MARIA

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!

You’re crouched by the rocks, thinking (maybe overthinking, definitely overthinking) about how tides are basically nature’s very slow, very patient way of rearranging furniture, nudging the shoreline grain by grain. Erosion as decoration, oceanic feng shui.

Your toes, lacking imagination or enthusiasm for your existential oceanic musings, wriggle unhappily in gritty sand, damp and insistent, like the world’s least appealing exfoliation treatment. 

But you’re stubborn, and stubborn means you’ll ignore discomfort if there’s something captivating enough to distract you. And just ahead, caught in the safe anonymity of shadow, is a small crab. It skitters sideways, freezes mid-motion, as though playing the world’s tensest, tiniest game of red light, green light. 

You’ve never really gotten the hang of “enjoying” the beach like a normal person, have you?

Even as a kid, your beach trips meant scraped knees and awkward contortions above tiny tide pools. Scientist postures adopted decades too early. Your mind always running away from you, darting through an endless maze of questions that refused resolution.

Once you tried to smuggle an entire jar of seawater home, insisting it was important, vital even, despite overwhelming visual evidence that it was just… salty water with a few grains of drifting sand. 

“Brachyura,” a voice says from behind you, abrupt and far too close to your ear to belong to a stranger. Your breath hitches and your foot slides ineptly in the damp sand.

Gravity lurches enthusiastically toward public embarrassment, already whispering promises of sandy humiliation, but a pair of hands find your shoulders, tugging you gently upright like an oversized marionette whose strings they’ve begrudgingly learned to untangle.

You crane your neck up, blinking upward through eyelashes clumped from salt air.

Langdon. 

Fresh from the water, apparently. Incarnation of stern practicality wrapped in saltwater shine. Hair dripping small rivulets of ocean down his neck, skin glistening damply, sunlight skittering over his features as if it, too, is uncertain it will find a kinder place to rest. 

“I — uh, well yes, that’s — technically that’s just the infraorder,”  you stumble hurriedly, words tumbling like dominoes, trying desperately not to acknowledge the persistent warmth of his hands still bracing your shoulders. You straighten your spine, awkwardly graceful (okay, mostly awkward), as your mouth rushes ahead without permission from your brain — “Which is good, infraorders are perfectly good places to start, broad strokes and all that, but, if you want specificity, which I assume you do, since you’re you and everything, accuracy-wise, I’d guess Grapsidae? Because of, um, the carapace? Although I realize that’s probably not visible from your angle, which makes this an educated guess — or maybe an overly ambitious one? Anyway, I might be wrong — though, honestly, I don’t really think I am.”

Langdon’s eyebrows lift fractionally, and without explicitly calling out your obvious spiral into nervousness (small mercies), he simply crouches next to you, hands moving from your shoulders to his knees, leaning forward into your shared fixation on the tiny creature.

“Carpace shape would definitely clarify,” he agrees softly, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Of course, if accuracy’s our goal — and you’re right, that’s very much my thing — we could always catch it and verify. Or is speculation more your comfort zone?”

“Catch it?” You practically squeak, eyes wide, picturing your clumsy human hands accidentally crushing something so small and helpless, immediately spiraling into guilty imagined apologies and crab funerals (poorly attended, perhaps only yourself, a few baffled seagulls, and the soundless waves). “No, no, speculation is good. Excellent, actually. Much safer for everyone involved, particularly tiny, defenseless beach residents.”

“Probably wise,” he murmurs, his voice barely louder than the tide hushing at your feet. “Better not to risk it. I suppose some things are best left unconfirmed.”

You shift infinitesimally closer, almost involuntarily, and find your voice tumbling out again before you can reconsider, earnestness coloring each syllable: “I'm still inclined to think it's Grapsidae, though.”

Langdon hums in soft acknowledgment, a small sound that vibrates through him into you, startlingly intimate in its resonance.

“Confidence is appealing, even misplaced confidence,” he remarks casually. “Though I’d argue it looks more Portunidae.”

“No — no, see, Portunidae is — well, not impossible exactly, but definitely unlikely, because the back legs on Portunidae are paddle-shaped, distinctly modified for swimming, right? And this crab, if you look closely, has pointy, ordinary walking legs, which —” Your eyes flicker upward, catching the small, barely-there curve of his mouth. “Oh. You’re… you're totally messing with me right now, aren’t you?”

Langdon’s smile broadens just enough to confirm your suspicion, eyes glinting. He lifts one shoulder in a lazy half-shrug, lightly apologetic in theory, not remotely in reality.

“Guilty. Sorry,” he admits. “I have this innate desire to contradict you. Consider it a character flaw.”

You tilt your head slightly, making an unsuccessful attempt at hiding your grin, cheeks undeniably warm. Purely sun-induced warmth, naturally (or at least that’s what you tell yourself).

“That explains everything,” you say, affecting an exaggerated, mock-serious air. “Honestly, this puts your whole personality into clearer perspective.”

Langdon chuckles quietly under his breath, the sound rare and low enough to draw your eyes back to his face. “Well, now you know. Incurably flawed, I'm afraid.”

“Deeply incurable.”

He holds your gaze for a second longer, a quiet smile playing softly at the corners of his mouth, before turning toward the distant line of waves. 

“Come on,” he says, voice gentle, almost affectionate. “Let's walk. We'll leave our mysterious friend to its existential privacy.”

You follow, still smiling, sand soft beneath your feet and heart inexplicably lighter.

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

FIND YOUR SUITCASE HERE!

“Deep thoughts?” Jack drawls, resting an ankle across his knee.

He watches as you blink back to reality. Your cheek is smushed against your palm, eyes glassy and distant, maybe seeing galaxies or shopping lists, Jack’s never quite sure.

The sun slips golden fingers through your damp curls, threading droplets like tears down your shoulders, staining the pale fabric of your sundress in fading watercolor trails.

“Only the deepest,” you assure him, offering a pout. More theater than truth. You lift your head. “Mostly about what kind of ice cream we’re getting later. You have important input here, Jack, don’t disappoint me.”

“You trust me with a choice like that?” Jack teases, eyes glinting.

But his palms go slick with something like anxiety beneath your expectant gaze.

He’s aware of every tiny sensation now, like the fresh scratch he’s nursing on the roof of his mouth.

Where did that come from, anyway? 

His tongue pushes at the raw little wound compulsively, over and over, sabotaging his already precious facade of laid-back, casual disinterest.

Cool and detached is apparently harder than advertised; imagine that.

“I trust you with everything, silly,” you tell him earnestly, eyes sparkling in the last slivers of the sun’s dying glow sprinkling freckles of warmth across your skin.

He nudges you with his shoulder. “Everything’s a big word. Care to elaborate?”

You nudge him back, giggling, blissfully unaware of the slow dread pooling through his chest, or the faint pressure of obligation suddenly crowding his throat.

“Oh, you know, the big, meaningful stuff. Restaurant decisions, purse-holding emergencies, spinach-in-teeth protocol. Seriously important matters. You’re at peak trustworthiness now, Jack. Consider yourself honored.”

He gives a low whistle. “Wow, purse-holding status already? I didn’t realize we’d gotten that far. Next you’ll be asking me to meet your parents.”

“That’s actually a really good idea! My parents love meeting my friends — my mom always does that embarrassing baby picture thing, but you’d totally survive.”

Friends. 

He turns the word over mentally, sour and mocking like spoiled milk, bitter on the tongue. It feels painfully inadequate, wildly inaccurate.

Friends don’t stumble bleary-eyed out the door at midnight, half-dressed, heart thudding with adrenaline because you thought you heard an intruder outside your window — only to discover a raccoon rummaging through your garbage.

Friends don't obsessively check menus for allergens, driven by irrational visions of accidentally killing you at dinner, or carry spare hair ties like some reluctant, lovesick Boy Scout prepared for oddly specific emergencies.

Jack's running out of ways to make himself clearer.

“Kid, you really make it hard to flirt with you.”

For a second, your face becomes an open book, cycling rapidly through shock, amusement, disbelief, realization, puzzlement, wonder, mild panic, bashfulness, hopefulness, and then back to sheer confusion. 

It's like a rapid-fire slideshow of everything he finds endearing and frustrating about you, distilled down into a few frantic heartbeats.

Finally, you settle on a stunned blink, eyes wide and brows knitted.

“Wait, what? You mean...right now? Or before now?”

Jack chuckles under his breath, something strained in it, hand dragging over the back of his neck like he can physically scrub away the corner he’s just backed himself into.

“Always. Constantly. I basically live in a perpetual state of flirtation-induced existential crisis with you. Frankly, it’s wearing me out.”

You hesitate, searching his face like the answer might be written there if you just look hard enough.

“Why?”

Jack nearly groans aloud, hand pressing harder against his neck, feeling an embarrassment akin to adolescence flooding his chest.

“Why?” he repeats, incredulous and mildly despairing. “Because I like you, okay? Because apparently my sense of self-preservation is broken, and being around you turns me into a masochist who enjoys embarrassment and rejection. Because you're the only person who's ever made me genuinely nervous, and I've survived literal explosions.”

He mentally braces himself, prepared for confusion at best, rejection at worst, anxiety drumming through him like a high schooler waiting for a prom date’s answer.

Instead, you crash into him, all vibrant disbelief, knocking him mentally, and somewhat physically, off balance.

“Jack!” you squeak, body pressed close enough that he can feel the flutter of your heartbeat. “Are you serious right now? You’ve liked me this whole time? Why wouldn’t you just say something? We could’ve been kissing — like, a lot.”

“Whoa, easy there,” Jack laughs, hands quickly finding your waist to stabilize the pandemonium of your limbs, half-laughing and half-alarmed by the tidal wave of enthusiasm colliding against him. “Believe me, if I’d known that kissing was on the table, I would’ve spoken up months ago.”

“So many missed opportunities,”  you lament, tipping your head to consider him, eyes wide.

Jack grins despite himself, gently teasing, “To be fair, I tried repeatedly. You're remarkably hard to communicate romantic interest to.”

"Guess I'll have to make it up to you, then.”

"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

"Like this," you whisper softly, closing the distance with careful deliberation, your mouth touching his so sweetly that it mends every fractured moment of miscommunication.

And perhaps all his fumbling signals and hesitant gestures weren't really missed opportunities after all, but merely necessary stepping-stones, quietly guiding him home to exactly this moment, to exactly you.

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

Robby decides this entire trip was a poorly conceived idea. A massive misstep. A lapse in sanity. The ER provided more than enough mandatory proximity to his coworkers within a carefully designated bubble of sterility and professionalism. Everyone fully clothed, protected by the sturdy layers of scrubs that render everyone nearly anonymous.

Here, anonymity is laughably. Especially yours, a certain intern whose bikini could probably be folded up and stashed comfortably in his wallet. It does nothing but give him heart palpitations and guilt.

Guilt because tries not to look, he swears he tries, but you’ve made yourself impossible to avoid, stretched out obliviously in his direct line of sight.

He feels like a creep. He is a creep.

Watching you, counting the number of hours you’ve been roasting under a Mediterranean sun despite twelve explicit, detailed warnings about UV exposure.

Usually, you practically hang onto his every word like gospel, eyes wide with an adoration that inflates his ego more than he'd ever admit.

Now he’s suddenly irrelevant, and your bikini strings are distressingly thin, and he’s certain this must constitute workplace harassment somehow.

But he’s not entirely sure who’s harassing whom.

Robby rolls his head slowly to one side, neck cracking in a futile attempt at releasing the growing tension gathering behind his eyes.

It worsens considerably when you choose that instant to lift yourself onto your forearms, your bikini top predictably ill-suited for its one simple job.

Robby’s gaze snaps down to the patio concrete, determinedly studying the cracks and imperfections. 

He hears your voice drift toward Javadi: “Should I reapply sunscreen, do you think?”

Javadi offers a halfhearted, distracted “maybe?” in return.

Robby presses two fingers against his temples, ignoring the urge to snap, Yes of course you fucking should.

From somewhere off to the side, Mateo perks up at your question, practically spring-loaded in his chair, face lit like a puppy hearing his leash rattle. “I can help —”

You blink slowly, lips parted slightly as you start to agree, but Robby’s mouth moves entirely without his permission: “I’ve got it covered.”

He’s already moving toward you, steps quick and decisive, not entirely sure when his limbs became independent of his brain.

Mateo pauses, halfway risen, looking baffled but fortunately silent, and Robby ignores the little stab of satisfaction that gives him.

You tilt your head up at him, eyes soft, confused in that way that usually leads to more questions, more talking, more things he’ll have to justify.

So Robby doesn’t give you the chance. He just plucks the sunscreen from your outstretched fingers, heart hammering unpleasantly against his chest.

He’ll justify this later. Maybe. Realistically, he’s going to gaslight everyone into thinking it made perfect sense and move on.

“Oh, thank you — um, I didn’t even realize you were still out here,” you murmur, ducking your head a little. “I mean, not in a bad way! I just thought you might’ve gone inside to — um, cool off, or something.”

“I considered it,” Robby says dryly, rubbing sunscreen briskly between his palms as you sit up fully. “But I figured if I left you unattended, you’d somehow manage to get sun poisoning.”

He tries very hard to not stare as you sweep your hair forward over your shoulder, exposing the curve of your neck and the slope of your shoulders, skin warm from the afternoon sun. But the image is already burned into his retinas.

“Sun poisoning is an inflammatory reaction,” you say quickly, tone climbing in mild protest, “and I don’t think —”

Your voice stutters sharply into silence as Robby’s palms press firmly onto your back, smoothing sunscreen into your skin.

“Whether you think so or not isn’t particularly relevant,” Robby says as his hands move in steady, overlapping strokes, making sure there isn’t a single missed spot. “Your skin is already overheated.” His fingers spread at your sides, thumbs dragging slightly upward as he reworks an area he already covered. “And if you’re going to insist on ignoring basic preventative care,” he adds, almost under this breath, “then I’m going to compensate for it.”

“I genuinely didn’t mean to be out this long. I was actually planning to come find you — eventually — just to, um, avoid this conversation. But clearly you got to me first, so… thank you.”

“You know, one ‘thank you’ per application is probably sufficient,” Robby says dryly, fingers deftly slipping beneath the delicate strings of your bikini. “But I won’t discourage you if you’re after extra credit.”

The thin fabric barely provides resistance, slipping easily against his knuckles as he spreads sunscreen across the untouched strip of skin it had been covering. His movements slow with conscious intention, thumb brushing along the sensitive hollow just between your shoulder blade.

He finds himself aware of every shift of your breath beneath his touch. The slight tremor that ripples through you, the almost imperceptible arch into his palm. 

“I’m very susceptible to extra credit opportunities,” you say, warmth brightening your voice as you glance back over your shoulder at him. 

His hand tightens without permission at your waist, fingers pressing into the soft curve before he catches himself, pulling away, flexing his hands like he’s shaking something off. A slow breath in, out.

“I’m giving you thirty more minutes,” he orders firmly. “Then I’ll drag you inside myself, if necessary.”

You tilt your head back. “Yes, sir.”

Jesus.

He turns on his heel before that can show anywhere on his face, heat climbing fast up his neck.

Robby stalks toward the house. As he passes Abbot, lounging casually near the sliding doors, he hears a low, sarcastic chuckle.

“Don’t suppose you’re offering sunscreen services across the board, Robby,” Abbot murmurs lazily, smirk evident in his voice. “Or is it a one-patient-only special?”

Robby pauses just long enough to extend one decisive middle finger over his shoulder, not bothering to turn or slow his stride.

“Not covered by your insurance,” Robby mutters flatly, disappearing inside.

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