a pretty blush on your cheeks as you look anywhere but his eyes. It's a wonderful side of you that he's steadily growing obsessed with. Yes, your online persona in your SFW space is charming and enchanting while you're essentially a succubus — sex incarnate — when the sun drops low.

But this is you, unabashedly you, and Jack can't get enough of it. He wants more than what you probably expect from him, a warm body to occupy his bed (judging from the stories you've shared about past experiences), and he's ready to go above and beyond to prove to you that he's willing to do whatever it takes so that he could call all of you his.

"Hey, how are we doing? Dessert's good?" The head-of-house manager of the restaurant cuts in seamlessly; he seems to have a good sense of when to enter a conversation.

You smile brightly and Jack nods. "It's delicious, thank you. Every dish has been fantastic," you gush.

"Wonderful, that's what I like to hear," the manager crows before he straightens out his tie. "You two are a beautiful couple. Are we celebrating an anniversary?"

Now it's Jack's turn to get bashful. "Uh, no, a first date, actually."

The manager looks taken aback but he bounces back with a low chuckle, two hands on his chest in subtle apology. "If it helps, the chemistry you two have is undeniable. Truly. But anyways, I came by to ask if you two would like to join us in the garden party out back or maybe a nice little kitchen tour?"

Your eyes shimmer with excitement and Jack gives a yes, offering his hand for you to take. The manager smiles and claps once. "Perfect, let me take you to where the magic happens."

After meeting the famed head chefs and even sampling a few of the desserts at the pastry station, you're positively glowing as the two of you step out to where a small get together of other guests mingle by picnic tables. A few guys that may be the line cooks are handing out beer and soda, giving off a more relaxed vibe than the one inside. It's pleasant and when you feel a chill, Jack's draping his jacket along your shoulders without a word.

"Thanks," you hum, eyes fluttering as you take in his warm and musky cologne that seeps in from the collar. He chuckles and places a hand on the bottom of your spine.

"Of course," he murmurs then tips his head to wear the drinks are being passed around. "Did you want any—?"

"No, I think I'm stuffed. Did you…?"

Jack shakes his head and the nerves from before the date nearly come back in full force. You aren't naive, you know what kind of expectations your job gives people whenever you go on dates. While Jack's been a gentleman the entire evening, you can't deny the fact that him being a subscriber to your NSFW content does skew the way he must see you.

The drive back to your place is quiet and calm, your hand folded delicately in his as he drives. He walks you to your door but much to your surprise, he doesn't step past the threshold.

"I had an amazing time," he says first, his lined eyes crinkling as he gives you a warm smile. "I'd really like to see you again."

You nod, leaning against your doorway as you realize his hand has found yours again. Your joined fingers sway slightly. "Me too. I… I really liked tonight."

He smiles wider as if you've erased any doubts he's had. "Good. I'll, um. I'll let you get some rest. I'll call you when I get my next day off, alright?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

"Great." And with a smooth and unhurried motion, he leans in for a kiss to your cheek, chaste and sweet. "By the way, I want you to know I'm all in. I'm not trying to waste your time or make you think I'm here for the physical aspect. I like you, sweetheart. Truly."

And with a final pinch of your chin, he steps away and bids you good night before walking off. Later that night, you realize you haven't stopped smiling until you climb into bed, alone but completely content.

When morning comes, Jack sends you a good morning text before he cleans up around the house, settle in before his shift later that evening. He doesn't check his phone 'til noon and when he does, he sees a text back from you and a notification from your website.

[Doll just posted a video!] — 3 hours ago.

His stomach drops. While he truly has no issue with you continuing your camgirl career, something twists inside him at the thought of you getting off the night before without him. Is it that feeling of missing out or is it the fact that he hadn't been there to fulfill that need of yours?

Regardless, his heart is pounding when he taps the notification. The video loads and a breath of relief leaves him in a rush.

[New video!] Get un-ready with me! — Skincare Routine.

He chuckles and leans against the kitchen counter, turns his phone sideways to see you fill his screen in the same dress from the night before. You must be in your bathroom, he notes, as you relay your steps carefully to your audience.

"I know everyone will be asking but I just came back from a wonderful dinner. Food was absolutely divine, I'm already considering going back soon. But…" A bashful smile curls onto your lips and Jack's beaming. "The company was even better. Anyways— moving onto the foam cleanser…"

Your routine ends after you apply your serums and creams, signing off on the camera. The comments section pop up immediately.

@.mariasont — your skin looks so good but you look GLOWINGGG

@.pearlessance — were you on a date?? that dress is fantastic!!

Jack chuckles when he sees that you've dropped a like on that commenter about a date but nothing more. Fan the rumors without confirming anything, looks like you're a tease in more ways than one.

Unable to help himself, he scrolls down his contacts and taps yours. The phone rings once, twice, then—

"Jack?"

"Hey, sweetheart. Is this a bad time?"

You sound a tad bit out of breath but you reassure him nonetheless. "No, no, you're fine. What's up?"

"Well, I—" He interrupts himself with a shy laugh. "I don't know if it's too soon but I'd like to take you out again. My next day off is next week on Friday."

"Oh!" You sound positively pleased and Jack can picture you biting your lower lip to hide that smile he's obsessed with. "Yeah, I can make that happen. Are we doing dinner?"

"No, I was thinking of visiting the aquarium this time around."

"The aquarium…"

He bites back a grin, can picture the excitement simmering beneath the slight trepidation of your words. "That's right. Unless there's something else—"

"No, it's perfect!" You cut in with a little giggle. "Jack, did you watch all my vlogs?"

"Of course I did. And it truly can't be that much of a hardship to learn how much you love the place when you've got vlogs of you there nearly every month," he teases. "But if it's something you like to do on your own—"

"No, no, it's fine, Jack, I'd love to." He can hear the way your voice softens. "I can't wait."

"Alright, it's a date. I'll see you next Friday, sweetheart."

Friday doesn't come fast enough this time around. You've got an outfit bought and ready to go, a simple skirt with a blouse that you might've picked to match his eyes. Jack's on time yet again, two PM on the dot, and while he still keeps his hands to himself, he basks in the way your hand constantly seeks out the crook of his elbow.

You regale him with fish facts throughout each wing of the aquarium and he watches with besotted eyes when you basically glow at the sight of the jellyfish. Conversation ebbs and flows and he's pressing soft kisses into your hair like he can't quite help himself.

By the time you've both made it back to his car, he helps you in while placing the massive jellyfish plushy he bought you at the gift shop onto your lap. It's silly and absolutely wholesome.

It's made you undeniably horny for him.

You appreciate it though, you see how he's gone above and beyond to show you that he wants a relationship out of this. He doesn't expect you to be 'easier' because of your job as a camgirl nor does he think he's entitled to anything more than a kiss on the cheek because of what you show online.

And it's making you want him so bad that you feel like the pervert in this situation.

At your doorway, he's got a hand on your waist this time and your arms are draped loosely around his neck while still holding onto the jellyfish plush that's dangling behind his back.

"Today was lots of fun," you say first, nearly chest to chest with him. He nods, feeling the way you shiver when his thumb rubs circles against your hip bones. Above the fabric of your shirt.

"It was," he agrees as he basks in the sweet scent of your perfume. This close, you're practically intoxicating. "I enjoyed the little fish facts too, didn't know my date was a lovely encyclopedia—"

Your eyes roll playfully at the teasing jab, exaggerating your movements as you unwind your arms to step out of his embrace. "If you hate me, just say so—"

"Now hold on, I never said it was a bad thing," he chuckles and you let out a quiet squeal when his grip tightens, pulling you back into his arms. "Thought it was cute."

"Sure you do," you tease back and you realize he's pulled you even closer now. His voice is a rumble, low and gravelly as the distance between your lips is beginning to diminish.

"I do." He murmurs, his nose brushing against yours. "This okay?"

You nod, throat bobbing. "More than okay," you whisper.

His gaze drops from your eyes, back to your lips, before they close the distance. Your heart thunders in your chest as your arms tighten around his neck to pull him lower. He goes easily, smiling against your lips. He doesn't deepen it, though, just steals a handful of more feather-light kisses that elicits a string of giggles from you, your foot popping up and your back bending slightly backwards as he dips you and showers you in affection.

Eventually, he reluctantly pulls away but not without giving you one more kiss. "Have a good rest of your evening, sweetheart," he murmurs. "Make sure you lock the door behind you, yeah?"

You nod, sighing dramatically as you lean against the back of your door as he steps out to the hallway. "I will. Can I see you again soon, Jack?"

His poor little heart thunders wildly at your adorable expression, half-pleading and half-fond. "Of course, princess. Maybe we can do something like this again, maybe a museum or that fair?"

You perk up with a nod. "That sounds like fun."

"Good. I'll see you soon, darling."

You sigh dreamily and blow him a kiss before shutting the door. You lean against the paneling and groan into your hands.

In the silence of your apartment, you wail— "Why won't he fuck me?!"

The time between your last date to the aquarium to your next one at the museum, you and Jack continue to text. Whether it's you giving him advice for a dish he's making or asking his opinion on which top would look well for a brunch you're attending with your girlfriends, the conversations never slow nor do they ever bore.

And in between those texts, Jack is happily gorging himself on your content while only getting off on actresses that hold resemblance to you. It's twisted and he knows it's wrong but he pictures your face in the shower sometimes, thinks of the way your teeth sink in your plush lower lip as his hand tugs at his cock.

You, however, hold no qualms as you drive the dildo deep in your cunt on late evenings, whimpering for the camera you've got set up. You always make it a habit to just plead, whine and beg more than you might naturally would with a partner, but when Jack's on your mind, you have nothing to exaggerate; you just get way more vocal as you think of his strong hands on your waist. The way he had commanded that kiss without being overbearing.

That kiss alone had wrung out three orgasms from you without the camera on.

Maybe it should've been enough to tide you over but as you start your usual midnight livestream the evening before your next date with Jack, a new title spills past your lips in the throes of your first climax. It shouldn't be a surprise at how easily the name comes to you, especially with how natural it seemed for Jack to take care of you—

"'m cumming, daddy—!"

The pings on your laptop nearby that you use for monitoring the chats go wild, the bell ringing that signified the amount of tips that just flooded your inbox from the title alone. You slump over as you catch your breath from where you've been riding your suction dildo, whining softly to yourself as the toy slides out of you. Your inner thighs are quivering as you lift your gaze to the laptop screen.

"Thanks for stopping by," you croon to the camera before shutting off the stream.

Across the city, Jack palms at his bulge, mouth slightly agape as he tries not to cum in his sweatpants like a teenager. "Fuck."

"I didn't really take you to be a museum kind of guy."

"I'm not. Not really… My friend's fiancée recommended it to us, thought we might like the new exhibit," Jack shrugs as he keeps you near with a hand around your waist. The new exhibit had garnered a sizable crowd and the last thing he wants is to lose you. Especially since you seem preoccupied with the information pamplet, both hands holding it open to read while relying heavily on Jack's firm hand. He likes it, the thought of you trusting him so readily.

You hum in acknowledgment before peering above the page. "The map says the new Caravaggio exhibit is that way… I think." Jack chuckles and peers over your shoulder, both of his hands firmly on your waist. You hold the pamphlet up higher for him.

"You aren't wrong," he muses as he reads over the map. You swallow nervously, you can feel the heat of his body seep against your backless top, the way his voice gets all low and gravelly when he's talking just to you. "It's past the abstract wing. Can you fold that up for me, sweetheart? I wouldn't want you to trip over your feet if you can't see where you're going."

You nod instinctively. "Yes—" You swallow back that title that sits at the back of your throat whenever Jack gets so… passively dominant. "Yeah, of course."

He chuckles and lets his arm fall along your lower back, a hand at the dip of your waist as he leads you towards the exhibit. The entire time as you two parade around the wing, Jack keeps you close. It sparks a light in your core, your inner thighs clenching with need when he unwittingly turns on your desire to be taken care of. But he seems so unbothered by it, humming to himself as his thumb slips beneath your blouse to rub your skin while he reads the information beside the painting.

The two of you are admiring Caravaggio's Narcissus when something comes to mind. "Why'd you call me 'bunny'? In my comments?"

He glances down at you, taken aback by the sudden question. "I… thought it'd be nice to have a nickname of my own for you. It reminded me of our first meeting."

A fond smile curls upon your lips. "Why haven't you called me that since we started dating?"

Something fond crosses over Jack's face, leaves as quickly as it came. His hand squeezes your side. "I didn't think it was appropriate. Thought it might make you uncomfortable if I called you that in public."

"I liked it. Like it. I still do," you trip over your words with a flustered smile. "It's like our own little inside thing. Um—no pun intended."

Jack chuckles and that wide smile he gives you has you pushing against your toes to press your lips to his. He hums fondly, nips at your lower lip. "Alright, I'll keep that in mind, bunny."

You kiss him again.

For the next couple of months, you start to see Jack regularly. Dinner dates (whether it's at the first restaurant he's taken you to or he cooks for you at his place) or movie nights, or even him just coming over to unwind after a long shift. Your posting schedule doesn't shift, only rearranges itself to make room for Jack.

A month in, you'd sat him down and tentatively but firmly told him that you wouldn't be stopping just because of your dates. Jack had accepted it without question, took it as if it was what he expected in the first place.

So you continue your usual schedule. Vlogs and short-form content for your SFW socials and full streams for your NSFW audience. Suggestive photos to tide your subscribers over 'til the next full video.

Jack, on the other hand, looks positively giddy with himself. Sure, he's cumming in his fist nearly every night but he's determined to make sure you know that he wants more with you. Fuck. He sounds like a broken record but he's obsessed; the last thing he wants is his dick to ruin this for his heart.

But his good mood is translated into his night shifts, cracking jokes even with angry patients. It has Shen watching over in confused concern, always taking a double-take when he has the chance. Parker and Crus decide that it's just Jack going through a new wave, a new fixation that's probably tiding him over.

Or a girl— but that's Robby's problem to mull over, not theirs.

They get their chance when Jack's scheduled for a double (something he makes up to you with another extravagant VIP dinner the day before), dropping a hint to their chief that their night-shift attending's been weird all week.

The ambulance bay doors slide open in a 'whoosh' for Dr. Robinavitch, passing by Javadi who's talking to Trinity about making mutuals with some big-shot on her Tiktok and Dennis catching up with Perlah about his weekend, to get to Jack in the locker room.

"So. Shen's said you've been weird."

Jack chuckles lightly, throws his stethescope around his neck, and shuts his locker. "I'm seeing someone."

Robby startles. "Oh. That's— brother, that's great."

"What, didn't think I'd admit it so quickly?" Jack grins and pats his shoulder as he steps around his friend.

"No, not really." Robby follows him out, tugging on both ends of his stethoscope. "I'm happy for you. What's her name?"

"Nah, that's all you're getting out of me, Robinavitch."

The sun's setting as Jack turns the page on the novel he's been reading to you. You're sitting between his legs and your back against his warm chest, stretching out on the gingham blanket you've brought as the two of you find cover beneath the large tree.

Today's date had been completely spontaneous. When his schedule had been unwittingly cleared up, he had driven straight to you to take you out for a late lunch picnic at the small fair that's set up for the weekend. With the sandwiches finished off and you'd run off to buy cotton candy for the both of you to share, Jack had fished out a novel in his back seat to pass the time and enjoy the nice weather.

His hand is absentmindedly rubbing your exposed thigh, the skirt of your sundress riding up just enough for him to explore the smooth skin. His cheek is pressed against the top of your hair while you absentmindedly trace shapes atop his jean-clad thighs.

"Feelin' restless, bunny?"

"Hm?" Jack's question draws you out of your stupor, so content in his arms that it takes him a few attempts to get your attention. "No, just… really cozy."

"Yeah?" He presses a line of kisses down your jaw and neck, eliciting a soft squeal from you. Jack would've continued showering you in kisses but he grunts, reluctantly pulling away to rub at his aching prosthesis.

You frown. He's mentioned losing a limb before, knows that he wears a prosthetic leg, but you've never seen him this uncomfortable. "Jack, we could head home if it's hurting—"

"I'm fine—"

"Jack." He pauses and turns his attention to you, your brows furrowed and your lips in a line. "Come on, we can just take it easy at your place. You said you're more comfortable in your crutches, right?"

"Yeah." You can see when he finally gives in, his shoulders rounding out as he presses a kiss to your shoulder. "Yeah, alright. Let's go."

Once the both of you get to your feet, you hold out your hand. "Gimme the keys, I'll drive to give your leg a break."

"I don't think so."

"Jack."

"Bunny."

It takes a second but he concedes there too, pulling you in by the shoulders for a swift kiss to your lips. "You're lucky you're cute, sweetheart."

Jack's place is almost as familiar as yours now. He watches you saunter around his place, dropping his keys into the dish bowl on the table by the door, place your things on the loveseat before rummaging through his fridge for a beer.

When you reach him where he's seated on his couch, prosthesis set aside to hand him a beer, he gently tugs you onto his lap before popping the tab open for your can first. "Thanks," you hum, taking a sip while he opens his. His arm is strong around your waist and the easy strength he holds for you, the possessive touch he's got whenever you're near... it sparks a flicker of heat inside you and as you turn, straddling his lap to kiss along his jaw. His scruff is rough against your glossy lips but it only has you mewling.

"Bunny…" he groans as his large hand splays along the expanse of your back, supporting your weight while you tip back just enough for him to place his beer behind you on the coffee table. His eyes flutter shut, basking in your sweet kisses, as temptation guides his hand lower to cup your perky ass. It's your moan, drawn out and desperate, that pulls him out of the heat that's settling thick in his head. Reluctantly, his hands rise back up and an indignant whine spills from your throat—

"Jack, why won't you fuck me?"

He nearly chokes on his spit at your question and when he looks up, you look adorably put out, lower lip jutting out. Your gaze is glassy, lips kiss-swollen. His thumb comes up, presses against your mouth to drag down your lip slowly. "Bunny, why do you think I won't fuck you?"

"You— you've only ever kissed me. You've only liked my non-sexual content. You—"

"Baby," he shushes you gently, releases your lip to cradle your jaw. "It's not that I'm uninterested in you. Trust me— I am. I just didn't want you to think this was all some ploy to just get you in bed with me."

Another whine rises up within you. "But it's been months, Jack."

"Sweetheart, I wanted to make sure you know I was serious. It wasn't just for you, but for me, too. Had to make it known to you that I'm here for the long haul," he murmurs and when you nod in understanding, his lips find yours for a kiss that's got you clenching your thighs. Your back arches back when he leans further in, lips parting to let his tongue probe against yours.

"Gonna… mm— fuck me now?" You pant against his mouth, lashes kissing the tops of your cheeks when his lips drag down your neck to mark your collarbone with marks.

His chuckle is raspy against your skin. "I'm gonna make love to you, bunny. Come on—"

"Why not here?" You whimper, giving your hips a slow roll against his. You can feel his bulge, stiff through his jeans, against your panties.

"I'm not having you on my couch, darling. Not for our first time. We can defile the rest of my house later."

You giggle as you reluctantly get to your feet, knees nearly knocking together while Jack goes for his crutches. "Do you promise?"

"I promise," he chuckles, following you into his bedroom. His mouth goes dry, easy dominance deflating momentarily when he watches you crawl onto the center of his bed, your sundress hemline rucked up to reveal the pretty white lace panties you've got on beneath. His eyes follow the fabric, disappearing in between your ass cheeks, before they flit back up when you turn and lean against his headboard.

You're in your doll mindset now, your hands dancing across your body to give him a show. But while your videos are choreographed, almost clinical to a certain degree to entertain an audience, Jack sees the way your hand trembles just before you drag the neckline of your dress down, tempting him to just rip the fabric off you.

But he's a patient man, understands that this is just as much for you as it is for him. He can see the way your arousal heightens with each teasing touch. "Take it off for me, bunny, just for me."

He must've said the right thing because a broken moan spills from your lips, nodding as you cross your arms and drag the hem of your dress up to reveal a matching bralette to your panties. The bed dips beneath his weight when he joins you, settling down onto the mattress just as you toss a leg over to straddle his waist again.

"Ah, shit," he hisses when he glances down, sees the way the fabric of your panties are nearly translucent with your slick. His hand creeps down to rub your swollen clit through the damp fabric, tilting his head back up to watch your reaction. He doesn't shut his eyes when your open mouth drags along his cheek, a poor approximation of a kiss as you shut your eyes to savor the way his fingers deftly tug the panties aside to dip within your folds. A pathetic moan escapes you. "This all for me, bunny?"

"Mhm, yes—"

"She's drippin' just for me, fuck," he chuckles as his middle finger teases your entrance, enamored by the way your hips rock clumsily against your palm. "Mm, look at that."

It's filthy, the way Jack leans back against the headboard with his head ducked down to watch your cunt practically suck in his fingers, his other hand keeping your panties tugged aside for his viewing. "Please, I wanna feel you," you beg, voice hitching high in a way he's never heard before.

"You sound so sweet for me, bunny," he murmurs as he redraws his fingers from you, tasting you with a voracity that makes you even wetter. "You've been so good for me, pretty girl, don't worry… I'll give you what you want."

And while Jack sounds so benevolent, your lips finding his in a grateful kiss before you're scrambling off to lay on your back under his guidance while he undresses next, it's all a facade to conceal the way he's barely able to hold it together now that he's got you: heart, soul, and now body.

He settles on top of you, lips finding your shoulder for a brief moment of sweet affection despite the filth that's fallen from his lips from earlier, and makes a home between your thighs. You might've teased him for picking missionary as your first time, giggle at how insistent he is on keeping things old fashioned despite your unorthodox relationship, but then the tip of his cock prods against your entrance, mouth dropping slightly as your head falls back against the pillows— he's huge.

"Ngh— Jack…" you whimper as the stretch leans more towards pain than pleasure at first, eyes shut as you feel Jack's lips skim across the side of your neck. "S'too big…"

His chest rumbling, he chuckles in your ear, nips at your jugular. "Don't worry, bunny. I can make it fit."

Lust and adoration intertwine in your core as he pushes deeper, your walls adjusting for his girth while your nails dig into his freckled shoulders. After what feels like an eternity, Jack's fully sheathed in you, pressing kisses along your brow and temple.

"So fuckin' tight—" he grunts, attempting a shallow thrust that has you two moaning in unison. "You ready for me, bunny? Gonna start movin'."

You feel absolutely full, can feel Jack in your gut, but you nod, legs hooking around his waist. "Ready," you manage to say, releasing one shoulder to cradle his jaw for a searing kiss. He pulls out and thrusts in without hesitation, his lips parting for his tongue to taste yours. The two of you make out like teenagers, sloppy and uncoordinated, while his cock drives into you slowly, your body shifting higher up the bed until his hand comes up to cradle the top of your head before it hits the headboard.

He swallows your moans with a grunt of his own, tasting your desperation with each rock of his hips. But when his lungs start to burn for oxygen, he reluctantly pulls back only to be rewarded with your vocal cries for more. He's heard your noises before, almost four million people have, but he's never witnessed you like this, so gorgeously needy on his cock, your moans more like broken whimpers and hiccups interlaced with his name. So unbelievably vulnerable, laid out just for him.

It has him driving his cock even deeper into you, eager to hear the way your mouth sounds around his name whenever he hits that specific spot.

"No, no, no— don't get shy on me now, bunny," he coos, dropping a hand to cup your cheek to guide your eyes on him. "You sound so sweet for me, let me hear you…"

His words elicit another gasp of his name as one particular thrust has you seeing stars, the coil in your core tightening as his hand comes down to rub your clit in time with each rock of his hips. He can feel his own climax but he keeps it at bay, laser focused on your own pleasure.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck… Jack—!" You wail as the coil snaps, his cock buried to the hilt before he fucks you slow and deep to carry you through your climax. With you taken care of, he chases after his pleasure next, hips snapping against yours in a brutal pace that has your toes curling in sweet ecstasy.

His forehead drops to rest on yours, breaths mingling while his own moans pitch into a needier grunt, veering into whimpers while he talks you through it. "Feels so fuckin' good, bunny… s'like your pretty cunt was made just for me… oh fuck— she's just sucking me in," he pants.

The string of dirty talk kickstarts something inside you and you feel that familiar tightness in your core, hiccuping moans bubbling past your kiss-swollen lips as he drives his cock deeper. "Jack— 'm… hah— gonna cum—!"

"Yeah?" He huffs, a cocky half-grin in his lips as he drags his scruffy jaw along your cheek. "Gonna give me another, bunny? Come on… gimme one more," he coos while his pace starts to falter, losing its steady rhythm as he gets closer and closer to his own edge.

When you cum for the second time, he's quick to follow right after, your convulsing walls eliciting his own release right into your waiting cunt. A part of him panics — he didn't wear a condom nor did you say anything about being on any kind of contraceptive — but he feels your heels dig into his lower spine to keep him from moving. The concern still sits at the back of his mind but he lets himself get lost in the sensation of finishing inside you, his thrusts slowing to a halt before carefully laying on you.

"Holy shit," you breathe out, a blissful smile on your lips with your eyes fluttering shut. When Jack pulls out, you offer a slight wince but curl onto his chest as he rolls over onto his back. Your head nestles onto his pec, his arm winding around your bare shoulders. When you turn your head to kiss his freckled collarbone, he chuckles and squeezes you gently.

Jack hums wordlessly. Basking in the moment, he lets himself sink into the warmth of you beside him. There really isn't any need to talk for now and the both of you would've been content to let the moment settle in…

Had it not been for your growling stomach.

His laughter cuts through your embarrased whine, rolling over to hide your face into his chest completely. "Don't laugh—" you pout but he just jostles you gently, gets you to look up at him where he can kiss your nose.

"Stay here, I'll clean you up first," he promises and rolls out of bed. Grabbing his crutches, he heads over to his attached bathroom for a warm, dampened towelette. He cleans you between the thighs, gentle and careful as he drops a kiss to your knee. "About earlier—"

"I'm clean," you interject. "I don't have any partners and I'm on the pill."

He nods, relieved as he tosses the towelette into his laundry basket. "I'm clean, too. I haven't… not since my late wife."

Your smile is heartachingly tender. He's spoken about his late wife before, wears the ring on a chain close to his heart, and how he and his therapist have decided that he's in the right place to move on.

"We can both get tested if you want," you offer. "I don't want anyone else but you."

It's an invitation to a conversation he's been waiting on for a month now and he dives right in. The bed dips as he sits at the edge, a warm and calloused hand on your thigh. "I only want you, bunny. That's not ever gonna change." He cups your jaw, warm and possessive in a way that'll never fail to light a fire in your heart. "Can I be yours, sweetheart?"

You nod with a giggle bursting past your lips. "Yes—! Of course, yes," you swoon with your arms around his neck, his hand releasing your jaw in favor to hug you 'round the waist.

"Yeah?" His pretty crows' feet deepen when he smiles at you, chuckling when you nod again with an eager bob of your head as you gently scratch at his scruffy jaw. "Gonna go steady with me, bunny?"

A laugh escapes you, nose scrunching up at his dated language. "Always and forever, old man."

Although the months you've spent with Jack before the both of you made it official had you feeling like cloud nine, the next following weeks could only be properly labeled as the honeymoon phase now that you're officially his girlfriend. With Jack's night shift schedule and your unorthodox posting timelines, the two of you manage to make it work.

Speaking of work, you had been adamant that because he's your boyfriend, you had no plans on stopping the camgirl site and told him so the morning after. Jack had blinked and nodded as if it'd been something he had already expected. His only caveat was that you'd at least make your new relationship status public knowledge to your subscribers whether it's as simple as a status post on your website. You went above and beyond by posting a selfie with Jack's arm around your neck, his bicep smushing your cheeks while you grinned dopily at the camera.

While your followers had fawned over your new man, occasionally posting faceless boyfriend pics of Jack, you made sure to keep his identity secret as your highest priority whenever he'd make some sort of cameo in your SFW videos.

"Babe, you gotta stop jumping in the frame, I'll have to edit you out—!" You laugh in your most current video, holding out the camera high and up just enough to capture your hand crooked around Jack's arm as the two of you walk the aisles of the farmer's market.

He chuckles and dutifully stops ducking his head. "Just move the camera when I kiss your cheek, bunny. And even if my face shows, I thought you could just slap on an emoji or something on my face when your assistant edits them."

The camera captures the way you look up, a playfully deadpan expression on your features. "You wanna put more work on Francine?"

"You're right, I'll behave."

The clip ends there and the views skyrocket, nearly matching your most infamous videos on your NSFW side. It's gotten so popular that Victoria's talking about it during work hours, in awe of the fact that she's mutuals with you despite the fact that she's gone viral on Tiktok herself.

For once the pitt has a handle on chairs and triage, allowing Victoria to show Dennis her newest editing style, inspired by Doll's Corner. He perks up, recognizes the voice through the walls of the apartment he shares with Trinity.

"Oh, I think Santos is also subscribed to her," he grins.

Victoria frowns. "Subscribed…? Her website's free, Dennis."

Trinity walks past before circling back. "What's free?"

"Oh, um— Doll's corner." Victoria holds out her phone, displaying your instagram profile. "She has her own website but Dennis mentioned that you're subscribed to her…?"

"She avoids her SFW content, probably because it'd feed the parasocialism since Doll seems to be exactly her type," he grins, always eager to have something over his lovable but prickly roommate.

"She's not my type, she's just hot—"

"Hold on, what do you mean SFW content? Isn't all her stuff SFW…?" Victoria cuts in, eyes wide as she scrolls up and down the webpage. Trinity snatches the phone and taps the top right menu button of the page, scrolls towards the 'PRICING' tab before offering the phone back.

Dennis interrupts. "She doesn't really advertise her adult content, it's more of a… if-you-know-you-know situation. You're cool with that, right?"

Victoria swallows, goes through the 'free' content of your camgirl side while her mind races with the blurred and suggestive content, before nodding with a wide-eyed grin. "'Course I'm cool with it. Just— I didn't expect it. Yeah, I'm cool. Dennis, are you subscribed—?"

"No, no—" Dennis startles with a flustered laugh. "It's not really my thing, but I know Dr. Ellis had found her account too. She's popular."

The youngest MS4 merely nods and wanders off, looking very scandalized. Dennis and Trinity watch her go before shrugging, unaware that the true reason why Victoria's so shocked is that she had suspected Doll's newest boyfriend might be Dr. Jack Abbot.

Your SFW content views continue to skyrocket (especially the shortform video where you had Jack flex his bicep for the camera before placing a piece of dessert on top, eating right off his freckled arm before he's pulling you out of frame for a kiss).

There's already been a few questions asking if your boyfriend (lovingly dubbed as Mr. Doll by your subscribers) would ever participate in your content. You haven't gotten around to answering them, leaving them untouched as you post your usual photos and videos for your loyal subscribers.

The truth is, you aren't even sure how to bring up the topic to Jack nor would you know how to figure out the logistics of including your boyfriend without jeopardizing his identity. But the problem is solved a week later where you're in your bedroom, filming a toy haul with a new PR package from a sex toy company.

You're in the throes of your orgasm, nothing on but a bunny tail plug nestled in your ass while you ride a massive silicone pink dildo with some device that literally creampies you. You've got your back to the camera, the cute plug front and center, when your knees drop and you bottom out on the toy with a final moan.

You'd been so lost in your 'review' that you didn't realize Jack had come by early, leaning against the doorway with a dark little grin that you've come to associate with 'playtime'.

"Havin' fun, bunny?" he asks, the camera picking up on his voice sounding like velvet over gravel.

Your giggle is breathy and sweet. The camera captures the way your neck arches, looking over your shoulder to meet Jack's eyes who stays firmly out of the shot. "Mhm, I am."

"Did that thing… finish in you?" When you give him another resounding giggle and nod, he shakes his head with a fond chuckle. "I'll give you five minutes to catch your breath before it's my turn, sweetheart."

When you'd given the video to Francine, your assistant, to edit, she had sent over the last clip where Jack had come in and asked if you wanted it out. Deciding that it seems safe enough to keep since he's not even within the frame and that people have heard his voice before, you told Francine to keep it in.

Later that night, you receive an tsunami of positive comments, most of them fawning over the way Mr. Doll seems to adore you even while making content for the rest of your depraved audience.

@.pearlessance: holy shit HIS VOICE???

@.deathreverse: i bet he talks you through it omfg

@.mariasont: i just KNOW your man is fine

@.enam3l: give us one audio file of him cumming PLEASE

You're wrapped up in Jack's arms later that evening, your back settled against his chest as you read over the comments with him. He's got his strong arms around your middle, lazy kisses pressed to your bare shoulder as the cold edge of his readers bump along your jaw.

"You're stealing my fans, Jack."

"No, they like the way I make you flustered, bunny. There's a difference."

"Maybe," you hum as you swap apps to your instagram, scrolling mindlessly before you pause. "Jack?"

"Yeah, sweetheart?"

"Would you… want to be in my cam videos? Just as your voice," you clarify with a shy smile. The curve of his smile is pressed against your neck.

"I'd be honored," he croons. "Maybe you could play with yourself for the camera, let me talk you through your orgasms."

Your cheeks burn, thighs clenching as you rub them together. "Mhm."

"Use your words, bunny."

"I'd like that a lot, sir."

That had been a new revelation. You've called Jack 'daddy' jokingly outside of the bedroom before, just something to steal his attention whenever you're particularly needy (whether it's for something sexual or not). And while he liked it, judging by the fond and flustered grin on his lips, he had sat you down and told you what title actually does it for him.

Sir.

It never did anything for you, thought it might've been too simple or even too formal to ever be used in bed, but it fits Jack perfectly. An older man with his experience and status along with a natural inclination to dominance doesn't need something as desperate as 'daddy' to insert control in the bedroom.

"Good girl," he rasps and takes your chin to turn your head, planting a heated kiss onto your lips. "How about we pick a day for it, hm? Put it on your calendar."

When you nod again, he chuckles and nips at your lower lip. "Can we do it now?"

Despite your eagerness, you and Jack had decided on a Sunday evening the following week, opting for a pre-recorded video rather than a live show.

Like always, you've got your tripod set up at the foot of your bed with you front and center. You have mood lighting set up, nothing too garish and bright and classically 'porno' but rather something warm to get you comfortable. The only difference is Jack seated behind the camera, manspreading like it's his fucking job in those grey sweats you've moaned about a week ago.

"You ready, baby?" Jack's voice is caramel sweet but you know it'll dip lower when he hits the record button. When you give a nod, he reaches up to press the button.

The red light blinks at you but Jack clears his throat. "Eyes on me, bunny."

Your gaze is magnetized to your boyfriend's, feeling deliciously exposed with the way his eyes drink you in. Tonight, you've got on a lingerie set he had bought just for you: a babydoll pink bralette with a matching thong and garters. In the hollow of your neck is a delicate, cursive 'j' on a chain.

"You look gorgeous, sit up for me, sweetheart. Let the camera see your new outfit," he drawls lazily and your eyes drop down to his large hand, gripping his bulge through the sweats.

The camera captures the way you look behind it, your gaze unfocused and your cheeks flustered, but you never disobey sir's words as you sit up on your knees. Your hands dance along the lacy straps, brushing across the sheer panels that hold up your tits. Jack's attention is fixed on you, his teeth digging into his lower lip as he strokes himself through his sweatpants.

"That's it, bunny. Play with those pretty titties for the camera," Jack murmurs.

He continues to take the lead and it's almost alarming at how good he is, how easy it is for you to completely forget you're still filming. He eventually has you propped up against your mountain of pillows, knees bent and thighs spread out.

"Add another finger for me, bunny."

You've already got two in, your middle and your ring finger, while your other hand is groping at your exposed tit. "Sir, I can't—"

"Sure you can, pretty girl. You've taken my cock, haven't you?" Jack chuckles meanly, his hand tugging at his cock now. Your eyes are locked on his length and he capitalizes on it, rubbing his thumb across his tip.

"Yes, but—"

"Come on, bunny, one more. You can do it."

The camera captures the way you whimper, gasping around nothing when you add your index finger into your sopping cunt. Even the lighting catches the shine of your slick against your inner thighs; Jack's got you edging yourself and you're ready to beg.

The stretch burns in the best way, not in the same breadth as Jack's cock, but enough that it has you plunging your fingers so fast that it sounds lewd against the camera.

"Can I cum, sir, please—" You choke out, hand beginning to cramp from the speed and angle you have that Jack notices it immediately. If you've been a bit less preoccupied with your own impending orgasm, you would've noticed that your boyfriend had been staving off his own climax, gripping the base of his length until he's finally given you permission.

Behind the camera, he continues to talk you through it but his voice isn't as measured, it's strained and a tad bit pitchy — his tell-tale sign that he's about to cum soon.

"Cum for me, bunny, let me see you make a mess on yourself," he coaxes and once you take the final fall, he's quick to follow, white ropes of his release painting his thighs and the floor beneath. "So fuckin' hot, Jesus Christ—"

Your cramping hand drops from between your legs as you slump against the pillows completely, legs splayed out for the camera to watch the way your clit throbs from the overstimulation. Jack tucks himself back in and takes the camera, detaches it from the tripod mount to approach your bedside.

"Let's see the mess you made, gorgeous," he murmurs, his voice wrecked as he props a knee up to hover above your overstimulated frame. You giggle up at the camera, taking his free hand (the same one that had been wrapped around his cock moments ago) and gently lick the traces of his release clean off his fingers. He curses under his breath before he affectionately pinches your chin. It elicits a soft laugh from you and the look you give him beyond the camera does something to his chest, a word that tastes something sticky sweet (and maybe starts with the letter 'L'), that he suddenly wishes this part is just for him.

But he moves lower, the camera panning down to where your panties are tugged loosely aside where your puffy, slick cunt is on display. It's lewd and nasty, the way his free hand strokes through your folds before he's bringing up his fingers for a taste. The satisfactory moan he lets out sends a thrill up your spine.

His hand travels to the swell of your thigh, to your hip where he tugs your panties off. The camera jostles as he shoves the soiled, lacy fabric into the back pocket of his pants, before he pulls away.

"I think your fans earned enough of you. Say goodbye, bunny, it's my turn for a taste."

The last thing the camera sees is a wave of your hand before it's set aside roughly, filming your ceiling and capturing the way your giggle melts into a breathy moan before the video and audio cuts.

—

"So when are we meeting the lucky lady?"

The sun sits high as Jack lounges on the roof on a chair that he's brought up a few months back. Robby had brought his own chair a week later, pleased to see his best friend behind the railing this time. The two are relaxing, stealing a few moments of solitude before handoffs are completed.

"Not yet," Jack grunts as he takes a sip of the pressed juice you've packed for him. You've been given a massive PR package of some health brand and he'd been willing to take half of the crate off your hands. "Soon."

Robby gives him a sidelong glance. "Are you ashamed of her or somethin'?"

"No. No, definitely not. I just want to keep her to myself a bit longer before you and Peaches poach her off me." Jack chuckles. "Relax, brother. I'll bring her around soon."

"Alright, I'm holding you to that," Robby chortles before he gets to his feet, back cracking while he stretches. "Go home, Abbot."

Before, Jack would've kneedled, maybe dragged his feet a bit longer to keep from returning to an empty house. He's always craved company, even moreso at the passing of his late wife. But this time, he grabs his backpack and rucks it over his shoulder, offering a casual wave of his hand.

"Ain't gotta tell me twice. I got a pretty girl waiting for me at home."

—

Later that evening, Victoria Javadi's sitting outside on the benches with the rest of day shift, drinking a beer she hopes would taste better after every sip. After turning twenty one, she still didn't see the appeal of drinking beer but after her sneaking suspicion that her night shift attending might be dating the influencer she's admired for so long, she realizes she might need it.

Her thumb punches the 'low' volume button on the side of her phone as she pulls up your tiktok account. Your account has only grown since you've started including your mystery man; the tiktok trends that center around playful pranks or cute videos snipped from longer vlogs with your partner are the ones that hit a million views first.

She takes a deep breath and taps your most recent one, a clip that looks like it had been cut from your last get-ready-with-me vlog, judging by the outfit you have on. You greet the camera as usual, holding out two different purses before leaning this way and that to get all angles of your outfit. Your attention is stolen, however, when the voice of 'Mr. Doll' cuts in from behind the camera.

"You ready, sweetheart?"

You pout, your gaze looking beyond the camera. "I don't know which bag to bring."

"What do you need a bag for?"

"My lip gloss…" you reply sheepishly and a throaty chuckle from Mr. Doll follows, soft and fond.

"The second one, bunny. Come on, let's go."

The video loops and Victoria lets it play before her thumb rewinds the video back herself, listening to that voice before her gasp gets caught in her throat.

Mr. Doll is Jack Abbot.

—

In another apartment across the city, Trinity takes advantage of the empty home and hunkers down in bed. It's a guilty pleasure, she knows, but with the stress of residency along with Garcia's emotional unavailability, she figures a bit of her wage going to one of the most hottest camgirls couldn't be the worst vice in the world.

She scrolls through the paid content of yours with a soft sigh, sinking deeper into her mattress before opting for one of the newer POV content. It's a new series you've started, something that kicked up in popularity from a couple weeks ago when your partner had taken the camera to film you himself after he talked you through your orgasm.

Trinity hasn't had the chance to check it out herself, a bit hesitant considering the POV shots may ick her out if she actually sees a penis when she's been thinking of inserting herself as the viewer on top of you. But curiosity kicks in as she plays the most recent one, heat simmering low in her core as it starts out with you undressing as always, straddling your partner this time as he films you from below.

"I can feel you—" you gasp, your hands braced on the stomach beneath you as it pushes your tits together. Your hips roll, sinfully smooth while the strap of your sheer tanktop drops off one shoulder. It keeps falling, revealing a single breast, but you pay it no mind, too busy dry-humping the body beneath you.

"You're soaked for me, bunny… am I gonna feel you through my boxers?" The man grunts and something tugs at the back of Trinity's mind, a sick sense of deja vu or familiarity. She ignores it, eyes straining to try and focus only on you.

You giggle. "Maybe… can't help it, daddy gets me so wet—" You pause, eyes wide at your little slip.

"'Daddy'?" The familiar male voice repeats and the camera catches the man's hands travel up, sliding between the valley of your breasts to curl around your throat possessively. A ditzy grin spreads across your lips, eyes nearly rolling back as you lean your neck forwards into his palm.. "Is that my name now, bunny? Want me to be your daddy?"

The video plays on but Trinity couldn't focus, not when horror sets in alongside disgust and mortification when her brain finally places where she's heard that voice before. Once it clicks, she gags and pauses the video, tosses her phone across the room as full-body shudders wrack her whole frame.

When Dennis comes home late, it's to find Trinity on the couch, spacing out with a security blanket swaddling her prone frame. Panic sets in and he rushes forward, his fist rubbing her chest out of habit tp see if there's any response to pain—

"Ow, fuckin' quit it—!" Trinity snaps, smacking his hand away as she glares up at him.

He lets out a sigh of relief before crossing his arms. "What the hell happened to you? Was it Garcia—"

"No." A haunted look passes over his roommate's eyes. "Worse. I think I found Dr. Abbot's girlfriend."

—

With your six-month-iversary fast approaching, you and Jack are running out of excuses to keep putting off the inevitable 'meeting of the friends' ceremony. Your own friends are eager to meet the older man that's been starring in most of your content and Robby's starting to threaten break-ins and impromptu dinners if he doesn't get to meet the woman that's made his best friend so happy.

It isn't that you're scared Jack's friends and colleagues won't like you or that he's ashamed of you— it's just the fact that the two of you are becoming grossly codependent, refusing to let the other one out of each other's sight for too long. Inviting friends into your circle would only lessen the amount of time you two have for each other and the two of you would much rather prefer extending your honeymoon period first.

Unfortunately, the decision is taken out of yours and Jack's hands when you wake in the morning to an abnormal amount of bleeding. Your period's supposed to start soon but with the sudden heavy flow and the sharp pain in your abdominal, fear licks up your spine.

Something isn't right.

You carefully bring yourself out of Jack's bed, whimpering at the massive stain you've left, before hobbling over to your phone. What awful timing— your actual doctor boyfriend isn't in to check you out himself but rather he's stuck at the ER working a double.

With the amount of time you've spent with Jack, he's ingrained it into you to always listen to your body, to get help rather than attempting to self-diagnose or to undermine your pain level, so you call 9-1-1 with a shaky voice.

When the operator confirms that an ambulance is on the way, you remember to add one final thing: "Can you take me to PTMC, please?"

—

"Female, mid to late 20s, heavy vaginal bleeding and sharp abdominal pain. Reports of nausea and vomiting with a fever of 102 degrees," the EMT barks out, pushing your gurney through the ambulance bay as the cacophany of the emergency department greets you. When the ambulance had arrived at Jack's place, you'd been barely able to stand upright, chills racking your frame.

Your mind is fuzzy, the fluorescent lights above you spinning like soup while you're pushed into an available room. A couple of nurses trail after a doctor, a penlight flashing in your eyes as said doctor introduces herself.

"Hi, I'm Dr. King, are you taking any kind of birth control or—"

"My IUD," you whimper, eyes squeezing shut as you try to fight through the pain that seems to steadily increase with each passing moment. "Is it—I heard it can be displaced?"

Fast paced conversation erupts around you, swapping differentials and possible diagnoses before scissors are cutting through your pajamas to reveal your bloody panties. A hand presses against your upper abdomen, a gentle palpating movement that tears out a cry of pain from you.

"Order a CT," a doctor barks. "Can't do much until we see what's going on in there."

Dr. King nods and promises to take care of you after you've been pushed some painkillers to tide you over until it's your turn. As you get wheeled off, she notices a delicate cursive 'j' tattooed right above your hip bone.

—

After some time, you're dressed in a hospital gown, waiting for your CT results as the painkillers they've given you keep the pain at bay for the meantime. Your phone sits in your lap, screen on to your text thread with Jack. You know he's somewhere in the department, most likely saving lives, but your texts are unread and it's gnawing at the pit of your stomach.

"Hi," a voice calls out and it's a sweet looking young man, around your age as he rubs in the hand sanitizer. "I'm Dr. Whitaker. We have your CT results and it looks like a displaced IUD. Did anything happen recently or…?"

Your cheeks burn bright red. "Um. Rough sex, I guess?"

Dr. Whitaker's face colors red as well. "Oh—! Um, well, yeah. That'll do it. The CT scans revealed some slight perforation in your uterine lining so we'll go ahead and get that out for you, it'd be a minor procedure so you'll be up and walking in just a few hours."

"Great, thank you," you sigh in quiet relief but as you ponder something, Whitaker sticks around, like he knows you've got a request. "Um, is there a Dr. Abbot in?"

He nods. "Yeah, he's one of my attendings. Has he treated you before?"

"No, actually—"

"Bunny—?!" The curtains slide open and Jack rushes in, concern choking up his syllables when he sees you looking slightly gaunt and exhausted in a hospital gown. Dennis' eyes widen as he steps aside; he's never seen his attending look so disheveled and unkempt. "What happened?"

"Jack, I'm fine, it was my IUD," you explain, looking up while he checks over your vitals. "It… got displaced. I wonder whose fault is that." Your dry tone has Jack looking sheepish and Whitaker looking everywhere but the both of you. It's already taken all of his professionalism to keep from reacting when he recognized you as Trinity's past obsession. She still wouldn't say why she unsubscribed until he realizes the secret boyfriend is Dr. Abbot.

"Sorry, sweetheart," Jack murmurs into your hair as he kisses your forehead. "I'll make sure they'll bump you forward so you can get out of here faster."

You nod and your lower lip juts out, slipping into that sweet mindset that Jack can't get enough of; cotton candy delicate and adorably delectable. "Promise?"

"Yeah, I promise, bunny." His voice takes on that gravelly tone that you've become obsessed with and when you tip your head up, he closes the distance and kisses you briefly.

At that moment, the curtain slides open again. "Whoa— sorry for interrupting, folks." You pull away, fiery cheeks on display, to see another taller doctor enter. "Dr. Whitaker, can you go help Dr. Santos in Central 13? I'm Dr. Robinavitch, you can call me Dr. Robby. You must be the infamous 'Bunny'."

Jack groans and playfully hides his face into the top of your hair as the name registers as your boyfriend's best friend. You smile prettily and offer your hand to shake when Dr. Robby approaches, giving your name instead. The man seems nice but only Jack has the privilege of calling you 'bunny'. "It's nice to meet you, Dr. Robby."

"Just Robby," he insists before he flips through your chart. "Looks like you're up next for the laparascopy. Do I wanna know what happened?"

Your blush deepens. "No, not really. This is an awful first impression."

Robby chuckles, scratches the back of his head. "It's not so bad, all things considered. But now that I finally have both of you here, what do you say to dinner with my partner and I? She's been eager to meet you."

You give Jack a sidelong glance. "Who else did you tell about me?"

"Nearly everyone," Robby cuts in while Jack gives a shrug.

"I didn't give details. I just liked talking about you, sweetheart. That so bad?"

A pleased smile curves upon your lips. "Not at all. I love how obsessed you are with me," you tease. Your boyfriend's eyes roll before patting his friend's chest.

"Alright, come on. Let's get her rolled into the OR so I can take my girl home."

—

As promised, recovery goes by swiftly and a new IUD is put in place. Discharge is expedited when you're dating one of the attendings and soon, Jack's coming into your room with a fresh set of clothes from his locker.

"I liked those panties," you huff as you step into Jack's black sweatpants, leaning against the bed as he kneels down to roll the legs up for you.

When he stands to full height, he helps you into the faded 'ARMY' sweater. "I'll buy you more, bunny." He tugs you in by the waist to steal a few more kisses. "Just glad you're okay. You almost gave me a heart attack when I saw your name on the board."

"Sorry," you pout as Jack sweeps a thumb across your cheekbone. "I tried texting but I—"

"No, baby, you're fine." He hushes you with another soft kiss. "It's good you came in when you did. Come on, I'll take you home."

His arm is thrown around your shoulder as he guides you out through the ambulance bay. The both of you are lost in your own little world, exchanging soft laughter and playful kisses, that you don't see the haunted look in Santos' eyes as she scurries out of the way or Javadi watching in the way someone can't look away from a car crash.

When the ambulance doors shut, Dana leans over the counter to address Robby.

"That the girlfriend?"

"Sure is."

An amused grin curls onto the nurse's lips. "I think I remember her. I see where the nickname 'bunny' comes from."

"What's it mean?"

"I'm not saying a damn thing, Robinavitch."

His warmth still tingled on your lips, the scratch of his stubble against your skin. You groaned. How were you supposed to make it to work now? 

Your social work internship - unpaid, no living stipend - and now, somehow, complicated by a ridiculous work crush. You hadn’t thought you’d develop feelings for him. That old man. He carried enough issues to keep your social work brain busy for years. Enough that you found yourself diagnosing him every time he spoke.

You did three night shifts a week for experience, all while clocking full time at a dead-end job that had nothing to do with social work. Your life felt like an endless grind, the finish line nowhere in sight. 

Two years of full-time classes plus unpaid fieldwork, on top of a bachelor’s that somehow took five and a half years, then the giant exam covering everything you’d learned, and two more years of supervised practice. And today was only day two. Day one had been an absolute shit show.

You watched your supervisor tell three patients their insurance wouldn’t cover treatment. You learned how to report neglect through the proper channels. You filed stacks of paperwork for free. You sat in on a family being told their mother had died. Then you endured meeting after meeting after meeting. Just when you thought it was over, you and your supervisor got paged to a psychiatric patient brandishing a scalpel.

Of course he zeroed in on you.

You were obviously the newbie. One wild swing nicked your forearm. Not deep, but enough to leave a mark. Enough to bleed. 

That’s when you met Mr. PTSD - the grizzled veteran who charged in like a knight in scrubs, tackled the guy, dosed him with Midazolam, and ended the ordeal in under a minute. Then he led you to a private room and stitched you up himself. Two stitches. A battle scar, if you were feeling dramatic.

All you could think about were his hazel-green eyes, locked on the task, and the way his salt-and-pepper hair, mostly salt, let’s be honest, was mussed from the scuffle. He was everything your life didn’t need right now. And you already knew he was going to ruin your fucking life.

By the time you made it to the hospital, you had a very solid, very rational explanation for the dream.

Sleep deprivation did things to people. Strange things. Everyone knew that.

You badged in and exchanged tired nods with the day shift staff on their way out.

As you walked, you rubbed at the wound on your forearm without thinking about it. It was warm. Warmer than yesterday, maybe. It ached in a low, persistent way that you filed under problems for later.

You rounded the corner toward your supervisor's office and walked directly into a person.

Solid. Immovable. Definitely not a wall.

Hands caught your arms before you could bounce off completely.

"Morning."

You looked up.

Jack Abbot.

"Oh, God," you said.

One eyebrow climbed. "That bad?"

"No - sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going."

The corner of his mouth moved. "Careful. Could've been a bed coming around that corner."

"Right. Sorry, Dr. Abbot -"

"Your arm." His attention dropped to your forearm, his grip shifting, careful. "How's it feeling?"

You looked down at it. "Fine. Sore. A little warm, but -"

"Let me see it before your shift?"

You glanced up and caught yourself looking at his mouth for half a second too long. "Sure."

He led you to one of the high-needs rooms and gestured at the bed.

You sat. He pulled over a stool and settled in front of you.

Close enough that you caught his aftershave.

You didn't comment on that.

He unwrapped the bandage without a word. After a moment, his frown deepened.

"It's infected." He pressed lightly around the stitches. "Should've put you on antibiotics yesterday."

You weren't really listening. You were watching the way his focus narrowed. The slight drop of his lashes, the lines at the corners of his eyes, the silver coming through in his beard more than the brown now.

"You know what?" he said.

"What?"

He didn't look up yet. "Coming back the day after that, no paycheck, straight off a day shift." He glanced up. "That's not nothing."

The heat reached your ears before you could stop it.

"How did you know about the day shift?"

"Asked your supervisor."

Your stomach turned over.

"Wanted to check on you." He was already reaching for the fresh bandage. "And I was curious about you." He said it like it was obvious. Like it wasn't a thing.

He finished wrapping your arm and gave it a brisk pat.

ThThen he leaned back on the stool, elbows on his knees.

"So," he said. "When do you sleep?"

You blinked. "Sorry?"

"You're pulling day shifts, three nights here a week, and grad school on top of it." He looked at you. "So. When do you sleep?"

"I sleep."

"When?"

"Sometimes."

"Not an answer."

You shrugged.

"Lunch breaks for class. Then five-thirty to seven-thirty before I come in. Midnight to seven-thirty after."

Something moved across his face.

"Jesus."

"It's temporary."

"Sure it is."

You opened your mouth, then closed it.

"Personal life?" he asked. "Friends? Anything?"

You laughed. "No."

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I."

The corner of his mouth moved. "Dating?"

Your stomach dropped. "What?"

"Boyfriend?" A pause. "Girlfriend." Another pause. "I don't -" His ears went pink. "Partner. That's the word."

That made you laugh. He exhaled, visibly relieved.

He reached for his prescription pad and scrawled something down.

"Here."

You looked at it. "Antibiotics?"

"Antibiotics."

"Thrilling."

"You got stabbed on day one."

"Sliced, technically."

He gave you a look. "Try not to get stabbed again."

"I'll do my best."

"No." Flat. "Do better than that."

A knock sounded at the door before either of you could speak. It swung open and the night social worker stepped inside. "There you are."  

Her eyes immediately found you. "Well, I’ll be damned."  

You blinked. "What?"  

"I honestly didn’t think you’d be back tonight."  

Your hand went to the fresh bandage on your arm. "Oh."  

She tapped it. "Most people don’t get stabbed with a scalpel on their first day and then show up for round two."  

Abbot snorted. "Told 'em the same."  

"Thanks," the social worker said, nodding to him. "See? The adults are worried about you."  

"I’m right here," he grumbled.  

"Exactly."  

Despite yourself, you laughed. She shook her head. "Seriously, though - how’s the arm?"  

"Infected, apparently."  

Abbot held up the prescription pad. "Taken care of."  

"Good." Her expression softened. "You don’t have to prove anything. Nobody would blame you for taking a few days off."  

Her concern caught you off guard. "I’m okay."  

She gave you a look that said she wasn’t convinced but wouldn’t push it. "Well, since you’re here, might as well put you to work."  

Abbot groaned. "There it is."  

"We’ve got a veteran in room twelve," she said, the joking atmosphere vanishing instantly.  

"He came in during day shift for a psychiatric crisis," she continued. "Agreed to a safety plan, promised he’d see his therapist tomorrow, and was discharged."  

"And?" Abbot asked.  

She sighed. "He got home and came right back about an hour later."  

Abbot’s shoulders slumped. "The urges got worse?"  

"He says they’re overwhelming." She folded her arms. "No support system. No family nearby, no friends he feels comfortable calling."  

"Any active plan?" Abbot pressed.  

"He’s being cagey."  

That wasn’t good.  

"He did the right thing coming back," she said. "But he keeps apologizing, convinced he’s wasting everyone’s time."  

Silence fell. Then she looked at Abbot. "I’d like you there."  

His eyes narrowed. "Because he’s a veteran?"  

"Because you’re a veteran."  

After a moment, Abbot nodded. "Okay."  

She turned to you. "And you’re coming too."  

You pointed at yourself. "Me?"  

"It’s your second day."  

"Exactly."  

"Perfect time to learn."  

You glanced between them. "What am I supposed to do?"  

She smiled. "Watch. Listen. Learn."  

Abbot stood, pushing his stool back. "That’s social worker code for ‘try not to say anything stupid.’"  

She pointed at him. "See? Already learning."  

You rolled your eyes and climbed off the bed. The three of you headed down the hall toward room twelve.

Room twelve was silent when you stepped in. Too silent.  

The veteran perched on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor. He looked about late thirties, early forties. A ball cap lay beside him. His fingers were so tightly interlaced his knuckles had turned white.  

Sarah, the social worker, tapped gently on the open door. "Hey, Mark. Mind if we come in?"  

He shrugged without looking up. "Not like I can stop you."  

She offered a small, encouraging smile. "I’m Sarah. Remember, we met when you arrived. This is Dr. Abbot, and this is my intern."  

Mark glanced up just long enough to register the three of you, then dropped his gaze again. "Great. More people."  

He didn’t sound angry. Just worn out.  

Sarah eased into a chair across from him. "I know you’ve already talked to a lot of folks."  

"Yeah."  

"And I know that’s frustrating."  

He let out a bitter laugh. "Frustrating doesn’t begin to cover it."  

She nodded. "Fair enough."  

Quiet settled. You shifted your weight, uneasy. Sarah didn’t flinch. Abbot sat unmoved.  

Finally Mark exhaled. "I shouldn’t have come back."  

Sarah waited. "What makes you say that?"  

He rubbed his face. "I was here before. I told everyone I’d be fine, that I’d see my therapist tomorrow."  

"You did."  

"And then I got home," his voice cracked "made it maybe an hour."  

You and Sarah and Abbot stayed silent.  

"The second I walked into my apartment…" He shook his head. "It just got loud again."  

You caught Abbot’s eyes. Something in his expression tightened ever so slightly. Nothing dramatic, but you noticed.  

Mark laughed without humor. "‘Loud.’ Doesn’t even make sense."  

"It makes sense," Abbot said softly. "To me."  

Silence fell. Then Mark looked up - really looked at someone for the first time. Abbot leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, no hint of judgment or pity. Just understanding.  

"You served?" Mark asked.  

Abbot nodded. "Army."  

Mark studied him. "What’d you do?"  

"Medic."  

A short laugh escaped Mark. "Of course."  

You saw Mark’s shoulders drop a fraction, just enough.  

"Then you know."  

"Yeah," Abbot replied. "I know."  

You tried to track Sarah’s technique, how she validated Mark, guided him toward safety plans, but every time you looked away you found yourself watching Abbot. He never took over. He rarely spoke. When he did, it was concise, thoughtful, exactly what Mark needed.  

Bit by bit, the tension in the room eased. By the time Sarah was outlining overnight admission, follow-up care, and community resources, Mark looked less like a man drowning and more like someone ready to accept help. And through it all, Abbot stayed steady, present.  

You knew you should focus on the social-work lesson unfolding. Really, you did. But each time your eyes wandered, they always landed back on Dr. Abbot.

The door clicked shut behind the three of you.

Sarah turned to you immediately. "What'd you notice?"

"About -"

"The interaction."

You glanced at Abbot. He looked entertained.

"Don't," he said.

"I wasn't -"

"You were."

You looked back at Sarah. "He opened up more once Dr. Abbot mentioned his service."

"Good." She kept looking at you.

There was more. Of course there was more.

"Dr. Abbot was validating him without…" you searched for the phrasing, "without centering himself."

"Also good." Sarah started moving down the hall. You followed. "Anything else?"

You thought about how little you'd actually been paying attention to Sarah.

"Active listening," you said.

"There you go."

Abbot put his hands in his pockets.

"See? Learning."

"Being interrogated."

"Same thing," he said.

Sarah shook her head. "You're both wrong, actually."

Abbot raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

She pointed at you. "You're learning to be a social worker." Then at him. "And you're teaching without realizing it."

He grimaced. "God."

"Mm."

"Does that make me old?"

"You were already old."

You laughed. You couldn't help it.

Abbot looked at you like you'd betrayed him. Then something shifted in his expression. Not the careful, measured look he'd worn in room twelve. Something looser. Unguarded.

It lasted only a second.

It was, unfortunately, a very good second.

----

The rest of the shift blurred by. Fortunately so, given how vividly you remembered being stabbed on your first day. You helped several patients sort out their health coverage. Sarah coached you on approaching someone you thought might be a trafficking victim, only for it to turn out to be an entirely different situation. 

You sat in on a talk with a recovering addict, observed discharge planning, and mediated between a doctor and the family of an incapacitated patient. It was a good day. A busy day. An exhausting day. By the time Sarah finally sent you off, your brain felt like mush.

You should have gone home. Instead, you found yourself standing in the ER, staring into space. You needed a buffer between the hospital and the rest of your life. A chance to breathe. A chance to think. A chance to stop thinking.

Your eyes drifted to the elevators. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you stepped inside. The floor buttons lit up in sequence. You scanned them until you saw one labeled "Roof." It needed badge access. Worst case, it simply wouldn’t register. You swiped your badge. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the light turned green. "Oh." The doors slid shut, and you went up.

When they reopened, you stepped onto the roof. 

A cool evening breeze hit your face and you inhaled deeply - for the first time all shift. The city stretched below you, lights still shining against a night sky. A long breath escaped you, turning into a small, relieved groan. Maybe this was exactly what you needed.

"Whoa there." You nearly jumped out of your skin. Spinning around, you saw Dr. Abbot standing a few feet away, his toes alarmingly close to the edge. "What are you doing up here?" he asked.

You stared at him, then at how close he was to the ledge. "I could ask you the same thing," you said.

His mouth twitched. "Fair."

You stepped over and stood beside him, nowhere near the brink. Abbot noticed. "Smart."

You glanced down. "Unlike some people."

He chuckled. "I’ve been coming up here for years."

"Seriously?"

He nodded. "Whenever the shift gets particularly bad."

"How often is that?"

He looked out across the city lights. "More than I’d like."

You sank down onto a near low wall, leaned back, and watched the city breathe beneath you.

The quiet between you wasn’t awkward. Just still.  

After a moment, he exhaled. "That veteran really struck a chord."  

You turned to him. "Because he was ex-military?"  

"Partly," he said without looking away from the skyline. "Mostly because he did it the right way."  

You knitted your brow. "What are you getting at?"  

"He asked for help." He answered at once. "He realized he couldn’t manage alone, walked into an ER, and admitted he was terrified."  

Abbot shook his head slowly. "Most people don’t do that."  

His gravity made your throat tighten. Before you knew it, you’d fallen into case-worker mode. "So you’re -"  

He groaned.  

"- frustrated?" you finished hesitantly.  

"No."  

"What?"  

"Don’t start social-working me."  

A laugh slipped out. "You don’t want to talk about your feelings?"  

"Not at all."  

"You know that’s not healthy."  

"I’m aware."  

"You always tell your patients…"  

"I know what I tell them."  

You gave him a small smile. "And?"  

"Stop diagnosing me."  

"Social-working."  

"Whatever."  

For a moment you both cracked a grin. Then your smile fell.  

"Still, he’s going to be alright."  

He glanced at you. "The veteran?"  

You nodded.  

"He asked for help."  

On the rooftop, wind scoured your face as you stared at the distant city lights, blurring in the night.  

"I didn’t."  

You felt his expression shift before you dared look.  

"Three times."  

The words tumbled out before you could stop them.  

He spoke so softly you almost missed it. "Three times?"  

You nodded again. "The last was in 2020, during the pandemic."  

Abbot said nothing, didn’t fill the silence, and you found you preferred it that way.  

"It all just... fell apart at once." You shrugged, trying to make it sound insignificant. "I was angry for a long time that it failed."  

Your confession hung between you, raw and vulnerable. When you finally met his eyes, they were unwavering.  

"I’m glad it didn’t work."  

His simple words landed heavy. You looked away first - you didn’t trust yourself to keep looking at him.  

Silence settled again, carried away by the wind and the muted hum of the city far below. Minutes passed.  

At last you cleared your throat. "I should get going. I’m on duty at eight."  

"Yeah."  

His voice was rougher than usual. Neither of you moved.  

Finally you rose, slung your bag over your shoulder.  

"See you tomorrow, Dr. Abbot."  

His lips curved in a brief, hesitant smile. "See you tomorrow."  

You stepped toward the elevator, feeling his eyes on your back. Just before the doors closed, you glanced over your shoulder. He was still there. 

Watching the city, watching you go.

--

Weeks passed. Then months.

The pattern established itself without any particular decision on your part. Shift ends, bag over shoulder, badge still clipped to your chest, elevator button for the roof. Sometimes you'd find Abbot already up there, still in his coat, hands in his pockets, looking out at the city like he was waiting for it to explain itself. Sometimes he'd arrive later, slightly out of breath, muttering something about a consult that ran long. Sometimes the roof was empty when you got there and stayed empty all night.

You'd started keeping a fleece in your locker for the colder evenings.

Pittsburgh at dusk had a particular quality you'd never noticed before. The way the bridges lit up in sequence, the way the rivers caught the last of the light before the city swallowed it. You and Abbot talked about everything and nothing up there. The weird bureaucratic logic of insurance denials. What it had been like to do field medicine. Whether the vending machine on the third floor had always been broken or if something specific had happened to it. Abbots late wife. Your suicide attempts. 

On other nights neither of you said much. You'd sit against the half wall and let the exhaustion breathe out of you slowly, the way it couldn't anywhere else in the building.

The nights you came up alone were a different thing entirely.

On those nights, sometimes, you'd walk closer to the edge than you otherwise would. You were aware of doing it. You were aware of why. There had been a version of you where a rooftop at night was not a neutral place - where the pull of an edge was something other than wind and vertigo. That version felt far away now. Far enough that you could stand here and feel the distance like something solid underfoot.

You never walked to the edge when Abbot was there. You weren't sure he'd understand that it wasn't what it looked like. Or maybe you were sure he would, and that was somehow worse.

---

The last fifteen minutes of your shift were supposed to be the easy part.

You were halfway through your notes when the overhead page came through. Overdose, incoming. You finished the sentence you were typing. Answered a question from Sarah. The night had been full of worse things.

Then the doors opened.

The room moved the way it always did: nurses converging, someone calling out vitals, someone else already on the phone. The particular controlled urgency of an ER doing what an ER does. You'd seen it a hundred times.

The patient was maybe sixteen.

Someone said suicide attempt. Someone said there was a note. After that the words stopped registering individually. You were aware of staring. You were aware that you shouldn't be. The kid looked so young on the stretcher. So scared. So…

The room kept moving around you. Loud, then far away, then loud again.

They stabilized quickly. The attempt hadn't worked. Barring something unforeseen, they were going to be fine.

The staff visibly exhaled. Someone made a quiet joke. The tension broke the way it usually did after a good outcome.

You exhaled too.

You were glad. You were genuinely, completely glad.

That wasn't the problem.

For the remainder of the shift you ran on autopilot. Helping where you could, answering questions when asked, and ticking off every task Sarah gave you. You were convincing enough that nobody pressed you when you insisted you were fine. Finally, Sarah glanced at the clock and told you to head home. You nodded, packed your things, and lied outright when she asked if you were okay.

The moment your shift ended, you walked straight to the elevators. You skipped your locker. You skipped coffee. You didn’t pause to think. You just needed the roof. When the doors slid open and cool air washed over you, the pressure in your chest became almost too much. You stepped out, crossed the concrete without slowing, and only realized how close you were when you found yourself standing inches from the edge.

Below you, the city flowed in rivers of headlights and neon. The wind tugged at your clothes as you shoved your hands in your pockets and stared at the skyline. But the teenager’s face wouldn’t leave your mind. 

Sixteen.

You shut your eyes, and memories came flooding back: hospital rooms, frantic phone calls, the looks on people’s faces afterward: the disappointment, the relief, the shame. You hated how fast it all returned. 

After years of work, therapy, and just surviving, one terrified kid on a stretcher was enough to drag it all up again.

You lost track of time. 

Then a voice cut through the wind. "Move." 

You snapped your eyes open. Abbot stood a few yards away, his face carefully neutral but his eyes filled with something you’d never seen before. 

"Excuse me?" you said. 

"Move away from the edge." You frowned. 

"I’m fine." 

"I know." 

"Then what’s the problem?" His jaw tightened. "

You’re six inches from a six-story drop." 

Instinctively, you looked down. He was right, you hadn’t realized how close you’d gotten.

"You think I’m going to jump?" 

"No," he said immediately. Firm, certain. 

"Really?" 

"No." 

Some tension slid from your shoulders. "Then why are you freaking out?" 

He let out a short, humorless laugh and looked away toward the city. "I’m not freaking out." 

"You absolutely are." 

His eyes closed for a moment, as if he’d revealed more than he meant to. 

When he looked back, his expression had softened. "You told me you’ve tried three times." Suddenly the rooftop felt small. "You said the last one was during the pandemic," he added, voice steady but careful. "And now I find you standing on the edge after a rough shift." 

You looked away first. "Oh." 

"Yeah."

The wind swept between you, carrying the sounds of distant traffic up from the streets below.\

"How'd you know it was rough for me?"

Abbot stared at you for a moment, as if the answer should have been obvious.

"I knew it would be the second we got the call on that kid."

You swallowed.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

For a moment, you both stayed silent.  

Then a realization hit you.  

"You were there?" you asked, his brow lifted.  "In the room?"  

"Yeah."  

You tried to summon the faces around the teenager’s bed - the nurses, doctors, respiratory techs, security staff - but they all blurred together: movements, voices, fragments.  

You frowned. "I don’t think I remember anyone who was there."  

Abbot’s expression softened instantly. "Exactly."  

That one word landed in your gut like a stone. It wasn’t blame, it was confirmation. He’d watched you dissociate, drift somewhere he couldn’t follow, and he’d waited until you came back.  

"You stopped hearing people about halfway through," he added quietly.  

Heat crept up your neck. "What?"  

"You had that look," he said, searching for the right words. "The same expression you wore the night you told me about the attempts."  

He’d noticed. He’d catalogued your every expression. It hit you harder than you expected.  

"I was worried," he admitted, voice low. "Not just as your doctor. As… me."  

The unspoken weight of "me" hung between you. Not Dr. Abbot - Jack.  

"Come sit," he said, nodding at the low wall where you usually perched. "Away from the edge."  

You slid down onto the concrete, hugging your knees. He settled beside you, closer than usual but not touching. The space between you thrummed with unsaid words.  

You sat like that for a while, listening to the city pulse below, oblivious to the small, monumental moment unfolding six stories up.  

"There was someone," he said suddenly, voice rough. "Here. At the hospital."  

You kept your eyes on the skyline. "Go on."  

"Nothing serious. Just… physical. No strings, no expectations. Easy."  

Each word pricked you. You reminded yourself: you were an intern, he was your superior, you’d only shared one kiss… in a dream.  

"I ended it this afternoon," he said, finally looking at you.  

Your head snapped around. "What? Why?"  

He let out a humorless laugh. "Why do you think?"  

Your heart pounded. "Don’t say things you don’t mean, Jack."  

"When have I?" he countered, eyes locking on yours in the dim light. "Since the day I stitched your arm, all I could think was tracing your jawline instead of cleaning your wound."  

The air between you thickened, charged with years of unspoken longing.  

"I changed my schedule," he continued. "Picked up an extra night shift… one that overlaps with yours, starting next week."  

You could barely breathe. "This is a really bad idea."  

"Probably," he agreed, sliding his hand over yours on the cold concrete and lacing his fingers through yours deliberately. "But I’m tired of pretending I don’t want this."  

His other hand rose to cup your cheek, impossibly gentle. It was the same hand that had steadied you when he stitched you up, but now it felt softer, more personal.  

"We could get fired," you whispered, even as you tilted your face into his palm.  

"I know," he murmured, leaning closer, eyes flicking to your lips and back. He hesitated, giving you one last chance to pull away.  

You met his gaze, saw the same conflict and desire you’d known in your dream, and let a small, defiant smile appear.  

"You can kiss me, you know," you whispered.  

His tension melted. His eyes closed briefly, then opened dark and certain.  

"Fuck it," he breathed.  

Then he kissed you.

Hungry, urgent, nothing like the tentative dream version. His hand tangled in your hair, angling your head, and you returned his kiss with equal desperation. The scratch of stubble against your skin was everything you’d imagined, and infinitely more.  

When you finally broke apart, both of you gasping, he rested his forehead against yours.  

"We’re going to be in so much trouble," you said, though you didn’t care.  

"Probably," he agreed, thumb tracing your jawline. "But I think it’s worth it."

You let him kiss you again, let him guide your jaw and teeth and tongue this time. You leaned into the heat of it, the bristle of his beard, the solid press of his palm at the nape of your neck. You wanted to swallow him whole. Every cell in your body wanted to climb into his lap, to grind and take and fuck until the sky itself splintered and rained down you and Jack Abbot together.

He tasted faintly of bitterness - coffee and exhaustion, maybe - and his hands were restless, sliding from your waist to your ribs, up under your jacket, palms broad and greedy and shaking a little. You popped the first button of his shirt, couldn’t stop yourself. He made a noise, half-protest, half-caving, and then he was kissing you harder, more urgent, as if he needed to bite you to prove this was real.

He grabbed your wrists, trapping them in his large hands and held them against his chest, against the frantic drum of his heartbeat. Then he pushed back, just enough, his breathing ragged and uneven. "Wait. Stop."

Your stomach dropped. Instantly. The way it always did. That sick lurch, that reflexive flinch. You’d done something wrong. You always did something wrong. The button, the grabbing, the wanting. Too much, too fast, too obvious. You pulled your hands free and scrambled to your feet, concrete scraping your palms. "I should go."

"Hey - no." His hand caught your wrist, gentle but firm, and tugged you back down. Not roughly. Just enough. "Don’t. That’s not… that’s not what I meant."

You stood there, half-crouched, heart hammering against your ribs. His thumb moved in slow circles over your pulse point, and you hated that he could probably feel how fast it was.

"Listen to me." His voice was low, rough, stripped of every clinical layer you’d ever heard him wear. "I want you more than you can fucking imagine. You understand me? I want to take you right here on this filthy concrete and fuck your pussy until neither of us remembers our own names."

The words hit you like a wall of heat. You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

"But I’ve got two and a half hours left on this shift." He dragged a hand down his face, and the sound of his palm scraping stubble was obscenely loud in the quiet. "And this roof is - Christ - it’s disgusting. Pigeon shit and cigarette butts and God knows what else. You deserve better than that."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. Three keys, a small silver fob, a worn leather tag. He pressed them into your palm and folded your fingers around them. His hand was warm. Steady. Yours was not.

"Meet me at my place." He was already pulling out his phone, thumbs moving across the screen. Your phone buzzed in your jacket pocket. "I’ll text you the address. Door code’s the last four of my cell. I’ll be there by two. Make yourself at home. Eat whatever you find. Shower. Sleep. Whatever you need."

You stared at the keys in your hand. They were warm from his body. Real. Not a dream this time you were sure, because dreams didn’t have the weight of metal or the smell of hospital antiseptic clinging to someone’s fingers.

"Jack -"

"Don’t overthink it." He stood, brushing grit off his scrubs, and you caught the way his jaw tightened. Like he was physically holding himself back from touching you again. "Go home. My home. I’ll see you in a few hours."

You nodded. Couldn’t trust your voice. The keys dug into your palm, and you clutched them tighter, as if they might evaporate.

He leaned in. Close, so close you could feel the heat radiating off his skin and pressed his mouth to your forehead. Not a kiss, exactly. More like an anchor. Something to tether you to the earth while the rest of you threatened to float away.

"Go," he murmured against your skin. "Before I change my mind about the concrete and let it tear up your skin."

You went. Down the stairwell, through the busy corridors, past the front desk where the night receptionist barely looked up from his phone. The cold night air hit your face in the parking garage, and you gasped, finally breathing again. Your phone buzzed again - the address, a second text with the door code, and then a third:

Don’t drive if you’re tired. Take a cab. I’ll pay for it.

You stood there in the fluorescent glare of the garage, keys clutched in one hand and phone in the other, and you pressed the screen against your chest like it was something alive. Something that could keep.You didn’t call a cab.

You walked to your car on autopilot, slid behind the wheel, and sat there for a long moment with the keys still warm in your palm. His keys. Three of them, and a fob, and that worn leather tag that you couldn’t stop running your thumb over. The parking garage smelled like oil and cold concrete and your own stupid perfume, which you’d sprayed twelve hours ago and which had long since given up.

Two and a half hours. That’s what he’d said.

You started the engine. The radio blared, some late-night talk show you’d left it on, and you stabbed the power button until the silence was deafening.

Your apartment was twenty minutes in the wrong direction. You knew that. You also knew you couldn’t show up at his door smelling like hospital antiseptic and old sweat, wearing the same pair of jeans you’d pulled on at five-thirty in the morning and a shirt with a coffee stain you’d stopped noticing around hour ten. You couldn’t show up looking like the same exhausted, underpaid, barely-surviving mess he’d just kissed on a roof.

So you drove to your apartment.

The streets were empty at this hour, just the occasional delivery truck and the wash of amber streetlights sliding across your windshield. You parked crooked in your usual spot behind the building, took the stairs two at a time because the elevator had been broken since August, and fumbled your own keys at the door twice before the lock caught.

Inside, you dropped everything, his keys, your phone, your jacket, onto the kitchen counter and stood in the middle of your tiny living room with your hands on your hips, breathing hard, like you’d just run a marathon instead of driven twenty minutes.

What the fuck are you doing.

You didn’t have an answer. You just moved.

The shower took three minutes, you were too wired to stand still any longer than that, scrubbing hospital grime off your skin with the cheap lavender soap you’d bought in bulk. You shaved your legs in a hurry, nicked your ankle, swore, kept going. Toweled off with the thin bath sheet that barely covered your thighs and stood in front of the closet with wet hair dripping down your spine.

What did you wear to the apartment of the man who’d just told you he wanted to fuck you until you forgot your own name?

Not a dress. Too much. Not your usual rotation of oversized sweaters and black leggings: too you, too much of the exhausted intern he already knew. You dug past the hangers, past the stack of fieldwork-appropriate blouses, and pulled out the black jeans you saved for the rare occasions when someone dragged you to a bar. They fit like they’d been painted on, tighter than anything you’d wear to the hospital, tighter than anything you’d worn in months, really. You had to lie on the bed to zip them.

Then the top. The dark green one, silk-blend, the one with the neckline that dipped just low enough to make you feel like you were getting away with something. You’d bought it on clearance two years ago and worn it exactly once, to a wedding where no one had looked at you twice. It felt different now. It felt like armor and invitation at the same time.

No bra. You couldn’t find one that didn’t ruin the line of the fabric, and the thought of him seeing the outline through the silk made something hot and reckless coil low in your belly. You pulled on the good underwear instead, the black lace pair you’d forgotten you owned, buried in the back of the drawer, and told yourself it was for you, not for him, which was a lie so obvious you almost laughed out loud.

Mascara. A swipe of the lip stain that came off as more of a flush than a color. You ran your fingers through your damp hair and decided against the blow dryer. You let it fall how it wanted, messy and half-dry, the way it looked when you rolled out of bed. The way it had probably looked on the roof.

You looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror. The woman staring back was someone you almost recognizedcheeks flushed, eyes too bright, the green silk clinging to every line of your body like it had been waiting for this exact night. You looked like you were about to do something stupid and necessary and irreversible.

Good, you thought. That’s the point.

You grabbed your phone, his keys, your jacket, even though the silk top was ridiculous for November, you’d be indoors in twenty minutes, and locked the apartment behind you.

His address was in a part of the city you didn’t know well, the kind of neighborhood where the buildings had doormen and the streetlights were softer. You plugged it into your phone and followed the robotic voice through quiet streets, past closed storefronts and bars letting out their last stragglers. The radio stayed off. The silence felt important.

His building was brick and understated, six stories, with a glass entrance and a small courtyard visible through the lobby windows. You parked across the street, killed the engine, and sat there for a moment with your hands still on the wheel. Your pulse was doing something absurd in your throat. You pressed your palm flat against it, as if you could physically calm it down.

He gave you his keys. He told you to shower. He told you to eat. He told you he wanted you more than you could fucking imagine.

You grabbed your things and crossed the street.

The lobby was warm and smelled like cedar and someone’s distant cooking. The doorman - older, gray-haired, reading a newspaper behind a small desk - glanced up as you approached. You held up the keys like a talisman, and he gave a slow nod and went back to his paper without a word. Either Jack had called ahead or the man had seen enough late-night visitors to stop asking questions.

The elevator was mirrored on three sides. You caught your own reflection from every angle. The green silk, the black jeans, the messy hair, the lip stain already bitten half off. You looked like a woman who’d dressed for someone. You looked like exactly what you were.

Fourth floor. The hallway was carpeted and quiet, lit by sconces that cast everything in warm gold. You found his door, 4C, and stood in front of it with his keys in your hand, your heart hammering so hard you could feel it in your teeth.

The door code. Last four of his cell. You pulled out your phone, found his text and punched in the numbers. The lock clicked. You turned the handle and pushed the door open.

The apartment was dark except for the city glow filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows. You stepped inside and closed the door behind you, and the quiet hit you like a physical thing. Thick and warm and smelling faintly of coffee and cedar and something underneath that was just him, that same scent you’d caught on the roof when his mouth was on yours.

You found the light switch by the door and flicked it on.

The apartment was… surprising. Not in a bad way. Cleaner than you’d expected, for one thing. A lived-in couch, dark leather, worn in the right places. Bookshelves crammed full - medical texts on the lower shelves, paperbacks on the upper, a few framed photos you couldn’t make out from this distance. A small kitchen with an espresso machine on the counter and a cutting board that still had bread crumbs on it. A dining table with one chair pushed slightly back, as if he’d been sitting there recently.

No television. That struck you. Just the windows, the books, the quiet.

You dropped your jacket on the arm of the couch and walked further in, running your fingers along the back of the leather as you passed. The bedroom door was half-open, and you could see the edge of a bed. King-sized, impeccably made, dark sheets rumpled. You looked away quickly, heat climbing your neck.

He sleeps there. He sleeps in that bed, and in a few hours he’ll be in it with you…

You pressed your palms flat against your thighs and exhaled through your nose. Not yet. Not yet.

You found the bathroom - clean, white tile, a shower with good water pressure if the head was any indication. A razor on the sink. A toothbrush in a ceramic holder. A bottle of something woodsy and expensive-looking on the shelf. You picked it up, uncapped it, and pressed it to your wrist without thinking. The scent bloomed warm and dark against your skin, and you closed your eyes.

This is what he smells like when he’s not at the hospital. This is what he’ll smell like when he’s pressed against you in that bed.

You set the bottle back exactly where you’d found it, like you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t have.

Back in the living room, you sat on the couch. Stood up. Sat again. Picked up a paperback from the side table -  A Man Called Ove, a few pages were dogeared, you made note to read those pages later - and set it back down without reading a word. 

Your phone said 12:47. He’d said two. That was…

You did the math. An hour and thirteen minutes. An eternity.

You pulled your knees up and tucked your feet under you, the leather cool through the thin silk of your top. The city glittered beyond the windows. Thousands of lights, thousands of lives happening simultaneously, none of them knowing that you were sitting in Jack Abbot’s apartment wearing his cologne on your wrist and waiting for him to come home and ruin you.

Your phone buzzed. You lunged for it so fast you nearly knocked it off the cushion.

Traffic. Construction on 5th. Be there by 1:30. You eating?

You stared at the screen. Your thumbs hovered, then typed:

Not hungry. Your apartment is nice. Very you.

Three dots. Then:

Define "very me."

You smiled despite yourself. Clean. Quiet. No TV. Books everywhere. Smells like cedar and that cologne on your bathroom shelf that I definitely did not put on my wrist.

The dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

You put my cologne on your wrist.

I did.

I’m going to think about that for the rest of my drive and it’s going to make it very difficult to focus on the road.

Good.

You set the phone face-down on the couch and pressed both hands over your face, like you could physically contain the sound trying to escape your mouth. A laugh, maybe. Or something closer to a sob. The adrenaline was doing something complicated to your nervous system, and you couldn’t tell if you wanted to scream or sleep or crawl into his bed and bury your face in his pillow.

You did the third one.

You told yourself it was just to sit,  just to perch on the edge and wait, but the second your weight hit the mattress, the exhaustion hit you like a truck. The sheets smelled like him, that same cedar-and-coffee-and-something-deeper, and your body went soft and heavy without your permission. You lay back. Just for a moment. Just to breathe.

The ceiling was white. The room was dark except for the streetlight bleeding through the curtains. Your arm ached where the stitches had been - a dull, warm throb - and you pressed your palm against it absently, the way you’d caught him doing to his own scars sometimes when he thought no one was watching.

Two stitches. Two stitches and a rooftop and a man who ended a casual relationship because he’d been thinking about you since day one.

You closed your eyes. Just for a second. Just to rest them.

---

The next thing you knew, a key was turning in the front door.

The lock clicked, then the deadbolt, and then the door swung open, harder than it needed to, the handle hitting the wall with a soft thud. His footsteps were fast, urgent, and you heard his keys hit something - the counter, maybe, or the table - and then his voice, rough and carrying through the apartment.

"Hello?"

The worry in it was unmistakable. Not the clinical, measured concern of Dr. Abbot in room twelve. This was something rawer, something that lived in the back of his throat and tightened around the vowels. He’d come home to a dark apartment and an empty couch and no sign of you, and his voice said everything his face probably looked like right now.

You pushed yourself up on your elbows, the sheets sliding off your bare arms, and called out toward the bedroom door.

"In here."

The footsteps changed. Faster. The leather couch creaked - he’d brushed past it, you could tell by the sound - and then he was in the doorway, filling it, one hand braced against the frame. His scrubs were rumpled, his hair pushed back like he’d been running his fingers through it for the entire drive, and his eyes found you in the dim light and stayed there.

You watched his chest rise and fall. Once. Twice. The tension in his shoulders didn’t dissolve so much as shift. His sharp edge of alarm softening into something slower, heavier, more deliberate. His gaze moved from you face to the sheets tangled around your hips to the green silk pulled taut across your chest to the bare skin of your arms, and you saw his jaw work once, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble.

"You fell asleep," he said. Not a question.

"I closed my eyes for a second."

"On my bed."

"On your bed."

He didn’t move from the doorway. You could hear the sound of his breathing, still a little too fast, still carrying the residue of whatever had been running through his head on the drive over. The construction on 5th, the empty couch, the dark apartment, the silence where he’d expected to find you waiting.

You sat up fully, letting the sheets pool at your waist. The silk top had shifted in your sleep, the neckline dipping lower on one side, and you didn’t adjust it. You watched him watch you do it.

"You were worried," you said.

His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "I walked in and you weren’t on the couch. Your jacket was there. Your phone was there. Your shoes were by the door. But you weren’t…" He stopped. Drew a breath through his nose. "Yeah. I was worried."

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be." He pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room in four long strides, and then he was sitting on the edge of the mattress, close enough that you could feel the heat coming off him, close enough to smell the hospital still clinging to his scrubs underneath the cold November air he’d brought in from outside. His hand found yours on the sheets - not grabbing, not cupping, just settling there, palm up, an invitation you took without thinking.

His fingers closed around your. Warm. Steady. Still a little rough from the antiseptic.

"You fell asleep in my apartment," he said. His thumb moved across your knuckles. "In my bed. Smelling like my cologne."

"You told me to make myself at home."

"I did." His voice had dropped to something low and rough, and he turned your hand over in his, pressing his thumb into the center of your palm. You felt the pressure of it everywhere. In your chest, in your stomach, lower. "I didn’t expect you to take it quite so literally."

"I’m a fast learner. You said so yourself."

That got the smile. The real one, the one that creased the corners of his eyes and softened everything about his face. He brought your hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to your palm, and the warmth of it traveled up your arm and settled somewhere behind your ribs.

"You’re going to kill me," he murmured against your skin.

"Probably, old man"

His gaze lifted to your, and the green flecks in his eyes caught the streetlight coming through the curtains. You could see the exhaustion in him. The same deep-bone weariness you carried, the kind that no amount of coffee or adrenaline could fully mask, but underneath it was something hotter, something that had been building since the roof and the concrete and the words he’d said out loud because he couldn’t keep them inside anymore.

He released your hand. Both of his came up to frame your face, thumbs brushing along your cheekbones, and you leaned into the touch like you’d been waiting your whole life for it.

"I need to shower," he said. His voice was barely above a whisper. "I’ve been in these scrubs for fourteen hours and I smell like a hospital."

"You do."

"But if I get up right now and walk into that bathroom, I’m not sure I’m going to come back out with any self-control left."

Your pulse was doing something stupid and loud in your ears. You reached up and wrapped your fingers around his wrists, feeling the tendons shift under your grip, feeling the steady thrum of his pulse against your fingertips.

"Jack."

"Yeah."

"I didn’t put on this outfit and drive across the city at one in the morning because I wanted you to have self-control."

The sound he made was low and broken, almost a laugh, and his forehead dropped to yours the way it had on the roof and you could feel the warmth of his breath against your mouth.

"You’re sure?"

You answered by pulling him closer, by tilting your chin up until your lips brushed his, and the kiss was nothing like the rooftop. Slower. More deliberate. His mouth was warm and careful against yours, and you could taste the coffee and the exhaustion and something underneath that was just him, just Jack, the man who’d given you his keys and told you to eat and worried when you weren’t on his couch.

His hands slid from your face to your neck to your shoulders, and you felt his fingers curl into the silk of your top, gathering the fabric, and then he was pulling back. Just barely, just enough to look at you.

"Stay right here," he said. His voice had gone rough at the edges. "Don’t move. Don’t… just stay."

You nodded. Couldn’t speak. An obedience settling in your core.

He stood from the bed, and you watched him walk to the bathroom. The set of his shoulders, the way his hand dragged through his hair one more time, and then the door closed behind him, and you were alone in his bedroom with the sound of water starting and your own heartbeat hammering against your ribs.

You pressed your palms flat against the sheets on either side of your hips and breathed. The water ran. You could hear it through the wall. The shift in pressure when he stepped under the spray, the muffled sound of his hands against tile.

You stayed where he’d told you to stay. You didn’t move. You didn’t think about the ethics or the age gap or the hospital or what Sarah would say or what would happen when the internship ended in six months. You thought about his hands on your face and his mouth on your palm and the way he’d said you’re going to kill me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The water stopped.

A beat of silence. Then the bathroom door opened.

Steam rolled out first, a warm, cedar-scented cloud that curled into the bedroom and softened the edges of everything. And then Jack.

He stood in the doorway with a towel slung low around his hips, water still glistening on his chest and shoulders, his hair pushed back and dripping dark against his forehead. The bathroom light behind him threw his body into sharp relief. The broad chest, the scar tissue mapping his left side in pale, knotted lines, the trail of dark hair below his navel that disappeared beneath the towel.

And his left leg. Or what was left of it.

The prosthetic was gone. The stump, below his knee, clean and surgical and real in a way that the polished carbon fiber never was, was bare and still slightly pink from the shower. He’d set the socket on the bathroom counter; you could see it through the doorway, propped against the mirror, the metal components catching the light.

You hadn’t moved. You’d done exactly what he asked: stayed on the bed, palms flat on the sheets, legs still tucked beneath you where he’d left them. The green silk was rumpled from sleep, the neckline still dipping low on one side, and your hair was a mess from the pillow and the humidity and the fact that you hadn’t bothered to fix any of it.

You watched him take you in. The way his gaze traveled from your face to your bare arms to the silk pulled tight across your chest to your hands, still exactly where he’d told you to put them. His chest expanded with a breath that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his lungs, and his jaw tightened not with tension, not with the clinical restraint he wore like a second skin at the hospital, but with something raw and open and completely unguarded.

"You stayed," he said.

His voice was wrecked. Not rough the way it had been on the roof. No, that had been controlled, deliberate, a man rationing what he allowed himself to feel. This was something else entirely. This was a man who’d expected to come out of that shower and find you on the couch, or in the kitchen, or pacing the living room. The man who’d expected, maybe, that the hour alone in his apartment would have given you enough time to overthink yourself out the door.

You hadn’t moved. Not an inch.

"You told me to," you said. “Old man.”

Something shifted in his face. A fracture, a crack in the careful architecture of his composure. His throat worked, and you watched his Adam’s apple dip and rise, and the hand that wasn’t braced against the doorframe curled into a fist at his side. The towel was doing very little to hide what was happening below his waist, and he didn’t seem to care. Hell, he didn’t seem capable of caring about anything other than the fact that you were still here, still exactly where he’d left you, still waiting.

"You actually stayed," he said again, and the disbelief in it made your chest ache.

You held his gaze. Didn’t look away. Didn’t look down at the stump or the scars or the towel. You kept your eyes on his - those damned green-flecked, exhausted, wanting eyes - and you said, very quietly, "I told you. I’m a fast learner."

The sound that came out of him was barely human. Low and rough and broken open, and then he was moving. Crossing the room in three uneven strides, the asymmetry of his gait more pronounced without the prosthetic, his weight shifting from his right leg to his hand balancing him on the wall, then dresser, then bed to get to you without his prosthetic. You barely had time to register the movement before his hands were on your face again, cradling your jaw, tilting your head back, and his mouth was on yours.

This kiss was different from all the others. Not hungry the way the roof had been, not careful the way the bed had been. This was something desperate and grateful and almost reverent, his lips moving against yours like he was trying to memorize the shape of your mouth through touch alone. His thumbs pressed into the hollows of your cheeks, and you could feel the slight tremor in his fingers, not from exhaustion this time, but from something far more dangerous.

You reached up and wrapped your hands around his wrists, and you could feel the tendons jumping beneath his skin, the heat of him still radiating from the shower. His chest was damp against the silk of your top, and the fabric clung to both of you where skin met skin, and you made a sound into his mouth that you didn’t recognize as your own.

He pulled back just enough to breathe, his forehead pressed to yours, his eyes closed. Water dripped from his hair onto your collarbone and traced a slow line down between your breasts, and you shivered. Not from cold.

"I’ve spent two weeks convincing myself this was a bad idea," he said. "Two weeks of telling myself you were too young, too tired, too - Christ - too everything. That I was too old, too broken, too -" His hand dropped to the leg, a reflexive gesture, his palm pressing against the scarred skin. "And you’re sitting in my bed in that shirt looking at me like…"

He stopped. Drew a breath. His eyes opened, and they were dark; the green almost swallowed by the black of his pupils, blown wide and unfocused.

"Like what?" you whispered.

"Like none of it matters." His thumb traced the line of your collarbone. "Like the leg doesn’t matter. The age doesn’t matter. The hospital, the ethics, the - fuck - the fact that I’m standing here half-naked, old, with one leg and you’re still looking at me like I’m -"

He couldn’t finish. You watched him try. Watched his jaw work, watched the muscle in his cheek jump, and then he gave up and kissed you again, slower this time, his hands sliding down to your waist, fingers curling into the silk at your hips.

You broke the kiss just far enough to speak against his mouth. "Jack."

"Don’t." His voice was rough. "Don’t say anything that’s going to make me think. I’ve been thinking for weeks and it almost killed me."

You pulled back enough to look at him, really look at him. The water still dripping from his hair. The scar tissue mapping his side. The way he held himself, slightly tilted, his weight distributed unevenly, one hand braced on the mattress beside your hip for balance.

You reached down and pressed your palm flat against the scarred skin of his calf, just above where the amputation began. His breath caught - audibly, sharply - and his hand shot out and wrapped around your wrist, not pulling it away, just holding it there, his fingers tight and warm.

"Don’t," he said again, but it came out differently this time. Less a warning and more a plea.

"I want to touch you," you said. Simple. Direct. The way he’d been with you on the roof. "All of you."

His grip on your wrist tightened. You could feel his pulse through his fingers. It was fast, erratic, nothing like the steady clinical rhythm he maintained at the hospital. This was the real Jack Abbot. The one who’d been hiding underneath the scrubs and the stethoscope and the carefully measured distance.

"Then touch me," he said.

He pulled back. Not far, just enough to stand upright, his hand finding your shoulder, his fingers curling around the curve there. The grip was steady, balanced, his weight shifting to his right leg as he found his center of gravity without the prosthetic. He stood in front of you like that, towel slung low, water still trailing down his chest, one hand on your shoulder and the other hanging loose at his side.

His gaze dropped to where your fingers rested on the edge of the towel. The white cotton, damp from the shower, the corner you’d caught without realizing you’d reached for it. He didn’t move. Didn’t adjust. Just stood there, his breath coming slow and controlled, and let you take it.

You pulled.

The towel came free in one smooth motion, the fabric sliding over his hips and dropping to the floor in a wet heap. His cock sprang free. Half-hard already, thickening even as you watched, the head flushed dark and already wet at the tip. He was bigger than you’d expected. Thick and heavy, the vein along the underside prominent, the hair at the base dark and damp.

You didn’t look away. Couldn’t. Your mouth went dry and your pulse kicked hard against your throat, and you dragged your gaze up the length of him until you found his eyes. Dark. Blown wide. Waiting.

You looked up at him from the edge of the bed, your hands back, flat on the mattress on either side of your hips, and said it. Suddenly, everything was a lot. You didn’t know where to begin.

"Tell me what to do."

The sound that left him was not a word. It was something between a groan and a curse, torn from somewhere deep in his chest, and his hand on your shoulder tightened until his knuckles went white. His cock jumped against his stomach. You watched it happen, watched the way his whole body responded to those simple words like you’d detonated something inside him.

His jaw clenched. His throat worked. You could see the muscles in his neck standing out in sharp relief, could see the way his nostrils flared with each ragged breath.

Then he spoke, and his voice was nothing you’d ever heard before. Low and wrecked and absolutely certain.

"Get on your knees."

You moved. Slid off the edge of the bed, your bare feet hitting the carpet, and dropped to your knees in front of him. The position put you eye level with his cock, and you could see every detail - the way it was fully hard now, jutting out from his body, the head glistening.

His hand left your shoulder and found the back of your head. Not pushing. Just resting there, his fingers threading into your hair, still slightly damp from the shower you’d taken hours ago.

"Open your mouth," he said. "Look at me while you do it."

You opened your mouth. Looked up at him through your lashes, the sharp line of his jaw, the stubble catching the light, the way his chest was rising and falling too fast. His hand tightened in your hair, and he guided himself forward, the head of his cock pressing against your lower lip.

"Wider."

You obeyed. He kissed your lips, the taste of him hitting your tongue, salt and skin and something faintly bitter, and you closed your mouth around him, your lips stretching around the width of him. The sound he made above you was guttural, primal, his hand flexing in your hair.

"Good." The word came out strangled. "Now take me deeper. Slow. Use your tongue, press it flat against the underside."

You did. Dragged your tongue along the vein as you took him deeper, feeling him thicken against your palate, feeling the weight of him on your tongue. Your jaw ached already and you’d barely started, but you didn’t pull back. You looked up at him the way he’d told you to, and his expression was devastating. Eyes half-closed, mouth open, every line of his face carved with want.

You had done this before, of course. Undergrad being deemed your "slutty days." But something about being told what to do made this seem all new. Your pussy throbbed at the concept.

His hand guided you - not roughly, but with absolute authority, setting a rhythm that was slow and deep and relentless. You felt him hit the back of your throat and your eyes watered, but tried not to gag, to pull away. The carefully applied mascara began to run down your cheeks. You breathed through your nose and let him push further, your throat finally opening around him, and the sound he made - a broken, reverent "fuck" - vibrated through your skull.

"Use your hand," he said. His voice was barely recognizable. "Wrap it around what you can’t take."

You brought your hand up and wrapped it around the base, your fingers barely meeting, and squeezed the way he’d told you. Always obedient. Twisted on the upstroke, your tongue still pressed flat against him, and he groaned, a sound that seemed to come from the very bottom of his lungs.

"That’s it." His hips shifted forward, a shallow thrust that you felt in the back of your throat. "Don’t stop. Don’t - Christ - don’t pull away unless I tell you to."

You didn’t. You kept the rhythm he’d set. His hand in your hair controlling the pace, your hand working the base, your tongue dragging along the underside every time you pulled back. Drool was running down your chin and you didn’t care, couldn’t care, not when every sound he made went straight through you and settled between your thighs.

His free hand found your cheek, his thumb pressing against the corner of your stretched mouth, feeling where you stretched around him. "You’re doing so well," he murmured, and the praise hit you like a physical blow. "So fucking good for me. Take a breath, deeper this time. I want to feel your throat."

You breathed in through your nose, steeled yourself, and let him push forward. He filled you completely - the head of his cock pressing into your throat, the stretch almost unbearable - and you swallowed around him, and the vibration of it made his whole body shudder.

"Fuck." His hand tightened in your hair to the point of pain. You yelped. "Fuck, you feel… I’m not going to last if you keep -"

You pulled back just enough to breathe, a string of saliva connecting your lips to his cock, and looked up at him with your eyes watering and your lips swollen and your chin wet, and you didn’t stop. You took him back in, deeper than before, your hand working in counterpoint to the rhythm of his thrusts, and you could feel him getting harder, thicker, the vein beneath your tongue pulsing with every beat of his heart.

His breathing changed. Got faster, sharper, the rhythm of his hips losing its careful control. His hand left your cheek and found the back of your head with both hands now, fingers threaded deep into your hair, and he held you there. He wasn’t forcing, but guiding, the pressure of his grip telling you exactly what he needed.

"Don’t stop," he ground out. "I’m going to come in your mouth and I want you to take all of it. Every drop. Can you do that for me?"

You made a sound around him to let him know that you were willing and able, and doubled your efforts, your hand twisting harder, your tongue working faster, and you felt the exact moment he broke.

His hips snapped forward once, twice, and then he was coming, his cock pulsing against your tongue, hot and thick and endless. You swallowed, and swallowed again, your throat working around him, and the sounds he made above you were sounds you’d never heard a man make - raw and broken and completely undone.

You didn’t pull away. You stayed exactly where he’d put you, your mouth still full of him, your hands braced on his thighs and you took everything he gave you until he was shaking, until his grip in your hair loosened, until he finally pulled back with a ragged exhale that sounded like it had been torn from his chest.

You sat back on your heels, breathing hard, your lips swollen and glistening, and looked up at him. You wondered how the rest of the morning would go. He was an old man; could he continue? Was he spent? Did he need a little coaxing to continue?

Jack was staring down at you like he’d never seen anything in his life. His chest was heaving, his hands still hovering near your head as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to stop touching you, and his expression… 

God, his expression was something you’d carry with you for the rest of your life. Awe. Devastation. Gratitude so profound it looked like pain.

Then his hands were on you - not hovering anymore, but gripping, solid and sure - and he was pulling you up off your knees with a strength that stole the breath from your lungs. Your legs were unsteady, your knees aching from the carpet, and you stumbled forward into his chest, your palms flat against the warm, damp skin over his sternum.

He didn’t give you time to find your balance. His arm hooked around your waist and he turned, and then you were falling. Not far. Onto the mattress, the dark sheets cool against your back, your hair fanning out across his pillow. The impact was soft, the bed catching you, and you looked up to find him standing over you, his hands already moving.

"Off," he said. The word was rough, stripped down to nothing. His fingers found the hem of the silk top and gathered the fabric in his fists, and then he was pulling it up over your ribs, over your breasts, over your head, and the cool air hit your bare skin and you shivered. He tossed the shirt somewhere behind him without looking, and his gaze dropped to your chest and his throat moved.

"Jesus Christ."

His hands were everywhere. On your waist, your ribs, your breasts. His thumbs dragged over the nipples until they hardened into aching points. You arched into the touch, a sound escaping you that you didn’t recognize, and his mouth found your neck. Open, hot, his teeth scraping the tendon there.

"These too," he muttered against your skin, and his fingers hooked into the waistband of your jeans. You lifted your hips without thinking, and he dragged them down. Slow, too slow, the denim catching on your thighs, on your hips, on the curve of your ass, and his hands followed the path of the fabric, mapping every inch of skin as it was exposed. His palms were calloused and warm and impossibly greedy, squeezing your thighs, your hips, the soft flesh below your navel.

The jeans joined the shirt somewhere on the floor. You were left in the black lace panties and nothing else, your skin pebbled with goosebumps despite the heat radiating off both of you. He knelt on the bed beside you, his weight making the mattress dip, and his hand slid from your stomach to the edge of the lace, his fingertips tracing the line where fabric met skin.

"Look at you," he said. His voice was wrecked. Absolutely destroyed. "Look at what you did to me."

You turned your head on the pillow and found his face inches from yours. His eyes were dark, the green nearly swallowed, and his breathing was still ragged, still uneven, and you could see the pulse hammering in his throat. His hand hadn’t moved from the edge of your underwear, his thumb pressing into the crease of your hip, his fingers splayed across your lower belly.

"I didn’t do anything," you whispered. “Old man.”

His laugh was a broken thing, warm against your cheek. "You drove across the city. You put on my cologne. You stayed in my bed. You got on your knees and…" He stopped. Swallowed. His thumb pressed harder into your hip. "You think I’m spent? You think an old man can’t keep going?"

Heat flooded your face. You hadn’t said it out loud… had you? Had you thought it loudly enough that he’d heard it somehow? Or did he just like the idea of being strong enough to keep going?

He didn’t wait for an answer. His hand slid beneath the lace and his fingers found you warm and already wet, and the sound that left him was something between a groan and a prayer.

"Fuck," he breathed against your neck. "You’re soaked."

You were. Embarrassingly, achingly soaked, and his fingers slid through it without resistance, two of them pressing against your entrance while his thumb found your clit and dragged across it in a slow, deliberate circle that made your spine arch off the mattress.

"I’m going to show you exactly how spent I am," he said, and then he was moving. Sliding down your body, his mouth trailing a hot, open path from your collarbone to the swell of your breast, his teeth catching your nipple. He took it into his mouth without preamble, suckling hard, his tongue flattening against the peak. And you cried out, your hands flying to his hair, your fingers gripping the damp strands.

He released your breast with a wet sound and kept going. Down. Over your ribs, your stomach, the sensitive skin below your navel. His hands hooked into the waistband of your underwear and pulled them down. Not slowly this time, but in one quick motion that left you bare and exposed on his sheets, and you felt the cool air hit your most intimate skin and then the heat of his breath replacing it, and your thighs fell open without conscious thought.

Jack looked up at you from between your legs. His eyes were dark, his mouth wet, his stubble catching the streetlight. One of his hands pressed your thigh further open while the other settled on your stomach.

"Stay," he said. The same word from before. The same command. "Don’t move."

You nodded. Couldn’t speak.

The first touch of his tongue was flat and broad and devastating. A long, slow stroke from your entrance to your clit that made your hips jerk off the mattress despite his hand pressing you down. He made a sound against you. Approval, maybe, or satisfaction. And did it again, slower this time, his tongue dragging through the wetness with deliberate, agonizing patience.

"Jack -" Your voice cracked on his name.

He didn’t respond with words. He responded by wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking hard, relentless, his tongue flicking against the swollen bud in quick, rhythmic strokes that had you gripping the sheets in both fists. The sound he made, low and vibrating against you, sent shockwaves through your entire body, and your back arched off the mattress so hard you felt the strain in your abs.

His hand on your stomach slid lower. One finger, just one, pressed against your entrance and pushed inside, and you were so wet, so ready, that he slid in to the knuckle without resistance. The stretch was minimal, but the sensation of being filled while his mouth worked your clit made your vision blur at the edges.

He added a second finger. Curled them. Found the spot inside you that made your entire body clench, and pressed against it with merciless precision while his tongue never stopped its rhythm.

You were making sounds you didn’t recognize and your hands had migrated back to his hair, gripping and pulling and pressing him closer because you couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop yourself from chasing the building pressure behind your navel. His fingers moved inside you. Scissoring, curling, thrusting in a steady rhythm that matched the strokes of his tongue, and the wet sounds of it filled the quiet bedroom, obscene and perfect.

"Don’t stop," you gasped. "Please, don’t stop -"

He didn’t. If anything, he doubled down, his fingers driving deeper, his mouth sucking harder, his free hand pressing your thigh so wide open you felt the stretch in your inner muscles. The pressure was building in thick, rolling waves, each one cresting higher than the last, and you could feel yourself tightening around his fingers, feel the heat pooling and coiling and threatening to break.

And then his tongue changed. Slower. Broader. Dragging through your folds with deliberate, aching pressure before circling your clit in tight, precise rotations, and his fingers pressed that spot inside you and held, just held, and the wave broke.

You came apart. Not gracefully. Violently, your body seizing, your thighs clamping around his head, a sound tearing from your throat that was half sob and half his name. He didn’t pull away. He kept his mouth on you through every pulse, his tongue gentling but not stopping, his fingers still pressed inside you, and the aftershocks rolled through you in long, shuddering waves that seemed to go on forever.

You finally went limp against the mattress. Boneless, trembling, your chest heaving and he lifted his head. His chin was glistening. His lips were swollen. His eyes were dark and satisfied and still burning with something that hadn’t been extinguished.

He turned his face and pressed a kiss to your palm. Then he was moving up your body, his weight settling between your thighs, and you felt him against you. Hard. Already hard again, thick and insistent, pressing against your soaked entrance with a heat that made your freshly sensitized nerves sing.

You looked down between your bodies. His cock was fully erect, maybe harder than before, if that was possible, the head flushed dark and wet, and you could feel the pulse of him against you. The recovery had taken mere minutes. The time he’d spent between your legs with his mouth and his fingers had been more than enough.

"You… " You started, and your voice came out ruined.

"I told you," he said against your mouth. His hips shifted, the head of his cock sliding through your folds, gathering the wetness there. "I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. You think one orgasm is going to take care of that?"

His hand found your jaw, tilting your face up to his. His eyes searched yours - checking, you realized. Making sure you were still with him, still present, still okay.

"Tell me you want this," he said. Quiet. Rough. The most clinical thing he’d said all night, and somehow the most intimate. "Tell me, or I stop right now."

You reached between your bodies and wrapped your hand around him. Thick. Hot. The vein beneath your palm pulsed against your fingers. You guided him to your entrance and pressed - just the head, just enough to feel the stretch beginning - and looked up at him with everything you had.

"I want this," you said. "I want you. All of you."

His eyes closed. His forehead dropped to yours. And then he pushed forward. It was slow, deliberate, filling you inch by inch, and the sound that left both of you was something that existed outside language entirely.

He was inside you completely now. Every thick, pulsing inch of him and you could feel him trembling with the effort of holding still. His forehead pressed against yours, his breath coming in ragged bursts across your lips, and his hands were braced on either side of your head, his arms locked, holding his weight off your body with a carefulness that bordered on clinical.

He started moving. Slow. Deep. Each thrust deliberate and measured, his hips rolling forward with a gentleness that made your chest ache. His mouth found yours, soft, reverent, his tongue tracing the seam of your lips before slipping inside, and the kiss was nothing like the desperation of the roof or the wreckage of the shower. This was tender. Almost careful. The kind of lovemaking you’d read about in novels and never quite believed existed.

And something about it felt wrong.

Not the tenderness, God, the tenderness was devastating, his lips moving against yours with a sweetness that made your throat tighten. It was the restraint. You could feel it in every muscle of his body, the way he held himself above you, the way his thrusts stayed shallow and controlled, the way his hands hovered over your skin without gripping, without taking. He was holding back. Deliberately, systematically holding back, and the realization hit you like a bucket of cold water.

He was being careful with you. Gentle. The way you’d be careful with something fragile. Something breakable.

You weren’t breakable.

You locked your legs around his waist like a vise, your calves crossing at the small of his back, and pulled him deeper. Your hips lifted off the mattress, meeting his next thrust with enough force to drive him an inch further, and you felt the head of his cock press against something inside you that made white light flash behind your eyelids.

His breath stuttered. His hips faltered, just for a second, and then he adjusted. Pulled back. Kept the rhythm slow, kept the depth controlled, kept everything measured and careful and wrong.

He was someone else right now. Not the man who’d told you to get on your knees. Not the man who’d come in your mouth with sounds that belonged in a church. This was Dr. Abbot. The one who stitched arms and ended relationships and worried about pigeon shit on concrete. The one who held himself at a distance because the alternative was too much.

Apparently, to Dr. Abbot, oral was one thing, but fucking you was something different. Something to be gentle about.

But you didn’t want Dr. Abbot. You wanted Jack.

You waited for the next thrust. Felt the careful roll of his hips, the controlled withdrawal, and then you moved. Fast. Your hands found his shoulders, your legs tightened around his waist, and you used the momentum of his own careful rhythm to flip him. One sharp twist of your body, your weight shifting, and suddenly you were on top. Straddling his hips, his cock still buried inside you, his hands flying to your waist in reflex.

His eyes flew open. Wide. Shocked. His mouth fell open, you could see the confusion, the surprise, the way his clinical brain was trying to catch up with what had just happened, and you didn’t give him time to process.

Your hand found his throat.

Not roughly. Not violently. Just your palm, pressed flat against the column of his neck, your fingers curling around the sides. You could feel his pulse hammering against your palm. Fast, erratic, nothing like the steady rhythm he maintained at the hospital. His skin was hot under your hand, the stubble rough against your fingers, and you could feel the tendons in his neck go taut.

"Where’d you go," you asked. "You’re here. With me."

The words came out steady. Calmer than you felt. Your thumb pressed into the vein of his throat, just enough pressure to make his breathing change. A sharp intake, a stutter in the rhythm, and you squeezed. Gently. Just enough to feel the give of his trachea beneath your palm, just enough to watch his pupils blow wider.

"I just -" Jack gasped. "I haven’t… not since…"

He glanced at his hand. His wedding ring was gone, you’re sure he must have taken it off during his shower, leaving behind a tan line on his finger. You instantly knew what he meant: he’s fooled around a bit since his wife died but this is his first time having sex.

His hands were still on your hips. You could feel his fingers pressing into the flesh there, not gripping yet, just resting. His chest was heaving beneath you, his cock twitching inside you, and his eyes - those damned green-flecked, devastating eyes - were locked on yours with an expression you couldn’t fully read.

Shock. Definitely shock. But underneath it, something darker. Something that hadn’t been there before.

You squeezed again. Tighter this time. His breath caught and his hands tightened on your hips. Not bruising yet. But close.

"You’re being careful with me," you said, and your voice dropped lower, rougher. "I don’t need you to be careful, Jack."

Something broke in his expression. A crack in the careful architecture, the same one you’d seen on the roof and in the doorway and every time he’d let himself be something other than controlled. His jaw clenched. His nostrils flared. And then… 

God, then…

A sound came out of him that you’d never heard before.

A growl. Low and rough and absolutely feral, rumbling up from somewhere deep in his chest and vibrating through you.

His hands on your hips became something else entirely. Bruising. Grip tightening until you could feel the individual points of his fingers digging into the soft flesh, the pressure sharp enough to leave marks she’d find tomorrow. And then he was moving you.

Not letting you set the pace, not letting you control the rhythm. His hips driving up off the mattress while his hands forced you down, a brutal counterpoint that punched the air from your lungs.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

His thrusts were relentless, deep, punishing, nothing like the careful missionary he’d been performing thirty seconds ago. Each one drove him to the hilt, his pelvis grinding against your clit, and the wet sounds of your bodies meeting filled the room. His hands held you in place, fingers digging into the meat of your hips, and you could feel the strength in them, the kind of strength that came from years of holding himself together, now being used to pull you apart.

And your hand never left his throat.

You kept the pressure steady. Not cutting off his air completely, just enough to make every breath a conscious effort, just enough to make his pulse hammer against your palm like a trapped bird. You could feel the vibration of his growls through your fingers, feel the way his throat worked beneath your grip as he swallowed, as he gasped, as he took what you were giving him and came back for more.

His eyes were wild. Unfocused. The green almost completely swallowed by black, and you watched the shock cycle through his expression in real time. The disbelief, the confusion, the dawning realization that he liked this. That the pressure of your hand on his throat was doing something to him that nothing else ever had.

He’d never been choked before. You could see it in his face, the way the sensation was new and overwhelming and completely destroying whatever was left of his composure. His hips stuttered, his rhythm faltering for just a moment, and his hands squeezed your hips hard enough to make you gasp.

"Don’t stop," he ground out. The words were rough, barely recognizable, scraped raw by the pressure of your palm. "Don’t you fucking stop."

You didn’t. You squeezed tighter, felt his pulse jump, felt his cock throb inside you, and rolled your hips against his in a slow, grinding circle that made his back arch off the mattress.

His hand shot up from your hip and wrapped around the back of your neck. Not pushing, not guiding, just holding you there, and then he was kissing you. Hard. His mouth crashed against yours with a desperation that obliterated everything else.

The rhythm, the pressure, the careful architecture of who was in control. His tongue swept into your mouth and you tasted yourself on him, salt and musk, and your hand slipped from his throat as the angle changed.

He used it. The shift in your center of gravity, the way your grip loosened. 

He rolled, one smooth motion that leveraged his weight and the give of the mattress, and suddenly you were on your back again, the air leaving your lungs in a surprised rush. His cock slid free of you, the sudden emptiness making you gasp and whine, and then he was moving, repositioning, his hands finding your knees.

You barely had time to register what was happening before he was pushing your legs up. He folded you in half, your knees pressed against your chest, your hips tilted skyward. The position left you completely exposed, spread open, every inch of you on display under the streetlight bleeding through the curtains. You could feel the cool air against your most intimate skin, could feel the slick trail of his release still glistening between your thighs, and the vulnerability of it - the raw, unguarded openness - made your face burn and your pulse hammer.

He knelt between your thighs, but he didn’t push inside immediately. Instead, he leaned forward, bracing one hand on the mattress beside your head, and used the other to grip himself. You felt the blunt head drag along your folds - slow, deliberate, the ridge of him catching on your entrance before sliding away. He traced the seam of you, the wet heat of your pussy, and then lower. Down, past your entrance, along the sensitive skin between, until the head of him pressed against something tighter, something untouched.

Your asshole. 

The pressure was light, barely there, but the sensation sent a jolt of electricity straight up your spine. Your breath hitched, and you watched his face above you, watched the way his eyes tracked the path of his cock against your body, watched the hunger sharpen into something almost feral.

He dragged himself back up. Over your entrance again, the head catching on your swollen lips, and then he was pushing forward, driving into you in one deep, punishing thrust that bottomed out and made your vision white out at the edges.

He pulled back. All the way. You felt every inch of him withdraw, felt the cool air rush into the space he’d occupied, felt the emptiness so acute it bordered on pain. Then he slammed forward again. Hard. The impact drove your hips up off the mattress, your knees pressing harder against your chest, and the sound of skin meeting skin cracked through the quiet bedroom.

Again. Out all the way, the head of him barely inside, and then in. 

Deep. 

Devastating. 

His hips snapped forward with a force that rattled the headboard against the wall, and each thrust punched a sound from your throat. High, broken, involuntary. He wasn’t gentle. Wasn’t careful. Wasn’t Dr. Abbot holding himself at a distance.

This was Jack. Raw and unfiltered and absolutely wrecked, his hand gripping your hip hard enough to leave bruises, his rhythm brutal and relentless, his eyes locked on the place where his cock disappeared inside you over and over and over.

You couldn’t think. 

Couldn’t breathe. 

Couldn’t do anything but take it, take him, your hands gripping the sheets, your back arching, your body clenching around him with each thrust. The pleasure was building in thick, rolling waves, each one cresting higher, each one pulling you closer to the edge you’d already been pushed to once tonight.

His pace never faltered. If anything, it accelerated. His hips pistoning, the bed frame creaking beneath you, the wet sounds of your bodies meeting obscenely loud in the dark room. You could feel him everywhere. In your chest, in your stomach, in the places his cock reached that made your toes curl and your vision blur.

You were close. So close you could taste it - metallic and electric on the back of your tongue. Your muscles were tightening, your breath coming in sharp, desperate gasps, and you could feel the same tension building in him. The way his thrusts were losing their precision, the way his hand on your hip was shaking, the way his jaw was clenched so tight the tendons stood out like cables.

He felt it too. You could see it in his face: the dawning realization, the shift from pure want to something more urgent. His rhythm stuttered, just once, and his hand left your hip. He reached down between you, his thumb finding your clit in the mess of your bodies, pressing hard, circling fast, and the combination of his cock driving into you and his thumb on your clit and the pressure of your own knees against your chest was too much.

You broke first. 

The orgasm hit you like a freight train: violent, all-consuming, your body seizing around him so hard you heard yourself scream. Your vision whited out completely, every nerve ending firing at once, and you felt him pulse inside you before he caught himself.

He was pulling out.

You could feel it.

The shift in his weight, the way his hips were already withdrawing, his hand leaving your clit to brace himself, his face contorted with the effort of control. He was going to pull out. He was going to come on your stomach, on the sheets, anywhere but inside you, because he was a doctor and he knew better and the condom that should have been there wasn’t.

"No." The word came out before you could stop it. A whimper, broken and desperate, your hand flying to his hip, your fingers digging into the muscle there. "Don’t - please -"

He stopped. His cock was halfway out, the head still inside you, and you could feel him trembling, every muscle in his body locked in the agonizing tension of holding back.

"I’m on the pill," you gasped, the words tumbling out between ragged breaths. "I’m on it - I’ve been on it for years. That’s the whole point, I like - please, Jack, please don’t pull out…"

Something shattered in his expression. 

The last restraint, the final wall, crumbling into dust. His hips drove forward. One final, devastating thrust and he buried himself to the hilt as the orgasm ripped through him. You felt every pulse, every hot, thick wave of him emptying inside you, his cock throbbing against your walls, his body shuddering above you with a violence that seemed to come from the very core of him.

His forehead dropped to your chest. His breathing was wrecked. Deep, heaving gasps that shook his entire frame, and his hands found yours on the mattress, his fingers lacing through yours, gripping so tight your knuckles ached. You could feel his pulse through his palms, still hammering, still racing, and your own heartbeat answered in kind, the two rhythms syncing in the quiet aftermath.

For a long time, neither of you moved. The only sounds were your breathing and the distant hum of the city beyond the windows. 

His weight settled on you gradually. Not collapsing, but easing, his body going soft and heavy against yours in increments. You could feel the sweat cooling between your bodies, feel the mess of his release still warm inside you, feel the ache blooming in muscles you hadn’t known you had.

His lips moved against your sternum. A word, maybe. Your name. You couldn’t tell, the vibration was too faint, his mouth too close to your skin.

You lifted a trembling hand and buried it in his hair. The strands were still damp from the shower, matted down now with sweat, and you carded your fingers through them with a gentleness that felt like the only thing your body had left to offer.

He turned his head. Pressed his mouth to the space between your breasts. Then he was moving, pulling out of you with a wince that you felt more than heard. The sensation of emptiness was immediate and acute, and you felt him spill out of you. It was warm, thick; running down between your thighs and pooling on the sheets beneath you.

Neither of you acknowledged it. Not yet.

He shifted his weight, rolling to the side, and you felt the cool air hit your skin where his body had been. Your knees were still pressed to your chest, your legs still folded, and you let them fall open slowly. The stretch in your inner thighs makes you wince. Every muscle in your body felt like it had been put through a wringer.

Spent.

Jack’s arm found your waist. He pulled you against him, your back to his chest, his hand splayed across your stomach and the position tucked you into the curve of his body like you’d been designed to fit there. His chin settled on the crown of your head, and you could feel his breathing gradually slowing, the frantic hammer of his heart against your spine softening into something steadier.

The sheets were ruined. You were both ruined. The room smelled like sex and cedar and the faintest trace of hospital antiseptic still clinging to his skin.

You pressed your palm flat against his hand on your stomach. His fingers twitched, then interlaced with yours.

"You’re going to have to move eventually," you murmured. Your voice was wrecked - hoarse, barely above a whisper. "You’re crushing me."

His laugh vibrated through your back. "Give me five minutes."

"Five minutes."

"Maybe ten."

You closed your eyes. The city pulsed beyond the windows. Thousands of lights, thousands of lives, none of them knowing that you were lying in Jack Abbot’s bed with his come between your thighs and his heartbeat slowing against your spine.

His thumb traced a slow circle on your stomach. Over and over.

You’d only begun working at Pittsburg Trauma Medical Center a few months ago, looking for more of a challenge after spending the past few years of your career in dermatology. You didn’t hate it, per se, but you felt deep in your bones that you were meant for more high stakes work.

Not only did the job suit you better, but the people did too. Sure, you’d met some nice people in dermatology, even met your best friend there, but working in the ER surrounded you with people much like yourself. Adrenaline junkies.

Unfortunately, adrenaline junkies and medical conferences did not mix.

That’s how you found yourself at some dodgy dive bar down the street from your hotel the last night of your conference with two of your coworkers, Trinity and Victoria. The three of you had been bored out of your minds at the last lecture of the day, where some old pretentious man droned on and on and onnnnn about medical research that was about 25 years outdated. You really needed a drink.

“Okay, I know we agreed on vodka crans, but I got us green tea shots too. My treat, alright? I fucking need a shot after whatever that lecture was,” Trinity explains as she returns from the bar, setting three drinks and three shots down on the center of the table. You were able to snag some seats in the back corner of the bar, thankfully, because the last thing you want to deal with is any more people today.

“Oh god, it was horrible, wasn’t it? I was just about ready to rip my hair out. Didn’t think that guy would ever stop talking,” Victoria replies as she reaches for one of the shots. 

The three of you clink glasses, tapping them down onto the wooden surface of the table before knocking them back. 

“God, that’s fucking good,” you wince, the alcohol burning at the bottom of your throat.

The night continues in a cycle of work gossip and ordering vodka cranberries for the table. By the time you guys are leaving, you’re thoroughly buzzed.

You walk back to the hotel together, arm and arm, when you get back onto the topic of work. Feeling a little more truthful than usual due to the alcohol coursing through your system, you decide to tell your friends about an awkward moment you had during one of your shifts last week.

“Oh it was awful, you guys. I was assisting Dr. Abbot with a perforating GSW and he asked me to hand him hemostatic gauze, and I dropped the package all over the floor trying to open it. I’m talking gauze everywhere. I had to rush to get a new one, my hands were shaking like hell when I gave it to him,” you ramble. “And the worst part? He noticed. Pulled me into one of the on-call rooms afterward to ask what was up with me. I was horrified.”

Victoria furrows her brows, and Trinity slows her steps until the three of you are standing still in the middle of the dimly lit sidewalk.

“What’s wrong? Why are we stopping?” you ask, confused. 

“Sorry, you were nervous?” Victoria questions.

“I didn’t even know that was possible for you,” Trinity admits, shock displayed on her face.

“I mean, yeah. If you guys had been there, you’d understand. The whole room was tense, you could hear a pin drop,” you explain.

“Don’t think that’s how I’d describe the Pitt, but okay,” Victoria concedes, falling back into step toward the hotel as you and Trinity trail close behind.

“Y’know, I don’t think it was the GSW that had you all worked up. I’ve seen you in action. You’re not one to falter, especially not like that. I think maybe a certain night shift attending has you all hot and bothered,” Trinity prods, landing a playful punch against your shoulder.

Victoria whips her head around at that. “Oh my god. That’s totally it!” she squeals. “Are you guys hooking up? I’ll be soooo jealous, he’s a total silver fox.”

Heat blooms in your chest and creeps up to your cheeks. You’re suddenly very, very hot.

“Jesus, no. I’m not hooking up with him. I’m not even into him, not like that. I can promise you he’s not what made me nervous,” you ramble. “We work a high stress job, it’s normal to make mistakes. And that’s all it was, a mistake,” you babble on, hoping your friends won’t pick up on the fact that you’re lying straight through your teeth.

While the part about not hooking up with him is true, you can’t deny the fact that you definitely have feelings for Doctor Jack Abbot.

It’s all his fault, really. From the start, he was charming. Good at conversation. Never made you feel less than, despite being the newbie of the department. 

And it definitely didn’t help that he looked like that. Salt and pepper curls that framed his angular face which was dusted with freckles. Wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that made themselves known when he smiled. Biceps that bulged underneath his scrub top sleeve, which was far too tight considering the size of his muscles.

It got worse once you guys fell into a rhythm, able to work in tandem. Sometimes you didn’t even need words. It only took one look at each other for you to know exactly where he needed you, how to best assist him with a procedure. 

If it wasn’t a look, it was a touch. A gloved hand overtop yours, guiding you on where to make an incision. A warm, large hand braced against your back as you intubate. A pat on the shoulder after you successfully stabilize a patient. 

But undoubtedly, the worst part was the way he spoke to you. Whether it be a “Nice work, Kiddo,” after a particularly stressful chest tube placement, or a “What’s goin’ on up there?” with a featherlight touch to your temple when you were lost in thought. It was like he could sense what you were feeling before you’d even figured it out for yourself.

Clearly, whatever feelings you have for Dr. Abbot are written all over your face, because Trinity and Victoria seem wholly unconvinced.

“Okay, well if you’re not hooking up with him, then you should be. I’ve seen your dynamic, there’s some clear tension between you guys, babe,” Trinity argues as you finally approach the doors of your hotel.

“Yeah, that’s not happening. Even if I wanted it to, which I don’t, there’s no way he’d be into it,” you explain, the warmth in your cheeks only growing. 

Victoria lets out a dramatic sigh as you make your way through the hotel lobby toward the elevators. “And I thought I was clueless.”

“Sorry?” you ask, pressing the button for the elevator. It dings and the doors open, the three of you piling in. You quickly push the button for floor three. You want to escape this situation as fast as possible, if you’re being honest. Your emotions are too heightened from the drinks to be having this conversation right now.

“If you can’t see it, there’s nothing we can do to help you,” Trinity replies. “Anyway, it might not be the brightest idea to sleep with a coworker. We all know how that went for me…”

“Oh Trin it wasn’t that bad. At least she doesn’t work in the same department,” Victoria remarks, then gestures vaguely at you. “Imagine if this hypothetical hookup with Abbot really did happen. She’d have to work with him all the time and he’s her attending. Now that’s bad.”

You groan. “Gee, thanks guys. I feel really supported right now.”

“So you do want to sleep with him then?” Victoria quips. 

“No! My god, you guys. I’m done with the conversation,” you exclaim. The elevator finally reaches your floor and you waste no time stepping out into the warmly lit hallway.

“Well, I’ll see you both bright and early tomorrow. Still want to get coffee before the airport?” Trinity asks as she fumbles with her keycard outside of her room door. 

Victoria, one door down from Trinity, follows suit in swiping her card. “Sure, how’s 7:00 sound?”

“Works for me, see you guys tomorrow!” you reply with a smile and a wave, making your way down to the end of the hallway to your room. 

It hits you as you struggle to get your door unlocked that you’re a lot drunker than you thought. Not enough to warrant a hangover, but inebriated enough that you stumble toward your bed as you kick off your shoes. 

After taking a much needed shower, washing away the grime of a long day, and putting on a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top, you cuddle up into bed and check your texts.

There’s multiple from your best friend, Jackie. The one you met when you worked in dermatology. 

Jackie: girl i haven’t heard from you all day Jackie: is the conference terrible Jackie: so glad i don’t have to go to those lol Jackie: is dr hottie there at least

You chuckle at her messages. Of course she’d bring him up. She’s the only person you’ve confided in about your attraction to Dr. Abbot, and she’s become obsessed with him ever since. Even gave him that ridiculous nickname.

You swipe back to check your other notifications, reading a text from your mom and watching a Tik Tok that Trinity sent you from her room before you finally go back to reply to Jackie.

Unfortunately, in your inebriated state, your finger slides on your screen and deletes your text chain with her.

“Shit!” you exclaim. At least you remember what she said. You quickly click the “New Message” button and start typing out her name. 

j… a… c… 

You click on her contact and begin typing.

You: sry i’ve been busy but yes the conference was shit You: got drinks after im a ltitle drunk lol You: and yes dr hottie is here thank god You: i sat behind him during a talk this mornign and had to fight urges to run my hands through his sexy silver hair You: i didnrt do it tho. i am brave

Sighing, you shuffle in bed so you’re no longer sitting up against the headboard but laying on your side. You reach toward the nightstand and flick the lamp off, filling the room with darkness.

Well, the room is dark until your phone buzzes on the mattress next to you and the screen lights up, emitting a soft glow. 

Rather quickly, it buzzes again. You reach for it, expecting Jackie’s replies. While it’s not very late, she’s a night owl through and through, so of course she’d answer you immediately. 

Instead, you see two notifications from… Jack Abbot? The only times you’ve ever texted him were about coming in early or that one time you’d forgotten your sweater in the break room and asked if he could hide it in one of the cabinets until your shift the next morning. Why would he be texting you at 11:00pm on a night you were both off?

You unlock your phone and click into your text thread with him.

Jack: I think you meant to send those to someone else. Jack: I’ll try and sit farther away next time. Wouldn’t want my hair distracting you.

You shoot up in bed, breath catching in your throat. Immediately, your chest is on fire. There’s no fucking way you sent those messages to him.

You: oh my god You: im so fuckign sorry You: i was trying to text my friend

Jack: It’s OK.

You: its not You: its extremely unprofessional You: im so so sorry

Jack: Stop apologizing.

Your breathing still hasn’t calmed down. You’re mortified. How are you ever going to face him again?

For a minute, there’s no other reply. You debate texting him again, but what could you even say? “I’m sorry I think your hair is sexy”?

Instead, you try to focus on calming down. Everything will be fine. You can blame it on the drinks, even if you’re not really drunk. He won’t know that you’re lying.

Your eye catches on the three little dots at the corner of your text thread. He’s typing again. A lump forms in the base of your throat.

Jack: Where are you?

Confused, you type out a reply.

You: my room You: why

Jack: How much did you drink?

You: not much You: a few vodka crans with trinity and victoria You: im mostly sober now

It wasn’t necessarily a lie. This interaction definitely sobered you up.

Jack: So you’re OK?

You: yep You: safe and sound

Jack: Good. Jack: Dr. Hottie, huh?

You: oh god pls dont remind me You: im mortified

Jack: Don’t be. Jack: Are you in bed?

Your eyebrows furrow at that last message. At first it seemed like he was just checking in on you, making sure you weren’t stranded and drunk at some shady bar. But what kind of question is that?

You: yes

Jack: Send me a picture.

Eyebrows knitting together in confusion, you open your camera and take a photo of the foot of your bed. You can make out the shape of the chair in the corner of the room and the TV mounted to the wall. You go back to your texts and send him the photo.

You: [1 attachment] You: see You: exactly where i said i am

Jack: No, a picture of you.

Oh. 

With shaking hands, you swipe back to the camera app, this time flipping it so it’s front facing. You snap a photo of yourself, angling the phone so it captures your face and part of your torso. 

You examine the photograph, taking in the pouty expression on your face and noting the way your tank top rides up at your stomach, exposing your midriff. Considering you didn’t put on a bra, you can see the faint outline of your nipples through the thin material.

Without overthinking it, you send him the picture.

You: [1 attachment]

Jack: Jesus. Jack: You always sleep like that?

Feeling bold, the remnants of your night out still coursing through your veins, you type out a reply.

You: no You: i usually sleep naked You: but that feels a bit too exposing for a hotel 

Jack: Fuck, sweetheart. Jack: You have no idea what you’re doing to me.

You: send a pic You: i wanna see

Heat pools between your legs. There’s no way this is happening. You’ll wake up tomorrow and realize you dreamt up this entire conversation.

An image from Dr. Abbot comes through.

Jack: [1 attachment]

He’s laying in his hotel bed in nothing but his underwear. You can’t see his face, but his chest is on full display. God, his muscles were something else.

But the real star of the show is his bulge, straining hard against the fabric of his boxers. One of his veiny hands rests atop it, and you can’t help but notice the wet spot pooling where his erection sits.

Fuck.

You hold your phone in one hand and slide the other one underneath your shorts and panties, rubbing slow, methodic circles against your core. Your phone pings with another message.

Jack: What’re you doing now?

You: touching myself You: are u

Jack: Fuck, yes.

Growing warm, you kick the bedsheets aside. Your hand continues to circle, pressure building deep in your belly.

You: wish i could see u rn

Jack: [1 attachment - 0:21]

Oh, God. 

Suddenly, everything starts feeling a little too real. You should not be doing this. He’s your attending. You’re sacrificing your career, everything you’ve worked so hard for, for what? One meaningless night?

But the way your hand is creating friction against your clit combined with Jack’s messages have you too horny to care, if you’re being honest.

Nervously, you click play on the video.

You almost regret doing it.

But you can’t look away from the sight of him pumping his cock up and down in the dim lighting of his hotel room. 

It’s long, longer than you were expecting. And thick. 

You watch as he drags his hand from the base up to the head, uses his thumb to circle the precum that's built up at the slit, and then works it up and down his length.

If the sight of that wasn’t enough, the sounds he’s making have you groaning into your pillow. He’s practically growling, the noises coming ragged from the depths of his throat.

You can’t even think straight, you’re so desperate for more. For anything. Without even thinking about it, you open your phone camera again and start recording.

It’s nothing special, considering how worked up you are. You really can’t even see much since your shorts and panties are still on. 

You film as your hand moves underneath the fabric a few times, breathy moans escaping your lips. You pull it out slowly, showing off the sticky mess left on your fingers for the camera.

You: oh my god You: thats so fucking hot You: [1 attachment - 0:14] You: this is how badly i want u

There’s no response for a minute, and you worry that you went too far. Maybe he realized how fucking crazy this whole situation is. Because that’s exactly what it is. Crazy.

Before you can begin to spiral too hard, your phone buzzes in your hand.

He’s fucking calling you.

You let it ring a few times, working up the courage to answer.

With a shaking hand, you click accept.

He doesn’t say anything at first, but you can hear his heavy breathing and the sound of something wet in the background. 

“How are you doing it?” he mumbles into the phone, abruptly.

“What?”

“How are you touching yourself? Tell me.”

“Oh, I’m– I’m rubbing circles on my clit,” you can barely make out the words, feeling embarrassed. 

“Oh fuck,” he groans. “Slip a finger in.”

“Jack, I–”

“Fuck, I need you to,” he begs. “Please do it for me, Kiddo.”

“O-Okay,” you stutter, lining up your middle finger with your entrance and sinking it in. You release a moan at the sensation, pumping your finger in and out a few times before adding another.

“God, that sound. You sound so pretty when you touch yourself. Can you hear me? Hear me pumping my cock? It wants you so bad, Sweetheart. You have no idea.”

His words make you shudder, more needy sounds escaping from your throat. The sound of his hand working against his length combined with his breathy moans have you bucking your hips into your hand.

“I want you too,” you whimper. 

“What’s your room number?” Jack grunts.

“What?”

“I can’t do this. Knowing you’re right down the hall. What room are you in?”

You blink.

“302.”

The line clicks. 

He hung up.

You stare at the dark phone screen in front of you, fingers coming to a stop under your panties.

What the actual fuck just happened.

Is he coming here? Like right now?

Suddenly, there’s three sharp knocks at the door. You readjust your panties and shorts and nervously make your way to the door, fumbling to open it because of how hard you’re shaking. 

As you expected, Jack Abbot stands in front of you clad in a white t-shirt and a pair of sweats. He’s using his crutches, didn’t even waste time putting on his leg. His left foot dons one white sock. No shoe. 

Just looking at his face makes the ache between your legs grow. His skin’s coated in a thin sheen of sweat, curls sticking to his forehead. His breathing is uneven, chest heaving against the tight fabric of his shirt.

Without a word, you open the door wide enough to let him through and he wastes no time heading directly for the center of the room, placing his crutches against the nightstand and sitting on the edge of the bed. You click the door shut and lock it.

“C’mere,” he whispers.

You take one step toward him. Measured, careful. Then another.

“Jack, I don’t know if we should…”

“Fuck, don’t say that. Would you just come here?” he growls.

You move closer until you’re standing in front of him. He reaches for you, placing his broad hands on your hips and tugging you closer to him, between his thighs. His thumbs move back and forth against your hip bone.

“Do you want this?” He asks, quiet.

“Yes.”

“Then let me make you feel good. Please,” he murmurs, pulling you even closer so he can press open mouthed kisses to the base of your throat and down your chest. 

You moan into his touch, hands coming up to tug his hair.

“Is it as good as you imagined?” he teases.

“Sorry?”

“Running your hands through my ‘sexy silver hair’? Your words, not mine.” 

A laugh escapes from his lips and you groan, dropping your head on top of his so he can’t see how horrified you are. 

“Yeah, I’m going to regret that text for the rest of my life.”

Jack brings his hands up from your waist to the back of your head so he can pull you back to look at him.

“I’m not,” he says, maintaining such an intense eye contact that you begin to tremble underneath his gaze. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about it. Your hands in my hair. Your mouth on me. How you’d sound when I fuck you,” he whispers, leaning to continue sucking marks on your chest, just above the neckline of your tank top.

You moan at his words. If that’s the case, you should’ve been fucking him for months now.

Something snaps inside of you, and you give up on holding back. You want this. You can deal with the repercussions tomorrow.

You bring your hands down from his hair to his shoulders and push him back slightly on the bed so you have enough room to climb on top of him, straddling his thighs. He moves his hands back to your waist, keeping you stabilized against him.

“Hi,” you whisper.

“Hi,” he responds, breathless.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Fuck, please.”

You dip your head down and hover your lips over his, inches apart. You can feel his warm breath fan over your mouth as he exhales. 

Fed up, Jack closes the distance, connecting his lips with yours. 

And fuck, he tastes good. 

You whimper into his mouth, quickening your pace, desperate for more.

The sound you make causes his grip to tighten around your waist, his kisses becoming sloppier. He darts his tongue out, seeking entry to your mouth.

You swirl your tongue against his and he releases a deep, guttural groan. Your bodies move together, hips grinding over the bulge in his sweatpants. 

Between frantic kisses, he manages to lift your tank top over your head, pulling back only to admire your bare chest.

“Been dreaming about these,” he admits, taking his right hand off your hip to palm at one of your breasts. “They’re even better than I imagined.”

You throw your head back as he rolls your nipple between his knuckles. He dips his head and uses his mouth to suck on the other one, and the sensation has you rocking your hips even harder against him.

“So fucking sexy,” he breathes as he swirls his tongue around your nipple. You dig your nails into his shoulder, overwhelmed by his hands and mouth.

He kisses his way back up your chest and neck until his lips connect with yours again, hand still squeezing at your breast.

“Can I taste you?” he groans into your mouth. 

You nod against him and he takes that as permission to lift you from his lap and toss you on the bed next to him, head hitting the pillow. You giggle at the sudden movement, Jack crawling above you to keep peppering your lips and jaw with kisses.

He pulls back so he’s sitting on his haunches and fiddles with the waistband of your shorts. Slowly, he peels the fabric down your legs and tosses them aside. He pushes your knees apart so you’re spread for him, ducking his head to kiss his way up your thighs.

“Jack, please,” you beg.

He places a few kisses over the lacy fabric of your panties before he pulls them to the side, face to face with your dripping center. 

He licks one slow, agonizing stripe up your core, causing you to buck your hips up in the air. 

“Fuck, you taste so good, Kiddo,” he mumbles into your cunt, lapping up the wetness that’s gathered there. He takes his time sucking and kissing at your clit, dipping his tongue into you, building you up to your first orgasm.

“Jack, I–I’m gonna come,” you whine, teetering over the edge.

“Let it happen, Sweetheart. Want you to come on my tongue.”

His words send you over the edge, riding out your orgasm against his mouth as he keeps swirling his tongue inside of you. He continues to leave soft kisses against your sensitive clit as you come down from your high.

Once you’ve settled, Jack kisses his way back up your stomach and chest until you’re face to face.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” you admit, still in shock. 

“Me neither,” he whispers, brushing a stray hair from your face and tucking it behind your ear.

“I need you inside of me,” you breathe against him, desperate.

“Fuck, okay.”

Jack makes quick work of removing his shirt and sweatpants, then drags your panties down your legs, exposing you fully to the cool air of the room.

He strips himself of his boxers and pumps his length a few times with his hand, adjusting his position so he can line up with your entrance.

He pushes forward, seating himself inside you down to the hilt in one fell swoop. You moan loudly at the feeling of him, how he fills you entirely. 

“Oh God, Jack,” you mumble.

“You okay?” he asks, hesitating to move.

“Yes, God, yes. Please move.”

With a grunt he begins working himself in and out of you, setting the pace. The head of his cock keeps hitting that spongy spot deep inside you so hard that it’s making you see stars. 

“Fuck, Jack, just like that,” you babble, clawing at his back to stabilize yourself against his frantic thrusts.

“Jesus, Kid. You feel so good,” he mumbles into your neck. “I’m not going to last. Where do you want me?”

“Inside, do it inside,” you beg.

Those words alone are enough to make him falter, his pace becoming uneven and sloppy as he releases thick spurts of cum inside of you.

The warmth of his release combined with the feeling of his dick twitching inside of you has you hitting your peak, coming again with a garbled moan.

Exhausted, Jack collapses on top of you, head still nuzzled into your shoulder. The two of you are panting heavily, chests heaving against one another.

After catching his breath and leaving a trail of kisses beneath your ear, Jack lifts his head so he can look at you.

“Still embarrassed about those texts?”

You get the sense he still feels guilty for that, with the way he’s so eager to please. After you’d finished filming, he’d cooked you dinner to celebrate. It’s probably the single nicest evening you’ve ever had in your entire life - perched on the counter and drinking red wine, while Andrew bustled around you, pausing occasionally to peck your lips.

It’s funny. Ever since your first kiss on camera, it’s like a dam has been broken - you’re greeted with a kiss, pulled onto his lap for kisses, put to bed with a kiss. You figure this must just be the lifestyle. That people in porn must get closer than normal colleagues, to the point where sometimes it feels like you’re in a relationship.

Except for one thing.

You and Andrew haven’t fucked since filming. Whenever you’d expect the breathless kissing to progress to actual sex, one of you will always find an excuse to pull back. Whether it’s flipping a record, or making sure the pancakes don’t burn, there’s always a reason to extract yourself before you get in too deep.

On his end, you wonder if he likes to save it for the camera - make sure the chemistry isn’t wasted on the privacy of his own bedroom.

On your end, you simply like spending time with him in a non-sexual capacity, as much as you like the sex. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt so listened to, from anybody, much less a man.

But Andrew never raises his voice, or dismisses anything that comes out of your mouth.

He’s quiet, yes, but whenever he does speak, it’s always with more intention than you’ve ever heard. When he says things, he means them. Well and truly.

He’s nothing like Jim.

Even in instances where it would be sexual with anyone else, he never pushes you. When you’re sitting between his legs in the giant tub in his ensuite, suds covering your shoulders and your nose pressed into Andrew’s neck, he’s content to just kiss and talk.

If he wasn’t so affectionate, you’d worry he wasn’t attracted to you.

Whatever it is, you’ll cross that bridge when you come to it.

Right now, you're just enjoying his company. And trying not to be immensely disturbed at the fact that his mother has watched you have sex with him.

Twice.

“Kid, we have the same last name,” He's pointed out.

“I didn't know that!” You protest. “I've only been calling you Pope or Andy - there were no last names involved.”

“Weren't you wondering why all my brothers are in porn?”

He makes a good point. You've been so caught up in Pope over the last few weeks that you haven't given anything much thought.

Where your brain was once filled with concerns about money, and Jim, and everything in between - now you can focus on music and film, and where you'd like Pope to take you next in LA.

“Thought it was like a genetic thing, I don't know,” You shrug, resting your chin on the edge of the pool as you look up at him through batted eyelashes. “Don't you think that's a little strange?”

He shrugs. “It's just the way it's always been - she likes the business run a certain way.”

The thought makes your skin crawl.

Your own parents aren’t exactly anything to brag about, but you can’t imagine either of them ever sinking to such lows. Your heart aches a little for Andrew. If this is what Smurf is like when her sons are grown and able to think for themselves, what was she like when they were kids?

Scrunching your nose, you try to imagine him as a child. A toddler, and then slightly older. Always with the same mop of curls - a less guarded expression in his earlier years. More joy in his life.

You wonder if he’s always been this solemn, or if life made him that way.

“What are you thinking about?” His voice snaps you out of your daze, and you glance up to see him shifting nervously on the lounger, and you realise that he’s worried. Worried you’re going to call him a freak because of his mother’s actions, or that you’re going to look at him differently.

Maybe he’s worried you’ll leave.

You hate yourself for liking the idea. That he needs you. Wants you around. You can’t imagine he’s this hospitable to other co-workers, but this might just be the Cody way. Flatter girls into signing their lives away.

“Was just thinking about you as a baby,” You hum. “How cute you must have been.”

Immediately, his cheeks are reddening, and he lets out a small scoff. “Wasn’t cute.”

“Oh, I’m sure you were.”

He leans forward a little, chin resting on his palm, and you take the opportunity to splash water up at him. “Minx.”

Your smile just widens. “You gonna do something about it?”

When he reaches for the buttons on his shirt, you know you’ve won. Clothing is discarded, and suddenly, the Hollywood sign is the second most impressive sight before your eyes. He deliberately cannonballs, trying to soak you with as much water as possible. Letting out a shriek, you reach out for the green tiles at the edge of the pool to keep you upright.

It doesn’t matter, because as soon as he surfaces, Andrew’s arms are wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against him. You can feel the planes of his abs, hard against the soft of your stomach, and bite your lip.

It’s not fair, how somebody so kind and lovely also gets to be the most attractive man you’ve ever seen in your life. If Andrew is lacking in any area, you haven’t found it yet.

His nose brushes against yours, and you find yourself chasing the movement until your lips meet his.

It’s needy on both ends - your hands immediately tangling in his hair, his grip tightening on you. He’s all too easy to get lost in, and you don’t even register him walking you backwards towards the shallow edge of the pool, and the bench that stretches across.

A blink and a twist, and suddenly you're braced across his lap, head dipped to kiss him.

His hands are almost hesitant at first.

“It's okay, Andy,” You breathe. “You can touch me however you want.”

You know him well enough by now that it's not going to lead to sex, but he does allow his hands to drop a little lower, kneading at the flesh of your ass. You gasp, the sound immediately swallowed by his lips as you arch into each movement.

“Pope? You here?”

Like teenagers caught in the back of their parents’ truck, the two of you leap apart, as a man pushes through the gate into the backyard. You’ve never met him, but you know immediately from the smattering of family photos in the house that this is Deran, Pope’s youngest brother. His favourite too, from the looks of things, after his twin.

“Oh, shit - didn’t know you had company.”

“S’fine,” Pope shakes his head, but he moves away from you a little anyway. “What’s up, man?”

“My engine’s busted - thought you could take a look while I go see a friend down the road.” Deran’s eyes drift towards you, and he nods. “You’re Smurf’s new hire, right? What was it… Bambi?”

“Not by birth… but yeah,” You smile. “It’s nice to meet you - Pope talks about you a lot.”

A glance at Pope and you can see his ears already reddening, while Deran just laughs. “Wish I could say the same, but I’ve hardly seen him the past month. Figure you must be why.”

You think back to first meeting Andrew up at Oceanside Headquarters. You really haven’t been apart much since then. You grocery shop together, you cook together, you shower together - with anybody else you’d feel it was co-dependent. With Andrew something about it feels right.

“Never thought I’d see the day, really,” Deran continues, and you can see Pope tense a little, as if scared of what’s about to come out of his mouth. “He’s not normally so great with the women, y’know?”

“Der-”

“I mean, obviously he’s good at sex. Duh. But girls don’t really tend to dig the whole intense stalker type-”

“Enough,” Pope groans, but Deran pays no mind.

“S’working for you, though, so I guess he’s finally met his match.”

You have to bite back a laugh as the two brothers bicker, hanging back as they head out to the driveway. It’s nice seeing Pope interact with someone who isn’t Smurf. The way he moans and groans at Deran’s teasing, but can’t quite banish the smile from his face entirely.

Brotherhood looks good on him.

Deran never ends up making it to that friend’s house. Instead, he stays for dinner, and gets so drunk on red wine that he starts spilling every embarrassing thing that Andrew’s ever done in his life. Then he drinks two more bottles and promptly passes out in the guest bedroom that’s officially ‘yours’.

It’s yours in all but name.

Pope had made it clear that there were zero strings attached to the roommate situation. That he absolutely didn’t want to pressure you, or make you feel like you had to do anything.

You’d stayed in your own room for approximately an hour before knocking on his door.

He was still awake - unsurprising given his sleeping patterns, or lack thereof.

“Care for some company?” You’d murmured, fingers twisting the silk of your nightgown nervously. Were it not for Pope’s generosity, you’d be sleeping in the same pyjamas you’ve had since you left Texas all those years ago.

His arm is raised immediately, allowing you to slip under the cover and tuck yourself into his side. The waterbed shifts under your weight, pushing you further towards him. “Can’t sleep?”

“Never been that good at it,” He mumbles, chin tilted down towards you.

“Maybe that’s because you’re sleeping on a fucking mattress filled with water - you’ll do your back in before you turn forty.”

“That your way of calling me old?” His fingers dig into your side, tickling lightly, and you squeal.

“Well, if the shoe fits… old man,” You grin.

“Oh, you’re in for it now, honey.”

“Looks like you’re stuck with me tonight,” he comments, closing the door to the guest room behind him. You can still hear Deran’s snores through the oak door. You choose not to comment on the fact that there are multiple other bedrooms in the house, and simply slip your arm through Pope’s, and let him lead you to that godforsaken waterbed.

*****

The cool metal of the gun in his dresser hasn’t touched Pope’s temple in over two months now.

Pope feels a little silly attributing it all to you, but he’s not sure there’s anything else in this city that’s worth one second of eye contact with you. It’s beyond ridiculous - he’s known you for all of two months. Most people would consider you basically strangers. And yet, Pope’s never felt like this before in his life.

So wanted.

So understood.

So needed.

He tells himself that he was never serious about killing himself - easy to do with hindsight. But your presence has clouded it all. Given him rose-coloured glasses that cover up the worst of sins.

The morning sun cuts through the floor-to-ceiling glass of the living room, baking the orange velvet sofa and casting sharp shadows across the stone fireplace. Outside, the valley stretches out under a layer of golden smog, but up here, tucked into the hills, the air smells like chlorine and an expensive French perfume he bought for you last week.

Pope stands by the wood-grained stereo console, a silk robe loosely tied at his waist, flipping through a stack of vinyl. Two months ago, this house was a mausoleum. A place for sleeping and pondering every single decision in his life that’s led him down this path.

The snub-nosed revolver in his dresser drawer used to feel like the only logical conclusion to a house this empty.

You pad out of the kitchen barefoot, wearing nothing but one of his oversized linen shirts, unbuttoned halfway down. You set two glasses of orange juice on the low teak coffee table, right next to a glossy industry trade magazine with your face on the cover. A recent development, after your overnight fame.

With the success of the first film, Smurf immediately optioned two more for you both.

One in which he's playing your teacher, offering you some extra credit for a better grade. The other one Smurf branded as a dominatrix flick. Definitely a little out of both of your comfort zones, but Pope would be lying if he said the leather didn't turn him on a little.

However fake, the idea of you telling him what to do, and how to act, had him aching for you all day.

The gossip rags are already trying to figure out who you are - where you came from, and why Pope Cody is breaking career-long rules for you. He keeps an eye on them, occasionally feeding them a couple of misdirects when they start to get close to the truth.

An anonymous tip arrives to tell them that you have a brother living in North Carolina who wants to talk about your new career.

Or your father is a small-town preacher and rural Louisiana, and you’ve been disowned by your entire family.

Whatever the lie, it throws them off the trail for a week or two while they follow it up.

As of yet, they haven’t even been able to crack your real name yet. You’re simply Bambi, in the way that he used to be Pope, before the Cody name became infamous.

Other than that one shoot, you haven’t said a word to anybody. Pope doesn’t want to lecture you, or try to control you, but he hopes it stays that way. Last thing you need is your ex finding you somehow.

It’s taken you a while to open up to him about Jim. He’s no stranger to deep dark secrets himself, and he’d figured you’d come to him when you were ready. That time came after a panic attack on Hollywood Boulevard when a man with shaggy brown hair had passed you both.

Turns out, your ex is a real piece of shit.

Pope has half a mind to try and track him down, put you at ease once and for all. If it wouldn’t take him away from you, he thinks he might.

In return, he’d opened up about Julia - for the first time since she left.

How he worries about her, even though she’s always been more than capable. That he doesn’t like the hippie scene up in San Francisco, in case she falls in with the wrong crowd.

That she’s smart, but easily swayed.

Pope’s never been a huge talker, but it all comes pouring out with you.

"The director called about the Malibu shoot next week," You say, leaning against the back of the sofa, watching him. "The pay would be enough for a deposit on that apartment in West Hollywood."

Pope stops shuffling the records. His back stiffens slightly under the silk. He doesn't look around, but his hand hovers over the turntable. The thought of this house returning to its default state - just him, the canyon wind, and the cold metal in his bedroom - makes his chest tighten.

At Smurf’s behest, he’s taken you to look at a couple of places - he knows that she doesn’t approve of you both shacking up together.

Apparently, everyone else is allowed to mix business and pleasure except him.

"No rush," he says, his voice low and gravelly. He finally turns, his eyes locking onto yours. "The traffic down there is miserable anyway. Stay here. The drive to the studio is easier.”

You let out a soft, knowing laugh, stepping around the couch until you’re standing right in front of him. You reach up, your fingers tracing the gold cross resting against his chest, sliding slowly down to the tie of his robe. “Sap.”

You pull back the fabric a little, allowing your hands to drop down to his abdomen, following the outline of each muscle ridge. His eyes flutter closed as he tries to focus on the sensations, the way your nails lightly rake against his skin.

“Take me out dancing tonight?”

Your voice is quiet, but Pope’s tuned to its exact frequency - he’s sure he could hear you at a whisper in the loudest of rooms.

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

*****

Pope settles into the role of bodyguard easily. Nobody asks him to - least of all you - but he can't help it.

Now that the first movie is out, and a success of epic proportions, he's noticed that people recognise you on the street now.

The shift started the night your name hit the marquee at the Pussycat Theatre on Santa Monica Boulevard. Now, you’re a bona fide star, and one half of the porn industry’s current favourite couple.

When you walk into Chasen’s or the louder, sweatier clubs off the Strip, Andrew constantly positions himself exactly half a step behind your left shoulder wherever you go. He doesn't ask for permission, and you never tell him to back off.

Even if he wasn’t here with you, he doesn’t think he’d be able to keep his eyes off of you.

You’re wearing a new gown - courtesy of a tailor on Rodeo Drive. One of the few things you haven’t let Pope pay for, you had wanted it to be a surprise. The turquoise silk shimmers against your skin, catching the light every time you move.

The neckline wraps around your throat, leaving your shoulders bare, and when you turn, the whole of your back is on display under the sparkling of the disco ball. The slit sits high on your thigh, leaving Pope’s throat dry each time he looks at you.

You’re moving to the rhythm before you even reach the edge of the floor, your hips swaying under the strobe lights, looking back at Pope with an inviting tilt of your head.

“I need a drink before I can dance, sweetheart,” He replies, pressing a quick kiss to your knuckles.

“Well, you know where to find me when you’re sufficiently drunk,” You grin back.

Pope stands near the perimeter, a Scotch in hand, his dark eyes tracking the room. He hates the dance floor. He hates the heat of it, the unpredictability of a hundred moving bodies, and the way the flashing lights mess with his peripheral vision. He’s a man who likes his back against a solid wall and his hands free.

Pope watches the room like a hawk over a canyon. He filters the stares instantly. There are the married men in leisure suits, their eyes darting from their wives' faces to your legs before guilt clouds their features. They shouldn’t recognise you. They would never embarrass themselves by approaching.

There are young guys trying to look older than they are, elbows on the bar, whispering to each other because they're too nervous to approach. A producer he recognises from one of the studios, all gold chains and expensive cologne, lingering a little too long with his drink halfway to his mouth.

Also not a concern.

The group in the corner, however. Pope is keeping a close eye on them. There are three of them, each sleazier and more oiled up than the last. They also all appear to have companions, but it hasn’t stopped the leader from eyeing you up like you’re a meal at Musso and Frank’s.

His fingers tighten almost absently around the glass.

You, meanwhile, haven't noticed a thing.

You're laughing with a group near the centre of the floor, head tipped back, one hand wrapped around another girl’s as she spins you beneath the lights.

A song passes, and Pope is just about to join you when the guy starts to move, cutting across the floor. He doesn't hesitate. He sets his glass down on a passing waitress's tray without looking and steps into the fray.

He cuts through the crowd like a knife through water, his broad shoulders easily parting the dancing bodies. Just as the guy with the greased hair reaches out a hand to tap your shoulder, Pope slides smoothly into the space between you.

He doesn't look at the guy - doesn't give him the satisfaction of eye contact. Instead, Pope fixes his gaze entirely on you. He doesn't dance the way the younger crowd does; his movements are minimal, a slow, heavy sway of his hips that keeps him anchored right in your personal space.

"You just couldn't stay still, could you?" he grumbles, though his voice is thick, completely devoid of real anger. He’s not going to let a few creeps deprive you of your fun.

“Nice of you to join me,” is your only response as you turn your front round towards him. You slide your hands up his chest, feeling the heavy, rapid thud of his heartbeat under the dark silk shirt. You lean your weight fully against him, your hips rolling slowly against his to the thick drag of the bass.

Pope lets out a low, ragged breath against your ear. His reservations about the crowded room completely dissolve, and the world shrinks down to the two of you. His hands shift from your waist, one sliding down to cup the curve of your hip, anchoring you hard against him, while the other trails up your spine. His calloused fingers tangle directly into the hair at the nape of your neck, tilting your head back.

"You're driving me crazy," he mutters, his voice a rough growl almost entirely drowned out by the music.

He doesn't wait for an answer. He leans down and catches your mouth with his.

The kiss is heavy, wet, and utterly possessive, tasting of the Scotch on his tongue. If you were anywhere else in the world, it would be an obscene display of affection. In Los Angeles? You’re no different to all the other dreamers and fame-fuckers.

As each song passes, you both grow closer on the dance floor, before finally it’s too much to bear.

“Let’s get out of here,” You urge, Pope grabbing your hand before the words fully leave your mouth.

The midnight air on Sunset Boulevard hits you both like a splash of cold water, though it does nothing to cool the slick heat on your skin. Pope keeps his arm wrapped tightly around your waist as he guides you toward the dark curb, his stride long and purposeful.

As Pope digs the keys out of his pocket, you lean against the passenger door of the Mustang, looking at him through the amber tint of your sunglasses. His eyes dart down to your mouth, his jaw clamped tight with the effort of restraint.

Then he unlocks the door, and the mood snaps.

As you slide into the plush leather interior, the immediate, heavy hunger evaporates, replaced by a sudden stillness. Pope gets behind the wheel, but he doesn't reach for you. He doesn't turn the key right away either. He just sits there in the dim dashboard light, his hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white.

“Why don’t we have sex outside of work?” You finally ask, lip between your teeth as you stare at your lap. “Is it… is it something that I’m doing? Because you kiss me, a-and let me sleep in your bed, and I just don’t know-”

When he finally releases the steering wheel, his hand hovers in the empty space between the seats before dropping onto your thigh, fingers tapping lightly.

"It's not you," he says quietly. "Jesus, it's not you at all. Don't ever think that.”

You shake your head, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

“S’not your fault - it’s a reasonable thing to ask,” He insists, rubbing at his neck. "I spend all day performing a script. Then the cameras stop, and I have to figure out how to act like a normal human being again. If we go home and have sex right now, and I just... rush into it? I'm terrified I'll go on autopilot. I'm terrified I'll treat you like work. I don’t ever want it to feel like that with you.”

Without realising, a tear leaks down your cheek, and Andrew catches it with his thumb.

“Sometimes I feel such a physical want for you that it terrifies me,” he continues. “I just… I don’t know how to navigate this. I don’t want to fuck it all up.”

“Oh, Andrew,” You murmur, reaching out to cup his cheek. “You could never.”

He lets out a humourless snort. If only you knew the myriad of ways in which Andrew has the capacity to screw things up. “I’m not exactly a catch.”

You hum slightly. “Mhm, agree to disagree. Because from my angle, you took me in, showed me the ropes, and have been protecting me for the last six weeks. Any girl would be lucky to have you. I don’t know how this thing works either, but I want to figure it out. With you. And if that means no sex outside of work, then so be it. I’d much rather your company than your body.”

You swallow. It’s clear he’s not fully convinced by your words. Trying another tactic, you speak again. “Take me up to Griffith?”

He shifts the Mustang into drive and pulls away from the neon glare of the Strip. Instead of turning toward the winding roads of Laurel Canyon, he steers the heavy car east, toward the dark, rising shadow of the Hollywood Hills.

You reach for the radio, flipping it on to the first station you find. A guitar wafts through the speakers, and you allow yourself to settle into Pope’s side.

Childhood living is easy to do

The things you wanted I bought them for you

Graceless lady you know who I am

You know I can't let you slide through my hands

“Oh man, I fucking love this song,” You hum quietly, eyes closing, as you focus on the wind whipping against your skin. You miss the way Pope glances over at you, expression fond. You look like a born-and-bred Angelino now - like your parents’ parents were called West during the Great Depression by the promise of the American Dream, and have lived here ever since.

You haven’t even changed all that much.

Sure, you wear nicer clothes now. A couple bought with your own money, but most of it on Andrew’s dime.

He doesn’t mind.

He has more money than he could spend in a lifetime, and he likes taking you shopping. He likes watching you try on mini-dress after mini-dress, pairing with shawls and shoes before sheepishly picking out just one. Despite his insistence that he knows you’re not using him for money, you still obviously have a complex about it.

It takes considerable convincing before you end up leaving with bags and bags full. One time you joked about Andrew having his own complex - something along the lines of him getting off on being a sugar daddy. He shrugged you off at the time, but he’d be lying if he said there wasn’t some truth to it.

He’s always liked providing.

For his mom as a teenager, before Oceanside Videos was even a thought in Smurf Cody’s mind. He used to steal from local stores, just to put food on the table. When she was too coked out to function, or off with another one of her boyfriends.

He could go without food, but he didn’t like seeing Julia, or Deran, or Craig go hungry.

There had been a while, when the twins were nineteen, and they’d tried to make it on their own. Pope did most of the providing on that front, too. Julia, while desperate to escape from Smurf’s clutches, was ultimately more interested in drugs and partying than trying to build a life for themselves.

They were back in LA after a particularly nasty incident in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco - Julia had gotten on the wrong side of a group of bikers, and they’d had to hightail it out of there, before she incurred the wrath of their leader.

Now, she’s back living there, and Pope has no idea what kind of life she’s living.

After her last experiences in San Francisco - and the recent happenings with Charles Manson and his crew, he’s perfectly happy to stay in his heavily fortified mansion. It’s one of his justifications for the gun by his bedside.

He’s a complex guy.

One day, he wants to blow his brains out, and the next, he needs the pistol to protect himself from any hippie freaks.

Over the years, he’s had various girlfriends living in the house, though none for more than a few months.

The sex issue has always been the final nail in the coffin. They think he’s too intense, or too moody, and when he won’t even put out, there’s no point to staying.

The house and glamour keeps them going for a few months, and then they move on.

Until you.

Wild horses couldn't drag me away

Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away

“You know - everybody said they peaked with Let It Bleed, and that they were gonna sell out in the seventies, but I think Sticky Fingers is their best yet.”

Pope’s not sure who everybody is in this scenario, but he nods anyway. If he’s being honest, he does think that Let It Bleed is their magnum opus, but he’s not about to disagree with you.

The drive up to Griffith Park is silent and cool. The windows are rolled down, letting the scent of eucalyptus and dry brush fill the front seat, washing away the smell of the club's smoky aroma. Pope drives with one hand on the wheel and the other tracing patterns onto your skin.

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain

Now you decided to show me the same

No sweeping exits or offstage lines

Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind

Up here, high above the glowing grid of Los Angeles, he pulls into an empty scenic overlook beside the Observatory. The city below twinkles gently, a complete juxtaposition from the chaos that’s probably erupting on Hollywood and Sunset right now.

Pope turns off the engine, leaving only the faint ticking of the cooling radiator. He shifts in his seat to face you, draping his arm casually over the back of your headrest, his fingers just lightly brushing the ends of your hair. There’s no rush anymore.

“I think you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Definitely not true.”

You look out across the plains of the Observatory - Pope has brought you up here once before, but it was full of tourists, trying desperately to pose like James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause. Tonight, it’s just the two of you.

When the clubs and bars are open, nobody cares for the Hills.

I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie

I have my freedom but I don't have much time

Faith has been broken, tears must be cried

Let's do some living after we die

“I don’t think wild horses could drag me away from this moment,” You mumble, almost absentmindedly. “Not sure anything could.”

When Pope swallows, he’s more than a little bothered when he finds a lump in his throat.

You’re still tipsy, and Pope’s not convinced you’ll remember everything tomorrow morning, but it feels like the most intimate thing you possibly could have said.

"You're a terrible drunk," he says, though there’s no bite to it. His voice is barely a whisper, thick and rough around the edges. "Saying shit like that when you won't even remember it.”

“M’not drunk,” You insist. “Not enough that I don’t know what I’m sayin’.”

He doesn’t argue, but the corner of his mouth twitches upwards. "Yeah?" he murmurs, his thumb dropping to trace the curve of your bottom lip. Instinctively, your lips part and you press a soft kiss to the pad of his thumb. "We'll see how much you back up that mouth when the sun comes up."

You let out an indignant huff, leaning heavily into his touch. The room is spinning just a fraction, the warm weight of the tequila still thrumming under your skin, but there’s nowhere you’d rather be. "Don't play with me, sweet girl," he whispers. "I might just hold you to that.”

*****

“What's up with the two of you, man? You fuckin’ her off-screen?” Baz asks, arms folded. Having missed the past few family dinners due to commitments with you, Pope finally acquiesced to Smurf’s incessant invitations.

He didn’t bring you, because he knew exactly what this was going to be.

Pope realises how much it's going to sound like a lie when he denies, but he shakes his head anyway. They already know you're living with him - his brothers wouldn't be able to fathom the idea of spending so much time with somebody and not being intimate like that. “We're just…”

He trails off, unsure if there’s a word that can properly encapsulate what you and Pope have become to one another over the past three months. Co-workers isn’t right. Lovers gets closer, but it still doesn’t quite get it. The two of you aren’t sleeping together - you will when the time is right.

Somehow, whatever the two of you are feels so much deeper than everything.

“I like her. That’s it.” He finally finishes weakly.

“You like her?” Baz replies, almost a mocking tone. “What are you - twelve?”

“Shut up,” Andrew growls. The last thing he wants is to get into this in front of Smurf. He’s already suspicious about her intentions with you - as much as he hates it, his relationship with you is only going to cause harm down the line.

“You can’t be monogamous in porn. It’s an oxymoron. The girl takes dick for a living on camera, and you’re sitting over there writing her poetry in your head?”

Pope’s jaw tightens so hard a muscle leaps in his cheek. He keeps his eyes fixed on the condensation pooling at the base of Baz's glass, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans so nobody can see them curling into fists.

“It’s not like that,” Pope mutters, his voice dropping an octave, thick and dangerous. The kind of tone that makes most people drop their train of thought. Baz, however, keeps barrelling onwards.

“Then what is it?” Baz pushes, dropping the smirk, his eyes narrowing as he tries to read the unreadable mask of his brother's face. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re missing jobs, you’re skipping dinners with Smurf, and you’re playing with a girl you claim you aren't even laying pipe in. If you aren't fucking her off-screen, and she’s going to be fucking other guys on screen, what the hell are you doing? You’re running guard dog for a chick who belongs to the studio.”

Pope’s chair scrapes loudly against the linoleum as he stands - in a split second, he crosses the kitchen, stopping inches from Baz’s face. "Say it again," He breathes, his voice barely a rasp, his pupils completely blown out. "Say one more word about her.”

Baz doesn't back down, stepping off the counter to square his shoulders, though his hand tightens instinctively around his glass. "I'm just telling you the truth, man. You're losing your head over a fucking whor-”

Before the word can leave Baz's mouth, Pope lunges, his hand gripping the collar of his shirt, slamming him hard against the wooden cabinets.

“Boys!”

Both Baz and Pope freeze as Smurf appears in the doorway to the kitchen, wine glass in her hand. "Andrew. Let him go," she says softly, walking over to place a delicate, manicured hand on Pope’s trembling arm. "Right now."

Pope’s breathing is ragged, his gaze boring into Baz’s smirking face for three agonising seconds before he tears his hands away. He shoves past Smurf, the front door slamming so hard behind him that the glass panes vibrate in their frames.

Baz exhales a heavy breath, his fingers smoothing down the wrinkled denim of his collar where Pope had pinned him. He looks over at Smurf, his brow furrowing as he watches her calmly wipe a stray splatter of marinara sauce off the tiled counter. “What are we gonna do about this?”

“What do you mean, baby?”

“I mean, Pope is even more fucked in the head than usual. He’s in love with her.”

“Oh, Baz,” she coos, her voice like velvet. “Andrew doesn’t know the first thing about love. He’s a boy who found a shiny new toy, that’s all.”

“It’s not just a toy, Smurf,” Baz says, stepping closer, his voice dropping to a low hiss. “He’s playing house, and he’s not even sleeping with her off-camera. It’s psychological. He’s putting a contract girl on a pedestal.”

Smurf’s eyes narrow, the warmth evaporating from her face. “Andrew doesn’t put anyone above me. He knows who he is, even if he’s lost his way right now.”

“She’s dangerous,” Baz insists. “And he’ll absolutely lose his shit when she has to film with other people.”

“Maybe that’s just what we need,” Smurf hums. “Give them a taster of how things are going to be from now on. I’m sure Craig would appreciate some fresh meat. I did tell him I’d find a girl for some of the more… intense bondage scenes.”

****

You’re barely awake when Pope dips his head to press a kiss to your cheek. “M’just going to pick up one of Craig’s bikes that needs fixed up, okay? Should be back within the hour.”

You hum in acknowledgment so that he knows you can hear him, but bury your face further into the silk of his pillow. “Too early,” You mumble.

“I know, sweet girl - you just go back to sleep, and we can stay in and lounge the rest of the day. Don't let the fire go out," he murmurs, his voice a rough, gravelly rasp that sends a pleasant shiver straight down your spine. "I'll bring back those pastries you like from the bakery on the corner."

You offer a weak, blind swat at his shoulder in response, your eyelids too heavy to even consider cracking open. "You're bribing me."

"Is it working?"

"Yes," you sigh, already drifting back under the surface of sleep as his weight lifts from the edge of the waterbed. The bed feels instantly colder without him, but the promise of a quiet day is enough keep you content until his return.

You hear the rhythmic sounds of his morning routine: the low rustle of him pulling on a clean shirt, the metallic jingle of his keys being lifted from the dresser, and the quiet thud of his boots on the hardwood. Right as his footsteps start to quieten, as he walks towards the front door, you call out again. “Andy?”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss ‘fore you go.”

He lets out a chuckle as he steps back into the bedroom, dropping down to your level. His lips are soft against your skin, his thumb brushing over your jawline to tilt your head up just enough to catch your lips in a slow, sleepy kiss. “See you soon. Oh, and I forgot to tell you - Maria is bringing the groceries up in a bit. She’s got her own key, so don't jump if you hear the front door. Just stay in bed. She knows the drill."

You mumble something that sounds vaguely like an agreement, shifting until you're completely buried beneath the heavy quilt. The front door clicks shut, the deadbolt turning from the outside, and you hear the faint sounds of Andrew’s truck starting.

An hour drifts by in a hazy, warm blur of half-dreams and the smell of Pope’s cologne lingering on the sheets.

The sudden, sharp rap of knuckles against wood shatters the silence.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

You blink against the bright sun filtering through the blinds as you throw off the duvet. You figure Maria must have her hands too full with paper bags to reach into her purse for the key. You pull on a pair of Pope’s boxers and reach for a shirt, before padding across the hardwood floor into the living room.

"Coming!" you call out, twisting the lock and pulling the heavy wood door inward.

The words die in your throat.

It isn't Maria. Standing on the doormat, aviators tucked into the pocket of his faded denim vest and a cigarette burning down between his fingers, is Jim.

taglist (pope cody)

"please—"

it wasn't the first time you'd begged. you'd begged for many, many things in this same position, truth be told. robby behind you, jack below. both of their cocks splitting you open. jack was thick, just like the rest of him—thick fingered, thick bodied, thick cock throbbing and twitching where it stuffed your pussy. robby, on the other hand—long and curved up to the right—enjoyed fucking you in your tight puckered muscle, making you whine and squirm beneath him.

robby laid down over you, crushing you further into jack's chest, who moaned with you at the change in angle. robby’s breath was hot against your ear, his lips pressed into the shell.

"please what, baby? hmmmm?" he groaned, his voice hoarse and cracked, his chest wiry with hair against your slick back.

you brought your hand up to fist in his hair, holding on tight as he pulled his length from you almost to the very tip before thrusting slowly back in.

"oh my god," you heard jack curse, his hands tightening at your hips, his mouth opening in a gasp.

both of them were to the right of you—your face laid down on jack's collarbone, robby's chin hooked over your right shoulder. they were so close. breathing one another's air, enough that you could feel jack’s breath leave him and robby’s cheek shift against the side of your head when he opened his mouth to kiss the crest of your shoulder.

you tightened your grip in the latter's hair.

"wanna see you kisssss—"

jack let out a breathless little laugh, robby chuckling into your shoulder.

"baby, we talked about this—" jack said, his voice hardly more than breath, his chest heaving under yours.

"—but it would be so hottttt," you whined.

robby ignored you. "how's she feel, brother?"

jack's head tipped back into the pillow beneath him, and you watched the rough scruff of his unshaved neck shift as his adam's apple glided up and down, swallowing around the broken gasp he pulled in.

"so god damn good—go a little harder, she squeezes me so fucking tight when you really give it to her, mike."

you barely had time to register the gleam in robby's eyes before he was swinging his hips back again, this time thrusting hard against you, his skin slapping hard, balls clapping right above where jack's cock was buried deep inside.

you squealed and jack groaned loudly. your hand hung on tighter to robby's hair, your other hand digging into jack's shoulder beside your head.

"ohhhh fuck—" you mewled. "so—so deep, robby, oh god—"

"she sounds so pretty when she makes those little noises," jack strained to say, turning to kiss you on the nose. "huh, honey? robby's dick feel good like that? yeah? gimme a kiss."

you tilted your chin, pushing into his lips lazily, your tongue reaching out to lick at his, wet muscles sliding together. when you began to drool out the side of your lips, you brought robby's head down closer, resting your cheek back to jack's chest.

"your turn—" you murmured sleepily, your brain fucked out of any logic.

nothing passed through you but the ecstasy of having these two men and being sandwiched between them and their weight pressing in around you. jack began jerking his hips up into you, making you hiccup and whine, his thrusts getting erratic, his breath heavier.

robby's cock pushed deeper into you too, the pressure of both of them at the same time making you feel so content, so full, so cock drunk.

"please, please," you chanted. "wanna see you kiss so badly—"

"she really does beg so cute, doesn't she?" robby murmured, kissing your shoulder.

"yeah—" the other breathed, a light groan strangling the word as both of them slid in and out of you in tandem—full of jack's cock, then robby's, empty. then again, both of them filing you at the same time. the rhythm made your jaw go slack, your thoughts thinning. it felt so right, with jack below you, robby behind you, both of them too big, too hot, too much. still, you wanted more. wanted this so badly the need burned behind your eyes.

"like this—" you said, ignoring their cooing, and you craned your neck, pressing a chaste kiss to robby's lips.

it was hardly a second, your brain too foggy to make it anything more.

"that's it, huh? that's what you want, honey?" robby murmured, voice even hoarser with mirth as he smiled at you.

"yesss!" you whined, kicking your feet into the bed beneath.

"not good enough to have both of us, huh?" he teased. "such a needy little girl."

"be nice, mike—" jack moaned. "she's a good girl."

his praise always effected you—making you flutter around him, and you knew he could feel it, even with the increased fulless from robby deep inside you with him. he cracked a little knowing smile between moans.

"oh, i know she's a good girl, brother," robby said, and his mouth dragged over the back of your shoulder. "no doubt about it. but we've spoiled her. she thinks she can have whatever she wants."

you pouted, the prick of tears in your eyes not from him denying you, but from the utter fullness of their cocks punching in and out of you. from the easy back and forth of them—robby pretending there wasn’t a soft spot in him you could reach with the simplest look. and jack caught it every time and teased him for it.

"enough talking—" jack cursed. "fuck, fuck, she's tightening up on me— think she's gonna come, mike, oh god—"

"please—" you moaned louder, thrashing a little bit out of frustration.

"fuck it—" robby growled.

he leaned down and placed a kiss on the corner of jack's mouth.

they didn't stop entirely when robby pulled his lips away from jack's. their thrusts only softened into shallow rocks, jack's hands tightening on your skin, both his and robby's throbbing lengths still pressed deep enough inside you that every quiet breath made you feel the stretch of both of them. you held yours without meaning to—waiting, feeling both of them still around you.

robby's chest pressed heavier against your back as he breathed through his nose. you felt jack's beneath you, his ribs expanding, pressing against your breasts.

"yes," you whispered, though not wanting to rush them. your mouth brushed jack's skin when you said it, soft against the damp hollow below his collarbone. "more."

"you're right—" jack huffed a little laugh that shook his chest on the way out. "she really is needy."

robby smiled, as if grateful for the lightness, "told y—"

but he couldn't say anything else, because jack's lips were suddenly on his.

a deep, harmonized groan passed between the two of them, and it did something terrible to you. your stomach dropped, your hips jerked. even a little lick of jealousy flamed in you, warming your skin, but they looked good together. so good. exactly as you pictured it. it made you moan and writhe to see their mouths slot against one another, lips parting, tongues sliding, jack's stubbled jaw working under the rough scrape of robby's beard.

"oh my god," you whispered.

when they paused their kissing, a string of spit connected them, shiny and wet.

"d'you feel that?" robby whispered.

"yeah," jack answered, his one hand squeezing your hip while the other came up to robby's hair along with yours. "her pussy is gripping me like a vice—"

"yeah, she really tightened up—fuck, c'mere."

robby's hand went up to jack's hair too, fisting in the messy graying curls. jack's mouth fell open in a guttural groan, and robby's other hand came to the nape of your neck in answer. he pulled you into himself harshly, his tongue sliding against yours as your mouths met.

it was slick and wet and lewd, and just when you began to moan in earnest, their thrusts picked up again. harder now, less patient. jack fucking up into you from beneath, robby driving into you from behind, the bed frame knocking against the wall harshly again and again.

then you felt a second tongue at the corner of your mouth.

you pulled back only enough to welcome it—jack's tongue sliding against yours, robby's flicking against the two of you together.

the room filled with louder moans and the thick slap of skin, the wet drag of mouths, jack's rough little curses disappearing against your lips. robby's hand stayed tight at the back of your neck, holding you there for it, making you take the kiss you had begged for. you gushed around them, pussy fluttering and convulsing in pleasure.

"come for us, baby," robby whispered between kisses. "come for jackie. he wants you to come all over his big cock."

jack groaned under you, his hips jerking up harder, his member punching even deeper.

"I wanna feel it too," robby said. "c'mon now, gave you what you wanted. now I get to feel this perfect little ass take my come."

"just wanted your boyfriends to kiss, huh, baby?" jack cooed, his hand moving up to grip your face, forefinger and thumb squeezing your cheeks. his thumb hooked into the tender hinge of your lips, sliding along your molars to pry your mouth open wider for the two of them.

you cried out around his salty skin, and he pouted in mock pity as he looked at you.

"come on my cock, baby," jack moaned, leaning in to keep licking and nipping at your lips. "know you wanna, come on my cock now—gonna fill you up so good, mmmm—"

"i'm—i'm—i'm coming—oh, god, oh god—"

"yeah, that's it, that's it—oh fuckkk—" robby groaned, his thrusts slamming harder, turning erratic before he froze up, jaw unhinging, breathing hotly against wanton mouth.

jack's opened too, in shock, in awe, and when you looked at him you saw his eyes go wide before they rolled back behind his eyelids.

your orgasm ripped through you, a heady pressure down your spine and tightening your hips, making your legs lock up before it crested you like an ocean wave swelling and crashing. your hand clenched in robby's hair as your mouth fell open around jack's thumb. both of them groaned in tandem, trapping you between them, both buried deep while your body squeezed down, making jack curse and robby bare his teeth.

as the euphoria eased and your body went loose with the oxytocin flooding your blood, the three of you kept kissing—gentle little nips, soft flicks of tongue, spit sliding and glistening at the corners of your mouths, collecting where lips met and parted. jack retreated his thumb from your mouth to gently pet at your cheek, and they let you have as much as you wanted, just like always. spoiled thing, they'd tell you again afterwards, while they washed your hair in the bath and cleaned you up.

but for now, you kissed them as your eyes grew heavier and heavier, your breathing deepening against jack's chest. robby's weight behind you felt heavy and comforting, tucked between two men, utterly spent and completely content.

There’s something surreal about dating Brendon Park.

It’s been weeks since he first kissed you. Weeks since the night he called you his and then slept wrapped around you in his bed. It might as well have all happened yesterday though, because every time he touches you still feels like a novelty. How one man can be so emotionally constipated and yet so physically affectionate, you’ll never know.

Like now, when he’s kissing you senseless against the side of your car, right after telling you that you park like shit. Impossible man. You don’t mind it though — he’s there in all the ways that matter. Judging your protein intake and shoving water in your hand every five seconds. Listening to your two thousandth edit of your dissertation abstract without protest. Buying you your oat milk matcha lattes even if he says they’re stupid.

You like to think you take care of him, too. You get him sweet treats he insists he doesn’t like but then refuses to share with you. When he has a particularly busy day, you sneak snacks into his bag, because you know he won’t bother wasting time going to get food. And after long surgeries, when he says he’s fine and scowls at you to leave him alone, you’ll help him rub the knots out of his shoulders while he pretends he hates it.

A sharp nip at your mouth brings you back to the present.

“You’re distracted,” he says, half-amused, half-annoyed.

“Seems like a skill problem on your part,” you snipe back, flustered.

A slow, dangerous smile curls his lips, and you immediately regret your words. Of course he’s not insulted. Of course he sees them as some kind of a challenge. You’re starting to understand why people call him Park the Shark, because the look he gives you is downright predatory.

“No,” you say immediately. “Absolutely not.”

You try wiggling out of his arms and fail spectacularly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did the-, the thing.”

“Smiling?”

“Yes. Smiling. That. It’s not your natural state. It signals danger.”

The smile widens.

“You’re lucky we have that early meeting. Otherwise you’d be paying for your skill comment.”

And you must be spending too much time around him, because instead of blushing and shrinking, you meet his eyes and say-

“Promise?”

The two of you are almost late to said meeting. 

Which, for you, isn’t that unheard of, but you see Brendon get some weird looks from a couple of the residents and Dr. Lee. He responds to all of them with a curled lip and icy glare, and everyone looks away quickly. You hide a smile from where you stand across the room.

Besides Wilts — who Brendon had assured you will say nothing if she values her life — no one at PTMC knows the two of you are together. Some people in the ED suspect probably, and Patty and her smug smile definitely know, but no one has any proof. The two of you had decided only days after that first kiss to keep things quiet. At least for now.

You’d had a meeting with Dr. Nayar — the director of the CMU/PTMC research collaborative — that Monday, and he’d let slip that PTMC would soon be looking for a new head for its Operational Research and Development Department. The not-so-accidental lapse had been a not-so-subtle suggestion that you apply for the position when it posted, and you’d left that meeting and immediately called one of your cohort members to freak out. Then when Brendon had finished surgery two hours later, you’d done the exact same thing with him.

The position is exactly what you’ve been looking for — a role focusing on research and technical processes, but directly attached to a clinical institution. Even better, it’s at PTMC, where you’ve built the majority of your adaptive patient flow model. You already know the hospital, know the key players and know how things operate. Even better better, Brendon is here. It’s way too soon to be making any decisions based on your month-and-some-change old relationship, but him being here is certainly a bonus. 

The two of you had discussed it that night over Thai takeout. Nothing was guaranteed — Nayar’s words had been a tip, not a promise — but you also know that he wouldn’t have told you about the job unless he’d heard some hint that the hospital wanted your research. Brendon had listened to your explanation and agreed. But in between harassing you to eat your chicken, not just the noodles, and being insufferably smug on your behalf, he’d quietly reminded you that your relationship could have ramifications if you decided to apply.

“It’s going to be a competitive process. You can’t give them any reason to think you didn’t earn the position on your own.”

Which would probably make dating the hospital’s star orthopedic surgeon a no-no. He has nothing to do with your dissertation or your research, but you know that won’t make a difference if someone is looking for a reason not to hire you. Or if someone is looking for a way to make themselves look like a better candidate. 

The reminder is pragmatic, necessary. But it still knocks you off-kilter. You sit across from him, picking at your noodles and feeling upset about possibly having to hide your relationship because of a possible job that you might possibly apply to. It’s absolutely ridiculous and yet still enough to ruin your appetite. 

The longer you stew on your thoughts, the worse it gets. He’s older, successful, makes stupid money and looks like an action movie hero. You’re a grad student with grad student-money and anxiety. You’re not shallow enough to think those differences make you worth any less, but that doesn’t mean jack to your overactive doom-spiral. Of course no one can know you’re together. Of course-

“What,” Brendon asks when you’re silent for too long.

You make a noncommittal noise and avoid eye contact. He mutters something that’s probably not very nice, and then stands from his chair and rounds the island. You’re expecting him to be upset with your inanity, annoyed at the very least, and you’re shocked when he spins you around, plants both hands on the counter behind you, and bends down to kiss you.

It’s not the soft kisses he gave you in the ED and right after. It’s also not the absolutely filthy kiss he gave you this morning before the two of you headed into the hospital. This is somewhere in between, slow and purposeful but not intended to lead to something else. You melt into it like you always do, arms sliding around his neck and fingers finding the shorter hairs at his nape.

“Ridiculous girl,” he huffs against your lips.

“I-“

“You know that day you brought me coffee? You were wearing that blue dress with the bow.”

Another kiss, this one deeper.

“I wanted to bend you over the charge desk and fuck you right there. That’s still on the table if you want it, but I figure we should at least wait until you have your job offer first.”

You smile now at the memory. Only Brendon could turn something so indelicate-sounding into a reassurance. It had worked though, and you’re content to keep things between the two of you for now. Even if it means you have to stand across the room from him and pretend you don’t know why his usually perfectly-styled hair is slightly less perfect this morning.

You’re observing the surgical department this week and the next. It’s one of the last departments you have to cover before you finish the field part of your research, and then all you’ll have left is finalizing your model and completing your manuscript. You were here yesterday, too, and you’ll admit that you like seeing Brendon in his element. He’s at his snappiest and snarliest here, and it does something unprofessional to your libido.

“Alright people, settle down.”

Dr. Konomori, the Chief of Surgery, raises her voice to be heard over the early-morning chatter, and the noise eventually subsides. She’s a fierce Japanese woman in her late fifties who barely tops five foot, but she commands attention in a way men twice her size don’t.

“We all have cases to get to, so I’ll make this short. I’m sure you all know this is Dr. Ramirez’s last week with us before heading to Atlanta-“

A couple of good-natured boos sound from the crowd, but Konomori doesn’t blink.

“-so I’m here to introduce our new head of vascular, Dr. Everett Edwards. He comes to us from the Cleveland Clinic, but he’s a Pittsburgh native, so welcome back Dr. Edwards.”

A round of applause, surprisingly boisterous given the early hour, breaks out. You crane your head around the pair of residents in front of you. You know most of the speciality heads by now, but there are dozens of other attendings and residents that you’ve never met, so you’re not quite sure who you’re looking for. Then a man you’ve never seen steps up next to Dr. Konomori, and you actually let out a disbelieving snort.

Everett Edwards is quite possibly the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen. Raven hair, amber eyes bright enough you can see them from halfway across the room, and a blindingly white smile. He’s disturbingly attractive. Like uncanny valley levels of attractive. He’s slightly shorter and leaner than Brendon’s towering frame, but you can still tell the guy is built, even under his navy surgical scrubs and his white coat.

You’re legitimately calculating the odds that he’s some sort of robot or genetically engineered plant, when those amber eyes meet yours. It’s like looking at the freaking sun. You slow blink, trying to process the mutant demigod looking at you, and his smile widens. It goes from polite-charming to zeroed-in-charming, and you feel it like a slap across the face. Konomori then tells everyone to get back to work, and you’re relieved for all of three seconds before Edwards actually starts walking towards you. 

You register several things when he stops in front of you. One, you have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. Two, he smells like expensive cologne, something sharp that makes your nose twitch. And three, if looks could kill, he would be long-dead. Because Brendon catches sight of the two of you from where he’s standing by the charge desk, and the blue in his eyes goes positively arctic. 

“Hi, you must be Y/n Y/l/n.”

Even his stupid voice is attractive.

“Um, yes, hi?”

Your gaze is pulled from Brendon’s attempt at first-degree murder back to the man in front of you.

“Everett Edwards, nice to meet you. Dr. Konomori told me a bit about your research here and that you’ll be with us for the next few days.”

He holds out his hand, and you shake it like it’s a snake waiting to bite you.

“I will-. Yes, Dr. Edwards, I-”

“Everett, please. I’ll be doing a lot of observation this week before Dr. Ramirez leaves, so we’ll likely run into each other quite a bit. Dr. Edwards just sounds pretentious.”

He gives you another megawatt grin, this one conspiratorial and intimate. Twenty-year-old you would probably have combusted on the spot. Current you isn’t immune to the charm, but you’re not nearly as impressed by it as you would have been once upon a time. He might be the sun given form —  all bright and golden and warm — but you prefer the cool. Oceans and ice and blue so sharp it steals your breath.

“Right, well. Everett. I have to get over to OR five, but it was nice to meet you.”

You give him your most professional smile and basically bolt away from him. It’s done with absolutely no grace and probably isn’t the most polite thing you could do, but you don’t care. You can feel his amusement following you down the hall. You head towards the surgical suites and are about to pull out your phone to text Brendon when an arm hooks around your waist and drags you sideways.

“What-“

You catch a flash of burning cerulean before Brendon’s mouth is on yours. Your back meets something solid, and then he’s pressed against you from shoulder to hip. His hands fist your hair to angle your head how he wants, and he kisses you harshly, all tongue and teeth. Lightning shoots through you.

“Bren,” you gasp when he lets you breathe. “What are you doing?”

A quick glance around tells you he’d pulled you into an on-call room, and anyone could walk in at any time.

“Asshole’s been here five seconds,” he mutters in response, scowling.

“What?”

“The Ken doll eye-fucking you. Doesn’t even have a permanent parking pass yet, and he’s already trying to take things that aren’t his.”

Understanding dawns like a lightbulb.

“Are you jealous?”

A slow, delighted smile spreads across your face, and he fairly growls at you.

“No, and don’t look at me like that.”

“Brendon. He shook my hand and said nice to meet you.”

“Stop looking so fucking smug.”

“Stop being jealous.”

“I’m not jealous you nutcase . I’m pissed off that he’s flirting with you in front of the whole fucking department, while I have to pretend I don’t know what you sound like coming on my cock.”

Now it’s his turn to smirk while your face flames.

“We’re at work,” you hiss.

“Which part of I would happily fuck you in the middle of reception was unclear to you?”

Insufferable man.

But he’s your insufferable man, and you smile despite yourself. Sighing, you stretch up on your toes to kiss him again. He puts up a token resistance for approximately two seconds, then relents and makes a low sound against your mouth. Your hum in contentment and wiggle as close to him as possible.

“It’s not about me,” you say when you pull back a while later. 

You place one hand on his chest and rub your fingers lightly against the fabric of his scrubs.

“He’s just a flirt. He’ll figure out pretty quickly I’m not interested and start wooing someone else.”

He scowls and presses a kiss to your jaw.

“He fucking better.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Turns out Everett Edwards is much more patient than you gave him credit for.

It’s now the following Friday, and he’s spent the last two weeks charming the pants off every person in the department. At least two nurses and one of the plastics attendings have already shot their shot with him, and everyone else seems close on their heels. Everyone except Brendon, who is one twitch away from physical violence, and you.

Edwards is charismatic, you’ll give him that. He’s smart, well-spoken, and has a way of talking to people that makes them feel like they’re the only person in the world. He’s quick with a smile or a joke, and he isn’t afraid to poke fun at himself either. That’s what makes him so likable, you think. He doesn’t pretend false modesty, but he also doesn’t take himself too seriously. 

He’s also admirably, irritatingly, persistent.

The Tuesday you met him, he’d followed you to the observation room of OR five. You’d been there to study technical procedures — anything that could improve efficiency and accuracy and reduce margin of error — and had only a basic grasp of what was actually happening medically. Edwards had been all too happy to camp out next to you and explain the spring-mediated cranioplasty.

Wednesday, he’d brought doughnuts for everyone and had saved one for the genius trying to make our lives more efficient.

On Friday, he’d found you observing another surgery and had complimented your work ethic with alarming sincerity.

Then this Monday, he’d caught you before rounds and had invited you to watch him perform a carotid endarterectomy. For the model he’d said with a wink.

By Wednesday, Brendon was ready to chew through drywall. 

“I’m going to stab him with an eleven blade,” he grumbles against your hair.

The two of you are lying in his bed, clothes scattered somewhere on the floor and sheets tangled around bare legs. He’s on his back with you half-draped across his chest. One of his arms is hooked around your waist, and his fingers are gentle as they card through the ends of your hair despite the irritation in his voice.

“Dramatic,” you tease.

You shift so you can see him, arms braced on his chest. The sight of him — naked, flushed, softer than anyone else knows he can be — steals your breath momentarily. You can’t help but bend down to kiss him.

“You know I’m not interested,” you say when you pull back.

He scowls like you just spit on his mother’s grave.

“Of course I know that. I just don’t know why you haven’t told him to fuck off yet.”

“I-“

His large hands grab your hips and yank you up until you’re sitting on his lap. You gasp when the movement drags your bare cunt over his cock. He’s already half-hard again, and he smirks when your hips twitch down involuntarily. You’re still sensitive from him being inside of you not long ago, and you have no idea how he can possibly be ready for another round so soon.

“Cut it out you heathen,” you hiss. “I was going to say that I can’t tell him off, because he hasn’t done anything yet.”

It’s true. Edwards hasn’t given you any gifts, hasn’t paid you any non-professional compliments, hasn’t made any physical advances. He hasn’t done anything that could be considered inappropriate. He’s just…attentive.

Brendon is thoroughly unimpressed by your logic, and he retaliates by rolling his hips up against yours. It punches an embarrassing noise out of you.

“Aren’t you all about planning and being prepared for things?” he asks as he drags his rapidly hardening cock directly against your clit. “Tell him to fuck off proactively.”

“I can’t-, ah. He’s not doing anything you caveman.”

“He’s pebbling.“

“What?”

You actually yelp when he sits up abruptly and rolls the two of you over. He’s annoyingly agile for someone his size. 

“Pebbling. He’s bringing you pebbles like a fucking penguin, and if he doesn’t stop, I’m going to stab him with an osteotome.” 

Whatever response you would have given disappears when he slides into you with one, deep thrust. You make a choked noise and reach immediately to brace your hands on his chest. He groans, low and filthy, and hikes one of your legs up on his hip. The new angle makes your head spin.

“You’re mine, imp.”

Needless to say, Brendon is less than thrilled when Edwards approaches you now. You’re standing at the charge desk, scribbling in the margins of your notebook, while Brendon stands on the opposite side taking to Patty. Edwards slides up next to you with his normal Crest-commercial grin firmly in place, looking flawless despite the ungodly hour. One thing you definitely will not miss about observing surgery is their ridiculous start times. 

“Hey, doc,” he greets.

“Not a doctor yet,” you reply automatically.

“Why, you planning on failing your defense?”

Your jaw drops.

“Of course not! And don’t put bad vibes out in the universe. What is wrong with you?”

He laughs and raises his hands in mock surrender.

“See? You’re going to pass, and you’ll be Dr. Y/l/n in no time.”

You smile despite yourself.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence.“

“Anytime. Speaking of which, are you going to research gala Sunday?”

It takes you a second to process the rapid shift in topics.

“Um, yes? How-, are you invited?”

The CMU/PTMC research collaborative was hosting its yearly gala to attract sponsors. The goal was to showcase some of their joint projects and emphasize the potential for both medical progress as well as financial growth. You’re not a fan of the latter, but you know it’s inevitable in the medical-industrial complex. All current grad students are expected to attend, and you’ve been waffling between excitement at a chance to dress up and dread over prolonged forced-socialization.

“Alumni have a standing invitation,” he answers with a wink.

You can’t help it. You risk a glance over at Brendon and wince when you see the stormy expression on his face. Even if you two weren’t keeping things on the down low right now, he’s on call this weekend. The hotel hosting the gala is just outside the twenty minute call radius, and he wouldn’t have been able to attend with you regardless.

“I’ll see you there?” Edwards asks, oblivious to your silent stare-off.

Well now your choices are lie or send Brendon into the stratosphere. 

Brendon will be fine.

“Yes,” you answer. “I’m actually doing one of the lightning talks.”

Edwards’ face lights up.

“That’s amazing! I look forward to hearing it; I’m sure you’re going to do great.”

He keeps talking, something about a friend who’s also giving a talk and another friend who something something. You don’t hear him. You’re too busy looking at Brendon, who meets your gaze with his lip curled just enough to mean danger.

Osteotome he mouths at you. 

You smile weakly.

He’d taken you against the window the first time.

“You afraid of heights?” he’d asked, and the question moved through you like warm liquid rather than reached you. You’d shaken your head, or tried to. “No,” he’d murmured, your jaw in his hands. “Didn’t think so.” 

He’d taken his prosthetic off after, wryly claiming that the position felt good but the leg disagreed. That had somehow lead to another round, slower the second time with him on his back and you set over him.

A part of you wondered often the sort of impression you’d given Jack, what he’d seen, exactly, that made him sure he could have you like this and keep it weightless. Whatever it was, it had to have been right to some degree because you’d spent more nights in his penthouse than your own apartment for the past six months without ever calling it anymore than what it was. 

He was a better lay than you’d ever had. He was probably the best option around to get steam off while you worked your way through residency. It helped that he was your attending and you shared the same strange hours. 

You kept the books carefully and columns balanced. Sex, sleep, the occasional terrible four a.m. meal that didn’t count because eating was maintenance, not intimacy. You never stayed for coffee — you took it to go — and you didn’t learn his middle name on purpose. You’d never seen the inside of his closet. You left before you could risk having to go to work together. A woman in trouble would linger, and you did not linger. Therefore.

But the stupid books had started running a quiet deficit you hadn’t accounted for. You knew exactly how he took his coffee. The toothbrush in the second drawer that you reached for now without looking, muscle memory in a place you’d sworn was temporary. 

And even though you could admit that Jack knew his way around you and never made you ask twice for anything in that bed, that wasn’t the line item that worried you. Bodies learned bodies. It was that you’d stopped taking your coffee to go some mornings without ever noticing the change; you’d sit at his counter with a mug that was somehow yours now, and drank it there while he read something on his phone and never told you to leave. You’d started to become a woman that lingered, and even worse, one who liked to do so.

And that had to stop, because Jack had told you point-blank what this was on the first night while you were still putting on your shirt with his mouth print blooming under the fabric.

This doesn’t have to be a thing. I’m not looking to make it one. Is that alright?

He’d said the words while putting on his briefs, and you’d agreed too fast, because at that time, it had cost you nothing. You’d wanted a body and a break, and he was offering both. He’d been more honest than any man you’d let touch you. He’d told you the terms up front and never moved them.

So, you simply had to put yourself out of the arrangement.

Jack found you by your car in the parking garage. He’d put on his coat a heavy thing that should’ve swallowed him but instead he was able to fill out almost perfectly.

“Jack,” you said, trying to find an even voice as he closed the distance between you. Before he could even ask, you forced out, “I’m not going home with you.”

His brows furrowed and he looked confused. For good reason, you supposed. Friday mornings had become sort of a usual for you, the easiest compensation in your life for missing Friday nights. 

“You good?” He stepped close and tipped his head, and you watched him give you a complete once-over, eyes dropping to your hands and the set of your shoulders like you were a patient. “You looked a little out of it today. Come — I’ll make you soup.” 

You pinched your eyes shut at his words. “What’s that even supposed to mean — I was fine.” 

“Don’t take it personal,” he said. “Come on, soup.”

“Seriously, I was fine.” You were almost offended now, which was clearly his intent, the bastard. “I’ve been awake for nineteen hours, I’m not sick —” You caught yourself getting pulled into it, defending your honor, exactly the kind of dumb circular thing you’d let him rope you into a hundred times because arguing with Jack was sometimes fun. You shut it down. “I’m not going home with you,” you said again, this time with a sharper edge. 

He pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest, giving you another once-over as he recaliberated the situation in real time. “Did I upset you?” 

“No, it’s not a fight,” you said fast. You dragged a hand down your face. “I’m not mad at you, Jack. I’m done with this. The whole — all of it.”

He tipped his chin down when you gestured vaguely with your finger between the two of you, at the whole abstract nature of you. Then, he said, “You’re calling it?”

“Yeah, very much,” you said, voice dropping a register as you leaned against the driver’s side door of your car. Then, when you saw how his brows furrowed and how he looked just slightly caught off-guard, you added, dumbly, “Sorry. I guess.” 

He held your eyes a long beat, something working in his mouth, and then closed the last of the distance between you. His hand came up to your jaw, and you felt your face turn to liquid as you involuntarily leaned into it; his thumb dragged slow along your cheekbone and his gaze followed it, and you stood pinned to your own cold car door and let him, because telling him to stop would mean pretending you didn’t want it, and you’d never once been able to sell that lie for either of you. 

“You mean it?” he asked, voice rough, and his forehead dropped to yours. When you nodded, he mimicked your movement. “Alright. Then let’s at least end it properly.” 

When you showed no urgency to decline, his mouth found yours before you could decide whether you trusted yourself enough to end it properly. One of his hands stayed at your jaw while the other one fitted you back against the cold of the car. He smiled against your mouth, and you used your palm to push him by the chest.

He went back, just slightly, dropping his head to your forehead again. “I’m guessing that’s a yes?”

“One time,” you said quietly, almost in a whisper. “And then I mean it. It won’t change anything.”

“I believe you,” he said. “Last time, then. Make it count.”

Jack was making it obscenely difficult for you to make it count. The rhythm you’d settled into with him at around month two — the one where the two of you skipped the drink and went straight into his bed — had disappeared tonight. He just really needed a drink tonight, and then another, and then he really didn’t want to shut his mouth. 

He poured the second one without offering you a top-up and stood at the window instead of coming to you, two fingers of amber catching the lamplight. You watched him and watched him, answering his questions until the two of you finally ended up in the bedroom. 

He’d opened his mouth to argue something and you got his belt open instead slowly, and whatever he’d been about to say faded elsewhere. The city sat out past the glass, unblinking, that audience he never drew the blinds against. His hand found your hair, resting with his thumb at your ear, almost gentle and completely fucking distracting. 

“Slow,” he murmured when you took him into your mouth, and the word came out scraped down to nothing. His head went back against the headboard. “Fuck.”

You went the opposite of slow; you knew that taking your time with it, acknowledging the last time of it all, would crack something open in your chest you couldn’t afford to have open. You did everything you knew undid him — six months of evidence, a body of proof — fast and certain, and the breath punched out of him and his fingers curled into your hair and the smug, talkative version of him went quiet for about four seconds. 

“You — huh — last time. Really?” he managed to say, fingers tightening against your scalp, the blunt fingernails scraping against the skin. You slid your tongue down his length, and he let out a short groan, letting out a wrecked, “Good girl.” His hips lifted a fraction before he caught them, forcing himself still under your hands. “Good — yeah.” 

You’d have smiled if your mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied, so you settled on humming around him. You let yourself think you’d won the quiet, and then his thumb moved against your temple slowly, and he ruined it.

“You really mean it?” he asked quietly, words aimed somewhere at the ceiling. “You’re done?”

You ignored him and kept your rhythm. It wasn’t a question you were going to dignify with him in your mouth and your resolve already pooled somewhere on his bedroom floor. 

His hands flexed in your hair at the silence, then tugged, a frustrated little pull that went straight down your spine and that he absolutely felt you react to, because his thumb pressed flat behind your ear like he was talking to your pulse there.

“Don’t go quiet on me,” he said, rasp going uneven, breath catching somewhere between the words, his whole stomach drawn tight. You watched the muscle there jump when you took him deeper as his jaw worked. “You hear me. I know you — shit.”

You’d found the underside with the flat of your tongue you slowly dragged, and the sentence collapsed. His head dropped back and your eyes caught the tendon at his throat standing out. One of his heels dug into the mattress and you felt the tremor run up his thigh under your palm. 

You’d have been lying if you said this wouldn’t be missed. Not the talking, but this, the privilege of watching Jack Abbot lose a fight with his own body, a man who controlled every room he stood in coming apart by degrees because of what you were doing. You pressed your thumb into the crease of his hip and felt him shudder. You took him to the back of your throat and swallowed and he said your name that came out of his mouth breaking. 

“You’re really gonna — ” He inhaled sharply, hand fisting tighter on your head. “ — gonna do this and walk, you’re — ”

You pulled off of him with a slow, wet, and deeply unflattering sound and sat back on your heels and looked up at him, lips swollen, thoroughly out of patience, your hand still working him just enough that his hips chased it. His eyes were closed, and he let out a large exhale.

“Are you kidding me?” 

He cracked an eye open, then shifted his head to the side against the pillow. “What?” he muttered.

“Why won’t you shut up?” You squeezed deliberately and his jaw clenched against the noise that almost got out of him. “You’re acting like a child.” 

“Acting like a child,” he huffed, head tipping back. “I’m pretty aged out of the tantrum bracket.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” You dragged your thumb up the length of him slowly. “You’ve been throwing one since we got off.”

His hand left your hair and closed around your wrist instead — the one still working him — stilling it, and then he was pulling with his unarguable strength, drawing you up over him until you had to crawl up his body or be dragged. 

You ended up straddling his waist. He stayed flat on his back beneath you, one arm folding behind his head while the other spread warm and heavy over your thigh, and he looked up at you with his chest still heaving and the gray stark at his temples. 

“Better,” he muttered. “Neck was startin’ to go, watching you be stubborn down there.” The hand on your thigh slid up slowly, settling at your hip, thumb working a lazy circle into the bone. He tilted his chin up slightly. “What’s this really about?”

You went still because you had too much of an answer, and it was the sort of one that you didn’t believe could survive being said out loud over a man who’d made it clear exactly what this was on day one. 

“You know,” you said.

“Maybe. But humor me.” His eyes stayed on your face, looking patient as ever, as the circle of his thumb continued moving. “Thought we had something nice going and now — ” He tilted his head slightly against the pillow. “So, what’s going on up in that pretty little head of yours?”

“I want more than this,” you said plainly. “That’s what’s in my head. I want the whole thing — the relationship and dates and stuff. I think I’ve got enough time to — get into that.”

“Yeah?” he said, voice coming out in a breath His thumb stilled on your hip. He looked up at you and his other hand came up and pushed a piece of your hair back off your cheek. 

You had to press your lips together, because you obviously weren’t expecting him to offer, and yet you’d been holding your breath anyway. 

“Yeah,” you said. “I do.”

His hand stayed on your cheek a moment longer, the pad of his thumb resting just under your eye. Then his hand dropped back to your hip where it was safe.

“You should,” he said after a moment, swallowing. “Get into that. You’ve got the time.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you want me to say?” His hands flexed at your hip, his hips still beneath yours and the want still humming under all of it. “Not gonna talk you out of one thing you actually deserve. Even I’m not that selfish.” His brows furrowed, like he’d just processed his own words. “Most days.”

His hand left your hip and found your waist, and then he was turning you, guiding you off of him onto the side on the mattress beside him, leaving the two of you laying facing each other in the gold dark. His thigh slid between yours. 

This close, you could see everything you usually didn't get to study: the silver threaded through the stubble at his jaw, the small white seam of an old scar through one eyebrow, the way the lines around his eyes weren't from laughing. He had one arm folded under his head and the other draped heavy over your hip, fingers spread at the small of your back, and he just looked at you, the want and the conversation both still hanging in the air between you, neither resolved.

“S’it somebody at work?” he asked. “Has to be. You don’t have time yet to meet anyone who isn’t.” 

You shook your head slightly against the pillow, and your brows furrowed together at the idea. “No — no one. I haven’t met anyone yet.” 

He huffed. His eyes dropped from yours to somewhere near your collarbone, then came back up. 

He turned his face toward the pillow for a second, as if to hide his face from you, then met your eyes again. “You’d rather have no one than me, huh?” 

“Wow,” you breathed out in almost a gasp. You pulled back an inch against the pillow to look at him properly. “Now that’s mean, Jack. I can find someone, you know.” 

“Yeah?” His brow lifted, scar catching the light. “Course you can.” His hand slid off your hip and down, palming the back of your thigh, drawing your knee up over his. “Always hear someone in the hospital talking about you.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“M’not.” He hitched your leg higher, fitting himself into the space it opened, and you felt the blunt heat of him press where you were already aching for it, rubbing slowly against your folds. “I mean it. It’s about time you got out from this old man.” 

“Don’t call yourself that.”

He dragged the length of him through you again, catching you over and over where you wanted him and not giving it. “It’s what I am. Fifty, boring life, no good to you past this.” His mouth ghosted the corner of yours, breath warm and uneven. “You should be out with someone who can give you the whole thing. I’ve already done my time.”

You could do it again, you wanted to say. You could be the whole thing. But the words sat behind your teeth, because you already knew what he’d say and do if you’d said them, and you couldn’t take hearing it kindly. Especially not with him notched against you like this when it was supposed to be the last time.

You let your hand find his jaw instead, the rough of the stubble, the silver, and you watched his eyes flicker at the touch, at how your lips moved from one side to the other as you tried to keep the words down. It seemed like he’d understood whatever you didn’t say.

“Yeah, baby,” he muttered and pressed his thumb to the back of your thigh, eyes fluttering shut at the touch of you. “I know.” 

He pushed in then, slow, all the way, mid-breath like it was just the next thing between you. The shudder rolled clean through him as he sank into you, his exhale breaking ragged against your mouth. Your spine arched off the mattress. His arm hooked under the small of your back and dragged you flush, no space left, no air, the two of you pressed chest to chest in the gold hush.

“Fuck,” he breathed against your mouth, holding there, buried to the hilt and not moving as he felt you clench around him. “Spoiling me rotten and then telling me you’re leaving.”

“Shut up now — ”

He drew back slow and sank back in deep, and the sound you made came out somewhere against his shoulder. Each roll of his hips pressed you up the sheets. “Get me used to this and then — what? Go hand it to someone who hasn’t earned it.” He laughed brokenly against your throat. “Selfish girl.” 

You got a fistful of his hair and pulled, hard enough that his breath stuttered. “Go find — someone else yourself,” you said through your teeth, because opening your mouth seemed like something embarrassing would follow. “You’re not lacking options — ”

“But I like having my cake,” he breathed, and there was almost a laugh under it. “Eating it, too.”

“Gross,” you mumbled against him.

One month was meant to be enough time. Lying awake the first week, you’d assumed it’d take thirty days to unlearn a person. It had worked on the obvious things. You’d stopped reaching for your phone at the end-of-shift and stopped seeking him out by the lockers. You’d slept in your own bed and not found it lacking, mostly. But nobody warned you that being in a car for four hours would call it all into question. 

One month of calling him Dr. Abbot across the bay, crisp and so weightless, handing him a chart without your fingers brushing his. You’d gotten good at it. Then Robby floated the conference. Some emergency medicine thing four hours upstate;  a block of credits, a hotel with a conference rate, a chance to put PowerPoint slides between yourself and the actual work for two days. Dana volunteered the department van before anyone could think of a reason not to, already half out of her scrubs spiritually, determined to get a few days of being a person instead of a charge nurse.

Like these things usually did, the seating assembled itself, which was to say it was assembled badly. Robby drove while Dana drove shotgun. Trinity somehow won the entire back row. And the middle row was you, Dennis, and Jack. 

You in the middle, because the universe worked in fucked-up ways. In this case, the universe was named Dana.

“You’ll fit,” Dana had said, and pressed a duffel of granola bars into your arms like a consolation prize, steering you into the gap between the two men before you could mount a defense. 

You fit pressed thigh-to-thigh with Jack Abbot for four hours up interstate, his arm slung along the seatback behind you because there was genuinely nowhere else for a man his size’s arms to put it, the heat of him bleeding through your sleeve like a low fever. You knew that arm. You knew the weight of it, the places where his hand fell when it wasn’t thinking about where it fell. It was a quarter-inch from touching you, which was worse than actually touching you, and you suspected he knew that, too. 

The van pulled out of the lot at five in the morning. Dennis had his headphones in before the drive even started. Up front, Dana was already arguing with Robby about the music. Trinity was sprawled in the whole back row to herself, scrolling on her phone. 

Thirty minutes into the drive, Jack broke the seal. 

“Excited?” he asked, eyes still out the window, profile flat and bored as anything. His voice was pitched low enough that it lived in the space between his mouth and your ear and nowhere else. 

You kept your head tipped back against the seat. “More excited about sleeping in a comfortable bed than the conference.”

His brows narrowed as he turned to look at you. “Some Marriot-adjacent mattress? You’re aiming low.”

“It’s horizontal and not on-call. I’m easy to please.”

“Since when?” he drawled, bone-dry, eyes going back to the window. But his thigh had pressed a degree closer against yours, a shift you couldn’t call a thing without admitting you were keeping track. Up-front, Dana won whatever argument she’d been having and something with a heavy bassline filled the van. Jack let the noise ring and leaned half-an-inch closer that nobody would ever catch. “You used to say my sheets were scratchy.”

“For a man with that penthouse, they were scratchy — ”

“Finally,” he breathed out, satisfied, like he’d been fishing for exactly that and reeled it in. Something in his face eased and you hated, a little, how much you wanted to have done that. “I almost forgot you’d been in it.” 

God. You hadn’t forgotten anything. That was the whole problem. You knew the place, the cold floor on the way to the bathroom, the exact freckles on his chest up close. You knew he wore a ring you had never once asked about and he’d never once explained, and that you’d both kept your eyes politely off the subject the way you keep your eyes off a wound that wasn’t yours to dress. You knew all of it, and all you could do was keep promising yourself it didn’t count anymore. 

“Can we stop at the next exit?” Trinity said from the back. “I need coffee and the bathroom. In that order.”

Dana hummed. “There’s a Sheetz coming up in ten. That good?” She looked through the map on her phone. “Everybody go when we stop. We’re not pulling off twice.”

“Works for me,” Robby said. 

Dennis plugged out one of his earphones and glanced over everyone in the car. “We’re stopping?” 

“Yup,” Dana confirmed. “Bathroom, snacks, ten minutes, back in the van. Whitaker, you want anything, you decide now.” 

Dennis considered, then put his earphone back on, apparently deciding the whole thing was beneath the commitment. 

Jack leaned in from beside you, barely. “Single stall in the back of those places, you know?” he said, voice low, barely audible over the music. “There’s a lock on the door and everything.” 

You kept your eyes on the windshield in front of you. “Weird thing to know off the top of your head.”

His thigh pressed warm against yours through the curve of an off-ramp that didn’t strictly require it. “How much would it take?” His eyes flickered back out to the window, even as his shoulder now pressed up against yours. “You and me in there. Ten minutes. Name a number.”

“Can’t be bought.” You forced your eyes to the windshield. “Sorry. Not for sale.”

“No?” His voice dipped, amused. “Everybody’s got a price.”

“Not me.” You turned your head and found him already closer than he’d been a second ago. “You really think you could afford me?”

“Could take a run at it.”

“Wouldn’t get far.”

“Fifty,” he said, and you could see the slight grin crawling onto his lips. 

You let out a short laugh, then immediately pressed your mouth over your lips before it became any louder. “I don’t get out of bed for fifty dollars, Abbot, let alone on my knees.”

“Oof.” He winced, mock-wounded, dragging a hand over his chest. “Expensive date.” 

“It’s never a date with you.”

He bit his lip at that, eyes raking over you, the grin caught behind his teeth. “Right. Hundred, then.” 

“I’m gonna report you to HR. You’re my attending.” 

“Good luck with filling out the history we have for that.”

You turned to look at him, and let your mouth curl. “You really think I’m the sort of girl to do it in a gas station bathroom?”

You watched the grin go still on his face, watched his eyes drop to your mouth and drag back up, the warmth in them tipping into something darker. “Would you?” 

You scoffed, shaking your head. “In your dreams, Jack.”

“Frequently,” he said, not missing a second. “Vividly, too.” 

You leaned in enough to feel his breath catch. “Keep dreaming, then. It’s all you’re getting.” 

You sat back before he could answer, fingers playing with the seatbelt, sweet as anything.

“Christ.” He dragged a hand down over his jaw, his head tipping back against the seat and looked at you sideways through the gray morning light, and the bit fell off his face. “Missed you.”

Before you could even process the words with his attention on you, because he was who he was, his jaw worked once and looked back out the window, ending it himself before you could, handing the silence back to you to do with it what you pleased. 

Your chest squeezed just slightly at that, and you had to be the one to force yourself to look away, catching sight of Dennis’s head bumping against the window as he soundly slept, oblivious, lucky. 

At some point past the gas station you lost the fight with your own exhaustion. Nineteen hours of being awake before the drive, and the van was warm, and the bassline had mellowed into something Dana hummed underneath her breath, and the road had gone smooth — almost hypnotic — interstates often did when they’d gone out of the clutches of the city. You’d meant to stay awake. You’d made the small private rule about it, too; you went under anyway, somewhere between a stretch of dead farmland and the next, your head listing by degrees toward the warm solid thing on your left because your body, again, moving without giving a single shit about how you felt. 

When you surfaced, it happened slowly. The light had changed; it was full morning now, white and flat through the windshield. Your cheek was pressed against something that rose and fell in a long, even rhythm, and your brain took its time arriving to the fact of it. You’d fallen asleep on Jack's chest. One month clean and your face was tucked into the seam of his jacket like it had never stopped being there. 

You weren’t proud of how you didn’t want to move just yet, so you didn’t move. 

You could feel his breathing under your cheek, slow enough that he might have been asleep, too. There was a smell to him you’d made yourself forget and were now remembering, completely against your will. It was nothing fancy, just clean cotton and something warm. The Gatorade bottle you’d been clutching was in the cupholder against your knee now, and you had no memory putting it there. Which meant there was a slight chance Jack had worked it out of your sleeping hand at some point so it wouldn’t tip into your lap, and set it down. 

You cracked one eye to assess the damage to your dignity. Dennis had leaned in the same stretch of road, toward you, hood up and mouth open, gone to the world. And somewhere in all that, Jack’s arm, the long span of it along the seatback, had come down around you with his hand had ended up resting flat on the top of Dennis’s skull, holding it off your shoulder, fingers spread over the kid’s hair like a melon he was deciding whether to buy. 

You’d furrowed your brows at the arrangement, reeling, when the camera shutter went off. 

Jack came awake all at once. He always did; he was never groggy, never had a transition. It was like there was an off and on button to him, as though his nervous system had been trained somewhere that didn’t allow the luxury of waking up slowly. He clocked it in a half second: the phone, you against his chest, the unexplained weight under his own palm. He followed his arm down to where his hand was cradling a sleeping resident’s head and his face crumpled slightly. 

He smacked it off, open-palmed, off the top of Dennis’s skull. 

“Ow.” Dennis jolted awake, flailing upright, a crease pressed into his cheek from your sleeve. “What — Dr. Abbot — what —”

“Wrong shoulder, kid,” Jack said.

“I wasn’t —” Dennis took in the angle for himself and recoiled. “Sorry. God. Sorry.” 

You’d started to sit up to peel yourself off Jack’s chest and salvage some dignity to sit back into the cold neutral air of your own seat where you belonged. His palm came up to your forehead and pushed you back down against him.

“Not you,” he said. His hand stayed flat on your forehead. “You’re fine where you are.” 

You reached up and pulled his hand off your forehead, sitting up out of the warmth of him. 

“C’mon,” he said quietly, under the music, softer than a command.

You paused with your hand still around his wrist and turned to look at him full-on. He was already looking at you, none of the previous needling present in his face.

You shook your head once, a small gesture. You didn’t trust the words to come out the way they needed to, so you let your face carry it instead.

He held your eyes a second, then his jaw shifted slightly and the corner of his mouth went to a worn-down half of a smile. He gave you the smallest nod. His eyes fell shut and he tipped his head back with a small shake of his head as he eased his wrist out of your hand. 

You put your hands in your lap where they couldn’t get you in trouble, and stared out at the flat white morning coming up over the interstate, and made sure to not look at him again.

The conference threw a networking event the first evening, which meant a low-lit ball room, a cash bar charging eleven dollars for wine that came from a box, and a couple hundred physicians standing around in lanyards pretending they’d be here without the boxed wine. 

You’d lost the group almost immediately. Dana was drawn to a cluster of people she knew in a previous life; Robby to someone he’d done a residency with; Dennis to the food; Trinity to one of her college buddies. It left you working the edge of the room with a plastic cup of wine, doing a slow orbit as you read badges, when a man peeled off a nearby conversation and aimed at you.

He was older. Closer to Jack’s range, give or take. He had silver coming in at the temples and an unbothered ease that made you wonder if he’d ever had it hard. His badge put him outside Columbus. He had a good face and seemed aware of it without leaning on it, and no wear that graced his features; a man who slept fine, you assumed, and didn’t own a single thing he refused to speak about. 

“Pace yourself with that,” he said, tipping his own glass in the direction of yours. “It comes up to you pretty quickly.” 

“Bit late for that,” you said, lifting the cup up an inch. “This is already number three.”

“Then I’m too late to save you and might as well make it worse,” he said, offering a hand. “Mark. Philly. I run the shop out there.” 

You introduced yourself. He had a good handshake, dry and brief, none of the holding-on the men sometimes did at these things. 

He tipped his head to look at your badge. “Pittsburgh Trauma. You like it?”

“Most days.”

He shrugged. “Anybody who says every day is lying or hasn’t been doing it long enough.” He took a sip and let his eyes come back to your face. “Let me guess. Senior resident. Somebody made you come.” 

You were going to say something back—you had something, you’d half-built it—and then there was a hand at the small of your back. You knew the weight of it, the breadth, where the fingers fell. It settled low against your spine and stayed, warm through the dress. 

“Mark,” Jack said from beside you. He had a club soda in his free hand and an easy nothing on his face. “Jack Abbot. Pittsburgh.” 

“Jack.” Mark did a quick thing, the hand, the half-step Jack had folded into the space between you without seeming to take it, the way you hadn't stepped out from under his palm. Something recalibrated behind his face, pleasant and unhurried. He stuck the hand out anyway. “I think I’ve read you —” He referenced one of Jack’s studies you knew all too well, something he’d handed over to you once in his bed like it was a bedtime story.

“That’s me.” Jack took the handshake. His thumb moved once at your spine, where the angle hid it from the third person entirely. “Philly? You inherit the department or build it?”

“Little bit of both. Mostly inherited the problems,” he said lightly. “You enjoying the conference?” 

“It’s a conference,” Jack said, lifting his glass half-an-inch. Then, his head tilted in your direction. “You know this one’s my best trauma resident? I’d put her on anything. Watched her run a procedure last month half the seniors I came up with couldn’t have called that fast.” 

“That so?” Mark looked at you again, interest sharpened. “He doesn’t seem the type to hand those out.”

“He’s nice to everyone.” 

“She’s underselling it.” Jack’s hand spread a degree wider at your back, the heel of his palm settling into the dip of your spine, fingers easy along your hip. “You’ll be reading her name in a couple years and remembering you met her here, of all places.”

It got the laugh Jack wanted it to. Mark took a sip, easy, regrouping, and you watched him do the math the way smooth men do—fast, behind a pleasant face—and land on a play.

“Well.” He tilted the glass toward Jack. “I won’t monopolize you. I’m sure you’ve got the room to work — everybody wants a minute at these things.”

The thumb that had been moving at your back stilled, and Jack’s features crossed into something amused as he narrowed his brows at the man. 

“S’alright,” he said pleasantly. “Got everyone I need right here.” 

Mark recaliberated again, watching him take Jack’s measure one more time; the hand, the half-inch of space that hardly qualified as space. You watched him arrive to the easy conclusion that whatever was happening here had been decided before he ever walked over.

“Fair enough,” he said, setting his empty cup down at the nearest high-top. “Pleasure. Good luck with the residency.” He nodded at you, then to Jack. “Abbot.” And then he was gone, folding back into the room, off to find the next conversation that wasn’t already spoken for.

Jack’s hand was still on your back, and you stepped out from under it. You turned to face him, and felt the thing that had been climbing in you all night finally find a target.

“Why would you do that?” you asked, shaking your head and pressing your lips shut to keep yourself from saying anything more. 

“Do what?” he said mildly, the glass loose in his hand. 

“Don’t.” You kept your face arranged for the room, tamping down your voice so it wouldn’t carry over to strangers. “You know what you did. You’re not stupid.”

“I said you were good at your job.” He had the gall to look reasonable. “Becuase you are.”

“That’s not what it was and you know it — thank you.” Your jaw tightened. “You don’t get to walk over and put your hand on me when I’m talking to another man and act like — ” Your fingers moved between the two of you, a small and sharp movement. “ — like you’ve got any claim. We agreed to this a month ago.”

Jack’s lips pressed in a thin line at the words, and his eyes raked over your face. “He’d have you in his bed by ten,” he said, calmer now. “Guys like that — it’s their whole game at places like this. One night, gone by checkout. You didn’t lose anything worth keeping.” 

Your brows furrowed at that, and you felt something go hot in your neck. “Yeah?” you asked, voice going quieter. “Isn’t that what you were?” 

He looked away for a second, one hand coming up to rub over the bottom half of his face. “If you can’t tell the difference between me and a guy like that,” he said evenly, and there was something genuinely stung underneath as his eyes met yours, “then I really don’t know what to tell you.” 

“Maybe there isn’t one.”

His face twisted at that, and he let out a disbelieved laugh. “That’s how you think of me?”

“That’s not — ” You stopped, because his face had knocked something loose in you and you had no idea what you thought anymore. “That’s not what I said.” 

“It sounded a hell of a lot like it.” He shook his head. “Six months and you’re putting me next to a guy you met ten minutes ago. Alright.” 

“Jack — ”

“You wanted it, too. Okay?” When you let out a small ‘what?’ he continued, “You heard me. You’re acting like you just went along with it, and you never once asked for more either.” His voice had dropped low, and he’d walked closer to you before you even realized. “You never once asked for more until the night you walked. So don’t put it all on me.” 

“I asked,” you said, voice cracking just slightly, and you looked around the room to see if anyone was close to you. “You were the one who told me to go find someone else. You said you’re no good past what we were doing.” 

“I said it because it’s true,” he said quickly, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m not the guy you build the rest of your life around. I tried to do the decent thing.”

“Then stand on that,” you said. “You don’t get to tell me to find someone and stop it the second anyone shows up. Pick one. You don’t get to keep me in your life like this forever because you can’t stand to either let me in or go.” 

“I’m trying to do right by you,” he said roughly.

You pressed two fingers above your eyelid, shaking your head. “Why are you doing this?” You shoulders came up to your ears. “I don’t — it was never going to be us, Jack. You said so yourself. I don’t get why — I need to move on.” 

He closed his eyes at that for a moment. “I know you do,” he said quietly, the fight gone all out of him. His eyes flickered down to his hand for a second, then made a loose fist out of them. “I — can we go somewhere else?” He leaned in slightly, body stiffening up. Reading the hesitation on your face, he said, “Please.” 

You’d watched him avoid the word in a dozen rooms, so you nodded slowly and forced yourself to not look too hard at why. You couldn’t, because if you stopped to let yourself consider it, it’d make your body hurt even more, and you’d still do it. 

The stairwell was the only door on the floor that wasn’t a room or a lobby. It was fire-exit cold, raw concrete, a fluorescent light overhead. The reception came up through the floor as bass and nothing else, the words gone out of it. The door sucked shut behind you both and took the noise with it. You both walked four floors up, apparently neither of you being ready to do anything about it. And then there was simply the buzz of the bad light and Jack, six months and one month and four floors and a whole conference away from you, standing with his back to the cinderblock and his hands jammed in his pockets.

You crossed your arms and your eyes involuntarily flickered up to the ceiling because you weren’t sure you could talk. But when he let the silence drag on, too, you said, “Jack — ”

“Did you want it to be me?” he said immediately, like your voice had spurred him into action. 

“What?”

“The whole thing you said you want. Dates, the rest of it.” His body was stiff against the wall. “Was that — did you ever imagine me, or just, someone else. Someone who would.” 

You took in a shaky breath. “You.” It came out more plainly than you’d expected, like your body had been ready to be rid of it, to place it somewhere in the open. “I left because I wanted more — with you, and you made it pretty clear I could never have that.”

His hands jammed in his pockets. The light buzzed overhead, that sick fluorescent flutter, and somewhere four floors down the reception kept going, two hundred people who'd never know this was happening over their heads.

“I don’t think I can give you that,” he said.

“Okay.” You forced yourself to nod, and your eyes went hot. “Thanks for telling me that, then.”

He raised a palm just enough that it caught in your eyesight. “I didn’t — didn’t say I never wanted to. Don’t think that.” He tilted his neck up to meet your eyes properly. “Wanting you that way wasn’t hard. I’ve been doing that against my own advice the entire time.”

He'd come off the wall a step without seeming to know he'd done it, and his face had lost the arrangement it usually wore, the bored set of it, and underneath was something you'd caught glimpses of and never the whole of. His eyes shifted to the wall, the stenciled number, anywhere but you.

“I did years of this already. And it ended about as badly as it could end.” He laughed wryly, no humor in it. “I stopped letting myself want things — I thought it’s a lot easier to get through a night if there’s nothing you’d be hurt to lose.” His muscles tensed on his face, the lines deepening as he pinched his eyes shut and shook his head. “Feels like I’m losing you, and it hurts like hell.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know when it happened. It wasn’t meant to.”

You pressed a finger against the underside of your eye then, determined to catch anything that could possibly leak out. 

“But you don’t know if you can do it,” you said, words coming out shakily. 

He tugged his bottom lip between his teeth and shook his head slowly. “No,” he said honestly, and it was worse than any lie he could’ve told. “I don’t know.”

You nodded again, because there was nothing else for you to do. 

“But — but, I don’t wanna lose what I’ve got with you,” he admitted, voice dropping into something shameful. “I know that the nights you’re not on are longer. And if I can’t have you, I want you to know you do that for me. It started being pretty serious a long time ago — for me, too.” 

The light fluttered overhead and you let the finger drop from under your eye, gave up on holding it, let whatever wanted to come just come. Somehow, they were words you’d always wanted to hear and yet they arrived wrong, off-rhythm. You’d kept careful track of everything he wouldn’t give you, a whole running tally of it, and he'd just gone and paid the entire balance in one breath in the worst-lit room, and the awful part — the part that made your blood run even hotter — was that it counted. It counted, anyway. 

“So what do we do with that?” you said. “I don’t — I don’t know where that leaves us.”

He was quiet for a moment. You watched him sit in the question instead of dodging it, which was new, which was maybe the most he’d ever given you in one night.

“I’d want to try,” he said finally, words careful, like he was setting something down that might break. “Not the old way. I mean the other thing. What you wanted.” He let out a breath. “If you still want it. I wasn’t very great the first time, and I’m out of practice, too.” 

You wiped your cheek, and winced as you felt your hand scrub at your skin a little too roughly. “You were okay with it a month ago — ”

“It hurt,” he said immediately. “It hurt, you walking out. I didn’t have anything better than to let you, but don’t — don’t think it didn’t.” 

He moved when you didn’t respond, stepping closer than the conversation needed. His hands came up and settled at your arms, just below the shoulders, loose, holding you in place or holding himself there, you couldn't tell which, maybe both.

“Let me try,” he said roughly. His thumbs moved once against your arms. “I want to learn this with you.”

You looked up at him. He held it — your eyes, the closeness, all of it — instead of glancing off the way he had all night. You realized distantly that this was a sort of contract you’d be signing, and he was laying out the option for you to not do so. 

“You can’t disappear on me,” you said instead of considering the second option, “when it gets hard. I don’t ever want to feel like I made up something I didn’t.”

He nodded stiffly. “If I do, you can drag me back out.”

His forehead came down, to the top of your head, his chin resting in your hair, his arms folding the rest of the way around you like he'd finally run out of reasons not to. You felt him breathe out, the whole tense length of him going down an inch against you.

“Just let me try,” he said again, into your hair, voice a whisper. “Please. I’m asking. I don’t do that a lot.”

tags — @emmdreams @shoulderpress

“My buddy, Officer Hiro,” Jack answers immediately, through a series of panted breaths. “High-velocity GSW, warehouse robbery gone sideways. He’s getting harder to bag.”

The windowless trauma room swallows you whole as you wheel the gurney inside. The four walls swell suddenly with the scent of coppery blood and bitter chlorhexidine. Nurses rush to wake the surrounding monitors with a set of electronic chirps, while Jack escorts the officers he came with out of the room. “We’ll take care of him, I promise,” you hear the man say as you slide your stethoscope into your ears.

You press the chestpiece to the man’s bloodied sternum, bare from where his uniform had already been cut down to his waist and sticky with fresh blood. His heartbeat is weak and rapid in your ears, barely maintaining enough pressure to reach his brain.

“Pulse is thready,” you murmur and slide the diaphragm half an inch higher. “Diminished breath sounds on the right…” 

Jack appears across from you, mouth curling into a familiar crooked grin. “We have got to stop meeting like this, Doc,” he jokes in a gritty deadpan.

“That’s crazy— I was thinking the exact same thing,” you quip and slip the stethoscope back around your neck. “Dr. Santos, let’s make sure these lungs are up.”

“You two know each other?” Robby wonders aloud. He glances between you and Jack with a pair of suspiciously narrowed eyes as he plucks a pair of scissors from the metal tray beside him.

“Yeah, you could say that…” Jack huffs with his eyes on the blade, which slices mechanically through the end of the endotracheal tube protruding from Hiro’s throat.“Pulling out,” the man announces before sliding the thing out through his mouth. “Bag.”

A silver-haired nurse, whom you’ve yet to come acquainted with, squeezes at the valve mask at Jack’s instruction. Air bubbles at the wound.

“He’s not moving any air,” you call to the crowded room. “Get me a neonatal mask.”

“Neonatal?” Santos echoes with furrowed brows.

“Yeah, we’re gonna put it over the wound to keep his airflow up while Dr. Abbot cuts a full-length tube and Dr. Robby shifts his trachea back into place,” you explain with a firm nod, smiling softly as you turn back to the attendings across from you. “Sound like a plan?”

Robby glances up at you from where he’s hunched over Hiro’s body, with two gloved fingers searching for his vocal cords. A faint smile lifts the corner of his mouth. “Do you always explain procedures like you’re assigning homework?” he laughs.

“If you’re asking if she’s always been this bossy, yes, she has,” Jack quips with a crooked grin that widens at the edges when you roll your eyes, turning away to accept the neonatal mask a nurse passes from behind you. “And yes, it saved my life— Santos, cut me down a 6-0 ET tube, will you?” 

“Oh, do tell…” Robby hums.

“There’s nothing to tell,” you huff and set the mask of the neonatal tube over the bubbling wound, helping the air move in and out of the unconscious man’s lungs. “It’s just the kinda stuff that happens when you’re an army medic— you win some, you lose some.”

“Oh, she’s just being modest,” Jack croons drily as he irrigates the wound with saline, washing away clotted blood until the displaced trachea emerges beneath the crimson. His gloved fingers move alongside yours as he rambles. “She had orders to leave me after I got hit by that IED… The rest of ‘em were pulling back— didn’t have much of a choice but to, really, but… She didn’t… She dragged me about… What was it? Two-hundred meters?” 

Jack’s eyes lift and find yours have gone strangely distant. Your gaze zeroes in on the neck wound below; your mind wanders against your will.

The freezing A.C. of the emergency department grows sweltering in an instant, burning like the familiar desert heat that feels like dry fire in your lungs. Black smoke threatens to fog your vision all at once. The antiseptic smell turns suddenly to burning fuel. And the blood on your hands becomes darker, fresher, running over your fingers like an open faucet. 

Your hands start to tremble the same way they did when you tied the tourniquet around Jack’s wounded limb, made of nothing more than exposed nerves and tendons from the knee down. You feel your legs weaken the same way they did when you dragged Jack’s weight across unforgiving ground beneath earth-shaking explosions and whizzing bullets. 

Jack apologized through his guttural screams — because, even now, he swears the pain from the tourniquet hurt more than losing his leg — as you sat him up behind an unmanned tank.

“Shut. Up,” you commanded, covering his mouth with your bloodied hand. “Or I swear to god, I will kill you if we make it out of here— Do you understand?”

You made it out. And it became a funny story everyone told back at the VA — that time you threatened the life of the man you were saving — though you still struggle to laugh about it even still.

“…Right, Doc?” Jack presses, head ducking in an attempt to catch your eye.

Your hands remain firm over the small mask pressed to the wound in Hiro’s neck, but your face has emptied into an expressionless sort of look. It takes a long moment for your brain to will your eyes to blink, and only then does the sun-bleached desert in your mind return to the hospital where you plant your feet — buzzing fluorescent lights, beeping monitors, blinding white walls. You list everything you can see until your brain recalculates its surroundings.

Your wide eyes flit across the unblinking stares looking back at you, each of them waiting for a response. Your heart lurches in your chest. Your mouth opens and closes as you struggle to recall the last thing you’d heard. 

“Uh, n-not quite two-hundred,” you stammer with a trembling smile. “We had a team find us before then, I’m pretty sure.”

“See what I mean?” Jack hums with a surer smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His softened gaze remains fixed on you, studying you despite all your attempts to hide. “Modest.”

The automatic doors of the ambulance bay sigh open and shut every few seconds behind you. Each mechanical breath exhales waves of freezing air into the thick July evening, which smells overwhelmingly of hot asphalt, cigarette smoke, and gunpowder from far-off fireworks. 

You stand next to Jack beneath the overhang, with summer wind whipping through the thin fabric of your tied isolation gowns as you wait for the incoming trauma together — roughly five minutes out, Dana had said.  

“So…” you start slowly, wringing the loose pair of gloves in your anxious hands as your eyes fall to the man beside you. He’s still wearing the baggy camo pants he’d arrived in, though he’s since traded his heavy plate carrier for the fitted black t-shirt underneath it, which clings ardently to his muscular torso. “…SWAT, huh?”

“My therapist said I needed a hobby,” he jokes with a lazy shrug. “And, turns out, I suck at golf, so… I chose the next best thing.”

You shake your head and turn away, exhaling a quiet laugh in response — perhaps your first real one since the unforgiving shift started. The corner of Jack’s mouth lifts into a grin, proud of himself for having heard the pretty sound. He hadn’t thought to miss it until now.

“…How long has it been, you think?” he wonders suddenly, with a pair of squinted eyes.

You draw a deep breath through your nose. Your eyes scale the milky pink and orange skyline beyond the ambulance bay, where a molten gold sunset streaks across the sky. “A while…” you settle on after a few long moments.

“Anything new with you I should know about?” he asks, rocking gently to ease the weight on his prosthetic. 

You scoff like it’s funny — maybe because you can’t remember the last time anyone other than your therapist was asking after you. “Nope…” you sigh. “Unfortunately, I am still the exact same person you knew back then…”

“Doesn’t seem so unfortunate to me,” he insists, brows furrowed, like he’s half-offended by your own self-degradation.

“Well, you’d think after— I don’t know— a decade of pretty intensive therapy that I might be a little different,” you quip with an awkward laugh. The humor dissolves a second later when you realize how pathetic you sound. “But, uh… I’m still working through it, I guess...”

“Aren’t we all…” Jack trails off with a slow nod.

“I don’t know,” you lilt, eyes drifting unconsciously towards his hand, where a black wedding ring sits around his fourth finger. The sight of it makes your chest ache more than you’d like to admit — as if a not-so-distant part of you had expected him to be as single and miserably lonely as you, even after all this time. 

Of course, someone loves him, you think to yourself, how could they not?

“You seem to be doing pretty alright for yourself, I’d say.”

Jack follows your gaze and, almost instinctively, clasps his hands behind his back as if to hide them. His anxious grip tightens on the blue latex he holds between them. “Yeah, uh—” He clears his throat, eyes fixed on the street beyond the overhang. “My wife, she… She passed. A few years ago.”

The humid summer air becomes harder to breathe in an instant. Your mouth parts with shock, though it takes a long moment before any words of apology fall out. “Oh— Shit, Jack, I— I’m sorry. I—”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” he assures with a gentle smile, rubbing absentmindedly at the ring with his thumb from where it hides behind his back. “It’s my fault for still wearing the damn thing. I just— feel weird taking it off, I guess…” 

You nod slowly to yourself and glance away. You’ve gotten well acquainted with grief and its tricky rituals over the years.

“What about you?” Jack wonders aloud, smiling a little wider when you turn back to face him with a pair of raised brows. “You seeing anyone?”

Your first instinct is to laugh. “No. God, no.”

“Oh, c’mon…” he croons. “It can’t be that bad.”

You flash him a cynical look and a sad sort of smile. “Yeah, well… I don’t think most people are looking for a girl like me, to be fair.”

“Yeah?” Jack hums, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” you scoff. “A girl who… works all the time. Who barely sleeps. Who can’t sleep if someone’s breathing wrong in the next room. Who… goes to therapy twice a week— three times if things are real bad— I mean…” A laugh sputters from your lips. “I’m a total nutcase.”

“Hey,” Jack argues, weathered face screwed in a playful offense. “Some guys are into nutcases, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, really?” you hum drily.

“Me chief among them,” he nods.

“What?” you laugh. “Is that supposed to flatter me or something—?”

Boom! An explosion crackles across the evening sky. Your body reacts before your mind, going into panic mode in a flicker. Your shoulders jerk violently, your heart leaps into your throat, your eyes snap instinctively for cover. A red-hot spark rushes down your legs as though your body was telling you to run. 

Your brain catches up a second later.

It’s a firework… It’s just a firework, you think to soothe yourself, and to ease your suddenly pounding pulse. But as the fear fizzles slowly away, the self-hatred comes next — the undeniable fact that your body will always belong to a war that ended years ago.

You force your shoulders to relax once more and pray that Jack hasn’t noticed any of it. But you can see his expression softening in the corner of your eye — first with concern, which flickers thereafter into a softer sort of pity. 

At the very least, however, he gives you the dignity of pretending he hadn’t seen it at all as sirens rage in the distance — growing nearer and nearer until the red-yellow lights of the ambulance whip around the corner. The two of you snap your gloves on in tandem.

Jack steps off the curb first when it squeals to a park just in front of you. “You picked a hell of a day to come in, Doc…” he huffs and rushes towards the back doors. 

“I’d rather be here than working,” you scoff and follow behind him. “It’s less depressing that way, I think.”

“Is it?” Jack quips with narrowed eyes.

You laugh through your nose. “Yeah, jury’s still out on the one, I guess…”

Fourth of July rages across the city. You pretend not to notice. 

You stand in the muffled quiet of the breakroom, tucked away from the chaos of the emergency department, and watch the coffee machine in front of you sputter as it coughs up steam that smells like burnt grounds and vanilla creamer. You let the bitter stench singe your nostrils as the firework show begins in the heart of the city.

Boom!

A firework sounds off in the distance, closer than all the ones from earlier in the evening. You wrap both hands around the paper cup of coffee, letting the scalding warmth seep into your palms. The heat nearly burns you, but it’s half-grounding nonetheless.

Boom!

You swear it’s shaking the ground beneath your feet, and trembling the thick, concrete walls on either side of you. Though, with the way your day is going now, it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what lives only inside your head.

Boom!

Your fingers tighten around the cup to the point of trembling. You close your eyes and attempt to count your breaths — in for seven, hold for four, out for eight. Your brain tries to trick you — tries to convince you that the freezing cold of the emergency department smells like desert heat and metallic blood and burning gunpowder. It works.

“Counter…” you mutter aloud to yourself, despite how strange it seems, flattening your hand along the white laminate below, even as your shoulders jerk from another explosion in the city. You place your hand on the smooth curve of the cold sink next, and then on the rough cloth draped just behind it. “Faucet… Dishrag…”

Your attempts to anchor yourself to reality only halfway work. You opt to abandon your coffee on the counter altogether as your pulse continues to climb. You’re grateful to find the E.R. still waiting for you on the other side of the door, instead of a memory you can’t seem to leave. 

“Oh, hey— I was just looking for you.”

Your head whips over your shoulder to find Jack strolling down the half-empty corridor with a tablet in his hands, now dressed in his dark black scrubs instead of the tactical gear he arrived in. 

His shift has probably started now, or is about to, at least — which means you should be leaving with the rest of the day shift. But you fear what waits for you outside these walls and those automatic doors; the crushing certainty of solitude that always seemed to be waiting for you back home, to be more specific.

You exhale a trembling breath, falling into step with Jack when he walks by. “Where is everyone?” you wonder aloud.

“Day shift went up to the roof, I think,” he answers with most of his attention on the tablet as he scrolls absentmindedly through it. “Watching the fireworks and drinking beer, I’m sure… Lucky bastards.”

“Santos did invite me to karaoke today,” you tell him.

“A karaoke invite on your first day, huh? Impressive,” Jack croons, laughing softly through his nose when you lean to knock your shoulder against his broader one. He gets a faint whiff of the perfume still lingering on your clothes, beneath layers of antiseptic and hospital soap. He misses your warmth the second you’re gone. “You gonna go?”

Your shoulders sag with a sigh. “I don’t know… I’m kinda liking this adrenaline rush, to be honest. Might try and ride it ’til the wheels fall off.”

“Well, that always ends well, in my experience,” Jack quips with a lopsided smile as he slows to a stop in front of you, tucking the tablet under his bicep. He towers a few inches over you, close enough to make you lift your chin to properly meet his eyes. “But I do have something you could help me with, if you have a few minutes to spare…”

“Of course.”

“I, uh…” he trails off, turning to glance awkwardly at his left shoulder. “I took a hit… You know, in the field earlier… I’m pretty sure the vest caught most of it but—”

“You were—” You catch yourself before your voice can carry down the hallway. You take a step closer, lowering your voice into a harsh whisper as you scold him. “You were shot?”

“Shot at,” he corrects, with his brows raised to his hairline. “And it’s not as bad as you’re thinking. I tried to clean it up myself, but it’s pretty… inconveniently located…”

He rolls his shoulder in an attempt to ease the discomfort building there from his scrubs rubbing against the wound. His scruffy jaw tightens with a faint grimace, enough for you to notice the pain in his weathered features that he’d been pretending wasn’t there before now.

Concern flares white-hot in your chest. “Let me see it.”

The tone leaves little room for argument. It’s the same one you’d used on him all that time ago, when you ordered him to shut up and quit apologizing for bleeding out before the people trying to kill you could find you.

“Yes, ma’am,” he nods.

Jack leads you to the nearest empty exam room and slips inside while you gather the supplies you suspect you’ll need from the cart outside the door. You hold them to your chest when you return to the room, where you find Jack undressing, tugging his scrub top off by the collar. 

The pale tendons in his back flex unevenly when he pulls the fabric off completely. The milky white canvas of his back is exposed to you then, along with the raging scrape glowing a bright scarlet along his left shoulder.

The door clicks shut behind you and garners the man’s attention. Jack turns to face you. You find he’s grown strangely broader with age. His stomach is full but toned, and his chest is filled out with a similar strength. Both are dusted with faint freckles and light colored hair that trails down from his sternum and disappears beneath his scrub pants.  

He seems to mistake the subtle shock on your face for concern.

“I’ve had worse,” he assures you.

“I know, Abbot,” you deadpan, reaching for the glove dispenser on the wall with your free hand. “I was there.”

Jack settles on the edge of the exam table while you arrange the supplies on the metal tray before you — gauze, saline, antibiotic ointment, steri-strips. Your hands remember the motions before your mind has to. It comes to you as easily as muscle memory. You work with an effortlessness that only comes with years of experience; and Jack weathers the pain with an effortlessness that only comes with years of aching.

“You wanna know something funny?” he announces suddenly. The muscles in his back tense slightly when he twists to glance at you over his bare shoulder. 

“You getting shot at and not telling anyone for half a shift?” you answer in a monotone.

He exhales a quiet laugh and turns back around.

“I had… the biggest crush on you,” Jack confesses in an achingly gentle voice, and pretends not to notice when your hands still suddenly behind him. He inhales slowly through his nose, as if he’d been sitting on those words for some time, and crosses his arms over his bare chest as if to shield himself from them in some way. “I was, uh… I was gonna ask you out, actually. You know, when we got back home, but… You disappeared before I could.”

His quiet laugh sounds much louder in the silence that settles heavily between you.

“I, uh—  I’m pretty sure I still have the letter I wrote you, actually, when I figured out your address— in a box somewhere in the attic probably, but… It felt a little too stalkerish to send it, and… Then I met my wife, and I figured you moved on, too, and…” he trails off, struggling to find the right words. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re here now.”

“It was probably for the best,” you tell him, and clear your throat when your voice shakes. You pretend not to notice your fingers trembling when you smooth down the edge of the bandage you press over his wound. “I wasn’t exactly… the best company back then.”

“You were always good company,” Jack scoffs. “Even when I thought I was gonna die, I was glad I was with you. I mean, I hated that you were gonna have to witness it obviously, but… I was still glad it was you— Even when you were threatening to kill me.” 

You’re pierced almost physically by his words. You blink rapidly to clear the haze of them when your vision starts to blur, another memory threatening to drag you under. Memories you’d spent years and a shit ton of money working through in therapy, that are now eating away at you from the inside out.

His shoulder beneath your fingertips is covered suddenly in shredded camouflage. The bandage on his freckled skin stains red until it gushes once more with warm blood. His laughter turns to screams. The air turns to smoke. The fluorescent lights turn to a white-hot sun.

Jack frowns to himself when he feels your hands freezing once more behind him. He glances over his shoulder and finds that your eyes have gone empty again, fixed somewhere far away — the same way they had earlier that day. His chest pinches with an instant worry. 

“You okay?” 

His words sound like they’re muffled by water or light-years of space. You can’t hear them over the heartbeat whoosh, whoosh, whooshing in your ears, pounding harder against your pulse with every second that passes that you can’t catch your breath. 

Another firework explodes outside like distant thunder. Your body jolts in response, and reality slams back into you a second later.

“I, uh…” You swallow hard, eyes flitting wildly around the room, like you’re struggling to place yourself inside it. “I-I’m all done here, I think.”

“Hey…” Jack coos and turns around to face you completely. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

You step back from him and rip off your gloves with two dull pops. You chuck them hurriedly into the bin, feeling overwhelmingly like the walls are closing in on either side of you. 

“I, uh... I just need… I’ll, um…” You shake your head when the words don’t come out right. The next ones leave in a whimper when you try and fail to catch your breath. “I’m sorry.”

You rush out of the room, gone before Jack can gather his shirt.