Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
someone tries to pick you up at the club while you’re at the bar, grabbing drinks for you and price. when you look up, you blink in disbelief because it’s the same fucking guy that tried rubbing himself on you while you were feeling yourself on the dance floor, greedy hands finding purchase on your hip. thank god for john who yanked him away by his collar and telling the asshole to beat it. you’re clearly very unavailable and very much uninterested so what the fuck is this dude’s deal?
“c’mon, sweet thing,” he says, crooning. “why don’t we go somewhere private?”
“are you serious?” you ask, crossing your arms in front of you, the anger now shadowed by self-consciousness. you know that the issue isn’t you but you can’t help but feel that way when someone’s blatantly disrespecting your boundaries.
he shrugs, shooting a sleazy grin your way. “yeah, why not? ‘sides, you see anyone else out with their dad tonight?”
you pause, the anger and discomfort petering away for a moment of utter confusion because—
“what?”
he nods his head somewhere behind you and you turn, seeing john stalking close, having seen the asshole who’s back to bother you.
“i mean,” said bother starts, so utterly submerged in his wrong assumption. “it’s sweet that you’re spending time with him and everything but don’t you wanna hang out with someone from your generation? what, was mommy too busy for your step-dad?” he laughs at his own joke. at least he’s entertaining himself, you suppose.
john finally gets close, his arm curling over your hip to splay his palm on your stomach. you uncross your arms, hand finding his to hook your fingers.
“what’s goin’ on here?” john asks and impatience coats his words.
the man turns to you, eyebrow cocked like you’re about to take him up on his offer, like the fact that you’ve yet to reject him means that you’re considering him as an option but that’s not the dilemma that you’re going through right now. because explaining to the asshole that john is certainly not your dad would be easier, but a sudden fever has taken root in the pit of your stomach. it’s slowly steeping, making its way to your core, lighting you up.
“sweetheart?” john asks again, this time softly.
you gulp down the spit that pooled underneath your tongue and turn just enough to catch john’s eyes.
“he wants me to ditch you for him, dad,” you say, pursing your lips in your fake distress. john’s reaction isn’t obvious, but you feel his palm spasm on your stomach, as well as the way his chest rattles in his next breath.
his gaze darkens and he pokes at the inside of his cheek with his tongue, making it jut out—and oh he looks so delicious like this when his desires slam into him unexpectedly—before he pulls you behind him to tower over the man propositioning you with a boring time.
“i told you to beat it, didn’t i, son?” john’s voice is deep, intimidating. the man buckles at hearing john like he’s just realizing how much dangerous the man before him is.
“i just—”
“stop bothering my little bird and leave.” john isn’t yelling but his command is resolute; it’s unthinkable for anyone to disobey him. the man looks at you then back at john before turning around and running away to disappear amidst the throngs of people.
you smother a giggle behind your palm and turn to thank john but john’s leaning far too close, his breath hitting the bows of your lips.
“john?”
he tuts. “s’not what you called me, sweet’art.”
your eyes widen, the hunger coming back angrier. you part your lips, trying to—
what? deny him, deny yourself, what it is that’s bubbling in your core? john’s looking at you with a question, his need palpable, hot to the touch, and its balm is simple. all you need to do is be good.
“…dad?” you try, voice a fragile hum. your body locks, cunt dampening, making your panties stick to your skin uncomfortably.
“there she is,” john coos, and he sounds so, so proud before he cups your jaw with his big, warm hands. “now why won’t you be a good girl and show your ol’ man a good time, huh?”
Honestly, just a Brendon Park x pregnant!reader fluffy thing. This was originally going to be an Abbot fic, but the guppy thing was too cute in my head! I hope everyone likes it, I’m still trying to figure things out with writing fics 🤍
Feet curled up under you on the couch, a thick book was spread across your lap. Fairy lights twinkled from above the fluffy couch, illuminating the room just enough to feel cozy. A small bowl of peanut butter sat beside you, which you were using to dip small squares of your Hershey bar into.
Each bite made the small baby in your belly dance with joy, doing flips and rolls from the sweetness. Your free hand rested on top of your swollen stomach, a smile on your face at the movement. In between pages of your book, your eyes flitted to the clock, waiting for 7pm to arrive so your husband could finally get off of work.
7:49pm was showing on the clock when you heard him pull into the driveway, the loud truck engine rumbling enough to shake the windows of your home. You knew not to even try to get up and meet him at the door, he would quickly admonish you and usher you back to the couch, propping your feet up.
The door opened, and the smell of warm food from your favorite restaurant ushered in, making your mouth water. “Hi honey, how was work?” You asked, closing your book and smiling at your husband.
Dr Brendon Park, ortho God, also known as “Park the shark,” sat the food down on the kitchen counter, grabbing plates out of the dishwasher and plating your food. “I still don’t understand how you work in the ER with those idiots.” He scoffed, bringing the plate over to you and kissing you on the head.
“Baby, be nice. You know they work so hard down there.” You scolded him, taking the plate from him. Brendon didn’t respond, instead dropping down to his knees gently in front of the couch, his large frame still hovering over you even while crouched.
His hands spread across your swollen belly, gently lifting to relieve pressure from your lower back. You sighed, leaning back into the couch and taking a bite of your dinner.
“Hi, my sweet girl.” He uttered in a hushed voice, all the stress of his day visibly leaving his shoulders as he slumped into your embrace. “How is my little guppy doing?”
You huffed out of a laugh in between bites of food. “She sure as hell doesn’t feel like a little guppy in there. I’m probably going to give birth to a full grown baby shark at this point.”
The smile never left Brendon’s face as he laughed and continued to support your belly as you ate, already reminiscing on the days you were growing his baby girl, his little guppy, before she made her arrival in the next few weeks, the thought making his insides feel as squishy as a jellyfish.
summary — the worst-cared-for girl in the county keeps washing up in jack’s er, and he can’t help but start paying attention.
warnings — 19.2k. large age gap (jack’s fifty/reader’s in twenties), doctor/patient dynamic initially, power imbalance (attending/nursing student, age, life experience), yearning!jack, protective!jack, jealous!jack, and literally every single word in the book, mutual pining, slow burn, he falls first, hurt/comfort, reader shows signs of adhd but it isn’t explicit, alcohol use (recurrent drunkenness, mention of alcohol poisoning, ER, and repeated intoxication played somewhat lightly), loneliness/self isolation, low self-worth, it’s very difficult for her to accept care, lack of family support/implied estrangement, financial stress and overworking, she’s also spending an unrealistic amt of time hanging out in the ed but it’s fanfic so it’s ok, jokes about financial stress, injuries (sprains, split lip, bruising, gravel burns), medical setting, blood, referenced patient death (patient dies, off-page, Jack grieves), making out/heavy kissing, suggestiveeee content (thumb-in-mouth beat, grinding) but nothing explicit.
notes — oops sorry this fic is so so self-indulgent 🫶 i literally loved writing them tho i was thinking about them for days on end. tried to take a swing at this based on this idea i had + thank you @ker0senebunny for inspriring the shoe scene!!!! inspired by this post + my er visits where i was literally the worst patient ever
Friday and Saturday after midnight, the board filled up with the same predictable words; alcohol poisonings, bar-fight lacerations, the kids who’d taken things they couldn’t name and showed up convinced they were dying when they were mostly just twenty and having a large thought. Jack triaged it on autopilot, and he’d stopped finding any of it interesting somewhere around year seven.
Sure, sometimes there were some cases that got a mild laugh out of him or turned his head. There was a kid who’d superglued his halloween mask on his own face for a dare. The guy who’d lost a bet and swallowed something he wouldn’t name in front of his mother, who was present and furious. The occasional genuinely strange thing the human body did that still, after all these years, made Jack think huh, that’s interesting, the small grim curiosity that was about the only part of the job the years hadn’t fully sanded down. He kept those and told them to new nurses over shitty coffee at four a.m. because he supposed that was a better story than what he could say about the Middle East.
The first time you came in, he’d handed you over to Shen. You were a sprained wrist and a BAC that explained the wrist, sixteen other things were louder, and Shen was free then.
He’d clocked you for half a second on his way to a GI bleed in bay nine: girl on the gurney, one heel too high on, and one somewhere in the greater metropolitan area, some little pink lace-trimmed thing sliding off one shoulder, telling Shen with enormous seriousness that she was so sorry, she didn’t usually do this, she’d had a singular margarita. Only.
Singular. He’d categorized it under the thousand other single margaritas he’d sworn to in this department and forgotten you before he’d reached the bleed.
The second time, he didn’t take you either, but he noticed the wrist.
Same wrist. Different night — a Saturday, three weeks in, the sort of shift where the waiting room sounded like a kennel — and he caught it sideways while he reviewed another chart. It was the same left wrist, taped this time, the nails on that one hand done in some soft pinky color gone chipped at the tips as though the week itself outlasted the manicure, somebody walking you through the discharge paperwork you clearly were ignoring. Something thought for him instead of him thinking much for it, some pattern-recognition thing buried under twenty-some years of reading bodies fast, the same instinct that made him glance twice at something almost normal. A wrist that kept coming back, he supposed. A thread snagging on a nail, there and gone.
The third time, it was Shen, breezing past the station with his Dunkin, saying over his shoulder, “Frequent flyer’s back.”
He shrugged, not yet placing that you were the frequent flyer, and went to bed four.
And that — somewhere between the third time and a number he stopped keeping an honest count of — was where it stopped being a chart and became some sort of thing. A bit, he’d say. The nights the bars let out and the board lit up, he’d find himself reading the incoming names a half-second longer than triage required, and feeling something wrong in his chest when yours wasn’t in them.
Pittsburgh was notoriously interesting, Jack learned through you, in that it apparently contained an infinite supply of ways a girl could get herself in trouble. He was convinced he could’ve drawn a map of the city by your injuries. There was the ankle, of course, a recurring grievance, always the shoes, never your fault. There was one time you’d burned your hand on a curling iron getting ready tipsy and come in more upset about the makeup you’d had to redo (because of crying it off) than the blister. The night you’d gone over in a parking lot because you refused to look at the ground while walking — looking at the ground, while drunk, you informed him, was how you trip — and the time you sliced your finger open trying to shotgun a White Claw with a key because someone had bet you couldn’t. You were really proud of the last one, you’d won the bet.
You were never the same disaster twice, he had to give you that. A little too keen on busting yourself up here and there, sure, but at least it was the wrist once, then a knee that met a curb, then a memorable evening involving a fence you’d been certain you could clear. You came in apologizing — always apologizing, to him, to the nurses, once, memorably, to the wall — and you came in sweet, which was the part that got under him, because drunk people in this ER were a lot of things and sweet was rarely one of them.
“Mmm,” you hummed the fourth or fifth time, the second your eyes found him through the gap in the curtain, going boneless with relief like Jack was the cavalry and not the man who was meant to flash light into your eyes for thirty seconds. “The pretty one.”
Jack let out a huff. “Thanks, doll.”
“Doll,” you repeated, the word going gummy in your mouth. “He calls me doll.”
“Eyes open. Follow the light.”
“You call everyone that, Dr. Abbot?” you said, his name coming out in a cluster like you were losing thread of it, the Abbot dissolving into something closer to a hum.
“Sure do,” he lied. “Track the light.”
You looked at his mouth, then his hands, then back up, a slow uncoordinated sweep because your eyes had stopped reporting to anything in particular, much less what they had to. Pupils blown wide and lazy. He thumbed your eyelid up a fraction to get the light where he needed it; your lashes were clumped and starry with whatever mascara had survived the night.
He held the penlight steady and waited you out. He had nowhere to be. That was the thing about the dead hours after bars closed; the bleed had been signed up to the floor, the chest pain turned out to be a panic attack and a large energy drink, and there was just you, and the saline ticking into your arm one slow drop at a time.
“What’d you get up to tonight?” he murmured, thumb finding the pulse at your wrist, counting without meaning to.
“S’fast ‘cause you’re here,” you said, sounding very pleased with yourself.
“Sure it is. Where’d you hurt yourself tonight?”
“... stairs,” you said after a moment, like your brain had to run a few laps to get to the word.
“Oh, yeah?” He hummed. You lifted your free hand a little off the mattress, lost track of it, and dropped it back down. “How many?”
“Mm. Four?” You squinted at the ceiling. “Maybe three. I dunno. Not the Great Wall or somethin’. Promise.”
“I believe you.” He nodded, then turned your forearm to the light, finding the scrape you’d come in with. It was gravel-burn, raw, the heel of your hand and a stripe up your wrist. Nothing that needed more than cleaning. You watched him do it with your head tipped against the pillow, gone quiet so the talking had run out for a second, which never lasted.
“Should I get a better first aid kit?” you asked, then clenched your jaw for a second like you felt something was wrong with it. “S’I don’t have to bother you all the time?”
“Might be a good idea to invest,” he said. He pulled the swab through the gravel-burn slowly, and you hissed and tried to pull back the hand on reflex. “Easy.” He kept it, his grip light yet unmoving around your fingers. “Almost done. Don’t fight me.”
You hummed, like you wanted a different answer.
Jack wet his lips, shaking his head slightly. He worked the grit out of the scrape, a fleck of it catching raw skin, and he tilted your arm to the light, getting it on the second pass, and wiped it on the gauze. Your hands twitched in his, and he pressed your fingers flat to the mattress with his thumb, and they stayed.
“You’d have to do it yourself, though,” he said. “Bathroom sink at three in the morning with one hand.” He reached for fresh gauze. “You’d make a mess of it.”
You frowned at the ceiling, nodding. “Sounds a little bad.”
“It’s a lot bad.” He laid the gauze over the scrape, thumbed the tape down at the edge of your wrist slowly, smoothing it flat where it wanted to lift. His knuckle dragged once over the thin skin there, and he felt your pulse jump under it. “You’d scar, probably.” His thumb passed the chipped polish, the chunky gold ring you’d kept on, even for this. “You’ve got nice hands. Shame to wreck ‘em over the sink.”
It took you a second. “You think so?”
“Don’t wreck ‘em.”
“You like when I come in,” you said, delighted.
“What I’d like,” he said, flat, lifting his eyes to yours, “is you off the stairs and down to the one drink.” His thumb settled over the back of your hand again. “But if you’re set on flinging yourself down, then you come here. Deal?”
Your fingers had curled around two of his somewhere in there loosely, without you noticing. He felt them settle, and he held very still so as to not spook you. He chose to not acknowledge it or look at it.
“Deal,” you mumbled, somewhere far off, probably forgetting the front half of the terms.
He let it go at that, taping down the last edge and turning over your wrist once more to be sure of it. Then he set your hand back on the mattress, yours still loosely hooked through his, going nowhere.
“Anyone out there to get you home?” he asked.
“Dunno.” Your nose scrunched. “Was gonna Uber.”
He sighed through his nose. “Where’s that girl — the one you came in with last time? Why don’t you call her?”
“That’s annoying, Dr. Abbot,” you said, almost in a whine.
“Yeah?” He kept looking at the wall behind you. “What’s annoying about a ride home?”
“Calling people. Making it a thing.” Your free hand flopped vaguely. “Then they gotta come get you, and they’re all — have to be nice about it, but you can tell.” Your nose scrunched. “It’s a whole production.”
He pressed his thumb flat back over your hand where your fingers were still caught in his.
“Oh? Nothing annoying about it, sweetheart. You call, she comes. Simple as that.” He turned to face you. “But if you insist on it, I’m not signing you off until you’re good enough to go home alone. So you call your girl, or you sit right here and keep my department company till you’ve cleared enough that I’ll sign off on it.”
Your eyes narrowed as you looked at him as though he’d spoken a different language. “Second one?”
“Obviously you pick that one,” he said.
He pulled the stool over and sat. For a few minutes, he had nowhere to be, and now, apparently, neither did you.
It wasn’t that you simply didn’t let people help you, either. Jack had never seen anyone so committed to being simply fine. Jack had met the stoic kind before; construction guys who walked in with rebar through a forearm acting like it was a small inconvenience; old ladies who’d been having a heart attack since last Tuesday and didn’t want to be a bother. But Jack had always believed those people to be suppressing, and you were just convinced, somewhere down in the foundation, that needing anything was an imposition.
That was also why the shoes confused him so much.
“This is the same damn ankle,” Jack said, turning your foot in his hands, watching the swelling outside of it.
“You don’t have to remind me. Most men buy me a drink before they get this familiar with my ankles,” you said, then groaned as you looked at his eyes going over the swelling.
“No drink.” He pressed along the bone. “Not my fault you keep handing your ankle to me.”
You tipped your head back against the pillow, groaning again. “Dr. Abbot, they look so bad. I feel like I’m pregnant.”
“I can do a quick blood draw and we can rule it out.” His palm flattened on the mattress beside your feet, leaning over to meet your eyes again. “But I think it’s those heels of yours, doll.”
Your eyes snapped to him. “Don’t be a dick, Dr. Abbot.”
He tilted his head, then pointed at the laminated paper stuck to the wall. “Aggressive behavior of any kind toward healthcare workers is a felony.”
“Then arrest me, doctor. I’ll die on this hill — and they’re not heels.” Your lips pursed, and the corner of your mouth kicked up. “Cuffs may be a little forward for a date, but I won’t stop you.”
“Aren’t you just so sweet,” he muttered. “What are they, then?”
“Bottega Lido Mules.”
The words meant absolutely nothing to him — could’ve been a pasta dish, a town in Italy, a wine — but they clearly did to you, so he remembered them.
“That’s nice, doll. They’ll be the reason I see you again.”
“Maybe, ‘cause I’ll never stop wearing them.”
You said the words your whole face, hands coming off the mattress to make the point with a drunk theatrical conviction as you argued something that genuinely mattered to you. Jack thought, not for the first time since he’d met you, that you’d have been magnetic stone-sober at a dinner party, the kind of girl that made a table lean in. It was just that he only ever got the 3am version.
At least you had a hill you’d die on and didn’t apologize for, Jack supposed.
“You married, Doctor?” you asked as he started icing your ankle.
“No,” he said, holding your eyes for a second. “Why — you got a boyfriend I should know about, then?”
He almost wished you did have one. He wished that there were somebody whose name you’d have said just now who’d be in the waiting room with his jaw tight because you’d gone and hurt yourself again. Somebody who’d take care of the ankle when you walked out of here in crutches, who took the keys when you had too many. He wished there was a person in the world whose job you were.
And you weren’t his first patient who he’d understood to not have someone taking care of them. He knew that if he carried them all, he’d drown inside a month if he tried to be the person nobody else had been. He’d never once had it turn into a wish, standing here with an ice pack in his hand going slack in his hand because he was too busy resenting someone who didn’t exist for not being in the waiting room.
He wondered when down the line you’d stopped letting the people in your life around you be the ones you could call, became a girl who said sorry for bleeding and had nobody, nobody, and looked at him like he was the warmest place she’d been in all week.
You laughed. “If I had a boyfriend, would I be laying it on so thick?”
He let out a breath through his nose, despite himself. “Stop wearing the heels, doll. Not nice to not have a foot.”
The next time you came in, it was a Thursday. With some pileup of bad luck, you came in somewhere past one with a split lip and a story about a dance floor he only half got the shape of. Jack hadn’t even been assigned to you yet, he’d just seen your name on the board, and reassigned himself quietly enough that dared anyone on shift to comment. Nobody did.
“Lip’s not bad,” he said, tilting your chin up under the light, thumb at your jaw. The split was already going fat and shining at the center of your lower lip, and he found his eyes stayed on your mouth a second past the part that was his job, on the soft unhurt swell of it under the hurt. He moved his thumb. “Doesn’t need anything. You bit it when you fell down. That’s all.”
“S’throbbing, Doctor,” you mumbled, the word coming around muffled around the split.
“It’ll throb. You’ve got a swollen lip.” He let go of your jaw and reached for the penlight. “Eyes on me.”
“I was so cute before this,” you said through a groan.
The huff that came out of him was almost a laugh, dragged out against his own will, and he shared a fleeting look with Bennet — a fairly new nurse — who had tilted his head briefly and was too afraid to meet your eyes.
“Alright. Still the prettiest girl I’ve treated tonight,” Jack said when your brows had furrowed together.
“You treat other girls?”
“It’s a hospital,” he said. “Few hundred a week.”
Your face looked wounded. “Few hundred.”
He leaned in slightly, faking a whisper. “You’re my top three.”
You were further gone than usual tonight. He’d noticed it the second he came around the curtain, the way your head was having a hard time holding itself up, the loose unmoored swim of your eyes that took longer than it should to find his finger. A piece of hair had come loose and stuck to the gloss at the corner of your mouth and you hadn’t the coordination to deal with it, and he had the unprofessional impulse to, and didn’t.
Bennet kept working the blood pressure cuff up your arm, half an eye on you, half on his own work.
“Track the light,” Jack murmured. “Slowly.”
“Too bright.”
“Tough.” The corner of his mouth moved up slightly. “You can bat your lashes at me when we’re done. Right now, I need ‘em open.”
You batted them anyway, slowly and theatrically, just to be a problem about it. They were long, and the theater of it was so ridiculous, and Jack had to bite down the inside of his cheek to keep his face flat to wait you out, until you gave up and tracked the finger. Your pupils were reactive, equal, and lagging half-a-beat behind. He clicked the light off.
“Too bright,” you said again.
“It’s off,” he drawled, chuckling.
Bennett thread a line into the back of your free hand, and you watched him sink it with a drowsy focus.
“Why’s it go in the back of the hand?” you mumbled. “More nerves there. Hurts more. Why not the — inside. By the elbow.” You tilted your head slightly to let your eyes wander to the crook of your arm. “Bigger vein. The antec—antecubital,” you said carefully, sounding out each syllable, afraid of messing it up. You wet your lips and turned to face him, then Bennet. “Why’s nobody use the good one?”
Jack pursed his lips and looked at you for a moment.
“Saves the good one,” he said, catching up, eyes going back to your chart. “AC vein blows easily when somebody’s moving around, and you —” He tipped his head at you, raising a brow, the squirming drunk of you. “ — Are gonna move around. Back of the hand’ll hold. I’d rather you be sore than re-stuck twice ‘cause you couldn’t sit pretty for thirty seconds.” He paused as he saw your eyes glaze over. He sighed. “Ask me how I know that about you.”
You’d gone busy, lips moving slightly like you were repeating it back to yourself so it’d stick, and Jack felt something in his chest shift a degree as he watched you do it.
He sighed, dragging a palm over the lower half of his face. “Where’d you learn that, then?”
“School,” you said to the ceiling, a small hint of pride taking over your voice. “M’gonna become a nurse. Gonna be good at it.”
Bennet snorted, finishing the tape. “Gonna be patching up drunk girls just like you then, huh,” he said. “Full circle.”
Jack watched the pride go out of your face slowly, like a house losing its power. Your chin dropped and your eyes slid from Bennet to the curtain as your hand fisted in your lap.
“Yeah,” you said, almost curiously. “Guess so.”
Jack’s jaw clenched involuntarily. It wasn’t the guy’s fault, not really. It was a nothing joke, the sort the whole department tossed off a hundred times a shift, the gallows shorthand that kept you sane at two in the morning. Jack had made worse about patients who’d never know, about drunks who wouldn’t remember, about exactly this, exactly girls like you. He’d just never had one of them go quiet before, watched the bright thing fold itself up and get tucked away.
“Bennet, you done?”
“Yeah, line’s good — ”
“Then go take vitals on six. I’ve got her.”
Bennet went, and it was just the two of you again.
Jack pulled the stool over with his foot and sat — lower than he had to, level with you, taking himself out of the column of people standing over you tonight and telling you what you were — and waited until your eyes came up off the curtain and found him.
“There she is,” he said when your eyes found him. He turned your taped hand over under the light like there was still something to do with it. There wasn’t, he just wanted his hands on something of yours while he undid what the room had done. “Look at me. Nothing good on the curtain.”
“How’s school treating you then, doll?” he asked, aiming for offhand and not steering you off whatever Bennet had knocked loose.
“Hard,” you said, but a small smile had crawled up your lips. “But I like it.” Your shoulders came up loosely.
“Yeah?” He kept his thumb moving over the back of your hand slowly, like he could press the bright thing back up to the surface where it belonged. “I think you’ll be good at it.”
It was such a strange feeling, Jack distantly noticed, to feel this utter conviction. He was rarely sure of anything good anymore. Sure of plenty else; sure within ten seconds of a bad rhythm which way the night was going to break, sure of which of the kids wheeled in at 2 am he’d see again and which he wouldn’t, a grim accumulated certainty that had nothing in it he’d ever wanted to be right about.
The job had made him an expert on the downslope of things. He could read the exact moment a body wanted to quit better than he could read most of what people said to his face. And here you were, and he was so sure of the other direction, and he felt the same weight of it behind his sternum, except it had swung and pointed at something good for once. You were going to be excellent at this.
It bothered him a little, how much he wanted to be there to see it, whoever you were going to be once you stopped washing up on his floor on the worst nights of your week. He’d known you, what, a handful of shifts as a frequent flyer, a bit, a name his eyes unconsciously caught on. He had no business feeling certain of anything about you, and he was, and he’d let himself feel it.
Your eyes found him properly again. “Liar.”
He huffed out a short laugh. “Tell you what. You finish that program, you get through all that mess where they try to drown you.” His thumb smoothed over the tape. “Then you come find me here and we’ll see if we can get you here with me on nights. Clearly you’re at your finest then.”
It was maybe something silly to say, and Gloria may have his head for it. He had no actual standing to say anything like it, even though you’d never remember it. He knew better; hope was a controlled substance in his field and he was stingy with it on purpose, because he’d seen the withdrawal.
But God, he’d love to see the part of you he could only catch glimpses of through the wreck like a light under the door. He’d love to be the one who taught you which arrogance to keep and which to let the job take away. He’d love, plainly and without anywhere to put it, to watch you become who you’d just told him you were going to be.
It was a lot of loving for a girl who’d been in his department and wouldn’t recall his face or a word of this by tomorrow morning. He was getting sentimental, or old, or both; the years stacked up behind his eyes until he started mistaking everything for a second chance at something.
Your lips moved. “So I can patch girls up like myself?”
“Nah.” He kept looking at your hand. “You can patch up old bastards like me, too.” Then, he pointed his index finger of his free hand at you, mock-stern. “Gotta make sure you’re not at point three BAC, though. Will have to do that work to get you working with me.”
“Mm.” Your eyes flickered up to the ceiling, weighing it with the enormous gravity of the very drunk as though he’d posed a very real proposition to you. “Okay. For you, I’d stop.”
“For me?” he repeated, mostly to buy himself a second.
“Mm-hm.” You turned your face to him and said it with such ease, no glance away to leave yourself an exit. “You’re worth not drinkin’ over.”
Your words went in clean, the way the best and worst things do, under the ribs where he kept nothing armored because nobody ever aimed there. Jack felt the back of his neck go warm and was abruptly, intensely grateful for the light that wouldn’t display it.
Jack huffed, having to look away at the floor then. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all year, and you’re not gonna remember it. Hell of a thing.”
When he made himself look back up, you’d tipped your face into the pillow, watching him from the side with your eyes gone soft and heavy, the smile arriving unguarded across your mouth. The split tugged one corner of it, that small wince folded right into the sweetness, and you seemed to not feel it.
He had the sudden, idiotic wish to have met you on a night you’d remember. To have perhaps caught you when you fell at the bar, to have been the stranger whose arm happened to be there, not the doctor it eventually routed you to. Perhaps he could’ve been a man in your night instead of a stop in it.
He shook his head. “You’re trouble, you know that, right? Saying all these nice things. What’s a man supposed to do with that?”
He’d have liked to have been remembered, was the bottom of it. By you specifically. He’d spent decades being the man people were grateful to and glad to forget.
“What’s your name, Doctor Abbot?” you asked, drowsy.
He looked down at his badge, then back up at you. “Take a wild guess?” Then, he added, “You never looked at my badge?”
“Sorry. Didn’t read.”
“Don’t apologize to me. It’s Jack.”
Jack was doing his usual rounds this Friday, on a rush from a chest pain in two that turned out to be a panic attack and a kid in five who’d put a kitchen knife through the meat of his own palm trying to halve a frozen bagel when Ellis caught him by the elbow at the board.
“Heads up, Abbot,” she said, grinning. She nodded toward triage, toward the doors. “Bed three. Your, uh—” The grin tipped over, delighted with itself. “Girlfriend’s got a boyfriend.”
It was a running thing now. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time you’d washed up on his shift the staff had started on it — your frequent flyer, your stray, your girl’s back — and Jack had stopped bothering to deny it because that’d only feed it, and he’d learned not denying it had a way of starving the joke faster.
He looked, and was immediately able to notice what you weren’t doing more than what you were; you weren’t grinning at the ceiling, weren’t doing that boneless sweet-relief thing. You were sitting up too straight on the bed, hands folded in your lap, and there was a guy fitted to the chair beside you with one arm slung along the back of yours and a hand resting on your knee like he’d put it there to mark the spot. He was saying something low to the side of your face, and you were nodding at it, and not looking at anybody.
Jack felt a muscle tick in his jaw, immediately not feeling anything nice about the situation. “I got it — you mind taking six for me? I’ll come in a couple minutes.”
By the time he’d made it to you, he’d settled his face into something unbothered. You could read it, he’d realized at some point during your frequent visits, and that only meant he had to be on his better behavior around you.
“Evening.” He pulled the curtain half-round behind him, glanced at the chart clipped to the foot of the bed, then at you. “What’d we do tonight?”
“She caught an elbow,” the guy answered. “Some asshole on the dance floor. It’s nothing — she’s fine. She’s just a lightweight, aren’t you — ” A little squeeze on your knee. “ — didn’t even really need to come in, but y’know. Better safe.”
You weren’t a lightweight, he immediately wanted to correct. He’d seen you put away enough over the months to know your tolerance better than this guy apparently did; he knew the difference between the nights you were genuinely wrecked and the nights you came in clearer than you let on, and looking at you, tonight, you weren’t anywhere near the state implied.
“You,” he said, tipping his chin in your direction. “Not him. Where’d it get you?”
You lifted your hand up from your lap and touched your cheekbone, movement slow, and Jack stepped in and tipped your head up toward the light with two fingers under your chin, thumb resting just shy of the scrape. The skin had gone dark along the bone, tender, an elbow’s worth of it. Nothing that needed more than an ice and a night, but you were still holding still under his hand and not meeting his eyes, and that he didn’t like at all.
“It’s okay,” you said. “Really. S’not even — ”
“Let me be the judge of that, sweetheart. Gettin’ paid for this.” His eyes flicked down to yours and caught, holding it there a second with a small question in the rise of a brow, before he went back to the bone, thumb tracing the edge of the bruise so light you barely felt it. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth at the sight. “Follow my finger. Eyes only.”
You followed, pupils fine and equal. No concussion in it.
“She’s fine, I told you,” the guy said from the chair, a little laugh under it like he was inviting Jack in on something. “Hardly. She bounces back.”
Jack clicked the penlight off and turned to the side. “Gonna need the room.”
“I’ll stay.” The hand went back to your knee. “I’m all good here.”
“Can’t clear a head strike with people in the room. You get it.” Jack tilted his head to the side, raising a shoulder. “Liability. Coffee machine’s down the hall. Give me two minutes with my patient.”
The easy smile on the guy’s lips went thin around the edges, looking for a thing to push against and not finding it. He stood up slow, making a show of it, squeezing your knee and letting you know he’ll be back in a minute, babe, a hand trailing your shoulder on the way past, all of it aimed less at you and more at Jack holding the curtain. Jack pressed his lips in a thin line as he met the guy’s eyes.
The second the curtain closed behind him, a breath left you, tiny and involuntary, and your shoulders came down in the empty room.
“Sorry, Dr. Abbot,” you murmured. “I keep being a mess at this place.” You took in a short, almost shaky breath. “Sorry.”
“None of that,” he almost grumbled, penning your chart. “Your folks down here, sweetheart?”
“No,” you said to your lap, picking the edge of the blanket. “Back home. A few states over.” You let out a laugh. “Just me out here. S’nice.”
Jack forced a small smile, having to look at the ceiling while you looked down at your lap, shaking his head, more of an action for himself than for you. He pulled the stool over with his foot and sat, getting level with you.
“What’s goin’ on with you, huh?” he asked quietly, making sure there was nothing sharp in his tone at all. “Honest. I like seeing you but not like this bruised up with a guy who talks for you.” His thumb found your wrist. “So talk to me. What’s going on?”
“He’s fine,” you said. “Just likes being around.”
Jack tilted his head, dipping his head to meet your eyes that were still facing down. “Not the important part of the question, and you know it.”
You sighed. “Sorry, Jack.”
“Quit it. The only thing I want from you tonight is some honesty, alright?”
A corner of your lip kicked up, even though the dimness in your eyes held. “Your eyes look really pretty tonight.”
“Heard that one before,” he drawled. “Had ‘em fifty years. Try a new one.”
“Your neck’s going red,” you mumbled, fingers reaching up to press flat to the warm of his skin, right there below the jaw, like you just had to feel whether it was true.
Jack stilled. Your fingers were cold on his neck. He distantly registered his pulse was probably going under your fingertips, and you’d feel it if you held there a second longer. And then you caught yourself, hand snapping back to the blanket.
“Sorry. Sorry — I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that — ” you said, the words coming out in a taut string.
“Easy,” he said, voice coming out rough. He swallowed. “Got me all flustered and now you’re gettin’ all shy?”
You huffed a small laugh, your hand still fisted in the blanket where you’d snatched it back. “I’m not allowed to do that. I don’t think.”
“Had no idea you knew how to behave,” he leaned a little back from the stool, crossing his arms. “Should I be worried about that guy out there?”
“Jealous, Doctor?”
He rolled his eyes slightly, not responding.
You sighed when you realized he wasn’t taking the bait. “He’s fine. He just likes being around.”
He stood off the stool and reached for the discharge clipboard at the foot of the bed.
“Whatcha doing there?”
“My job.” He clicked the pen. “Clearing you. You’ve got no concussion. You’re not dying tonight.” He scrawled on the paper. “And I’m writing you a script for the bruise and a code for an Uber — ”
“No, no,” you said immediately. “Please don’t do that.”
He raised his hand with the pen, palm open. “You never let me Uber you back when you’re alone. At least have this.” Your face scrunched up, and he could practically feel the guilt building in you. “Don’t need to use it now. Or ever. You can keep it for whenever.” He set the slip on your lap before you could push it back at him, the matter completely closed on his end. “Goes in your phone case. You can forget it exists until you need it.”
“You can’t keep handing me stuff — ”
“Department’s got a whole stack. You’re not special.” He capped the pen, though the corner of his mouth made it slightly visible that his words were false. “Don’t flatter yourself, doll.”
You looked down at the slip, your thumb worrying the edges of it. “I don’t like taking things.”
“I noticed. A few hundred times now.” He tucked the pen back in his scrub pocket, and his voice came down a notch. “If it really makes you feel so bad, though, then maybe we can start taking care of ourselves so you don’t have to keep ending up here?”
Jack was in the middle of hand-off, Robby doing his thing before Robby left and did whatever the hell he did. They were at the board, Robby running down the floor. It was six-fifteen in the ugly hour, the in-between where the day shift was dragging itself toward the door and the night hadn’t started biting yet, the light through the ambulance doors gone gold and slanted and almost decent for once.
And then the doors slid, and you came through them. Jack’s attention peeled to you the second your shape entered the room, except this was wrong, he distantly registered. It was daylight and six in the evening and you were on your own two feet, upright and, assumedly, sober and walking in through the front like a person as opposed to a patient. You were wearing a jacket that swallowed you, and he assumed underneath it was shorts of some sort. He could see a stripe of navy cotton peeking from under the collar of your jacket as you adjusted a tote bag on your shoulder.
You looked, frankly, like a completely different species from the one he scraped off bed four on weekends. The jacket was too big — his first thought was that it was a man’s, and his second thought, which he didn’t care for, was about whose — sleeves shoved up to your forearms, a stripe of soft navy cotton on the collar, and below it bare legs and shorts and sneakers that had likely never seen the inside of a club. Your hair was up and a little damp at the temple and your face was scrubbed clean.
You looked like somebody’s whole good day, he thought. You looked around around the waiting room with slightly widened eyes, a lost expression coating your features like you’d built up a lot of nerve to walk in here and had no idea what to do with it.
“ — and the tox screen is still pending, so don’t let them,” Robby was saying.
“Mhm,” Jack said, attention already halved.
And Bennet, breezing past the triage desk with cheerful obliviousness, caught your figure and said, out loud, “Don’t tell me you’ve started day drinking. It’s barely past six, you gotta pace yourself — ” He let out a small laugh at his own joke, and kept walking, and didn’t see the way it landed.
Your body stiffened, and you looked like a deer in headlights. Your mouth opened, some sort of flustered apology forming, he was sure.
Jack let out a short groan, shaking his head. He set the tablet on the counter, already moving to cross the floor toward you. “Finish the hand-off with Shen. I gotta go deal with something.”
Robby said something at his back — deal with what? — but Jack was already gone, crossing the floor slowly but somehow still eating the distance fast, and he watched you spot him coming and watched the relief crash over your face. Except you were sober now, in the daylight, and your whole face was going soft and grateful and just slightly wrecked at the sight of him.
He stopped a couple feet short of you, closer than a doctor, further than he stood to you at night. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands — there was no chart to hold (he should’ve brought the tablet) or wrist to take or a penlight to shine — so he clasped them behind his back, and tilted his head to get a better look at you.
“Hi,” you breathed.
“Hey,” he said, eyes doing a quick once-over to make sure you really didn’t have any new injuries.
You shifted the tote under his gaze and clutched whatever was in the bag a little tighter.
“Jack —” you started, stopped, like the name had come out wrong. “ — Dr. Abbot.” You winced, pinching your eyes shut for a second. “Jack?” you tried to say again, smaller, your eyes flicking up to check his face to check if you’d overstepped. “Sorry, I don’t know which — ”
“Jack’s great.” His mouth tugged up, despite himself. “You’ve called me a lot worse. Jack’s a step-up.”
You let out a startled little laugh, your mouth coming over your mouth like you could catch it, as your body eased a degree.
“I’m sorry — I don’t — God, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry.”
“You know how many times you’ve apologized to me? Quit it.” He rubbed a finger over his lips. “What’s got you here today, then?”
“Um, I came to see you.” He raised a brow, and you let out a short breath, then continued, “I might not remember a lot of it, but I remember you took really good care of me. And my friends who came in with me sometimes said you took really good care of me.” The words came out softer now, flowing, more earnest. “Even though I was a mess. Especially when. So I just wanted to —” You shrugged, smiling slightly. “ — come say thanks.”
Jack felt the complete warmth of you land somewhere he kept no armor. “It’s the job,” he said quickly, before he could stop himself. “You didn’t have to come down here for that. That’s — it’s what we do. Anybody on shift would’ve done the same.”
Your expression faltered for a moment, and your eyes dropped to the tote at your side as your shoulders came in. You shook your head, a small motion, then smiled again.
“Right. No — yeah, of course.” You chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it a — I know it’s your job.” You shifted the bag, then shifted your weight from one foot to another. “Still, though. You did, so I wanted to.”
Jack already wanted to take his words back, but he couldn’t, so he just shook his head. “Hey, you’re my problem, though. So thank you. For the thanks. We’re even.”
Your shoulders eased and you nodded. “Well, I also have something for you.” You hauled a container out of your tote and held it out to him with both hands before you could chicken out. “It definitely doesn’t make up for all of the times you helped me.” You looked down at the container. “And I don’t know if you’re lactose intolerant, or have a peanut allergy or anything. I’m sorry if you do — I can — ”
“I’ve got a cast-iron everything. The cookies won’t kill me.” When you pushed the container further to him, he took it off your hands, eyes quickly scanning the round chocolate chip cookies, forcing a smile down. He swallowed whatever had lodged in his throat.
“These are homemade?” He weighed the container in both hands, absurdly. You nodded. He swallowed whatever on earth had lodged in his throat at that.“Didn’t have to do all that for me.”
“I wanted to,” you said quickly. “I wasn’t sure how the food here is, so thought it might be a nice change.”
“Worse than you’re imagining,” he said, then tipped his head to the side as the memory crawled into his brain, uncalled for. “You’ve actually thrown a sandwich across the room.”
Your palm came up to your mouth, and you let out a muffled, “I’m so sorry.”
Jack snorted, shaking his head. Then, after a moment, he cleared his throat before it could get away from him. He looked back toward the board, then at you, knowing time was slipping and he’d have to go back to work and you’d have to go somewhere else, most likely.
“You got finals or anything coming up soon?” he asked.
Your lips curved down, and you nodded. “Yeah, in a couple weeks.”
“Am I gonna be seeing you getting wheeled in wasted?”
“I want to say no,” you said, smiling a little crooked. “I’m working on it. But I’ve said that before and ended up here. So.” You shrugged, lips jutting out like you were also unimpressed with yourself. “Ask me again in a couple weeks, I guess. I’d like it if you didn’t, though.”
“Then quit doing the hard nights alone,” he said, leaning in just slightly. “You keep yourself off the stairs, and you can come bother us instead here with a textbook.” He raised a brow as he held your eyes. “We’ve got a family room that’s almost always empty at night.”
“I couldn’t — ”
“Won’t be a bother. Trust me. You’d be silly not to use people’s help when they’ve clawed through the same exams to get the badge. You get stuck, somebody’ll know it cold.” He shrugged. “Half of ‘em are bored out of their minds some nights. You’d be doing us a favor.”
You let out a breath, brows pinching together. “That’s — yeah.” You let out a short laugh, looking away for a second. “I’d like that. A lot. Thank you, really. As long as you don’t mind.”
“This is a teaching hospital, doll. I don’t mind, so long as you don’t mind the company. Might be nice for me, too.”
You smiled and for a moment, neither of you moved to end it. Then you shifted the tote back up your shoulder, and Jack felt the pull to keep you here one more second before he could stop himself.
“Go home,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll be looking for you. So actually turn up, don’t make me look for nothing.”
The whole sun of you came up at that, stunned, like you hadn’t expected to be looked for by anyone. Jack felt the ground go quietly out from under him, the vertigo of having reached for a person’s happiness on purpose and connected, of being, for once, the cause of a face doing that. He’d gotten so used to delivering news that took the light out that he’d forgotten it ran the other way, too.
“I’ll turn up. I promise.”
He nodded, clearing his throat and turning for the board, bidding you a throaty goodbye.
“She’s the girl that everyone on night talks about?” Robby asked immediately, falling into step beside him.
Jack looked at him sideways, shaking his head. “You got something to say, too?”
“No,” Robby said, rubbing his palm at his chin like he was holding something in. “You like her or something?”
Jack halted for a second, pointing his index at Robby as he lowered his chin. “You shut up. She’s gonna be a nurse.”
“Oh, yeah,” Robby laughed. “Looks like she’s gonna be your nurse, old man. You’ll need it soon enough.”
Thank god you did turn up. Jack had the sense that maybe he’d scared you off altogether by his offer, and the line he’d toed had two very alternate spectrums: you’d find a new hospital altogether to go to in the metropolitan area after your falls or poisonings, or you’d be here a lot more often, which he still wasn’t sure would’ve been often enough.
The first time you came in, it was well past midnight and Jack had unfortunately not been able to catch you off the bat because he was in an emergency surgery. He’d walked out of it with his blood-stained surgical gown still on to be met with the sight of you by the nurse’s station, writing something down on the back of a discharge form for Lena, with another Tupperware laying on the table. He made the guess that you’d brought the whole floor something and were three minutes from having Lena eating out of your hand.
You’d found a corner of his department and made yourself a small soft home in it inside of ten minutes, and you were leaning in, and Jack stood there for a moment with the bad night still ringing in his ears and felt something unclench in his chest by a fraction.
“ — no, but you gotta,” you were saying to Lena in earnest as Jack approached closer. “If you put the brown sugar in while the butter’s still hot, it’s just — it’s a different cookie.”
“You taking the recipe, Lena?” Jack asked then, fully submerging into the knot you’d made with his charge nurse.
You turned to face him, a smile forming on your lips almost immediately, and then your eyes dropped over him, to the gown, the rust-brown stain dried dark across the front of it, the set of his shoulders.
“I am,” Lena replied. “Gonna make these for the kids.” She punctuated her sentence by holding up one of the cookies.
“Gonna make some for us, too, then?” Jack asked, raising a brow, and settled his elbows over the table. He turned his neck to face you properly, putting on his best smile.
Lena laughed shortly. “I don’t like you enough.” She pushed off the counter with some forms in hand. “Her, maybe. You can have whatever she leaves behind.” She shot you a look that was almost warm before she went and disappeared down the hall.
“Could be you someday,” Jack said, tilting his head in the direction of Lena’s chair.
You shook your head, then pushed the container in his hands. “I’ve got to graduate first. And pass pharm, which is currently — ” You patted your tote bag, textbooks heavy. “ — trying to kill me.”
Jack nodded toward the family room, placing the container on the table for a second beside him. “C’mon, then, doll. Let’s see what the pharm’s doing to you.”
“You don’t have to — ” Your eyes flicked down the gown again. “You just came out of surgery. You don’t have to help me study.”
“Actin’ like I’m the one who got the surgery,” Jack muttered, chuckling slightly. He was already peeling off the gown one-handed, balling it up to toss. He started walking, and you followed behind him. “C’mon. It’s pretty empty right now.”
It’d been pleasant that night and the few after to have five to ten minute increments of sitting with you helping you study in between doing his actual job. He’d duck in between things — a lull after discharge, the dread stretch while he waited for a CT scan, the ten minutes a trauma took to roll in once the call came — and you’d be there in the family room with your stack of cards on the couch. He’d drop on the chair across you or the couch beside you and pick up wherever you’d left off like he hadn’t left at all. Then his pager would buzz and he’d be gone, and you’d still be there an hour later when he came back, and he’d sit back down, and both of you’d pretend this was a completely normal way to study.
It’d annoyed him the first night how badly the flashcards were failing you; he’d seen you stare at the words and your eyes would glaze and slide right off it like they were greased. You’d memorized or retained nothing. And then he’d said, half to himself, a story for the why to click, and he’d watched it lock in you.
So he’d stopped quizzing you primarily off the cards and started telling you stories instead and you’d talk it back to him, reasoning out loud, getting there in the saying of it the way you never got there on the page.
The nights stacked up. The first week, you’d sat at a table across from him. By the second, you’d migrated to the chair beside him. Your coffee, the one by the far end of the table, was right by his elbow. Lena started leaving a second cup at the station when she saw you come in, his and yours, and never commented.
You’d stopped apologizing for taking up his time somewhere in there. He noticed when you’d started saving him the worst looking cookie on purpose because he’d once told you he liked the ugly ones. He’d noticed when you learned the rhythm of his pages; you’d go quiet and just hand him the next card when his eyes drifted to the board through the window of the door, would have it ready when he came back, like you’d kept his place for him while he was off keeping someone alive.
He noticed that he more than looked forward to it. Somewhere in the dead middle of a bad shift, his feet would take him toward the family room before his brain could catch up on the why of it all. An empty table on a night you didn’t come in sat wrong with him, a tiny disappointment he didn’t have anything in him to figure out why.
Sometimes, like now, you’d get distracted. Jack had learned. He’d walked into the family room to see you and Ellis folded into opposite ends of the couch, the flashcards abandoned in a fanned mess on the cushion between you, both of you mid-argument and enjoying yourselves too much.
“Poaching my study hall, Ellis?” he said, finally moving in.
Ellis pointed one stern finger in your direction as she pulled herself off the couch. “Do the crossword, not the sudoku.”
“She’s gonna make you a worse student,” Jack said to Ellis’s back.
“She’s making me a worse doctor,” Ellis said cheerfully, already at the door. “I’ve been here twenty minutes. I have patients.” She turned to you one final time. “Crossword. You’ll thank me later.”
She gave Jack a knowing look on her way out, one he didn’t want to read too much into, and she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her in one slow plunge.
You watched the door settle, and the entire wattage of your attention turned to him. He hadn’t gotten used to that, and he didn’t think he ever would. “Looks like I’ll never be a nurse.”
“Don’t say things like that.” He came around and lowered himself onto the couch beside you. “What’re you stuck on? Hit me.”
Your palm met his upper arm, a small smack.
He narrowed his eyes at you. “Hit me all you want. You’re not getting out of this.”
“But Jaaaack,” you drawled, tipping your head back on the couch. “Not here to study today.”
His eyes flickered over to your form briefly as he gathered the cards and squared them. “Oh, no? What’re you here for then?”
“Dunno.” You pulled your knees up to the couch. “Didn’t wanna be at mine. And work was a lot and boring.” You turned to face him then, a small smile growing on your lips. “Thought I’d bother yours instead.”
He set the squared deck on his knee. “Lucky me.”
He’d caught it, though, how you’d folded the sad thing in the middle of the sentence where it’d draw the least attention and moved on before it could sit. He let it move on, but he kept it. The image of you on a Tuesday, work behind you, and the choice you’d made was to drive to a hospital rather than go home to your own quiet. He was getting a picture of what that quiet looked like and learned that he didn’t like it very much.
“Work was boring, huh,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine what a fun day looked like as a waitress. “You working more?”
“Mm. Saturday girl quit, so now I’m on Saturdays, too.” You picked at your sock. “S’okay. Tips are good. I learned that old guys tip better when you call them ‘sir.’”
He huffed. “Do they?”
“Huge. It’s a cheat code.” You tilted your head at him, smiling shyly. “You’d tip well, I think. You’d overcompensate.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and get profiled by you in the only few minutes where I can catch my breath.” He held the card up, front to himself. “And I tip twenty-five percent like every functioning adult, thank you.”
You groaned. “Where can I get tipped more than that?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
“I do. I do. I’m a broke student. Point me to the money — where should I apply?” You shifted on the couch, fully facing him now, the cards apparently abandoned for the moment. “C’mon. You’ve lived a hundred years. You’ve gotta know where I can make some quick cash.”
“You’re sweet to me, doll,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. He set the cards down and looked at you, genuinely considering it now. He tried to ignore the fact that you likely had money troubles and tried to think about how he could actually help. “Define quick.”
“Like — by next Thursday.”
“Legally?”
“No.”
“Legally, you can sell plasma. Twice a week, they pay you, you sit there with a juice box.”
Your nose scrunched. “I don’t love needles in me sober.”
“You’re gonna be a nurse.”
“In other people. That’s totally different.” You waved it off. “Next. What else?”
“Sleep studies pay you to sleep. Egg donation pays a whole lot but it’s a whole process, not a Thursday deal.” He was ticking them off on his fingers, now fully committed. “Medical research’ll pay you to test things. Phase-one trials. You take an experimental drug and they watch you for side effects.”
“That’s the one.” You sat up. “How much?”
“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I bring you in here to keep you from blacking out. I’m not gonna have you volunteering to get poisoned for a quick four hundred bucks.” He pointed at you. “Maybe start laying on the ‘sir’ a little too thick from now on.”
“Sir.” You tested on him directly, dropping your voice, leaning in an inch, lashes going slow. “Could you help me out, sir? Tips have been so slow, sir.”
He turned his face away from you, now making himself look out the window. “I’m not entertaining this.”
“Oh, but sir.” You’d fully abandoned the cards now, scooting closer, a hand under your chin, the picture of innocence. “I’m just a girl. A poor, hardworking girl trying to be a nurse. Don’t you want to help me out, sir?”
“I am trying.” He pulled up the flashcards. “If it’ll help, I’ll bring my SWAT buddies into your place and they can run up a tab.” He waved a card in front of your face, trying to get your attention back to it. “You do this, I’ll have eight cops eating mozzarella sticks in your section by Friday, overtipping ‘cause I saved their lives. Won’t even have to call ‘em sir.”
“Right. No, that’s — ” You let out a little laugh too quickly, eyes widening at his words, and you took the card out of his hand mostly to have something to do with yours. “You don’t have to do that. Obviously. I was kidding — ” You batted the whole thing away with a shake of your head. “God. No. I’m okay, I promise. I was kidding.”
“I’m half-kidding,” he said, raising a brow. “I do know those guys. It’s no skin off me. But it’s okay.”
He let the offer sit like that, and he saw you pinch your eyes shut. He watched the whole thing happen on your face, the small involuntary recoil you always had when anyone offered you real kindness. You were bad at it. For a girl who lied so charmingly about how much she drank and how her night went, you had absolutely no poker face for being cared about. You had not the first idea how to hide it.
He found it unbearably endearing.
You opened your eyes and looked a little caught, a little sheepish as your thumb worried the corner of the card.
“You’re a strange girl,” he mumbled, fond, before he could stop it. “You know that?”
“Shit — Jack,” you said through a small laugh, shaking your head. “I don’t — I’m — ” You pressed your lips together and your shoulders came up almost to your ears in a stiff shrug. “Is there anything I can do for you? I can’t just accept — all your help.”
He snorted. “What help? I give you a study room and review flash cards.”
“Let me do something. I’m a good cleaner — ”
His head went back slightly, shaking his head. “You’re really not.”
“Okay,” you continued, rallying. “A dog? Guys like you always have dogs they don’t walk ‘cause of their hours. I can walk dogs.”
“No dog.” He raised his hand when he saw your mouth move again, stopping you. “You pay me back by passing your boards. You can pay me back plenty if you end up working here, doing good at the job.”
You went quiet for a second. “That’s just me doing my own thing. That’s not real.”
“That’s real to me.” He shrugged, like he hadn’t just made your whole future the price of his kindness. “I get a good nurse out of it someday.” He pulled himself off the couch. “And now I gotta go. Floor’s not gonna run itself.”
“Boo,” you said, pulling the entire deck on your lap now. “You’re the worst study partner. You leave constantly.”
Tonight, Jack had come into the family room after leaving you for a longer stretch of time than usual — a multi-vehicle situation that had eaten two hours and most of his patience — and found the studying had long since lost.
You’d migrated to the couch at some point. The textbook was open face-down on the cushion beside you like a small tented roof, your flashcards fanned across the middle seat, and you were folded in the corner with your knees pulled up and cheek mashed into the worn armrest, fighting your eyes and losing completely. You’d dimmed the overhead lights, lighting the lamp in the corner, the one nobody used, throwing everything low and gold.
He paused in the doorway. “You awake?”
“Mhm. Need a cat nap, though,” you murmured.
Jack snorted, shutting the door behind him as he walked closer to you. “How far’d you get?”
“Far enough.” Then, you added, “Cat nap.”
“Sayin’ it like I’m gonna not let you have one.”
Your eye cracked open a sliver, tracked him, then fell shut again. “Feel like you’re gonna make me do more cards.”
He toed the leg of the coffee table aside, reached down, and started clearing your mess off the cushions. He lifted the textbook and shut it around the receipt you’d jammed as a bookmark; gathered the flashcards and squared them in his palm; capped the highlighter and pocketed it. You watched the cleanup through one half-open eye, not lifting a single finger, your cheek staying flat to the armrest.
“There. No more cards. You’re done for tonight, doll.”
“Hooray,” you mumbled.
He nudged your socked foot where it had crept up across the cushion. “C’mon. Budge up a second. Don’t want you wrecking your neck sleeping like that.”
You made a small sound of protest but you went, peeling your cheek off the armrest with reluctance. There was a crease pressed into your skin where the fabric seam had been and your hair was flat on one side and mushed on the other. You blinked up at him, swaying where you sat, eyes glassy and unfocused in the gold lamplight.
He sank into the space he’d cleared, the cushion dipping, tipping the two of you a fraction into each other. That was all the invitation your body apparently needed, because you folded into him without a beat of thought — too tired to second-guess it, he supposed — your temple finding the warm of his shoulder, your whole side melting against his. You drew your knees up and tucked them against his thigh. Your hand came to rest on his chest, palm flat, fingers spreading once before they went still. You exhaled after a moment, long and slowly, and burrowed your nose into his neck.
Jack stilled.
“Ten minutes,” you murmured, the words barely coming out as words.
He took his arm off the back of the couch and settled it around your back, broad hand spanning between your shoulder blades and drawing you that last fraction deeper into him. You went boneless with it, a small contended hum slipping out of you.
Because he couldn’t help himself, he tipped his head down a fraction to say into your hair, “Been doin’ really well, y’know that, sweetheart?”
You hummed, the sound of it vibrating against his throat, your fingers curling the faintest bit in his scrubs. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Gonna be a good nurse,” he murmured, thumb moving once along your shoulder.
“Gonna work with you,” you mumbled, three-quarters gone. “You said.”
“Mhm.”
“Holdin’ you to it.”
“Yeah, I know you are.” The corner of his mouth flicked up where you couldn’t see it. “Go to sleep. You can hold me to it in ten minutes.”
When you didn’t answer for a second, Jack realized you were already gone. You were warm and trusting at his side, your hand slack over his heart, your breath sinking deep and even into his neck.
Jack let his head tip back against the couch, pinching his eyes shut at the feeling of you, at the feeling you caused. His hand spread slowly across your back, feeling the breath go through you — the proof of you — and he let his thumb find the curve of your shoulder and rest there, keeping his eyes shut. He sat with the enormous fact of you, the girl he’d not seen anyone circle back for, gone soft and so pliant in his arms like she’d always belonged there, and he stopped pretending he wasn’t already lost.
The ten minutes came and went. He let them. He’d have given you the whole night, the whole shift, the whole of whatever this was turning into. There wasn’t one place on the earth worth standing up for, and he’d known it for weeks, and only now, with your breath slow against his throat, did he let himself sit all the way inside of the knowing.
Jack came out of the OR and signed — albeit distantly, mind running a meter a minute about nothing good — what needed signing and said the things he was meant to, feeling the familiar piece of his own damn soul rotting away in the place those things went to rot. He knew the spot by now. It’d been decades of depositing them into the same place, and the place didn’t fill, exactly, but it never emptied, either. It just sat there, getting heavier, like things usually do when you keep adding to it and never take anything out.
This one would sit a while. Jack had started to sense it around the first year in this job; the ones that stayed had a weight, and you knew on the table whether you were getting one of those or whether it’d wash off by morning. This one wouldn’t.
He stripped his gloves, and somebody said something he answered without hearing, and then his feet simply walked past the board, carrying him down the hall toward the one door on the whole floor that wouldn’t have somebody else’s catastrophe behind it.
His hand was flat on the door. He was still wearing the gown, and he looked down and registered it too late. He should’ve changed it, left the thing in the dirty bin with the rest of what the shift had taken, the way he always did before he came to you, kept the two halves of the floor separate on purpose.
He opened the door. You were on the couch, one leg tucked under you and the other foot on the floor and a half-empty cup of coffee on the table going cold. You’d been doing something on your phone, or nothing, when the door opened, and you looked up with the easy expectant expression on your face you always had before it dropped. He watched it melt.
“Hey,” you said, making your voice soft.
“Hey.” His voice came out rough, and he almost winced as he heard it himself.
You set your phone face-down on the cushion and unfolded yourself from the couch and stood, crossing the room to close the gap between you. You stopped in front of him and looked up, your brow doing a small worried thing, and he let himself be looked at.
“Sit down,” you said. “You look like you’re gonna fall through the floor.”
He distantly registered you walking him to the chair — your hand finding his forearm, a light touch — and he let you. He folded into the chair like the strings of his own body had been cut, his elbows finding his knees and head dropping.
He heard you move, small domestic sounds of you filling a cup, the tap somewhere down the hall turning on then shutting off. Then your socks were back in his eyeline, toes pointed to him.
“Here.” You crouched, came into his lowered field of vision, and pressed a cup into his hands — water, cold — and folded his fingers around it when they were slow to close. “Drink it all.”
He drank because that was the path of least resistance. The water caught something he hadn’t registered was bone-dry. You took the empty cup out of his hands when he was done, setting it on the table behind you, and then he felt your hands find his shoulders.
He flinched just slightly, the smallest involuntary thing, for nobody touched him like that. Nobody put their hands on him that weren’t shaking one of his or needing something from him. You settled your thumbs into the iron base of his neck and pressed slowly, working the knots the night, the days, the weeks, and probably the year had wound there.
Your thumbs were unsure of themselves — you weren’t good at it, you weren’t trying to be, you were simply trying — and that was somehow worse because it got further to him than skill would have; there was the unpracticed earnestness to it, like you’d simply decided his shoulders had been holding too much and you wanted to put your hands there to take some of it down.
He felt his head drop lower, coming forward on its own, the tension bleeding out of his neck by degrees under your hands. Your thumbs found a place at the top of his spine that had been clenched so long that it had stopped registering as pain, and you pressed there, and a fraction let go. He felt his shoulders drop the inch they’d been holding up all night, and an uneven breath went out of him.
You kept your hands moving, your thumbs working the meat of his shoulders through the cotton, occasionally finding a knot and leaning your weight into it until it gave.
His head tipped a little forward after a stretch of time — chasing, or simply falling — and it found the soft of your stomach. His forehead rested against the front of you, where you stood close in the gap between his knees. He hadn’t intended for it, or maybe he had, somewhere under where the intention happened, his body had chosen to stop holding its own weight and give it to the nearest thing that felt like it’d take it. His eyes were already shut, and he stayed there, hands coming up on their own to rest at the sides of your waist. His fingers anchored into the fabric of your shirt.
“Shitty job sometimes,” he mumbled after a moment.
“Yeah,” you said softly above him. “I bet it is.”
Your fingers had found his hair, threading through the curls. Then, you added quietly, “But you’re really good at it.”
His fingers tightened a fraction at the fabric on your waist as he let out a short huff.
“Didn’t help him,” he said finally, the words coming out muffled behind his own mouth. “Whatever I’m good at didn’t help him.”
“Maybe not.” Your fingers scraped carefully at his scalp. “I think you were the best shot he had.”
He breathed you in, choosing to let the words rest in his skull for a while instead of fighting them.
“I’m — ” He heard you take in a breath and felt it go through your whole body. “I’m really grateful I met you, Jack.”
For some reason, he waited for you to take it back. There was a primally fast thing in him that told him that you’d take the words back, and he’d have understood.
“You don’t have to say anything,” you added. “I just wanted you to know. While you’re here being all — ” Your thumb moved at the back of his neck, tender and so gentle. “ — Figured it was a decent time to tell you I’m glad you exist.”
He took in a shaky breath against you, fingers tightening again.
“Thank you, sweet girl,” he said, and it sounded like it’d been punched out of him. “Likewise. More than you know,” he finished, his arms wrapping around the rest of your waist now, pulling you in like he could just fold himself smaller if he held hard enough.
Your fingers kept moving slowly in his hair, your other hand coming around the back of his head to hold him there. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d let anybody do this; as far as he could remember, he’d decided in some wordless permanent way that he’d carry his own weight from then on, that it was cheaper, that needing somebody was a bill that came due eventually and he’d rather not run the tab.
“You should sit,” he said after god knows how long without letting go. “Selfish, keepin’ you standing here.”
“It’s okay.”
He hummed, thumb moving once at your waist. “Two more minutes then.”
“Whatever you need, Jack,” you said, voice quiet. “I’m not going.”
Jack’s phone lit up on the arm of the couch at 10:52, face-down, buzzing itself a quarter-inch off the leather before he caught it.
He’d been working his way, with grim completionist patience, through an iceberg video you’d sent him three days ago with the message ‘THIS rabbit hole i need you to fall down.’ You’d followed it up by telling him, ‘do Not skip tiers!!’ He hadn’t skipped tiers. He was, in fact, ninety minutes deep and only about two-thirds down the pyramid, somewhere in the tier where a young man with a serious voice was explaining internet folklore he couldn’t believe was real.
He was fairly sure it’d been invented by some teenager, but Jack only shrugged, distantly wondering why on earth anyone would spend the labor — the diagrams, alone — hoaxing a thing this elaborate for an audience of complete strangers. He also wondered why on earth you were so interested in this. As quickly as the thought arrived, he realized that he was working down the iceberg himself.
Working down a thing you’d handed him felt adjacent to sitting next to you, and his apartment had become the sort of quiet that made adjacent worth ninety minutes of contemporary folklore. He’d sooner have chewed glass than admitted it out loud.
It was a good apartment and an unwitnessed one. He’d realized somewhere in the past year it was untouched by any hand but his. Every object was exactly where he’d last set it down, for there was no second person to nudge the remote three inches or leave a hair tie on the counter or ask why there was a mug in the sink and no bowl. His leg was off for the night, propped against the arm of the couch, the whole standing weight from his night shift to SWAT calls finally set down somewhere it was allowed to stay.
So, the phone going off, went off loud in the silence that had become almost-permanent. Your name lit across the screen, and the picture with it (one you’d set yourself, commandeering his phone to do it). It was already strange that it was a call. You never called; you texted in floods, six messages deep before he’d gotten to the first, but the ringing meant the thing had gotten past the point where typing it out would hold.
He looked at your laughing face buzzing on his phone for a second too long, the cold little instinct, and thumbed it green.
“Hey,” he said. “You know it’s almost eleven on my night-off. This better be good.”
You stayed silent for a second, and he could hear your breath and the hollow of a call connected in a car, the cooling engine’s tick and automotive acoustics.
“Hey,” you said finally, and Jack felt it wrongly. The back half of the word had gone soft and unsteady at the end.
Jack was already sitting up. “Hey, yourself,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He heard you swallow quickly. “Sorry. God, this is so dumb. You — were you asleep?”
“I was almost through with your iceberg, if you want the truth.”
You made a sound that tried to be a laugh but didn’t clear the runway, breaking apart halfway. “You watched it?”
“Almost.” His fingers were drumming against his prosthetic leaning by the couch now. “Are you out?”
“I’m —” You paused, then hummed like you were debating. “I’m kind of near your place, actually?” Your voice rose toward the end, like you were embarrassed or questioning it all yourself. “I know. It’s creepy. But I think I need to — talk to you.”
“Yeah?” He tried to keep his voice light, though he could already feel something in his body start racing, panicking. “You break something?”
“No. No. Promise. It’s nothing like that.”
For some reason, that put a deeper hook in him. If it wasn’t a wrist, an ankle, or your body doing something it shouldn’t, then it was the other kind, and he had no idea how to hold something like that. He wasn’t sure what he could do with a sprain he couldn’t ice.
“Okay — ”
“Wait,” you interrupted, voice pitching higher, and he could see you were psyching yourself out. “I could just say it now, honestly. It’d probably be easier over the phone.”
Jack’s eyes widened a fraction at that. His stomach suddenly felt cold.
“No,” he said, voice rougher than he’d intended. “I won’t make it hard. Whatever you want to say, I promise. Just — not like this, okay? Come here.”
He listened to you breathe as you weighed it and knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he wouldn’t like what you were going to say. “Okay,” you breathed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
Jack opened the door after the first knock, unembarrassed of waiting. You’d come as you were, a coat thrown open over sleep clothes, good wool hanging loose over a thin cami with lace at the collar and soft shorts and bare legs down to the sneakers you hadn’t laced properly. The second fact that registered to Jack was that you’d been crying; there was a soft ruin around your eyes, the mascara long gone, wiped with a sleeve somewhere back in the evening. Your hair was up and losing, a claw clip hanging looser than he believed it was meant to.
“Hi,” you said, eyes raising to meet his. “Thanks for letting me come by.”
Jack felt his shoulders rise to his ears just slightly at the formality. He felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped upon him because somewhere in the past few weeks, you’d stopped apologizing to him as much, which had felt like a small victory he never told you he was counting. And here it was again, your stiff little courtesy, the door swung back shut on a thing that had been open. Jack didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“You don’t thank me for coming by,” he said gruffly, opening the door wider.
You came in, but only just. Before he could steer you to the warmth of his apartment, you were already reaching into the bag on your shoulder — hands shaking, he realized, with a fine tremor — and pulling out a folded piece of paper, creased hard down the middle and then again like you’d tried to bundle it up into a fist.
He unfolded it and smoothed out the edges, eyes looking for yours briefly, but you’d already looked away. Your bottom lip was between your teeth and you were looking at the ground. He forced himself to look down.
It was your pharmacology exam. Your cramped looping handwriting scattered the margins, a star drawn to one question because you starred everything. There was red pen all down the side and a number circled on the top. The number, Jack saw immediately, was not catastrophic, not a failure even. It was a low pass, the sort of grade that would’ve stung for Jack in his school days and evaporated by the next exam. He’d expected worse from the way you’d been shaking holding it.
He looked back at you, confused more than anything. “Congratulations, you passed.”
Your jaw tightened, and he could see your eyes go bright and wounded. “It’s a seventy-one.”
“That’s a pass.”
“Barely. Barely.” You took the paper out of his hands, folding it away like you couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. “And you helped me with this so much and I still couldn’t. I’m so tired of — ” You stopped, looking up at the ceiling as you pressed your lips flat. “It’s not about the test.”
“Okay.” He leaned back against the counter, giving you the whole floor of the room. “Talk, then.”
You looked at him, and he watched you gather it all up, deciding, as it settled into your face, your mouth, whatever you’d come here to say.
“I don’t wanna waste your time anymore,” you said, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth as your eyes landed on the wall behind him. “I can’t — it’s not fair.”
Jack felt the whole floor shift under him and felt his brows go up an inch as he tried to keep his face seem collected.
“You’re you,” you continued. “You’ve got a whole life, a hard one, and I’ve been just — dumping mine on you. Making you sit there and hold my hand through studying and I’m — ” You shook your head, face going grim as you said the words. “It’s not fair to you. You’ve been carrying me for so long, and it’s not fair. None of this is yours to carry. I’m not yours to carry.”
His nose scrunched just slightly, something like burning blooming at the center of his face. Something in his chest had cracked along the seam he had no idea was there, because he’d never had to look at it once straight on. It was easy to carry your own weight when there was no one asking to take some. It was easy to call solitude a principle when nobody had ever made the alternative real. And you had. You’d made it real for months, and here you were proposing — no, telling — to take it back, to hand him his loneliness again because of some measurement of fairness.
The horror of how much Jack didn’t want it — how badly, how completely he didn’t want to go back to how it was before you — was the first honest look he’d taken at himself in longer than he could stand to count.
“That so?” was all he could say, voice roughening as his brows narrowed at you.
“Yes.” You mistook the roughness for agreement, or maybe you just needed to do so, because you kept going. “You don’t have to help me. The only thing I can think is you’re — you are a good person and I was there. And you help people, it’s what you do.” Your hand waved in the general direction of him as your voice cracked. “So help someone who’d actually make it worth it. Who won’t barely pass and keep getting too drunk and — ” You laughed slightly, and it was all wet and terrible, the sound. “I’m a bad use of you. You’re this — you are so much, Jack, and I’m a bad place to put it. So put it somewhere better.”
Jack had to force a swallow when you ended your words with a sharp intake of breath, the pool behind your eyes slipping free slowly down your cheeks. You’d run out of anything that’d make you wipe it away now, and that undid him worse than the crying itself, that you were standing there and letting it fall, done hiding, wrung all the way out.
“I’m sorry — ” he started.
“It’s okay,” you said immediately, shaking your head.
“For making you think that’s what it was,” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s on me, that you talked yourself into thinking this has been some sort of charity.” He cocked his head to the side then, wishing you’d look up at him. “But you’re gonna quit shaking your head for one minute, and hear the rest, ‘cause you got it wrong. All of it, backwards and upside down.”
He came off the counter and closed the space himself, until you had to lift your chin to keep his eyes.
“I’m not a man who spends his nights on a stray out of the goodness of his heart. Ask anyone I work with what I’m like. I don’t have that lying around spare.” His jaw tightened. “So take the halo off. That’s not what this was.”
“Then why — ”
“You,” he said plainly, for he learned it cost him nothing to do so, and a lot if he didn’t. “I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. There’s nowhere else I want to put it.”
He watched everything in your face tighten at his words, the disbelief and reflex to argue all curdling underneath.
“If you don’t want this.” Me. Me, he wanted to say. “Say it. I’ll leave you alone. You don’t owe me anything.”
“That’s not — ”
“But don’t act like it’s some favor for me.” He was closer now than he’d been. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving for my sake. That’s a lie.”
“It’s not — ”
“It’s a lie,” he said, voice going flat and so final, as he slowly nodded his head. He looked at you a second, lips coming between his teeth, then looked away as he felt something physical seize over his entire body.
Jack himself had to process the words as he said them, because he was only just realizing how much truth they held.
“You make it good.”
He forced himself to look back at you, and you had tilted your head now to look up at him, caught and still as stone, the arguing gone completely off your face now and replaced with something more frightened.
“Don’t — ” One of Jack’s shoulders came up in a half-hearted shrug. “You’re the one part of my day that doesn’t take anything out of me. Just — get that straight, sweetheart.”
You were just looking up at him with your whole face undone, the tears gone still on it, as though his words had knocked your own clean out of you.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” you said quietly. “People don’t — that’s not a thing that happens to me, Jack. Being — ” Your sentence broke apart and your hand had come up and fisted loosely in front of his shirt without either of you deciding it should, holding on, holding him there. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Nothing.” His hand came up slowly and covered yours where it fisted in his shirt, holding it flat there against his chest. “It’s just true.”
You made a small, pained sound and dropped your forehead against his sternum, right where his hand held yours, and he felt the whole strung-tight weight of you gave at once and settled into him. He felt you breathe against his shirt at the same time he felt his own pulse going too fast on your knuckles; he wasn’t bothered enough to try and slow it, because there was no point now. You’d already found out.
“Very grateful for you,” he murmured, his other hand pulled up to rest over the back of your skull. “Told you so earlier. Meant it more than you let yourself hear.”
You huffed against his shirt — half a sob, half a laugh, maybe the ruined cousin of both — and he felt it go through the cotton and land warm against his skin, felt your fingers uncurl a fraction from the fist they’d made then re-fist, like even now some part of you was checking he was still there to hold onto.
Jack held still for it, same as you had in the family room for him. He was good at holding still, it was half the job, but this was a different kind — he supposed — where there was a plain animal willingness to be a wall for as long as you needed one and not move a muscle that might spook you out of it.
He rested his chin at the top of your head, murmuring, “I don’t have to tutor you anymore, if that’ll help.” He swallowed, closing his eyes as he breathed in your faint perfume. “We can scrap the whole thing, if that’s what’s making you feel so bad.”
You stilled for a second, then made a small sound against him.
Despite himself, despite it all, he let out a short chuckle. “S’okay. I’m the reason you got a seventy-one. You’re allowed to switch.”
“You’re the reason it’s a seventy-one and not a thirty,” you said, and it came out muffled and immediate. You almost sounded cross, like you didn’t want the slander against him to stand even now.
After a moment against him, you added, “I don’t want to be just someone you help, I think. I don’t want to be somebody — I guess — that you’re just good to.”
When Jack hummed, you continued, “I don’t know what I wanna be instead. Just — a friend — or, I don’t know. Something that goes both ways.”
Jack’s chest swelled at the words. He felt that he’d have been anything you asked of him, simply because it had just become how it was. It was almost outrageous how, if you’d asked, he’d have handed it over, the whole rest of it, whatever you wanted the name to be, whatever box you needed him in.
A man his age was supposed to be past this. He was supposed to have calcified somewhere in the second decade of the job into something that didn’t reorganize himself around what someone he’d known properly only for the better part of the year had asked him.
“Consider it done,” he murmured, letting the word settle. Friend.
You breathed against him, and Jack felt himself want to remain exactly here and knew that he shouldn’t. He knew that the kind thing now was to give you somewhere to put your face that wasn’t his chest, some ordinary ground for you to set your feet back down on.
“C’mon.” He got a hand on your shoulder and eased you off him gently, a slow, slow reclaiming of the eight inches of air between your body and his. He dipped his head to catch your eyes, which were pink-rimmed and swollen and doing their utter best to avoid his now that the worst was out of you. “Do you want me to order food?”
Your neck rolled back slightly as you met his eyes, caught slightly off-guard at the shift of tone. You blinked. “That was a lot, and now you’re asking about food?”
“It was a lot,” he agreed. He reached up and thumbed a smudge of leftover mascara from under your eye briskly, and you let him. “And now it’s done. So, food, and we can watch the stupid video you sent me before you head home.”
It had been six days since you showed up at his apartment, and Jack had embarrassingly counted every single one of them. You’d left his apartment somewhere past two with your eyes finally dry and a paper bag of his leftover Thai you’d protested and taken anyway, and he’d walked you down to your car and stood in the lot like some idiot in a movie until your taillights turned off his street, and then he’d gone back up to a quiet that felt, for the first time in years, like something had been in it.
Since then it had gone like it always had and nothing like it; you still turned up with flashcards and left a graveyard of half-drunk coffees on every surface. But he’d noticed how you started letting him sit closer now, let a compliment land without flinching off, and once, mid-story, had reached over and fixed his scrub top where it had folded under, casual as breathing.
Friend was the word you’d settled on. Jack was thinking about that when Shen dropped into step beside Jack with a cup of fresh Dunkin sweating in his hand.
“You know it’s not standard to let your girlfriend occupy the family room for three hours of your shift, right?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jack immediately clarified. It seemed more important to do now than it was earlier, when people only knew you when you came in as an emergency. Still, it felt wrong, like a key going in the wrong hole. “And you got a problem with it?”
Shen lifted the coffee in surrender, unbothered. “You know we’ve grown to her. She and I do the Wordle every midnight.” Then, he spread one hand. “Administratively, she’s not staff. She’s not a patient. She’s not family of a patient. Which leaves the category I’d have to call —” He tilted his head, faux thoughtfulness. “ — Abbot’s girlfriend, and I don’t think that’s in the handbook.”
“Try again,” Jack drawled, thumbing a form he wasn’t reading that didn’t need to be read. “She’s a nursing student getting hours of free tutoring off a board-certified attending. Put that in the handbook. Teaching hospital. I’m teaching.”
Shen shook his head, letting out a small laugh. “Alright. Alright. She’s not your girlfriend. Mind if I ask her out, then?”
Jack snorted. “If you could only be so lucky.”
“Clearly she has a type for attendings,” he pressed, grinning. “Or is it just the ones with gray hair?”
Jack looked at him sideways. “This is getting a bit weird, even for you.”
“I’m happy for you, man. Even if you’re gonna make us all watch you not do anything about it for the next six months.”
“Mind your own damn business.”
“Sure,” he turned, lifting a hand over his shoulder as he went. “Close the blinds anyway. There’s a window on that door. Everyone can see her making you dumb.”
Jack looked down the hall and set the form down before going there to close the blinds — telling himself it was for the window, for Shen’s real talk — and knowing, somewhere under that, that he was really just going to you.
He could see you through the window in the door before he reached it, which was, he supposed, exactly Shen’s point. You had a textbook open in your lap and you were chewing the end of your highlighter, brow pulled in, mouthing something to yourself, working a card over your head. You’d pulled the sleeves of one of his old sweatshirts down to your hands, the one you’d swiped from his locker two weeks ago and never given back and that he’d never once asked for, because he’d found he didn’t want it back, found he liked seeing it swallow you.
You gave him a smile when he walked in. He reached up and tipped the blinds shut on the window with two fingers, the floor outside tipping away.
“Why’d you close them?” you asked, slightly bored.
“Apparently the whole department’s been getting a show.”
You furrowed your brows then. “A show of what? Me failing?”
“Somethin’ like that.” He let it go at that, coming around and lowering himself onto the couch beside you, the cushion dipping and tipping you toward him a degree, what it always did that neither of you ever corrected. “How’s it going? Honest.”
“Honestly?” You blew out a breath, closing the highlighter. “I’d kill for a drink.”
“Oh?” Jack settled back against the couch, his arm coming up along the top of it behind you. “Telling that to the one man who’s seen what you look like at the bottom of the bottle.”
“Jaaaack,” you said, almost in a whine. “Let’s go to a bar.”
He snorted, dragging a hand down his face. “Now I’m wondering what’s pushing you toward the edge.”
He picked the flashcard you had set on the textbook, the one you’d been studying. He read the front of it without much intention — your handwriting was cramped and looping, a star drawn next to it — and turned over and checked the back. He did the same thing he always did, the story, the image; he’d done it a hundred times by now. He could do it half-asleep, and most nights he half was.
You thought about it for a second, your bottom lip tugged between your teeth, then walked yourself to the answer.
“Mhm. See. Good,” he murmured. He flipped the card to the back to check you, and you’d had it. Of course you’d had it, you’d had more of this than you ever gave yourself credit for. “Tell you what. Get the next three right, and I’ll get us a drink once your exams are done.”
Your brows narrowed. “Bribe?”
“It’s an incentive.” He held up the next card, eyes on you. “Don’t think. Just answer me.”
You did. One, then the next, then the one after. You were quicker now that there was something on the end of it, your lip caught between your teeth as you walked yourself there each time. He noticed you worked when there was something to earn. After all three, he hummed. “See. Good girl, there you go.”
He felt you go still beside him, and his eyes flickered up to you to see your eyes dropping to your textbook. He stayed silent a second, eyes raking over you, your thumb running the worn edge of a card back and forth.
Jack knew better than to point out how you being flustered was almost silly when he’d said the same words many times while taping you up or shining a penlight in your eyes. He let his arm stay where it was along the couch, hand not quite touching your shoulder, and watched the side of your face.
“You wanna do some more?” he said finally, voice coming out rougher. “Or are we done for the night?”
You held up a finger, as if telling him to wait.
“Okay, then,” he mumbled, leaning back further against the couch. “Take your time.”
After a second, he turned to say something dry to break the silence. You’d turned your head, too, and were closer than he initially realized, your eyes coming up off the card and finding his, near enough that whatever he had bubbling in his throat died there immediately.
Jack hummed involuntarily. You closed the sound by pressing your mouth to his, the feeling of the plushness so very featherlight, there and barely there, the softest press.
He went still as stone, every system in him locking at once. His hand was still along the back of the couch and his mouth hadn’t answered yours, not because he didn’t want to — God, he did — but because the entirety of him had gone still with the disbelief of it, with the you, here, choosing this — him — and the half-second of nothing stretched into a second, too damn long.
He’d seized on you, the fact you’d nearly walked, had stood in his kitchen finding the kindest way to disappear, and here you were, closing the last of the distance yourself.
You pulled back like you’d touched a stove, a gasp leaving your mouth, replacing where his own had been.
“Oh god.” Your hand flew up to your mouth, your eyes going wide before pinching shut completely. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, Jack. I read that so, so wrong. You’ve been so nice and I — fuck, I’m sorry.”
Jack made a pained sound that was lost somewhere in your ramble, at the sight of you snatching it back. Nothing had gone wrong. Jack knew you’d read nothing wrong, and that the only thing that had happened was that he’d been too slow, too stunned, too thirty-years-rusty to catch what had been handed to him in good reflex.
His hand came off the back of the couch and he caught your jaw, thumb on your chin as he pushed slightly against your skin. He was distantly aware that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so afraid about leaning in to kiss a woman, and went in to try and give you back the second he lost, mouth finding yours the exact way every bone in his body knew he should’ve the first time.
You made a startled sound against him before the entirety of you melted. His mouth worked against yours, thoroughly, making sure not to fumble it twice. His thumb stayed on your chin, tilting your face the half-degree he wanted it, and when your lips parted on half a breath, his entire upper body leaned in to follow it, deepening it.
It was you who moved first. Of course, it was you, always you. You followed it, the kiss pulling you up and forward, your knee coming over his thigh, and then you were settling over him. Jack let out the throatiest of a chuckle, still intent on keeping your mouth, as your hands slid from the front of his scrubs to his jaw.
Jack’s hands caught yours on instinct — one at your waist, one at your hip — steadying you down to him, your hips still slightly in the air like you weren’t sure you could close the last of the distance, your weight held in the suspended air in the ache of almost, thighs braced on either side of his.
Jack pulled back just enough to look at you, letting his head fall back against the back of the couch, dragging his eyes up the length of you poised over him. He blew out a short breath, the corners of his lips kicking up as his palm glided up and down on the side of your waist, catching onto your tank top on accident to show a sliver of skin at your lip — warm, soft, the band of your shorts sitting low — and he watched his own hand do it before he dragged his eyes back to your face.
“Nothing halfway with you, huh?” he said, the words practically coming out from his chest. His thumb rested against that bared sliver of you. “Climbing me at my work.”
You lowered your head, and your nose grazed against his. “You started it.”
“I did?”
“You closed the blinds.”
He let out a surprised laugh. “I can promise you I didn’t expect this when I did that.”
Your lips ghosted over his for a second, and his chest swelled at the sight of you trying to tamp down the sweetest smile. “Problem?”
“No.” The words came out immediately, because apparently somewhere in him, there was still something insatiable and teenage that had lurched up at the sight of you. “No. No problem.”
His hand spread flat and warm against the small of your back, fingers slipping under the hem of the top to your warm skin there, and he drew you down, finally, that last suspended inch collapsing as he settled your weight flush over him.
He had to pinch his eyes shut a second, then open them again to take in the whole sight of you. His hand came up to your jaw. The light caught the loose hair at your temple, the bare line of your shoulder where the strap had slipped. Your mouth was full and flushed from his, parted slightly, your breath coming. The skin under his hand at your back was hot to the touch, and he spread his fingers wider against it just to feel more of it.
You were trying not to smile. Your lip caught between your teeth, the corners pulling anyway.
His finger perched against your jaw moved to your lips, dragging slowly across the lower one, parting it under the pad of his thumb. He watched it give, your breath warm against his skin.
Your eyes flicked up to his as your lip closed around the first knuckle, your tongue hesitantly pressing flat against the pad, the wet heat of it catching him so completely off guard that the air went out of him in a rough exhale. His other hand fisted at the small of your back, turning over to gather the hem of your tank in his grip.
“Oh.” His eyes had dropped to your mouth and fixed there, his jaw slack as his head cocked to the side. “Pretty.”
His gaze was locked on the sight of his thumb disappearing past your lips, no hesitation in it, that same no-halfway boldness turned filthy and sweet all at once. The tired man in him went down all at once.
His thumb dragged free, catching on your bottom lip and tugging it down before it slipped loose. His chest heaved harder now under the warm weight of you.
“Where’d that come from?” he muttered gruffly, almost to himself, thumb pressing the slick of your own lip back against you. His palm moved to cradle your face, tapping your cheek softly once. “Can’t be doing things like that here, doll. I’m on call.”
“Then don’t make it so easy.” Your lips brushed his thumb, then you moved down to press your mouth to the line of his jaw, the stubble catching your lips, then lower to the warm of his throat.
“You callin’ me easy?” he said through a chuckle, letting his head tip back. You scraped your teeth over the cord of his neck and felt the whole of him go tight underneath you, his fingers flexing hard into the bare skin of your back.
“Alright.” His voice had dropped to stone. “You’ve had your fun.. No more of that,” he said, though made no move to stop you.
You peppered a line of pecks down his throat down to where his collar had started, your lips dragging over the jut of his collarbone through the thin cotton. He swallowed. One of your hands slid up to the back of your neck, fingers pushing into the soft gray at his nape, scratching light, and the other flattened over his chest, over the steady-then-not rhythm, fisting slow in the fabric just to feel him breathe wrong because of you.
You sat back an inch to look at him. His head was still tipped back against the couch, his throat bared where you’d left it momentarily pink and glossy, his eyes half-lidded. His hands had gone heavy and possessive at your hips, giving up pretending he wanted them anywhere else, you anywhere else.
You dragged your thumb over his bottom lip, watched it give, the same way he did to you.
“Can I ask you something?” you asked, quietly, your hips settling more firmly into his lap.
“Mm.” His hands spread wide, settling you down harder against him. “My social security number is — ”
You laughed.
“Two-two-six — ”
“Jack — ” You swatted at his chest, the seriousness dissolving into something giddier. “I’m being serious. Stop.”
“Okay, okay.” The corners of his mouth lifted up, and his hands squeezed slightly at your hips. He pulled his head up off the couch to meet your eyes properly. “Shoot. Doubt I could stop you.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
He let the question sit, humming. His thumbs moved idly at your hips, head tilting against the couch like the question required any real thought. “There’s a few women,” he said, lowering his voice as he looked at you, like he was letting you in on a secret. “There’s a nice lady who brings me fruit baskets.”
Your hand, on the flat of his chest, slid up slow to his throat and he kept talking like he didn’t notice.
“ — there’s this nurse on days who keeps leaving me her number at the station — ”
You leaned in and closed your teeth slightly on his earlobe. He let out a short laugh, one that was dragged out of him, his head tipped to give more of it to you without permission.
“Alright. Okay,” he said as your nose dragged the line of his jaw. “Stop doin’ that. I don’t wanna explain teeth marks to the whole floor.”
Your hips set firmer into his lap. “Jack,” you warned. “I can’t do this if you’re seeing fifty other women.”
He sobered a degree, his thumb going still at your waist, his eyes coming up to actually hold yours. The joke drained out of his face as he realised the edge of seriousness you tried to tamp down, and he momentarily short-circuited at how it was even possible for you to wonder.
“Hey.” His hand came up off your hip, pushed the hair back from your face and stayed there, cradling. “Until five minutes ago, there were zero women. Forget fifty.”
Your only response to that was a smile and your cheek leaning further against his palm. He let his thumb move once across his cheekbone, watching the way your cheek turned into his hand. Your eyes drifted half-shut. There was a speck of dried highlighter ink on the side of your finger where it curled against his throat. The strap of your top had slid off your shoulder again; he looked at all of you and stopped bothering to pretend, even to himself, that he was looking at anything other than the only thing in the room he wanted.
“What about you? You seein’ anyone?” His thumb stayed where it was, but his voice had gone quieter. “‘Cause I’ve seen people bring you in. And I never liked one of ‘em.”
You huffed a small laugh, your nose grazing his. “Jealous, Doctor?”
“Yeah.” He watched the laugh stall on your face at how easy he gave it up. “If there is, he should be worried. I’d like to take you on a nice date to change that.”
“Ohhhh,” you drawled through a laugh. “There’s no one, but I won’t say no to the date.”
“Then you’ve got yourself one, doll.” He kissed you on it — short, sure, his hand still cradling your face — sealing the thing as the corner of his mouth caught yours before he pulled back. He let his forehead rest against yours for a second and breathed you in.
Then, with a short groan, he tipped his head back off of yours.
“I gotta get back out there.” His thumb was still moving at your jaw, clearly working against the very thing he was saying. “My work ethic’s going wrong and my residents might actually report me.”
Then, his hands found your waist and he lifted you off, setting you off his lap and onto the cushion beside him where the entire thing had started. You landed with a small affronted sound, your hand fisting in his collar a beat longer before he had to let it go.
You flopped back into the cushion where he’d deposited you, one hand pressed flat to your chest, the picture of wounded. “I guess it’s true what they say about old men. They use you. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”
He stood up and scrubbed his palm down his face like he could wipe the last ten minutes off it before he had to walk out and be a doctor again. He could still feel the heat sitting at the back of his neck and even though he’d tried to scrub your gloss off, he was sure there was a remnant somewhere the worst possible person would notice.
“Yup, got exactly what I wanted. Thank you, ma’am.” His hand came down to rest at the top of your head and gave it a slow, condescending pat, ruffling the wreck of your hair worse than it already was. “I’m a terrible man. You’re welcome to stay here while I go be one somewhere else.”
He made himself step back and snagged his pen off the table, the badge, the small armor of the job clipping back into place piece-by-piece. The whole time his eyes kept catching on you, sprawled and rumpled where he’d set you down, looking up at him like the night had gone exactly where it was supposed to. He’d seen this room a thousand nights. He’d never once not wanted to leave it.
“Mm. Gotta go home. S’almost three,” you mumbled. “And you get off at seven.”
“I do.”
“So.” You pushed yourself off the cushion, slow, gathering your hair back off your face and pushing up your strap, putting yourself back together piece by piece the same way he was, the night closing in on both ends. “I’ll go and let you be a doctor. You’ve been very neglectful.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He watched you reach for your textbook, your highlighter, the flashcards, and sweep it all back into your bag, feeling the small stupid pull of not wanting the room to empty out.
He stepped in before you finished, catching your jaw, tilting your face up to kiss you once more. You went still under it, the bag forgotten halfway zipped, your hand coming up to rest light on his chest. He pulled back an inch to look at you.
“Text me when you get home,” he said, thumb dragging along your jaw.
You chuckled, brows pulling in. “It’s a ten minute drive.”
“Text me. Humor an old man, since I’m so terrible to you already.”
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
okay we’re gonna get a bit fucked up with this…… choose your adventure mentally, realcest or fauxcest
uncle!jack abbot x female reader, jack is a perv 💕, 1.6k words (keeping it clear. this is FICTION and a way that i explore my own trauma. mdni and don’t like, don’t read! thanks!
jack had tried. he really had. he had tried not to look at you that way. he’d made an effort not to be alone with you too long, to keep conversations brief. he mentally hit himself whenever he caught himself staring at your legs at barbecues and family gatherings.
“do not picture her bent over. do not picture her naked. do not picture her in the bath or the pool or near any body of water. do not picture her lips around your cock. do not picture— you asshole, she’s your niece.” the mantra he kept repeating to himself. over and over till the information felt like it was seeping out of his skull and onto the floor. you’d felt it, the great shift. no more uncle jack ruffling your hair or picking you up or calling you baby.
but now, your parents are hosting a pool party to celebrate your eighteenth birthday. you’re in an outrageous gingham bikini. seriously, if you were his daughter, he’d never allow this. he knows how men are. how they’d look at you. how he looks at you.
he brought a gift, of course. it’d be rude not to. he went to sephora and picked up a few glosses. then he kicked himself because he started picturing you applying it, which led to him picturing you kissing him, which led to— “uncle jackie!” you call out “get in the pool!”
he laughs, trying to cover up the fact that he absolutely could not go in the pool with you. not without getting arrested, that is. he waves a hand. “i’m good where i am, kiddo. trust me, you don’t wanna see this old man without his shirt.” fuck. he made it weird. why did he have to make it weird?
you frown and lift yourself up on the ledge of the pool, breaking into a sprint to hug him. he glances down. do not look at her tits, you dirty old man. do not do it. he does anyways. he couldn’t help. the sheen from the pool and sun making you all the more inviting, what it would be like to bury his face in….
you slam into him, desperate for the easy affection he used to provide you with. he wraps an arm around you, kissing your head. “eighteen, huh? i remember when you were just born, all tiny and pink. now you’re an adult. jesus. i’m getting old.” he taps your cheeks. “remember you when you were still potty training. you had this guilty little look whenever you told anyone you had an accident. just the cutest.” you wrinkle your nose. “can we not talk about” you whisper “potty training.” he raises his hands. “sorry, kiddo. just remembering how full my sister’s hands were with you.”
your eyes dart hungrily to the sephora bag. “that for me?” he furrows his brows, scratches his head in deep concentration. “damn… i thought i bought lip glosses for myself.” you giggle. uncle jack is so funny! you press into him again and stand on your tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “thank you, uncle jackie.” he takes a deep breath in. do not get hard. do not get hard. do not get hard because the girl you’ve known since before she was born kissed your cheek, you fucking pervert! you are a physician, a veteran, goddamnit. you can keep your cool.
you grab the bag out of his hand, and whip your head around. your mom calls. “shower and put on your dress, hon. we’ll take pictures and cut the cake when you’re out.” you pout, but know better than to pick a fight with your mom, on your birthday, no less. you run off, kiss your mom on the cheek, and head into the house.
jack sits at a table with your mother. she pulls out her phone, scrolling to a picture from exactly eighteen years ago today. jack holding you as a newborn. she tears up. “can you believe it, jack? my baby girl? a woman?” oh, he can believe it. he believes it so hard that if his sister knew how much he believes it, she’d have his head on a spike, rightfully so. he shakes his head, throat growing dry. “she’s still a little girl,” he says, trying to convince himself “’s not like eighteen changes anything.” she dabs at her eyes, then checks the time. “thirty minutes… jack, go up to her room and try to rush her out, i’ll take out the cake.”
he does not groan. that would look weird, right? he’s not about to look weird. he’s been in your room countless times. he raps on the door. the water is still running. he should leave. should tell his sister that you’re still in the shower and that he’ll check again in ten minutes. he does not. he sits on your loveshackfancy bedspread. he remembers your mom decorating this room years ago. god. his niece.
the water shuts off five minutes later. he should announce himself. should call out that he’s here. should say “get yourself decent, kid.” he does not.
you exit your bathroom, fully bare, save for the towel on your head. he expects you to scream, to freak out, to hit him. instead, you just tilt your head. fuck. he’s hard. “uncle jackie? why… are you in my room?” he rubs his greying facial hair, looking down. “your mom wanted me to get you for cake.”
you shift from side to side. “why aren’t you looking at me, jackie?” his voice goes rough. “uncle jackie.” he corrects. his brow raises as you make no effort to cover up. “i should go—” your hand darts out, grabbing his wrist. “stay. i’ve missed you.” you frown. he chuckles. “kid, there’s better ways to catch up that don’t involve you being naked in front of your uncle. you’re not a little girl anymore, don’t know if you realize, but it’s a little inappropriate.”
you pout. “you never hang out with me anymore… did i do something bad?” he stares at the floor intently, desperate for you not to notice the hard on in his shorts. “nah, kid. nothing you need to worry your pretty head about. i’ve just been busy.”
jack tries not to look as you bend and take the towel off of your head, water dripping down onto the hardwood floor. you sit on his lap. he sucks in a breath. “jesus, baby. this is so not okay.”
you wriggle over his erection. jack throws his head back. “honey. i’m your uncle. you can’t be doing this.” you press your face into his neck. “just want you to like me again…” he barks out a laugh. “you’re gonna make me more than like you if you keep that up.” your face lights up like a child, which, to be fair, you were less than 24 hours ago. you wriggle around even more. he sucks in a breath. “christ. where’d you learn how to do that?” your face brightens. “my friend told me this is how you make guys like you.” his jaw tightens. “never tried it before?” you curl into him further, rocking your hips over his clothes. “nope!” you pop the p “just you, uncle jackie.”
it is at that point that jack throws the last remaining shred of his morals to the wind. his hands comes down on your ass. “you know what’s even better at making guys like you?” you shake your head. “let uncle jackie show you. but it’s just for us, mkay? just uncle jackie and his sweet girl’s secret.”
you grin as he pushes you back on your bed. he curses internally. who knows how long you two have before your mom gets fed up and comes searching herself. “you’ll like me so much after this?” jack sighs, unbuckling his pants. “i’ll like you the most, princess.” he crawls over you on duvet. he hasn’t taken off his shirt, polo still fully on. he presses his lips to yours, shoving his tongue in roughly. “that’s how grown ups kiss. and you’re a grown up now, aren’t you?” you whimper. it feels strange. but uncle jackie promised to like you the most after this!
jack presses a kiss to your forehead. “now,” he strokes your cheek, “this may pinch a bit. i’m gonna cover your mouth so no one finds out we’re having so much fun without them.” you nod. that makes sense. besides, uncle jackie is a doctor. he wouldn’t do anything that would damage you. his hand clasps firmly over your mouth as he slides into you, all the way to the hilt. he does not stop as you whine and cry into his hand. his voice lowers. “i know, i know, bunny. that was a biiiig stretch, huh? but you’re so brave, yes you are. uncle jackie’s got you.”
you cling onto him, trying to kiss him as he pummels your cunt. you whine softly into his palm. he silences you with a kiss to your forehead. “so good, baby. making uncle jackie like you so much. you’re the best girl ever.” you wriggle under his grasp. “even better than your wife?” his hips stutter. his dead wife. and here he is, fucking his barely legal niece. the guilt barely lasts a second. “much better. you just wanna make me happy, right?” you nod fervently, close, though you do not know it yet. you squeeze around him, causing his head to fall over. he thrusts, over and over and over again, until you are dripping and full with his cum. he starts to soften inside you, pressing another kiss to your head.
könig buried to the hilt inside of you, your legs bent and pressed to his chest. his body keeping you pinned against the mattress while he has a vibrator on the highest setting pressed against your clit as he whispers “one more, liebling, give me one more.”
before he’s coaxing and talking you through yet another orgasm that has you spinning and tears rimming your eyes. he’s made you cum 3 times without a single thrust , whispering “this is all about you, schatz. you feel this?” as he flexes his dick inside of you, making you whimper.
“this is all yours. remember that, maus. this is yours to use.” before he’s slowly rocking his hips against yours, bringing you to one more orgasm before his breathy moans fill the room and you’re spent—absolutely exhausted. “don’t worry, schatz. i’ll clean you up.”
before his head is in between your legs, lapping up both yours and his arousal and humming like the sick fuck he is because he just can’t get enough of you. all he wants is to be buried between your legs, watching as he’s the reason you’re seeing stars.
making out with sammy in bed. after a long day, you’ve retreated to the bedroom. you rolled around in the sheets, laughter escaping you both. he has you pressed against the pillows, hips absently rutting against yours. his lips trailed to the column of your neck, along your pulse point.
“don’t seem so upset about no dirty dishes now,” you can feel the way he smirks against your skin, nipping softly at your ear.
it should be sexy. only, a reminder of your earlier squabble ignites a spark of annoyance.
you huffed, your hands bracing against his chest.
“use your—“
“get off.”
sammy’s grin faltered.
“what?”
“i said get off. bringing that shit up again.”
your boyfriend relented, a puppy pout now tugging at his mouth.
“wait—c’mon—i was only joking baby :((”
you turned over, facing away from him. he plastered himself to your back, hand stroking up and down your side.
“please, baby,” he whined.
but you weren’t that easy. sammy had pissed you off with his stupid little comment. if he wanted to get off, well that was his problem now.
the bed creamed as sammy fisted his chubby cock behind you. he was letting out pathetic mewls, whining into the back of your neck. everytime he tried to lay a hand on you, or grind against your ass, you would swat him away. you heard the way he choked on a sob at every denial, simply rolling your eyes.
“please, please, i need you so bad—”
“should’ve thought of that before you ran your mouth.”
“i know, honey, i know. ‘m sorry. just wanna feel you, please—”
his begging was incessant, and as much as you loved hearing sammy begging and pleading, you had an important briefing at work tomorrow. meaning you could not be losing sleep because your boyfriend was tugging at his weeping cock all night.
you looked over your shoulder, shooting him a heated glare. you ignored the shuddering reaction it gets you.
“you want to touch me? you want to cum?”
he nodded frantically, “yes.”
“you get to use my thighs and that’s it.”
he’s already spooning you, sliding the head of his cock along the crease of your thighs. he pressed forward, whimpering as his length disappeared between your plush skin.
sammy’s so worked up, that it doesn’t take long for him to start pistoning his hips, gasping and groaning at the slick glide of it all, all from his own pre.
“thank you, thank you—” he repeated it like a mantra, squeezing his eyes shut as the pleasure made him dizzy. he couldn’t even see your face, but it was still you squeezing around his length. he was so so so close.
“such a sick boy, i’m starting to think you like this more than stuffing me full,” you clicked your tongue, earning a keen from him.
“feel s’good, sweetheart. ‘m gonna cum, please lemme cum—“ he panted, needy and desperate as he pumped his hips.
you pretended to mull it over with a long drawn out hum, “hm, i dunno. i’m still upset about earlier.”
“m’sorry, baby. should’ve kept—mmph—quiet. i don’t know a damn thing. won’t happen again. ah, ah.”
“yeah?”
“p-promise.”
sammy was so far gone, he’d agree to anything you said.
“then cum. make a mess and show me how sorry you are.” and that, was a very easy order to obey.
“so good t’me, fuck, thank you, baby—“
he bucked his hips once, twice, before they stilled. hot spurts of his cum spill over your thighs, dripping into a small puddle on the bed. you sneaked a glance down, watching how his cock twitchd with every gush.
sammy slumped against you, mouthing at your shoulder. he was breathing heavily, still riding the waves of his climax.
after regaining his composure, he reached for the tissues off the nightstand. he cleaned up the sheets the best he could, making sure to wipe you down as well.
he wrapped an arm around you, pulling you close. “thank you, baby.” he kissed your temple, relaxing against the pillows.
“what do you think you’re doing?”
sammy’s eyes went wide.
“you think you get to piss me off, blow a load and then just go to sleep? thought you were sorry.”
his face flushed, “i—i am.”
“what part of ‘show me’ don’t you understand?”
he didn’t need to hear another word, already scooting down the bed to settle between your legs. for the second time that night, you rolled your eyes.
only now—as he kissed the bend of your knee, lifting it over his shoulder—you broke into a smile.
Park the Shark x overprotective trope... i just wanna see him flash his teeth at a patient for being combative with y/n. 'Nobody can bully her except me' shtick hhhnnnggg
( gif credits to the lovely @parktheeshark for this crisp gifset ! )
☤ ─ PEARLS BEFORE SWINE
summ. Ortho is paged to the ED. Park the Shark fortifies his fierce reputation.
pairing. brendon 'shark' park / f!resident!Reader
w.count. 2.5k!
a/n. Implied power-imbalance , corrupted mentor/mentee dynamic if you squint , an annoying amount of eldritch maritime motifs . Apologies if Shark is ooc here given he had like 3 minutes of total screentime— I hope y'all enjoy nonetheless! & Thank you @lumissandbox for beta-reading this shipwreck of an imagine 🥀
UNCANNILY SHARP MOLARS are a common sight when Dr. Park snarls out and berates hapless surgical interns amid long procedures.
Anyone who’s ever worked with him— let alone heard of him, is aware of Park the Shark, who’s come around to be some cautionary, fantastical fable.
A mythological creature of PTMC’s Orthopaedics Department— some beastly, thalassic leviathan— who’s all jagged rows of endless teeth and killer instinct; Made out to be a divine, merciless warden of the sea responsible for piecing together centuries old bones buried five fathoms deep into bedrock.
A virtuoso of his field who you owe your knowledge to. Who’d taught you the fearlessness common of surgeons, but also instilled in you the fear of failure that’s needed to temper it.
What is it that Garcia and Walsh like to call you residents under his wing (or fin—), again?
Shark pups.
Left to fend for yourselves most of the time. Sink or swim. A dogfight of devouring each other alive in a desperate attempt to keep your head above water; to make it through this riptide of a Residency and be the best of the best.
Park the Shark stands on a mantlepiece of his own making. A faultless reputation sharp enough to cut, and the stringent attitude to match that’s a given considering his medical prowess and achievements. The other juniors— aw, these your shark pups, Park?— tenderfoot and wet behind the ears, worship the ground he walks on like suck-up remoras.
You admire him, yes. But most of the time you just… try to get by. Keep your head down and stay out of his way.
(Not that you never advocated for yourself, that is. Being a woman in a particularly male-dominated specialty has only drilled into you an extra layer of thick-skin from criticism and inherent misogyny. You don’t fawn to the quote-unquote Ortho-bros, and have enough clever sense to know when to be candid without crossing the line.)
Perhaps that’s why he’d quickly clamped his jaws around you.
Always seen as the ‘favourite’; the ‘Prodigal Daughter/Mentee’, even if it never remotely feels like you’re worth any of Park’s precious time.
Resentful, the other Residents eventually came to the conclusion that competition starts with you:
Always the one personally selected to assist in Park’s odd cases, always the one his shark-like gaze searches for first in a crowd, always the one getting teeth sunken into and then humiliatingly chewed out for the smallest, mindless things because You’re supposed to be the competent one out of all the others, for fuck’s sake.
They spin yarns of boyish rumors. Call you names that stick. Sharkbait, Catch, when they’re feeling particularly bitter. Or the Jewel of the Sea; Park’s prized (Mother-of-)Pearl, when they’re feeling particularly childish.
It’s fine. You can ignore those, and let your work do the talking. Besides, they never do address you that way around Dr. Park, anymore— not after he’d nearly bitten the head off of one of the R3’s after he’d overheard you openly be called Chum-dump in passing.
(“The fuck did you just say?”
“Uh… Nothing. I— It won't happen again. Sorry, Dr. Park.”
“The hell you apologising to me for and not her?”)
You tell yourself it’s just because Park doesn’t want to be associated with the likes of you; that it’s nothing to do with him being chivalrous— he’s just being professional. Doing his due duty as your Senior Attending to browbeat workplace misconduct.
(Don’t think too much of it. He doesn’t care. You’re not of value to him in any way you think.
How does the saying go? Never cast pearls before swine—)
You wonder if he’s aware of how much his implicit bias has you isolated in an already isolating field for a woman. A target on your back. How his apparent unspoken ambition for you and your capabilities alone have become somewhat of an albatross around your neck.
You’ve done the work to get here, you remember him muttering mid-procedure once. I might make a surgeon out of you yet.
Park is utilitarian; he doesn’t waste time on petty endeavours— he couldn’t possibly be doing it on purpose, could he? To keep you orbiting close to him whether you like it or not, lonely from the ostracism you receive from your fellow peers, all for the sake of imparting in you what’s best. Deliberately exploiting his influence into favouritism so you rely on him and only him for company; starved for kinship.
None of which he ever gives you, either way.
Just his stoic, brooding silence. A single hum of assent or curt nod when you answer his questions flawlessly during one of his rare moods of actual teaching (“Hm. You’ll close after I’m done, pup.”); Or his lingering presence over your shoulder in the breakroom when you’re brewing a fresh pot of coffee, shoulders brushing (“I take it black.”).
Feels more like bait, really. Dangling right in front of you; waiting for you to take the bite.
Or have you already bitten?
“ED’s paging. You don’t need me in here,” Park declares, over a traumatic pelvic crush injury slowly coming to its end. He nods to the surgeons in Vascular when they say they’ll finish up the rest of the procedure, and jerks his head at you to degown. “You. With me.”
The elevator sinks both of you all the way down to the bottom-dwellers. Emergency Medicine: a never-ending bustle of nervous energy and raucous commotion of sounds that grates at Park’s ears. When he sails into Trauma Bay 2 with you tailed close behind, medical staff part for him like the Red Sea; shoal of fish dispersing from an apex predator.
Robby greets him calmly despite the patient groaning his lungs out. Garcia is already rattling off an efficient presentation. …Crush injury to foot and ank… Compartment syndro… torn between salvaging the limb t… what do you think?
Meanwhile, a pair of impressionable Med Students observe, rapt, as you glove up and curiously round the writhing patient in the exact same way Dr. Park does— an unconscious habit you’ve picked up from him; circling calculatingly like a shark sniffing out blood in the water. (Do you hear that? quietly nudges one of the Residents, the JAWS theme?)
They watch as you shadow Park, comically insignificant against the hulking brawn of him, scrutinising the X-Ray of the patient’s shattered foot. It’s a unique case, alright: a complex multiple fracture of practically every bone in his foot up to his ankle from a freak accident.
Even Park reacts with a tiny, impressed snort that only you manage to catch by chance proximity.
“Give me something for the fucking pain already!” a voice lashes out, synchronising you and Park into sparing a narrow glance up from the bedside of the patient’s gurney.
“Mr. Aldrich, we’ve already given you more pain meds after the regional block,” soothes one of the ER nurses, “the ketamine will take a minute to kick in—”
“Screw you nurses!” he hisses, thrashing his head pointedly at you as he squirms in place. “Get me a real doctor!”
“You’ve got multiple in one room here to help you, Sir,” Garcia overrides, humorously, “take your pick.”
An exasperated growl. “Fucking, I don’t know, a bone doctor?!”
“Good news! You’ve got Orthopaedics to your left,” she gestures, shooting you an amused look.
Mr. Aldrich glares harshly at you. “Well? Move, bitch, and let me talk to the big guy behind you.”
Across the bay, Robby doesn’t get to snap at the verbal harassment in time. No, it’s—
—Dr. Park, pinning his tenebrous gaze at the patient as he cocks his head ominously.
“You’re gonna wanna speak respectfully to the ‘bone doctors’ responsible for getting you back on your feet, Sir,” he drawls, sangfroid as always before returning his attention completely to Robby.
(You don’t try to pick apart the notable undercurrent of… something in his tone. Chalk it off as non-negotiable decorum. If it isn’t Dr. Park who’d have said something, you’re sure someone else would have.)
Hell of a fracture, you ignore the patient, running a mental map of the potential procedures it’d take and what the prognosis would look like. Dr. Park busies himself with more details regarding the injury: mechanism, labs, drugs. Pokes and prods clinically at the patient’s numbed foot.
“We’re gonna need your consent, Sir,” comes everyone’s eventual finalised conclusion, where you keep your tone as calm as possible in a bid to deescalate the tension, “before we get you prepped for surgery.”
“You better fucking make sure I walk again,” he seethes. “My legs are my livelihood, you know that? Do you know who I am?”
“Mr. Aldrich,” you answer, patiently. “I’m taking that as a yes?”
“Oh, you think you’re fucking funny, do you—?”
An iron-grip stops the patient’s forearm short well before you even register it:
A swing at you. An attempt to snatch at you from the bedside to drag you like an undertow.
Sharks are a predatory species born with sixth sense. An innate electroreception that helps them zero in on the most sensitive of muscle movements within close-range. Top of the food chain. Evolutionarily driven by pure, lethal instinct leading them to their prey.
You wonder, idly, if Dr. Park has it too—
Bloodlust. Untamed animalism prowling somewhere behind his hunter eyes. His scrub sleeves are pulled tight from the flex of his biceps, tension of corded muscles in his forearms taut with brutal force from where he’s canceled out the threat in a whipcrack of a second: shackling the patient’s wrist effortlessly in a dizzyingly lightning-quick reflex.
Your heart stutters at the scene.
“Go on,” Park dares, voice glacially cold and sea-pelagic dark. “Take a swipe at my resident again, and I will break each and every single bone in your hand before resetting all 27 pieces of it back together.”
A beat.
You’d have been able to hear a pin drop in the trauma bay, somehow, from how suspended everything feels.
Akin to witnessing an abyssal leviathan come to breach ashore after being provoked.
It makes something treacherous take flight in your chest.
That for as much as a supercilious asshole Park is sometimes, he still keeps a controlled, watchful eye on those in his wake as a mentor. Utilises that intimidating, ubiquitous command of presence he carries to his unfair advantage when things go leeways into dangerous waters.
It’s not heart, per se. But it’s certainly something rare. Some abstract, omnipresent patina of his that surrounds your being like a levee and safely harbours you. Shoreline rock armour, almost: Feeling like the broad, muscled stonewall that is Dr. Park has become your own living, breathing, metaphorical breakwater.
You find yourself foolishly replaying his words like a broken record in your head.
My resident.
The patient visibly deflates, snatching his weak arm free from Park’s vice-like clutch as he rears back and loses all bravado. “I consent to the surgery,” he grits out, still turning his nose up against everybody. “After that I’ll sue all of you assholes for— for harassment. And you! For threatening me.”
Robby and Garcia bite back a laugh at the irony.
“Looking forward to it,” Park sneers, aggressively snapping his gloves off. He turns back to you and, uncharacteristically, nods at you to sidle past first and make headway towards the exit. “I’ll book an OR.”
Thanks, Shark, Robby calls out, gaze flickering curiously between you two before it lands as a side-eye to Garcia— who also seems to be trying to decipher something nameless as Park hovers close behind you.
The entire ordeal leaves a buzz under your skin.
My resident, you repeat again. His chum. His catch. His coveted pearl; his favourite pup—
The words are muffled in your memory. Underwater. The flash of canine-sharp teeth as he bit the threat out, cavalier, deceivingly calm. The unbidden warmth of safety blooming in your ribcage after he’d put himself between you and danger, and you’d essentially been tucked protectively behind the fabled Shark of PTMC’s Orthopaedics.
You should neither be allured nor girlishly thrilled at the idea of Park showing any semblance of anger at your behest— you’re in a hospital, for christ’s sake, not the cold open of a romance novel— But who doesn’t like to be defended at times? Let alone by the most notoriously unsympathetic surgeon you’ve ever come to know yet?
“Thank you,” you muster the courage, once both of you are taking the silent ride back up to the Ortho-wards, “for earlier.”
He scoffs. It’s delivered, surprisingly, with less bite than you steeled yourself for.
“How about you keep your head on a swivel,” he advises pointedly, glaring down at you with disapproval. “Should’ve just let him grab you. Might’ve learned a lesson or two.”
But you’ve worked alongside him long enough to catch the minutest of tidal shifts in his callous voice— an antsiness; the faux-calm of doldrums out at sea. Something hadal in you knows that had the patient actually managed to snatch you in that riptide grip of his, Park would have ensured the man left the hospital with no functioning hands at all.
Or perhaps it’s just a delusion. Feverish calenture. A self-indulgent desire to have secretly collared the terrifying Park the Shark to be your own proverbial seadog:
Bristling and snapping his serrated teeth at anyone that got too close; orbiting you like a predator possessively guarding their own claimed territory. Exclusively yours.
(“Only I get to call you pup,” he’d said, once upon a time. Out of context, it makes your head reel every time you recall it.)
“Yeah. Sorry,” you say, pathetically. A force of habit; defaulting into deference.
Only—
“Are you?” he narrows, shrewdly.
It feels like something’s buried itself right into its target. Harpoon to a siren’s heart.
“I—I…” you blink. Stumble your words. No, comes the candid instinct. You think of how he’d stepped in, how he’d handled the danger; All for you. I liked it.
“Don’t get used to me playing nice,” he continues at last, looking damningly straight into your soul.
It lights your body aflame. Feel a rush to your cheeks at the unintended (perhaps?) implication of his words. “That’s your nice, Dr. Park?”
The elevator dings through the charged air. He turns back forward lazily.
“For you,” he grunts dismissively. “Yeah.”
You blink. The doors slide open.
Park the Shark stalks off, and you don’t get to answer.
Crash jack wears sleepy thongs to work because he’s so disgustingly obsessed with her pass it on
You know what? Hell yeah. Instead of his boxer briefs, Jack slips into one of your tiny, lacy thongs. He's surprised he hasn't ripped them yet. Do you think you made him wear them? Or is this one of those situations where you're unaware of the filth he bears for you? Maybe, somehow, this is the thing that crosses the line. This isn't something Jack can hold over you as a tease before he makes you cum at the idea of said something.
The thong must push his cock against his belly, and he has to get used to the way he can feel the thin string disappear between his ass cheeks. Does he think of it as a reminder that he belongs to you?
Probably not. He probably just thinks about how fucking odd it is that you have so many different pairs of impractical underwear.
But...it's hard for Jack to get through the work day. He should've done this on his night off, cause he has to keep tugging at the material, and every tug sends a wave ahead straight to his cock.
Is this how you feel when you wear them, kiddo? Good. That's good. He does want you happy, believe it or not.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Pornstar!Simon who’s been told he can’t fuck you anymore because the way you sound when he’s inside you makes every other costar you’ve had in the past look bad.
The Director pulling him aside with the footage still looping on the monitor, voice low, telling him it was obvious your moans dripping out wet and broken were real in a way you’ve never given the cameras before, obvious now that every gasp and whimper you’d faked with the others was thin and breathy and hollow compared to this and your former costars were bound to complain.
Said it made the lads before him look like they couldn’t even get you properly wet, let alone fuck the sense out of you. Said pairing you with Ghost again was asking for trouble. Too risky. Too fuckin’ real.
Swinging the monitor around to show Ghost the way he had angled his hips so the camera caught his cock stretching your silky cunt half an hour before, thick enough that your walls flutter around him without any acting, slick spilling out around the base every time he bottomed out.
Your fingers scrabbling along the bed every time he ground himself down, too fucked out to really run from the pleasure the way you wanted to, body shaking brain reduced to static goo.
You having a hard time remembering the scripted words you were given, eyes rolling in your sockets, little whimpers and moans punched out “hn-hn-hn-“ every time his hips met yours and the head of his cock kissed your cervix.
Ghost cooing down at you when you miss your cue for the third time, hand pinning your wrists above your head while the other kept your thigh shoved wide, voiced amused when he asks “wha’s amatter? Cat got your tongue, dove?”
Ruined any possibility of you answering when he fucked you deep, making your cunt visibly pulse around him on the monitor, arousal drooling down his balls.
You tried. You really did. You mouth opened, some broken attempt at the first word, but it dissolved into another punched out moan the second he angled just right, letting the camera see the way your eyes rolled in their sockets.
His thumb stroking once over your clit, almost gentle, almost fond. “Tha’s it,” he murmured, “take it. Fuckin’ take it.”
Another missed cue. Another low, rough chuckle. He didn’t really give you room to think. Just kept you pinned and full and dripping while the cameras roled and the script stayed forgotten on the floor somewhere behind the lights.
The director was still talking but Ghost wasn’t listening, instead, just reached over and rewound the tape instead. Watched the part where you tried to speak again. Watched the way your body gave out for him and only him. Watched his own hand on the screen, thumb stroking your clit.
He hit play once more. Let it loop. Thumb hovering over the button, already deciding he didn’t give a fuck what the director had to say about it, he was gonna fuck you again no matter what.
Summary: After transferring to the Pitt in the middle of your fellowship, you manage to impress PTMC's meanest surgeon with your bubbly confidence, leading to you both catching feelings.
Tags/Notes: fluffy fluff, silly trope time, idiots in love, grumpy/sunshine, misunderstanding trope, kiss cam trope, getting together, cutesy feminine reader, kind of an airhead outside of medicine, also described as short sorry tall baddies, praise kink, oral (m), fingering (f), size kink, piv, riding/cowgirl, mini hitachi, doggy style, headlock during sex uwu, biting, dacryphilia, multiple orgasms, creampie, D/s if you squint, aftercare
Content: medical (and hockey) inaccuracies out the wazoo, canon-typical
A/N: that mean doctor has bewitched me and i actually had so much fucking fun writing this fic
Word Count: 14.2k
While you finish preparing your patient presentation for the incoming orthopedic surgeon consult on the case you’ve been working all day, Dennis Whitaker, who’s been assisting you, groans under his breath as he catches an imposing figure approaching. “Fuck, our consult’s the Shark.”
“Of course it is.” Shen, who’s been in the corner half-supervising you since he completely trusts your work as a fellow, tells Whitaker, “This kind of damage? He eats up cases like this. The Shark’s never gonna let someone else-”
You turn to both of them, hold up a hand to shut them up, and ask, “Who?”
“Dr. Brendon Park,” Shen explains like he’s telling you about an upcoming horror movie. “He’s the head orthopedic surgeon.”
“Haven’t met him yet,” you reply. Drawbacks of circumstances forcing you to change hospitals in the middle of your fellowship; you don’t know the whole team like you did back in your residency. With a final few glances through your day’s meticulous work, you wrinkle your brows and check, “I thought Torres was head of orthopedic surgery.”
“No, she’s the nice orthopedic surgeon. The Shark only deigns to come to what he calls ‘the butcher shop’ for juicy cases.” Shen shakes his head and says, “I’m gonna dip before he gets down here. I’ll grab Robby to supervise.”
“You’re leaving? Why?”
“Park can actually stand Robby.” Shen shrugs and tosses his gloves in the trash. “I made the mistake of suggesting an amputation when it was possible to salvage a limb and the Shark’s always down my throat when we work together now.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Three years.” Shen pushes the door open and says before heading over to the hub to grab Robby, “That thing you’ve heard about sharks having three-second memories? Not accurate. PTMC’s Shark never forgets. Don’t fuck up your first impression.”
Your wide eyes turn to Whitaker. “Well, that was comforting.”
Jesse, who’s been supporting you on and off when you needed more hands than just Whitaker’s, tries to offer, “Park’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, because you’re a nurse,” Whitaker replies. “He likes nurses. Respects them. It’s other doctors he thinks are stupid.”
You screw up your face with confidence and nod sharply. “Then I won’t be stupid.”
“Good luck with that,” a deep, clear voice says behind you. You turn and nearly bump into the center of a very broad chest. Very broad. With matching biceps and traps threatening at the fabric of his blue scrubs. He’s easily a whole head taller than you. And his face. Oh. Good face. Lots of masculine, rugged angles. It’s not that the ED is lacking in arm candy, but most of the doctors down here aren’t so…biteable. You’re fighting not to ogle as his voice draws your eyes back up to his mouth. Which is a nice mouth. Under a nice nose. And a heavy brow with pretty blue eyes so sharp you feel a little light-headed under their intensity. “You’re new.”
Robby slips into the room behind him and hugs the wall, posture much straighter than you’ve seen. He doesn’t look scared the way Whitaker does, but there’s a clear expectation about what the interaction’s going to be: Efficient, intense, clear. Robby says bluntly, “New fellow. Recent relocation.”
Park’s eyes narrow, taking in your pink shoelaces, perfectly applied makeup (including shimmery gloss) despite being elbows deep in the shift, and the pastel-heart-patterned long sleeve beneath your scrubs. “We haven’t met.”
You take one quick, deep breath and remind yourself there’s no reason to be scared. You don’t play hospital politics like the residents. You’re a fellow, a real goddamn doctor. This is your case. Your save. You’ve got it. So you introduce yourself with a friendly smile and explain, “I started here last month. Just haven’t had a big sexy skeletal trauma to dangle in front of you until today.”
Park cracks what almost appears to be a smirk. Committing your name and your pretty face to memory, he says, “Welcome to the team, pipsqueak. Try not to butcher any bones and we’ll get along fine.”
“No problem.” You bounce slightly on your feet. “Shall we get started here?”
His chin cocks slightly to one side. You’re not shrinking. Not bashful. You’re smiling. That’s rare. He doesn’t mind. Arms crossed over that massive chest, he orders, eyes sweeping the room, “Tell me what we’ve got.”
Whitaker looks to Robby. Robby looks to you. You nod and list off, “Mr. Jacob Westman, thirty-seven-year-old green energy tower technician, brought in by ambulance after falling from an electrical tower. Freak accident. Alert and responsive on arrival but no sensation in lower extremities. Lead doctor on the case – that’s me; I’ve been point for Mr. Westman all day – chose to sedate for pain management and stabilization once significant spinal injuries were identified. The most severe salvageable damage is in the cervical and thoracic, but I don’t necessarily agree with the interpretation from the ortho radiologist that-” Robby clears his throat to stop you there. Sheepishly, you finish, “Vitals are within safe range for operation to correct cervical and thoracic fractures and dislocations."
Robby offers, “So essentially, the approach is-”
“Hold on.” Park looks up from the chart and focuses squarely on you. “What did the radiologist say? Why did you stop there?”
You glance over at Robby, who’s shaking his head with pleading eyes. But it’s your case. You’re the one who gave up your lunch break to pore over the imaging. So you let your eyes rove back to Dr. Park’s and tell him firmly, “Your radiologist feels that the lumbar injuries causing Mr. Westman’s paralysis are completely inoperable through traditional methods. I was advised to defer to his opinion.”
Brows furrowed, he eyes you seriously. Almost…amused. Like he’s watching a puppy try a new trick. “What’s your opinion, doctor?”
Behind Park, you see Whitaker shake his head and grimace like you’ve just signed your own death certificate. Even Jesse is gripping his clipboard a little more tightly.
“I suggested that, even though it may be riskier, a series of nerve grafts and transfers could return the patient’s ability to walk.” Your voice lowers a bit and you try not to let your wobbly ‘bleeding heart baby doctor’ voice come out. “Mr. Westman is a highly-trained, highly-educated specialist in a type of engineering only a handful of people in the country can do. Work that’s absolutely critical for the development of renewable energy sources. When I was going over everything with his wife, Jenna, she told me that he loves his job more than life itself. That he would risk everything to regain use of his legs.” You swallow hard and pinch back tears. It’s something that always annoys you; whenever you really, really care about something, you start to cry. Eyes averted, you wrap up, “I know that the kind of procedure I’m suggesting would be much longer and much riskier on several levels and that it’s not at all my place to-”
Park shakes his head and cuts you off, “Show me the scans.”
You quickly brush past him to the nearby screen and blow up the images.
Dr. Park lets out a low whistle as he flips through the X-Rays, head tilted slightly as he gives the scans his full attention. He asks you a handful of questions and you answer them as best you can, all the eyes in the room burning the back of your head. You watch the wheels turning behind Park’s eyes; this is his passion, his favorite thing, his reason to wake up. You love seeing people in that state where all they’re thinking about is what they do best.
Finally, he turns to you and says, “I don’t care what your title at this hospital is. If a goddamn janitor can propose a valid surgical approach for an ‘inoperable’ injury, I want to hear it. Complex spinal reconstruction with multiple fusions, laminectomy, discectomy…fuck, ‘just-about-everything-ectomy.’ Plus nerve transfer. Now that’s sexy. I like it.” Before Robby can thank him for taking over, Park looks you up and down – just a little slow to be completely professional – and asks, “Pipsqueak, you wanna assist?”
You stand up straighter and turn your attention to Robby with wide, hopeful eyes. Looking nothing short of shocked, he nods and does a ‘sure, why not?’ type of gesture. You give a big, adorable grin and say, “Yeah, that would be awesome. I’ve always wanted to see autograft harvesting and transfer firsthand.”
Whitaker shakes his head and mutters, “Freak.”
“Go to the bathroom, eat a snack, and scrub for OR three,” Park tells you, ignoring everyone else. As you nod eagerly and excuse yourself, he slaps Robby on the back hard enough to make him stagger and mutters, “Congrats, Mike, you finally matched a competent fellow.”
Dumbfounded, Robby just says, “Ah, thanks.”
Coming out of the surgery thirteen hours later, you’re glowing like you haven’t been awake for thirty-four hours in a row. Following tight on his heels, you’re practically skipping as you beam, “Dr. Park, that was so amazing. I can’t thank you enough for the opportunity.”
“You’re good,” he says simply, walking through the halls of the surgical wing like he owns the place. “Great calls like that deserve great rewards. Would’ve given you a gold star sticker, but I’m not as soft as Robinavitch.”
“I wish Robby gave out stickers,” you reply wistfully. “That might actually convince me to stay here after my fellowship is up.”
You’re about to say something else when Park turns around and puts one baseball-glove-sized hand on your shoulder. “Unless you want to see my dick on our first day working together, you should probably stay on that side of this particular door.”
You startle backwards as you realize he’s pushing into the men’s room. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry; I sometimes kinda space out when I’m excited.”
Park lets out a laugh. An honest-to-god laugh.
He has a handsome smile.
Even though your face is now about a thousand degrees, you still nibble your lower lip, grin, and call through the door, “By the way, it’s technically our second day working together since that was an overnight surgery.”
Park’s amused, loud voice hollers back, “Go home and get some sleep, pipsqueak.”
When you clock in for your next shift two days later, Dana waves you over right after you’re done putting your things away. She says, “There’s something in your mailbox, if you’d believe it.”
“Really?” You worry a hangnail on your thumb. “Don’t tell me I’m getting served or something.”
“You? Come on, you’re Miss Bedside Manner USA.” She nods over to the doctor’s lounge and explains, “It’s from ortho. Something about that surgery you sat in on last week.”
“Huh, okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
You scurry off to your mailbox, which you’ve only even looked at once, the day you started. They’re a relic from the days of fax machines and printers. Inside your cubby is a blank, hospital-issue envelope. Upper left corner: Brendon Park, MD, FAAOS. In the middle, in his scratchy handwriting: Pipsqueak. With your lips pursed in curiosity, you rip the top of the envelope and remove the contents.
Inside a folded piece of notebook paper, there’s a card-sized sticker sheet with eight big, cutesy stickers on it. A happy sun, baby ducks, a strawberry, a stuffed bunny. All things sweet and girly. The theme is white, baby pink, sky blue, and light yellow, the same colors as the heart-patterned shirt you’d been wearing under your scrubs. In between the big stickers, a few pastel stars serve as filler.
With a little squeal, you unfold the note and read. Couldn’t find one with a gold star. Close enough. Good job. Happy you’re here.
Underneath, he’s drawn a tiny shark in lieu of a signature.
You melt – just a little.
Riding the elevator up after your lunch break, it’s kind of embarrassing how much your heart is pounding. You’re really not supposed to be doing this. It’s a total violation of protocol – not the sort that would get you in real HR trouble, but definitely the kind that could permanently piss someone off.
But you do it anyway. You gently knock on Dr. Park’s door after checking with the ortho receptionist that he’s in. He makes a sort of grunting sound that you interpret as ‘yes, what?’ Pushing the door open just enough to slip into the opening, you say, “Hi, Dr. Park. Robby asked me to page ortho down for a follow-up on the Westman case, but I thought it would be nice to ask you directly so that they could have consistency of-” When Park doesn’t even look at you, eyes staring intently at the file on his computer, you shrink into the doorway and shake your head. “Sorry; that’s silly. I’ll get back downstairs and send a page like I should’ve to stop annoying you.”
His eyes flick to yours for half a second. His eyebrows go together almost imperceptibly. “You’re not annoying me.”
“Oh. Thanks.” You bite your lower lip and stare at your shoes for a moment. Purple sneakers today, Park notices. Matching the lavender polka dots on your long sleeves. “So, yeah, if you have time today to come down and check his repeat images with me, that would be really amazing. I’m working until six, so no rush. No pressure. I know you’re really busy. And I can definitely just ask Torres if you-”
“I’ll do it,” he interrupts urgently. “Don’t ask Torres. Or anyone else. I’ve got it.” Then he adds, hasty, “Patient outcomes improve when they have a consistent care team. You’re right about that. You can come get me about Mr. Westman whenever you need to.”
At that, you absolutely beam. His eyes go to your lips. Your cupid’s bow and the way it stretches when you smile. A pretty smile, he thinks. Really pretty. You glow, “Okay, perfect, I will. Thank you.”
You linger for a second, one hand on the doorknob as you debate whether or not to say something. He hasn’t returned to his computer screen, eyes just roaming around the room and occasionally spending a second on you, so you take it as an invitation.
“I also wanted to, um, to say thanks for the stickers, by the way.” You lift your water bottle and show him the doodle-style pink star you’d picked out to grace it among your collection. “I really like them.”
“Good.” He’s tempted to lie, say it was someone else’s idea, act like he found them somewhere in the hospital, but he can’t when he’s looking at your delighted schoolgirl smile. “Saw them at Target and thought of you. It was nice to work with someone so…competent.” You swear there’s a slight blush in his cheeks, but it must be a trick of the light. It must be. Then he clears his throat and adds, “I’ll come down to see you- for Mr. Westman’s follow-up in an hour, alright? I have to finish this report and my dyslexia’s fucking killing me today.”
Physically unable to stop yourself from being helpful, you offer, “I could type it up for you, if you want.”
“I didn’t mean to tell you that,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You have this disarming thing about you. It’s jarring.”
“Um, thanks?” You tilt your head like a puppy. “Are you not supposed to talk about it or something?”
He shrugs, definitely blushing now and pretending not to be, and replies, “People hear their doctor has a learning disability and get a little antsy. So if you don’t mind, keep that to yourself.”
“No problem, Dr. Park, I’m the picture of discretion,” you assure him seriously. But then you keep spilling out, “But, y’know, I actually read this study from the Royal College of Surgeons that showed people with dyslexia make better surgeons than their peers because of their well-developed spatial reasoning skills, attention to detail, and problem-solving ability – not to mention the resilience and creativity that inherently come from- Aaaand I’m word vomiting. Shoot. Sorry. It’s- it’s chronic, my word vomit. I see a specialist.”
He raises an eyebrow in amusement. “Do you now?”
“Yup. My likelihood of remission is incredibly low. Lifelong struggle, really.” You swallow hard and tell him gently, “Um, I had this undergrad student I tutored. He was in biology – pre-med – but he didn’t think he could do it because he was dyslexic. So I did a bunch of research and presented it to him. I’m not, like, one of those cool photographic memory people who remember every study on earth or something.”
“People with photographic memories freak me out,” he says with a chuckle. You wonder if you’re the only person in the ED who’s heard him laugh. More than once, even. Then he says something that actually does manage to shock you: “I’d love the help, if you have time.”
“Yay!” You do this little bouncing thing that makes his head spin. “I’m still on my lunch, so I have a few minutes.”
Voice sounding almost protective, he checks, “Did you eat?”
“Yeah, of course. But I get bored if I don’t have anything to do after my leftovers.” You scooch around his desk and slide between him and the computer, your perky ass directly in his face. With your fingers hovering over his keyboard, you lilt, “Alright, big man, what are we writing?”
It takes Park fifteen seconds to recalibrate, ten of those seconds spent memorizing the way he can see the outline of your tiny thong when you lean forward slightly, the fabric of your scrubs taut over your ass. Then he hastily stands up and puts himself behind the chair, his nosy dick safe from being seen, and says, “Why don’t you take my spot? You’ll be more comfortable.”
You shrug and sit down, throwing your head way back to look up at him with perfect, sweet blowjob eyes. “Whatever you say, Shark.”
The next time Park’s in the ED, his crush on you is completely and totally solidified. It’s horrifying, the way the feeling swirls around his stomach and makes his cheeks hot. It’s not a feeling that’s ever dared encounter him in the workplace and, honestly, not in a hell of a long time outside of it, either.
It’s because you’ve got Ogilvie backed up against a wall, your pointed finger in the center of his chest. He’s a head taller than you, even slouching, but you’re dwarfing him with your energy. Park’s never seen you so brutally animated, eyebrows knitted together and posture perfectly straight. He lingers a bit too close, hugging the corner so he can listen and watch.
Ogilvie’s hands are up in the air, waving, frustrated. “I didn’t do anything wrong! All I did was-”
“Oh my god, how many times do I have to tell you to shut up and listen to me?” With your feet planted firmly in your white sneakers with red laces and your arms crossed in your cherry-printed sleeves, you go on, “I get that I’m a woman. I get that I’m short and cute and girly. I get that you think you’re god’s gift to medicine.”
“I don’t think I’m-”
“I wasn’t done. I get that you struggle to respect me. Idiotic men often do. But let me make one thing abundantly clear: You are a slug of a man-child, James. You leave a trail of slime behind yourself in the form of problems everyone else needs to clean up, you hide whenever things get hard, and you need to blot the oil from your T-zone so you’re less shiny. And invest in a frizz-control shampoo.” While Park stifles a snorting laugh, you go on with the most pointed, cruel voice he’s ever heard from a woman so painfully adorable, “If you ever speak to me like that again, you will envy the corpses you practice on. All you will do clinically is change infected necrotic dressings and disimpact bowels and every other moment of your day will be dedicated to administrative scut so monotonous it makes your vision blurry. I will ask to have you on my service every day just so I can torture you until you question your entire career path. Do we have an understanding?”
Ogilvie is too stunned to speak for thirty seconds straight. Then he swallows and stammers out, “Yes, doctor. I- I understand.”
You nod tightly and add, “I’d like an apology now.”
“I’m sorry,” he says right away. It sounds more afraid than earnest, but that’ll get the job done. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did.”
“Good. I forgive you.” Then you give him a warm, friendly smile and a pat on the head that you have to rock up onto your toes to execute fully. “Now let’s get back to Mrs. Andrews so you can get another lumbar puncture under your belt before your next evaluation, alright?”
Ogilvie manages to get out, “Thanks,” before you turn around and lead him back to the ED. He looks like a scolded toddler, lip pouted and cheeks red, while you have that familiar unshakeable pep in your step.
And Brendon Park is smitten.
The next week, as you’re sending off a list of prescriptions, you hear Langdon’s voice from the other side of the ED. “Sharkbait, get over here!”
You turn toward Langdon and point at yourself. “Me?”
His eyes are big and begging. “Yeah, c’mon, I need you.”
“I have work to do, Frank.”
“Please?” He clasps his hands in front of his chest like a prayer. “Park’s going to kill me when he sees the state of these ribs.”
Exasperated, you cut back, “What the hell does that have to do with me?”
“You’re Sharkbait,” he replies, mimicking your expression. “When you’re in the room, he’s less of a dick.”
Several craving any time with Brendon, you roll your eyes and stomp over, telling him, “I’ll give you five minutes. Get me up to speed.”
He runs through the patient history with you while you gently palpate the chest.
“Jesus Christ,” you breathe as you feel the myriad of fractures all over the ribcage and sternum. “LUCAS?”
“On an elderly osteoporosis patient. Dumbass firefighter meatheads.” He shakes his head and mutters, “It’s basically a bag of bone soup in there.”
“Sounds promising,” Park announces, always knowing when to cut into a conversation. When he sees you, he sighs in relief, “Pipsqueak, thank god you’re on this, too. I don’t have the patience for dealing with Ken on my own today.”
As Langdon talks to Park with you just sort of standing there as an emotion diffuser, Santos and Whitaker watch in wonder from the hub.
Trinity, whose last interaction with the Shark ended with him saying she should switch to a career with no skeletons involved, scoffs and murmurs, “Why hasn’t he ripped her head off? She’s brand new; she doesn’t know how to placate him.”
“Her aura powers are unknown to us,” Whitaker mutters back. “She has some kind of sorcery ability incomprehensible to the masses.”
“I mean, she has nice tits,” Trinity reasons. “She’s smart. Made some good calls in front of him.”
Whitaker argues, “Baran’s brilliant and has great tits. He called her an imbecile last week.”
Amused, Trinity raises her eyebrows. “You think Dr. Al-Hashimi has great tits?”
“Not the point.” A minute later, Park leaves the room with a smile in your direction. You swish over to the hub to grab a new chart and Dennis asks, “What’s the deal with you and the Shark?”
Humming gently, you ask him absently, “What do you mean?”
Trinity cuts in to reply for them both, “Well, I mean, he likes you. Are you two fucking?”
Your eyes startle wide at the idea – tantalizing but impossibly far away. Park is so wildly out of your league you can barely entertain the thought. “What? No! Of course not. Brendon’s not as bad as you guys think. You just have to get to know him.”
Trinity mouths to Whitaker, Brendon?
Whitaker shrugs, baffled, and then muses as the three of you watch Park head toward the OR, “I didn’t realize that was a possibility.”
You chuckle and tease, “Maybe try being a better doctor next time?”
“Brutal, Sharkbait. Brutal.”
That weekend, the Pittsburgh Penguins hosts its annual Medical Worker Appreciation Night. Because Dana’s been nominated as a spotlighted nurse, the hospital sprung for discounted tickets in the name of staff morale.
Robby shepherds you and the other newer ED staff who’d gotten their hands on a ticket down to the PTMC section. When he checks seats, pointing everyone in the right direction, he frowns at yours. “Kid, do you wanna trade spots with me?”
Your brows furrow. “What? Why?”
“Look.”
Your eyes follow Robby’s pointing chin. At the end of the long row, Park’s perched on the edge of his seat, staring down the players doing warmups. He’s wearing a black Penguins hoodie, a black Penguins hat, and a pair of jeans that his meaty thighs battle for dominance with. You’ve never seen him outside of scrubs and it’s becoming a problem very quickly. You shrug and tell Robby, “I don’t mind.”
“You sure?”
“We get along great, actually.”
“That explains the new nickname,” he chuckles under his breath. “I figured it was because you’re a sacrificial lamb.”
Park catches your eyes and waves you over, his lips flirting with the concept of a smile. He can’t bear to say it out loud, can barely even tolerate the thought in his own head, but he’d looked over the seating chart on the HR receptionist’s computer and basically threatened Ogilvie’s life to switch with him (and then swore him to secrecy on similar conditions).
You plop down next to him and nudge him in the bicep. “Hi, Bren, I didn’t think you came to things like this.”
Bren. Nobody’s used a nickname besides ‘Shark’ for him in decades. He shrugs like his heart rate isn’t picking up at the way your arm has to touch his because of how broad he is. “It’s hockey.”
“It’s team bonding,” you tease. “You hate bonding. And teams that aren’t sports.”
“But I like free Pens tickets,” he replies simply. Then he notices your outfit. You’re wearing pants, at least – leggings, because fuck him, he figures – but your arms are agonizingly bare from the elbows down, your yellow tee not doing much to protect your skin. He frowns and asks, “Did you bring a jacket or something? You’re gonna freeze to death in here.”
You shake your head. “It’s not that cold; I’ll be okay.”
“Give it a period.”
“I’m not on my- Oh. They’re called periods in hockey?”
Biting back a mean joke because of your sweet, innocent eyes, he says, “Yeah. Periods. Three twenty-minute periods with intermissions between.
“You’re gonna have to explain everything to me,” you say as you stare at the different parts of the stadium. “I’m not from a hockey town.”
“I don’t mind,” he admits after a second. He adds carefully, “I never get to talk hockey outside of work.”
“No gym buddies to gab with?”
“No gym buddies,” he confirms.
“That’s shocking, considering the biceps of it all.” And the pecs you would honestly motorboat. And the big veiny hands. And the thick thighs you could bounce on for hours. You swallow hard, thankful you don’t have a dick to give away your thoughts. “Are you one of those douchey guys who puts in his AirPods and focuses on his form in the mirror? Oh my god, do you film yourself so you can make sure you-”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” he laughs, raising his hands in defeat. “You’ve got me pegged, sweetheart. I have to be strong because I crack femurs all day. And you have to focus on form if you want to get strong and don’t want to get hurt.”
“So no time for gym buddies.” You lilt, sweet and easy, “Maybe you can show me some time. I could use a little more muscle and a little less-”
“No, you definitely don’t need ‘less’ anything,” he protests way too quickly as his mouth goes dry. He can barely tolerate the sight of you in leggings this close to him; he’d burst a blood vessel if you were in bike shorts and a sports bra like his brain immediately supplies. With his neck going splotchy pink, he course corrects, “Lifting isn’t about losing weight or visible muscle. It’s about building practical strength.”
And your body is fucking perfect. If you wanted to change it out of insecurity, he’d drop to his knees and kiss your feet until you realized you shouldn’t change a thing. Your thighs are just the right thickness, your ass downright juicy, your stomach spectacularly soft, your breasts-
Park sucks in a sharp, deep breath and shakes out the thoughts. “I’m gonna grab something to eat before the game starts. Can I get you anything?”
After a second of thinking, you ask sweetly, “Do they have cheese fries?”
“They have every disgusting, greasy sports food you could ever want,” he confirms. “I’ll be right back with some goodies.”
You occupy yourself by playing social butterfly, introducing yourself to everyone you haven’t had a chance to meet yet. When Park returns, he takes a second to admire you running around spreading your sunshine. Then you return to his side and squeal when you see a mountain of loaded cheese fries that make your mouth water in the best way.
Before sitting down to share them with you, Park shoves a folded garment into your arms. “Put this on. I won’t be able to focus on the game if you’re shivering next to me the whole time.”
“Aw, Bren, thank you.” Your voice borders on a whimper as you unfold the classic lacer pullover, black with yellow and tan bars around the lower hem and arms, the iconic penguin himself at the center of the chest. “Just let me know how much I owe you for it – at least for half.”
He rolls his eyes. “Shut up; it’s a gift.”
“Okay, thank you so much, that’s so sweet, but the suggestion to shut up is incredibly offensive given I disclosed my word vomit diagnosis to you,” you reply seriously, glaring at him.
Park clutches his chest and tells you, “I apologize for making light of your vulnerability with me.”
“I forgive you because of the cheese fries.” You examine the back of the thick, cozy hoodie and observe, “Crosby. Is he your favorite? Or just the cheapest sweater?”
Park smirks (it’s the most expensive sweater) and replies, “Sid the Kid. Best player Pittsburgh’s ever had. Best player in the league, if you ask anyone with a brain. Rumor has it he’s retiring soon; I think that’ll be my first true heartbreak.”
You balk at the idea. “You’ve never had your heart broken? I get my heart broken ten times a month.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You go on that many dates?”
“No, no, no, no dates,” you quickly reply. Too quickly. A little desperately. “But it breaks my heart when I see sad puppy commercials or old people eating alone at restaurants or trailers for romantic dramas at the movies. One time I cried because I could only find one of my favorite socks. I tried and I tried but the second one was just…gone. I couldn’t look at the single one without getting so sad it was hard to-”
“Team introduction’s starting, then the national anthem,” he interrupts gently. Reluctantly. Like he’s actually invested in your rambling. “Put a lid on the word vomit for ten minutes and I’m all yours for a full sock eulogy.”
You giggle and salute as the whole stadium stands. “Yes, sir.”
He rolls his shoulders and pretends that doesn’t go straight to his dick. When you cheer extra loud for Sidney Crosby as he skates to center, jumping a tiny bit like your smile is too big to hold in your body, Park damn near swoons. He wants to sling his arm around your waist and pull you into him, to kiss the top of your head, to, fuck, put you on his shoulders and parade you around or something. He can’t even name everything he wants to do with and to and for you. It’s agony.
Once the game starts, Park takes care to make sure you understand what’s going on. “That’s Ovechkin. You’re gonna see one hell of a game. He’s Crosby’s biggest rival.”
“So we hate him,” you reply obediently. “Got it.”
He smiles at you and confirms, “Yeah, we hate him. Mostly because he’s really fucking good.”
You nudge him with your shoulder and tease, “That’s why people hate you, so it’s good company.”
He barks out a laugh. “Is that why?”
“That or because you never show off that handsome smile.”
With a pout, he counters, “I smile plenty.”
“He said, frowning.”
“I’ll smile when the Pens win,” he promises.
But, despite his best efforts, he does, actually, get caught smiling before the end of the game. In a big, obnoxious way. After the end of the second period, with the game tied 1-1, you watch the kiss cam flying around the arena with dopey heart eyes so precious Brendon can’t rip his eyes away from you. It’s too cute of an expression not to memorize.
You don’t notice he’s staring, too wrapped up in loving to see people in love, until his face lights up the big screen. You’re so shocked that you don’t process just how bright and intent his eyes are, his lips soft and slightly upturned, everything about his expression and posture screaming ‘god, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ It’s the kind of expression kiss cam operators gravitate toward; only men who adore their girls look like that.
Before he can even truly realize that it’s you and him on screen, his eyes widening, you grab him and plant a big fat shimmery lip gloss kiss on his cheek. Then you grin, following it up by blowing a kiss and winking to the camera.
And Brendon Park smiles wide enough to power the whole arena, the apples of his cheek glowing neon pink and he drops his eyes and shakes his head in delight.
The video is immediately saved and sent to the ED group chat by none other than Trinity Santos, naturally. One of the nurses proceeds to forward it to the nurses chat, where it makes its way to the ortho chat. By the time the camera even pans away, the moment has been forever cemented in PTMC history as the first time Park the Shark has smiled earnestly – innocently, even – in front of his coworkers.
Only the whoops, cheers, and laughs from your nearby ED coworkers drops him back onto earth from cloud nine. Park frowns as he rubs his cheek with a napkin, pouting, “You got lipgloss on my face.”
“What was I supposed to do?” You gesture to Trinity and Whitaker, who are pumping their fists in their air victoriously. “Leave my adoring fans hanging?”
With a sheepish wave in their direction to get them to fuck off, he mutters, “I think you’ve permanently damaged my tough guy reputation.”
But you just reply in a sing-sony voice, “You didn’t have to blush.”
“Involuntary response to relevant stimulus.”
“Whatever you say, big guy.”
If he’s honest with himself, his smile isn’t half as bright when the Penguins win an hour later. It only warms back up to critical heat when you wrap him in a hug, gleefully jumping up and down as the puck hits the net right as the buzzer goes off. He’d kiss you for real if you weren’t surrounded by the PTMC staff.
Still, with your arms around the back of his neck, he can’t resist doing something. So he keeps it simple and asks, “It’s been a while since those cheese fries; want to grab dinner with me?”
When you say yes, his heart sings.
After the hockey game, there’s a definite shift in your friendship with Brendon. It’s more playful. Less guarded. The two of you grab dinner together after your shifts whenever Park doesn’t have a late surgery and, if you miss out on dinner, he insists on coffee in the morning. He tells you about his personal life and you do the same, not that it’s hard on your end. Gradually, you start to notice the differences that everyone else in the ED picked up on months and months ago. The way his face goes from hardened to soft when he sees you entering a room. The way his texts have emojis instead of periods. The way he accepts your hugs instead of turning them into handshakes.
Right when you’ve gotten up your confidence to actually ask him out, you overhear him and Robby talking in hushed tones inside Park’s office. The door’s cracked and you’d come up specifically to ask him to go out with you in a few days on Saturday because you both actually have a weekend off.
With an X-Ray in hand, Robby pushes, “Are you sure you can’t do the revision yourself on Sunday? I know you’re not scheduled to be here, but the family trusts you now, and it might be-”
“I told you, man, I’m surprising my girlfriend on Sunday. I’ve been sitting on these ballet tickets for weeks already and I don’t do shit like that,” Park tells him sternly. No room for argument. “You’re in good hands with Torres; she’s as good as me any day – maybe better since people actually like her.”
You don’t wait for Robby’s response. Losing your ability to breathe, you scamper to the nearby staircase and start stamping your way down to the ED. Your heart shatters into a thousand pieces. No, a million. They fall down the stairs like glass, so heavy you’re surprised you can’t hear them echoing.
Stopping just shy of the ED entrance, you tuck yourself away underneath the staircase to catch your breath, trying not to let yourself cry. Park’s just one of those guys, you figure. Guys with ultra-secure girlfriends who don’t care if they have female friends who drool all over their biceps. Guys who don’t mention their ultra-secure girlfriends because they know what they have at home and they probably don’t even realize you’re flirting because they’re so enamored with their great, successful, probably gorgeous girlfriend who knows exactly what she’s doing in bed and always satisfies him and-
There are the tears.
Feelings of inadequacy and sadness well up and spill over. It’s hard to keep your sniffles and sobs quiet enough not to draw attention when all you want is to ugly sob over a tub of ice cream and your favorite movie. Only one more hour in your shift. You can make it. Right?
Upstairs, you hear the door squeak open and heavy footsteps traipse down toward you. Familiar footsteps. Of course. He probably saw you running away from his office and is coming to find you because you have the luck of a worm after a rainstorm.
When Park comes closer, he spots your elbow sticking out from behind the staircase. Hiding. You’re still crying, unable to stop yourself until you get it all out. Silently, yes, but with puffy eyes and tiny whimpers and sniffles that escape every once in a while. Tucked up underneath the staircase, you blot at your cheeks with the sleeve of your daisy-patterned turtleneck.
Rage devours Brendon’s insides. He beelines for you and demands with a level of anger in his eyes you’ve never seen before, “What’s wrong? Did someone make you cry?”
“No, no, I’m fine.” You try a shaky smile and wipe your face again even though more tears just fall in their wake. “Just, um, I’m on my period and I’m emotional.”
Which isn’t not true. It’s the last day or two and you are emotional. It’s definitely not helping the situation. Park’s a little taken aback you admitted that so freely, but he’s a doctor, dammit, so he doesn’t let it faze him. Instead he offers, “Okay, well, um, do you, ah, do you need anything? I have some ibuprofen in my office if-”
You start crying harder, ugly sobs now at how nice he’s being when he just unintentionally and unknowingly turned you into a 12-year-old girl having her first heartbreak.
Park stammers, unsure how to deal with this situation. “Okay, ah, maybe just a hug, then?”
You nod ardently and he pulls you close with his strong arms. You nestle your face in his chest and breathe deep. If this is the closest you’re gonna get to having him, you’re gonna milk it for all it’s worth. With your nose pressed to his muscles as you start to calm down, you whimper, “You smell really good.”
Still tentative, Brendon murmurs, “It’s Dior. My mom bought it for me.”
Then you start crying even more.
That night, after making some lazy excuse to Brendon for why you can’t get dinner like usual, you curl up on your couch and vow to set some darn boundaries with the guy. You’re only going to get yourself hurt if you indulge in dinners and coffees and stolen gazes and elevator conversations. So you put his messages on silent, only returning them when you actually have a second instead of carving out time. You make a point of ducking into other rooms when you know he’s coming down for a consult, ignoring the desperate calls for Sharkbait from your hapless coworkers.
And by the time you’re clocked out on Friday night, you almost feel better about the situation. Well, that’s a lie. You actually don’t feel better at all. If anything, you feel much, much worse because you don’t have your best friend to hang out with anymore. You’re going to have to resort to drinks with the Pittlings if you don’t find another attending soon.
But at least you have the weekend to wallow.
Walking to your bus stop with Celine Dion blasting in your ears, you try to focus on the pretty sunset and the wins of the shift instead of letting your brain drift to-
Fuck.
Brendon’s standing at your bus stop with his stance wide and his arms crossed like a bodyguard, forearms looking extra delectable in the sunset. He’s not a hallucination from your lovesick mind nor a hologram designed to trip you up on the way home.
You scurry up to him with averted eyes and ask, “What are you doing here? You drive a Rolls-Royce.”
“Yeah, and that Spectre is my damn baby, but you take the bus when you’re ignoring my offer for rides. So here I am.” His eyes drill through your forehead and your resolve. “Can we talk now?”
Weakly, you mutter back, “My bus is in five minutes.”
“You’re not taking the bus. I’m driving you.” The firmness of his voice makes your knees wobble. He nods over his shoulder toward the small park next to the hospital. “We’re talking. Come on.”
Then he takes your hand – you want to throw up – and leads you through the park entrance to a shaded spot under a tree where the light makes his chiseled features agonizingly beautiful. Like a fucking Roman marble sculpture. He doesn’t wait for you to say anything, instead taking charge and launching in, “What’s going on with you? Why have you been ignoring me the last few days? If I did something to hurt you, tell me and I’ll fix it. I know I’m a dumbass about the feelings stuff sometimes, a lot of the time, but I’m not going to mess shit up with you, so you have to let me know what I need to do better.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” you whimper. You hate how pathetic you sound. How downtrodden and heartbroken. But Brendon looks hurt, too, which makes you feel ten times as bad. So you rush out a hasty version of the truth, “I came up to your office on Wednesday to ask you on a date this weekend, but then- then I heard you telling Robby about your girlfriend who you’re surprising on Sunday and it just, like, crushed me so bad even though I know it was so silly for me to think I’d ever have a chance with someone like you in the first place since you’re this sexy strong surgeon and I’m so not but I thought maybe in the last couple months-”
“Woah, pipsqueak, hey.” Brendon cups your cheek in his hand to cut you off once the shock of your words wears off. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Unable to meet his eyes, you start to feel the tears coming. Dammit. You stare at your pink sneakers – the same ones you were wearing when the two of you met, you realize – and let them fall to the ground. After a minute, you manage to admit, “I just- I don’t think I can be this close to you if you have a girlfriend. It’s great that she’s so cool about you having female friends, but I’m just so sensitive and I know that’s not your fault but-”
“Hold on.” Brendon places both hands on your shoulders, staring at you like you’re an alien making first contact. Baffled beyond his wildest dreams, he explains slowly, “You’re my girlfriend.”
Between sniffles and shaky breaths, you whimper out, unable to process anything, “Huh?”
“My girlfriend. Who I’m surprising on Sunday. That would be you.”
Now it’s your turn to go catatonic, eyes wide and shimmery. “What are you talking about?”
“I asked you out to dinner after the hockey game,” he tells you, exasperated in the cutest way you’ve ever seen. Like you’re dumb but like maybe he’s also dumb. “I paid for your dinner. I insisted you get dessert. The whole thing. And we- Sweetheart, what do you think all the dinners we eat together are? Why else would I always be inviting you for coffee? Why would I always pay? I don’t just dump a couple hundred bucks a week on casual coworkers.”
Starting to feel silly instead of sad, you cover your laugh and protest, “I don’t know; I thought you were being friendly! You make $500,000 a year; you should be paying for all your friends’ coffees!”
“$650,000, actually, I have a sub-specialty in pediatric surgery,” he replies as though you wouldn’t drop your panties right here in the park. “More importantly, I am the least friendly person in the entire hospital. Maybe the entire city.” He runs a hand through his hair and replies a bit bashfully, “I kind of figured you like that about me or we wouldn’t be dating.”
The last two months recontextualize in your head in rapid succession. Little moments appear lit up by neon lights that blare, HEY DUMBASS! Brendon tied your shoes last week instead of telling you they were loose, dropping down on his knees right outside the ED where anyone could see just to make sure you wouldn’t trip. He always takes your backpack from your shoulders before walking you to the parking garage and opening the door of his gorgeous navy blue sedan for you. Even the way he looked at you at the hockey game.
God, you’re an idiot.
With your lips parted and your eyes rapidly blinking, you come up with a new protest: “You’ve never even tried to kiss me, Brendon. What the fuck? You should be kissing me all the time! You could’ve been jumping my bones ever since the hockey game; that would’ve made things pretty clear to me!”
“Jumping your bones?” He suppresses a laugh since you’re still flustered. He just kind of scoffs and explains with a shrug, “I guess I’m still old-school about that. A gentleman. I wasn’t picking up signals that you wanted me to, y’know, make a big move. Figured we should take it slow. I mean, you’re new to Pittsburgh, you’ve had some big life changes. And I have a history of being too, ah, too intense for some women. I didn’t want to mess that up with you.”
“That’s actually really sweet, Bren,” you reply, sniffling back tears. Waving a hand in front of your face to cool down your burning cheeks, you pinch your eyebrows together and point out, “Okay, well, then we never did, like, a ‘what are we?’ talk.”
“That’s because I’m 38 years old,” he replies bluntly. “When I’m with my woman, she has my full attention. My devotion. Everything. I don’t need to have that talk.”
My woman. The phrase makes you feel kinda bubbly like soda. You smack him on the chest and poke him, “Clearly you do, dummy!”
After you nudge him, Park catches your hand in his, fingers enveloping yours. Fuck, his hands are so big and sturdy. Then his eyes soften and he kisses your fingers. He leans down slightly to make better eye contact. “Okay, I’ll have that talk if you want it.” Crystal clear, blue eyes positively sparkling with amusement and adoration, he asks, “Would you like to be my very, very official girlfriend?”
You let out an absolute squeal. It’s delighted and silly and so cute his stomach turns. God, how did a girl like you get your claws in him? When you throw your arms around his neck and he spins you around, he doesn’t care why or how. He just cares that the first words out of your mouth are, “Yes, of course, obviously.” You nuzzle into the crook of his shoulder, feet barely touching the ground, and murmur against his ear, “This is my favorite night ever.”
“You’ve got me wrapped around your finger, princess,” he assures as he sets you down on your own balance. Then he holds your face in his palm and finally bends down to kiss you properly.
But you stop him with your pointer finger in his lips, his eyes widening. “No, no, no, I can’t have our first kiss be when I’m all puffy and snotty from crying.”
He gives a pretend growl but concedes, “Fair enough. Whatever you want. C’mon, let’s get you home.”
Before he turns away, though, you step on your very tippy toes (and then some) and kiss his forehead before asking so sweetly, “How about you come over tomorrow? I know we already have plans Sunday – by the way, I really love the ballet, so good job – but maybe we should have a first date that I know is a first date beforehand?”
“Yeah, of course,” he replies wistfully, still feeling your lips on his skin. On his thick fucking skull. “I’ll go anywhere you ask me.”
Like you asked, Brendon knocks on your door at 3PM sharp. You promised to entertain him and make him dinner and he could absolutely care less about any of the details beyond getting to be with you like he craves. He’d agonized over what to wear to an embarrassing extent, nearly caving and texting his mother for her approval. But that would be a fate worse than death, so he settles on dark jeans rolled at the ankle and a black tee because a little old lady told him he looked hunky when he wore them to the pharmacy a few weeks ago.
You answer the door wearing nothing but the oversized Penguins sweater he bought you, a pair of panties he can barely see under it, and knee-high socks.
Park’s pupils dilate.
In that one look, you can finally see why they call him Shark. He’s a predator latching onto you, ready to devour you alive. You take a step back and he steps forward like you’re pulling him by a string attached to his gut. He doesn’t even notice himself closing and locking the door, too fixated on the expanse of your legs and the Pittsburgh Penguins logo on your chest. He tentatively puts one hand on your waist and sighs reverently, “Yup, this is the singular sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
You look away from him, bashful under his praise: “Well, y’know, I wanted to surprise my boyfriend since he’s planning on surprising me tomorrow.” Then your attempt at a sultry voice goes away and is replaced by your usual glittery one when you see that he’s carrying a bouquet of pastel pink, soft orange, and angel white gerberas in the hand not touching you. “Brenny, did you get me flowers?”
‘Brenny’ might be too far, but he can’t bear to tell you that. You could call him anything and he’d accept it. He lifts the flowers up and offers them to you. “Um, yes. Is that still romantic or is it really, really lame now?”
“Still romantic,” you assure him with misty eyes, taking the bouquet and skipping away toward the kitchen.
Brendon toes off his shoes and follows you into the house, not surprised to find the place decked out in pastel colors and soft fabrics and dreamy artwork. You dig through your cabinets to find a porcelain vase you thrifted years ago and arrange the flowers inside of it.
As you place them on the windowsill, you give him a soft gaze, softer than any he’s been on the receiving side of. “This is the sweetest thing any man’s ever done for me.”
Brendon pulls you into a warm embrace, holding your chin with his thumb and forefinger, and says, “Baby, you’re about to have your bar raised, because flowers are the least you deserve.” When your lips part into a shy smile, he asks, “Can I kiss you now?”
You nod eagerly and rock up onto your toes, tilting your chin to get as close to him as possible. Brendon’s gentle, boyish smile makes your heart pound in your throat in the moments before he closes the gap. He takes a second to admire the slopes of your face when you’re gazing up at him like he means something.
And then he kisses you.
It’s eager and bright, the way you kiss after prom night. You have to fight not to smile when he holds your face between both hands, so much desire in his touch that you can feel his resolve to take it slow with you melting away.
Suddenly, at the sound of you giggling for only a second, Brendon’s arms loop around your back. Before you know it, he’s lifting you off your feet and spinning you around. You hop up, knowing he’ll catch you, and lock your legs around his hips. When you feel his smooth, cold belt buckle against your panties, you gasp out a moan at the contact.
Brendon chuckles and buries his forehead in the crook of your neck. He groans quietly, “Baby, you can’t make all those little sounds or you’re gonna kill me.”
Breathless, you tease back, “Then you definitely can’t call me baby.”
He smirks, kisses you again, and asks in a lower and more pointed voice, “Where’s your bedroom, baby?”
“It’s right upstairs; if you wanna put me down, I can-”
He shakes his head and keeps you balanced firmly in his arms, walking back toward the staircase. “No point in having these muscles if my girl ever has to touch the ground again.”
As he carries you up the stairs so easily that you’re turning into a person made more of giggles than anything else, you ask him, “Are you gonna carry me around from patient to patient forever?”
“If that’s what you want,” he replies with a laugh as he pushes through your bedroom door. Guiding you down onto the bed, which you’ve meticulously made, Brendon murmurs against the pulse point just beneath your ear, “I’ll give you everything you want, kitten.”
At the tender pet name, you can’t help but moan, encouraging him to touch you as he pins you to the bed just by virtue of how big his body is. He pulls back and gazes down at you so gently. Your heartbeat is slow again, comfortable, safe, but the heat between your legs is undeniable.
Brendon lowers himself down to kiss you once more. The energy between you shifts in that kiss, like he’s become painfully aware of being in your bedroom, your body pliant beneath him, your eyes full of trust and adoration he hasn’t experienced in years. His kiss is slow and sweet and simple. He shifts onto his side so one of his hands can cradle your cheek while the other gingerly takes your waist. You can tell he’s being painfully careful with you, his gentle touch revealing a certain level of fear – that he’ll hurt you or break you or scare you off.
So you reach forward and twine your fingers in the short hair at the base of his neck, gently scratching his scalp, and press your body against his. One leg thrown over his hip so that he can feel the heat of your barely clothed cunt. You arch your back and wiggle a tiny bit so that his hand almost has to move to your ass. He chuckles into the kiss and that makes you whimper. But he doesn’t do more, doesn’t grab or push or demand.
You pull back an inch, stare at him seriously, and murmur, “You’re not gonna break me, Bren.”
Mischief flickers in his blue eyes. He knows perfectly well what you’re asking, even if he’s tentative to give it to you. “What are you trying to say, sweetheart? Use your words.”
Mimicking his own voice, you bat your lashes and offer, “What’s the point in having those muscles if you don’t throw your girl around a little? C’mon, Shark, I know you’re not a shy lover.” You sit up just enough to reach down and lift the hockey sweater up and over your head. Underneath, you’ve got a black lace unlined bra, filled out only by the weight of your breasts, and it’s absolutely sinful. “Touch me like you mean it.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, this is one hell of a surprise,” he rasps as he grabs your tits through the fabric, a rough sting buzzing through your body. The sight of his hands against the lace flips the switch in his mind and he’s hunting for blood in the water. “I didn’t know you owned anything black.”
As he pinches your nipples, mean and certain, the fabric of the lace adding a scratchy friction, you gasp, “It’s a special occasion.”
“Yeah?” His hands run down toward your thighs, kneading the thickness of your waist and hips with a greed that approaches true obsession. You lose the ability to think when he bends down and bites the side of your waist, his teeth quickly becoming less and less gentle as your moans get louder and louder. “What’s so special?”
You can only whimper as he roughly manhandles you upwards so that he can unhook your bra, using only one hand. Fucking surgeons. All you can think about is what else those hands of his can do. You’ve noticed how thick his fingers are a million times and now you might actually get to feel them the way you want.
Brendon can see the lust laid bare over you, chest rising and falling faster, eyes wide and waiting, skin prickled with goosebumps. Hooking his fingers beneath the edges of your panties and pulling them down, he teases, “Out of words now, pretty girl?”
You take five seconds to breathe, swallow hard, and order, “Take your clothes off.”
He throws his head back and grins. “Good choice of words.”
While you prop yourself on your elbows for a better view, Brendon steps off the bed and tugs his shirt off first. He even does that thing buff guys do where he pulls it off by the back, his arm muscles offensively large as he reveals his abs. His muscles are less defined than they are sturdy, built not like an Abercrombie model but more like a lumberjack or, y’know, a fridge. The way his obliques cut down into his hips is downright pornographic.
You let out a long breath. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Perfectly and completely aware, he gives you a hunky grin. “What? Something wrong?”
You bite your lower lip and physically try to stop yourself from staring, but you just keep failing. Because he’s your boyfriend. Sitting on the edge of the bed now, gradually drawing closer to him like a magnet, you attempt to tease, “Are you always this much of a cocky bastard about your hot bod?”
“My hot bod?” His hands go to his belt and he slowly removes it. Then, once he’s stepped out of his jeans and you’re blinded by the outline of his, yes, proportionally long and thick cock against his black boxer briefs, he says, “Yeah, I always am.”
Eyes greedily drinking down every inch of his body and imagining all the ways you could play with it, you manage to mumble out, “You should be.”
God, he even makes taking off his underwear hot. It must be those damn thighs. Or the everything else. With your eyes trained squarely on his fat cock, mouth actually watering, Brendon steps toward and lifts your chin. “Like what you see, princess?”
With that same confident smirk on his lips, he takes your small hand and wraps it around his shaft. Suddenly you get the whole ‘beer-can-sized-dick’ thing you’ve read in way too much erotica because you can’t close your hand around his girth. “Oh.”
“What? Bigger than you thought? You intimidated?”
“Honey, I think everyone you’ve ever met knows you have a big dick.” Your eyes flick up to his playfully. “And I’m definitely not intimidated.”
“Really?”
“You’ve never intimidated me. Not like you do everyone else.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m so into you.” As you smile coyly, Brendon thrusts between your fingers, watching every miniscule change in your expression – which is rapidly growing less patient. He cups your cheek with his hand and asks, “Want a taste?”
You open your mouth. Obedient, immediate. When his tip touches your tongue, you eagerly lap up a sticky drop of precum and then take him between your lips. Brendon has to grip your headboard hard to tolerate the sight of you sucking him with such a precious, adoring, sweet look in your eyes. It feels like you’re thanking him with your mouth, making the prettiest damn noises for him to memorize and play on repeat.
When you lift your hand to gently tug and roll his balls, Brendon hangs his head and groans, loud and low, gravelly in a way that tickles the back of your mind. “Fuck, baby, that’s- that’s perfect.” Your happy hum in reply makes his toes curl into the carpet. “Jesus, you drive me crazy, you know that? I’ve never been this obsessed with someone.”
You pull off him and beam, lips shiny and slightly swollen now. “Really?”
Brendon pushes you back on the bed and crawls on top of you, easily maneuvering you so that your head’s back on the pillows and his hands are on either side of your face. He kisses you hard, claiming, and says, “It’s actually become a huge problem for me. You’re all I can think about.”
You giggle breathlessly and ask, “Is that a complaint?”
“Mmm. There’s that little laugh of yours. That’s how you got me,” he groans before kissing you again. “I made some stupid goddamn joke during surgery and the whole team was exhausted but you laughed. Just like that. And I was done for.”
You cover your face, embarrassed and delighted all at once, and remember, “Then I said you have a cutting-edge sense of humor.”
“And I thought that was funny,” he goes on with a fond chuckle. His hands have never stopped roaming over your body, playing with your breasts or digging into your hips. “You’re so gorgeous and perfect I thought that was funny. You don’t even realize how deep you’ve got your hooks in me, baby.”
Biting your lip, you try to come up with something to say to match his sudden deep sweetness, but he stops you from being able to think at all. His lips drag down your neck, biting and kissing in equal measure until you’re squirming and bucking under him. Then, just beneath your ear, he growls, “Can I leave marks?”
The sound you make is nothing short of pathetic. You clutch the back of his head, tugging his hair a bit to push his teeth against your neck, and whine, “Please.”
“Yeah?” He’s grinning, now, but he can’t bear to let you see. “Want the whole world to know you’re mine now?” You whimper and nod, tilting your head to the side to give him better access. He murmurs, “Good girl.”
Fuck, you’re soaked.
As Brendon sucks hard over your pulse, branding you with the dark shape of his kiss, his right hand goes between your legs, pushing them apart. Two of his thick fingers dip between your folds to collect your wetness before smearing it over your clit. “All this for me? You’re easy to work up.”
You laugh and tuck your forehead into his bicep. “Are you surprised?”
“Not even a little,” he chuckles. Making sure to kiss you and hold you as his fingers work firm circles around your clit, Brendon purrs, “I’ve thought about all the sounds you must make a thousand times. How you must be so enthusiastic to be a good girl. You’re so easy for me to read; I knew I could get you off better than anyone else.”
You nod against his arm and moan when he finds just the right tempo on your clit, his fingers ridiculously skilled. “Just like that.”
“Whatever you need, sweet girl,” he assures, listening to you and keeping his fingers exactly the way they are. Methodical.
“Brendon,” you gasp as your pussy pulses wantingly around nothing, “I really need you to fuck me.”
“I love the enthusiasm, kitten, but I’m not gonna hurt you,” he replies simply. Reluctantly. There’s a tenderness to his voice that shouldn’t fit with his harsh attitude and masculine features, but it does. It’s him, beneath everything he shows the rest of the world. He drops down between your legs and nuzzles loving kisses over your sensitive inner thighs, worshipping into your skin, “If I’m gonna fuck you to sleep tonight, then I can’t leave you sore from the first time. Let me make you cum before I’m inside you, kitten. Can you be good and do that?”
With your eyebrows knitted together and sweat on your brow, you nod and whine, “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask,” he tells you. It’s insane that a man being offensively cocky with all those smirks and chuckles is so hot. He leans back, sitting between your legs, and begins to plunge his fingers inside of you. Just his two middle fingers have to be as thick as any dildo you’ve used before. He bends at the waist so he can keep biting and sucking on your body, the most brutal on your nipples but sure to get ample coverage over your waist and stomach and hips. When he feels you clamping down tight around him, the pleasure so much you can’t come up with any response besides your body’s natural reactions, he teases lightly, “Careful, baby, my hands are my livelihood.”
Eyes large and glassy, you breathe, “Sorry about that.”
Brendon’s thumb goes to your clit and your walls tighten again. This time, he doesn’t tease you. He works your clit intently, trying to find what he’d found before, and doesn’t rest until he’s right there. Your delicious gasp gives him all the cue he needs. With his thumb flat and firm, he rubs your clit in time with his fingers curling back toward himself. His eyes focus on your expression, each detail, and he’s addicted to your every sound and twitch.
“There you go,” he praises while your pussy tightens up slowly, threatening to snap into sparkles. “That’s right. Just trust me. All I want is to make you feel good.
Your orgasm bursts like waves against a hull, building and building until it crashes over you, rocking your gravity and stealing your breath. Brendon’s there with you through it, his blue eyes a lighthouse, his stupid smirk your shore. His free hand holds you down by the hip as he lets you enjoy the fluttery aftershocks, not quite forcing you into overstimulation but not letting up until you’ve had as much as you can take.
When you’re finally completely breathless and satiated, Brendon slowly withdraws his fingers and then licks them clean. He leans down for a moment and laps at your inner thighs, tasting your tart juices and salty skin. Your hips buck instinctively when he presses one tiny kiss to your clit and then laughs at your reaction, breath ghosting down your hot cunt. With his slick-wet hand, he fists his cock and asks, “How do you want me, sweetheart?”
You take a few seconds to think and admire the view before asking, “Can I ride you? Whenever I’ve fantasized about us having sex, that’s what I’m doing.”
“You can do literally whatever you want to me, baby,” he reminds you as he reclines on the bed next to you. He steals one more kiss from you before you start moving to your knees, collecting your balance. “What exactly do you fantasize about?”
“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” you reply as you climb into his lap, hands going straight to grabbing his pecs with your nails digging deliciously into the flesh, “but you have these giant fucking tits I’d like to fondle.” Then, as he laughs, you rub your sloppy cunt up and down his shaft, watching his eyes close and hearing his breath go shaky with lust. “I wanna see your arms when you hold onto my hips and thrust up into me. Wanna feel how strong your thighs are underneath me.”
Brendon shakes his head and snickers, “Wow, I had no idea how much you were going to objectify my muscles.”
“Shut up; yes, you did.”
You roll your eyes and sink down on him, nice and slow, savoring the way he has to resist slamming up to meet you.
He groans, hands finding purchase on the curve of your waist, “Yeah, you’re right.”
You’re completely forgotten how to talk. The stretch of him is divine. Everything you’d imagined and then some. You have to be careful not to get too eager too fast because his length is definitely enough to bruise your cervix if you aren’t gentle with yourself while your pussy adjusts to him. Which is sad, considering the only thing you’ve ever wanted in life all of a sudden is to bounce on Park the Shark’s huge cock until you pass out.
Instead, you slowly rock back and forth, your hands flush on his pecs, with your eyes pinched shut and your mouth falling open. Brendon reaches up to hold your chin, forcing you to open your eyes, and checks softly, “Too much? We can slow down and-”
“Shut up,” you order breathily. He smiles, puts his hands behind his head a moment, and enjoys the view of you being a tiny bit bossy. “Feels so fucking good, I promise. Not too much. Just- just- Jesus.”
“Well, they do say he was hung.”
Your laugh is addictively adorable, sounding almost sleepy from the enormous effort of acclimating to him. “You’re so awful.”
Dragging his hands down and resting them on your ass, he coos back, “And you’re sooooo into it.”
When he gives you a quick upward thrust, your response turns into a squeak, “Yeah.”
From there, Brendon helps you out. He knows he’s not exactly an easy man to take in this position – beyond the size of his cock, his thighs and glutes are so well-developed that your knees don’t even reach the mattress on either side of his hips – so he holds you in place and rolls his hips up into yours, slow and precise.
Once he can tell you’re getting comfortable, breaths easy and moans tumbling out again, he murmurs, “How about you touch yourself?”
Eyebrows knitted together, you sigh, “Already so much, Bren.”
Purposefully missing the point, he sighs back, “I guess I can do it for you, princess.”
When his thumb goes to your clit, your nails dig into his chest. Mean pink half moons rise in their wake, but you can’t stop yourself – and he doesn’t mind. So stretched out, your pussy pulses more than it clamps down, each contraction a fluttery thing that’s somehow more intense than the last. He’s grinning to himself as he feels your orgasm approaching fast. You’re so relaxed with him that he can control your pleasure with the ease of a decades-long lover. He’s going to have to teach you to be less trusting, maybe teach you to fight, but right now all he wants is for you to yield to him completely.
You cum with a long, drawn-out whine, sweat shiny on your hairline, and Brendon has to take over completely as your thighs twitch and falter. It’s impossible to hold yourself up through the roiling pleasure that overtakes you in a deluge. Your wetness drips down his balls and onto your bed and you’re not sure you’ve ever been this soaked from how much a partner’s turned you on and worked you up.
“Aw, my sweet baby,” he purrs as you fight to stay upright, your thighs burning for relief in the wake of your second orgasm, “trying so hard to keep up.”
While you let out tiny, cute whimpers, Brendon pulls out slowly and stands up, ignoring your complaining whine at the lack of contact. He goes to your bedside table and muses, “Let’s see what we have here.” Your cheeks burn as he thumbs through your admittedly maybe-too-ample sex toy collection. Taking out your baby blue silicone mini wand, Brendon grins. “Hot, young, single doctor – knew I’d find some goodies in here.”
You’re totally gone by now, anything but your desire to be with him gone out the window, and he can tell. It’s his favorite thing in the world. When he says, “get on your knees for me,” your brain is so mush for him that you do it without a single thought or word, presenting your ass beautifully with a placid smile on your lips.
Brendon yanks your hips back so that he can stand at the foot of your bed – which means he can use all his strength to handle you. Lining up the thick, angry red tip, he tenderly rubs your ass and says, “Tell me if you want more.”
All you can do is nod. Usually he’d press you for words just to hear you beg, but the eye contact you make is full of so much pleading that there’s no need for further clarity. You really are so sensitive; there are tears of pleasure and need brimming at your waterline.
“Don’t worry that sweet little head of yours,” he practically growls as his cock slowly fills you deeper than he’d been able to get without being in total control, “I’m gonna take care of you, princess. Gonna keep this pretty pussy stuffed. Gonna make sure you get everything you need. I promise.”
Gripping your pillow tight as you once again adjust to his thickness, you nod and sniffle, “Thank you, Bren.”
“There she is,” he teases as he starts to slam into you. Each time he bottoms out, it comes with a weak, needy cry. “That’s my sensitive girl. Love that about you.”
“That I’m a crybaby?”
He picks up speed at the word and all it means to him. You’re never prettier than with tears running down your cheeks, making your eyes shiny and your lips wobbly. “You know how much of a confidence boost it is making you cry because of how good you feel?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, princess, I fucking love it.” Brendon flicks the vibrating wand onto its lowest setting and reaching one huge arm around your body to press it to your clit. Your corresponding moan turns into a screaming sob, loud and messy and violently sexy. It’s completely overwhelming and consuming. The way your face contorts from the intensity sends Brendon’s thrusts into overdrive, almost putting all his force into it now. As sweat falls from his forehead onto your back, he urges, “Let it out. Let it all out for me. I wanna hear how good I’m making you feel.”
And you weep.
The catharsis of his cock christening you takes over. You’ve cried during sex before, yeah (of course), but this is different. It feels like pure relief and connection. Your mind is totally present in your body, feeling every single place of contact where Brendon’s sweating skin slides against yours. The vibrator between your legs is making you shake in his arms, but you trust him to hold you up, to give you what you need, to take you through exactly what he wants to give you.
“C’mon, honey, focus, you can do one more, I promise,” Brendon grunts when he starts to feel your pussy weakly squeezing him again. He didn’t think he could get you to this point your first time together, but, if he can, he’s not going to stop.
He leans over your body, mounting you now, primal and animalistic, and wraps his elbow around your neck. The gesture pulls your cunt tight to him and snaps your head back, forcing you to take a deep breath that lights your brain up. Tears slip constantly out of your eyes and Brendon’s drunk on the sniffles and whimpers and moans that choke out of your thickened throat. You drunkenly kiss his arm as it muffles over your mouth.
Then you bite him.
Brendon’s hips stutter and his balls tighten up. You bite him again and again. And you’re not screwing around with it. Your teeth are ravenous on his flush, cutting in nearly enough to draw blood. You’re so thoughtless that you’re just going for whatever’s been put in front of your mouth; it’s irrelevant that it’s your boyfriend’s flesh.
“There it is,” Brendon groans, the pain of your bites sending him spiraling out into a new height of pleasure. “I can feel it coming on. Don’t you dare hold back, baby. Show me how much you can take. Give me another one and I’ll fill you up. I know what’s what you want, isn’t it?”
You nod without releasing his arm from your mouth. Drool spills from the sides of your lips, mixing with your tears, and you’re hurtling into the orgasm more than it’s welling up within you. The thought that really does it, though, isn’t Brendon’s encouragement or the vibrator unrelentingly stimulating your clit. No. It’s the idea that Brendon’s going to cum inside of you. Even on birth control, it’s a sign that he’s claiming you completely, making you his, being totally naked with you in every sense.
Bliss blows your brains out like a volcano finally giving into the pressure. Brendon holds you tight against him with his free hand, so tight that his thrusts are short and deep. The final few, he grinds into you, totally enveloped in your cunt, letting himself feel each millimeter as it grabs down on him and milks it out. When his cum coats your walls, both of you collapse onto the bed into gasping breaths.
Brendon kisses and kisses your shoulders while he goes soft inside of your pussy, gently pulling your chew toy away and shaking it out because it fucking kills in the most satisfying way possible. He makes a mental note to buy himself a long-sleeve to wear to work as he admires the egregious display of total horny thoughtlessness from the cutesy, angelic doctor.
He sits up and then murmurs, rubbing your back softly, “I’m gonna carry you to the bathroom to get you cleaned up, okay?”
You nod lazily, eyes half-lidded. You make no effort to help him, which only makes him smile to himself and shake his head. He’d do anything for you already. Cradling you like a baby, he pushes open the bathroom door with his foot and hits the light with his elbow. He’s absolutely done for. Setting you down on the toilet, he orders, “Go pee, baby. No UTIs allowed.”
Under normal circumstances, you definitely wouldn’t be able to pee in front of your boyfriend and you would definitely be mortified by the mere thought. But you’re so relaxed. Your whole brain is like a nice cozy hot tub, warm and bubbly and nothing to worry about. So you do as he instructs without question, some part of your brain acknowledging that he’s correct.
Brendon leans down on his knees, a posture that would be condescending in most situations but is nothing but adoring right now, and suggests, “Now, you said you were gonna cook, but how does delivery on my tab sound? We can get pizza.”
You give a hazy smile and nod. “That’s so nice, Brenny.”
“We’re gonna have to talk about that nickname,” he chuckles, booping the tip of your nose.
You pout out your lower lip. “I’m gonna call you whatever I want.”
“Yeah, alright, tough guy.”
“Mmm.” You lean up to kiss him. “Good boy.”
Brendon laughs and then stands up to fiddle with the handles of your shower until he’s happy with the temperature. Then he guides you to your feet and brings you under the water, not too hot or too cold on your over-sensitive skin. You’re glad you went for the house with the rain shower when you moved, both of you fitting comfortably beneath the stream at the same time. For a while, he just holds you, hands roaming up and down your back, as he kisses the top of your head.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs quietly, barely audible above the running water. “You’re gonna turn me into such a softie.”
You giggle, “Or you’re gonna make me a big mean gym bro.”
Brendon shakes his head and reaches for your shampoo. “Maybe we stick to our current roles.”
“I think they suit us,” you agree as he squirts some into his palm and orders you to turn around. With his fingers working devotion into your scalp, you hum gently under your breath and trust him to hold you up. During the course of the shower, you gradually come back to life. Once you’re sudsing his abs with your lufah, maybe being a touch too thorough by going over every spot with your hands, you lilt, “You fucked my brains out. I didn’t know that was actually a thing.”
“I did set a high bar for myself,” he concedes with a self-satisfied laugh, “but I’m guessing it’s only gonna get better from here.”
You stand on your toes and kiss him. “Does this mean we’re doing paperwork when we go back to the hospital?”
“I love paperwork,” he tells you, mock serious. He chuckles and whistles, “My first time to HR for something besides another doctor filing a complaint because I hurt their precious feelings by ensuring my patients get the highest quality care possible.”
“Big bad scary Park the Shark,” you agree as you turn off the water. You gently brush his cheek and coo, “My softie.”
Brendon rolls his eyes affectionately, shakes out his hair, and steps out, grabbing a towel and wrapping you up in it before taking one for himself. With a towel hanging low on his hips, he’s scrumptious enough to have your mind wandering toward round two even though your body wouldn’t even consider cooperating for a few more hours.
You head over to the mirror for your moisturizer and catch a glimpse of yourself with clear eyes for the first time since your sex brain turned off. Looking at the myriad of bite marks littered over your body, the flesh swollen and indented, you laugh, “Jesus, now I know why they call you Shark.”
“Yeah?” Park bares his left forearm to you, the one that had been in your face while he destroyed your cunt, to show off an absolute minefield of neon pink bites, some deep enough that they’re bruising already. Your eyes widen with guilt, but he quickly yanks you close and kisses you hard, nothing but lust and gratitude on his lips. He nips your neck and teases, “They’re gonna have to start calling you Sharkette.”
I am hiding chubby Sammy’s keys when he tries to go to the gym. Sorry baby I don’t know where they went, just stay home this once! We can fuck (that burns calories!) and eat some ice cream (to replenish our energy)
i’m obsessed with your rabbot dad/daddy! maybe one of full aftercare after a punishment went a little too overboard? bc reader is genuinely still feeling guilty and sad and quiet and they get concerned? I kinda love the makingup fluff after being too mean
rabbot x reader, cw: fauxcest, aftercare, but also they can’t stop trying to fuck you, robby is dad, jack is daddy
the moment you feel your vision going spotty, you attempt to tap out. you hit the couch. once. twice. but it doesn’t come out as a tap. it looks like you having a tantrum, which is what got you into this mess in the first place. your chest heaves. you can’t breathe. distantly, you hear robby click his tongue behind you. “we hitting the leather now?” your head swims and you slam against the arm of the couch, going completely limp.
when you come to, robby is the one who looks like he’s about to crack in two. your head is in jack’s lap, and dad keeps wiping your face and brow with a cool cloth. your lips part. robby’s face crumples with complete relief. “oh god, honey. you were trying to tap out, weren’t you?” you try to muster a nod. jack bends to kiss you hair. “our poor baby. dads got too mean, huh?”
robby’s large hand envelopes your own. he brings it to his lips. “i’m so sorry, baby. i wasn’t listening right. that was on me.” you move to nuzzle his cheek. “‘s okay, dad… love you.” he looks to jack, who nods. robby pulls you into a crushing hug. “my baby. i love you so much. so, so much. dad got out of hand.” his voice cracks. you shake your head. “was bad… was so, so bad.” your breath hitches. you’re close to tears again. robby rocks you, back and forth and back, “you did so good. we’re so proud of you. we love you so much.”
your eyes are glassy with devastation. you repeat “didn’t wanna be bad.” jack presses a kiss to your head. “you’ve never been bad a day in your life, angel.” he looks to robby, who clears his throat. “daddy’s right. you’ve never been bad. you know we love you.”
jack wipes at his eyes, though he’d deny it if you ever asked. he forces a smile. “you want cocoa, princess? think that’ll make it better?” you shake your head miserably. “don’t deserve cocoa.” robby fights the ugly, automatic urge to lecture you. to slap you. to say “you don’t decide that.” instead, he rubs your back, tilts your chin, and peppers kisses on your cheeks. “course you deserve it, baby. sweetest girl in the world deserves sweet drinks.” he adds, semi cruelly, “you trust us, don’t you?”
you nod your head fervently. if there is one thing you trust in this world, it’s your dads. jack kisses your head again. “daddy’s gonna make you cocoa, okay?” you make a pitiful sound. “okay…”
while jack works in the kitchen, robby kneels in front of you. he presses your thighs apart. “lemme say sorry, angel.” his mouth works against you. your head tilts back. “‘s my fault.” again, he fights the urge to smack your thigh. he shakes his head, beard scratching against your skin. “no, baby. it wasn’t. you did so well.”
jack comes back into the living room, cup of hot chocolate in hand. he smiles softly, then settles beside you as robby continues. “dad helping you out, bunny?” his lips are on yours, firm, steady. you feel the tension in your heart ebb. jack kneads at your breast. “we just want you to feel good, honey. wanna cum for your dads?”
your body begins to spasm. you clutch at robby’s hair. he doesn’t flinch. his tongue works until you fall apart, and pulls away without overstimulating you. jack pulls you into his lap. robby kisses your cheek, lips still glossy with your release. “forgive us.”
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
summary: Some blurbs about being in a age gap relationship with our silver fox.
warnings: Age-gap relationship obvi.
a/n: Gimme that old man right now, like I need him.
────────⊹⊱✫⊰t⊹────────
“Sweetheart!” Jack calls out to you from the living room. “We really need to get going now.”
“M’ready!” you yell back at him, spraying some perfume before giving yourself one last glance over in the mirror.
It’s date night.
You like to dress up whenever the two of you go out, while Jack loves the way you look whenever you do.. you stress him out every time by taking so long to get ready.
As you walk into the living room, Jack gets a glimpse of the dress you’re wearing and it immediately makes a warm feeling spread in his chest. You look beautiful.. you always do, but whenever you dress up like this it’s like you take your beauty to another level.
“Look at you..” Jack places a hand over his heart. “Gorgeous,”
A smile spreads on your lips as you see him look at you with nothing but adoration and love in his eyes. It doesn’t matter that he’s seen you dressed up a thousand times before, it takes his breath away every time you do.
“Let me get a picture of my girl,” he says before fishing his phone out of his back pocket.
You watch him squint as he looks at the screen while holding up his phone. It makes you want to chuckle every time you see him using his phone, there’s always something he struggles with.
“Nope, that’s the front camera.” he mutters before tapping on the screen. “There we go,”
You give him a smile as you look at his phone, causing an immediate smile to grow on Jack’s lips as well. He takes a few pictures before putting his phone away again.
“Man.. I sure got lucky,” he tells you before closing the space between the two of you and grabbing onto your waist.
“Don’t you forget it,” you send him a quick wink before feeling him press his lips against yours.
⊱✫⊰
“Fuck.. me,”
Jack watches you walk through the room, wearing a red set of lingerie. You barely have time to acknowledge him as you’re busy getting yourself ready to go out with your friends.
“This dress,” you hold up a black one. “Or this one,” in the other hand you’re holding onto a dark green one.
“Sweetheart.. I can’t focus on the color of anything right about now,” Jack speaks up, eyes taking in your half-naked body.
“Jack,” you groan, not having the time for him to be distracted like this. “You’re not helping.”
“Hmm..” he hums, not hearing a word as his gaze is burning onto your skin.
You roll your eyes at his actions before deciding yourself, picking the black dress and shoving yourself into it. The spell Jack was under is broken a little, making him more aware of the current situation.
“M’gonna work my entire shift with that image in my head.” he sighs before moving to sit on the edge of the bed so he could put on his prosthetic.
“Good,” you say after turning around to face him. “That way you know what will be waiting at home for you in the morning.”
“Yeah?” Jack arches a brow before standing up, giving himself a moment to adjust to the prosthetic before walking over to you. “Or it’ll be like last time,” he says. “You’ll be knocked out, snoring like a sailor, breath smelling like the take-out you always end up eating when drunk.”
“Alright,” you glare over at him. “That’s uncalled for.”
Jack chuckles and wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you closer. “Have fun.. be safe, if anything’s wrong call me.”
“I will,” you say, smiling at him before leaning in and pressing a soft kiss against his lips.
“What do you say when guys hit on you?” he asks, one hand moving down to rest on the curve of your ass.
“I say..” you look up at him through your lashes. “I’ve got a boyfriend at home who’s an ex-vet and will kick your ass.” you tell him. “Also, he's super old so you’re not my type anyways.”
Jack breaks into a laugh as you add that last line, shaking his head softly before looking back in your eyes.
“Atta girl,” he mumbles before giving you one more kiss.
⊱✫⊰
“Where are my goddamn glasses?”
Jack is walking around your shared apartment, newspaper in one hand and cup of coffee in the other.
You look over at him from the kitchen where you’re making breakfast for the two of you. Amused at how stressed he is about the fact he can’t find them. You need to hold back a laugh when you spot them buried in his salt and pepper curls.
“Aww, grandpa can’t read the newspaper without his glasses.” you tease.
“Don’t start,” Jack turns his head to give you a warning look. “I swear.. I just had them..” he murmurs before taking another look around.
You chuckle before moving yourself from behind the kitchen counter and walking up to him. “You’re a step away from me putting you in a nursing home,” you tease before you grab the glasses out of his hair.
“They were on your head, were you put them like five minutes ago.” you tell him, looking up into his eyes.
“Oh,” Jack furrows his brows, slightly concerned that he genuinely forgot they were there.
You put the glasses on, making sure they’re sitting right behind his ears. “There you go,” a smile rests on your face before you lean in to press a soft kiss against his lips.
“Hmm,” Jack smiles as you pull back and look into his eyes. “No need for a nursing home when I got myself a sexy woman at home who aids me.” he tells you.
His words make you chuckle, rolling your eyes before watching him pucker his lips as he wants another kiss. You lean in and give him a soft peck before taking a step back.
“Need to get back to my eggs,” you tell him before moving to the kitchen again.
⊱✫⊰
“This is so sad,” you pout your lip as tears burn in your eyes.
You’re currently watching The Notebook with Jack, it’s late at night and you’re curled up beside him on the couch.
“Baby..” Jack turns his head and checks up on you. “Are you actually crying?”
“Yes,” you sob as you sit yourself up some more, unable to stop yourself from letting tears roll down your cheeks.
“It’s just a movie,” Jack tells you, moving to grab your hand in his to try and comfort you.
“I know that,” you sob before turning to look back at the screen where the elderly couple Noah and Allie have both just died, holding hands as they lay together in bed. “It’s just so sad,”
Jack can’t help but be amused a little as he watches you cry, he thinks it’s adorable how emotional you can get from time to time. He pulls you into his side, holding you close and pressing a kiss on the top of your head. “S’okay, sweetheart.”
“No,” you sob. “It’s not.” you look up into his eyes as tears burn in yours. “I just realized you’re going to die before me and then I’ll be all alone.”
That tugs on Jack’s heart strings.
“Sweetheart.. no,” he pulls you into his lap so he could hold you even closer to him. “Don’t think like that.”
“But that’s how it’s going to be,” you cry as you rest your head against his shoulder, feeling his big arms wrapped around you.
Jack presses another kiss on the top of your head as he holds you close to him, feeling a little helpless in this situation as he realizes that’s eventually how it’s going to be. It hurts him to think about it.
“Why do you have to be so goddamn old, huh?” you scold him softly, giving a slight nudge against his chest which makes him chuckle.
“Hey,” Jack grabs your chin between his fingers, so he could make you look up into his eyes. “I promise I won’t die that quickly.”
“You can’t promise me that.” you tell him, looking up at him with sad eyes.
“I know..” Jack sighs softly, thumb brushing over your cheek to wipe away some tears. “But I can promise to love you every day until I do.” he says.
Those words make a soft smile tug on your lips, they go straight to your heart. “Yeah..”
Jack smiles as he watches your eyes light up again. “My sweet girl,” he mumbles before leaning in and capturing your lips in a kiss.
────────⊹⊱✫⊰t⊹────────
a/n: if you ended up loving this, would you want more???? Let me know!
Likes or reposts are always appreciated. Comments even more, I love hearing you guys.
You dismantle Jack's shift when he decides to text you at 11pm. He doesn't even give you something sweet. He's so stern and smarmily dominant.
Update.
Not even a miss you? Soooo unromantic! Your first instinct is to ignore him. Your second is to remind yourself that Jack is at work, which means he's probably been checking his phone between patients with his "discreet" panic he believes passes for casual concern.
Your third instinct is of evil. Pregnancy has made you very creative.
You’re home now because Jack, Robby, Dana...and your obstetrician formed a freakin munity against you and your right to remain an employed nurse until your water breaks on Pitt property.
Fine. Whatever. Your back and tits hurt, and your skin feels too tight around your baby doing backflips inside you.
...And you are also naked.
It's just after you've taken a shower. You attempted to apply lotion, and you're ashamed to admit you were exhausted by the time you reached your back. Motherhood is already beautiful.
You're huffing and collapsing on the bed until you look into the mirror across from you.
Your tits are fuller than you ever thought possible, heavy against the top of your bump. You look...very pregnant. And bare.
...Like something that would stop Jackie's heart with great efficiency. Metaphorically, of course.
Your phone buzzes again. You find only your name in the text.
Oh? Not even Sleepy? Baby? Whore? He must be irritated.
You smile like a wimp and settle yourself above the pillows. You hold the phone and take a picture.
The first one is awful, the second catches the loaded basket of dirty laundry. Not very seductive. But the third is...good. It's not exactly as polished or as purposefully hornified as the garage-gym wall photos you've gifted Jack. The ones he pretends are purely motivational.
You're just naked and fresh from the shower. Your mouth is slightly curled in a sleepy little smile.
You type, back to smiling like a wimp.
still pregnant
You attach the photograph, and for a moment, you almost consider whether this is a wise thing to do. But where's the fun in that?
You hit send.
At the Pitt, Jack is standing outside room twelve while Shen explains the patient's diagnosis inside. He's listening. Technically. His phone vibrates in his pocket. He ignores it.
"Sooo, the patient stated there was no possibility—"
"There is a difference between a patient’s assessment of possibility and documented confirmation."
"Yes, but—"
Jack's phone vibrates again. He swallows. He knows it's you, and you're doing what he asked. Updating, but needing to focus on work first and foremost is getting to his nerves.
Shen blinks.
"You gonna get that? Could be mama-to-be..."
Shen shuts up at what Jack's glaring. He's got good enough stern eye contact that the guy probably doesn't realize he's also smirking.
Whatever. He'll get it. Not because Shen said that. Because he was going to anyway....well. Eventually.
He opens your message.
"I'll be right back—"
...The pitt ceases to exist when your body fills the screen.
"Jesus fuc..."
God fucking damn it, Sleepy. That's not what he meant by a fucking update.
Naked tits. Round stomach. Your thighs disappearing beneath the sheet, crotch visible enough with the bush he groomed. That's it. That's the picture.
The sleepy, satisfied upturn of your mouth is the cherry on top.
still pregnant
Jack locks the phone as fast as he can. He walks away from Shen as fast as he can.
He gets three steps before his body catches up to the image. Heat moves through him with a harsh force, straight through his chest. Then lower. Then lower.
"Fuck."
He opens up the message again. He sighs low.
Same thing. You're naked and smug with the visible proof that he filled you up.
"You unbelievable little shit."
Jack's probably hypertensive. He is. He's hypertensive as shit. Of course, he is. He's dealing with a professional crisis growing in fucking his scrub bottoms.
His pulse is too fast. This is what you do, kid. You take his body, which has been through a whole fucking lot, and reduce it to a badly managed response with one picture.
...He's standing in the bathroom trying to negotiate with an erection cause his pregnant wife answered a request for an at-home update by sending him her tits and a hint of her cunt. The bravery of the kid.
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
prguitarman
annaxmalina
2087
