All MJ's Fic Recs

In hindsight, it was one of your better decisions not to go off the handles about it. Because on the third night, Jack had texted you a flurry of apologies. There were no excuses for his silence, just a simple explanation that the ED is swamped under new temporary management and he’s only been home for a few hours at a time to nap or shower or feed his cat. 

Which was a revelation in itself. Jack has a cat named Sally.

Originally, you had explained that you understood, that it was okay and he had a very important job he had responsibilities for. But Jack had seen that as an easy cop out he refused to take. Promised you that he was not avoiding you, that he did not regret a single second of that night and more convincingly, that he very much wants to do it again. 

And for the past week, Jack’s been nothing but present and attentive. Not physically, the ED has still had him entirely swamped of time. But any free moment he gets, he’s texting you, or a quick call to ask about your day, to ask about Phoebe. 

He sends photos of random things. A pretty sunrise when he manages to steal a moment to catch it from the ambulance bay. Drawings that children have given him that he’s cared for. And quite a few of someone you’ve learned to be John Shen who likes iced coffee more than you do. 

You’ve offered him the same. Photos of your breakfast or coffee when he asks what you’re having. Snapshots of Phoebe when he checks how she’s doing. Pictures of a messy kitchen island when you admit you’re struggling with outlines for your new book. 

And on the odd night, when it’s late enough for you to barely keep your eyes open and it’s calm enough for Jack to steal a moment alone, he’ll call to say goodnight. You tell him about your day with Phoebe, he tells you about his craziest patients. 

Over the last week it’s become somewhat of a routine. Calls, texts, captures of one another's life if fleeting moments. It’s been nice. Exciting. You find yourself reaching for your phone more often than before, feeling butterflies twist in your stomach every time his name lights up on your screen. 

So when the week passes and you wake up at 6 a.m. on the dot, your screen already has a message from Jack waiting for you, buried beneath the emails and texts and social media notifications under your pen name accounts. 

You ignore them all in favor of Jack.

Happy release day, sweetheart ❤️

The nickname he’s taken upon himself to give you sets your skin molten. The first time he casually called you that was over the phone one night, and the gentle form of endearment had almost burned you from the inside out. 

It’s with sleep-crusted eyes that you unlock your phone and re-read the text over and over again before sending off your reply with a grin. 

Good morning and thank you!! How is your shift going?

Despite his text being sent over four hours ago—likely during a rare lull on the night shift—typing bubbles form at the bottom of the texting thread, like he’s been waiting for you to rise from your slumber.

Long. Gotta stay a couple more hours, huge collision pile up on the interstate. Stay away from Parkway West if you can help it.

What are your plans to celebrate?

Your thumbs hover over the keyboard, bottom lip caught between your teeth. Still blinking through the groginess, you roll your back, arms bent to hold your phone above your face. 

Will do! And just lunch with my parents this afternoon. Phoebe is at Tom’s tonight so probs wine, takeout and drafting for the next instalment. 

You wait a few moments for a reply. Which turns into a few minutes. In true fashion, Jack’s likely been pulled away, so you force yourself to get up and start your day. 

A very quick shower, a big cup of coffee and then you’re gently waking Phoebe with a tender hand to her back. Her eyes blink open with an immediate frown and she reaches to pull the covers over her head before you can stop her. 

“Come on, sleepyhead,” you laugh gently. “Time to get up for school.”

“I don’t wanna,” Phoebe grumbles, shifting until her back is to you.

You stand with a sigh, let your hands rest on your hips. “Okay, guess I’ll just have banana pancakes and listen to Phil Collins on my own then.”

Her head whips round to you at that, peeking from under the covers. She holds nothing but a stony expression and you can’t help the raise of your brows at the sight. 

“You wouldn’t.” She accuses with a squint. 

You shrug a shoulder, feigning nonchalance. The second you take a step away from her bed, she’s throwing the covers off her in a fit of annoyance and clambering to her feet. Her hair is a matted mess, pyjama top twisted and pant legs scrunched up to her knees. 

She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer you anything more than an unimpressed look before walking past you and making her way to the kitchen. You watch with quiet amusement as she climbs the stool to sit at the island, takes a long gulp of the cup of water you already made her. 

And when you turn to begin making the pancakes, you hear her demand Alexa to play Easy Lover with more attitude than any four-year-old should possess. 

It’s when you’re sitting together and singing with mouthfuls of banana pancakes that your phone chimes with  a text from Jack. 

In that case, how would you feel about some company?

The music becomes a dull noise beneath the sound of your pulse hammering in your ears. You stop chewing as you read the text over and over, lungs seizing on a breath you haven’t fully expelled. You haven’t seen Jack since that night. Texting and calling has been exciting, has become a norm. But finally seeing him again? 

The thought is just as thrilling as it is terrifying.

You’re not working tonight? 

His response is immediate again. 

Not at the hospital. But I’m more than happy to put some hours in as a ghost writer. In fact, I insist.

The grin that spreads across your face is almost maniacal. It stretches so wide that your eyes crinkle and your body buzzes. You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to how smoothly he flirts, how easily your body reacts to a fucking text message from him. Your fingers move across the screen quickly. 

Well, I can’t say no to that. 

The bubbles appear again for no more than a few seconds before they're replaced with another text. 

There we go. It’s a date. I’ll see you at 7

You choke on a noise that sounds similar to a squeal and you can’t tear your eyes away from the screen. You don’t trust yourself to type a reply, so you react to his message with a heart instead.

“Who are you texting?” Phoebe’s tone is accusational and a very sobering sound that snaps you from your little bubble. 

You flinch, unintentionally and quickly place your phone screen down on the island, like you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t. 

“No one!” 

She watches you with a conspiratorial look, and for a moment you forget that she’s the kid and you’re the parent. Her suspicion morphs into a shit-eating grin. 

“Is it Jack?” 

You squint at her. “Shut up and eat your breakfast before we’re late.” 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Dana’s been watching Jack like a hawk for the past thirty minutes. 

A lightness in his expression that increases every time he checks his phone. An ease to his movements, a fluidity in his steps despite how long he’s been on his feet. 

She keeps a curious eye on him as he strides from trauma room to trauma room, notices the upward tilt that’s been pinching at his mouth since her shift started an hour ago. 

She’s not the only one. 

Shen stands beside her, slurping at the very last remnants of his vanilla frappe. The sound grates on the charge nurse’s ears but she lets it slide in favor of gossip. 

“What’s he so chipper about?” She mutters to John, eyes still tracking Abbot’s movements. 

He uncurls his lips from the straw, observes his fellow attending for only a moment before shrugging and bringing the straw back to his mouth. “Maybe he finally got laid.” 

Dana smirks to herself at that, shakes her head in something like amusement and fondness. It’s ten minutes later when Jack approaches the central hub and drums his palms on the desk like he’s waiting to find something else to do. 

“Your shift ended an hour ago, Diva.” Dana doesn’t lift her gaze from the tablet in her hand as she speaks, but she doesn’t need to for her to know the way Jack’s looking at her. 

He huffs out a grumble, but it sounds more fond than annoyed. “Not you, too.”

She shrugs, finally lets her eyes land on him. “What can I say? It suits you.” 

There’s a playful roll of his eyes when she grins.

And Dana just can’t help herself. She juts her chin to him just slightly, holds the tablet to her chest as she crosses her arms around it. “What are you so smiley about, anyway? Mania kicked in already?”

Jack considers her for a moment, a subtle tick in his cheek, an involuntary clench in his jaw. With a sigh, he leans his forearms on the high part of the desk, chews on his lower lip. 

“I have a date tonight.” He keeps his voice low enough, the words only meant for a dear friend's ears. But the walls listen in PTMC. When people brush past, the breeze carries the whispers of secrets not meant to be shared. 

It’s Joy that this secret reaches first. Before Dana can even react.

She stops still beside the desk, brows raising above the rim of her glasses. “Old people still date?”

Jack’s slightly too offended to consider that his quiet admittance will now become floor gossip. “I’m not that old.”

It’s Santos it reaches next. 

Eyes wide, jaw slack. And a shriek of astonishment and accusation. “Oh my God! Is it your neighbor? It’s totally the pelvic chick, right?”

His head whirls to the foghorn of her voice, brows pinched tight. Partly at her volume, the other part at the mention of you—of how she refers to you. 

“The pelvic chick?” He screws his face up, less than pleased. 

Joy shivers at the memory of it, the slip of tongue her attending gave still haunts her at random moments.

“I’m sorry, how do you even know about that?” A familiar presence brushes past his arm, the scent of jasmine and linen. 

“People talk.” Al-Hashimi murmurs the words softly, amusement dripping at the edges of it but she doesn’t outright poke fun at him.

It takes Jack a moment to comprehend her mutter, to cast his mind back to the night you came into the ER, the night he accidentally got an eyeful of you in the one way he never imagined he would. 

Joy isn’t the type to gossip. Ogilvie won’t want anyone to know about his scolding. So that only leaves…

Fucking McKay.

“Hey,” Dana calls him softly, “I think it’s great. About time you got back on the horse. Robby thinks so, too.”

Jack cocks a brow as the others disperse to their patients. “You talked to him?”

Dana hums, leans closer to keep the conversation private. “Yeah, he called me the other night. He sounds… not like he’s on the verge of a breakdown.”

Jack laughs but there’s no humor in it. “Yeah, well. You know Robby. The novelty of things wears off pretty fast for him.” 

She listens, of course. And as much as Dana loves and respects Robby, there’s only so much talk of him that she can handle before she’s considering sabbatical for herself. So she turns to lean against the desk, angles her body to face Jack’s.

There’s an easy smile on her face. One that’s more than a smirk but less than a grin. A softness to her eyes, a genuine curiosity. 

“What’s she like?”

He knows who she’s talking about immediately. 

Jack lets out a sigh, one that’s a little shaky, struggles to fight the curl in his mouth. If Jack’s honest, he could sit for hours and talk about you. Your interests, your personality… but a selfish part of him what’s to keep that to himself. “She’s…gorgeous, obviously. Smart, kind, very funny. Comfortable, you know? Hard not to like.”

Dana nods, catches the fondness in his tone, the reverent look that seems to clear his eyes. She knows there’s more he wants to say, knows he’s also already shared more than he’s truly willing to. 

“And her daughter?” The question is asked softly, carefully. 

Jack doesn’t tear his gaze from her. Defensive, in a way. But he knows there’s no need to be. There’s no threat or judgement in Dana’s tone, no warning. Just quiet curiosity. A silent question that seeps into what she speaks. 

“I know what I’m signing myself up for.” 

Her smile stretches just a little bit wider at his answer. And with one hand wrapped around the tablet, she reaches to pat Jack on his shoulder as she walks past him. “I’m rooting for you, Abbot.”

He exhales slowly when she leaves. 

“Yeah, me too.” 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Outlining scenes and dialogue is usually your favorite part of drafting. 

Little moments that make no sense without context, but integral to the story nonetheless. Usually, you’re riddled with moments and conversations; ideas that come to you during the most mundane of tasks.

Showering, eating, cleaning, dreaming. 

But for the past week, your thoughts have been far too occupied with something else. Someone else. Jack seems to hide in every crevice of your mind. His texts, his calls, the taste of his lips on yours. You don’t remember the last time you felt so wrapped up in another person, and now, it’s starting to affect your work.

The blank screen stares blankly at you, barely a few incoherent bullet points at the top of the document. When your inspiration dries up like this, it makes you feel like a fraud. 

You should be taking every free moment you have to get your plan sorted, to understand the trajectory of the final instalment to the trilogy. Instead, you’re clasping at straws and trying not to freak out when your phone chimes with a text. 

It’s almost seven and it’s not Jack, so the relief is instant that he isn’t cancelling at the last minute. 

Your moms contact lights up the screen. A simple two sentence text. 

Hope the date goes well! Told Tom you’re busy and to text me if Phoebe needs to go home ;) 

The innuendo of her text has a blush forming at the apples of your cheeks. She was like this at lunch, too. Suggestive smirks when you finally admitted you and Jack have been texting, a fat grin when you very quickly muttered out that he kissed you. 

Your dad, on the other hand… not so excited about the revelation. 

For the entire lunch, he had made his viewpoint clear. That he likes Jack, thinks he’s a nice and noble man. That he respects what he does and has done, but that his age is a factor that you need to consider. 

Your mom had scolded him for it, but you understood his reasoning. The insecurities he held himself for his age that he doesn’t verbalize outloud. All you could do was remind him of two simple things. You’re a big girl and it’s only a date. Not marriage. 

You shoot off a quick reply of: Stop winking at me, it’s weird (but thank you), and drop your phone to the marble counter with a thud at the same time your doorbell rings.

Forcing yourself to gulp down a breath, your hands involuntarily smooth your hips as you stand. Your mind is racing, heart pounding in your chest at the thought of Jack standing on the other side of the door. 

The reminder that you’ve texted and called and FaceTime’d more times than you can count over the past week does nothing to quell the nerves. Because seeing him in person is a lot different than through a screen.

When you open the door, your breath becomes lodged in your lungs and Jack drinks you in with an intensity you’ve never quite seen before.

His eyes linger on yours, fall down to your lips where they hover, before tracing the outline of your body. Cataloguing the brown halterneck top, the long frilly skirt, your bare feet and painted toenails. 

You do the same. Drink in the salt and pepper curls, the tick in the corner of his mouth, the white knitted shirt with the two top buttons undone. You catch sight of his silver chain as you go down, the dark wash jeans and boots tucked beneath. 

His hands, still ringless. One holds a bottle of white wine, the other holds a beautiful bouquet of summer blooms that oddly match the color pallet of your latest book. 

You tilt your head at him, purse your lips in a futile attempt to hide your smile. Jack doesn’t offer the same restrains and grins, catches his bottom lip between his teeth before it can spread too wide. 

“Wine and flowers, huh?” You tease in greeting. 

He glances down at them both before returning that molten gaze back to you. “The wine—and dinner—are to congratulate, the flowers are to apologize, again, for my radio silence.” 

You huff a laugh at that, open the door wider and step aside to allow him into your apartment. “I told you already, it’s fine.” 

Jack moves close, lets you close the door and when you turn, he’s almost chest to chest with you. Your breathing stutters at the unexpected proximity, but he grins down at you, the wine and flowers the only thing separating your bodies. 

“Not fine. Don’t argue with me on it.” His tone is light when he leans closer, words drifting into a sweet whisper. 

Jack dips his head lower, lets his lips brush against yours. Your eyes flutter closed, bracing yourself for the touch of his mouth meeting yours. But it doesn’t. Your breaths mingle until he moves, stubble tickling gentle at the corner of your lips until he kisses your cheek.

He doesn't pull away at first, like he’s considering giving in to temptation, but his self restraint is stronger than you’d like it to be. When he finally moves, it’s not far. Still remains close like he’s missed your presence more than he’s let on. 

“Pheebs at her dads?” he asks quietly, eyes still on you.

You’re a little mesmerized, nodding blankly. His words register, just barely. It feels like his eyes are sucking you into a warm abyss that you’ll never be able to claw your way out from. 

The idea doesn’t sound just metaphorical, either. 

You swallow around a dry throat. “Uh, yeah. Until she decides she wants to come home. But, my mom told him to call her.”

Jack hums, a small smile kissing the edges of his mouth. There’s a slight movement between you, the paper wrapping the flowers crinkly as he shakes them slightly. 

“Do you have a vase for these?” 

Your tongue wets your lips and you nod, guiding him into the kitchen and it’s completely innocent how your hips sway a little more than they usually would. 

Jack watches, of course. He’s only a man. But he’s gentlemanly enough to avert his gaze when you bend over to look inside a cabinet. Busies himself with gently tearing the paper around the bouquet. 

“I asked the florist to cut the stems, they’re good to just go in some water.” 

It almost makes you pause. 

The florist.

As in, he went inside a flower shop and asked for flowers. Not some cheap, premade bunch from a supermarket. You don’t think anyone but your parents has ever gotten you flowers from a florist. 

You fill the vase with water, thankful your back is to him to hide your grin, give yourself some time to get your stupid butterflies and ovulation under control.

When you turn back to him, Jack’s already approaching you, gently handling the delicate flora by the stems and he eases them into the narrow neck of the glass. Watches you admire them for a moment, bring them to your nose to smell the freshness of them.

The heat on your cheeks makes him nervous. Makes him feel young again. 

His wife was the last person he dated. Hasn’t cared about anyone enough to want to pursue something more than the odd one night stand. But you. You make his heart rate pick up just enough for him to notice a change, make his palms a little sweaty when he makes a joke in case you don’t laugh. 

But you’re grinning at the flowers like it’s the most precious gift you’ve ever received. And while it’s an incredibly beautiful sight, it’s also slightly painful. 

Are you not used to receiving flowers from guys you’re dating?

No, you’re not. No one's ever really cared enough to do the small things. 

“They’re beautiful, Jack. Thank you.” 

His smile is warm when you look at him a little sheepishly and Jack realizes that you’re just as nervous about this as he is. He knows he hasn’t dated since his wife, but he wonders if you’ve dated since Tom. If you've cared enough about anyone else since you lost your fiance. 

The answer is a resounding no. 

He doesn’t tell you that you’re the first woman he’s brought flowers for since his wife. Instead, he keeps the smile on his face and averts his gaze to the mess covering the kitchen island. His brows raise. Books everywhere, notepads and highlighters, a half empty glass of wine and a laptop screen with an almost blank document. 

Amusement shines in his eyes. “Hows it going?” 

A groan escapes you immediately and the nerves begin to dwindle. You reach for a glass, take the bottle from Jack’s hands mindlessly and pour him a drink as you sit on the stool. 

“It’s like I’m back in writing school and can’t think of a better word for ‘said’.” 

He chuckles at that, takes the glass and sits himself on the stool beside you. His eyes skim the laptop screen. 

Kade and mary

cheese

Lost keys??????? 

“You into grave diggers, baby?”

Someone has to put their finger in the dogs ass

“Necromancer? Aint that someone who fucks corpses?”

– “no thats a necrophiliac”

Dez rimjob scene (at circus)

Lubed up chorizo slap scene

Marys mom is a cougar

Asshole character UNNAMED with toms personality

Ground beef in the trifle

Strip club or orgie scene — undecided

Jack’s eyes blink profusely as he reads over the bullet point outline for your third book. It causes a tightness in his jeans at the thought of you imagining and writing some of these scenes. Reminded of the fact that you’ve told him about your very vivid imagination. 

“This how you outline all your books?” he asks with a rough voice.

It's then that your eyes widen with realisation at what he's read. You laugh nervously, scratching at the nape of your neck as you sit beside him. 

“It normally goes something like this. Not usually as brief, though. I’ve hit a bit of a block.” 

Jack hums, takes a sip of his wine before pulling his phone out of his back pocket. “Well, what if we order some food? See if a bit of energy gets that pretty head of yours conjuring something up, hm?” 

You don’t know how he does it—makes his flirting seem more playful than blatant. It’s enough to make your cheeks burn, to form a curl at your lips that you have no control over. So you nod, tell him what Chinese food you like and pretend to busy yourself looking at your paper notes while he raises the phone to his ear and smoothly lists off the order.

As excitable and nervous as you are, Jack’s presence is also strangely…comforting. He makes your home feel warmer, safer. His strong stance relaxing in your space, not taking it up.

For the forty minutes you’re waiting for dinner, you get through a bottle of wine between you. You try to ask Jack about work, which is something he’s very quick to brush off. 

“That hospital is the reason I haven’t seen you. Believe me when I tell you it's the last thing I want to talk about tonight. I want to hear about you, and Pheebs.” 

He makes your head spin, how open and genuine he is with the statement. You tell him all the mundane things you’ve gotten up to over the past week. And even though he already knows from the brief phone calls or facetime’s, Jack listens all the same. 

Intently, carefully. Like every word you speak is sacred. Like he genuinely cares. 

He laughs when you tell him some of the things Phoebe has said, his posture stiffens when you recall the two times Tom let her down in the past seven days, and he stares at you in pure wonder when you admit your book is already viral within the first 24 hours of release.

When the food comes, Jack pays in cash; gives you a look that suggests he’d be incredibly offended if you even offered to pay half, so you don’t. 

You’re both well on your way to tipsy when you get half way through the second bottle of wine, haphazardly shoving your notebooks to the side to make room for dinner. 

Your stools are closer together now, takeout boxes littering the kitchen island, your laptop screen still blinking an almost blank page. There are no first-date etiquettes as you both eat. Hunger and comfortability ruling over the nerves and self-conscious need to eat slowly and politely. 

Maybe it’s the wine that has you swiping soy sauce from the corner of Jack’s mouth. Maybe that’s what loosens his inhibitions enough to hand feed you a dumpling you admit you’ve never tried before.

And perhaps it’s the sheer familiarity in one another’s souls that has you snorting loudly into your glass of wine. That has Jack gripping onto the edge of the kitchen island to save him from falling backward off the stool. 

Your home is used to the sounds of laughter. It’s used to shrills and shrieks bouncing off the walls. But Jack's hearty chuckles don’t do that. His laughter curls into the crevices of the apartment. They don’t linger there, they make home. Seep into the wood and brick and metal until it’s wedged into the very foundations of the building. 

It takes you both an hour to finish your meals. Too caught up in laughter and side-tracked conversations that take your attention away from the task. It’s cold when you finish the last bite, and you push the container away in favor of your half-full glass instead. 

Jack mirrors your movement, shuffles his stool closer to yours. But instead of reaching for his beer, he reaches into his pocket to retrieve a pair of glasses instead. 

“Alright, got my readers. Let’s see what we’re working with.” 

Your lashes flutter at the endearing term he’s given them, at the way he gently opens the arm and hooks them over his ears. Your attraction to him grows tenfold at such a simple act, the smallest of adjustments. 

Yet you can’t help the ache that forms between your thighs, can’t stop your teeth from pinching your bottom lip. There’s something far too enticing about the black frames that sit on the slope of his nose. The stubbled jaw that clenches, the bob of his throat when he swallows.

And those fucking dangeous lips that twitch when he notices you staring. 

For hours, there’s a tightness to both of you as you struggle to write and Jack struggles to help. He was right about the food for energy but right now, Jack’s presence is nothing but a massive fucking hindarance to your writing abilities. 

Not your imagination, no. Your overactive mind is doing well with conjuring up explicit scenarios in your head of him fucking you raw and hungry with those fucking glasses on. Thoughts of your ankles resting on his broad shoulders, his beefy arms wrapping around your body, that short stubble burning your inner thighs. 

Jack can feel your eyes on the side of his face as he reads over the next page on the doc. He’s had years of training to observe from his peripheral and not lose focus on a task, and yet, he’s not really taking in a single word he’s reading. 

That is until he skims over a paragraph that does capture his attention. 

Kade’s breath is hot against Mary’s inner thigh, and despite the warmth, it awakens goosebumps across her flush skin. His hand reaches for her first, allows himself to touch her silkiness, to inch closer to her cunt. With his other hand, Kade brings the vibrator between her legs, teases the pulsing toy against her inner thigh—right where his touch started. 

Jack swallows thickly, hips shifting briefly in his seat on the stool. The movement breaks you from your little trance and your eyes flick quickly to the screen, realizing the passage he’s stumbled across. 

When your eyes flick back to Jack, he’s turning to you slowly with a playful squint, sinful mouth kicking up in a lopsided smirk.

The look does something carnal to you. You can’t tear your eyes away from his lips, can’t calm the hammering of your heart against your ribs. If you look away from his mouth for a moment, you’ll notice when his flicks down to yours. How they linger for far too long.

Your mouth parts just enough for your tongue to wet your bottom lip, and the movement is enough to make Jack give in. The small distance between you is closed when he takes his readers off with one hand and caresses your jaw with the other. 

Jack’s lips are on yours in an instant, soft and sweet and careful. So careful that he’s allowing you to lead the pace and tempo of it. 

You feel your body relax into the taste of him, your shoulders drooping as he swallows a sigh that slips from you. A small noise follows, one of need and contempt. Jack's hand reaches between your parted thighs, his fingers hooking beneath the seat of the stool. He pulls you toward him, the scrape of metal legs on hardwood echoing but you pay no attention. 

Your knees bump as you adjust them to fit between his widely parted thighs. Your hands find his face, sneaking to the back of his neck to snake your fingers through his curls. Jack kisses you harder, his tongue massaging at your bottom lip in a silent request for access. 

Something that you give him quickly, swirling your own against his. 

He tastes like wine, food and the promise of something you’re not allowing yourself to think too much into. Jack’s hands remain on your face, fingers hidden beneath your hair, palms cupping at your jaw. He lets out soft pants of breath, quiet moans that feed the slick that’s forming between your thighs. 

It’s intoxicating, how Jack kisses. Like every emotion he doesn’t verbalize is poured into it. His hands begin to roam in a respectfully needy way. One moves to tangle into your hair, the other slides down the warm skin of your neck, to the bare flesh on your back. 

His palm splays against the skin, tender in every aspect you can imagine. Neither of you come up for air, neither of you want to pull away. 

You’re shifting to the edge of your stool when Jack’s hands abandon their previous positions to land on your waist. The feverishness of his touch makes your head spin. Makes you slip from your stool so you’re standing between his parted thighs. Makes you tug at his curls as he tips his head up to meet your kiss. 

When you nibble on his lower lip, Jack loses his restraint. His hands slide back to your waist, down to your hips until they’re cupping the backs of your thighs, encouraging you to climb into his lap. You don’t know how he makes the movement so fluid, how you don’t tumble into him, how he doesn’t lose his balance. 

Your lips stay connected in a searing kiss throughout the movements, only breaking when Jack begins to migrate his lips to your jaw, licking and biting and kissing. Further down, until he’s at your neck and your hips are moving down on his crotch on their own accord. 

Your blood burns, so does his. And Jack has never felt so young and alive. So electric and feverish for another touch. 

Your head lulls back, eyes fluttering closed as your chest heaves with every breath. His salt and pepper stubble scratches deliciously at your skin. You can’t help but grind harder into him, the thought of that sensation further down almost enough to make your brain short circuit. 

You feel the wetness of his tongue as Jack licks a stripe up the column of your throat. One hand leaves your hips to rest on the back of your head, to tangle in your hair and angle your face back to his as his lips take yours with even more need and hunger. 

Your head is spinning. Your hips are erratic. If you don’t stop now, you won’t stop at all. 

“Jack.” Your voice is nothing more than a whimper into his mouth, but you don’t stop kissing him.

Jack hums, grunts, moans—it’s a noise you can’t place but one you can’t get enough of. You whimper his name again, breathless and shaky as you detach your mouth and rest your forehead against his.

He’s panting, eyes closed, jaw clenched. 

“I don’t—” you swallow in a heavy breath. “I don’t want to rush this.”

He nods, doesn’t push, doesn’t ask for more. Jack’s hands caress your jaw, his thumbs stroking calming patterns across your cheeks as he catches his breath, reins himself in. 

“I know.” His voice is guttural enough that you almost consider fucking off your previous statement. “I don’t want to rush this either.” 

For a few moments, you remain in the same position. Eyes closed and foreheads pressed. Jack's hands keep their hold on your face, his thumbs continuing their soothing ministries across your plump skin. 

He’s the one to pull away first. Moving his head back just enough so that when he opens his eyes, he can look at you. Big, heavy eyes. Swollen lips. Flushed skin. 

His jaw clenches at the sight, a heavy breath audible through his nose. But Jack looks no better. His curls are mussed from your fingers tangling into them, his lips are plumper and a slight smear of your lipgloss tints them pinker. 

And his eyes. It sends a shudder through you at the sight of them. Pupils almost blown, hooded and focused on yours. 

His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip before he’s moving closer again to brush his nose against yours. Your breath mingles, lips ghosting. It’s like he’s at war with himself. That if he rewards himself with even one more taste of you, he won’t be able to stop. 

“I should go.” It’s with pure agony that Jack utters the words. 

His voice is both rough and whiny. Like it’s the last thing he really wants to do. But you want to take it slow, so does he. You’re both well aware that if Jack stays for a moment longer, the night will end the way you want it to. Just not in the way either of you need it. 

Not like this. Not on the first date. Not with Phoebe in the picture. Not with his beloved wife’s memory to consider. 

You nod, clearing your throat as your forehead bumps against his. 

“Yeah, okay.” You’re breathless when you agree, voice slightly pained at the notion. But you both know it’s for the best. 

You half expect him to kiss you, at least once more. But he doesn’t. 

Jack pulls away to avert his gaze, silently helps you clean up the takeout boxes. You don’t tell him he doesn’t need to, don’t tell him you know he’s trying to prolong actually leaving. 

You bask in the final few moments together before walking him to the door. He hovers over the threshold, stopping short in the hall. Turns to you as you lean against the doorframe and it’s a mirror image of the night a week ago. At Phoebe's birthday. When he kissed you. Then went silent for three days. 

Jack seems to share the same sentiment on the memory because a breathless chuckle escapes him as he moves closer like he did before, as he presses his lips against yours slowly. Savoring the taste of you, the feel of your plump lips against his. 

“I’ll call you tomorrow?” 

You can’t help the sarcastic look on your face as he utters those same words. His grin morphs into something wider, eyes rolling at your silent tease. 

“I promise. No more radio silence after a kiss from me ever again.”

You hum with playfully squinted eyes. Jack mirrors your expression, leans in to kiss you again and you melt into him. You don’t think you’ll ever get enough of it. Of him. 

“Okay. I believe you.” 

He hums against your lips at your words until he finally tears himself away from you. Jack licks across his bottom lip, tugs it between his teeth. The sight almost cripples you. 

“Get some sleep.” 

You nod once, fighting off your grin. “Goodnight, Jack.” 

His eyes soften, smirk dwindles into a soft, secret smile. Until he winks at you, leans in to steal yet another kiss that rips a laugh from your throat. 

When he pulls away again, Jack’s got a boyish beam across his face. “Night, gorgeous.” 

You’re left breathless once again as Jack retreats down the hall. You don’t watch him go, don’t trust that you won’t chase after him and drag him back into your apartment. So you close the door, back pressed against it as you squeeze your eyes shut in pure excitement, gnawing painfully on your bottom lip, but it’s no use hiding your grin. 

You carry the smile through your bedtime routine. You miss a few steps, too caught up in your head; replaying every word and kiss and look. Thirty minutes later, when you finally get into bed, your phone is still lighting up with notifications from fans.

And in between them, lies a message from Jack. 

You don’t mean for the somersaults in your stomach to start kicking. But you do mean to ignore every notification but his as you unlock your phone. 

Jack: Not sure on the dating etiquette these days when it comes to waiting to ask you to go out with me again… but are you free to get breakfast tomorrow morning?

You: miss me already dr. abbot?

Jack: Yes.

Jack: Breakfast tomorrow morning? My treat.

You: dinner was your treat, isn’t the next one meant to be my turn?

Jack: I don’t know what guys you’ve dated in the past. But, fuck no. 

Jack: I’m asking you out. I’m paying.

You: hmm

You: i’ll go to breakfast with you. on one condition

Jack: What’s your condition, sweetheart?

You: a pic of sally

Jack: [sent an attachment]

Your grin drops at the photo. A fucking selfie. Jack lays in bed, propped up against his pillow with a gray t-shirt clinging to his skin. Sally lays curled beside him, but she’s the least of your concern right now. 

You stare at his arms, the thick muscle and bulging veins as he angles the camera up above him. Crisp white sheets, his other arm curled around the cat with his hand buried into her fur. 

You swallow, let your eyes move along to the expanse of his throat and you find yourself regretting not kissing him there like he kissed you. Further up, his mouth quirked at the side in a smile, salt and pepper stubble somehow catching the light. 

But it’s when you look at his eyes that you forget how to breathe for a moment. He’s got his fucking readers on, his eyes squinting playfully at the camera through the lenses. Even through a fucking screen his stare is intense. Bores through to your soul and winds it around his fingers. 

You feel warmer when you take a moment to realize just how intimate the photo really is. How vulnerable and honest. 

Maybe that’s what makes you send a photo back. 

You: [sent an attachment]

Jack opens the message and freezes.

A photo. Of you. In your bed. 

You’re almost mirroring the one he sent you. But there’s no cat and you aren’t wearing any readers. 

No, you’re laying instead of sitting up. Your hair is an unruly mess across the pillows. Your eyes are tired but glistening with mirth. Your smile is crooked, almost shy, and your cheeks are flushed. Jack’s blood roars in his veins. 

He lets his eyes dip further down the photo. You’re also not wearing a gray t-shirt like him. 

Instead, you’re wearing something tight but flimsy. Spaghetti straps slipping off your pretty little shoulders. The swell of your breasts is far too prominent when you’re lying on your back, and Jack swallows thickly when he notices the pebbling of your nipples.

Jack: You are so beautiful. 

You ‘heart’ reacted to a message!

You: goodnight jack, see u in the morning <3

Jack: Goodnight, gorgeous x

He watches the little read receipt appear beneath his message, but no bubbles form at the bottom of the screen. Jack’s eyes flicker back to the photo, finding his thumb clicking on the screen to enlarge the sight of you. 

His checkered pyjama pants feel tight against his crotch. He’s not stupid. He feels the blood rush south, feels the discomfort and ache of a neglected erection. Jack sighs shakily, stares at his screen again. He should not be looking. It’s not what you sent him the fucking photo for. 

But despite how much he tries, he can’t tear his gaze away. Your soft skin, your supple breasts, your pouty lips. 

Sally moves from her position curled against him, blinks beady eyes in his direction before padding her way to the foot of the bed and jumping off to leave the room. 

Jack swallows, closes his eyes and practices those military breathing techniques for exactly thirty-four seconds before his eyes are peeling open again. 

A soft groan sounds at the back of his throat. It’s an inner battle with his mind. A fight of what he wants and that he shouldn’t. 

But he grows harder and more frustrated as the seconds pass and he doesn't have a hand around himself. His eyes squeeze shut, head tilts back against the headboard. Like a silent prayer, a beg for forgiveness. 

Then, he’s giving in. Reaching into his nightstand drawer for a bottle of lotion. Squeezes a pump into his hand, drops the phone on his stomach and reaches into the hem of his pyjama pants. 

Jack shifts on top of the mattress, lifts his hips to pull the pants down mid-thigh and releases himself with a sigh. One hand reaches for the phone, the other cupping the lotion. He brings his fingertips close to his wrist, skillfully warming the cream until his entire palm is covered with it. 

It’s hesitant when he wraps his fist around his cock, a whimper slipping from his lips as he stares at the photo of you on his screen. Your neck, your tits, your lips…

“Oh, fuck.” The whimper escapes him breathlessly.

One pump. Two. Twisting his wrist and tightening his grip. Jack’s chest is heaving with barely contained restraint, eyes locked on the pebbled nubs beneath your shirt.

He lets his mind wander as his pace quickens, lets him imagine himself in bed with you. How he would kiss and lick up your neck again, how your tongue would taste on his. 

How Jack wound tug your shirt down for your tits to spill out. How he’d wrap his lips around your nipples, bite them gently, suck them. 

“Fuck, baby. So good.” His voice is wrecked, nothing but a guttural whine as he moans. 

Jack thinks of how soft they’d be. How he’d knead your breasts in his palms, pinch your left nipple while he sucks on your right. Thinks about how your fingers would tug on his curls, how your hips would buck. 

A broken, desperate sound escapes him when he thinks about dipping his hand down your shorts. The slick he’d find, the heat. 

The thought of sinking two fingers deep into your pretty little cunt has Jack’s hips spluttering. His fist grows tighter, moves faster. His lungs are struggling to swallow down a real breath. 

And he’s coming, embarrassingly fast and needy. Hot white ribbons of arousal that spurt from him desperately, coating his hand. 

“Ah, fuck. Baby, oh fuck!” 

Jack’s head is thrown back against the headboard, lips parted and eyes squeezed shut as his release hits him like a freight train. 

Thoughts of burying his face between your thighs. The taste of you staining his tongue for days. 

And when he finally comes down from his high with a sticky hand and burning lungs, Jack can’t help but fucking laugh at himself. 

He’s so, so fucked. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

SERIES MASTERLIST — NEXT PART

Tag list for this series has grown way too big for me to keep up with so it’s unfortunately CLOSED. You can however follow the #apt.17 tag instead for updates on the series!

OKAY I ALMOST FORGOT TO POST LOL BUT HERE IT IS, i know jack's lil scene was brief but i promise i have so many smut plans to make up for it!!!! also i wanted the focus to be on the date rather than him jerking it off for 1k words LOL next chapter shit hits the fan and we get into some real juicy stuff HAHAHA

Thank you very much for reading! Feedback really means a lot so I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for where you think this will go!! Reblogs helps to boost stuff for more people to reach so if you enjoyed it please consider reblogging!!

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@littlewolfbird / @woodxtock / @myescapefromthislife / @freakedtfout4 / @whatyagottado 

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@novamiss / @themarvelousbee / @stardustworlds / @magi999 / @sarahhxx03 

The night was quiet, the noises of the city fading into the background. The breeze carried a chill and you shoved your hands into the pockets of your jacket to keep them warm. Then you felt it. A presence intruding on the perimeter you’d set in your mind. Behind you, moving closer. A steady, silent approach. But no sense of danger came with it.

You didn’t look right away. If magic had taught you anything, it was patience. You sat perfectly still, tracking the movement until a huff of breath came from directly behind the bench. Only then did you turn.

The wolf was enormous, easily twice the size of any natural animal. His coat was dark with flecks of gray scattered throughout. His shoulders were broad and muscled, his head massive. He stared for a moment before moving around the bench to stand in front of you. His ears were forward, his tail low and swinging in a slow, measured rhythm. Not aggressive. Not even cautious. If you had to pinpoint the behavior, you’d call it attentive.

You kept your hands in your lap now instead of your pockets and watched him. He stood close enough you could feel the heat radiating off of him, could smell the clean, wild scent of him. He held your gaze. His eyes were dark brown, almost black in the moonlight and full of awareness and assessment that told you this was no mere animal. There was no threat, simply…recognition.

You stared at one another for one beat, then two. Then he lowered his head and laid the full weight of it in your lap. He was solid, warm. The whine that accompanied the action was a low, plaintive sound that vibrated through you. He watched you with those soft brown eyes. Waiting.

Your hands hovered for a moment before sinking in the thick fur. In that second, you felt something slide into place inside of you with a deep, instinctive knowing. You shifted your hold and began to scratch behind his ears.

He exhaled, a full body release that softened every line of his body. His weight settled more firmly against your legs, his eyes half closing. As your attention continued, he made a small satisfied noise in the back of his throat. His eyes held a human quality in them that was unmistakable. Intelligence and a focus that didn’t belong on anything living solely on instinct.

He had been looking for you, you were almost certain. He’d crossed the park with a single-minded determination and had found you sitting on the bench. Then he’d put his head in your lap like he was coming home.

You knew what this was. Felt it the moment you touched him and the universe suddenly seemed right, complete. You tilted your head. “You’re my mate.”

The wolf lifted his head from your lap. For a moment he just looked at you, his dark eyes steady and intent. And then he whined again, louder this time, with a hint of desperation that wasn’t there before. Before you had time to attempt to figure out what he wanted, he lowered his muzzle and closed his teeth around your wrist.

Your breath caught. His jaws were enormous, capable of crushing bone. But his teeth didn’t press, settling against you with extraordinary gentleness. The pressure was so light it was almost absent. It was just the faint weight of his mouth and the light scrape of a canine against your pulse. Then he tugged.

Not hard. Just enough to say come with me.

“Okay, okay,” you said as you stood.

He released you immediately, leaving not a mark behind. He turned away from the bench and took three steps before he stopped and looked over his shoulder, those dark eyes finding yours. Checking.

You followed.

He led you out of the park and into the city. He moved with purpose, keeping a steady pace that had you taking wide strides to match it. Every half-block or so he would glance back, making sure you were still there. Still following. At crosswalks he paused, waiting for the light even when the street was empty. His nose constantly twitched as he picked up scents from the air. He stopped at lampposts and fire hydrants, sniffing, tracing whatever trail led him on.

You walked past closed storefronts with their security gates pulled down, past a bar with sound spilling from inside. A man stood just past the door nodded at you as you passed, did a double-take at the wolf, then shrugged and went back to his cigarette.

The wolf led you through blocks you didn’t know, turning corners and leading you down questionable alleyways, though you didn’t fear. Between your own abilities and your wolf tour guide, you figured you were safe enough. Then, suddenly, the hospital rose into the night sky in front of you.

Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. The building was massive. The wolf led you around to the ambulance bay. He stopped at the edge of the pavement, right where driveway turns to walkway and turned to you.

The he shoved his head hard against your hip. The push was insistent, not rough as he nudged you toward the glass doors of the ambulance bay. You put a hand flat on top of his head. “Do you know someone here?”

He let out a frustrated whine and shoved harder. His entire weight leaned into your hip now, steering you toward the doors.

“We can’t just walk into the hospital. I’m pretty sure there are rules about wolves roaming the halls.”

The wolf sat down and stared up at you. His dark eyes were unblinking. You looked down at him. He looked up at you. The standoff lasted a good minute.

“Fine,” you said, finally.

You walked up to the doors and they slid open. A man in black scrubs with a Dunkin cup in one hand glanced over at the sound. He frowned as he saw you standing there. He moved closer. “Can I help you?”

You pointed at your companion, who was still sitting on the concrete right where you’d left him, watching the exchange with what you would have sworn was amusement.

“Does anyone here belong to him?” you asked.

The man’s brows raised and he grinned as he looked at the wolf. “This is fantastic. Just hold on one second.” And with that, the man who never introduced himself disappeared into the halls of the hospital.

You turned back to the wolf. He was still watching you, his tail wagging in slow arcs.

“Well, that was not helpful in the least.”

He blinked at you and you could have sworn he was laughing.

A low concrete wall ran along the edge of the ambulance bay, keeping the minimal landscaping at bay. You settled onto it, the cold seeping through your jeans and the wolf was there before you even fully found your balance. His head dropped into your lap with the certainty of a creature that had decided your lap belonged to him now. You didn’t question it as one hand found the soft fur under his chin and began to scratch.

A low, rumbling vibration of contentment came from him. One of his massive paws joined his head in your lap. You scratched under his chin and waited. The night had grown colder and the warmth of the wolf against your legs was welcome. “Would you like to see a trick?” you asked after a moment.

His ears flicked forward and his gaze met yours. You held out the hand that wasn’t occupied with running through his fur and produced a small ball of blue light you ran over fingers and back again. His tail wagged enthusiastically as he huffed out a breath. High praise, you were sure.

The door slid open and a man in scrubs stepped outside. His gaze found you and you waved a hand through the air to dismiss the light. He took in the scene before him. You on the wall, the enormous wolf with his head in your lap, your hand scratching under the chin before occasionally drifting up to get the spot behind his ears. His face split into a grin wide enough to show teeth and crinkle the skin by his eyes. The laugh that came from him was part surprise and part pure delight.

He walked over to stand in front of you and the wolf lifted his head from your lap just enough to look at the man who reached out and ruffled the fur between his ears with a casual affection.

“Hey, brother,” he said to the wolf. Then he looked at you, still grinning and extended a hand. “Jack Abbot. Night shift attending.” You shook his hand and he said, “Might I ask who you are and how you know our friend here?”

You told him your name before you explained everything. The park. The moon. The wolf finding you on that bench and declaring you were his in the most fundamental way possible. Then you explained about the bond between the two of you.

Jack’s grin grew impossibly wider with every sentence. By the time you finished, he was practically vibrating, his eyes bright with something that looked suspiciously like triumph.

“He led you here?” Jack asked. “Just…follow me human, we’re going to the hospital?”

“Basically.”

Jack looked the wolf. The wolf looked back at Jack and you could have sworn they were silently communicating about something. “This is incredible,” Jack said, and he wasn’t talking to you. He was talking to the wolf who lowered his head back into your lap with what could only be described as smug satisfaction. “Absolutely incredible. I’ve been working with this man for years and I never—” He stopped, shook his head, and the grin came back full force. “Never mind. This is perfect. This is absolutely perfect.”

He watched you for another moment before leaning forward and dropping his voice. “So, you up for a little fun?”

The wolf in your lap made a small curious sound, his ears flicking forward.

Jack’s grin didn’t waver as he waited for your answer. The anticipation on his face was infectious and entirely terrifying.

Robby walked through the doors of the ED at ten the next morning, three hours into day shift as was the routine when he was scheduled the night after a full moon. Jack always covering the extra time without complaint. Robby was exhausted as he always was after a run, but he felt oddly invigorated.

Jack was at the nurses’ station, sitting as he typed at the computer. He looked up as Robby dropped his bag beside him and a grin spread across his face.

“Morning,” Robby said with a lifted brow. “You seem in oddly good spirits. How was the shift?”

Jack’s grin didn’t budge as he shrugged one shoulder. “Same as always. Nothing remarkable.” He paused, his head tilting slightly, the amusement in his expression increasing. “How was your run?”

Robby ran a hand through his hair, feeling the residual stiffness in his shoulders, the soreness in his muscles that came from a night spent as something other than human. “Good. Really good, I think.”

He remembered fragments. The park. A rabbit. Moving through the city. The feeling of something pressing, urgent. He tapped his temple with one finger. “Nothing. The usual black hole. But I feel like…something happened. Something important but I can’t fucking place it.”

Jack’s mouth twitched, his eyes crinkling at the corners as that grin somehow got wider. He reached out and clapped Robby on the shoulder. “Langdon’s been holding down the fort. Have a fantastic day, brother. I’m out.” Jack grabbed the bag that Robby hadn’t noticed at his feet and headed toward the doors without a backward glance.

Robby frowned after him. That was…odd. Jack Abbot was many things. Subtle was not one of them. Whatever had that expression on his face was something he was savoring and Robby was almost certain it was going to somehow bite him in the ass.

You arrived at PTMC just before noon, checking in at the front and giving your name before being let through. A blonde glanced up as you moved through the chaos toward the central hub. “Dana?” you asked, making an educated guess based on what Jack had told you.

Her gaze flicked over you from head to toe and one side of her mouth curled up as she said your name. With a nod, you confirmed your identity and she smiled wide. “Jack filled me in, said you’re here as part of Gloria’s new initiative to increase the presence of magical healing in the hospital, right?”

You nodded again. It was Jack’s idea. The program was real enough and you actually were a witch trained in healing magic. He’d submitted your name himself this morning and texted you when he got approval. The best cover stories were the most truthful ones, after all.

Jack convinced you to spend a day with Robby as a human before telling him who you were to him. Something about driving his best friend crazy before letting him in on the secret. He’d seemed so giddy at the idea you’d agreed without much argument. It was unlikely Robby would remember anything about the night before, anyway. Getting to know him this way seemed infinitely preferable to just showing up with a wave and saying, “Hey, I’m your mate. How are you doing?”

Robby stood in North Four with a med student and a third-year resident, watching as the student conducted a neuro exam. His arms were crossed over his chest as he observed. The resident was correcting a small error the student had made when Robby’s spine straightened.

A scent drifted to him. Warm and layered and completely out of place in an emergency department. Something rich and complex that smelled like rain, the earth and a note he couldn’t name but that pulled at him all the same.

His chin lifted and his nostrils flared. His focus narrowed to a single point, that scent and the direction it had come from. “Finish the assessment. Let me know if you have any questions,” he announced to the room in general.

He didn’t wait for a response. He was already moving, following the scent through the department before he had fully processed what he was doing. The scent led him past staff and countless patients until finally, there you were.

You stood beside Dana, one hip leaning against the counter. You were saying something while Dana listened intently.

Robby stopped when he was maybe fifteen feet from you. Close enough his eyes registered little details about your appearance, about the way you held your hands. Close enough that the scent swamped him.

He knew you.

The certainty was bone deep and inexplicable. He had never seen you before in his life, yet every instinct he possessed insisted that he knew you as well as he knew his own name. There was no memory attached to the recognition, just the raw, incontrovertible fact that he knew you.

Dana glanced over and saw him standing there. Her eyebrow lifted along with the corner of her lips. “Robby.” He stepped closer and she introduced you by a name that meant nothing to him. “She’s part of Gloria’s new program. Here to observe only today.”

You turned to fully face him and your eyes met. “Hi.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Hi.”

He was still trying to figure this out, this familiarity, this pull when you lifted your left hand. A flick of your fingers and a small ball of blue light appeared. You let it run over your fingers and back again before another flick had it vanishing from sight. It was the kind of thing a witch did without thinking, the magical equivalent of clicking a pen.

For a moment, Robby was completely lost to you. A feeling of security that he didn’t understand at all flowed through him. He was all the more certain that he knew you. That you were important. This was driving him insane.

Realizing that he’d been staring in silence for far too long, he cleared his throat.  “I should…Patients. I have patients.”

He made himself turn around. Made himself walk through the halls and find another resident to observe, another med student with a question. Anything he could focus on besides you.

He failed miserably.

For the rest of the afternoon, he found reasons to be wherever you were. When you were at the hub, he appeared with a question for Dana he already knew the answer to. Each time, his eyes found you, watching you make notes or talk to some of the staff. He slowed his pace as he passed a bay where you were holding the hand of a small fae child that was awaiting the arrival of her parents. When you were in the break room, he had a sudden need for coffee despite the four cups he’d already had that day. When work pulled him away, he immediately sought you out when he finished, needing to know where you were and if you were safe.

The department continued around the two of you. Traumas came in. Labs were ordered. Consults were called for. Students were taught. And through it all, that scent pulled at him. It was mouth watering and maddeningly familiar. But every moment spent in your presence brought him no closer to understanding.

Jack arrived ten minutes before his shift was due to start. The rest of the night shift was filtering in as well, day shift starting their handoffs. He found Robby at the hub, a tablet laying on the counter in front of him that he was absolutely ignoring. In fact, he hadn’t looked at it in ten minutes. He leaned against he counter, arms crossed as he watched you talk with one of the nurses, hands moving. Perlah was laughing and you were smiling, the expression making Robby’s chest feel tight.

Jack stopped beside him. He looked at you, then to Robby and back to you. Then he laughed, the sound drawing Robby’s attention away from his staring. “You are so far gone,” Jack said. He still had that stupid grin on his face.

Robby shook his head and huffed in irritation. “I can’t focus. I feel like I know her from somewhere. I’ve been like this all day. It doesn’t make any sense.” He ran a hand over his beard, smoothing it down. “I should introduce the two of you. Maybe you can place her.”

Jack’s grin turned smug. “Oh, I already met her. You introduced us.”

Robby turned to look at him, the movement slow and deliberate. His body orienting with the same focused intent his wolf used when tracking a scent. “What?”

“Last night.” Jack leaned against the counter, mirroring Robby’s posture. “Found her in the ambulance bay just before midnight. Sitting on the wall with a very large wolf’s head in her lap.”

Robby went perfectly, utterly still.

“She was scratching under his chin, behind his ears. Like she’d known him for years. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. And he was letting her. Head right there in her lap, eyes half-closed, making these little content noises. You know the ones.” His voice had dropped to a lower register, almost gentle though the mischief was still present.

Robby knew the sounds he was referring to, the satisfied rumbling sounds his wolf made at his happiest. When he felt safe.

“He led her all the way here from some park downtown. Said he put his head in her lap then whined at her until she got up and followed him here.” Jack paused, searching his friend’s face. “He brought her right to the doors and then sat down until she got Shen’s attention. He got me and there you have it.”

Robby’s mouth had gone dry. The pieces assembled themselves in his head with a slow certainty. The scent that had pulled him across the department, the recognition with no context.

“I’d only go to someone like that if…” he trailed off, the words hanging there for a beat before he said, “Oh.”

His gaze shifted back to where your conversation with Perlah had been joined by Princess. A warmth settled over him as he realized the scent he had been chasing all day had been following him first. From a park through the city under a full moon to the feet of his best friend.

You looked up, your eyes meeting across an emergency department filled with a scent he could finally, definitively name. Your gaze flicked to Jack and back to Robby and you smiled, warm and welcoming.

He did not look away.

You didn’t know a mistake could feel intentional until Jack Abbot stopped replying.

For almost a full minute after it happened, you couldn’t move. You just stood in the staff bathroom with your phone in your hand, the harsh white light buzzing overhead, your pulse slamming so hard behind your ears that the whole hospital seemed to muffle around it. The sink was still running because you’d forgotten to turn it off. Water rushed uselessly into the drain while you stared at the thread on your screen and tried to convince yourself that your eyes had rearranged the letters.

They hadn’t.

Jack Abbot sat at the top of the conversation in clean, merciless text.

Below it, the blank space where the photo had been.

You’d deleted it almost instantly, but instantly didn’t mean unseen. Instantly meant your thumb had moved faster than your brain, faster than your lungs, faster than the sick drop in your stomach when the picture appeared in the wrong thread. It meant you’d watched one of the most obscene photos in your camera roll land in your attending’s messages and then vanish under your panicked attempt to erase evidence.

Not erase memory.

Just evidence.

“Oh, no,” you whispered, and the words sounded too small for the scale of the disaster.

The photo had been from two nights ago. Your apartment, your bed, the lamp beside your mattress giving everything that warm, dirty glow. Not soft. Not tasteful. Not a picture you could call accidental in spirit even if the send itself had been. You’d taken it because you were alone and turned on and feeling reckless enough to admire yourself, body angled deliberately across twisted sheets, hair messy, eyes on the camera like you knew exactly what kind of thought you wanted to plant in someone’s head. There was nothing clinical about it. Nothing coy. It was the kind of photo that said look, want, imagine.

And Jack Abbot might have seen it.

Jack, who had corrected your charting that morning with a tired flick of his eyes.

Jack, who had stood behind you at the board, close enough for you to catch the smell of coffee and hospital soap, and said, “Try again,” when your answer hadn’t been specific enough.

Jack, who was older, gruffer, sharper around the edges than anyone had any right to be while still being that unfairly attractive.

Jack, who was your attending.

You turned off the sink with shaking fingers and immediately made the situation worse.

You:

oh my god that was not meant for you please ignore that i deleted it i’m so sorry please delete it if it still shows up i’m actually going to resign and move states

You stared at the messages, then at the empty space above them, then at the messages again. Your face burned. Your throat felt tight. Any other person might’ve replied by now. Any normal person might’ve hit you with a confused question mark, a reassurance, a threat, a joke. Something.

Jack gave you nothing.

No typing bubble. No acknowledgment. No read receipt. Just that awful, professional silence.

It was very Jack of him, which somehow made it worse.

A knock hit the bathroom door. “You dying in there?”

Mel’s voice. Thank God and also absolutely not.

You shoved your phone into your scrub pocket like you’d been caught with something you weren’t supposed to have. “No.”

“You sure? You sound weird.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re needed in three. Abbot’s looking for you.”

For one second, your entire body went cold.

Then hot.

Then somehow both.

“Great,” you said, and if Mel noticed that your voice came out like you’d just swallowed a battery, she was kind enough not to comment through the door.

You took one last look at yourself in the mirror before leaving. There you were: wrinkled scrubs, tired eyes, badge clipped slightly crooked, mouth pressed into a line that looked almost professional if no one knew you were internally preparing to fling yourself into traffic. You were a doctor. You were an adult. You could walk into a room with Jack Abbot and not immediately confess to everything like a criminal under interrogation.

Probably.

The hallway outside was too bright. Too loud. Too full of witnesses. The hospital had the particular cruelty of continuing to function during personal catastrophes, monitors chiming and carts rattling and nurses calling over their shoulders while your entire nervous system stood at attention. You passed Whitaker near the supply cart, who gave you a distracted little nod. You passed Santos at the board, half-listening to Robby. Nobody looked at you like they knew.

Then you reached trauma three, and Jack looked up.

He was standing at the foot of the bed with one hand braced on the rail, the other holding a chart, short sleeves leaving his forearms bare and his watch stark against his wrist. Stubble roughened his jaw, his hair was slightly mussed from the kind of shift that had been bad before noon and would only get worse, and his expression was exactly what it always was: tired, focused, unimpressed by the existence of chaos.

No guilt. No surprise. No flicker.

That was the first real blow. If he had reacted, you might’ve known how to feel. If he’d avoided your eyes, you could’ve built a theory around it. If he’d looked at you too long, you could’ve hated him or wanted him or both with more certainty.

Instead, he just watched you enter like you were late with labs.

“Nice of you to join us,” Jack said.

Dana, at the monitor, winced under her breath. “Damn.”

You forced your mouth to move. “Sorry.”

Jack’s eyes stayed on you a fraction too long. “Are you?”

There was no reason for it to hit the way it did. The words were ordinary. Dry. Annoyed, maybe. But you heard every unanswered text underneath them. You heard the deleted photo. You heard the question he wasn’t asking in front of Dana and a patient with a bleeding scalp.

Your stomach folded in on itself.

“What’s the situation?” you asked, because medicine was safer than silence.

Jack handed you the chart. “Fall from a ladder. Brief LOC. Walk me through what you’re ordering and why.”

You could do this. This was easy. This was normal. You’d done this a hundred times. You moved through the exam, named imaging, neuro checks, wound care, the things you needed to rule out. Your mouth worked. Your hands worked. Your brain mostly worked.

Your body, unfortunately, remembered that your phone remained unanswered in your pocket.

Every time Jack shifted near you, you became aware of him all over again. The low gravel of his voice. The way he stood close enough to take the chart back from your hands without asking. The blunt competence in his movements. The fact that he didn’t soothe, didn’t explain, didn’t give you even one quiet aside to release the pressure building under your skin.

He let you suffer.

Worse, he made you work.

For the next several hours, Jack Abbot became a masterclass in professional cruelty. Not actual cruelty. Nothing anyone could report. Nothing anyone would even notice unless they were living inside your body and could feel the way your pulse kicked every time he said your name.

He asked you questions in front of Robby.

He corrected your note beside the nurses’ station.

He handed you a printout without looking at you and said, “More specific,” in that gruff, flat tone that made you want to argue and obey at the same time.

He touched your elbow once, only to move you out of the path of a gurney, but the contact burned through your scrub sleeve because now there was a version of you in his possible memory that had nothing to do with the hospital. Not capable, not composed, not holding a chart or presenting a patient. You in bed. You in low light. You looking at the camera like you wanted someone to imagine being there.

And Jack still didn’t reply.

At some point, Santos appeared beside you at the counter while you were pretending to review labs and absolutely not refreshing your message thread.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Like you’re waiting for a disciplinary hearing.”

“I’m busy.”

She leaned closer, lowering her voice as if delivering a diagnosis. “You and Abbot have been weird all day.”

Your grip tightened around the tablet. “We have not.”

“You have. He’s doing that thing where he gets quieter when he’s mad, and you look like you’re being hunted for sport.”

“I’m not being hunted.”

“Mm.”

“Santos.”

“What? I’m observant.”

“You’re nosy.”

“That too.”

Across the department, Jack stood with Robby near the board, arms crossed, head tilted as he listened. He looked exhausted. Unmoved. Utterly unreadable. Then, as if he felt you looking, his eyes lifted and found yours.

You looked away first.

Santos made an obnoxious little sound. “Loud.”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it loudly.”

She grinned, entirely too pleased with herself, and moved off before you could throw something at her.

The shift dragged on. Or maybe it flew. Time had gone strange, measured less by the clock and more by every non-reply from Jack, every glance that might have meant something and might have meant nothing, every brush of proximity that left you a little more humiliated by your own reaction. By the end of rounds, panic had curdled into something hotter and harder to name.

You still wanted to disappear.

You also wanted to know exactly what he’d thought.

That was the unforgivable part. The part you couldn’t blame on the photo or the send button or exhaustion. Under the mortification, there was want. Ugly, bright, undeniable want. The kind that made you wonder whether he had paused when he saw it. Whether his jaw had tightened. Whether he had deleted it right away or looked long enough to regret it.

You were finishing a note when his shadow fell over your workspace.

You didn’t look up immediately. You knew.

“My office,” Jack said. “Now.”

The words were quiet. No one else would’ve heard them as anything but an attending giving an instruction. Dana barely glanced over. Robby kept talking to Mel. The world did not stop.

Yours did.

You stood carefully. “Okay.”

Jack turned without waiting to see if you followed. The walk to his office felt like a march toward sentencing, except sentencing probably wouldn’t have made your thighs feel weak. He didn’t touch you. Didn’t slow down. Didn’t look back. That made it worse, because it meant he knew you would follow.

His office was dim, cramped, and cluttered in the way all hospital offices became cluttered no matter how hard anyone tried to keep them human. A desk lamp threw warm light over a stack of charts. Half-closed blinds cut the room into narrow bars. His mug sat beside the keyboard, coffee gone cold. The air held the stale sharpness of the hospital layered with something that was just him: clean sweat, soap, coffee, fatigue.

Jack closed the door.

He left it unlocked.

That detail lodged in you. The unlocked door meant this was still a conversation. Still professional, technically. Still something you could leave.

Or something he wanted you to know you could leave.

He leaned back against the edge of the desk, arms crossed loosely, and looked at you for long enough that you started talking just to make him stop.

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I know I already said that in the texts, probably too many times, but I really am. It was an accident. Obviously. I deleted it right away, and I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything if you saw it before then, but I swear I didn’t mean to—”

“Stop.”

You stopped.

Jack’s gaze stayed steady. “Explain.”

You blinked. “I just did.”

“No. You apologized.” His voice was calm, which was somehow worse than anger. “Explain what happened.”

Your face burned. “I sent the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

“What thing?”

“Jack.”

His expression didn’t change. “Say it.”

The floor seemed suddenly fascinating. You looked at a scuff near the leg of his desk and wondered if it was possible to die from embarrassment after all.

“A nude,” you said.

The word changed the room.

Jack didn’t move, but something in his face tightened. A small thing. Controlled. There and gone.

“I saw it,” he said.

You closed your eyes for one second. “Okay.”

For a moment, that was all there was. The confirmation. The silence after. The awful, humiliating knowledge that the image had reached him before you could take it back.

“I didn’t keep it,” he said.

Your eyes opened. “You didn’t?”

“No.”

The relief was sharp enough to hurt. It should’ve ended there. It should’ve made everything clean again, or at least survivable. He had done the right thing. He had refused to keep what hadn’t been meant for him. You could apologize one more time, leave his office, and spend the rest of your life avoiding direct eye contact.

But Jack was still looking at you.

And his voice, when it came, was lower.

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t look.”

Something low in you pulled tight, panic and arousal twisting together until you couldn’t tell which one had hit first.

He pushed off the desk, not moving closer yet. Just standing straighter. “Who was it for?”

“No one.”

“No one.”

“I took it for myself.”

Jack’s mouth twitched, not amusement exactly. More like disbelief with nowhere innocent to go. “You take pictures like that for yourself?”

There were a dozen sensible answers. Defensive answers. Clean, professional answers that would’ve made this easier to survive. Instead, you heard yourself say, “Sometimes.”

The tiredness in his face thinned, and beneath it was something intent, almost indecently awake—a look that moved over you with such slow, controlled heat that your body reacted before your pride could stop it. Like the picture had burned itself into his retinas and left him standing there with nowhere innocent to put his hands.

For the first time all day, you saw the effect. Not much. Jack wasn’t a man who gave much away for free. But there it was in the pause, the shift of his jaw, the hand he dragged briefly over his mouth before dropping it again.

“You’re not helping yourself,” he said.

“I thought I was being honest.”

“That’s the problem.”

The words should’ve embarrassed you further. They did. But they also did something else, something low and hot, because he sounded less like your attending now and more like a man trying very hard to remember he still was one.

You took a careful breath. “Why didn’t you answer?”

Jack looked at you for a long moment, and the silence wasn’t empty anymore. It had weight. The shape of all the things he’d refused to put in writing.

“Because if I answered then,” he said, voice lower now, “I would’ve said something I shouldn’t.”

Your mouth went dry. “Like what?”

“Don’t.”

“You brought me in here.”

“To handle it.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

His jaw worked once, and for the first time, his control looked less like indifference and more like effort. “I’m trying.”

“Trying to handle me?”

That did something. You saw it in the brief drop of his gaze, the pause before he pulled it back to your face.

“Trying not to,” he said.

There it was again—that small crack in the professionalism. Not a confession, not exactly, but close enough to make the room feel suddenly too small. Close enough that you felt it move through you before you had time to decide what to do with it.

Jack saw that too.

Of course he did.

He stepped closer, not quickly, not carelessly. Slow enough that you could move back if you wanted. Slow enough that the choice stayed yours.

You didn’t.

“You sent me that,” he said, voice low, “then walked around my department for the rest of the shift like I could just forget it.”

“I didn’t know if you’d seen it.”

“You knew.”

“I hoped you hadn’t.”

“No.” His gaze held yours, steady and merciless in a way that made your skin feel too tight under your scrubs. “You hoped I had, and you were scared I had. Not the same thing.”

You hated him a little for being right. You wanted him more because of it.

“That’s not fair,” you said.

“I didn’t say it was.”

He was close enough now that you could see the fatigue at the corners of his eyes, the rough shadow along his jaw, the controlled set of his mouth. Still Jack. Still gruff and older and dangerous mostly because he looked like he’d spent a lifetime refusing himself the stupid thing, the reckless thing, the filthy thing that would feel good for exactly long enough to ruin him.

“You wanted to know what I thought,” he said.

Your throat tightened. “Did I?”

His gaze dropped to your mouth for half a second before returning to your eyes. “You tell me.”

The worst part was that you couldn’t. Not honestly. Because you had wanted to know. Under the embarrassment, under the panic, under every frantic apology you’d typed too fast and regretted immediately, there had been that awful, helpless need to know what he’d seen when he looked at you afterward. If he’d been angry. If he’d been disgusted. If he’d imagined it again.

If he’d wanted to.

Jack watched the silence work through you, watched your breath catch, watched your face give away what your mouth refused to say.

Then he stepped back half a pace.

The loss of him was so immediate your body nearly followed before you could stop it.

“Tell me to forget it,” he said, “and I’ll forget it.”

“You just said you couldn’t.”

“I’ll act like I can.”

That was very Jack. Honest enough to hurt. Restrained enough to be decent. He had refused to keep the photo. He had left the door unlocked. Now he was putting distance between you, giving you a clean exit with the kind of brutal practicality that somehow made you want him worse.

You should’ve taken it.

Instead, you said, “I don’t want you to.”

The room went quiet in a new way.

Jack’s face barely changed, but your body took the look like contact, nerves flaring under your scrubs as if he’d reached across the room and found you bare. For one dizzy second, the clothes felt pointless—like he was already picturing what was underneath and remembering exactly where to look.

“Be clear,” he said.

Your throat felt tight. “I don’t want you to forget it.”

His hand moved to the door.

The lock clicked.

Small sound. Huge consequence.

Not loud. Just final. The kind of sound that doesn’t ask permission. Jack’s hand left the deadbolt, but he didn’t turn around right away. He stood there facing the door, shoulders rising once, falling once, like he was giving himself a countdown.

You were already backed up against his desk. Metal cold through your scrub pants. You watched his back. The way his scrub top pulled between his shoulder blades. The gray hair curling at his nape, damp from twelve hours of running a floor that wouldn’t stop coding.

He turned.

His eyes had changed. Not tired, not distant—fixed on you now with a hunger he’d spent the whole shift forcing down. It had been there through rounds, through the silence, through every clipped order and every time he’d looked at you and then looked away like one more second would give him away.

“Stand up.”

You did. Your thighs hit the desk edge behind you. He crossed the space in two strides and then he was there, close enough that the heat of him hit your skin before his body did, close enough that you could smell the antiseptic and coffee and something underneath—just him, just warm skin and a long shift.

His hand found your hip. Not gentle. Not rough. Just certain. His thumb pressed into the bone there and you felt it in your teeth.

“You sent me a picture,” he said.

His voice was low. Not the attending voice. Not the one that cut through chaos in the trauma bay. This one was quieter. Worse.

“I know.”

“You tried to take it back.”

“Yes.”

“I saw it anyway.” His thumb moved—just a fraction, just a small circle against your hip bone through the thin cotton. “You know I saw it.”

Your throat was dry. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Bullshit.” The word landed soft, almost kind. “You knew. You watched me not look at you for six hours and you knew exactly why.”

You couldn’t answer. He was too close. His other hand came up, slow, and his fingers found the edge of your jaw. Not gripping. Just resting there, his palm warm against the side of your throat, his thumb tracing the line of your chin like he was memorizing bone.

“Describe it,” he said.

“What?”

“The photo. Tell me what you sent me.”

Heat crawled up your neck. Your chest. Your face. He felt it—his thumb was right there on your pulse, and you watched his eyes flick down to your throat, watched him feel every beat of your heart slamming against his palm.

“I can’t.”

“You can.” His grip didn’t tighten. It didn’t have to. “You took it. You sent it. Say it.”

You swallowed. His thumb rode the movement. “It was—I was on my bed.”

“Go on.”

“On my stomach. The camera was—it was angled down. You could see my back. My shoulders.” You stopped. Breathed. He waited. “My ass. I was wearing—”

“Nothing,” he said. “You were wearing nothing.”

The word hit your stomach and clenched there. “Yes.”

“And your legs were spread.”

Not a question. He’d seen it. He’d looked at it long enough to know exactly how you were positioned, exactly what was visible, exactly what you’d offered up without saying a word.

“Yes.”

“And between them.” His thumb traced down your throat, just a whisper of pressure. “What could I see.”

“Everything.”

He exhaled. It was the first crack you’d seen—just a shiver of air through his nose, his jaw tightening, his eyes going darker. “Everything,” he repeated. “You sent your attending a photo of your pussy and you want me to believe it was an accident.”

“I panicked. I deleted it—”

“After it delivered. After I saw the notification. After I opened it in the middle of rounds and had to stand there with a patient’s chart in my hand and your pussy on my phone.”

Your knees nearly buckled. He said it so flat. So clinical. Like he was naming an anatomical structure, except his voice dropped on the word, roughened, and his grip on your hip tightened once before releasing.

“Jack—”

“Dr. Abbot.” His eyes snapped to yours. “In this hospital, I’m Dr. Abbot. You don’t get to call me Jack until I tell you to.”

Your breath stuttered. "Dr. Abbot."

"Better." He stepped closer. Your bodies touched—chest to chest, his scrub top against yours, the heat of him bleeding through the fabric. His thigh pressed between your legs and you made a sound before you could stop it, small and humiliating and honest.

"There it is," he murmured. His mouth was near your ear now, stubble scratching your temple. "That's the sound. That's what you wanted me to hear."

You grabbed his arm. You didn't mean to—your hand just found his bicep and held, fingers digging into muscle, and he let you. His arm was solid under your grip, hard from years of compressions and lifting and holding bodies together while they bled.

"I'm sorry," you said.

"Are you." He pulled back just enough to look at you. His face was close—you could see the exhaustion in the lines around his eyes, the gray threading his stubble, the way his mouth was set in something that wasn't quite a frown. "Or are you just scared I know what you look like when you want someone."

You didn't answer. Couldn't. He was right and you both knew it.

His hand left your jaw. Slid down. Found your wrist and lifted it between your bodies, his thumb pressing into your pulse point, feeling the blood hammer under your skin.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I know."

"Good."

He kissed you.

It wasn't gentle. It wasn't careful. His mouth hit yours with the same certainty as his hands—hard, demanding, his stubble scraping your lip and his tongue pushing past your teeth before you'd even registered the impact. He tasted like black coffee and something sharp, something that burned going down, and you opened for him immediately, helplessly, your whole body sagging into his grip.

His hand left your wrist and grabbed your other hip. Both hands now, fingers digging into the meat of you, pulling you against him so hard the desk edge bit into your thighs. His cock was hard already, pressing against your stomach through his scrub pants, and the knowledge of it—the fact that he'd been hard, maybe this whole time, maybe since he saw the photo, maybe since he locked the door—made you moan into his mouth.

"Quiet," he said against your lips. "The walls are thin."

You bit his lower lip. Harder than you meant to. He inhaled sharp and something flashed in his eyes—surprise, and then heat, and then his hands were moving, one sliding up your back under your scrub top, palm rough and hot on your spine, the other fisting in your hair and yanking your head back until your throat was exposed.

"You bite me again," he said against your pulse, "and I'll make you regret it."

"Maybe I want that."

His teeth found your neck. Not a kiss—a bite, real pressure, his incisors denting the skin just above your collarbone. You gasped and your hips bucked against his thigh and he held you there, teeth still clamped, tongue pressing flat against the mark he was making.

When he pulled back, his mouth was wet. His eyes were wrecked. "You want it," he said. "You want a lot of things. That's the problem."

Your hands moved. You didn't decide to—they just went, desperate, grabbing the front of his scrub top and pulling until the V-neck stretched, your knuckles brushing the sweat-damp hair on his chest. His skin was hot. He was hot, all of him, furnace-hot and solid and real against you.

"Touch me," you said. It came out wrecked. "Please."

"Please what."

"Please—fuck." You couldn't think. His thumb was rubbing circles into your spine, his other hand still fisted in your hair, his thigh a solid line of pressure between your legs. "Please touch me. Dr. Abbot."

His eyes flared. "That's right. That's my name. You remember that."

"Yes."

"And you remember who you're with. Not some resident. Not your ex. Me."

The jealousy landed like a slap. Your mind flicked back—the photo, who it might've been meant for, who he thought it was meant for—and you opened your mouth to explain, to tell him there wasn't anyone, but then his hand was sliding around to your stomach, fingertips tracing the waistband of your scrub pants front to back, and words dissolved.

"I don't share," he said quietly. "Whatever this is. Whatever you thought you were doing. You don't send something like that to more than one person. You don't get to."

"I didn't. It was only—"

"Only me." His fingers dipped under the elastic. Not far. Just the first knuckle, the rough pad of his index finger dragging through the hair below your navel. "Good. That's good. That's how it stays."

You nodded. You would've agreed to anything. His finger moved lower, just a centimeter, and your hips lifted toward his hand like a reflex.

"You're soaked," he said. Not surprised. Not smug. Just observing. "I haven't even touched you yet and you're soaked through your pants."

"I know."

"Say it."

"I'm—" Your face burned. His eyes didn't leave yours. "I'm wet. Soaked. Is that what you—"

"That's what I wanted." His finger withdrew. You nearly cried. But then both his hands were at your waistband, thumbs hooked in, and he was pulling your scrub pants and underwear down together, one sharp motion, the fabric scraping your thighs and pooling around your ankles.

He didn't look down. Not yet. He kept his eyes on your face while his hand found your knee and pushed—firm, steady—until your legs fell open, his hips slotting between them, the rough fabric of his scrub pants brushing your bare cunt.

"There," he said. "Now you're exactly where you should be."

You grabbed his shoulders. Needed to. Your fingers dug into the muscle there, the solid bulk of him, and he let you hang on while his mouth came back to yours, still brutal, still messy, teeth and tongue and the scrape of stubble that would leave your chin raw.

His hand dropped between your bodies.

First touch: his middle finger sliding through your folds, just parting you, just feeling. The sound it made—wet, obscene—filled the tiny office. He groaned into your mouth, a low vibration you felt in your chest.

"Jesus," he breathed. "You're dripping. You've been dripping all shift."

"For you."

"I know." His finger circled your clit—once, light, barely there—and your whole body jerked. "I know you have. Every time I looked at you. Every time I didn't."

He did it again. Slow circle. Then again, harder. Then his finger slid lower, found your entrance, and pressed in.

Just one. Just to the first knuckle. You clenched around him instantly, a helpless spasm, and he laughed—low, dark, right against your ear.

"Tight," he said. "Tight little pussy. And you sent me a picture of it. What'd you think would happen."

"I didn't—I wasn't—"

"You were." His finger pushed deeper. All the way in, slow, until his knuckle pressed against your entrance and his palm cupped your clit. "You wanted me to see. You wanted me to know. You wanted this."

He curled his finger.

Your vision whited. Your head fell back, throat bared again, and he took the invitation—mouth on your neck, sucking hard, his stubble a bright burn while his finger found that spot inside you and pressed.

"There," he said. "Right there. That's what you wanted me to find."

"Yes. Yes. Fuck—"

"Quiet." His voice was steel. "I said quiet. You can be quiet or I can stop."

You bit your own lip so hard you tasted copper. His finger pumped—once, twice, slow and deep, the wet sound of it filling the room. Then his thumb found your clit, pressed down, and you nearly screamed into your own mouth.

"Good girl. That's good. You can listen."

He pulled out. Your cunt clenched on nothing, empty and aching, and you made a noise of protest that he ignored. His hand came up between your faces, his finger glistening, slick coating his knuckle all the way to his palm.

"Look at this," he said. "Look at what you did."

You watched him bring his finger to his mouth. Watched his lips close around it. Watched his eyes flutter shut for just a second while he tasted you, his tongue cleaning his own skin with an obscene thoroughness that made your stomach drop.

"Sweet," he said, pulling his finger free. "I knew you'd be sweet."

"Please. Please, I need—"

"I know what you need." His hand was back between your legs before you finished, two fingers this time, sliding through your slick and then pushing in, stretching you open, filling you so fast your breath caught and held.

"Breathe," he said. "Breathe through it. You can take it."

You could. You did. His fingers were thick—surgeon's fingers, strong and precise—and they knew exactly what to do. Pumping deep, curling, finding that spot again and again while his palm ground against your clit and his mouth covered yours to swallow every sound.

The kiss was sloppy now. Desperate. You were breathing into each other, sharing air, his tongue pushing past your teeth at the same rhythm as his fingers. You could taste yourself on him—salt and musk and something sweeter underneath—and it made you wild, made your hips buck against his hand, made you ride his fingers like you'd die if you stopped.

"That's it," he growled. "Fuck my hand. Show me how bad you want it."

Your fingers clawed at his shoulders. Found his neck. Dug into the short hair at his nape and pulled, and he hissed, and his fingers drove deeper, faster, the wet slap of his palm against your clit turning filthy and loud.

"You're close," he said. "I can feel it. You're clenching—yeah, like that. You're gonna come on my fingers. Right here on my desk. And you're gonna be quiet while you do it."

"I can't—"

"You can." His lips brushed your ear. His breath was ragged now, finally losing that iron control. "You can because I'm telling you to. Because you're a good girl. Because you want to be good for me."

The words hit somewhere deep. Somewhere you didn't know existed. Your cunt spasmed around his fingers and he laughed again, dark and pleased, and then his thumb pressed hard against your clit and circled and his fingers curled and—

You came.

Silent. Or close enough—a gasp that died in your throat, your whole body locking up, your cunt milking his fingers in rhythmic pulses you couldn't control. He held you through it, hand steady, murmuring something low against your temple that you couldn't hear over the roar in your ears.

When you came down, your forehead was pressed to his shoulder. His scrub top was wet—sweat, tears, spit, you didn't know. His fingers were still inside you, still, just resting there, letting you feel the fullness.

"Good girl," he said again. Quieter now. Almost gentle. "That's my good girl."

You lifted your head. His face was inches away, dark eyes searching yours, and for a moment the mask slipped—just a second of something raw, something that looked almost tender before he blinked and it was gone.

"Now you," you said. Your voice was wrecked. "I want to—let me."

He didn't stop you. His fingers slid out of you, slow, and you felt the loss like a physical ache. Your hand dropped to his waist, found the drawstring of his scrub pants, and pulled.

His hand caught your wrist.

You froze. Waiting. His grip was tight but not painful—just stopping you, holding you still while he looked at your face like he was making a decision.

"This has to be quick," he said. "Someone's going to notice we're both gone."

"Then quick."

He held your eyes for another beat. Then his grip loosened. "Go on."

You untied the drawstring. Your fingers were shaking—from the orgasm, from the adrenaline, from the sheer impossibility of this moment—but you managed. His scrub pants sagged, and when you pushed them down his hips together with his boxers, his cock sprang free, thick and flushed and already leaking at the tip.

He was bigger than you expected. Not just long—thick, the kind of thick that would hurt in the best way, the kind that made your cunt clench just looking at it. His shaft was veined, curving slightly toward his stomach, the head a deep angry red and slick with pre-cum.

"You're staring," he said.

"I'm admiring."

"Admire faster."

You wrapped your hand around him. His breath caught—loud, sharp—and his hips jerked into your grip before he controlled himself. His cock was hot in your palm, silk-soft skin over iron-hard flesh, and when you squeezed, a bead of pre-cum welled at the tip and dripped down over your knuckle.

"Fuck," he breathed.

You stroked him. Slow at first—learning the weight, the shape, the way he twitched when your thumb pressed against the underside just below the head. His hand came up and fisted in your hair again, not pulling, just holding, like he needed an anchor.

"Faster," he said. "Come on. Faster."

You sped up. Your wrist found a rhythm, twisting on the upstroke the way you knew felt good, and his head dropped forward, forehead pressing to yours, his breath hot and uneven on your lips.

"You've done this before."

"A few times."

"Not to me." His hips were moving now, fucking into your fist, uncontrolled in a way that made heat pool low in your belly all over again. "Not—like this—"

You squeezed harder. Twisted faster. His hand in your hair tightened, the other slamming down on the desk beside your hip, and the sound of his palm hitting wood was loud enough to echo.

"Look at me," you said.

His eyes opened. Glazed. Desperate. His mouth was wet, lips parted, and he looked nothing like the cold controlled attending who'd locked the door. He looked ruined.

"I want to watch you," you said. "I want to watch you come in my hand."

"Jesus—"

"Come on." Your voice dropped, mimicking his from earlier. "Come for me. I want to see it."

His hips stuttered. His cock pulsed in your grip. And then he was coming, silent, jaw clenched so tight you could see the tendon stand out in his neck, his cum spilling hot over your fingers and dripping down your wrist in thick white ropes.

You stroked him through it. Milked every pulse, every spasm, until he was shuddering and oversensitive and his hand shot down to grip your wrist and stop you.

"Enough," he rasped. "Enough."

You stopped. Your hand was a mess—his cum coating your palm, your fingers, dripping between your knuckles. You could smell it, salt and musk and him, and without thinking, without planning, you lifted your hand to your mouth.

He watched.

Your tongue touched your palm first. The taste was sharp—bitter and salty and undeniably male. You licked a stripe up to your wrist, gathering the slickness, and then you wrapped your lips around your own index finger and sucked.

His pupils swallowed what was left of the thin blue rings.

You pulled your finger free with a lewd pop and licked your lips. "Tastes like you."

He didn't say anything. Just stared, chest heaving, cock still wet and softening against his thigh.

Then he kissed you. Not fast this time. Not punishing. His mouth dragged over yours with a filthy kind of patience, tongue sliding in like he was tasting himself there and hated how much he wanted more of it. His hand stayed at your jaw, thumb pressed beneath your chin, holding you still while he licked into your mouth again, deeper, making the kiss feel less like an ending than a promise he had no business making in his office.

When Jack finally pulled back, it wasn’t because either of you had cooled off. It was because whatever sense he had left had finally clawed its way back to the surface.

You stayed on the edge of his desk, breath wrecked, fingers still curled in his scrub top. He looked almost composed, which would’ve been insulting if his mouth weren’t swollen from yours, if his chest weren’t moving with too much effort, if his gaze didn’t keep dropping to all the places he had just touched. For a second, he only stared at you, taking in the mess he’d made: your loosened scrubs, your bare thighs, the flush crawling up your throat, the way your body still hadn’t figured out how to stop wanting him.

Then he reached for his phone.

You went still.

He saw it immediately. Of course he did. Jack caught everything.

“No,” he said, voice rough but steady. “Not unless you say so.”

The phone stayed low in his hand. He didn’t lift it. Didn’t angle it. Didn’t take anything just because he could. That was the worst part, maybe—how badly he wanted and how clearly he still made it your choice. He stood there with his scrub pants retied badly, his hair mussed, your taste still on his mouth, and waited like permission mattered more than whatever filthy thought had put the phone in his hand.

“I got rid of the first one,” he said.

“I know.”

“It wasn’t mine.”

Your throat tightened.

His gaze moved over you again, not detached, not clean, not pretending. “This one would be.”

The words went through you with a fresh, obscene little twist. The first photo had been panic and accident, a naked image thrown into the wrong hands. This one would be different. You were still open on his desk, still marked by his mouth, still shaking from what he’d done to you and what you’d done to him. This wouldn’t be a mistake sitting in a thread. This would be proof. Permission. Something given on purpose.

Jack watched your face. “Say no, and I put it away.”

You looked at the phone, then at him. “Yes.”

His jaw tightened. “Full sentence.”

Your face burned, but you didn’t look away. Not after everything. Not with his cum still barely wiped from your skin and your body still aching from his fingers.

“You can take a picture of me.”

For a second, he didn’t move.

Then he lifted the phone.

He only took one.

That made it worse somehow. Hotter. No posing you over and over. No making a show of it. Just one photo in the dim office light: you perched on the edge of his desk, wrecked and unmistakably touched, your scrubs shoved out of place, his hand visible at your thigh like a signature he had no right to leave. The first photo had been you alone in your bed, naked and deliberate. This one had him in it without showing his face—the watch at his wrist, the edge of his sleeve, the possessive press of his fingers against your skin.

Jack looked at the screen.

Whatever he saw there hit him. You watched it happen in the clench of his jaw, the pause in his breathing, the way his thumb hovered before he locked the phone like he needed to put the image away before he did something stupider than taking it.

“That one stays?” you asked.

His eyes lifted to yours.

“That one stays.”

The words settled low and dirty, right where his voice had already ruined you.

After that, he fixed you with the same practical attention he gave everything else. Scrub top straightened. Badge adjusted. Hair smoothed back into place, though his fingers lingered for half a second longer than necessary. It should’ve felt clinical. It didn’t. It felt intimate in a way that made your chest ache a little.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

His brows drew together. “Words.”

A small, breathless laugh escaped you. “I’m okay.”

He studied you for another moment, then handed you the water bottle from his desk. “Drink.”

You did, because saying no felt pointless when your legs were still unreliable and he was looking at you like he would stand there all night if that was what it took to make sure you could walk out without falling apart. When he was satisfied, he took the bottle back and set it down.

Then the mask started returning.

You watched him pull himself together piece by piece. The rough edges tucked away. The heat banked. The attending sliding back over the man who had just ruined your ability to think clearly. By the time his hand reached the lock, he almost looked like himself again.

Almost.

Before opening the door, he turned back. “No more accidents.”

Your pulse jumped. “No?”

His gaze dropped once to your mouth. “You want my attention,” he said, low enough that only you could hear, “you ask for it properly.”

Then he opened the door, and the hospital rushed back in.

The fluorescent light felt obscene after the dimness of his office. Voices, alarms, wheels, footsteps, the relentless machinery of the department grinding on like nothing had happened. Jack stepped out first. You followed a few seconds later, trying to look normal with your pulse still everywhere it shouldn’t be.

At the nurses’ station, Mel glanced up. “You good?”

You picked up a chart mostly to have something to do with your hands. “Yeah. Fine.”

Across the department, Jack didn’t look at you once, but that almost made it worse. He didn’t have to. The proof was already in his pocket, locked behind his passcode, tucked against his body while he moved through the rest of the shift like nothing had happened. You watched him speak to Robby near the board, watched him take a chart from Dana, watched him disappear behind the curtain of trauma two with that same gruff composure he’d worn all day, and all you could think was that there was a photo of you on his phone now.

Not the accidental one. Not the one he had deleted because it hadn’t belonged to him.

The other one.

The one you had given him.

That thought followed you through sign-out and the locker room and the cold shock of night air when you finally stepped outside. It sat low and warm in your stomach on the ride home, getting worse every time you remembered the way his jaw had tightened when he looked at the screen. By the time you unlocked your apartment, the silence felt different from the one he’d given you earlier. Not cruel this time. Anticipatory.

Your apartment was dark except for the lamp by your bed. The same bed from the first photo waited at the end of the room, sheets still rumpled from the morning, low light spilling over the fabric in a way that made your heart skip. Last night, that room had been private. Tonight, it felt altered, like Jack had already been invited into the idea of it.

You dropped your keys into the bowl by the door and stood there for a second, still in your scrubs, looking at the bed.

Your phone buzzed.

You turned it over.

Jack Abbot:

Home?

Your mouth went dry.

You:

Yes.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. You stood in the dark with your scuffed Dansko clogs still on, heart beating too hard over a text message from a man who had spent all day saying nothing. Then his reply came through.

Jack Abbot:

Good.

A second later, another message lit the screen.

Jack Abbot:

You wake to the sensation of soft kisses brushed against your skin—your forehead, your cheek, and your chin. It's the best sleep you've had in months, muscles warm and at ease. The feeling grows with each kiss as you're reminded of the fact that last night was real.

Jack loves you.

It wasn't just a vivid dream; the tender kisses he places on your skin confirm that. You're tempted to pretend to stay asleep just to enjoy more of this, but you instinctively scrunch your nose as his lips land on it, his scruff tickling you gently.

"Morning," he murmurs warmly, his voice husky with sleep, as he breathes against your cheek. You can feel his smile before your eyes fully open as he presses another soft kiss to your face.

Jack rests on one elbow, his hair tousled, with the soft morning light catching the strands that are more white than grey. God, he's handsome.

Yesterday, you might have convinced yourself that this look of adoration he’s giving you is just a figment of your imagination, but today, you know it’s real. He’s actually gazing at you like this, as if nothing else matters—not your messy morning hair nor yesterday’s mascara remnants around your eyes. He simply looks like he’s glad you’re here with him.

"Morning," you grin back, stifling a yawn into your hand.

His smile broadens. "Hi."

You chuckle softly. "Hi."

He keeps staring at you with a smile on his face. His other hand finds your waist, and your cheeks flush in response as he drags you closer. Although his touch isn’t new, the familiarity feels different now—seeing as you now know the intent behind it means what you want it to.

"What?" you ask, a bit self-conscious, rubbing your eyes in hopes of wiping away the stubborn mascara stains.

"Nothing," he shrugs, yet the grin on his face suggests otherwise.

"Jack." You pout at him and watch as his gaze drops down to your lips.

"I just..." he laughs lightly and shakes his head. "I can’t believe this is real."

You know exactly how he feels, and you hope he's able to see it in your eyes. If he doesn't, then you hope he feels it as your hand brushes through his wild strands. His eyes flutter shut under your touch, and when he opens them again, you’re convinced he does.

You both lock eyes for a moment before he leans forward. At the last moment, you turn your head, and his kiss lands on your cheek instead. He makes a comically disgruntled noise.

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet," you lament, though unable to suppress your laughter at his pouty face.

"I don't care," Jack says, placing a kiss against your jaw.

"Jack," you giggle louder. "I’m serious. My breath stinks."

"I've wanted to do this for months," he says, pressing another kiss to your cheek. "A little morning breath won’t stop me. Honestly, you could have rotten teeth, and I’d still kiss you."

"Ew," you grimace, but he just laughs and plants another kiss at the corner of your mouth.

You debate it for a second, then your cringe morphs into a grin as you lean in, stealing a quick kiss from his lips.

When you pull back, Jack stares at you with wide eyes. You can see when realisation hits him; his eyes darken, and he leans in quickly, giving you no chance to dodge him again. His mouth meets yours, soft yet persistent, each kiss lingering a bit longer than the last. He swallows your giggles with his lips, but he can't help but laugh, too.

Eventually, he presses his forehead against yours, and you stay there for a little while, wrapped up in each other, letting the reality of last night fully settle. The room is quiet except for your breathing, and for the first time since yesterday, the silence feels comfortable.

"I missed waking up next to you," Jack confesses, his voice low in your ear.

You press a kiss to his cheek before resting your head against his shoulder. "Me too."

You breathe in, nose buried deep in the crook of his throat, and his arms tighten around you when he realises what you're doing—breathing in the scent that's purely him. You've never been able to do this freely, and it feels surreal to be able to be this close with no excuses needed.

The moment's broken when your alarm rings softly. Jack shifts to turn it off while still holding you close, and makes no move to let you go or get up.

"We need to get up," you say after a minute, trying to pull back.

"Says who?" he answers cheekily, pulling you in even closer.

"Check-out, for one," you reply, pushing gently against his chest. "And I’d like to shower before we have to sit in an enclosed space for two hours."

"What if I like the way you smell?" he says, and usually, your stomach would be fluttering at a sentence like that, but you know him too well—

"—Fritos are my favourite chips," he continues. His chest bounces a bit as you playfully swat him.

"Rude," you grin, and this time he allows you to slip out of his grasp. "And you’re a liar. I know your favourite isn’t Fritos."

"Says who?" he repeats with a grin as he watches you sit up. You move to the edge of the bed, and he sits up to be able to see you better.

"Says the several bags of Doritos in your cabinets," you counter with a raised eyebrow. You move to slide off the bed, but he catches your arm, pulling you back over to him.

"Ja-ack," you laugh as you land against his chest.

"Those are for Robby," Jack says, and before you can argue, his mouth captures yours again. He keeps you there for another five minutes before your alarm blares again.

"Fine," he concedes when you pull back again. "Just leave me all alone here."

You shuffle forward, but pause at the doorway to the bathroom, meeting his eyes with a mischievous smile. "You could always join me."

Jack freezes, and you can see him process the offer—the way his eyes darken and the slight swallow as his gaze trails over you.

"Or not," you shrug, stifling a grin as you turn away.

He's got his crutches in his hands before your sentence finishes.

The checkout line is ridiculously long, and under normal circumstances, you’d complain about it—after all, how hard can it be to hand over a keycard and walk out? But with Jack’s arm wrapped around your waist and soft kisses peppered onto your hairline, you just can’t find the energy to care.

Even as Jack offers to give you his car keys, so you can wait in the car, you shake your head. You want to stay close to him despite the line barely moving. The lobby is crowded, and it really makes no sense for both of you to be standing here. Still, after spending weeks keeping your distance, torturing yourself, the thought of being apart now feels absurd.

Jack doesn’t push the issue; he simply nods and pulls you closer again. You're plastered to his side for the ten minutes it takes before you finally reach the desk.

"Hey," a warm voice greets you just as Jack hands over the keycard. Jeremy stands off to the side, a bag slung over his shoulder, sunglasses pushed up into his hair.

"Hi," you respond with a smile, stepping out of the queue to approach him.

He returns your smile. "I’m glad I caught you—you left before I could tell you how nice it was to see you again yesterday."

"Oh, sorry about that," you start, embarrassment flaring at the reminder of your jealous outburst. "I had—"

"We had some stuff to do," Jack interjects, slipping an arm around your waist again. He gives Jeremy a tight smile.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Jeremy responds. "Warren was asking about you, but honestly, I’m not sure she even remembers anything now." He leans in a little closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I had to extend her hotel room for her—she got pretty wasted after you left. The ushers had to escort her to her room after she threw up in the plants in the hallway."

"What? Really?" Laughter bubbles out of you. "Well, that's very professional."

Jack squeezes your waist admonishingly but still huffs an amused breath.

Jeremy grins. "Anyway, it was great to see you again. You’ve really done well for yourself, Sleepy." He nods at you, then glances at Jack, offering him a nod as well.

"You too," you say, and you mean it. Jeremy was a great guy in med school, even if he wasn't the best at relationships back then, but you're sure he's grown up more. You certainly have.

You're more certain of what you want, more certain of what you deserve, and somehow, that has landed you with Jack.

"Maybe we'll see you around," you finish. Presby isn't that far from PTMC after all.

"Yeah, I hope so," Jeremy replies, pulling his sunglasses down. He smiles at you one last time before he walks off. "Get home safe."

Jack grumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like 'yeah, I hope so' as he steers you towards the exit. He keeps a neutral face until you're outside, where it turns sullen. A laugh escapes you the moment you’re near the car, and away from prying eyes.

Jack narrows his eyes at you as he pops open the trunk. "What’s so funny?"

Another laugh leaves you. "You're just a silly, jealous man."

"I'm not silly," he replies immediately as he places your bags inside the trunk before shutting it again.

"That's the part you focus on?"

"I'm not jealous," he insists, crossing his arms.

You tilt your head, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not."

"Hey," you say, stepping closer. His arms drop the moment you gently press down on them. You curl your fingers into the front of his t-shirt. "You have nothing to be jealous of."

Jack huffs, staring at your hands.

"Jack."

His eyes lift to yours.

"I love you." The words still feel new in your mouth, but no less right.

His eyes search yours, still checking after everything revealed yesterday that you mean it. The tight line of his mouth softens when he finds a satisfying answer.

You draw him in closer. "Okay?"

"Okay." His hand slides to your cheek and you meet him halfway, your lips pressing together in a tender kiss.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when he pulls back. "Let's go home."

Coming home feels strange.

Not in a bad way, but it feels different than it did when you left. The air has shifted inside, the furniture moved without being an inch out of place, and the smell is different, and yet everything is exactly the same.

Jack's sweater still hangs over the back of the dining room chair. Your blanket is still draped across the couch, unfolded in that way Jack always grumbles over, but never does anything about.

Everything feels new and somehow the exact same. The only different thing is you and Jack. There's finally nothing unspoken between you, with all cards on the table. No uncertainty, no wondering, no pretending.

There's still the question of what this means for you, but it doesn't feel pressing. It's just there in the background, waiting until the moment feels right. There's no rush to speak.

You're free to enjoy this moment for what it is. The pleasantness from the drive, where Jack spent the entire trip with his hand firmly planted on your thigh, carries into the house.

The bags get unpacked together, clothes thrown into the washer by four hands rather than two. You follow Jack to the bedroom when he puts the bags away; he follows you into the bathroom when you put your toiletries back. You make lunch together, hips nudging, shoulders brushing—a task that normally takes ten stretches into thirty because neither of you can stop talking and laughing.

He keeps looking at you like he still can't believe it's real. You can keep leaning in close to prove to him that it is.

The day settles eventually as you both curl up on the couch with books. The laundry tumbles quietly in the background as warm sunlight spills in through the living room windows.

You're leaning against his chest, reading, but more focused on the hand that's trailing slowly up and down your arm. Every so often, you glance at him out of the corner of your eye, catching the scruff on his jaw that's slightly longer than usual, the way he scrunches his nose at passages in his book, and how his face is relaxed in a way you haven't seen before.

As if sensing you, he glances over at you. His mouth immediately curves into a smile when he catches you swiftly looking away. He huffs a little cute sound, squeezing your shoulder.

You grin into your book, nudging his leg with your hand. You try to refocus on the pages, but it doesn't take long before you're blinking heavily. Without even really thinking about it, you slide down until your head is resting on his lap instead.

Jack's hand follows soundly, petting your head softly and lulling you to sleep.

By evening, neither of you has spent more than a few minutes apart.

Dinner comes and goes. The dishes get washed. The laundry gets folded. Around you, the house gradually darkens, shadows stretching across familiar rooms. You try to stay awake as long as possible, hoping to drag your sleeping schedule back toward something resembling normal before your next shift. By the seventh yawn in under a minute, Jack gives you a look.

"Okay," he says with an amused huff. "Time for bed."

You grumble half-heartedly but still let him steer you toward the bedroom. Blearily, you grab at clothes in the closet. Jack doesn't comment on the fact that you grab one of his shirts, just glances at it with a pleased smile before he heads into the bathroom.

When he's done, you brush past him in just his shirt and underwear that he can't see, biting back a smile at when he swallows harshly. You don't fight the grin once you're alone in the bathroom, letting the giddy feeling take over.

Your phone vibrates against the counter, just as you've put your toothbrush into your mouth.

>> Hello??? Are you alive?!

It's Olivia. Fuck. She's already texted you three times earlier today, and you'd ignored her, unsure of what to say that won't reveal everything immediately.

<< Yes

>> That's it??

<< Yes, I'm fine <3

You add the heart, toothbrush hanging loosely from your mouth as you try to act normal.

>> Uh huh. How did it go?

You can picture her narrowed eyes when you read it. Your thumbs hover over the screen for a minute, thinking of what to say.

<< It was fine. Nothing worth mentioning.

You can see her typing, deleting, then typing again several times.

>> And what about Jack?

<< He's fine, too.

You pause before adding:

<< We're fine. Things are okay again.

>> What does that mean??

You take too long to answer her, but her following text shows that it doesn't really matter anyway—she knows you too well.

>> oh😏

When you reemerge, you've decided to keep this to yourself until the morning. No need to reveal to Jack that the plan has failed immediately. This can still be just yours tonight.

He sits against the headboard, prosthetic off, and duvet covering his lap. He looks nervous. "Are you gonna—?" He gestures vaguely toward the empty side of the bed before clearing his throat. "I mean..."

The uncertainty in his voice surprises you. You'd just spent the entire day together, and he's unsure if you want to share the bed. It's kinda cute.

"Yeah," you say softly. "If that's okay?"

His answer comes fast. "Of course it's okay." He pauses. "I just didn't know if—" he shrugs, trailing off.

You climb into bed, into the arm that was waiting for you. You both sink down until your head settles against his chest, listening to the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat.

You guess this is as good a moment as any other to finally have the conversation.

"I...uh—" you start. "I have the divorce papers printed on my desk."

Jack goes very still.

"I also still have that apartment viewing on Thursday." You stare at a loose thread on his shirt. "I know we've done this in a weird order. Getting married, moving in together, and then confessing."

You force out a laugh. "If you want to do this properly, we can."

The room goes quiet. Jack's arm tightens around you. "Properly?"

"You know." You shrug. "Dating. Separate places. Normal people stuff."

For a moment, he doesn't say anything; then, he says: "Do you want that?"

The question catches you off guard. You hesitate but answer truthfully. "No."

Jack lets out a breath. Just a small exhale that sounds suspiciously like relief. "Oh."

You lift your head. "Oh?"

Jack's mouth twitches. "I don't either." He rubs the back of his neck. "But I don't want you staying because you think you have to."

Your chest squeezes. "Jack."

"You've spent months trying to make decisions based on what you thought I wanted." His fingers trace idle patterns against your arm. "I'd rather know what you want."

You stare at him for a second. "I want to stay. I want to stay here."

His eyes soften immediately. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "We don't have to rush to figure things out. I like having you here. We can't figure the rest out later."

"Yeah?"

"Mm," he hums, his grip tightening around you. "I slept like shit when you weren't here. I'd prefer not to do that again."

You huff a breath. "Me too."

Even though the apartment had been nicer than the others you'd looked at, you really didn't want to move. You're happy he feels the same as you do. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do this in an order that doesn't make the most sense—as long as it makes sense to you, that's all that matters.

The room quiets again until Jack speaks again. "Can I ask you something?"

Your chest tightens, but you still nod.

"Why Lily?"

You knew he was going to ask eventually, but it doesn't make it any less embarrassing. You sigh into his chest. "That day—" you don't have to specify which, he already knows. "The way you ran inside looking terrified—"

You swallow. "And how you yelled at me after..." The memory of it still stings now, even after his countless apologies. "It was the difference in how you treated me and her."

"I'm sorry," he says again.

"I know."

"No." His voice is quiet. "I need you to understand what happened."

You lift your head enough to look at him.

"I got there seconds after—" His jaw tightens. "I barely managed to pull you away. I was already petrified when I heard the code being called. I could only imagine you—" he stops, breathing heavily. "...I can't explain what that felt like."

He continues, "When I realised it wasn't you, I was relieved. And then I felt guilty for being relieved because someone had still gotten hurt, but all I could think about was how happy I was that it wasn't you."

The confession lands heavily between you.

"I was scared out of my mind. Angry at the patient. Relieved that you weren't hurt. Guilty that I was relieved. All at once. And I took it out on you. I'm sorry."

You squeeze his hand.

His eyes find yours. "It was never about Lily."

You believe him. Now, you do. But back then? Back then, you'd been drowning in uncertainty.

You shrug helplessly, revealing more of how you felt. "After that, I started noticing every little thing. The way you talked to her. The way she made you laugh."

"You make me laugh," he says firmly.

You roll your eyes at him, a slight smile tugging on your lips. "I think I was trying to make peace with losing you. If I wasn't the one for you, then she could be. She could be better for you. Kinder than me. Easier than me."

Jack's face falls. "Sweetheart..."

Your mouth twitches sadly, looking down at his shirt again.

"You genuinely thought that?"

You nod.

His hand comes up to cradle your cheek, lifting your gaze back to his. "Do you have any idea how much time I spent wishing you'd look at me the way I looked at you?" His thumb brushes across your skin. "It was always you."

You close your eyes, leaning into his touch. You sigh. "We wasted so much time."

"Yeah."

Moments stolen by fear and assumptions and bad timing. You think about every dinner that could have been a date. Every movie night spent pretending not to notice how close he sat. Every almost-confession. Every chance that slipped away.

But now, everything's finally out in the open. The conversation drifts after that. You talk about everything. The first dinner. The first kiss. The kiss cam. The bar. Every misunderstanding. Every moment one of you had walked away convinced the other didn't feel the same.

Sometimes you laugh until your stomach hurts. Sometimes you bury your face in a pillow because neither of you can believe how oblivious you've been. Sometimes there's silence while you mourn all the things that could have been.

By the time the conversation finally slows, pale morning light is spilling through the curtains. Your eyes burn with exhaustion, but your chest feels lighter than it has in months.

You don't know what happens next.

You don't know what being married and newly confessed and hopelessly in love is supposed to look like. But for the first time, that uncertainty doesn't scare you. You'll figure it out together.

Beside you, Jack shifts closer beneath the blankets until there's barely any space left between you.

His lips brush your hair. "I love you."

You smile immediately. The confession still feels unreal. "I love you too."

The smile you feel against your forehead is warm and content. And wrapped in his arms, with the future still unwritten and endless possibilities stretching ahead of you, sleep finally finds you both.

The next evening finds you faster than you'd like.

As you step in through the door to the hospital, side by side, it reminds you of the first time you walked in carrying a secret on your shoulders—only this time, your shoulders are light, and your stomach is fluttering with happy jitters.

Somehow, you manage to make your way to the lockers without meeting anyone. With your bags dropped, you sneak a brief kiss against the door before you reenter the Pitt. Jack's hand brushes yours, your pinky catching his for a second, before you take a step apart.

You try to bite back the smile that threatens to break through. If you want this work, you need to stop acting like a lovestruck teenager. It's incredibly hard, though.

Robby stands at the hub, tablet in hand and a frown on his face.

"Rough day?" Jack says, clapping his back. He leans against the counter as you trail closer.

"Yeah... Good luck." Robby rubs his face, dropping the tablet on the counter. When his eyes open, they narrow in on the space between you and Jack—or rather the lack of it.

You shift to the side, trying to act nonchalant, but Robby's a hound. His eyes follow the movement immediately, nose twitching as he tries to sniff out everything you're trying to keep quiet.

"How was the conference?"

"Fine," Jack replies, glancing up at the board. He taps his fingers rhythmically on the counter.

"It was?" Robby raises an eyebrow, staring at him. Jack nods at him, shifting his gaze away quickly. Robby watches him for a moment, then turns to you.

"Mm," you nod, offering a tight smile. "The usual."

Robby stays silent, shifting his gaze from Jack to you, and then he grins widely. He chuckles, "If you so."

"Yeah," Jack nods with an awkward smile.

"Well, that's good." Robby keeps grinning as he pats the counter twice. "I'll see you later." He salutes you, still smiling, then walks off without any further questions.

You stare at his disappearing figure with a sense of dread. With a hand around Jack's wrist, you pull him into a quiet corner, hissing: "He knows."

Jack frowns. "How could he? We were acting normal."

You stare at him. "Normal? If you call 'you not looking at him at all' normal, then yes. Very normal."

"I did look at him."

"For two seconds. Normally, you don't look away at all," you counter.

Jack crosses his arms. "Well...You gave it away to Olivia."

"I didn't—I told her nothing."

"Exactly!" Jack points out. "That's not normal for you."

You stare at him with pinched eyebrows and then sigh. "...Yeah, okay. Maybe I did."

Jack sighs, too. "I guess I did, too." He shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips as he leans closer. "But to be fair, I think we forgot that they've spent months dealing with our sorry asses. Of course, they know. They knew we were in love before we did."

"—Abbot, there you are! Stop hiding in corners with your missus—trauma incoming," Lena interrupts with a wink. She doesn't even look back as she disappears down the hallway.

Jack squeezes your hand briefly on the way out, sending you a soft smile. "See you on the other side."

You watch him disappear around the corner before you head after him. The familiar knot of anxiety never comes. For weeks, every shift had felt like walking a tightrope. Every glance from Jack had meant something, and every action had been dissected. Now, the uncertainty is gone.

The Pitt is still loud. Still chaotic. The same as it always was. It's you who is different.

Across the department, Jack glances back. Just for a second, but long enough to catch your eye. Long enough to smile, and then he's gone into a trauma room.

You've been best friends with Casey Richards for the past couple of years as you both teach in the same elementary school. You teach preschool and she teaches 3rd grade. The only thing she doesn't know is that you've been dating her father Brett for the past 9 months. Brett knows you work with his daughter. However, he hasn't asked you to interfere with their relationship because he's still trying to make amends with Casey on his own accord.

The last thing in the world that you want to do is hurt your best friend, but her dad means everything to you and if she can't accept that then you don't know what you'll do.

Today your school has their annual field day, (day before last day of school), with the kids and parents and there's so many activities for the kiddos to do, but without a doubt climbing into police cars and firetrucks are their favorite. They love turning the sirens on and playing with the cops’ handcuffs or putting on the helmets and coats of the firefighters. You know Brett is going to be here today and the professionalism will probably leave your body the minute you see him.

As soon as you guys were given the all clear to head outside for field day, you directed the students and parents to their groups. Once everyone was split up, you got to walk around and watch the events and see whatever you'd like. You mustered up a bunch of strength to not go running for the fire crew, instead you walked around a little bit first. You got a thing of cheese fries and a sprite from a food truck that the school hired for the day.

You smiled and waved at your students as they did their activities like wheelbarrow races, three legged races, water balloon tosses, etc. You ate while you walked and unconsciously your feet took you over to the firetrucks. Brett was busy with a couple kiddos, so he didn't notice you at first.

Once he noticed you, he made Bode and Manny take over for him. They didn't mind, so Brett walked over to you. You gave him a bite of your fries and he kissed your cheek in thanks. You couldn't help but smile and lay your head on his shoulder as Brett wrapped his arm around your waist.

“Are you having a good time baby?”

“I'm having a great time. How about you Battalion Chief Richards?”

“Oh baby girl, you say the sweetest things to me. I'm much better now that you're here, but seeing the kids have so much fun makes me happy.”

“I'm in total agreement with you there. Once I'm done for the day, I'll go home to the cats, feed the babies their dinner, water the inside plants, and wait for you on the couch in my comfiest clothes.”

“We don't deserve you.”

“Yes you do. Besides who said I'm only in this relationship for you? I'll gladly take Princess, Binx, and Grayson over you anyday.”

“Ouch! Only with me for my cats, I see how you are.”

“Brett, love of my life, the most handsomest silver fox, fire daddy, I'm with you for many many reasons, but the cats are definitely one of them.”

“You're such a little shit gorgeous.”

“That's why you keep me around.”

“Absolutely.”

Brett lifted your chin up and gave you a sweet kiss. You melted into it and kissed him back earnestly. Then there was a screech and you two pulled apart. You both turned to look and you see Casey. Fuck! She's pissed too by the look of things. She storms over to you and Brett, but Brett still has his arm around your waist.

“Dad, what do you think you're doing?”

“Casey.”

“Don't start. You were supposed to be my best friend and you're all cozy with my dad.”

“Casey Isabella Richards, that's enough! For starters we're in public, at your place of work. For two, I've been in a loving relationship with my sunshine for almost a year. She is a phenomenal mom to the cats and she sees me for me even all the broken parts of me. I knew you two were friends, but I've never once had her fight my battles for me. You can be as mad as you want at me, but leave sunshine alone. She's the first person in a very long time that I've felt at home with. She's not going to replace your mother and she doesn't want to. Our relationship is ours. Now, I know I moved up here to be closer to you especially since your divorce, but you've been avoiding me. I understand why you're avoidant, and it hurts, but I've given you the space you need to grieve and live your life. You are not about to tell me how to live mine though. Do you understand?”

“Yeah dad, I got it loud and clear.”

Casey turned around to walk away and you feel immense guilt.

“Case.”

“We'll talk later. I just need to go.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yeah me too.”

With that final stinging retort, Casey walked away. You moved Brett's arm off your waist and backed up from him. He looked at you with a kicked puppy expression. It guts you, but you just need a minute.

“I'm not mad or anything at you handsome. I've just gotta get back to work and so do you. We'll talk when you get home later.”

“Okay and for what it's worth, I'm sorry Casey reacted that way.”

“I knew she would when she eventually found out and I don't blame her. Just give her space and she'll talk to us when she's ready. Now get back to work Brett, the kiddos want to wear your gear.”

“Alright but only because it's for the kids. I love you sunshine.”

“I love you too B.”

You lean up on your tiptoes and kiss his cheek. He moves his head and catches your lips on his. You poke your tongue out to semi-lick him like the cats do and then walk away from him chuckling. You can hear Brett whistle as you walk away and you just chuckle some more.

You walked back over to where the majority of the field day festivities were being held. You smiled and watched on as your preschool kiddos competed. You tried to stay out of the way of others and didn't go seek out Casey even though you really wanted to. You just made yourself one with the crowd until the end of the day.

As soon as all of the students and parents left, you walked back into the building to go lock up your room and grab your belongings. You were putting your laptop into your work bag when you heard a knock on your door.

“Come in.”

After stowing your laptop away and putting your owala in your bag, you turn around to see who came into your room. It was Casey. You sighed and did your best to put on a brave face because if you're about to get yelled at, you want to seem okay on the outside.

“Hey Case.”

“You got a minute?”

“Yeah of course. I just packed my bag up, so all I have left to do is lock the door on my way out. So what's up?”

“Why didn't you tell me that you are dating my dad?”

“He never wanted me to. I found out he was your dad a month into our relationship, but he wanted to tell you when the time was right.”

“Is the time ever right?”

“That's a fair point and one I've thought about too. But look Case, I love you. You're my best friend. However, your dad is the love of my life. He treats me like a queen and I've never had someone who cares about the little things.”

“You really love him, huh?”

“More than anything. Well that's not true, I love the cats more because they're my babies, but he's a very close second.”

“He's got 3 of them now?”

“Yeah, but if he had it his way, every stray he finds would be coming home. We have Grayson who's a Tabby, Binx who's a Bombay, and Princess who's a Maine Coon.”

“I know I shouldn't ask because he never wants to involve others in his problems but is my dad angry with me?”

“No Case, he never was and he probably never will be. He's just sad. He knows he's done a lot of damage to your relationship, but he moved to Edgewater in the hopes that you would be open to working on mending your father daughter bond. You're the light of his life Casey. He loves you. Did you know your dad went back to school after your mom died and got a degree in psychology?”

“I didn't know that.”

“While he threw himself headfirst into work, he also wanted to work on himself and be able to help other people. He's in a good mindset now. You should really talk to him though Casey. He misses you.”

“I will. I just need some time to process this. I appreciate you being transparent with me though. And I'm sorry I freaked out earlier.”

“I warned your dad ahead of time that if you found out in a way that wasn't one or both of us telling you that you were going to flip your lid. I was prepared for it. I'm just sorry you had to find out the way you did.”

“I am too. It was clear you two were just trying to have a minute together and I interrupted that. But I knew my dad was going to be here so I thought I'd go find him and talk to him.”

“Then I'm even more sorry because you deserve that time to have one on one with your dad. I'm not looking to be a thorn in your side but please don't make me choose between him or you.”

“I wouldn't do that to you. It's clear for anyone to see that you love each other and you're my best friend so I don't want to lose that either. Just don't go repeating some of the shit I tell you to my dad.”

“I promise! And the same can be said for you. Don't go repeating half the shit I say to your dad. Oh and I also promise to never bring up my sex life with you ever!”

“Yes fucking please. I don't want to hear about it or think about it. Just eww gross no. And I promise.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise.”

You two laughed and interlocked your pinkies.

“I love you Case.”

“Love you too soon to be step-mom.”

“And now you're done. Goodbye Casey, I'll see you tomorrow. I have cats at home to go love on.”

“I wanna meet my fur siblings someday.

“You're welcome anytime. Just call or text first.”

“Yuck. Stop. I don't wanna know.”

“I didn't mean because of that but also yeah because of that too. I meant so either I or your dad or both of us are home.”

“Okay cool. Just send me your address again and I'll store it away. And I'll text you or call dad before I come over since you're most likely to answer a text and the old man is most likely to answer a phone call.”

“You'd be surprised.”

“Nope nope nope. La la la. I hear nothing.”

“See ya tomorrow shithead.”

“I'll be here with smoothies.”

“You're my favorite Richards.”

“Can I tell dad that?”

“Not a chance.”

“Damn. And I thought you loved me. See ya later bitchlicious.”

Casey left your classroom and you let out a relieved sigh because you haven't fucked up the two most important relationships you have. You did a double check around the room so that you had everything you needed and everything else was cleaned up. Then you walked out of your room and locked the door behind you.

The car ride back to Brett's and your house was uneventful. However as soon as you opened up the front door, Princess came running towards you and barreled into your leg. You couldn't help but laugh and set your work bag down so that you could pick Princess up.

As soon as you picked Princess up, you heard meowing and looked down to see both Grayson and Binx looking up at you. You crouched down and picked the boys up with your other arm so that all three cats were snuggled in nicely. You're lucky they all like each other and that this won't cause any fighting.

You carry their royal highnesses to your bedroom and set them down on your bed. You change out of your work clothes into a pair of basketball shorts and Brett's CalFire shirt. The cats are still sitting on the bed. As soon as you go to leave your bedroom, they're following you into the kitchen.

You check that their water doesn't need to be refilled and then grab their food bowls and place them on the counter. You get out two cans of tuna and one can of chicken. Binx is a picky boy and chicken is his favorite. Princess and Grayson will eat whatever you feed them. After dishing up their food into their bowls (pink for Princess, gray for Grayson, and blue for Binx) you set them on the floor. The cats lined up to their bowls and started eating.

You pay the cats no mind since they're eating and go about watering all of Brett's inside plants. You definitely don't have the green thumb that he does, but you do your best to make sure you don't kill his plants. Once the plants are all watered, you place the watering jug back in its spot. Then you head into the living room and plop yourself down onto the couch.

You're able to just lay down and relax on the couch for about 20 minutes before your quiet is interrupted by Binx. He jumps onto the couch and goes to make himself at home on your stomach. You look down at him with a questioning look but decide that you don't really care and just start to pet him and make sure you give him his beloved ear scratches.

Princess and Grayson soon join you on the couch. Grayson goes and lays across your ankles so that the majority of his body is on your feet. Princess moves so she's up in the crook of your neck which makes you have to move your head into a different position so you both can be comfortable. You soon fall asleep because the gentle weight of your fur babies laying on you and the occasional soft purring made you even more relaxed.

It could've been 30 minutes, it could've been 3 hours, you honestly don't know how long you napped on the couch for. The only thing you know is that Brett's home now because he's sitting on the edge of the coffee table running his fingers through your hair. You open your eyes and can't help but smile at Brett.

“Hi pretty girl.”

“Hi handsome. Wait when'd you get home? What time is it?”

“Whoa whoa calm down honey. It's only 5:30. I got off a bit earlier today so I've only been home for like 10 minutes. I just changed into my comfy clothes and then came downstairs to find you cuddled up with our fur children.”

“Oh okay. I was only napping for like an hour then. I fed the children and watered the inside plants like I said I would. I definitely can't get up though so you'll have to move the babies if you want to join me.”

Brett carefully picked up Grayson and Binx and put them on their tree hut. He then picked up Princess and sat her down in her literal princess bed that's in the corner on the floor by the entertainment center before coming back over to the couch.

“Alright gorgeous. Move your cute butt so I can lay down too.”

“Ugh but that's so much work and I'm so comfy.”

“Sunshine…please for me.”

You turn onto your side and scoot so you're on the edge of the couch. Brett smiles and climbs onto the couch behind you. He gets himself situated on his side and wraps his arm around you. You turn around so you can face him. He smiles at you and you kiss his nose. Brett just laughs and kisses your cheek.

“So darling how'd the rest of your day go?”

“Actually quite well and there was something I needed to talk to you about.”

“I'm listening.”

“Casey stopped by my classroom as I was collecting my stuff to leave.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Nope. We had a pretty good talk and both apologized for how we handled the interaction earlier by the truck.”

“Well that's good. So what did you need to tell me?”

“The reason Casey was so mad was because she was coming to find you to talk to you. This was going to be the day she finally reached out to you and we threw a curveball at her. Don't worry though, she said to give her some time and she'd try again. Her and I are fine. She even joked and called me her soon to be step-mom and promised to bring me a smoothie in the morning like she usually does. And she wants to come over sometime in the near future to meet her fur siblings but she promised to call you or text me first.”

“Wow. Shit okay. It sounds like you had a very productive talk then. I'm glad you two are okay. I know my daughter means a lot to you. And I'd be more than happy to have her over for dinner soon and she can meet the cats and her and I can talk.”

“She's my best friend for a reason Brett. You two are way too similar though like it makes my head spin thinking about. Also she says she misses you and that she loves you. She was worried that you were angry with her.”

“I never could be. I miss her and love her too. I hate that you had to be our middle man because I didn't want to involve you in our family drama.”

“I know babe. It's okay though. Honestly I feel like even more a part of this family now.”

“Well then that's a good thing. I'm actually hung up on the fact that she called you her step-mom.”

“I shut that shit down so quick. I'd marry you in a heartbeat, but my nicknames and such from her will never include step-mom.”

“You'd marry me in a heartbeat huh?”

“Absolutely honey. Brett Richards you are the most loving, hardworking, honest, thoughtful, fun, and I could keep this list going man. My heart's been yours since our first date and I don't want it back. I'm happy with the little family we've got going on here. If you never wanted to get married again, I'd understand and it wouldn't deter me. I'm in this for the long haul with you.”

“Sunshine, I'd marry you in a heartbeat too. I didn't know if it was something you'd even be interested in, but now that I do, I'm absolutely putting a ring on it.”

“Which of your firehouse buddies told you about Beyoncé?”

“Hey now, I'm up with the times.”

“That sentence right there just proves that you're not, but it's okay. I still think you're cute as ever.”

Brett pouts and you can't help but kiss the pout right off his face. He smiles into the kiss and tries to draw you in closer with the arm he has wrapped around you.

“I love you sunshine.”

“I love you too B.”

“Can I be honest about something?”

“Please do.”

“I was nervous about what I'd be coming home to after this morning.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. I know now that I was just overthinking things and might've overreacted a little bit.”

“Just a little.”

“You're not supposed to agree with me darling.”

“Too bad. I do.”

Brett decided to start tickling your side and you couldn't get out of his grasp so you're just laughing and squirming trying to get away from his fingers.

“Okay okay. I give. I give.”

Brett stopped tickling you and kissed your forehead.

“So we're okay then?”

“More than okay. But we'll be even better if you order dinner.”

“What would you like darling?”

“I'm not too picky tonight. I just wanna spend all night cuddled up with you, so you pick.”

“Delivery for fajitas and margaritas from that place downtown with the homemade corn shells okay?”

“Fuuuuck yes. Marry me right now!”

“I'll grubhub it and we can just lay here until it gets here.”

“Is it hot in here or is it just me?”

“You're incorrigible.”

“And that's why you love me.”

“You got me there. It is indeed one of the many reasons why I love you.”

Brett laughs and you can't help but laugh too and then kiss him hard. He can order your dinner in a minute. You're gonna have desert first.

As they’d watch you raise a brow at Brendon before huffing a quiet, “Don’t be such an arrogant asshole”

Only to see you send him a wink before he’d leave. 

Watching how his eyes would soften at the sight of you. 

It had all begun to make sense now. As those in the Pitt would pick on the little things. 

The little facts that alluded to your connection with Brendon. To the point they couldn’t believe how they were so blind to your relationship.  

How you’d never speak badly of him when he wasn’t around. 

How he’d check in with you every now and again. 

How your exact coffee order would appear just when you needed it. 

By all accounts you were overjoyed and so completely fulfilled by your home life. 

It simply left your coworkers wondering…

How did you manage to make Park the Shark so soft hearted for you...and why?

Whilst going over some notes, sipping on your coffee, Santos had wandered up to you. Leaning upon the desk as she peered at you. 

Those passing, stop by as they hear the question leave her lips.

Curiosity getting the better of them. 

“So…why Shark?” 

You glanced up at her, arching your brow in question. A little taken aback to see Santos, Javadi, Mohan and Whitaker all looking at you. 

“Uh–”

“Yeah,” Javadi nods, before asking, “If he’s so considerate why do you fight with him during consults?” before muttering, “Not that we blame you for that…”

You let out a soft laugh. 

Ever since the revelation you had been fielding questions like these. 

Left and right. 

“Well–that’s just kind of the way our relationship started back in college…” you had said. A soft smile gracing your features as you get taken in by the memory of how you had first met. 

…

Brendon Park wasn’t smooth by any means. 

In fact, when you had first met him. 

He was all jagged edges and rough remarks. 

You had only known him through word of mouth, through mutual friends, using the term friend loosely. You had crossed over a few times through shared classes. 

But had never once had a conversation with him. 

Always trying to be the best. 

Always with something to prove. 

Keeping everyone at an arms length, at a distance. 

Due to his drive to be the best. He failed to remember to be nice. 

He saw no benefit to it unless it was being nice to the professors and demonstrators.

But even that didn’t save them from his steely gaze at times. 

Most conversations that revolved around him wouldn’t go any further than simply describing Park as cold blooded. 

Ruthless. 

Blunt. 

Earning him the name Shark. 

A name that would stick with him through the years. 

And in the midst of med school. You did not have the time or energy to put up with his bullshit. 

Never once thinking meeting him would lead you to the life you had now. 

If someone had told you years ago. 

That the man you had called an arrogant asshole upon your first meeting just before being forced to work together on a project. 

You would’ve brushed them off. 

You would’ve told them they had to be fucking lying. 

That there would be no way in hell you’d ever be with a guy like Brendon…

Disgruntled as you worked alongside him. How he’d be curt in his responses. Clipped. Brusque. 

But little by little you had chipped away at his steely facade. 

The way you’d make little jokes, for no one's benefit but your own. 

Little references slipping into the conversation, even if he didn’t understand them, you’d simply laugh at your own words. Amused as a smile would form on your features. 

How you were so unapologetically you. 

Fearless. 

Smart. 

Funny. 

And beautiful. 

I can't stop this feeling Deep inside of me Girl, you just don't realize What you do to me

Whatever it was. 

You had made his head spin. Had made him crave your company. 

You had him hooked. 

To the point that Brendon. 

Who usually had nerves of steel, were now as brittle as the bones he was aspiring to fix. 

Had asked you out once the project was completed. 

Not ready for his time with you to be over.

Hopeful. Watching you. Waiting for what was to come. 

…only for you to squander it, not cruelly. Not in any way menacing. 

Just a plain and simple turn down. 

Stating that. His cold nature was something you couldn’t imagine being with. 

And instead of pestering you. 

Instead of insisting it wouldn’t be an issue. 

He had taken it well. 

…

“You rejected Park?” Mohan asked. The others hang onto your every word. As more and more began to listen in. 

“Well, yeah–he was kind of a douche back then–” you shrugged. 

Santos scoffed, sharing a look with Whitaker before meeting your eye once more, “Back then?” 

“Trust me, the way Brendon is now is nothing compared to the way he used to be,” You huff out a small laugh. 

Knowing full well he only kept up the clipped facade when coming down, a running gag that had circulated amongst those from the surgical department. 

Simply enjoying poking a little fun at those in the ED. 

Knowing full well that within the OR, Brendon was professional as can be. Was thoughtful and never once demeaning with his immediate colleagues. 

“Anyway–he took what I said seriously…” you continued your story. 

…

Had instead taken your words to heart. 

Had taken what you said. 

And channeled that into being better. Into recognising his own patterns. Into noticing how his brash behaviour was hurting his own life. Was stalling him from achieving. 

In trying to be the best, he failed to be good. 

This wasn’t to say he was instantly nicer. Instantly the friendly easy going guy. He was simply trying to be better. 

Life had carried on. Assessments came and went. Coffees guzzled to try and pull through those all nighters. Hours poured over studying. 

When one evening, while Brendon had been walking home after picking up a pizza, ready to get stuck into studying once more. 

He had stopped short. 

Catching a glimpse of you seated beneath the moonlight. Your face turned up to the sky, eyes shut as you breathed in the crisp cool night air. 

Usually Brendon wouldn’t fuss. 

Wouldn’t think anything of it. Would simply keep walking, mind his own business…

But for some reason. 

As though pulled by the magnetism of you. 

His feet moved. Until stopping before you. 

“Do you mind if I sit?” his voice deep, rounded off with a slight hesitance. 

Blinking as you met his eye, head tilted in question. 

And for whatever reason.

One Brendon wasn’t willing to question. 

You nodded wordlessly, shuffling over slightly to let him sit next to you. 

Any sense of arrogance had long since melted from his demeanour. Something you had noticed over the weeks. 

How he had tried to be better around his peers. Actively learning instead of ridiculing – unless he was toe-to-toe with an absolute idiot. 

You had noticed it all. 

And maybe that was why, as he opened the box of pizza, asking so gently “Do you want some?” Not expecting anything in return. 

Maybe that was why you hadn’t stormed away. 

Why you had instead stayed seated beside him. 

Talking mindlessly. 

About anything and everything that crossed your minds. 

Just letting the hours pass by in your company. 

A friendship had begun. 

Whilst you wagged a finger in his face, half heartedly joking, “Now don’t go catching feelings for me” 

…Not for one moment thinking that it would be you who would be catching feelings for him…

Soon those jokes you used to make for your own amusements now managed to make a laugh rumble from within his chest. 

With evenings spent studying together, soon shifting to binge nights as you made him sit through your favourite films, even if they were random animated children's films Brendon wouldn't have as his first pick.

Like why was there a movie about a fish pretending he kills sharks? and what is with the Mafia shark mob?...

You had made him watch through your treasured box sets. And he watched happily beside you.

Brendon might not have understood it all. But he enjoyed it nonetheless.

Soon he began to understand the references you made. 

Beginning to make his own. 

Just to feel a warmth bloom in his chest from the sight of your smile. 

In shared classes you’d both begun to save a seat for the other. 

During those early morning lectures he would be in the prime spot, with your exact coffee order waiting for you. 

A gesture he brushed off as the least he could do. 

How the gentle brush of his fingers against yours whilst he passed the coffee to you would send sparks through you. 

Yes. 

It was true. 

That the very person you had once deemed as an arrogant asshole upon your first meeting. Was now etching himself into your heart.  

Growing closer and closer with you, revealing the most intimate details of his life. Why he felt like he had so much to prove. Why he felt the need to keep everyone at arm’s length. 

He let down his guard. 

Letting you see a side to him that was vulnerable and open.

It was a true privilege.

Being able to be his safe space. 

With his step into being vulnerable, he had made you feel comfortable to let down your walls. Had made you feel supported. And never judged. 

…

“So did he ask you out again?” Javadi interrupted. 

Whilst Santos groaned, “Let her talk–”

You chuckled slightly, amused by their deep intrigue. 

“Neither of us really knew where to go from there–I had already clearly stated that I wasn’t interested. So he didn’t want to ask me in case it came off as pressuring, and I can be very stubborn. Especially back then. So we were at a bit of a stand off.”

“So then what happened?” Whitaker probed. Fully enthralled by your story. 

“It had all changed when we went to this party…” 

…

You can’t say that a college party was something you loved going to. 

In houses too small, with far too many people. 

Cheap perfume in the air, swirled into the scent of beer and the heat from moving bodies. 

All conversation drowned beneath the loud beating music. 

Your senses flooded by the sheer overwhelming amount of things happening around you. 

It was safe to say you preferred a nice night in, curled up onto the couch with whatever show you were fixated on at the time playing on tv. 

But your friends had insisted you come. 

And in turn you had insisted on dragging Brendon to the party. 

Leading to you, nursing a red cup filled with whatever beer Brendon had managed to snag for you. Just trying not to throw it up with each sip. 

Friends now lost in the crowd. 

Lights dim as brightly coloured flashes strobe around the room. 

You stand beside him, making little jokes as you people watch those around you. 

“Didn’t realise Scotty was such a fan of Irish river dancing,” he joked, voice low, eyes scanning the crowd to point out things he thought you’d find funny. 

The alcohol makes your laughs louder, makes your smile wider. 

And makes your eyes wander. 

Tracing the features of Brendon’s face. 

Was he always this handsome…

Noticing the sharpness of his jaw. 

The clarity of his blue eyes. 

The fluffiness of his hair atop his head. 

…so fluffy you just wanted to reach out and card your fingers through those brown locks–

“Heyyy, Y/N” 

Your attention was snapped away from admiring Brendon. 

“You’re-you’re looking good tonight”

Adam, you think his name was–you couldn’t quite remember. Maybe it was Alan? Whatever, this guy you think you shared a physiology class with had sauntered up to you. Pretty sure that his name was Adam. 

His eyes scan you from head to toe. With a small lick of his lips. Wolfish smile upon his lips.

His intentions, well and truly out there plain to see. 

Brendon had tensed up beside you. 

Whilst you looked at the guy expectantly. Unamused, brows settling into knitted confusion, “Can I help you?” 

Tone so uninterested. 

You might as well have said, fuck off. 

“Why’re you hanging out with this asshole?” he had jabbed a finger to Brendon’s chest, “I can show you a better time–might even make your pretty face smile”

He had grinned so widely, words slurring at the edges. With a confidence he had no right to possess. 

Brendon had raised a brow. 

It took everything within him to not simply slap the guy’s hand away. To not rip into him and bite back. 

But he clenched his fist, he buried his discontent. 

Eyes flickering down to you. 

Not once anticipating your next move. 

Shoving your cup into Brendon’s hand, you stalked up to the guy, jabbing a finger to his chest. Your words punctuated with each jab. 

“Watch what you say you shithead,” you said sharply.

As the guy practically growled beneath your comments. 

…

“You didn’t!?” Santos said in utter shock. 

Whilst you nod with slight smug satisfaction, “Oh yes I did” 

“He sounds like an asshole,” she added. 

“He was,” you agreed, before saying, “Now where was I?...”

“The guy was totally about to do something he’d regret,” Dana offered, passing by, without looking up from what she was doing. 

Amused by your story, even if it wasn’t the first time he had heard it, it never failed to make her grin. 

Snapping your fingers, “That’s right, he called me a–”

…

“Fucking bitch–I’m just saying you could do better than Shark–all he fucking does is brood–”

You shove him back, anger bubbling through you, unable to keep a lid on it as the cheap beer weakens your inhibitions. 

“He’s a lot fucking nicer than you!” You retaliated. 

And just as you’re about ready to throw hands with the guy, Brendon’s strong arms curl around you, pulling you away, while others hold back the other guy. 

You struggle against his grasp, shouting over your shoulder back to the asshole. 

More than ready to finish the fight that had begun to brew. 

Senses coming to a shock as the muggy evening air envelopes you. The sense that summer was beginning to set in. The way Brendon’s arms hold you so completely. 

So assuringly. 

Calming your senses. The rushing of anger coursing through your blood now fading, morphing into something different. 

Something you had worked so hard to ignore over the past few weeks.  

When you hold me In your arms so tight You let me know Everything's alright

Brendon’s hands shift, letting you go slightly only to clasp your shoulders, ducking slightly to meet your eyes. 

“Okay, calm down spitfire,” he said soothingly, not condescendingly, just steady. Before asking, “You okay?” 

Eyes softening as he gazes at you. Concern filtering into his features. 

Nerves set on fire. Fizzling beneath your skin. 

Whether that was from the adrenaline from being about 2 seconds from punching the other guy. 

From the alcohol in your system. 

Or from the way that with one look from Brendon had made you feel so lightheaded and dizzy. 

For any number of reasons you had leaned in. Eyes fluttering shut as your lips collided with his. Noses bumping slightly. 

His eyes widening for just a fraction. 

You had caught him off guard. 

Completely stunned by your action. 

And before you could pull away, his hands drifted to cup your cheek, whilst the other traced around to the small of your back, pulling you closer to him. His eyes closing as he soaks in the feel of you. 

The scent of him invading your senses, subtle and yet so addicting. 

The slight saltiness of his lips. 

Your hands shifting to reach around his neck, threading through the hairs on the nape of his neck. Just as soft as you had imagined.

Finally acting on the impulse you had pushed aside. 

Finally acting on the desire to kiss him. To cross that line between friendship and the something more you were craving from him.   

I'm hooked on a feeling I'm high on believing That you're in love with me

Pulling away breathless. 

Barely parted, mere inches from each other’s face, your eyes peered into his. 

“I think I’ll take up the offer on a date if it still stands?” you asked cheekily, a glint in your eye. 

While a smile curled at his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the soft skin of your cheeks, huskily mumbling with such revere, “The offer never left” 

…

“...And that was how Brendon and I got together,” you said with satisfaction. 

“I did not expect that,” Javadi stated, eyes wide. 

All of their mouths agape. 

Stunned. 

Mohan furrowed her brow, “You mean to tell me that you rejected him only to become friends with him and then practically get into a fist fight over him?”

“Uh yeah–but I like the way I tell the story just a bit better,” you remarked with a smile. 

Langdon comments, “I would never have imagined it was you with the short temper”

Throwing your hands up in slight defense, “Hey, you know. Nobody’s perfect. And if I can add that that guy definitely had it coming” 

Before they can dig any further you’re all pulled away as Robby stops to stand by you, sending everyone a raised brow, a silent question as to what they were all doing. 

Causing them to disperse immediately beneath his gaze. 

Before he turns his eyes to you. 

“What did you do to make practically the entire ER stop?” he asked, a slight twitch at the corners of his lips. 

Shrugging, with a grin you replied, “Just told them how I met Brendon.”

He clicks his tongue in understanding, “Ah yes. How you called him an asshole upon first meeting?”

Nodding you tidied up the notes, averting your gaze. 

“And did you mention why you called him an asshole?” he asked pointedly. 

Feigning ignorance your replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“I distinctly remember Park telling me that you had called him an arrogant asshole because you had rounded the corner only to bump into him spilling coffee all over yourself” 

You bit the inside of your cheek. 

“And that you practically seethed at him…even if it wasn’t really his fault”

Not once meeting his eyes. 

“Did you happen to say that?” 

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” you retorted. 

“Right,” he nodded in false agreement. 

Whilst you claimed, finally looking up at him, “If you’d have been there you would know that it was his fault”

He huffed out a laugh with a shake of his head, “And you called him the asshole”

You sighed, muttering lowly, “Fucking liar”

Before shooting him a glare, “Don’t even think about telling the others–if you do, then you’re not invited to the next barbecue we host,” you threatened. 

“Oh, I’m so scared,” he mocks lightly. 

“Fine, your loss,” you said innocently, “I’ll just have to tell the kids that Uncle Robby just didn’t want to see them.”

“You wouldn’t”

“Oh yes I fucking would,” you smirked. Full well knowing that you had won. 

“This ain’t over,” he says pointedly before walking away. 

With a satisfied grin, “I think it is” 

Dana stops to stand by you with a knowing look, “You wouldn’t do that”

Laughing lightly, you whisper to her, “Yeah, I wouldn’t. But Robby doesn’t know that”

She shakes her head with a laugh, before patting your shoulder. 

Smiling softly, you went back to work. Comforted by the memory of how you met your now husband. 

It may have been a rough start. 

But with time it had completely softened and settled into a peaceful comfort. 

Like a sharp piece of glass, with pointy edges and rough surfaces, dropped in the midst of the ocean, as the waves rolled over it, as time passed, it had polished over time. 

Before becoming a piece of sea glass so smooth it would make anyone look at it in awe of its glinting beauty. 

That was the way yours and Brendon’s relationship was. 

You had made it through life’s toughest problems. And had come out stronger together. 

As Brendon stops by at the end of your shift, his hand instantly grasps at your bag shedding its weight from your shoulders, while his other hand moves to hold yours, lifting it to his lips with a gentle kiss. 

Your heart melted once more by his thoughtfulness. 

His consideration and kindness. 

All reserved for you. 

And the three little sweethearts waiting for you both at home. 

Wrapped up in a mass of hugs and happy hellos, whilst Brendon lifts both Frankie and Finn, bright giggles ringing out in the house. 

While you wrap up Lenny in your arms. 

How serious Brendon took the bedtime routine. Making sure each of your kids were doted over and given his full attention. 

That they knew how loved they were. 

Reading them a bed time story before tucking them into bed, as you both press a goodnight kiss to their foreheads. Murmuring softly as you wish them pleasant dreams. 

And as the quiet of the night would embrace you both, Brendon would sigh, arms curling around you pressing sweet kisses to your face. Sighing as he breathed you in. 

Having missed you. 

Even if you had only been apart for a day. 

He always longed to have you close, to only be within arm’s reach of you, just so that he could show you just how much he loved you.

Because his love for you was endless. As deep as the sea. 

And so unbelievably grateful that you had given him a second chance all those years ago.

Now in a home so filled with love, laughter and joy. 

Neither of you could fathom that it had all begun by you calling him an arrogant asshole…

An arrogant asshole who had become the love of your life.

It was funny the way things worked out. 

And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

…

Well, not exactly. 

You might’ve enjoyed landing at least one hit on Adam. 

But everything else. 

You wouldn’t change a single thing.

Park the Shark, well and truly had your heart.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. It was super fun exploring more for these two!! (I am now inspired to possibly write a third part, going a little more into Brendon being a good dad to his trio of kids - definitely picturing playing tea party vibes) I just loved the idea of it sort of being enemies to friends to lovers just ughhh!! (Dana and Robby have totally heard this story before and they find it amusing each and every time) loved writing this one so I hope you enjoyed! (May or may not have had hooked on a feeling stuck in my brain whilst writing🫠) Let me know what you think! ✨ Comments, Reblogs and Likes are welcomed and appreciated 💕 Feel free to check out my Pitt Masterlist here!

The kitchen is spotless, not a spare drop of anything nor crumb upon the stainless-steel counters, the house that you saved up for, that your dad helped you buy. The one that you’ve turned into a home, slowly but surely, building from heartache and childbirth. The one you’ve turned into a home through sheer grit and determination, refusing to back down. 

            Even when it all feels impossible. 

            “You have a problem, kid,” you hear a voice call and you turn from your place at the sink to take in your father, the way he’s seated at the kitchen table, his prosthetic off and leaning against the table, his granddaughter—your daughter—just beside him. 

            “A problem you created, Dad,” you counter, resting your hip against the stainless-steel, feeling the bite of it into the soft flesh of your hip. 

            “I did not create this problem,” he replies while your daughter looks up, large chestnut-coloured eyes darting between you and your dad before she rolls her eyes, sighs and slumps in her seat, ever the dramatic four-year-old. 

            “You literally created me and you trained me, so yes, you did create my problem,” you say and he can’t help but laugh, leaning back in his seat, arms going behind his head as his one leg kicks out before him, foot touching the plastic mold of his prosthetic. 

            “Fine,” he says, “go all Freudian on me and blame it on the father.” You roll your eyes, taking the dish towel from off the counter, carefully laying it over the rack where it will dry before being changed out after the supper dishes to prevent any surface microbe transference. 

            “If I were going Freudian,” you say as your daughter hops down off her chair, small hands reaching for her empty plate, only crumbs of the Toaster Strudel remaining, “I would be blaming my mother not my father.”

            “I seem to recall you being a neurosurgeon not a psychologist,” he counters as your daughter walks to you, her Barbie doll plate held in both hands, steps measured and even, eyes trained on the ground. She likes to watch her feet move. 

            “Still studied the brain and had to take psych courses in undergrad, Dad,” you say, stepping forwards to your daughter, crouching down before her as she pauses, her one eyebrow arching in a way that is so you, but the twist of her mouth so like…the sperm donor. “You full?”

            “Yes,” she says, her tone measured and even and steady. “But I want ‘nother one, anyway.” Her eyes seem to open even wider as she looks at you and you can’t help but smile, the kind that you didn’t know existed before her, before you held her in your arms after seven hours of labour, sweaty and exhausted but happy. So happy. 

            “I can make you another one, but then you have to promise to get ready fast for the daycare. I have an early surgery today, remember?” She nods, but it’s the sassy one she has, already gaining her own unique personality formed of the unfortunate traits of both you and your friends. 

            “Can’t Papa take me? He works late,” she says and you sigh once, both eyebrows rising in that look you had to create just for her, the one that says I see you, I know your tricks, I created those tricks and you.

            “Papa works nights, you little sneak,” you counter, taking her plate from her hands and ruffling the dark curls of hair on her head. “You know he can’t take you. He has to sleep and he makes sure that nothing but a…” you bite your tongue, pursing your lips and holding back the swear, a small little hum escaping in place which makes your father laugh, “earthquake,” you practically spit the word out, “if that, could wake him. So, no. Go get ready, missy.”

            “What about my extra strudel?” she asks you, her eyes still wide, just like the man gave her half his DNA, the way he would be whenever he wanted something, coffee or a kiss or for you to say I love you. 

            “You tried to wheedle out of an answer,” you tell her, one eyebrow arching higher than the other, the look you’ve perfected, the one you remember your mother having, the kind that says you really thought I’d forget?

            “But…I can get ready fast,” she says and you shake your head, lips pursing together to suppress a laugh as she stomps her foot and turns, heading to her room, away from you. 

            “Love you too, sweetheart!” you call out after her, just to watch her wave one hand behind her, sassy and unforgiving. “Where does she get this attitude from, Dad?” you ask him, turning, eyebrows raised in a questioning look as he merely smiles at you, the one he’s always had that is just patient and calm. Steady as he waits for you to figure out the puzzle, the problem, the answer. 

            “You really want me to answer that?” he asks, reaching for his leg and screwing it on, his eyebrows raised high in a mimic of your expression. 

            “No,” you sigh, turning and placing the Barbie plate in the sink, turning back to your father, right index finger pointing at him as he walks towards you. “Dishes are yours. I gotta get ready.”

            “So…I do them my way?” he asks you and you narrow your eyes at him, an acidic taste rising in your mouth, the idea of the dishes not properly being washed and sanitized, air-dried for the proper amount of time before only the occasional drips being patted away with the towel if need be. 

            “The instructions are on the chalkboard,” you say, your voice strained, drawn tight like a high-wire, vibrations in your throat feeling like gravel yet sounding like the twang of a too-tight string. 

            “I know, kiddo,” he says, his hand coming to rest on your shoulder, grip warm and comforting but not enough. Never enough. Only one person was enough but you got to be too much. Just too much and he couldn’t handle it, didn’t want to hear from you. Turned you away. “I’ll do them how you need them done…but you need someone who mellows you, you know. Someone who…” he trails off and you sigh, trying to release your too tight muscles from their imprisonment.

            “Can help me not be scared?” you ask, your voice just a little more relaxed, just a little more calm, but still far too high strung. 

            “Yeah,” your dad whispers, his voice sad as he looks down, gaze drifting to the ground, where your feet are carefully arranged to not rest on any lines between the tiles. “It’ll be good for Lena.”

            “Dad,” you whisper, your tone verging on a warning and a plea, the kind that comes out when emotions run high, intermingling and rearranging, orders becoming begs because emotion bleeds through, tone changing and shifting but not completely evolving. The toeing of the line. 

            “He hasn’t seen anyone else in five years,” he says, hazel eyes fixing on you with the intensity he’s had since you were a child, the gaze that was there making sure you never gave up on pulling the corners of your bed tight, of being organized and clean. The gaze that made sure you never gave up on the exercises, that made sure you never gave up on yourself.

            That, for the last five years, has been trying to make sure you don’t give up on him, John Shen. 

            The man you love, the man you were too much for. 

            “It’s like a hospital in here,” John says, voice just slightly slurred from his time at the bar, knocking back shots with Parker—only three though, he says. Just within his tolerance. 

            “It’s my house, you asshole,” you snap and he sighs, his body slumping into your body, throwing you off-balance for a moment, enough that you can feel that clench of your heart as the ground seems to be getting closer, his weight so much heavier, but then you right yourself, feet firmly planted, knees slightly bent. 

            Just like your dad taught you. 

            “Didn’t mean to upset you,” he murmurs, his words rumbling in his chest, into you, radiating down your back, echoing in your spine, something you can feel in every nerve, every vertebrae. “Never mean to.”

            “John,” you whisper, wishing for all the world that he was sober, so that you could tell him how you feel and have him remember. Have him know. Not that it matters. You know him, his laid-back nature, his steadiness. And you know you: the way you fear the things you can’t control, the amount of therapy you have to have, the history you have. The things you need to do just to fucking live. 

            You’re too much. Like you’ve been told your whole life.

            “’m in love with you, you know,” he whispers, the words a kind of whispered yell, loud in your ear, yet quiet in your house, face scrunching in a wince at the volume, the loudness right by your ear. 

            “John,” you say again, your tone more exasperated, less hopeful and moony and stupid. 

            “No, I am,” he insists, pulling away from you just slightly, his body seemingly stronger as he stands on his own two feet, arm still around your waist, warmth radiating from his touch, soothing you and calming you in a way that nothing has before. 

            “You’re drunk.” Your tone is flat, deadpan and would be cruel if he was sober, but he’s not and he needs to remember that because you cannot deal with a John Shen that looks at you in the morning with regret and guilt and apology. 

            You don’t want him to look at you like everyone who’s ever broken your heart before. 

            “Not drunk,” he says, his trademark smile spreading across his face as he looks at you, eyebrows flicking up and then down and up again. “I was pretending because Parker said it would be the only way to get you to believe me.”

            “You. Fucking. Bastard,” you reply, voice calm, nostrils flared and lips pursing as your arms cross not out of anger but protection. As if they can protect your heart from the hope—because hope is the thing that always kills you. Hope is the thing that makes you think they love when they’ve barely tolerated you, mistaking love for lust—something supposed to last for something so easily satiated. 

            “How am I a bastard if I only want you to believe me?” he asks and you pause, watching as he steps closer, looking unfairly good out of his scrubs, dressed in a slim-fitting button-up and blue jeans, washed out at the knees to a light contrast to the navy of the rest. He looks real in a way he never does, permanent like a person in your life and not a figure in the hospital. 

            “Because one can’t believe what started out in a lie,” you reply, your lips pressing into a thin line as the tears well, the urge to just do something overwhelming you as you turn from him, arms digging into your body so hard you can feel your ribs.

            “I’m in love with you,” he yells out as your feet hit the marker to the kitchen, the strip of golden divider you bought to separate the rooms, to be that sign you’re crossing into another. “Sober. And drunk. And hungover. In all states, really.” You swallow hard around the growing lump in your throat and turn to him, nostrils flaring as you try to hold back the tears. Trying and failing as they spill from your ears, dripping down your cheeks in a slow but steady way that to you feels like a torrid of rain. Like you’re caught in a storm of your own emotions. 

            “Don’t—don’t say things…you’ll regret,” you whisper, your throat tightening at every word as you if you don’t want to let them out, don’t want to give them air, reality. 

            “I would never regret saying that,” he says, stepping towards you with slow, calm steps, his hands coming to rest on your biceps when he reaches you, touch warm and grounding as he draws you into his chest, letting you cry silently into his chest, one hand moving to your back, rubbing soothing circles until your body stops shaking and the tears slow. 

            “Do you…” you swallow as you pull back from him, just enough to look into his eyes, those deep brown eyes that depending on the light seem to shift from onyx to chestnut, the eyes that are honest. “Do you mean that?” Your voice is barely above a whisper but he hears you. 

            It feels like he’ll always hear you.

            “Sorry,” you mutter, pulling away from him, your right hand going to your left arm, digging into the flesh of the upper part as you bite your lip just enough to have that shock of pain run through, enough to ground you. “Being needy. Said I wouldn’t do that anymore.”

            “You’re not,” he says and those two words more than anything make you want to cry because every relationship without fail has always led to the other person calling you needy, calling you too much. 

            And here he is offering you those two words like they’re nothing when really they’re everything. 

            "Do you mean it? All of it?”

            “Yeah.” And then he’s there, in front of you, his hands cupping your cheeks as he looks deep into your arms, eyebrows wiggling just once, just enough to lighten the mood, a laugh pulled from your throat, one that makes the corner of his mouth curve up in his trademark half-smile. “Can I kiss you?”

            “Yeah,” you tell him and then he’s there, pulling you so gently towards him, his lips just brushing against yours in a sweet and soft touch before he deepens the kiss, his grip just a little tighter, thumbs on your cheekbones, fingers stretching out and around your ears, touch setting you on fire. In a good kind of way. 

            He tastes like coffee and chocolate and everything sweet. He tastes like promises and hope and everything that has been your downfall before yet never once felt like this. 

            It’s never been him. 

            “Can we do that again?” he asks you when he pulls away and in response, you pull him to you, pressing another kiss, another kiss that carries those sweet notes of the first with just a hint of fire. 

            Only the kind that doesn’t burn you.

            Rather delights you.

            “I can’t, Dad,” you whisper, pulling away and out from underneath his grip, walking around him, away from him and the unrelenting presence of his support and the ghost of the man who made sure you didn’t need it. “He didn’t want to see me. He didn’t want to talk to me. I wanted to tell him I was pregnant and he refused to see me. I’m not going to someone who refuses to talk to his ex at all when she says it’s an emergency. Two days, Dad! We’d been broken up two days!”

            “Mommy?” you hear the soft and worried voice of your daughter and you turn to see her, standing there on the landing, wearing a dinosaur t-shirt and galaxy patterned pants, her eyes wide and stuffed bunny clutched in her hand by one worn purple ear. “Mommy, you okay?”

            “Fine, sweetie,” you whisper, your tone changing, shifting, altering. For her. Always for her, the child whom you love, the child whom you carried on your own, alone because the man you loved refused to see you. 

            To even listen to a message. 

            “Lena!” you cry out, running into the ED, panic making your breaths short, catching in your throat as you miscalculate your stop, slamming into the nurse’s station with your hip. 

            “What’s up, hun?” she asks, eyebrows knitting together in confusion, eyes colouring over with worry as she takes in your bent stance, your short breaths, the squinting of your eyes and the tear tracks embedded on your cheeks from the salt sting. “Your dad’s in a trauma right now, but I can take a message.”

            “I need to see John. It’s urgent. Like…urgent!” you tell her and she nods once, stepping back from the desk, her hand coming to rest on your forearm in a brief pat, a touch of comfort. 

            “I’ll go get him, hun,” she says and then she’s gone, disappearing around the station while you shift, pressing your head against its surface, trying to blot out the world for a bit, the sight of the pregnancy tests still seared in your mind, the weight of three of them heavy in your bag, wrapped in their packaging that they came in originally. 

            You want to apologize to John, to take back what you said during that fight, hear him do the same, but you’re afraid. You’re afraid that it won’t matter, that these tests won’t matter and that he won’t care. That he’ll stay gone. 

            “Sweetheart,” you hear Lena call and you lift your head, vision blurry, tears welling all over again. “He said he doesn’t want to see you…Ever.”

            “Can you give him a message?” you ask, biting your lip, worrying it between your teeth as she sighs, face twisting in sympathy before nodding. 

            “I can try. What do you want to tell him?” For a minute you consider just leaving, but you can’t. He needs to know. Deserves to know. 

            “I’m pregnant,” you whisper, watching as Lena’s face twists in shock and anger and worry and sympathy. Still that damn sympathy. But then she disappears again, leaving to find him while you wait, heart in your throat, hoping that he’ll come back around with Lena, face not painted in anger, but something neutral. 

            Something that leads to rebuilding. 

            But then you hear him and Lena. Yelling. 

            “I don’t fucking want to hear her message!” you hear him yell, voice loud and angry, twisted in a way that it rarely ever is. 

            “Fine!” you hear Lena reply. “But don’t blame me when this bites you in the ass, John!”

            You don’t wait around to see more of Lena’s sympathy. You just turn around and leave. 

            Because you should have expected as much. 

            You’ve always been too much.

            “John!” Your voice sounds tinny out of his phone speakers, so not like the real version of you although it’s probably changed now, these five years past. He wonders what you sound like now, what you act like, if your worries have acted up. 

            He wonders how you like being a neurosurgeon attending. He wonders what your hobbies are and how you’re doing. He wonders if you’ve found someone new. 

            That thought hurts him as he stands here, at his kitchen counter, a mug of chamomile before him, the brand that you always bought, insisted was stocked at his house for when he had trouble sleeping. It works; that’s the only reason he’s kept buying it. Or so he tells himself. 

            “What?” he hears himself say on the video, one of the first year of the two of you dating, that sweet first year where everything seemed perfect. Before insecurities ate away what was there. 

            “Put the phone down and join the real world.” You always were blunt like that. He remembers that. 

            While, he remembers everything because he loved you. Loves you. He hasn’t stopped but he can’t deny that he’s not hurt, that you didn’t break his heart right open. He knows he broke yours first and it’s who should yell at him not him who should yell at you yet that’s all he wants to do. 

            He wants to yell at you for leaving even when he knows that he was the one who pushed you away. He wants to apologize but he doesn’t know how. 

            He sighs and swipes up, closing his photos app and setting his phone face down on the counter, walking around his island to dump the chamomile down the train, watching as the dregs swirl around the sink, hanging onto the metal until he turns on the tap, splashing them, overpowering them and forcing them down the drain. 

            He wishes he could do that with all the pain that still remains, but he can’t. He can only move forward. 

            But so far he seems to be failing at that.

            “FUCK OFF, JOHN!” you scream, turning away from him, your body heaving with sobs as you fold in on yourself and he wishes he could take it back, but he can’t. He can’t take back the fact that he said you were too much, that your routines were crazy. He can’t take it back no matter how much he wishes he could, no matter how much the pain on your face hurts him. 

            “I’m sorry!” he yells and watches as you turn around, your eyes growing cold even as the tears still slip from your eyes, trailing down your cheeks, catching the light in a way both beautiful and painful. 

            “If I’m too much,” you whisper, “then I’m done. We’re done.”

            “YOU DON’T GET TO DECIDE THAT!” It’s his turn to yell above a shout, more of a bellow, a scream. Breaking up should be a choice, not something ended this quickly. This horribly. 

            “You lost that conversation when you called me too much, you asshole! I told you not to say things you didn’t mean! And you didn’t mean it when you said I could never be too much. So, fuck off!”

            “You taking off yet?” you hear Brendon call out and you turn, looking over your shoulder at the Shark of PTMC, your best friend. 

            “I thought only smart people were allowed on this floor,” you reply and he arches one brow, leaning his heavy frame against the doorway to your office, arms crossed, bulging against his purple scrubs. The man orders them a size too small to ensure that people notice he’s built. You take every opportunity to remind him that’s stupid. 

            “Ha-ha, Abbot,” he replies, ankle crossing over ankle as he waits, ocean blue eyes fixed on you as you lean back in your chair, nodding once, blue scrubs scratchy against your skin. 

            “Yeah, I have to pick Lena up from the daycare and then stop by the Pitt for a consult. Linda was supposed to be on the calls for today but she pushed this one onto me,” you answer, shutting down your computer with a click of your mouse before standing and pushing your shoulders together, arching your back, your spine cracking as you do so. 

            “You have to deal with the real idiots,” he mutters as you brush past him out the door. You turn back shove him with one hand, shaking your head in faux-disappointment at him. 

            “My dad is one of those doctors, you dick,” you reply and he shrugs, eyebrows rising as he does so. 

            “Tell me I’m wrong,” he says and you sigh, one eyebrow arching as you cross your arms and offer a small smile at him. 

            “You’re wrong.”

            “Well, fuck,” he says and the two of you fall silent as you make your way to the elevators, the two of you stepping onto the one in the fray of people coming and going, a veritable sea. “You know it’s hand-off time, right?”

            “Guess I’ll have to deal.”

            “Hey,” John says, his voice low and soothing as he pulls you against him, body warm and solid against yours, his deep breaths pulling yours into a mirror, a mimic, calming you. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

            “Promise?”

            “Always.”

            “Hey, sweetheart!” Dana says as you step out onto the floor, Lena’s small hand in your yours, her backpack over your shoulder—the iridescent rainbow unicorn—as you two walk towards the nursing desk, your steps small to match hers, her pace the leader. 

            “Hey, Auntie,” you say, crouching down and placing your hands on either side of Lena’s waist, lifting her up and onto one of the rollie chairs behind the nurse’s station, her hand finding yours once again, small fingers squeezing tight. “Can you watch Lens? I have a consult in Trauma 2.”

            “Shen’s on the case,” she says and you nod once, that familiar feeling of inadequacy and humiliation coursing through you as you nod once, abrupt. 

            “Had to confront my demons eventually,” you tell her, squeezing Lena’s hand once, drawing her attention back to you as her eyes bounce around the room, taking in all the sights. “Honey, I’m just in a Trauma Room on a consult. Max ten minutes. Auntie Dana is going to stay with you until I’m back, d’accord?”

            “D’accord!” she replies, her tone bright and you nod, turning and stepping into the trauma room, pulling on gloves over your hands as soon as the doors seal behind you. You don’t notice the people, your attention only on the patient, the one whose head is damaged. 

            “What happened?” you ask, your tone curt as you fall into the role you have, the one of surgeon, of expert, of smart. 

            “Motorcycle accident,” you hear a voice say and then you step around the people to stand behind the head, taking in the injury, the blood, the visibility of the pia mater. And then it’s a blur. 

            Because you’ve become the surgeon you were trained to be. Meticulous and precise and clean. Not a single mistake made or formed or created. Perfection in a set of hands and eyes and a brain. One that has a cost but a cost that doesn’t exist when you’re doing what you do, when your hands move the way they move. 

            When you think of nothing but the patient. 

            And then you’re out of the room, having taken no notice of anyone there, no notice of Shen or Robby or Dennis or Crus. You were in and out, your focus on the patient, all the others only bodies in a room. 

            But then you hear him. 

            “Wait!” It’s just one word yet it hurts so much. It hurts because he never once said that when you came to tell him the news five years ago. He never once tried to reach out to hear what you needed to say. Yet now he says wait. 

            So, you walk away, your daughter spinning on the chair, talking to both Dana and Lena the First, her high sweet voice carrying throughout the room. She is your future; he is your past. One is behind, one is forward. And you can’t look back. 

            “Ready, sweetie?” you ask when you’re back before her and she nods, sliding off the chair, wobbling just slightly but you’re there to steady her, taking her backpack off the station and sliding it onto your one shoulder, reaching out for her hand which she places in yours, no hesitation. 

            “Can we get ice cream before we go home?” she asks and a small laugh bubbles up and out while your heart clenches at the remembrance of his voice, of his words. Of the way he yelled out wait like he was desperate. 

            “Yeah.”

            John watches as you walk away, frozen to the spot, watching as you approach a little girl with dark hair like his and eyes like his, the same colour and shape just larger. Like yours. Her skin is a mix of your shade and his and her nose is his, cheekbones his but chin you. 

            She is an amalgamation of the two of you. One standing right there, her hand in yours, the two of you looking for all the world like a dream he’s always had but lost when you told him it was over. 

            And he can’t let you leave. Not with her. Not without an explanation because he deserves that. He deserves the truth. Because he sees that girl and sees the two of you; sees her and does the math. He can tell she must be four, which would put her at born around nine months after your break-up. 

            It all adds up. 

            And he can’t let you leave with his daughter. 

            “Wait! Wait, please, Abbot!” he yells, racing after you, sliding his Dunkins onto the nurse’s station, a cup which Lena catches, prevents from spilling as he runs after you, watches as you pause, an iridescent kid’s backpack on your shoulder, glancing over at him and sighing. 

            “What, Shen?” you call out and he feels like his heart stops when he hears the coldness in your voice, the deadness. Something you’ve never had with him. It hurts him worse than anger would have. 

            “We need to talk.”

            “Where was that five years ago?” you counter and he remembers then that day that you came back, two days after the break-up, claiming an emergency. Urgency. 

            But you could have made an effort later. He’s angry, so angry because of all the years he’s missed out on. It wasn’t a secret that he wanted to be a dad, it was something the two of you talked about nestled together in bed, cuddled into one another, whispering about a family. About what you’d name your kids. Lena Émilie for a girl and Jeremy Lynn for a boy. 

            And you took that from him. Because, yeah, he said he didn’t want to hear from you but it was just after you’d broken his heart and what did you expect? Him excited to hear your voice? No, he was hurt. And you didn’t try. 

            “You didn’t try after,” he hisses and he watches as that fire rises in your eyes, your hand waving someone over and then Jack steps forwards, hands clasped behind his back, posture still ever the soldier. 

            “Watch Lena,” you say and he nods, scooping the little girl up and John can feel a piece of his heart break and heal in the same moment at the sound of the name he chose. The name he whispered to you years ago, drowsy, his arms around you. 

            And then you pull him into the on-call room, just around the corner from the elevator, closing the door behind you as you lean against, arms crossed, waiting. 

            “How the fuck could you do that to me?! Keep my daughter from me?!” he cries, voice rising and deepening, anger heavy in the sentence, the words. Him. 

            “YOU DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR FROM ME!” you yell, your voice far louder than his as if you’ve been holding onto this for years, just waiting. “YOU TURN ME AWAY, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?!”

            “YOU DIDN’T TRY!” he replies, his voice matching yours, his eyes stinging with tears as you step towards him, your bottom lip trembling as you reach one hand forwards, wiping away one of his tears with your thumb as if you couldn’t not. 

            “Because you called me too much,” you say, your voice sounding like a whisper after the yells. “So, I didn’t try too hard. But I did try, John. You turned me away. I heard you tell Lena that you didn’t want my ‘fucking’ message,” you do air-quotes around the swear, “and you told her that you didn’t want to see me. Ever. So, who’s in the wrong here, John?”

            “Both of us,” he says and you shrug, face twisting into a pained expression. 

            “What the fuck do you want from me?”

            “A part of our daughter’s life,” he says, watching as you sigh, reaching a hand up and into your hair, running it through the strands in a way you only do when you’re truly angry, stressed. 

            “Why?”

            “Because I’m her father and you’ve kept her from me! Not cool! I’ll go to court,” he says and then your hand takes his, interlacing through his fingers as you nod, just once. 

            “Tomorrow. The cat café. 10:00 AM. Don’t be late,” you say and then you let go, heading back to the door, your hand just touching the knob, the other letting go of his, the tips of his fingers just touching yours when he whispers “wait.” 

            “What?”

            “I’m sorry for…all of it,” he says and he waits, his breath catching in his throat as you glance over your shoulder with a sad half-smile. 

            “Me too.” And he wishes for all the world that he had the bravery to tell you that he still loved you. 

            That he never stopped.

            “Lena,” you say, your tone soft and sweet and ever the mother, the tone that’s emerged from holding her in the hospital bed, gentle so gentle. “This is your dad. Remember, the one who wasn’t able to talk to us for a time?” Your eyes flick of their own accord up to John, watching the way his face twists in awe at the little girl beside you, the way those perfect eyes that always seem to shift depending on his mood seem to light up at you calling him her dad, at the story you had created for Lens. 

            “Yeah, I ‘member,” she says, her little face scrunching just slightly, noise wrinkling like a bunny as she considers, her gaze that same analyzing look you have, the one that appears when you’re thinking, assessing. Healing. 

            “Hi, Lena,” John says, his voice soft and thick as if he’s holding back tears. Tears of happiness and sadness and hope—everything that comes with being a parent, being confronted with that small tiny life that relies only on you. Needs you, all of you, every day. 

            “Since you’re my daddy,” she begins, her tone drifting into the musing one she has as she strokes her chin in a way she’s picked up from your dad, “that means you have to buy me presents, right?”

            “Um…probably, yes. Why?” John asks her, those perfect eyes looking at you with a mixture of confusion and pleas for help. 

            “Because you’ve missed out on a lot which means you need to give me more presents to make up for it, right?” she says, her words not really a question, more a statement with the illusion of a query, something that’s entirely her own. Entirely her own idiosyncrasy. John looks at you for a moment, his lips curving up in his familiar half-smile, the one you used to see every morning, the one you couldn’t forget no matter how hard you tried. 

            The one that stayed imprinted on your mind. 

            “I think so,” he muses as one of the cats jumps onto the table, landing skillfully between the drinks and pastries, butting up against John’s open hand. 

            “How about a cat?” she asks, her eyes lighting up and her lips curving in a grin as she looks at John, the man you loved, the man you love still, but most of all her father. 

            “Momma?” John asks, his voice drawing your attention back to him, his eyes shifting into an emotion that you cannot name, one that does not seem to fit, like a mixture of too many, a volatile cocktail of feelings. His eyebrows are raised, gaze solely on you and you know that it’s you he’s asking the question, he’s asking if it’s okay. “You cool with that?”

            “Yeah,” you whisper, that tightness in your throat returning, swelling and making it hard to breathe, to speak, to remember that this isn’t forever. This is a moment and moments end. This is a moment where it doesn’t hurt, but that’s not forever. 

            And John isn’t yours anymore. 

            You gave him up. 

            “You sure you’re okay with going on her field trip?” you ask, your hands still holding onto Lena’s unicorn backpack, fingers stiffening from the tight grip, the iridescent plastic fusing to your skin, the sweat of your fingers acting like a glue, the feeling sticky and tacky and slimy in a way that is unpleasant but the alternative is to let go. 

            And that is so very hard to do. 

            Logically, it’s just a backpack but nothing with your daughter is just anything because everything has meaning, has memory. Her baby blanket that she outgrew still sits in your closet because it’s the same one that you wrapped her in when she came home from the hospital made by Dana and Lena the First, a quilt with patches from your own baby clothes that had stayed in your mother’s effects. 

            The lock from her first haircut where she was so excited but you were so close to crying because it meant that she was growing up and wasn’t it just yesterday that she was a newborn in your arms, face scrunched and wrinkled with the hospital cap on it?

            The video on your phone of her first full word, Mama, a sign of her growing up but one in a way that made you so happy, not sad like the haircut. The world of motherhood is strange, full of ups and downs and twists and turns and tears. A lot of tears. 

            Because everything seems to lead to her growing up and leaving and yes, she will always be your little girl but you don’t want to lose out on all the little moments. You don’t want to feel like you have just blinked and suddenly she’s grown with her own children. You want to remember every moment and you do not want to let go. 

            But eventually you’ll have too. 

            “I’m sure,” John says, his voice a grounding presence pulling you from the rollercoaster you’ve been on, remembering all the little moments, the things that will remain no matter how old you get, no matter how things change. 

            “Okay,” you whisper, lifting your hands, lifting the backpack as if for him to take it, the sounds of Lena talking with your dad echoing through to you, the noise of the kitchen, of the life you’ve built, the life that’s changing. 

            He reaches for the bag, his hand gripping the bottom, thumb on the plastic and fingers on the back, but you can’t let go, you just can’t let go because it feels like giving her up, like letting her go and how can you?

            How can you let your baby girl go? You know that you’ll have to one day, but that doesn’t have to be today, does it? 

            “She’ll be okay, she’ll come back to you, Sugar,” he whispers and the sound of the nickname—your nickname—takes your breath away and you let go of the bag, so abruptly to you yet not to him at all. Your fingers are still stiff, still coated in that plastic tinged sweat when you hear the light, fast steps of Lena and then she’s there, her arms around your legs as she squeezes you, her way of a hug. 

            “Be good for your dad today, okay?” you tell her as she looks up at you with John’s eyes. It’s no wonder he knew just by looking at her that she was his, he’s in every inch of her, from her bone structure to her smile to the shifts in her eyes. 

            “I will,” she says, her face bright with her smile, her face gleaming in only the way that children can for they are still innocent of the world. You crouch down to reach her, pulling her into your arms and breathing in deep, the smell of her, of your daughter something you’ll always remember. Because one day she’ll be grown, one day she’ll be gone and her baby shampoo will be a relic of the past and she won’t want the hugs or the goodbyes or even you. 

            But she does right now.

            “Love you, Mommy,” she whispers and then she pulls back and away, turning to John and taking his hand as he loops her backpack over his shoulder, his eyes on you, watching as you suppress the tears, forcing a watery smile as the tears line your eyes because you know she’s coming back, you haven’t lost daughter. 

            But it feels like you are. Just a little bit. 

            And then they’re going, walking out the door, John’s eyes still on you, the look in those perfect eyes of his, the ones that change based on his emotions, gleams unique dependent on what he feels seems to be a lot like love. The way he used to look at you. 

            “I almost think you love candy more than me,” you say, your voice teasing but John looks up at you, his face twisted into horror and hurt, his one hand still inside the bag of Sour Patch Kids, his other letting go of the plastic bag, reaching for the remote and pausing the show. 

            “You need your head examined,” he says. “I love you a hell of a lot more than candy. And you taste way better too. I just can’t have you all the time.”

            “Oh,” you reply, dragging out the syllables, the words becoming longer in your voice as you feel the smile growing on your face, the vowel sound changing, widening, loosening just a bit. “Is that right?”

            “Yeah,” he says, setting the bag on the coffee table and standing up, walking to you and dropping to his knees before you. “Need me to prove you taste better?”

            “Maybe,” you tell him. “But I want a nickname. One that will tell me when you use it that you really love me more.” His lips curve up in a smile as his hands reach for yours, pulling them up to his heart as he rests his chin in the space between your knees. 

            “Sugar,” he says. “It’s the ingredient of anything sweet. It’s in everything in a way and you’re my everything.”

            “I like it,” you reply, your voice soft as he squeezes your hands, the beat of his heart emanating through you, echoing up your arms, through your spine, centring on your heart, your beat synchronizing to his. 

            “Now,” he says, his grin turning mischievous in a way, his way, “do you want me to show you just how much better I think you taste?”

            The text that dinged was from you, a text asking him for his help, something he’s been waiting years to see. Something he used to hope for in those first two years without you whenever his phone would ring. It never was you. 

            But today it was. 

You: Can you watch Lena tomorrow night? A friend needs me.

            He replied with yes, immediately because it’s not just you. It’s your daughter, his daughter. That miracle that smiles and laughs and has your habit of talking with your hands. That miracle that brought you back to him, that lets him see your smile again, hear your voice. That miracle that is everything he’s ever wanted. 

            The miracle of the future the two of you used to talk about, the name hers. You kept to the plan as best you could without him and he knows now that he was wrong to turn you away. To yell the way he did, but he can’t help wishing you had called him. At least tried more to reach him. 

            But you didn’t. 

            And the two of you can’t go back, you can only move forwards but it’s hard to move forwards the way he wants to when you only look at him with hurt. As if to look at him is to remember him saying too much. 

            He didn’t mean it. He loved you then, he loves you now. He thought he couldn’t more but seeing you with his daughter, seeing the way you hold her, hearing the way you speak to her, seeing the way you’ve raised her, he realized he was wrong. 

            He loves you more now than he ever has before. He loved you like you were his. 

            And now he loves you like your everything. 

            “Thank you,” you cry as you open the door, the fluffy black cat winding between your ankles, the cat he adopted for Lena that day a year ago when she called him dad, when you said that he was her dad. When you made that move to welcome him first. “Brendon is in a mood. His friend with benefits that he was in love with has left him. Which means, best friend mode needs to activate.” You bend, lifting the cat up and he can’t help but notice the way your outfit clings to your body, to every inch. The body that he’s dreamt of, that one-night stands could never come close to. 

            He’s trying not to look but it’s very hard. 

            “Wait,” he pauses, your words finally computing, his attention narrowing and sharpening, honing in on the name, the identity of the friend. “Brendon? Like Dr. Park?”

            “The very one,” you tell him, turning and beginning to walk into the house, your jeans hugging every curve and he feels he should win an award for not looking despite how much he wants to. “I haven’t gone out since Lena was born because I trust no one with her, really. But…” you pause, glancing over your shoulder at him and he can feel his heart clench at the look in your eyes, the tenderness that he hasn’t seen in years, but sees now. “Now you’re here. And I trust you.”

            In those words, he knows that he’s not out of the game, he’s not done. There’s still a chance for him. Because you trust him when you trust no one else. 

            “Anything I should know before you go?” he asks and you nod once, slow but direct. 

            “I will be back in the morning as we agreed. Her bus leaves at 7:00 for kindergarten. She cannot be late. She’s in a phase where she only eats two breakfast foods—Eggos or Toaster Strudels—you do not give me that look. You have never had to fight a five-year-old on food and I am not giving her a complex about healthy versus unhealthy. School days are Eggos, I have the healthier ones for her and the instructions on how to do the dishes are on the slate. I think that’s all.” You swallow hard as you set the cat down in the living room, the animal letting out a small meow before flopping on its back, batting your hand for belly rubs. 

            Which you do, but the look in your eyes is the look he remembers, the look that says I worry this is too much, that I’m too much. Please don’t say I’m too much. 

            He made that mistake once in the heat of an argument when he just wanted you to love him without those walls that you put up and he won’t make that mistake again. 

            Because he won’t lose to Brendon Park. 

            He won’t lose you period. 

            “What movie are we watching, kiddo?” he asks, leaning back in the couch, KitKat stretching out across his lap while Lena snuggles up with her blanket in the recliner. The one she’s happily informed belongs to her Papa but he’s never home for movie nights which makes it hers by default. 

            “Barbie and the Diamond Castle!” she cries, her voice rising in excitement, tone that of a child happy. That of a child, period. 

            John has realized this year in her life that he’s become jaded, surrounded by death and destruction and pain. He realized that he’s forgotten that there is an innocence in the world, a goodness. Some days he wants to be angry that you’ve prevented him from always having that but he can’t be mad. 

            Because he understands. You didn’t trust him. But you do now. And maybe that means that somewhere inside you still love him. 

            And as the movie plays, as Lena sings along and he gets up to dance with her, the two of them dancing around the living room, all he can think about is you. 

            And if you and Brendon are doing a dance of your own. 

            “Did she get off to school alright?” you ask as you kick off your sneakers, the pair landing in their spot on the mat well enough that you turn from them to John, your eyes taking him in, the lack of weariness in his smile, the happiness in his eyes. The happiness just a little bit tainted by something like…jealousy. 

            “Yeah,” he says, his tone cutting and abrupt as he crosses his arms, hip shifting just a bit as he rocks onto his left leg, right one kicking out just a little bit. “How was Brendon?”

            “Upset,” you sigh, setting your bag on the counter, a weariness in your limbs settling in as you remember his tear-streaked face. The strong man who has been your rock for these years without John so utterly broken. It scared you, scares you. “He’s in love and she’s gone. I think…” you pause, your arms wrapping around your body of their own accord as if to hold you together around the tightness in your throat, the feeling that you’re going to splinter and break and shatter. 

            “You think what?” John asks, his voice uncharacteristically tender. 

            “I think I know what you felt when I left. And when you saw Lena and…” you swallow hard around the lump in your throat, your vision going blurry as the first tears begin to fall. “I’m sorry.”

            He doesn’t reply, just steps closer, his hands drifting to your face and pulling you up to him, crushing his lips to yours in a kiss that tastes of desperation and pain and loss. But also, of sugar and sweet and second chances. 

            Of hope. 

            “I love you,” he murmurs against your lips, pulling back just enough to say those words before kissing you again, a rougher kiss, his tongue slipping into your mouth, tracing yours as if he’s reminding himself of the shape of it, of the taste of you. As if he’s trying to ensure that it will be impossible to forget. 

            You can feel your skin come alive again in a way that it hasn’t since the last time you were with John and you want more of it. You want everything with him; you can feel the burning and the throbbing and the coiling. The tightening and craving. 

            You are conscious of nothing truly but the feeling of him against you, the way his body moves against yours, the two of you working backwards to your bedroom, bumping into things as you go, neither of you willing to put space between you as if space will be the thing that breaks this bubble. 

            And then you’re in you’re in your room, space but between you as he closes the door, one drifting from your face to your waist, palm gripping you tightly as if not willing to let you go. Not once. 

            “I love you too,” you say, but in the quiet of the house it’s loud, echoing around and you can’t help but clap a hand over your mouth, feeling like for all the world, someone sneaking around. But all he does is look back at you, his face twisting in a grin as he lets out a small surprised laugh. 

            You can’t help but join in as he presses himself up against you again, his eyes shining in a way that reflects love and lust and hope back at you. 

            “If we do this,” you whisper, unwilling to speak loud again and pop the bubble between the two of you, “it can’t be only once. I’m all in if we do this.”

            “Oh, Sugar,” he whispers, his lips finding your neck, pressing a soft and tender kiss there before pulling your skin between his teeth, biting just enough that a mark will appear, a sign of the two of you again, the feelings within you surging with renewed fervour. “I’ve been all in since you let me in Lena’s life.”

            “Then what are you waiting for?” you ask and then he’s not waiting anymore, pulling your shirt from over your head, finding the button of your jeans and the zip, undoing both and helping you step out of them. He guides you to your bed, guides you to sit as he takes your socks off, setting them aside and then stripping himself. 

            He doesn’t take his time, doesn’t make it a show. Instead he’s desperate, taking his clothes off as fast as he can to climb over you, bracketing you on the bed with his body, peppering kisses to your lips and face and neck that make your skin feel feverish and sweaty as his one drifts, finding it’s place between your legs. 

            It’s like he’s never forgotten the feeling of you, his fingers finding your clit right away, circling and pressing, applying that bit of pressure that you’ve always liked, the one that has you writhing underneath him, begging for him, just him inside of you. 

            Which in a way he grants, slipping two fingers inside, probing every inch, stretching you in a way that makes you feel everything all at once, your body crying and begging and pleading for him as he continues to apply pressure to your clit, fingers pumping in and out, his lips against yours. 

            As if he needs to kiss you to know it’s real. 

            And when you come around him, he finally grants your wish, shifting just enough that the head of his cock is pressed against your entrance, every part of you still on fire, wanting nothing more than to just be with him. 

            “Ready, Sugar?” he asks and all you can is nod, arching your back with a cry as he pushes in, sheathing himself in one thrust, sitting there for a moment as he presses a long and heated kiss against your lips. “I love you,” he murmurs before pulling himself back and pushing in. 

            And every time he goes in, he tells you he loves you, over and over and over again, one hand still bringing you to sensation, playing with your clit in that way you’ve always liked, the way you’ve always needed. 

            The rhythm he builds is so familiar so right that it doesn’t take long for either of you to be spent and for him to lie beside you, softening within you, unwilling to separate himself from you just yet, pulling you as tightly against him as he can. 

            “I love you,” he says and this time, the words sound like a vow. One you can’t help but give back. 

            “And I love you.”

            “John?” you call out, stepping out of the bedroom, the sounds of music drifting from the kitchen. “Lena? Are you guys up?”

            “Mommy!” you hear Lena cry and then she’s there, running out of the kitchen still in her pajamas, her face lit up as she jumps, her six-year-old body growing too big for this running jump without warning, but you’ll never tell her that. 

            “What’s up, bug?”

            “Happy Mother’s Day! Daddy has a surprise, come on!” she says, hopping off you and taking your hand, pulling you into the kitchen where John waits, on one knee beside the island. Just in front of a banner, painted by Lena, proclaiming Happy’s Mother Day. 

            “Sugar,” he calls out and you can feel the tears welling, that happiness threatening to burst out of you. “I love you. So much. I love our family, the way it’s growing,” he nods his head at your stomach where the product of that first time again currently grows, placing pressure on your bladder. “But I also want a ring on your finger to know that everyone knows we’re a family. And I promise that I will never say words I don’t mean. I will never lie to you. I will never hurt you again. So…you will you marry me?”

            “YES! YES!” you cry, the tears spilling from your eyes as he rises, stepping forwards and slipping the ring onto your finger, sealing the vow with a kiss. One soft and sweet and perfect. 

            Because now, you don’t have to go it alone anymore with Lena and your son will never not know a life so full. 

They finished handoff in under ten minutes. Robby gathered his things and headed for the doors. Jack followed. That was…unusual. Typically, he jumped right into his shift but tonight, he fell into step beside Robby, hands in his pockets.

The air outside was cool as he caught Robby’s elbow and pulled him off to the side and out of the way.

“She met me for breakfast this morning.”

“Did you tell her?” Robby’s voice came out rough, broken. “About how sorry I am? That I’ve started seeing Gemmill again? That I’m…Jesus, Jack, did you tell her I’m falling apart without her?”

Jack crossed his arms over his chest and nodded once. “I told her.”

“And?”

“She was going to walk out until I promised to stop talking about you.”

Robby stared at him. “What?”

“She says you have to make the effort on your own, without me being in the middle.” Jack’s voice was quiet, steady. “I won’t risk losing her, Mike. Not even for you.”

Robby felt something inside of him just collapse. A slow, inward crumpling of the little bit of hope he’d held that Jack could help him fix this. He dragged a hand over his beard. His hand was shaking and he stuffed it into the pocket of his hoodie.

“So, what do I do, Jack? How do I fix this?” The question came out small, pleading. He’d fucked up, lost his way, and he needed Jack to help him find the way out.

Jack huffed out a breath. “Well, first you need to quit trying to buy her affections.”

Pure white-hot panic shot through Robby. “I’m not…that’s not what I’m doing. Is that what she thinks I’m doing?”

Jack nodded. “You accused her of using us for our money and now you’re…well, you’re using our money to try to get her to forgive you. That’s not going to work, babe.”

“I just need her to talk to me,” Robby said, the words sounding pathetic even to his own ears. Pathetic but true.

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, try something else, because that’s not working.”

Then he was gone, heading back into the depths of the Pitt, leaving Robby alone in the ambulance bay. He walked home in the dark, and he didn’t cry. He was too tired for tears. He was tired and alone and the silence in his head was louder than any trauma bay had ever been.

A knock came at four in the afternoon when you were working on a spreadsheet for your grandfather’s foundation. You paused, saved and set your laptop aside. You knew what it was before you opened the door. Another delivery with no communication, no heart behind it. You sighed.

When you opened the door, you were surprised to be met with a wrapped bouquet on the doorstep rather than a careful display. It was the kind of arrangement that looked like someone had had gone into a field and picked whatever was in bloom. They were beautiful in an unrefined way, nothing like the formal bouquets that preceded them. You carried them into the kitchen, setting them on the counter while you filled a vase with water.

The note was tucked between two stems, folded in half. Your fingers found it as you started to arrange the flowers. Robby’s handwriting was unmistakable, a hurried slanting script that always looked like he’d been rushed through whatever he was writing.

I’m sorry.

Two words. Nothing else.

But it was enough to cause the slightest lift of the corner of your mouth. He was learning. The flowers had a personal touch finally and he’d written a note. A stupid, short note but it was a start. You set the note on the counter beside the vase and went back to work.

The next day, the knock came around lunch time. A teenager handed you a delivery of soup from the deli near the hospital that Robby favored. You opened it and inhaled the aroma of your favorite offering from there. You ate it standing at the counter, spoon scraping the bottom of the container. When you went to throw the bag away, you found the note in the bottom.

I miss you.

You set it with the first note and went on about your day.

The third delivery arrived the following afternoon. Pastries from your favorite bakery. Three of your favorite treats nestled inside the bag. This note contained only one word. Please.

You rolled your eyes and set the note with the others. The anger had burned itself out. The pain less sharp than it had been. You’d cried it away on your couch. Shouted it into your pillow. Let it run through you until there was nothing left but remnants. Jack had told you Robby was back in therapy. You’d turned the information over in your head for days. It changed the shape of things. Just a bit. Enough for you to acknowledge that he was aware that what he’d done was inexcusable. And that he was attempting to make certain it never happened again.

Understanding didn’t mean forgiveness. It was merely the first step toward a conversation you weren’t ready to have just yet.

Notes accumulated on your counter. I’m sorry. I miss you. Please. I’m thinking of you. I was wrong. Short. Unpolished. All written by Robby’s own hand. You’d read them all precisely once before adding them to the pile on the counter and returning to whatever task you’d been working at when they arrived. You appreciated the thought behind every bouquet, every meal, every cup of coffee. But thought wasn’t enough.

Not responding had nothing to do with punishment. It was about respecting yourself. You loved him. God, you loved that stupid, broken, beautiful man. But you loved yourself enough to wait for something real. The brief notes weren’t it. The flowers weren’t it. The rent most definitely wasn’t it. You were waiting for words that hadn’t come yet. The words that acknowledged not just that he was sorry but why. The understanding of what he’d done and how fundamentally it had hurt you. Of the damage he had done. You needed something deeper than a couple of words tucked amongst the flower stems.

He had broken you. He’d taken away the trust you had, the feeling of safety and security. The home you had with him and Jack. Until he recognized all of that, there was no room for him in your life.

The Luck of the Draw hummed with activity even on a Tuesday night. Sam’s endeavor was a success and you couldn’t be prouder of him. The customers had only increased since your livestream of Chelsea’s humiliation. Word spread fast that the owner was your bestie and he was enjoying the rewards. He’d begged you to pick up a few shifts until he could get another permanent bartender on board.

You moved behind the bar with the ease of many long nights working in the same spot, reaching for bottles without really looking. You mixed drinks and carried on conversations with the customers. Sam worked beside you, his dark hair falling across his forehead as he shook a cocktail vigorously.

“Take it easy, Reynolds.”

“Gotta put on a show for the ladies.”

You blinked at him. “No one is impressed by you shaking the hell out of a whiskey sour.”

Sam shrugged. “A man can dream.”

“Idiot,” you said, affectionately. All of your best friends were idiots, but they were your idiots.

The door opened and you glanced up only to freeze for a beat as your gaze landed on Robby.

He was still in his clothes from the hospital. His beard had gotten a little longer, or maybe he just hadn’t groomed it. You usually did it for him. He looked tired. No, he looked like a man who hadn’t properly slept in weeks. He took a seat on a stool at the far end of the bar, as far from you as he could, and set his elbows on the polished wood. Your eyes met his. One second, then two. And then you looked away and didn’t look back.

Sam’s gaze flicked from Robby to you and back again. His back straightened and you recognized that flash of protective instinct he’d carried for you since high school. The one that had gotten him suspended when he punched your junior prom date for trying to feel you up. He moved to you and leaned in.

“You want him gone?”

You shook your head. “No, it’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“It’s fine, Sam.” You poured two fingers of whiskey and handed it to him. “That’ll be his order.”

Sam studied you for a beat, then nodded and went to deliver the drink without a word to Robby. And you worked. You opened beers and made drinks and laughed at bad jokes from the regulars. Through it all you felt the weight of Robby’s eyes on you. You knew without turning exactly how he was sitting. Elbows on the bar, one hand around the glass he wasn’t drinking from while he watched you move through your world.

An hour passed, the customers changed out. Robby’s drink was still mostly full, he’d barely sipped at it. He’d just sat there, watching you. When he finally stood, you didn’t turn. You heard the stool slide back, watched from the corner of your eye as he left too much money on the bar top. Your gaze followed him as he left and you sighed as tension flowed from your shoulders.

As you were walking home just after midnight, your phone buzzed in your pocket. You waited until you got to your building to check it.

I’m sorry. I just needed to see you. I miss you. I love you.

You stared at the words as you rode the elevator up, too tired for the stairs. Your thumb hovered over the keyboard before you typed a response.

Laying in the bed that was too big without you or Jack, Robby stared at the ceiling. His phone vibrated on his chest and he grabbed it, fingers fumbling in his hurry.

I miss you too

His mouth curved just slightly. He read it again. And again. Elation rose in his chest. This was the first contact he’d had from you and it wasn’t telling him to fuck off.

But he was just as aware of what you didn’t say. Not I love you too. Not I forgive you. Just I miss you too. But it was a start. An opening he wasn’t going to mar with what wasn’t said.

He sent a message to Jack asking him to call if he had a minute.

The phone rang almost immediately. “What’s up?” Jack greeted when Robby answered.

“I went to the bar. I needed to see her.” He needed Jack to know but he worried the other man would be angry.

Jack’s voice was completely normal however when he asked, “Did you speak to her?”

Robby shook his head though Jack couldn’t see it. “No. I just…watched. Sent her a message after I left.”

“And what did you say?”

“That I’m sorry and that I miss her and love her.” The words were rough around the edges. “She told me she missed me too.”

“That’s good. She didn’t shut you down, not completely.”

Robby swallowed the lump in his throat. “Do you think she still loves me? She didn’t say it.”

“I know she does.” Jack’s voice was quiet. “But I’m pretty sure you haven’t earned her saying it yet, baby.”

There was a long stretch of silence. “Yeah. Thank you, Jack. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Get some sleep.”

Robby disconnected the call and looked at your message one more time before putting the phone on the nightstand. He went back to staring at the ceiling, hot tears leaking from his eyes.

He was back the next time you worked. Same stool, same tired eyes and hunched shoulders. Another glass of whiskey sat in front of him barely touched. He watched you for an hour before shuffling out the door to go home to an empty house. When he left, your phone buzzed with another message.

I miss you. I love you. I’m so fucking sorry.

This time you didn’t respond.

The third night, Sam came over, leaning against the counter beside you. “Should I be concerned that he always seems to know when you’re here?” He tilted his head toward Robby who was sitting in his usual spot, staring into his untouched drink. “He’s not stalking you, is he?”

That pulled a laugh from you. “Pretty sure he has more important things to do with his time.” You shrugged. “I shared my location with him and Jack months ago. Never changed it.”

Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just. It’s a very easy thing to fix. Couple of seconds on your phone and no more sharing if you were so inclined.”

You huffed in annoyance. “Well, I’m not so inclined so drop it.”

He raised his hands and backed away. “Understood.”

Robby had been sitting there for forty minutes, looking more forlorn than the last time he’d been in. You set down the glass you’d been drying, squared your shoulders and walked the length of the bar. He didn’t see you coming at first, staring at his drink, one finger tracing the lines of the glass. And then he did.

His head came up. His face changed. The tired lines around his eyes smoothed. His mouth opened, just slightly, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what. Finally, he settled on, “Hi.” His voice was rough and he cleared his throat. “Hi.”

“You have to stop this, Robby.” He flinched at the name. You kept your voice low so only he could hear you. “You can’t keep coming here. Watching me. It’s…I miss you and this is too hard on me. Do you understand that?”

He nodded once, quick. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…” He stopped, swallowed. “It’s the only way I can see you.”

You started to turn away. His hand came down to rest on yours where it sat on the bar top. His palm was warm, his skin dry and rough from the endless amount of sanitizer he used all day long. You looked at his hand on yours and then up to his face.

“I’m off tomorrow. Let me take you out to breakfast. Or lunch. Coffee. I just want to talk to you. Please.” The words spilled from his lips like he was incapable of holding them back, desperate to be heard.

You studied him. The gray in his beard. The shadows under his eyes. The desperate hope in his gaze. You could feel your resolve cracking, not because of the flowers or the notes or the rent money, but because of this. Because of the man sitting in front of you asking for a conversation, his hand on yours like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

“I’ll think about you,” you finally said. “I’ll let you know.”

He nodded. Didn’t push. Didn’t say another word. His hand left yours, the absence leaving you cold. He stood, dropped too much cash on the bar as usual and walked out, pausing at the door to look back once. With a nod he stepped outside, the door swinging shut behind him.

A couple of hours after Robby left, you were moving constantly, serving a steady flow of customers. You didn’t see the fight start. One minute a table by the dancefloor was just a table. Four guys drinking and laughing about whatever. The next, there was shouting, the scrape of chairs and the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. A pint glass shattered on the floor in a spray of amber liquid and sharp edges.

“Hey!” Sam’s voice cut through the noise. “Knock it off!”

The two men, both large and at least slightly drunk, shoved each other, chest to chest, voices raised. You couldn’t make out the words, but you supposed it didn’t really matter. Another man soon joined the fray and then another. One of the tables fell over with a crash and people moved out of the way. Some headed for the door, others just the edges of the room.

Sam vaulted the bar in one smooth motion. “Stay put!” he yelled in your direction without looking back.

You ignored him completely, moving out from behind the bar intent on bringing up the lights and shutting down the music. The brawl spilled sideways as four guys became five which became seven as a couple of the regulars jumped in to help Sam break it up. You reached the switches and cut the music while you brought the lights up to full intensity. As you turned to check on the chaos behind you, a bottle arched through the air from somewhere in the melee.

You saw it coming. You registered it was going to hit you and you should get the hell out of the way. Unfortunately, your body was about half a second behind. The bottle hit you square on the head, just at the edge of your hairline above your left eyebrow. The crack was immediate and stunning, a sound you felt more than heard, followed by a sharp flare of pain that radiated out from the point of impact. “Motherfucker,” you shouted as your vision blurred.

Hands grasped your arm and tugged you back behind the bar. Kira, one of the waitresses, pressed a folded bar towel against the wound. Her hold was firm, insistent. “Hold this. Press. Hard. I’m gonna help Sam clear the bar.”

You did as she said. The towel was immediately warm and wet against your skin. Fuck. You could feel blood running down the side of your face.

On the floor, Sam had one of the fighters in a headlock and was dragging him toward the door. Two of the regulars followed behind with two other assholes. The remaining customers were closing tabs and gathering their things before heading for the exit. It took less than ten minutes for the bar to clear after that until it was just you, Sam and Kira left with the broken glass on the floor and the blood running from your head.

Sam came straight to you once the last patron was out the door. His face was flushed and he was disheveled from the fight. His hands were steady as he lifted the towel from your forehead.

His expression did the talking. His mouth tightened and his eyes shone with worry. “Sorry, beautiful,” he said, pressing the towel back firmly. His thumb brushed your cheek, wiping away a streak of blood. “Looks like a trip to see your boyfriend at the hospital.”

After a long but fun night of grabbing dinner, playing billiards, and watching a movie, you and your boyfriend, Pope, couldn’t wait to get home, fall into bed together, and get some sleep. 

The sheets were soft and warm as you cuddled beneath them. Your bodies were bare, no need for clothes after you showered together. Besides, you were too tired to put them on. You wrapped yourselves up in each other instead, his nose nestled to the back of your head with his lips pressing featherlight kisses to your hair and neck as he held you to his chest in his strong arms.

You were half-asleep but only half as the rest of you was awake with the closeness of your bodies huddled together, his warm breath on your skin and his warmer, bare dick nudged to your backside. 

Pope let out the sweetest, little moan when you backed up onto him to get more comfortable…and maybe try to get him hard as your bottom pressed to him. That sensation, his dick growing firm for the slightest pressure from you, was enough for you to get wet…and enough for him to roll you onto your back with his thick arm underneath your head like a pillow.

His other arm slipped between your thighs, parting them a bit with ease. You didn’t share a kiss or words but only hushed breaths because you both knew where this was going…his and your eyes in the dim light of your bedroom said it all.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Don’t want to…”

He found the source of the slick coating your inner thighs and he used two fingertips to tease more and more of it to stick to his thick fingers until he could carefully push one of them in you. He gently pumped and pressed your spot until you couldn’t resist falling apart with a cry for him, the hot, little burst of pleasure blooming all over you and especially around his middle finger and thumb coaxing your clit.

Every moan you whimpered for him he inhaled with a kiss when his lips finally met yours. That was Pope’s favorite thing to do: Make his girl moan loudly and kiss her lips to shut her up playfully. He knew you couldn’t hold back…knew he didn’t want you to…

Your bodies moved together now…Pope pulling you onto his lap and you settling on top of him with your hands in his auburn curls…lips moving together in a firm kiss as your hips moved, too. Rutting against the curve of his dick laying stiff against his belly and feeling him tilt his hips to feel you soaking him. Big, calloused hands falling down your back and grabbing your butt to hold you down on it, urge you to sit on it.

Pope rested against the headboard so you rested against him, letting him help you lean up a little so he could grip himself and sink you onto him. Watching your face contort from the gentle stretch before you rode him at a pace he let you set until you worked yourself into a mind numbing orgasm. 

He made it so, so easy with his wide and warm palms all over you, massaging your breasts and cupping your hips and thighs in his grasp to encourage you, grumbling sweetly as he finally spoke, “That’s my girl. Keep goin’...”

But you couldn’t…the length of him was starting to hit different the more sensitive you became, making you whimper from the delicious way he sat deep in you…so he took over…carefully bouncing you up and down on it with short, grinding thrusts beneath you until you hid your face in his neck and whimpered for him. 

Back to wordless but you could hear Pope breathing heavier, groaning against your shoulder to feel you come undone around him again, fitting him nice and snug as he filled your poor pussy to the hilt.

And when you couldn’t think straight from your body all fuzzy and drunk on him, Pope wasn’t done. He wasn’t tired yet and you were still awake…eyelids heavy but still hazily gazing up at him as he scooped you up into his arms to put you on your back.

He didn’t bother to pull out during the transition, he was buried in you good, his thrusts still grinding and driving you crazy as he started rock…gliding out with his tip rubbing along your spot and pushing back in to tap in you. Over and over and deeper.

Pope watched you again, loving the twisted, pretty faces his girl made. Loving how you squeezed your thighs around his waist and how you tried to squirm and squeeze his chest in your hands, too. But his thrusts were wearing you down, pounding you into the bed, his hands planted on the bed, too, for leverage. Boxing you in, hips pressing in and leaving you with nowhere to go and nothing to do but take him.

You finally used your words and started to whine that it was too much, that you were sleepy now, that he was too much. Pope shushed you with messy kisses again, swallowing your moans as he tucked his hips in to feel his favorite girl contract on his dick even though she complained he was “too much.” 

Your boyfriend’s words were short and gruff this time as he panted.

“C’mon…one more.”

“I don’t think…I…can...” 

Your voice rasped each time you moaned to him. You weren’t overstimulated yet but you were really damn close…his voice stoked the tingling in your tummy and made your pussy pull around him. You knew he felt it because he purred above you, “Gonna make me force it out of you, baby?”

Pope knew your moans were tired but knew you could and would come for him again if he slowed his hips down…working that spot with his body flat on yours…if his lips covered your face, kissing you, moaning with you.

“You’re close...can feel you...look at me.” His palm softly tapped your cheek when your eyes fluttered before his arm snaked between you and the sheets to pull up your hips so he could love on that spot with strokes that made you tremble under him.

“Yeahhh…there she is.”

His voice rasped now with his own pleasure as you surrendered and throbbed around him, filling his ears with your strained moans that made him harder, made him fuck into you faster, made your eyes roll. 

He couldn’t hold back anymore if he tried, not when you were so fucking beautiful like this, driving him crazy, too, when your nails scratched down his freckled back. 

His soft grunts next to your ear told you he was close before he kissed your throat and held down your wrists around the pillow under your head. You weren’t going to try and squirm away this time…you were spent and limp. You didn’t want to, anyway, letting his weight pin your thighs flat to the bed as he came in you with a roll of his hips before he shuddered for you.

Neither of you could get to sleep before but now the room was quiet as your boyfriend curled up at your side with an arm draped over your hip, snoring softly just like you with your fingers laced through his.

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SET AFTER:

Rebel Girl - You tell Jesse your story that first night at Glastonbury.

Whiskey Kiss (NSFW) - Jesse favourite things are the taste of whiskey and you.

Prince Albert (NSFW) - Jesse knows exactly what to do with his extra equipment.

Geordie - Jesse makes one hell of a statement when your ex-boyfriend comes around.

Mixed Tape - Jesse makes you a mixed tape before he leaves for the US.

The Green Card - A visa issue complicates your relationship with Jesse.

Summer In California - Jesse refuses to eye-fuck another woman for the sake of a music video.

What Happens Next (NSFWish) - Jesse realises he needs to make some changes if he wants a life with you.

Sharpies (NSFWish) - Jesse wakes up to you colouring in his tattoos and decides to seek vengence.

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll - Jesse tries to convince you not to disrupt your trip during the aftermath of Pittfest.

Song 2 (NSFW) - Jesse tries to chase away his demons the only way he knows how.

Atomic - Jesse reflects on his HIV status.

Blood Orange - Jesse comes to the rescue of your neighbour during an autoerotic asphyxation accident.

In Every Lifetime - Jesse gets his first taste of jealousy when a partner breaks the rules during an intimate scene.

A Lifetime With You - You discover won’t be getting that lifetime after all.

A Dying Woman - You and Jesse have very different reactions to the news of your heart failure. -

The Last Hurrah - Jesse makes a realisation about the party…

The Morning After -  Jesse is forced to live with the consquences of his actions the night after the party.

Heart of a Girl - Jesse finally accepts the reality of your illness.

Twilight Sky - You wake up after the heart transplant…

Roses - You wake up to a taste of home.

Good Boy (NSFW) - Jesse gets an unexpected gift on Christmas morning.

Roses have always been your thing.

Your interest in them started when the two of you bought the house together after you hit thirty. You’d decided it was time to get serious about looking after your heart and gardening was a way to destress after a hard day at the university. It was also great low impact cardio, the kind of thing the recipient of a heart transplant needs as the organ starts to reach its shelf life.

You’d fallen in love with roses because despite their beauty and versatility, certain breeds were particularly challenging. You found it rewarding when you coaxed the things into bloom, especially the David Austins. His favourite is the Tequila Sunrises you placed in a vase on your nightstand this morning, freshly trimmed from your garden. The pointed scarlet and gold buds open out into yellow flowers edged with red just like the cocktail.They remind him of sunsets in California, of evenings spent out on the beach making love on the sand as the tide crept in.

The scent of the rose floods your senses as he trails the flower along the slope of your nose and over your lips. It feels like the softest kiss as you breathe in the light floral aroma, the crisp fruitiness filling your lungs. The smooth petals dance along the curve of your throat, tracing over the droplets of water left over from your shower.

Your towel is long gone, tossed into the hamper the moment Jesse stepped into the bedroom after his twelve-hour shift at the hospital. He’d taken one look at you, naked, wanting and something inside him had snapped.

That had been the point. He’s been too delicate with you lately, holding back because he knows that your doctor hadn’t cleared you for any type of strenuous activity. But you’re ready and from the way Jesse kissed the life out of you before he tossed you onto the bed, you think he knows that you are too.

“We’re going to take it slow.” He tells you, the delicate petals tracing over the fresh pink scar between your breasts where they cut you open to replace your heart. “And if you don’t behave….”

One of the thorns scratches across the soft swell of your breast, a delicious pain that heightens your pleasure. Your breath hitches, your body arching as Jesse’s mouth covers the tiny pinprick of blood, the copper staining his lips. Your fingers run through his hair, grasping his unruly silver curls as you guide his mouth to your nipple. He moans against that pert little bud, rutting against your thigh as he sucks it into his mouth. His tongue flicks over it as the rose delves lower, the petals like kitten licks across your skin as it brushes over your clit.

“Oh, that feels good.” You whisper, your head tipping back into the pillow as his teeth graze your nipple, biting down just enough to send lightning rushing through your nerve endings.

His attention switches to the other nipple, the more sensitive one. His tongue laps over it as he swirls the rose over your deviant pearl, your blood roaring in your ears as the crescendo of the storm thunders through your body, the ecstasy coming in waves with very delicate brush of petals, every tug of teeth.

“Oh my God Jesse.” You pant into his hair, your fingers clawing at his shoulders, nails sinking in. “You’re going to make me come with a rose from my own fucking garden.”

You feel his smile against your skin, the sharp prick of a thorn against your inner thigh and then you’re hurtling over the edge, drowning in the rapture as your honey smears across the petals of the flower. You sag back into the pillows, your arm thrown up over your head as you try to breath through the pain in your chest. It’s not a sharp hurt, but a dull ache from exerting your muscles in a way you haven’t been able to in over six months.

Jesse kisses his way up along the curve of your throat, his face nuzzling against the hinge of your jaw before he collapses alongside of you, holding up the rose for you to see. The petals sticky with your release, shining in the lamplight.

You stare at the damn thing, so beautiful and yet so fucking filthy as he scoops up your come with his fingers and pushes the digits into his mouth.

“Hm.” He moans, your taste blossoming on his tongue as he licks them clean. “Now that’s what I’d call a tequila sunrise with a twist.”

Like My Work? - Tip your friendly fan fic writer here!

My Cannon John Shen Work:

Ashes - You take revenge on the first man your parents sold you to.

The Choice - In the wake of his brother’s suicide John goes against his parents’ wishes and makes a choice about his residency.

You Should See Me In A Crown - A chance encounter sparks the beginning of something special for John.

Dick Pics - You and John discuss your dating life in the ambulance bay during a rare shift break.

Brunch - John refuses to give up when you miss brunch with him.

Silly Little Boys (NSFW) - John's not like the other men you've been with.

In The Summer - You discover John's secret.

Tiger, Tiger - John reveals the truth between his engagement and his history.

Jack - John's mother opens up old wounds by giving John a copy of your DCFS file.

Bare (NSFW) - John and you commit to each other in a special way.

The Shirt - Jack realises that you're wearing a boyfriend shirt.

Tradition - Mrs Shen makes a decision regarding the wedding.

Daywalker - You and John discuss something that could cause a big change in your relationship.

The Wedding Gift - John’s dad brings out the worst in him.

Pandora’s Box - John realises he’s opened up Pandora’s Box when his brother pays a visit.

Fucked Up - You take care of John when he starts to have doubts.

His Fucked Up Wang - John’s forced to treat your ex when he’s rolled into the ED.

The Other Man - John discovers something that may effect your future together.

Princess Cut - You find something unexpected inside John’s sock drawer.

The Broken Girl - The best night of your life turns into one of the worst when your plans are disrupted.

The Rooftop - John and Jack finally talk about what happened at the party.

My Love Always - A simple card makes you reach out to one of the most important people in your life.

Cold Brew - You and John finally find time for a conversation.

You Belong To Me (NSFW) - You and John get reaquainted.

Worthy - You remind yourself you’re worthy of John.

Galas have never been John’s thing.

In fact, he’s surprised he’s not having PTSD flashbacks from all the ones he’d attended from the tender age of six all the way up to his early twenties. That’s what happens when you’re the youngest son of a Shanghai media mogul, you’re expected to attend society events, no matter how dog tired you are from night shifts you’ve been pulling at PTMC.

But still, this is for a good cause. Although that’s not the only reason he’s here. No, that reason is currently lingering by the door to the music room, in a sequined gold dress, that clings to her like silk, highlighting the contours of her body.

His mother would murder him if he knew he was seeing a musician, especially the one she’d been recommending to all her friends for their own events. The two of you had met at the New Year’s Eve ball when he had stepped out onto the balcony to catch a breath from his mother’s matching making, and ended up sharing the most spectacular kiss of John’s life.

It’s been six months since then and your career has taken off in abundance, meaning John attends every single invitation that’s optioned to him which thrills his mother to no end.

His flash of gold disappears, slipping through the crack in the door into the room beyond. He follows, straightening the tie off his thousand dollar suit as he discreetly slides into the music room, closing the door behind him.

You’re already sitting at the baby grand piano when he closes the door behind him, your fingers playing over the keys as the tune to Adele’s Skyfall serenades him. The edges of his mouth tip up into a smile because that song, it’s a throwback to your first meeting, to his father requesting it to taunt another club member who said the Bond films were gauche.

Before you, John didn’t understand the true power of music, that it could captivate you with only a few notes, string you along with its tune, make you feel something far beyond anything you’d ever experienced.

His hands come to rest on your bare shoulders, thumbs skating over the slender gold chain clasped at the nape of your neck. The pendent is a 14ct treble clef with a tiny diamond ensnared at the lower loop. It’s a sign of his devotion to you, his unbreakable oath to love you for all eternity.

The music tapers off as you incline your head towards him, a smile playing across your lips as your eyes meet.

“Bravo.” He murmurs, his hand sliding up to your jaw, tipping your mouth towards his.  “I’ve missed hearing you play.”

That kiss… it’s everything to John. Its nights tangled up in your sheets, waking up to the sound of your first love, the guitar, as you strum out Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T’s. It’s the sensual scent of amber and balmy myrrh clinging to his skin after spending the afternoon making love to you. It’s a thousand little things that make up the perfection that’s right in front of him, the woman he’s going to marry one day.

“I want to taste you.” He whispers as his heated mouth weaves a trail down your throat, his teeth grazing over that gold chain as he lowers himself to his knees. His hips fit snugly between your thighs, pushing the hem of your dress up so it skirts along the line of your panties. His palms skate down your calves, removing the gold heels from each of your feet. “Close the fall board for me baby, my back’s a little fucked up tonight so I need you on top of the piano for what I’m about to do to you.”

You obey like the good girl you are and he rises to his feet, taking your hand to steady you as you sit on the edge of the piano. He resumes your previous position on the piano bench, guiding your legs over his shoulders until his breath ghosts over your cunt through your underwear.

“I’ve missed this pussy.” His knuckles run over your slit, your wetness covering them as he teases your hole. “A couple of days of back to back shifts and I’m absolutely craving you, Cici.”

You lean back on your palms, your entire body arching as his mouth brushes over that needy little nub, sucking gently through your underwear. His hands slide up to your hips, grasping the elastic before he tugs them down your thighs, his fingertips delving into the damp silk.

“Oh sweetheart, you’ve missed me too, haven’t you?” He murmurs tucking them into his pocket, so that their heat is nestled alongside his cock. “You’re practically dripping for me.”

His mouth returns, gliding along your pussy, seeking out your warm centre. His thumb traces over your clit, small, purposeful circles as he pushes inside, spearing you with his tongue. Your hips jump, allowing him to thrust deeper, harder, your breath coming out in a symphony of ragged pants.

He chases the rhapsody all the way to the crescendo, his name rolling off your lips like a prayer as a burst of honey floods his tongue, soaking his face. He nuzzles in closer, devouring you, licking up every single drop as you collapse back onto the cool lacquered wood.

“I’ve told you before Cici, the two of us… we make beautiful music.” John murmurs against your thigh, you can feel his smile against your skin as you laugh, your fingers running through his fine dark hair.

“You’re right John.” You whisper trying to catch your breath. “We most certainly do.”

Like My Work? - Tip your friendly fan fic writer here!

But the prospect of having to find alternate escapes from the family was worrying. Surely the man was just old, preaching outdated opinions about the sanctity of marriage. It’s not like anyone could truly stop you. 

Ursula had asked why you were so bothered by it, anyway. Marriage happens because two people are delusional enough to think that they’ll be together forever. That had shut you up for a while. Sometimes, though, that conversation lingers in the back of your head. 

Like now, as you’re donned in the dress a hundred other Danforth women before you have worn. A dress she might have worn. 

You look through the arched windows of their manor at the venue below and see servants bustling about. There’s a knock on your door, and the maid behind you buttons the last bit of your dress before going to answer. You don’t have to turn to know who it is as she opens the door. It’s been nearly a day since Titus last spoke with you, and you’re sure he’s been going stir crazy. 

“Leave us.”

“But, sir-”

“Do I really need to repeat myself?”

You finally turn, letting out a weary sigh as the poor girl flinches back. “Don’t scare her. You’re the one breaking tradition, after all.”

His shoulders visibly relax at the sound of your voice. The maid makes the wise decision to slip past him rather than argue further. You step down from the stool she’d had you on and eagerly rush toward him. He’s got even less patience than you, reaching forward and snagging your waist, dragging you into his chest. 

You let out an airy laugh, hands wrapping around the lapels of his suit. “Missed me that much, hm?” He tenses up and you frown, glancing up at him. “What is it?”

Titus’s gaze is distant, eyes cloudy with something you can’t quite place. He finally looks down at you, face softening and lips turning up. “You’re going to do great tonight.”

Your brows furrow as you let out a confused laugh. “I hope so. I’m not really sure how I could screw up my own vows.” His lips purse, like he wants to correct you. But he stays quiet. “Is everything alright, sweetheart?”

“And what are you doing here?” You jump, head thumping into his chest as Ursula breaks up the tense moment. She lingers in the doorway, a pointed look directed at her brother. 

Titus’s hands squeeze once around your waist before he backs off. “I’m not allowed to speak with my future wife?”

A smile slips unbidden onto your face. You’re still getting used to the thought of being the next Mrs. Danforth. Ursula’s gaze cuts to you, her shoulders tense as she takes in your giddy demeanor. “It’s against tradition.”

“Oh, I don’t believe in that silly stuff,” you tell her. 

“Not your tradition, honey. It’s a Danforth thing. Titus.” Her voice is firm; there's no room for arguments. He gives you a lingering stare before following her out of the room. 

Ursula isn’t the worst sister-in-law you could have. She’s cold and distant with you, but you prefer that to being overbearing and constantly accusing you of being a gold digger. As half his family likes to do. If you were in it for the money, there were plenty of easier rich men you could have gone after. You want something else from the Danforths. Loving Titus just happened to be a pleasant change in plans. 

Ursula keeps pulling you aside. Asking if you’re completely sure you want to be with him. You know that if you told Titus about her constant questioning, he’d be beyond upset. Which is the only reason you’ve kept it to yourself. But you’d be lying if you said she wasn’t the reason you were so riddled with anxiety today. It’s not so much about marrying him as about forever being connected to his family. 

Poor or rich, though, in-laws will always be a pain in the ass. 

“I do.”

“I do.”

The entire wedding is a blur. From being led down the aisle to saying your vows. There’s only here and now. The heavy weight of the Danforth family ring on your left finger as you hold Titus’s hand. You think the priest says something about kissing the bride. But you’re not listening. The only thing you can focus on is your husband. 

He’s got that wild look in his eyes, eager and ready to devour you. The priest barely finishes what he’s saying before Titus cups your cheeks and drags you into him. Your lips part in surprise against his as he kisses you in a way that pushes the boundaries of propriety. But as Titus's hand drops to cup the back of your neck, you’re sure you’re the only one worried about that. 

Your arms wind around his neck, a quiet moan slipping from your lips as he kisses you with a fervent desire bordering on desperation. His ring is on your finger. You’ve officially taken his last name, and you can’t understand this anxiety coming off him. Surely he can’t lack that much faith in you.

“Titus,” you whisper, trying to get a breath in for a moment. He pauses, eyes cloudy as he stares down at you. “Save it for the honeymoon,” you laugh, but he doesn’t join you. His hands flex around you once, twice, before you’re letting out a short squeal as he lifts you off your feet. He does it with ease, hardly breaking a sweat as he marches you back down the aisle. 

Ursula shoots him a knowing look, rolling her eyes as you pass by. You can’t help but laugh, holding tight to him as you glance over his shoulder. But the guests don’t look happy that the ceremony is over and it's time for the reception. They don’t seem particularly enthused about you joining the family, either. Instead, they stand, staring at you and whispering amongst themselves with hungry looks on their faces. 

You swallow roughly, forcing your gaze off them. “Where are you taking me?” you demand, frowning as you realize he’s heading back inside the manor. The reception’s meant to take place in the main courtyard. 

His eyes flit down to you before there’s a small smirk on his lips. “I want a moment alone with my wife. Is that so wrong?”

You struggle to subdue the smile on your face. “We have a reception to get to.” You’re not exactly eager to go back out there with his vicious family members. But they’re going to know exactly what the two of you are getting up to. 

He scoffs, as if he heard your thoughts. “Don’t give a shit about them, alright, sweetheart. They’re having their fun. Let's have ours,” he says, setting you down in front of one of the many bedroom doors. Titus shoots you a wink, opening it and pressing his palm to your lower back, ushering you in. 

You should resist; try to remake your first impression with his family. But… fuck ‘em. This isn’t the wedding you wanted. This isn’t the house you wanted. You’re going to let yourself have a little fun today. 

You lace your fingers with his, dragging him inside after you. He barely pays enough attention to kick the door shut behind him. You let out a quiet giggle at his excitement, but it’s quickly cut off by him dragging you into another kiss. He always leaves you feeling wrecked. Like you’ve been hit with a sudden fervor, a passion ignites within you that no one else has ever brought forth. 

Your hand wraps around his suit, struggling with the buttons as you drag it down his arms. He lets out a low chuckle at your own eagerness. You suppose you’re perfect for each other. Both so pathetic and desperate to be naked and within each other’s arms at all times. 

His hands struggle with the complicated buttons on the back of your dress. A short gasp leaves you as he breaks away, whipping you around. He tries for a moment to preserve the dress, and then you hear a very loud rip as he tosses away the idea of preservation. 

“Titus!” You scold, hands coming up to try to catch the dress before it falls to the floor. It’s pointless, though. The heirloom has been thoroughly destroyed. “You know they’re going to blame me for that,” you hiss. 

Though when you glare over your shoulder at him, it’s hard to remember why you were mad. He’s got a cocky smirk on his face as he shrugs, shoving the dress down your body. “I’ll take care of it,” he swears, his voice husky with the promise of a dozen other things. The dress is the last thing on his mind. 

Your lips tilt up, and you wind your arms around his neck once more. Rough hands skate down the backs of your thighs until he’s lifting you, leading you both back to the bed. You work eagerly on untucking his shirt, nails scratching greedily down his muscled chest. “How’d I get so lucky?” You wonder as he drops you down on the bed.

He offers you a sly grin, quickly undoing his belt as you help him push his pants down. “Think I’m supposed to be asking you that, Mrs. Danforth.”

“Mm,” you hum, “I’m not going to get used to the sound of that.”

He pauses, expression turning serious. “You will,” he swears, closer to a demand, really. 

Your brows furrow, some of your excitement dimming as you cup his cheek. “Of course,” you mutter, frowning as he leans into your touch. He’s usually eager for affection, but something is off. 

He doesn’t let you linger on the thought for long. He drags you down until your pelvis is flush with his and you can feel just how much your new name excites him. He reaches down to peel off your underwear, only to let out a low groan when he realizes you hadn’t bothered with any. 

He shoots you a sharp look that you only grin at. “What? I thought it would be a nice surprise for the garter toss,” he lets out another groan, face falling into your neck as you laugh. It turns into a deep moan as his fingers skate across your center, your want quickly coating them. 

That desperate urgency burning beneath his skin enthuses your own. Your hips jolt up impatiently, legs flexing around his hips as you let out an impatient groan. “Titus,” you whisper, lips skating across his jaw as he teases you. “Please.” You’ve barely finished the word before his touch disappears. 

You’re tempted to complain before you catch him pushing down his boxers, movements quick and desperate as he works to free himself. You would tease him if you weren’t so riled up yourself. How tonight goes is a coin toss, no matter how hard you worked to prepare yourself. Who knows? They might need this dress in another few months for the next Mrs. Danforth. 

The thought burns at you, bites beneath your skin, and sends white-hot rage boiling through your body. Another woman in this bed, with her legs wrapped around the man you were never supposed to want. Your nails dig into Titus’s back, earning a sharp hiss just as he inches himself inside you. 

Something on your face must give away some of your inner turmoil. His brows turn in as his hand clasps the back of your neck, and he drags you into another desperate kiss. A keening whine passes between your lips as his free arm props your knee over his elbow, somehow burying himself deeper inside you. 

“God,” you moan, finding it hard to catch your breath. “Don’t stop,” you whisper, your body thrumming with pleasure only he knows how to give. 

He’s more intense than any man you’ve ever been with. Each time with him feels like a recoupling of your souls. But this is different. 

His hand slips from the back of your neck, resting over the hollow of your throat as his thumb presses into your pulse. He’s pressing himself deeper inside you, as if he’s trying to merge you into one being. One soul that can’t be split. As endearing as such a desperate desire is, there’s a gnawing worry in the back of your mind. 

He’s acting like this will be your last time together. As if this one moment is all he’ll have to remember you by. Your hands come up, clawing down his back at a particularly deep thrust. The moan it lurches from you only makes his grip tighten. 

This is not the end.

You’re so distracted by the feeling of him over you, inside you, consuming you, that you can’t pay attention to your own worry. That fire is building, spreading; you don’t want to be put out. You want to ignite and burn with him. 

Your pleasure crests as you let out a husky moan, legs tightening around his hips as you lazily meet each one of his thrusts. He loses his rhythm after a moment, lips lazing across your cheek and down your neck. Again, he lingers at your pulse, teeth digging slightly into the sensitive skin. 

You jolt, back arching as the pain makes pleasure throb in your already sated core. His hips stutter before you can feel warmth spilling into you. That fire sparks, ignites, and then shudders as you both lie there, chests heaving.  

Your fingers drag up his back, feeling him shiver at the light touch. They find their way into his hair, scratching through the loose curls. You can’t help but smile at the way he sinks into your touch, practically melting into you. 

“We should stay here,” he whispers. 

Your eyes narrow, hands stilling as you try to push him back. He’s stubborn, face pressed firmly into your neck a moment longer before obeying. “I was promised cake,” you mutter, smiling slightly. 

He chuckles, knowing that you hadn’t even been able to choose that for your wedding. “How about this… You stay here with me, and I'll get you whatever cake you want tomorrow. The actual flavor you wanted.”

You really should go back out there. Actually attend the reception of your own wedding. But you doubt you’re capable of walking right now, much less entertaining polite conversation with his horrific family. “Deal,” you whisper, dragging him down into another kiss. 

Something stirs between your legs, and you let out a low groan. “How is that even possible?”

“Look what you do to me, Mrs. Danforth,” he smirks, getting comfortable between your legs once more. You’d push him away if you didn’t like the sound of that name so much. 

Your head is on Titus’s chest when you hear it, a strange bell tolling in the distance. Your body goes still, the noise reminding you of why you ever came back here. 

“What’s that?” You play at confusion, bleary eyes opening as you turn toward the window. His hand tightens around your shoulder, breath stalling beneath your ear. “Titus?” You frown, glancing up at him. 

He’s not looking at you, gaze drifting somewhere beyond you. There’s a knock at the door before you can press further. Titus’s eyes fall shut before he shifts you away, getting up to answer. Ursula stands in the doorway, backlit by the candelabra of the old estate. You frown, lifting the covers to obscure the thin nightgown you’re wearing. 

“It’s time.” She glances toward Titus before taking a step inside. 

“Time?” you ask, gaze darting between the twins. “Time for what? I’m pretty sure we already missed the reception,” you try to laugh, but it trails off at their grim expressions. Something inside you coils tight. 

You’ve been waiting for this. 

Ursula beckons you forward, but Titus steps up. Your brows turn in as you glance over at him. His expression is pinched. Bound by the oaths and secrets of his family, but his love for you is holding him back. You slowly get out of bed, waiting for him to do something, but he stands frozen between you and his sister. 

“Titus?” you try, almost wondering if he really would break tradition. 

He turns toward you, mouth opening, and something sharp on his face. “Enough,” Ursula butts in, eyes wide as she watches her brother. “There’s something I need to show you. It’s a tradition of sorts in our family,” she explains, but her gaze never wavers from her brother. 

Your husband, who is caught between loyalty and devotion. 

You squeeze his hand as you pass by, offering a confused smile. He buys into the act, a shaky breath leaving him as he steps back. “Is everything okay?” You ask, your voice pitched to sell the naivety they’re eager for. 

“Ignore him; his nerves seem to be getting the best of him,” Ursula cuts in. Her smile is wide, too tight at the edges to be anything real. But you pretend, playing into the role they’ve come to expect from you. You follow her from Titus’s room. 

You’re only a few steps away when you hear footsteps behind you. Glancing over your shoulder, you see the male members of Titus’s family storming into the room. They push him back from the doorway, slamming the door closed behind them so he can’t follow you and Ursula. 

A part of you hopes he truly would have broken the rules for you. Not that they would ever let him go without some blood spilled. 

“Wherever we’re going, I’m sure I’m not dressed for it,” you joke, motioning down at the white, silk nightgown that barely brushes your knees. Ursula hums, and you glance over at her. Her shoulders are tense, expression painfully pinched. If you didn’t know her any better, you’d almost think she was regretful. You’re not sure a Danforth is capable of remorse. 

“You’ll be fine,” she tells you coolly. “I only wanted to show you something.” She leads you through the winding halls until you reach one covered in portraits. 

People dressed in suits and wedding gowns decorate the paintings on the wall. Each expression is grim and haunted. “There is a tradition in our family. One we’ve held for hundreds of years. It’s an initiation of sorts into becoming a Danforth. The final test to prove your worth.”

“Oh? And suffering a wine-drunk aunt isn’t enough?” Ursula offers a pitying laugh but brushes past your comment. Dread and anticipation coil deeper the further you walk. 

“Our family is a part of something special. We follow a man whom few others do, who has never led us wrong. Those who enter the family must also prove themselves to him. Some others who follow him like to simply play games with the brides.”

She stops in front of a portrait, and a woman with a gaunt and haunted face stares down at her. You recognize her from the pictures Titus so rarely shows you. Her mother had been gone for years before you’d ever stepped foot in this place. 

“A few simply sacrifice their brides in the name of Le Bail.”

Your head whips towards her, attention ripped away from the painting. “Sacrifice?”

“None of that’s important.” She cuts you off, turning on her heel. Her expression is flat, but her eyes are narrowed into worried slits. “When the time comes, you need to run.”

“What-" You’re cut off as steps thud up behind you. An arm clamps its way around your throat before you can even turn. A sharp prick at the skin of your neck as cold liquid rushes through your veins, and you go limp in your attacker's arms. 

You were eight the first time you set foot on the estate. A new job your mother had acquired, cleaning for the reclusive Danforths. You were nine by the time she’d fully charmed the eldest Danforth. And the wedding happened only a few days after your birthday. 

There’s not much of the ceremony that you remember. You’d stood behind your mother on the altar. She hadn’t had any other friends to join her bridal party, and Chester Danforth hadn’t minded how close his new bride was to her daughter. 

The twins had been sitting in the front row, each of them looking bored and eager to get the ceremony over with. You’d liked listening to the vows, not that you remember them anymore. You’d simply enjoyed the idea of a love so strong they were ready to bind themselves to each other for the rest of their lives. 

You hadn’t yet discovered what divorce was. Better yet, you hardly knew what a betrayal was. After the reception, Chester and your mother led you and the twins up to the top floor of the estate. 

“I want you kids to stay in here now; your new mother and I have some business to discuss.” Ursula had grimaced at Chester calling your mom her new one. But she’d said nothing, ever the perfect daughter. Titus had glared, but he rarely butted up. 

Chester glared down at his children, disappointed in their lack of response. You had lingered awkwardly beside them, still such an outlier in their dynamic. “Titus, try to get to know your new sister.”

“She’s not my sister,” Titus had snapped, only a few years older than you. Chester was quick, too quick for any of you to stop him. His hand snapped out, striking Titus harshly across the cheek. Your mother flinched, eyes wide as she hung off the arm of her new husband. You’d tried to step forward, but she’d stopped you with a terrified look. 

For a moment, the mask she’d been wearing slipped. You saw the fear in her eyes. For yourself or her, you’d never find out. 

Titus went quiet, sulked to the back of the room as Chester set his eyes on you. You’d cowered, too afraid to meet his eye. With a satisfied hum, he’d taken your mother, and she’d left without a goodbye. 

Ursula sank into an armchair, eyes fluttering closed. Titus simply crossed his arms, glaring through the window. It was only a few years' age difference between you all, but it was daunting nonetheless. 

You’d sat on the carpet, too afraid to mess up their fancy couch and chairs. “When do I get to go home?” You’d asked, your voice quiet as you fiddled with a thread on your dress. 

“This is your home,” Ursula had responded boredly. 

“For now,” Titus snapped, glaring over at you. You gulped, refusing to meet his eye. You didn’t want this big place to be your home. You wanted to go back to the apartment and hide in your room. You didn’t like these people, and you didn’t like your new stepfather. 

A bell tolled in the distance, and you jumped as laughter echoed through the halls. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a game the adults play,” Ursula told you, leafing through a book without actually reading anything. They’d left a dollhouse in the room for you to play with, but you were afraid of looking like a baby in front of the twins. 

“Oh. Will I get to play?”

Ursula’s eyes shot up to meet yours, and you frowned at the concern in them. “I hope not.”

“I’m sure she’d do great,” Titus scoffed, throwing a mean glance your way. You were pretty sure that wasn’t actually a compliment. 

It took another hour before you gave in and inched toward the dollhouse. You glanced over your shoulder, but neither of the twins was looking at you. Humming softly to yourself, you picked up the porcelain figures and danced them through the foyer of the ancient set. 

A piercing scream echoed through the halls. It rattled through your bones and made tears burn in your eyes. You gasped, jumping up with a start. The doll slipped from your hands, cracking against the floor and shattering at your feet. 

“What was that?” 

Ursula’s brows raised, boredly glancing over at the door. She let out a heavy sigh but didn’t answer you. “Part of the game.” You jumped again as Titus’s voice echoed in your ear. Whipping around, you found him hovering just behind you, but his attention wasn’t focused on you. Rather, the porcelain doll was broken at your feet. 

“Oh,” you let out a small gasp, dropping to your knees as you rushed to pick up the pieces. “I’m sorry,” you muttered, hissing when a shard slipped against your palm. 

“Forget it,” he grunted, kneeling and offering you the handkerchief from his suit. You hesitated, hardly ever having gotten a nice word from him, let alone a peace offering. He waved it in your face, and you quickly took it. 

“Thank you,” you whispered. He only stood up, going back to standing by the window. You pressed the handkerchief to your bleeding wound, grimacing as a stinging pain radiated through your palm. 

A bell tolled off in the distance, and you frowned. Suddenly, the room’s door opened. Ursula shot up straight, eyes wide as she peered over at her father. He wore a grim expression that made her own face fall, her gaze going blank as she looked over at you. 

Chester called your name, and you frowned. “Say goodbye to Titus and Ursula.” You didn’t want to. Something about his voice made your stomach twist. But you didn’t want him telling your mother you’d been bad. 

Turning back to the twins, you offered a shaky smile. “Goodbye-”

Ursula didn’t so much as flinch, but Titus had grimaced, looking away as his father rushed up behind you and pressed a syringe to your neck. Neither had objected as he dragged you from the room and threw you into your new, lonely life, with only a small envelope of cash. 

This is the second time in your life these fuckers have drugged you, and it’s starting to piss you off. You slowly lift your head, finding it heavy and aching. Your eyes blur and refocus as you struggle to take in your surroundings. 

Mud and sticks press up against the sensitive flesh of your limbs. It takes a moment for you to realize they’ve dumped you in the forest bordering the estate. With a shaky sigh, you struggle onto your hands and knees. Sharp rocks bite into your hands as you push yourself up to stand on wobbling legs. 

The blood rushes from your head, leaving you dizzy and stumbling as you try to rest against a tree. You’d never known how this works. Only got bits and pieces from drunken relatives with big mouths. 

They aren’t supposed to tell you that your wedding night ends with your being hunted like a dog, of course. But they didn’t know that you were already aware of their little tradition. Of the long list of women who’d gone missing once they visited this haunted estate. You pieced together what you could from the stories they’d told without ever giving away too much. 

Nowhere had you figured out that they drugged the women before they began slaughtering them. It seems unfair to expect a woman to prove she can survive a ruthless world when you begin by crippling her. But you doubt these people care for fairness if it comes at the expense of a good show. 

You reach up, yanking leaves from your hair as you dig into the updo they’d done for you. Buried carefully is a slim, silver pin. You slide it free and, with unsteady hands, slip off the cap, revealing the sharpened blade within. 

It’s barely larger than a letter opener. But you need whatever advantage you can get, and you were too afraid they would search you to try strapping on a knife. 

Pushing away from the tree, something sharp stabs into the sole of your foot. Glancing down, you let out a weary sigh. It’s not enough that they drug you. They need to take your shoes too? 

Do they even want you to survive? Or is this all one big joke to them?

Your chest clenches, thinking of Titus watching them do this to you. Watching them dump you in the woods to be shot at like a wild animal. Clenching your eyes shut, you shake your head. He chose his side; you knew this would happen.

It doesn’t matter where he is. You have one goal tonight, and it isn’t to survive. You want the blood you’re owed. 

Steeling yourself for the pain, you make your way through the woods. You search out any landmarks or hints as to which side of the property they left you, but it’s too dark to see anything. The best you can do is keep your steps quiet and try to remain aware of your surroundings. 

It takes a while more of walking before you hear them. Two loud-mouthed Danforth cousins complaining about their plans for later tonight. “How long do you think the hunt will take this time?”

“I don’t know,” one of them sighs. “Last time we got her in half an hour. I’m already getting fucking bored just standing out here.”

“I told you we should have started looking-”

His sentence ends in a choked gurgle as you sneak up behind him, slim blade slipping across his throat. The other man’s eyes widen as he chokes on his gasp, too shocked to reach for the gun strapped to his hip. 

You grin as the body falls to the ground, bending down to pick up the shotgun he’d dropped. The other one finally reaches for his handgun, but you’re already standing up, double-barrel pointing right at his chest. 

“Uh-uh,” you scold, motioning for him to put the gun down. He throws it into the leaves, and you let out an impatient huff. He whips his hands up in surrender, dropping to his knees before you can even tell him to. 

“Where am I?” you demand, eyes flitting across the ground, trying to find the metal glint of a gun buried in the undergrowth. Asshole couldn’t have just handed it to you?

He grimaces and shakes his head. “I can’t say-”

The blast of the shotgun echoes through the trees, scaring a few owls from their branches. You would be worried about the noise if it weren’t for the much louder screeching in front of you. The cousin wriggles wildly on the ground, screaming and clutching his bleeding leg. 

Just below his knee, his left leg is barely hanging on. The blast had been more potent than you’d expected, but it’s not like you needed him whole, just alive. “Now!” You demand, pushing closer. 

“Okay!” he screams, bloody hands slipping across what’s left of his leg. “East courtyard! We’re in the East Courtyard! Please, I need-”

You ignore him, having finally spotted the gun he’d so carelessly tossed away. His cries of pain are silenced as you bury a bullet into his head. And one into the other man’s, just for good measure. Your eyes dart down to his boots, and a wicked idea runs through your head. 

“You’re telling me she did this?” Ursula glares down at the bodies of Malcom and Brent. Two cousins whom Titus had cared nothing for. He hadn’t even known their names until some maid had rushed up to tell them their bodies had been found. 

“Who else would have?” His aunt demands, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stares at her boy’s bodies. 

“Nothing in the rules about killing family,” Titus reminds her, kneeling beside one of them. Malcolm or Brent, he doesn’t truly care. 

Ursula shoots him a sharp look as their Aunt’s blubbering grows worse. He ignores her in favor of examining the wounds on the body. One bullet to the head- what the others assume he died from. But he knows that you were stripped of any weapons you might have held, anything that would have given you an advantage in the game. 

It’s clear that you shot this one through the back of the head and the other straight to the face. He doesn’t know where you would have gotten the gun. His gaze narrows, and he finally sees the small slit against the throat. 

The true cause of death. 

You’d slit his throat with something and were trying to hide it. Why?

“I just don’t understand why she took their shoes?” His aunt cries, wiping her eyes vigorously. Titus’s eyes drop to the corpse’s bare feet, and he snorts. 

“You took hers, didn’t you?” Both Ursula and his aunt shoot him sharp glares, but he’s in no mood to play at being nice tonight. He needs to find you before someone else does. No one would tell him where you’d been dropped off, likely anticipating what he was going to do. He’s been struggling to track you down since the game began. 

“Titus,” Ursula mutters, nodding toward something in the dirt. He steps closer and sees fresh bootprints in the mud. 

His aunt gasps and shoots forward. “That little bitch,” she hisses, pulling her gun from her hip and following your trail. Ursula follows behind her, but Titus hesitates. This is too easy. You’re too clever to have already stashed a weapon on you and killed two of his family to make such a simple mistake. 

He knows it's a trap he’s walking into, but he follows his sister and aunt just so he might have a chance to see you. 

The trail leads them all to a small clearing. Too much open space for him to feel comfortable. Ursula hesitates at the edge of the field, glancing around with a suspicious look. His aunt barrels forward, paying little mind to any danger around her. 

“What the fuck?” She mutters, glancing down at the boots you’ve abandoned in the grass. Her head lifts just as a shot echoes through the trees. Titus’s head whips around, trying to find where you are. The bullet grazes his aunt’s throat, hitting just deep enough to nick her carotid, sending blood flying as she falls to her knees. 

Her hands scramble along her throat, struggling to staunch the blood as she chokes on it. Ursula takes a foolish step forward, and then she falls to her knees. A loud groan rips from her chest as she clutches her right thigh. Right where you’ve just buried another bullet in her. 

“Go get her!” She growls, slapping at Titus’s hand. He’s already moving, gaze locking onto a streak of movement further in the trees. He never knew you were such a good shot; it wasn’t information you’d offered up to him. Even on the rare occasion that he took you hunting, you always seemed to miss whatever animal you were aiming for. He had honestly been worried about how well you would be able to defend yourself tonight. 

There seems to be more to you than you’d let on. 

Your heart is pounding against your ribs, blood pumping painfully as you race through the woods. Boots too big for you slip up and down your ankles, only slowing you down as you try to outrace the predator hot on your tail. 

You can’t hear him following behind you, his footsteps nearly silent as he tracks you down with ruthless efficiency. You should have shot him in that field. Ursula didn’t matter; you could take her down in hand-to-hand easily. 

It should have been Titus you crippled. It should have been him you shot down, so he couldn’t come after you. If anyone could ruin your plans tonight, it’s him. But you were weak. You cowered at the thought of hurting him, and now he’s hunting you. 

One moment of mercy- that’s all it takes. 

A scream rips from you as something heavy barrels into your side. It’s cut off as your body slams against the ground, breath ripped from you in one violent yank as Titus straddles your hips. He clamps a hand around your mouth, eyes darting around the woods as you try to regain your bearings. 

When he’s sure no one else is around, he slowly releases you, though he doesn’t allow you to stand. He keeps you pinned and completely at his mercy. His eyes are crazed as they assess you. 

Futilely, you kick out, hands reaching up and scratching at any flesh you can find. You already know he won’t let you go, but you try anyway. “Enough,” he mutters, swatting your hands away like they’re nothing. 

That must be all you are to him, for how quickly he turned against you. Nothing.

“Go on,” you goad, teeth bared as you glare up at him. “Do it.” This is a gamble, and one you want to be confident in but just can’t be. You don’t know how he would kill you or if he’s thought about it often. 

A bullet would be quick. His hands wrapped around your throat would feel more personal, but it would hurt. Not just your death. But knowing he had loved you and could still look you in the eyes and slaughter you like an animal. This must have been how she felt when they’d killed her.

Something flashes across his face. Pained and disgusted as he stares down at you. You couldn’t have offended him. He’s the one pinning you down. He holds your life in his hands, not the other way around. But the way he’s looking at you, the gleam in his eyes, you’d never be able to guess the truth of the situation. His leash is in your hands. You should’ve known how to tug.

“Do what?” He snaps, eyes narrowed as his gaze roves over you. Still assessing, but now you can understand what for. He’s trying to see if someone else has gotten to you first. If you’re hurt in any way. 

Maybe he really does care. 

Or maybe he’s such a sadistic bastard that he wants to toy with you a bit first. 

“Kill me,” you hiss out, hate and barbed hurt frothing at the corner of your lips. “That’s what this is all for, isn’t it?” You demand, throat closing as you choke back tears. This wasn’t meant to be so fast. You’d worked for years to get to this moment. And now…

You just pass all that work off and hand your life away because you were too weak to kill your husband when you had the chance. 

“Did I mean anything to you?” You bite the words out, the truth too painful to realize as you stare up into his cold eyes. 

Your mother had been here once. Pinned down by the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with. Titus’s father had slaughtered her. Cut her down where she stood for the sake of tradition. You were a fool to think this was a fate you could escape. 

 His hands loosen around your wrist, face falling as he draws back. You wrench away from him, scrambling back from his hold as you surge to your feet. He remains where you left him, kneeling in the dirt as he stares up at you. 

“You were going to let them kill me!” You accuse, biting back the disgust you feel looking down at him. 

“No, never,” he bites out, gaze turning sharp. His hands reach out, linger in the air between you like he can’t decide if he should stay kneeling or pin you down again. “I was never going to let them hurt you.”

You hesitate for a moment, and you see how much it hurts him. Taking a step forward, his hands fly out, crumpling the ruined skirt of your nightgown in his palms. He drags himself forward, face buried in the silk as you let out a shuddering sigh. 

“I was trying to protect you,” he insists. “But they wouldn’t tell me where you were. I didn’t even know if you were alive.”

Something in you snaps. The fight you’d been carrying disappears as you fall to your knees before him. He doesn’t let you feel the impact, touch greedy as he pulls you into his chest. You have no desire to escape him or his suffocating hold. 

But that fire still burns for the man who started this all. The one who gave you a reason to get involved with the Danforths. And if you have to use Titus's warped sense of devotion to get to him, so be it. 

“Why did you let them take me?” You whisper, hands cupping his cheeks. Your eyes narrow at how he sinks into your touch. How eager he is for forgiveness. Can you trust this devotion he holds for you over his loyalty to his own family? You’re not sure, but it's a gamble you’ll have to take. 

The blood on your hands can’t be for nothing after how long you’ve waited. 

“I,” his mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. No matter what, he doesn’t have a good enough excuse for his betrayal. Which works well in your favor. 

You put a tremble in your voice; it's not hard to muster, but you lay it on as thick as you can. Your lips quiver as you stare up at him. Your voice is broken as you whisper, “Why’d you let them take me?”

Titus’s expression twitches; he flinches from the accusation. But there’s only so far he can run from the truth. “I was never going to let them hurt you,” he insists, gaze pleading. 

“They already did,” you bite back, ripping your touch from him like he’s burned you. 

They hadn’t. His ridiculous cousins hadn’t even gotten the chance to raise their weapons. He, however, doesn’t need to know that. What he needs to know is that you’re afraid, vulnerable. He has to want to protect you. 

“I can fix this,” he insists, getting to his feet and trailing slowly behind you as you pace. “Let me help you. Let me keep you safe.”

You let out a sharp scoff, but there’s no true emotion behind it. This is all just another act, one part of a long play that’s meant to be coming to a close. “Why would I ever trust you, again?”

His hands reach out, snatching up your wrists as he whips you around to face him. It doesn’t hurt, but it's tight enough that you can’t slip free from him. Just as he opens his mouth to say something, or maybe declare his love again, voices echo through the forest. Your shoulders jolt as his gaze whips behind you both. 

There’s a group coming toward you both. They’re stomping loudly through the underbrush, conversation vague and careless. They couldn’t care less if you hear them. They all just assume you’re easy prey. Even if you’ve already killed three of them. You’re almost tempted to take out your gun, show them what a true predator looks like. 

But Titus’s hands are clamping around your shoulders, his expression severe as he surveys you. “If you keep heading north, you’ll reach the estate. I want you to go to the ballroom and wait for me.”

“What-“

“Wait for me,” he demands, his gaze already seeing that gnawing desire to run in your eyes. You glare at him, but he won’t budge. 

“What are you going to do?”

Slowly, like it pains him to, he releases you. His hands slip off your shoulders, and he reaches behind his back. He untucks a gun from his belt and you frown. It wouldn’t have taken him much just to pull that on you. A part of you wants to hope that he really doesn't want you dead. But you can’t trust him and you certainly can't trust your own bleeding heart. 

“There’s no rule against killing family,” is all he tells you as he backs away. You swallow roughly, slowly heading back through the trees. But you keep your eyes on where he disappeared and how easily he blended into the shadows. 

Just as you begin to see lights flooding through the tree line, you hear it. Three gunshots and then a scream that rips through the night. You pause for a moment. Something wicked and warm fills your chest as you think of him hunting them down. For you. 

Bursting through the forest, you find the mansion just as he’d instructed. You’re finally starting to gain a sense of where you are. Glancing over your shoulder, you check that no one’s following before running inside. 

You have a decent enough idea where you are now. You run through the marble hall, stopping for a moment to shove off the too-large boots that you’d stolen. With a low sigh, you come to a stop before a grand staircase. There’s a door in front of you. Beyond it will be the ballroom. You can hide, cower as you wait for Titus to rescue you and get you through the rest of the night. 

The thought is revolting to you. It’s easier, but you didn’t claw your way here just to give up right at the end. Your nails bite into your palms as you turn toward the stairs. You swore to yourself that the Danforth line will either be ended by or controlled by you. You won’t allow your sensitivity to hold you back anymore. 

With a fortifying breath, you start up the stairs. You glance over your shoulder, ensuring no one’s followed behind you. Your heart stills, your body freezing as you hear the unmistakable sound of a hammer being drawn back. Swallowing roughly, you glance up. Just at the top of the stairs is one of Titus’s cousins. 

Her hand trembles, gun shaking in her grip as she stares down at you with wide eyes. You’re about three steps away from her. Enough time for her to fire. You doubt she makes a good shot with the way the gun is shaking in her hand. But you don’t need to be a good shot when you’re this close. One bullet will be lethal. 

You hold out your hands and she flinches, finger pressing loosely against the trigger. With a risky lunge, you leap forward, shoving her hands up just as she pulls the trigger. The shot rings out in your ear; it rattles through your brain and knocks you off balance as you try to shake off the ringing in your head. She lets out a noise of surprise, not hesitating as she leaps forward and shoves you back. 

Your bare feet slip against the stairs, heart thudding against your chest as you feel the air rush up around you. Your stomach plummets as you’re knocked down the stairs. The first impact slams against your ribs, knocking the breath out of you as you go tumbling down the steps. You land on your side, your shoulder cracking beneath the weight of your body. Pain rips through you, slams up your spine and rips across your nerves as you struggle for breath. 

Her footsteps pound above you, frantic and rushed as she aims her gun once more. Your face is smashed against the cold marble, lungs trembling as your eyes slam shut. The shot echoes through the foyer, rattles against your bones. But no more pain comes. 

Risking one eye open, you peer up in time to see her head jerk back, her body dropping with a thud. Blood pools beneath her head and you let out a rattling breath. “Come on.” Calloused hands wrap around your arms, gentle as they stand you up. 

“Titus,” you mutter, still delirious from the gunshots and pain. He stands behind you, the barrel of his gun still smoking at his side. 

“What were you-“

You’re sure whatever he was about to say would turn you away from these stairs. Away from what you’ve worked so hard towards. But more voices echo through the halls. The gunshots were enough to draw the attention of anyone still in the estate. Titus’s head jerks in the direction of their voices and you use your one good arm to shove away from him. 

They spot him as you rush up the stairs. They call out his name and gasp as they see the dead girl on the stairs. You clutch your limp arm to your chest, breath coming heavy and short. Your ribs are tight and aching. You’re certain you broke something falling. But you’re closer than you’ve ever been to having your revenge. 

Swallowing down the pain, you race to the uppermost floor. To the room you know is housing the monster behind all your tormenting grief. You don’t knock or announce yourself, just throw the door open, teeth biting into your lip at the pain that shoots up your side. 

The old man sits in his wheelchair, glaring out at the courtyard below from his window. He doesn’t even flinch as you barrel in. Just lets out a low sigh like you’re inconveniencing him just by existing. 

You stand there, staring at the senior Danforth, gun held in your good hand. “Mr. Danforth,” you drawl, wrestling your breath back into shape as you let the door close behind you. “Do you remember me?”

He hums, head barely tilting over his shoulder. “I believe you just married my son. I’m honestly surprised you even made it this far.” He lets out a little huff. Probably mad that some cheap little orphan managed to marry his only male heir. To survive their twisted game this long.

”Do you remember her?” You ask, whispering your mother’s name as you draw the hammer of your gun back. 

“Oh,” he finally turns his wheelchair toward you, a cruel sneer on his lips. “Lovely woman,” he mutters. “A shame she wasn’t strong enough to lead my family.”

Your eyes narrow, finger trembling around the trigger as you lift your arm. “She was plenty strong,” you hiss. “But how would she ever win when you drug her and drag her out into the woods? I’d hardly call that fair.”

He shrugs, steepling his fingers as he surveys you like you’re nothing more than a gnat flitting about his face. “Life isn’t fair.” 

You point the gun at him, your eyes burning as you suck in a sharp breath. This is it. You end this here. 

The door slams open behind you and you jump, gun dropping to your side. Titus crashes into the room, eyes crazed as he surveys you and his father. The smug look on Chester’s face falls as he rolls himself closer to his son. 

“She tried to kill me, Titus. Finish the game, now!”

You back up as Titus stalks forward. Your heart sinks as he slowly reaches for the gun. Your grip goes lax around it as he backs you into a corner. Your spine hits the wall with a dull thud as you release a shuddering breath. 

His hand grazes your waist, his other one taking the gun from you. “Do it,” you whisper. “Kill me.”

His eyes narrow and he shakes his head. Voice low, he asks, “Why would I do that?”

Your gaze dips to his father, but he’s watching you both with a peculiar expression. One you can’t read. “Because if you don’t kill me,” you bite out through clenched teeth. “Then I will kill your father.” You hesitate, biting your lip as the truth stumbles out. “For what he did to-“

“Your mother,” Titus finishes, almost looking amused. 

“What?” You whisper. 

At the same time, Titus’s father snaps, slamming his hand against the arm of his wheelchair. “Enough games, Titus. Be done with her!”

But your husband’s eyes don’t leave your own. He’s got you pressed up against the wall. His attention is solely focused on you as he offers a wayward grin. Something malicious lurks underneath it. “You think I don’t know who you are? Who your mother is?”

”How long have you known?” You whisper, eyes wide as they dart between him and his father. 

“The whole time,” he answers, hand flexing around your waist. “I thought this was a game for you. I was waiting for you to make the first move.” His face dips forward, nose brushing against your jaw as his lips move softly against the sensitive skin. “You never did,” he wonders aloud, almost disappointed. 

“Because I love you,” you insist, hand reaching up to cup his cheek. He lifts his head, forehead falling against yours. The cold barrel of the gun bites through your nightgown and you let out a low whimper. 

“You or me?”

Your eyes flutter shut as you shake your head. “What?”

”Who pulls the trigger, sweetheart?”

Your eyes widen as you glance between him and his father. All this time, you’d been working toward this moment, always expecting it to be your last. Wasting your life to kill the man who’d murdered your mother and ruined what good was left inside you. You’d thought Titus to be a stepping stone, an obstacle in your path. 

But this…

This is far sweeter than anything you could have dreamed up. It wouldn’t hurt the eldest Danforth at all to be killed by some nobody girl. But to have his heir in your hands, throwing away all loyalty to his father in exchange for a spot at your side… It was better than anything you could ask for. 

“Please, Titus,” you whisper, eyes watery as you stare up at him. The hammer of the gun pulls back and you slowly release him. He steps away from you. The tears disappear as a smile pulls on your lips. You lean against the wall, broken and bloody, and watch as realization dawns on Chester Danforth’s face. 

“Titus, what the hell are you doing? Throwing away your family for some whore-“ your shoulders jump to your ears as his head flips back, brains spraying along the walls. You knew it was coming, but still, Titus hadn’t even hesitated. 

You look over at him, see the tight set of his jaw, the water lining his eyes. “Oh,” you croon, reaching for him. He turns, stalking toward you as a gasp rings out. You jolt forward, turning toward the door just as Ursula walks through. 

Her hands tremble around her mouth, breath coming quick and pained as she takes in the dead body of her father. “What did you do?” She demands, voice cracking as she whips around on you. You don’t hesitate as you did earlier. Don’t let her get off easy with a shot to her leg. 

You rip the gun from Titus’s hand and aim with your bad arm. This close, you don’t need great aim to knock her brain loose. Her body crumples to the floor as blood begins to pool around her body. The recoil knocks you back, and the gun clatters to the floor as you stumble back into the wall. 

“Titus,” you whisper, stomach dropping as he stares at his dead sister. “I’m so sorry, Titus. She never would have let me live after that. I had to. For us-“

Your words are cut off as he grabs your arms, dragging you into his chest. You let out a gasp, but it’s swallowed by his lips as he kisses you. It’s fervent, violent and desperate as he shoves you against the wall, hands squeezing around your broken ribs. 

You let out a pained whine, hands dragging up his shoulders and burying themselves in his hair. He groans into your open mouth as the bell rings out in the distance. 

You’ve done it. 

You’ve made it through the night. Now… The Danforth power, the riches, everything that makes them who they are. You hold it all in your hands. Their heir, their future- it's yours to command. 

SET AFTER:

Rockstar - Brendon Park meets his match against PTMC's fiery new attending.

Pussy Wagon - A spilled drink leads you to see a different side of your nemesis Park The Shark.

The First Time (NSFW) - Fireworks aren't the only explosive thing happening at Jesse's Fourth of July party.

A Loaded Gun (NSFW) - Hate sex has never been so fucking hot...

This Is Not A Love Story - Brandon tries to set a rule after a 'sticky' situation.

The Game - Brendon finds himself breaking his own rules when it comes to you.

SET BEFORE:

Pittfest -Brendon comforts you when you fall apart after the events of Pittfest.

Is He Prettier Than Me? - Brandon gets curious when he learns you have other plans.

The Drawer - Brendon realises your relationship may be shifting when he discovers he has a drawer at your place.

Scrunchies - Scrunchies… they’re the downfall of Brendon Park.

Love Games (NSFW) - Brendon and you love to play games, especially with each other.

An Exquisite Form of Torture (NSFW) - Brendon continues to turn up the heat as he holds you captive.

THAT Guy - Brendon is forced to face up to his feelings for you when he finds out your meeting up with an ex.

Seven Days - Seven days is far too long to go without you...

Save It - A thirty six hour shift leads to another admission about your relationship with Brendon.

Doctor Dick - Brendon's day takes a turn when Whitaker gives him some critical information.

A Manipulative Fuck - You and Brendon discuss what happened with your ex.

The Call (NSFW) - Brendon decides to put a stop to David's calls once and for all.

The One That Hates The Ravens - David's attempt at revenge backfires spectacularly.

The Lovin Spoonful - You wake up to an unexpected surprise.

Delete, Block, Rinse, Repeat - A series of cryptic messages force Brendon to confront a secret he's been keeping for almost a decade.

His Father's Son - Brendon reflects on the past as he debates taking that first sip of whiskey.

The Cost of Dignity - Brendon's greatest secret comes with a cost.

A Kiss For Luck - Brendon struggles to navigate working at the hospital after the release of THAT video.

The Craziest Fucking Thing - You take matters into your own hands after receiving bad news from Brendon.

Ride Or Die - You wake up to the sound of an angry blender after Brendon discovers what happened with Rowena.

Baby Shark - Once a year Brendon always ends up back at the aquarium.

Diamonds (NSFW) - A bet leads to naughty shenanigans in a five star restaurant.

The Call Out - Brendon's focus on wedding planning is disrupted when he's called out to the scene of a multi-car pile up.

Good Hands - Abbot reminds Brendon you're in good hands as they proceed with the amputation.

Flayed - Brendon's world crashes down as he learns the truth about the accident.

Ten Things I Love About You - Brendon discovers a pink envelope in the pocket of the jacket you were wearing at the time of the accident.

The Parent Trap - Brendon faces your parents, leading to a surprise revelation.

Sledgehammer - Brendon struggles to cope in the aftermath of everything that's happened.

Et Tu Marianne? - Your mother throws Brendon under the bus after you wake up from surgery.

Roses - Brendon is forced to deal with a vindictive POS when a dozen red roses are delivered to your door.

The Fucking Patient - Abbot has some harsh words for Brendon regarding your care.

Chemistry - You and Brendon finally have a moment alone to talk.

A Serial Absconder - Your habit of disappearing leads to a healing journey Brendon doesn't expect.

Home - Brendon introduces you to your new home after the accident.

The Change Up - When you struggle to reacclimate at home Brendon realises you need a change up.

Jealousy.

It’s not an emotion that Brendon Park feels, especially not with a woman like you. One who berates him, who infuriates him, who fucks him and then leaves him ruined in his sheets while she dresses as the lights from the city play her skin through the open windows of his condo.

But here he is at one of those obnoxious hospital galas, his chest it’s full of shattered glass because you’ve just walked in with that asshole Noah from radiology. He remembers him from Jesse’s Fourth of July party as the guy that didn’t pay enough attention to realise you were freezing. He’s certainly paying you a lot of attention right now, his hand gliding down along your backless dress, thumb skimming over the space where Brendon’s mouth had been just two days ago.

If he undresses you tonight, he’ll find the bite mark that Brendon left on your right ass cheek. The perfect indentation of his teeth on a pretty little peach.

But Noah… he won’t be undressing you tonight, Brendon’s going to make sure of that.

He waits for the opportune moment, lingering closely on the fringes of the event, stalking you as you move through the crowd with the same purposeful grace you undertake in the E.D.

 It’s when Noah leaves you unattended to get a drink from the bar that he pounces, his arm sliding across your waist, hand clapped over your mouth drawing you into the darkness of the alcove that hides the door to the library. It slams shut behind you as you drive an elbow into his solar plexus, knocking the air right out of his lungs.

“You fucking asshole.” You snarl as you turn around to face him. You shove at his chest and he grips your arms, hurling you against his body. “You’re lucky I don’t murd-”

His mouth claims yours, crashing against berry red lips as he kisses you with a ferocity he’s been feeling since the moment you stepped into this ballroom tonight. You fight him, just for a second, but then your fingers curl in his tuxedo jacket, dragging him closer. His tongue traces along the seam of your mouth, forcing it open as he shoves you up against the hundred year old bookcase, the paperbacks vibrating as he drives his knee between your thighs causing the slit of your dress to reveal a gateway to heaven.

“If you want me to stop I will.” He mumbles as his hand delves between the fabric, his fingertips doodling lazy patterns along the inside of your thigh. “Otherwise, I’m going to remind you of exactly who you belong to sweetheart and it’s not the man in the other room.”

The sensation of his fingers skirting over your panties must be maddening, he can feel your excitement underneath the lace, the thrill at being taken like this.

“Tell. Me. To. Stop.” He annunciates every word, but you don’t repeat them.

This thing between the two of you, it’s messed up in all the right ways. It’s the reason he’s never heard a no from your lips, no matter how much fucked up shit the two of you get into.

His thumb skims over your clit and a whimper escapes your throat, one that resonates through his entire body like a call to the wild as his fingers hook in your underwear, pushing the damp lace aside.

“You can’t, can you?” He whispers, his middle finger tapping against that needy little hole as he works your clit with his thumb. “Because you want this, you want me.”

Your breath catches as he eases his finger inside you, a low moan erupting from your mouth. His palm claps over it, stifling the noise and you give him a furious glare as a smirk crosses his features.

“We don’t want him to hear now would we, my little rage machine?” Brendon taunts as he slips in another finger, curling them so they hit that sweet spot. Your body arches against him, those pert nipples of yours pebbling against the fabric of your dress. “He’s probably out there right now looking for you. What would he say if he found you like this, getting off on my hand like the bad girl you are?”

Oh, that does a little something for you. You clench around his fingers, soaking his palm as his fingers piston in and out of you, striking their target every single time.

“You like that Rae?” His voice is a filthy rasp as he increases the pressure on your clit, keeping the same slow and steady pace as he draws deviant circles over the needy little nub. “The thought of him seeing exactly who you belong to. Watching us, knowing that I’m the only man who can make you come like this, so he’d better fuck off home alone.”

Your chest heaves, your breath coming in ragged pants as your skin starts to flush underneath his palm. The rapture is coming, his naughty little minx giving into him because the pleasure he bestows upon her is simply too much.

“That’s it Rae.” He coaxes as you start to tighten, gripping his fingers so impossibly hard that he knows you’re about to gush all over him. “Show me who owns this pussy.”

Those words, it’s enough to get you over the edge. You climax against his hand, your rich honey dripping down his fingers as a muffled scream erupts from behind his palm. He keeps it there, his eyes fixed on yours as he withdraws his fingers from your cunt, pressing them to his lips before sucking them into his mouth. He groans around them, your taste bursting on his tongue as he licks every decadent drop off them.

His palm falls away, your lipstick smeared across your lips, and you look so beautiful in that moment, so reckless. You push off the bookcase, your dress falling back into its natural state, your mouth opening to say something, berate him probably.

“I…”

The library door opens interrupting you, a masculine laugh you both recognise, followed by the deeper guffaw of your boss carrying through the room. Your eyes widen as you look to Brendon, who bites his lower lip as Jesse and Robby tumble inside, a tangle of limbs, fervent kisses and unfastened buttons.

Brendon clears his throat and the two break apart like they’ve been struck by lightning, guilty expressions sliding across their features until they lock on to the two of you.

“It looks like this library is getting a lot of action tonight.” Jesse remarks with a knowing grin as Robby pulls at his collar trying to look contrite and failing.

“We were just leaving.” You tell them, snatching up Brendon’s hand in an iron clad grasp and tugging him along with you. “Enjoy your night.”

You slip past them into the dark alcove of the ballroom, the door closing behind you. There’s a thud and a moan and you have no doubt that one of them is now on their knees, ruining the other.

“Did you know?” You ask Brendon, leaning against the pillar as you take your phone out of your purse so you can fix your lipstick. “That they were…”

You don’t have the words for what they are, just like you both don’t have the words for what you are.

“Yes.” Brendon says, the edges of his mouth curving up into a smile as he thinks about how happy Jesse’s been recently. “Yes, I knew.”

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“fuck yes, baby. keep making those pretty noises f’me. such a good girl, my pretty girl.” robby groans into your shoulder, attacking the area with soft wet kisses as his pace increases.

and you don’t know why but that makes something in you snap and your eyes well up with tears that you try your best to fight back but they fall anyway.

robby hears the sniffling and his head snaps up to examine your face, his deep brown eyes filled with concern and a little fear as they meet yours.

his hips all but slow to a stop as he cradles the side of your face with his hand, “hey hey, what’s all this, baby?” robby coos, stroking away a stray tear you just couldn’t stop.

“i just–” you sniffle again, unable to find the words to properly articulate how you’re feeling.

robby’s face crinkles with concern, “am i hurting you? you should’ve said, sweetheart. i would’ve stopped if i knew i was–” robby starts to pull out but you push him back in with your legs around him and shake your head.

“no no, it’s not that. it just, it feels really good.” you sob, suddenly feeling a bit silly you try and hide your face in your hair but robby stops you, grabbing your chin making you look at him.

a smile tugs at robby’s face and honestly that makes you feel worse, embarrassed even. “aw my sweet girl getting a bit emotional?” robby faux pouts, reaching down to kiss at another tear that had slipped down your cheek.

“shut up.” you roll your eyes, your cheeks reddening as he kisses the wet streaks down your face, his beard tickling your soft skin making your embarrassment fade away into giggles.

“mm, i love that sound.” robby hums making his way down your face with kisses that lead to your swollen lips. “my girl always makes the prettiest sounds.”

your cheeks redden again, though this time not out of embarrassment but out of pure love for robby and feeling the pure love that he has for you.

guys, i hope this was okay ngl my heart wasn’t really in it i’ve been feeling so shit the last couple of days but i don’t wanna leave u guys hanging so :((

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