dr. jack abbott x f!resident!reader!vega aka "wildcard"
wc: 2,100
synopsis: the weeks go byâuntil the pittfest happens. jack wasn't even supposed to be working, but there he was. he didn't expect to have to save vega from herself, too, as her personal dark spiraled out of her control.
contents: 20-year age gap (vega is 26, jack is 46). vega's worsening mental health issues; she's having an anxiety attack, but it's not heavily described. usual pitt dynamics. probably lots of medical inaccuracies that i'm not gonna apologize for. this is totally self-inserted and vega is totally based in lots of aspects of myself. this list is concerns general warnings and specific chapter warningsâi'm gonna keep updating it as i go
gigi's notes: hi people!!!! i'm sorry for not posting the 3rd piece sooner. besides work, classes, organizing and academic conference, my depression keeps getting the best of me and i dissociate and don't do all the shit i need to do and it's an endless cycle. so it took me a bit longer to be able to flesh it out exactly how i wanted this to go and to find the right voice for the things i wanted to write. i really loved this piece and i hope you like it to. i'll try my best to write the next one sooner <3
about the 'jack abbot x reader x frank langdon love triangle', i can tell she's here and she's called TRAITOR (based on the song TRAITOR by elley duhĂŠ). i'm nowhere near finished but i'm already at 3k soooo it might take a bit longer to finish cooking it.
i should probably make a list of jack abbot's works in progress because i have many lol i'm also gonna write jack abbot x firefighter!reader bc it's my alter-ego, probably a mini-series shorter than BRIGHTER, and i'm also thinking of somethinng like jack abbot x brat!reader in nessa barrett's vibes. as you can tell, jack abbot is rotting my brain :()
PLAYLIST | NAVIGATION | MASTERLIST
There was something wrong.
The worst of the Pittfest chaos had passed. The ER wasnât quietâit never wasâ, but now the screaming had dulled down to murmurs, the steady beep of machines, the last critical cases being dealt with. Even though it wasnât over, there was finally a small semblance of quiet starting to spread.
Jack was hands-deep in a tracheotomy when it happenedâa kid. Couldnât have been older than ten. Vega had been working on him since he arrived; Jack caught a glimpse of her across the room as she stopped her compressions and called time of death. He saw the way she stilled for a second, the way something in her eyes cracked. She didnât lose it, didnât panic, didnât break protocol. Just took a deep breath and moved on. But he saw the look in her eyes. He knew that look.
He knew, the moment she stepped out of Trauma Two, her shoulders sagging, her hands shaking as she pulled the latex gloves off with far more force than necessary, there was something wrong.
The beeping from the monitor finally went back to a steady rhythm; his patient was stable. Jack could finally breathe normally again; no one else was calling out his name to go help another patient. He ripped off his gloves, shoved a blood-soaked gown into a bin, and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. By the time his patient was finally handed off, Vega was gone.
He probably shouldnât have been paying that much attention to her all this time working together, but he couldnât help itâhe was, by nature, an observant person; he had thrived in workplaces exactly because of that. But Vega was the biggest mystery Jack had ever facedâthe most fascinating one.
Every time they worked together or were near each otherâwhich happened way more frequently than it shouldâve, considering they worked opposing shiftsâ, he noticed something about her, sometimes without even meaning to.
It was almost as if she were a giant magnet and he was made of iron (part of him was, at least). He noticed the way her forehead would furrow whenever she was in deep thinking; he noticed the way she would let a quiet groan escape when stretching her back, always a grimace of pain she was quick to disguise when there were people around. He noticed how picky she was with her fingers, always scratching something, filing her nails, finding something to fix in her cuticles. He noticed how expressive she was; how her face always showed what she was feeling, even when she was trying to pretend otherwise.
He noticed a lot of things about her. Especially how well she held herself together, but her eyes gave her awayâhe always saw right through them.
It took him longer than it shouldâve to find her. She wasnât in the break room, wasnât in the stairwell. Not in the far supply closet that staff usually went to scream into empty shelves, not in the ambulance bay.
It was one of the old, near-empty trauma bays, half-lit, curtain drawn. Vega sat on the edge of a gurney, knees close to her chest, elbows on her knees. Her hands were covering her face, her palms pressed against her eyes as if she could absorb back her own tears.
Jack didnât announce himself. He just stepped inside, quietly closed the door behind him, pulling the curtain shut. For a moment, he just stood there. The room felt too small, the air too heavy.
âVega?â He called out in a low voice, rough from a long, chaotic day.
No responseâshe didnât move. He could hear her small, soft sobs.
He crossed the room in two strides, invading her space, her knees touching his chest. Carefully, gently, Jack took her hands in his and slowly pulled them away from her face, her eyes, wet with tears, sealed shut as he lowered her hands to her sides.
âLook at me,â Jack said, both his hands coming to cup her face, firm and steady, warm palms against the sides of her neck.
She did. Her eyes, usually so full of fire and life, were dark, red-rimmed, almost vacant as they met his. It was as if an angry, destructive storm had passed through them, taking everything in its wake, taking a piece of her with it. A storm that had been hidden deep, brewing for some timeânot just the Pittfest.
âBreathe.â Quietly, she did. âIn and out.â
Her breathing hitched, the tears subsiding, the tremor in her chest slowly fading away. His thumbs brushed the sharp line of her cheekbonesânot soft, not tender. Grounding. Just enough to tether her back to Earth, back to the present, away from her spiraling thoughts, back to him.
âGood girl,â he muttered as her breath came in shaky but obedient, almost even now.
It was meant to come out as a tease, something for her to laugh, to bring her back to reality. But it didnât sound that way, not as she shivered, not as his thumb grazed the corner of her mouth. Not as her gaze fell to his lips once, twice before flicking back to his eyes. It shouldnât have made his stomach twistâbut it did. They stayed that way for a moment, just breathing, just looking at each other, existing in each otherâs space. Simply being with each other, her pulse a steady rhythm against his fingers.
But his eyes betrayed himâhis gaze dropped to her lips before he could stop himself. Maybe it was the tiredness. Maybe it was the blood stuck under his nails, or the way his chest still ached from all the patients heâd lost. Or maybe it was the way that here, in this room, right now, with her, none of it mattered.
Jack leaned inâVega met him halfway. It wasnât a careful kiss, not sweet. It was like a collision of exhaustion and adrenaline, and months of looking at each other as if they were two souls who knew something about each other, who recognized something in each other. Her hands gripped the collar of his scrubs, his palms sliding to the back of her neckâit was a kiss meant to ground them both. Hard and a little desperate, meant to translate everything that couldnât be said yet. No promises, no words, no soft confessions. Just here, right now.
When they pulled apart, their foreheads stood almost touching for a moment. Jackâs breath was ragged; his hands still cupped her face.
âKeep looking at me like that, old man,â she said, voice hoarse, âand I might start thinking you like having me around.â
The wicked smirk on her lips, swollen from his kiss, was the first real thing heâd seen on her face all night.
It took a moment for her teasing to hit its mark, for him to realize she was back. âYeah, yeah,â he laughed. âDonât let it get to your head.â
Jack was the first to pull back, hands falling away slowly, reluctantly. The air between them still crackled, was still charged as they stared at each other for a moment longer, the memory and the weight of the kiss too fresh, too sharp. For a second, neither of them spoke.
Outside, someone faintly asked about more negative O unitsâthe world hadnât stopped.
He jerked his chin toward the toward.
âCome on, Wildcard,â he said, the usual sharp-edged version of him settling back into place, âyouâve got a shift to finish.â
There was something about the way he uttered âWildcardâ. It was not in the usual teasing, mocking way people did. It felt personalâhe spoke it like a secret kept between just the two of them.
She slid off the gurney, her hand brushing his as she walked, her pinkie tangling with his for a single moment before she put distance between them. Her expression was the same as it always wasâcool, a little cocky, composed. But her pulse was still visible at her throat.
Jack noticed. Of course he did.
The world was calmer now as they sat down on the park benches, Matteo happily handing beers to whomever would accept. Life still went on around themâmusic thudding faintly against the night air, sirens going off in the distanceâbut here it felt quieter. Slower.
Vega looked up; the night sky was clear and bright, stars twinkling faintly. Jack sat beside her on the same worn-out bench. He was sitting close, almost too close. His thigh brushed hers, solid and warm; his arm bumped hers when he shifted slightly to accommodate his prosthetic leg, but he didnât move away. If anything, he leaned closer, the barest tilt of his body, casual enough that no one would notice.
She noticedâevery single second. She couldâve inched away, couldâve created a little space. She didnât.
They hadnât spoken since leaving that trauma bay, hadnât worked togetherâonly traded stolen glances throughout the ER, glances full of everything they didnât recognize yet.
âYou held up good today,â Jack said, nudging her leg with his left knee, beer in hand, âbetter than most.â He angled his body towards her, looking at her profile.
She nudged his leg back, turning her head to look at him, finding his eyes. âEven with a breakdown?â
âEven then,â he said, sipping his beer and staring intently into her.
Vega tried to play it off, act coolâbut her throat still tightened all the same as she held his gaze, as she tried not to think about the anxiety black hole sheâd just barely clawed her way out of. She tried not to think about how everything had been spiraling each time worse than the previous, each time getting far out of her control, until his warm, steady hands pulled her out. She didnât want to think about how grounding his touch feltâor how his kiss felt like a lifeline she didnât know she needed, how his kiss felt like being above the surface after being underwater for so long, how his kiss felt like feeling a spark of something after being numb for so long.
But that was all she could think about as she looked into his eyes, as the world seemed to narrow down to just the two of them under the amber streetlights.
She looked away; her heart sounded stupidly loud in her ears, overwhelming. She took a breath, trying to quiet it down.
âYou donât have to babysit me,â she said, breaking the moment, pretending like it didnât weigh heavily on her chest. âBut thank you.â
âI know,â Jack said after a beat, a half-smirk ghosting across his mouth. âGuess I just have a thing for trouble.â
Vega let out a breath of a laugh, genuine, small, and surprised, meant just for him. Something warm started to spread over her chest, something good. When she turned to him again, her eyes were brighter, crinkling just a little at the corners. She shouldnât say anythingâor at least say something else. But she couldnât help it when his eyes had a spark of something daring, of something dangerous, something familiar.
âYeah? That why you keep hanging around?â
The air between them went still. Heavy, charged. Like something coiled and tense, just waiting for someone to make a moveâany move.
Feeling just a bit emboldened by the spark in his eyes, she reached out and snagged the beer right out of his hand. Jackâs eyebrows shot up, surprised, but he let her do it, watching as she lifted it to her lips and took a long sip. Brave. Almost defiant.
Vega handed the beer back. Eyes still locked on Jackâs hazel ones, his fingers closed around hers, slow, deliberate, and his head tipped toward her, just a bit, like he was going to say something to Robby insteadâhe didnât.
Jackâs mouth brushed near her ear, low enough that only she caught it, meant just for her.
âCareful, kid. Keep that up and Iâll think youâre flirting.â
It was her turn to stay silent, her breath caught like a deer caught in a trap, just for a split second before she masked it into a tiny, sly smile. Her cheeks, her whole face, felt like it was on fire. She didnât need to look at him to feel the wicked grin tugging at his mouth.
Vega leaned back against the bench, purposefully pressing her shoulder against his. She said nothing as she stole his beer again, brushing his fingersâand he let herâ, acting as if her heart was beating normally. It wasnât. Not since his kiss brought her back to earth.
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