♡

At eight years old, she has lots of opinions. It had started that morning when she woke up and decided she did not want to brush her teeth (which you of course had to convince her to do), she’d been upset to find that Jack was working and could not ride bikes with her (as they liked to do on Saturday mornings he had off work), and then suddenly decided that she absolutely would not be getting her Flu vaccine you had already scheduled her for at your local pharmacy today.

It isn’t often you give in to your daughter's outlandish whims, but you also know that aversions to needles is something that can become worse the older a person gets. You dealt with parents fainting over their child getting a small shot in the arm enough to know that you did not want your daughter to one day fear needles that much. So that’s why you made her a deal.

Get your vaccine from mom at work and maybe you can see Jack.

She’d been all for it, of course. From the day you’d introduced her and Jack seven years ago, she and him had been attached at the hip. It’s why you know that bribing her with the thought of his attention is a sure fire way to get her on board. 

“Can we go see Jack now?” she asks the minute you step on the chaotic emergency floor. Even though she didn’t see her biological father often, and had known Jack since she was a baby, she still liked calling him Jack. You and Jack never correct her because you know that kids can have a hard time relinquishing titles like that.

“Have to get your shot first,” you tell her, weaving through doctors and nurses striding by in a frenzied hurry. You’re mostly trying to get off this floor before she sees something traumatizing.

You pass a young woman screaming at the top of her lungs in the psych hold area and you cringe, angling your daughter’s curious gaze away.

Entering through this floor had not been your first idea. Pedes was a few floors up, and not nearly as chaotic as the emergency floor. It also tended to not have nearly as much blood or gore. It had just about the same level of loudness, though—especially when babies are concerned.

“Is that my favorite pedes doctor coming in on her day off again?” 

You flinch and turn your head just as you and your daughter have just about made it to the elevators. Since Jack’s been working more day shifts recently (to get better aligned with you and your daughter’s schedules, bless him), a whole new cast of characters has been taking up residence in his stories.

This one you recognize immediately, though. 

“Dana,” you say with a short laugh, reaching out to give her a quick sidearm hug, the other still holding your daughter’s hand captive in your own.

She returns it softly, grinning at you with that warm, toothy smile.

“Hey hon.” She releases you after a quick pat on the back, eyes glittering. She looks down at your daughter and bends on her knees. “And here’s the one we’ve all heard so much about from Jack.”

You adjust your hand to rest between your daughter’s shoulder blades, gently nudging her forward. She’s dressed in a bedazzled rainbow dash t-shirt (the best My Little Pony, in her opinion) and a tulle skirt, and several butterfly clips in her hair. She’s been picking out her own outfits recently, but luckily they were still pretty cute.

She looks back at you nervously, but offers Dana a smile when she turns her head back. She gives the older woman a small wave.

“We didn’t want to have to spend the day at work,” you say to her, “but someone is a little hesitant to get her flu shot, so I thought I’d just bring her in and do it here.”

Dana shoots you a knowing look. “Well, let me know if I can help you guys at all.”—she turns to your daughter then, a smile on her painted lips—“Maybe if it all goes well, you can come see me for some stickers afterward?”

Your daughter grins, looking back at you. “Can we go do it now?”

You laugh at her sudden enthusiasm, turning to Dana. “You should come join us on the pediatric floor.”

“No thank you,” she says, shaking her head, “if I had to hear babies crying all day I’d lose my mind. Those days are over for me.”

“You have the touch!” you tell her over your shoulder as you weave into the elevator with your daughter in tow. 

“I have bribes.” Dana’s laugh follows you as the doors begin to slide shut. “Not the same thing.”

You continue to smile even as the doors slide shut and the familiar weightless feeling takes hold as the elevator moves. Your daughter slides her hand from yours and you quickly check your phone for any notifications. The last text you received was at 7am this morning—Jack sneaking out but not without telling you he loves you over text and that he’d made breakfast.

You bite your lip as you relive the butterflies that erupted in your stomach from the simple phrase. 

That is what is so rare, so special about Jack. He loves you unconditionally. Your last boyfriend, your daughter’s father, had practically skipped town when he found out you were pregnant. As far as you were concerned, he was just a sperm donor.

Luckily, you had met Jack about six months into your pregnancy. Somehow in that brief period when you spoke infrequently in between night shift consultations, you being single had come up in conversation and he made his move. 

Two years later, he was the one doing puzzles with your daughter and drawing with crayons at the kitchen table. Later, he was the one teaching her how to ride a bicycle and tie her shoes. When you and Jack got married four years ago, your daughter had beamed ear-to-ear during the entire reception—and had run up to give her new step-dad a huge hug that resulted in many resounding “awws” in the audience.

Your daughter knew no other male parental figure except Jack, not really. Your ex visited on holidays, often with some kind of lazy $20 Target gift card and a Hallmark card. There’s some kind of the mysticism that comes when you’re a kid that’s visited by an absent parent once in a blue moon that keeps them haunting the back of your mind like an apparition, always.

She doesn’t know him like you do, and she only sees him twice a year, so she doesn’t have a fully-realized image of what he is or what kind of person he could be. She gives him graces that she wouldn’t afford anyone else in her life that are constants because of that mysticism and childhood naïveté. You don’t blame her—can’t. You do blame your ex, but there’s really not anything you can do about that either—except demand child support and remind him with texts of her birthday coming up every year.

You reach over to squeeze her shoulder affectionately and she looks up at you, giving a small smile.

“It will be over in no time, I promise.” You let go of her shoulder just as the elevator dings and the doors slide open to the, thankfully, much quieter pediatrics floor.

In the distance, you hear a baby crying that is quickly soothed by their mother’s voice. You glance down at your daughter as she steps into the floor behind you and your heart pangs.

Her eyes are wide, taking in every person that walks by with scrutiny, and she tries to hide the slight tremble to her hands. 

You bend your knee, putting on your trained pediatrics smile. Her eyes dart to yours, a plea on her lips. “It will be over so quickly. I promise. And then we will see Mrs. Dana and she will give us stickers and we can go see Jack and give him a hug.”

She doesn’t seem entirely comfortable, still, but she nods and follows you as you lead her to the circle of desks near the center of the room. It’s a very similar setup to the emergency floor, except the rooms are less windowed for privacy and the walls are painted in a soothing nature scene for the kids to enjoy.

You find one of the pediatrics nurses, a friend of yours, and you ask him for some assistance. You set your daughter down in one of the stools at the front.

“Okay, this is mom’s friend Henry, and he’s going to help us with your flu shot. Is that okay?”

Your daughter looks over at the mid-twenty year old man standing across from her, hands clenched into little fists in her lap. She nods, then starts pulling at one of the strings in her rainbow skirt.

You look over at Henry, who begins prepping the shot. Your daughter stares at you with a tremulous chin, eyes beading with tears.

As Henry begins to wipe her upper arm with a sterile pad, she flinches and turns away, hiding her upper body from sight.

“I want Jack,” she says softly, “can Jack do it? I promise I will if he comes.”

You sigh and turn to Henry, who shrugs. You look down at your phone and raise a brow when it vibrates in your hand, as if beckoned.

Jack<3: how did little one’s shot go today? i’m on lunch

“Stay here with Henry for a minute, okay, honey? I'm going to go make a phone call.” Your daughter nods, but gives Henry a skeptical side eye as he continues to stand in front of her.

You back far enough away that your daughter can’t hear and press on Jack’s contact info to call him.

It only has to ring once before you hear his voice on the other side.

“You okay? Need me to head out?” 

Your stomach flutters at the concern in his voice, even though you think it might be a little sadistic to feel that. Maybe it’s just that every day, in little moments, you’re reminded how much you and your daughter mean to him.

“If I were to tell you I’m in pediatrics right now, with little Miss-Afraid-of-Needles near-hyperventilating at just the thought of getting her flu shot, what would you do?”

“I thought you guys had an appointment for that?” You can hear shuffling on the other end and the sound of someone asking him a question, which he replies in a muffled voice you can’t make out. 

“Well, I made a mistake,” you tell him, “I let her decide where we go to get the shot. I also promised she would see you after and that Dana would give her stickers. And she’s still upset about it all.”

“She’s got you wrapped around her little finger, you know that?” 

You snort a laugh through your nose. “Like you’re any better? Don’t think I didn’t see the smiley face you made her out of chocolate chips on her pancakes this morning.”

“It’s our Saturday tradition, honey. You know that.”

“I know, I know,” you laugh again, “just don’t try to lecture me about being too soft on her when I can literally hear you running to catch the elevator right now.”

He chuckles, then quietens.

“—I think the elevator’s about to arrive. I’ll see you in a minute?”

You nod, then you realize he can’t see you. “I love you. Thank you for making the time.”

You can hear the smile in his voice as he replies. “For you? Always.”

The call cuts just as you hear the elevator doors ding on the other side of the call. You turn around to look at your daughter, only to find her putting stickers all over poor Nurse Henry’s arm. You grin at her enthusiasm, striding over.

“You getting Nurse Henry looking pretty over here?”

Your daughter clams up as if she’s expecting you to be angry at her sudden 180 in emotion. You know kids, though, and you know that her fear was real and that just because she’s been distracted doesn’t mean she was faking it before. You squat down to her level, gently stroking her hair.

“Jack’s coming up now to give you your shot.”

Your daughter beams, but after a moment shrivels in on herself, her lip trembling. 

You give her a kiss on the cheek. You pull back, forcing her to look at your eyes with a hand on her chin. “It will be okay. I promise.”

As if on cue, the elevator doors open and Jack comes striding in. He looks around for just a few seconds before his eyes land on where you stand across the room. He beams and quickly strides over.

Henry steps back as Jack takes his spot.

“Hey, bug,” he says to her. He pokes her arm and she lets out a soft laugh, turning away. “I hear you’re a little scared of your shot?”

She wrinkles her nose. “It hurts. And I can’t sleep on my arm at night when I get them.”

“Well,” Jack says, snapping on a pair of gloves from nearby, “sometimes life is about doing things that might make us hurt for a day or two so we don’t get really hurt later.”

“But I’ve never had the flu before,” she says, furrowing her brows.

“Do you remember what I told you about our bodies? That we have fighters inside of us that are usually really good at keeping viruses like the flu from making us sick?” She nods, so he continues. “Well, this shot”—he picks up the needle to show her—“has a code in it that those little fighters can learn, so that when you do get the flu, you might not get sick at all, because now they know what they’re fighting.”

Your daughter nods very seriously. “So my fighters are like Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash learning more about Nightmare Moon so they can stop her from taking over the world next time she shows up?”

You notice from the corner of your eye Henry biting his lip to smother his laughter. Meanwhile, you’re actually pretty impressed by her comparison to her favorite show. You also think in the same train of thought that maybe she needed less screen time.

“Yep, exactly,” Jack agrees enthusiastically. “And this shot is like the Elements of Harmony coming to change Nightmare Moon back into Princess Luna.”

Now you’re the one holding back your laughter. You look over at Jack, impressed by his knowledge. He shoots you a sly wink as if to say ‘I know more than I’m letting on.’

Your daughter squares her shoulders and nods. “Okay,” she says, “do it. I’m ready.”

Jack smiles and grabs the sterile swab to rewipe her upper arm. She flinches at the cold liquid and you walk over to stand in front of her.

“Just look at me,” you tell her softly, “it will be over before you know it.”

She follows your direction obediently as Jack lines up the shot with her arm. As the needle enters, your daughter winces and tenses, but keeps her eyes on you all the while. Jack pushes the liquid in then removes the needle. He puts on a colorful bandaid to the wound.

“All done,” you say with a grin, “you did so good.”

She bashfully drops her eyes. “It barely even hurt.”

Jack stands, removing the gloves with a small, affectionate smile pulling at his lips.

She stands up from her stool. You think she’s going to move toward you when she surprises you by turning to hug Jack around his waist. Jack tilts his head toward her, surprised.

“Thanks, dad,” she says into his back. “You’re the best.”

She continues to bury her head into his scrubs, and Jack pats her head as he meets your shocked gaze. You think your mouth must be hanging open, but you can’t help it.

She pulls away and looks up at him. She frowns. “Why are you crying, dad?”

Jack wraps her in a gentle side hug, wiping away the small tears that had leaked out. “Nothing, bug. Just happy.”

Your daughter lets out a soft laugh, shaking her head. She begins to move away from the two of you quickly. “Okay, well stop crying and come pick out stickers with me.”

You snort at her drill-sergeant order and look over at Jack, who continues to grin and shake his head. You reach over to loop an arm around his waist, planting a kiss to his cheek.

“You earned it,” you whisper, “only a dad knows that many My Little Pony references.”

Jack lets out a laugh, leaning forward to capture your mouth in a full kiss.

The moment is broken when your daughter lets out a loud groan from across the room. “Come onnnn, gosh you guys are so gross!”

You laugh and pull away. You sweep your hand toward your daughter with a sarcastic grin. “C'mon, Jack. Fatherhood awaits.”

You were at the gurney in an instance, Robby joining the herd in the pushing of the bed. It took you less than a second to see through the bag in the neck and the blood and the uniform to recognise the one on the gurney. “Hiro? What happened?”

“Warehouse robbery gone wrong,” said Jack with almost absent of mind. He said the words and promptly seemed to realise who he was talking to and looked up- at you- again. “You're working today?”

“Oh no, I just hang around in hopes of seeing you in unfiorm.”

Next to you, Robby chuckled and beyond Jack you gave quick greeting to your laughing buddies, clad in SWAT uniform.

You were what could be called, a floater.

By all educational means you were a doctor and a damn good one too. You had every certificate you needed and all the flying colours you could get. You just didn't have a permanent job. You were a sub. You worked mainly at PTMC and on the field but had been known to go to the dark side, a.k.a, Presby.

“Okay, on my count,” you begin. “One, two, three-”

You helped lift him over to the bed.

“Did you intubate him?” you asked,

“Yeah, under active fire,” said Jack.

You looked at Jack. Sweat on his forehead, flecks of grey hair sticking to him and the shirt under his army vest hung lose. He was dishevelled in away romance characters presented on books covers. To lure you in. “You were shot?”

“Shot at.”

“You need to be looked at?”

“No. I'm fine.” His lips were pursed, focus on Hiro.

“Did you see the chords when you intubated?” asked Robby, floating around the two of you as Jack refused to leave Hiro's side and you stayed by Abbot. He'd seen it a dozen times before. A disaster where there was one, there was the other.

There was the occasions he'd hand over to Jack, go home, sleep and come back to find Jack had called in you. You who was always ready to go at the first buzz of your pager. Wherever it was, whatever you had to do. And Robby would look through the patients that night, check the board and understand they hadn't really needed your help all that much.

Jack had.

Now, Robby saw the way you looked at Jack and had seen the gap that existed between the two of you.

“Yeah, I did but it was hard to miss when I cleared them.”

Jack reached and you watched as he stretched, wincing at the pull in his shoulder.

“You should get that looked at,” you told him.

“I'm fine.”

“No, you're not.”

There was a small roll of the eyes as Jack's gaze rose to meet yours through his goggles. There was almost a tiny hint of a smirk- your favourite kind but it disappeared as soon as it appeared.

“Yeah, c'mon Abbot!” said Charlie, calling from the back of his room where he stood with Diaz, two of the SWAT officers you were most frequent with. “Let doc work you up.”

You chuckled low to yourself, trying to catch Jack's eyes to share the joke but he looked away, his jaw clenching.

So, he wasn't in the joking mood.

“Alright, fellas, out!” leaving the wounded's side you ushered them out in spite of their protests and their giddy, hopeful optimism that Officer Hiro would pull through. “We'll let you know any changes, out!”

You pulled on a gown and cleared a way over.

“Demanding,” said Robby.

“You should hear me in the bedroom,” you teased with a wink.

Over on the other side you caught a small click from Jack's tongue. A disapproval voiced loud enough for others to hear.

You grasped the ultrasound wand from the nurse, circling it around the wound at Hiro's neck while Jack pulled away the gauze he'd packed, carefully minding you. “Good lung sliding, no pneumo-”

The last gauze peeled away in a bloody mess and a rope of blood shot out directly at you for vengeance.

“Geez- woah!”

“Pumper!” you announced, clamping your hand over the wound.

The streak of red cut through the skin on your neck, your gown and the doctors coat you liked to wear just like they did in tv shows. You had a draw full of them at home for instances like that.

“Hey, hey,” Jack was at your side quick as you loomed over the body. “Move back, get yourself cleaned up.”

“I can handle a little blood, Abbot.”

“I know that but-”

“- this is a transected trachea now-”

There was little else time to worry about blood on your gown and coat when the intubation was pulled out, the hole in his throat open.

There was a lot people said about you, with words and looks alike but none of which passed you or bothered you. You knew some thought you abrash and loud, you were, you knew it true. On the field the teams you worked with always thought you as one of them, 'one of the guys' but damn it- you were a good doctor.

You ordered everything correctly, you took them and worked them without so much as a blink and Robby stood behind you approving of everything you did.

It was one of the reasons he always called you in.

“Well done, good breaths sounds, stats are up: in the nineties,” approved Robby.

Jack hummed, pulling off his gloves as you all backed away. “Not bad.”

Your carried your smirk with you and over to him. “Is that the great Jack Abbot stamp of approval?”

“You know I think you're good at you're job,” he said, plainly.

You did know that. You knew that Jack admired your skills. He was one of the only ones who'd seen your skills on the field when sometimes all you had left in your kit was the dregs from other procedures or in the hospital when everything was pristine. He'd worked closest to you, probably out of everyone in either one of your jobs.

But there was always something about Jack that kept him far away. He was always a man that was so calm, which in the the face of conflict wasn't a bad call. Yet, it was the quiet moments in between- the way his footfall would slow to match yours, or the glances he'd steal at you half way across the ward, or the extra snacks he'd pack that had you searching rooms for him, checking shifts to see if you'd be around him.

Then when you were, Jack pursed his lips, clenched his jaw, acted like he wanted to be anywhere else sometimes than at your side.

He was a complicated man. Annoyingly that's what added to your attraction- and everyone knew it.

Once the two of you told Officer Charlie and Diaz that Hiro was stable enough to be taken to surgery you followed after Jack.

“You sure you don't want me to look at that shoulder for you?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, it's fine,” he excused.

“Don't want the paperwork?”

“Something like that,” said Jack, still shifting around in pain as he tried to roll his shoulder out.

“Okay, okay, but get it looked at!” you called off, ready to shed your coat or at least try and rub off some of Hiro's blood.

There was a mutter from Jack before he went another way.

You looked back to him once, watching as he walked off with a small limp that probably wasn't detectable to anyone that didn't analyse him like you did. It was a brutal sort of thing, SWAT, and with Abbot's sleep schedule you knew it was only worse. Eight- maybe ten hour shifts for so little sleep to get thrown back into the fire- literally. You wondered how he did it.

And, why.

Jack flexed out his shoulder at the press of the q-tip to his back.

He meant it, the wound really wasn't that bad. It had grazed through his clothes and vest but still hit just enough to leave an angry welt and bruising. He was content to hide away and sort it himself if it weren't for the fact he couldn't reach.

Then Samira Mohan walked by and offered her help. He was already tired, annoyed that those punks had thought it a good idea to rob a warehouse in the middle of the day, already worried about Hiro and his recovery. Then- there was you, with your snarky comments while saving his life, not batting a lash at the blood that got splattered on you in the mean time and still having time to flirt with Robby.

And prancing around in this scrub pants that were surely just a bit too tight.

Jack was wound up, which was why he admitted surrender and allowed Mohan to clean out his wound.

“Why do you do this?” she'd asked.

Jack had folded his arms over his chest, suddenly very aware he was shirtless in front of her. “My therapist says I need a hobby. I suck at golf.”

She hummed. “Funny.”

“Thank you.”

He made conversation to be polite, asking about the fellowships he knew others were already applying for. Crus had been telling him about them and he knew Mohan was searching to.

They were chatting was all when Robby walked by, looking in to check.

He frowned when he saw Mohan and Abbot, pausing in his fly by with a hand in the door way.

Jack watched as Robby looked around again at the ward, undoubtedly searching for you.

“We're almost finished up here,” said Mohan.

Robby held up his hands. “I didn't say anything,” he said, leaning in the doorway. He passed Jack a nod. “You good?”

“Getting there, thanks to Doctor Mohan's capable hands.” Jack kept his eyes averted from Robby as if he'd done something wrong. He hadn't. He'd told you the wound didn't need looking at because he was going to handle it.

Robby looked at him the sort of way he looked at patients when he knew they were lying about their scale of pain. “Can you give us a second?”

Just as Jack was about to push himself up Samira moved behind him.

“Er, yeah, sure. No problem,” she said, pulling off her gloves and listing off post-care instructions from instinct. “Keep it clean and the dressing fresh.”

“Can do, Doctor Mohan. Thank you.”

Robby stepped out of the way for Mohan before walking in, staring at Jack with his hands in his pockets.

Jack found his shirt discarded on the floor and pulled it over him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Clearly,” said Jack.

“Are you avoiding her, now?”

Jack didn't need to ask who he was talking about and Robby didn't need to specify. “Course not.”

“Did she do something?”

“No.”

“So what was all that? Back in trauma?” asked Robby. His eyes were beady, waiting to pick up on any shift in Jack or anything that might betray him. But Robby wore his heart on his sleeve. He might think he doesn't or thinks he's good at hiding such emotions away but Jack and everyone else sees them anyhow.

Jack had his heart buried deep down. “I dunno, man,” he huffed, ignoring the burning sensation as he pulled his shirt back over him. “Maybe I just didn't feel like joking around when my buddy was bleeding out on the table.”

Robby shook his head, eyes creasing. “People bleed out all the time.”

Jacks lips pursed as he worked on tucking his shirt back into his pants. Anything to keep him occupied and averted from Robby’s knowing gaze.

“I haven’t seen you this worked up since you first met her,” he teased.

“Now I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Abbot grumbled.

Robby chuckled low in his throat, leaning back on the wall comfortable like he was watching his favourite show. “When two consenting adults like each other very much-”

“I don’t,” said Jack, abrupt. “I don’t… like her.”

“Jack, c’mon-”

Jack turned to Robby. He considered his confusion. Sure, you were a great doctor and even better on the field. Something about the chaos seemed to focus you, bringing out your best self. You were funny, even at the worse times.

“She’s not it for me,” he said, trying to mean those words.

Your smile first thing in the morning didn’t warm him. The fact you knew his coffee order after only two days of working together didn’t make him feel special. You were incredibly intelligent. Beautiful.

Jack twisted and turned around his wedding band.

Robby watched, heaving a sigh. “Brother…”

Jack couldn’t keep you in his heart when his dead wife still held a place there. It wasn’t fair to you.

“She’s not it, Robby.”

“And why not?” He asked, pushing and prodding against his bag of lies like he knew he was carrying it.

“She’s different- we’re two different. You know with my- with my wife we worked. She wasn’t a doctor, she didn’t throw her life away on field missions. She wasn’t… she wasn’t ruthless, she was soft. Perfect for me.”

He pressed down against the metal band branding him.

“You’re not gonna give yourself a chance to be happy because she’s not like your wife?” Asked Robby.

Jack glanced back at him. “I know what works for me. I can’t be with someone as loud or… bash. She’s-she’s brutal, you know.”

Robby nodded but there was a furrow between his brows. “We all have our own ways of dealing with things.”

“Her way is drinking every weekend, out with the guys, there’s no healthy habits there,” argued Jack. Why he was arguing about you with Robby he didn’t know. Why he was defending himself with words that fell like led on his tongue he had no idea.

“Okay,” said Robby in a way that marked defeat.

But Jack didn’t believe what he was saying. He heard himself and frowned. “And I don’t even think she’s a person who could settle down. Hmm, I mean look at her job? She’s constantly in between them.”

“She’s a sub, that’s what she does-”

“- scared of commitment,” corrected Jack.

Robby scoffed out a laugh of disbelief. “Okay, you’re in a mood or something.” He pushed himself from the wall.

“No, I’m not,” he argued a little too quick and a little too harsh to be okay with what he was saying. “She’s a good person she’s just not my person. You know she-she doesn’t even like flowers, who doesn’t like flowers?”

“She’s more than a good person, Jack,” said Robby with an air of defeat about him. With one last look back to Jack he left, closing the door gently behind him.

In the seconds the door was open Jack sort a peek out. You were at the nurses desk, leaning over a tablet, the blue glow illuminating you. There was a troubled look to your face, scrunching your brows and marring your usual unflappable gaze. Jack almost wanted to see the chart himself and ask what was bothering you, but he knew you never told him, only ever let it be yourself that saw your problems.

Another thing he couldn’t stand. You’d never ask for help.

Even if, Jack couldn’t admit it out loud, he’d help without an invitation too.

You suppose you shouldn’t have been surprised, yet doctors ran on hope. Without hope trauma rooms became morgues and body’s became empty vessels. You’d built hope into your system, kept somewhere between your heart and stomach.

That’s why you felt it plummet.

She’s not it for me.

There was no intention to listen in on a conversation that clearly you weren’t supposed to know about. You'd just been passing by when you heard your name from Jacks mouth. That was enough to stop you in place. If your feet weren't frozen you would have moved, made yourself busy or call up to surgery to check on Hiro.

But as Jack went on your heart plummeted.

She's brutal.

It wasn't until you heard Robby defend you that you moved away, hiding with your back to the exam room and hunching over a tablet that held no chart.

You'd always assumed Jack was just harder to crack then some of the other SWAT guys. You could read most of them within days, know their moods from a glance. You'd never been able to read Jack and maybe it was because he didn't want to be known by you.

You thought seeing Hiro with a hole in his neck would be the worst thing of the day but you caught your reflection in the black screen of the tablet and resented the way things blurred around you.

She's not it for me.

“Hey-” Robby was behind you and you tucked your head into your chest. His hand squeezed your shoulder. “Central twelve when you have a chance.”

“You got it, boss.” Luckily your voice remained steady despite the waver in your throat.

Robby gave a nod and left you to it.

Had Jack had hatred for you since you knew him and just never said a word? Did you do something for him to harbour these feelings?

Besides from not being his wife.

The door closed again and on instinct you looked over your shoulder, catching Jack adjusting his belt. He looked up and found your gaze, offering you a pulled smile.

It was like every other smile he'd ever given you.

You'd been so blind with affection to not see it. What a fool.

You couldn't even pull your lips back up, you just walked away.

Weeks went by in flashes of sleepless nights and lonely days.

The sick and injured didn't wait for you to get over yourself, instead they helped.

You offered yourself like a lamb to the slaughter in Presby and even Westbridge. You pulled doubles, catching small naps in any empty exam room or on-call room you could find. You started to learn staff names when you'd never cared before.

A group of nurses at Westbridge even invited you out for drinks.

“Drinking every weekend, out with the guys, there's no healthy habits there” you remembered Jack's voice and declined their invitation.

When SWAT called you had an excuse. A plumber was coming around... you were re-modelling; suddenly your apartment was going through half a dozen makeovers and all your childhood friends were visiting.

“You know you're not a very good liar,” Diaz had said when he called you for a drink and you declined. That day you were taking your mom's dog to the vet (your mom was a cat person and in another state)

Your apartment became a cave and you became a shell of yourself, un-ironically listening to the high school musical soundtrack and crying.

And still you couldn't find it in yourself to be angry at Jack. Of course he wouldn't want you- he had a wife. And a memory of that wife to keep him walm. What could he do with you? If you weren't his type, you weren't his type. If it was just that maybe you could have moved on.

But he didn't like you as a person and that stung more.

You didn't know how long it had been since you were last at PTMC, only long enough that you started to scramble corridors in your mind and forget what some of the nurses sounded like.

“We have a mass casualty event,” said Robby on the phone one Sunday morning. His voice sounded different, but you supposed time played tricks on your memory. “School bus incident. You in?”

You were in pyjamas at home, some crappy tv on low. “I'll have to check, Presby might need me.”

Robby scoffed down the line. “Have they called yet?”

“Well, no-”

“Then get your ass over here.”

“Robby-”

“Please, please get your ass over here,” he said down the line, sighing heavily. “I.... I could really use another set of hands.”

Robby didn't say please. Ever. So how could you say no.

Within the hour you were dressed an,d thrown into the anarchy.

You got through the ambulance doors, was thrown a gown and got to work. You didn't even see Robby to let him know you were there, you just found Langdon and worked beside him.

“I need some help over here!” yelled out a paramedic.

At once you and Langdon were at her side, pushing along the gurney.

“Kid, fracted tib-fib, pupils mid range and sluggish- couldn't get a line we had to intubate.”

“Dana what's open?” called out Langdon.

“Room in trauma one!”

Mass casualty meant trauma rooms doubled up, pushed up against either wall. Mass casualty meant extra hands called in- like you. Still, when you pushed through the door and found Jack's eyes look up you spared half a second in apprehension.

“You're here,” was all he said.

You didn't know what to say. There was some snarky comment on the tip of your tongue as you settled the boy in the corner but you remembered you weren't supposed to be that person.

Jack didn't like that person.

“Yeah, in the flesh,” replied Frank instead.

“Chest trauma on the right!” you assessed. “We need an X-ray in here.”

“X-ray's backed up,” Jack called from where he hovered over another patient.

“Then get me an ultrasound!” you called out. “Push five migs of epi down the tube and hang a unit of O-neg on the rapid infuser.”

“BP'S eighty over fifty, pulse is at one-twelve!” called out Princess.

You felt someone bump in your shoulder and knew by inhale it was Jack. He was close at your side, pulling off and on another pair of gloves.

“What have you got?” he asked.

It wasn't instinct to move away from him. It was practised control that had you swapping sides with Frank, practically pushing him into Jack.

“Chest trauma to the right, he's tacky,” he explained quickly.

You pulled out your stethoscope, listening closely. “His breathing's stridor, I need a thoracotomy tray!”

“A thoracotomy?” asked Jack, voice oddly quiet in the trauma as if it was whispered just next to you. “You sure you can handle that?”

“I'm a good doctor, if I'm nothing else,” you bit out, swinging your stethoscope back around your neck. You weren't going to allow yourself to fall back into old habits, of questioning what Jack didn't like so much about you. You focused on the un-conscious boy under the mercy of your hands. You ordered the right tools, made the cut neat and precise, pushing more pain relief.

“Any tamponade?” asked Jack.

You checked the boys blood pressure. “No, pericardium's dry.”

“Okay, start an-”

“- start an internal massage-”

You and Jack said at the same time.

Frank seemed stuck in headlights before he reached through the incision in the boys chest and slowly started to work the heart.

“Pulse?”

“Barely.”

Jack frowned, looking over at your work. “Cross clamp the aorta, and push another mig of antropine.”

“I need suction!”

“Got anything for surgery?” asked a new voice, Doctor Walsh checking between the patients in the room.

“Oh no, we've brought the OR down to us,” said Jack.

Doctor Walsh rounded, catching the suction and the message of the heart. “Are you doing a thoracotomy right now?”

“Don't look at me,” said Jack, surrendering.

Before anyone could argue with you, question your capability you snapped out. “I know what I'm doing!”

Jack was silent, Frank smirked and Walsh rose a brow.

“Clamped,” said Princess.

“Someone push in another of antropine and get another unit of blood in,” you ordered.

There was a sudden buzzing as all eyes averted to the monitor.

“He's going into V-fib!”

You wiped your bloody and gloved hands down your gown. “Okay, I need internal panels!”

They were handed to you and Jack rushed to your side.

“You want me to-” he started but you already had the panels in hand and were ordering their charge.

“Charge to thirty! Clear!”

Like you were cupping the heart with your own hands you nudged the panels on either side and shocked. There were little miracles sometimes in the ED and with a bus full of school children you needed miracles.

“There! He's stable!” said Princess.

“We've got a girl coming in, needs stabalising and an ortho consult!” said Lena, throwing the door open. It seemed everyone had been called in.

“I'll take this guy, don't want you getting all the credit,” smirked Walsh as she and the team wheeled out the boy. She looked back at you, almost waiting for you to say more- some funny joke or flirtatious tease.

You only waved past her to get the young girl into the room.

Everyone in the room looked at you as you honed in on the next casualty, ignoring the pang in your heart at Jack's gaze.

When the girl for ortho came in you could only work on stabilising her before Park the Shark descended and took her up, assuring the bag was on ice. He gave you a less ten friendly look. Seemingly Jack wasn't the only one who couldn't stand you.

The hours ticked by in bodies of different kids, in shades of blood and traumas. By the time you got outside for some fresh air it was night and one lonely ambulance sat with you.

You were catching your breath when you heard the doors slide open and shut again. You imagined it was someone else wanting some peace and air, or a paramedic heading back out on the road.

“You were impressive in there,” said Jack, coming to stand next to you. There was a large enough gap that another body could have fit there.

“Thank you.”

He gave one short nod. “Robby call you in?”

“Yeah.”

“Same here,” he said, not that you'd asked. “You know, Hiro's doing well.”

You paled in the night. Lost in your own self-loathing you hadn't even asked about Hiro, or gone to see him. You'd heard he was okay when he dropped a message from the ICU but that was as far as it got. “Oh yeah, I know, I heard.”

“What, from the guys?”

You nodded, lips pursing as you crossed your arms over your chest in the light chill.

“You know they told me you haven't been around much,” said Abbot. “I've noticed it too. We all went to Larry's the other night, your invitation get lost?”

Was it a test? Was it a joke to him?

“No, I just didn't want to drink. Trying to cut down, it's not so healthy,” you said, kicking one foot in front of the other.

“One or two's not bad,” he said. “Couple of us are gonna grab a beer once this is all over. You joining us? Usual spot.”

She's brutal, you know.

You looked to him first. He was already looking at you, eyes creased like he was trying to see through you. It was real and earnest and making his words from weeks ago hurt even more.

“No thanks, Jack.” You almost reached to his shoulder but thought better of it.

Heading back in seemed the safer option.

Jack turned when you did. “Noody's seen you for weeks-”

“- I've been busy-”

“- except those nurses in Presby, they see you all the time apparently-”

“- they've been busy, they've called me in-”

“- I called you three times last week, you didn't answer-”

“- I didn't think you'd want me.” It was about the only honest thing you'd said in weeks. Your trainers squeaked on the ground just before the hospital, the automatic doors ready to welcome you back.

Jack was at your side, close enough you could see the lines of confusion in his face. “Why would you think that?”

You tried to think of a quick excuse but every word died prematurely in your throat. You chocked on them.

“Hey-hey-” Jacks hand fell to your back, soothing it in calming rubs.

You allowed yourself to bask in one circular motion of his hand and your back before you stepped away, backing up from the doors that slid shut again on instant.

“What’s going on?” Asked Jack, following in your steps.

“Nothing, nothing.”

Jack made a disgruntled noise. “C’mon, talk to me.”

He let you think about what to say, stewing in silence where your mind became alive with everything he’d said, with every terrible thing you’d already thought about yourself. You imagined every time you’d cracked a joke that was maybe too perverse. You tried to picture Jacks face but came out blank. Was it loathing? Contempt?

Your voice betrayed you with a shake as you spoke again. “I do like flowers.”

“Huh?”

You wiped at your eyes and turned to him. “I like flowers,” you said, stronger. “Nobody’s ever brought me flowers but I- I like them.”

For anyone else it would’ve took time to click. They’d have stood there, looking at you like you’d gone mad, spewing out words that out of context meant nothing.

But Jack was not just any other clueless guy. He was the guy who always packed left overs and left them in the fridge, he always cooked enough to make sure he’d have left overs. He was the sort that always checked in on pedes patients and made sure they had enough colourful bandages for them.

Jack knew what you were saying immediately. His jaw tensed. “I- I shouldn't have said that.”

“You said a lot of things,” you said, holding yourself tighter. “Sounded like you meant them.”

He gulped. “I didn't mean-”

“-what, for me to hear it?”

“No, I didn't mean for what I said to come out as- as bad,” he said.

“Well it didn't come out as shining praise either.” You turned from him, looking out to the building and lights. Somewhere n the distance a siren wailed.

“Robby- Robby was saying things, teasing, I just waned to shut him up.”

You chuckled with loathing. “No you didn't. It's okay, Jack, you don't have to like me, I just wish you didn't make it seem like you did.”

“Hey!” he said, coming to stand in front of you. He was without a scrub top and his t-shirt clad to his biceps, his muscles flexing as his jaw worked. “I do like you.”

You rolled your eyes. “No you don't.”

“I do-I do-” Jack grabbed the top of your arms, stopping you from walking away. His grip was tight, not enough to bruise but enough to beg you not to leave. “I do like you.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It does, it does.” Jack crouched enough in his knees to get a look at your face that you kept trying to turn away from him.

“You know the worst thing is? It's that I know,” you uttered, voice quiet. You didn't trust yourself to shout- even if you really wanted to- in fear your voice cracked, humiliatingly.

Jack's eyes softened, his thumb drawing up and down in comfort. “Know what?”

“I know that I can be a lot. I go out with the guys, I drink, I make jokes when things get bad because what else am I supposed to do? Cry? Let the grief of the job swallow me up?”

“No. No, of course not,” he said, lips pulled down.

You hated that you still wanted to make him smile. “I could keep a job if I wanted to but I like meeting the people-”

“- I know, I know you do-”

“- and now I'm here defending myself to a guy who probably doesn't even want to hear it!” Trying to turn in Jack's hold was feeble, his grip was strong and he moved with you.

“You don't have to defend yourself, you have nothing to defend!”

“You know what the worst part is?”

Jack shook his head, waiting.

“It's the guy you liked and admired the most seeing everything you hate about yourself and hating you for it too.”

Jack flinched as of you'd slapped him. The chill in the air grew colder around you and all the light from the dim glow of the lamps shrunk away, leaving you and Jack in a self-made darkness. You felt his grip weaken and savoured the feel of him a moment longer.

It was only when you couldn't stomach it anymore that you retreated back into work.

Jack had fucked up.

There was no easy way of putting it. There was no clinical way of looking at it, no diagnosis to give other than he had fucked up.

He'd never heard himself speak and hated the sound of his own voice. Never caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror with tired eyes and a pale expression and loath to see the sight. When he looked at himself, all he saw was your own face heart-broken. When he heard himself talking he remembered everything he'd said.

He could have blamed it on the pain in his shoulder, the worry over Hiro, the lack of sleep he'd been struggling with for days but he had a therapist for all that. You didn't deserve that burden.

He was un-focused the following week in work. Patient satisfaction was at an all time low with him. He'd opened up to his SWAT buddies over a self-pitying pint and had been shunned.

“What's your problem?” Charlie had said, two beers deep and a haze over his eyes. “She's a fucking saint. She'd lay down her life for any one of us- what the fuck man?”

“She won't return my calls,” Jack told them. “Can you just... just call her?”

They'd refused, with good reason.

He'd tried texting his apology. He'd tried calling you in but he found from a contact at Westbridge you'd been covering nights while their attending was on holiday.

It was a brash decision to call in to PTMC and tell them he'd be late, he was running an errand. Nobody questioned him.

Westbridge was darker than the hospital he was used t, built up on top of each other but they were no less busy than himself. Patients were lined up in corridors and there was hardly a seat left in chairs when he walked through.

“Can I help you?” asked the nurse at reception, eyeing Jack and the bouquet of flowers he held.

He said he was looking for you.

“She's in a trauma right now, can I take a message?”

“Can you tell her Ja-Jack's here.” For a moment he debated lying, saying it was Robby wanting to see you, or maybe you didn't want to see Robby either. Deceit wasn't going to be his friend.

Jack waited and tried not to look around, tried not to let himself get caught in the heavy bustle of another hospital as he waited for you. He ignored the coughing from the waiting room that definitely sounded like it would require a chest CT.

There was a crash of doors and he caught sight of you rushing out, protective goggles over your eyes and bloodied gown clad to you.

“Jack, what is it? Are you okay?” your eyes were frantic, searching him.

Ah. Of course you'd think something had happened. When you hear someone's in the hospital it's very rarely to just say hi. “I realise I should've specified,” said Jack, rubbing the back of his knuckle against his brow. “I just- I wanted to see you. And give you these.”

Sensing this was a conversation she definitely wanted to be around for yet probably wouldn't be allowed to, the nurse at reception left the two of you to it and Jack sat the flowers down on the counter in-between you.

You eyed the shades of red roses, of yellow tulips, the violet of the iris and the pink of the peony.

“I didn't know what you liked so, I kind of got one of everything,” he said, sighing to himself. He should have got two of every flower the florist had on hand. “I didn't get Lilies, the lady at the shop said it's a show of death and sunflowers aren't in season, apparently.”

“They're very nice, thank you,” you said.

“They come with an I'm sorry:” said Jack. “I'm sorry.”

You wet your lips and pursed them, nodding slowly. “Okay.”

Jack looked down to his boots. “It's not, I know it's not, nothing I said is okay and I didn't mean it.”

You didn't say anything at that, only taking in a quivering breath.

He ignored the irritation in his prosthetic as he crouched to catch your gaze. Jack wasn't used to having to search for your gaze, usually he always found it already on him. He only realised how much he valued finding you in the middle of the storm when you wouldn't look at him.

“I didn't mean it,” he enunciated every word, begging you to hear them.

Your gaze studied around Westbridge, hoping for a distraction.

“I messed up, it's on me. It's not you.”

“The classic it's not you, it's me?” you dismissed.

Jack winced. It was cliché, damn him. “Yeah, I guess so.”

He watched as your fingers brushed over a flower petal, picking it off like plucking a string on a guitar. He felt his heart pound in his chest.

“Can I get back to work now?” you asked, gently.

What was he thinking? Turning up to where you were tying to do some good. Where you were doing good- it was what you did. Did he expect the flowers to fix everything? No. Only he could. But he'd grovel, he'd beg, he'd crawl after you for the rest of his miserable life and do it all while building you a rose garden.

He'd do all of that for one minute of your eyes on his.

“Just promise you'll come back. To the Pitt. Whole place is going to crap without you.” He tried to joke but it was a pathetic thing.

“Okay. Yeah.” Your shoulders lifted in in-difference.

“And don't ignore the guys. They're going out for drinks tomorrow night. I won't be there. They all pretty much think I'm a dick anyway.”

There was a glimpse of a smile.

Jack played on. “I'm a total, total dick, a jerk!”

An elderly lady being escorted by with a nurse and an IV trailing her paused and glanced his way.

“Sorry,” he uttered.

You hid your chuckled behind your mouth but he caught a second of it.

It was enough for now.

Your name was called down the corridor.

“He's in V-tach!” a nurse announced before disappearing again.

“Go,” said Jack, taking himself out of the equation. “Just, please. Don't be a stranger.”

Jack wasn't lying when he said the place was going to crap without you. How they managed on shifts without your charm to work fretting family and friends down, or your terrible singing in between exams he didn't know.

Walking through the ambulance doors for his shift there was already paramedics pushing an empty and slightly blood stained gurney back into their rig. There was a crowd of elderly patients in beds and gowns left at the side and phones were ringing, drilling into his eardrums.

“Where the hell is she?” barked Robby, spotting Jack and no you.

Jack dumped his bag at the counter. “What happened here?”

“Nursing home caught fire, now where is she? We're swamped her, I thought you were going to get her and bring her back?”

Jack grumbled, frowning at the counter. “She's busy at West.”

“West? God-” Robby groaned, looking around the place and cursing. “Listen, I don't care what you have to do to make it up to her, buy her a florist, give her a ring, get down on your knees, I don't fucking care- I need her here.”

“You think I don't?” Jack snapped.

Robby eyed him, hand clenched on the counter. “Tell her the truth-”

“-Robby-”

“-no, you tell her you didn't mean a damn thing you said. That you were scared loving someone that isn't your wife.”

Glass. Jack was made of glass. If Robby could see through him so clearly why couldn't you? Why couldn't you see the truth? That Jack liked you, liked you more than he'd liked anyone. That loving you meant leaving the life he lived with his wife behind, yet carrying a part of her with him always. He didn't want to do that to you. He didn't want to make you live with a ghost or carry his grief. There were days where it was too hard for him to handle.

Robby sighed. “You think she'd want you to be happy?”

A muscle in Jack's neck tensed as he went to nod but was held back by himself.

“Talk to her,” said Robby clamping him on the shoulder quickly before disappearing.

Hiding away wasn't going to solve anything. That's what Robby said to you in a desperate plea to get you back to helping him out with shifts.

Truth was you weren't hiding away... as much.

Drinks with the guys had been hours of them telling you Jack was wrong, after Jack had exposed himself to them, laying the situation on the table. As promised, he wasn't there but every conversation revolved around him so much so it felt like he was at your side. You defended Jack when they argued against him. You told them you knew you were loud at times, maybe you shouldn't joke around as much as you did.

They'd laughed, thinking it was a joke itself.

They told you not to change.

It was hard not to. Every time you heard yourself get loud or get a look from people at the other table your instinct was to shrink. When Diaz tripped on the curb out the bar you laughed instead of helping him and was left with your own guilt when you got home.

Un-learning habits was hard. Learning to live with them was harder.

You started with baby steps. A day shift here, a day shift there, by hand-offs you were always gone. Yet, in the staff lounge there sat a fresh bouquet of flowers every morning. As soon as they started to wilt another fresh bunch was placed over night.

Nothing was said. Nothing ever had to be.

“Shen's out, food poisoning,” said Robby over the phone another day. “You know I wouldn't ask if there was no otherway.”

Which was how you ended up working a night shift. The first in months.

Jack's eyes lit up as you walked in, it was impossible not to notice. The only eyes to rival his sparkle was Lena's when she saw you.

It was the sort of night that held your attention. That roped you in and demanded you listened. Not overly busy but not quiet enough to cause you and Jack to be held captive in the same room. Only seconds passed in hallways when he looked like he was going to say something before being called away, taunt in the neck and gripping his stethoscope for the life of him.

“Am I going to need surgery?” asked the young boy in five who you were examining. A nasty accident in his dad's garage ended up with a laceration to the foot.

“Not surgery but a couple stitches to bring the skin back together, and you're gonna have to stay off your feet for a while,” you said.

The boys eyes grew wide in joy. “So, no school?”

You chuckled as his mom pinched his shoulder playfully. “Well, I can't be the deciding factor on that, I'm afraid.”

You put in the orders for stitches.

“Is it gonna hurt?” asked the boy, shrinking back in his bed.

“We're gonna numb you up so you don't feel anything,” you assured. “Tell you what, I have a secret stash of candy that I only share with my favourite patients, how's that sound, you want something?”

The boy tried not to be too eager in his nodding but it took less than two second for him to grin.

You didn't expect anyone in the lounge when you went in search for candy usually lying around.

Jack was hunched over the table, pulling out the dying flowers and arranging fresh ones. He stopped when you walked in, the door closing gently behind you. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“I was just... maintenance,” he mumbled.

You nodded along, a thick awkwardness engulfing the two of you. “Maintenance... yeah... sure...”

You moved around him, keeping a good distance around the space of him like he was a poisonous snake. The cabinet was high up, the tin an old sewing one where you hid your most precious protein bars and sugar packed candy.

“Here, I can-”

His body was sturdy against the back of you as he reached up for the tin. Few select people were allowed to know about its contents and Jack was on of the first ones you trusted. He raised his arm and you watched the freckles along his arm move and ripple. Upon inhale you took a deep breath of lingering cologne, mixed with the hearty sterile hand wash of the ED.

Jack's own head tilted down and your heard him inhale, deeply.

The tin fell into your hand.

Jack stared down. “Oh- er, there.”

“Thanks.”

It was about all the conversation you got with Jack your shift was over. The morning was just breaking through the clouds at six, bringing with it a down pour. You'd already punched out, handed off your patients to McKay and was left standing under the small awning of the ambulance bay, trying to out wait the rain.

It took ten minutes for Jack to follow you out.

“You heading out?” he asked, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Yeah. I'm just waiting for my uber.”

Jack frowned. “What happened to your car?”

“It's in the garage.”

“Well... I can give you a lift,” he suggested.

The rain hammered down harder above you, steady streams falling from the awning to at your feet. As discreet as possible you checked the location on you uber. Just around the corner. In the rain it had taken longer.

“No, it's okay, you don't have to.”

“I'd like to,” said Jack, stepping closer. “I'd like a chance to talk to you. To tell you everything that I meant by my words.”

You'd almost hoped you could carry on as you were: extremely avoidant.

“You don't have to, Jack.”

“I do- I do!” he insisted, hands out in front of him as if desperate to grasp you. He held himself back. “Please let me.”

Stomaching more of his words, whether it be excuses as to what he meant to say or just doubling down and insisting what he said was true. You didn't think you were strong enough for either.

Your phone buzzed in hand as a slick back black car pulled up, window rolling down and calling your name.

“No, wait-wait!” said Jack, holding a hand up to you with all the authority of an attending still on duty.

“Jack, what are you-” You were struck in place, watching him lean through the window, rain dampening his shirt as he un-folded a few bills and handed them to the driver.

“We don't need you know, sorry man,” Jack mumbled.

Your jaw hung open as you stepped out into the rain, bottom of your scrub pants dampening at once. “What?”

The driver tutted. “I still want me five star review!” He drove off quickly, splashing the two of you as he went.

“Oh- serious?” Jack gritted. “Now I wish I hadn't given him such a tip.”

The puddles of rain were seeping into your trainers as you walked off, out of the way of ambulances and cars, pulling your jacket tighter around you.

“Wait! Wait!” Jack called after you, boots slapping in the water. He all but jumped in front of you, stumbling lightly at the shift in his bad leg. “Wait.”

“I don't know what else you want to say to me, Jack?”

“Nothing I say can excuse what I said-”

“-so why try?”

“Because it's killing me being like this!” he snapped. The rain was pouring down, falling down his cheeks and nose. “It's killing me to look for your smile and not see it. It's killing me to hear a joke and you not laugh. Everything I said, it-it re-plays in my head and I'm sorry.”

“I know you are, Jack, I just need time!”

“I'll give you time,” he said. “I'll give you anything you need. But just let me say one thing. You owe me nothing, I'm begging you.”

To prove a point Jack crouched, starting to get down on his knees, hands already clenched together. To spare you the embarrassment and him the ache in his leg you tugged him back up.

He stared at you, breathless. He was as drenched as you, the both of your scrubs stuck to you.

“I haven't loved anyone since my wife,” said Jack. “I haven't tried, I didn't want to try. I was... not happy, but content to just carry on with her here-” he curled a fist at his chest. “And then you... and I couldn't not feel anything for you. I tried- I really tried.”

“Okay. You tried. I get it,” you mumbled.

“But I started to love you and I hated myself for it. It felt like I was betraying her by wanting someone else. By wanting you. And I did- I do want you. Every terrible joke you made, Jesus, I couldn't laugh in front of patients and their families. When you go out drinking with us and the guys in our team and you sing karaoke badly-”

“Excuse me?”

Jack winced. “I mean great, great karaoke.”

You chuckled.

“I can't take back the fact you're different from my wife, you are, but I don't think that's a bad thing- it's not. Because I still love you. I love that you're loud, I love that you draw attention to yourself as soon as you walk into a room, my attention is always on you anyway,” he smiled, sadly. It was the kind of smile a lover would give as they watched the love of their life leave them. “I shouldn't have made my grief your problem. I shouldn't have hated myself for feeling love again and I shouldn't have tried to convince myself hating you. I mean, that was just- just impossible.”

You looked down to your trainers, seeing the darkening colour where the water soaked in. “I've loved you for so long now, Jack.”

He waited, catching his breath, for more.

You looked up at him. “I'm sorry. About your wife. I can't imagine how hard it is for you. But I don't want to fall in love with a man who constantly advertises me next to his wife.”

Jack nodded, looking down.

The rain was probably helpful, hiding any tears you'd give away.

“I love you, separate to how I love my wife. And I loved her, I did. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life dead inside. Be on my death bed when I'm eighty looking back at all the times I should've kissed you.”

His words pulled at your heart, your feelings that you'd been burying deep inside clashing together inside of you.

“By the time you're eighty, I'll be like, in my sixties?” you said.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“And looking to settle down.”

Jack laughed, and you laughed and for a second that was almost enough. The rain had made the grey in his hair darker, almost making him look younger. “I'm not saying I won't fuck up, I probably will, I have a therapist for a reason.”

“Therapy is good,” you said.

Jack's eyes were lighting up slowly with every teasing comment you made. Something akin to hope flickered between the two of you. “But I will never draw comparison to you and my wife. I'll never make you feel like second choice. I'll never dump my grief onto you. If you just give me one chance, just one chance at making this right.”

As sorry's went... as love confessions went.

“I'm scared what it means to love you, Jack,” you said, slowly, feeling the words around your mouth.

“I know, I know,” Jack reached over, clumsily brushing back your damp hair from your cheeks. In spite of the rain, his skin was still soft and hot on you. “I am too.”

You searched his eyes before whispering. “Can I kiss you?”

He smirked a little. “No.”

Your heart dropped.

Jack's hands tilted your head back before you could tuck yourself away. “Can I kiss you?”

His lips were slick and wet from rain but no less sort after from you. He didn't push or prod for more, he just laid his lips against yours with enough pressure for you to know he was there. For you to always remember he was there.

You could have stayed like that for hours, practically standing on each others toes as your own hands came up to clutch his biceps, fingertips digging into his freckles.

You pulled away only when you needed to catch your breath.

Jack's lips chased yours, body tumbling into you slightly as his eyes took seconds to open like coming out from a dream.

You ran your hands up his shoulders. “I love you.”

He closed his eyes and soaked in the words.

“Will you let me?” you asked.

“Always,” he promised.

It’s too bright out today. Blindingly so. Like the sun crawled out of bed nursing a petty grudge specifically against your corneas and decided today was the day it would exact revenge.

Your palms form an ineffective visor above your eyes, everything still burns despite this.

The sand throws light back at you in sharp, splintering flashes, like someone crushed up a chandelier and scattered it along the shore, sea spread out before you in that lurid, too-perfect blue that does not look real anywhere outside of vacation brochures and edited Instagram posts.

You squint toward the shoreline, blinking against the glare until Emma and Joy emerge in pieces.

A moving arm. Emma springing up and down at the edge of the surf. Joy beside her, louder, both hands around her mouth with the grave urgency of someone trying to rescue you from land.

Which is ironic because you are on land. And land is safe.

Land is reasonable. Land is not going to seize your ankles with freezing water and stop your heart out of spite.

Whitaker’s speaker thuds behind you, the bass breaking open in the breeze as Joy yells, “Stop being such a wuss!” and Emma adds, a little gentler, “Come on, it’s really not that cold!” 

“They're just gonna keep bugging you, you know,” Jack butts in, flipping another page of his book with a flick of his wrist. “Might as well rip the band-aid off.” 

You glance sideways at him, stretched beneath the umbrella like some indolent deity, skin still glistening from the generous layer of sunscreen you smeared into his chest earlier, fingertips skittering shyly over muscles and bones as he tolerated it with begrudging patience.

His shoulders, however, still blush pink at the edges, a physical monument to yesterday’s disregard for your very detailed and considerate planning.

Jack Abbot would rather burn a little than admit you might know best. The eternal martyr, sacrificing comfort at the altar of pride.

You didn’t give him the chance today.

“But the sand,” you protest, words coming out a little more whiny than intended, each syllable a tiny balloon of anxiety popping mid-air. “It gets wet, Jack, and then it sticks in between my toes, and dries in weird little crusty patches, and then I’m stuck thinking about that all afternoon instead of, I don’t know, enjoying myself, which is the entire point of a vacation — at least as far as I understand vacations, and —”

Jack’s book snaps shut decisively, interrupting your spiraling train of thought.

He stares at you, expression caught somewhere between amused tolerance and weary affection, as though he’s watched you spin yourself dizzy like this too many times before. And he has.

“Hey.” His voice is level, gently pulling you back to earth by the scruff of your neck. “We’re at a beach. Sand is inevitable. Rinse it off, dry your feet, move on. You’re preemptively ruining your own day, you realize that, right?” 

A helpless little pout blooms across your mouth, the tired-and-true expression you reserve for only the direst emergencies. Which, admittedly, occurs more often than you’d like to acknowledge.

It’s practically foolproof.

And the way Jack’s gaze softens in increments demonstrates that.

He sighs in response, an unconvincing performance of irritation, eyes half-lidded in exaggerated exasperation.

“Look,” he mutters, resignation thickening his voice, “if it gets that bad, just come back up here and I’ll...I don’t know, help rinse the sand off myself, if that’s what it takes.” 

“Kay,” you mumble, the concession melting off your tongue in the most petulant way possible, fingers fussing at the edges of your cover-up, dragging it upwards.

“There we are,” he drawls, squinting to look at you. “Atta girl.” 

You resist the urge to stick out your tongue at him as you pull it fully off.

And when you do, a sudden, piercing wolf-whistle splits emerges from somewhere in the sea of your peers.

You reel backwards until the backs of your legs nearly knock into Jack’s chair.

You freeze when you get your bearings, cover-up still bunched in your fists, shoulders crawling toward your ears as Dana’s voice sails across the beach.

You think it might be loud enough to alert passing boats.

“Well, damn. Didn’t have you pegged as the type.” 

For a second you think she means the bikini, which is revealing, yes, but nothing crazy.

And that would be bad on it’s own, honestly, because it’s weird enough to have your coworkers perceive you in swimwear, but then Santos gasps from your left.

“Little Miss Prim-and-Proper has a tramp stamp?”

You can feel your eyes double in size.

You release a strangled little laugh. At least, you meant for it to be laughter. You think it sounds more like a sparrow smacking headfirst into a glass window.

“Oh, it’s — it’s nothing,” you insist, swatting a hand. You hope no one notices that the pitch of your voice has risen several octaves. “I honestly forgot it was there.” 

A lie. A terrible one at that. Because yes, obviously, people forget about permanent body art all the time. Perfectly normal. Perfectly believable.

You turn so your back is toward the ocean, blocking the majority of everyone’s view of the damning evidence as your palm flutters helplessly near your hip.

Whitaker rolls slowly onto one elbow from his spot on a towel, eyes narrowing. “Is it, like, supposed to be symbolic?”

“Is — what?” 

“The tattoo,” he elaborates, waving a hand in your general vicinity, like he’s reluctant to approach it directly, wary of frightening you off. Valid concern. You do feel like a flight risk at this exact given moment. “Does it represent something meaningful?” 

Dana snorts into her drink. “Yeah, kid. It means she had a wild semester and access to eighty dollars.”

You part your lips, words half-formed. Explanations or possibly just meaningless static. More likely the latter.

Because with everyone’s eyes suddenly looking at you waiting for you to say something, the attention feels a little too overwhelming.

“It’s a pomegranate,” Jack announces suddenly, rescuing you from yourself. You could kiss him right then and there. “For Persephone. Rebirth, renewal, growth, all of that. She got it sophomore year of college.”

“Yeah,” you agree faintly. You glance helplessly from face to face, feeling every glance bounce painfully between you and Jack, dissecting the air between you into tiny, fragile pieces. “It’s, um — exactly that.” 

Samira’s the first one to offer a reassuring smile. “Oh, that’s actually really beautiful.”

You release another round of nervous laughter, shoulders inching down cautiously. A little uncertain whether you’re in the clear just yet.

Apparently not. 

Langdon jerks his head toward Jack in one jerky movement, sunglasses nearly tumbling from the bridge of his nose. “Hang on. Why the hell does he know that?” 

Your stomach does a violent drop. Like someone yanked a trapdoor beneath you and forgot to cushion you fall.

Shit.

Of course. Why wouldn’t this happen?

Because clearly, the tattoo itself was only a minor humiliation, the polite opening number before the headline act of Jack publicly revealing his encyclopedic awareness of the ink approximately one inch above your ass.

But this is salvageable, right? It’s plausible that you would’ve told him this on a night shift after too much adrenaline and too little sleep.

Your gaze swings toward Jack, wordlessly pleading, imploring him to explain this all away, practically mentally gripping him by the collar and begging for mercy, but he only shrugs. Lazy and indifferent with the tilt of his burnt shoulders.

“Kind of hard to miss from certain angles.”

You watch everyone’s faces go slack jawed.

You don’t wait around the witness the dawning realization behind you.

There’s no need; you can feel it spreading through the air like spilled ink soaking silently into paper.

A terrible little chain of silence, then gasps, then hissed laughter like matches flicking alight one by one. You’ll never live it down, you think.

Someone’s voice calls after you, but you’re already moving towards the ocean.

Suddenly, wet sand seems acceptable. Inviting. Wonderful, even.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

It isn’t about how to fill out your casework logs, or what to say to grieving families, or even how to survive your practicum without burning out.

It’s — don’t let the doctors intimidate you.

You laughed when they said it. Laughed harder when you met them, these supposed intimidating doctors.

Because the truth is, it’s not the doctors who scare you. It’s not the blood or the chaos or the screams that spill out from ambulance bay doors at three am on a full moon.

It’s not the waiting room full of addicts or the bruised kids who flinch when you raise your voice too fast. It’s not even the hallway ghosts or those too-far-gone stares of people who’ve lost everything before you’ve had your morning coffee.

What scares you is silence, powerlessness. The inability to stop a cycle you’ve seen destroy too many lives.

So you don’t do silence.

You talk, constantly, bluntly, and sometimes inappropriately. Frequently inappropriately. And if people mistake your sarcasm for cynicism, fine. You know what you are. You’re chaos in a clipboard. A disaster with a pen. A public health liability with half a master’s degree and zero sense of self-preservation.

But you get the job done.

You’re an intern—barely. Midway through your master’s-slash-phd in clinical social work, still neck-deep in psych theory and practicum hour requirements, and somehow lucky, or cursed, enough to land your field placement at Pittsburgh’s most chaotic level one trauma center.

The Pitt.

It’s not glamorous or safe but it’s real. Raw and bloody and bursting at the seams with broken people and the systems that failed them. For someone like you, someone who lives off adrenaline and injustice, it’s perfect.

You work under Kiara, a senior hospital social worker. She’s your mentor, your boss, and possibly the only reason you haven’t been kicked out yet. She’s also got a terrifyingly accurate bullshit detector and once body-checked a surgical resident for calling your trauma patient a junkie.

Your caseload isn’t light. You’re not here for the flu patients or twisted ankles. You’re called for the ugly ones. Rape kits, suicide watches, pediatric assaults, domestic violence stabbings, drug-induced psychosis. Basically the patients no one wants to deal with but have to.

You talk them down. Talk them through, talk them into staying and into breathing. Into signing the discharge forms and into reporting the ones who hurt them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes you cry in the staff bathroom with the broken lock and the rusted sink. Sometimes you rage in Kiara's office while she hands you a capri sun and tells you to file your notes before you start swinging.

Sometimes you look in the mirror and think this is going to kill me.

But you keep showing up because if you don’t—who will?

You’ve been at The Pitt for a few months, operating on a strict intern basis. No medical license, no therapy credentialing, none prestige of a real social worker. Just you, your badge, your student email, and the right to observe more trauma in a single day than most people will see in a lifetime.

You spend most of your time in the ER and critical care floors. They don’t trust you on pediatrics anymore after the bite incident—your fault, technically, but also his, for underestimating your reflexes .

You rotate between psychiatric consults and post-trauma debriefings, occasionally shadowing grief counselors or addiction liaison teams. You’ve made a habit of inserting yourself into rounds you weren’t invited to. No one really stops you anymore. Probably because you’re too loud to ignore.

You are, by all accounts, a walking headache.

And yet, they keep letting you through the double doors.

Most days, your outfit is half business casual, half whatever you found at the back of your closet. Your id badge hangs off a lanyard you’ve drawn on with sharpie. Someone added a devil horn doodle over your face. You assume Frank probably had something to do with that.

You’re everything a trauma hospital should’ve rejected.

But you’re also damn good at your job.

You’ve got a mouth on you, sure—but it’s the same mouth that gets seventeen-year-old gang members to open up. The same mouth that gets battered women to sign police reports.

The same mouth that gets under Jack Abbot’s skin so bad he once nearly walked into traffic trying to get away from you.

Jack Abbot is not your father.

That’s the first—and maybe the only—reason you get away with half the shit you say to him.

He doesn’t ground you nor does he bark orders. He doesn’t tell you to cover up or smile more or stop swearing like a drunken sailor with unresolved childhood trauma.

Okay, he does tell you to stop swearing. A lot. Like he’s in charge of your moral compass or some shit. Like you didn’t come out of the womb swinging with a mouth full of curses and contempt.

But he’s not your father.

He’s your father’s best friend.

They met in the army. Jack was the cocky field medic with a death wish and a chip on his shoulder; your dad was the steady one, the strategic one, the kind of man who could take down a room full of enemies without breaking a sweat. They weren’t supposed to like each other.

And yet, like most war-forged friendships, they bonded over shared trauma, near-death experiences, and enough black-market whiskey to kill a horse.

Your father saved Jack’s life once, in some no-name desert hellhole you were never allowed to ask about. Jack saved his in return, probably more than once.

They don’t talk about it much. But it’s there—in the way your father’s voice softens when Jack’s name comes up. In the old photos buried in storage boxes, the kind you only found once by accident. Two men, dirt-streaked, exhausted, bleeding at the edges and somehow still smiling.

So when your dad took his final deployment—a favor for an old war buddy, some quiet, off-the-books assignment you weren’t allowed to ask questions about—he went to Jack.

Told him you’d been placed at The Pitt. He'd said you were a handful. Told him—stern-faced, serious as death— “Watch over her, please, Jackie. She’s all I’ve got.”

And Jack, in all his brooding, overworked, emotionally constipated glory, he said yes. Of course he did because he owed your father his life.

Even if that life meant putting up with you.

From the start, it was a fucking disaster. You, with your sharp mouth and unapologetic stare and him, with his clinical detachment and simmering judgment.

He made it very clear that he didn’t want you there. That interns were a liability. That the ER wasn’t a place for untrained, undisciplined brats with hero complexes.

“This isn’t your playground,” he snapped once, mid-code. “Stop acting like the fun police,” you shot back.

You’ve been circling each other like wolves ever since.

He acts like you’re a walking hr violation. Like you’re too loud, too reckless, too much. He barks at you to “wash your damn mouth” and threatens to report you to Kiara every other shift.

But he always asks Kiara for a consults because he knows your her shadow. Always steps between you and the messier patients. Always lingers a little longer than he needs to.

You know what he thinks of you.

At least, you think you do.

You see the way he clenches his jaw when you open your mouth. The way his hands fist at his sides when you make another wildly inappropriate joke during patient intake.

The way he stares at the wall like it personally offended him whenever you show up in ripped jeans and combat boots, badge swinging, lip gloss smeared.

He hates you.

That’s fine.

You don’t like him much either.

Except for the part where he’s the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your goddamn life. It’s not a crush. Don’t be gross. It's not like you’re in love with Jack Abbot.

It’s just, he’s tall and broad and built like every repressed Catholic fantasy you’ve ever denied having. He’s got those storm-grey curls, the ones that stay tucked behind his ears but go wild when he’s elbow-deep in a trauma bay. The ones you definitely want to tug.

He’s got that scowl. The kind that could ruin someone’s week from across the nurses’ station. The one that coincidentally makes your knees go loose and your spine straighten like a challenge.

And his voice—low, gritted, tight with restraint when he says things like “for christ’s sake, show some professionalism” or “someone outta put you in your fucking place.”

You joke. Of course you joke. It’s how you cope. How you flirt. How you keep from actually climbing into his lap during lunch breaks and asking what it would take for him to shut you up with his mouth.

You flirt to cover the fact that your thighs press together every time he growls your name. You make innuendos like it’s a sport, smirk when he turns red with fury, or embarrassment. You push, and push, and push because that’s the only way to keep the heat from swallowing you whole.

Maybe it’s the age difference. Or the authority. The forbidden-ness of it all. Perhaps maybe it’s the fact that you know Jack would never touch you. That he’d rather chew off his own hand than admit he wants you back.

Or maybe it’s just that you’ve never wanted anyone the way you want him and that is deeply humiliating.

But hey, if he’s going to hate you anyway, you might as well make him sweat.

You’re standing just outside the nurse’s station with Kiara, clipboard in hand, trying to keep your voice steady while a man across from you—mid-forties, greasy flannel, bad tattoos—grips the arm of a child hard enough to leave bruises.

You clock it instantly and not just the way he holds the kid, but the way he looks at you.

He’s sizing you up like you’re a problem he could fix with one punch. and you smile at him like you’d throw the first one.

The kid’s maybe five, thin, wide-eyed, and a little too quiet for your liking.

She’s scurried away to sit in one of the plastic waiting room chairs with a worn stuffed elephant in her lap, thumb in her mouth, skin patchy with what looks like old healing burns beneath her sweater sleeves.

You’d seen the marks during intake, saw the nurse’s note, the mandatory flag. You didn’t have to see more. You knew the minute the man walked in and said, “my niece had an accident,” with a voice that carried too much ownership, that this wasn’t going to end clean.

“Mr. Marsh,” Kiara says, voice smooth as steel. “We’ve reviewed the preliminary findings and spoken with emergency services. Given the nature of your niece’s injuries and the statements made by responding personnel, we’re initiating a CPS report and placing her in temporary protective custody.”

“The fuck you are.” The snap was like a bone cracking beneath too much pressure. You expected as much.

You take a step closer, clipboard still clutched to your chest but your voice doesn’t waver. “Sir, I am going to need you to remain calm—”

“That’s my family,” he growls, stepping toward the girl. “You don’t get to take her. Her mom’s strung out in Allegheny County Lockup, and I’m the only one left who gives a damn.”

“Then maybe,” you say, tone bone-dry, “you shouldn’t have yanked on her arm like it was a doorknob.” Kiara shoots you a look. Sharp and tired. She doesn’t have the energy to scold you again. Especially not in the light of the situation.

The man’s face reddens and his hand balls into a fist. The girl doesn’t move. She’s frozen, eyes wide, thumb still in her mouth. You crouch slowly, give her a soft smile.

“Hey, sweetheart. Why don’t you come with me for a minute, okay? We’ve got crayons and popsicles in the back. You ever had a grape one?” she nods but only just barely. You offer your hand.

“C’mon. I promise we’ll keep Mr. Elephant safe.” She places her tiny fingers in yours like they weigh the world. You stand. Kiara gestures toward Nina, another social worker lingering at the edge of the chaos. She whisks the girl away down the corridor, away from the tension. The man’s gaze follows, sharp as a razor.

“You fucking bitch,” he spits, suddenly surging forward. You move to intercept without thinking. Kiara’s already trying and failing at stepping in between.

You’ve dealt with aggression before. Screaming, threats, broken phones, but there’s something in this man’s eyes. Something off.

His face twitches, as do his fingers and you realize, far too late, he’s not reaching for the girl. “Sir, back up,” Kiara warns, hand outstretched, looking around for security. “You’re making this worse than it has to be.”

“You don’t know what worse looks like.” He’s practically vibrating. Something clicks in your mind.

You’ve seen that look before—in addicts cornered during psych evals, in violent exes slamming their fists against locked doors, in men who think the world owes them something and that women are the debt collectors.

Your gut twists.

Then you see it, a flicker of silver beneath the hem of his coat. A quick glint. The blade of a pocketknife. Your clipboard hits the ground before you realize you dropped it. “Hey!” you bark, voice suddenly sharp, not social-worker-soft, not trauma-informed-friendly, just loud. “Put it the fuck down—”

And that’s when he lunges. "Security!"

You know what no one tells you about being stabbed?

It’s hot.

It doesn't happen like it does in the movies. It's not sharp or cold or cinematic. There is just a build heat bubbling under your skin. White hot as it rips through your side like a flare gun fired point blank into soft tissue.

Your nerve endings go haywire, like they can’t agree whether to scream or shut down entirely. Your ribs jar against the blow, and for a horrifying half-second, you think maybe the blade's still inside you.

But then—

Oh.

No, he pulled it out.

That’s why there’s so much blood.

You stumble backward, hand pressed hard against your ribs, your palm already soaked in wet warmth. It pulses through your fingers like a second heartbeat, fast and panicked and very, very wrong.

You don’t fall gracefully.

You drop like a shot deer, clumsy, knees sideways, landing half on your elbow and half on someone’s crumpled hoodie on the floor. The pain makes you howl. A strangled, animal sound that bursts from your chest unfiltered.

“What the fu—!”

Your vision swims. A dark haze edges the corners of your eyes like burnt film. Somewhere to your left, Kiara is screaming. Somewhere to your right, the guy who stabbed you is being tackled by two guards and a passing CNA with murder in his eyes.

And you are bleeding out on the floor of a hospital you technically don’t even work at, clutching your side with a hand that won’t stop shaking.

“Don’t move—don’t—Nina, get help! Get trauma over here now!” That’s kiara’s voice, commanding and somewhat terrified. You’d try to comfort her, if you weren’t so goddamn angry.

“You gotta be some kind of stupid to stab a woman in a hospital?! Are you fucking kidding me—!” your voice cracks as it rises, climbing toward hysteria.

You’re not crying. You’re just sweating aggressively out of your eyes, okay? Your lungs fight to inflate. You suck in a breath and get half of it before the wound tugs wrong and you double over with a wet groan. you bite it back, barely.

A nurse skids into view, dropping to their knees beside you. You can just tell by the look on her face, young, new and fucking terrified. “Okay, okay, okay—you’re okay, we’re gonna—we’re gonna apply pressure—”

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” you snarl through gritted teeth. They blink at you, visibly rattled but nevertheless, the pressure they apply is not gentle.

“Jesus fuck—!” you nearly slap them. Not on purpose. Just as a reflex. You reach down, trying to press your own hand harder over theirs because clearly they aren't doing it right. Not if the blood is still pouring out of you like the Niagara Falls.

But you can't get a grip, everything is slippery. You can feel it soaking through the layers you are wearing. Through your shirt, bra, coat, the fucking bandaid Kiara made you slap over your tattoo this morning.

“This is not how I die,” you whisper, wild-eyed. “I am not dying in a polyester blazer with a hot topic pin on it—” the nurse stares at you. “You’re not dying.”

“Tell that to my entire blood volume on the ground—!”

Another wave of pain rolls through you. It crests in your throat, pushes a sob halfway up your windpipe before you grit it down again. You taste copper. Maybe from your split lip, maybe from sheer, molten rage.

Kiara’s crouched over you now, speaking fast into a radio clipped to her hip and then yelling at the nurse on the other side of the partition at the front desk. “Go get a doctor! And a gurney!”

You clutch at her sleeve, your other hand still pinned over your gushing side. “I’m gonna throw up,” you croak.

“Don’t you dare,” she says, gripping your wrist. “I mean it,” you say, “Right in your lap, Kiara—dead center—”

The lights above you seem to buzz louder now or maybe that’s your ears or your heart. Or your ego leaving your body after the most undignified five minutes of your professional life.

You’re lying in the middle of the ER waiting room. You’re covered in your own blood. You’ve officially scared a nurse into silence and the worst part is you still haven’t gotten that goddamn CPS paperwork filed.

You try to sit up.

That was a big mistake. The pain grabs you by the spine and yanks. Your breath catches, snaps, really, and for one awful second, everything goes white. Like full-screen, clinical-grade whiteout.

“No—nope, I'm gonna stay down—here . . .”

Someone’s hands on your shoulders now. You can't tell but your sure its more nurses who do a lot more shouting. “Where’s the gurney? I called for a gurney—”

You feel the floor shift under your back as someone slides a board beneath you. The cold plastic against your spine makes you shudder. You’re dimly aware of a woman trying to start an IV in your left arm while someone else pinches the skin near your jaw to keep you conscious.

“Stay with us, Sweetheart. What’s your name?”

“Don’t call me sweetheart. I will end your whole bloodline.”

“Vitals dropping. Systolic’s barely hanging on—”

“I swear to god if you cut this top I’m gonna—fuck—fuck!”

And then, just when you’re about to black out from blood loss, indignation, and the unbearable itch of polyester against your sweat-slicked neck, you hear it.

The ER double doors slam open with force. someone stomps in. Heavy boots and even heavier breath. A voice like a blade drawn clean from its sheath. “Move,” and the second you hear it, every cell in your body screams oh no.

Because that’s Jack.

And you are so fucked.

His eyes scan the chaos. Security wrestling with the man who stabbed you. Blood smeared on the floor like some fucked-up Jackson Pollock. Kiara kneeling over you, hand pressed to your side.

And then, he sees you.

You’re half-upright on the gurney now, propped on one elbow, trying to stop the nurses from cutting your blazer with a pair of trauma shears. Your delirious at this point. “Don’t—don’t—I like this outfit, I swear to god I’ll sue someone—”

“She’s in shock,” someone murmurs beside him. “She lost a lot of blood—she needs—”

“I'm not in shock—Jack, tell them I'm being fucking serious—ow, ow—!"

“Out of my way.” He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to because in an instant, they scatter and then he’s at your side.

“Jesus Christ,” he growls, and his hands are already on you, gripping your jaw and tipping your face toward his. Checking your pupils. Your color. “What the fuck happened?”

You blink up at him. You’re smiling. Why are you smiling? Your teeth are pink. You can taste your own blood on your tongue. “Hi, Jackie,” you slur. “You ever see your life flash before your eyes and it’s just thirty seconds of you eating string cheese in the staff bathroom?”

His nostrils flare and you can visibly see his jaw click. His hands tighten just slightly where they hold your face. “What part of ‘stay out of red-level interventions’ did you not fucking understand?”

“What part of ‘this kid was getting beat to hell’ did you miss. Ow, fuck, Jack—” you whine. He’s already assessing the wound, pulling back the soaked fabric. His fingers are too skilled and too gentle. It makes you dizzy in a different way.

Who the fuck gets horny while actively bleeding out?

“Knife wound. Lower right quadrant. No visible organ evisceration. Bleeding’s heavy but localized." One of the nurses that scattered, called out towards Jack. He nod and then yells, "get trauma five ready. Now!”

The nurses move like they’ve been struck. Someone shoves open the trauma bay doors. The gurney wheels groan. “We were doing our job,” Kiara cuts in, still breathless, still covered in your blood. Almost as if she knows Jack is about to rip her a new one.

Jack’s head snaps toward her. His voice drops. “Your job was to keep her out of this kind of risk. Not to throw her into a CPS confrontation without a trained intervention officer or security present.”

“We didn’t know he had a knife.”

“Then maybe next time you vet the violent assholes before they get within stabbing distance! She's my fucking responsibility, Kiara!”

Oof.

Your heart skips at that one.

Kiara looks like she’s been slapped but Jack’s not done. “You were supposed to keep her out of danger.” His voice breaks slightly, not enough for anyone else to notice.

But you do.

The gurney jerks forward. “You’re gonna be fine,” Jack mutters, voice low and tight as he walks beside you. “You hear me?”

“Yeah, but . . . like. Hot fine or like regular fine? Because I feel like I’m leaking in ways that’ll mess up my whole aesthetic—”

“Do you ever quit it?”

“You’re so mean to me.”

“You got stabbed, you little brat.”

“Yeah, but like . . . for justice.” He looks like he wants to strangle you. They wheel you through the trauma bay doors.

Somewhere, under the pain and the blood and the rising nausea, you feel safe. Which is pretty ironic because you did just get fucking stabbed.

The gurney squeals around the corner on uneven wheels, one of them stuck from some ancient collision with a supply cart two years ago. You feel it drag beneath you every few feet, the jolt punching through your spine like a hammer to bone.

You’re vaguely aware of the nurse, Jess? Jenny?. Whatever her name is, she is shouting something about trauma bay five. You think Shen is above you, pushing the gurney. You think you told him once you liked his cargo boots. Maybe you hallucinated that.

You can’t tell.

Everything’s red, sticky, pulsing and all too bright.

Jack’s hands are still on you. One pressed hard to your side, keeping the pressure constant. The other gripping the side metal railing of the gurney like he wants to rip it off. He’s leaning over you on your left, breathing hard, jaw clenched so tight you swear you can hear his molars grinding.

“Where the fuck is security?!” His voice ricochets off the corridor walls. “I want them in the trauma bay, now!” Shen flinches.

“Already called. they're on their way—”

“They should’ve been there before she was stabbed!”

“Dr. Abbot—”

The rage coming off Jack is nuclear.

You’re still bleeding, granted not as fast as before, but enough that your skin’s gone cold. Your lips feel weird. You want to say something sarcastic but it’s like your brain’s swimming through molasses.

Jack’s hand, broad, steady, coated in your blood—grips your wrist suddenly, anchoring you to the gurney frame as they jerk you through the trauma bay doors. You know he's looking for a pulse because your eyes have begun to flutter.

“You with me?” he asks, voice rougher now, a crack under all that rage. “Don’t you dare close your eyes.”

“S’just . . . a little nap,” you mumble. “Ten minutes, Jackie…”

“No. No naps. Open your fucking eyes.”

They stop moving. The gurney locks in. The light above you flares on, white, sterile, cruel on your eyelids but it doesn't matter because you are no longer awake.

"Fuck!" Jack curses when he looks down and immediately notices your eyes have closed and not reopened.

A flurry of movement, gloves and gauze all being pushed towards you. Shen pulls out trauma scissors. Jack slaps his hand away. “Touch that top and she’ll gut you when she wakes up.”

“It's covered in blood—” Shen tries to argue.

“So is everything else in this room. You want to cut something? Cut the fuckin' attitude.” He doesn’t stop moving. One hand is pressing gauze to your side, the other already reaching over for the tray before the nurse can even finish unwrapping the sterile kit. His voice is tight, rapid, mechanical.

“BP?”

“Dropping.”

“Push one liter wide open, then start the second. Two large-bore IVs. I need four-o suture, lidocaine, betadine.”

“We called trauma surgery—”

“I've got it! It's not deep enough for surgery, we just gotta stop the bleeding.”

The door opens again. Security arrives. Theres two of them, maybe three. It doesn't matter. He doesn’t glance up. He has more important things to look at right now.

He’s already pulling away the soaked fabric with steady, clinical hands, fingers stained deep rust-red, jaw clenched hard enough to crack enamel. Blood sticks to his gloves, smears the blue of the latex a sickening color of crimson.

He leans over your side, peering into the wound, lips pressed into a razor-thin line. The pads of his fingers ghost across your skin, professional, careful, but still somehow desperate.

Then, Jack rounds on them like a storm.

He looks insane. Still gloved—blood dripping from his fingers. Your blood. “You.” His voice is a snarl now. “How the fuck did a man with a weapon get past you?”

He doesn’t yell it at anyone specific. Or maybe he does. Maybe it’s aimed at security, still standing by the door like they’re not five seconds away from being flayed alive.

They hesitate.

“No, really, how? Was he invisible? Did the metal detector take the night off? Did someone forget to give a single fuck about basic safety protocol?”

“He wasn’t flagged. He didn’t show signs of escalation—”

“You let him sit ten feet from an unaccompanied minor and a staff intern, are you fucking kidding me?!”

He turns back to you. Taking the syringe from the nurse and he injects lidocaine near the wound with terrifying precision. His voice lowers, just a hair when he talks to Shen. “Local in. She’s stable enough for sutures.”

A nurse scrubs your side. You wince even in unconsciousness.

“He was apprehended—"

“After!" he yells. Almost everyone in the room jumps at the sound. "After, she was bleeding on the floor.”

“Dr. abbot—” Kiara’s voice behind him is calm, firm, a professional’s warning, dares to speak. “You’re not being rational.”

He spins on her.

“Rational?” he echoes, without looking at her. “She’s twenty-four. She’s a grad student. she was assigned to work under you and now I’m the one threading her skin back together while you stand there acting like this is just another Thursday.”

He glares at her. It’s enough to cut through steel. “You want to talk rational? Let’s start with what the fuck went wrong on your watch.”

Kiara flinches, but says nothing. He goes back to you. “Vitals holding,” a nurse says. “We’re okay.”

“She is not fucking okay,” Jack mutters. “She’s just not dead yet.”

You're not quite sure when you fell unconscious but your eyes slowly blink open. Blinking once then twice before peering up at him through your lashes. Your voice is weak but you can’t help it. “You always this mean to girls who bleed on you?” His eyes flick down and his jaw tightens but his heart races at the fact that you have come back to consciousness.

“You’re not special.”

“Liar.”

His hands don’t tremble, not even a little, but his breathing’s off. You know it is. “You need to stop talking,” he says flatly.

“You need to stop flirting,” a nurse mutters. The glare she received from Jack could've leveled cities and you whisper you were more coherent to enjoy it.

“I’m dying, let me have this.”

“You are not dying,” Jack grits out. “And you are making this infinitely worse.”

“You’re so hot when you’re mad.”

“I’m always mad.”

“Yeah, but now you’re mad and wrist-deep in my side, which is kind of hot, ow ow ow okay, okay—” he tightens the last suture knot with a jerk. You yelp. Shen snorts in the corner and coughs to cover it.

The room is quieter now. The bleeding’s under control. Your adrenaline is burning off and Jack is still covered in your blood.

“If she tries to leave, fuckin' sedate her and someone—” he turns to security, eyes like frozen steel, “better have gotten that fucking asshole outta my waiting room."

He finally stops moving.

Finally pulls his gloves off with a audible snap and tosses them into the bin. Then the trauma bay doors shut with a hiss of finality as the nurses and security and Shen leave the trauma room.

The moment they do, the temperature in the room drops ten degrees and it is definitely not from the ac or the sweat drying on your skin.

He stands just inside the door, his chest heaving like he sprinted through a war zone, like he’s still in one. His jaw is clenched. His eyes are locked on you.

You, sprawled across the gurney, still half in your ruined clothes and half in denial, look up at him with a dazed little frown. “Your mad at me?” your voice is quiet and severely lacking all its bravado. He doesn’t answer.

He just strides toward the sink, scrubs his hands again with rough, punishing motions, blood still drying along his forearms. You watch the red turn pink then wash completely off.

He doesn't speak until his hands are clean. He doesn’t even look at you until the blood is off and even then, it’s not a soft look. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

You blink at him. "Because it was my fucking fault I got stabbed."

“Don’t start,” he bites, already reaching for the medical wipes and gauze. “You don’t get have an attitude right now.”

“I got stabbed. Pretty sure that buys me a little attitude.”

“Pretty sure you’re not in charge of anything right now.” He steps to your side, eyes flicking over the damage. Your shirt’s in a heap on the ground soaked through with dried and tacky blood. Your skin is sticky, crusted red in patches, with fresh bruises blooming violet along your ribs.

His lips press into a furious line as he wipes near the edge of your bra. You’re thankful he abided by your request not to cut your shirt but that left you stripped down to your bra and not a cute one. One of the functional, beige, i didn’t think i’d be impaled today variety. Blood has soaked halfway down it.

“Raise your arm.”

“Why?”

“So I can clean you up.”

“Y’know, if you wanted to feel me up that badly, you could’ve just asked—” He cuts you off with a glare.

You do as you're told, albeit slowly and with a hiss and a wince and a muttered insult about men with god complexes. “You're stupid. Fucking reckless. Bleeding like a goddamn faucet and still making jokes—”

“This’ll sting,” he warns has the wipe gets closer to the wound.

“Oh, now you’re warning me?” The cold hits your ribs and you flinch so hard your elbow nearly clocks him in the chin. He doesn’t back away. He doesn’t soften. His hand goes to your shoulder, presses you down, holds you still.

“Do you have any idea what you just did?” His voice is low now, in a dangerous kind of tone. “What kind of risk you took?” You look at him. smirk twitching. Weak, but still there.

“I saved a kid.”

“You could’ve died.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Then what the fuck were you thinking?!” His voice cracks on that last word. You go quiet. His hand on your shoulder trembles before tightening again.

The alcohol stings as he wipes more of the blood from your stomach, your ribs, your hip. He moves like he’s trying not to hurt you, but everything about him is rigid.

He tosses the gauze into the bin and grabs the gown from the side tray.

“Arms up.”

“Bossy.”

“Up.”

You raise them.

He slips the gown over your head like he’s furious at the fabric. It’s thin, starched and smells like bleach and regret. He yanks the ties into place then tugs the hem down to your thighs with clinical detachment and short, angry motions, like the fabric personally insulted him. You flinch at the tug.

You think that’s it. You think he’s done. You think you’re safe.

You are not safe.

“We need to get that bra off.” His voice is flat, cold, and utterly clinical. You blink, slowly. “It’s fine,” you lie. “I’ll take care of it later.”

“It’s soaked in blood.”

“A little vintage gore never hurt anybody.”

“It’s sticking to the skin near your wound. If it dries like that, you'll pull a stitch and I'll have to do it all over again. You won’t like that.”

“You could’ve just said you wanted to see my tits.” He stares at you like he wants to put you back in shock on purpose. “I'm going to unhook it,” he says, already stepping around the gurney. “Don’t make this weird.”

“Too late.”

He exhales sharply, through his nose, through gritted teeth and moves behind you. The room is quiet now. Just the soft shuffle of his boots, the faint beeping of the vitals monitor, the rustle of your hospital gown as he pulls it back from your shoulders, just enough to reach the clasp.

Your breath hitches, not from pain, but from how goddamn careful he is. His fingers graze the curve of your spine, knuckles rough, fingertips clean, not gloved anymore but bare and touching your skin.

“Tilt forward a little.”

You do.

You feel the graze of his knuckle against the sides of your ribs.

Your skin lights up under every inch he touches. A wildfire. A problem. “I’m only doing this so it doesn’t stick,” he mutters, as if reading your dirty goddamn mind. “Sure,” you whisper, lips dry. “That’s what they all say.”

He doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t scold you for once.

And that probably makes this a hundred times worse for you. The clasp clicks open with a soft snap.

He pulls the bra away from your back, one side at a time, fabric peeling slow over the dried blood on your skin. You hiss, part pain, part, well, not pain.

“I’ll throw it out,” he says, folding it into a biohazard bag.

“No ceremony? That thing’s seen more action than my entire dating history.” Still no answer. He tugs the gown back up your arms. Re-ties it. His fingers brush the nape of your neck. You nearly shiver.

“You’re burning up,” he mutters.

“You’re touching me.”

“You might have a fever.”

"You're touching me, Jack."

He pauses, just one breath. Just one moment. Then, “don’t make this worse than it is.” If you didn't know any better you'd of thought he was begging. You turn your head. “You’re the one undressing me in a trauma bay, Jack.”

His jaw tightens. "We’re done here.”

“That’s too bad,” you murmur, “I was starting to think you liked me.” He doesn’t move but after a second, when he turns back towards you. You catch it, that twitch of his hand, that flicker of restraint.

“You think this is a joke. That bleeding out in my ER is some kind of fucking bit.”

“Jack—”

“You don’t get it. You don’t.” You stare at him. He’s pacing now, hands on his hips, breathing shallow. “You could’ve died. Do you know what that would’ve done to your dad? To me?”

Your heart skips. He realizes what he’s said. He closes his eyes. breathes. Once, then twice. “I’m going to go fill out your chart.”

He turns toward the door.

But not before you whisper, “you were scared.” He stops but he doesn’t turn around. “You were scared for me.”

Another pause. “Say it, Jack.”

Then, without turning, “Don’t you ever fucking do that again.”

There are, you feel, worse fates than ending up marooned in Santorini wearing Jack Abbot’s clothes.

A plague of locusts, for one. Stepping on a lego barefoot perhaps. Or, in what may in fact be the cellar floor of human suffering, finally getting your suitcase back only to unzip it and find nothing inside but hideous hospital scrubs and lonely, misshapen shocks instead of your cute little outfits and your even cuter, very tiny bikinis you were supposed to be wearing on this trip.

And honestly that’s not entirely outside of the realm of possibility.

You packed at two in the morning with the executive function of a feral raccoon rifling through a gas station dumpster, so really the universe would be well within its rights to punish you.

This, then, was fine. More than fine. A salvageable situation. A win, even, if you angled your head and refused to inspect it too closely.

Except for the microscopic issue that his clothes smell like him.

Which you understood in a distant, theoretical way you know rain is wet or fire is hot or men’s clothes tend to smell like the men wearing them. 

But now you understand it in that immediate, full-body way of a person trapped inside the atmosphere of a man she is trying, with only moderate success, not to be weird about.

Tobacco. Leather. Something dry and woodsy underneath, oak maybe, something warm and stern and impossible to separate from him now that you’ve noticed it.

It smells like competence. Like an almost-choice. Like the split second before you do something you already know you’ll have to lie about later.

And now it’s all over you. In the collar. In the cuffs. In every breath you take like your lungs have joined the opposition. 

You huff it in like an addict and make your way into the living room. 

Rain taps steadily at the tall glass windows, turning the whole house dim and silver at the edges.

Most of the group has collapsed into the couch in various stages of damp-haired, wine-soft sprawl, limbs overlapping without much regard for ownership, all of them fixed on some black-and-white film flickering across the tv screen. 

The kitchen counter is crowded with wine glasses in varying stages of neglect, some nearly full, some reduced to lipstick ghosts and shallow red smears at the bottom, and you decide this is as good a moment as any to acquire one of your own.

You deserve it, after all.

You grab an unused glass and pour a generous amount.

From the end of the couch nearest to the kitchen, Victoria looks up from her phone, takes one look at you, and arches a brow. 

“Nice sweatshirt,” she remarks. “Should we be thanking you for your service?”

Your eyes drop to the enormous ARMY stamped across your chest, which, in hindsight, does feel a touch less subtle than you might have hoped. Not understated, exactly. More like a public service announcement.

“Lost suitcase,” you say, heat climbing to your face as you fuss with a sleeve that falls halfway over your hand. “Jack let me borrow something, so… blame the airline.”

Santos lets out a sharp little laugh from beside her, all pleased with herself before she’s even opened her mouth. Never a promising sign.

“That’s a new one. Usually people skip straight to admitting they’re sleeping with him.”

You sputter around a mouthful of wine, swallowing too fast, too badly, eyes watering as you whip around to glare at her over the rim of your glass.

“Trinity,” you stage-whisper, eyes huge. “Jesus Christ.”

“Who’s sleeping with who?”

Jack’s voice lands from somewhere directly behind you. 

You turn and there he is.

Grey sweatpants riding low on his hips, black t-shirt skimming a chest and shoulders broad enough to make the whole rest of the room look underbuilt, all of him calm and self-contained in a way that makes you feel, by contrast, like a person assembled in a rush from spare parts.

You force your eyes upward with considerable effort and bite your tongue hard enough to keep from openly staring. 

Santos is dead. Santos is dead and, before she dies, you are taking every single one of her beach towels. Let her drip-dry for the rest of the trip. Let her know hardship.

“Nobody,” you say quickly, then quicker, before somehow the first version had not been convincing enough. “No one is sleeping with anybody. There’s no sleeping happening. That is not a thing that is, um, happening.”

Jack gives you a quizzical look at that. You imagine he might be considering have you checked out.

Then his mouth tips at one corner. “Shame. For a second there it sounded interesting.”

Before you can scrape together anything remotely usable in reply, Jack is already moving past you, one hand catching lightly at your waist as he goes, casual, thoughtless, the absent sort of touch that means nothing to him and enough to shave several fiscal years off your life.

He heads straight for the couch, dropping into it.

Santos leans toward Victoria and mutters, in a voice carrying all the discretion of a car alarm, “Yeah. Real shame.”

You choose, with great maturity, not to acknowledge her. Which is easier to commit to in theory than in practice, especially when you turn toward the choice and realize your choices have narrowed to two.

One, the far corner, between Robby and the intern under a blanket that is doing a pathetic job of concealing whatever the hell is going on beneath it.

Or two, the open seat beside Jack.

You cross the room and lower yourself into the space next to him, careful to leave what you hope reads as a normal, socially unremarkable amount of distance between you.

He doesn’t look away from the movie.

“No need to get that defensive about your love life, kid,” he murmurs. “We’re all adults here.”

“I was not defensive,” you whisper back, which, admittedly, sounds suspiciously like the sort of thing a defensive person would say. You take a sip of wine. “It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.”

At that, Jack finally turns his head and looks at you properly. “So you are sleeping with someone?”

Dana’s eyes flick up from the movie, sharp and curious for exactly one second too long.

“Will you keep your voice down?” you hiss, then immediately drop yours lower still, because apparently hypocrisy is one more thing you’ll be sampling tonight. “No. I am not sleeping with anyone. And even if I were, that would be none of your business.”

He lifts both hands in surrender.

“Fair enough. Not my business,” he agrees. You exhale, which turns out to be premature, because then, after a beat, he adds, “Could’ve fooled the room. They seem to think everyone about you is my business.”

Your fingers twitch, and the wine makes its move, sloshing clean over the rim and splattering across the front of your — his sweatshirt in one dark, awful splash.

“Shit,” you blurt, already half setting the glass down, reaching for the hem in a burst of useless panic, like maybe if you rub at it fast enough you can bully time into reversing itself. “Jack, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just, you said that and I…”

“Hey,” he says, catching at your wrist before you can make the stain worse. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” you say, mortified. “I just spilled red wine all over your sweatshirt.”

“You spilled red wine on an old sweatshirt,” he corrects.

Before you can launch into a fresh round of apology, he leans in and lays a hand flat over the stained part of the sweatshirt like he’s assessing damage. Entirely practical. Entirely innocent. A normal thing to do when something has been spilled on his clothes.

Your body reacts like it has never encountered human contact before, going warm and taut all at once, every nerve abruptly standing at attention.

You become excruciatingly aware of the space between you, which is to say there almost isn’t any.

“It’ll wash out,” he concludes, drawing his hand away.

You swallow, still staring at the stain because the stain is safer to look at than his face. “I feel awful.”

“You look awful.” 

Your head flies up so fast your neck nearly protests. He catches the horror on your face and, finally, there it is, the quick flicker of amusement.

“Upset, I mean. More upset than I am.”

“Of course I’m upset. You were nice enough to let me borrow your clothes and within, what, an hour, I’ve turned one of them into a crime scene.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“It’s merlot on gray cotton. I ruined it.”

“It’s not ruined,” he says, easy as anything. “And even if it was, I’ve got more.” His eyes flick briefly to the sweatshirt. “I was going to let you keep it anyway.”

Your brain, already functioning at reduced capacity, latches onto I was going to let you keep it anyway and immediately begins behaving like it has never encountered a normal sentence before. Which is ridiculous. It is a sweatshirt. People loan each other sweatshirts all the time. Probably. In very casual, emotionally neutral circumstances. None of which feel remotely relevant here.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that happens,” you murmur, “when the airline loses your entire life. Murphy’s law ans all that.”

He laughs softly through his nose.

“What all was in the suitcase?”

“Everything,” you say. “Clothes, makeup, skincare, my will to live.” Then, because apparently embarrassment has made you reckless, you add, “My bikinis too, which was kind of the point of coming to Santorini in the first place.”

He is quiet for a second.

“Too bad,” he says. “Would’ve liked to see those.”

Santos lifts her head from the couch like a shark catching blood in the water.

“Gross,” she says. “Can you two either make out or shut up? Some of us are trying to watch sad people chain-smoke in peace.”

A quiet laugh ripples through the room. Dana hides hers behind her wineglass. Victoria doesn’t look up from her phone, but the corner of her mouth gives her away.

You lock your eyes on the television with the rigid focus of a person trying not to burst into flame in public.

Your face is hot enough to qualify as an environmental hazard. A flare-up risk. One loose spark away from requiring intervention.

Beside you, Jack shifts back into the couch, looking unbothered. 

“Good movie,” he murmurs.

You take a long sip of wine and decide, not for the first time, that the airline owes you financial compensation, emotional damages, and possibly a public apology.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

Your polite smile widens a little at the nickname. “You paged?”

“We’ve got a three-year-old girl. Suspected meningitis,” Robby briefs in a monotone, each word coated in a thick layer of fatigue. “High fever, lethargy, neck stiffness— labs are ugly, too.”

Your features soften instantly. “Oh, poor baby…”

Your eyes dart to the window. You catch only a sliver of the family through the edge of the curtain — young parents, likely in their early twenties, faking teary smiles for their sick baby, who sits in a too-big bed in a too-big hospital gown patterned with so many cartoon puppies.

“Parents are freaking out, obviously,” Jack adds gently, never once taking his eyes off of you. “We thought you could walk them through the admission process before we take her upstairs.” 

“Of course,” you nod, with a voice as gentle as you look.

Jack passes the clipboard over to you and allows his calloused fingers to brush your softer ones for a beat longer than probably necessary. Though if you notice it, you make no mention of it as you flip through the thin pages and follow behind Robby into the dim room. 

The chaos outside muffles when the door clicks shut behind you. 

A young mother — Nia, the form tells you — sits in a chair beside the bed with a wadded tissue clutched in her trembling hands. Her husband, Malcolm, sits on the edge of the hospital bed, wearing the long day all over, as his daughter curls lazily into his side. Ruby Turner is clammy with fever; her round eyes are heavy with it, too. And beneath her chubby arm, is a stuffed animal wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope around its long neck.

“Hi, there…” you greet in a gentle lilt, crouching beside the bed until you’re eye level with the toddler, who eyes your warm smile with a weary suspicion. “I have to say, that is a very serious giraffe you’ve got there, Miss Ruby.”

The girl blinks back at you with sleep-weary eyes; the same dark brown as her mother’s. “Pickles,” is all she can make out through her hoarse throat. The words came out like dry gravel, which rattles harshly in her chest when she coughs hard a second later.

Her dad pats her gently on the back with a wide hand and flashes you a tired smile. “She named him Pickles,” he clarifies.

“Pickles?” you gasp. “I had a dog named Pickles when I was growing up— He looked a little like that one there.”

You motion to the shaggy white dog on her hospital gown. The girl tilts her curly head down and begins pointing at each puppy herself, aptly naming each of them Pickles. It’s the first time the child has been moderately alert, or otherwise has been willing to engage, since she arrived some hours ago. Watching you work feels a little like watching a magic trick.

“Sorry. Hi. I should probably introduce myself,” you laugh warmly and rise to full height again, shaking both of the parents’ hands. “I’m one of the pediatric caseworkers upstairs— My job is basically helping families know what’s happening next. You know, all the boring insurance details, and making sure you guys aren’t going through things alone.”

The mother nods, wiping her nose with the crumbled tissue in her fist. “So what happens now?” she asks, voice teary and trembling.

You nod with a polite smile. “Yeah, so the pediatric unit is gonna start preparing a room for her upstairs, so our doctors can give her the full evaluation she needs— They’ll probably monitor her over the next few nights, too, just to make sure everything’s okay. And you’ll be able to go with her once transport comes, of course, we’ll just need to get everything squared away with insurance while she’s getting tested.”

“So she’s gonna be okay?” the father presses, half-strangled.

You never lie to families. Not ever. It was, as you saw it, the golden rule in any hospital. Jack noticed that about you, too — because he couldn’t help but notice everything about you. But he saw how hopeful you were without ever being dishonest, without ever making promises you knew you could not keep.

“She’s exactly where she needs to be,” you answer carefully. “And she has the best doctors I know taking care of her now. You guys made a great decision by bringing her when you did.”

The mother beside you sniffles. Her exhale leaves her mouth in a quiet sob, which she buries behind her hands before her daughter can see her crying. It’s not quite sad — certainly not as much as it had been earlier that day — but rather it’s a cry of distant relief; the first time all day she hasn’t felt like the worst mother on the planet.

Robby exhales quietly through his mouth behind you — scruffy cheeks puffing, obviously eager to leave. Jack, however, just keeps on staring at you, as you turn back toward the little girl with your voice now lowered in a feigned sort of seriousness.

“Now, Miss Ruby, I’m gonna need your professional opinion on this, okay?”

The girl blinks slowly back at you.

“…Do you think Mr. Pickles needs his own hospital bracelet, too?”

Jack sees the young girl laugh for the first time all day when you’re helping her wrap a plastic arm band around the giraffe’s stuffed leg. It’s basically your superpower, the way you make all the terrifying things feel halfway manageable. By the time you’re stepping back out into the hallway, with Jack and Robby at your side, the family is a little bit steadier than they were before you arrived.

Jack eyes you up and down for a moment, before leaning in to nudge your shoulder with his broader one. Your soft sweater grazes his bare arm, and he gets a faint whiff of your pretty perfume before he leans away again.

“When did you get so good at that, huh?”

Your head whips to the side. You blink like an owl up at him “…At talking?”

“Sure, yeah,” he laughs. “At talking people off the ledge.”

“Oh.” You bounce a shoulder in a lazy shrug, then reach to pull the neck of your sweater back up again when it slips off your collarbone. “I don’t know, I just… try not to sound like a hospital brochure, I guess.”

“Hear that, brother?” Jack quips, reaching behind you to clap Robby on the shoulder. “Try not to sound like a hospital brochure next time, yeah?”

The older man says nothing. He just lifts his hand and scratches at his temple with his middle finger, discreetly flipping him off.

You laugh under your breath and head back towards the elevator, pretty skirt swishing around your ankles. “Try not to traumatize anyone while I’m gone, alright?”

“Can’t make promises like that down here, Sunshine,” Robby calls back. “You know that.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think we should just keep you down here permanently,” Jack says with a lazy shrug. His freckled biceps flex slightly when he crosses them over his broad chest, swaying back and forth on his feet. “You know, just— bring you into every room before the doctors go in. We’ll call you the Emotional Support Coordinator.”

“Oh, would you?” you scoff a faint laugh and hit the button for the upper floor. 

The doors part with a soft ding a second later. You step in through the threshold and turn to face him once more, giving him a much better view of the smile on your face.

“I mean, it’d certainly make me feel better,” he jokes.

“Well, you’re not the patient, Dr. Abbot,” you retort with a devilish grin. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got a few more years before your geriatric assessment, right?”

“A few,” he echoes sarcastically, light eyes squinted. “My opinion still counts, though.”

You shake your head at him despite the soft grin still dancing on the edges of your mouth. “You’re funny, Dr. Abbot,” is all you say, as you press the panel on the inside of the lift. The doors whir when they slide shut; your grin remains visible between them until hatch closes just ahead of you.

Jack drops his head with a chest-deflating huff when you’re gone.

Robby tries and fails to choke back his laughter. 

“You are officially 0 for 6, brother,” the man jokes. He claps Jack on the shoulder, hard, as his dark eyes squint under the weight of his smiling. “It’s honestly getting a little painful now.”

Jack turns to flash him a deadpanned look. “Shouldn’t you be clocking out now?” he wonders in a monotone.

“Not anymore,” Robby scoffs. “It’s just starting to get fun.”

The pediatric floor was quieter in the mornings, you found, after switching to the day shift some weeks back. It was never truly silent, exactly, but it was still a little bit softer, as the panic from the overnight patients faded into a calmer sort of quiet. 

Cartoon reruns play quietly behind closed doors, while lively children’s music can be heard from further in the main area, down the hall to your right. A softer set of lullabies, meanwhile, plays more distantly from the nursery behind the double doors to your left. And, somewhere within the soft sanctuary of it all, a wailing baby is fighting a losing battle against taking their liquid medicine.

It’s all confetti to you, really, from where you sit behind the reception desk with three different charts open on the monitors ahead of you. 

There’s a highlighter in your hand, a pen behind your ear, a paper cup of cooling coffee between your teeth, and approximately fourteen unfinished tasks glaring at you from the computer screen. 

You have not yet properly woken up — the same way the sun has not quite yet risen over the horizon. Your hair has been haphazardly dealt with, for one. Your cherry-colored sweater is bunched awkwardly at your waist, for another, while the white button-up you wear beneath it sticks out over top of your plaid-patterned bottoms. You vaguely noticed that your socks were mismatched when you slid into your scarlet flats, but were much too tired to bring yourself to care.

You don’t even flinch when the phone rings beside you. You reach for it with your free hand without looking, missing twice before finally plucking the plastic from the hook.

“PTMC—” You falter when you realize you still have the paper cup between your teeth. You scramble to set it back on the desk with the hand not holding the phone. You clear your throat and try again. “PTMC Pediatrics— How can I help you?”

“Morning, Sunshine.” 

Jack’s low voice crackles from the other line. You can practically picture him downstairs in the E.D. just now — leaning against the workstation with a computer glowing before him; with his messy silver curls, and his tired blue-green eyes, and that stupidly handsome half-smile he gets every time he talks to you.

You’re smiling at the thought alone before you even realize it. 

“Dr. Abbot?” you answer. “Do you need something? What didn’t you just page me—”

“Weren’t you the one who said I can call just to say hi before you switched to the dark side?”

(The day shift, he means.)

You scoff quietly and lean back in your swivel chair. “Well, I guess, that is preferable to getting paged about sick babies, so… I’ll take it.”

“Wow…” Jack croons drily. “You always say the sweetest things to me, you know that?”

“Well, what can I say? I’m very charming before seven A.M.”

“I think you’re very charming all the time, Sunshine.”

You falter for a brief moment, unable to tell if he’s flirting with you or if he’s just being nice and you’re the weirdo for thinking otherwise. So you shake the thought from your head and change the subject entirely.

“You sound tired, old man— Isn’t it almost bedtime for you?”

“Almost…” His sigh crackles through the faint static of the landline. “But unfortunately, there’s this case manager upstairs who won’t stop distracting me…”

You exhale a frustrated huff, utterly oblivious as you begin to gossip with him under your breath. “Is Hastings bothering you, too? Because she’s been hounding me about clearing beds up here since I came in an hour ago.”

There’s a long beat of silence on the other line, filled by the sound of distant chatter from the E.D.

“…I’m talking about you, Sunshine,” Jack clarifies.

“Oh…” you trail off, face burning hot. Your brain scrambles further when the light starts flashing on your desk, another call waiting. “That’s, uh— Sorry. There’s— There’s just someone on the other line.”

“Oh.”

You tuck the phone between your shoulder and cheek, fingers whizzing across the keyboard as you type with practiced (only now slightly anxious) hands. “So if you wanna have a conversation, you’re gonna have to trek all the way up to pedes, unfortunately.”

“Damn…”

“Yep…” you hum absentmindedly. “It’s a real difficult journey. Very treacherous elevator ride.”

“Well, you’re making a pret-ty compelling argument here, Sunshine.”

“Goodbye, Jack,” you lilt with a big dumb grin on your face, that you hope isn’t as audible in your voice.

“See you soon, Sunshine.”

You think nothing of his words when you decline his call and take another. You hardly expect to see him now, not when he’s still wrapping up the long night and briefing the day shift that’s trickling slowly in downstairs. He’s about half an hour shy of going home and collapsing face-first into his mattress — and you’re hardly special enough to lose sleep over.

Jack, however, respectfully disagrees. 

And so does Dana, who saunters into the workstation to start her morning, only to find the man hanging up the desk phone with a lazy grin hinting at the edges of his mouth. 

“What’s that look for, huh?” she croons in place of a greeting, shrugging off the jean jacket she arrived in and spreading it on the back of her chair before her.

Jack looks up from where he’s shoving the phone back into its cradle. “What look?” he scoffs. “I don’t have a look.”

“Oh, you most certainly have a look,” she argues.

“I have a face, Dana.”

“Uh-huh,” the older woman deadpans, half-distracted, as she logs into the monitor ahead of her, with her glasses sitting low on her nose. “And right now, that face looks like you’re the main character at the climax of a Nora Ephron movie.”

“…What’s a Nora Ephron?” Jack wonders with furrowed brows.

The corner of Dana’s mouth lifts in a crooked half-smile as she peers at him over the top of her clear frames. “Go ask Little Miss Sunshine about it. She’ll tell ya.”

Jack’s light eyes narrow in a smug sort of look as he strolls slowly past her. “Thanks for giving me an excuse to go up there, Evans,” he quips. 

“Oh, please,” she scoffs. “You were already on your way.”

There’s a newfound skip in his step, along with a faint limp in his prosthetic from the long shift, as he makes the elevator ride up to the pediatric floor — where he’s greeted instantly by soothing lullabies, children’s laughter, and reruns of old cartoons.

He’s swaddled instantly by the dim lighting and the soft warmth — both of which are rare to find in the cold, sterile chaos of the unrelenting E.D. just a few floors down. It’s like entering a whole new world when he steps out of the elevator.

Jack hears your voice, distant at first, but growing louder the further he treks down the hall. “No, I understand the policy, sir. You don’t have to explain it to me again—”

You exhale an annoyed sigh when the man on the other line prattles on, anyway, talking in a slow monotone as if you hadn’t understood him the first time. Despite your irritation, you perk instantly when Jack enters your vision, still in his black scrubs from the night shift, with a new exhaustion etched across his scruffy face.

He greets you with a tight-lipped smile anyway.

Your chest swells with a funny feeling accordingly.

“Sorry,” you mouth apologetically. “Just— one second.”

Jack waves a hand in your direction. “You’re fine,” he mumbles and turns away, idling awkwardly some feet away with his hands in his pockets, pretending not to hover. He marvels at the paintings on the walls, vivid scribbles from children of all ages, as he shifts on his weight — trying to relieve the distant pressure in his artificial limb.

You return to your phone call some feet behind him: “Yes, I get that. But this is a six-year-old going through extensive leukemia treatment— Delaying authorization for inpatient care would—”

You grumble an annoyed breath and drop your head into your hand when the man on the other line speaks over you once more. Jack glances over his shoulder at you, features softening instantly.

“—No, why should his parents waste their time fighting insurance, which should already be in place, by the way, when they could be spending it with their son? How is that fair?” you continue, obviously angry, but still so soft in your way. There’s a few seconds of silence as the person on the other line responds. You nod wordlessly to yourself at whatever they’re saying. “Yes, I will absolutely call back when your supervisor comes in— and every day until this is handled. Alright? Great. Bye…”

You set the telephone back on the hook with a huff.

“…Asshole,” you grumble around your breath, then get all sheepish again when your eyes find Jack’s. You cower under his softened stare. “Sorry… This insurance company’s trying to deny extended coverage for one of our oncology kids— because apparently compassion is illegal now, so…”

Jack musters a weak smile as he closes the distance between you. “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

“Hopefully…” you sigh, a little embarrassed now, as you shrink further in your swivel chair. “So, uh... H-How was your shift?”

“Better now,” the older man croons, folding his arms along the countertop ahead of you, and leaning in until you can smell the cologne lingering on his skin — a mixture of leather and sandalwood.

“You’re such a suck-up, Dr. Abbot,” you say with squinted eyes.

His face twists into a look of faux-offense. “Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say to someone trying to invite you out for lunch, now is it?”

You brighten instantly. “Wait, really? That sounds so fun! Are Shen and Ellis coming, too— I haven’t seen them in ages!”

Jack’s smile falters slightly at the edges. “Well… Well, no, ‘cause I.. I thought, you know, it’d be just us. You know, you and me. Like a date.”

You blink owlishly back at him. “Oh…”

“Unless— Unless you don’t want to—” Jack stammers, quickly losing his ground.

“Of course I want to!” you blurt, a little louder and a far quicker than you mean to. “I just… I didn’t— I didn’t realize that you, you know, that you… liked me.”

His brows lower in confusion because, to him, it couldn’t have been more obvious that he was into you. He’d spent months tripping over himself to get your attention, including the time he ran into a crash cart ‘cause he was too busy staring at you to notice that it was in his way.

A chuckle sputters suddenly from his mouth accordingly. “I’ve been flirting with you for weeks! I mean, I’ve been calling up here just to talk to you since you changed shifts!”

“I thought you just liked bothering me!” you giggle in return, face burning hot.

“Yeah, well,” Jack tilts his silver head. “I do like bothering you, actually.”

“I like when you bother me, too…” you murmur sheepishly, struggling to meet the man’s unwavering stare as you swivel anxiously back and forth in your chair. You catch yourself smiling wider than you realize when you tell him, “And lunch sounds great, by the way.”

“Great…” Jack exhales a breath he didn’t know that he was holding, that he feels like he’s been holding in for weeks now. “‘Cause Robby’s kinda been threatening to ask you out for me if I didn’t do it myself, so… Happy to save myself the embarrassment.”

Your eyes widen with a girlish sort of horror. “Wait— Robby knew?”

“Sunshine,” Jack grins. “I’m pretty sure the entire hospital knew.”

PRE-DIVORCE ⋆｡°✩

𖤝 breaking (part one): jack is one of the first to see you breaking.

POST DIVORCE ⋆｡°✩

PRE-DIVORCE ⋆｡°✩

𖤝 breaking (part one): jack is one of the first to see you breaking.

POST DIVORCE ⋆｡°✩

There’s that tone. The one he uses with residents when they’re dancing around something obvious. Not unkind. Just… direct. Your breath catches for half a second. Not nerves exactly—more the weight of being looked at like that. Seen through, a little.

Jack glances at you, something softer there now. A small nod. Go on.

You shift in your seat, tucking one leg under you slightly, grounding yourself before you speak.

“It’s not… open,” you start, careful. “We’re not looking to—change anything. Not really.”

Robby watches you the whole time. Doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t fill the silence for you.

“It’s just—” you exhale, a small, almost embarrassed huff of a laugh, “—we trust you. Both of us do. And you’ve been… there. With us. For a while.”

“Unfortunately,” he mutters.

Jack snorts. “Speak for yourself.”

But Robby doesn’t look away from you.

You hold his gaze. “It’s not random. It’s not… about finding some person to fool around with. It’s you.”

That lands. You see it in the way his jaw shifts, just slightly. The humour doesn’t disappear, but it tightens around the edges.

“…Right,” he says, slower now.

Jack leans forward, elbows on the table, finally stepping back in. “It’s not a free-for-all,” he adds, dry. “We’re not pitching some kind of ER orgy.”

“Shame,” Robby says flatly.

You almost laugh, tension breaking for a second.

Jack shoots him a look. “Be serious for one second in your life.”

“I am serious,” Robby says. Then, to you—“I’m just making sure I understand what the hell you’re asking me.”

His gaze drops briefly—to your hands, the way they’re curled loosely around your glass—then back up again.

“What are you actually offering here?” he asks.

You hesitate—not because you don’t know, but because saying it out loud makes it real. Jack shifts beside you. You feel his knee press into yours, steady, grounding.

“It’s not just sex,” you say, quieter now.

Robby’s brow lifts. “No?”

You shake your head. “It’s… us. Still us. Just—” you glance at Jack, then back at Robby, “—with you in it. Sometimes. If you wanted that.”

There’s a long beat.

Robby leans back again, dragging his hand over his mouth, thinking. Really thinking.

“You two have been together, what,” he says, glancing at Jack, “two years now?”

“Nearly three,” Jack corrects.

“Nearly three,” Robby repeats. “You know, you… you live together. Don’t kill each other. That’s impressive.”

“Thank you,” you say, dry.

His gaze shifts back to you again, softer this time—but heavier, too.

“And you’re both telling me this doesn’t… complicate things.”

Jack answers this time, steady. “Everything’s already complicated. This wouldn’t change what we’ve got. We’ve talked, we trust each other, we trust you.”

Robby studies him for a second longer than necessary. There’s history in that look. Long-standing, unspoken understanding. The kind you only get after decades of knowing someone.

“…You’re serious,” he says finally.

“Yeah,” Jack says.

Robby exhales, a quiet, disbelieving laugh under his breath. He tips his head back for a second, staring at the ceiling like he’s trying to reset his brain.

“Jesus Christ.”

You don’t rush him. Neither does Jack. When he looks back at you, it’s different now. Less amused. More… considering.

“You’re asking about the three of us…” he tries, trailing off.

You nod. “Yeah.”

His eyes flick, just briefly, to where your leg is still angled toward Jack’s, the easy closeness of it. Then back to your face.

“And you’re both just- you’re… good with it,” he says.

Your voice is quieter when you answer. “Wouldn’t be sitting here if we weren’t. You’re attractive, smart, funny. And I think you’ve always secretly had a thing for at least one of us. Maybe both, but, one way to find out, I guess.”

Robby drums his fingers once against the table, then stills them.

“...Christ,” he mutters again, but there’s a hint of something else in it now. Not just disbelief.

Interest. He looks at you properly then. Not the quick, passing glances from before. This is slower. Measuring.

“You always this persuasive?” He wonders.

You tilt your head, a small smile pulling at your mouth. “Only when it matters.”

That earns the faintest huff of a laugh.

“Yeah,” he says. “I can see that.”

Jack shifts beside you, not tense—but alert. Watching the shift happen in real time. Robby notices that too. His mouth quirks, just slightly.

Your phone buzzes—once, twice, then a string of messages lighting up your screen.

You glance down, already half-standing. “I’ve gotta go. Park needs me—Isla called in sick.”

Jack doesn’t even hesitate. He’s already reaching into his pocket, keys in hand. “Take the car. I’ll ride back with him.”

You take them, brushing his fingers briefly. “Thanks, baby.”

You lean down—meant to be quick, but it doesn’t quite stay that way. Your mouth presses to his, warm, familiar. He lets you, hand coming up to your cheek, thumb catching just under your jaw, holding you there for half a second longer than necessary before you pull back.

There’s a flicker of something in his eyes when you do. You straighten, turning— Robby’s already looking at you. Not subtle about it. Rarely is.

“Michael,” you say, softer, a small nod.

He repeats your name—flatter, rougher, like he’s testing how it sits in his mouth.

You don’t linger. You head out.

The door swings shut behind you.

Jack watches it a beat too long. Then exhales, leaning back into the booth, dragging a hand over his mouth like he’s resetting.

Robby doesn’t look at the door. He looks at Jack. There’s a slow, almost amused curve to his mouth. Not mocking. Just… processing.

“Alright,” he says. “Who’s idea is it?”

Jack doesn’t bother pretending. “Mine.”

Robby lets out a short, disbelieving breath. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“When?”

Jack shrugs, reaching for his beer. “Remember that detox sexless cult thing she did a few months back?”

Robby snorts. “Yeah. You turned into the most unbearable version of yourself I’ve seen in twenty years. Which is saying something.”

“Appreciate that.”

“Walking around like—” Robby gestures vaguely, “—like a cat in heat.”

Jack huffs a laugh despite himself. “Yeah, well. After you left that morning, we had our… you know, usual great sex - not adding as part of the pitch, you already know how good the sex is -”

“-get to the point,” Robby says, with a slight snicker.

“Some point, I mention… I don’t know, marriage, foreplay, a third. We finish up, and… we’re just talking.”

“Talking,” Robby repeats, deadpan.

“Yeah. Try it sometime. With a professional, even, they do that.”

“Hard pass.”

Jack ignores him, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. “It came up. Not seriously at first. Hypotheticals. What we’d be into, what we wouldn’t.”

“And you landed on me,” Robby says.

“Yeah.”

Robby watches him for a second. Longer than usual. “…Both of you.”

“Both of us.”

That lands differently.

Robby leans back, dragging a hand over his jaw, thinking. Really thinking now—not just reacting.

“That’s your girl,” he says finally. “You’ve built something there. I’m not—” he shakes his head slightly, “—I’m not interested in screwing that up.”

Jack’s expression doesn’t change much, but something in it settles. He nods once.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I thought you would.”

Robby glances at him, sharper now. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“No,” Jack agrees easily. “But I do know you.”

A beat.

“And I trust you,” he adds.

it hangs there. Robby exhales slowly, gaze dropping to the table for a second before coming back up.

“…Yeah,” he mutters. “That’s the problem.”

Jack’s brow lifts, faintly amused. “That I trust you?”

“That I don’t take that lightly,” Robby shoots back.

Silence stretches for a second. Then Robby leans forward slightly, forearms braced on the table, voice dropping a notch.

“And you’re fine with it,” he says. Not a question. “Me and her.”

Jack doesn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

“Really.”

“Yeah.”

Robby studies him—searching for cracks, for ego, for something careless. Doesn’t find much. Jack kept his pride in check. He wasn’t a jealous person, not really. He was secure in himself. Something Robby envied, sometimes.

“…She’s—” he starts, then cuts himself off, jaw tightening slightly. “You know what she is.”

Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah. I do.”

“Twenty-something,” Robby continues. “Smart. Looks like—” he gestures vaguely, then shakes his head. “You’ve seen her.”

Jack smirks faintly. “I have, yeah. A lot of her. It’s great.”

Robby’s mouth twitches despite himself.

“And she looks at you like you hung the moon half the time,” he adds.

Jack’s expression softens just a fraction. “Sometimes.”

Robby nods once, slow. Then—

“…You really telling me you’ve never thought about it? About her” Jack asks, casual—but not careless.

Robby lets out a quiet breath through his nose, leaning back again.

“That’s not a fair question.”

Jack tilts his head at his friend. An insistence in his eyes to go on.

Robby tips his head back slightly, staring at the ceiling for a second like he’s debating how honest he wants to be.

Then he looks back at Jack.

“…Well I’m not blind,” he says.

Jack doesn’t react much. Just watches him.

“She’s—” Robby exhales, searching for a word, then gives up and settles for, “—she’s a lot. Sweet.”

Jack’s mouth ticks. “She is… You ever think about her while jerking off?”

Robby lets out a low breath at that, clicking his tongue at his friend's bluntness. Fuck it, they’re being honest. “Yes.”

Robby’s a little surprised when he sees the slow blink from Jack, a nod. Maybe irritable. 

“What?” Robby scoffs. “You’re cool with the prospect of me fucking your girl? But what I do with my hand in my spare time is… what, some sort of line being crossed?”

“I didn’t say anything, alright. I’m all good here. Just didn’t think you’d admit it,” Jack nods with insistence. “What about during sex? Thought about her then?”

“...On occasion, yes, I’ve- she’s popped up there, yeah.” Robby admits with brief hesitance. 

That’s as far as he pushes it—but it’s enough. Jack nods once, like this one he expected. Like it doesn’t threaten anything.

“Fair,” he says.

Robby glances at him, something like disbelief creeping back in. “You’re taking that a lot better than I thought you would.”

Jack shrugs. “She’s hot. You’re not dead. Tells me you’ve got a working dick, at least.”

Robby lets out a short laugh at that, shaking his head.

Jack took a sip of his beer, then—because he wasn’t finished, because he never really was with Robby—tilts his head slightly.

“What about me?”

Robby scoffs immediately, too quick. “Oh, come on.”

“No, seriously,” Jack says, glancing at him sideways. Casual on the surface, not casual underneath. “No shame, total honesty here. Twenty years, no secrets, all that bullshit.”

Robby drags a hand over his beard, already feeling the trap closing. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Have you?” Jack asks, like he was asking about the weather.

A pause.

Robby stares at the table, jaw working once.

“…You first,” he mutters.

Jack doesn’t even blink. “Yeah.”

Robby let out a slow breath through his nose, eyes dropping, like he was doing the math on how much of himself he was willing to hand over tonight.

“Man, it’s not even—” Jack went on, shrugging a shoulder. “Half the time that shit doesn’t mean anything. Brain just throws things at you. Doesn’t make you anything.”

Robby let out a short, humourless huff. “Right.”

“What,” Jack presses lightly, “you worried about the gay implications?”

Robby shot him a look. “Don’t—”

“—What? Say ‘gay’?” Jack says, not unkind, but not backing off either.

Robby glances up as a couple walks past, waits them out, then leans back in his seat, voice lower.

“We’re talking about whether I’ve jacked off thinking about another guy,” he says, flat. “Yeah, the… ‘gay’ of it all crossed my mind. Excuse me.”

Jack just nods, like that was fair.

“I just… I guess, I didn’t realise—” Robby starts, then stops, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I mean, you know, are you—”

Jack shrugs, easy. “I’ve been with a few. Never made a whole thing out of it. Don’t really care to.”

Robby gives a small, disbelieving shake of his head. “Figrues. Army man.”

“Yeah, well,” Jack mutters. “You don’t have to slap a label on it, Rob. Doesn’t have to mean anything bigger than it is.”

“I’m aware,” Robby says, maybe a little sharper than he meant to. Then, quieter—like it cost him something— “…It’s crossed my mind.”

Jack’s mouth pulled into something faintly smug. Not cruel—just… satisfied.

“Crossed your mind,” he repeated. “Interesting wording.”

“Don’t start,” Robby warns, but there was less heat in it now.

Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “It was easier getting you to admit you think about fucking my girlfriend half our age than it was getting that out of you. That’s saying something.”

“Fuck you,” Robby mutters, rolling his eyes—but there was a reluctant grin there now, breaking through whether he liked it or not.

Jack shrugs, taking another sip. “Options apparently on the table.”

Robby shakes his head, but didn’t argue. Didn’t fully look away, either.

Something in the air had shifted—subtle, but real. Not a line crossed, exactly. More like one finally acknowledged.

Robby studied him for a second, longer than necessary. There was history there—years of it, unspoken things sitting just under the surface, things neither of them had ever had to name.

Jack didn’t push. Just leaned back, easy.

“Think about it,” he tries. “Or don’t. Nothing changes.”

Robby nods once, short. “Yeah.” A few seconds of quiet. “…You still need that ride home?” he asks.

Jack snorts. “Oh, a ride home? Wow. Subtle.”

“Shut up.”

“Flirting now, are we?”

“You are not a funny man, Jack Abbot, don’t think otherwise,” Robby says, but he was already smiling, just a little.

★★★

2 WEEKS EARLIER

threesomenoun — three·some — ˈthrē-səm

1: a group of three persons or things : trio

2: a golf match in which one person plays their ball against the ball of two others playing each stroke alternately

3: a sexual encounter involving three people

“Are you trying to say you wanna play golf?” Jack says from the stove, not even turning around as he stirs the pan like it personally offended him.

The kitchen smells like garlic and butter—onions already softened down, carrots and capsicum still holding a bit too much bite. He’s got one hand on the wooden spoon, the other braced on the counter, solid and steady in that way he always is.

You’re perched up on the counter, one leg swinging lazily, phone in hand.

“Yes,” you say dryly, scrolling. “I’m deeply passionate about golf. The balls. The stroking of the balls—”

“—I get it,” Jack cuts in. “You want a threesome.”

You look up at him, unimpressed. “I don’t want a threesome. I love twosomes. Specifically with you.” A beat. “But I’m not opposed to… expanding the sample size.”

Jack snorts, finally glancing over to you. “Expanding the—Jesus. That’s how you pitch wanting to fuck my best friend?”

“You brought it up,” you shoot back, pointing your phone at him like evidence. “Don’t act like this wasn’t your idea. ‘Oh baby, we should add a third, Robby would give me notes’—”

“I did not sound like that.”

“—If anything,” you continue over him, “I think you wanna fuck your best friend.”

“Alright,” Jack mutters, turning back to the pan. “Not what I sound like. And c’mon—you know you’re all I wanna fuck.” He nudges the vegetables again, frowning. “I think these are done.”

“They’re not.” You don’t even look up when you say it. “Anyway… I doubt he’d even be down for it,” you say. “I barely think he likes me as a friend.”

Jack lets out a quiet scoff at that.

You narrow your eyes. “What?”

“I think he’d fuck you in a heartbeat if I said I was okay with it,” Jack says, like it’s obvious. Then, distracted again—“I really think these are done, hon.”

“Test the carrot,” you say, still scrolling. “If it’s soft enough, it’ll break with pressure.”

He presses the spoon into one. It doesn’t budge.

“…Needs longer,” he admits.

“How do you know that?”

“I just did what you said, I—”

“No,” you interrupt, looking at him properly now. “How do you know Robby would fuck me?”

That slows him down.

Jack exhales through his nose, shoulders shifting as he leans back slightly against the counter, thinking.

“I know him,” he says. “Twenty years of it. And I know you.” A beat. “There’s something there. A thing. You’ve always had good chemistry.”

You huff lightly. “A vague… thing, maybe.”

You hesitate, then—because you don’t really do half-truths—

“I did have a bit of a crush on him,” you admit. “Before I met you.”

Jack stills. Not dramatically. Just enough.

“I don’t anymore,” you add quickly. “It faded. Pretty fast, actually. It was early—before I started coming down to ED properly. He’d come up sometimes, consults, whatever. I think it was just…” you shrug, searching, “…older. Authority. Bit of an asshole.”

Jack’s mouth pulls slightly at that, something between amused and unimpressed.

“Glad to know you don’t have a type,” he mutters.

You lean in closer from the counter, nudging his shoulder lightly with your knee.

“Hey,” you murmur. He glances up at you. “I like them a little shorter,” you say softly.

Jack blinks.

Then rolls his eyes, a huff of laughter slipping out despite himself as you grin and go back to your phone.

“Unbelievable,” he mutters, turning the heat down, a small smile at the corner of his lips. 

★★★

The thing about a third—about this third—was that it… kind of just felt natural. Like there was so little reason to not do it, to not try it, invite it.

It wasn’t sudden. It was something that had been sitting under the skin of things for so long it stopped feeling foreign the second it was named.

Robby had never been separate from Jack. 

Not really. People liked to pretend friendships had clean edges—this is where I end, this is where you begin—but that had never been the case with them. 

Too many years. Too many nights that blurred into mornings, too many arguments that never quite resolved but never quite broke them either. 

They’d dragged each other through their twenties, stumbled into their thirties, and settled—somehow—into their forties without ever untangling.

They knew each other in ways that made distance feel artificial.

And Robby had always lived in that tension.

He didn’t soften easily. Didn’t trust softness when it showed up uninvited. Jack had always been the exception to that rule—steady enough to withstand it, patient enough not to demand more than Robby could give. But patience didn’t mean absence.

There were things between them that had never been said out loud. Not because they didn’t exist, but because saying them would’ve required a kind of clarity Robby had spent most of his life avoiding. 

It was easier to file it under something else—loyalty, history, proximity. Easier to laugh it off, to redirect, to let it sit in that grey space where it didn’t have to be examined too closely.

Then you came along. And you didn’t disrupt that balance. You just seemed to understand it. 

You didn’t wedge yourself between them, didn’t ask Jack to choose, didn’t look at Robby like he was something to tolerate or compete with. You moved through it like it already made sense to you. Like there was room.

And God—there was something about you.

Not just that you were beautiful—though you were, in a way that made people look twice without meaning to. Not just that you were younger, brighter, sharper at the edges in a way that made everything feel a little more alive. It was the way you saw people.

The way you saw Jack—fully, without flinching, without trying to fix him or soften him into something more palatable. The way you leaned into him like you trusted him to hold the weight of that. The way you touched him without hesitation, like affection was a language you spoke fluently.

And worse—

The way you looked at Robby sometimes, like you were trying to figure him out and already had.

He’d noticed it long before anyone said anything. Of course he had. The small things. The way your attention lingered just a second longer than necessary. The way you didn’t pull back when he got too close, didn’t flinch at the edge in him that made other people cautious.

You met it. Sometimes you even matched it. And that—more than anything—was what made him careful. Because wanting you was one thing.

That was easy enough to dismiss, tuck away under instinct, under biology, under the thousand other justifications people used to avoid looking too closely at themselves.

But wanting you like this—in the context of Jack, with Jack, because of Jack. That was something else entirely. It brushed up against things he didn’t have neat categories for. Things that felt uncomfortably close to lines he’d spent years pretending weren’t there.

And Jack…

Jack, who didn’t do anything halfway, who didn’t offer things he wasn’t sure about—was sitting across from him like this was just another extension of something already solid. Like this wasn’t a risk so much as… an opening.

That was what threw him. It wasn’t the sex or the implication, it was how Jack totally trusted him. With you, with this, with Jack himself.

And Robby didn’t trust himself nearly that much.

That was the problem. Beneath all the deflection, all the dryness and sarcasm, the sharp edges, there was something undeniably real threading through all three of you. Not clean, not simple—but real in a way that resisted being dismissed.

Jack had never been particularly private about you. Not with Robby.

Not in the way people usually were about relationships—careful, curated, keeping the good parts polished and the rest tucked away. Jack wasn’t built like that. He didn’t gush, didn’t sentimentalise—but if he’d had a couple drinks in him and it’d been a long week, you came up. Inevitably.

Not in a soft-focus, hearts-and-flowers way.

In details. In fragments. In the way you got under his skin and stayed there. 

The way you kissed him, made him feel every ounce of his own flesh and blood, grounded, and above at once. In how much he adored your figure, or some ridiculous position, some ridiculous story of stamina and libido, your mouth, his mouth, your hand, his hand.

Robby had learned, over the years, to let it wash over him. Half-listening, half-not. It wasn’t discomfort exactly—more like… he didn’t know where to put it. There was something about hearing your name in Jack’s mouth like that that sat strange in his chest. 

“What the fuck do you mean six times?” Robby had said once, a laugh breaking through despite himself as he tipped his beer back.

They were sprawled out on the grass like they hadn’t aged out of it—backs damp against the ground, shirts sticking, the heat of the day still rising up through the dirt. The city hummed around them, distant enough to ignore. It felt like being twenty something again, except their knees ached when they stood and everything they didn’t talk about sat heavier.

It was one of those nothing nights, sometime back in Spring. End of a shift. A few beers. Waiting for you to finish upstairs while Jack pretended he wasn’t being watched over by the hospital.

Jack didn’t even open his eyes. “I mean she came six times,” he said, easy. “Working up to eight.”

Robby snorted. “You’re talking like it’s a personal best.”

“It is,” Jack said. “You don’t set goals, you stagnate. That’s what my therapist says.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Jack grinned faintly, still flat on his back, arms folded behind his head like he had nowhere else to be. “What’s your number?”

Robby shrugged, taking another sip. “I don’t know. I don’t have a number.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Nope.”

“Bull.”

Robby dragged a hand over his mouth, already regretting engaging. “…Four. Maybe.”

Jack turned his head slightly, considering that like it mattered more than it should. His fingers tapped absently against the neck of the bottle.

“Four,” he repeated.

“Some of us aren’t treating it like a competitive sport,” Robby muttered.

Jack huffed. “It’s not me,” he said. “It’s her. She’s a natural.”

“She really that good?” Robby had slipped as a question. Maybe for his own curiosity, maybe because he knew Jack would’ve gotten to it at some point. Both, likely.

There was a beat.

Robby stared up at the sky like it didn’t matter either way. Jack shifted slightly, something quieter settling into him now.

“She’s—” he paused, like he was trying to find a word that didn’t sound ridiculous and failing. “She pays attention. Like she’s studying you. Figures out what works and then—just… doesn’t let up. Like I’m constantly high around her. And man, she-” Jack cleared his throat. “She does this thing with her tongue.”

Robby exhaled through his nose, slow.

He didn’t say anything.

“She swirls it, right around the underside, traces it—the entire thing with the flat part. Goes between, you know, broad strokes, little ones, then she’ll—fuck,” Jack had mused. “…She’ll use the space beneath her tongue, suck, and still use her tongue at the same time. I can’t describe how good it feels,” Jack had explained, his words slurring slightly but still carrying a strange clarity. “Fucking… incredible.”

Robby couldn’t have helped but picture it. The image of you, on your knees, long lashes batting at him, as you brought him to the edge. He sipped his beer, fingers a bit tighter around the neck of the glass.

“She makes the prettiest noises, like a… I don’t even know,” Jack added, quieter now, almost to himself. “Moans and screams, and so… Christ. Like she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it, possessed.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Robby cut in, not sharply, but firm.

Jack just smirked, eyes still shut. “You asked.”

“I didn’t ask for a breakdown.”

“Semantics.”

Robby shook his head, but there was a faint smile tugging at his mouth despite it. He finished the last of his beer, letting the cold settle something in his chest that had nothing to do with the heat.

A pause stretched between them. Jack sipped his beer. Then—

“What’s the deal with you and Noelle?” Jack asked, casual in that way that wasn’t casual at all.

Robby’s jaw shifted.

“She’s… fine,” he said.

Jack cracked one eye open. “That sounds promising.”

Robby huffed. “It’s not—” he cut himself off, shook his head. “Don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

Jack watched him for a second. Then nodded, like he’d expected that. He handed Robby his own beer, watching as Robby took it after a moment, sipping from it himself

“Yeah,” he said. “Bummer.”

Another beat. Robby sat up, bracing his forearms on his knees, their shared beer dangling loose between his fingers.

“Don’t think I’m built for it,” he said finally.

Jack didn’t move. “For what?”

“This,” Robby gestured vaguely. “Relationships. The staying. The… showing up part.”

Jack was quiet for a second.

Then—

“Now that’s bull,” he said, not unkindly.

Robby glanced at him, a faint, tired smirk pulling at his mouth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “We’ve known each other, what—twenty years? You’ve stuck around that long.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

Robby didn’t answer that. Jack pushed himself up onto his elbows now, looking at him properly.

“You don’t get to pretend you can’t do something just because you haven’t done it right yet,” he said.

Robby scoffed lightly. “Didn’t realise you were gonna get philosophical on me.”

“Yeah, well,” Jack muttered, reaching for his beer. “Hate to break it to you, man, but you’re not some unfixable case.”

Robby laughed at that—short, real.

“Garcia said I’d make a good ex-husband,” he said.

Jack snorted. “See? Even she thinks you can commit.”

“That’s not what that means.”

“Close enough,” Jack sighed. “Lie down, will you. You’re so damn tense.”

Robby let out a low groan but did it anyway, dropping back into the grass beside him, one arm flung over his eyes like he could shut the world out for a second. 

The ground was still a little damp from the morning rain, cool through his shirt, the air thick and warm in that late-night way where everything feels slower, looser.

They went quiet after that. Easy quiet. The kind that only comes after years—no need to fill it, no need to perform.

“Aw, you two are so cute.”

Jack sat up immediately.

You stood a few feet off the path, lit half by a flickering streetlamp—scrubs wrinkled, hair a mess like you’d been running your hands through it all day, hoodie tied loose around your hips. One of Jack’s old military backpacks hung off your shoulder like it belonged there. 

For a while there, Robby had forgotten the whole reason they’d been in the park to begin with was to wait for you.

“Hey, baby,” Jack said, voice softening without him meaning it to. “You finish alright?”

You just nodded, already moving toward him.

You didn’t hesitate—never did. Leaned down, pressed a quick kiss to his cheek that turned, halfway through, into something closer to his mouth. Warm. Familiar. You lingered just long enough that he had to chase it a second.

“Miss me?” you murmured, barely pulling back.

“Always,” he said, easy. A little drunk, a little honest.

Robby watched it happen from the ground, not even pretending not to.

You dropped down in front of Jack, cross-legged, close enough your knees brushed his thighs. His hands came up immediately—instinct, habit—sliding over your arms, grounding, checking. 

Then his mouth found your neck, a soft press just under your jaw, before his hands settled at your shoulders, working slow circles into muscle that had no business being that tight at your age.

You exhaled like you’d been holding it all day.

“Jesus,” you muttered. “Keep doing that.”

“Yeah?” Jack hummed against your skin, a little smug.

“Mhm.”

You tipped your head slightly, giving him better access without thinking. He took it.

Across from you, Robby shifted, propping himself up on his elbows now, watching the two of you with that same look he always got—half amused, half something else he never quite named.

“Robby,” you said, glancing over at him, “how the hell are you drinking after that shift? You guys were slammed.”

“Sometimes a drink’s all you get,” he said. His voice was steady, but his eyes flicked—brief, involuntary—to where Jack’s hands were still working into your shoulders. Then back to your face. “Ortho must’ve been a dream, though.”

You let out a dry laugh. “Oh yeah. Absolute paradise. Park was being a complete asshole to one of the R1s. Kid looked like he was gonna cry.”

“Sounds about right,” Robby muttered.

Jack’s hands slowed, thumbs pressing deeper into a knot that made you suck in a breath.

“Careful,” he said. “You’re gonna fall asleep right here.”

“Honestly?” you said, eyes half-lidded now, “tempting.”

There was a beat. Quiet again—but different this time. Fuller.

You shifted slightly, leaning back into Jack without thinking. Your hand found his knee, resting there, absent, like it belonged.

Robby noticed that too. Of course he did.

You glanced up at Jack then, studying him for a second longer than necessary.

“…You been talking about me?” you asked.

Jack snorted, immediate. “What?”

“You’ve got that look,” you said, squinting at him. “And he’s looking at me weird.”

“I always look at people weird,” Robby said, flat, from the grass.

You didn’t even look at him. “Yeah, but this is a different weird.”

Jack huffed a laugh under his breath, shaking his head like you were ridiculous, even as his mouth betrayed him. “We were just talking about your—what was it—immense beauty. Your sex appeal. Your many talents.”

His mouth brushed your neck again as he said it, like he couldn’t quite help himself.

Robby let out a quiet breath through his nose. Not quite a laugh. Something drier. “It’s not far off.”

You stilled. Then slowly turned your head, looking at Jack properly now.

“What did you say to him,” you murmured, low, dangerous in a way that wasn’t entirely serious—but not entirely not.

Jack leaned in, said something under his breath—too quiet for Robby to catch. Your reaction was immediate.

You smacked his leg—right on the prosthetic—with a sharp thwack.

“Jack.”

He barely flinched, just grinned, caught your wrist before you could do it again.

“If you actually told him that,” you said, pointing at him, “I swear to god I’ll take this thing off and beat you with it.”

“That’s dramatic,” Jack murmured, still holding your hand. “And also physically unlikely.”

“It’s true, though,” he added, softer now, mouth near your ear again. “You’re very good at it.”

You rolled your eyes, but your shoulders had loosened, leaning back into him again despite yourself.

Robby watched the whole thing like it was a film he hadn’t agreed to sit through, but couldn’t quite look away from either.

“So the tongue thing’s real then?” he asked, almost idly.

Jack groaned. “Alright. We’re done here.”

You laughed—bright, cutting through the heaviness of the day shift still clinging to all three of you—and turned into Jack properly this time.

It wasn’t quick. Not really. Soft at first, then deeper, your hand coming up to his jaw, holding him there. He responded without thinking, one hand sliding to your waist, pulling you closer, grounding himself in something he knew.

Robby looked away. Not fast enough.

You pulled back eventually, brushing your nose against Jack’s.

“I’ll drive,” you said quietly. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” he said automatically.

“You’re pretty drunk,” you corrected.

A beat.

“…Alright. Could be a little drunk,” he conceded.

You smiled, already reaching into his pocket for the keys like it was second nature. He let you. Fingers brushing yours as you took them, just for a second longer than necessary.

“Don’t lose the car,” he muttered.

“No promises.”

You stood, stretching slightly, then glanced down at Robby.

“You good?” you asked, softer now.

He met your eyes, something unreadable passing through his expression before it settled back into something easier.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”

You nodded like you believed him.

“Night, Michael.”

There was a flicker at that—something small but real.

“Night,” he said.

Jack let you haul him up, weight shifting automatically to his left as he got his balance, your hand steady at his arm without making a thing of it. He adjusted, rolled his shoulders like he always did, then followed your lead without argument.

“Text me when you get home,” he called back to Robby.

“Sure. Have fun with your girl.’ Robby had said, lying back down.

“I definitely will,” Jack nodded.

You were already walking, his shoulder brushing yours, easy. He leaned down slightly as you hit the path, murmuring something low against your hair that made you let out a quiet, breathy laugh—something private, something just for him.

Robby watched you both go.

Didn’t move.

The grass was still damp under his back when he lay down again, staring up at a sky that refused to give him anything clear.

He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand over his mouth.

So, when you and Jack finally put it to him—cornered him in that quiet, deliberate way the two of you had—Robby wasn’t as hung up on the logistics of it as he probably should’ve been. The dynamic, the risk, the aftermath—those were the things a smarter man might’ve led with. But that wasn’t where his mind went first.

It went somewhere simpler. Sharper.

Just how pretty were the noises you made? How soft was your tongue? Would you like it if Robby was cruel—if he held your head down and made you choke on him?

And Jack… steady Jack. What did he look like when he finally came? Did he like being teased, kept right on that edge until it snapped? Would he grip Robby’s hair, or would he stay controlled even then, taking it without losing that composure?

It wasn't an abstract curiosity. It wasn’t even entirely sexual, not at its core. It was about access.

About seeing something of both of you that no one else did. About being let into a space that already existed—intimate, closed, complete—and being told there was room for him inside it.

And that—more than anything else—was what made it difficult to dismiss.

★★★

Ortho is down for a consultation when you get called in.

The patient is already under—intubated and sedated, leg secured in traction. The CT is up on PACS, the fracture obvious even before you zoom in: a displaced mid-shaft femur, clear shortening, classic muscle pull deformity.

“Yeah, that’s a transverse mid-shaft femoral fracture,” you say, pen tapping the screen. “You can see the displacement here, and the overlap—this is why the leg looks shortened clinically.”

Santos leans in, her eyes slightly wide. “Fuck.”

You shake your head. “It looks dramatic, but it’s stable from what we’ve got. No obvious vascular compromise on imaging. Ortho will likely take her for an intramedullary nail.”

Santos lets out a breath.

You scroll through the scan again, adjusting the windowing. “We’ll just want to repeat neurovascular checks pre-op and post-reduction. But she’s straightforward.”

“Thank god,” Santos mutters. “I was so not bothered to call for another consult.

A knock on the glass interrupts you. You glance up.

Robby.

He’s already halfway through sanitising his hands when he steps in, eyes flicking once to the screen before landing on you.

“Ortho’s down in ED?” he says.

“Yeah,” you answer, a little too aware of him in the doorway. “Santos messaged me. Femur fracture.”

He leans in beside you to look at the CT, close enough that the space shifts—clinical, but not entirely neutral. He’s tired in the way only long shifts make you, sleeves pushed up, forearms marked faintly by pressure lines from his undershirt.

“Looks like a clean nail,” he says.

“Assuming ortho behaves,” you reply.

He huffs something like a laugh. “They won’t.”

“No,” you agree. “We never do.”

Santos clears her throat. “While I’ve got you—Huckleberry and I are having a Parisian party next Friday. At our place. You should come. You and Abbott, of course.”

You pause slightly.

“A Parisian party?” you repeat.

“Yeah,” Santos says, warming to it. “Paris-themed. Like… French food, wine, decorations. The Eiffel Tower and shit.”

Robby makes a quiet sound behind you—almost a laugh, quickly disguised.

You glance at him, but he’s still looking at the scan like nothing happened.

Santos continues, mildly confused. “Have either of you been to Paris?”

“No,” you say.

Robby: “Nope.”

Santos nods like that still tracks logically. “Yeah, me neither. Barely even been to Canada.”

There’s a beat.

“Anyway,” She adds, already backing toward the door, “You’re invited too, Robby. Maybe the three of you come together or something. You’re all close”

“...Sounds good, Santos, we’ll let you know,” Robby says with a nod. “North Twelve?”

“Consider it done.” Santos says dry, nodding.

The door shuts behind her. Silence settles back in—clean, clinical, familiar. Except Robby is still standing close enough that you’re aware of him in a way you shouldn’t be during a trauma consult.

He glances at the CT again. “Paris-themed party,” he repeats flatly.

“Don’t even,” you say immediately, because you can hear it in his tone already, trying to hide your own smile.

“What?” he says innocently.

You turn slightly toward him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

He finally looks at you properly now, mouth twitching. “I’m not thinking anything.”

“You’re absolutely thinking something and at work nonetheless? Inappropriate.”

“I’m thinking Santos should never be allowed to plan anything,” he says.

“Liar.”

That earns you a brief, quiet exhale of amusement. You finish with the scans and walk out, Robby hot on your heels as you head to the nurses station.

“You think you’ll go?” he asks.

“No,” you say. “Jack and I have the night off. We’ll be busy.”

“Right,” he nods.

A beat.

“You?” you ask.

“I’d rather not spend my night around a bunch of drunk residents,” Robby says with a quiet exhale. “So, no.”

“Come over then,” you offer, stopping at the nurses’ station.

Robby gives you a look. “Thought you said you two were busy.”

“You can be busy with us,” you say, looking up at him, pen tapping lightly against the chart. “Or just Jack. Or just me. He told me you’ve thought about it either way.”

A faint sigh leaves him. “Right. I forgot he can’t keep anything to himself.”

He leans against the counter, lowering his voice slightly as his eyes flick briefly across the station—Dana watching from a few bays away, already narrowing her gaze like she’s clocking something she hasn’t labelled yet.

“Have you?” he asks softly.

“Thought about you? In that way?” you clarify.

He nods, a slight tilt to his head, curious.

You hesitate just long enough to make it honest.

“Yes,” you admit. “You’re tall. Kind. Your beard’s nice. You’re probably a little meaner than Jack, which interests me.”

That earns the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Something deeper in him satisfied.

“Abbot’s a lover boy at heart,” Robby says. “Gives in easily. ‘Specially for you.”

You nod, like that tracks. “Most of the time, yeah.”

That earns a quieter look from him. A pause that sits just slightly longer than professional. Then, more carefully, “Is it true you had a crush on me?”

You tilt your head. “God, he really just— Doesn’t keep anything to himself.”

Robby exhales through his nose. “Not at all. I’ve been subjected to that man and his inner workings for too long.”

You bump his shoulder lightly with yours, just enough contact to make the space between you feel intentional.

“Was it a yes?”

“To the crush?” You consider it. “Yeah.”

That makes his eyebrows lift slightly.

“Before Jack,” you add, like it matters in a technical sense. “Older, authority figure, slightly emotionally unavailable… I think I might just have a pattern.”

Robby hums, low. “Tracks.”

There’s a beat where neither of you moves away. Then he says, quieter, “And now?”

You don’t look away when you answer. “Now, it’s just… different.”

That hangs there. From somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeps sharply, breaking the moment just enough for it not to tip into anything else.

You glance back down at the chart, already half-moving on.

“I’ll let you know when we get a room open for the femur nail lady.”

And then you’re gone—already walking toward the elevator, the conversation left hanging in the air behind you. Robby watches you go.

A quiet breath leaves him through his nose. He taps his fingers once against the counter, then pushes off it, turning back to the screens like he needs something solid to land on.

Dana appears beside him a second later, sliding into the space like she’s been waiting for exactly this moment.

“What’s with that?” she asks.

“...What’s with what?” he replies, arms folding loosely, eyes still on the monitor bank.

“I mean,” she says slowly, “what’s with flirtin’ with Abbott’s girl in front of everybody?”

He doesn’t look at her when he answers.

“That’s not flirting,” he says evenly. “We were just talking.”

Dana hums, unconvinced. “Talkin’ real close.”

Robby exhales, already shifting focus. “New patient?”

“Yeah,” she says, nodding toward the bay. “Just rolled in. Need you over there.”

“Alright,” he says.

And he follows her down the hall, expression already reset.

★★★

“—Hey. Hold on a second,” Jack says, breath a little uneven.

“No, don’t—don’t hold on,” you protest, already moving, frustrated at the interruption. Your hips roll, trying to sink deeper, but his hands clamp down on your waist—firm, grounding, stopping you.

“Hey. Easy.” A breath. “Just—gimme a second, alright?”

You huff, but you stop. Barely. Your thighs tremble, hovering just above his cock, the tip brushing against your wet slit.  “This better be good.”

He lets out something like a quiet laugh, more breath than sound. “Yeah, I’ll try not to waste your time.”

A beat. He looks at you properly now—focused, a little too clear-headed for the situation. His thumb traces a slow circle on your hipbone, soothing, but his eyes are sharp.

“Just… wanna get this straight,” he says.

Your hands shift on his chest, nails dragging lightly. “Okay. Then say it.”

He nods once. “He can be there. He can watch, he can fuck you.” A pause. “But there are lines.”

You tilt your head, watching him. “Such as?”

His grip tightens just a fraction—not enough to bruise, enough to mean something. “Such as—you don’t forget who you’re with.”

You raise a brow, a smirk pulling at your lips. “Hard to forget when you’ve got your dick in me half the time I’m not at work.”

“Smartass,” he mutters. Then, quieter—“I’m serious. He doesn’t get to know how you taste. That’s mine.”

“Uh-huh…” You roll your hips lazily, not sinking down, just letting the head of his cock nudge against your clit, making him hiss. “So this is allowed?” You lift up, then lower just an inch, teasing the tip against your entrance.

“Yeah, allowed,” Jack nods, his jaw tight.

“Mm. This?” You lean down and kiss him—sweet, slow, your tongue brushing his lower lip before you pull back with a soft pop.

He nods into the kiss, groaning when you start to move again, lifting your pussy off him completely. The air hits his wet shaft and he shudders.

“Yeah? What about this?” You wrap your hand around his cock, giving it a slow, deliberate stroke from base to tip, slick with your own arousal. You squeeze just a little, watching his eyes flutter.

“All allowed,” he grates out, “but his mouth isn’t getting near this, alright, that’s all—” He cuts off as he grabs you by the hips, guiding your pussy back down, lining you up and shoving it back in with a single, brutal thrust. Your moan rips out of you—loud, breathy, grateful. His cock fills you so deep you feel it in your throat.

“Yeah? That good with you?” he asks, voice rough.

You nod, already starting to ride him—slow at first, just a rock of your hips, teasing the angle. “What about you and ’im?” you ask, breath hitching as you grind down.

Jack shrugs—or tries to. “What don’t you want?”

“No blowjobs either, then,” you say, voice a little strained as you lift up and drop back down, feeling every ridge. “’S for me.”

“Sounds good to me.” His hands find your hips again, but he doesn’t guide—he just holds, letting you set the pace. Letting you take.

You pick up speed, thighs burning, your clit grinding against his pubic bone with each roll. The room fills with the wet sound of your pussy gripping his cock, and you tilt your head back, letting him see the arch of your throat.

His hand comes up, thumb brushing along your jaw, pulling your focus back to him when you drift.

“Right here,” he murmurs.

You meet his gaze. That same look—steady, a little rough around the edges, but sure. His.

“Good,” he says, softer now. His thumb drags across your lower lip, and you part your mouth, just enough to suck the tip of it in. His eyes darken.

And when you move again, it’s slower. You rock forward, letting his cock hit that deep, sweet spot, and you moan against his thumb. You pull off it with a wet sound, then lean down to kiss him again—dirtier this time, tongue and teeth, whimpering into him.

“Yeah,” he breathes against your lips. “That’s better.”

★★​​★

It’s late into the evening on Friday when you hear Jack on the phone.

“No, can’t,” Jack says, pacing your living room, phone tucked to his ear while he half-heartedly folds laundry and gives up halfway through. “I’m home. She’s cooking. Smells like I’m about to get fat and happy.”

“Baby, can you come try this?” you call from the kitchen.

“One sec,” he says, then quieter, back into the phone—“What’d you wanna do?”

“Nothing,” Robby mutters. “I… I don’t know, man. I don’t feel like crashing Santos and Whitaker’s… house party. We could go for a drive. Hike.”

Jack stops mid-step. “A hike,” he repeats. “At nine-thirty at night.”

A beat.

“Yeah, not happening,” he decides, dropping the laundry basket and heading into the kitchen.

You’re at the counter in that barely-there nightgown—soft, short, riding up your thighs as you lean forward, aggressively chopping an onion like it personally offended you. Eyes glossy, blinking through it.

Jack pauses in the doorway for half a second longer than necessary.

Then—business as usual.

“Alright,” he says, stepping in behind you, close enough that his hand brushes your hip on the way past. “What am I trying?”

You nod at the stove. “Carbonara.”

He leans over, tastes it, hums—low, approving.

“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “She’s showing off.”

You bump his arm lightly. “I am not.”

“You are,” he says, kissing you quick, easy, like he’s done it a thousand times. “It’s working.”

You smile despite yourself, wiping at your eyes.

On the phone, Robby exhales. Rough. Tired.

“Hike’s dumb,” Jack says, shifting tone without making it obvious. “What’s actually going on.”

“Nothing,” Robby says. “Just… can’t sit still. Garcia was on my ass all day, Al-Hashimi wouldn’t shut the fuck up—”

“—Hey,” Jack cuts in, calm, steady. “Take a breath.”

You glance over at him. He’s not looking at you anymore—focused now, locked into that mode.

“You’re good,” he says. “You’re not thinking anything dumb, right?”

A pause.

“…No,” Robby says. “Just need to… get out of my head, I don’t know.”

Jack hears it. You do too. That edge. That restless, pissed-off with nowhere to put it thing.

“He can come here,” you say, like it’s obvious.

Jack looks at you—quick, assessing—but there’s no resistance there. Just a flicker of something else.

“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “Come over. Food’s ready soon.”

“I don’t know, man—” Robby starts.

You reach over and take the phone straight out of Jack’s hand.

“Hey, Michael.”

There’s a beat.

Jack watches you now, not even pretending to focus on the onions anymore.

“…Hey,” Robby says, slower. “Heard you were cooking.”

“Mhm,” you hum, leaning back against the counter, bare leg brushing against Jack’s where he stands beside you. “Plenty to go around.”

Jack’s hand settles at your hip automatically. Not possessive—just there.

Robby hears the shift anyway.

“This a setup?” he asks.

You smile slightly. “You always this suspicious, or just with me?”

A quiet scoff from him.

“You should come,” you add, softer—but not innocent. “You sound like you need it.”

A beat. Jack’s thumb presses lightly into your hip. Grounding. Present.

Robby exhales. “Yeah. Guess I can make it.”

“Guess you can,” you say easily.

Silence again—but it’s different now.

You glance at Jack.

He nods once.

“Door’s unlocked,” you say. “Twenty minutes.”

You hand the phone back.

Jack takes it, fingers brushing yours briefly, then brings it back to his ear. “You heard her. No pressure.”

A pause.

“…Alright,” Robby says.

The line clicks dead.

Jack sets the phone down on the counter, then looks at you properly. A slow once-over. Not subtle.

“What?” You raise a brow.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll finish the laundry.” He gives you a deep kiss to your neck, hands trailing over your figure as he mumbles into your skin, fingers gently pushing aside the light material. “You gonna stay in this?” He asks.

“‘S that alright?” You wonder, leaning into his touch.

He inhales sharply against your skin, lips leaving your skin. “Sure.”

★★★

You’re out on the balcony when it comes up.

Jack’s place sits high enough that the city feels almost staged—Pittsburgh stretched out in warm light, bridges lit up in clean lines, traffic moving steady below like it never really stops. It’s one of those late summer nights where the air sticks just slightly to your skin, warm but not suffocating. There’s music drifting from somewhere down the block, a party you can’t see but can feel in the background.

The balcony’s not small—wide enough for a proper table, a few chairs, space to lean without feeling cramped. Jack had insisted on that when he bought the place. Said if he was going to spend money, it’d be on something worth standing still for.

Your plates are mostly cleared, carbonara half-finished, wine and beer sweating into the wood.

“Have either of you done this before?” Robby asks.

Jack shakes his head immediately. “No.”

You don’t answer.

You’re thinking—actually thinking, head tilted slightly, finger lifting to tap against Jack’s arm like you need him to hold on a second. That’s when it hits him, belated and faintly incredulous, that this apparently hadn’t come up when the idea itself had.

“…Have you?” Jack asks, turning to you, already suspicious.

“I am thinking,” you murmur, brows pulling together like this is a serious recall exercise.

Robby raises a brow, watching you now, something amused creeping in despite himself.

“What do you mean you’re thinking?” Jack presses. “That’s not… I don’t know, something you half do or something. You’d know.”

“Or something,” Robby mutters under his breath.

You shoot him a look, then roll your eyes. “Okay—no. I don’t think I’ve had a threesome.”

“How can you not think you’ve had a threesome?” Jack wonders.

You lean back slightly, folding one leg under you, the fabric of your nightgown shifting higher on your thigh without you bothering to fix it. You don’t notice how both men’s gaze drop there.

You exhale, already regretting engaging. “Because—technically—no one actually got fucked, there was no penetration by anybody, so, grey area?”

There’s a beat.

Robby’s mouth twitches.

Jack blinks. “...Right.”

“Okay?” you continue, defensive now. “It was—hands. That’s it. Group situation, but not… full commitment.”

Robby huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “Group situation,” he repeats.

“Shut up,” you mutter.

“Another guy or girl?” Jack asks, too quickly.

You hesitate just long enough to make it interesting. “…Both.”

Jack leans back like you’ve just told him something deeply inconvenient. “...Huh.”

Robby lets out a low whistle through his nose. “So not a threesome. Just… poor project management.”

You laugh despite yourself. “Oh my god.”

“That’s a foursome that lost direction,” he adds, dry.

“Whatever,” you shrug. “Med school was fun for me. Sorry I had range.”

Jack eyes you, something between amused and slightly thrown. “I’m just saying, that’s a hell of a thing to casually drop over dinner.”

You smirk faintly. “I’m surprised you haven’t.”

Jack scoffs. “I’ve had opportunities.”

“Mm,” you hum, unconvinced.

Robby glances at him sideways. “That sounds like a lie.”

“It’s not a lie,” Jack says, defensive now. “I just—never felt the need.”

“Right,” Robby says. “Till now.”

Jack gives him a look. “Till now.”

Something passes there—quick, familiar, not entirely friendly as Robby sips his beer.

After, you step out to the edge of the balcony, forearms resting against the railing. The city hums below you, the air warmer now, carrying the smell of food and distant smoke.

Inside, you hear Jack moving—plates, running water. Robby’s voice low, asking something, already familiar with the space.

“Thanks, baby,” you say when Jack comes back out, taking your plate.

You lean in, press a quick kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, hand coming up to your hair, messing it slightly with a small, easy smile.

You push him away lightly. “Don’t start.”

Robby watches it for a second before picking up the empty bottles, holding them loosely by the necks.

“Next to the fridge?” he asks, like he hasn’t been here a hundred times already—like tonight isn’t slightly different.

“Yeah,” you nod. “Recycling. Thank you.”

He gives a short nod and turns— You catch his wrist. It’s not forceful. Just enough.

“Hey,” you say, softer.

He looks down at you.

There’s a pause—his eyes dragging, just briefly, lower before coming back up. You’re close enough now to feel the heat off him, the faint roughness of his breath after a drink, after a long day.

You use his forearm to pull yourself up just slightly— and kiss him. It’s not rushed. It’s far from tentative either. Close. Testing.

His beard scratches lightly against your skin, rough in a way that makes you more aware of it, not less. He stills for half a second—then responds, mouth softer than you expected, hand hovering like he hasn’t decided where it’s allowed to land. 

Your teeth catch his bottom lip briefly. That’s what does it.

“Starting without me?” Jack’s voice cuts in, dry. “Bit mean.”

Robby pulls back instinctively, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t—even though—

Even though.

You smile a little, letting go of his wrist as he clears his throat.

“Next to the fridge,” Jack adds, nodding toward the bottles.

Robby nods once, wordless, moving past him.

Their shoulders brush as he goes. Not accidental. Jack doesn’t move out of the way.

He watches Robby for a second longer than necessary, then looks back at you.

You end up on the couch.

It happens naturally—plates abandoned in the sink, TV flicked on for noise more than anything else. Some late-night rerun playing low in the background, colours shifting across the room, low lamps lighting the room.

Jack’s in the middle, halfway through some story from work—one of those cases that stuck with him. Complicated, strange, the kind he can’t quite let go of.

You’re tucked into his side, knees curled under you, your hand idly playing at the back of his neck—fingers brushing through his hair, absent, familiar. You nod along, half-listening, more focused on the rhythm of his voice, the warmth of him.

Robby’s behind you. Close enough that you can feel the heat of him through your back, even before his hand settles on your thigh—slow, absent movement, like he’s not even fully aware he’s doing it.

Up. Down. Not pushing. Not asking. Just there.

Jack keeps talking.

You lean in without really thinking about it—your lips brushing along his jaw, then just below it. Light. Familiar. Not rushed.

Jack’s hand comes up to your lower back automatically, pulling you in a fraction closer, steadying you there.

Robby’s hand doesn’t stop. If anything, it shifts—just slightly higher, fingers brushing warmer skin now where the fabric gives way.

Jack feels it. His hand stills for a second at your back—then relaxes again.

He doesn’t pull you away. Doesn’t say anything. You exhale softly against his neck, your breath warm there, your fingers tightening slightly where they rest behind him.

And for a second—just a second—you’re aware of both of them at once.

Jack in front of you, steady, grounding. Robby behind you, quieter, heavier—watching more than speaking.

Jack’s gaze lifts. Meets Robby’s. There’s a beat. Not long. But long enough. Something passes between them—wordless, measured. Something you can’t read.

Jack gives the smallest nod. Barely there. Robby’s jaw shifts slight. Then Jack looks back at you.

Your hand slides from his neck to his jaw, turning him slightly, and you kiss him properly this time—slow, deliberate. He leans into it without hesitation, one hand firm at your waist.

When you pull back, it’s not far. Just enough. Just long enough to turn.

Robby’s already looking at you. Not surprised. Not really. Just watching. You close the distance like it’s nothing—like it’s always been this simple—and kiss him too.

Different. Not softer, not harder—just new. Testing. His hand stills on your thigh for half a second before it shifts, coming up to steady at your side, like he’s grounding himself in it.

There’s a quiet breath from him—almost a huff, almost disbelief.

“This is fun,” You murmur.

You don’t give him time to overthink it.

You lean back between them again, tipping your head slightly, and they follow without being told.

Jack’s mouth finds one side of your neck, familiar, certain.

Robby hesitates for a fraction of a second— then doesn’t.

The other side. Slower. More deliberate. Like he’s learning something he’s not used to having.

You exhale, a soft sound you don’t quite hold back this time, and your hands come up instinctively—one finding Jack’s hair, the other Robby’s, fingers threading through both, holding them there.

For a second, it stays like that. Balanced.

Then you shift, just slightly—hands tightening, guiding as you move the two of them, their lips almost naturally coming to find one anothers, moving them like ken dolls, before you drop your hands, watching with a small smile, as Robby's immediacy for control goes against Jack's. Robby’s hand deepening into your thigh, grip tight as he kisses Jack.

Jack pulls back first, breath uneven but still controlled, his eyes flicking to yours like he’s checking in—like he always does.

His hand slides up your spine, slower now, deliberate where it had been absent before. His palm is cool against your overheated skin, the contrast making you shiver as it traces upward, then back down again, lingering just enough to feel intentional.

You lean back into him, lips finding his neck again—dragging slowly over the roughness of his skin, the faint scrape grounding, familiar. You press a little firmer this time, less thought, more instinct.

When you pull back, it’s only barely. Your breath catches—not dramatic, just… aware. Of him. Of Robby. Of both.

Jack’s hand presses more firmly into your back, keeping you close, steadying you like he can feel the shift too.

“Baby,” he murmurs, voice low, softer than before. “Feeling needy?”

You nod against him, answering with your mouth instead—kissing along his jaw now, slower, more deliberate.

“Yeah,” he exhales, a quiet sort of understanding in it. “I know, hon.” A beat. Then, quieter—“You want me, or him?”

You hesitate. Not long—but long enough to matter.

Robby’s hand shifts on your thigh, moving from the outside to your inner thigh, firm but unhurried, easing you open just slightly—testing, not taking. Waiting to see what you’ll do with it.

“It’s alright,” Jack starts, voice still calm, like he’s talking you through something he already trusts. “Go ahead. She likes it when you—”

“—I’ll ask you for help if I need it, alright?” Robby cuts in, low and even.

They exchange a look—brief, sharp, understood.

You lean over, pressing a quick, soft kiss to Jack’s cheek—something sweet, grounding—before shifting your weight and climbing into Robby’s lap.

He stiffens for a second. Just a second.

Robby’s always been hard to read. Time’s etched itself into his face, but there’s still that wall there—something held back, something controlled. Maybe it’s nerves. Maybe it’s you. His best friend’s girl, sitting on him like this—close, warm, curious.

“You okay there, Sasquatch?” you tease, tilting your head up at him.

His hands find your thighs again almost immediately, like muscle memory kicking in. His gaze flicks—down, over you, then back to your eyes. Briefly to Jack. Then back again.

“Sasquatch? Really?” he murmurs, one hand moving up to cup your breast through your top. His palm is warm against you, sending a shiver down your spine. “That’s what you’re going with?”

“Beard, tall… same thing, no?” you shrug lightly.

That earns the faintest hint of a smirk.

“She always cracking jokes before getting fucked?” Robby asks, giving your breast a firm squeeze. His other hand slides lower, ghosting over your stomach before cupping your mound through your panties

“Depends,” Jack admits. “One time I got G.I Joe for an hour.”

“He was in uniform, in my defense,” You defend, brief before you try moving your hips over Robby’s fingers, eager. “Come on, Michael.” 

Robby's fingers press harder against your core, rubbing slow, firm circles that have you arching into him, a sweet whine escaping your lips, his eyes enamoured with how your mouth parts, breath warm against him. 

“What a cute noise you make, sweetheart,” Robby murmurs. “Ask me nicely now.”

You hesitate, desperate as his fingers continue to move achingly slow over your wetness.

“Ask or I give Jack my hand right now instead and you can wait your turn for another hour,” Robby tells, voice low and soft, not looking away from where his fingers glide over your seeping core.

“Please,” you murmur, voice breathy and desperate. “Please fuck me with your fingers.”

You crash your lips to his—harsh, messy, tongues thrusting quick and slick, his beard scraping rough red trails across your cheeks and chin. He growls low into your mouth, yanking your panties aside with brutal force, calloused fingertips dragging through your dripping folds, parting your lips wide before ramming two thick fingers knuckle-deep into your clenching pussy—no mercy, no prep.

You gasp ragged into the kiss, a high-pitched moan ripping free as your lips break away, saliva trailing shiny strings from his mouth to yours. You latch onto his neck, teeth grazing the salty skin, sucking hard as you grind down fierce onto his invading digits—walls squeezing tight around the stretch, juices flooding hot over his palm.

“Move your fingers toward her ventral,” Jack instructs from the side, voice calm but edged with that teasing know-it-all tone, his hand sliding warm along your spine.

Robby exhales sharp through his nose—mild irritation flashing in his eyes at the unasked advice, jaw clenching as he shoots Jack a quick, heated glare. But he curls his fingers obediently upward inside you, knuckles grinding rough along your front wall to hammer your g-spot precise and relentless. Your moan swells louder, body jolting as fresh gushes of slick coat his hand, pussy slurping obscenely around each pump.

“Christ, you’re making a mess on me, aren’t you, kid? Huh?” Robby rasps, voice gravel-thick with mean delight, eyes locked on the filthy sight—your swollen pussy lips gliding and sucking greedily over his plunging fingers, riding them frantic. 

He twists his wrist sharp, scissoring the digits wide to pry your hole open, thumb mashing down hard on your throbbing clit with every brutal thrust—wet schlicks echoing loud, your thighs trembling slick against his forearm, arousal trickling warm down to soak his jeans.

He adds a third finger suddenly, forcing the burn deeper, stretching your cunt taut as he moves, hooking mercilessly on that spongy spot. 

“You getting close?” He asks, low and rough, listening closely to your moans, how they become pitchier, breathier, as sweet as Jack described. You nod, a loose yes, focused only on how your core winds up to the edge. “That right?”

Your cries pitch wilder, back arching as he pinches your clit between thumb and knuckle, rolling it rough while his fingers churn your insides, coil tight in your core.

“What else she like?” Robby asks Jack, glancing over at his friend now, fingers never slowing their rhythm inside you.

Jack taps his index and middle digit to his lips, nodding toward you. Robby nods back, hums at the sight of you, curious.

Robby yanks his fingers free abrupt—your pussy clenching empty, a whine tearing from your throat at the aching void, hips bucking needy for more. He brings those soaked digits up to your face, gripping your chin firm to still you, watching hungry as you part your lips instinctively. 

His fingertips tease your bottom lip, smearing your own cream glossy, before you suck them in deep—tongue swirling eager around the thick lengths, lapping every tangy drop, hollowing cheeks as saliva drips messy down your chin.

“Atta girl, you’re a fuckin’ mess now aren’t you?” Robby murmurs, gaze glued ravenous to your bobbing mouth, cock throbbing harder under you. “You wanna cum?”

You nod, frantic around his fingers, eyes pleading.

“Not yet,” Robby denies, voice almost gentle, yet harsh at once. “Barely seen what you can do.”

You exhale shaky as he pulls his fingers out with a wet pop, trailing spit from your chin before cupping your whole face possessive, holding you locked on him.

“Go over to him. Make him feel good,” Robby orders, jerking his chin at Jack.

You nod, movements sluggish from the edge he left you on.

“On the floor, knees, now,” Robby snaps, voice brooking no argument.

You slide off his lap reluctant, crawling back to Jack beside him on the couch. He smiles soft at you, fingers threading gentle through your hair, cupping your cheek as he brushes strands aside, gaze roaming tender over your flushed skin.

“You alright there?” he asks nicely, thumb stroking your jaw.

You nod eager, hands diving straight to his sweatpants, palming the rigid bulge straining there—heat pulsing under your touch. 

You tug the waistband down, freeing his cock—thick shaft springing up heavy, veins bulging, head slick with pre-cum. Your fist wraps tight around the base, pumping slow firm strokes up to the tip, twisting slick over the crown to spread his leak.

Jack inhales sharp, but you drop fully to your knees between his spread thighs on the rug, the rough weave biting into your skin. You lean in, lips parting wide to swallow his cockhead first—tongue flicking the slit to lap salty pre, then sliding down inch by veiny inch, throat relaxing to take him deeper.

“Look pretty down there,” Jack murmurs with a small smile, hand light in your hair, just cradling.

“You’re so soft with her,” Robby remarks from beside, voice mixed with mocking and earnestness as he watches you work, his own tenting obvious.

Jack shrugs, a quiet groan escaping as you hollow your cheeks, sucking vacuum-tight while bobbing steady—saliva pooling at the corners of your stretched lips, dribbling down his balls. Your hand strokes what your mouth can't reach, twisting wet on the upstroke, tongue pressing flat along the underside to trace every ridge.

Robby's gaze burns hot—flicking over your arched back, your drool-slick chin, eyes that dart between Jack's tense face, Robby's hungry stare, then flutter shut as you deepthroat him full, nose burying in his pubes. He fixates on Jack's cock vanishing slick between your lips, throat bulging visible. Then up to Jack, whose fingers grip tighter into your scalp—not shoving, just anchoring as his neck cords tense.

“Good job, sweetheart,” Jack praises breathy, hips twitching minimal into your rhythm. 

Your moan vibrates around his length, humming deep to make him shudder, spit bubbling messy as you pop off to lick sloppy stripes up his shaft, sucking each ball into your mouth turn before plunging back down.

He groans low, head lolling back, “Fucking… perfect. So perfect, always.”

Tension crackles thicker between them—Jack's free hand drifts casual at first, then deliberate, palming Robby's thigh before cupping the massive bulge in his jeans, squeezing firm through denim. Robby stiffens, eyes meeting with Jack's, breath hitching as Jack rubs slow circles over the thick outline, thumb pressing the zipper ridge where pre darkens the fabric.

“You alright there, man?” Jack scoffs, a light smile. “Can’t handle it?”

It’s a challenge. It always is with them. Has been since they were twenty something.

Jack knows exactly what he’s doing—knows the tells. The slight tilt of Robby’s head, the way his weight shifts more onto one side, the flicker of something sharper behind his eyes. He’s seen that look in bars, in fights, in operating rooms when things went sideways.

Robby doesn’t back down from anything. Least of all him.

Then Robby exhales slowly, something almost like a laugh under it, eyes locking onto Jack’s—steady, unflinching.

“Oh, I can handle it just fine,” Robby agrees with his own smile. “Go ‘head.”

Jack groans at your relentless mouth—fast and wet, then slowing perfect against him—his hand stroking over Robby’s clothed cock, deliberate and slow, denim rasping under his palm. He leans in first, crashing his mouth to Robby's—sloppy, urgent, tongues battling fierce right above you, beards grinding rough, wet sucks and grunts filling the air. Jack's fingers knead Robby's bulge harder, unzipping halfway to delve inside, wrapping firm around the hot shaft through boxers.

You pull off Jack with a gasp, spit stringing from your lips to his glistening tip, replacing your mouth with your fist—pumping slick and steady along his veiny length, thumb swirling over the slit to smear pre-cum. Your eyes lock on their kiss, Jack's hand slowing on Robby as your thumb teases tentative over his own sensitive crown, tongue darting out to lap the edge of his slit.

“Oh fuck,” Jack moans into Robby’s mouth, breaking away to watch you lick him sweetly, hips bucking light into your grip.

Your free hand joins Jack’s on Robby’s cock, fingers overlapping his as Robby undoes his belt buckle with a metallic clink, shoving jeans and boxers down his thighs. His thick cock springs free. You spit thick into your palm, slicking it hot before gripping him base to tip, stroking in tandem with Jack—your hand twisting wet on the upstroke while his squeezes the root, veins pulsing under your combined pressure. 

Robby hisses through clenched teeth, thighs tensing as you both jerk him off rough, pre dribbling over knuckles, your mouth still working on Jack’s cock.

Jack's strokes on you falter to lazy pumps, his fist gliding easy over your saliva-lubed skin as he watches Robby swell thicker in your shared hold. “Fuck, feel that grip? She’s got hands made for this,” he rasps, voice husky, eyes dark on Robby's face.

Robby grunts approval, thrusting shallow into the double stroke. Jack pulls back suddenly, nodding down at you. “Let him feel how good your pretty mouth is, baby.”

You release Jack reluctant, his cock twitching angry-red in the cool air as he takes over—fist flying fast over his shaft, slick echoing. You shift on your knees, turning to Robby, who grips his base and taps the fat head heavy against your cheek—wet smacks on flushed skin, taunting drip of pre-painting streaks.

“Dreamt about this once,” he admits, voice low. “The way Jack described it, you’d think you have the mouth of an angel. That right? You an angel?” He wonders.

You lick your lips in anticipation, hand between your legs, fingers gliding over your folds.

“Oh, baby, you’re touchin’ yourself too?” Robby notices. “God, so desperate.”

“Seemed pretty desperate for my boyfriend there too,” You remark, not looking away from Robby’s gaze.

His jaw tightens. “He’s pretty good with his hand, but I think you can do better with your tongue.”

You part lips wide, tongue out flat as he slaps his cock deliberately across it, underside dragging salty over your tastebuds before shoving in brutal—half his length in one thrust, stretching your jaw. 

You gag wet but suck hollow, cheeks caving as you bob frantic, hand pumping the rest in sync. Saliva floods fast, bubbling down his sack as you swirl tongue under the ridge, hollowing deep to milk him. Your fingers are quick against your wetness, dripping between your thighs, your other hand planted at Robby’s thigh.

“Shit—yeah, like that,” Robby growls, free hand fisting your hair to guide rough, not forcing but controlling the pace—pulling you off to tap his cock on your tongue again, smearing spit and pre glossy before ramming back in. 

He fucks your face shallow, hips snapping precise, balls swinging to nudge your chin while Jack jerks himself faster beside, groans syncing with yours muffled around Robby's girth.

You sweep the underside of your tongue around Robby’s cock, soft wetness coating him, slow, then fast, hearing how Robby’s hand tightens harder in your scalp.

Jack leans close, breath ragged as his fist blurs over his cock, tip weeping steady. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Fuck off,” Robby mutters, focused on your mouth, your eyes as they look up at him, wide, watery.

Your fingers slip between your thighs, dipping into your soaked pussy, rutting slow circles over your clit as you kneel between them, mouth stuffed full on Robby's cock. Spit drips messy down your chin, mixing with the slick from your own folds as you finger yourself deeper, chasing that tight coil building low in your belly.

“I’m good,” Jack rasps, eyes locked on your hand working your cunt, his fist pumping steady over his own cock. “Slow down, sweetheart.”

Your fingers comply, easing to lazy drags through your wetness, eyes flicking up to watch Jack slow his palm in sync, thumb circling his flushed tip. His free hand drifts back to Robby's thigh, squeezing hard muscle as he watches you deepthroat—throat bulging obscene with each plunge, gags turning wet and rhythmic.

Robby's taunts rumble gravel-deep: “Fucking hell, you gonna let me cum in that mouth, honey?” He pops free with a gasp, cock throbbing inches from your face, tapping insistent on your cheek—left, right, smearing sticky pre over flushed skin—before you dive back voluntary, nose grinding into his pubes as you swallow him full, humming vibration to wrench a guttural curse from his chest.

“She can take it,” Jack murmurs, voice thick. “Can you, baby? Come on, speak now.”

You moan muffled around Robby's girth, pulling off with a slick pop, resting your head against his still-clothed thigh as your fingers plunge back into your pussy, rutting frantic. “Mhm.” You kiss alongside his shaft, tongue tracing veins lazy, lips brushing hot skin.

“So damn sweet now,” Robby murmurs, hand loosening from your scalp to pet gentle through your hair, watching your fingers disappear knuckle-deep. “That feel good?”

You nod against his thigh, licking slow stripes up his cock, pumping your pussy deliberate—thumb flicking your clit, hips rocking into your hand, edge creeping close, breath hitching sharp.

“No more of that, alright?” Robby nods down, eyes sharp on your body. “Yeah? You listening?”

You groan, fingers curling harder inside yourself. “Fuck you—you wanna cum, I get to cum too.”

Robby tilts his head, that piercing look—the one Jack knows spells trouble, before ripping into a resident. Jack nearly laughs, slowing his strokes to a tease. “Not how it works,” Robby says flat, voice dropping steel.

You glance at Jack, pleading.

“Don’t look at him,” Robby orders, tone snapping stricter, hand fisting your hair tight to force your gaze back. You gulp, thighs clenching empty as you pull your fingers free, pussy clenching needy on nothing. “Put both hands behind your back if you’re gonna act like a fuckin’ brat.”

Reluctant, you clasp your hands behind you, knees aching on the floor, tits heaving with each breath. Robby nods approval, gripping his base to feed his cock back past your lips—slow at first, letting you savor the stretch, then thrusting deeper as you hollow cheeks vacuum-tight.

Your tongue flattens under his shaft to lap the frenulum relentlessly, swirling wet around the head on every upstroke before slamming down throat-deep, gag reflex crushed to nothing. Saliva floods obscenely, bubbling at the corners of your mouth, dripping strings to his balls as you bob frantic—suction pulling groans from his gut, nose buried in coarse hair, throat milking him like a fist. 

You hum constant vibration, eyes watering up at him, popping off to spit thick on his length before sucking one ball then the other into your mouth, rolling tongue heavy before plunging back down full.

“Jesus Christ—yeah, there we go…” Robby snarls, hips snapping erratic, free hand clamping your nape to hold you buried as his cock swells impossibly thicker, balls drawing tight. 

He floods your mouth suddenly—hot spurts painting your tongue thick and salty, cock pulsing ropes down your throat as you swallow greedily around him, not spilling a drop. He rides it out shallow thrusts, groaning ragged until spent, pulling free with a wet schlick.

“Fuck,” he pants, watching your tongue swipe clean over his softening head, lapping the last beads from his slit.

You fall back onto your heels, knees throbbing, core dripping wet and aching empty down your thighs. Swallowing his load thick, you stand shaky, and lean down to Robby, core exposed from your barely there nightgown. You grab him by his jaw, fingers at his chin, watching as his hand catches your wrist.

You smile at that. “Go on,” Your fingers linger near his mouth, covered with your wetness. “Jack prefers the real deal. You shy all of a sudden, Mikey?”

Robby reluctantly opens his mouth, trying and tasting your wetness, sucking your fingers clean.

“Atta boy,” You say sarcastically, moving them out of his mouth. “You think you can still fuck me, old man?” You whisper.

“Watch it,” Robby murmurs.

“You can, in the corner, while Jack finally makes me cum.” You whisper. “Jack,” you grab Jack’s hand, walking away with him as Jack follows suit behind you.

“Up and at it,” Jack tells Robby over his shoulder as he follows you.

“Fucking hell,” Robby mutters, taking a second before following after.

You hum satisfied, leading them stumbling to the bedroom, the air electric behind you.

In the dim glow, you strip your nightgown overhead, leaving ruined panties—crotch soaked dark—and a lacey bra barely containing your tits. Their eyes burn hot as you climb onto yours and Jack's bed, kneeling center.

Jack follows instant, standing at the edge, hands cupping your jaw rough-tender, leaning down to crash his mouth to yours—passionate and devouring, tongue fucking deep to taste Robby's cum lingering salty. You moan into it, hand snaking to grip his cock again, stroking firm base-to-tip.

Behind Jack, Robby's hands roam his back, trailing firm over shirt fabric before gripping the hem, yanking it up and off in one pull. Jack moans muffled into your kiss when your fist pumps faster, hips bucking into your grip, but he breaks away gasping as cool air hits his bare chest.

Robby presses close from behind, chest flush to Jack's back, beard scraping his shoulder as lips latch onto Jack's neck—sucking a mark deliberate.

“Baby, lie down for me,” Jack instructs.

You nod, lying down on your back, knees spread apart like second nature. He tilts his head, as Robby’s lips trail over his skin.

“Enjoying yourself?” Robby echoes Jack's earlier words, hand meeting at his cock briefly, feeling Jack stiffen and inhale sharply at that. “You gonna make your girl cum, or do I have to do that?”

“Fuck off,” Jack murmurs. “Go sit in a corner and wait, or somethin’,” Jack mutters, hands dragging you by the underside of your knee, gently towards the edge as he kneels on the bed, as Robby steps back with a chuckle.

“Think I got her ready, though, so, shouldn't take long,” Robby says. “Unless you’re not as skilled as you’ve been bragging to be.”

“Oh, my god, one of you make me cum or else I’m doing it myself, Jesus,” you whine.

“Oh, baby,” Jack murmurs, kissing at your inner thighs. “I’m leaving you waiting here.”

“She’s being a brat. Have some patience, honey,” Robby insists, tilting his head at you in mock. “But she’s right, hurry up, Abbot, Christ.”

Jack swipes his tongue along your core, and you moan, your wetness ready and eager from Robby's fingering and your own arousal. He licks slow and firm, teasing your sensitive flesh. 

Robby watches from the side, his cock still tucked away in his jeans, as he observes you writhing under Jack's talented tongue. His expression is heated, hungry, clearly enjoying the show. 

"Mmm...you look like a-" you moan, too lost in sensation to finish the thought. "A fucking nun, Michael," you finally manage, nodding towards his henley. "You aren't hot in that? Take it off already, fuck," 

Robby clicks his tongue, a light roll of his eyes. "You could ask me nicely. Here I thought you were so polite and sweet," he chides.

Jack’s tongue is a relentless, wet invasion, fucking into you with a rhythm that steals your breath. You clench around him, a tight, pulsing grip, your fingers tangled in his silver curls, thighs locked around his head like a vise. 

Your eyes stay fixed on Robby’s as he discards his shirt, the fabric whispering to the floor. The snick of his belt sliding free from the loops makes you tighten your legs around Jack even more, a shiver of anticipation racing up your spine, as Jack laps at your pussy.

“Wider,” Jack grunts, his voice muffled against your pussy. He pushes your thighs apart with his hard biceps, one big hand splayed over your hipbone, pinning you down. “Stop squirming. Take it.”

From the foot of the bed, Robby watches, arms folded over his bare chest. He looks like a professor observing a dissection—calm, analytical, utterly in control. “How close are you?” he asks, his tone clinical.

“Mm, close,” you manage, the words breaking on a moan as Jack’s tongue flicks hard over your clit.

“You make such pretty sounds. He was right about that,” Robby hums, stepping closer. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his calloused hand coming up to cup your cheek. His thumb strokes your skin, sweetly, but his brow is furrowed, his gaze intense. “Callin’ me a nun, and you still got this thing on, honey.” He hooks a finger under the strap of your bra and flicks it sharply against your skin, a sting of sensation.

Jack’s tongue plunges deep again, and you arch off the bed, a choked cry leaving your lips. Your eyes don’t leave Robby’s as his hand slides down, cupping your breast through the lace. He admires the weight, the shape, his fingers tracing the curve.

“Want me to fuck you first, or GI Joe there?” Robby recalls, a smirk playing on his lips. 

He doesn’t miss the way your mouth curves in a smile, even as your eyelids flutter shut. Jack quickens his pace, his hands now gripping your thighs like he’s holding you together.

You’re too close, teetering on that blinding edge. Words are impossible.

“Answer me,” Robby instructs, his voice dropping low and stern. His hand kneads your breast, then slips inside the cup of your bra, his fingers finding your nipple. He rolls it, pinches it just shy of pain. “Who do you want first?”

“You,” you gasp, the answer torn from you instinctively, desperately.

Robby’s smirk widens. “You hear that, Abbot? I get to break her in first.” He doesn’t look away from you as he says it.

He leans down, his hand sliding between your legs. Jack pulls back without a word, letting Robby’s fingers trail through your soaked folds, delivering a slap to your clit. You shiver violently, a string of high, needy moans escaping as he collects your wetness on his fingertips. He brings them back to your mouth, his other hand still working your nipple.

“I was right,” you murmur, breathless. “Knew you’d be mean.”

“Yeah? You like it?” Robby wonders, though he already knows.

You bite your lip, refusing to answer.

He pushes his wet fingers past your lips, pulling your jaw open with a firm pressure. The look he gives you is pure command—dark, expectant. Obey.

“I like it,” you moan around his fingers, the admission almost reluctant. Your grip tightens in Jack’s hair. “Fuck—I’m gonna—oh fuck—”

“Yeah?” Robby hums, petting your hair now, his other hand still at your breast. He watches your mouth hang open, watches the pleasure wreck you. “Eyes on me. Come on. No, no. No closing them. You keep ’em right here.” His gaze holds yours captive. “Good girl… good girl, aren’t you? Bratty, but you just needed to cum a little, isn’t that right?”

You whimper as Jack’s tongue sweeps over your oversensitive clit one last time, lapping up your juices as you shatter. Your orgasm crashes through you, white-hot and convulsing, your body bowing off the bed as you cry out.

“Good job, baby. Fucking hell,” Jack mutters against your thigh, his voice rough with praise. 

He comes up your body, his hand replacing Robby’s on your breast, kneading possessively. His lips find yours in a messy, wet kiss, tasting of you. Tongues swiping, teeth clashing briefly as you chuckle into the kiss, wet and sloppy as he moves to your neck, sucking hard around your jaw, yoru neck, hand trailing over your figure, squeezing, gentle, rough all at once.

“My favourite girl in the world, you know that,” he murmurs against your skin, kissing at your collarbone.

You grin, feeling as Robby captures your mouth with his own, a brief pause as he watches Jack worship your figure. Jack slides a finger over your core, feeling as your back arches, how you gasp into Robby’s mouth.

“You aren’t a brat, are you baby?” Jack murmurs, rubbing tight circles at your clit, hearing how you whimper at the feeling, fresh from your orgasm. “No, honey, not for me, isn’t that right? Yeah, I know, I know… my sweet girl,” He replaces Robby’s mouth with his own, dragging over yours as you nod into the kiss. 

“Told you. Lover boy,” Robby remarks to you.

You grin into the kiss, before Jack pulls away and naturally seems to find Robby’s lips.

You watch, a strange heat pooling in your belly, watching as Jack immediately leans in and kisses Robby. It’s harsh and sweet all at once—a clash of teeth and soft sighs. You thought you might feel a spike of jealousy, but instead, a warm, possessive pride swells in your chest. 

Robby stands, briefly cupping Jack’s jaw in a gesture that’s both dismissal and affection before pushing him gently aside. Jack moves from between your legs, sprawling onto his back on the bed. Robby’s hands are on your waist, and you yelp in surprise as he manhandles you with effortless strength, flipping you onto your stomach.

He drags your ruined panties down over your ass, off your legs, and sends them flying to a corner of the room with a flick of his wrist. Your bra is next; he unclips it with one practiced hand, and the lace joins the panties.

“Ass up, sweetheart,” Robby instructs, his voice thick. He lands a sharp, stinging tap on your bare ass cheek. He has one knee on the bed, the other foot planted on the floor.

You obey, pushing yourself up onto your knees and elbows. Jack is lying in front of you now, his gaze heated. You reach for his prosthetic leg, helping him with the quick-release mechanism. Robby hands you the second one without a word—a seamless, understood exchange. Jack kisses you, sweet and grateful, as he sets the limb aside.

"That's it," Robby mutters, positioning himself behind you. You feel the blunt head of his cock pressing against your slick entrance, teasing, and then he thrusts forward in one brutal, seamless motion.

Filling you so completely the air leaves your lungs in a whoosh. He sets a punishing pace immediately, each thrust driving you forward toward Jack.

Robby inhales sharply at the feeling of you. You adjust to him, moan loud and silent all at once at the feeling.

“Shit,” Robby mutters. “Fuckin’ hell, you know much Jack’s raved about this pussy? Callin’ it the treasure of the fucking ocean.”

His hands grip your hips like anchors, fingernails digging into your soft flesh as he sets a merciless rhythm—pounding into you with a force that drives your body forward with each impact, making the headboard knock rhythmically against the wall. “Perfect fucking pussy, sweetheart, you know that?”

You moan at his words, clenching even tighter around him. 

“How the fuck do you leave home, Jack— Jesus Christ,” Robby says as he quickens his pace slightly, watching as your ass moves from the harsh contact of his hips against you.

“Life or death, and that’s it,” Jack says. 

“Come on, give him some love, kid,” Robby tells.

Jack’s cock is hard and leaking against his stomach. You lean down, taking him into your mouth, swallowing him deep. He groans, his hands coming up to cradle your head. “Fuck, just like that,” he rasps.

You’re split between them—Robby fucking into you from behind with deep, possessive strokes, and Jack’s length hitting the back of your throat. The dual sensation is overwhelming. Robby’s hips slap against your ass, the sound filthy and wet. 

“You like being used like this baby?” Jack wonders, your moans vibrating against him. 

You don’t answer, focused on the sensation of Robby’s cock harsh within you.

“He asked you a question,” Robby pants, moving his hand to your hair, tight as you look up at Jack, watery eyed.

“Uh-huh,” you nod. 

“See? Not so hard,” Robby groans.

Jack smiles a bit at that, caressing your face as you occupy your mouth with Jack’s cock. He groans. The taste of salt and heat floods your tongue as you take him deep, your lips stretching around his girth. You hollow your cheeks, sucking hard as you bob your head, letting him feel every ridge of your throat as you swallow him down. Your nose presses against his pelvis, and he groans, his fingers threading through your hair.

"Just like that… Just like that," Jack chokes out, his head falling back as his hips buck up involuntarily, his hand tightening on your jaw. His thumb presses against your cheek, forcing your mouth wider, and you feel every ridge and vein of his cock sliding deeper down your throat. "Come on now, so close."

The words vibrate through you, but before you can double down, Robby leans over your arched back, his chest sweaty and hot against your spine, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. "Make him wait."

You pull off Jack's cock with a wet pop, a thick strand of saliva and pre-cum stretching between your lips and his glistening tip before breaking. Jack's frustrated groan cuts through the room, his hips twitching in empty air.

"Fuck off, Mike," Jack growls, but his hand remains gentle in your hair, fingers stroking through the sweat-damp strands as you whimper from the brutal pace behind you. 

Robby's cock is driving into you with relentless accuracy, the head of him hitting that deep, spongy spot inside you with every thrust, sending electric jolts through your core. Your inner walls flutter and clench around him, helpless against the assault.

"You gonna be a brat too, then?" Robby says, shooting a lighthearted glare at Jack over your shoulder. 

Before Jack can retort, you clench down hard around Robby's shaft, a desperate whine escaping your throat. Robby's rhythm stutters for half a second, a low curse spilling from his lips. "Fucking—hell, god, doll. You are so goddamn tight, y'know that?"

His pace becomes brutal, each thrust driving deeper, harder, the angle punishing. His balls slap wetly against your clit with every impact, the sound filthy and rhythmic. You feel the slick heat of your own arousal coating his shaft, dripping down your thighs with every punishing stroke. 

"She's close," Jack murmurs, his voice softer now, almost reverent. 

You shift forward, pressing open-mouthed kisses across his stomach, your tongue tracing the soft lines of his abs, tasting salt and skin, over the light freckles. You moan into his flesh, the vibration making his muscles jump, and then his palm cups your cheek, thumb brushing over your bottom lip, holding you warmly.

"Look at you," Jack whispers, his eyes dark and soft at once. "So beautiful like this. Taking us both. You're doing so well, baby."

“Go ahead, cum,” Robby growls into your ear, his hand snakes around your hip, his fingers finding your clit. He rubs tight circles against the swollen nub while he continues to pound into you, and the sensation is electric—each thrust driving his fingers harder against that sensitive bundle of nerves. “Now.”

You moan around Jack’s cock as you break, your pussy clenching wildly around Robby’s thrusts. The convulsions milk him, and with a low groan, he buries himself to the hilt and pulses inside you, hot and deep.

"Fuck," he breathes, his forehead pressing against your shoulder blade, his body shuddering through the aftershocks.

He pulls out slowly, and you feel his cum begin to seep from you. 

“Goddamnit,” Robby murmurs, a pant. 

Before you can even catch your breath, he spits into his palm, the sound crude and purposeful. He reaches down, slicking up Jack’s cock, which is already hard again and straining against his stomach. Jack groans, a deep, ragged sound at the touch.

“Your turn,” Robby tells him, his voice rough with use.

But instead of letting you face Jack, Robby guides you. His strong hands on your hips turn you, maneuvering your spent body until you’re straddling Jack, but facing away from him. Your back is to Jack’s chest, your ass pressed against his hips. You can feel Robby’s cum, warm and wet, slicking the way as you settle over Jack’s length.

Jack’s hands come to your hips, steadying you. “Easy, sweetheart,” he murmurs, but his voice is tight with need.

From the foot of the bed, Robby watches. He’s kneeling there now, his eyes dark and hungry, fixed on the place where your bodies move against one another, well practiced. Jack’s fingers slide between your legs, through the slick mess Robby left behind. He gathers it on his fingertips, his touch making you shiver, he brings those wet fingers to your lips.

You open for him, tasting Robby’s salty tang on Jack’s skin as he slips his fingers into your mouth. You moan around them, your tongue swirling. Jack’s eyes never leave Robby’s as he then pulls his fingers free, back to your cunt, a slight shudder once more, and brings them to his own lips, sucking them clean, tasting his best friend.

Robby watches this whole exchange, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Atta girl,” Jack pants against your ear, his hands tightening on your hips.

Then he guides you down, and you sink onto him with a broken cry. He fills you completely, the stretch delicious, the sensation of being stuffed so soon after your last climax making your head spin. You’re so sensitive it’s almost painful, a sweet, overwhelming ache.

You begin to move, rising and falling on his cock, finding a slow, grinding rhythm. Your hands brace on Jack’s thighs behind you for leverage. The angle is deep, each descent hitting a spot that makes you see stars.

“That’s it,” Jack encourages, his voice a rasp in your ear. His hands roam your body—gripping your waist, palming your breasts, thumbing your nipples.

You increase your pace, bouncing on him, the wet sounds of your joining filling the room. Your head falls back against his shoulder, your eyes fluttering shut.

“Eyes open, sweetheart.”

Robby’s command cuts through the haze. Your eyes snap open. He’s moved closer, kneeling right beside the bed now, his face level with where you’re joined with Jack. He’s watching every slide, every glide, his expression one of rapt fascination.

“Look at you,” Robby murmurs, his voice thick. “Takin’ him so well."

His praise fuels you. You lean more back, hands coming up behind you to Jack, angle pushing him even deeper, as you whimper, sharp gasps, teetering on the edge again.

“Baby, I’m gonna cum,” Your moan, soft.

“Fucking- shit, go ahead, honey, cum f’me,” he moans. 

Your orgasm crests, a silent scream trapped in your throat as your body tightens. You clench around Jack, a series of violent, fluttering spasms that milk his length.

Jack curses, his hips bucking up into you. “Fucking—just like that—”

As you’re pulsing around him, Robby leans in. He captures Jack’s mouth in a sudden, fierce kiss over your shoulder. You can hear the wet slide of their lips, the soft grunts and sighs. It’s raw and intimate, and it sends another shockwave of pleasure through your oversensitive nerves.

Robby breaks the kiss. “Lift up for a second, kid,” he breathes against your skin.

Dazed and pliant, you raise yourself up, Jack’s slick cock sliding almost all the way out of you. Robby’s hand replaces you, wrapping around Jack’s shaft. He gives him a few rough, efficient strokes, his thumb smearing the pre-cum beaded at the tip.

“Missed the taste of you,” Robby mutters to Jack, his eyes locked on his friend’s face as he works him.

Jack just groans, his head thrown back, his hands gripping your thighs. Then Robby guides you back down, easing you onto Jack’s cock until you’re fully seated once more, stuffed to the brim.

“Go ahead, finish,” Robby growls, his command for both of you.

You begin to move again, a slow, rolling grind now, utterly spent but driven by the need to feel Jack lose control. He’s close—you can feel the tension in his body, the way his breath hitches.

“Come on, Jack,” Robby urges softly, his hand returning to your clit, applying just enough pressure to make you whimper. “Fill her up. Give her what she needs.”

That does it. With a shattered cry, Jack’s hips piston up once, twice, and then he stills, buried deep inside you as he comes. You feel the hot pulses of his release joining Robby’s already there, flooding you.

Jack kisses at your shoulder blades, near your neck, as you relax your body entirely, shaky breaths with your back against his chest. His arm coming around you automatically, instinctive, like it always does. His hand slides up your arm, slow, grounding, fingers brushing your shoulder, your collarbone—checking, not asking out loud but asking anyway. 

Robby puts a hand to your jaw, tapping your cheeks lightly with his fingers, watching as your eyes lazily find his.

“You alright?” he murmurs, voice rough, softer than it’s been all night.

“Mhm,” You nod, catching your breath.

“There she is,” Jack murmurs against you, pressing a kiss into your hair, lingering there a second longer than usual.

Robby doesn’t move right away.

He’s sitting beside you both, elbows on his knees, head tipped slightly forward, breathing steadier now—but there’s something in his posture, something looser than before. The edge is gone. Or at least… dialed down.

You shift, peeling yourself gently from Jack, turning toward Robby. For a second, there’s that flicker—uncertainty, maybe. Not doubt. Just… recalibration.

Then you lean in and kiss him. It’s different now. Slower. Softer. No urgency behind it.

Robby’s hand comes up to the back of your head, not guiding, not demanding—just holding you there, thumb brushing lightly at your hairline. He exhales through his nose, a quiet thing, like he didn’t realize he’d been holding onto something.

When you pull back, you stay close.

“Hey,” you say, softer.

“Hey,” he echoes.

Jack watches the two of you. His hand still rests low on your back, thumb moving in slow, absent circles like it always does when he’s settling you.

Jack kisses gently at your bare back, “Be right back,” he murmurs against you, before you hear him leave the bed, putting on his temporary prosthetic. 

You hear him leave, pulling away from Robby who watches Jack as he leaves the room, headed for the hall.

You groan and flop onto the bed, Robby moving the blanket over you, maybe suddenly prudeish as he picks up presumably Jack’s shirt and hands it to you. You hum, put it on.

“Jesus,” you murmur, voice soft, wrecked. “I think my legs might actually fall off.”

That gets a quiet huff out of Robby.

He’s sitting up at the edge of the bed now, dragging a hand down his face, then through his hair. He looks… different, a little. Looser. The usual edge sanded down.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Think you’ll live.”

You glance over at him, managing a small smile.

He’s already reaching for his boxers, pulling them back on, movements unhurried. The gold chain at his neck catches the low light—the Star of David resting against his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. There’s something grounding about it. Familiar. Normal.

There’s a beat.

Then, softer—

“…You good?” You ask.

He turns your head toward you. “Yeah.” He thinks for a moment, a shake of his head as he lets himself admit– “Needed that. Needed to be… not alone, I think.”

You watch him for a second—something thoughtful in your expression.

“That something you’d wanna do again or is this a one and done situation?” You wonder earnestly, rolling onto your side as you look up at him. “

Robby doesn’t answer straight away. He looks at you—really looks, like he’s trying to figure out what the question actually means underneath what you asked.

Your hair’s a mess, Jack’s shirt slipping off one shoulder, eyes soft but steady on him. Hickies across your neck. Not fragile. Not asking for reassurance. Just… asking.

His jaw shifts slightly.

“…You always this direct after something like that?” he mutters.

You huff a quiet laugh. “I’m an ortho resident. I don’t have time for interpretive dance.”

That almost gets a smile out of him. He exhales, leaning back more fully, one hand rubbing absently at his chest like he’s trying to settle something under the surface.

“It’s not—” he starts, then stops. Tries again. “It’s not really a ‘one and done’ kind of question.”

You tilt your head slightly. “Why not?”

He glances at the door—where Jack disappeared—then back at you.

Because Jack’s not just some guy. Because this isn’t just sex. Because there’s history here that predates you by decades and still manages to feel unfinished. Because he already feels it sitting somewhere in his chest, heavy.

You seem to pick up where his head is at, a nod. “Do you have… like, real feelings for him? Or me?”

Robby scoffs a chuckle. “I don’t have time to think about that.”

“Just time to fuck us though. Well, not Jack, sure he’ll give me a complaint about that later.” You murmur.

Robby smiles a bit. “You two are… perfect for each other. I still don’t get how he found you.”

“I don’t know either, to be honest,” You admit. “But he cares about you. Like a lot. And so do I. And it’s not just because your dick is great, promise. You’re always welcome with us, whether its sex, comfort, food, all three. We aren’t picky people.”

“Picked up on that,” Robby nods, quieter now. “What are your plans? With him, I mean. He mentioned something about marriage.”

You smile a little—more to yourself than anything—your hand drifting, almost unconsciously, to your left ring finger.

“No idea,” you admit. “However long he wants me around, I guess.”

Robby huffs a soft breath, leaning back against the headboard. “Well, if age’s anything to go by, you’ve got a good couple of years.”

You smack his arm lightly. “You’re literally older than him.”

“I’m not marrying you,” Robby shoots back, deadpan.

“You’re an ass,” you sigh.

That earns you a small smile.

The door opens.

Jack steps back in, towel slung over his shoulder, a glass of water already in hand. He pauses just inside, taking in the room in one sweep—quick, practiced. You, curled on your side in his shirt. Robby at the edge of the bed, quieter than usual.

“My leg’s killing me,” Jack mutters, like it’s an afterthought, already moving back toward the bed.

You push yourself up onto your elbows, frowning. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says, dismissive in that way he gets, like pain’s just background noise. He hands you the glass. “Drink.”

You take it, still watching him. “You say that about everything.”

“Because everything’s fine.”

Robby snorts under his breath. “Yeah. That’s a healthy coping mechanism.”

Jack shoots him a look as he sits down, stretching his leg out carefully. “Oh, I’m sorry—did you want to compare notes?”

Robby raises his brows. “Not particularly.”

Then Jack exhales, leaning back into the headboard. His hand finds your thigh automatically—absent, grounding, like he needs the contact without thinking about it.

His gaze flicks between the two of you, lingering on Robby for half a second longer than necessary.

“What’d I miss?” he asks.

You shift, settling back into him, your cheek brushing his shoulder. “Marriage.”

Jack huffs. “One night with my girl and you’re already trying to steal her? Alright. Good to know.”

Robby lets out a quiet chuckle.

“With you, idiot,” you correct.

Jack glances down at you. “Oh, him and I are getting married now?”

You roll your eyes and, just to be difficult, shift toward Robby instead—curling lightly into his side.

It lasts all of two seconds.

Jack’s arm hooks around you and pulls you straight back against him.

“Relax,” he mutters, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, holding you there against his chest.

Robby watches that, something unreadable flickering across his face before it settles again.

Robby stays the night.

Not in the same way—there’s a natural rhythm to it. He gives you and Jack space without being asked, drifting out into the living room, the quiet murmur of the TV carrying faintly down the hall. At one point you hear the balcony door slide open, then shut again.

He’s not intrusive. Never has been.

But he doesn’t leave, either.

if u havent read it, i'd recommend reading my (wo)man on willpower! this is a spin off of that, i suppose. focuses more on jack x reader, though. :D

a/n: girls i have another like 700 words i had that as a short scene of santos speculating why u didnt make it to her paris party (oh my god im so funny paris because threesome haha i know right, please dont click off this), and i might post that later, but my ao3 will get the full thing if u wanna just see what it was. the 1000 block limit on tumblr genuinely my opp fr.

You’ve always had a somewhat fraught relationship with imagination. People say you lack it, to put it plainly. They say you’re too literal. As if being literal isn’t the reason airplanes stay in the air and bridges remain standing. 

But you just happen to find reality plenty beautiful. More than beautiful, actually. Reassuring. There is dignity in a thing that can be tested, reproduced, and counted on.

Newton’s law. The sodium-potassium pump. Entropy. Even the grimmer systems at least are consistent if nothing else.

So naturally, medicine was what you pursued in college. Everything means something. Everything is attached to something else. Symptoms are not random; bodies are not whimsical.

Even if an answer is hidden, it exists, and if you are willing to stay with a problem long enough, turn it over enough times, peel it apart layer by layer and build it back from the inside out, eventually it reveals itself.

Fiction does not afford you that courtesy. Fiction wants you to tolerate blank spaces and gaps. You hate gaps. You love knowing.

Fiction gives you half a scene and waits expectantly, like congratulations, now you do the labor.

Build the room. Place the bodies. Infer the angles. Ignore, apparently, that the human body is not an abstract concept but a heavily regulated system of hinges and limits and gravity and very obvious spatial constraints. 

You are experiencing one of those gaps now, staring so hard at the page your eyes begin to sting a little, focus tightening to a punitive little point. You think if you look at it severely enough the scene might resolve into something you can understand.

The book says the woman is “on top,” which should be clear enough on its own, except the next sentence immediately ruins that clarity by describing angles that do not, as far as you can tell, exist in three-dimensional space. 

And you have so many questions.

Is there a bed involved here? A couch? A floor? Any surface at all?

You reread the line. Maybe you overlooked a prepositional phrase hiding in plain sight. A detail that will clarify whose leg is bent and why it apparently now has the range of motion of a paper clip.

Nothing. No luck. Still opaque.

Possibly more vague now, because repetition has begun to dissolve whatever confidence you had in your own reading abilities.

It is difficult to overstate how humiliating it is to be bested by mediocre smut. 

You sigh and look to your watch. 9:18 p.m. Late. The bus is always late. That’s why you have this book in your hand in the first place, wanting to turn dead time into something educational. Unfortunately that’s not how it’s going.

You blow out a breath as another gust of wind snakes over the exposed strip of skin between your socks and the hem of your jeans.

They used to hit lower on your ankle, but courtesy of your building’s shitty communal dryer, they don’t do that anymore.

“Interesting reading choice.”

It is not a voice you prepared yourself to hear. You weren’t prepared to hear a voice at all, really.

So when you hear the familiar pitch of Landon, your body overcorrects, sending you backward like a startled deer losing traction on ice.

You see the next ten seconds in a flash: the hollow thunk of your head on the pole behind you, the stuttering apologies delivered as your vision tunnels, the concussion protocols that will surely haunt you for weeks, months, possibly forever.

But those ten seconds never actually happens.

Instead, you cautiously peer up into the flat, coolly appraising expression of Langdon, whose hand is placed behind your head, taking the brunt of the impact.

“Oh. Hi. Dr. Langdon. I, um, this isn’t — I’m not —” You’re already floundering, trying to assemble something defensible out of a situation that is not defensible. “It was recommended,” you say at last, which is true, though not in a way that sounds remotely exculpatory once spoken aloud. “By Javadi. She said it was good, which I assumed meant, like, well-written, not — this. Which I know sounds — I hear it, I hear how it sounds, but I didn’t just, like, seek this out independently. I was curious from a clinical standpoint.”

Shit.

You just lobbed Victoria under the bus didn’t you? And unlike the literal bus, this metaphorical one arrived enthusiastically on time, probably even honked.

You add it to the growing ledger of things you owe her. Coffee, at the very least. Something artisanal, thoughtful, handcrafted.

A note, handwritten in apology, because email would be cowardly and texting would feel insufficient, and really — after what you’ve just done, you’re not sure anything short of ink, paper, and a tangible record of shame could suffice.

He removes his hand, the pressure at the back of your head disappearing as he shifts to rest it along the bench behind you instead.

“Clinical,” he repeats. His eyes flick briefly to the book in your hands, then back to you, unimpressed. “And what have you concluded so far, doctor?”

“Not a doctor yet,” you point out. Not sure why you do. “But, um, just that it’s just not very clear? Like, the scenes move really fast, and I feel like I’m missing steps in between, so I keep trying to visualize what’s happening and I just end up getting stuck on, like… where everything is supposed to go and —” You stop, frowning now. “You — you probably didn’t actually want an answer to that, did you?”

His mouth pulls just enough to suggest he’s entertained despite himself. “Not initially.”

You nod. “Okay, good, because I definitely wasn’t planning to provide detail. Just, you know — general plausibility stuff. Realism concerns.”

“Let me see,” he says, and before your frazzled brain can form an adequate objection, he's already reaching forward, extracting the paperback from your suddenly slackened grasp.

You stand abruptly, the bench scraping in a terrible sound against concrete as you reach for the book.

“You really don’t have to do that.”

A correct statement. Useless, however, as he lifts the novel out of reach without even looking at you, arm extending just enough to make it clear that this is not a negotiation, and also, somewhat insultingly, not even difficult.

You briefly consider climbing him. Scaling him like a distressed, socially compromised marsupial and retrieving the book by force.

It feels like a viable solution. You dismiss it only on the grounds that in the last five minutes alone, accumulated enough embarrassment to sustain a normal person for at least two lifetimes.

And theoretically there should be a cap.

There is not, apparently.

Because after a brief glance at the page, he starts reading aloud: “She sank down on him with an aching slowness, savoring the stretch of it, the sweet friction that made her pulse flutter faster with every roll of her body. His hands gripped her waist, guiding her, keeping her there while the pleasure mounted in teasing waves until she was shaking with it, desperate and almost there.”

You feel the heat spark up your spine and towards you neck before saturating your face. The intensity momentarily blurs your vision.

Your hands tighten uselessly at your sides, a strange, unfamiliar tightness coiling low in your stomach.

You try your very hardest not to let your mind start making substitutions. You try not to let the faceless bodies on that page acquire identifiable features. A chin dimple, for instance. You try not to let the voice in front of you fuse itself any further to the text than it already has.

You wrench your gaze upward, fixing it somewhere behind his left ear, hoping that physical distance might somehow dilute your newfound imagination that just five minutes ago you were bashing.

He closes the book with a snap, eyebrow arched. “Sounds perfectly reasonable.”

“I mean, maybe,” you respond, a little too quickly. “If there were just… more specifics? Like, about the positioning. The angle, or where —” You take a quick breath. “Never mind.”

“And exactly how would you clarify it?”

“I’d probably just… add another line,” you say. “Like, specify that her hips are lower, or that her weight is shifted forward so her center of gravity is closer to his. Just so it’s clear what’s actually happening.”

He doesn’t say anything right away and when his eyes flick forward again, they look a little different beneath the dark of the sky, the blue of them deepened into something richer. A little less straightforward, you think. Lapis held in low light, saturated in silver strips and a little too pretty.

You watch as his tongue drags across his lower lip, the briefest glimpse of moisture highlighting the subtle contours and fine, shallow ridges of texture there.

“If you’re that concerned with accuracy,” he murmurs, “I’m sure there’s ways to run a practical demonstration.”

You have a hard time understanding what he means by that and when your mind does attempt to furnish the words with imagery, you have to recoil from your own thoughts.

Does he mean with him?

No, surely not, that is not where he wanted this conversation to go, and besides, that interpretation feels reckless, egotistical even, considering he is almost certainly saying it in the most neutral, solution-driven sense possible.

If that’s what he’s saying at all. He might not be. You can’t tell.

He is offering a suggestion for you.

You are the one making it weird.

“Oh. Well, it’d probably end up being more complicated than it’s worth. I’d need a controlled setup, probably multiple attempts, and at that point it’s less a demonstration and more a full reconstruction.”

A muscle feathers along his jaw as he tips his face towards the moon-lit sky. He seems to do that a lot. Like he’s appealing to some higher power for fortitude to deal with you. Or maybe not you specifically, which would be preferable, expect it does feel rather like you are the central to the current crisis, you just aren’t sure how.

Then he exhales a small laugh, thin with disbelief, and shakes his head once. 

“You’re right,” he says, voice deadpan. “Clearly I wasn’t thinking this through. Practicality first.” He glances pointedly at his watch. “It’s late. I’ll give you a ride home.”

You accept his offer without arguing, you’d be a fool not to, and trail him out toward the parking lot. A step behind, then a half step, then back again. You can’t quite decide on the appropriate proximity.

When you reach the row of cars, you realize you’ve never seen his before.

It’s nice. Grey, practical, a four-door SUV that screams fiscal responsibility and weather-appropriate footwear, a vehicle with divorced-dad energy so specific you can practically invent the rest of the man around it: patient at youth soccer, quietly resentful in a grocery store parking lot, pretending not to be wounded by logistical disappointments. 

The interior only deepens the impression. It is clean, but not in a forbidding way, not scrubbed of personality.

There is a toy in the cupholder, a crumpled napkin tucked into the side compartment, a few fast-food receipts scattered near the floor like the residue of a life conducted at speed.

It feels lived in, which is somehow more intimate than if it had been spotless.

It is, disconcertingly, human. More human than you expected from a man who often carries himself like a sealed document. 

Nice, you think again, and then, unhelpfully, him, the two notions beginning to blur together before you can stop them.

It’s a relatively quiet drive to start. The radio tuned to some Catholic station it must have picked up nearby, murky and hard to decipher, while streetlights drift past in bands of orange and green, staining the inside of the car with color and then taking it back.

“Javadi really recommended that?” Frank asks suddenly, piercing the silence.

“Yeah,” you admit, then wince almost immediately. “Well, sort of. I mean, I probably should not make it sound like she shoved it into my hands in some kind of corrupting-the-youth campaign. She mentioned it, but I was already curious. It was not not my idea.” You glance down, suddenly very interested in your own hands. “I’ve just been trying to do a little research, I guess.”

His fingers tap once against the steering wheel.

“And what, specifically, are you hoping to learn?”

Your mouth presses thin for a second. You’re not sure if you should continue.

“I was mostly just trying to get a better sense of... how certain things work in real life,” you say, picking each word carefully. “As opposed to in theory. Or in whatever version of reality people usually pretend is self-explanatory.”

He says nothing at first. Then through grit teeth: “You mean because no one’s explained it to you?”

You glance over, caught a little off guard by the question. “Well, not in any useful sense.”

His jaw flexes. 

“And the alternative,” he says slowly, “was assigned reading.”

You wince. “When you phrase it like that, it does sound bleak.”

“When I phrase it like that, it sounds like you’re trying to teach yourself something most people learn by experience.”

“Well,” you mumble, “yes. More or less.”

The light changes and he brakes, the red wash from the signal pouring through the windshield and across his face, tinting his skin rose-gold.

He screws his eyes shut for a brief second, hands drawing tighter on the wheel before he exhales.

“In that case,” he says, opening his eyes again, “I’m not entirely convinced that’s the most reliable educational resource.”

“Why?” you ask, with enough sincere confusion to make it clear you are not arguing so much as requesting clarification. 

The light turns green.

“Because it’s not source material. It’s entertainment.” His tone stays level, but only just. “It takes whatever is most dramatic, most flattering, most appealing, and presents it like it’s standard. It leaves out the parts that are inconvenient or unsexy, which means if you treat it as educational, you’re going to come away with a very distorted sense of how any of it actually works.”

“I guess that makes sense,” you say. “There were definitely sections where I kept thinking, surely that cannot be how that happens. Or at least not without significantly more preparation, flexibility, or orthopedic intervention than the text was willing to acknowledge.”

“So I gathered.”

You fall quiet after that, though not for lack of further questions. In fact the opposite is true, because now he has accidentally positioned himself as a person with knowledge of how sex works.

But that would be inappropriate on at least six different levels. 

He is driving you home as a favor, not volunteering to become some kind of after-hours consultant on the mechanics of sex, and there is no universe in which asking for elaboration would make you seem anything other than catastrophically unwell.

You almost ask him anyway. 

But before you can make what would almost certainly be the worst possible decision available to you tonight, the car slows, turns, and then stops. 

You stare at the windshield, disoriented by the fact that you are suddenly at your apartment.

“Right,” you say, gathering your bag with the abrupt, clumsy movements of someone trying to recover from her own thoughts. “Thank you. For the ride.”

He gives a brief nod, one hand still resting on the wheel. “It was no trouble.”

You do not believe that for even a second. Still, you murmur goodnight and let yourself out, hurrying inside with as much dignity as can be salvaged after a conversation like that.

A couple days later, you’re sitting in the breakroom with your head propped in your palm, devoting a frankly heroic amount of effort to not drop face-first into the laminate.

You are exhausted, which is surely unrelated to the fact that you stayed up too late conducting what can only be described as independent research.

There is, it turns out, an astonishing amount of positions.

More than seems necessary, honestly. Far too many names. Far too many diagrams. So many that appear to require either exceptional upper body strength or a level of mutual coordination that feels statistically unlikely in the average civilian population. 

Some are perfectly straightforward. Many are not. Several seem just down-right wrong.

The door opens and you glance up, prepared to offer some vague nod of recognition to whoever has come to interrupt your private collapse. 

Langdon.

“Oh,” you say, straightening a little too quickly. “Hi, Dr. Langdon.”

That seems to be your automatic response to his presence.

His eyes narrow. “Rough morning?”

You give a small shrug. “M’fine.”

“You’ll have to excuse my skepticism.” He drags the chair across from you and sits.

“Just stayed up too late.” 

You hope that doesn’t inspire follow-ups.

He slides something across the table toward you. A book. You stare at the cover. Then at him. 

“This,” he says, tapping two fingers once against the cover, “is at least designed to explain things.”

Slowly, as if touching it too fast might make this more real, you pick it up and turn it over.

The back is dense with tidy paragraphs about desire, arousal, and the science of how women’s bodies actually work, all written in the reassuring language of expertise, which would be comforting if your pulse were not currently behaving like it had something to hide.

“That’s… unexpectedly thoughtful,” you murmur. “Thank you.”

“Don’t make too much of it.”

“I won’t,” you say, which is a lie so poorly constructed it barely qualifies as one.

You are, in fact, almost certain to make too much of it later, probably in bed, probably while staring at the ceiling. 

Then the door opens again. You nearly jump. You pull the book against your chest like you are protecting classified material. Langdon’s eyes narrow a fraction.

Garcia steps inside a second later, pauses, and looks between the two of you.

“...Am I interrupting something weird?” she asks.

You stand so quickly the chair legs scrape against the floor.

“Nope,” you say. “Not at all. Nothing weird. Not even slightly.” You clutch the book tighter. “I do, however, suddenly need to go be elsewhere. For work-related reasons. Very legitimate ones.” You nod once. “Okay. Bye.”

It’s late when you finally start to read the book Langdon gave you. Your first mistake, really. You have to be up in four hours. Four.

But the book turns out to be more useful than expected. It has information. Real information. Terminology and diagrams and explanations that move in a sequence a human brain can follow, one thing leading intelligibly to the next instead of that gauzy, vague, everyone-just-knows-what-to-do, magical event nonsense.

And this all should, theoretically, be enough to satisfy you.

Except every answer you get splits open into three more questions, hydra-style, the whole thing multiplying the second you think you have a grip on it.

And yes, sometimes Google is enough. But sometimes it is not.

Too broad, too contradictory, too many tabs open at once, too many Reddit posts written by men with misplaced confidence.

So now you are sitting on your bed staring at your phone, typing a message, deleting it, retyping it, deleting it again. Because this is weird. It is weird to text him.

But then again, he did hand you the book.

He did, in a very real sense, amplify this situation. And maybe giving you additional reading material counts as tacit approval for further questions. A follow-up. Continuing education.

You hit send.

hi dr. langdon. sorry. i have a question about the book!

It takes only a couple seconds for him to answer.

Go ahead.

You sit up so fast the book slides off your leg and drops onto the bedspread with a soft thump.

You stare at the screen.

You expected eventuality, a response tomorrow morning maybe, sometime after sunrise, sometime under the polite cover of daylight when everybody involved could collude in pretending this was a normal academic exchange and not you texting a senior resident after dark about sex-adjacent material like you were requesting clarification on electrolyte imbalance.

You glance at the clock and frown.

What is he even doing up?

Surely you didn’t wake him. You cannot imagine he sleeps with his ringer turned up loud enough for that. No, he feels like a phone-on-silent, notifications-curated, emergency-contacts-only kind of man.

You spend four minutes composing the question. You send six words.

what does “building sensation” actually mean?

Need more context than that.

You photograph the page. You send it. You put your phone face down on the quilt and do not look at it for a full minute.

When you finally make yourself turn the phone over, he’s answered.

It’s the physiological buildup to orgasm. Increased blood flow, heightened sensitivity, pelvic muscle tension. Sustained and constant stimulation. The sensation compounds on itself.

Your thumb catches idly on the hem of your pajama shorts, worrying the fabric back and forth while you stare at the screen. It takes a long amount of time to realize you’re doing it. You stop. Then start again without meaning to, fingertips slipping under the edge to press against your thigh. 

is consistency about location or pressure or both? the book implies they're interchangeable.  

Both. Generally location first, then pressure. If you keep changing where you’re touching, it’s harder to build anything. If the location is consistent but the pressure is erratic, same problem. They’re related, but not interchangeable.

Your free hand has drifted north to the waistband of your shorts, thumb pressing little crescent moons into overheated skin. Almost feverish.

Location first. 

An unfortunate instruction to receive while being aware of the exact location in question, muted now by two thin layers of cotton.

You should stop there. Obviously.

You should set the phone down, turn off the lamp, go to sleep, and revisit all of this in the morning when you are less suggestible. 

Instead your hand keeps moving, slow enough that you can perhaps pretend you have not consciously decided anything, slipping lower until it hovers over your underwear, where your clit presses back against the fabric. Swollen. And then lower than that, wet.

That startles you more than anything. From what, exactly? A sex manual? A few texts? Him?

No. That last one is inadmissible. Wildly inappropriate.

So you drag your mind back to the book instead, using it as a kind of corrective, something technical to blunt that he is, however indirectly, implicated in this. 

Start with indirect stimulation. Let the body acclimate. Don’t rush the thing. Let the thing, apparently, arrive on its own like a skittish woodland creature you are trying not to scare off.

Fine. Whatever. 

You press your thumb down and make a circular motion, sucking in a breath so sharply it almost hurts, mostly because the sensation is immediate and strange and good. You wouldn’t say overwhelming. Though maybe you would. You can’t think straight. Surprising, then. Concentrated.

Like pressing a bruise, except the complete inverse of that, if they lit up instead of aching. It makes you want to do it again.

So you do.

Small circles. Experimental. Testing the waters.

And it’s not like this is technically new. You have tried before.

But before was rushed and graceless and was the sort of thing done half-curiously and abandoned quickly, with no patience for your own body.

You were raised sheltered, and beyond that, serious. Preoccupied with things that seemed more pressing, more worthy of your attention, as though this part of yourself could be indefinitely postponed without consequence. 

You pick the phone back up with your unoccupied hand.

okay. that makes sense.

You stare at it, dissatisfied. Too final. Too capable of ending the conversation. You add another line before you can overthink yourself out of it.

and if the sensation is building, when are u supposed to switch? like to inner stimulation, i mean. or are you not supposed to unless what you’re already doing stops working?

The typing bubble appears instantly.

You don’t have to switch. That’s the first thing.

External stimulation is usually more important, especially early on. Inner stimulation is optional, not a required next step.

Little gasps keep escaping you as you refine the motion, not changing much, just enough pressure to sharpen it, back arching into the mattress.

It feels good. You don’t remember it ever feeling this good.

Maybe because before did not involve a very attractive doctor explaining your own body back to you in real time.

It is getting harder to text. Harder to think in complete sentences. Still, you manage, so if it’s working, is it better to not change anything? even if it starts feeling a lot more sensitive?

Your phone starts ringing.

You freeze when Frank's name flashes across the screen.

For a moment you can only stare. Your pulse jumps in your throat, fluttering there like something trapped, and then you are yanking your hand from your shorts and grabbing for the phone with fingers that suddenly seem to belong to someone much less coordinated than you.

“Hi —,”

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” you ask, though your voice already sounds guilty, chest rising and falling unevenly. “I’m — nothing. I’m just reading.”

“You’re not a very good liar.”

You frown at the dark ceiling. “I hate the confidence with which you say things.”

“It’s usually earned.”

You make a face at that, even though he cannot see it.

“I wasn’t prepared for a pop quiz,” you mutter. “You called out of nowhere.”

“A call seemed appropriate,” he says through the soft buzz of static.

“Why?”

Your whole body feels keyed up now, strung too tight, humming with a surplus of energy like you have been plugged into the wall and simply left there to glow.

It's hard to keep still under the blankets. Harder with his voice in your ear, that low grain of it roughened by the hour, touched with that tired edge that makes him feel closer than he is. He sounds warm. He sounds half-undone.

You can picture him without trying. In bed. Hair rumpled from sleep or from his hand shoved through it one too many times, one stray piece fallen near his eyes. Maybe in pajamas. Maybe not. Either option is equally disruptive. You brain offers a shirt pushes up a little, one arm behind his head, a strip of stomach, a line of hair disappearing into plaid boxers.

You shift on the mattress. Your hand trails back down your front, fingers resuming their place on your underwear.

“Because your last text didn’t read like a theoretical question,” he says. “I wanted to hear whether I was right.”

The words move through you, like he has reached through the phone and pressed a hand flat to your lower stomach.

“And were you?”

Your hips shift on the mattress again, angling into your own touch.

You bite your lip around the small throb of pleasure that follows.

“Yeah. I was.” His voice comes through coarser now, the line fuzzing around it, but not enough to hide the change. “And if I’m hearing you correctly, you haven’t stopped.”

You squeeze your eyes shut.

“...maybe.”

There's a brief pause on the line. You hear the rustle of him moving, before he speaks again. “Tell me exactly what you're doing.”

“I’m, uh…” You mouth goes dry. “I mean, you know.”

“I can’t tell you what to do if you won’t tell me what you’re doing,” he says. “You need to be specific.” 

You swallow.

“I’m touching over my underwear,” you admit finally, the words coming out hushed and a little uneven. “Just with my thumb. I’m not really… doing anything more than that.”

A soft exhale crackles through the phone.

“That’s good,” he murmurs. “Tell me if it feels good.”

Your lashes flutter at the words. Your thumb keeps tracing the same spot, a little more rhythmically now, and every so often your hand falters when the sensation catches unexpectedly bright, a live wire under your skin.

Flashing hotter and hotter and hotter until you can barely stand it.

Your thighs draw in on instinct, then ease apart again, restless, unable to decide whether they are trying to hold the feeling or escape it.

“Mhm.” It’s all you can manage. 

You start to picture him again. Existing in real time in the dark on the other end of the line now.

It sends the throbbing in your cunt up tenfold, sharp little bursts of color flying behind your eyelids, green and orange and something almost gold.

You use your imagination to conjure up the image of him doing the same. Him with the phone in one hand and the other moving in lazy unhurried strokes around his cock, like this is no great strain for him, like he is as controlled in private as he is everywhere else.

You wonder what it looks like. His cock. Probably big and pink and veiny.

You know, rationally, that he is probably not doing that at all. He is probably just lying there in the dark, listening, talking, being composed for both of you.

But it is a nice thought anyway. More than nice, really. Your body answers it before you can caution it otherwise, your clit going heavier and more swollen, as you move to touch yourself without the barrier of your panties. It’s more sensitive that way. And your whole lower half seems to lean vainly into your own hand, practically preening toward the touch.

“Now I’m, um, touching myself directly.”

“Alright. Want you to try something. Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah,” you say quickly. A little too eager. “I can.”

“Good girl.” The praise makes your stomach tighten. “Want you to slide two fingers into yourself a little. Not all the way, just enough to get them wet, okay? Then bring them back to your clit and keep using your thumb, or your fingers if that feels easier. Same pace as before.”

You nod even though you know he can’t see it and slip two fingers down, enough to feel the sticky warmth of yourself, coating your digits.

You bring it back up, smearing it over your nub.

“Oh,” you mumble breathily.

“Yeah?” he teases quietly. “That better?”

“A lot.”

“Good. It’s easier like that. Less friction. If you’re getting more sensitive, too much drag starts working against you.”

He’s right. He’s always right. You feel a little strange and floaty now, like your whole body has narrowed down to one incandescent point.

“How do you know all this?” you prod.

A pause. Then, “Experience.”

“Right. That.” Another circle, another spark of pleasure down your spine. “I don’t exactly have that.”

“I gathered.”

Something in his tone makes you go a little still. Not enough to stop, but your hand falters, tightening around a thought before you can even identify it.

He notices immediately. He has some terrifying sonar for you specifically, some private frequency calibrated to every tiny shift in your breathing, every dropped beat, every half-second hesitation.

“Hey,” he says pointedly. “Don’t get in your head now. Never said it was a bad thing. Keep going. Think about something else.”

“Such as?” you whisper.

There’s the sound of breathing from the phone before he answers, “that’s up for you to decide.”

You suck in a sharp breath, squirming as you adjust phone closer to your ear

“Can you just… keep talking to me?”

There’s a huff on the other end, almost a laugh. “That’s not very specific.”

“I know.” You’re sure you’re not making much sense right now. “I just — don’t stop. Please. Just wanna hear you say anything.”

He’s quiet for a second, like he’s trying to decide what, exactly, you’re asking for. The problem is, you’re not entirely sure either.

You only know there’s a strange, tightening warmth low in your stomach, something gathering there, and his voice seems to nurture it instead of breaking it apart.

You hear something clang on the other end of the phone.

“Fuck. Okay. First need you to breathe, okay? You're tensing up, I can hear it. Relax your legs.”

You try to do as you're told.

In. Out. In. Out.

Each breath feeding the whole thing oxygen, driving you nearer and nearer to the vanishing point until your eyes threaten to roll back and your body feels like on extended nerve.

“I —” A breath. “Sorry, I just —” Another one. “Frank I think I'm — I'm close, I think, I don't — It's really intense and I don't know what I'm —” You lose the thought entirely. “I just don't know what I'm supposed to do when it starts feeling like this. Do I stop, or —”

“Shit baby, you've never gotten there before? Not even —”

“No,” you manage.

“Oh, poor thing.”Quiet. Almost to himself. “Okay. ‘S okay. Don't stop. I need you to stay with me and just let it happen, can you do that?”

“I think —”

“Don't think,” he cuts you off. “For once in your life, don't think. Just feel it.”

Something in you finally gives.

You feel all of it at once.

Your orgasm peaks so fast it almost feels like losing power everywhere at the same time, every room going dark together, and your back comes off the pillows and your hand presses harder before you even mean for it to and a gasp tears out of you, high and helpless and so unlike anything you have ever heard from yourself that for a second it barely sounds like yours.

“That’s it,” Frank says, low in your ear.

It rolls. That's the only word for it.

It rolls outward from your pussy in a slow, stunned series of tremors moving through your thighs, your spine, your chest, each wave its own distinct thing and yet not distinct at all, each one its own event, its own brief undoing.

You cannot do anything except lie there and take it, receive it as it passes through you, because there is nothing else available to you now, no other function left online, no thought, no dignity, no language, only this long bright aftershock and your body answering it whether you understand it or not.

Your breathing takes a while to come back to anything recognizable.

At first it is just air dragged in and let back out. Sweat has glued a few strands of hair to your forehead. Your hand has gone slack.

“You still with me?”

That is when your brain comes back. All at once. Hard. Fast.

Because now you are not just a body coming down from an orgasm.

Now you are yourself again. And Frank Langdon just talked you through getting off.

Frank Langdon, your coworker. Frank Langdon, your superior. Frank Langdon, whom you have just used as a combined anatomy instructor, practical demonstration guide, and live sex education resource.

“Yes, yeah, sorry.” You swallow, wipe at your forehead with the heel of your hand. “I'm here.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says. “Your sensitivity's going to be elevated for a minute, so just let your muscles relax and let your breathing even out. If you feel shaky, that's normal. If you heart's racing, also normal. Get some water when you can. Sit up slowly if you're going to move.”

“Okay,” you murmur, because he sounds so certain that for a second it is easy to borrow some of it. You try to unclench by degrees, thighs, stomach, shoulders, one thing at a time. “I am a little shaky, which is good to know is normal and not, like, a sign that I’ve accidentally broken something."

“No,” he says, and there is that low note of dry amusement under it now, just enough to catch. “You didn’t break anything. If you had, trust me, we’d be having a very different conversation.”

“Right, no, I know. Though sex-related injuries are not exactly unheard of. Do you remember that girl in the ER who had a condom stuck in her for over two months and didn't realize it? That would suck."

"Mm. It would," he agrees. "Protection is important. Equally important to make sure it actually comes back out with you."

You let out a small giggle at that and shift on the bed, drawing yourself up a little slower this time, careful like he told you to bed. The quilt bunches under your legs.

A quiet opens up. And it might be comfortable if it with anyone else. But it is not with anyone else.

You break first.

“So what happens now?” you ask, trying for light and missing by a little. “Do we pretend this was a totally normal educational exchange and never speak of it again?”

“I don’t think you’re capable of pretending that,” he says.

You flush hot all over.

“And you are?”

A pause.

“No.” The room goes still around you. You wait for him to elaborate. He doesn’t, but he does say: “You should get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Probably.”

You have to be up in three hours now. Have to see him in four.

Another beat. Neither of you hangs up.

Then, very quiet, very even, he says, “Next time, ask sooner.”

“Next time?”

“If you’re going to use me as a reference source,” he says, all dry composure again, though now it feels a little put on, “I’d prefer a more reasonable hour.”

Your cheeks heat with the power of a thousand suns.

“Oh, well, Dr. Langdon, I think —”

“Goodnight.”

The line clicks dead.

You lie there staring into the dark, phone still pressed to your ear, and understand with awful, perfect clarity that this has not ended anything at all.

More gaps in your knowledge.

And you really hate gaps.

A/N: this has been sitting in my drafts 4 ten thousand yrs!!!!!!!! thinking about writing a part two but we shall see. anyway thanks for reading!! love ya always

A soft sun welcomes the calm morning. It streaks through the windshield of Robby's recently swapped Ford Ranger. Unlike his bike, it's built for the curvy, tree lined roads of the small northern town he's traipsing through.

His lids start to droop, stomach growling from the endless hours of driving. He perks up at a neon sign cutting through the pale blue skies. Soon thereafter, wafts of bacon, coffee, and oil drift through his cracked windows, and his stomach does the steering for him.

He's the only car in this parking lot, and he's surprised to see a little white building with pink trimming. Bright pink letters splash across the white wooden door.

Petal and Bloom- it reads in loopy letters, and stepping through the door is like walking through a time machine. It's pure 50s, a vibrant turquoise coating the walls, peach booths lining the width of the pink and white checkered floor.

He can't help but let a chuckle escape his lips, the giddiness knocked completely out of him at the sight of the waitress that greets him.

You're pretty. Gorgeous, even. The shiny gloss of your lips, the curve of your hips, the blush painting your cheeks- they make his heart skip in a way he thought wasn't possible anymore.

You sidle up to him, the sweetest diner dress adorning your figure. It's pink, with a pretty name looped into the stitching. It hangs off your frame with ease, pulled tight at the waist by your white apron. You bounce on your tennis shoes, a sweet smile on your sweet face.

"Hi! Dining in?" You chirp, and it's so perky he debates getting a coffee.

"Yeah, just me," Robby huffs, nodding his head and averting his gaze.

Looking at you nearly paralyzes him, but looking and talking to you? He feels like he's 14 again, talking to Patricia Connors at her locker the week before homecoming.

He slides into the booth you cheerily lead him to, cheeks heating at the new position. He looks up at you now, the early morning sun coating you in a golden glow. Your eyes sparkle in the light, and he swallows a thick lump in his throat.

"What can I get started for you, sir?" You ask, and guilt pools in his stomach at the name.

"Please, call me Robby," he waves you off, and you nod lightly. Your instant obedience gets his heart racing, and he smooths a hand down the back of his neck. It does nothing to self soothe.

Chill out, you gross old man, he kicks himself, clearing his throat before answering you.

"Can I just start with a coffee?" He rasps, eyes trained on the menu in front of him, only darting them up when you walk away.

The sway in your hips nearly knocks him unconscious, dark dots literally starting to pepper his vision. The clink of a cheap plastic glass snaps him out of his senselessness.

He sees water, accompanied by a mug of coffee and a piece of toast he's surprised was made so fast.

"You looked like you were about to pass out," you say, apprehensively.

He makes the mistake of looking up at you, your small smile rendering him breathless.

"Thanks," he breathes, and it's a pathetic croak in the back of his throat.

You chuckle, flipping your notepad open. You poise a pink pen to the paper, a pensive brow pointing right at him.

"What else can I get you?" You ask, and he rattles off his order- unable to resist the bacon he smelled a mile back.

"Alright, that'll be a while," you quip, snapping it shut in the wake of his confusion. "As you can see, we're packed to the brim. There's no way the kitchen will be able to get this out in under an hour. That okay?"

The empty sound of the diner fills the space between you. You're joking. He knows, somewhere deep in his semi-consciousness that you are, but his exhausted haze clouds his logical reasoning.

"What?" Is all he can manage, and he wants to kick himself.

"Nothing, sir," you chuckle, and miraculously, he doesn't feel embarrassed or ashamed, but endeared, almost. "I'll be back shortly."

He watches you walk away again, and curses under his breath. He runs a flat palm down his face, trying to scrub out the weariness in his eyes. His heart pounds a symphony against his chest, ringing even in his ears.

He has no idea what happened back there, can't remember a single time he dropped the ball while flirting. It came so easily to him in Pittsburgh, when he was at his worst.

Another thing clicks, something his therapist has taught him to identify. When we recover from trauma, our brain puts together puzzle pieces that have been scattered around for too long. Or something like that.

He makes a match now, realizing that his desperation for validation projected on his female counterparts, romantic or not. It's jarring for a moment, but he's gotten better at acknowledging it, deciding what he'll do better in the future, and moving on.

It's methodical, the steps to this procedure. It feels right for his brain, to check things off in a sort of list. It feels less daunting, actually doable for him.

Once again, his thoughts are interrupted by plastic dishware clinking on the table. He perks a little, the steam of his eggs and scent of his bacon enough to restart his nervous system.

He nods his head at you, muttering a small thank you, heart sinking a little at the thought of your interaction being over.

Like you can read his thoughts, you slide into the booth across from him, propping your chin in your hand.

"Is this okay?" You ask, smiling. "You seem like you could use a little bit of company."

You have no idea, he thinks.

"That'd be great, thanks," is what he says. He glances around, looking for any other employee in the building. "This won't get you in trouble, will it?" He asks, voice quieter than it was before.

A chuckle stifles past your lips, and the sound swirls around his head like little blue birdies in a cartoon. He feels like a caricature around you, a dopey, wide eyed Popeye, smitten by Olive Oil.

"No," you respond, and relief washes over him. "My best friend owns this place, she's not even clocked in. Still hungover from last night."

There's a teasing lilt to your voice, and he smiles, thinking about what it must be like to know you. To have known you, well enough to work together and live in the same small town together.

He does laugh at this information, eyes finding his plate. He grabs a piece of bacon, nibbling on it lightly without breaking eye contact.

"So, what brings you to our little corner of the world?" You ask him, with the familiarity of a life lived in the same place.

He shrugs, looking at the window to survey the scene. It's remote, located off the highway on the right and a small side street to the left. The left hand road leads to a slightly bigger downtown, if his strained vision proves correct.

"I'm a doctor," he starts, and it feels foreign falling from his lips. "I was…" he starts, and all the possible things he could say dance around in his brain. "…burnt out," is what he lands on.

That's one way to put it.

Your mouth twists downward, brows furrowing. It's not pity, though, and it's not sympathy, either. Both of those would have immediately triggered something deep and angry within him.

No, what he sees is more like empathy. The glint in your eye, the purse of your lips, the nod of your head tells him that you relate. It's what he's choosing to believe, anyway, as he doesn't have any factual information to back this up. He feels it pretty strongly, though, and he's learning that's not always a bad thing.

"I get what that's like," you sigh, and his ears perk up like a dog.

His heart pounds at the immediate validation, swirling a euphoric rush through his veins.

"Yeah?" He asks, voice lilting and a bit pitchy.

You nod again, pretty gold earrings dangling with the motion.

"I just got fired," you admit, and now it's his turn to frown. "That's why I'm working at my best friend's diner at 28."

There's a civil war brewing inside him, the guilt of hearing your age at battle with the giddiness your vulnerability makes him. It all results in a sore tummy, and he shovels scrambled eggs in his mouth to try and tamper it down.

"Please," he says, once he's swallowed, taken a sip of water and grounded himself. "You have your entire life ahead of you."

There's a brief pause in your rapport, then, the weight of his words hanging heavier than intended. You don't seem to mind, unless, again, his calculations are incorrect. He's been proven to read you pretty well so far, though, so he's hopeful.

The sparkle in your eye helps. The sun is now fully up, hanging high in the sky as mid-morning dawns on the both of you. It shines through the window, landing perfectly on you.

It takes his breath away, and he allows himself a moment to sink into it, to enjoy it. Instead of feeling guilty, racking his brain for all the reasons he wouldn't deserve to even enjoy a nice conversation, he indulges. That's what the sabbatical is for, right?

"And you don't?" You ask.

His face crinkles in a smile, dipping his head down to try and hide the wrinkles around his eyes. Shock paralyzes him when he feels your soft fingers tucking under his jaw and lifting him back up to you.

You're smiling when he meets your gaze, but then you give him a showy pout. It sends a cacophony of butterflies loose in his belly, and he feels like a school boy. He sips on his coffee, the caffeine doing nothing to quell the giddiness erupting within him.

"What's that face for?" He asks, and his soft tone surprises him.

"You're not smiling anymore," you jut your bottom lip out, and it's taking everything to not lean over the table, take them between his own lips, and suck.

"Why do I need to smile?" He asks, and feels ridiculous almost instantly.

You deserve to smile, Michael, you deserve to enjoy things, Dr. Parker would say, and he repeats it in his head like a mantra.

"You have these sweet lines around your eyes when you smile," your hand once again brands his skin, now your open palm cupping his cheek.

He's stunned at your abrasiveness, pathetically intrigued by what you have to offer. His cheek heats under your touch, and he spots the tiny smile creeping on your lips.

"They're nice," you remark, removing your hand from his face.

It's cold instantly without your touch, a shiver unzipping his spine at the loss of contact.

The moment floats between you two, vibrant and sparkly like a crystal ball. He knows exactly what his fortune is. He's looking at it.

"So," you say, effectively popping the magical bubble, "a doctor, huh?"

He nods, apprehensive to the topic. He can't remember the last time he talked about his job with someone who knew nothing about it. He can't remember the last time he's been this removed from Pittsburgh. It's…scary. Nice, but scary.

He powers through anyway, allowing himself the fortune he's so gracelessly stumbled upon.

"Yeah," he gruffs, smoothing his hand over the back of his neck.

He can't yet bring himself to say more, bottom lip sliding between his teeth.

"Can I guess what you do?" You ask, and he quickly nods.

This, somehow, eases him. It allows him the vulnerability of sharing the information, without the pressure of finding the right words, racking his anxious mind for something to mask how horrible it's been the past few years.

You stroke your chin with your forefinger and thumb, brows puzzled in the sweetest way. He fights the urge to kiss away the crease between your brows.

"Emergency medicine," you say, and his blood runs cold.

You perk up at his reaction, knowing immediately you got it right.

"Yay!" You squeal, clapping your hands together. "What a crazy coincidence! I don't know why I even guessed that, you just seem like you've seen some shit."

He chuckles at that, a genuine, cathartic chuckle.

"Ooh, you have no idea," he says, and your smile makes his heart race.

"Where is it? Are you guys typically busy?" You ask, and he almost envies your naivete.

"Uh, 's in Pittsburgh," he says, eyes trained on his lap.

His ears are on fire, heart roaring in his chest but he pushes through, even though his voice is croaky and he feels like he might throw up.

"We're a trauma center, so…" he trails off, gaining the courage to look back up at you. "Yeah, I've seen some shit."

You give him a kind smile, a sweet giggle peeling from your lips, and he positively melts. He can't remember the last time someone looked at him like this, like he was something, anything else than Dr. Robby.

"Well, I'm looking forward to hearing some stories," you propose, tone uneasy.

"Yeah, I'm sure I can make that work," he says, sipping his coffee, nibbling his toast.

"How long are you in town?" You ask, and his heart sinks at the thought of ever leaving this cozy bubble.

"I'm here for three months," he says, and is almost prideful by the way you perk up at this news. "Plenty of time to swap stories."

"I can't wait," you reply, and his stomach cartwheels. "Where are you staying?" You ask, and he raises a brow.

"Why? Y'gonna come murder me?" He asks, resting his back against the cushiony booth.

"Yup, you caught me!" You giggle, playing along. It electrifies him.

He laughs, and can't help but notice how easy this feels. It's exhilarating, addicting, and utterly terrifying.

"No," you roll your eyes once your laughter dies down. "I've lived here my entire life and I probably already know exactly where you're at."

"Well, with your track record of guessing things about me," he starts, pulling out his phone to open up his Airbnb app. "You probably will."

He turns his phone around, and goes still once he sees your face fall. You grab his phone, pinching the screen to zoom in and out, eyes glossing over. His gut twists, and he feels absolutely awful.

Before he can spiral, he decides to take action instead.

"I'm so sorry, did I say something?" He asks, shaky fingers plucking his phone back.

You shake your head, wiping a stray tear from the corner of your eye.

"Gosh no, no not at all," you insist, and it does nothing to sway his guilt. "That's actually uhm-" you swallow, and his heart sinks even deeper. "That's my grandparents' cottage."

"Oh," he blinks, unsure how to take this news.

"They always rent it out over the summer. They're in the Hamptons," you roll your eyes, and he can tell there's more to this story. "My whole family is, actually."

For the first time this entire conversation, you seem…small. You're avoiding his gaze, fiddling with your apron, pouting your lips.

"And you're here?" He asks, and you just shrug.

"I just moved back from New York, actually," you confess, and he leans forward, giving you his full attention. "I got fired from the marketing firm my grandfather owns."

His mouth twists downward, once again heeding your earlier understanding.

"One of the jackass accountants tried feeling me up," you say, and the confession rocks him. Not only does your brazen confidence scare the shit out of him, he's also overcome with a severe need to beat this preppy New York accountant's ass.

"I reacted maybe a bit…harsher than I should have," you continue. "I turned around and just slapped him. I honestly wasn't thinking, it was an instinctive reaction. So, I got fired for disorderly conduct."

"I'm sorry…" Robby trails off, genuinely confused. "They fired you for disorderly conduct? Not the guy putting his hands where he wasn't fucking supposed to in the first place?"

You nod, to his everlasting fury.

"On top of that, my boyfriend dumped me," you mutter. "Said he couldn't be with a 'snitch', like we're in third grade."

Anger flares white hot within him, furrowing his brows and burning his stomach until there's nothing left but ash.

"I had to come home," you say. "My family is not happy with me. I also have some stories."

"Well, I'm really looking forward to hearing them," he says, only able to offer kindness in wake of this news.

"Likewise," you murmur.

The sun shines between you once again, illuminating Robby's now empty plate. Your eyes find it, and he sees you immediately jump back into waitress mode.

"Let me take care of this!" You chirp, swiping his plate away and whisking it to the kitchen.

He feels cold at the loss of you, eyes trained on your frame the entire time. He watches you ring up the order, bringing his check back to the table.

He opens his mouth to speak, but is forcefully interrupted by the door swinging open.

"Oh. My. God. GIRL!" Another young woman bursts through the door, looking a bit worse for wear.

Her hair is mussy, makeup smeared and clothes wrinkled.

"Is my uniform here?" She asks, skittering through the diner.

"Yeah, in the back!" You shout, and she responds with a comical, "THANK GOD!"

"Aaaand that's Cherry, my best friend," you quip, collecting his payment and dispersing the change. "I'll see you tomorrow, Robby?" You ask, and he nods eagerly.

"Go and get some sleep, you'll need it," you tap your notepad on the table to see him out.

He reluctantly finds the door, slinging his bag over his shoulder before looking back at you one last time.

"And a tip?" You add, and he raises his brow. "The guest bed is comfier than the master bed. Trust me."

"Thanks," he chuckles, pushing the door open, back into the real world.

The next few weeks are almost always a mirror of that first morning. Robby coming in at the break of dawn, you two sitting over a coffee together.

He came in that second day, looking much more rested than the day before, raving about the mattress in the guest room.

You'd laughed, giving him a playful 'told you so!' before assuming the exact same booth he'd had the day before.

Cherry's been more than cool, allowing you to sit and talk with him when you're really supposed to be on the clock.

You repay her in gossip, gushing to her about all the ways the hot, mysterious, older doctor has been flirting with you.

At least, you think he's flirting with you. He dances all around it, a teasing twinkle in his eye, a small smirk on his lips. Cherry's convinced he wants you. You're not so sure.

He always makes a point to confirm with you, and Cherry, that your early morning chats are okay. You can tell he feels guilty every time he asks, and in a sick way, it makes your heart swell. It still doesn't stop him from talking with you until the next customer comes in.

He comes in so early, this typically only happens after you've banked a good hour and change of conversation, each one more titillating than the last.

This morning, you'd finished your conversation with an invite. It was bold, unexpected, tumbling from your lips before you could have stopped it.

"Hey!" You chirp, just as he's about to push the door open. "Cherry and I are hosting a little something after closing hours."

"A little something?" He raises his brow, and your stomach somersaults.

Tonight, you and Cherry were debuting Bloom and Petal: After Hours. It's been a passion project of Cherry's, turning the daytime breakfast bar into a lively night scene.

You reference the framed certificate now resting behind the bar, some fancy scribbling displaying your newly acquired liquor license.

Robby's face shifts in understanding, a small smile hiding behind nervous eyes.

"A bar with a bunch of 25 year olds?" He quirks a brow, and your heart sinks.

You've never really addressed the age gap between you two, though it feels glaringly obvious, and even foolish now. Your face burns, and the words that leave your mouth leave you humiliated.

"For me?" You ask, cringing as they fall out of your mouth like rotten teeth.

He doesn't seem to share this sentiment, though, as his brown eyes glimmer in the light, his telltale sign you've gotten to his soft spot. Your heart rate picks up, and you look at him expectantly.

"Maybe," he murmurs, and you'll take it. It's something. "See you," he says, and he's out the door.

"See you," you breathe, into the empty diner.

Bloom and Petal: After Hours is thumping, and you've been on your feet for hours. Sweat drips from your brow as you weave through the crowd of sticky bodies of people you've known since grade school.

You're thankful to have ditched the thick, cartoony outfit for a pink Bloom and Petal t-shirt, paired with denim shorts. You finally escape behind the bar for a brief moment, attending to a few drinks and avoiding the crowd.

Your eyes keep darting towards the door, expecting a familiar face to walk through. Disappointment spreads deep in your stomach like a disease with each ring of the front bell.

"He's still not here?" Cherry yells over the crowd, and you shake a sad head no.

She rolls her eyes, forever on your side.

"Boo! What a dick! I thought he liked you!" She squeals, and her use of past tense, though unintentional, makes your tummy turn.

"I thought he did, too," you mutter, furiously cranking the beer tap.

Foam aggressively overflows the pint, and you crash it down on to the bar a little too harshly. Cherry rears her head back at this, eyes wide, and now it's your turn to roll your eyes.

"I'm so dumb!" You force a smile, your tone terminally delightful. "The stupidest girl in school!"

Cherry chortles at this, and you give her a sardonic smile. Then, you hear it again.

Ding!

Your head whips towards the door, like a pathetic dog waiting for its long gone owner. Cherry sees this too, wincing at the action.

Shame burns deep in your belly, and you turn, pressing your palms flat on the wall, leaning your forehead against them. A long groan strangles your throat, Cherry rubbing a soothing hand down your back.

"Take a minute, babe, it's been a crazy night," she says before darting to the other side of the bar.

You feel ridiculous, of course he wouldn't show up. He's about twice the age of everyone here, he's clearly here running away from something, and most of all, he's not your fucking boyfriend.

That last fact makes you sick, and you dart into the kitchen to get a fresh breath. You barrel your way through the bustling back to get through the door, bursting open like a treasure chest.

The relief of the fresh air folds you in half, hands resting on your knees as you will yourself not to vomit. Nausea spins your head, quelling with each breath of fresh, summer air.

"Woah!" You hear a familiar voice, and your eyes dart up to find the man you've been looking for all night.

He's like an angel in the fading sunset, approaching you gently from the other side of the parking lot.

"Robby!" You breathe, half chuckle half gasp. "Hi!"

He reaches out a tentative hand as if to steady you, approaching slowly, bending slightly at the knee to look you in the eye.

"You okay, sweet girl?" He asks, and the debut of this pet name does nothing to help your desire to hurl.

You nod, anyway, inhaling deep through your nose and out through your mouth.

"Good job," he mutters, and your knees nearly give out on you.

"Yeah," you swallow thickly. "Yeah, I'm good. I think I just need some water."

"Do you have any out here, sweet girl?" He asks.

You stumble, your heart skipping a beat. Again, with that damn nickname.

"N-no, I don't," you mumble, and you can't tell if the haziness is from Robby, or the overstimulation.

"Stay here, I'll be right back," he darts across the parking lot once more, back to his truck.

Your focus stills on his frame, the way it leaned and stretched into the front seat of his car. Your cheeks burn, shame creeping in your belly.

He's not your boyfriend, you remind yourself. Snap out of it.

He comes back, a steel water bottle rattling with ice. You perk up at the sound, a Pavlovian response driven by dehydration.

He holds out the bottle, and you snatch it from his grasp, savoring each slide of the cool liquid down your parched throat.

You let the straw go with a pop!, a groan of relief escaping your lips. Robby shifts on his feet at the noise, and you choose to think nothing of it.

"Is it okay if I walk you in?" He asks, pointing towards the door. "I just wanna make sure you get back okay."

You nod, wordlessly, letting him guide you toward the door, his arm hovering over your waist. You come back to life step by step, the energy of the bar swallowing you back in the second you cross the threshold.

Your lips wrap around the straw again, vision clearing up with each swallow. Robby taps your hip lightly in approval, and you almost stop to squeeze your legs together.

You burst out of the kitchen, immediately thrust back into the hot, sweaty bubble of the night. He rounds the corner of the bar with ease, propping himself on an empty stool.

It really sinks in, then, him being here. Seeing him, his wide, tired eyes, his soft smile, surrounded by purple and blue and pink flashing lights and bustling twenty somethings.

He's here for you. Your heart sings.

"Thank you for coming," you mutter sweetly. "What can I get you, handsome?"

You count this as revenge for his earlier nickname. You're successful, given his deep blush he tries so sweetly to hide.

"Whatever beer you have on tap, babe," he says, and you shudder.

You give him a curt nod, turning on the ball of your foot to fulfill his order. You tap your foot as you anxiously wait for the glass to fill, butterflies swarming your stomach at the thought of turning around to see Robby again.

You're met with a much worse sight, though. One that completely pops the Robby bubble you've inflated for yourself.

Clean cut brown hair, perfectly tailored suit, $200 tie. The same, sorry excuse of a man that left you alone, deserted in New York, after getting fired from your job.

"Brayden, what are you doing here?" You choke.

Beer threatens to spill over the lid of the glass you're shakily holding. Robby anticipates the situation, reaching two hands out to take his drink himself.

You're suddenly thankful, yet self conscious for his help all at the same time. Your eyes dart back to Robby, then back to Brayden. Back and forth, back and forth.

It's not long before Brayden clocks what's going on, the man sitting next to him. He scoffs, readjusting his tie with an arrogance that makes you want to punch him.

"I'm here to talk some sense into you," he responds, and hearing his voice again after all this time is like nails on a chalkboard. "Clearly you need it."

His eyes dart to his left as he says it, and you burn with rage.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" You size him up. Like always, he takes the bait.

"Your family is fucking furious with you, y'know?" He remarks, and you dip your head in shame. "This little stunt you're pulling?" He circles a finger in the air in reference to the space around him. "It's ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous! I mean- look at you! Are you wearing denim?"

You can't believe the words that are coming out of his mouth, wondering how you could've been so blind to this man's true self.

"I wore denim in New York, you fucking ass," it's the only thing you can think of to say, and you feel like a fucking idiot.

"Not at work," he says, and you roll your eyes. "Any job where you can get away with wearing denim is a job you should never be working at. Can you imagine what your family would say if they saw you right now?"

You cross your hands over your chest, a familiar burn stinging the back of your nose as you will yourself not to cry in front of him.

"I'm sorry," a gruff voice interrupts, and your heart stops.

Robby's holding up a hand in Brayden's direction, who rears his head back in surprise.

"Who the hell do you think you are, talking to someone like that?" he asks, tone poisonous.

It takes you by surprise, eyes anxiously darting back to Brayden

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Brayden scoffs, and your heart pounds in your ears, anxiety thrumming through your veins.

"Does it fucking matter?" Robby responds, and your eyes find the floor.

"Don't think I didn't see you two walking in from the back," he drops, and your body goes white hot with fear. "What do you think your family is going to think when I tell them you're letting a man twice your age fight your battles for you?"

You make the mistake of looking up at him, no longer able to hide the tears pricking your eye. He has an all knowing smirk on his face, and you catch Robby shifting in his peripheral.

"That's not how they raised their strong, nuisance of a girl, hm?" He asks, and Robby slams a hand down on the bar.

"Are you fucking serious?"He asks, wild eyes darting toward you.

You panic, giving him crazy, sad eyes.

"I'm sorry," he gruffs, holding a hand up. "I just can't stand to see him talk to you like this," his voice is quiet, as private as it can be with your ex breathing down his neck.

Your stomach rolls, heart pounding when you see Cherry approach from behind. Anxiety is a pinball within you, hitting each point of your nervous system and sparing no expense.

"Oh. Fuck. NO!" You hear her screech, latching her manicured fingers underneath his shirt collar, yanking him up off the stool.

He squeals, and the sound earns a genuine laugh from you.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here?" She barks at him, using her large waitress tray as a shield, guiding him out the door with each step she takes.

"Thought I'd come see what you managed to scrounge together," he smirks, walking backward toward the door. "Not bad, classy as ever."

"God, that guy fucking sucks," Robby whispers as Cherry bullies him out the door.

"Tell me about it," you gruff, grabbing a damp towel and wiping down the nearest surface you can find. Anything to distract yourself from the heat of his gaze.

A moment of silence beats between you, his eyes trained on you as you do everything in your power to avoid him. The vulnerability of the moment settles over you like a wet blanket, rubbing you raw and making you ache.

"Robby, I think you should go," you whisper, regret lacing every word.

The look in his eye is that of a kicked puppy, and you once again will yourself not to cry.

"What?" He asks, utter confusion in his tone.

"Thank you for coming," you start, a smile on your lips, bright and fake as ever, "but I think he was right. If my family gets wind of what we've been doing-"

"What have we been doing, exactly?" He cuts you off, and you freeze, not expecting this question.

Because, in all honesty, you really don't know what you've been doing.

You like Robby, that much is for certain. You like spending time with him, talking with him, listening to him, but maybe Brayden was right. He's nearly 30 years your senior, you could never have a relationship with him without stirring the pot with your entire family.

Is it worth it? For someone that will be gone in three months?

"I don't really know, Robby," you throw your hands up. "We're…two adults who talk to each other? We're friends?" You let that last question linger, toeing the line on suggesting more than that. You ultimately don't take the bait, and just raise your brow at him instead, begging him to tell you different.

He doesn't, of course, just slides a $10 over the counter, hops off the stool, and leaves.

Your heart sinks, cheeks on fire, and you bury your face in your forearms, laying flat against the bar.

"Ugh!" You groan, tears pricking the corners of your eyes.

What the hell has this man done to you?

You're worse for wear the next morning, a headache splitting your head in two. You bring a hand to your forehead, groaning at the light seeping in through the window.

Folding a pillow over your head, you thrash to the other side, memories of last night coming to you in flashes.

Robby not showing, Robby finding you in the parking lot, Brayden, Robby leaving, the shots Cherry clunk down on the bar after closing…

You're starting to regret that fifth lemon drop as it rumbles your stomach, acid creeping up your throat. You clamp a hand over your mouth, willing the nausea to ebb.

It eventually does, and you feel strong enough to sit up, swing your legs over the side of the bed, and make a sad attempt to stand. Your legs are wobbly to start, but eventually you find your footing, padding into the bathroom.

You freshen up, a mere face wash reviving as you move to the kitchen, desperately clamoring for some coffee and a piece of toast. A buzz on the counter lights up your screen, and you take in a message from Cherry.

Cherry: girl…did robby respond to you yet

Your heart drops, numb fingers swiping rapidly to get to your messages. Robby had given you his number a few days prior, something he tried to keep low key as he scribbled it on his receipt. You remember feeling flushed, like a love sick high school girl who just got asked to the prom.

Now, you just feel sick, actually sick. Opening the messages, an onslaught of drunken nonsense greets you, to your everlasting horror.

RObb

Robb y

H hey

Is your real name robert??? what's up with that

These were just to name a few, and the more you scroll, the worse you feel. Your view is instantly shot back to the very last text you sent- it's just the Spotify link to Go Go Juice by Sabrina Carpenter- and you drop the phone like it's hot as the three, cursed little bubbles pop up.

You scream, literally scream, as the phone clatters onto the counter, making impact with the marble at the same time your toast pops out of the toaster.

You sit in silence with yourself for a minute, then, feeling absolutely ridiculous about the predicament you've gotten yourself in.

Four months ago you were drinking champagne on the fanciest rooftop bars in Brooklyn. You were also more unhappy than you'd ever been.

Meeting Robby has made you feel like yourself for the first time in a very, very long time. And if that's the case, then it can't be that bad, can it?

Your phone buzzes, drawing your attention back to the devilish brick taking up real estate on your counter top.

Robby: My real name is Michael. Last name Robinavitch. Everyone at work calls me Robby. It's easier.

You stare at the words on your screen, tapping your foot anxiously as they settle in. The simplicity of his message is almost laughable, but there's weight to his select words.

He gave you his first and last name, something that feels ridiculously intimate for absolutely no logical reason at all.

As you ponder on how to respond, you come up empty time and time again. Your mind wanders back to that first day, the conversation about his Airbnb.

Before you can consider the possible ethical and moral violations of your actions, you slip your shoes on, grab your keys, and are out the door with your coffee in hand.

You roll up to the familiar, grand cabin with your heart beating a million miles an hour. The adrenaline has finally worn off as you sit in your car, in a deep stare down with the house that you spent most of your childhood in.

You feel so fucking stupid. Why would you even think this was okay? Tears burn your eyes as you scramble for the gear shift, pulling before realizing you hadn't even turned the car back on yet.

Before you can shakily push the button, the door swings open, and you're caught red handed. You freeze, your hands finding a home on the steering wheel, almost in defense in front of you.

He lifts his hand, making a 'come hither' motion with his fingers, and it's embarrassing how immediately you obey.

You swing the door open, stomping across the gravel dirt road to reach the porch. You're breathing hard as you approach him, in his low hanging sweatpants and thin white t-shirt.

And his glasses, oh God, his fucking glasses. It's perfect. He's perfect, you're afraid.

"Your first name is Michael?" You breathe, and he can't help but rear his head back a little.

"Yeah," he huffs, and that, unfortunately, does it for you.

You press your hands on his scruffy cheeks, pressing your lips firmly into his.

He's shocked, at first, going rigid in your arms as you plant one on him.

It doesn't take him long to melt into it, though, gathering his bearings and wrapping his arms around your waist. He pulls you closer to him, your tits pressing against his chest, the thin fabric of both your pajamas leaving little to the imagination.

He stumbles backward into the house, closing the door behind you and pressing you up against it. You shiver at his initiative, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing him against you deeper.

He runs his tongue over your lips, and you pout, desperately wanting his own on you again. He awards your impatience with one, two, three sweet kisses. You beam.

Your lips brush together as you smile up at him, eyes sparkling in the early morning light. You see his brows crease, a self-pitying smirk on his lips.

"God, I am so fucked," he rasps, smashing his lips into yours once again.

Your teeth clink at his intensity, and your tongues swirl each others as he palms your sides, going lower until he reaches your ass.

"Is this okay?" He husks, pressing sweet kisses and kitten licks to your ear.

You nod feverishly against him, and he pinches the plush skin of your ass. You squeal, and he gives you a light smack.

"Words, doll," he demands, and you're once again at his beck and call.

"Yes, God, yes, please," you mewl, eyes shining desperately.

"Good girl," he grunts, pressing his forehead against yours.

He hikes up your thin pajama shirt, pressing delicate kisses down your neck. You can't help but throw your head back into the wall, nails scraping the back of his neck.

His palms find your tits, squeezing and rolling your nipples, pinching every now and again. Warmth blooms deep in your lower belly, squeezing your thighs together at his expansive grip.

"Feel good?" He murmurs against your neck, and you nod desperately. "Arms up," he instructs, and you throw them up like a rag doll.

He slides your shirt over your head, marveling at the sight before pulling you to him, wrapping your legs around his waist as he carries you to the guest room.

You cup his cheeks as you move, peppering kisses all along his face. He chuckles, and your heart swells with the sound.

"Stop!" He laughs, "I can't see," he flops you down on the bed, his gaze on you so entirely vulnerable.

"Sucks," you shrug, making yourself comfortable on the memory foam mattress.

He quirks a brow, resting one knee on the bed.

"Oh, so you wanna be bratty about this, huh?" He poses, sliding his knee between your legs.

"It's the only thing I really know how to be," you reply, snippily.

Your breath catches in your throat as he hovers above you, ghosting his lips over your neck.

"Such a fucking tease, Michael," you breathe, wrapping your arms around his neck.

He allows himself to be pulled in by you, and you revel in every second of the close contact. His hands fly to your waistband, tugging on the elastic band. He presses a kiss at the exposed skin there, and you draw in a shaky breath.

"Can I taste you?" He murmurs against your skin, eyes closed as he takes you in.

"Yes, please," you reply, and he presses a kiss to your hip bone.

"Oh my God," he groans, peeling your bottoms off to reveal your glistening center. "You're so beautiful, fuck."

Your heart swells at his praise, nails digging into his scalp as he dives in. He laps at your collecting wetness, running his tongue up to your clit.

You jump when he flicks the tip of his tongue, swirling around your clit in a way that has you preening. You arch your back off the bed, grinding your pussy into his face to absorb any of the friction he was so generously giving you.

The scrape of his beard adds a special sting to the overstimulation, the sensitive skin of your thighs rubbing raw within minutes. It's a delicious sting, one that you can't seem to care much about at the moment.

He plays in your wetness, teasingly dipping his tongue into your hole, just a little. You gasp at his cruelty, tugging his hair ever so slightly. He groans against you, bringing a thumb up to rub your clit.

He coos at your soft whimpers, the pit in your stomach burning hot as he looks up at you, eyes big and brown and desperate.

He delves his tongue into you fully, his thumb never slowing its assault. Your release is quite rapid, waves of fire dancing over your skin as you roll your hips into his face.

He lets you use him to ride it out, rubbing his face and beard against your sensitive skin to help you through it. You dissolve into the pressure, ears ringing as you come down from your high.

Robby wastes no time crawling up your body, pressing his lips against yours immediately. You moan against his mouth at the taste, and he dips his tongue into your mouth.

Your hand finds his length, big and hard and still confined in those damn gray sweatpants.

"Why are you still fully clothed?" You ask, and he can't help but laugh.

He rolls his eyes, sitting back on his heels to lift his shirt off. He goes to lean back over you then, but you put a hand up, stopping him from going any further.

You take a moment to relish in the sight before you, the dark hair peppering his torso, the soft curve of his tummy. He's gorgeous, and you tell him so.

He flushes red at the compliment, moving your hand gently as he dips down to kiss you again.

"Can't remember the last time I've been called that," he murmurs against your cheek, pressing a light kiss there as he kicks off his pants.

He wasn't wearing underwear, and you thank whatever deity is above for the way his cock springs free, bouncing against his tummy.

The tip is red, angry, pre cum pooling at the center. You can't help but lean forward, darting your tongue out and collecting the salty liquid.

He grips your jaw and stops you from going further, earning him a cute little pout.

"I know, sweet girl. Next time," he kisses the pout off your face, and those last two words echo in your mind.

Next time, next time, next time.

"If you get your mouth on me right now, I'm going to cum," he explains, lining himself up at your entrance. "And believe it or not, I'm not in my twenties. Can't just bounce back like I used to."

Your cheeks heat at his words, teeth biting down on your lower lip as he teases your entrance with his tip.

"But don't worry," he mutters, thrusting into you, hips flush with your ass in one fell swoop. "I'm gonna fuck you real good, baby."

The air is knocked from your lungs, a gasp strangling out of your throat as he hikes your legs higher around his waist. He pulls out, only to slam back in harder, a whine falling from your pouty lips.

He leans down to kiss you as he starts to move, a repetitive rhythm that has you squealing into his neck.

You dig your fingers into his back, throwing your head back onto the pillow. He mouths at your neck, desperate grunts falling from his ow lips.

"So fucking beautiful," he murmurs against your neck. You shudder. "You have any idea how good this pussy feels?" He asks, sitting up on his knees to pick up his speed.

You wail, his balls slapping your ass with each thrust. He holds both of your legs up by your ankles. now, resting them on one shoulder as he continues to drive into you.

"God, Michael!" You whine, throwing your forearms over your eyes.

He shudders at this, kissing your ankle and asking you to call him that again.

"Feels so good, Michael," you whimper, a sweet smile on your face now that you know the damage you cause him. "Gonna make me cum."

He groans at this, and it's guttural. Your pussy squeezes down on him extra hard, the spring in your stomach beginning to coil. He kisses your ankle again, your shin, running his tongue along every spare inch of skin he can find.

You're dizzy underneath him, the world hazy as you bring your hands up to his belly, pressing and groping all of him you can.

"Fuck," a strangled groan wrestles its way out of his throat. "Your hands feel so fucking good, baby," he insists, thrusts nearly erratic. "You like feelin' me? Like how soft I am for you? Even when I'm fucking you like a slut?"

His words spark inside you, exploding like tiny fireworks. You feel your wetness pooling on the bed below, only growing messier at his words. He coos as he feels you gush around him.

"So perfect for me," he whispers, and you nod, taking a fistful of his tummy in each hand. "Love it when you fucking feel me up."

"I love your body, Michael," you tell him, eyes hazy and glossed over. "You're so gorgeous," you repeat your words from earlier, and he shudders above you.

"Pretty girl," he moans, his thrusts growing sloppy. "Want you to cum for me, make me the luckiest guy in the world, yeah?"

That does it, your Earth no longer spinning on its axis as your second orgasm hits you. It's like a freight train, rough and brutal and perfect. His own is soon to follow, his hips pressing flush against your ass as he empties himself inside you.

"Michael," you whine, teary eyes finding his darkened ones.

They soften at your plea for him, maneuvering your legs into a more comfortable position before pulling out. You whine at the loss of him, and he lightly taps your inner thigh.

"I know, sweet girl," he says, getting up from the bed. "You stay there 'n look pretty, hm?" He runs a large hand over your hair as he settles you into the bed. "I'm gonna get you a towel, m'kay?"

You nod wordlessly as you watch him go, selfishly committing his ass to memory.

You watch him nearly melt when he comes back, his reaction to you just…laying in his bed an immediate ego boost. Your heart swells as he gets his hands on you again, gently patting your core dry.

He then squirts some lotion in his hands, rubbing them gently into your raw inner thighs. You hiss at the sting, and he presses a sweet kiss to your lips, shushing you gently.

Once he's done a thorough clean up, he crawls in next to you, taking you in his arms and pulling you flush against him. You whimper, your lower half still sensitive as it pulses around nothing, the feeling of just being close to him so exciting.

He reaches down to pinch your ass, a light chuckle and a "be good," leaving his lips. He kisses you when you nod, muttering something about the best girl in the world.

Your lids grow heavy, and he jostles you slightly before you can fully give in.

"Hey," he starts, licking his swollen lips. "We're gonna talk about those messages when you wake up again, hm?"

Embarrassment floods you again, and you bury yourself into him. He shushes you sweetly, rubbing his hand along your back and pressing a kiss to your head.

"It's okay, it's okay," he validates, and you snuggle into him. "You're okay. I'm not mad, or weirded out or anything. I like you, and I want to talk about this, just not when you're this sleepy," he murmurs against your skin, and you nod desperately.

He clutches a hand on the back of your head, holding you flush to him as you drift to sleep.

The days following your last conversation with Jack have been…tough, to say the least. It's silent, it's tense, almost awkward. It sucks.

Despite your growing feelings for him, you're missing his friendship most of all. You've relished in the camaraderie built between the two of you, the comfort of being together.

Now, you're ships, passing in the night, rummaging through cabinets before and after work, quiet bodies avoiding even a graze of forearms.

It's led you here, soft, flowy pajamas resting against the gritty fabric of the chaise lounge on the pool deck. It's the first time you've been able to use it since you've moved in, something you've been anticipating for weeks.

When you saw he'd uncovered the pool before leaving last night, your heart swelled. Despite his cold exterior, his actions show you there's something warmer inside, you just haven't cracked it open yet.

You take in a deep breath of fresh morning air, reveling in the way the early morning sun glints off the perfectly blue chlorine, the soft morning breeze sparking goosebumps along your arms.

Your book sits in the plush of your thighs, feet laying flat on the chair. The book is debaucherous, smutty in a way that's most definitely corny, and it's all a desperate attempt to fill your brain with anything other than Jack Abbot.

You fail, of course. Because you're his fucking roommate, sitting on his chaise lounge, looking out at his pool, at his fucking house.

Heat rumbles low in your belly, cheeks burning as the knight in your medieval fantasy slowly unravels the maiden's corset. This knight, in your brain, at least, is strong, thick, lean arms wrapping around the maiden, curls poking out of his helmet.

You drop the book like it's on fire as you realize where your mind has led you, your dirty, filthy, unethical mind. Foolishness burns deep in your stomach, head hanging low. Of course the knight is Jack. There's not a world in which it wouldn't be.

As angry as you've been with him, you can't say he doesn't have a point. You absolutely hate the way he's going about this, but you can understand why he's doing it.

It's an awkward situation, your status in the hospital beneath his, though you can't help but think you could find a loophole since you work different shifts. You can't blame him for being so wishy-washy.

But then, why ask you to move in the first place?

You recall what he'd told you a week or so ago, when he had himself propped up against your doorframe.

"It's the only way I can have you."

The memory lurches your nauseous stomach, and you flop back against the back of your chair. You fold your forearm over your eyes, absorbing the morning sun.

Your book lies limp in your hand, nearly on the cement as you decide that dramatically sprawling like a sickly Victorian woman feels better than ruminating on Jack Abbot.

The more time passes, the warmer the sun feels against your skin, the morning dew disappearing. It's peaceful, birds chirping, cicadas buzzing, rustling wind through the trees- it's enough to drown out your insatiable thoughts, if only for a little.

A shiver unzips your spine at the late spring breeze, the chiffon of your pajama top flowing in the wind. It makes you feel pretty, it makes you feel peaceful.

Your zen is interrupted by the whoosh of the sliding glass door, your immediate instinct to whip up and around. Your hand lays flat over your squinty eyes, trying to make out who's slowly approaching.

Your shoulders drop, then tense, when you realize it's just Jack. Just Jack.

"Hey," you mutter, pouting a little. "You scared me."

"Sorry, doll," he remarks, and you squeeze your thighs together. "Just wanted to come see ya."

"How was it?" You ask, a grimacing smile on your face.

"Meh," he moves his head side to side. "Same old, same old."

"So, horrible?" You ask pointedly, and he chuckles.

"Yeah," he says, fisting his hands in his pockets. "About right."

He comes to sit on the chair next to you, lowering his achy body down with an old-man groan.

You roll your eyes.

"I'm going to start calling you Snap Crackle Pop until you get your knees fixed," you chirp, bringing your book to your lap again.

"You're such a brat, y'know that?" He tuts, swatting your thigh playfully.

You scoff at the contact, trying desperately to ignore the way your skin burns at his fingertips.

"What're you reading?" He asks softly.

You look up at him, heart stopping at the sight. His eyes are soft, tired, shoulders hunched in exhaustion. On days off, it's rare you see him when he gets home. Your mornings, for the most part, are rushed and distant as can be.

This morning, though, it's different. Intimate. The quiet morning provides a cozy backdrop to the moment, wrapping it up in a soft blanket, just for you and Jack to know.

The sun gleaming down on Jack illuminates his angelic features, and your heart clutches at the glint in his hazel eyes. They're boring right into yours, his gaze playful despite the intensity.

"None of your business," you play coy, turning your bent legs away from him. He doesn't fall for it.

"C'mon, let me see," he reaches for it, and snatches it out of your loose grip before you could do anything about it.

"Oh God, Jack," you cover your burning face with your hands.

"At last, Henry finally undid the laces of Victoria's corset," he starts, and you can't stop the muffled groan tumbling from your lips.

"Jack, I'm serious, give it to me," you snap, leaning forward toward his chair and reaching for the paperback.

He holds it up over his head, and you lurch your body over his. You plant your hand on his chair, next to his thigh, your knee resting on the edge.

"Jack! Seriously, this isn't funny!" You squeal, but he just holds it open, high above his head in an iron grip.

"Her quiet moans slip from her lips as he touches her bare skin," he continues, and you plop down on the side of his chair, the plush of your thigh hitting the solid rock of his.

"Jaaaack!" You whine out, pressing your fingers into your temples. "Stop embarrassing me!"

He relents at that, lowering the book, and handing it back to you.

"'M sorry sweet pea," he mutters. "It's sweet, sitting here all by yourself, squeezing these pretty thighs together," his hand spreads wide over your leg, a light squeeze pinching you. "I almost feel bad for you. Guys your age really aren't doing it, huh?"

You shake your head no, rendered speechless, breathless by his sensual words.

"Jack," you whisper, scooching into him. "Stop."

"Stop what? 'M just being nice, just like we talked about, hm?" He coos, and goosebumps arise on your skin.

The wind rustles through your hair, your pajama top fluttering in the breeze. His eyes fall towards the movement, darkening at your soft skin beneath the sheer cloth.

"This is pretty," he says, pinching the flowy fabric of your top between his thumb and forefinger.

His gaze is heavy, and scans down your frame greedily. Your cheeks burn at the compliment, heat pooling between your legs.

"Thank you," you mutter.

He inhales, sharp and deep, and sits up, leaning in towards you.

"I can't do this anymore," he whispers, leaning his forehead against yours. "You're sitting here, reading smut, when I'm right here? I can't let that happen, I'm sorry, sweetie. I know it's not fair, I know it's on me," his hands run as quick as his mouth, traveling up the smooth expanse of your arms. "But I need to have you. Please, let me have you."

You crash your lips to his with a frightening immediacy. His large hands cover the expanse of your face, pulling you deeper into him. He's an incredible kisser, which is just as amazing as it is life ruining.

Fuzz starts to cloud your brain as you take him in, his scent, his taste, the feel of his strong body under yours. He scoops his arms under your thighs, pulling you on top of him.

You spread your thighs around his lap, knees landing on either side of his hips. You plant your core into his, the friction sending an burning jolt through your sensitive clit.

You wiggle your hips, grinding deeper into him and feeling him thicken in his scrubs. He grips your hips, feet planting firmly on the chair, grinding up into you, making you squirm and whine.

"Jackie…" you whine, throwing your head back.

His lips attach to your neck, sucking and licking and biting. Goosebumps erupt on the gentle skin there, heat rushing through you as he sinks his teeth in.

"Did you get wet reading that book, honey?" He asks softly, lips grazing over your ear.

His fingers tease you, skimming down your arms to your thighs, snapping the waistband of your bloomers against your tummy. You gasp, and he licks into your mouth.

Your pussy pulses against his hard length, and he bucks up into you again. Too embarrassed to answer, you bury your face in his neck and whine.

"Sweet girl," he drawls, and your hips are wild, wiggling and grinding against him. "Can I feel?" He asks, lips resting above your ear. "Can I feel how wet you got reading about some fictional dick?"

You nod profusely against him, completely unable to control the lust that pulses through your veins. His thick fingers slip underneath your shorts, dipping beneath your panties.

They skim past your clit, and you jolt in his arms, a whine wrangling from your throat. Dipping into your core, he coos at how wet you are, your slickness smacking against his fingers.

"Oh my God," he scoffs, condescendingly, and a fresh wave of dampness slides out of you.

"Jackie," you whine against him, winding your hips into his touch.

He's receptive, responding with the movement of his fingers against you.

"All this over a fuckin' book?" He teases, and you shake your head no. "No?" He asks, brows raising.

"Not the book," you whine, breathless. "You, thinking about you."

"Jesus fucking Christ," he breathes out, slipping a finger inside you.

You gasp at the intrusion, your tightness stretching around his thick digit.

"Jack!" You exclaim, throwing your arms around his neck.

He adds another finger, turning you to goo in a 'come hither' motion. You bounce your hips slightly, desperate for him to get deeper, to hit that sweet spot inside you.

"God, you're desperate for it, huh? This whole time, coulda had you bouncing on me? Had this horny little thing down the hall reading smut?" He asks, thumb coming up to rub your clit.

You squeal, body shaking above him as he finds it, your most sensitive spot, pressing over and over and over again. Your belly burns at the pleasure, white hot and nearly blinding.

"Yes," you groan, bringing his face to yours in a deep kiss. "Need you so bad," you moan against his lips, slipping your tongue against his.

"Me fuckin' too, baby. You gonna come? Want to taste you so bad, come on my fingers, baby," he gruffs, and the rubber band snaps.

Waves of pleasure roll over you as he coaxes out your first orgasm. You throw your head back, whines echoing in the open space, body shaking in his grip.

It's a burning, hot pleasure that seeps through your hips to your belly, bliss ebbing and flowing as he continues to work you out on his fingers.

You gasp as you come down, twitching around him and falling into his chest. He brings his free hand to his back, rubbing up and down your shaking frame. He shushes you, lips pressed against your temples as he brings you down.

He pulls his fingers out of you, bringing them to his lips. They wrap around his fingers greedily, licking and sucking the taste of you off of him.

"So fucking delicious, baby," he whispers, planting a wet, salty kiss on your lips.

You whine against him, his arms scooping under your ass to lift you against him. He carries you inside the sliding glass door, walking all the way to his room.

It's the first time you've ever been in there, the masculine simplicity of the space wholly unsurprising. Before he sets you down, he looks at you with complete and utter seriousness.

"Is this okay?" He asks, quiet and rough. "Once I lay you down, baby, I'm not going to be able to hold back. Just wanna make sure you're okay with this."

Your heart pounds at his question, nodding your head profusely.

"I want it, trust me, I'm okay," you whisper, lust clouding all of your senses as you plop onto Jack's sheets.

You sprawl out, your legs immediately spreading, knees hitting the bed.

"These fucking pajamas…" he whispers, kneeling onto the bed and pressing his hands into your legs.

He runs them up your thighs, circling around to cup your ass, moving to your tummy, lifting the sheer fabric up your torso. He exposes your tits, gripping and cupping them.

His brows furrow in devotion as he works your sensitive skin, your back arching into his touch. His lips part into an 'o', heavy breaths shaking his chest.

"You're so fucking beautiful, perfect fucking tits, baby," he coos, massaging and kneading you.

You whine, fingertips digging into his forearms as he teases you. You're dripping onto his mattress, familiar heat once again brewing deep in your belly.

"Thank you, Jackie," you whisper sweetly, giving him your biggest, sweetest eyes.

His fingers close around your nipples, pinching and tugging just enough to have you whining, writhing beneath him. You squeeze your eyes shut, attempting to escape his burning gaze. He releases your left breast, hand coming up to grip your jaw.

"Look at me, baby," he mutters against your lips. "Don't stop looking at me, don't hide from me, hm?"

You nod vigorously, eyes glossy with lust.

"Just feels so good, Jackie," you whisper into his mouth, planting open-mouthed kisses into him.

"I know, poor baby. Needed someone to take care of you, hm?" He asks, and you nod against him once again, arms wrapping around his broad shoulders.

You cling to him, pressing your tits into his own perky chest. You kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, the need for his lips on yours insatiable, burning through you at a rapid speed.

He takes advantage of the new position to slide your shorts down your legs, lifting your knees up to get the fabric around them. As he flings them off your ankles, your own hands get to work.

You maneuver them underneath his scrubs, the thin top underneath. Scraping your nails against his abs, you work your way up his body, moving the fabric with it.

The sight of him shirtless renders you breathless, jaw slack and eyes wide.

"So pretty, Jackie," you whine, flopping back down onto your back.

He takes off his own bottoms, sliding them off until he's left in his boxer briefs. His bulge is prominent, thick and proud in his underwear.

Your hand latches to it with an embarrassment ferocity, nails scraping along the thin fabric. He shudders, and the newfound power unlocks something within you.

You flip onto your stomach, pressing your face into his crotch. He's still sweaty from after his shift, the musk clouding your senses as you attach your mouth to his balls, sucking them through the fabric.

"Jesus Christ, baby, y'wanna suck me off?" He asks breathlessly, and you nod against him.

Your fingers peel at his waistband, lowering them and allowing his cock to spring free. You swallow deeply at his hard, impressive length, bobbing against his stomach.

Your mouth waters, wrapping your lips around him greedily. You hollow your cheeks around him, sucking him in to the back of your throat.

"Fuck! Baby," he lifts you off of him with a grunt. "Gonna fucking come if you're not careful," he runs his hands over your face, looking down at you while you remain eye level with his cock.

You maintain eye contact with him, kissing his tip and darting your tongue out to run along his head, his seam. He presses his eyes shut, and you reach your hand up to squeeze his dick.

He jumps at that, eyes shooting open.

"Eyes on me, baby," you say, repeating his earlier words. He darts his eyes back down at you, and you take him in your mouth once again.

He winces, throwing his head back the deeper you went. You go slower this time, savoring each moment of sliding down his generous length. There's still a few inches leftover when he hits the back of your throat again, and your hand wraps around the exposed skin.

Your spit allows your hand to move easily, lifting your mouth off of him to breathe, pumping your hand all the way from base to tip. He thrusts his hips through your hands, and you direct his cock back into your mouth.

He continues to thrust into you, hitting the back of your throat with abandon. You choke and sputter around him, eyes watering, but never leaving his.

"God, you're so fucking pretty like this," he whispers, and you preen messily under his praise. "So fucked out from sucking my dick, all sloppy and messy."

You pull off, gasping and breathing heavily. A line of spit tracks from your mouth to his head, breaking when you finally sit up, pulling him on top of you in a sloppy kiss.

His tongue licks up the mess you made around him, tracking along your face, kissing you with an open mouth.

You pant into him, kissing him back with a ferocity that should be scary, but is only met by Jack's hungry mouth. He falls onto you, pressing his hard length into your folds, rocking back and forth until his tip meets your clit.

He looks up at you, eyes needy and desperate, a final nod of his head before he pushes inside of you. His tip breaches your entrance, still so tight even after being worked open by his fingers.

Your breath catches, along with his as he pushes himself into you. He sits deep inside you, his hips flush against yours as he lets you get used to him.

You gasp, eyes glassy from the deep breach. He kisses your cheek, your nose, your forehead. Butterflies erupt in your tummy, the sweetness of his lips mixed with the depravity of his hips making you dizzy.

"Jackie, so big," you sob, wrapping your arms around his neck. He shivers against you, starting to rock his hips in a delectable, achingly slow rhythm.

He winces as he tries to pick up speed, brows furrowing in discomfort. Your hands reach up to grab his cheeks, forcing his eyes into yours.

"Hey, you okay?" You ask him, and he laughs, a pitying sound to match the blush on his cheeks.

"Yeah, uh- it's just, my leg. It's killing me," he admits sheepishly, and your heart drops.

Of course it would feel uncomfortable, and you feel silly for not thinking of it first.

"Oh, Jackie!" You coo, sitting up and pushing against his chest. "Thank you for telling me," you press a kiss to his lips as you maneuver him onto his back.

You whimper as he pulls out of you, and you're eager to have him back inside you. The way it bobs against him as he lays on his back nearly makes you delirious, slick sliding out of you at your sudden emptiness.

"This better?" You ask, your naked frame arching over his, stroking his chest and abs as he settles in.

You can physically see the relief wash over him as he relaxes into his bed.

"There you go," you whisper, continuing to run your hands along his sculpted body.

Your eyes glance toward his leg, the prosthetic that must have been rubbing him raw laying limp against the bed. Guilt settles deep in your stomach at his presumed discomfort, and you bring your pouty face close to his.

"Can I help you, baby?" You whisper against him, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. "Can I take your leg off? Is that okay?"

The question hangs heavy in the air between you for a moment, and sudden regret rushes through you. Too much, of course it's too much. Embarrassment burns your cheeks as you wrangle yourself out of his grip.

"Nonononono, baby hold on," he tightens his grip around you. "You can, I'd actually love it if you did. Just surprised me, is all," he says, and you can see pink tinting his cheeks.

"Okay," you say, pressing a kiss to his lips before moving down his body.

Your heart pounds as you take him in like this. Flat on his back, completely naked and at your disposal. The intimacy pounds through your veins, brain fuzzy at the soft touch of his skin.

Your fingers maneuver the prosthetic, releasing the suspension system and lifting it off him. He audibly groans in relief as you remove the device, setting it down gently at the end of the bed.

His hands grip your waist, sinking his fingertips in, but holding you in place. You look at him, vulnerability shining in his eyes. Your lips twist in a sweet smile, a gentle hand reaching for his cheek.

You lean over him, pressing your lips into his. It's slower this time, sweet and lingering. He teases your tongue with his, and your lips close around it and suck.

He grabs your ass, kneading the plush skin there, slapping it while deepening the kiss. You whine at the sharp contact, swinging your leg over his hips. You hover over him, taking his cock in your hand and running the tip along your folds.

His hands never leave your ass.

You sink yourself down onto him, and he lets out a guttural groan. He feels even deeper at this angle, and you take a minute to catch your breath before you start bouncing on it.

Your ass slaps against his hips, his hands continuing to manipulate your motions. He presses into your sensitive spot relentlessly, your body shaking on top of him.

You press your fingertips into his chest, leaning into him and arching your back. You swirl your hips against his, and your fullness shocks you, butterflying your belly.

"Jackie!" You whine, picking up the speed of your hips. "Feels so fucking good, wanted this for so long."

Your confession rocks, him, and he tightens his grip against you, taking control of your movements with his strong arms.

"Me too, baby," he whispers, slapping your ass once more. "Wanted this since your first fucking day, baby," he says, and you whine. "So fucking gorgeous, kindest smile and sweetest heart, makes me fucking crazy."

You laugh at this, traits that typically made you 'too sensitive' for most guys, are the ones that have Jack Abbot slapping your ass and fucking you on his dick. Who would've thought?

"I have the stupidest crush on you," he admits, and your racing heart stops abruptly. He goes on. "When I asked you to move in, it just came out. 'S like I had no control over my mouth, just had to have you near me."

He speeds up your movements, now pounding you down on him relentlessly. You cry out, tears slipping out of your eyes, heart pounding in your ears at his confessions.

"Make me so fucking crazy, you have no fucking clue," he breathes. bringing you down to kiss him.

Your stomach burns white hot at this new position, laying flat against his chest. His hands grip and knead your ass, spreading it apart in his cool bedroom. You gasp at the air hitting your skin, the vulnerability rendering you nearly useless.

You're nearly limp against your roommate, moving your hips as much as you can against him, Jack's hands doing most of the work for you.

He presses a kiss to your temple, and you're frighteningly close.

"Gonna come, want you to do it with me, baby," he groans, and you nod against his neck, wrapping your arms around him.

"Fuck!" He nearly shouts, his thick cock twitching in your pussy.

His release triggers yours, and you clamp down on his cock. He winces and squeezes his eyes shut, muttering something about how fucking tight you are.

You press a messy kiss on his lips as you ride out both of your highs, wiggling your hips down on his. One last shiver runs through you as you come down, resting your limp frame against his.

He rocks your hips against his once, twice, thrice more before setting you down on him. You let him stay inside you for a moment before he pulls out, snuggling into his broad chest.

He reaches up, pushing your ass up slightly so he can pull out, the emptiness sore and achy. You feel liquid gush out of you on to his lap, and you revel in the sight of your juices coating his softening cock.

You flop onto your back, both of you staring up at the ceiling. The weight of your previous actions settles over you, hanging low and heavy like a storm cloud.

The room is silent except for yours' and Jack's heavy breaths, hand reaching down to hold his. He laces his fingers with yours, giving you a soft squeeze.

"So," you whisper, turning your head to his. "What do we do now?"

He shakes his head in disbelief, running a hand down his face.

"No idea," he responds, and your tummy turns.

"We're really in it now, huh?" You ask, and he breaks.

A soft laugh escaping his lips, he wraps himself around you, pulling you close to him and kissing you softly. The kiss is sweet, sloppy, messy. Spit connects your lips as you pull away, your mouth moving against his neck.

"Worth it, I'd say," he mutters, and you nod against him.

Jack almost retreats. His instinct tells him to — to give you your privacy, to close the door, to pretend he hadn’t walked in on such an intimate moment. But something deeper roots him in place; the strange warm feeling swirls in his chest, maybe. 

There’s something strangely intimate, he finds, in watching you when you think no one is looking — when you have nothing and no one to perform for. You look peaceful, completely undone, totally in your own world. 

Jack freezes in the doorway when you shift on the bed, sinking further into the mattress as you adjust the vibrator between your thighs. It seems to hit the spot, as you exhale a whimpered sigh a second later. 

So Jack just decides to watch you — he migrates to the desk chair, in hopes of relieving the strain of his prosthetic, but the old floorboards betray him with a soft creak.

You don’t react immediately, but your expression flickers a bit, as a subtle awareness prickles up your spine. You worry, briefly, that someone may be watching you — you always are, in a way, especially when your headphones are on — but you struggle now to shake the feeling.

Your eyes flutter open, if only to prove to yourself that there’s no one there, and they widen in shock when they land on Jack in the corner of the room.

“What the fuck—?” you exclaim, clicking the vibrator off with one hand and slinging off your headphones with the other.

Jack startles, too. His hands lift in surrender as a laugh sputters from his lips. “Sorry! Sorry, I— I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Your face burns red-hot. You can feel the heat climbing up your neck and to your ears as your eyes flit to his eyes and away again. “H-How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long,” he shrugs and crosses his strong arms over his chest. His freckled biceps strain against the sleeves of his black tee, which he wears tucked into his camo fatigues. A crooked smile tugs slow at his mouth as he tilts his head. “Two minutes. Give or take.”

“I thought you weren’t coming home until later— Why didn’t you say something?”

“I tried to,” he quips, brows raised to his hairline. “But then I realized you were having a pretty good time in here, so… I didn’t want to interrupt.”

You bury your burning face into your hands. “That’s so embarrassing…” you groan, muffled into your palms.

Jack’s laughter doesn’t make you feel any better. 

“Why is it embarrassing?” he chuckles as he closes the distance between you. 

You can tell that he’s limping from the quiet scuff in his step. The mattress sinks under his weight as he sits on the edge of it, relieving the ache in his amputated limb that he’s been carrying all day. 

He looks over his shoulder at you, lips curling into a sly smirk when he can still hear your headphones playing from just beside you. It’s a muffled, indistinct humming that he can’t quite make out, but it’s very obviously someone else’s voice.

He nods towards it, silver curls turning golden in the amber light. “What are you listening to over there, huh?”

“Nothing,” you answer, a little too quickly, as you take the headphones back into your hands.

“Oh, yeah?” he hums. “Let me see.”

You jerk them away when he reaches out for them. “Don’t…” you murmur, all shy, like a scolded child.

“I’m not upset, baby,” he assures with a gritty laugh. “I just wanna know what you’re into. That’s all.” 

He eases the headphone from your grip; this time, with little protest from you. He holds your weary gaze with his glimmering one as he slips them over his own ears. He’s met with a bassy, masculine voice: “—God, you’re so sexy… Look at how you’re dripping on my fingers, baby…”

You watch, mortified, as confusion etches across his weathered face — eyes squinting and brows lowering. “Who is this?” he asks.

“No one,” you mutter, gaze averted, as you pick at pills of cotton on the blanket with anxious hands. “He’s just… some guy on the internet. I don’t even know what he looks like, he just makes… You know… Audio stuff.”

“Audio stuff, huh?” Jack echoes with raised brows, before huffing a quiet laugh. “God, I’m old…”

He slides the headphones from his silver curls and passes them back to you with something different etched across his features now, something thoughtful. Curious. Interested, even.

“…You’re not mad?” you wonder in a timid voice.

“Why would I be mad?” he scoffs, then bounces a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I think it’s hot. I like knowing what you’re into.”

He leans in to kiss you, and your stomach does a back flip. His scruff brushes your delicate skin when his lips meet yours. You melt against him with a heavy sigh through your nose, as some of the embarrassment from before slips from your skin.

“C’mon,” he slurs between his kisses. “Keep listenin’ for me…”

You pull back, features screwed. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he nods once, without taking his unwavering stare off yours.

Your fingers tremble with hesitancy as you go to put the headphones back over your ears. Jack’s hand catches your wrist in a soft, calloused grip — redirecting you with a gentle touch. 

“No,” he says in a gravelly voice, eyes low and lidded. “Let it play.”

He reaches over and taps your phone screen with his pointer finger — once to disconnect the wireless headphones and second to unpause the audio. The voice resumes, sounding a little foreign now as it plays throughout the otherwise silent bedroom.

“—You always get so sweet for me when I kiss your neck,” the masculine voice slurs.

Jack doesn’t miss a beat. 

He props his fist beside your blanketed thighs and twists his upper body to lean in closer. His warm breath fans over your jaw right before he plants a wet kiss to your neck. Your jaw tightens as you fight back a shiver.

“See? I can feel your heart racing for me…” the stranger mumbles between mimed kisses. “Let me see if I can find that sweet spot, huh? Right… here…”

Jack’s teeth graze over your pulse point — not enough to hurt, but enough to make your breath hitch. You raise your hands to his shoulders, balling the fabric of his shirt into your fists. His mouth curls into a slow smile against you, and you sigh when his scruff brushes your delicate skin.

“You love this, huh?” Jack mumbles into your skin.

“This is…” you trail off in mild anguish. “Both incredibly hot and wildly embarrassing.” 

“Why is it embarrassing?” the older man laughs, as his lips slide over the thrumming tendon of your neck.

“I don’t know…” you mumble, trailing your hands up and over his broad shoulders until your fingers find the silver curls at the nape of his neck. “I feel like… Like you just caught me watching porn or something, and now we’re watching it together— It just feels weird.”

Jack hums against you, as if it were a proposition that needed considering.

“Sounds pretty fun to me,” he hums and pulls off of you with a quiet click. His mouth is softly swollen from his kisses, and his eyes are lidded and glittering with mischief when they lock with yours. “Wanna try that later?”

You swallow hard, features crumpling in distant shame as you squeak out, “Yeah…”

Jack’s grin widens right before he presses it to your mouth — in a lengthier and more languid kiss that pushes you slowly back into the mattress again. You sigh hard through your nose when his tongue licks into you, like velvet in your mouth. Your fingers tug harder at his silver curls, and you smile to yourself when he groans quietly against you.

He follows the direction of the foreign male voice spilling from your phone, and it leads him to your spread legs — where a wet patch has already started to form in the thin cotton of your underwear. You melt into the mattress when his strong arms wrap around your thighs to hug you close against him.

“Look at how wet you are for me, baby… Your pussy’s just begging for my mouth, huh? God, you’re such a little slut for me, aren’t you?”

Jack freezes, mid-kiss on your inner thigh. He flashes you an amused look up your clothed body, clad in one of his oversized t-shirts that’s slipping off your shoulder now.

“Do you like being talked to like that?” he asks.

Your mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water for an embarrassing moment. “I… I don’t know… Maybe?”

“Hm… Good to know,” Jack nods and gets back to work.

“I’ll warm you up with my tongue first, okay? Nice and slow…”

Jack takes the instruction in stride. 

He slips his pointer finger in the hem of your panties, slipping the fabric to the side, until your drooling pussy is on display for him — already needy and craving the orgasm it missed beforehand. 

Jack ducks down to lick a fat stripe up the length of your cunt in time with the sound effects of the audio. His tongue slots just perfectly within your silken folds.

Your mouth parts in a silent moan as your head tips back against the pillow. You feel Jack smiling against you when your hips buck instinctively to chase his mouth. 

“You like that?” he mumbles, in time with the foreign voice playing just beside you.

You exhale a breathless laugh that turns into a moan when Jack returns to your pussy, kissing you there like he would your mouth. He groans against you when your fingers twist harder in his curls; the vibrations only add to your sensitivity. Your whine swells within the walls of the quiet bedroom, entwining with the wet sounds from the audio and the realer ones coming from between your thighs.

“Now… How about I suck on the pretty little clit, huh? Get it nice and swollen for me…”

Your face flares at the overtly crude language.

Jack doesn’t miss a beat.

He spreads your velvety folds with his thumb and forefinger, bearing the most sensitive part of you for him. His lips wrap around your clit a second later, and your thighs clench instinctively around his head. His scruff prickles at your delicate skin when you jerk against him. A cry spills from your parted mouth before you can stop it.

“Wait, wait, wait—” you hear yourself say.

Jack pulls off of you with a quiet smack. His eyes are lidded; his mouth is swollen; his chin is coated in a layer of your slick. “Too much?” he asks.

You lift your head to stare down your body at the man between your thighs, nodding until the words catch up to you. “I’ll— I’ll cum too fast if you keep doing that.”

His brows lift as something teasing swims in his heavy eyes. “Isn’t that the point?”

Jack returns to your weeping pussy, licking and sucking you there, with noises far more lewd than the ones spilling from the speaker beside your head. There is no further protest from you, as he drags an orgasm from your trembling body — a much more powerful one than you would’ve gotten with just your vibrator, had he not walked in on you. His fingers threaten to dig bruises into the plush of your thighs as your hips twitch wildly against his face.

“Good girl— Good fucking girl,” the stranger’s deep voice croons throughout the quiet bedroom, coaching you through the orgasm Jack gives you with nothing but his tongue.

He caresses you gently on the comedown, with his calloused hands and his wet mouth, molding you back together again as he kisses his way back up your trembling body. 

The voice on the phone continues while the two of you work with graceless limbs to undress — your fingers scramble with the buttons of his camo pants while he tugs his shirt up and over his body by the neckline.

A heavy sigh grumbles in the back of Jack’s throat when you free his half-hard cock from the confines of his boxers, pulling the hem down beneath his heavy balls. His muscular chest, flushed with need, heaves as you take him into your hand.

“I’m gonna fuck you now, okay?” the masculine voice continues to slur. “You don’t have to beg for it, baby, I’m gonna give it to you. I’m gonna give you all of it—” 

Jack reaches for the phone again while you massage his cock the rest of the way hard; he feels like heavy velvet in your fist. He taps the screen to pause it.

“Alright, enough of that,” he huffs as he shifts on his knees. “I need to focus.”

You blink up at him, a little dazed from your lingering orgasm, as a smile curls slowly at your lips. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at multitasking, Dr. Abbot?”

“Multitasking’s for paperwork, baby,” the older man quips with a smug smirk and a pair of squinted eyes. He takes his stiff cock in his fist and eyes you carefully as you lean back onto your elbows, thighs nice and spread for him. “And this—”

He nudges the drooling tip of his cock against your already sensitive clit and grins wider when your head tips back with a moan.

“This deserves my full attention, don’t ya think?”