Welcome to the Self Indulgent Shit Show

You follow her gaze without thinking.

He stands near the counter, scrolling through a chart on an iPad, stethoscope hanging loose around his neck like he forgot it was there. Curly salt and pepper hair slightly messy, the kind of tired that comes from too many night shifts in a row.

He looks up when someone calls his name, and the moment your eyes land on him, your wrist burns.

You suck in a small breath, instinctively looking down. There’s a red string looped around your wrist, thin, bright, and impossible to miss.

Your stomach drops so fast it makes you dizzy. Because what the actual fuck? No. Not here. Not now.

At some point, you’d convinced yourself maybe you simply didn’t have one. Maybe the universe skipped you.

The thread pulls slightly, like something on the other end just moved, and your fingers curl around it before you even realize what you’re doing. A voice in your head tells you not to look… but you look anyway. The string stretches across the room, weaving through people and stretchers and equipment like it doesn’t care about physics; it never has.

Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you follow it as it leads straight to him—Jack Abbot.

Your heart stutters hard enough that you feel it in your ears.

No.

No, no, no.

Lena is still talking beside you, something about assignments, but the words blur together. “…good with procedures, just don’t let him skip charting, he tries— Abbot!”

He looks up again, this time, at you. The string pulls tight between your wrists. For a second, neither of you moves. Then he walks over, casual, pumping sanitizer on his hands like this is just another shift, just another new nurse, nothing important happening at all.

He’s taller up close.

Tired-looking in a way that somehow makes him seem softer instead of intimidating. Curly salt-and-pepper hair slightly messy, sleeves rolled to his elbows, stethoscope hanging around his neck like he forgot it was there hours ago.

“You the new one?” he asks. His voice is warm and easy. Maybe a little rough around the edges from too much coffee and too many overnight shifts.

You force your brain to function.

“Yeah,” you manage. “First night.”

He nods once, then holds out his hand.

“Jack Abbot.”

Your hand hesitates for half a second before you take it. The second your skin touches his—the string snaps tight. It feels like something deep in your bones clicks violently into place.

Your pulse jumps hard beneath your skin, and for one horrifying second you think maybe he can feel it too.

But Jack just smiles politely, completely unaffected.

Because he can’t see it, not fully. The thread only loops faintly around his wrist before disappearing, incomplete and one-sided.

You swallow hard, “Nice to meet you.”

“Welcome to the Pitt,” he says. “Try not to run.” You let out a shaky laugh before you can stop yourself, “Too late for that.”

A faint smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, like he likes your answer. By God, that tiny expression alone nearly kills you.

Then he shifts the iPad under his arm—and you see the ring. 

A silver band on his left hand.

Your entire body goes cold.

For a second, you genuinely can’t process what you’re looking at. Of course, he’s married. Because, yes, the universe would do something this cruel.

You force yourself to look away before your face gives you away—and that’s when you notice her.

A woman stands near Central holding a paper bag against her hip, looking around the department with the comfortable familiarity of someone who’s been here a hundred times before.

Waiting for him.

Jack notices her immediately, and his whole face changes. It softens enough for you to understand instantly how much he loves her. “Hey,” he says quietly, already walking toward her.

The incomplete thread around his wrist brightens faintly.

She smiles the second he reaches her, “You forgot dinner again.” Jack laughs softly, taking the bag from her, “I was busy.”

“You’re always busy.”

“Occupational hazard.”

She rolls her eyes affectionately, and he leans down automatically to kiss her cheek. It’s absent-minded and natural. The kind of intimacy built over years. Loving her is as easy as breathing. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist feels unbearably tight. Because the universe already chose—it’s not you. Never you.

Lena nudges your shoulder lightly, “You good?”

You blink quickly, forcing your expression back under control before anyone notices the way your soul feels like it’s collapsing inward. “Yeah,” you say, your voice almost sounds steady. “Just jet lag.”

Lena nods distractedly and turns back toward the board.

Across the room, Jack says something under his breath that makes his wife laugh. The warm and happy sound carries across the department.

You look down at the string around your wrist one last time before pulling your sleeve over it completely.

You can do this—you’ve survived harder things than heartbreak.

You square your shoulders, take the iPad Lena hands you, and step fully into the chaos of the Pitt.

So when Jack glances back at you a moment later, smiling like you’re just another coworker starting a shift, you smile back, pretending that your heart didn’t just fall through the floor.

A FEW MONTHS LATER…

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT SHIFT

By the time the Pitt starts feeling familiar, it’s already too late. You know the rhythm of the department now, the same way you know your own breathing. Which monitor is about to alarm before it starts screaming. Which psych patient is one bad interaction away from throwing a urinal at security, or a resident is about to panic during a difficult intubation.

You know the trauma bay doors stick when it rains, and Lena hides the good coffee above the Pyxis because Ellis steals the decent stuff first, and the fluorescent lights over Hallway C flicker around three in the morning like they’re barely holding on, and you know Jack Abbot’s footsteps before you even see him.

Well, to be honest, that part happens slowly. Shift after shift. Trauma after trauma. Somewhere between your first week and your third month, working beside him stops feeling intimidating and starts feeling natural.

You know how he likes his trauma setups organized. You know he taps his pen twice against the desk when he’s thinking too hard. You know he rubs the back of his neck when he’s exhausted and trying not to show it. And worse—he knows you too.

“Lifeline!” Ellis’ voice cuts across the department as you walk out of Trauma Two carrying an empty suture tray. You stop mid-step. “You people are never letting that nickname die, are you?”

Ellis swivels around in her chair with a grin. “Absolutely not.”

The nickname started during your second week after a pediatric code that had gone catastrophically wrong.

A seven-year-old nearly drowned—no pulse on arrival. The room had dissolved into controlled chaos within seconds—respiratory trying to secure the airway while one of the newer residents nearly froze trying to place an IO line.

Shen, still early enough into residency that panic sometimes beat experience, had looked one second away from completely spiraling.

But through all of it, you had stayed calm.

You’d guided Shen through the tibial IO placement while simultaneously pushing epinephrine prep toward Jack and coordinating compression rotations so nobody burned out too early.

At one point, Ellis had looked up from the monitor and muttered, “Jesus Christ. She’s everybody’s lifeline in here.”

Unfortunately for you, the name stuck. Now, half the ED used it more than your actual name.

“Lifeline, Trauma Two,” Lena calls without looking up from the board.

“On my way.”

Jack steps out of the trauma bay at the same time you do, peeling bloody gloves off his hands. “You steal my nurse again?” he asks Lena.

Lena snorts. “You don’t own her, Abbot.”

“That’s not what I said.”

There’s something easy in the exchange that makes warmth spread unexpectedly through you.

Jack falls into step beside you automatically as you head toward Trauma Two.

“You eat yet?” he asks.

You glance at him suspiciously. “Are you asking because you care or because you need me conscious enough to survive this shift?”

“A little of both.”

You huff out a laugh. Because that’s the problem with Jack. He’s kind in ways that sneak up on you, a quiet attentiveness that drives you nuts. He notices when you haven’t sat down in seven hours or when your hands shake after a bad pediatric trauma and when you’re pushing yourself too hard, and casually hands you a granola bar like he didn’t specifically go looking for one because he knew you skipped dinner.

The kind of doctor who stays with family members after delivering bad news instead of disappearing the second the conversation gets uncomfortable, and the kind of man who wears his wedding ring like it means something sacred.

Which somehow makes all of this hurt even more. Because every soft look. Every quiet joke at three in the morning or moment beside him in a trauma bay—belongs to someone else.

And you know that.

The universe reminds you every single day that the red string hidden beneath the cuff of your scrub jacket pulls tight whenever he gets too close.

You’ve gotten good at ignoring it or pretending to.

TRAUMA ONE — NIGHT

Tonight’s MVA is a disaster. Twenty-six-year-old male. Ejected through the windshield. Hypotensive on arrival. The second EMS wheels him through the ambulance bay doors, and the department shifts gears instantly.

“BP seventy over forty,” Ellis says from the monitor. “Heart rate one-forty.”

“Breath sounds diminished on the left,” Shen adds quickly, trying to keep up.

“Alright, let’s move,” Jack says sharply.

You’re already there.

Trauma shears cut through blood-soaked clothing while respiratory preps for intubation. You place oxygen and start hanging fluids while Jack performs the FAST exam. Free fluid in Morrison’s pouch appears on the screen almost immediately. Internal bleeding, most likely splenic rupture.

“Call OR,” Jack says. “He’s going upstairs.”

“Already on it,” you answer, grabbing the phone before he even finishes speaking. Jack glances toward you over the patient. There’s blood smeared across the sleeve of his scrub top, exhaustion pulled deep into the lines around his eyes. Yet still—that small flicker of trust when he looks at you. He knows you’ll catch whatever he misses.

You hate how much that matters to you.

CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT

By four in the morning, the Pitt settles into its strange version of quiet. You’re charting near Central when the elevator doors open.

Jack’s wife walks out carrying six pizza boxes stacked in her arms.

The entire department visibly brightens.

“Oh thank God,” Ellis says dramatically. “An angel sent from heaven.”

“You people are unbelievable,” she laughs.

Ellis immediately takes two boxes from her. “Respectfully, I would die for you.”

“That’s deeply concerning,” Lena mutters.

“You’re just jealous she likes me more.”

“I absolutely am not.”

You can’t help laughing softly under your breath. There it is again— that awful ache in your heart. Because she’s truly, genuinely wonderful. The universe could’ve at least made her cold, cruel, or difficult.

Instead, she remembers everyone’s coffee orders and asks about your family back home, and brings food for the night shift because she knows none of you remember to eat unless somebody forces you.

“You must be Lifeline.”

You blink, startled when you realize she’s suddenly standing beside you.

Up close, her smile is warm and effortless. You force yourself to smile back. “That obvious, huh?”

“Oh, very,” she says easily. “Jack talks about you all the time.”

Your heart stumbles painfully against your ribs.

Before you can recover, she continues casually, “Apparently, you’re the only reason this department functions after midnight.”

You laugh weakly. “That gives me way too much credit. Obviously, Lena holds everything down.”

“Have you met these people?” she asks quietly, glancing around Central. “I’m pretty sure Shen would eat expired yogurt if left unsupervised.”

“That happened one time,” Shen shouts.

“You were hallucinating by hour two,” Ellis replies.

You laugh again before you can stop yourself, and somehow, talking to her is easy. Isn’t that cruel? Because you like her immediately, she asks about the Philippines, about your family, and how you plan on surviving Pittsburgh winters.

You’re halfway through explaining that black ice feels like a personal attack when Jack walks out of Trauma Two. He tosses his gloves into the biohazard bin before sanitizing his hands automatically. His curls are damp with sweat at the temples now, scrub top wrinkled from the shift.

Then he looks up to find the two of you talking and smiles—soft around the edges in a way that makes your eyes water.

“Well,” his wife says immediately, “there he is.”

Jack points toward the pizza boxes. “You bribing my staff again?”

“Your staff?” Lena repeats flatly from across the desk.

Jack ignores her completely.

His wife gestures toward you. “Lifeline and I decided you’re actually the problem in this department.” You blink. “We did?”

“We did now.”

Jack looks genuinely betrayed, “That was fast.”

“She’s nice,” his wife says simply. Jack’s eyes flick toward you for half a second, warm and amused. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “She is.”

Your pulse skips hard enough you nearly miss it. Coward, coward, coward.

You look away first while his wife grins triumphantly. “See? I win.”

“You gang up on me constantly.”

“Because you’re easy to bully,” you say before thinking.

Jack stares at you in mock offense. “Wow. Okay.”

“You walked into that one,” Ellis says.

“You’re all terrible people.”

His wife reaches up automatically to straighten the collar of his scrub shirt. Such a small gesture, absent-minded and intimate. The kind of touch that only exists between people who know each other completely.

Your wrist aches beneath your sleeve as the string pulls tighter. Still connected to him. So very impossible and still wrong. But somehow, standing there laughing with both of them at four in the morning, you realize something infinitely more dangerous than loving him.

You’re becoming part of their lives.

CENTRAL WORK AREA — LATER

The shift slows near dawn as you’re charting near Central when Jack drops into the chair beside you with a tired exhale.

“You ever think about leaving emergency medicine?” he asks suddenly. You glance sideways. “Every shift.”

“That’s healthy.”

“I think about becoming a florist at least twice a week.”

Jack huffs out a tired laugh. “You’d last six days.”

“Rude.”

“You yelled at a surgeon yesterday.”

“He was wrong.” You pointed out.

“He was technically right.”

“He was spiritually wrong.”

That earns a real laugh from him, the low and warm kind. God. You hold onto sounds like that more than you should. Silence settles comfortably between you afterward—the kind that only exists between people who know each other well. Then, almost absentmindedly, Jack asks, “Have you met your soulmate yet?”

Your fingers stop over the keyboard. For one horrible second, your entire body forgets how to function. But your face stays calm, because years in emergency medicine have made you terrifyingly good at composure. You keep typing as you reply, “Nope.”

Jack glances sideways at you. “At all?” You shrug lightly, forcing your voice steady. “Might just not be in the cards for me.”

Something softens in his expression immediately. Jack looks at people like he wants to understand them, not fix them. “I doubt that,” he says quietly. You stare at the chart on the screen because looking at him feels too dangerous. The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly heavy.

“I mean it,” he continues softly. “Whoever ends up with you is gonna be lucky.”

Your throat tightens painfully as you force a laugh under your breath before the emotion can show on your face. “Smooth.”

“I’m serious.”

The worst part is—he means it. You finally risk looking at him. His eyes are tired and honest in that devastating way that makes lying to him feel terrible.

“I hope whoever you love…” he says quietly, almost like he’s thinking out loud, “loves you back just as much.”

The cruel irony nearly splits you open. Because you already know exactly what loving him feels like. It feels like swallowing it down every single day, pretending friendship is enough because it has to be, while standing three feet away from your soulmate, while he talks about his wife with soft eyes and absolute devotion.

Your eyes sting suddenly, and you blink hard before he notices. “Me too, Jack,” you whisper. You mean it so much it hurts.

“Me too.”

2020, COVID PANDEMIC

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

The world changes fast. One week, people are joking about a virus overseas between trauma calls and coffee runs, and then the next week, the Pitt is overflowing.

Then, suddenly, every hallway smells like bleach and sanitizer, strong enough to burn your nose through the mask. Every shift feels like drowning—N95s cutting grooves into your skin, face shields fogging every time you breathe, and isolation gowns crackling every time you move.

The emergency department transforms into something unrecognizable almost overnight. There are no visitors or waiting rooms full of family. Alarms, intubations, oxygen sats dropping, and the sound of ventilators become part of the background noise of your life. Everyone starts looking exhausted, and then everyone starts looking haunted. You stop recognizing your coworkers without PPE. Even you stop recognizing yourself.

Through all of it, Jack keeps working.

You think maybe the entire world could collapse around him and he’d still show up for trauma shift fifteen minutes early with coffee in one hand and exhaustion carved into his face. Some nights, the two of you barely talk beyond patient updates. There isn’t time. Not anymore. Every room is full, and the waiting room looks like a war zone; people are dying faster than you can process. But even through the masks and face shields and layers of plastic, you still know him.

You know the crease between his brows when he’s worried and the exhaustion in his posture. The look in his eyes when a patient reminds him too much of somebody else.

To add to that, around the beginning of the pandemic, his wife dies. Not from COVID, which somehow makes it more merciless.

Pedestrian versus drunk driver—DOA. The call comes in just after midnight. You don’t know it’s her at first. Female in her late thirties. Severe head trauma. Massive internal injuries. CPR in progress.

The paramedics wheel her through the doors while respiratory rushes to clear Trauma One. For one horrible second, before you even see her face, the red string around Jack’s wrist burns.

You freeze, not because you understand yet. Because something deep inside you already does. 

Then Jack steps into the trauma room, and everything stops. You watch recognition hit him in real time, the way his body locks up and how color drains from his face beneath the mask.

“No,” he says immediately, as if he says it softly enough, maybe reality will change its mind.

“No.”

Lena moves first.

“Jack—”

“That’s my wife.”

The room goes dead silent. Even with monitors alarming and compressions ongoing, along with Shen asking for another round of epi.

It all disappears under the sound of Jack’s voice breaking.

You’ve seen grief before—you work in emergency medicine, so you see it every day. But nothing prepares you for the sound a person makes when their entire life shatters in front of them. Jack tries to step forward, but Lena catches him immediately. “Jack.”

“No, let me—”

“Jack.”

“She’s still warm—”

His voice cracks apart on the words. The paramedic quietly says they found no pulse on scene. Prolonged downtime. Non-survivable head trauma. You can’t breathe—nobody can.

Jack looks at his wife lying on the trauma bed like he genuinely cannot understand what he’s seeing; his brain refuses to process it. Blood in her hair and on the sheet, with her wedding ring still on her hand. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist pulls painfully tight—before snapping loose.

Jack stares at his own wrist instinctively. The string tied there—gone. His face crumples. All that’s left is a man realizing the universe just took something from him that it can never give back.

COVID restrictions mean none of you are allowed at the funeral. No gathering or reception. No sitting beside him in church or placing a hand on his shoulder in comfort; bringing food to his house while relatives fill the rooms with noise and stories and grief.

Only Zoom.

Fucking Zoom.

You sit alone in your apartment at three in the afternoon after night shift, still in scrubs because you were too tired to change, laptop balanced on your kitchen table.

Everyone’s little squares flicker on-screen. Lena is crying silently, Ellis is muted, while Shen is trying and failing not to cry. Multiple other night shift staff are trying their best to pull themselves together—to be brave for Jack.

While Jack is sitting alone in a black button-down shirt in a house that suddenly looks too empty.

He looks hollow. That’s the only word for it. Hollowed out from the inside. You realize halfway through the service that he hasn’t stopped twisting his wedding ring around his finger once. Maybe he believes that if he keeps touching it, maybe she’s still here somehow.

You cry with your microphone muted.

Afterward, nobody knows what to say. There are no casseroles or hugs. No standing together in shared grief. Only little squares blink off one by one until Jack is the last person left in the call.

You stay after everyone disconnects. “You should sleep,” you say quietly. Jack lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah.”

But he doesn’t move, and neither do you. Finally, he says, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

There it is… the unbearable part, because she died instantly—no final words or closure. She was there one second—gone the next.

You press your lips together hard enough that they hurt as you faintly say, “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

He nods once because he’s heard it too many times already. Then his face folds inward suddenly, grief cracking through whatever fragile composure he’s been holding together. You’ve never seen him cry before, not really. Now he looks destroyed by it. 

“I keep thinking she’s gonna walk through the door,” he whispers. “I keep forgetting for like… five seconds.”

Your lungs ache so violently that it feels unbearable.

Because despite everything—despite the string and the guilt and all the ways you tried to keep your distance—you love him. And loving someone means you cannot stand there and watch them suffer alone.

Not him.

Never him.

So you stay.

At first casually, then constantly, you start checking on him between shifts. You bring coffee, he forgets to drink, and force him to eat crackers during overnight shifts because grief has hollowed him thin. You sit beside him in the break room when he can’t sleep between traumas.

Some nights he talks, and there are nights he doesn’t. Later on, you learn grief has moods. Some days he’s numb, and some days he’s angry. Or days, a patient wearing the same perfume as his wife nearly sends him spiraling mid-shift. Once, after losing a COVID patient around his wife’s age, Jack locks himself in the stairwell for twenty minutes.

You find him there eventually. Still in PPE with his face shield shoved onto the top of his head, breathing hard like he’s trying not to come apart.

You sit beside him without saying anything. For a long time, neither of you speaks. The stairwell is cold through your scrub pants, concrete hard beneath you. Somewhere beyond the heavy metal door, the hospital keeps moving. Monitors alarming. Phones ringing. Ventilators hissing.

Life continued like his world didn’t just end.

Jack sits one step below you, elbows braced against his knees, surgical cap shoved halfway off his head. His N95 hangs loose around his neck now, leaving angry red pressure marks across his skin. He appears worn out in a manner unrelated to sleep. The type of tiredness that becomes bone-deep.

For a while, all you hear is his controlled breathing, but then, you know, if he lets himself lose control for even a second, he’ll never stop. Then quietly, without looking at you, Jack says, “I don’t know who I am without her.”

You nearly shatter at his confession, because it’s proof he loved her so completely. You saw it every day in small, ordinary ways. In the way his face softened when she walked into the department carrying takeout, or the absent-minded way he leaned toward her without realizing it. In the wedding ring, he twisted whenever he talked about her during quieter shifts. He loved her with the kind of certainty people spend their whole lives searching for, and somehow that only makes you love him more.

You look down at your hands, clasped tightly in your lap.

“At work?” you say softly after a moment. “You’re still Jack.” A weak laugh escapes him, humorless and tired, “Very inspirational speech.”

“I’m serious.”

You glance toward him carefully. Even now, he’s still wearing blood on the sleeve of his isolation gown from the code downstairs. His curls are damp with sweat, exhaustion carved deep into the lines around his eyes.

"When everything hurts," you say carefully, "you don't have to figure out how to survive the next ten years."

Jack finally looks up, with his eyes bloodshot, red-rimmed, and devastatingly tired. "You just find the next thing." His brow furrows slightly as you keep going, "The next cup of coffee that tastes okay."

A faint huff of breath leaves him.

"The next shift." You offer a small smile. "The next stupid joke Shen makes that isn't actually funny."

That earns the ghost of an eye roll—you take it.

"The next hour. The next day." Your throat tightens, but you push through it, "And eventually..." Your voice softens. "Eventually you realize you've made it farther than you thought you could."

Jack stares at you, fully paying attention and listening.

"The pain doesn't disappear," you admit quietly. "Some losses stay with you forever. But one day you wake up, and it isn't the first thing you feel."

The stairwell falls silent again, and you watch as Jack's eyes close briefly as if the possibility of hope hurts. When he opens them again, there's something unbearably raw there—something stripped bare. "You really believe that?" The question comes out almost broken, and you don't hesitate as you reply, "Yes."

Because you have to, for him, for yourself, and for every patient you've ever watched claw their way through impossible things.

"Yes," you repeat softly. Jack studies your face for a long moment—searching for something there. Maybe hope or permission. Or proof that somebody still sees him underneath all the grief. Then he gives one small, fragile nod, because he's trying very hard to believe you, too.

A softer shared silence settles between you again afterward. You remain beside him on the stairwell steps while the hospital hums around you. Two exhausted healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic. One grieving the loss of the love of his life. The other grieving quietly beside him. Then, after a long time, you speak again.

Your voice barely rises above a whisper, "I don't think there's such a thing as a good goodbye." Jack doesn't look away, but you stare at the concrete floor.

"People say it gets easier. That you find closure. That eventually you make peace with it." Your fingers tighten together. "But I think losing someone just becomes part of you. You learn how to carry it." Your throat burns, "There are days when you think you're okay. Days when you laugh and work and breathe normally." You glance toward him. "And then something happens. A song, a smell, maybe a memory.” Blinking back your tears, you revealed, "The grief finds you again."

Jack's eyes shine slightly as you continue softly, "Not because you failed to move on." Your voice wavers. "But because they mattered."

A long silence follows. Then, quietly—"So what am I supposed to do?" When he asks the question, it sounds incredibly trivial.

You look at Jack—at the man who spent years helping everyone else survive. He stayed with frightened soldiers, and loved his wife so completely that even death couldn't erase her from him.

"Keep loving her," you say softly, and Jack's breath catches. "Just don't let her be the reason you stop living, too."

The silence that follows feels sacred, somewhere beneath your sleeve, hidden from the world, the red string wrapped around your wrist aches. Not because it hurts, but because for the first time since she died, you realize you would carry his grief with him for as long as he needed.

Even if he never knew.

2021

YOUR APARTMENT — NIGHT

By late 2021, you recognize the symptoms almost immediately. The exhaustion first. Not normal exhaustion—the kind every ER nurse carries around like a second heartbeat—but something meaner. The sort that becomes deeply ingrained in your bones and wears you out just by standing straight.

Then the fever, then it’s the cough that follows soon after, and the body aches that feel like somebody took a hammer to every joint you have.

You take the rapid test in your bathroom with trembling hands, already knowing what the result will be before the second line even appears.

Positive.

You stare at it for a long moment anyway, “Fuck.”

You’d been vaccinated months ago. Healthcare workers got priority access early on, one of the very few benefits of spending every shift neck-deep in a pandemic. And thank God for that, because without it, you’re almost certain this would’ve landed you intubated in an ICU somewhere.

Still—it hits you hard.

Your immune system has never exactly been reliable. Too many years of stress, skipped meals, night shifts, and pushing yourself past exhaustion had seen to that long before COVID ever existed.

So you quarantine immediately with no qualms or arguments. Immediately, you text Lena and Dana to tell them that you’ve contracted COVID-19. Then you lock yourself inside your apartment and prepare to wait it out.

The loneliness settles in fast after that. The first day isn’t terrible, but the second day is worse. By the third day, you genuinely feel like you’re losing your mind. Your apartment suddenly feels too small and too quiet. Every surface smells faintly of disinfectant and cough drops. Empty Gatorade bottles and medication wrappers clutter your coffee table because you’re too exhausted to clean properly.

You sleep in fragments. Wake up drenched in sweat. Cough until your ribs ache. Then fall asleep again, only to wake up disoriented an hour later. You try texting your family back home once, but hearing your mother’s worried voice over FaceTime nearly makes you cry, so you stop answering calls after that.

You tell everyone you’re fine. You’re not.

One particularly bad night, you sit on the bathroom floor wrapped in a blanket because the cold tiles feel good against your feverish skin, genuinely debating at what oxygen saturation you’d finally call an ambulance.

Ninety-three? Ninety-two?

You know too much…that’s the problem. You’re aware exactly how quickly patients can crash, and what respiratory distress looks like. You know what COVID sounds like when it starts settling deeper into the lungs. And alone in your apartment at two in the morning, feverish and exhausted and struggling not to spiral, you think: If this gets worse, I’m gonna end up at Presby or PTMC.

By day five, your phone is full of unread texts. Lena is checking in, Shen is sending memes, and Ellis is threatening to physically fight you if you don’t hydrate. But then there’s Jack calling twice… then three times.

You don’t answer any of them. Not intentionally. Your brain feels too foggy to function most of the time. Looking at your phone takes effort you barely have energy for. So when there’s suddenly a knock at your apartment door that evening, you frown from beneath your blanket without moving.

Probably the wrong apartment.

Another knock. Then—your real name, muffled through the door in a voice you’d recognize half-asleep.

“Hey.”

Your stomach drops.

No.

Absolutely not.

You push yourself upright too quickly and immediately regret it when dizziness crashes over you. You stumble toward the door anyway, coughing into your elbow before peeking through the peephole.

And there he is.

Jack Abbot. Standing outside your apartment in full PPE. N95. Face shield. Gloves. Isolation gown. Holding a plastic takeout bag in one hand. You stare at him in complete disbelief before yanking yourself back from the door. “Jack?!”

“Oh, good,” his voice comes through the other side, dry with relief. “You’re alive.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” you hiss through the door. “How did you even find where I live?”

“Lena told me… and Dana.”

Traitors.

You lean your forehead briefly against the door, exhausted. “You can’t be here,” you argue weakly. “You could get sick.” Jack snorts softly from the hallway, “Lifeline, we work in an emergency department.”

“That is not comforting!”

“Also,” he continues, ignoring you completely, “is there a reason you’ve been ignoring my texts and calls?”

You close your eyes briefly. Honestly, you hadn’t even realized how many messages you missed.

“Jack—”

“Open the door.”

You blink as you screech, “Are you fucking insane? No.” His voice lowers slightly then, gentler but firmer somehow. “Lifeline.”

Somewhere behind your ribs, the moniker settles heated and perilous.

“Open the door.”

You stare at the wood for a long moment. Then, against every ounce of common sense you possess, you unlock it. The second the door cracks open, Jack’s eyes immediately scan over you clinically. You can practically see the ER doctor in him assessing your flushed skin, fatigue, and mild shortness of breath. The way you’re subtly bracing yourself against the wall to stay upright. In an instant, his face tightens.

"Oh," he murmurs. Somehow, that soft little sound embarrasses you more than if he’d outright said you looked terrible. You cross your arms defensively, “I look worse than I feel.”

“That’s concerning, because you look awful.”

You let out a tired laugh despite yourself, immediately coughing afterward. Jack’s eyes narrow behind the face shield, “How high’s the fever?”

“It’s fine.”

“Temperature.”

“One-oh-one earlier.”

“And oxygen?”

You hesitate half a second too long, and Jack notices immediately, “Lifeline.”

“Ninety-four. I’ve been checking my Apple Watch.”

His jaw tightens, “Okay.”

You step aside reluctantly. “There’s hand sanitizer and ethyl alcohol everywhere. I’ve been disinfecting the place whenever I can.”

Jack walks inside carefully, setting the takeout bag down near the kitchen counter. Your apartment suddenly feels unbearably small with him standing in it. Messy blankets on the couch. Medications scattered across the coffee table. Laundry you’ve been too sick to fold. You suddenly want the earth to swallow you whole. “Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s kind of a disaster.”

Jack glances around once before looking back at you. “I’ve seen residents cry over missing lab results. This is nothing.” That earns another weak laugh out of you while he pulls out one of the dining chairs and gestures toward it, “Sit down before you fall down.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You almost passed out opening the door.”

Rude.

You sit anyway because standing suddenly feels impossible, and Jack immediately starts fussing. Taking your temperature again. Checking your pulse ox. Asking when you last ate.

In a manner that hurts your core, it's somehow intimate. After observing him in silence for a while, you gently inquire, "Why are you here?"

Jack pauses before he shrugs one shoulder like the answer should be obvious. “Because I know you.”

“You don’t have family here,” he continues quietly. “No roommates. No neighbors you’re close enough with to help if things go bad.” He leans back slightly in the chair across from you.

“You moved halfway across the world by yourself,” he says. “So yeah. I came to do a welfare check.” Something warm and painful twists in your chest all at once, so you try covering it with humor. “Am I that unlucky or just that special?”

Jack looks at you for a long moment. Then, softly, he replies, “Just that special.” The room goes very still while your pulse stutters painfully against your ribs. Jack clears his throat first, looking away. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

He gives you a tired, unimpressed look immediately, “Don’t start with me.” You sigh, shoulders slumping. “I feel…” You swallow hard. “Honestly? Like I got hit by a truck.”

Jack nods once like he expected that answer. “My chest hurts when I cough,” you admit quietly. “And I’m exhausted all the time. Walking to the bathroom feels like running a 10k.”

Jack’s expression softens instantly to concern. “Okay,” he says gently. “That sounds about right for breakthrough COVID.”

You laugh weakly, “Reassuring.”

“You’re vaccinated. Your sats are holding. Fever sucks, but you’re stable.” His voice shifts into that calm doctor cadence you’ve heard him use with terrified patients a hundred times before.

“You’re gonna feel miserable for a little while,” he says softly. “But you’re not dying.”

The ridiculous thing is—you believe him immediately. Maybe because it’s Jack, he always sounds certain even when the world is falling apart. Or maybe because after spending almost a week alone in your apartment feeling terrified and sick and invisible—having somebody show up for you feels dangerously close to relief.

Somewhere beneath the fever and exhaustion and the red string hidden under your sleeve, you realize this is the first time since his wife died that Jack has willingly stepped into somebody else’s home again.

The thought nearly breaks your heart.

Grief has a way of shrinking people's worlds—you'd watched it happen to Jack in real time. After his wife died, he stopped inviting people over. Stopped talking about home or lingering after conversations that might eventually end with someone asking how he was doing outside of work. The walls had gone up slowly. Brick by brick. Most people probably never noticed, but you did. Yet here he is, standing in your cluttered apartment with a stethoscope in one hand and a grocery bag full of electrolyte drinks in the other.

"Drink."

You stare at the bottle he shoves toward you, "You're very bossy outside the hospital."

"Drink." He insists.

"Is this because I ignored your texts?"Jack gives you a look, the one he usually reserves for patients actively making terrible decisions. "Partly."

You sigh dramatically and take the bottle, "Happy?"

"No."

That catches your attention. You look up, and Jack is standing near the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest. The concern on his face isn't hidden anymore. Hasn't been since he walked through the door. "You should've told somebody you were this sick." Your laugh comes out hoarse, "I did."

"No." Jack shakes his head, "You told people you were fine."

"...I was trying not to worry anyone."

"You had a one-oh-one fever and couldn't walk to your bathroom without getting winded."

You look away because when he says it like that, it sounds bad. "It sounds worse when you say it."

"That's because it is worse."

You can't help smiling, but that only seems to annoy him more.

"Why are you smiling?"

"You care."

Jack stares and then immediately looks away. Your fever-addled brain doesn't miss the faint flush creeping up his neck. "Of course I care."

The answer comes too naturally, and for some reason, that makes something warm settle beneath your body. The television murmurs faintly in the background, forgotten as Jack eventually disappears into your kitchen. You hear cabinets opening and then closing. A frustrated sigh leaves him, "How do you have absolutely no food?"

"I have food."

"You have soy sauce and olive oil."

"That's food-adjacent."

Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. "You work in healthcare."

"So do you."

"I know."

"Have you seen what doctors eat?"

He points at you from across the room, "Deflection."

You grin while Jack shakes his head again, but he opens the takeout containers anyway and pours you soup. Then make sure you actually eat it and wait until you're halfway through before finally sitting down. The quiet and unexpected realization sneaks up on him that somehow—he likes taking care of you. Because it shouldn't feel this good. It shouldn't feel this natural to be here. To fuss over your fever, refill your water glass, and check your pulse ox every twenty minutes because he doesn't trust you not to lie about your symptoms.

Yet every time he glances up and sees you curled beneath a blanket on the couch, alive and stubborn and complaining—something in his heart eases. The same feeling he gets when a trauma patient finally stabilizes. When someone he was worried about turns out okay. Only different. This time, it’s more personal and complicated.

You cough suddenly, and Jack is moving before he even realizes it, quickly handing you water. Waiting until the coughing fit passes. Your eyes lift toward him over the rim of the glass. It’s soft and sleepy. "Thank you." Your words are quiet and sincere.

And God help him—that does something to him. Something he doesn't examine too closely.

Because if he does—he might have to ask himself questions he's not ready to answer. Questions like why spending an afternoon taking care of you feels better than spending it anywhere else, or why your apartment already feels strangely familiar. Why did the idea of you being here alone all week bother him so much?

Instead, he focuses on something safer—annoyance. "You know," he says, sitting back in his chair, "your soulmate's doing a terrible job."

You blink at that, frowning, "What?" Jack shrugs, "If they're out there somewhere, they're slacking." A surprised laugh escapes you. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," he says, gesturing vaguely toward your blanket burrito state, "you're sick. Alone. Living on cough drops and spite."

"I had soup."

"You had olive oil."

"That was one time."

Jack rolls his eyes, "My point stands." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "They should've shown up by now." The joke is spoken carelessly, and he doesn't know it nearly stops your heart.

You look away first, toward the rain-streaked window, literally anywhere but him. Because if you look at Jack right now—if you look at the man sitting in your apartment, taking care of you, worrying over you, complaining about a soulmate who never appeared—you might break.

The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly burdensome. But Jack doesn't notice, he's too busy opening another bottle of water and making sure your fever isn't climbing again. Somewhere in the quiet warmth of your apartment, he doesn’t realize the irony. Jack is sitting exactly where he should be. Doing exactly what he was supposed to do, and somehow, he can’t see it yet.

2023

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

Five years ago, you were the new nurse from the Philippines. Now you're simply part of the Pitt. Nobody really introduces you anymore. You're just there, part of the machinery. You know where everything is and everyone's habits. Or when Ellis is pretending to chart and is actually looking for the next best place to nap for her double. You know when Shen is about to spiral before he even realizes it himself. By now, you have memorized Lena's "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed" face is significantly more terrifying than actual anger.

Somewhere along the way—you became one of the safest places in Jack's life. Neither of you meant for that to happen.

It just did.

There are hundreds of tiny moments, none of which seem important on their own. But together, they're devastating. A patient's husband is screaming in the hallway after a failed resuscitation. Security is trying to de-escalate, family members are crying, and the entire department feels tense. Then, appearing devastated, Jack leaves the room but not in a noticeable way. Most people wouldn't recognize it, but you do.

You don't say anything; instead, you simply hand him a cup of coffee. Exactly how he takes it. He looks down at it, then at you. "Mind reader?" You shrug, "You looked like you needed caffeine." The corner of his mouth twitches, "Thanks."

Somehow, that small smile stays with him the rest of the shift.

Another night, it’s three in the morning. Everyone's fucking exhausted. You're sitting on the floor of the supply room because it's the only place nobody can find you for five minutes. Jack opens the door and stops. He finds you sitting there cross-legged, eating stale vending machine pretzels. "You hiding?"

"No."

"You are literally hiding."

You hold up a pretzel, defensive, "This is self-care." Jack stares at you, then, to your horror, he sits beside you on the floor. Like it's completely normal. "You know we're adults, right?" he asks.

"Says the man eating peanut butter crackers for dinner." Jack looks offended; he scoffs, "I had a protein bar." You roll your eyes at that, "Oh. Well, that's different."

His laugh echoes through the tiny room. It’s warm and unrestrained. The sound settles somewhere dangerous inside your chest. Then the days keep passing by, and then the days turn into months, then it’s another shift, another trauma.

Another impossible night.

A frightened little girl refuses to let go of your hand while waiting for stitches. You're sitting beside her bed, explaining every step of the procedure. Making balloon animals out of gloves while telling ridiculous stories.

By the time you're finished, she's laughing. You don't notice Jack standing in the doorway watching or the expression on his face either. The one that lingers long after he walks away. Because somewhere over the years, admiration has quietly become affection.

Affection has started becoming something else—something he doesn't have a name for yet. Jack's issue is that he doesn't immediately feel things. Without thinking, he simply begins searching for you first.

A difficult trauma comes in? His eyes automatically find yours. A bad shift? He looks for you at Central. A joke occurs to him? He wants to tell you. A patient reminds him of something sad? Somehow, you're the person he ends up talking to. 

It happens gradually enough that neither of you notices.

Until everyone else does.

"You know Abbot's gonna have a breakdown if Lifeline ever leaves, right?" Ellis says it casually while charting. You nearly choke on your coffee, "What?" Across the desk, Shen immediately nods. "Oh, absolutely."

"Parker."

"I'm serious."

You point threateningly, "Stop." Parker raises both hands. "Hey, I don't make the rules."

You refuse to acknowledge the strange warmth crawling up your neck. Because if you acknowledge it—you'll have to acknowledge the way your heart still skips whenever Jack smiles at you. After all these years, that feels pathetic.

2024

PTMC, MAIN ENTRANCE — DAY

The rain starts sometime around six in the morning. Not a drizzle—a proper Pittsburgh downpour. The kind that turns streets silver and pounds against windows hard enough to drown out conversation.

After twelve hours of chaos, the entire department begins filtering out toward the parking garage and bus stops. You finally clock out around seven—exhausted and half-awake, absolutely ready for sleep.

When you step outside, you immediately spot Jack standing beneath the small emergency department awning.

Watching the rain… alone with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. Looking at him, you pause, "You're still here?"

Jack glances over, "My car's in the shop."

That explains it.

"How'd you get here?"

"Rideshare."

You look out toward the street, and the rain is somehow worse now. Jack follows your gaze, "Trying to decide how miserable walking home is gonna be." You glance over, "What happened to your ride?"

Jack lets out a tired breath, "Canceled."

"What?"

"Driver got stuck downtown." You wince at that, and he pulls his phone from his pocket and turns the screen toward you. The rideshare app is a disaster—surge pricing, long wait times. One estimate says thirty-eight minutes, while another says unavailable. Apparently, every exhausted healthcare worker in Pittsburgh had the same idea after shift. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Yeah." Jack stuffs his phone away again. "I've been refreshing it for ten minutes."

You look back toward the rain, then down at the umbrella dangling from your wrist, and then back at him. You ask, "No umbrella?"

"Nope."

You stare at him, then at the rain… and then at the very obvious lack of any workable plan. So, without thinking twice, you hold the umbrella out. Jack blinks, looks at the umbrella, and then at you. Then back at the umbrella. It's baby pink and covered in tiny Miffy rabbits. The ears are even printed around the trim—the thing looks aggressively cheerful.

"You serious?"

"Very."

A laugh escapes him, a real one. Low and surprised and completely unguarded. It's probably the first genuine laugh you've heard from him all shift, maybe longer. You feel absurdly proud of yourself as you snort, "Sorry about the color."

Jack studies the umbrella again, "I think I'll survive."

"You sure? Might destroy your reputation."

"My reputation was already questionable."

"Fair."

You press the handle into his hand without hesitation, because that's just who you are. Someone needs help, so you help; it's that simple. Jack looks genuinely baffled. "Wait."

You pause.

"What about you?" He asks, concerned. You shrug. The rain is cold, and the morning is gray. You've worked twelve hours, and your back hurts, along with your feet. But somehow none of that feels important. "I live closer than you do."

"Lifeline."

"Jack."

"You'll get soaked."

You smile, bright and softly. The same smile you've given frightened patients, overwhelmed residents, and grieving family members. You shrug, "It's rain."

His brow furrows, "You say that like hypothermia isn't a thing." You laugh at that, "I'm from the Philippines. Rain and I have a long-standing relationship."

"That's not remotely reassuring."

"It shouldn't be."

Jack shakes his head, but he's smiling now, which gives you a bit of peace. His eyes linger on you a second too long. Or maybe you're imagining it. You probably are—you usually are. Then you add quietly, "Besides, sometimes life is easier when you stop trying to avoid every uncomfortable thing."

Jack's expression softens, and you glance toward the rain. "Sometimes you just accept you're gonna get soaked and go home anyway." Neither of you says anything for a little bit. Because you both know that your words aren't really about the rain, neither of you acknowledges it. A laugh escapes him again, and he shakes his head, "You always have an answer for everything."

"No." You step backward toward the edge of the awning, and the cold rain immediately spatters against your scrub pants while you grin. "You just have to trust you'll be okay once you get there."

That gets another laugh out of him, the kind that reaches his eyes. You would do almost anything to keep hearing that sound. The umbrella remains clutched in his hand. Pink, ridiculous, and entirely yours. But for some reason, he can't stop staring at it. Or at you, standing in the rain, completely unapologetically yourself. No performance or hidden agenda. Only your kindness offered freely, as if giving away the only thing keeping you dry is the most natural decision in the world.

The thing is—Jack has spent years watching people take. Watching grief take, life and death take. And you...You are always giving… your time, your patience, and your terrible vending machine snacks.  Your heart, if someone needed it badly enough. Now, it’s your umbrella.

Something warm twists unexpectedly inside of him, and he feels tingling all over his skin, as well as his mouth begins to dry. You lift a hand in farewell, "See you tomorrow, Dr. Abbot."

Then you turn and jog into the rain, water immediately drenches your hair, and you laugh when your shoe splashes into a puddle. You keep running anyway. While Jack just stands there—watching, until you disappear around the corner. Long after you're gone, he remains beneath the awning with your pink umbrella still hanging from his hand.

The rideshare app was forgotten entirely, and the rain pounded against the pavement as the morning traffic crawled by. For the first time in a very long time—the thought of going home doesn't feel quite as lonely. He looks down at the ridiculous little umbrella again. Then, despite himself, he smiles. Because somehow the damn thing feels exactly like you.

2025

NIGHTCLUB, PITTSBURGH — NIGHT

The music is loud enough to vibrate through your ribs. Honestly, you're having fun, a rare occurrence these days. Between night shifts and overtime and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life outside of the Pitt, opportunities to be a normal twenty-something are increasingly rare.

So when a few friends invited you out, you said yes. You danced, drank, and laughed. You let yourself forget about work for a few hours, and somewhere between your second drink and the realization that your feet hurt, you discovered a very important problem.

Your apartment keys were gone—completely vanished, you checked your purse three times. Your jacket pockets twice, then the bathroom counter, next the bar, and still nothing. Which is how you found yourself sitting in a booth near the back of the club with your phone pressed to your ear.

Waiting for Jack to answer.

He picks up on the second ring, "Everything okay?" You immediately relax, which is probably a problem. "Maybe."

Jack sighs, the sound of a man who has known you far too long, "What happened?" You look mournfully into your drink, "I lost my keys." A pause on the other end, and then, "You what?"

"They're gone."

"Lifeline."

"They disappeared."

"Keys don't disappear."

"They absolutely do."

The music swells around you, and someone screams happily near the dance floor. Through the phone, Jack suddenly goes quiet. He asks, "Where are you?"

You blink, "Huh?"

"Where are you?"

You frown, then glance up at the neon sign hanging over the bar, "Oh." You tell him the club's name. The silence on the other end lasts approximately two seconds before you hear him ask, "How are you getting home?"

You wave a hand vaguely despite the fact he can't see you, "M'gonna Uber." The words come out more slurred than intended. Silence... a long silence, then you hear him sigh,  "Jesus Christ."

"It’s not that bad—"

"No."

You open your mouth to argue, but Jack beats you to it. "I'm picking you up." You immediately sober, exclaiming, "What?"

"Do not leave with anybody."

"Jack—"

"Do not get into a stranger's car."

"That's literally what Uber is." You throw back in response.

"Lifeline." The warning in his voice makes you sit up straighter. "I'm serious. Stay where you are."

"Jack—"

"I'm already grabbing my keys."

Your stomach flips unexpectedly as you point out, "You're working tomorrow."

"So are you."

"Jack."

His voice drops lower, gentler as he begs, "Please." And that ends the argument before it starts. You stare at your drink and reluctantly reply, "...Okay."

"Good." A beat and then you hear, "Don't hang up."

Twenty-five minutes later, Jack walks into the club and promptly forgets how to breathe, because he has never seen you like this before. At work, you're always in scrubs, with your hair pulled back, minimal makeup, and practical shoes.

Tonight—tonight you look nothing like the nurse who steals his coffee and argues with surgeons. Your hair is down, and your makeup catches the flashing lights every time you move. The outfit you're wearing should probably be illegal—at least that's what his traitorous brain immediately decides. Far too much skin and too beautiful—too distracting.

Jack stares for half a second too long, but then immediately hates himself for it. Because he's Jack and you're you. You're his friend, and he's forty-something years old and should absolutely know better. But the sudden realization that other people are staring at you, too, fills him with an entirely unreasonable amount of irritation. There are multiple reasons he hates that realization—none of them are good. You spot him immediately, and relief floods your face, "Jack!"

Somehow that's worse—because you're happy to see him, you always are. Jack pushes through the crowd toward your booth. He asks, "You okay?" 

You grin, a little tipsy and a little tired, "Hi."

"That's not an answer."

"I lost my keys."

"You mentioned."

You immediately point at him, "I looked."

"I believe you."

"I looked everywhere."

Jack softens despite himself, "I know."

Just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The amount of trust you've placed in him over the years—it sneaks up on him sometimes, along with the amount he's placed in you. Neither of you ever talks about it—it's just simply there.

"Where are your friends?"

You blink.

"Oh."

You glance toward the dance floor, where your group has completely disappeared into the crowd. One of them is standing on a platform dancing with a stranger. Another appears to be attempting karaoke despite there being no karaoke machine. Honestly, nobody looks remotely concerned about your whereabouts. You point vaguely, "Over there." Jack follows your finger, and immediately regrets it. "Jesus." 

You laugh, "They're having fun."

"They look like a liability."

"They are." A pause, then you smile warmly at him. The kind of smile that's become increasingly difficult for him to ignore lately.

"You ready to head home?" The question comes out gentler than he intended. Your expression softens immediately. "Mhm."

There’s no argument because the answer was always going to be yes. After all, it's him asking. Something in Jack's chest tightens unexpectedly. You climb out of the booth and wobble slightly when your heel catches on the edge of the floor. His hand is on your elbow before either of you thinks about it. It’s steady and instinctive—the contact lasts barely a second, but you both notice. Your eyes flick down to his hand, then back up to his face. Neither of you says anything, and Jack clears his throat first before he lets go, "You good?" 

You nod immediately, "Mhm. Yep." Then point at him. "I need to go tell them I'm not being kidnapped by you."

The laugh that escapes him is helpless, "You go do that."

You grin, "Okay.” Before turning toward the dance floor, you lightly tap his arm. It’s a small gesture, mindless and affectionate. The kind of touch friends make without thinking. Yet Jack feels it long after you've disappeared into the crowd. He watches you weave through the dancers. Watch you throw your arms around one of your friends.

You laugh at something that makes your whole face light up, and standing there in the middle of a crowded nightclub, surrounded by strangers and flashing lights and music loud enough to shake the floor—Jack suddenly realizes he's smiling. He's smiling because you're happy and somewhere deep down, in a place he has been carefully avoiding for a very long time—he knows that's becoming a problem.

You weave your way through the crowd, dodging dancers and spilled drinks, until you finally find your friends near the center of the dance floor. One of them immediately grabs your arm, "There you are!" You laugh, "Apparently, I'm leaving."

"What?" another groans theatrically. "Already?"

You point toward the edge of the club—toward Jack. Standing near the entrance with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, waiting. The second your friends spot him, several heads swivel at once. Then all of them turn suspiciously slowly back toward you.

"Ohhh."

You immediately know that tone, you shake your head, "No."

"That's the doctor."

"No."

"The hot doctor."

You cover your face, "Oh my God." One of them leans closer, asking, "Is he your boyfriend?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Because he definitely looks like he's here to pick up his girlfriend." Heat floods your face instantly, "No, he does not."

Across the room, Jack glances over, as if sensing he's being talked about. But when he spots you, his expression visibly relaxes. And unfortunately, your friends see that too. "Oh my God."

You groan, "Stop."

"He likes you."

"He does not."

"He drove here to rescue you from yourself."

"That's called friendship."

"That's called middle-aged pining." You nearly choke, "Please never say those words again."

Laughter follows you all the way back toward the entrance, and Jack looks mildly concerned the closer you get. "You okay?"

"Apparently not."

He narrows his eyes at your response, "What happened?"

"My friends are terrible people."

"Fair."

You point at him, "Don't encourage them."

"I'm not encouraging anybody."

"Liar."

The corner of his mouth twitches, and just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The simple fact that he's here has solved half the problem already. Then you take two steps toward the exit, but Jack is moving before he even thinks about it. One hand catches your elbow, and the other settles briefly at your waist, steadying you. The contact is innocent, but your breath catches anyway. It’s practical and necessary, at least that's what both of you tell yourselves.

"Whoa there." Jack says, and you blink up at him, then immediately start laughing, "I think the floor moved."

"The floor did not move."

"It absolutely moved."

"Lifeline."

"I'm just saying." Jack shakes his head, and his hand doesn't immediately leave your waist. Neither of you seems to notice. Or maybe both of you notice too much. "Come on."

You allow him to guide you outside, and the cool night air hits immediately. Rain lingers on the pavement, turning the streets into rivers of reflected neon. You inhale deeply, then sway again. Jack catches you before it becomes a problem. His hand settles more firmly against your side this time, and your body immediately relaxes into the contact like it's familiar.

Jack notices that too. "You good?" He asked, and you nod, "Mhm." A beat, and then you add, "The ground's still suspicious."

That earns a real laugh out of him, and you love that sound.

The parking lot isn't far, but Jack keeps his hand on your waist the entire walk there. Just in case… well, at least that's what he tells himself. Not because he likes the feeling of you beside him or how perfectly you fit there.

Just in case. That's all…. at least for tonight.

Jack sighs. The long-suffering sigh of a man who spends his life dealing with stubborn people. "Come on."

You allow him to guide you… well. at least until you nearly walk directly into a group of people entering the club. Jack catches your shoulder and redirects you gently, "Okay."

"What?"

His hand settles more firmly against your back, "Maybe we're graduating from independent walking." You gasp dramatically, "I am fully capable." But your words come out slightly slurred.

Jack raises an eyebrow, "You just tried to walk through three people."

"They were in my way."

A laugh escapes him. God. You're something truly special.

Now he has a new problem. Namely, getting you safely into his truck before you attempt something stupid.

The passenger-side door swings open, and you stare at it, then back at the seat. Jack immediately knows what's happening. "Need help?"

"No." A pause as you squint at the truck suspiciously. "Maybe."

"It's higher than it looked five seconds ago, isn't it?"

"It definitely wasn't this tall before."

Jack bites the inside of his cheek, hard, trying not to laugh.

"Okay."

Before you can protest, his firm hands settle at your waist, and suddenly you're being lifted just enough to get into the passenger seat. The whole thing takes maybe two seconds, except neither of you feels normal afterward. You freeze, and Jack also freezes. His hands are still on your waist, and you're looking directly at each other—far too close.

For a brief, dangerous moment, neither of you moves. Then Jack clears his throat, immediately stepping back. "Seatbelt."

Your brain takes several seconds to reboot, "What?"

"Seatbelt."

"Oh."

Of course, duh. You fumble with it and miss the buckle twice before Jack reaches over and clicks it into place. His face is suddenly very near again. Near enough to see the tiny scar near his jaw, and that your heart starts doing things it absolutely should not be doing. "There." His voice comes out lower than usual. You swallow, "Thanks."

Neither of you acknowledges how strange the moment felt and the warmth lingering where his hands had been. Or the way Jack has to grip the steering wheel a little tighter once he's behind it. Because some things are easier left alone. At least for now.

JACK ABBOT’S APARTMENT — NIGHT

The drive back to your apartment is quieter than the nightclub. The city has settled into that strange hour between night and morning, when the roads are mostly empty, and the traffic lights seem to change for no one. Rain taps softly against the windshield as Jack drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift. You are attempting to stay awake. Attempting being the important word here. Every few minutes, your head tips toward the window before jerking upright again.

Jack notices every single time, "You can sleep."

"I'm not sleeping."

"You were asleep thirty seconds ago."

"I was thinking."

"You were drooling."

You gasp in offense, and Jack doesn't even look at you as he commands, "Go to sleep."

"You're mean." A laugh escapes him at your comment. He realizes that he’s been doing it a lot when he’s around you.

By the time you arrive at your apartment, you’re humming a song, trying to stay awake. Then Jack pats his pocket, and freezes when he realizes, "...Shit."

You blink, "What?" He closes his eyes, "I forgot your spare key." You stare, then immediately start laughing.

Jack groans, "Oh my God."

"You drove all the way there."

“Don’t.”

"You forgot the whole reason you picked me up."

"Don't." 

Your laughter gets worse, and for the first time in years, Jack lets out a full belly laugh too. He begins to drive to his apartment, and since it’s late, he offers for you to crash at his place. 

By the time he pulls into his apartment complex, you're visibly losing the fight against exhaustion and alcohol—mostly alcohol. The second you step through the front door, you kick your heels off exaggeratedly. One lands near the couch, and the other somehow ends up halfway down the hallway. Jack silently watches this happen. Then watches you attempt to unbuckle whatever complicated contraption is keeping your outfit together. "Okay," he says immediately.

"What?"

"Maybe let's not do that."

You frown at him, "Why?"

Because you're drunk—very drunk, and apparently completely unaware that you're standing in the middle of his apartment trying to peel yourself out of an outfit that has occupied far too much of his attention already. Jack suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating, the wall too. Actually, maybe the floor. Anywhere except you.

"Because," he says carefully, "you need pajamas."

"Oh." You consider this, then nod solemnly. "Pajamas are smart."

"Thank you."

"I am smart."

"You are." He nods, and you point at him, "I knew you'd agree."

Jack presses his lips together. God help him. Somehow, over the years, you've become one of his favorite people. A few minutes later, after much negotiation and several failed attempts to convince you that sleeping in sequins is a terrible idea, Jack disappears into his bedroom closet. He returns holding an old Army shirt—worn soft with age, the fabric faded from years of washing, along with a pair of boxers. You stare, then grin. "These yours?" Jack immediately regrets everything, "Yes."

"Cool."

Then, before he can stop you—you start changing.

"Jesus Christ."

You blink, "What?"

Jack is staring firmly at the opposite wall. "You could've warned me."

"Why?"

Because you're still drunk enough that embarrassment hasn't caught up with you yet. Meanwhile, Jack is discovering entirely new levels of self-control.

"Bathroom," he says.

"Right." You pause, then gesture wildly. "The bathroom."

"Correct."

Five minutes later, you emerge wearing the oversized shirt. The hem brushes your thighs while sleeves hang past your hands. The sight nearly kills him, because you look comfortable—like you belong here. Which is a thought he immediately shoves into a locked box and throws into the ocean. Nope. Not touching that. Absolutely not. That’s reserved for a future therapy session. Boy, is his therapist going to love that.

"Sit."

You immediately sit on the edge of his bed.

"Drink."

You obediently accept the water bottle, and Jack blinks, "That's new."

"What?"

"You listened."

You point at him, "You're bossy."

"Drink the water."

You drink the water, then he hands you a spare toothbrush and makes sure you actually use it. Then spends several minutes making certain you don't accidentally fall asleep face-first into the sink. By the time he's satisfied you're hydrated and functional enough not to accidentally die overnight, you're sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed, wrapped in one of his old shirts and looking increasingly sleepy.

You dig through your purse. "There are makeup wipes in here."

Jack pauses, asks, "You carry those around?"

"My eyeliner smudges." You shrug. "My mascara too."

Jack shakes his head, "Prepared for everything."

"It's literally why we carry purses."

"Pretty sure that's not why."

"It absolutely is."

He finds the packet eventually and pulls one free, then gestures to you, "Come here." You blink, dazed, "What?"

"Your mascara's halfway down your face."

Well, that’s fucking mortifying—immediately you cover your face, "Oh my God." Jack laughs softly; the sound is low and warm. "You're fine."

"No, I'm not."

"You really are."

Gently, he pulls your hand away and carefully brushes the wipe across your cheek. His touch is light, patient, and unhurried. The same hands that place chest tubes and suture wounds and perform procedures under pressure somehow become impossibly gentle. They always do around people he cares about. You go strangely still, and the room suddenly feels too quiet and small. Jack is close enough that the details become impossible to ignore. The silver was woven through his hair. The exhaustion that never quite leaves his eyes. The traces of loss he carries with him even now. And still, despite all of it—or maybe because of it—he remains devastatingly, painfully beautiful.

"You've done this before." The words leave your mouth before you can stop them.

Jack's hand stills briefly, then resumes. "Mmm." His voice is soft, a little distant. "She hated taking her makeup off."

The ache arrives instantly—it’s deep and familiar.

"She'd fall asleep on the couch." A small smile touches his mouth. "Every time." His gaze drops to the wipe in his hand, "Eventually, it was easier to do it myself."

A tender silence settles over the room, and suddenly your eyes sting. Because even now—all these years later—he still misses her. Of course he does, he always will.

"Jack." He looks up, and you swallow hard. "I'm sorry." 

His hand pauses, and he asks, "For what?"

Your throat tightens painfully, "I know you miss her." The words come out small, but completely honest, and are barely above a whisper. Jack looks at you, and what he sees nearly unravels him. Because you're crying for him—not for yourself, or because you're drunk. You're crying because his pain hurts you. Because somehow you've always carried pieces of everyone else's heartbreak as if it belongs to you too.

A tear slips down your cheek, and before you can wipe it away, Jack reaches up, his thumb tenderly brushes gently across your skin.

The touch lingers slightly.

"Hey." His voice is impossibly soft, "Don't cry, honey."

The endearment slips out before he can stop it. The second it does, the room changes. Your breath catches, and Jack freezes. Neither of you moves. For one suspended second, the entire world narrows to that single point of contact. His hand against your cheek, your eyes locked on his. The silence between you is suddenly filled with things neither of you knows how to say. Then Jack does the only thing he can think of—he opens his arms, and you go willingly. The hug is immediate, warm, and safe. Your forehead presses against his shoulder, and his strong arms wrap around you while you melt into him without hesitation. Trusting him completely, the way you always have. Fuck—that might be the most dangerous thing of all. For a moment, neither of you lets go, because none of you wants to. Jack can feel your heartbeat through the thin cotton of his shirt and feel your breathing gradually slowing. He can feel himself becoming far too aware of how perfectly you fit against him.

He closes his eyes for a second.

A mistake.

Because the truth waits for him there—the truth that somewhere along the way, you stopped being just his friend and just his favorite nurse. Stopped being just the person he trusted most and became something he doesn't know what to do with.

Eventually, your breathing evens out. Then slows….then slows again. Jack glances down and realizes you've fallen asleep curled against him. Carefully, he shifts and lowers you onto the bed, pulls the blanket over you, and tucks it beneath your shoulder. The motion is automatic, and for a moment, guilt rises sharp and sudden. Not because you remind him of his late wife. You don't, and you never have. You never will. But somehow that realization doesn't hurt. It simply feels true. You are different—entirely your own person. Entirely your own place in his life. Jack stands there for a long moment, watching you sleep peacefully. Then quietly, he reaches for his crutches resting beside the nightstand.

The apartment is dark now, silent, as he pauses at the doorway, looks back one last time, at you sleeping in his bed. Wrapped in his shirt, breathing softly against his pillow, and despite every effort not to—Jack smiles. Then he switches off the light and heads toward the couch. Completely unaware that he's already fallen far deeper than he ever intended to.

JACK ABBOT'S APARTMENT — MORNING

The first thing you notice when you wake up is that you're comfortable. Suspiciously comfortable. Wrapped in sheets that smell faintly of clean laundry and something familiar you can't quite place. For a few blissful seconds, you remain exactly where you are, half-buried beneath the blankets, eyes still closed. Then your brain starts working slowly… like an old computer booting up. Your mouth is dry, your head hurts, and you have absolutely no idea where the hell you are.

You crack one eye open, and a ceiling you don't recognize stares back. Your stomach immediately drops. "Oh no."

Then the memories start returning. The nightclub, losing your keys, calling Jack… Jack picking you up. The drive to his apartment, the makeup wipes, and the hug. Oh God. The hug.

Your eyes fly open, fully awake now. Mortification floods your entire body with terrifying speed. "No, no, no, no..." 

You immediately bury your face in your hands. Maybe if you stay here long enough, you'll evaporate, and the earth will open up and swallow you whole. Maybe cardiac arrest—you'd accept cardiac arrest. Slowly, you peek out from between your fingers, and a glass of water sits on the nightstand. Beside it is a bottle of ibuprofen and a neatly folded note in Jack's handwriting.

Drink water before standing up.

Your heart does something deeply unhelpful as you groan, "Oh, my God."

Because that's such a Jack thing to do, he’s practical, thoughtful, and annoyingly sweet. You whimper and flop backward onto the pillow.

Unfortunately, reality remains—and reality is that you are currently in Jack Abbot's bed. His bed—his actual bed, the place where he sleeps. The place where—You immediately shove that thought into a dumpster and set it on fire. Nope. Absolutely not. Not going there.

You drag yourself upright before your imagination can make things worse. The oversized Army shirt hanging off your shoulders shifts as you move. Your eyes immediately drop. Jack's shirt. You are wearing Jack's shirt. You consider throwing yourself out of the nearest window.

The bathroom is somehow worse. Because now you're sober, fully sober. Which means you remember everything… mostly. You splash cold water onto your face repeatedly. Trying to wash away the embarrassment and the memory of crying. The image of him calling you honey and you falling asleep against him.

"Oh, I'm never recovering from this." You groan into the sink before you force yourself to look in the mirror. You survive trauma shifts and twelve-hour nights. You went through fucking COVID. So… you can survive breakfast. Probably.

After one final pep talk that accomplishes absolutely nothing, you step out of the bathroom and immediately stop. A framed photograph sits atop the dresser, Jack and his wife, both smiling. The picture looks old, well-loved, the edges slightly worn. Guilt arrives like a punch to the ribs. Because no matter how much time has passed, she's still here. In photographs, memories, and the quiet spaces, he doesn't talk about. You stare at the picture for a moment longer, then look away. The guilt lingers anyway.

The smell hits you before you reach the living room. Coffee, eggs, and toast, along with something frying in a pan. Your stomach growls traitorously, then you turn the corner, and nearly walk directly into a wall. Because Jack is standing at the stove, shirtless. You stop functioning completely. Gone. No thoughts. Head empty. Just panic. Because somehow, in all the years you've known him, you've never actually seen him like this.

At work, he's always covered by scrubs, layers, a jacket, and PPE. Now—now he's standing barefoot in his kitchen wearing nothing but athletic shorts and his prosthetic. Morning sunlight spills through the apartment windows. Across broad shoulders, freckled skin, and muscle earned through years of physical therapy, stubbornness, and sheer determination. The prosthetic is already attached as part of him, as familiar and unremarkable as breathing. You know the story and what happened, and understand now the work it takes to live with it.

Still—seeing him outside the hospital feels strangely intimate, and very human. Your jaw nearly hits the floor as Jack turns. He immediately catches your expression, and to his eternal satisfaction, you look horrified. Not by him, but by being caught staring. His mouth twitches, "Morning."

You blink once, then twice, and you begin rapidly looking anywhere else.

"Morning." Your voice cracks. Well, that’s spectacular. Jack's eyebrow rises, "Rough landing?" You clear your throat. "Oh, absolutely."

His smile grows slightly. "There are worse hangovers."

"Don't."

"You called me at midnight because you lost your keys."

"Jack."

"You accused the floor of moving."

"Jack."

"You tried to negotiate with a coat rack."

Your eyes widen as you sputter, "I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"Oh my fucking God."

Jack laughs—there it is again, a little lighter than it used to be. "Come eat." You hesitate, still standing awkwardly in his shirt, and painfully aware you're in his apartment—his space. Then Jack glances over his shoulder, "You need food before your headache gets worse."

There it is. His doctor voice—the one that brooks absolutely no argument. You sigh dramatically and obey. Because apparently that's become a habit. Jack places a plate in front of you. Eggs, toast, fruit, and a giant glass of water.

You stare, and then at him, then back at the plate, "You made breakfast."

"You sound surprised."

"You made breakfast."

"You were hungover." You blink because he says it so simply, as if taking care of you is the most natural thing in the world, and maybe that's what gets you. It's how easy it seems for him—the quiet way he shows up. Again, and again. So instead of saying any of that, you pick up a piece of toast. "Thanks." Jack glances up from his coffee, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. "Anytime, Lifeline."

You lower your gaze quickly and focus on your breakfast instead. Unfortunately, that only makes things worse because now you're sitting at Jack's dining table, in Jack's apartment—wearing Jack's shirt.

Eating breakfast, he made for you. The domesticity of it settles wrong inside your conscience. Not because you or him have done anything wrong. But because it feels like you're standing in a place that once belonged to someone else. Your eyes drift toward the bookshelf across the room. A framed photograph sits among the books, showing Jack and his late wife. They’re smiling and happy.

The familiar guilt immediately curls around your throat. You look away, and your appetite suddenly harder to find. Jack notices and asks, "You okay?"

You force a smile, "Mhm." Jack raises an eyebrow. The same look he gives patients who claim their pain is a three out of ten while actively dying. "Lifeline."

You sigh at being caught, again. "It's stupid."

"If you're saying that, it probably isn't."

The concern in his voice makes the guilt worse. You stare down at your plate, picking apart a piece of toast. "You've done so much for me."

Jack frowns immediately, "Okay."

"And I kind of crashed into your life last night." 

His confusion visibly increases as he points out the obvious, "You lost your keys."

"I know."

"You called me."

"I know."

Jack waits as you groan softly because this sounds ridiculous out loud. "It just feels like I'm imposing."

Jack's expression softens as he says, "Lifeline." You hate it when he says your nickname like that—as if he's trying to talk you down from something.

"You are not imposing."

You look away, stubbornly mutter, "Still."

"No." His answer comes immediately.

You glance up, and Jack is looking directly at you now. Completely serious. "You called because you needed help. That's what people do."

"But—"

"It's not a burden."

You open your mouth; however, Jack cuts you off again. "You would've done the same thing for me."

And unfortunately—he's right. You would've, without hesitation. At three in the morning, or in the middle of a thunderstorm. Without a second thought.

Jack sees the realization cross your face. A faint smile touches the corner of his mouth.

"Exactly."

You look back down at your plate, suddenly embarrassed. Because he's making it sound so simple. Meanwhile, your brain is spiraling. You risk a glance upward and immediately regret it. Because Jack is leaning against the counter. Coffee mug in hand. Morning sunlight spilling through the kitchen windows behind him. Now that you're sober, you're trying very hard not to notice things. Like the freckles scattered across his shoulders. Or the way years of physical therapy and hospital shifts have built quiet strength into him. Maybe the fact that he looks unfairly good for someone standing barefoot in his kitchen at eight in the morning. Your eyes immediately dart back to your eggs because you’re a coward.

"So." Jack takes another sip of coffee. The amusement in his voice is impossible to miss. "You gonna keep staring at your breakfast like it’s inedible?"

You nearly choke, "What?"

"The eggs."

"Oh." Your face feels suspiciously warm. "They're intimidating."

Jack stares at you, then laughs.

Somehow and somewhere along the way, Jack stopped being your soulmate, the impossible person at the end of a red string, and became Jack. The man who remembers your coffee order, and the one who checked on you when you had COVID, who keeps spare electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at taking care of yourself. The man who made you breakfast because you were hungover, and the man who still loves his wife. The guilt returns instantly. You glance toward the photograph again. Jack follows your gaze this time. His expression changes subtly. The smile faded into something quieter, more thoughtful. Neither of you says anything for a moment. The apartment settles into a small, comfortable, sad silence. The kind that comes from old grief that never fully disappears. Finally, you clear your throat. "I'm sorry."

Jack immediately looks confused. "For what?" You gesture vaguely around the apartment. "Sleeping in your room." His expression somehow becomes even more confused. "Lifeline."

"I'm serious."

"Why?"

You stare at him, "Because it's your room."

"Correct."

"And your bed."

"Also correct."

You narrow your eyes because Jack is enjoying this. The asshole. "Jack."

"What?"

"I feel bad."

His expression softens immediately into a quiet gentleness. "It's fine." He replied. You shake your head, "But—"

"No." His voice is calm. "I wasn't going to wake you up so you could sleep on the couch." You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again. You try to rebut, "But—" Jack points toward your coffee, "You would've fallen asleep sitting upright."

"That's not true."

"It absolutely is."

"It happened one time."

"It happened three times."

"Allegedly."

Jack laughs into his coffee, and for a moment, just a moment, the guilt eases. Because he's looking at you like you're welcome here. As if your presence isn't an intrusion or that helping you wasn't an obligation. It was just something he wanted to do. That realization follows you for the rest of breakfast. Maybe that's why loving him has always felt so dangerous. It's the spare apartment key he keeps on his keyring. The electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at remembering to drink water. The bottle of ibuprofen is waiting on the nightstand before you even wake up. The way he remembers—he doesn't even realize he's doing it.

Eventually, breakfast ends, and you help carry plates to the sink despite Jack's protests. "I'm perfectly capable of washing a plate."

"I know."

"You sounded doubtful."

"I wasn't."

"You were."

Jack rolls his eyes, and you grin.

For a moment, it feels normal. As if this is something the two of you do all the time. Then Jack glances toward the hallway. "I should shower."

Your eyes immediately dart away.

Why are you suddenly embarrassed? You've seen this man covered in blood during trauma activations, and somehow, showering is what's awkward.

"Okay." Jack nods, then pauses, a small frown appearing. "You don't have clothes."

You blink, "Oh." You hadn't actually thought that far ahead. Your club outfit is currently somewhere in the apartment and likely smells like spilled alcohol, perfume, and poor decisions.

Jack disappears down the hallway before you can offer a solution. A moment later he returns carrying a pair of gray sweatpants and another shirt. You immediately recognize the Army logo faded across the front. "Here."

You stare at him, then back at the clothes. "I can't take your clothes."

"You're already wearing my clothes." Unfortunately, he has a point. You glance down at the oversized shirt hanging off your shoulders. Jack's mouth twitches, "The sweats have a drawstring."

"Oh, good."

"They should fit."

"Should?"

"Mostly." You narrow your eyes, but Jack looks entirely unapologetic. "You can keep the shirt." Your heart immediately forgets how to function, breathless, "What?" Jack casually shrugs, "It's old." You can’t fucking breathe, so you settle for, "Oh."

The thought of keeping it, taking it home, and sleeping in it. Smelling his laundry detergent every time you wear it is incredibly intimate. "Thanks."

Across his expression is as soft as his response,  "You're welcome." Then he gestures toward the hallway. "I'm gonna shower."

You nod, "Okay."

"The shower chair's in my bathroom, so I'll be in there awhile." The statement is matter-of-fact and unremarkable. The same way he always talks about it. Not because it doesn't matter. But because Jack long ago learned there was no point treating every accommodation like a tragedy. It's simply part of his life—part of him. You nod again, "Take your time."

Jack studies you for a second; he's checking for lingering hangover symptoms. Then apparently decides you'll survive. "I'll drive you home after."

"Sounds good." You agree. There’s a pause before Jack says, "Try not to break anything while I'm gone." Your gasp is immediate, "Rude."

"I know you."

"You wound me."

Jack laughs, then walks down the hallway. A few moments later, you hear the bathroom door close. The apartment becomes quiet—the one that only exists in the homes of people who live alone. You wander slowly—absolutely not snooping. You were observing, there's a difference. The apartment itself feels like Jack. Comfortable, practical, and unpretentious. Bookshelves line one wall of the living room. Medical textbooks, military history, and novels with dog-eared pages. A few framed photographs scattered throughout the apartment—friends, coworkers, and people who matter.

You pause near one shelf. A photograph sits there. Jack and his late wife, when they were younger, were laughing. The picture caught in the middle of a moment rather than a pose. She has her head tipped toward him, and Jack is looking at her like she hung the moon.

Your stomach lurches. Because even now—years later—she still belongs here. Of course she does. This was their home, their life. You gently set the frame back exactly where you found it. Suddenly feeling like an intruder again, your gaze drifts around the apartment. There are signs of her everywhere if you know where to look. It isn’t overwhelming or frozen in time. There’s a photograph, a ceramic mug, and a framed postcard tucked between books. Evidence that she existed, and you hate yourself a little. Because standing here, wrapped in Jack's clothes, waiting for him to finish showering, part of you wishes things were different. Part of you wishes you weren't standing in the aftermath of someone else's great love story. The guilt settles heavily, along with the red string hidden beneath your sleeve. You glance toward the hallway, and the sound of running water. Toward the man you've loved for years. Because no matter how badly you want him—you've never wanted to replace her. Not for a second. Never. You just...wanted him to be happy, even if it was never with you.

The drive back to your apartment is quiet, but not uncomfortable. You sit curled into the passenger seat, your folded dress resting on your lap alongside your heels. The sleeves of Jack's old Army shirt hang past your wrists, and the sweatpants are too big with the drawstring pulled tight enough to keep them from falling. You feel ridiculous, like a child playing dress-up. Outside the window, Pittsburgh drifts by in shades of gray. You keep your eyes fixed on it. Because every time you glance at Jack, your heart hurts. Especially after last night… the makeup wipes, the hug, his hand on your face, honey. You don't trust yourself anymore, not even a little. Beside you, Jack steals another glance. You're unusually quiet, and that alone is enough to make him nervous. Normally, even hungover, you'd be talking, making terrible jokes, or complaining about your headache.

Instead, you're staring out the window like you're already somewhere else. His fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel as he asks, "You okay?" You nod immediately, humming, "Mhm."

A lie that Jack recognizes instantly, but he lets it go for now. When he finally pulls up in front of your apartment building, neither of you moves immediately. The truck idles softly as silence stretches, then you suddenly unbuckle. Before Jack can process what's happening, you lean across the center console and wrap your arms around him. The hug catches him completely off guard, and for a moment, he freezes. Then instinct takes over. His arms come around you automatically. Your face presses briefly against his shoulder. Jack's heart does something strange and painful. Because it feels like goodbye, and he has absolutely no idea why.

"Hey." His voice comes out softer than intended. You squeeze him once before you let go, because if you hold on any longer, you won't be able to leave.

"Thanks," you whisper. Your eyes sting immediately, but you force a smile anyway. "For everything." The words shouldn't sound final, but they do. "Anytime, honey." The endearment slips out effortlessly and naturally now. Neither of you acknowledges it. Jack studies your face, trying to figure out what's wrong, to understand why you suddenly look like you're trying not to cry. So he asks carefully, "I'll see you later at work, yeah?"

Your throat tightens while you nod. "Mhm." It's not technically a lie. The second you step out of the truck, you don't look back. You can't. Because if you do, you'll stay. So you practically run inside your apartment building.

Leaving Jack staring after you, confused, worried, and somehow strangely unsettled.

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — DAY

Dana and Lena listen quietly. The three of you sit in an empty conference room before shift change. You make it approximately halfway through your explanation before you start crying. Not graceful tears, pretty tears, but the ugly kind. The tears you've spent years swallowing, "I'm sorry."

Dana immediately reaches for you, "Hey." You shake your head, "I'm sorry."

"Hon." Dana rubs circles against your back, her voice gentle, maternal. "Why are you apologizing?" You laugh through your tears because the answer feels obvious and impossible. "Because I'm in love with him."

The room falls silent as Lena and Dana exchange a glance. A look. One that says they already knew. Everyone always knows except the people involved. "It's just for a little while," you whisper while you wipe furiously at your face. "I just need some space." Dana's expression softens. She asks, "And what about your heart?"

That's the problem, isn't it? Your heart—your stupid, stubborn heart. You stare down at your hands, "Until it relearns how to stop beating for him." Then quietly you hear Lena ask,  "So you're not gonna tell him?" You shake your head immediately, "I can't."

Because how do you tell someone that you've been tethered to them for seven years? That you've loved them through a marriage, grief, and loss. Through healing. How do you tell someone that? Especially when he never chose you. So you don't.

THREE DAYS LATER…

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

Three days later, Jack notices immediately, the second he walks into the ED, you're gone. No coffee sitting beside your workstation and sarcastic comments from Central—there’s no you. He finds Lena first and asks, "Where is she?" Lena doesn't even look up from her charting, "Where's who?” Jack stares, "Lifeline."

"Oh." She clicks something on her computer. "Day shift." His stomach drops, "What?"

"She switched."

"When?" Lena shrugs at him, "A few days ago." 

Jack blinks slowly. "Why?"

"Ask Dana." Suddenly, Lena becomes very interested in her chart.

A week passes, then two, and Jack begins losing his mind. Because you are avoiding him, deliberately and aggressively. You leave before he arrives, or arrive before he leaves. You disappear down hallways and take lunch at different times. Find literally any excuse not to be alone with him. The few times he manages to catch sight of you—you smile and wave.

Then vanish again, like smoke, as if you're afraid of him, and that hurts. Because Jack keeps replaying that night. The club, his apartment, the hug, and the morning after. What did he miss? What did he do? Did he cross a line? Did he make you uncomfortable? Did he somehow ruin the one friendship he can't bear to lose? Every answer leads nowhere, and every day you drift a little farther away. Three weeks later, during shift change, Jack finally spots you. Walking quickly through the corridor, badge swinging from the clip of your scrub pocket, and iced coffee in hand.

He immediately changes direction. "Lifeline." You freeze for a second, then keep walking. Fuck. Jack follows and calls after you, "Lifeline." Your pace somehow gets faster, and now he's genuinely irritated and hurt. "Hey."

Finally, you stop, turning around, with a careful smile already in place, too careful. But not him, never him, not until now. "Hi, Jack." The distance between you feels enormous as he asks, "What is going on?" Nothing. Everything. You force a shrug, "Nothing."

That’s bullshit, and Jack knows it's bullshit. You know he knows, but neither of you says it. Then somebody calls your name from down the hallway, and relief floods your face at escaping him. The realization dawns on him like a punch.

"I gotta go."

"Lifeline—"

"See you around." Then you're gone, again. Practically running.

That's when it happens—Jack stares after you, heart pounding, confused, angry, and hurt. Suddenly—pain flares around his wrist. It’s sharp and hot. He physically flinches, "What the—"

A red thread appears beneath his skin, bright and impossible, but all too real. Jack freezes as the world tilts. No. No. No. The string winds itself slowly around his wrist. As it has always belonged there, it was simply waiting.

His breath catches because he knows what it is; everybody knows what it is. His pulse begins hammering. The thread stretches down the hallway, past nurses, residents, and stretchers, straight toward—You. Jack stumbles, his hand slamming against the wall to keep himself upright as the hallway blurs and his vision tunnels.

No. No, that's impossible. His heart pounds so hard it hurts. The red string glows softly between his wrist and yours, unbroken. Years… all these years. Every conversation, every shift, every cup of coffee, and every moment. Every time you'd looked at him and then looked away, or when you'd disappeared when things became too close. All the times you'd chosen distance. The truth crashes into him all at once. You knew. Oh God. You knew, and somewhere down the hallway—completely unfazed—you kept walking.

While Jack stands frozen in place, one hand braced against the wall, staring at the impossible thread connecting him to the woman he's been desperately trying not to admit he's fallen in love with.

2025

6:00 PM

PTMC, CENTRAL WORK AREA — DAY

The emergency department shifts from busy to catastrophic in less than thirty seconds. One moment, people are charting the next—every television screen in the department lights up with breaking news.

There’s an active shooter at PittFest—mass casualty incident. Every healthcare worker in the room recognizes it instantly. The moment before impact… before disaster arrives.

"Hey, what's going on?" McKay asks.

Robby strides into Central, already moving and planning. Carrying the weight of what is coming. "Mass casualty at PittFest."

Samira looks up sharply, "How many victims?"

"We don't know." Robby's face is grim. "Expect the worst.” A terrible silence settles, while someone else immediately reaches for a phone. "Did the police find David?" McKay asks. Robby shakes his head, then raises his voice, "Okay, everybody, listen up."

Every head turns to pay attention to Robby.

"There is an active shooter at PittFest. As the nearest trauma center, we are going to be getting the majority of the victims." The room goes completely still. "We don't know yet how many we're getting, but we are instituting hospital-wide emergency protocols. We need to move every patient out of here. Either home, upstairs, or Family Medicine. Call your loved ones now if you need to."

Robby glances toward the windows, toward the city. Towards the disaster unfolding somewhere beyond it. "I can guarantee cell service will soon be overwhelmed. Eat something. Stay hydrated. Use the bathroom while there's time and meet back here for a full briefing in five minutes."

Then his gaze lands on someone entering through the ambulance bay doors, relief flashes across his face. 

"Brother." Robby exhales. "I'm so fucking glad to see you." Jack, carrying his backpack and wearing his black scrubs, briefly hugs Robby, "Heard it on the scanner."

Jack drops his bag onto a workstation. "How many are we expecting?"

"I don't know." Robby's expression darkens. "But it doesn't sound good."

After placing his things down, Jack looks up directly at you. The breath leaves your lungs. Already focused entirely on you.

Your stomach drops. Oh no. No. No. No. He knows. The realization slams into you so hard it feels physical. You don't know how or when. But something in his expression tells you immediately.

He knows about the string—your secret. The thing you've spent seven years burying. Your pulse begins hammering, and blood rushes up to your ears. Across Central, Jack doesn't look away; his jaw flexes, hard, angry. You know that look—you've seen it directed at negligent parents, reckless drivers, people who made choices that hurt others.

Five minutes. That's all you have before the briefing. Before the entire hospital erupts into chaos. Apparently five minutes is all Jack needs. The second he catches you alone, a hand closes firmly around your elbow. "Lifeline." You freeze, your heart immediately dropping into your stomach. "Jack—"

"We need to talk." The words come out low and controlled. He steers you toward an empty supply room. A narrow space lined with IV fluids and sterile procedure kits. The door swings shut behind you, and the silence is deafening.

You turn toward him, trying to keep your face neutral, and completely fall apart. "What's going on?" The question sounds pathetic even to your own ears. Jack stares, and for a moment, he says nothing. Which makes everything worse, because his eyes are furious.

Furious at being hurt and at being lied to. At realizing something important happened without him knowing. His jaw clenches, "You knew." Your vision immediately blurs, "Jack—"

"You knew." The repetition is softer, devastated. You feel your tears threatening already.

"Don't." Your voice cracks. "Don't look at me like that." Something flashes across his face—pain, but then anger returns to cover it. "So what was the plan?" His words come out sharp. 

"Jack—"

"What?" His voice rises, years of confusion finally boiling over. "What were you doing?"

You flinch, and Jack immediately hates himself for it, but he can't stop, not now. "Were you just waiting?" The accusation hangs between you, ugly, unfair, and born entirely from hurt. "Were you waiting for your chance?"

Your eyes widen as the tears come instantly, and suddenly you're angry too. Years of restraint snap all at once.

"No." The word echoes off the walls. "No." You step toward him, furious, heartbroken, and shaking. 

"I buried it." Your voice breaks. "I buried every part of it." Jack freezes as you keep going, "You don't get to stand there and act like I wanted this." The tears are falling freely now. It’s hot and humiliating. "I buried every chance of loving you so deep I could barely breathe around it."

The room goes silent as Jack stares while you choke on the next words, because they're true, every single one. "I buried my wanting for you." Your voice cracks again. "And don't you dare accuse me of waiting." The anger disappears, leaving only raw, ancient grief. "You don't get to accuse me of that when I respected it."

Jack's face changes back to confusion and regret. But you're not finished, "I respected her." The words nearly destroy you while you wipe at your face, failing miserably. "I respected both of you."

A photograph flashes through your mind. Then she laughed in the department, bringing Jack lunch, loving him. Being loved by him, the woman you'd genuinely cared about. The woman who had never done anything except be kind to you.

"She was brilliant." You laugh bitterly as another tear slips free. "Beautiful. And I knew I'd never measure up."

Jack physically recoils, as if you'd struck him. "What?" The word comes out strangled. You look away because you can't bear seeing his face. "I know that."

"No." Pain flashes across his expression. "No, you don't." You laugh again, broken, "I do." Then quietly, you add, "The first time I saw the end of the string." Jack goes completely still at your admission.

"The first time I saw it unfinished." Your voice drops, barely above a whisper. "I knew I was going to lose you either way."

Silence—absolute silence. Jack feels like the floor has vanished beneath him, because suddenly, he understands. All those years, smiles, retreats, your careful boundaries. How you'd chosen distance instead of possibility. You weren't waiting. You were grieving the entire time.

The supply room door suddenly swings open, and Robby appears, already halfway through speaking. "Abbot, I need—"

Then he stops, immediately, because you're crying, and Jack looks wrecked. The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on.

"...Whoa." Robby looks between both of you a few times, then decides he absolutely does not want whatever this is. "What the hell is—"

You move first, past Robby and Jack. Past all of it. Your shoulder brushes the doorframe as you leave. You don't stop, and can’t look back. Because if you do, you'll fall apart. While Jack just stands there, watching you go, understanding too late. For the first time in seven years, understanding exactly how much it must have hurt. Then, somewhere outside the room—an overhead page sounds. The first ambulances are arriving, signaling that the mass casualty has begun. However, the conversation isn't over. Not even close.

7:00 PM

CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT

All at once, the emergency department is already overflowing. Trauma bays filled, hallways lined with stretchers, and blood smeared across floors that Environmental Services doesn't have time to clean. The overhead speakers haven't stopped paging for nearly twenty minutes. Victims keep coming. Gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, and crush injuries from the stampede that followed.

The air feels thick with adrenaline and fear. Every single person in the department is running on instinct, training, and experience.

You haven't looked at Jack since the supply room, not really. You can feel him occasionally, like a gravitational force somewhere at the edge of your awareness. A pull you refuse to acknowledge. Every time your eyes accidentally find his across Central, you immediately look away. You don't have the luxury of falling apart right now, because people are dying, you know that, and so does Jack.

So, whatever happened between you has been shoved aside by necessity.

"Let's go!" Langdon's voice cuts through the noise. Another victim on a gurney in Central. Male, approximately late twenties, multiple injuries, semi-conscious, and blood soaking through his shirt. Samira immediately moves to the stretcher, "Who do you have?"

"Semi-conscious. Responds only to pain. Decent carotid."

"Strip him." Mateo reaches for trauma shears, and so does Tim, "Let's go." The team descends immediately, beginning to cut clothing, assessing injuries, checking his airway, and breathing. Everything is moving with practiced efficiency. Then—something feels wrong. You don't know why, it’s just a feeling. A prickling sensation along the back of your neck.

The patient suddenly jerks, and the nurses yelp. A hand disappears beneath the shredded remains of his shirt. Langdon freezes, then shouts. "Whoa!" Everything happens at once.

"Gun!" The word detonates through Central. "Gun! He's going for his gun!"

Every person in the room reacts instantly; some hit the floor, and others dive behind workstations. The patient somehow manages to yank a handgun free. His eyes are wild, disoriented, and terrified. The muzzle swings wildly across the room and lands directly toward Robby and Jack.

Time slows for you as you watch. Later, you'll never be able to explain why you moved, whether it was instinct, training, love… or something much darker. A part of you wonders if maybe you were simply tired—tired of carrying this, of loving him, maybe of being afraid. You never figure it out, because your body moves before your brain does.

One second, you're standing near Central, the next you're running.

The gun fires, and the sound is deafening. A violent crack that echoes through the department. For one suspended moment—nobody moves or breathes. Then pain explodes through you, white-hot, blinding.

You stagger as your knees immediately buckle while the floor rushes upward. Somewhere nearby, people are screaming while others are shouting for security. The world becomes noise, blurred shapes, blood—too much blood. Then, you hear Jack scream your name, and it tears straight out of him. Raw, animal, nothing like you've ever heard before. The resident beside him barely has time to react before Jack is already moving. He’s running—ignoring everyone and everything. None of it matters, not anymore. Because you're on the floor, and you're bleeding. Suddenly, the worst thing Jack has ever imagined is happening right in front of him.Again.

He drops to his knees beside you, not caring that his stump is aching, hands immediately searching, assessing, locating the wound, trying to stop the bleeding while SWAT restrains the man who shot you. His trauma training takes over automatically, even while the rest of him is breaking apart.

"Pressure!" Somebody throws him gauze, Jack slams it hard against the wound. Too much blood—so much fucking blood, and the sight makes his stomach turn. "No."

Your vision swims, and you can barely focus. But somehow—somehow—Jack is all you see. Always him, maybe it was always going to be him. His face is pale, terrified—more terrified than you've ever seen him, and somehow that hurts worse than the bullet.

You manage a weak laugh, and blood touches your lips. Jack immediately hates the sound, "Don't." Your eyes find his, and for the first time in years, you stop hiding. "It was painful."

Jack freezes, "Lifeline—"

"When you looked at me." Your voice trembles, blood continues soaking through the gauze. "When you smiled at me."

"No." His hands shake, just slightly, but you feel it. "When you believed in me." Tears blur your vision. "It hurt."

Jack's face completely crumples because now he understands all of it.

"It tore me apart." The words barely make it out, and an unfiltered sob escapes him. Because you're dying, and he just found you. He spent seven years standing beside you without seeing it. "No." His voice breaks. "No, no, no."

Someone is calling for Trauma One and bringing a stretcher. The department is moving around him. But Jack doesn't care, because the world has narrowed to you—only you.

"I just got you." The words rip from his throat, his eyes shine, desperate, furious, and every bit terrified. "I just got you." Your breath catches. You love him, you always will. So maybe—maybe honesty won't kill you now. "I love you."

Jack closes his eyes, as if the words physically hurt. You smile weakly, doubling down, "I love you, Jack Abbot."

Silence for a moment, then, firmly, "No." The answer comes instantly, violently, as if he's rejecting reality itself. "No." His forehead presses briefly against yours. "You're not doing this."

Tears slide down his face, but he doesn't even notice. "You hear me?" His voice cracks. "You're not doing this to me."

The stretcher arrives, and Robby appears, blood on his gloves. Panic hidden beneath professionalism. "Jack." Nothing… Jack doesn't move. "Jack." Still nothing.

"Abbot!" Finally, Jack looks up, and Robby immediately understands. Oh. Oh no. "We need Trauma One." Robby's voice softens. "Now."

Jack nods once, then helps lift you onto the stretcher himself. Refuses to let go or step away. He refuses to leave your side as they race down the hallway. Trauma One is already being prepared. Blood products, thoracotomy tray, massive transfusion protocol—Everything and anything. Whatever it takes.

Dana meets them at the door, and one look at Jack's face tells her everything, every awful piece of it. "Oh, honey." Jack doesn't even hear her; his eyes never leave you, not once. Dana steps close, careful. "Jack." No response from him, so she tries again, "You need to let them work."

His jaw tightens, "No."

"Jack."

"No." His voice breaks again. Because he knows—he knows exactly how bad this is. Knows every possible complication, terrible outcome, and statistic. Every nightmare, and he cannot survive another one. Not you, God, please, especially not after all this—after finally finding you.

The trauma team begins crowding around the bed. Voices overlap, orders fly, blood pressure dropping, airway concerns, surgical consult from Garcia, massive transfusion. Yet, Jack refuses to move, standing beside your stretcher, his hand wrapped around yours. As if letting go might somehow allow death to take you, or sheer stubbornness can keep you here.

As if love might finally be enough this time around.

PTMC, ICU — DAY

The surgery lasts hours—too many hours, long enough for the adrenaline to burn away, and for exhaustion to settle into everyone's bones. Long enough for Jack to memorize every crack in the ICU waiting room floor.

The bullet had done catastrophic damage. A through-and-through gunshot wound with massive internal bleeding. Multiple units of blood transfused. Emergency surgery. Complications halfway through that had nearly sent the entire operating room into a panic. At one point, Robby had physically forced Jack to sit down because he looked seconds away from collapsing. Jack couldn't remember most of it afterward, only fragments. Your blood on his hands. Your voice. I love you, Jack Abbot.

The terror of watching your blood pressure disappear from the monitor. The awful realization that he might lose you before he'd ever gotten the chance to tell you—I love you too. But somehow, you survive. The surgeons manage to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. They brought you back. It feels less like medicine and more like a miracle. 

Three days later, you're still asleep, intubated, and hooked to enough machines to make the room hum softly around you. But you're alive, and right now, that's enough.

Jack hasn't left at all. Dana, Robby, Lena, and even Whitaker—all of them fail. Because every time someone tells him to go home, he looks at you lying in that hospital bed and refuses. The man is impossible when he decides on something, and he decided he was staying.

So he stays, wearing scrubs more often than not. Surviving almost entirely on hospital coffee and vending machine food, and sleeping in the uncomfortable chair beside your bed. If you could see him, you'd probably yell at him. Tell him he's being ridiculous, and that he should shower. To stop looking like a man who personally lost a fight against a tornado. Unfortunately, you're unconscious, which means nobody can stop him.

The red string remains, that impossible thread winding around his wrist before disappearing into yours, completely visible now. Neither of you is hiding anymore. Sometimes Jack simply stares at it, as if he's afraid it'll disappear—a chance he'll wake up and discover this was some cruel fever dream. Because for years he believed he'd had his soulmate, then he lost her. And now—now the universe has somehow handed him another sacred thing. A second chance he never expected. One he's terrified of losing before it even begins.

The ICU room is quiet that afternoon as sunlight spills through the window. Your face is pale against the white pillow. Your hair is messy, and there's bruising along your neck from procedures, tape securing lines, and dressings. Evidence of how close death came for you. Jack reaches forward, his fingers brushing gently through your hair. The movement reverent, as if touching something precious. Something fragile and almost lost.

His thumb traces softly across your cheek. "You scared the hell out of me." His voice is rough, sleep-deprived, and broken around the edges. You don't answer, but that never stops him.

The door opens quietly as Robby steps inside, coffee in one hand and concern written all over his face. He pauses immediately, taking in the scene. Jack slumped beside your bed, wearing his scrubs, faintly stained with blood—your blood. His hand wrapped around yours, and the red string was visible between them. For a moment, Robby says nothing, simply watches. Understanding settling over him piece by piece. Then finally, he asks, "How's she doing?"

Jack glances up. His eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. "Stable." The word comes out cautious. Because saying it too loudly might somehow jinx everything.

Robby nods, steps closer, looking down at you, at the monitors, then at Jack. A realization flickers across his face. "Is she also..." His voice softens. "...your soulmate?"

The question hangs quietly between them, and Jack's gaze immediately drops to your hand. To the red thread wrapped around both wrists. He can't speak for a little while, then he nods once. 

"I think so." The words sound ridiculous even now. "I didn't think..." His voice catches as he looks down at you. At the woman he'd spent seven years loving without understanding why it felt different. Not understanding why losing your friendship hurt more than it should, or why seeing you happy mattered so much. Why he'd kept showing up, again and again. "I didn't think it was possible."

The rRobby remains silent, letting him continue as Jack swallows. "I didn't think it would happen to me." The confession comes out almost embarrassed—he's admitting something shameful. Robby exhales slowly, nods. "There've been a few reports."

Jack glances up.

"A few studies." Robby shrugs. "The theory is that some soulmate bonds don't form immediately." His eyes drift toward the red string, toward your intertwined hands. "Sometimes they form after loss."

The room falls quiet, neither of them says the obvious thing. That his late had been Jack's soulmate too, and loving her had been real, complete, and true. That none of this erased her.

Jack looks back at your sleeping face, the rise and fall of your chest, and the steady rhythm on the monitor. Alive and still here. His fingers slide gently through your hair again, careful not to disturb anything, as his hand cups your cheek. The gesture impossibly tender. Robby immediately looks away, because some moments aren't meant for witnesses.

Jack leans forward, pressing a kiss against your forehead, lingering there for a second, eyes closed and relieved. Terrified and very in love. When he finally pulls back, his thumb brushes across your skin. And for the first time since the shooting, a small smile appears. Fragile, hopeful, like he's allowing himself to believe it. Just a little.

"Come back to me, Lifeline." His voice is barely above a whisper. The red string glows softly between your wrists, and Jack squeezes your hand gently, as if you're already listening. As if somewhere beneath the machines and medications and healing wounds, you can hear him. Maybe, for the first time in a very long time, he isn't asking fate for anything. He's only asking for you.

PTMC, ICU — DAY

The first thing you become aware of is discomfort, not pain, well, not yet anyway, just wrongness. A strange pressure lodged in your throat—something foreign. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy, as if someone glued them shut. The effort required to open them feels monumental. Slowly, painstakingly—you manage it, and the world arrives in fragments. White ceiling, muted sunlight, the rhythmic beeping of monitors, and the steady hiss of oxygen.

A hospital room—your hospital room, and immediately your nursing brain starts putting pieces together. ICU, you're in the ICU, which means—Oh. Oh no, the shooting. Memory crashes back all at once: the gun, Jack, blood, Trauma One. I love you, Jack Abbot.

Your eyes widen immediately as panic flares. Because there is definitely a tube down your throat, a ventilator tube, and suddenly every survival instinct in your body starts screaming. You try to move—a mistake, as pain explodes through your abdomen. Pain that says somebody has spent several hours trying very hard to keep you alive. A strangled sound leaves you; your heart monitor immediately speeds up.

Then you feel it, a hand, wrapped around yours. You turn your head, slowly, and there he is… Jack. Curled awkwardly in the chair beside your bed, wearing his black scrubs, asleep. His head was resting against folded arms near your mattress, one hand tangled with yours, the red string winding quietly between your wrists. For a moment, you just stare because he looks awful. His curls are a mess, dark circles shadow his eyes, his jaw is covered in stubble, his scrubs are wrinkled because he hasn't slept properly in days, and he hasn't left. This whole time, he stayed. Your fingers twitch, weakly, barely enough movement to count. Then you squeeze his hand.

Jack jerks awake instantly, years of emergency medicine, and years of sleeping lightly. His head snaps upward, disoriented and confused. Then his eyes land on yours, and the entire world stops. For a moment, he doesn't move or breathe. Doesn't seem capable of either. He just stares, afraid you're another dream, or another hallucination born from exhaustion.

"Hey." The word comes out rough, barely audible, and your eyes immediately fill with tears. Because he's crying, relief floods his face so quickly it looks painful. His hand tightens around yours.

"My Lifeline." His voice cracks completely, and suddenly, tears are sliding down his cheeks, unashamed. Jack laughs once, a choked sound halfway between a sob and a prayer. "Oh, my God."

You try to answer, then immediately regret it, because the tube is still there. Panic spikes again. 

Jack notices instantly, "Hey." His hand cups the side of your face, gentle and grounding.  "Hey, hey." His thumb brushes your cheek, "You're okay." Your breathing becomes faster, the ventilator alarms immediately begin protesting. "You're okay." Jack is already reaching for the call button, never taking his eyes off you. "You're okay."

Within seconds, the room fills with people. Garcia arrives first. Followed by respiratory therapy, a nurse, and half the ICU, apparently. "Well, look at that." Garcia's grin is immediate. "About time." 

You want to roll your eyes, but unfortunately, you still have a breathing tube. The respiratory therapist immediately begins assessing and following commands. Checking your neurological status. Making sure you're strong enough for extubation. You squeeze hands, follow fingers with your eyes, nod appropriately. All while Jack hovers nearby. Trying desperately not to interfere, and failing miserably.

"She's ready." The therapist glances toward Garcia, and then Garcia nods. "Let's do it."

Jack immediately moves closer, instinctively. Like he physically cannot help himself. The ventilator disconnects, the securing device is removed, and the respiratory therapist gives instructions. You barely hear any of them; your entire focus is on the tube. Then—it's out. Immediately, you cough violently because your throat burns. Every breath feels strange and uncomfortable, but you're breathing on your own.

Jack is already helping support you upright, one arm behind your shoulders, the other holding a cup with ice chips. "Easy." His voice is impossibly soft. "Slow down."

You cough again, eyes watering. Jack looks ready to fight somebody on your behalf. Possibly the tube or the entire ICU. Eventually, the coughing settles enough for you to breathe comfortably, and the monitors stabilize, everyone visibly relaxing.

Garcia steps forward, professional mode fully activated. "Okay. The surgery went well." She begins carefully. "You sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen." Jack's jaw tightens visibly as she continues,  "There was significant internal bleeding." Garcia continues. "We had to perform an emergency exploratory laparotomy."

Your nurse brain immediately fills in blanks, searching for damage, complications, and probabilities. Garcia notices this and says, "We repaired injuries to your small bowel and controlled several bleeding vessels."

Your stomach drops. 

Jesus.

"You required multiple transfusions." Garcia continues. "But you're stable now."

Stable—the most beautiful word in medicine. You glance toward Jack; he's staring at the floor, hearing the details physically hurts. Garcia notices that, too, a tiny smile appears. One that says she understands far more than she's commenting on.

"Recovery's going to suck." You manage a weak laugh; the sound comes out raspy. Garcia points immediately. "There she is. Don't make me regret taking that tube out."

For the first time since waking, you actually smile. Garcia gathers her chart and steps toward the door, then pauses, looking between you. Then Jack, the red string, then back again.

"Oh." A knowing expression crosses her face. "Right."

Jack immediately looks uncomfortable, which is almost impressive considering everything that's happened.

Garcia grins. "Try not to stress her out." Then she points at you. "And try not to get shot again."

The door closes behind her, and the room suddenly feels much quieter. Much smaller and more intimate. Silence settles; neither of you quite knows what to say. Because there are too many things, seven years' worth.

Jack remains seated beside the bed, his hand never leaving yours, not once. He's afraid the second he lets go, you'll disappear again.

Your throat hurts—everything hurts, but somehow none of it matters right now. Because Jack is looking at you, really looking at you, and there are tears still caught in his eyelashes. Evidence of how terrified he'd been, your fingers tighten weakly around his. "Hi." The word comes out hoarse, barely audible. A wet laugh escapes him, disbelieving, and relieved. "Hi."

His thumb brushes across your knuckles, again and again. As if he needs the contact—he needs proof. Then Jack lowers his head, pressing his forehead gently against your joined hands, his eyes closing. Breathing shakily, and in that moment, you realize he was just as afraid of losing you as you'd always been of losing him.

Finally, Jack swallows hard, then asks quietly, "How long?" You know exactly what he means, not the shooting or the string. All of it. You stare down at your intertwined hands. At the red thread winding around both wrists, then back at him, and answer honestly. "Since my first day.”

Jack blinks, once and twice. He genuinely thought he'd misheard you, "Your first day?" You nod, a sad laugh escaping. "Yeah."

His mouth opens, then closes, and opens again. The physician in him is clearly attempting to process impossible information. Unfortunately for him, he's currently operating as a man in love, not a doctor, which means none of this is going well.

"Seven years?" The words come out strangled, and you give a tiny nod. Jack leans back in his chair, looking dizzy. "Jesus Christ."

A weak laugh escapes you. "That was more or less my reaction too." His hand tightens around yours to reassure himself.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question is quiet, not accusing anymore, only hurt. He’s trying to understand. You look away first, toward the window. Because this part is harder. "You were married." The words are simple, obvious, and true, Jack's expression immediately softens. 

"You loved her." You smile sadly. "Of course you did." Because he had, you'd seen it, every day, in every smile or phone call, at the mere mention of her. 

"I wasn't going to be the woman who showed up and destroyed that." Your voice trembles. "I couldn't. It's why I never said anything." A tear slips free, and you don't bother wiping it away. 

"I respected her too much." Your laugh cracks. "And honestly?" You finally look at him, unwaveringly, you admit, "I loved you too much.” Jack closes his eyes, processing the truth of it all. "I knew you were happy." You smile weakly. "I thought… I thought if I couldn't be the person you loved, then I'd settle for being someone you trusted."

Jack stares at you, completely speechless. Suddenly, every memory makes sense, every retreat or careful boundary. You chose distance over possibility. You weren't waiting. You weren't hoping for his wife to die. Goddamit. The thought makes him sick now. You were protecting him—protecting both of them, at the expense of yourself, for seven years.

"That's insane." The words slip out before he can stop them. You blink, offended. "Excuse me?" Jack actually laughs, a wet, exhausted sound. "You loved me for seven years."

"You make it sound like a disease." You frowned.

"It kind of is."

You point weakly, "I got shot."

"Exactly." For the first time since waking up—you both laugh. The sound fades slowly, leaving only the truth behind. Jack shifts closer, his chair scrapes softly against the floor, until he's sitting right beside the bed, close to you, so that there's nowhere left to hide.

"I need you to understand something." His voice lowers, gentler now, and more vulnerable than you've ever heard it. Jack looks down briefly, then back up. "She was my soulmate." The words settle softly between you, simply true and not at all cruel. You nod, because you know—you've always known.

"I loved her." His eyes shine, "I'll always love her."

You squeeze his hand, "I know." Jack exhales shakily, then continues, "But somewhere along the way..." His voice falters, and you can’t recall if you've ever seen him this scared. His thumb brushes your cheek, the same way it did the night you almost died. "You became my favorite part of the day. The first person I wanted to talk to." Another stroke of his thumb. "The person I looked for first." His eyes never leave yours. "And when you started avoiding me..."

He laughs once, humorless and every bit painful. "It felt like somebody was ripping pieces off me." The confession steals the air from your lungs, and Jack leans forward slightly, and your heart starts racing.

"I thought I was losing my mind." A tiny smile appears at the corners of his mouth. "Turns out I was just in love with you."

Everything disappears—leaving just him and tears blur your vision instantly.

"Oh." It's all you can manage. Jack smiles, soft, beautiful, it’s entirely his. "Yeah."

Suddenly, you're crying. Because after seven years—after all that grief and silence and fear—he chose you. Not because of the string or fate. Or because destiny told him to. But because he loved you.

"You idiot." Your words wobble and Jack laughs, "I know."

"You absolute idiot."

"I've been told."

You laugh through your tears, and somehow, he wipes them away before they can fall. The gentlest touch imaginable, as if you're something precious. Then his forehead rests against yours, and neither of you speaks. You don't need to. The red string glows softly between your wrists, a silent witness, and for the first time—it doesn't feel like a chain. It feels like a beginning.

Jack's gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then immediately back to your eyes. Giving you every opportunity to stop him. Every opportunity to say no. You don't. Not even a little.

So, he kisses you, softly, as if you're something holy. Something he spent seven years searching for without realizing it. His hand cups your cheek, while yours finds his wrist. Right where the string wraps around him, the kiss is gentle and tender. A promise rather than a fire.

When he finally pulls back, neither of you moves very far, foreheads touching, breathing the same air. Jack smiles, the kind of smile you've spent years secretly collecting. "Hi."

A laugh escapes you, "Hi." Then his eyes soften, filled with something warm enough to last a lifetime. "There you are."

After seven years of loving him in silence—you finally get to stay.

End Notes:

Where do I even begin? This idea has been cooking in my head for MONTHS. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I wanted this story to go. But then you know how things just suddenly click and fall into place? That’s exactly what happened.

It was absolutely euphoric—once I got the plot beats down, I just couldn’t stop writing lol.

I wanted you, the reader, to know how much you respected Jack’s wife and that you weren’t trying to replace her.

Also.. do you get it? Lifeline = Line = String…. Ha ha ha. You are his Line…

Everyone blame Noah Kahan for making me cry to Orbiter.

LOWKEY, wasn’t expecting a lot of people to read this… 

Taglist: @gennywennypenny @kneelforloki @unknownhuman102 @thebewitchingvagabond @danah-20 @i-do-not-care-bear @nerdgirljen @silksepia @rathatosy @proudlyvastlake @coconuthoneyandjaguars @acciotwinz @thefemininemystiquee @rei-scorpio @buckystwilight

When I first saw the blurb you posted for this story, I already knew it was going to be devastatingly angsty. But more than that, I knew it was going to feel human in its pain. And god, it really did.

I don’t really know how else to describe it, but I was immediately hooked by the idea of someone not being defined by a single Great Love but by multiple great loves. Relationships forged through time, effort, mistakes, grief, and perseverance—people who go through trials and tribulations together and come out the other side irrevocably shaped by all those small moments of trying.

Good lord, I’m rambling at this point, but there were so many moments while reading where I felt viscerally pulled back into my own experiences with grief and trauma through these characters. And somehow, through them, I felt like I understood parts of myself a little better too.

The section about the Zoom funeral absolutely wrecked me. The cold, unfair inhumaneness of it all immediately dragged me back to my own experiences with loss during the pandemic. I remember feeling that same sense of wrongness so vividly. Reading that scene genuinely had me crying hard enough that I had to stop and take a break before continuing.

And then there’s the reader herself—how deeply self-reliant she is after moving across the world. How instinctively she expects herself to handle everything alone, in sickness and in health, because that’s what survival has taught her to do. So watching her slowly realise that she’s actually built roots here, that she has created a support system without fully noticing it? God. That hit hard too.

And beyond the yearning that sits at the forefront of the fic, what really got to me was the growing sense of resignation she carries. That feeling that she has to accept this devastating arrangement as the price of being loved. Like this painful compromise is simply the only way she gets to have the thing everyone else in the world seems entitled to. Yes, “right person, wrong time” is such a strong thread throughout the story, but what really stuck with me was the way the reader keeps trying to move forward with the cards she’s been dealt. Trying to carve out some version of happiness, even if it comes at the cost of herself.

And fuck—Jack’s characterisation.

This is genuinely one of the best portrayals I’ve read of what love lost and love found can look like for a character like him. The way grief has fundamentally reshaped him. The way his life is so clearly divided into a before and after. The care hidden beneath his sarcasm and quips. The way his loyalty turns almost violent the second someone he loves needs him. The fact that he wears his grief openly because he genuinely can’t imagine any other way to continue living with it. These characters are all so deeply shaped by loss, but in completely different ways. They mirror each other while still reacting so differently to the same wounds, the same fears, the same longing.

I’m genuinely obsessed with this entire exploration of the soulmate trope. And honestly? I think you may have ruined future angsty soulmate AUs for me forever 😭

As if he has something to prove, Jack kisses you goodbye for a solid three minutes. It's an entanglement of tongues, bodies pressed together as he braces one hand on the roof of your car. His other is on your hip, bunching your scrub top, his pinky dragging across the soft skin of your belly. When he finally releases you from the dizzying kiss, he presses one last peck to your brow and whispers, "I love you."

"I love you, too," you whisper back, but it feels heavy, like something's beneath the words, waiting to break free. Truthfully, you're thinking of more than just Jack. Perfect, doting, loyal Jack, who should be more than enough for you. He's given you all of himself, and in return, you're still trying to recover pieces of your heart from his best friend.

Jack is stable. He's good. He's open with you.

But Robby is... Robby.

And you don't think you can live without either of them.

You bite your lip as you drive home, working the chapped skin between your teeth until you bleed. You've got love on the brain, and you're so preoccupied that it feels like running on autopilot. By the time you get through your front door, you can feel the tears starting to build. The bubble pops as you shower off the long shift, and you fall into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

You're back to the day shift in two days, but thankfully, you have a rare day off. You sleep for a handful of hours, but even the blackout curtains can't stop the reminders of the day. Across the city, Robby is back in the Pitt, and you can't help but feel like you should be there too.

There's a synergy between the two of you. Sure, you and Jack work well together, but it's not the same. Even before you were sleeping with Robby, you were making space for him in your mind. You memorized the instruments he preferred, the techniques he specialized in. You anticipate his needs before he voices them. In a differential, you're reaching for the tools and meds required for the procedure before he's finished talking.

That dance translated well to the bedroom. There was no learning curve when it came to sex. He knew how to touch you, and you knew how to unravel him. There weren't any questions, just instincts. Just pleasure, skin on skin.

And in the silent moments after, something like love.

You now know your mind was playing tricks on you. Robby made it clear where you stood with him before his sabbatical, and you doubt that time away has changed the facts. It was just sex, and now it's over, and you're with Jack.

Jack calls on his way to work, just to check in. You tell him you slept fine, even though you didn't, and he tells you he loves you, that he'll come over after his shift for a breakfast date. Your stomach is in knots when he hangs up. You aren't sure if he can see through you. You hope he can't.

Just after eight o'clock, there's a knock on your front door. EB meows, as if announcing the arrival of a guest, and you scratch her behind the ears before walking over to it.

You open it slowly, hesitating for a moment. The world slams into focus when you see it's Robby.

Robby, holding a bouquet of daisies. Your favorite flowers. You're allergic to roses, and you've never mentioned it to anyone but Jack, and somehow, Robby's figured it out, too. He holds up the bundle, sheepish, exhausted.

"Can we talk?" he asks.

"No," you snap.

You try to slam the door, but he stops you, hand firmly pressed against the wood. His brown eyes are wide, pleading. "Honey, please. I just want to talk. That's it."

You shake your head. "I can't."

"Please," he begs. There's a wobble in his voice you haven't heard since PittFest. His eyes are glassy now, and there's a tremble in his hands as he tightens his grip on the flowers. Your name is a desperate sound he utters so reverently that it sounds like a prayer.

You step aside, and you let him in.

EB greets him immediately, paws on his knee, waiting for him to pick her up. He does, and you take the flowers into the kitchen, clip the stems, and place them in a vase with water. The whole time, you're listening to Robby coo as he pets EB, greeting her with a softness usually reserved for scared, young patients.

"Hello, Miss Elizabeth," he murmurs. She chirps contentedly back. "I missed you too. Yes, very much."

You emerge from the kitchen, watching him hold her like a baby. EB, the traitor, doesn't seem to care about the tension or the fact that he's been away for several months. Hell, he abandoned her, too, but she's forgiven him instantly.

EB, satisfied, hops down and runs away, the bell on her collar jingling as she disappears into your bedroom, probably to bask in the window and watch the city.

You shift from foot to foot. "Well?"

"So... you and Jack, huh?"

You nod.

"He's... he's liked you for a long time," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's good. You two. It's a good thing. Happy for you."

You can see right through Michael Robinavitch. It's like you've been studying him all your life, learning each intricacy, every facet of the tangled web that all amounts to one person. One man, who despite it all, still lives inside you, in a broken place you've tried to bury.

You scoff. "After everything, you're going to lie to my face?"

"What do you want me to say?" Robby asks. "That I miss you? That the entire time I was away from you, I felt like I couldn't fucking breathe? That no matter what I saw or how far I went, the world was only beautiful knowing you were in it? Because yeah, I feel all of those things, but Jack is my best friend, and you're—" He trails off. Scoffs. Rests his bearded chin against his fist as he thinks for a moment. "Look, sweetheart, I don't expect you to forgive me."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I have to make this right," he murmurs. "The whole time I was away, I kept thinking about what kind of man I want to be, the kind of man you deserve. And yeah, that's Jack. That's just who he is. But that doesn't mean I'm not trying. To be better. To be worthy of you."

He collapses onto the sofa like a puppet with its strings cut. His head falls into his hands, and he rubs his eyes, biting back a shaky breath, narrowly holding back a sob. "Fuck." He says your name again. "I tried so hard not to love you. And now I'm trying so hard to keep you, and you're already gone."

You sit down beside him slowly, feeling like the wind has been knocked out of your lungs. When you were a kid, you fell out of a tree and broke your arm. It felt a lot like this, like everything punched out of you, a second before the pain registers.

"I'm not angry anymore," you admit, after a second that seems to stretch on forever. "If that's what you're worried about. I'm not. I was for a while, and then I was just heartbroken. I wasn't planning to fall for Jack, it just happened, and I won't hurt him. I won't."

Robby nods, resigned to his fate.

"But I'd be lying if I said I didn't—" Your voice cracks. Your hands are balled in your lap, nails digging crescent moons into your palms. "I don't... I can't..."

He holds his breath.

"Damn you," you say. "All I wanted for months was for you to love me back, to want me, to open up to me, and you took your sweet fucking time, waited until I'd put myself back together and fell in love with your best friend, to say it. That's not fucking fair!"

He nods. "I deserve that."

"You're an asshole! I trusted you! I loved you!"

The past tense of the phrase lands hard, as tangible as a punch. Robby flinches, and you hate the satisfaction it brings you, hurting him even half as much as he hurt you.

"Do you still?" he asks.

"How could you ask me that?"

"Please," he whispers your name again, insistent. "Just tell me."

"I love Jack."

"That's not the question, is it?"

You stare at him, chest heaving. A tear slides down your cheek, and his thumb brushes it away, rough skin against your softness. His palm lingers, warm and heavy against your face. He cradles your jaw like he's holding the whole world in his hands.

"Michael," is the only thing you can say. A single spark in the darkness.

"I love you," he tells you. "And I'm so sorry for hurting you, for running, for lying to you and to myself. I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I love you. I love you—" His mouth brushes against yours, and it would be so easy to kiss him, to forgive him, to let him put you back together and fill all the cracks he made with his golden love. But you can't do that. You can't.

You won't do that to Jack.

You push him back, getting to your feet. A ragged breath spills out of you. "Don't."

"I'm sorry," he says again. "I shouldn't have..."

"I love Jack," you bite out, reminding him as well as yourself. "I'm in love with Jack."

"Okay," he says. "I understand."

He stands slowly, composing himself as he starts walking toward the door. You catch his arm before he can make it past the threshold, and for reasons you don't understand, you turn him around.

"But I love you too," you confess. "And it's ruining my life."

He wraps his arms around you, and as your face presses against his chest, you let yourself fall apart. He lets you cry until his shirt is wet, and then he tucks you into bed before he goes.

Your next shift is something straight out of hell. It's a Saturday, pledge weekend at the college, the kind of hellish weekend that bleeds between day and night shift. You show up at six in the morning and are on until ten o'clock that night.

Three overdoses, severe dehydration, coupled with Molly, two assaults, one hazing ritual gone horrifically wrong, and DUIs, disasters, and every trauma under the sun. By the end of it, you're exhausted. Everything hurts.

You get behind the wheel of your car, and you cry.

You cry for the eighteen-year-old girl who chose water instead of beer, and got spiked with a roofie anyway. You cry for the boy rushing a frat who never stood a chance. You cry for the baby with SIDS, for the massive aneurysm, for the hospice patient.

Knocking on your window forces you to compose yourself. You roll it down.

Robby.

Robby, who uses the sleeve of his Carhartt jacket to wipe your tears away. Robby, who tells you, in a quiet, sweet voice, that he'll drive you to Jack's, so you're not going home alone.

You shouldn't let him drive you anywhere. You don't trust yourself alone with him. Not since he put you to bed and you admitted you love him. Yet for reasons you can't understand, you let him drive you to Jack's. You tuck yourself in, this time.

When you wake up, Jack is coming home. You can tell by the sounds that it's been a long day. His prosthetic drags across the carpet, his weight shifting uncomfortably on his good leg. His belt rattles, and then layers of his clothes fall away. The soft rustle of fabric is all you hear before the bed dips. Then his prosthetic hisses as he unlatches it. The sheets lift to accommodate him.

Jack climbs in slowly, hand splayed across your stomach, sliding under your shirt. His fingers are a little cold, raising goosebumps on your flesh as his rough palm glides up to your breast. His thumb sweeps over your nipple, tweaking the sensitive flesh there. The pebbled peak responds to him at once. Your back arches, ass pressing against his groin as he strokes your breast, finding every spot that drives you wild.

You're wearing one of his old army t-shirts, worn with holes along the collar. Your panties are sticky with want, the way they always are when he's around. His other hand slides down the curve of your belly, bunching the fabric of your panties and tugging them down the creamy skin of your thighs.

He needs you, and you need him. So as he shucks off his boxers, you bend just enough to expose your slick cunt to him. He notches himself at your entrance, his thick cock breaching your hole.

The stretch always takes a moment to adjust to. It's a delicious sting that always fades into pleasure. You gasp as he sinks into you, inch by inch. He's so thick you can feel him pressing against every needy, slick spot inside of you. You moan louder, rocking against him as he ruts into you again and again and again.

His fingers find your clit, stroking in that perfect rhythm that unravels you. You come undone around him, and he's close behind, spilling thick ropes of his cum into your needy cunt.

After, your tangled bodies are intertwined under the blankets. Jack's breath is a gentle whisper against your hair near the crown of your head. He kisses you there, gently.

"Tough day," you murmur.

He nods, smoothing your hair off your forehead. "I heard Robby took you home."

You're trying to read him, but you can't quite figure out what's lurking under the surface of his words. "Yeah. I was upset."

"I'm glad," Jack says softly. "That he was there."

"Yeah."

Your fingers trace the ridges of his chest, the hard lines of muscle. "Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I know." He kisses your brow. "I know, baby."

Your grip tightens around his middle. You sniffle.

"Oh, honey, no," he whispers. "Don't cry."

"I just..."

"I know," he tells you. "I know. The two of you have been head over heels since the beginning, there's no denying that. And Robby... he just wants you to be happy."

"I am happy."

"He said he'd retire," Jack says.

The air is knocked out of you. "What?"

"If you asked him to, he'd leave the ED. If I asked him to, if I wanted him to leave us alone, he'd do it. That kind of love? I've never seen him feel that way about anyone."

"Are you gonna leave me?" you dare to ask.

Jack's eyes widen, panicked. "What? No? Of course not!"

You're relieved. You can't help the sigh you let out, as the tension bleeds out of you. "Then what are you saying?"

"I'm sayin' that you make me happier than I've been in a long time." There's a haunted look that crosses his face for a moment. You know he's thinking of his wife, the first great love of his life. You've never doubted your place in his heart, not for a second, but you wonder sometimes if you'd ever have a chance with him in another life.

"And Robby's my best friend," Jack continues. "I hate seeing him so miserable. I hate seeing you so sad."

"I love you," you say again, helplessly.

"And you love him too," Jack replies. "I'm okay with that. I think we should get together, the three of us, and talk about it."

"I don't know, Jack."

"He was ready to give up the ER for you." He says your name, so fiercely it all but knocks you on your ass. "That's how much he loves you. God, baby, you look at me like I'm the sun, but he's the moon. You don't gotta pretend anymore."

You kiss him, and it's wet. Desperate. Fierce. A kiss that starts something anew in the ashes of the old.

Then he rolls you onto your back despite his exhaustion, slips inside you again, and whispers "I love you" against your throat between gentle thrusts.

Your whiskey sour glass is dripping onto the cardboard coaster on the bartop, but you're pretty sure your palms are sweatier. You shouldn't be as nervous as you are, but your back is rigid, and your lip is between your teeth.

Jack was busy with SWAT all day, and Robby's always the last man out of the Pitt. You changed out of your scrubs in the locker room at work. Your comfy clothes are your armor: a baggy t-shirt, worn blue jeans with a hole in the knee. Your heartbeat is a hummingbird's wings in your throat.

You love Jack. You love Robby. These facts are unchanging, like absolute laws of the universe. You feel like an alien when you think about what it all means. Beyond just loving two men, what are you doing here? What's the long game? Is there one?

You tried googling different things about polyamory and throuples, but they all seemed to be stereotypical, miserable arrangements. You gave up halfway through a Reddit thread, embarrassed for even turning to the internet for answers. You're a doctor, for chrissakes. You should be more composed and open-minded than this.

Robby arrives first. The bell hanging on the dive bar door rings, a gentle chime followed by his footsteps. He slides into the stool beside you, his face pinched. For a moment, his hand hovers, like he can't decide if he should touch you or not. If he can.

You decide to hug him. That's neutral enough.

The second his arms fall around you, his grip tightening, you feel the tension in his body melt away. His nose brushes against your hair, breathing in the smell of your shampoo. He squeezes, just once, before letting go.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," you reply.

His brown eyes are imploring, searching your expression. "I was surprised when Jack suggested we all... get together."

You down your drink, signaling the bartender for another. "Yeah, me too."

"Hey," Robby says. Your first name follows, so gentle. All day, you've been identified by your last name, with sharp orders to direct you around the Pitt. Work is a clear terrain, defined by rules and hospital hierarchy, but this? This is no man's land. "I don't want to come between you and Jack."

You snort. If only he knew. Your mouth opens to launch a reply, but then Jack's arm slides around your waist, and he plants a deep kiss on your lips that makes the world stop spinning.

And Robby? Robby has the grief-stricken look of a man being taunted by everything he's lost.

"I need a drink," Jack decides. "A couple rounds, to start. This is..." He chuckles.

You pound back a shot of tequila. Top shelf, concentrated. For courage. Your head is spinning.

You find yourself in a corner booth, sandwiched between Jack, whose hand is resting on your thigh, and Robby, who's nursing an old-fashioned. You'd crack a joke about him being old if you were feeling bolder.

"Look, man, I never meant to cause any trouble for you both," Robby starts.

"You didn't," Jack assures him.

Robby nods. It's a weighted movement, like he's not so sure.

"You two are my favorite people," Jack continues. "I want you to be happy, and seeing you two trying not to love each other for my sake. That's not what I want."

"I meant what I said," Robby says nervously. "You want me out of the picture, I'll go."

"Come on, brother, the Pitt needs you. She needs you." Then quieter, "I need you around."

"So what are you saying?" Robby ventures carefully. His eyes flit to yours. "Talk to me, sweetheart."

"I'm sayin' whatever she wants, I'm game. I'm saying—fuck—I'm willing to share if you are."

Disbelief straightens Robby's shoulders. "Share?"

You nibble your lip. Robby's thumb brushes the corner of your mouth, pulling it free from the cage of your teeth. "Gonna hurt yourself, honey," he murmurs.

"What are you thinking, pretty girl?" Jack asks you, coaxing you to be brave.

"I love you, Jack. And I love you, Michael. I do." You suck in a breath. "I'm thinking I don't deserve this. Both of you. I don't..." You trail off. "It doesn't feel real. I feel like I'm gonna wake up and lose you."

"You won't," Jack says fiercely.

"I know I don't deserve you," Robby tells you. "And yet, you're still here, still wanna be mine."

"Ours," Jack corrects him. "If she wants to be."

You nod. "I want... everything with you. Both of you."

Jack's smile is wicked, hungry. Robby's grip on your chin tightens just so.

"Let's get out of here," you murmur.

You're not sure which man reaches for his wallet faster.

You wind up at Robby's apartment. In terms of proximity, it's the closest to the bar, and you're not sure EB needs to be in the audience for this encounter. The second the door shuts behind you, Jack's hands run across the arch of your shoulders, massaging. The tension bleeds with the press of his thumbs.

"You okay?" he asks, lips grazing the shell of your ear.

You nod.

Robby's gaze is molten, whiskey, sharp with need. "We don't have to do this."

You interrupt him with a kiss.

It's... relief.

You haven't forgotten what it feels like to kiss Michael Robinavitch, but the memory has faded with time. The scratch of his beard, the way his nose presses against yours. He nips your lower lip for access before his tongue slides into your mouth. It feels like wildfire, his kiss, like coming home. He's taller than Jack, so he gathers you around the waist and drags you onto the tips of your toes to kiss you deeper. All the while, Jack is behind you, his mouth ghosting across your neck.

"Show me," Jack orders. "Show me how you take care of her, Robby."

The other man gives a nod before he lifts you into his arms, carrying you to his bedroom without missing your kiss for a second. You're drunk off his kiss, drunk off the attention. Robby lays you down on his bed, untying one of your sneakers, then the other. His lips press gently to your ankle. He rises, unzipping your jeans.

"Arms up," Robby orders.

You obey.

Jack's deft fingers undo your bra, nipping at your pulse point, the spot that drives you wild. "You want him to fuck you, baby?" Jack asks. "Hm?"

You nod.

"I think he should earn it," Jack says, dragging your earlobe between his teeth. "He broke your heart, didn't he?"

Robby sucks in a sharp breath. "Jack..."

You nod, reassuring him with a sweet, soft smile. "I forgive you, Michael."

Robby relaxes, his dimples making a rare appearance. "Gonna spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

You touch his face, touch brushing across the lines of his face, the weathered marks of experience. You love the grey in his beard, the streaks in his hair. You love every part of him. "I love you," you tell him.

"I love you too, sweetheart," he murmurs, and then he kisses you chastely.

"You're so sweet, aren't you?" Jack rasps. His thumb traces your bottom lip, and you take the digit into your mouth, dutifully running your tongue across it, taking him inside. "What the hell did we do to deserve a good girl like you?"

You release his thumb with a wet pop. "I love you, Jack."

"I know," he says.

"Did you just Han Solo me?"

"I saw the opening. I took it."

Robby snorts. "You're an idiot, man."

"A generous lover, thank you," Jack remarks.

Your cheeks heat as you realize you're nearly naked, jeans loose on your hips. Your panties are soaked beneath them, and you'd be embarrassed about being so worked up if you weren't enraptured by the attention.

You turn, tugging impatiently at Jack's shirt. "Off."

He complies, his smirk wicked, cutting. Like a look alone can make your clothes fall off. His broad, chiseled chest is on display, and the dusting of his freckles is familiar. You've traced the constellations with your mouth a thousand times.

Your eyebrows raise at Robby. "Your turn."

"I dunno, honey," he says. "I'm not in half as good shape as he is."

"Can't keep up?" Jack taunts.

You smack his arm. "I want to see you, Michael. You're perfect."

He groans. "How could I argue with that?"

Slowly, Jack unbuckles his belt, shedding his tactical pants. His boxer briefs are tented, a wet spot growing on the light grey fabric where his thick cock is straining to break free. He sits down on the bed, massaging his thigh above the prosthesis.

"You can take it off," you assure him, looking at him through your lashes.

Jack nods. "What do you think, Robby? Think I should hold her and play with her pretty tits while you make her come on your mouth?"

"I think you've never had a better idea in your life, brother."

Robby strips off his clothes, layer by layer. Jack's prosthetic hisses as he releases it, centering himself on the bed, a pillow propping him up. He draws you onto his lap, hands in your hair, tongue tracing his name on the roof of your mouth. Then Robby grabs your shoulders and flips you onto your back. Your shoulder blades press against Jack's hot, bare torso, his calloused palms skimming over your ribs, then cupping your tits.

Robby kisses your naval, then traces a path across your pelvis, planting kisses on your hipbones, the way he knows unravels you. His teeth close around the band of your soaked panties, and then he slides them down. His fingers all but tear the lace down your thighs, and he leaves them hooked around one ankle as he settles between your legs.

Jack tweaks your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and you whimper into his mouth as he moves in for another kiss. Robby's fingers are gentle as he spreads your folds, gathering your wetness and inspecting you, like he's memorizing the view all over again.

Your thighs are wrapped around his shoulders when he spanks your pussy lightly. "Still with me, sweetheart?"

You whimper.

"We've barely touched you, baby," Jack prods. "Answer him."

"Yes," you whisper.

"Fuck, I've missed you," Robby groans, and then his tongue swipes across your clit.

You all but fly off the bed as Jack bends, sucking a hickey into the swell of your cleavage as he plays with your nipples the way he knows you like. Meanwhile, Robby's tracing your favorite notes into your clit, playing your body like his favorite instrument. He moans into your pussy, working his tongue in and out of your aching hole.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." He nips your thigh. "Never should've left you. Never gonna leave you again."

His nose bumps against your clit, applying just the right amount of pressure, and then he returns to suckling your clit, hooking one finger in your fluttering pussy.

"Think she's getting close," Jack says. His cock twitches against your spine. "Gonna let her come, Robby?"

Robby nods. "Come on, honey, give it to me. Come all over my face. Wanna feel it."

Jack's hand closes around your throat, his fingers pushing your chin up. His eyes lock on yours. "You're gonna come for him, and then you're gonna suck my cock while he fucks you. That sound good?"

You nod frantically.

"Greedy girl," Jack grunts. "Another finger, Robby."

"Don't tell me how to fuck my girl, man."

"Ours," Jack reminds him.

"Yours," you whimper. "'M yours. I'm yours."

"Come for him, baby," Jack orders.

And you detonate.

Your orgasm rips through you all at once. Between Jack's attention on your tits and Robby's fingers scissoring in and out of your cunt as he gives your clit a good, long suck, your body is a supernova. It's an overload of your nervous system, like every cell in your body is replaced with pleasure. You might black out, for a moment there, but then Robby's kissing you with your taste on his mouth and your release slick in his beard, and you remember yourself.

"On your knees," Robby says. "Make him feel good."

You stick your ass out, letting Robby settle behind you as you peel Jack's underwear down. His cock springs free, smacking thick and hard against his belly. You pull his boxers low enough to free his heavy balls, the thatch of hair greying. You love the sight of Jack's cock.

Your hand closes around the base. You place a gentle kitten lick to the tip, and Robby rewards you with the first swipe of his long shaft through your slick. The blunt head of him catches on your clit, and you shiver.

"Please," you beg.

"You shouldn't talk with your mouth full," Jack teases, tugging your hair.

You take the hint and suck him into your mouth, stuffing as much of him down your throat as you can. The sound Jack makes is a drug you'd smoke if you could. A hit of the purest pleasure. His hips rock into your mouth, spit dribbling down his shaft as you suck.

Robby's cock breaches your entrance, splitting you open, just enough. "Fuck," he groans. "So fucking good."

Then he slams his hips home, filling you completely. His blunt head meets your cervix, his balls slapping your ass as he stuffs you completely full. You cry out around Jack's cock, which only eggs him on. Robby starts to move, slowly, at first, then more desperately.

"Not gonna last, honey, squeezing me like that," Robby groans. "Fuck!"

"Gotta make her come one more time, man," Jack says, but his voice is raspier. His own release is sneaking up on him, and his thrusts are sloppier in your mouth now. "Fuck, wait."

Jack pulls you off of him. "Look at him when he's inside you, baby. Show him how much you missed him. How much we missed him, yeah?"

You nod. You give Jack one more kiss before Robby flips you over again, his mouth crashing into yours at the same moment he sheathes his cock inside you again. His thumb runs across your clit with each thrust, and the coil in your belly is building. White-hot pleasure rushes through you.

Jack's hand is on his cock, stroking slowly, his hungry expression just taking you in. "That's it, baby. Come for him. Show him how much you love him."

"Michael," you cry out.

"Love you, sweetheart," Robby gasps against your throat. "Only you. I'm yours."

Tears prick your eyes as you come undone. Robby's right behind you, slamming home one, two, three more times. Hot ropes of his seed paint your insides white. You're starry-eyed, spent. When you finally come back down, Robby's slowly easing out of you. He presses a sweet kiss to your brow. "Jack's turn."

"Jack," you cry. "I can't."

"Yes, you can," he tells you. "You can take it."

You nod. "Want you."

Robby's lips graze your shoulder as he pushes you up, into Jack's arms. His fingers still trace their way through your hair as you shift your gaze to his best friend.

Jack kisses you, drawing you up into his lap. He lifts you, his cock parting your swollen, sensitive pussy. "Just relax," Jack coos. "Let me do all the work, baby."

He lowers you onto him, and it hurts so good, the stretch, the burn. Robby's bigger and longer, but Jack is thicker, and the way you're riding him could split you open. You're shaking on top of Jack, walls fluttering around him.

"Gimme another one, baby," Jack pleads. "I know you're close. Come on." You nod, tears spilling over the apples of your cheeks. "You okay?"

You nod again, words failing you.

"Our beautiful mess," Jack muses. His cock keeps rutting into you, hitting that gummy spot that always ruins you.

You come for him again, one aching, final time. The sobs are spilling out of you now, and you feel so impossibly full, so high, so loved. Jack follows you over the edge a few thrusts later, and the mess between your legs coats his pubic bone. When he pulls out of you, you're spilling all over the sheets.

Robby disappears into the bathroom, returning with a warm washcloth. Slowly, he cleans you up, then tosses the rag at Jack with a wry grin.

As Jack cleans up, Robby dresses you again, in pajamas you thought you lost. You must have forgotten them here. The fact that he kept them makes your chest sting with fresh emotion.

When Jack's clothes are back on, he kisses the corner of your mouth, your nose. He runs his fingers across your cheek and then tucks you into his chest, bicep curled around you.

Robby's behind you, his body curved around yours like a quotation mark. He hums into your hair. "Love you, sweetheart," Robby breathes into your hair, voice thick with sleep.

"You did so well for us," Jack adds. He kisses the line between your furrowed brows. "Our girl."

"Ours," Robby says.

And you fall asleep between them, just like that. It's the perfect moment, and you're certain this is exactly where you're meant to be.

I've never written a threesome scene before or had one, so I don't know how realistic or good that was. Don't @ me okay?? Also sorry if Jack and Robby were slightly ooc. I was doing my best to imagine, LMAO.

A short, airy chuckle escaped Jack’s lips as his head dipped. He was exhausted—you could see it in the frame of his body and the way his shoulders drooped like a person who had given up on the day when you turned around. With the mug to your mouth, you blew on the steaming coffee carefully.

“Rough night?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you,” you began to breach slowly, “want to talk about it?”

Your eyes fluttered around his face for an answer before he gave it. He chewed on the inside of his lip before hovering, his right fingers twisted his ring on the left. Probably a female patient stuck on his conscious, you imagined.

Jack only ever got in a funk about patients that reminded him of himself, the men he served with, children, or women who reminded him of you.

He'd argue that the ones "like you" were the worst. For you, it all looked relatively the same.

“Robby came in early and this woman…” he trailed. A shake of his head followed the click of his teeth. “He really fucking pissed me off about her care.”

“Oh?”

“He’s been such an asshole lately.”

“I’ve heard.” Your eyebrows raised in acknowledgement. “He’s been an asshole for months, apparently.”

“Try a fucking year,” Jack scoffed. He lifted from the wall and ran his hands over his face. “He stalled too long and by the time Neuro came down, they berated me for waiting so long to page. It’s not my fucking fault. I told Robby what the course of action was and all he did was argue about it.”

The steam began to roll.

“He’s just—” Jack huffed “—is so dense sometimes it makes my blood boil.”

“Sounds like you need to go to couples therapy,” you replied lightly and his shoulders dropped further at the retort. “They must have a platonic co-worker, bestie session somewhere.”

“Funny,” he panned. “Robby needs fucking therapy. He’s gonna get me into a lawsuit that I have no reason to be apart of.”

“You’re gonna need more therapy for Robby’s lack of it.”

“And you know what?” Jack exasperated. He held up a pointer finger and wagged it around to make a point. “He’s a know-it-all too.”

“Aren’t you all?” You looked at him seriously. “Isn’t the whole point of your job to be the biggest know-it-all for your staff?”

“He’s an ass about it though. I’m not. I’m like… cool. Like a coach or something… he’s… he's just an asshole.”

“Then don’t ask for his opinion, Jack. Rely on your residents, your seniors, before falling back to him. Robby isn’t the chosen one, you know.”

“I know.”

“Then why act like it?”

Jack shook his head. “Maybe because he does. He’s a fucking… wolf in sheep’s clothing and every time it pops out, I wonder why the hell I listen to him in the first place sometimes.”

“He can be a bully,” you agreed from what you knew of Robby and what Jack debriefed to you in confidence.

He loved his friend, truly, but even friends can be a larger stressors of life. In Jack’s line of work, it was more probable than not that Robby and Jack’s friendship would ebb and flow over time. Robby was hitting a low—and everyone always suffered when the great Michael Robinavitch hit rock bottom.

“I just wish he’d just knock it off.”

“You know that it’s not that easy.”

Jack concurred. “Doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating when other people don’t accept it.”

“Why won’t he?”

“I really don’t have a clue, honey.”

Your mouth quirked a smile to one side. “Then fuck ‘em right now. As much as I care about Michael’s well being, I really don’t want to talk about him when you’re home.”

“I know you don’t.” Jack breathed in. He shook off Robby and the patients and looked at you truthfully. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you returned.

He paused, gazing at you with a refreshed appreciation. Jack’s eyes softened easily. You’d been home alone without him for an entire night and while he knew you didn’t mind his deflation of work drama, it really wasn’t what you wanted to hear this early.

Let alone when you’re in his presence again, on an off day, with a whole day to waste.

“How was your night?”

“Fine,” you gave a vague, noncommittal motion. “Didn’t do much. Watched the news, I told you I didn’t want to make dinner so I had a bowl of cereal… went to bed, but I don’t like sleeping without you.”

Neither did he. Jack hummed. He nodded in listening and his eyes trailed down your body shamelessly. The shorts you wore to sleep always bunched weird—your own reasoning—when you walked. A shape he could only identify as an upside down heart narrowed his attention to the apex of your thighs. It targeted Jack’s mind with a reminder that he was home.

There was nothing more to worry about at work.

He was at ease under a roof to share with you.

You. You. You.

And his body sure knew it.

“Is that all you did? Sleep?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. The time on the microwave read 8:36 and for anyone else, maybe it would be too early for this. But for Jack, time was an illusion of practice.

He slept for four hours a day and devoted himself to a million different tasks to escape the quiet. However, when you were home together on a Saturday, Jack couldn’t help the way his brain immediately shifted into one mode. He missed you. He missed being close to you on nights where he imagined you tossing and turning because he wasn’t around to hold you.

“Why?” You said warily. “What did you imagine me doing other than sleeping?”

Jack’s tongue wet his lips; it ran over his bottom lip before he bit down to stop himself from blurting out the first thing that came to mind. He wasn’t seeking to be so fucking dirty minded at the break of goddamn dawn, but one look at you and he was always on the brink of exploding.

He thought you were the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on. The kind where sailors of old were bewitched by sirens in the water... empires surely fought over you in another life. You looked so simple and refreshed in your pajamas and robe as you stood in front of the window that looked out into the backyard. The sun had risen, painting a swirl of Valentine’s colors in place of its generic blue.

He loved you. Immensely. And all of that love often transpired in every room of the house.

Jack’s mouth frowned in dismissal. “Nothing…” he scoffed. “Just like… did you read a book? Watch a… movie… or something? An audiobook?”

“Jack.”

“Maybe you watched a couple of episodes of—”

“I didn’t!” You were quick to defend. “I told you I’d wait for you to be off!”

He waited for seconds to pass. “So… nothing then?”

“Jack.” You set the mug down beside the sink. “Are you trying to ask me if I did something dirty?”

“Well that makes me feel and sound like I’m 10.”

“You’re kind of acting like you’re 10.”

“Rude,” he joked. “I… I guess so.” He answered your question.

“You wanna know what I do in bed without you when you’re ten minutes away and so frustrated about your job and all you can think about is fucking me?”

“Now you’re just being lewd.”

Jack stepped toward you and caged you with his hands stretched onto the counter beside you. Your hands landed on his stomach, smelling the antiseptic that always traveled home with him.

“Don’t you want to shower?” You inquired as his chin tutted out in observance of you.

“Don’t you wanna tell me what you did?”

“You have an imagination, Dr. Abbot,” you breathed. “Maybe you can use it to figure it out.”

Your hands smoothed over his sides. His breathing leveled out from his ire against Robby. Building the walls of his home around his heart, Jack hands gripped onto the counter hard. The strain of his muscles pulled on the veins of his arms that made you weak in the knees. Every bit of the man was attractive to you—everything.

“I think you were a little… cold,” he suggested. Your eyes lingered on his lips before meeting his own that seemed to pin you to the counter. “And you needed something to warm you up.”

“Oh,” you frowned, “so very cold.”

Your hands drifted higher. In a break from their internal memorization of Jack’s body, your hands traced his biceps and forearms, bumping over the shallow ridges of veins.

Jack rumbled. “Was it your hands? Or our friend in the drawer?”

Your eyes flickered back to his lips. Jack’s dick twitched in his scrub pants. Fuck. You were just perfect.

“A little bit of both, I guess.”

“You guess?” His face inched closer, noses brushing against one another. “Need a reminder?”

“Why would I?” You mumbled quietly. “You’re here now.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.”

Jack’s nose danced across your cheek and to the side of your face where he sucked in the scent of you. Your hands brushed up to his pecks and back down, threatening to go lower at the bottom of his top. His breath hit your ear and your head lulled away from him playfully.

“That’s not what I want. It’s not what I wanted, either.”

“I was thinkin’ bout you last night,” Jack rasped against your ear, “how much I wanted to be here. All the things I wanted to do you.”

“Oh yeah?” You smiled as he placed a kiss on the side of your face. It was barely a kiss, a brush of his lips, but it was there. “You gonna tell me about it or do I have to guess.”

“Well you know how I feel about these shorts, honey.”

Jack backed away from your face and looked down between your bodies. He could see your nipples peaking at the fabric and the way your legs pressed together as he gazed. He wet his lips hungrily.

“Who knew sunflowers could be so fuckin’ sexy, huh?”

You laughed. He grinned like a schoolboy at the sound.

“I might only wear them just for you,” you said with a lazy smile. “They’re like my ‘Jack Trap’ I suppose.”

“Jack Trap?”

“Mhm,” you bit down on your lower lip. “Guaranteed romance with them on.”

“Guaranteed?” He joked and pretended to pull away. You tugged him back without resistance.

“Honey,” he lamented casually. “There is no trapping me. Ever. You got me. On my knee or not. Prisoner of your heart for life—honestly.”

“A prisoner?” You gagged. “In the world’s most cozy prison then.”

“Well I’ve never been to any so I wouldn’t know.”

You pushed against his stomach and he shook his head smiling before returning to blocking you in.

“I think about you every minute of the day,” he brought back. “Even if I know you’re working or reading or just making a sandwich, I’m thinking about you.”

The sincerity in his eyes killed you. He was certain death. Your certificate would read: CAUSE OF DEATH—HUSBAND’S LOVE, and it would be correct.

“Why don’t we put all that thinking to good use now?” You proposed.

You pushed up to him and planted a quick, easy kiss to his lips.

“For all the time I missed you at work,” another kiss, “and for all the time you missed me while you were at work.”

You kissed him again, longer.

“I think you have really good ideas.”

“That’s why you married me.”

“No,” he shook his head but his lips landed on yours. “I married you because you’re my best friend. And that you put up with all of my shit and still somehow love me.”

“Eh,” you shrugged, “that too.”

Jack kissed you deeply in return.

You sunk into a warm place because of it. His mouth commanded you to fall into him every time. A routine of adoration, his tongue was fast to escalate the scene to one of cuteness to one of craving. Chasing an itch that could never be fully scratched, Jack’s mouth devoured yours.

Shallow, hushed shaky breaths filled your ears when he chose to let them go. His left hand left the counter to cup your face gently. In a stark difference from his kiss, his thumb traced over your bottom lip, then top, resting in the center where your lips parted.

You locked eyes with him. Jack’s thumb breached your lips and your warm mouth accepted it. A mixture of your combined saliva coated his thumb and as he retracted, your teeth grazed his skin. Jack used his wet thumb to coat your lips before pulling your face back to his and kissing you once more.

It was thoughtless. A mindless warping of his body into yours and no one needed to think about anything except where hands went and how lips moved. Jack pushed his body into yours to lessen any possible space. Your back dug into the counter, quick to remind you that you weren’t 25 and sex outside of soft spaces wasn’t always easy.

But it was exciting and different and new.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had sex with Jack that wasn’t in bed. As much as your imaginations sought spaces that seemed sexy or exhilarating, the reality of it was that sex was a bodily maneuver that over time, became prisoner to age. It didn’t only matter if someone’s sexual prowess was dimmed by time. Knees ached, a back’s soreness frequented, and the longevity of the act became sporadic with hormone imbalances.

Jack’s twelve hour shifts and leg also didn’t always allow for more adventurous loving. But you were both satisfied with what you could do. You didn’t need to have pornographic levels of acrobatic flexibility to enjoy having sex with each other. Simple lust and attraction did all the heavy lifting where kinesthetics just didn’t work out.

Yet he kissed you like all of it was possible every time. His mouth moved against yours with fervor. Devoted to one task only: Jack wanted you to feel him. To sense one’s intent through only a kiss seemed useless—Jack gave every ounce of himself in it. Your lips nearly puckered with a grin, hands moved to cling to his scrub top as his hand tipped your head back.

His right leg wedged itself between yours. Jack’s hand that had lodged itself stiff against the counter slid between the opening of your robe and smoothed over your back before grasping your ass so hard you moved to grind against his leg. Your lips never released his, alternating between chasing his dominance and giving into it.

Jack’s hand prompted you to move. Switching to hold onto your bare thigh and sinking his fingers into your flesh, he asked your hips to roll without words. Heat rose to your cheeks when he let out a sound of appreciation.

It was something “new” he offered during times like these.

He’d always been vocal about praising you during sex—it was a non-negotiable for you when you first met so many years ago. This wasn’t a silent game. It wasn’t an unimportant encounter that could be quietly passed over until the next. Sex was sex. It was vulnerability in a bottle and fuck, if you were gonna let him see all of you, he better show that appreciation audibly.

So, when he followed up with a quick and low: “just like that baby,” your heart picked up a few extra beats.

However, Jack had become more aware of it over the last year. When he wasn’t able to give all of himself during intimacy because of his meds, he resorted to focusing on your pleasure alone and doubled down on the vocal praise. It added onto a long list of things that made Jack irresistible for you. He moaned more, let himself feel more openly, and sometimes, he talked you through it.

He was always willing to learn.

If someone asked him what makes his marriage to you work, Jack would say it was that he never stopped learning about you. People change. All the time. And just because you think you know someone in and out, it doesn’t mean that things become stagnant.

He never stopped dating you just because he married you. Jack learned, listened, and adapted when he needed to because that’s what good people did.

So, he knew when something needed to change and he knew when something clicked.

The kitchen? It’s doing it for him. It clicked.

It’s where he hoped he’d find you when he walked through the door and it was a magnificent feeling mixed with his anger to witness.

The gentle roll of your hips against his thigh was sending shockwaves throughout his body. His hand gripped your thigh harder, the other firmly grasping the back of your head as if to tell you telepathically to keep going. You leant your body on a diagonal away from him, pushing your hips down where the seam of your shorts began to press into your clit just right.

Shit. He really did love those fucking shorts.

Jack’s lips deserted yours. He looked down between your bodies, letting your face fall forward and down too, to watch you grind down on his scrub pants like a fucking machine. All you could feel, however, was the thickness of his thigh underneath it.

He loved that it being his right leg didn’t bother you.

And he thanked fucking God that he was a stronger goddamn soldier than the thought because he wasn’t sore, shaking, or ready to collapse under the pressure.

“Oh fuck,” he said your name breathlessly. “That’s so…”

“Mhm,” you hummed with a huff. “I knew you had a thing for these fucking pajamas.”

Both his hands landed on your waist, just above your hips.

“Is it bothering you?” You asked a bit softer. Still, your breath was catching.

Jack shook his head. “Think you can get off like this?”

“You’re not gonna fuck me?” Your hips faltered.

“Oh,” Jack’s voice dragged out like a cautious warning. “I’m gonna fuck you.”

Jack moved his hands underneath your pajama shirt and to your breasts. He palmed over your nipples before kneading them in his hands.

“You’re gonna come like this first.”

“You think I can?” You knew you could.

The seam of the shorts outlined your pussy perfectly. You “forgot” underwear whenever you wore these but under the guise of “she needs to breathe.” Jack didn’t argue. He didn’t argue as Dr. Abbot and he sure as hell didn’t argue as Mr. Abbot. The friction it gave felt better after every grind made them tighter. Soon, they were barely considered shorts and you hoped that the wetness building on his pants wasn’t going to wear down the fibers of it.

But Jack didn’t give a shit.

He’d buy a thousand pairs of pants if it meant you orgasmed on them.

“Yeah,” he murmured and your breath hitched. “You can, baby. I know you fucking can. You feel this?”

Jack left one of your breasts to guide your hand over his cock. He was hard, fully, without any assistance from the little blue pill.

“If you can do this to me?” He placed your hand along his covered shaft and your hand molded quickly. “Then yeah, you can fucking come on my thigh.”

You rubbed his length slower than you humped him. Nevertheless, you encouraged your bones to keep going. Jack watched your chest rise and fall more rapidly every minute that passed. It used to take no time for him to get you to the finish line but with time, that changed.

Your needs changed. He’d been rough, gentle, and everything in between but it varied from day to day what was needed.

This… this was working wonders.

“You feel so good,” you whined. “F-fuck me.”

“I will, be patient.” Jack’s head dipped to your neck where he nipped at your skin. He pressed kisses into the column of your neck and moved his hands back to the counter for support.

“Tell me if it’s too much Jack,” you said shakily. “I’m not going to leave you hurting.”

“You could take my other leg and it would hurt less than you stopping.”

“Jack,” you said seriously and hesitated moving again.

“Did I say you could stop?”

Jack lifted his head to look you in the eyes. You were taken aback by the boldness—you aren’t sure he’s ever said that before. Your mouth, against your heaving breaths, fell open into a small O.

“Did I,” he repeated, “tell you that you could stop?”

“N-no,” you sputtered.

“I know you’re close.”

“So? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not,” he assured. “But if you don’t get moving, my fucking erection is gonna hurt from not blowing my load into you.”

“Romantic,” you muttered dryly. “You’re not gonna fuck me if I stop? What happened to thinking about me all day?”

Jack moved his thigh instead and your chest stuttered.

“I told you that you need to finish first,” he nearly demanded. He said your name resolutely. “You gotta move, baby. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen if you’re not moving.”

You tested the waters and realized that it only jolted you back into place.

“You’re kind of mean, do you know that?”

“Something new.” He kissed your cheek. “Does it work?”

“A little.”

“Good.” He helped you pick the pace back up.

Not thirty seconds later, his hands left yours and pinched the back of his scrub top. He lifted it up and over his head before taking his tee off too.

“Does seeing these help?” He asked honestly about his pecks and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” Jack’s eyes matched the furrow in his brow. “I’m serious.”

“I know,” you chuckled. He was so sweet.

You placed a hand on his cheek and rubbed your thumb over his skin softly. “You’re just so damn charming.”

“And you’re everything,” he replied.

“Yeah?”

He nodded and brought your hand from his face to the dip where his abs started.

“What’s everything?” You asked.

He didn’t even have to think. “You’re beautiful,” he started, “and kind. You’re always the most pleasant person in the room even when you’re a little bit bitchy. You take care of me when I need it the most and even when I don’t, you’re always there.”

Your head shook in agreement but Jack knew that’s not what it was. You were close. Hearing what he loved about you was sending your body into overdrive and the hand that was still on his cock loosened from distraction.

“You’re so good at your job and everyone loves you. But I love you the most, I think. Pretty sure on that one. And you’re so sexy. So, so, so fucking sexy that I can barely keep my hands to myself every time we’re in the same room. Your body is magnificent. Just a fucking smoke show of a wife.”

Your lips fought a smile.

“And I think you really want to come on me. I can see it, baby. I know you want to. You can do it. I’ve got you.”

“Yeah?” It sounded near pathetic coming out of your mouth.

“Yeah,” he affirmed. “Don’t stop, baby. Don’t fucking stop. I wanna watch you.”

Jack’s hand grasped your chin tightly. He locked eyes with you, never letting you out of his sight. His head nodded up and down as you whined and then shook once, twice, and wrapped your hands onto his arm as tight as a vice.

The lights seemed to flash brightly inside of you and your hips jolted against him.

“There you go,” Jack tutted. “There you go. Good fucking girl.”

“Oh what the fuck, Jack.” You stated. Your head dipped into his chest. “Good girl? Shit.”

“You like that one?” You could hear the smile in his tone.

“You know I fucking do.”

“Do you know what I like?” Jack asked you and helped lift your head. “Hm?”

“The idea that you’re gonna fuck me into the counter now?”

“No,” he shook his head. “You.”

“You’re so cheesy. You’re the cheesiest person I think I know.”

Jack scrunched his nose and ran his hands up your sides as your leg fell to the floor and you slumped against the counter.

“It’s a cute cheesy, right?”

“A hot cheesy. Like a Philly Cheesesteak kind of hot.”

“Disrespectful to Pittsburgh, but okay.”

Jack guided you to turn around. He helped slip off your robe before discarding it onto the counter so it didn’t get dirty on the floor. His hands went to the waist band of your shorts before sliding them down and palming your ass for the sake of it.

“Are you ready to go?” He asked softly. He guided his body to slot against yours.

He was as hard as rock from just watching you dry hump his goddamn thigh.

“Yeah,” you sighed in. “I’m ready.”

“Good.” Jack’s hand lightly slapped one cheek.

You backed up, leant forward onto the counter and having spread your legs enough to where he whistled at the view.

“Honey,” he swooned. “Why haven’t we done this sooner?”

“We usually don’t have sex when you walk through the door.”

“We might have to from now on.”

Jack lowered his scrub pants and pumped himself from balls to head as he zoned in on your glistening pussy from behind. One hand glided to your hips to position you right, his good foot nudging you closed just enough.

“I don’t know if I’m gonna be nice, baby.” Jack huffed low. “I’m still pretty fuckin’ pissed inside.”

You pushed closer to him. “And I’ll tell you if I don’t like it.”

“Such a good girl,” he praised. His cock lined up nicely. Jack guided his tip along your folds and closed his eyes at the sensation of it mixing with you. “I think I told you that? Right?” He suddenly couldn’t remember.

“Drunk on it already?” Jack’s hand ran up your back as he began to sink in.

Both of you lost words at the feeling. It was always like this—and you’re relieved that never changed. Jack fit inside of you like a hand in a glove. He was made for you, if that was a possible thing to manifest. Enveloped in your warmth, Jack let out a loud reset sigh with a satisfactory moan.

“Fuck. You feel so good.”

“Give me a minute,” you told him as your forehead fell against your arms on the counter.

Even if Jack fit you well, he was still big. You didn’t engage in this position much. It wasn’t practical 90% of the time with how much you’re both on your feet, plus it wasn’t the most comfortable setting. No one wants marble countertops digging into their stomach and arms. No one wants to be standing for however long it takes to come.

But when lust overtakes the both of you, it’s impossible to think of the consequences down the line.

“You’re good, baby,” he encouraged. Jack’s palms cupped your hips and sides.

“Okay,” you were ready. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah?” Jack tested it by pulling out a fraction and slowly going back in. “Sure?”

“Positive.”

Jack thrusted in and out carefully the first few times before gradually snapping his hips harder. The grasp on your waist tightened, fingers telling you that his upset hadn’t disappeared completely and it was rapidly creating a mask of attention diverting from you.

You felt his cock deeper every time. He was hitting you in the spot that made you see stars; head lulling back to your arms and up to the window, the early morning blues and greens meaning nothing when all you could focus on was Jack’s thrusts impairing your senses.

“Baby,” he said out of breath. “Give me your hand.”

You wordlessly obeyed and slid one of your hands back where he grabbed it fast. His hand entwined with yours and now pulling your shoulder back too, he picked up his pace further. Harder, all consuming where the thoughts were truly lost. Jack’s hips slammed into your ass and the sound of his cock pushing into your ecstasy made your eyes roll. His growls came at a close second.

“Shit.”

The words came spewing out of Jack’s mouth the closer he became.

“Fuck.”

“You feel so fucking good, baby,” he gasped when your walls squeezed uncontrollably. “Oh, just like that. Yeah… you’re taking me so well. Your pussy feels so fucking good.”

You let out a meek sound of disbelief.

“Oh my God, Jack.”

“I know,” he hissed. He repeated your name like a prayer.

His cock was immensely hard and he pounded into you just as much. You’d surely have a bruise or two on your arms, but it wasn’t something you were peeved about. Jack wasn’t hurting you. He would never hurt you.

“Fuck,” he gritted through his teeth. “I’m not gonna last long baby.”

“Neither am I,” you replied just as lost.

A follow up orgasm was on your horizon. Jack’s cock clipped your clit, sliding out of you for a moment of reprieve before he recorrected and pushed on. He never let go of your hand.

“I love you so much.”

You bit your cheek. “I love you, Jack.”

“I don’t think you know how much I love you,” he grunted. His hips shuddered. “I love you so goddamn much. You’re just fuckin’ perfect. My perfect fucking wife—that’s right, my fucking wife.”

The hand he held onto was your left. He would never get over the feeling of your ring on his skin.

“Oh you have no idea.” He sighed loudly.

“Come with me, Jack,” you begged him.

You were so close again. You squeezed your muscles around him, relishing the way it made his effort slow just enough for a moan to escape his lips.

“I’m right there.” Jack was starting to lose the rhythm.

“Oh fuck,” you groaned, feeling the precipice hit you again and making your legs quake in the process. You were suddenly overstimulated by the feeling and whined loudly as he chased his high.

“I’m there,” Jack repeated like a mantra. “I’m there, I’m there, baby—shit. F-fuck baby—”

Jack’s hand slipped from your grip and his hands planted themselves on your back as he rutted to stillness. His finish pushed into you with every thrust after it was over and he began to calm down his racing heart. The rush of his hands on your back soothed the overstimulation that continued to shake your legs.

Jack shushed you sweetly as he stayed buried inside.

“What the hell, Jack,” you mumbled almost incoherently into your arms.

He laughed but continued to rub your back. Around where his cock was softening, he felt a slow release of his ejaculation coming back and drip onto the floor between your feet.

He’d clean it up later.

“You okay?” He asked quietly.

“Yeah,” you were still catching your breath. “I just don’t think I need my coffee anymore.”

“No?” Jack asked amused.

“Wake me up fully like this everyday and maybe I won’t ever need it again.”

His hands gave one more appreciative swipe at your body before he gently removed himself for you and you could stand up straight again. Jack tucked himself back into his scrubs and then helped you back into your shorts and robe.

Your dazed eyes met his.

Christ. You simply loved him… maybe a little too much.

A/N: shawn doing a quinn app story maybe MAYBE inspired the fact this takes place in the kitchen. MAYBE. like probably greater than 99%.

“They’re here.” Your coworker Stacy bumps your shoulders, her eyes wide and fixed across the room. “Holy shit, they’re actually here-“

“It’s their fundraiser.” You mutter, keeping your attention on a senator bumbling about near the drinks. “It would be crazy if they weren’t here.”

“Yeah, but- It’s all of them. I’ve never seen all of them-“

“Yes, you have.”

Stacy glares at you. “Well, not so close.”

You glance over, pointedly only looking at their feet. “They’re not that close.”

“I could touch one.” Stacy breathes, and you snort.

“You should go try that.”

That earns you another glare, and a smack on the arm. And you deserve it, but you just laugh and look back to your target. The tipsy, red-eyed senator who’s going to have a few more drinks, and tells you all about that bill congress is trying to pass about the Enhanced. You’ve read it three times, and it’s a disgusting invasion of privacy, but those documents were off the record. If you can get a Senator, talking about how he wants to force all superheroes to either be sterilized or record their sex lives-

Stacy pinches your arm, and you squeak so loudly it echoes off the domed, ballroom ceiling. Some attention darts in your direction, but everyone quickly loses interest when they realize it’s nothing all that interesting. Your face is burning as you smooth your dress, and it doesn’t stop burning. It feels like someone is tending to the hot embarrassment, fluttering in your tummy and restless in your fingers. Like someone is looking right through you, monitoring you, watching you-

“He’s looking at you.” Stacy hisses in your ear, buzzing with so much excitement you’re sure she’s about to turn into glitter and explode like fireworks, and you’re going to throttle her.

“He is now, because you,” you shove her shoulder. It doesn’t do anything to stamp out her thrill at your worst nightmare. “Fucking made him notice-“

“No, he was looking before-“

“No, he wasn’t-“

“Yes, he was-“

“No, he wasn’t-“

“Who wasn’t what.”

You freeze, and Stacy looks over your head with a fawning, dazed expression. You’re going to kill her. You’re going to cut her up into tiny pieces and burn them all in separate furnaces, and then you’re going to steal her dog and make it forget all about her, and marry her husband and make her cute little kid your Cinderella as bloodline punishment-

“Hi, Mr. Captain Sir.” She giggles, looking back down to you with a wide-eyed it’s him expression.

I’m going to kill you. You mouth. She doesn’t seem all that bothered by the threat.

“Uh- Hi. You don’t have to-“ You hear him shift on his feet behind you. “Steve is alright.”

You can picture him rubbing the back of his neck, trying to look smaller. More humble and approachable, when he’s a modern walking Hercules. A better version, who doesn’t kill his wife and kids. Who gets you drinks and tries to be your friend and is so stupidly polite and kind and you hate him, you hate him so much-

He says your name. You plaster on the widest, most plastic and sickly sweet smile you can manage. You want him to feel like you’re a bit of plastic that’s stuck between his teeth. To give up talking to you, because it’s not fair.

Steve’s just as handsome as the last time you saw him. And the time before that. And the time before that. If anything, he’s more handsome. You don’t know how he does it, changing absolutely nothing about his appearance and looking hotter every time you get eyes on him. His hair is styled the same as always, but it looks so soft. You could run your fingers through it and it would probably feel like a cloud. His stupid, sharp jawline is slack as you glare up at him, and he’s so tall it makes you dizzy, and he’s fixing you with that puppy look that makes you feel like you’re important to him.

And you’re not. You know you’re not.

You went down that road once. You tried to be important to him, and he said no. And he’s Steve, so he was sweet and perfectly kind about it, and still wanted to be your friend, and you’d thought you were already over it so you’d said yes.

You thought you could just be his friend. He hadn’t made anything weird. Neither of you had ever even brought up your failed attempt to ask him out again. And at the time, you’d thought you were over it.

But Steve is Steve. And he’s got some titanic hold over your heart that’s left finger marks dug in through the landscape. There’s a depression over the cavity of your chest, and your ribs have molded to fit it, and now it’s far too late to go back. You only know how to have feelings for him. You’ve tried to get over it. To ignore it. To forcibly re-mold your love into something platonic, or clawed your way through some relationships in the hope they’d help you move on.

They don’t. They won’t. Nothing can.

The big stupid boy-scout standing over you owns you completely, and you can’t even tell him without making it a problem.

Your new strategy had been to ignore him. Stacy ruined that.

She thinks he secretly has feelings for you. You tune her out every time she starts to crow and preach about it, because you know your heart is going to take it as gospel and not parody, and you can’t afford false faith. All you have is what’s grounded between your fingers.

Steve’s right here. He’s smiling at you, all pretty and nice, and you have to smile back or else it will make him feel bad. He’s got a drink in his massive hand for you. You’ve had a million wet dreams about that hand around your throat or cupping your pussy.

You’re aching thinking about it. In an ideal world, this would be the part where you ran without looking back.

In an ideal world, you’d be standing on his arm right now, instead of all stiff and weird in front of him.

You need to get a fucking grip.

“Hi.” You say, and it’s sounds lame and idiotic and pathetic-

Steve’s face splits into a big, happy smile. “Hi. How’s the night going for you, do you have your victim picked out?”

You scowl. “It’s not- They’re not victims-“

“You treat them like they’re victims.” His grin widens. “Sometimes I feel like I should be saving them.”

“They’re all fine. It’s not like I’m drugging them or something.”

Steve’s brows raise. “That makes me think you are drugging them.”

“Nuh uh.” You stick out your tongue, and he laughs under his breath.

“One day you’re gonna say something that actually gets you in trouble, you know.” He holds out the drink he brought you.

It’s your favorite. It’s always your favorite.

You told him what your favorite drink was, the very first time you attended one of these parties. He’s never forgotten since, and it makes you love and hate him all the more.

“I don’t think I will.” You mumble, both trying and desperately failing not to brush his fingers. His skin is warm. He’s warm. He’s like a walking furnace, and you’d like to just bury your face in his pecs and breathe him in and-

“Kid, you already have.”

Steve looks at you like you’re the only thing in the room. His eyes are sparkling, and in the background you think Natasha Romanoff is circling like a shark, trying to get his attention, but if he notices he pretends he doesn’t. He just looks at you and calls you kid, and the word plummets like a cold stone into your gut.

Kid. That’s all you are to him. Kid.

“But if I got in trouble, you’d save me.” You take a long sip of your drink, and you like to torture yourself.

With his presence. His closeness.

How fast he nods. How certainly he answers.

“’Course I would. Already saving you by pretending I don’t see you getting all those Senators drunk.”

You laugh softly, but the sound hurts. When you look over your shoulder, Stacy’s abandoned you for the food table. You catch her eye, and she shoots you an excited thumbs up. She probably thinks this is going great.

“Are you feeling alright?” Steve says suddenly, and he sounds like he really, really cares. “You been looking kind of sick- Not that you look bad- You look good, uh- Really good, but-“

“I’m fine.” You turn back to Steve, and you wonder if he can see it.

The pain, leaking down like a toxin from your eyes. Everything kind of blurry. You’d throw up, if you didn’t think he’d take care of you after.

“Everything’s fine.”

Steve’s lips twitch. You’re not sure he believes you.

But it doesn’t really matter anyway. You’re not his to get an answer out of. He decided that.

And you’re just doing exactly what Steve wants, all the time.

“You do look nice.” He mumbles, taking a sip of his own drink, as if it could even do anything to him.

You smile, and there it is again. The shameful, unrelenting heat in your stomach. “Thanks.”

I dressed up for you.

“I think he’s in looove with you.” Stacy says, spinning around in her chair. You flip her off, not looking up from your computer.

“Is the printer out of paper still?”

“I don’t know, you print everything for me.” She pokes your chair with her foot. “Pay attention to me, I said Steve’s in love with you-“

“No, he’s not.”

“Yes, he is.”

“No, he’s not-“

“Yes, he is-“

“Is this the same thing you were fighting about last time?” Steve’s voice comes from over your shoulder, and you freeze. “Or is that just… How you two talk.”

Stacy looks awfully fucking pleased with herself for a dead woman. “It’s the same fight as last time.”

“Oh.” He pauses. You can hear his concern, and it makes you want to vomit. “Is everything okay?”

“Mhm.” Stacy beams. “Hi, Steve.”

You glance up, and Steve looks properly bemused and adorable about her whole demeanor. It makes you want to hold his face and kiss the tiny, pouting frown off his lips. You smack yourself internally. Get it together.

“Hi, Stacy.”

She almost glows. “You remember my name?”

“Yeah.” He glances down at you. “I try to remember most people’s names.”

Stacy swoons. “Of course you do.”

Steve blinks, and you clear your throat.

“What are you doing here?”

“Uh-“ He rubs the back of his neck, giving you a small smile. “Lunch, remember? We planned it last week.”

Oh. You did do that. “I told you to wait outside, my boss is going to try to interview you-“

“Oh, she already did.” He laughs. “But I’m here for you, not a front page.”

You flush, and Stacy giggles like she’s watching TV.

“So…” Steve shrugs. “Lunch?”

Right. Lunch.

“How’d you even get in the building.” You grumble, grabbing your jacket as you stand. He shrugs sheepishly.

“I took a photo with the guards.”

“Steve, I told you to stop doing that-“

“It made them really happy, okay? And I went through all the metal detectors, same as everyone else-“

“I know, but you hate taking the photos, you can tell them no.”

Steve frowns. “It’s not that big an inconvenience for me-“

“But you hate it.”

“I don’t hate it-“

“Steven Rogers.”

You glare at him, arms crossed over your chest. Steve sighs, slumping like a scolded child.

“I don’t love them.” He mumbles, and you nod.

“Next time, tell them no.”

“But then I can’t come upstairs.”

You shrug, starting at the door, your shoulder bumping against his. “You can text me. Like you’re supposed to-“

“Or I can just do the photos-“

“No-“

“Bye, guys.” Stacy calls from behind you, and you look her with wide eyes. You’d forgotten she was there.

“Um… Bye.” You wave awkwardly, and she grins.

He’s here for you. She mouths, and you roll your eyes.

No hope. It just makes everything else harder.

If Steve wanted you, he’d say something. And you’re a big girl. You can handle just being his friend, because he won’t leave you alone long enough for you to properly avoid him. You can handle it.

His hand finds your lower back, when he opens the door for you. You almost trip over your feet from the dizzying touch.

You can’t handle this at all.

The most annoying part about having undying feelings for Steve Rogers is that it’s Steve Rogers. Captain America. Golden Boy Number One. Mr. Perfect Specimen.

You’re in love with the little blond boy with abs and a dopey smile and sweet blue eyes. You’re obsessed with Mr. Muscles. You lose sleep over the guy who looks like he could crush you in a headlock then kiss you to sleep after.

Incredibly original. Groundbreaking, even. The love of your life is the masculine celebrity who’s respectful and kind. Never before heard of stuff. You’re really shattering glass ceilings with that one.

You want to shoot yourself in the face.

It’s impossible to avoid even thinking about him, when he’s everywhere. You go out to the corner store, and he’s on the little TV mounted in the corner. Avengers brand yogurts line the grocery store, and you glare at Strawberries and Cream and Justice until your head hurts. He told you about that. He was pretty proud of how all the proceeds were going to charities.

“It’s a stupid name, though.” You’d said, and he’d shrugged.

“Tony says the name doesn’t matter, as long as it’s got our faces on it. Apparently that’s what people are buying for.”

He’d frowned at that, and you’d given him an affectionate smile. He hates the glory of all of this. You know he does, and you’d told him gently you’re sure people will also buy for charity.

You’d been lying through your teeth, though. When you grab the yogurt and shamefully shove it into your basket, it’s not for cancer research or orphans or to save the bees. It’s because Steve’s face is smiling at you from the plastic, and you’re no better than the fangirls who get all doe-eyed over his every breath.

Not that you’re much better about that, either.

“I could give you an interview.” Steve offers on day, when you’d been complaining to him about slow news. “It can be about whatever you want-“

“I don’t want your pity journalism, Steven.”

He frowns. “It’s not pity. I’m trying to help you.”

You shrug, wrapping your arms around your stomach. “Well, I can’t accept your help.”

“Why not-“

“It’s unethical.”

“I… don’t think that’s true-“

“Well, I didn’t earn it.”

“You don’t have to earn it.” He says, all earnest and sweet and kind, and you want to die. “You work hard, I know you work hard, and if this can help you- Here, we can do it right now-“

“I don’t have questions ready.” You cut in quickly. Flatly.

Steve just shrugs. “Make some up. I know you can.”

You wish he’d stop believing in you. It makes your heart flutter.

“I have nothing I want to ask you.” You mumble hopelessly, and he frowns.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you always have something to ask me. To ask anyone.”

You flush, turning to the side to avoid his gaze. “Maybe I just know everything about you,” you mutter, and he snorts.

“No. You don’t.”

That gets your attention. You snap your head in his direction, and he smiles at you. Like he already knows he won.

“There she is-“

“Shut up.” You lean across the table, and his smile widens. “What don’t I know about you.”

“A lot.”

“Like what-“

“You have to ask me to find out.”

You narrow your eyes. He keeps fucking smiling.

“You suck.” You grumble.

He shrugs. “I know you think that.”

You’re both leaning across the table. If you reached up, just an inch, you’d be able to trace the line of his nose. He’s so handsome. It’s unfair, and you can feel a smile tugging at your lips in response to his.

“I’m going to punch you in the face-“

“I’d like to see you try, kid.”

Kid.

You lean back, ice water feeling like it was poured through your veins. Steve notices the shift. He frowns, but you don’t give him the chance to question it. You just push on.

“I need a napkin.” You mutter., leaning back into your seat. “To write questions.”

“Yeah. Right.” He rubs the back of his neck. Opens his mouth, then closes it again, shaking his head slightly. “I’ll go get that for you.”

Of course he will.

And when he’s talking to the waitress—paper and a pen in his hand—she twirls her hair and giggles. Same as you would, if you got to know him where he didn’t know you. Where he might just find you pretty, and give you a chance, because you were friends first and you think that’s where you all went wrong.

This all might’ve been easier, if he really was just a celebrity crush. If you loved him because he was Captain America and not Steve. Your Steve. Who brings you back two pens in case you don’t like the first, and shares his food with you while you gloss through the interview—feeling little detached from your own body, like he’s a million miles away—and touches your lower back again when you finally leave lunch.

You might’ve gotten to touch him more, if he didn’t mean something to you.

But you wouldn’t trade knowing him for the world.

And that just makes it all hurt even more.

Steve’s been trying to get you out with his team for years. You’ve said no, over and over and over. You don’t need to feel even more mortal than you already are. Don’t need the reminder that he probably rejected you because you’re not even a quarter of what he and his friends are.

Not that you think Steve would think you’re any less because you’re not enhanced. You know he wouldn’t.

Consciously. 

But that doesn’t change the reality of it. He wouldn’t want you, when he’s surrounded by other Gods, like he himself, far more worthy of his attention. You can be mean and sharp, but you don’t have the cool, collected, deadly beauty of Black Window. And you’ve heard the rumors about them.

You’ve heard all the rumors. About Steve with everyone, because people like to talk. There isn’t a pair of people on the Avengers that the public hasn’t theorized about secretly dating.

And you know none of it’s true. Steve’s told you himself.

But that doesn’t make it hurt any less, when you think about him with someone else more worthy. Someone he wants.

Which is why you didn’t want to do this. And Steve had always respected that—because he’s perfect, and he respects everything—so you’d thought you’d never have to. He asks. You say no. He doesn’t push it, or demand to know why. He waits months before asking again, and you know he only does that because he thinks you’re just too busy to go out the other times. That you’re saying no because you simply don’t have the energy, and not because the idea makes you feel itchy. And you don’t want to tell him. You like that he asks you. It makes you feel important.

But you still kept saying no.

Until Stacy overheard him ask you, and said yes for you. And Steve beamed, and you couldn’t stand to burst the delicate little bubble of his joy, and now you’re here.

Huddled in the corner of a bar with the fucking Avengers all around you. Hawkeye and Thor are throwing darts in the corner. Hulk, Black Widow, and Falcon are playing pool. The Vision is eating onion rings, and everything feels like a very, very bizarre dream.

Steve hasn’t left your side since you got here. It’s been the only anchor you have. You’d been able to hide in his shadow and duck under his arm, avoiding pressing questions and conversations you don’t really want to have. It’s not too weird for him to bring a civilian friend, at least. None of them have commented on it, besides throwing you passing looks. Steve mentioned that they all do it, from time to time.

But you’re the only one here right now. And if you could, you’d sew your hand into Steve’s so he couldn’t leave you alone.

And that’s always a little true. You want that all the time.

More than usual right now. But all the time.

“I’m going to get drinks.” He mutters, and you grab his bicep like a scared child.

“Wait- I’ll come with you-“

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” He grins down at you, patting your head like you’re a dog or something. “You don’t have to stand up.”

You want to shout at him that this isn’t about him being a gentleman, it’s about him not leaving your sight. But you’re weak. And pathetic. So you just nod, and Steve smiles at you before walking away.

You try to hide in the shadows, avoiding any attention. It doesn’t work.

“You’re the journalist.” A cool, lazy voice cuts through the air, and you look up to find Tony Stark standing over your table.

“I’m a journalist-“

“No. You’re Roger’s journalist.” Stark drawls, sliding into the booth. You stiffen, but don’t dare to move away.

That’ll make it seem even more obvious, when Steve comes back and you don’t inch away from him.

“I understand what he’s been going on about.” Stark continues, looking you up and down slowly. “Didn’t know they made them like you anymore.”

Your eyes narrow. “Like me?”

“Mhm.” Stark smirks, and you raise your chin.

“What am I like, Mr. Stark?”

He chuckles, leaning back. “Little spitfire, aren’t you-“

“Only to people who deserve it.”

That makes him laugh louder. Everything feels more and more like a fever dream by the second.

You look out to the bar, trying to find Steve. Internally begging him to come back. He’s by the bar, your drink already in his hand. It’s the same one you always get. He’s holding it close to his chest, like it’s something priceless.

There’s a woman standing next to him. Just another random girl, in a tiny dress with some pretty good makeup, giggling and batting her lashes at him.

And Steve’s entertaining her. smiling at her.

The same way he smiles at you.

You don’t want to be here. You didn’t want to be here. You don’t want to see how it’s not even the Avengers that he’d want more than you, it’s everyone else. She’s getting the same attention you try to drown yourself in, but you’re not the one who might go home with him. His grin is a little tighter with her, because he’s probably restrained and trying to play his cards right. She looks like she’s talking sweet, and he’d probably want that more than you, poking and mocking him all the time. He’s a God. He’ll say he’s not but he is, and what kind of god would want to be worshipped by someone who shows love with insults and eye rolls.

There’s a tight feeling, around your throat like rope. Your eyes are burning, and the world is blurring, and you don’t want to see this. You can’t see this.

You tried to be his friend. You really tried.

But you can’t.

“What’s wrong with you?” Stark asks, and you look over to find him watching with a strange expression.

“Nothing.” You clear your throat, fumbling for your bag. “I just- Remembered something. That I have to go do.”

You glance over to Steve again. He’s laughing at something she’s saying without shaking his head and tipping his head back, without looking away from her. Like he does with you.

“Right now.” You mumble. “I have to go do it right now.”

Stark hums, tapping his fingers on the table. “Right now, huh.”

“Yep.” You stand up, and he gives you an almost amused look.

“What is it? If it’s so urgent.”

“Stuff.” You snip.

Stark chuckles, shaking his head. “Jesus, he’s batting in a whole other sport with you.”

“What the fuck does that mean-“

“Nothing.” Stark smirks again. Like he knows something. “Go on. I’ll tell Cap you had stuff.”

You scan over his relaxed features, and he just keeps grinning, lazy and unworried. You could get an answer out of him, if you tried.

But you look up, back to Steve. And he’s grabbing his own drink from the bar. Still chatting with the girl. If he brings her back to the table, you’re going to vomit.

You have to go now.

“Thanks.” You mutter, giving Stark a tight grin. “Have a good night.”

And Stark laughs, as you turn away.

“Oh. I’m sure I will.”

You avoid Steve for a week.

Properly avoid him.

He calls ten times, just the night you leave the bar. He texts almost every hour for the days after that, and you mute him. If you look at the messages, you’re going to respond to them. If you respond to them, he’ll convincing you to talk to him. If you talk to him, or see him, or even stand near him, you’re never going to get over him.

You’re going cold turkey on him, like he’s a drug.

To you, he is. And you need to get clean. You need to move on.

Steve doesn’t come into the building to steal you for lunch, but he calls you every day. Your fingers fidget, still trying to pick up the phone.

You don’t know how you manage not to, but you do. When you ask the guards downstairs, they say he’s walked through the door and walked back out five times. You force yourself not to think about it, and somehow manage to do that too. And you’re going to be able to do this. You’re finally going to move on.

Moving on means moving. Not staying in the same little pit, waiting for his sun to change its path and shine on you. You have to climb out, and find a new place to be. Someone new to want.

You’ve done this part before. The whole dance of downloading the apps and going on the dates and telling yourself you want them, even though they aren’t Steve. But this time is going to be different. If you tell yourself that enough, it will feel more and more true.

There’s a guy you’ve been chatting with all week, and he seems sweet. He compliments you, and he was polite when you met for coffee, and he’s far from bad to look at. And it’s not like you’re going to marry him. You just need someone to be close to you that isn’t Steve.

And maybe this guy—you can’t really remember his name, but you’ll learn it—is blond haired and blue eyes and broadly built. Maybe you swiped through photo after photo, looking for a phantom of him, but that’s nobody business expect yours, and your pillow’s. It knows better than anyone that there’s only one way you can fake it.

Which is exactly what this game is. Faking it until you make it. Until you’re over Steve, and there’s never any temptation to look back.

You dress up, telling your brain you’re going on a date with Steve himself so you put in all the effort. Another thing that’s nobody’s business. You’re doing what you need to, and it’s going to get you over him. You’ve got lashes and glossy lips and heels that are going to hurt in the morning, and this guy doesn’t seem strong enough to carry you like Steve would, but that’s where you need to shut your brain up. There’s not going to be anyone who’s like Steve. This guy looks like him enough to get you out the door, but it’s not him, and that’s okay. That’s good. It’s going to help you move on. You’ve got your jacket, and your purse, and you’re going to do this and move on-

You yank the door open, and freeze.

Steve stares at you, hands his pockets, mouth hanging open.

This is usually the part where one of you says hi, but you can’t remember how to speak. He’s here. Why is he here. He’s been giving you space, because he’s amazing and polite, and it had been so much easier to pretend it was just because he didn’t care when he wasn’t right in front of you. Looking like you’d just punched him in the face, all pale with sagging shoulders and sad, dull eyes. As if he’s lost sleep.

He scans over you. Over your revealing outfit and makeover. His throat bobs, and you could swear he slouches further. When he meets your gaze, he doesn’t smile. It makes you want to cry.

“Steve-“

“You’ve been avoiding me.” He mutters, the words thick and low. “And- I’m not here to fight about it. I didn’t think you were going to open the door, I didn’t- I wasn’t going to bother you. Just- Never mind.”

 You blink. “I- What are you-“

“You got a date?” He nods to your outfit, and something in his pockets shift. He’s fisting his hands.

“Um-“ You glance to his pockets again, then back to his weighted gaze. “Yeah. I do.”

“With whom.”

Shit. You still can’t remember. “Someone I met on an app. Steve, what are you-“

“On an app.” He echoes, the words sounding hollow. He chuckles under his breath. “You know, Stark made me try those once.”

You swallow. You don’t want to hear about his dating life. “How did that go.”

“Bad. And I tried, I just…” He trails off, shaking his head, and you think you can feel his stare burrowing into your heart, shaping it even further in his name. 

This is exactly what you were trying to avoid. Seeing him makes you love him more, think about him more, need him more. He’s got a gravity over you, and he doesn’t know it, and why is he here.

“Is he nice.”

Steve’s voice is low. Pained. You don’t understand the question.

“Who?”

“Your date.” He grunts. “Is he nice to you.”

“Oh.” You forgot about that part. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Neither of you speak for a second. Steve stares at you so hard our head spins, and you can’t look him in the eyes.

“What did I do?”

His voice breaks suddenly, and you feel the crack in your ribs. It yanks your gaze up, and you’ve never seen him so sad. Frustrated and annoyed, sure. Tense, all the time. But never just… Sad. Defeated. Like even he isn’t sure what to do. It feels wrong. Like the world is bleeding together and caving over itself.

“You didn’t do anything-“

“I must have.” He scans over your features, his own so openly aching. “You’ve never been mad at me before, and- Now you’re-“

He waves to your outfit, and you frown.

“It’s just a date-“

“Just a date.” He mutters under his breath, and your mouth falls open.

“I’m allowed to date, Steven-“

“I know you are!” His voice raises for a second, but he quickly pushes it back down. “I- I know, but that’s not- Why are you avoiding me?”

He’s pleading. It’s almost bleeding out of his voice, staining all over you, and you wrap an arm around your stomach like you can stop yourself from bleeding back. This isn’t fair. Steve’s not stupid. He can’t have just forgotten your mistake of expressing your feelings, he’s not nearly oblivious to be unable to put two and two together, and he certainly can’t be dense enough to not tie together that you’re avoiding him, and going on a date. You don’t go on dates. You’re usually too busy trying to steal some love from his shadow.

Yet here he is. Looking at you like he really doesn’t understand. Being so nice about it, when it’s clearly been bothering him. No demanding to understand. No shouting about how hurt he was. Just pleading.

Because he’s golden and perfect. All respectful, like you’re just another lady to him.

Like you’re not worth enough for him to fight a little dirtier for.

A lump is pressing up your throat. It’s a battle to hold his gaze.

“Why do you think I’ve been avoiding you.” You mutter, and he shakes his head.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.” Steve rubs his face, working his jaw. “I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what I did-“

“Steve-“

“And I’ll fix it, whatever I did, I’ll fix it-“

“You can’t fix it!” You shout.

He stumbles back like you slapped him, and tears burn at your eyes.

“You- You can’t fix it, Steve.” You whisper, staring down at his shoes. “Just- Stop.”

“Stop what?” He rasps. “I- I know I messed something up, but-“

“Stop being so nice to me.”

He’s silent for a moment. You don’t even know how to justify that one. It sounds pathetic to your ears.

“I... I’d rather not.” He mutters, and you sigh.

“Then please leave me alone.” The words hurt, but you push them out like an apple lodged in your throat. “I- I tried, okay? I really tried, but I can’t.”

“Can’t-“

“Can’t be your friend.” You whisper. The tears burn on your cheeks. “I can’t be your friend, Steve, it’s too hard. I- I-“

You sniff, and Steve rasps your name. You have to shake your head. He can’t talk right now. It’s already too hard.

“I love you.” You say, barely a breath. It doesn’t matter. He’ll hear anyway. “I love you too much, and- It’s not your fault that you don’t- That it’s not the same. But please.” You shift on your feet, hugging yourself tight. “I- I need space.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. There isn’t anything he could say to make it better, not anymore. But something in you still fractures, when he just steps to the side. Giving you a path out.

Letting you go.

You think it’s hope. The hope that one day he might feel the same, the dream that you’d tried so hard not to feed, but tended to bloom on its own. That one day he’d look at you and realize he made a mistake.

But he steps to the side. And that’s all it’s ever going to be.

A dream.

You bow your head and shuffle past him, face burning and skin crawling with shame. You’re going to go on this date and pretend like everything is fine, if you can even make it out of the hallway without breaking down. Your knees are wobbly and tears are coming faster than you can wipe away, but you just need to get out. Out of this hallway with its suffocating air.

Away from Steve, and your heart, broken at his feet.

You’ll get over it. You’ll get over it. It’s hard to breathe right now but you’ll get over it-

“God- Screw it.”

A strong hand wraps around your wrist. It takes you by such surprise you don’t even think to fight.

Steve spins your around, grabbing your jaw and picking you up in a single movement. You gasp as his lips slam over yours, sudden and demanding. He kisses you like he doesn’t know he’s already got a claim on you. Like he’s trying to brand your lips with a bruising, hungry desire. All you can do is breathlessly kiss him back, scraping at his shoulders and trying to keep up with what’s happening. Steve tastes a little like honey and salt, and you’re sure he ate something earlier but you don’t really care what. His hair is just as soft as you thought, and you’re being crushed under the force of him but it’s intoxicating and exhilarating and you feel like you’re being remade-

It’s over. Just as fast as it started. Steve stumbles back, fumbling with his hands like they’re still trying to reach you against his will. He braces them on his hips, staring at you with wide eyes.

You gape at him, trying to catch your breath. You reach up to brush your own lips, trying to make sure the tingly feeling there is real. Maybe press it deeper in, until you can feel it forever.

Steve clears his throat. You blink at him through the slowly drying tears, not really sure what’s happening.

Neither of you dare to speak. Or move. You’re breathing shallowly, like anything too big is going to tip the whole world over, and it will all slip through your fingers.

He takes an uncertain step forward, and you should take one back.

But you’ve never been all that good at moving away from him before. You have no interest in learning that skill now.

This time, you grab him at the same time he grabs you. You stumble into each other, uncoordinated and desperate, unbothered by bumping noses and smushed limbs. You just need to be close to him. To feel him as much as possible, as fast as possible.

He’s never been a drug. You’d been getting a secondary high, but this-

This is a hit.

And you need to have more.

You grab at his collar, pressing up to meet his every kiss, and you’re quickly making out with teeth and tongue in the middle of the hallway. Steve’s arm wraps around your ass, lifting you effortlessly off your feet, and you moan into his mouth.

He trips as he walks back into the apartment, and you end up pressed against the wall at least three more times before you make it through the door. Every time Steve slams you back, devoting all his attention to kissing you until you’re drooling and sloppy and just trying to push further into his open mouth. At one point he slots his knee between your thighs, and you start to shamelessly grind down as he sucks your lower lip between his teeth.

You giggle, dazed and sore with overflowing need for him. He kicks the door closed behind you, and you think you’re going to end up riding his thigh against the wall, but he starts down the hall. To your bedroom.

He makes it about five steps before you rake your nail through his hair and start kissing over his jaw. Steve moans into your ear, lagging a little sideways, and you shriek as you both topple down onto the couch.

It takes you a second to catch your breath, and that’s all Steve needs to get the upper hand. He grabs your jaw, tipping your head back as he starts to suck and nip at your neck. You squeak, grabbing his head, and he moans against your skin. His knee pushes back between your thighs, and this angle is even better than before. You can’t help the roll of your hips, down onto the muscle of his thick leg.

“St- Steve-“ You voice is high, and he hums, licking up your throat before making out with a soft spot under your jaw. “Jesus fucking- God-“

“I know.” He mutters, dragging his hand down your thigh and grabbing under your knee. He squeezes gently, hiking it up to your chest, pushing his knee down even harder than before.

“Fuck- You-“ You gasp, your pussy clenching around nothing as your clit gets rubbed through his jeans, through your panties.

At this angle, you’re almost exposed to him. Your dress pooling around your tummy, the wet spot on your underwear growing bigger and bigger. You grasp at the skirt, trying to tug it down a little. It’s one thing to be riding his knee, another for him to see you.

Steve grabs your wrist, pushing the fabric further down than it had been before. Your eyes almost cross when he starts to rub his knee back and forth, the pressure overwhelming and perfect. You didn’t think you could cum like this, but there’s a familiar pressure building up in your stomach, and you have to bite your tongue to stop a wanton moan from escaping your lips.

He sits up to look at you, and you’re sure it’s a shameful, lewd sight. Your makeup smudged, your hair ruined, a picture of depravity and sin as you chase pleasure on his leg. This isn’t the kind of thing you thought he’d be into. He’s too perfect, too good, and maybe you’ve wanted to be put in a headlock and manhandled and used, but Steve’s all about honor. You’d been so sure that, even if you got to have him, it would be lovely, vanilla sex that was filled with such emotion it would make up for the simpleness.

But that’s not what you see in Steve’s eyes. They’re hooded and black with lust. His jaw is clenched as he watches you, and he pushes your leg further up with a gentle squeeze.

“Oh-“ You gasp, trying to reach up to grab him.

Steve grabs your second wrist without letting go of the first. Holds him in one hand, and leans over you as he pins them both over your head. Your mouth falls open, breathing fast and needy. 

His own chest is heaving. He looks down to his knee against your core, and a deep sound rumbles from his chest. You’re wound so tight you’re certain you could snap, sudden and fast like a rubber band. You strain against Steve’s hold, and his attention snaps back up.

“You’re good, doll.” He coos. “Relax for me.”

You blink at him, shaking your head. You can’t stop grinding against him, but you need him close. Need to be under the pressure of his body, to feel like there’s nothing else in the world.

Steve picks up the speed of his knee, almost drilling it down into your cunt without touching you at all. You gape, head lolling to the side, and he grunts.

“Look at me.”

His voice is deep. Not a suggestion. An order.

You blink up at him, almost drooling, and he leans down until his lips are ghosting over yours.  

“I don’t want space.” He mutters. “I want you.”

You swallow, still rubbing your pussy up into his knee. “You- You can’t just-“

“Shh.” He pushes further down, until it feels like he’s almost inside of you. You snap your mouth shut. “Is that all I did?”

“Wha- Oh-“

He drags his knee in slow circles, and you make an incoherent, starved sound. Steve doesn’t even break a sweat.

“You and me.” He mutters, studying your every expression. “That’s it. That’s what was gonna make me lose you.”

“You- You didn’t lose me-“

“Almost did.” He squeezes your knee. “You walked.”

You glare up at him. “You let me-“

“No, I didn’t.” 

Steve’s lips slam back over yours, and you can’t really argue with that. Your eyes flutter as you give into the kiss, your body sparking with a million, delighted nerves. Steve groans against your lips, fucking his knee against your core, and he’s hitting your clit just right, the fabric soaked and filled with rough friction.

Your back arches off the couch as you cum, and Steve lets go of your wrists. You grab his face, trying to pull his lips closer, and he wraps around your back, holding you up. Your toes curl, body shaking as the pressure becomes sensitive, your pussy gushing and clenching around nothing.

Steve rubs your spine, kissing along your shoulder, up your neck, over your cheeks. You hum softly, floating down and tucked into his arms. He leans back against the couch, taking you with him. You slump over his chest, burying your face in his neck as his hand slips under your dress. Thick, calloused finger pads gently graze your hips and waist, and you squirm. 

“I- I didn’t want to ruin something.” He murmurs in your ear, and you pause.

“Ruin…”

“Us.” Steve’s face presses into the curve of your neck, warm breath tickling your skin. “You were my friend, we work in a lotta the same places, and I just- I didn’t want to risk that.”

You swallow, leaning back and waiting until he meets your glossy, sad gaze. You take his face between your hands, and he covers them with his own.

“I was willing to risk it.” You whisper, and he sighs.

“I know. But-“ He looks away, words choked and low. “I thought it was a crush. That you’d get over.”

You laugh weakly. “Well, it wasn’t.”

“I know.” He sighs. “Mine wasn’t either.”

You lips part with a sharp breath, and Steve looks back to you with nervous, hopeful eyes.

“I love you.” He squeezes both your hands, guiding them to his lips. “It is the same. So- Tell me that fixes it. Please.”

It does.

Just as fast as they’d shattered, your dreams weave themselves back together. They’re clearer than before. More colorful. It’s no longer like looking through a mist, or watching a reflection in the water. When you touch Steve, he doesn’t ripple away. And that’s more than enough.

You lean down and kiss him. It’s slower than the other kisses. Steve grabs your hips, but lets you press his head down. You wrap your arms around his neck, tracing his lips with your tongue, and he hums in content. Drags you further forward in his lap.

Something thick and hard presses right against you, and you almost go limp. Like your body is already trying to get ready to take it. To take Steve’s cock that can’t be as large as it feels, straining against his jeans and twitching when you drag yourself slowly back and forth.

“Hey.” Steve grunts, grabbing your hips firmly. You hope he’s holding tight enough to leave a bruise. “Easy.”

You snort, leaning back to give him a pointed look. “Easy?”

“Yeah, that’s what I-“

“I just came on your knee.”

His ears turn a little pink, and he coughs. “I, uh- Fair.”

“Mhm.” You hum, smiling smugly, and you take all the strength in your jelly legs and grind right now onto his clothed cock.

Steve hisses, his fingers digging into your soft skin. “Jesus- Baby-“

You brace your arms on either side of his head, dragging back and forth as slow as you can. Steve’s eyes flutter, his tongue darting over his lips as he watches you move on him. His muscles flex with the effort not to grab you.

You’d very much like to see him give up.

“Does that feel good?” You whisper, making your voice sweet and innocent.

Steve grunts. You’re going to have handprints on your body in the morning. The thought just makes you move faster.

“I don’t want to go slow, Stevie.” You purr, and his chest heaves under you. “I want you to fuck me. Pleeease.”

You whine dramatically, thrusting forward, and Steve’s face drops against your chest.

“Jesus, woman.” He lips graze over your breast, and you moan. “Come on, ‘s not playing fair-“

“Don’t wanna play fair.” You hum, slowly reaching between your bodies. “Wasn’t fair how you turned me down.”

“’M sorry about that-“

“You should be.” You kiss under his ear. “Hurt my feelings.”

“Thought-“ He grunts as you palm his balls through his jeans. “Thought I was helping-“

“You weren’t.”

“I got that now-“

“But you know what would make it better?” You lean back up, holding Steve’s gaze with a lazy smile.

He nods quickly, and you giggle, wiggling down onto his bulge.

“Fucking me.”

Steve looks down, and a rumble echoes through his chest when he sees it.

You’d peeled off your ruined underwear without him noticing. Leaving your bare, sweet and soaked pussy pressed against him. You moan, watching him as you grind down, and he’s so close to snapping. You can see it in the tension of his jaw, feel how his fingers keep twitching on your hips. You smile at him, licking your lips, and that dark look flashes over his features. The same one from earlier, that had him overtaking you like a storm.

Steve’s a good boy. A sweet boy.

He also doesn’t like things that he can’t account for. Used to pick fights in alleys as a kid, always wanted to be the person everyone looked to for help.

You’re sure that, between the two of you, you can let him have a little fun without compromising his moral compass.

He has to, if you’re begging him for it. Not very chivalrous, to ignore a lady in need.

“Pleaseee.” You whine again, ghosting your lips over his. “Fuck me, Stevie, fuck me until I can’t walk-“

He mutters your name under his breath, and you just pout at him.

“Make me yours, make me cry, fuck-“ You throw your head back, the teasing him going straight to your own core. “God, fucking- Please, Steve-“

That does it. The explicit, wet cry of his name seems to snap something in Steve’s resolve, and he’s on you in a blur of hands and lips. Grabbing a fistful of your ass before hauling you up his chest, kissing you breathless as he stands. He keeps carrying like you weigh nothing, and you want to be trapped in his arms forever.

“Steve- Shit-“ Your jaw drops he tosses you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Fuck, slow down-“

“You said you didn’t want to slow down.” He reminds you in a deceptively soothing voice, big hands rubbing on the back of your thighs. “Said you didn’t wanna play fair.”

“I- Um- Ooooh-“

You drop your head against Steve’s shoulder, biting at his shirt as thick, strong fingers tease the lips of your pussy.

“Wet fuckin’ pussy.” He muses, spreading you open so the cold air hits your cunt. “Knew you got soaked for me, princess. Didn’t know it was this bad.”

“You- You-“ He needs to stop humiliating you and touching you at the same time. It makes you feel like you’re burning alive in the best way possible. “You knew?” You squeak, and Steve chuckles.

“Always knew. Told you, thought it was a crush.”

You try to twist and glare at him. “And you didn’t tell me-“

“Like you would’ve wanted me to tell you I could smell how badly you wanted my cock.” Steve smacks your ass with a scoff, and you flop right back over his shoulder.

“Fuck-“ You whimper. He’s right. You can barely even stand that right now. “Steve, please- Please-“

You’re not even sure what you’re begging for anymore. Mercy, maybe. More mocking attention. Anything he can fucking give you, because you feel like you’re about to explode.

Steve spanks you again, this time on the other cheek, and you moan.

“’Course you like that.” He mutters. “Dirty girl, testing me every fucking day.”

He drags his thumb through the mess between your legs, and your pussy clenches, trying to drag him in. He laughs, pushing down for half a second before dragging down to your clit and rubbing in quick, tight circle. You gasp, pushing uselessly at his back, already overstimulated and still needing more.

“Felt that.” Steve flicks your clit, and your whole body shakes. “Greedy, princess. You’ve been waitin’ this long, you can hold it a little longer.”

“Ca- Can’t-“ You gasp, pressing your cheek against the broad muscle of his back. “Can’t, Steve- Can’t wait-“

“Yeah, you can.” He grunts. “Christ, you’re dripping all over my hand. Going to take me no problem, aren’t you, baby.”

He’s playing with your clit like it’s just a little button for his whims, and you have to bite your inner cheek to stop yourself from falling apart all over his hand.

“Steve- I- I’m going to- Oh my god-“

Steve slaps right over your pussy, the wet sound echoing in your ears as he shoves those two fingers right into your pussy. He finds your G-spot in a second, crooking his fingers and dragging them over your sensitive walls. You cum with a cry of his name, sudden and harsh. White dancing at your vision, your body seizing up as Steve dumps you down onto the soft mattress.

He presses his wrist further, folding your body up. You grab his neck for an anchor, and he kisses your wrist as he slides a third finger into your dripping mess of a pussy.

“Getting you ready.” He mutters, wiping some hair from your face. “It’s okay, babydoll, you’re doin’ real good.”

You whimper, the orgasm still shaking through you. You’re struggling to breathe when Steve finally pulls his hand away, and the loss makes you whimper.

Steve laughs softly, leaning down to kiss you all sweet and loving, like you haven’t been turned to a puddle under his hands.

“Breathe.” He murmurs, squeezing your breast gently, and you take a loud, stuttering gasp. Steve kisses your nose, smiling like he’s being offered ice cream, and you watch him in a starry-eyed daze.

You hear the click of his belt, and as much as you’d like to reach down and feel him, you can barely manage to hold onto his shoulders right now. Steve pulls slowly up with one last chaste kiss on your lips, and your breath hitches in your throat.

He’s massive. That’s the kind of dick you’ve only seen in cartoons, because even the porn industry can’t replicate it. You’re not sure how he gets around so easily in his tight suit, with that fucking horse cock acting like a third leg. Thick and veined, already beading with pre-cum as he strokes it slowly in his hand, a sheepish expression on his face.

“I was… Endowed.” He mumbles, ears red. “Before the serum. Then…”

He nods to his cock, and you laugh breathlessly.

“Jesus, Steve-“

“It won’t hurt you.” He says quickly. “I know there are those rumors ‘bout be being a virgin, but-“ He sighs, pouting slightly. “God forbid a man tell Tony Stark he doesn’t want to talk about his sex life, suddenly he’s never even touched a boob-“

“Dude.” You smile up at him, and he cuts himself off. “Look me in the eyes and tell me if I still think you’re a virgin after that.”

You tilt your head to the hallway, but Steve just frowns.

“Dude?”

“Um-“

“Don’t call me dude when I’m about to fuck you.” He grumbles, and you’d laugh at him if that didn’t make your heart skip. e

“Sorry, sir.”

You say it half to mock him, half to test something.

Steve’s jaw ticks, and his already rock-hard cock twitches in his hands. You giggle as his eyes narrow, and you’re still laughing as he prowls over you, that dark, hungry look back on his face.

“You think something’s funny?” He grunts, and you shake your head.

“No, sir.”

Steve groans, dropping his face between your breasts.

“Gonna be the death of me.” He mutters under his breath, and you’re still laughing softly.

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

You laugh again, because you’re really not. It’s hilarious, and he’s adorable, and this is going to yield some fantastic results.

Steve assesses you like you’re a mission to be accomplished. And you know him.

He never does anything halfway.

“Alright, princess.” He mutters, tapping the head of his cock on your clit. “Open.”

You squeak, still giggling, and spread your legs slowly.

The last laugh is pushed from your chest as Steve slowly starts to sink himself into your heat. Your mouth falls uselessly open as you bow off the bed, your body almost unable to rationalize how full you are. 

Steve splits you open, his cock slowly driving through you and hitting spots you didn’t even know you had. He grinds slowly down into your pussy, bullying you further open, and you think he’s found a button inside you that just makes you a limp, sensitive fuck-doll, because you whine out his name but it takes everything you have.

“I know.” He grunts, the tip of his cock pressing into your cervix. “You’re taking it, baby, there you go.”

“Steveee-“

“Feels good, doesn’t it.” He presses at sweet kiss to your lips as he bottoms out. His fingers lace slowly through yours, and you nod.

You’ve never had so many pleasure points being hit at once. Steve’s still got a hand on your breast, rolling your nipple between his fingers as you try to breath around him. He’s patient. You don’t want him to be.

“More.” You push out, and he raises his brows.

“Sweetheart-“

“More.” You roll up into him, moaning loudly as he hits even deeper. “Fuck me, Steve- Mmm-“

He kisses you, passionate and messy, and you almost scream in satisfaction as he starts to move.

He’s unrushed. Completely in control of you, and aware of it. His dick pulls almost all the way out before slowly pushing back in, the torturous pace making you feel like a live wire.

“Yeah, that’s it.” He coos, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips. “Pretty girl, you like being stuffed up with my cock, don’t you.”

“Ye- Yes-“ You tip your head back into the pillows, your free hand grasping at the sheets. “Yes- Oh my god, yes-“

Steve’s started to grind against your g-spot whenever he hits it, letting his thickness press and drag over the sensitive, gooey spot until you’re moaning and writhing around him.

“Feel that, don’t you.” He mutters, pushing in a little harder than last time. “Feel my dick inside you, baby, feels so good, doesn’t-“

“So good.” You babble, but who can blame you. “So good, Steve, you’re so-“

Your words turn into a broken moan as Steve drives back into you, and he’s going harder and harder every time. Still pulling almost fully out slowly, letting your arousal gather and drip down your thighs and ass, but then slamming back into you so hard it makes you think the world is shaking.

A breathy sound escapes your lips, maybe a plea, and Steve moves your tangled hands between your bodies, pressing you down into the mattress as he rises up for a better angle.

“You’re so fuckin’ wet.” He growls, pounding into your cunt like he owns it. “If I’d know you wanted me this bad I woulda had you all over this city.”

You whine, squeezing around him. Steve chuckles.

“Oh, you like that. Like the idea of being my good little cockslut, letting me play with you wherever I want.” 

Big, steady hands press your knees up, letting Steve hit even deeper than before. A strange, tight feeling is building in your gut, but it feels good. All of this feels so good. You’re spent and cockdrunk, but you feel used in the best possible way. The filth Steve is drawling in your ears makes your brain go all quiet. You’re just a happy, humming bundle of pleasure, Steve’s massive body draped over yours, and you’d probably do anything he wanted, if he just fucked you like this after.

“You were made for me.” He groans, lips wandering all over your face as his cock drills into you. “I’m gonna take such good care of you, baby, swear it, just sing for me, come on-“

You moan, long and loud. Steve grins, kissing under your ear.

“Good girl.” He coos. “There you go, just like that. Come on, doll, I know you’re getting close.”

You are. You’ve been close the whole time, but this feels more and more different by the second. There are wet, sinful sounds filling the room as your skin slaps together, and Steve’s breath is hot in your ear as he starts to lose a little control of himself.

He moans when you start mindlessly humping up to meet him, forcing his cock into the tightest spot into you that makes everything all colorful and hazy. You gasp softly, chasing up from a little more, and Steve wraps and arm around your back.

“Fuck- Fuck- You feel so good,” he groans your name in your ear. “So good, it’s- Christ-“

That strange pressure in your tummy is going to burst. It feels like Steve is driving right against it, daring it come undone.

“Steve.” You breathe out. “Steve- I- I’m gonna-“

He growls, deep in his chest and rolling through you.  Steve grabs you and wrestles you down into the mattress, pushing your legs up to your chest and fucking you fast and brutal.

It’s a sight above you. Steve, panting and moaning as your pussy sucks him in, glistening arousal shining all over his cock when he pulls out and smearing on your tummy. Your tight walls are starting to contract, and he doubles over, groaning your name as his thrust become shallow and unmeasured.

Tears start to stream down your face. Steve looks at you like you’re an angel, fucking you like you’re just a toy, and you can’t even remember how to tell him how good it feels.

“Steve…” You wiggle below him, crying out as he just fucks you hard. “Steve- Ooooooh-“

Your eyes roll back, the tears burning on your cheeks from the impossible to handle pleasure. Steve leans down and kisses them off your cheeks, the softness in such contrast with how he’s turning you into a bundle of nerves and tears.

“My pretty girl.” He mutters, kissing your lips sweetly. “Close. We’re so close. You can make it. Make it for me.”

You nod, almost hypnotized into agreeing. And Steve’s abusing that spot inside of you. Sensitive and overwhelming, making your toes curl and eyes cross.

“Steve- I- I can’t-“

“Yes, you can.” Not a suggestion. Steve’s thumb finds your clit, rubbing it back and forth as he ruts into you. “Come for me, now.”

The command rolls through you, and that pressure bursts. Heat washes over you, making you bow off the bed as a funny, wet feeling gushes out between your thighs. Steve groans, slamming his mouth back over yours, groaning your name as you start to milk his cock.

“Fuck,” he groans, and you wrap your arms tight around his neck. Tight enough to strangle him, if he was a normal man. But Steve just splays his hand possessively over your back and moans against your lips, driving home into your cunt as his release rippling through him.

It’s almost as good as your own orgasm. You’re tucked into a shaking, flexing heat of muscle, his deep voice moaning your name in your ear, his cock still thrusting and twitching inside you. Over, and over, and over-

You can barely breathe in the best way. You’ve never had a man cum so much. It starts just hot and sticky, then it’s drooling out, down your ass and onto the sheets. You can feel it in your throat, almost taste it, and even after Steve pulls out it’s everywhere. Painting your pussy creamy and white, branding your abdomen, your tits, your thighs.

Steve stares down at you with a gaping mouth as you both come down from the high. You laugh, hoarse and breathy.

“Woah.”

“Shit.” Steve mutters, grabbing at the remainder of the clean sheets and wiping them over your body. “I- I didn’t- I usually pull out, you just-“

“Steve-“

“We need to get you in the shower, it’s everywhere-“

“Steve-“

“I’m so sorry-“

“Steven.” You smack his shoulder, and he stops dead.

You’re already bridal style in his arms, naked and covered in his cum, some of it dripping all over the floor. You’re going to need to hire a cleaner. Or invest in really, really big buckets that you’ll keep next to the bed.

“Does that happen every time?”

He swallows, and nods.

“Uh- Not that much.” He mumbles. “But yeah.”

Pride glows in your chest. You get the most of him. “Okay.”

Steve blinks. “Okay?”

You nod, and he shakes his head.

“I ruined your room-“

“I liked it.”

He stares. You smile.

Steve rolls his eyes, and presses a kiss to your brow.

“You’re impossible.” He mutters, and you giggle.

“Yeah, but you love me. And you can’t take it back now, you already said it-“

He grabs your chin, turning it so he can fully capture your lips.

“I do love you.” He mutters against your lips. “And no one could make me take it back if they tried.”

You smile. You have no plans to do that.

Steve is somehow more than you ever dreamed. And there’s no way you’re letting him go now.

It had all reached a head at the annual gala for the Families. When the meals had come out, a plate packed full of meat and only a few vegetables, your plan had been to just pick at the sides, and leave everything else.

Your father had instead proceeded to embarrass you in front of every single person in the gala. Called you a fool, a hippie, an ungrateful little bitch.

The lecture had ended with a ream about you thinking you could make a difference by not eating a couple of steaks.

Titus Danforth was the only person who didn't laugh at you. Instead, seated to your left, he slipped you his potatoes and broccoli, offering you the smallest smile.

It was the start of an enduring friendship, the way a lion may look out for a lamb. Within reason, he'd defend you - especially to your siblings and his own twin, Ursula.

She could never understand why he seemed so fond of you.

It's funny. All the traits you loathed in your family, you revered in Titus.

His outbursts were legendary. But your only experience of them was when he was protecting you. When an acquaintance of his family had grabbed your ass as you passed, Titus' first move had been to smash his head through a pane of glass.

You'd been embarrassed, and Titus wanted to peacock - ensuring nobody would ever lay a hand on you again. Nonetheless, he'd let you lead him upstairs, and dab softly at his bloodied knuckle with antiseptic.

Finally glancing up from his hand, you'd realised that you were far closer to Titus than you'd ever been before. He'd pressed his lips to yours before you could rationalise it.

You slept together that night - whimpers and moans muffled by Titus' hand pressed over your mouth.

It wouldn't do for the family heads to discover two of their heirs engaged in such activities pre-marriage. Especially when he was first in line to take over the Danforth name.

As the youngest daughter, you had little to offer in collateral, but it didn't seem to bother Titus one bit.

You were his, and that was that.

You didn't ever need to sleep with other people, because he'd been your first, and he knew nobody else could ever live up. He'd told you as much, when he'd been buried to the hilt inside of you, and you'd believed him. Titus had never lied to you. He'd been nothing but kind in all the years you'd known him, and you couldn't say that about anybody else.

It continued like that for over a decade. You're sure that it's an open secret by now, what the two of you do. But Titus has refused all marriage proposals that his father and sister have put forward for him, and your parents are more concerned with the state of their rose garden than your wellbeing.

You move away eventually. Chicago. For work. You train as a doctor, another feeble attempt to give back to a world that your family is so eager to destroy.

It doesn't stop Titus.

At least once a month, you pull up to your place only to be greeted with his black SUV in your driveway.

No matter how tightly you lock the house up, he always finds his way inside, all the lights off except for one in the living room, illuminating him in the chair beside the window.

You'd almost called the cops the first time, before realising who it must be.

Your neighbors are nurses, accountants, a retired couple with wind chimes. They do not need to meet Titus Danforth on their porches.

"You know, you really need to up your home security," He scolds every time, opening his arms wide for you to drop into his lap.

"I have what I can afford," You reply, and the answer is unspoken. You don't ever say the second part, but he knows what it is. You won't ask your parents for anything.

"I'll pay for it," is always his answer. "S'too dangerous for you to be living out here alone."

He doesn't push it, though. Not when you trail your lips along his jaw, and start rocking against him, heat pooling low in your core.

He only offers marriage once. You pretend it doesn't break your heart to turn him down.

"Why not?" His voice rises above its usual timbre, and you have to bite back a huff of frustration. "Is there someone else?"

"Of course there's no one else!" You shout back. The mere thought is laughable. Even if you wanted to, you know he keeps tabs on you. He'd find out before you were even undressed, and find a way to cross states in record time just to stop it from happening. "Titus, you cannot marry the youngest daughter of the youngest Family in the organisation. Your father wouldn't stand for it-"

"Fuck my father!" He bursts out, the only time you've ever heard him disparage his kin directly. "He needs an heir that he's not going to get from Ursula, and I don't see why it can't be you. You know there's an exception for inter-Family marriages. You wouldn't need to play the game, if that's what you're so worried about."

"I'd have to kill people. O-Our children would have to kill people."

"I would protect all of you," He insists, but you're shaking your head.

"You cannot possibly."

"You underestimate me."

The sex that night is rough and unforgiving. Neither of you are strong enough to keep from falling into the other, but the deep gashes running down his back from your nails are likely to stick around for at least a week. Meanwhile, your neck and chest are littered with harsh marks sucked into the skin.

You don't hear from him for six weeks after that.

*****

You're working the night-shift when you get a call from your brother, Brian. He never calls.

You’re halfway through suturing a laceration when your phone vibrates in your scrub pocket. You ignore it. Ten minutes later, it buzzes again.

And again.

When you finally check it, there are three missed calls from him. One from your mother. And a message from a number you haven’t seen in years - your sister Danica.

Your stomach drops.

You step into an empty stairwell and call him back. He answers on the first ring. His voice is tight.

“Where are you?”

“At work. Why?”

A pause. The sound of a door closing somewhere on his end. “There’s been… an incident. An audit.”

You lean back against the concrete wall. “An audit of what?”

“Of the shared accounts.”

That’s when your pulse begins to climb. The Families keep joint reserves. Everyone knows that. Contingency funds. Insurance. The sort of money that makes all sorts of problems evaporate.

“What about them?” You ask carefully, but you know where he's going with this.

Another pause. Lower now. “There are discrepancies.”

“How big?”

He exhales sharply. “Big enough.”

You close your eyes, willing the words to form in your mouth as you speak again. “Father?” you whisper.

“Yes.”

Of course.

It’s not public. It never will be. There are no headlines, no federal task forces, no trending topics.

This is worse.

Closed-door meetings. Phones surrendered at entrances. Men and women who built empires on quiet brutality now discovering that one of their own has been siphoning from the well.

Your entire family is going to die, and nobody's going to know a thing.

“You didn’t know,” Your brother says quickly. "We're all going to be fine."

It doesn’t matter.

You understand that immediately.

It doesn’t matter what you knew.

It matters whose blood you carry.

"Did you? Mom? The others?" The silence that follows tells you all you need to know. "God, I can't fucking believe you all-"

"You wouldn't understand the situation we were in-"

"Why the fuck did he think you could all get away with something like that? Like you aren't fucking rich enough?"

Your phone buzzes in your hand.

Call waiting.

Titus.

You sigh. "I have to go-"

"Do not talk to anyone about this-"

"I have to go," You repeat, voice cold as you hang up.

You switch over.

“Where are you?” He asks.

No greeting. No softness.

“At the hospital.”

“Stay there.”

Your throat tightens. “Is it true?”

A beat.

“Yes.”

You slide down the wall until you’re sitting on the cold concrete steps, a shaky breath escaping. “How bad?”

“Bad enough that they feel betrayed,” He says. His voice is level, but you know him. You hear the strain beneath it. Titus doesn't worry easily. This is bad. “And you know how they handle betrayal.”

“Brian seems to think they can explain,” You murmur, as if that's going to help.

“I’m sure they do.”

“Titus.”

Silence. Breathing on the other end. “They’re meeting tonight,” He says finally. “All of them.”

Your heart stutters. “About the family?”

"About restitution. Payback."

“And if they can’t make it right?” You ask, lip between your teeth.

Another silence. Longer this time. You press your palm to your mouth, trying to bite back a sob.

“I didn’t know,” You say again, hating how small you sound. "I swear, Titus. I haven't even spoken to them in-"

“I know,” he replies immediately.

And he does. If anyone believes that about you, it’s him.

“I’m coming,” He adds. "Barricade yourself in a room somewhere, I'll be there within the hour."

“You’re in-”

“Doesn’t matter.”

It always used to thrill you, the way distance never seemed to apply to him. The way he could appear in your living room like a shadow called into being. Like a beacon, meant just for you.

Now it terrifies you.

“You can’t fix this,” You whisper.

A pause.

“Yes,” He says quietly. “I can. Do not speak to a single person you don't know. I'll see you soon.”

He hangs up without another word, and you start to try and steady your breathing. You don't know what Titus has in store, but you do know that you trust him more than your entire family combined.

You glance outside. The waiting room is still packed, as the ER always is on a Friday night. You being here puts all of these people in grave danger. You have no idea what kind of cavalry Mr. Le Bail has sent after you. They might already be here.

Maybe Titus had a delay in getting the information.

You swallow heavily. You have to get out of here.

You. 02:17. I can't stay here. I can't risk the patients getting hurt. I'll lay low, call me when you're in the state

You mumble apologies about a family emergency to your co-workers, and push out the back door with nothing but a hoodie to cover up your scrubs. No time to pack your bags.

Your phone goes again, and you pull it out, expecting another message from Titus. You don't even notice the man following you out from the hospital, a syringe of propofol gripped in his hand.

When the needle sinks into your neck, your last thought is of Titus, and how you didn't listen to him.

*****

The first thing that you notice is the searing pain in your left arm. Letting out a low groan, your eyes open slowly, and are met with a flimsy mattress, and cold concrete.

Your head is pounding, and it takes you a second to situate yourself. Your long-dormant survival skills are slower in coming back to you than you'd like. The room is small, barely bigger than a cupboard, and you're entirely encaged by iron bars running round the perimeter.

This could be anywhere across any of the Families' estates. There's no way to tell.

Whoever brought you here also changed your outfit. Instead of the scrubs, the dress you're donning could only be described as 80s prom chic.

This has got to be some kind of sick joke.

When the door opens, you throw your back to the wall, trying to put as much distance between you and whoever it is-

"I couldn't get to you in time," Titus murmurs, shutting the door with his foot, as he steps towards the cell. "I looked until I got word that my family had you."

Your body moves instinctively, fingers wrapping around the bars. "Titus-"

"I don't have long. But I had to see you."

Your heart is thumping, hands trembling just slightly as you try and wrap your head around what's going on. Titus has never been very emotional - the hint of fear that you can see in his expression has you nervous. "What's going on?"

"The Families came to a decision," He replies solemnly. "After testimony from Brian and your father, the Council came to a guilty verdict for you all."

"What? B-But I didn't even know, I wasn't in the state-"

"That's not how your brother presented it to the Families."

Your breath stutters in your chest. “My brother? B-but he called, said it would be fine-”

Titus’s jaw tightens. “He told them you’ve been coordinating from a distance. Said Chicago was a cover.”

A disbelieving sound tears out of you. “Chicago?” You step forward, fingers curling around the bars. “I’ve lived in Chicago for three years. I haven’t stepped foot in New York since the winter gala. Everyone knows that.”

“I know.” His voice is sharp, immediate. “I told them that.”

You blink at him, surprised by the firmness in his tone. He's usually not one for displays of emotion outside the bedroom. “You did?”

“I brought records. Lease agreements. Your hospital employment contracts. Travel logs.” His mouth twists. “I even pulled security footage from O’Hare the week they claim you were ‘overseeing transfers.’ You were on a red-eye back to Chicago.”

If you didn't know Titus so well, you'd wonder how he managed to source all these documents so last minute. He probably had them ready to go, tucked in a binder in his office. Just in case something like this should happen. “Then how-”

“They ignored it.” The words are clipped, furious beneath the surface. “Brian said you set everything up before you left. Your father backed him. Said you’ve always been ‘clever with numbers.’ That distance made you harder to trace.”

You let out the smallest breath. “That’s insane.”

“Yes.” His eyes meet yours through the bars, steady and burning. “It is.”

"So what does a guilty verdict mean?"

Titus’s gaze flickers toward the corridor, then back to you. “Every member of your bloodline has been found complicit. Aiding. Benefitting. Turning a blind eye.” His jaw tightens. “They’ve invoked the Rite.”

Your stomach drops. “No. They wouldn’t.”

“They have. You’re all locked in separate cells. No contact. In about half an hour, you'll have ten minutes to free yourself from this cell and hide, before the rest of us are set on you. You can kill each other, or simply outlast everyone else. Whoever survives -whoever is last of your name - will be permitted to reclaim it. To start anew under Council oversight.”

Your fingers slowly loosen from the bars.

“They’re making us slaughter each other,” You breathe, tears pricking in your periphery.

“Yes.”

“And if we refuse?”

“They won’t. Which means that you can't either.”

The finality in his voice chills you to the bone, and your throat tightens. “My father agreed to this?”

“He didn’t fight it hard enough,” Titus answers carefully. “Brian framed it as honour. As a chance to ‘redeem’ the name. It was that or an execution for you all. At least this way someone survives.”

A bitter laugh escapes you. “Someone that's not me-"

"It will be you," Titus insists, but you're shaking your head.

You step back from the bars. “I can’t do this.”

Titus moves closer instead. “You can.”

Your head snaps up. “No. You know me.”

“I do.” His gaze locks onto yours. “Better than anyone. Which is why you should listen to me. I know what I'm talking about.”

"I'm not a killer."

“No,” He agrees. “You’re not.”

Something shifts in his expression then - something softer than you expect from the Danforth heir.

“But you are smarter than all of them. You are resourceful, and more of a survivor than the rest combined.” His voice lowers. “You can win this. And you will.”

Your breath catches, almost a cry. “You sound certain.”

“I am.”

“How?” You demand. “They’re going to set us loose like animals. My family have been killing their entire lives. I-I can't even eat steak at dinner, Titus.”

“You don’t have to chase," He counters. "You don’t have to strike first. You disappear. You hide, and bide your time.”

“And when they come for me?”

His eyes darken.

“They won’t reach you.”

A chill runs through you. “Titus…”

You’ve always known what he is. What he’s capable of. You’ve seen the aftermath - the steady hands, the absence of hesitation. Titus was built for this world. Honed by it.

And you love him anyway.

"They sanctioned a hunt. They didn’t forbid tampering."

“You’d interfere.”

“I’d do worse than that.” All the worry is gone from Titus' expression. There's just a coolness, one that strikes fear into your heart. There's no getting out of this.

In a few hours you could be dead.

He leans in, and for a second you think he’s just memorising your face.

Then his mouth is on yours.

It isn’t gentle.

It’s desperate. Urgent. Like he’s trying to pour every unspoken thing into the space between your lips. Every I love you gone unmentioned. The marriage proposal you should've accepted. You could've been a Danforth by now - free from the shackles of this game.

Your fingers fist in his shirt through the bars as you kiss him back, heart slamming against your ribs.

There’s salt there. And the faint copper of blood from where you must have bitten your tongue earlier.

And then you feel it.

A small, cool pressure against your mouth.

His tongue presses forward again, deliberate this time.

Understanding sparks.

You part your lips just enough, moaning slightly into his mouth.

He slips it between your teeth.

Thin. Metallic. Barely there.

A shard of something - flattened wire.

Your breath hitches, but you don’t pull away. You take it carefully, sliding it beneath your tongue as the kiss deepens, disguising the exchange. His hand tangles in your hair, breaths gasping as if it's the last time you're ever going to see each other.

At this rate, it might be.

"I'm sorry it's come to this," He murmurs, finally separating from you.

"S'not your fault," You reply weakly.

"Be smart. Be safe. And I'll find you."

With that, he's gone, offering you one final glance back. You can't read his expression. Letting out a sigh, you slump back against the wall, pulling the wire from under your tongue.

For the locks, you assume.

Absentmindedly, your hand slips into the pocket of the dress, one you hadn't even realised was there. Your fingers find a piece of paper, and you pull it out, frowning.

MEET ME WHERE IT ALL STARTED. T X

It's typed on a piece of card - obviously expensive, and very clearly Danforth. But you can't help but think that something isn't right here. Titus was just with you - why wouldn't he have told you where to go if he had a plan?

Then you think about the cameras in each corner of the cell. Maybe they're recording audio too. You can't trust that anything said in here isn't immediately broadcast to the other Families, so that they can use it to hunt you down.

Before you can mull it over further, a screen flickers to life, and The Lawyer's face fills it entirely. "Greetings, everyone. I'm sure by now, you've figured out why you might be here. The scandal spread fairly quickly, but we're hoping this will act to contain it."

"The patriarch of your family has brought shame upon us all, and for that, unfortunately, you must pay. As soon as this screen turns to a timer, you will have ten minutes to free yourself from your respective cages. After this ten minutes, the other Families will begin their Hunt. The last one of you standing will be allowed to start anew, and rebuild the Family name. You are encouraged to take each other out, in order to reach the end. Nothing like a little familial bloodshed, right?"

He smiles, a brief wave, before saying, "Good luck - I look forward to seeing one of you in the aftermath."

He disappears, and the timer begins.

Fighting to keep your breathing under control, you get to work on the lock. Thank god for Titus. You'd never be able to do this on your own. You cast your mind back to your youth, when Titus had tried in vein to teach you how to blend into this world.

After a minute, you're free. That's good. Nine more to get the hell out of here, and find somewhere safe.

Try to avoid the rest of your family, and everyone else.

Swallowing heavily, you weigh up your options.

OPTION A: Trust Titus, and follow the instructions given on the note. Head for his bedroom in hopes of finding an ally.

OPTION B: You can't trust anyone. Try and get outside, under the cover of the night-sky, and make a plan once you're away from the house.

Fuck Jack Abbot.

Your mouth tastes like vodka and something sweet—cranberry, maybe. Your feet ache from dancing, sweat clings to the small of your back, and the hem of your dress keeps creeping up your thighs while you and Trinity move through the crowd to an old Beyoncé song.

You're not that drunk, but the alcohol definitely does something to your mind. The lights pulse low and warm, bodies packed together on the dance floor—couples, strangers, people chasing that brief electric feeling that only happens in places like this. You close your eyes, your body taking on a life of its own, sliding to every beat, without fail.

Baby boy you stay on my mind, fulfill my fantasies. I think about you all the time, I see you in my dreams.

You hate that your mind wanders directly to gray hair, large, attentive, eager hands, broad, muscular shoulders, just from one song. But what could you do? Everything reminded you of him. It's infuriating.

What annoys you isn’t the attraction. It’s the silence, the days he disappears between shifts, completely unreachable. No messages. No calls. Like the man simply powers down when he leaves the hospital. And that's okay, you couldn't force yourself to be spoiled, because Jack was a great doctor and a very busy one, but you wanted him for yourself. Was that too much to ask?

But God, you want him.

Getting involved with Jack was a mistake from the start. Casual sex was supposed to be simple. Efficient. Stress relief between brutal shifts in the PTMC emergency department. Except somewhere along the way, you stopped being satisfied with just that.

You wanted his attention and that’s the real problem.

You don’t even see him every shift, which is criminal, honestly. Half the fun is catching his eye across the trauma bay and throwing him a look that makes the corner of his mouth twitch—that small, dangerous smile he tries to hide from the rest of the staff.

You communicated in your own language, throwing almost everyone off, even Robby. Trinity, on the other hand, suspected something was going on because you share an apartment, and when he picked you up one night to go to dinner—because he gets it in his head to be a gentleman—Trinity happened to glance out the apartment window.

She’d narrowed her eyes immediately.

“That truck across the street looks familiar.”

You’d laughed, badly, and changed the subject while texting Jack to drive around the block and wait at the next corner.

It’s not that the relationship needs to be secret. Technically, there isn’t a relationship, just sex. Just two doctors blowing off steam between impossible shifts. Jack taking you to dinner sometimes doesn’t mean anything. Neither does the way he walks you to the door or the fact that you occasionally end up in his apartment instead of yours.

You never stay the night., because, again—Just sex.

Except somewhere in the middle of all those blurred lines, it quietly stopped feeling that way.

And so, because of all that pent-up frustration that Jack Abbot was too busy to remember you existed, you decided to have a girls' night out with your friend. The place you picked wasn’t exactly a bar. It was the kind of place where the bass lived in your ribs and the lights never stopped moving. Neon everywhere, the air thick with perfume, liquor, and sweat. Bodies packed close, the dance floor pulsing like a heartbeat. Three shots of tequila in, you were feeling warm, loose, reckless.

And, unfortunately, still thinking about Jack.

After the song changes, you throw your hair back and take a deep breath, droplets of sweat gather on your temple, strands of hair clinging to the back of your neck and a dangerous idea pops into your head. A very bad one.

“I'll be right back!” You shout over the music.

Trinity barely glances up. She lifts her citrus drink in acknowledgment before disappearing back into the rhythm of the crowd, hips swaying like she belongs to the music.

Your heels click on the floor and you make a beeline for the bathroom. Hungry eyes devour you along the way, one guy in particular stares at you for too long: dark hair, decent face. You hold his gaze just because he's cute.

Incredibly, there’s no line for the bathroom, just a group of girls fixing their makeup, two in the corner of the sink pretending very unsatisfactorily that they are not using illicit substances. You slip into a stall and sit on the closed lid of the toilet. 

Your phone feels heavier than it should when you pull it out.

The screen lights up your face in the dim stall. Your eyes look a little glassy, your lipstick’s slightly smudged. You scroll through your messages until you land on Jack’s. The last one still says read. Your stomach tightens.

You remember exactly why you sent it. You’d know it was his day off.

You: Can I see you?

Jack: Can't today, honey.

You: Oh, okay.

Honey. The stupid nickname that gives you chills, that weighs heavily on your stomach and makes your whole body knot up.

“Honey my ass,” you mutter, groggy and irritated.

Determined to do something you'll probably regret, you press the call button. The music in the background is a witness to your mistakes. You bite your fingernail, bouncing your heel against the tile floor, nerves buzzing under your skin.

Your heart pounds at the second ring, but it calms down at the fourth, fifth... For a moment you wonder if he’s going to let it go to voicemail after all. Then a rustling sound fills your ears—fabric shifting, maybe a hand fumbling for the phone—and your stomach flips.

Damn it.

“Hey, honey.”

“Hi,” you say, swallowing hard. You push yourself up from the toilet lid and begin pacing the tiny cubicle, one heel tapping nervously against the tile. “I just—” The words almost die in your throat. 

For half a second you consider hanging up, pretending this never happened. But the alcohol gives you that dangerous little push again, the one that always convinces you that ruining Jack Abbot’s night is a perfectly reasonable decision.

“Are you okay?” There is genuine concern on the other end of the line.

“Oh, I'm great! I'm just calling to tell you that I'm having the best night of my life. Without you. Can you imagine?”

“Babygirl, have you been drinking?”

“Fuck you, Jack.” The words come out faster now, sharpened by tequila and wounded pride. “I’m having the time of my life, and guess what? There’s this reeeeeally hot guy who wants to take me home. And maybe I’ll let him. Actually—no, I will let him.” You laugh, a little wild, a little unsteady. “I’m going to have the best fuck of my life, and he’s going to do it so much better than you. You’re the one losing out, asshole!”

Oops, I did it again! it's the soundtrack to your rage. Jack’s about to say something, you hang up before he can finish. Your hand presses against your chest as your heart pounds like thunder beneath your ribs. You have absolutely no idea where that burst of audacity came from, but it’s already done.

When you push open the stall door, you realize you had an audience. Three girls are watching you through the mirror’s reflection.

“Way to go, girl!” One of them smiles, her lips crimson red.

“Screw him!” says the other. You smile in agreement with yourself. 

You grin despite yourself and nod in agreement. The alcohol isn’t hitting quite the same anymore. Confronting the man you’re stupidly, desperately obsessed with has a way of sobering your system a little.

A shy but confident smile blossoms on your face. Another hit from the 2000s is playing when you return, squeezing through bodies until you find Trinity with another shot of tequila in her hands.

“Cheers!” she shouts, her glittery eye makeup catching every flicker of neon light.

You raise your tiny glass to meet hers. “Lots of tequila shots!” you yell back, laughing.

“And fewer shifts!” Trinity laughs.

The glasses clink, though the sound disappears beneath the pounding music. When you toss the tequila back, a little spills from the corner of your mouth, sliding down your chin and leaving a warm trail along the curve of your chest. The burn hits your throat immediately, and you shake your head as the heat spreads through you.

Everything intensifies, the sweat, the alcohol, the thumping music. You close your eyes and let your instincts guide you, forgetting for a few moments what happened. In fact, this was what you wanted.

If Jack thought he was too good for you, then fine. You’d find someone else.

A few songs later, you’re borderline euphoric.

Somehow, Garcia had materialized as a hologram, much to Trinity's surprise. They dance together, and you can't help but smile when you see your friend so excited.

For a moment you just stand there, catching your breath while the strobe lights slice the room into fragments of color and shadow. The music pounds through your chest, vibrating somewhere behind your ribs.

And then that feeling creeps in. The unmistakable sensation of being watched.

Your smile fades slightly as your eyes drift across the crowd, following the movement of bodies and flashing lights. Faces blur together—strangers, strangers, strangers—until one figure catches in the flicker of a passing beam. A face half-lit, half swallowed by shadow. Your blood runs cold.

He’s standing only a few yards away, partially hidden among the crowd, tall enough that you’d recognize that posture anywhere. His expression is carved from stone, stern, unreadable, the kind of look that makes your stomach drop straight through the floor.

Maybe you're imagining things and he's not really here. When you look again, he’s gone, swallowed by the crowd like he was never there. Your balance falters and you stumble slightly, your heel catching on nothing as you squint through the flashing lights, trying to spot him again.

Did you imagine that?

Someone says something close to your ear, but you don't hear it. Nimble hands touch your waist, pressing your body against his. Your head is still spinning, your mind halfway convinced you just hallucinated the one man who can ruin your mood with a single look.

The stranger moves with the music, confident hands resting on your hips as the two of you move together. The closeness is easy, the heat of another body against yours. The press of a hand sliding slightly lower, fingers brushing your thigh before gliding back up again.

And of course, because your brain is cruel, you picture Jack.

You imagine that he’s holding your body with his firm, calloused hands, that his masculine arms envelop you, making you feel the warmth radiating from his chest. Hands touch your thigh and slide down, then up, taking with them part of the pink dress you're wearing. Your body reacts before your brain does, arching back slightly, leaning into the contact, chasing the sensation like it belongs to him. The thought alone sends a shiver down your spine.

God.

You're desperate to kiss him. You want to taste him, feel his warmth, want him everywhere. You turn on your heels and when your eyes meet the face that has been dancing with you for the last three minutes, you freeze. It's not Jack, it's just that cute guy you bumped into before going to the bathroom.

He smiles, clearly thinking things have been going very well. Your brain short-circuits.

“Oh—” You step back immediately. “Sorry.”

The guy looks confused, reaching out as if to catch your elbow, but you slip away before he can. You weave through the crowd, bumping shoulders and muttering quick apologies as you push toward the edge of the dance floor.

No one really sees you, you're just another person trying to get from one end of the dance floor to the other. The pressure of it all forces you forward until, finally, you reach a small pocket of space near the edge where you can actually breathe. You glance over your shoulder, checking to see if the guy from before followed you.

Relief barely has time to settle before your chest collides with someone.

You instinctively step back, ready to mumble a quick apology and keep moving, but something about the moment changes before your brain catches up. A strange shiver runs through your body, the kind that starts low in your spine and climbs upward.

Jack Abbot is standing right in front of you and for a second you just stare at him. Colored lights slide across his face—blue, red, violet—each flash sharpening the lines of his expression. He’s watching you carefully, almost cautiously, his features calm but alert, like he’s assessing a situation.

You blink once, twice. Like maybe the image will disappear if you reset your vision. Everything is in motion except you. Jack tilts his head slightly to look at you.

“Jack?” Your voice is quiet. “What are you doing here?”

Your gaze betrays you immediately. It drops for half a second, to the outline of his biceps under the fitted black T-shirt, to the tan of his skin, scattered with those faint freckles you’ve memorized without meaning to.

There’s something about the way he stands, relaxed but solid, confident without even trying, that makes every other man in the room feel like background noise. Jack doesn’t compete with people. He just exists, and somehow that’s enough.

One look. That’s all it takes for every bit of attitude you had five minutes ago to evaporate.

“You called me,” he says simply.

You choke on your own words.

“I didn't—”

Jack moves deftly, it’s quick, smooth, almost effortless. One hand lands against the small of your back, firm and steady, guiding you to turn with him. Suddenly you’re walking in the opposite direction, straight toward the exit, like the decision has already been made.

Your body follows automatically.

The contact sends a sharp chill down your spine. His palm rests low against your back, warm even through the thin fabric of your dress, steering you through the moving crowd with quiet certainty.

It feels unfair how natural it is, like your bodies already know how to move together.

The familiar scent of him hits you a second later—clean, warm, unmistakably him—and it lands harder than the tequila ever did. Suddenly you're hyperaware of everything: the brush of his arm against yours, the solid line of his chest behind you whenever someone bumps into him.

Every step toward the door feels heavier and every inch of him feels dangerously close.

The night air outside the club is cool against your skin, a sharp contrast to the heat and noise you just left behind. Laughter spills from the open door behind you, and somewhere down the street someone shouts something unintelligible, followed by more laughter. But all of it fades into the background. All you can really feel is him.

His hand is still firm at the small of your back, guiding you along the sidewalk. His body moves close enough that every step brushes him against you, the steady warmth of him impossible to ignore.

“Jack,” you murmur, trying to slow him.

He doesn’t stop.

“Let's get to the car, baby.”

“No, wait.” You frown and pull away just enough so you can turn and look at him. “You're… here.”

“Of course I am. You called me.”

“I don’t—” You shake your head, frustration bubbling up. “I don’t want you here. I was having fun.”

You whine like a grumpy baby.

Liar. That's what you are.

Jack nods once so subtly that you almost don't notice. He takes a step, his chest meets yours, warm and solid, and suddenly the small space between your bodies disappears. The contact sends a quiet jolt through you, an immediate awareness of how long it’s been since you felt him this close.

“Really, honey?” He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear with surprising gentleness. “That’s not what it sounded like on the phone.”

You open your mouth to give a sharp reply, but it dies the moment his fingers drift down from your ear to your chin, tilting your face slightly. The pad of his thumb traces slowly across your lower lip, barely there, but enough to make your breath catch.

“How much did you drink?” He says softly, his hoarse voice sliding into your ears.

You feel your stomach sink, a warm sensation creeping into your belly.

“Not much.” You whisper.

“How much?” he repeats, a little firmer this time.

You stare at him instead of answering. Up close, you can see every familiar detail: the faint silver threaded through his hair, the sun-warmed tone of his skin, the scatter of freckles across his shoulders where his shirt collar dips slightly open. Your mind drifts somewhere reckless, already building wild little scenarios around the man standing in front of you

“A few shots of tequila.” You look up and lean in, touching your nose to his.

For half a second, Jack allows it, but then he puts his hands on your waist, a quiet smile pulls at one corner of his mouth.

“Let's get you sober, shall we, sweetheart?” He looks down as he says it, his thumb softening your skin over your dress, pressing just enough to remind you exactly where his hand is.

You give him a mischievous smile and try to wrap your arms around his neck. “‘Mm… Not drunk.”

Jack almost laughs and smiles slightly, his throat bobbing and the silence remaining. You feel almost undressed by the way he looks at you, an overwhelming confidence.

“Sure.” Jack buries his fingers in the roots of your hair, pulling your face toward him.

For a split second you’re certain he’s about to kiss you. You barely move. Barely breathing.

“Did my girl want attention?” he murmurs, voice smooth as dark velvet. “Mm?” You part your lips, leaning in just enough for him to take the initiative. Jack moves closer, you hold your breath, then he whispers in your ear. “Since you're so needy, I'll give you what you want.”

Your stomach drops. He pulls away from you, the loss of his arm around you feels abrupt, almost physical, like something important just slipped out of reach.

Embarrassment creeps in, slow and uncomfortable. Thinking about how stupid this whole situation is. Jack came here looking for you. You drank too much and said some stupid things.

And apparently said something stupid enough that he actually showed up.

When you reach the truck, Jack unlocks it with a quiet click.

He moves ahead of you, opening the door before you even think to reach for it. One hand rests briefly at your elbow as you sit, steadying you while you slide onto the seat.

The leather is cool against your legs. Your head might be a little fuzzy from the tequila, but you’re very aware of what’s happening. Probably more aware than you’d like to be.

Without a word, he bends down on the sidewalk.

Your brows knit together. “What are you doing?”

Instead, his fingers move to the thin strap around your ankle. With a small, precise motion, he unfastens it. The other shoe comes off just as easily. He sets both of them carefully on the floor of the car before guiding your legs farther inside with a light push at your shin.

The movement makes your dress slide higher up your thighs. Your knees press together automatically, heat creeping up your neck as the fabric bunches dangerously close to revealing more than it should.

If Jack notices, he gives absolutely no sign.

“Let's get you comfy, yeah?” He says calmly.

He leans—almost on purpose—over your body to fasten your seatbelt. You turn your face at the same time as him, breathing in his scent, watching from a few inches away his stubble and dark eyes in the shadow of the night.

Your breath leaves you slowly. The ache in your chest is almost physical now. Wanting him this much feels ridiculous, and yet there it is—heavy and persistent. Jack takes his time. He clicks the seatbelt into place, then adjusts it slightly so it sits comfortably against your waist, smoothing the strap down with absent care.

But he doesn’t move away immediately. For a moment—two seconds, maybe—his face lingers close to yours. Close enough that if you leaned forward just a little… You could kiss him.

The thought hits you before you can stop it. 

However, when you try to move, he pulls away as if you were the plague. The shift is sharp, almost clinical, like he just brushed something irritating off his sleeve.

He closes the door and you shrink slightly into the seat, staring out the window, your reflection staring back at you in the dark glass. Heat crawls up your neck again, but this time it’s embarrassing.

Whatever you had, it's over. That was the only certainty: Jack Abbot would never land another finger on you again. He probably thinks you’re childish and impulsive. Not worth the trouble.

The driver’s door opens and shuts. A second later the engine starts, the low rumble filling the quiet street.

You don’t look at him. Which’s difficult, because you can still see him in your peripheral vision, hands steady on the wheel, forearms flexing slightly as he shifts the car into gear. The movement pulls the fabric of his T-shirt tight across his arms, every line of muscle catching the dim glow from the dashboard.

You hate that you notice. You hate that he looks completely unaffected.

So you retreat. You pull your legs up onto the seat, curling slightly toward the door, resting your head against the cool glass of the window while the city lights slide past outside.

You must have dozed off, because the next thing you know you’re moving.

Strong arms lift you from the seat, the sudden shift pulling you out of that hazy half-sleep. Instinctively, your hands slide up around Jack’s neck to steady yourself.

“That’s not necessary,” you mumble, irritation creeping into your voice. “I can walk!”

Jack closes the car door with his foot and smiles mockingly.

“Just giving my girl the attention she deserves.”

My girl. He says it as if it really means something.

His apartmen’s pitch black when you enter, and Jack's familiar scent of clean clothes and cologne hits you. He carries you to the bedroom where you've been multiple times, just in different situations.

You take advantage of the situation, pressing your nose against his neck, brushing the tip just to get his attention, anything to make him look at you. But no, he goes into the bathroom and leaves you on the marble sink. As he turns on the light, you take a deep breath, then he steps closer and braces both arms around you, one on either side, effectively boxing you in. His chest is inches from yours, the solid line of his shoulders blocking your escape.

“What am I supposed to do with you, hm?” He murmurs against your hair.

You actually have several ideas. Very good ones, in your opinion, but judging by the way he’s been behaving all night, none of them are about to happen. Still… no one ever died from trying.

“How about a shower?” You perk up at the idea, but something’s off. You don't object when he grabs you by the waist to lift you off the sink and turns you around to slide off your dress, which falls in a puddle at your feet.

Automatically, you bring your hair forward, slightly covering your breasts with your arms, which is stupid, because Jack has seen you naked more times than you can count, not only that, but there’s something about the care with which he touches you that makes the moment intimate and vulnerable.

You step out of the dress and peel off the last piece of clothing, suddenly aware of the cool air on your skin. Without his hands on you, you feel oddly exposed, hugging your arms around yourself for warmth.

Jack moves calmly around the bathroom, pulling the small shower chair aside before turning the water on. Steam begins to curl into the air. Then he lifts you again—effortless—and sets you gently inside the shower.

You frown, unhappy. “Aren't you coming in?”

He adjusts the water and you shrink even more. He looks up at you and gives a faint, patient smile. His fingers brush a strand of damp hair away from your cheek.

“Not today, honey.”

This is the end. Literally, the worst day of your goddamn life. Damn the moment tequila gave you enough courage to do something stupid.

“Are you gonna be a good girl,” he asks quietly, “and let me take care of you?”

Then you nod, water droplets sliding down your eyelashes as you look at him, feeling more exposed than you have in a long time.

After that, everything slips out of focus.

One moment Jack’s standing close, carefully washing the last traces of the night from your skin. His hands move with quiet patience, planned and controlled, as if he’s following invisible boundaries he refuses to cross. The warmth of the water, the steadiness of his touch, it all melts together until the scene feels distant, almost dreamlike.

The next moment you’re wrapped in a towel.

The air outside the shower feels cool against your damp skin as he guides you down the hallway. His hand rests lightly at your back, steady and reassuring, and then you’re in his bedroom again.

Somewhere along the way, he hands you something soft to wear.

You manage to pull it on, movements slow and clumsy with sleep. Your hair’s still damp when you rub it absently with the towel before letting it fall over your shoulders. The room’s dim, the soft glow from a lamp turning everything hazy at the edges.

Your body sinks into the mattress the moment you lie down.

Jack moves quietly around the room, but your eyes can barely follow him anymore. His shape passes through your vision like a shadow—broad shoulders, the faint sound of a drawer closing, the rustle of fabric.

You’re already drifting. The last thing you see clearly is him sitting on the edge of the bed.

The mattress dips slightly under his weight. His hand reaches out, warm and steady as it cups your cheek, brushing your skin with a softness that makes something deep in your chest ache.

“I’m so sorry, Jack,” you murmur.

Your voice’s thick with sleep, the words slurring slightly together. Your eyelids grow too heavy to keep open.

Somewhere between waking and sleep, you feel his thumb move gently along your cheekbone.

And just before the darkness pulls you under, you hear his voice: low, close, and quieter than you’ve ever heard it.

“Let’s get some sleep, sweetheart.”

It's dark, too dark for you to see anything, but your body wakes up anyway. Your hands grope the bed, the soft fabric, and despite the confusion, you just know you're in his bed. Everything’s unmistakable, the softness of the mattress, the smooth sheets against your skin, his scent that’s everywhere.

The other side of the bed is cold when you touch it, which means that all your thoughts from last night were right: Jack had grown tired of you. Last night... Holy shit. Memories start to push through the fog—tequila, the club, calling him like an idiot, him showing up. You groan and drop your head back against the pillow, pressing your fingers to the bridge of your nose like maybe you can rewind time if you try hard enough.

It doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t.

As you look at your own body, you feel the soft touch of Jack's button-down shirt, one you've never seen him actually wear. It’s big on you, soft from use, the sleeves swallowing your hands. You’ve never actually seen him wear this one before, but somehow it ended up on your body. A cool breeze comes in through the window, and as you search for your phone, you can't even remember where you put it.

“Perfect,” you mutter under your breath.

The digital clock on the dresser glows faint red in the darkness and points to exactly 3:12 a.m. So you put your feet out and feel the cold floor, and even barefoot, you make your way silently, on tiptoe, to the hallway.

You need your phone. Trinity must have sent about thirty messages by now. And your clothes—your dress, your shoes. You could grab them, order an Uber, and disappear before this gets any more embarrassing.

You swing your feet over the side of the bed. The floor is cold, and the chill shoots straight up your legs, waking you a little more. Still, you move quietly, almost instinctively on your toes as you make your way toward the door.

You feel your way along the walls of the apartment, your mind alert to every sound, every crack, and every movement you make. To your surprise, when you reach the living room, there’s a lamp next to the sofa and Jack’s there. He’s leaning back against the couch, one arm resting along the back while the other holds an open book. The warm light spills across his chest, catching on the faint scatter of freckles across his skin.

He looks up as soon as he sees you, then lowers the book and you don't know what to do, standing on tiptoe, looking at him completely embarrassed.

“Where are you going, honey?” he asks quietly.

“Um... I was going to... look for my clothes and... my phone, call an Uber, go home.”

You attempt a small smile. It’s the kind where you keep your lips firmly closed. Jack frowns and puts the book on the coffee table.

“C’mere.”

He says it more like an order, not a suggestion and you walk like a helpless animal, tucking your legs and arms together and sitting on the other end, far enough away that the embarrassment affects you. It's still partially dark, the small lampshade illuminating nothing but the freckles on Jack's broad chest, his salt and pepper locks, which you avoid staring at for more than two seconds and fail gloomily.

He watches you as you avoid his gaze, playing with the hem of the shirt as if it were interesting enough.

“Hey,” he calls you, his voice hoarser than ever. “Look at me.”

And then you look. And it kills you, because the truth is, this whole mess started with something small and stupid that grew into something much bigger than you ever planned. It started with affection—something neither of you were supposed to let happen. It was too late, you knew that from the moment you got involved with him ten months ago, when he saw you crying in a dark room after Pittfest.

You didn't expect to get attached to Jack Abbot, it was supposed to be just a physical thing, with no strings attached, but Jack is a real man, the kind who takes you to his house and cooks dinner for you, who opens the car door and gives you a ride when you have a panic attack at the end of the workday. You liked him more than you could admit, and maybe the alcohol made you realize that, perhaps, he doesn't feel the same way about you.

“I'm so embarrassed.” Your hands come up to cover your face as you drag in a slow breath.

Jack approaches, you can tell by the rustling of the sofa.

“Hey, sweetheart. Why’s that?”

“‘Cause...” Your voice fails you. You take your hands away from your face and he’s so incredibly close that it hurts. “I was stupid. I shouldn’t have called you. You’re probably busy, and you came all the way to—” You stop, suddenly remembering something. “Actually… how did you even find me?”

He reaches for your hand, his fingers close around it gently, steadying it before he lifts your wrist toward his mouth. Your breath catches. His lips press softly against the inside of your wrist.

Once. Then again.

Slow, unhurried kisses that move from your wrist to the back of your hand, then up along your forearm. Each one intentional, like he has all the time in the world.

Before you can fully process it, his arm slides around your waist, the next second you’re being pulled onto his lap and the movement steals the air from your lungs.

Your breathing quickens when he slips his hand under your shirt and smoothes your bare skin, caressing you slowly.

“You needed me,” he says quietly. “So I came.”

“I’m sure you had something better to do,” you murmur, trying to sound casual. “Or someone.”

Jack doesn’t even react to the attempt, he just watches you. And that somehow makes it worse.

Because the way he looks at you makes it painfully clear he knows exactly how much power he has over you. And the worst part is… you’d probably let him do anything he wanted, even if it meant dealing with the consequences later.

“You drive me insane, you know that?” His voice drops lower, rough with something that sounds dangerously close to frustration. His grip shakes at your waist and you lean in, holding Jack's shoulders for support. His palm slides up and down your back in a delicate, pleasurable movement that gives you goosebumps.

“Jack...”

“Yeah, honey. Did y’know that?” Your heart's beating too fast now. “How exactly,” he continues quietly, “did you convince yourself I’d be interested in anyone else… when you’re the only woman I can think about?”

For a second your brain simply stops. That can’t be right. You must still be half asleep. Dreaming. Hallucinating. Something.

“...What?”

Jack’s hand moves to the buttons of the shirt you’re wearing. You don’t even remember when he decided to start undoing them. One by one, his fingers work them open with slow patience, like he’s in no hurry at all.

“You drive me out of my fucking mind,” he mutters. “In ways you probably don’t even realize.”

Another button slips free.

“My pretty girl needed my attention, didn’t she?”

The words settle deep in your chest.

“As if any other man would dare put his hands on what belongs to me.”

Your heart stumbles.

The contact triggered an immediate sympathetic nervous system response. A spike of adrenaline surged through your system, leaving your heart rate erratic and every nerve ending painfully sensitive.

When the last button comes undone, you close your eyes. You can feel his gaze moving over your face, studying every small reaction. His breath brushes your collarbone, warm against your skin, and a shiver spreads down your body before you can stop it.

You want him so badly that your body glows with longing every time he touches you, even if it's unwitting.

His beard brushes against your skin, his mouth almost touching your neck, but your body tilts, sways, his hand holds you firmly at an angle where you can't escape.

“No one,” he murmured, his lips grazing the hollow between your breasts. “...touches…” He dragged a path downward, his mouth searing against your skin. “…what’s mine.”

The sound that escaped you was sharp, raw. When you looked down, his focus was absolute, his touch careful, as if he were mapping you with devotion.

You arched your back as Jack settled into the sofa. The contact through the thin fabric of your lace was immediate, a localized heat that spiked your pulse and forced a jagged moan from your throat.

“So good for me...” You lean on him as your hips curl, the friction was a slow burn, a steady accumulation of kinetic energy between you “Fuck. S’that you want, honey?”

The answer caught in your throat, a half-formed word that dissolved into a moan. Jack didn't wait for a verbal confirmation. He moved with a devastating efficiency, peeling the shirt from your shoulders and sweeping your hair aside, his eyes never leaving yours. He wanted every inch of skin available to him.

When you get rid of the piece of clothing, you push him against the couch and hold his face with your fingertips, his beard tickling your skin, his hand going straight to your ass and his fingers squeezing your flesh hard.

“I want you.” You caught his lower lip between your teeth, a sharp, demanding bite before you crashed into a kiss that felt less like an affection and more like a collision. Jack is gentle but fierce, he pushes your hair away, nibbles your lower lip, his tongue tangled with yours, his mouth swallowing every sound you tried to make as if he were memorizing the rhythm of your breath.

“Be good for me.” His breathing is ragged as his chest rises and falls rapidly. “Mm?”

He grabs you by the waist and you get up, stumbling over the rug, the shirt thrown on the floor, the shoes you hadn't seen in the dark because you're too busy holding his face, swallowing him as if he were the only thing that matters.

He sits up on the bed, carrying you with him until you're straddling him, and the feeling of him beneath you, knowing that you're in charge, makes you extremely wet. He pulls your hair to the side, kisses your neck, your skin, and bites your shoulder when you grind on his lap, begging to be touched there.

Abbot had a devastating confidence in the dark. He made it clear that your pleasure was his only directive. He reclaimed your mouth, his hand sliding the lace aside to find the epicenter of the heat. You sobbed into his kiss, he simply drank the sound down. His thumb moved in a slow, rhythmic circle that teased the very edge of what you could handle. He bites your chin and watches your microexpressions when he touches you there, his fingers rubbing, but never really in.

“Jack...” You whimper, feeling the need for more, always more, more, more.

“Want that, honey?” A ghost of a smirk touched his lips as you tightened your grip on his shoulders, forcing yourself down against his fingers.

“Mm-hmm,” You say, incoherently.

“Mm-hmm,” He mimicked, a low, dark chuckle vibrating in his chest.

“Can you cum for me like that, honey?” Jack whispers under your skin, where he nibbles your nipple and watches the instant reaction of your skin to his touch. “Bet you can.”

He didn't make you wait. He knew exactly how to move, finding the precise rhythm to push you over the edge, spreading his fingers everywhere. The repetitive, relentless motion put you into a trance until the tension finally snapped. The climax hit like a physical shock, a wave of heat that undulated through your core and left you breathless.

“There you go,” Jack kisses your shoulder as he holds your body during your climax, a perfect ‘O’ blossoming your lips. “My pretty girl, s’good for me, huh?”

Your cheeks are rosy, your neck covered in sweat, and adrenaline crackling in your veins.

“You're right,” You lean in, kissing his neck, then his jaw… Everywhere. “I'm yours.”

Something awakens in Jack's eyes and kindness gives way to something sharper. It’s a transition you recognize, a silent understanding that only exists between the two of you. Both breathless, he exhales a low curse before reclaiming your mouth with a desperation that suggests he never should have let go in the first place.

“Damn right you are.” He rasps against your lips, his voice dropping an octave.

Your hands fumble with the fabric of his sweatpants, fueled by a frantic need to close the gap. When you finally make contact, the heat of him is staggering. Jack lets out a wrecked moan, his eyes snapping shut as his hand finds the back of your neck, grounding you as he devours your mouth.

“Damn, baby.” His voice is a whisper in the dark. You look into his eyes, in that inky gradient bathed in the night.

You're in sync, heart to heart, pulsing with adrenaline. When you touch him, pulling him out, it's pure euphoria. Jack groans when your hand pumps him, moving up and down, so slowly that he could die. You lift your hips, ignoring everything else, because at that moment it's just you and him.

It feels like a slow-motion collision. Jack whimpers, his features contorted in a sharp mask of pleasure that looks almost like pain. You move with a torturous rhythm, both of you suspended in that heavy, humid space where control starts to slip.

“Oh my God, Jack!” You moan, trying to keep your movements steady, but his hands lock onto your hips, his fingers digging in as he pulls you down, forcing a deeper connection.

“You're going to take it all, aren't you, baby?” Jack mumbles, his voice thick and broken. “Shit—ah, baby—you're doing so good...”

The intensity of the kiss is overwhelming, triggering a sharp contraction in your core. A raw, unyielding force takes over as Jack hitches the pace, swallowing your whimpers and turning them into his own. He’s murmuring into the crook of your neck now—broken sentences, encouragement, breathless praise—until your mind becomes a total fog. Your bodies move as one, in frenzied agony, Jack continues to whine and moan and say all the things that make your mind turn into nothing.

He's everywhere. The sensation builds, a radiating heat that starts in your toes and surges upward, centering in your belly. It’s a heavy, mounting pressure that leaves no room for anything else.

“I’m—”

“I’ve got you, baby. I'm right here.” He promises against your skin, and that’s the catalyst. You melt, pressing yourself against him, your pleasure pulling him over the edge, ecstasy swallowing everything.

The dam breaks. You melt into him, the force of your release dragging him over the edge with you. He swears, his entire frame locking as he holds you in a crushing embrace, his body vibrating with the aftershocks of a pleasure so intense it feels electric.

“I wanna feel you,” you murmur into his shoulder, clinging to the fading heat.

“Fuck,” he breathes, his pulse still erratic against your own, his arms tightening around you as if he’s making sure you’re still there.

Both of you are still catching your breath. Your heart hasn’t quite settled yet, and judging by the way Jack’s chest rises against yours, neither has his. But he’s right there, pressed close, skin warm against your skin. When your arms wrap around him, instinctively pulling him closer, the rest of the world fades out.

His lips brush your shoulder, slow and warm. Then again. And again. Small, absent kisses moving lazily along your skin.

“You’re a fucking dream,” he murmurs.

He whispers against your vibrant skin. You feel the hint of a smile where his beard grazes your shoulder, the roughness of it scraping gently across your damp skin. Part of you wants to freeze the moment exactly like this—to keep the warmth, the quiet, the way he feels against you.

You don’t want to let go.

Eventually Jack shifts, guiding you back toward the bed. The sheets are cool when your skin touches them, and for a second you assume the moment is over. That means it’s time to leave, so you start to sit up.

“Hey,” Jack says softly. “What are you doing?”

You blink at him, confused. You never stay. Never.

“I thought that...”

“No, honey," He reaches for your hand before you can finish. His thumb brushes across your knuckles, and he lifts your hand to his mouth, pressing a slow kiss to the back of it. “Stay.”

The window is slightly open, letting a cool breeze drift through the room. Jack slides closer immediately, one arm wrapping around your waist and pulling you back against him. Your back fits neatly against his chest.

His nose nestles into your hair, breathing you in. His body is warm, solid behind you, his leg brushing lightly against yours under the sheets.

“Okay,” you murmur, lacing your fingers with his.

He squeezes your hand gently.

“You should stay more often,” he says.

“Like, tomorrow?” You smile faintly in the dark, joking about it.