You’d gone a whole half hour without thinking of him, which you think must be a sort of record at this point. You’d been trying to get over the guy for months, and Trinity told you the best way to do that was by getting under someone else. Turns out it wasn’t as foolproof as she made it out to be.

“You gonna get that?” Park wonders suddenly, slurring slightly when he pulls back from you for the first time in several minutes. His thin lips are slightly swollen from his kisses and slightly rosy from your lipstick. Your spit glistens on his chin like gloss.

Your heavy eyes flit back and forth between his for a moment. “…What?”

“Your phone,” he says. “This is, like, the third time it’s gone off.”

You blink hard and turn your head against the arm of the couch, to where your purse slouches on the floor beside you. Your phone vibrates inside, glowing faintly within its depths. You can see half the caller ID from here — Jack (ABSOLUTELY DO NOT ANSWER). Your stomach swirls with a sick feeling that your body almost mistakes for excitement.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”

Brendon’s expression darkens immediately.

He can tell who it is by the look on your face — a subtle annoyance mixed with a touch of longing. He leans away from you with a huff, slouching back against the corner of the sofa with his muscular thighs spread and his arms propped along the back. He couldn’t hide his irritation if he tried, because this was the first time he’s ever had to compete with another man for another woman’s affection. (The fact that this man was nearly twice his age only rubbed salt into the wound.)

“You should ignore it, you know?” he tells you, half-muffled behind his hand as he swipes lingering desire from his heavy eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“Yeah, I know—” you sigh and sit further up, not bothering to adjust the dropping sleeve of your dress as you bring the phone up to your jaw. “—What?” you snap.

“Wow,” Jack laughs. His familiar, gritty voice sounds much louder in the quiet of Brendon’s expansive apartment. You hate how much it soothes you. “Good evening to you, too.”

“I’m busy, Jack. What do you want?”

“There’s a patient here asking for you,” he says, a bit more solemn now. His voice goes a little distant on the other line, like he’s looking over his shoulder at something. “Name’s Smith. Bethany. Her chart says she was here two nights ago for a—”

“Yeah,” you sigh, and let all your lingering annoyance evaporate on the exhaled breath. “I know. I treated her.”

“So I’m sure you know why she doesn’t want to be seen by anyone else.”

You avert your gaze, tugging anxiously at a thread in the hem of your dress until it becomes a more noticeable problem than before. Bethany was a young kid, a good one, who got herself mixed up with a string of bad people. She came in a couple nights ago after a particularly brutal assault, and insisted she didn’t need any help when you offered it to her. You told her, however, to swear to come back in if things ever got too bad again, that you’d help her with no questions asked.

The night came much sooner than you thought.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” you huff. “Don’t let her leave—”

You hang up before he can utter another word and pretend not to notice Park’s glaring as you slide off the couch. “There’s no way you’re leaving right now,” he scoffs, watching with an emotionless grin as you toe your shoe back on.

“It’s a patient—”

“It’s Jack,” he corrects with a dry laugh. “How do you not see that? He’s doing this on purpose because he knows we’re out together.”

“He wouldn’t lie to me about a patient,” you huff and stand to full height, slinging the strap of your bag over your shoulder and heading towards the door. How quickly you’ll drop everything when he comes calling, a cynical voice in the back of your head berates you.“He’s an asshole, but he isn’t that big of an asshole.”

“Yeah, I beg to differ…”

You flash the man a pleading look from where you stand in his doorway, midnight air rippling in the fabric of your dress — which Park had been so achingly close to ripping off of you.

“You’re not too mad at me, are you?”

“Go save your patient,” Park dismisses with a wave of his head, huffing as he rises off the couch. He heads to the organized minibar by the kitchen island, plucks a clear bottle of amber liquid from the shelf without looking back at you. “And when you’re done, try to save whatever the hell’s left of your judgment.”

You roll your eyes to hide how much his words truly sting and close the door behind you. “Yeah, I’ll see you at work, Shark…”

—

Your kitten heels click along the pristine linoleum as you rush to the workstation from the ambulance bay. The automatic doors swish open and shut behind you, replacing the cool night air with something colder and far more sterile. Chills pebble along your exposed skin as you weave through the familiar chaos of the PTMC, peering through each glass door you pass for any glimpse of the young girl you came to find.

“Lena,” you call to the red-haired nurse.

“Yep?” the older woman responds automatically, right before she glances up from the monitor ahead of her. She smiles at the sight of you and croons, “Well, don’t you look pretty…”

“Thank you…” you smile shakily, as your face flares with a mild embarrassment. Your arms cross over your chest in an instinctive attempt to hide. “I got a call from Jack— Dr. Abbot. Uh, he said Beth, my assault patient from a few days ago, came back in and wanted to see me. Do you know which room she’s in?”

The woman ponders for a moment, clicking her tongue against her teeth. “I think you just missed her…”

“…What?”

“Last I heard, Dr. Abbot was taking care of her,” Lena explains absentmindedly as she turns back to her computer. Her manicured fingers fly across the keyboard while she rambles. “Yeah, he patched her up and sent her home with a few refills of chlorazepam for the withdrawals. I’m pretty sure he gave her some money for a hotel room, too, called one of his police buddies to pick her up and make sure she’s okay for the night. He’s a good guy— It’s a shame it didn’t work out between you two.”

“Work out?” you sputter through an awkward laugh. “I don’t— We never even— I don’t even know what you’re—”

The woman flashes you an unamused look over the top of her cat-eye glasses.

You swallow down the rest of your excuses. “Do you know where he is?”

“Well, he came in after working TEMs today complaining about his shoulder, so… I’m sure he’s somewhere hiding.”

You exhale a grieved sigh, wiping at your tired eyes in a feeble attempt to wake up. “Yeah, I’ll find him…” you grouse and walk off.

“Clean up your lipstick while you’re at it!” the woman calls after you.

You swipe aggressively at your chin with the back of your hand, cursing quietly under your breath as you. “Shit—”

You find Jack with a greater ease than you’d like to admit to. He has a habit of disappearing when he’s hurt — equal parts because he’s stubborn and because he hates nothing more than being fussed over. You find him in the last treatment room at the end of the hall for that reason, where the chaos of the emergency department dims into a distant nothingness.

You open the door without knocking and find Jack sitting on the edge of the exam bed, with a trauma kit spread out neatly on the metal tray before him. His scrub top lies forgotten on the mattress behind him, revealing the freckled expanse of his torso, made of toned muscles and milky-white skin. The sight of him takes your breath away for a fraction of a moment before your brain reminds you to stay angry.

Jack glances up when you enter, with his brows raised to his hairline. His mouth curls into a slow smile as his light eyes rake over your form. “Well… Don’t you clean up nice,” he croons lowly, then motions to his scruffy chin with his pointer finger. “You missed a spot, though.”

“Yeah, I know,” you huff, still scrubbing off the lipstick smudged on your mouth.

“I remember that dress,” the man continues, too casual for his own good, as he tears off a sliver of medical tape. He presses it along the edge of a square bandage with practiced hands and says, “I’m pretty sure you wore it for me once—”

“Where is my patient?”

“Already discharged,” Jack shrugs, then winces when it adds to the ache in his shoulder.

“So you lied to me?” you huff in annoyance, but pluck a pair of gloves from the dispenser on the wall all the same.

You shove them on and close the distance between you, trudging towards him with all the exasperation of a woman scorned. Jack follows your form with careful eyes, that glimmer distantly with amusement.

“I didn’t lie,” he corrects as you round the bed behind him. He faces ahead while you survey the wound he sports on his left shoulder. The muscles in his back flex slightly when your gloved fingers run over the warm, red scrape — still raw from where the bullet had grazed his vest, and angry at having been left untreated all day. “I just happened to win her over. With my good looks and charming personality.”

You scoff drily. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

You reach over the man for the tube of antibiotic ointment sitting on the tray in front of him. Jack inhales, getting a whiff of the musky-sweet scent clinging to your hair and skin. “Oh, wow…” he lilts in a monotone. “You broke out the expensive perfume tonight—”

“Shut up,” you grouse harshly, spreading the ointment along the abrasion with a much softer touch in comparison. He tenses under you, clenching his jaw to hide how much it hurts. You fight the urge to apologize. “How’d this happen to you, anyway?”

“Bullet grazed my vest—”

“You were shot?” you exclaim.

“Shot at,” he corrects, like that makes any difference, and crosses his muscular arms over his bare chest. “A bunch of geniuses thought today was a good day to rob a goods warehouse. Didn’t realize how long it’d take to load the supplies, so… They panicked, obviously, and… All hell broke loose.”

You shake your head at him, swallowing down your rage like bile. He isn’t yours, you remind yourself, you have no right to tell him what he can or cannot do. The words tumble from your mouth anyway.

“I wish you’d stop doing this.”

“I’d rather be shot at than spend a night with Park the Shark— Ow.”

His head whips over his shoulder to glare at you when you press down harder on the wound. “That’s what you get for interrupting my date, asshole,” you spit at him and reach for the prepped bandage on the tray. “God, I cannot believe I keep letting you do this to me.”

“Do what?”

“Keep me late. Call me in,” you ramble, pressing the gauze gently to his shoulder. “Sabotage every relationship I try to have, like you weren’t the one who left.”

Silence falls over the two of you, heavy enough to suck all the air out of the room. Jack can hear the quiet buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead and the subtle hitch in your breath when you don’t get a response from him. Your bitter laugh sounds much louder in the quiet, along with the pop of your blue gloves as you pluck them off.

“That’s it? I don’t get one of your snarky responses to that?” you scoff and part from his side to chuck the latex into the bin. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised— You left that morning like it didn’t mean anything to you, I don’t know why now would be any different.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Jack assures you in a low, solemn voice and a mournful glint in his soft eyes.

You almost believe him. You almost feel sorry for him, even. Almost. Until you’re bitterly reminded of the morning you woke up alone in your sun-drenched bedroom, the morning after you and Jack decided to cross a line you swore you never would. You remember calling out his name, and then reaching for your phone when you didn’t get a response, only to find that there was no message from him there either.

You remember how cold the sheets felt, how one side of them was still twisted with his shape. You remember the ache between your thighs as you got ready for the day. You remember the white-hot pain in your chest when he treated you like a stranger the following shift.

“Well, what was it like, then?” you say with a cynical laugh as you migrate to the sink against the wall. The faucet hisses on, spitting out scalding water almost instantly. You revel in the burn as you scrub your hands with a meticulous precision that’s more of an anxious tic than anything. “Because for me it’s like you got what you wanted and then you left—”

“That can’t be how you see it.”

“—And now, you can’t stand that I’m moving on from you,” you continue, then mumble under your breath as you pluck a wad of paper towels from the dispenser. “Or trying to, anyway…”

“I left because I was happy,” Jack blurts for the first time out loud.

Your head snaps over your shoulder. You find the man standing to full height again with a soft grunt in the very back of his throat. He keeps his shirt balled into his fists, fidgeting awkwardly with the fabric. He winces as he adjusts his weight on his prosthetic when he turns to face you.

You blink owlishly back at him. “What?”

“It was the first time I’ve slept in a bed with someone— or with someone since my wife passed,” Jack mumbles, focusing most of his attention on locating the sleeves of his scrub top. “And the first time I woke up not missing her, and I… I felt guilty.”

Your anger ebbs almost instantly. The rage that had been building a home inside of you for so long caves in a landslide.

“I was scared that if I stayed, I’d never be able to leave. And that scared me—” He rambles as he slides his pale arms through the sleeves, grimacing when the bandage on his shoulder tugs slightly. “And I didn’t know how to tell you… I guess I still don’t, if I’m being real honest.”

His voice muffles as he tugs the shirt over his silver curls.

“I thought I was doing us both a favor, and I just… Made it all worse.”

Jack tugs the hem of the black top down his toned stomach. He gives you a strange look — an emotionless, tight-lipped grin and a pair of brows raised to his hairline — not quite happy, but not quite sad either.

Your hands clench tight around the damp paper towel still wadded between them. You forget, momentarily, to respond. You wouldn’t know what to say if you could speak, anyway.

The silence between you swells suddenly with every conversation you never had before, every feeling you both have spent weeks swallowing down. So many months spent hurting, pretending, wasting.

Your eyes catch the blur of a shadow across the room. They widen as they flit away from Jack and toward Samira, who appears suddenly in the glass door, shoes squeaking when she stops suddenly in place at the sight of him standing there. She’s visibly exhausted when she swings the door open, dark eyes heavy and black hair wild. Her chest heaves with heavy breaths beneath her scrub top, as if she’d been searching for quite some time.

“I’m not interrupting something, am I?” she pants, eyes darting back and forth between the two of you. They linger briefly on your form. You think this is the first time she’s seen you in anything other than scrubs. “Lena was worried I might be interrupting something.”

Jack doesn’t give her a straight answer. “You need something, Mohan?”

“We got a trauma. Five minutes out,” she tells him. “Possible splenic rupture.”

Jack’s expression hardens. He nods once in concurrence, shifting back into physician mode in a blink.

“Got it,” he says, and waits for the door to shut behind Samira before turning back to you. There’s something distinctly shier in his eyes as he clears his throat and scratches at the back of his corded neck. “I’m, uh— I’m sorry... For sabotaging your date and… Everything before that…”

The sincerity in his voice makes your chest ache. You nod with a wavering, tight-lipped grin. “Yeah, I know…”

He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. He tilts his scruffy chin to peer down at you from the bridge of his nose. You can tell by his suddenly defensive stance that he’s about to ask you something — or, more specifically, something he’s scared to hear the answer to.

“You going back to Park the Shark?”

Your sheepish smile spreads into something more sincere. “Depends,” you shrug and turn away to chuck the paper towel into the bin.

“On?” Jack crosses his arms over his chest, biceps straining against his scrub sleeves.

“On if you’re gonna let me scrub in or not.”

His pink mouth lifts into a smug half-grin. “Then I guess you’d better go get changed, doc…”

Companion piece to:

Souvenir (NSFW) - Jack Abbot doesn’t do this, he doesn’t fuck strangers in bars.

The Research Paper - A incendiary research paper takes Caleb in a direction he never predicted.

Exes & Ohs - Caleb and you find out you have something in common over dinner.

A Good Girl (NSFW) - Caleb learns how much of a good girl you really are.

A Frigid Bitch - Kirk unveils your secret to the entire E.D after discovering you’re seeing Caleb.

A Beautiful Burst of Chaos - Caleb doesn’t notice the lipstick stain until a client points it out.

Matchmaker - Robby’s realisation about your relationship with Caleb leads to a conversation he doesn’t expect.

Grease Monkey - You didn’t know you had a thing for grease monkeys before you met Caleb.

No Fucking Words (NSFW) - Caleb doesn’t have words for the things you do to him.

Pinwheel (NSFW) - A pinwheel has never been a thing of pleasure for Caleb, not before you.

The Bad News (NSFW) - Things take a turn when Robby receives a 911 text from Caleb.

The Open Door - Caleb and Robby get real with each in the aftermath of the threesome.

A Feral Cat - Michael Robinavitch is the human equivalent of a feral cat.

Right Here - Caleb and you make a promise to each other.

Pre-Polycule Timeline

A Woman Like That Makes You Rethink Some Things

New Tattoo

The Case of The Ex

Reader Changing Her Hair

You know what happens to bad girls.

Caleb and you have played out that role before. You, the naughty little brat that needs a spanking and him the strict disciplinarian who gives you exactly what you need. But now Jesse’s here and you’re bent over his lap, your shorts tugged down your thighs presenting that perfect little ass with that fresh set of ink and it’s time to consider a new dynamic, one that includes the three of you.

“How do you feel about helping me discipline her?” He asks the other man as he unclips his glasses from the neck of his t-shirt, setting them on his features. It’s part of his persona, the one he uses when you need putting back into line. “Not for the tattoo, it’s such a lovely work of art on such a lovely little behind.” You yelp as he swats your other cheek, the one that isn’t inked. “But because she’s been hiding it from me all night.”

“I think...” Jesse drawls him, his fingers running through your cotton candy hair, gripping it as he pulls your head back. You make a precious little sound, a whimper that has Caleb throbbing in his pants as you start to glisten in the low lighting. “I think we need tell her what a good girl she is, that we think she’s fucking beautiful, no matter what.”

Praise…

That’s what Jesse wants to make sure you get during this session. He guesses its overflow from an earlier conversation, an insecurity you’ve vocalised when the two of you were together. Jesse, he’s always been so expressive, and he can tell you want that too, that confidence to be something more than you are. It started with the piercings in your ear, then the hair. Now it’s the tattoo, a flock of birds, five of them flying one after the other. He knows what they stand for.

Him, Jack, Robby, Jesse and you.

You’ve embedded a part of each of them onto your skin. It’s gorgeous, it’s glorious and it deserves a reward.

“What’s your safeword sweetheart?” Caleb asks you, his palm caressing that stinging red mark he’s left on your ass.

“Cedarwood.” You whisper as Jesse’s grasp tightens in your hair. “The scent of your aftershave.”

“Good girl.” He approves and that wetness between your legs, it grows as he sweeps his fingers through it. “He’s right you know? You are fucking beautiful. This cunt…” He presses his fingers in, just the tips and you arch against them making that sweet little noise. “…wish I could eat it out, make you ride Jesse’s face but since we can’t do that with your new ink…”

You whimper as he pulls out, mourning the loss but he presses his fingers to Jesse’s lips, smearing you taste over them. He moans as his silver fox opens his mouth, drawing those thick fingers into that moist cavern. Jesse starts to suck, his tongue running over them until he’s licked every drop of you from Caleb’s digits.

“Is he hard baby?” Caleb asks you as he pushes his fingers in and out of Jesse’s mouth, using his tongue. “Is his dick pushing up against those perfect tits of yours?”

“Yes.” You murmur, arching like a cat so Jesse’s cock rubs over your pert little nipples. “He feels so fucking good Caleb.”

“Hm.” Caleb withdraws his fingers from Jesse’s mouth, slipping them between your legs again. He swirls around your entrance, his thumb tracing briefly stroking over your clit. “Take your top off for him, show him how soft your skin is.”

You grasp the hem of your pyjama top, pulling it up and over your head as Jesse shoves down his basketball shorts and pulls off his own vest. Those silver nipple piercings glint in the light and Caleb longs to get his mouth on them, but right now is about you. There’ll always later for him and Jesse.

You resume your position, over Jesse’s lap, doggy style this time instead of slung over his thighs. “Oh, you want to taste him don’t you sweet thing.” Caleb coos as his palms kneads the unblemished ass cheek, fingers sinking into your skin. “You want to tease that piercing he has in his dick with your tongue while I fuck your pussy with my fingers don’t you?”

“Yes.” You say, your fist wrapping around Jesse’s cock. You give it a gentle stroke, your thumb teasing over the barbel in the top, smearing his pre-cum around and around the tip. Jesse’s head falls back into the couch, his cheeks flushing pink as he starts thrusting into your hand. “Please Caleb, can I?”

“Such a good girl asking permission.” Caleb says, his fingers skate over your pussy again, from clit to slit and than back again. “I think he deserves a thank you for drawing such a pretty design, don’t you?”

Your answer is to lick the tip of Jesse’s dick. Tongue swirling around that silver piercing before you guide it into your mouth. Jesse cries out, his hand threading through your bubblegum locks as his teeth sink into his lower lip, his breath catching.

“Don’t let him come baby.” Caleb warns you, and your palm grasps the base of Jesse’s dick squeezing as Caleb’s fingers delve inside you. “I want him climaxing all over my cock while I’m fucking his ass on that couch.”

You clench around him and Caleb can see you like that idea very much. “Oh pretty girl wants watch. She wants to get herself off while you ride my dick, Jesse.”

Caleb’s fingers curl, finding that sweet spot, the one that has you moaning like a whore around Jesse’s dick.

“Fuck…” The word spits out of Jesse’s mouth as he runs his hand through his own silver curls his hips thrusting up into your mouth. “Oh fuck.”

His hand winds back into your hair, pulling you off his dick with a lewd pop before his ecstasy takes him. You whine but then Caleb’s thumb skates across your clit, fingers pistoning in and out of your pussy as he traces devious circles over that naughty little nub.

You flutter around him, a delicate pulse like butterfly wings but then your breath quickens, the clenching becoming a constant thrum. His name is on your lips as you tighten, the deluge coming in a rush, soaking his fingers as you climax all over them.

He pulls them out and you collapse into Jesse’s lap, your cheek rubbing over his cock leaving a smear of glossy pre-cum staining your skin.

“Such a good girl.” Caleb praises, raising his drenched fingers to his mouth and sucking the taste of you off them. “Such a good fucking girl.”

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