please don’t spend your life convincing yourself that love or joy is reserved for the idealized version of you that only exists in the future
Jack Abbot x Bratty f!Reader
6.8k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CWs: NSFW, MDNI 18+, established relationship, dom!jack vibes, oral f receiving, mention of alcohol, biting, hickeys, manhandling, edging, stubble burn reference, spanking, unprotected PIV sex (birth control not discussed, but implied with the established relationship), age gap (reader 30ish, Jack mid/late 40s) but not mentioned, teasing, reader is a brat, like a really really big brat, no use of y/n or related, zero proofreading of any kind.
Summary: Continuation of Perfumer. Jack finally gets off shift and home to you. Bratty reader gets tamed.
AN: This feels like such an abrupt change of pace from No Man's Land which is where I have been living. It was just in my head and I needed to get it out. It's pretty much straight PWP which has historically been rare for me. I am quite nervous about posting this one because my smut writing feels so so so rusty and potentially not very great. So, I hope it's okay!
This is the look I picture him giving reader at the beginning!
Jack hears the quiet and slightly shuddery breath you take in at his words and can’t help but smirk.
He likes this little game you guys play, likes when you’re a brat and he has to tame you and earn your submission. Likes when you start it subtly out in public.
Collins walks up to the opposite side of the desk around the same time you and Jack arrive. You share a brief moment of eye contact and then you scratch at your ear. You stop with Jack at the desk and stand close to him, close enough for your sides to touch.
“Hey,” Collins calls your name to get your attention. You’ve become very close friends very fast. “I’m working with your man tonight, but I’m off tomorrow with some of the other girls and we were thinking of trying that new brunch place two blocks up once I’m off.” Jack’s head pops up and looks between you and Collins before settling back on you. “We figure somewhere between nine and eleven a.m. But McKay said she was happy to provide pregame mimosas at her place while you wait for me. She said she was fine with seven, good to stay on schedule.”
“That sounds so fun!” You nod at her, start walking over towards her, acutely aware of the way Jack tracks you as you do. “I’ve really been wanting to try that place! Probably makes the most sense for me to go over to McKay’s at seven if she’s going to be awake, just in case you actually get off on time for once.”
Collins goes to speak again but Jack speaks first. “Don’t you already have plans?”
You look back over at him confused. “No? Not unless I’m forgetting something.”
Subconsciously Jack moves his head towards you. “I think you are,” he nods. “Remember, we made plans.”
“Did we? When?” You go to say more but you’re interrupted by Collins laughter. “Heather!”
“I’m so sorry, the look on his face, I couldn’t help it!” She keeps laughing and it makes you laugh.
“What?” Jack asks, clearly unamused.
“We’re just screwing with you Jackie!” You giggle as you walk over to him. “We had a prearranged plan and signal to do this when I finally felt the time was right.”
Jack blinks at you. “Did you now?”
“Don’t pout.” You stick your lip out dramatically. “I have not forgotten our plans,” you assure him. You drop your voice for only the two of you to hear and run your hands over his chest, smoothing out his scrub top. “And I can assure you that I would never forget the kind of plans we have, nor would I ever take a rain check on them for some other offer.”
“You’re a brat,” he replies lowly, an edge to his voice that makes another chill run up your spine.
“You like it,” you whisper back to him before leaning up on your toes to give him a quick kiss. “Thank you, Heather!” You call out to her as she walks away and she just waves, still laughing to herself. “Have a great shift Dr. Abbot. Try not to have too much fun without me. Love you.”
“Yeah, I love you too.” His eyes still track you as you walk backwards a little and wave at him before turning to walk out. “Hey,” he calls to you. You look back with your eyebrows raised in expectation. “Promises.”
You bite your lip and nod before turning again to leave.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You let yourself get some sleep while Jack works but make sure to set an alarm for 6:45 a.m. so that you can be up when he’s off. Or at least when he’s supposed to be off. Unsurprisingly, there’s no text from him at 7:00, but at 7:05 you get one.
J – Probably going to be a few hours late.
You – No worries, me and my ankles will be here waiting patiently for your arrival home.
The next text comes at 10:07 a.m.
J – You up?
You – Of course. Just freshened up the ankles for you, loverboy.
You can practically see his eyes rolling from here, but you know he likes it.
J – You will not like what will happen if you are not on the bed naked and waiting when I get home.
You – That another promise, Jackie?
At that one you can just picture the way he clenched his jaw as he got in his car. You’re not surprised when you don’t get an answer.
You do as he asks though. Kind of.
You shut the bedroom door and strip, and then you put on what you think are one of the sexiest pairs of panties you own.
You walk over to your shared bed and lay down, propping yourself up with a pillow just enough that you can make eye contact with anyone who walks through the door.
You let your hand drift lower and lower until your fingers brush over your clit on top of the fabric. He hadn’t given you permission, hadn’t told you to even start getting yourself ready for him. You keep touching yourself, let your fingers rub circles over your clit, use the fabric rubbing against you as a new sensation, all the while thinking of what he’s going to do to you when he gets home.
Your panties are noticeably wet by the time you hear the front door open, fingers sticky with your arousal despite having stayed on top of the fabric the whole time.
Jack can feel himself starting to fill out again as he reads how you freshened up your ankles for him. You’ve pushed him today. But he needs it. He thrives on it, almost always, on taming you. On pushing you to the edge of your limits. On earning your submission.
The drive is mercifully traffic free. He steps into your place, locks the door behind him and just drops his backpack on the floor. Doesn’t put it aside in its usual spot. Doesn’t hang his coat up on one of the hooks. Doesn’t call out for you.
His coat lands wherever it finally falls off him as he stalks through the house towards your room. His shirt meets the same fate, landing not far from the bedroom door. He’s already fully hard by the time his hand hits the doorknob and pushes open your bedroom door.
In retrospect he’s not sure why it wasn’t, but the sight of you on the bed, looking right at him, almost totally naked and rubbing your clit over your panties was not what he expected to see when he opened the door. He didn’t expect to hear your soft panting and the softest and most breathy moan of his name. Jack. He tries not to let you see how it gets to him, how you get to him but he knows you’ll see the clench of his jaw and flare of his nostrils. You’re a sight. The most beautiful and erotic one he’s ever seen.
You bite your lip at him, fight to keep the smirk off your face, but don’t stop. After locking eyes with him for a moment you let your eyes move from his and trail all over his chest and abdomen and arms. And the now very prominent bulge in his scrub pants. He’s too handsome. He burns you sometimes you swear, just by standing there shirtless and silent with that stoic face of his and that jaw and those eyes that ever so slightly tell you just how affected he is.
Wordlessly Jack steps further into the room and shuts the door before looking back at you. Silence like this always means something with him. Means he’s sexually frustrated and annoyed with you. Means he’s ready to tame. The way he cocks his head just slightly, though, is a silent challenge.
“It’s funny, sweetheart. I don’t remember my text saying anything about you being allowed to touch yourself and distinctly remember it telling you to be naked on the bed.” His voice is too calm, too composed. He has too much control over himself, it drives you insane sometimes.
“Well,” you sigh softly, roll your hips a bit as you keep circling your clit, “the text didn’t say not to touch myself.” You take a second to let out a few more moans, another of his name, lick your lips. “And technically I’m not really touching myself. The fabric is touching me, there’s been no skin on skin, Jackie,” you smirk at him.
Jack clenches his jaw and lets out a short hummed laugh. He doesn’t say anything though. He just takes his scrub pants off, tosses them in the corner and looks back at you in just his boxer briefs.
He stalks closer to the bed, closer to you. “You think you’re real fuckin’ cute, don’t you?”
“Are you saying I’m not?” You pout just a little too cloyingly and he knows you’re still trying to fuck with him.
“That’s not an answer.” A little jaw clench there.
“Hmmm,” you hum, finally take your fingers away from yourself and up to your mouth, sucking them clean before releasing them. “Well it’s the only one you’re going to get.”
“That so?”
He can be so quick when he wants to be and before his question has fully hit you and you can start thinking of some bratty reply he’s leant over the center of the foot of the bed enough to grab your ankles and pull you down the bed. It’s so unexpected you yelp, but not in pain. He’s a doctor, he knows just where to grab to not pull too much on your hip or ankle. “Well that wasn’t a very bratty noise now, was it sweetheart?”
He pulls you by the hips now so that your ass is at the edge of the bed, rips your panties down and off you. Before you can wrap your legs around his waist he catches them, holds them up parallel to his body in front of him, but spread just enough for him to stand in between them. It gives him the perfect view of your pussy, glistening and on display for him. You see his eyes slip down to take you in before he drags them back to yours. He holds your eye contact as he moves his face towards one of your ankles and breaks your gaze just as the side of his face starts to brush your inner calf.
Jack turns his face completely and you can see him hold his breath while he gives you just a little check in, a quick kiss to the inside of your ankle. And then he takes a deep breath through his nose.
His head snaps back to look at you, pupils blown as wide as they can be, jaw clenched and rolling with the subtlest twitch under his eye for a second that only you would notice. His hands grip your legs tighter, tight enough to hurt just a little. Anyone else might think he was looking at you with controlled but raging anger.
But you know that it’s a look of primal, possessive need, that Jack’s on fire for you, all searing skin and simmering blood and deep panting breaths. You know that his cock hurts as it strains against the fabric of his boxer briefs because he needs you so viscerally.
There’s another glance down at your pussy again as you hum saccharinely. His eyes snap back to yours. The slowest smirk pulls across your face as you hold his gaze, your eyes smoldering at him. For him.
“Just thought you might like a little reminder of what’s yours, that’s all.”
Jack’s chest heaves just a little harder at your words and his eyes narrow slightly before pulling from yours and traveling down your body to take in you, all on display for him as he decides just what it is he wants to do with you.
His cologne.
His cologne is what you sprayed on your ankles. His cologne with just enough of a hint of your perfume coming through behind it so that it smells like you do after sex when he’s owned you, touched you so much and held you so close and fucked you so hard and so deep that the dewy sweat of your skin has evaporated much but not quite all of your perfume away and his cologne has stuck to you, marking you as his.
He’s still silent. Not brooding like he does sometimes. He’s just thinking. Just using the silence to toy with you and make you wait. Something about that makes you shiver.
And Jack thinks he has you at that shiver. Keeps silent. Keeps looking at your body, especially your cunt. Keeps waiting for you to be the one to break and speak first. And you will be.
But Jack thinks he has you and you saw it in a quick sweep of his eyes over your face at your shiver and you simply can’t have that. Not yet.
“What’s wrong, Jackie?” You break the silence and give the smallest pout before your smirk comes back. “Pussy got your tongue?”
He raises his eyebrows at you, a slow smirk matching your own pulling up. He laughs a little. It’s a little more dangerous than if he hadn’t reacted because of how controlled it is, how it shows how much control he still has left. “Cute,” he nods at you as he caresses your ankles, eyes narrowing just slightly. “You’re cute when you’re a brat.”
“I try-” You’re cut off by him suddenly bending your legs at the knee and pushing them towards you as he moves closer to the bed, drops to his knees on the carpet. He rests your feet on his shoulder, leaving your ankles right there for the fragrance to perfume the air.
He takes in another long breath through his nose and you swear you can hear him growl before soft kisses are being placed up your inner thigh. Instead of moving inward though Jack kisses outward, along the inner line where your hip and thigh meet.
“I’m surprised you didn’t spray anything here for me to find,” he murmurs against your skin as he kisses back towards where you’re desperate for him.
“I considered it.” The words come out a little breathless as he gets closer and closer to your center. “But decided against it because then I would’ve had to listen to you bitch about not being able to smell me.”
Jack bites your inner thigh only a few inches away from your cunt and sucks, hard. Hard enough to leave imprints of his teeth, to suck a developing bruise into your skin. As he does so his stubble rubs lightly across your lips, breath hitching and hips twitching as you fight yourself to keep them down and not give him the satisfaction.
He releases your thigh. “I don’t bitch,” he says nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly. As though he hasn’t noticed his face is an inch and a half away from your pussy.
“Yes you-” You’re cut off with a gasp as Jack’s tongue licks up you cunt to clit. Your head falls back onto the pillow without a thought as the sensation of his tongue overwhelms you.
“Sorry sweetheart,” he pulls away from you for just a second, “were you saying something?”
He renders you unable to answer by giving you another lick before using the tip of his tongue to trace lazy figure-eights around your clit. His tongue drops down again and he leans into you, sucks at as much of you as he can before going up to focus on your clit, taking it between his lips and sucking, but leaving just enough space to not get a complete seal so it doesn’t feel quite as good as it could.
You whine softly about it because Jack’s eaten you out and sucked at your clit enough times for you to know how it normally feels, that he’s fucking insanely talented at it and that he never slips like this. So you know he’s doing it deliberately.
He gives a little grunt against you to say fine, if you’re so unhappy with it he’ll go elsewhere, and the vibrations of it as he sucks and pulls away from your clit make your hips jolt. Jack’s hands immediately come up and hold your hips down, hands strong and warm and so big as he presses his fingertips down into your skin.
Jack trails his tongue down, teasingly traces circles around your entrance as he basks in the little mewls you make for him. His cock throbs hard against the fabric of his boxer briefs and he gives the slightest groan about it.
As quickly as his tongue dropped down to tease you it pushes inside of you and you moan, louder than you want to for him right now. Jack’s stubble rubs against your inner thighs as he tongue fucks you a few times and then pulls out, fingers squeezing your hips harder when you whine about it.
His lips move back up to your clit and suck again, but this time the seal of them is tight around you, his tongue flicking little circles against you in his mouth. It steals your breath for a second as your back arches while your hips remain pinned to the bed by his hands. “Oh, Jack!” The moan is quiet, clearly slipping out of your lips unconsciously. Your hands fist the sheets hard before unclenching and starting to move down to his salt and pepper curls.
Jack isn’t looking at you, he has his eyes closed as he focuses on you and the little noises you’re making for him but that you’re trying to hide and how you taste and how you smell and how hot your pussy is on his skin, chin coated in you. But he doesn’t need to be looking to know your next move.
He suddenly pulls his face from you. “Don’t even fucking try it or we’ll end this right here, right now and I’ll go fuck my fist in the shower.”
You freeze for a second and then pull your hands back up and twist at the sheets again, give him a huff.
Jack takes the few seconds he’s pulled away from you to move his hands from your hips and push his boxer briefs down, freeing himself. He gives a little groan of relief when his hand wraps around him and tugs a few times. You’re already a little too fucked out to really notice.
He lets his hand stay there as he brings his face back to your cunt, starts licking and sucking again. He fucks his fist as he devours you whole, needs the relief even as a piece of him mourns the fact that it’s his hand and not your hand or your mouth or your cunt.
Jack builds a pattern with his tongue, repeats it over and over as you writhe for him against the sheets, as you give him sweet little moan after moan until you’re finally moaning his name loudly. Pleasure courses through you and heat roils in your lower belly as your muscles contract tighter and tighter and Jack works you closer and closer. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” you pant out “just like that Jack, just like that, fuck!”
And then he changes his pattern. You let out a vaguely frustrated sigh, but can’t stay true to it because the new pattern is just as good. You can feel him smirk against you at your sigh, move his face just a little so that his stubble scratches into you a little harder, starts to etch into your skin.
Jack touches himself faster and faster as he licks and sucks at you, paying attention to how close he is and how close you are. The grunts and groans he pulls from himself send shivers through you and drive you that much closer to the edge. Your mind is so pleasure hazy you don’t even think to question why he’s making them.
Once he gets himself right to the edge he slows down, is more absentminded with himself as he doubles down on you, pushes you right up to that same ledge with his tongue and mouth. He can feel your toes curl against him as you get a second away from the point of no return.
You already know what’s going to happen but it doesn’t help, doesn’t make it easier to weather when he rips himself away from you. “No!” You cry it out for him despite yourself, despite wanting to appear unaffected.
Jack laughs darkly. “You know only good girls get to cum, babygirl.”
You huff slightly, lay there panting with your eyes closed as you try and ride out your almost orgasm, hear Jack stand up. He lets one of your legs fall gently and holds the other up against his chest by your calf. So you wait for him. For whatever is next.
You don’t expect the way he runs the palm of his hand through you though, the way he curls his fingers to drag up you in a way to collect as much of the arousal he’s pulled from you on his hand as possible. “Fuck, Jack!”
Your eyes fly open at you prop yourself up on your elbows to look at him. The sight of him wrapping his slicked up palm and fingers around himself and starting to fuck his fist is unexpected but anything but unwelcome.
“This could be, you know.” His voice is low, followed by a few low pants as he touches himself. “This should be you.” He lets his hand that’s holding your calf adjust your leg so that he can turn his head and breathe in through his nose at your upper ankle, let the smell of him owning you course through him. His head turns back and his eyes find yours. He stares at you with that same intensity from earlier but this time it’s glazed with an even heavier lust. “I should be in your hand, or your mouth, or your cunt,” he growls at you. “But am I?”
Though an obvious answer, it’s not a rhetorical question. He expects an answer. Expects you to acknowledge and think about how he’s not in your hand or your mouth or your cunt. You stare at him, can hear your heart beating in your ears, pussy growing wetter and mouth salivating at the thought. You just can’t help yourself though.
“Well if you have to ask Jackie…” You give him a little shrug.
“God, fuck!” Jack groans, voice strained as he aims his cock at you and comes all over your pussy and lower abdomen. He works himself through it, chest heaving, glistening with sweat and flushed as he slows his hand and releases himself. “You’re fucking pushing it,” he almost laughs, but it’s more an observation he happens to find entertaining.
He stares at his cum that sticks so prettily to your skin and pussy, claiming you just for him as he lets himself come down from his orgasm. “You look so beautiful like his,” he murmurs lowly, voice huskier than normal. “Covered in me.”
Before you can say anything he looks away from you and grabs the panties you were wearing, uses them to clean you off and sits you up. It surprises you a little, that he’s so eager to wipe it away. But then he’s sitting on the edge of the bed next to you.
He shows you again just how quick he can be, and you’re yelping again at the suddenness of finding yourself bent over his knees with his palm caressing one of your ass cheeks. There’s no build up. There doesn’t need to be. You know why you’re in this position.
“Count.” It’s an order.
“Or what? You’ll spank me?”
He does, obviously. It’s a little harder than he had been planning the first one to be just because of the extra attitude, the smacking sound a little sharper. Another one to the other cheek follows swiftly. He can feel you squirm on him and hear the softest moan that just makes it through your lips into the air despite your otherwise lack of reaction.
There’s a pause as he waits. Waits for you to say one. Two.
“I distinctly remember telling you to count.” His voice is still so composed even with as low in pitch as it drops.
“I am!” You huff at him. He squeezes at one of your cheeks where his hand just came down. “I am!” You repeat, doing your best to sound indignant which is difficult given the position you find yourself in. “In my head.” You feel his entire body tense. “What? You just said count. Not count out loud.”
Jack takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He’s quite certain he hears you giggle about it. There’s some part of him that’s a little proud of you for this little display. He shifts his legs a little, spreads them just a bit and runs his hand over your cheek and under you to pinch your clit. Not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make you jolt and let out another pretty little moan for him. You can feel him start to get hard again against your thigh.
“Outloud.”
Another little giggle.
“Sir, yes sir.”
He’s good at spanking, you have to give him that. He gives you ten in total, five to each cheek. He doesn’t alternate every time, brings his hand down in quick succession sometimes and makes you wait torturously for it to come back down at others, varies the pressure and how hard he brings his hand down against you, where he brings it down.
By the time he’s done tears sting at your eyes as your ass throbs, burning and sore and stinging in its own right.
“Good girl.” It’s low, breathed out more than actually spoken as he leans you back up, but you’re still able to hear it. The part of your brain that wants to be a brat feels betrayed by the part that glows at his praise and approval and sends warm happiness flowing through you.
“Center of the bed. On your stomach.” For once this morning you actually do as he asks, crawl your way to the center of the bed and lay on your stomach as he takes his prosthetic off and crawls up in between your legs.
You rest your head on its side, look back at him as much as you can. His eyes run over your ass as his hands grab your hips and haul you up to your knees. You go to push yourself up on your hands or elbows but all too quickly his hand wraps around the back of your neck and pushes you back down wordlessly.
With his other hand he gets himself lined up with you and pushes inside you slowly, cognizant that while he’s already edged you and gotten you nearly dripping for him, only his tongue has been inside you, no fingers to help prep you. You whimper but Jack knows you well enough to know that its not from physical pain but rather from how slowly he’s sliding into you.
As he bottoms out Jack closes his eyes and takes deep breaths, a little shaky because fuck do you feel good and fuck has he been waiting to be buried inside you since you showed up at the Pitt.
He pulls out of you slowly, lets you feel every ridge and vein of him before he snaps his hips hard to get himself back inside of you.
“Ohh,” you moan out, “Jack, fuck.” He does it again, pulls out torturously slow and snaps back in.
“You want more baby?” He says as saccharine and teasing as you’d spoken to him when he got home. He pulls out a little faster this time, moves his hand from your neck and uses both hands to help pull you back onto him so he can fuck you even harder.
You immediately go to get up on your elbows again. “Stay down,” Jack warns, curling over you a little and using his hand to guide you back down. It changes the angle, makes him slide deeper inside of you which draws a moan from you and an erratic buck of his hips as he chases the feeling.
“But I can’t see you like this,” you pout, breathing heavily.
“Brats don’t get to see,” Jack grunts out, leans back up and returns both hands to your hips so that he can return to fucking you harder.
You take in a couple of panted breaths, tilt your head at an awkward angle for a second to see a little more of him. You know he sees you do it. Somehow you manage to smile at him.
“You’re cute when you’re all worked up.” You mirror his words from earlier back to him and manage the smallest smirk before turning your head back to a neutral position.
Jack lets out a quick scoff. “You’re really fucking something else today.” Jack slides his hands up a little and pushes down, forcing your ass to come up higher for him, again letting him get deeper and hit harder with the added bonus of keeping your head on the mattress. He watches your hands curl in the sheets as he rails you.
“Touch yourself,” he orders.
He snarks a laugh at how you don’t have to be given that instruction twice, hand sliding between your legs and rubbing erratically at your clit as your brain starts to get pleasure drunk off his cock.
Neither of you speak for a bit, not real words. It’s just the sounds of your panting and the moans and groans you pull from each other and the slap of skin on skin. You’re the first to break.
“Oh god! Jack!” You mewl as the pleasure starts to overtake you. He can hear and feel how close you are.
“Stop touching yourself.” Another order. You falter on this one, like you knew he would. So he stops, removes your hand himself.
Another orgasm ebbs away from you.
You whine but do your damndest to remain unaffected, to try not to show how desperate you’re getting. But your whine has just enough of a desperate edge to it to let Jack know he almost has you.
“What was it you said again?” He starts rubbing your clit. “Oh yes, I remember. The anticipation and wait makes it better.” He gives another dark laugh as he starts fucking you again, just as hard and just as intense.
“Oh fuck Jack!” You gasp out. He hadn’t given you much come down time and so you feel your orgasm cresting again quickly.
“Close, baby?” He asks like he doesn’t already know by the feel of your cunt around him.
You can only nod as the pleasure grows stronger and stronger, your breaths coming harder and harder as you moan nonsense to Jack.
“Jack!” You draw his name out in a moaned whine. “Need to come. Need to.” Your speech is a little slurred now.
“Brats don’t get to come.” It’s nearly mocking the way he says it. Cocky. Like he knows he has you now. Because he does. He knows how close you are. His pace doesn’t relent. He speaks through the panting breaths he takes. “And what are you sweetheart?”
“A brat.” You look back up at him with watery eyes and a real pout this time, on the verge of tears of pleasure. “Please-
“You still think you’re real fuckin’ cute?” he pants, cutting you off.
“No, I’m sorry, please Jack, Sir, I,” a few tears slide down your face. “I want to be good for you.” You’re so ready for it, so convinced he’s going to let you have it now.
But Jack stops and pulls out of you and you let out a little sob as more tears fall.
“Shh, shh, shh,” he shushes you softly as he flips you over so you’re on your back. “I’ve got you.”
He pushes back inside you, grabs your calves and throws one over his shoulder, takes his time with the other as he lets himself take in a deep breath through his nose at your inner ankle and lets out what sounds like a growl from the deep within his chest before settling it on him like the other. His fingers on one hand toy with your clit as he leans over you and grinds himself into you. With how worked up and sensitive you are and the sound he just made for you it’s all you need and he finally lets you have it.
Your orgasm shatters you. You swear you lose hearing for a minute, lose the ability to breathe and that your vision goes white
“There she is,” Jack drawls, “there’s my good girl.” He moves his hand and stills his hips, let his hands grope at your breasts, fingers gently teasing at your nipples.
You pant hard as you try to reorient yourself, finally get your eyes back open and look up at Jack.
“Jack,” your breathing starts to return to normal. “Please,” you breathe.
He moves your legs off his shoulders and helps you wrap them around his waist, lowers himself down so that your chests touch. “Please gets you what you want, doesn’t it sweetheart?” He leans his head into your neck and starts kissing you there, soft teasing things.
“Yes.” It’s just as breathless as your please and something about it drives Jack wild. You let one arm slip under his shoulder and bend up to cling to his back as much as you can, the other staying above his shoulder so that your hand can find his hair, let your fingers run through it.
Jack starts fucking you again, hard. He puts his whole body into it, arching his back and using his knees for leverage to help his thighs and hips drive into you over and over. He keeps kissing your neck, sucks at it, nibbles at the spots he knows are most sensitive.
“Oh Jack!” You arch up into him. “Jack, Jack, Jack.” He feels too good, fucks you too good. It’s unreal.
You hear him grunt low from deep in his chest and it makes you shiver, let out a whine. “I love the way you say my name when you’re like this. Fucked out and cock drunk.”
Jack’s voice reveals he’s just as drunk on your pussy as you are his cock.
It rips through you out of seemingly nowhere at his words, your second orgasm, just as good as your first but deeper, more intense in the way it feels like your muscles contract so hard all your bones will snap before they release with a rush of pleasure that makes you arch into Jack again.
His name slips off your tongue in a moaned prayer again. “Jack, Jack, Jack.”
“You sound so pretty when you come for me.” He kisses at your jaw, down your neck, sucks at your collarbone while he fucks you through it.
Jack moves his hand, slows his hips to give you a little bit of time to recover. You whimper through your tears of pleasure. He’s not chasing his own release.
Because he’s not done with you yet.
He picks the pace of his hips back up and you moan for him, claw at his back and scalp. He knows it’s not going to take much to get you there a third time with how sensitive you are, right on the border of pleasurable and painful overstimulation.
“You’ve got one more in you for me, sweetheart, I know you do.”
You shake your head at him. “I can’t.” You sniffle and he leans in to kiss away your tears. You say that you can’t but you trust Jack to know your body more in this moment than you do, trust that he won’t push you too far, only right to your limit before bringing you back. “It’s too much Jack!” You keen as his fingers return to rub tight circles over your clit again.
“No babygirl,” Jack finally kisses you, licks into your mouth possessively and moans just as loud for you as you do for him, breaks the kiss but hovers his lips over yours so they brush against each other when he speaks, “it’s just enough.”
Your orgasm crashes over you just as he finishes his sentence, white hot and searing. Your hands tug hard at his salt and pepper curls as you go soundless from how hard your coming, almost holding your breath as the pleasure completely takes over. Your ability to speak suddenly comes back and you let out the most erotic moan of Jack’s name that he’s ever heard.
Your cunt clenching around him, the sharp burst of pleasured pain from how hard you tug on his hair and that moan of his name are all Jack needs. He follows you, coming with a groan of your name that’s so choked and even more gravelly than his usual voice that you think for a second it might make you come again. He keeps moving his hips somehow, fucking himself through it to try and keep the feeling from ending.
“Fucking christ,” Jack groans as his hips still, propping himself up on his elbows and panting as he looks down at you. “You okay?” You’re smiling at him, eyes completely glazed over, but you nod. He knows that right now you are. It makes him smile back at you. He takes another couple of seconds to even his breathing out before kissing your cheeks and nose and forehead and chin and then your lips to bring you back down. “You. Are. So. Fucking. Perfect.” He punctuates each word with a kiss.
You blink at him, eyes a bit clearer. So he asks again. “Hi beautiful,” he smiles down at you amusedly, “you okay?”
You come back to yourself a little more and that’s when the trembling starts as you reconnect your mind and body enough for the dump of hormones and adrenaline to hit you, your body struggling to figure out what to do with all the pleasure. “Ohhh,” you sigh out, voice a a bit shaky, “I am so much more than okay, Jack. I’m trying to figure out what layer of the fucking stratosphere you just sent me to and how I get back down,” you laugh softly.
Jack returns the soft laugh. “Good. Water now?” You shake your head, not ready for it yet. He gives you another kiss that you return and then lowers himself on top of you. He knows his body weight and the skin on skin helps with the trembling and reorientation. You wrap your arms around him, let one hand play in his curls while the other rubs up and down his back absentmindedly. Jack feels when you stop trembling and relax.
“You did amazing sweetheart, I’m proud of you. That was a lot.” He leans back up for another kiss and you beam at him, glowing in the warmth of his body and praise.
“Thank you,” you murmur against his lips. A beat passes. “I really got you twice there with the ankles, once at work and once with the cologne.”
Jack snorts a laugh and buries his face in your chest. “You really are something else, you know that?” He peers up at you and the only thing you see is a man hopelessly in love with you and not afraid to show you.
“I do.” You nod with a smirk, almost smug about it. “But I’m your something else.” You grin at him.
Jack laughs. In a few moments he’ll ask you if you’re okay again, pull a pair of pajama pants on, put on his prosthetic and walk around shirtless to get you water without asking and probably a snack. He’ll ask if you want a bath or shower and when you say no this time he’ll rub some of the salve you have on your ass to help soothe where he spanked you. And then after his twelve plus a few hours shift followed by fucking you out of your mind he’ll ask if you’re okay if he grabs some sleep, as if you’d ever say no and won’t be half asleep yourself from the fucking he just gave you when he asks. But for now he just agrees with you. “You’re correct sweetheart,” he nods, “you’re my something else.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hopefully it was okay?
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F!Reader x Dr. Jack Abbot! <3 little oneshot
Sum: you answer a small newspaper ad, which leads to you living with the one and only, Dr. Jack Abbot.
Cw: “and they were roommates” trope ish? Younger female reader, age gap relationship, roommates, Jack has night terrors, widow Jack Abbot, fluff. Your a ghost writer of smut bc that’s my favorite c: MDNI not proofread
The house was too empty. Too quite. Too much for one person to take care of. It was supposed their dream home, but his late-wife never got to see it.
Never got to be carried through the threshold, never got to have morning coffee with him at the book nook, or enjoy the fire pit.
His therapist says he finds comfort in the dark but also in the barren. Never giving life to the home that was supposed to be theirs, even years later.
So when she suggests a roommate, Abbot quite literally doesn’t know what to do with that. There was plenty of room, sure, but did he really want that?
Looking around, he knows he could use someone’s help. It’s too much house, too suffocating on days like this.
Sighing, he reaches for the local pitts area newspaper for the add space number. It’s old school, almost dead but if anyone’s gonna live here with him, they should at least know what a newspaper is.
Looking for a quiet roommate. 49, Male. Looking for someone to help manage an old house for less rent. I work night shifts. No loud parties or gatherings. Contact at *********
——
Meeting you felt like a twist of fate. Some people had responded sure, but none he took seriously until he heard your soft voice over the phone.
New to the city, a writer by trade, so you assured him quite days and help around the house. You mostly worked from home and he had at least 20 years on you.
But god were you charming, he thinks swallowing as he helps you move in your small boxes.
“Dr. Abbot? Is there anything I should do or not touch?.” You asks as you settle another box on the kitchen counter. You didn’t have much but it was enough to fill the small guest room across his.
You were so grateful to have found the ad, you quite literally shook calling him. The house was perfect, yet empty, you note. Must be because he works night shifts, you think taking every thing in. It doesn’t help the good doctor is wildly attractive.
“Jus’ need some help talking care of this old thing during the day, cleaning and stuff if you don’t mind kid. Just.. just stay away from the closet at the end of the hall upstairs” he tells you, a far away look in his eyes for a moment before a little smirk graces his handsome face.
“Oh and no fires if you can help it. Firefighters are my enemy,” making you giggle.
“Sir yes sir!” You say while giving him a little salute, making him laugh. After helping you move, you’ll be honest, you rarely see him at first.
You hear him come home and leave, saying “goodbye” and “welcome home” when you catch him but never getting to really know eachother, with the both of you focused on work. You were just two roommates, trying to survive.
——
That was, until you started leaving him leftovers, feeling bad there was never much in the fridge for him. That small decisions led you to start a breakfast routine together. You shared little tired laughs and always fought on who did the dishes after.
Until you started packing lunches for him, after quickly making yourself dinner. The first time he noticed you left him food to take, his heart thumped in ways he hadn’t felt in years.
Until you started working in the living room, the little book nook becoming your spot. He’d sometimes find you passed out on it, curled up like a cute rabbit. On those days, you’d always wake up covered by a soft blanket, smelling suspiciously like a certain doctor.
Until you started leaving fresh flowers in the living room, which make him still and smile looking at them. One day, there was a small bottle of aroma massage oil next to them and a little note saying “to help with the pain!,” in your curly writing. He carries that little bottle and note with him everywhere.
Until the house started looking and feeling more like a home
Until he had his first night terror in years.
——
It started with whimpers. Fear reached you as you shot up, thunder and raining muddling the sounds coming from the end of the hall.
You gently crept out of your room to stand in front of his closed door, stalling before turning the knob. You’d never gone in his room before, not even to clean.
You see Abbot sweating in his sleep, tossing and turning. He looks like his in pain and it’s killing you inside.
Slowly you make your way to him, gently sitting before rubbing small circles on his chest to soothe him. Little hums and shushes come out of you, as you go to rest against his headboard.
You try not to think about how firm him chest is, the little salt and pepper curls that match his hair or the scars that litter his body.
It’s takes time but you feel his body relax back into a peaceful sleep, as it reaches you too. Your soft snores fill the room, as you fall asleep next to the man you haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
——
He’s confused at first. Waking up to you curled softly against him, face nuzzled against his chest. He’s alarmed, body tensing unsure of what to do. A small part of him wants to go back to bed, pull you closer and sleep and another wants to run. His tense body wakes you up and the part that wants to run, shushes, looking at your sleepy face and tussled hair.
Your eyes widen as you realize you fell asleep against him.
“I’m so sorry! You.. you were having a nightmare and I came to check and I’m sorry I didn’t mean to fall asleep here”
You look away, unable to make eye contact in shame as he swallows heavily.
His arms stop you from leaving as he tells you it’s okay. “I’m sorry I get.. from the war. I get nightmares sometimes. Thank you.. for helping me”
You couldn’t help but smile carefully. “It’s okay, I’m here for you”
——
Things changed at a rapid pace from there with Abbot, now Jack.
You were both each others closest companion. You spent his off days together, continued your shared meals and learned more than you dreamed of.
From his deployments, his late wife, his love of pineapple pizza and more.
Giggling you can’t help but recall when his red tinted cheeks when he learned about your job as a ghost writer for small smut books. It became natural, to seek eachother out, and one way or another, you always ended up in his bed.
Snuggled asleep in his arms, the two of you refused to say anything about this new tradition. The fear of breaking the comfort it brings stops you both.
Your pillows and blankets join the bed, and the room becomes more and more “our room” then his.
——
Robby can’t help but notice a small pep in Abbots step. How he suddenly comes in with well packed food and how his eyes looked brighter. Suspicion runs deep, as he wonders what changed for him.
“Getting more sleep brother?” He asks, watching Abbot get ready to leave.
Abbot can’t help but smirk “something like that”
——
The warm months great you as you and Jack settle closer into each others hearts.
He ponders, if he should ask. Ask what this is as he watches you plant flowers in his garden. His home is beautiful now, he thinks, like you.
“I think, I think we should have a house warming party.”
You can’t help but laugh as you glance up at him from the flower beds, “Can it be a housewarming if you’ve been here for years?”
“Never had or wanted one before. Seems like we should change that sweetheart”
Jack walks over steadily to you, kneeling to kiss you on your forehead.
You understand, and agree completely.
——
The backyard is bustling with new life. The flowers you planted being ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ at, as you’re introduced to all of Jacks friends and coworkers.
You find yourself particularly drawn to Mel and Langdon, giggling up a storm with the two of them.
Jack can’t help but watch you from the corner of his eyes, not quite focused on his conversation with Dana and Robby.
“So” Robby inturpts his thoughts of you. “How long have you been dating her?”
Jacks eyes brows raise, a crinkle settling into his forehead.
He shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant. “We’re just roommates”
Dana and Robby can’t help but share a tired and concerned look.
“Jack, she lives with you. Cooks for you. Decorates your home and entertains your friends for you. If I had roommates like that I’d probably have more kids ” Dana says, trying to get a better answer from him.
“She’s young, we don’t want to see you hurt brother,”but Jack shrugs off both if their worries again, taking a sip of his beer.
A small smile appears on his face as he watches you mingle, knowing he didn’t have to worry about you or the ring in his nightstand.
pairing: Jack Abbot x doctor!Reader summary: What starts as quiet pining after too many long shifts becomes something heavier, messier, softer—until the only place it all makes sense is in the dark. warnings: references to trauma and PTSD, mentions of deaths in hospital setting, emotionally charged scenes genre: slow burn, fluff, humor, angst, hurt/mostly comfort, soft intimacy, one (1) very touch-starved man, communication struggles, messy feelings, healing is not linear, implied but not explicit smut word count: ~13.5k (i apologize in advance ;-; pls check out ao3 if you prefer chapters) a/n: this started as a soft character exploration and very quickly became a mega-doc of deep intimacy, trauma-informed gentleness, and jack abbot being so touch-starved it hurts. dedicated to anyone who’s ever longed for someone who just gets it 💛 p.s. check out my other abbot fic if you're interested ^-^
You weren’t sure why you lingered.
Everyone had peeled off after a few beers in the park, laughter trailing behind them like fading campfire smoke. Someone had packed up the empties. Someone else made a joke about early rounds. There were half-hearted goodbyes and the sound of sneakers on gravel.
But two people hadn’t moved.
Jack Abbot was still sitting on the bench, legs stretched out in front of him, head tilted just enough that the sharp line of his jaw caught the low amber light from a distant streetlamp.
You stood a few feet away, hovering, unsure if he wanted to be alone or just didn’t know how to leave.
The countless night shifts you'd shared blurred like smeared ink, all sharp moments and dull exhaustion. You’d been colleagues long enough to know the shape of each other’s presence—Jack’s clipped tone when things were spiraling, your tendency to narrate while suturing. Passing conversations, brief exchanges in stolen moments of calm—that was the extent of it. You knew each other’s habits on shift, the shorthand of chaos, the rhythm of crisis. But outside the job, you were closer to strangers than friends. The Dr. Jack Abbot you knew began and ended in the ER.
It had always been in fragments. Glimpses across trauma rooms. A muttered "Nice work" after a tricky intubation. The occasional shared note on a chart. Maybe a nod in the break room if you happened to breathe at the same time. You knew each other's rhythms, but not the stories behind them. It was small talk in the eye of a hurricane—the kind that comes fast and leaves no room for anything deeper. The calm before the storm, never after.
“You okay?” Your voice came out soft, not wanting to startle him in case he was occupied with his thoughts.
He didn’t look at you right away. Just blinked, slow, eyes boring holes into the concrete path laid before him. "Didn’t want to go home yet." Then, after a beat, his gaze shifted to you. "You coming back in a few hours?"
You huffed a small laugh, more air than sound. "Probably. Not like I’ll get more than a couple hours of sleep anyway." The beer left a bitter aftertaste on your tongue as you took another sip.
His mouth curved—almost a smile, almost something more. "Yeah. That’s what I said to Robby."
You saw the tired warmth in his eyes. Not gone, just tucked away.
"Wasn't this supposed to be your day off?" you asked, tipping your head slightly. "You could take tomorrow off to comp."
He snorted under his breath. "I could. Probably won't."
"Of course not," you said, lips quirking. "That would be too easy."
"No sleep for the wicked," he muttered dryly, but there was no edge to it. Just familiarity settling between you like an old coat.
A quiet settled over the bench. Neither of you spoke. You breathed together, the kind of silence that asked nothing, demanded nothing. Just the hush of night stretching between two people with too much in their heads and not enough rest in their bones.
Then, unexpectedly, he asked, "Do you think squirrels ever get drunk from fermented berries?"
You blinked. "What?" It was impossible to hold back the frown of confusion that dashed across your face.
He shrugged, barely hiding a grin. "I read about it once. They get all wobbly and fall out of trees."
A laugh burst out of you—sudden, warm, real. "Dr. Abbot, are you drunk right now?"
"Little buzzed," he admitted, yet his body gave no indication that he was anything but sober. "But I stand by the question. Seems like something we should investigate. For science."
You laughed again, softer this time. The kind that lingered behind your teeth.
"Call me Jack."
When you looked up, you saw that he was still staring at you. That smile still tugged at the edge of his mouth. There was a flicker of something in his expression—a moment of uncertainty, then decision.
"You can just call me Jack," he repeated, voice quieter now. "We're off the clock."
A grin crept its way onto your face. "Jack." You said it slowly, like you were trying the word on for size. It felt strange in your mouth—new, unfamiliar—but right. The syllable rolled off your tongue and settled into the space between you like something warm.
He ducked his head slightly, like he wasn’t sure what to do with your smile.
The quiet returned, but this time it was lighter, looser. He leaned down to fasten his prosthetic back in place with practiced ease, then stood up to give his sore muscles another good stretch. When he looked over at you again, it was with a steadier kind of presence—solid, grounded.
"You want some company on the walk home?"
Warmth flooded your face. Maybe it was the alcohol hitting. Or the worry of being a burden. You hesitated, then gave him an apologetic look. "I mean—thank you, really—but you don’t have to. I live across the river, by Point State Park. It’s kind of out of the way."
Jack tipped his chin up, brows furrowing in thought. "Downtown? I'm on Fifth and Market Street. That’s like, what—two blocks over?"
"Seriously?" Jack Abbot lived a five-minute walk south from you?
The thought settled over you with a strange warmth. All this time, the space between your lives had been measured in blocks.
He nodded, stuffing his hands into his pockets and slinging on his backpack, the fabric rustling faintly. "Yeah. No bother at all, it's on my way."
You both stood there a moment longer as the wind shifted, carrying with it the distant hum of traffic from Liberty Avenue and the low splash of water against the Mon Wharf. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked once, then fell silent.
"Weird we’ve never run into each other," you murmured, more to yourself than anything. But of course, he heard you.
Jack’s gaze flicked toward you, and something like a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Guess we weren’t looking," he said.
The rest of the walk was quiet, but not empty. Your footsteps echoed in unison against the cracked sidewalk, and somewhere between street lamps and concrete cracks, you stopped feeling like strangers. The dim lights left long shadows that pooled around your feet, soft and flickering. Neither of you seemed in a rush to break the silence.
Maybe it was the late hour, or the leftover buzz from the beers, or maybe it was something else entirely, but the dark didn’t feel heavy the way it sometimes did—especially after shifts like this. It was a kind of refuge. A quiet shelter for two people too used to holding their breath. It felt... safe. Like a shared language being spoken in a place you both understood.
A few night shifts passed. Things had quieted down after the mass casualty event—at least by ER standards—but the chaos never really left. Working emergency meant the moments of calm were usually just precursors to the next wave. You were supposed to be off by seven, but paperwork ran long, a consult ran over, a med student went rogue with an IO drill, and before you knew it, it was 9 am.
After unpinning your badge and stuffing it into your pocket, you pushed through the main hospital doors and winced against the pale morning light. Everything felt too sharp, too loud, and the backs of your eyes throbbed from hours of fluorescent lighting. Fatigue settled deep in your muscles, a familiar dull ache that pulsed with each step. The faint scent of antiseptic clung to your scrubs, mixed with the bitter trace of stale coffee.
You were busy rubbing your eyes, trying to relieve the soreness that bloomed behind them like a dull migraine, and didn’t see the figure standing just to the side of the door.
You walked straight into him—headfirst.
“Jesus—sorry,” you muttered, taking a step back.
And there he was: Jack Abbot, leaning against the bike rack just outside the lobby entrance. His eyes tracked the sliding doors like he’d been waiting for something—or someone. In one hand, he held a steaming paper cup. Not coffee, you realized when the scent hit you, but tea. And in the other, he had a second cup tucked against his ribs.
He looked up when he saw you, and for a second, he didn’t say anything. Just smiled, small and tired and real.
"Dr. Abbot." You blinked, caught completely off guard.
"Jack," he corrected gently, with a crooked smirk that didn’t quite cover the hint of nerves underneath. "Off the clock, remember?"
A soft scoff escaped you—more acknowledgment than answer. As you shifted your weight, the soreness settled into your legs. "Wait—why are you still here? Your caseload was pretty light today. Should’ve been out hours ago."
Jack shrugged, eyes steady on yours. "Had a few things to wrap up. Figured I’d wait around. Misery loves company."
You blinked again, slower this time. That quiet, steady warmth in your chest flared—not dramatic, just there. Present. Unspoken.
He extended the cup toward you like it was no big deal. You took it, the warmth of the paper seeping into your fingers, grounding you more than you expected.
"Didn’t know how you took it," Jack said. "Figured tea was safer than coffee at this hour."
You nodded, still adjusting to the strange intimacy of being thought about. "Good guess."
He glanced at his own cup, then added with a small smirk, "The barista recommended some new hipster blend—uh, something like... lavender cloudburst? Cloud... bloom? I don't know. It sounded ridiculous, but it smelled okay, so."
You snorted into your first sip. "Lavender cloudburst? That a seasonal storm warning or a tea?"
Jack laughed under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck. "Honestly couldn’t tell you. I just nodded like I knew what I was doing."
And something about the way he said it—offhand, dry, and a little self-deprecating—made the morning feel a little softer. Like he wasn’t just waiting to see you. He was trying to figure out how to stay a little longer.
The first sip tasted like a warm hug. “It’s good,” you hummed. Jack would be remiss if he didn’t notice the way your cheeks flushed pink, or how you smiled to yourself.
So the two of you just started walking.
There was no plan. No particular destination in mind. Just the rhythmic scuff of your shoes on the pavement, the warm cups in hand, and the soft hum of a city waking up around you. The silence between you wasn’t awkward, just cautious—guarded, maybe, but not unwilling. As you passed by a row of restaurants, he made a quiet comment about the coffee shop that always burned their bagels. You mentioned the skeleton in OR storage someone dressed up in scrubs last Halloween, prompted by some graffiti on the brick wall of an alley. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Jack shoved one hand in his pocket, the other still cradling his now-empty cup. “I still think cloudburst sounds like a shampoo brand.”
You grinned, stealing a sideways glance at him. “I don’t know, I feel like it could also be a very niche indie band.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, the sound low and breathy. “That tracks. ‘Cloudburst’s playing the Thunderbird next weekend.’”
“Opening for Citrus Lobotomy,” you deadpanned.
Jack nearly choked on his last sip of tea.
The moment passed like that—small, stupid jokes nestled between shared exhaustion and something else neither of you were quite ready to name. But in those fragments, in those glances and tentative laughs, there was a kind of knowing. Not everything had to be said outright. Some things could just exist—quietly, gently—between the spaces of who you were behind hospital doors and who you were when the work was finally done.
The next shift came hard and fast.
A critical trauma rolled in just past midnight—a middle-aged veteran, found unconscious, head trauma, unstable vitals, military tattoo still visible on his forearm beneath the dried blood. Jack was leading the case, and even from across the trauma bay, you could see it happen—the second he recognized the tattoo, something in him shut down.
He didn’t freeze. Didn’t panic. He just... went quiet. Tighter around the eyes. Sharper, more mechanical. As if he’d stepped out of his body and left the rest behind to finish the job.
The team moved like clockwork, but the rhythm never felt right. The patient coded again. Then again. Jack ordered another round of epi, demanded more blood—his voice tight, almost brittle. That sharp clench of his jaw said everything he didn’t. He wanted this one to make it. He needed to.
Even as the monitor flatlined, its sharp tone cutting through the noise like a blade, he kept going.
“Start another line,” he said. “Hang another unit. Push another dose.”
No one moved.
You stepped in, heart sinking. “Dr. Abbot… he’s gone.”
He didn’t blink. Didn’t look at you. “One more round. Just—try again.”
The team hesitated. Eyes darted to you.
You stepped closer, voice soft but firm. “Jack—” you said his name like a lifeline, not a reprimand. “I’m so sorry.”
That stopped him. Just like that, his breath caught. Shoulders sagged. The echo of the monitor still rang behind you, constant and cold.
He finally looked at the man on the table.
“Time of death, 02:12.”
His hands didn’t shake until they were empty.
Then he peeled off his gloves and threw them hard into the garbage can, the snap of latex punctuating the silence like a slap. Without a word, he turned and stormed out of the trauma bay, footsteps clipped and angry, leaving the others standing frozen in his wake.
It wasn’t until hours later—when the adrenaline faded and the grief crawled back in like smoke under a door—that you found him again.
He was on the roof.
Just standing there.
Like the sky could carry the weight no one else could hold.
As if standing beneath that wide, empty stretch might quiet the scream still lodged in his chest. He didn’t turn around when you stepped onto the roof, but his posture shifted almost imperceptibly. He recognized your footsteps.
"What are you doing up here?"
The words came from him, low and rough, and it surprised you more than it should have.
You paused, taking careful steps toward him. Slow enough not to startle, deliberate enough to be noticed. "I should be asking you that."
He let out a soft breath that might’ve been a laugh—or maybe just exhaustion given form. For a while, neither of you spoke. The wind pulled at your scrub top, cool and insistent, but not enough to chase you back inside.
“You ever have one of those cases that just—sticks?” he asked eventually, eyes still locked on the city below.
“Most of them,” you admitted quietly. “Some louder than others.”
Jack nodded, slow. “Yeah. Thought I was past that one.”
You didn’t ask what he meant. You knew better than to press. Just like he didn’t ask why you were really up there, either.
There was a pause. Not empty—just cautious.
“I get it,” you murmured. “Some things don’t stay buried. No matter how deep you try to shove them down.”
That earned a glance from him, fleeting but sharp. “Didn’t know you had things like that.”
You shrugged, keeping your gaze steady on the skyline. “That’s the point, right?”
Another breath. A half-step toward understanding. But the walls stayed up—for now. Just not as high as they’d been.
You glanced at him, his face half in shadow. "It’s not weak to let someone stand beside you. Doesn’t make the weight go away, but it’s easier to keep moving when you’re not the only one holding it."
His shoulders twitched, just slightly. Like something in him heard you—and wanted to believe it.
You nudged the toe of your shoe against a loose bit of gravel, sensing the way Jack had pulled back into himself. The lines of his shoulders had gone stiff again, his expression harder to read. So you leaned into what you knew—a little humor, a little distance cloaked in something lighter.
“If you jump on Robby’s shift, he’ll probably make you supervise the med students who can't do proper chest compressions.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. But something close. Something that cracked the silence just enough to let the air in again. “God, I'd hate to be his patient."
Then, in one fluid motion, he swung a leg through the railing and stepped carefully onto solid ground beside you. The metal creaked beneath his weight, but he moved like he’d done it a hundred times before. That brief flicker of distance, of something fragile straining at the edges, passed between you both in silence.
Neither of you said anything more. You simply turned together, wordlessly, and started heading back inside.
A shift change here, a coffee break there—moments that lingered a little longer than they used to. Small talk slipped into quieter pauses that neither of you rushed to fill. Glances held for just a beat too long, then quickly looked away.
You noticed things. Not all at once. But enough.
Jack’s habit of reorganizing the cart after every code. The way he checked in on the new interns when he thought no one was watching. The moments he paused before signing out, like he wasn’t ready to meet daybreak.
And sometimes, you’d catch him watching you—not with intent, but with familiarity. As if the shape of you in a room had become something he expected. Something steady.
Nothing was said. Nothing had to be.
Whatever it was, it was moving. Slowly. Quietly.
The kind of shift that only feels seismic once you look back at where you started.
One morning, after another long stretch of back-to-back shifts, the two of you walked out together without planning to. No words, no coordination. Just parallel exhaustion and matching paces.
The city was waking up—soft blue sky, the whir of early buses, the smell of something vaguely sweet coming from a bakery down the block.
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “You walking all the way?”
“Figured I’d try and get some sleep,” you said, then hesitated. “Actually… there’s a diner a few blocks from here. Nothing fancy. But their pancakes don’t suck.”
He glanced over, one brow raised. “Is that your way of saying you want breakfast?”
“I’m saying I’m hungry,” you replied, a touch too casual. “And you look like you could use something that didn’t come out of a vending machine.”
Jack didn’t answer right away. Just looked at you for a long second, then nodded once.
“Alright,” he said. “Lead the way.”
And that was it.
No declarations. No turning point anyone else might notice. Just two people, shoulder to shoulder, walking in the same direction a little longer than they needed to.
The diner wasn’t much—formica tables, cracked vinyl booths, a waitress who refilled your bland coffee without asking. But it was warm, and quiet, and smelled like real butter.
You sat across from Jack in a booth near the window, elbows on the table, hands wrapped around mismatched mugs. He didn’t talk much at first, just stirred his coffee like he was waiting for it to tell him something.
Eventually, the silence gave way.
“I think I’ve eaten here twice this week,” you said, gesturing to the laminated menu. “Mostly because I don’t trust myself near a stove after night shift.”
Jack cracked a tired smile. “Last time I tried to make eggs, I nearly set off the sprinklers.”
“That would’ve been one hell of a consult excuse.”
He chuckled—quiet, genuine. The kind of laugh that felt rare on him. “Pretty sure the med students already think I live at the hospital. That would've just confirmed it.”
Conversation meandered from there. Things you both noticed. The weird habits of certain attendings. The one resident who used peanut butter as a mnemonic device. None of it deep, but all of it honest.
Somewhere between pancakes and too many refills, something eased.
Jack looked up mid-sip, met your eyes, and didn’t look away.
“You’re easy to sit with,” he said simply.
You didn’t answer right away.
Just smiled. “You are too.”
One thing about Jack was that he never shied away from eye contact. Maybe it was the military in him—or maybe it was just how he kept people honest. His gaze was steady, unwavering, and when it landed on you, it stayed.
You felt it then, like a spotlight cutting through the dim diner lighting. That intensity, paired with the softness of the moment, made your stomach dip. You ducked your head, suddenly interested in your coffee, and took a sip just to busy your hands.
Jack didn’t miss it. “Are you blushing?”
You scoffed. “It’s just warm in here.”
“Mmm,” he said, clearly unconvinced. “Must be the pancakes.”
You coughed lightly, the sound awkward and deliberate, then reached for the safety of a subject less charged. “So,” you began, “what’s the worst advice you ever got from a senior resident?”
Jack blinked, then let out a quiet laugh. “That’s easy. ‘If the family looks confused, just talk faster.’”
You winced, grinning. “Oof. Classic.”
He leaned back in the booth. “What about you?”
“Oh, mine told me to bring donuts to chart review so the attending would go easy on me.”
Jack tilted his head. “Did it work?”
“Well,” you said, “the donuts got eaten. My SOAP note still got ripped apart. So, no.”
He chuckled. “Justice, then.”
He stirred his coffee once more, then set the spoon down with more care than necessary. His voice dropped, softer, but not fragile. Testing the waters.
"You ever think about leaving it? The ER, I mean."
The question caught you off guard—not because it was heavy, but because it was him asking. You blinked at him, surprised to see something flicker behind his eyes. Not restlessness exactly. Just... ache.
"Sometimes," you admitted. "When it gets too loud. When I catch myself counting the days instead of the people."
Jack nodded, but his gaze locked on you. Steady. Intense. Like he was memorizing something. It took everything out of you not to shy away.
"I used to think if I left, everything I’d seen would catch up to me all at once. Like the noise would follow me anyway."
You let that hang in the air between you. It wasn’t a confession. But it was close.
"Maybe it would. But maybe there’d be room to breathe, too..." you trailed off, breaking eye contact.
Jack didn’t respond, didn’t look away. Simply looked into you with the hopes of finding an answer for himself.
Eventually, the food was picked at more than eaten, the check paid, and the last of the coffee drained. When you finally stepped outside, the air hit cooler than expected—brisk against your skin, a contrast to the warmth left behind in the diner. The sky had brightened while you weren’t looking, soft light catching the edges of buildings, traffic picking up in a faint buzz. It was the kind of morning that made everything feel suspended—just a little bit longer—before the real world returned.
The walk back was quieter than before. Not tense, just full. Tired footsteps on uneven sidewalks. The distant chirp of birds. Your shoulders brushing once. Maybe twice.
When you finally reached your building, you paused on the steps. Jack lingered just behind you, hands in his jacket pockets, gaze drifting toward the street.
"Thanks for breakfast," you said.
He nodded. "Yeah. Of course."
A beat passed. Then two.
You could’ve invited him up. He could’ve asked if you wanted some tea. But neither of you took the step forward, opting rather to stand still.
Not yet.
“Get some sleep,” he said, voice low.
“You too.”
And just like that, he turned and walked off into the quiet.
Another hard shift. One of those nights that stuck to your skin, bitter and unshakable. You’d both lost a patient that day. Different codes, same outcome. Same weight. Same painful echo of loss that clung to the insides of your chest like smoke. No one cried. No one yelled. But it was there—the tension around Jack’s mouth, the clenching of his jaw; the way your hands wouldn’t stop flexing, nails digging into your palms to ground yourself. In the stillness. In the quiet. In everything that hurt.
You lingered near the bike racks, not really speaking. The space between you was thick, not tense—but full. Too full.
It was late, or early, depending on how you looked at it. The kind of hour where the streets felt hollow and fluorescent light still hummed behind your eyes. No one had moved to say goodbye.
You shifted your weight, glanced at him. Jack stood a few feet away, jaw tight, eyes somewhere distant.
The words slipped out before you could stop them.
“I could make tea." Not loud. Not casual. Just—offered.
You weren’t sure what possessed you to say it. Maybe it was the way he was looking at the ground. Or the way the silence between you had started to feel like lead. Either way, the moment it left your mouth, something inside you winced.
He looked at you then. Really looked. And after a long pause, nodded. “Alright.”
So you walked the blocks together, shoulder to shoulder beneath the hum of a waking city. The stroll was quiet—neither of you said much after the offer. When you reached the front steps of your building, your fingers froze in front of the intercom box. Hovered there. Hesitated. You weren’t even sure why—he was just standing there, quiet and steady beside you—but still, something in your chest fluttered. Then you looked at him.
“The code’s 645,” you murmured, like it meant nothing. Like it hadn’t just made your stomach flip.
He didn’t say anything. Just nodded. The beeping of the box felt louder than it should’ve, too sharp against the quiet. But then the lock clicked, and the door swung open, and he followed you inside like he belonged there.
And then the two of you walked inside together.
Up the narrow staircase, your footsteps were slow, measured. The kind of tired that lived in your bones. He kept close but didn’t crowd, hand brushing the rail, eyes skimming the hallway like he didn’t quite know where to look.
When you opened the door to unit 104, you suddenly remembered what your place looked like—barebones, mostly. Lived-in, but not curated. A pair of shoes kicked off by the entryway, two mismatched mugs and a bowl in the sink, a pile of jackets strewn over the chair you'd found in a yard sale.
The floors creaked as he stepped inside. You winced, suddenly self-conscious.
"Sorry about the mess..." you muttered. You didn’t know what you expected—a judgment, maybe. A raised eyebrow. Something.
Instead, Jack looked around once, taking it in slowly. Then nodded.
“It fits.”
Something in his tone—low, sure, completely unfazed, like it was exactly what he'd imagined—made your stomach flip again. You exhaled quietly, tension easing in your shoulders.
"Make yourself at home."
Jack nodded again, then bent to untie his trainers. He stepped out of them carefully, placed them neatly by the door, and gave the space one more quiet scan before making his way to the living room.
The couch creaked softly as he sat, hands resting loosely on his knees, like he wasn’t sure whether to stay upright or lean back. From the kitchen, you stole a glance—watching him settle in, or at least try to. You didn’t want to bombard him with questions or hover like a bad host, but the quiet stretched long, and something in you itched to fill it.
You busied yourself with boiling water, fussing with mugs, tea bags, sugar that wasn’t there. Trying to make it feel like something warm was waiting in the silence. Trying to give him space, even as a dozen things bubbled just beneath your skin.
“Chamomile okay?” you finally asked, the words light but uncertain.
Jack didn’t look up. But he nodded. “Yeah. That’s good.” You turned back to the counter, heart thudding louder than the kettle.
Meanwhile, Jack sat in near silence, but his eyes moved slowly around the room. Not searching. Just... seeing.
There were paintings on the walls—mostly landscapes, one abstract piece with colors he couldn’t name. Based on the array of prints to fingerpainted masterpieces, he guessed you'd painted some of them, but they all felt chosen. Anchored. Real.
A trailing pothos hung from a shelf above the radiator, green and overgrown, even though the pot looked like it had seen better days. It was lush despite the odds—thriving in a quiet, accidental kind of way.
Outside on the balcony ledge, he spotted a few tiny trinkets: a mushroom clay figure with a lopsided smile, a second plant—shorter, spikier, the kind that probably didn’t need much water but still looked stubbornly alive. A moss green glazed pot, clearly handmade. All memories, maybe. All pieces of you he’d never seen before. Pieces of someone he was only beginning to know. He took them in slowly, carefully. Not wanting to miss a single thing.
The sound of footsteps pulled him out of his thoughts. Two mugs clinking gently. You stepped into the living room and offered him one without fanfare, just a quiet sort of steadiness that made the space feel warmer. He took the tea with a small nod, thanking you. You didn’t sit beside him. You settled on the loveseat diagonal from the couch—close, but not too close. Enough to see him without watching. Enough space to let him breathe.
He noticed.
Your fingers curled around your mug. The steam gave you something to look at. Jack’s expression didn’t shift much, but you knew he could read you like an open book. Probably already had.
“You’ve got a lovely place,” he said suddenly, eyes flicking to a print on the wall—one slightly crooked, like it had been bumped and never fixed. “Exactly how I imagined, honestly.”
You arched a brow, skeptical. “Messy and uneven?”
Jack let out a quiet laugh. “I was going to say warm. But yeah, sure. Bonus points for the haunted radiator.”
The way he said it—calm, a little awkward, like he was trying to make you feel comfortable—landed somewhere between a compliment and a peace offering.
He took another sip of tea. “It just… feels like you.”
The words startled something in you. You didn’t know what to say—not right away. Your smile came small, a little crooked, the kind you didn’t have to fake but weren’t sure how to hold for long. “Thank you,” you said softly, fingers tightening around your mug like it might keep you grounded. The heat had gone tepid, but the gesture still lingered.
Jack looked like he might say something else, then didn’t. His fingers tapped once, twice, against the side of his mug before he exhaled through his nose—a small, thoughtful sound.
“My therapist once told me that vulnerability’s like walking into a room naked and hoping someone brought a blanket,” he said, dryly. “I told him I’d rather stay in the hallway.”
You huffed a quiet laugh, surprised. “Mine said it was like standing on a beach during high tide. Sooner or later, the water reaches you—whether you're ready or not.”
Jack’s mouth quirked, amused. “That’s poetic.”
You shrugged, sipping your tea. “She’s a big fan of metaphors. And tide charts, apparently.”
He smiled into his mug. “Makes sense. You’re the kind of person who would still be standing there when it comes in.”
You tilted your head. “And you?”
He considered that. “Probably pacing the rocks. Waiting for someone to say it’s okay to sit down.”
A quiet stretched between you, but this one felt earned—less about what wasn’t said and more about what had been.
An hour passed like that. Not all silence, not all speech. Just the easy drift of soft conversation and shared space. Small talk filled the cracks when it needed to—his comment about the plant that seemed to be plotting something in the corner, your half-hearted explanation for the random stack of books next to the radiator. Every now and then, something deeper would peek through the surface.
“Ever think about just… disappearing?” you asked once, offhanded and a little too real.
Jack didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. But then I’d miss pancakes. And Mexican food.”
You laughed, and he smiled like he hadn’t meant to say something so honest.
It wasn’t much. But it was enough. A rhythm, slow and shy. Words passed like notes through a crack in the door—careful, but curious. Neither of you rushed it. Neither of you left.
And then the storm hit.
The rain droplets started slow, just a whisper on the window. But it built fast—wind shaking the glass, thunder cracking overhead like a warning. You turned toward it, heart sinking a little. Jack did too, his brow furrowed slightly.
"Jesus," you murmured, already reaching for your phone. As if by divine timing, the emergency alert confirmed it: flash flood advisory until late evening. Admin had passed coverage onto the day shift. Robby wouldn't be happy about that. You made a mental note to make fun of him about it tomorrow. "Doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon..."
You glanced at Jack, who was still holding his mug like he wasn’t sure if he should move.
“You're welcome to stay—if you want,” you quickly clarified, trying to sound casual. “Only if you want to. Until it clears.”
His eyes flicked toward the window again, then to you. “You sure?”
“I mean, unless you want to risk get struck by lightning or swept into a storm drain.”
That earned the smallest laugh. “Tempting.”
You smiled, nervous. “Spare towel and blankets are in the linen closet. Couch pulls out. I think. Haven’t tried.”
Jack nodded slowly, setting his mug down. “I’m not picky.”
You busied yourself with clearing a spot, the nervous kind of motion that said you cared too much and didn’t know where to put it.
Jack watched you for a moment longer than he should’ve, then started helping—quiet, careful, hands brushing yours once as he reached for the extra pillow.
Neither of you commented on it. But your face burned.
And when the storm didn’t stop, neither of you rushed it.
Instead, the hours slipped by, slow and soft. At some point, Jack asked if he could shower—voice low, like he didn’t want to intrude. You pointed him toward the bathroom and handed him a spare towel, trying not to overthink the fact that his fingers grazed yours when he took it.
While he was in there, you busied yourself with making something passable for dinner. Rice. Egg drop soup. A couple frozen dumplings your mother had sent you dressed up with scallions and sesame oil. When Jack returned, hair damp, sleeves pushed up, you nearly dropped the plate. It wasn’t fair—how effortlessly good he looked like that. A little disheveled, a little too comfortable in a stranger’s home, and yet somehow perfectly at ease in your space. It was just a flash of thought—sharp, traitorous, warm—and then you buried it fast, turning back to the stovetop like it hadn’t happened at all.
You were still hovering by the stove, trying not to let the dumplings stick when you heard his footsteps. When he stepped beside you without a word and reached for a second plate, something in your brain short-circuited.
"Smells good," he said simply, voice low—and he somehow still smelled faintly of cologne, softened by the unmistakable citrus-floral mix of your body wash. It wasn’t fair. The scent tugged at something in your chest you didn’t want to name.
You blinked rapidly, buffering. "Thanks. Uh—it’s not much. Just... whatever I had."
He glanced at the pan, then to you. “You always downplay a five-course meal like this?”
Your mouth opened to protest, but then he smiled—quiet and warm and maybe a little teasing.
It took effort not to stare. Not to say something stupid about how stupidly good he looked. You shoved the thought down, hard, and went back to plating the food.
He helped without asking, falling into step beside you like he’d always been there. And when you both sat down at the low table, he smiled at the spread like it meant more than it should’ve.
Neither of you talked much while eating. But the air between you felt settled. Comfortable.
At some point between the second bite and the last spoonful of rice, Jack glanced up from his bowl and said, "This is good. Really good. I haven’t had a homemade meal in... a long time."
You were pleasantly surprised. And relieved. "Oh. Thanks. I’m just glad it turned out edible."
He shook his head slowly, eyes still on you. "If this were my last meal, I think I’d die happy."
Your face flushed instantly. It was stupid, really, the way a single line—soft, almost offhand—landed like that. You ducked your head, smiling into your bowl, trying to play it off.
Jack tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly, amused. "Was that a blush?"
You scoffed. "It's warm in here."
“Mmm,” he murmured, clearly unconvinced. But he let it go.
Still, the corner of his mouth tugged upward.
You cleared your throat. "You're welcome anytime you'd like, by the way. For food. Or tea. Or... just to not be alone."
That earned a look from him—surprised, quiet, but soft in a way that made your chest ache.
And you didn’t dare look at him for a full minute after that.
When you stood to rinse your dishes, Jack took your bowl from your hands before you could protest and turned toward the sink. You opened your mouth but he was already running water, already rinsing with careful, practiced motions. So you just stood there in the soft hush of your kitchen, warmed by tea and stormlight, trying not to let your heart do anything foolish.
By the time the dishes were rinsed and left on the drying rack, the storm had only worsened—sheets of rain chasing themselves down the windows, thunder rolling deep and constant.
You found yourselves in the living room again, this time without urgency, without pretense—just quiet familiarity laced with something softer. And so, without discussing it, without making it a thing, you handed him the extra blanket and turned off all but one lamp.
Neither of you moved toward sleep just yet.
You were sitting by the balcony window, knees pulled up, mug long since emptied, staring out at the storm as it lashed the glass in sheets. The sound had become something rhythmic, almost meditative. Still, your arms were bare, and the goosebumps that peppered your forearms betrayed the chill creeping in.
Jack didn’t say anything—just stood quietly from the couch and returned with the throw blanket from your armrest. Without a word, he draped it over your shoulders.
You startled slightly, looking up at him. But he didn’t comment. Just gave you a small nod, then sat down beside you on the floor, his back against the corner of the balcony doorframe, gaze following yours out into the storm. The blanket settled around both of you like a quiet pact.
After a while, Jack’s voice cut through it, barely louder than the storm. “You afraid of the dark?”
You glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at you—just at the rain trailing down the window. “Used to be,” you said. “Not so much anymore. You?”
He was quiet for a beat.
“I used to think the dark was hiding me,” he said once. Voice quiet, like he was talking to the floor, or maybe the memory of a version of himself he didn’t recognize anymore. “But I think it’s just the only place I don’t have to pretend. Where I don’t have to act like I’m whole.”
Your heart cracked. Not from pity, but from the aching intimacy of honesty.
Then he looked at you—really looked at you. Eyes steady, searching, too much all at once. You forgot how to breathe for a second. "My therapist thinks I find comfort in the darkness."
There was something about the way he fit into the storm, the way the shadows curved around him without asking for anything back. You wondered if it was always like this for him—calmer in the chaos, more himself in the dark. Maybe that was the tradeoff.
Some people thrived in the day. Others feared being blinded by the light.
Jack, you were starting to realize, functioned best where things broke open. In the adrenaline. In the noise. Not because he liked it, necessarily—but because he knew it. He understood its language. The stillness of normalcy? That was harder. Quieter in a way that didn’t feel safe. Unstructured. Unknown.
A genius in crisis. A ghost in calm.
But you saw it.
And you said, softly, "Maybe the dark doesn’t ask us to be anything. That’s why it feels like home sometimes. You don’t have to be good. Or okay. Or whole. You just get to be." That made him look at you again—slow, like he didn’t want to miss it. Maybe no one had ever said it that way before.
The air felt different after that—still heavy, still quiet, but warmer somehow. Jack broke it with a low breath, barely a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "So... do all your philosophical monologues come with tea and thunder, or did I just get the deluxe package?"
You let out a soft laugh, the tension in your shoulders easing by degrees. "Only the Abbot special."
He bumped your knee gently with his. "Lucky me."
You didn’t say anything else, just leaned back against the wall beside him.
Eventually, you both got up. Brushed teeth side by side, a little awkward, a little shy. You both stood in front of the couch, staring at it like it had personally wronged you. You reached for the handle. Jack braced the backrest. Nothing moved.
"This can’t be that complicated," you muttered.
"Two MDs, one brain cell," Jack deadpanned, and you snorted.
It took a few grunts, an accidental elbow, and a very questionable click—but eventually, the thing unfolded.
He took the couch. You turned off the last lamp.
"Goodnight," you murmured in the dark.
"Goodnight," he echoed, softer.
And for once, the quiet didn’t press. It held.
Weeks passed. Jack came over a handful of times. He accompanied you home after work, shoulders brushing as you walked the familiar path back in comfortable quiet. You learned the rhythm of him in your space. The way he moved through your kitchen like he didn’t want to disturb it. The way he always put his shoes by the door, lined up neatly like they belonged there.
Then one day, it changed. He texted you, right before your shift ended: You free after? My place this time.
You stared at the screen longer than necessary. Then typed back: Yeah. I’d like that.
He met you outside the hospital that night, both of you bone-tired from a brutal shift, scrub jackets zipped high against the wind. You hadn’t been to Jack’s place before. Weren’t even sure what you expected. Your nerves had started bubbling to the surface the moment you saw him—automatic, familiar. Like your brain was bracing for rejection and disappointment before he even said a word.
You tried to keep it casual, but old habits died hard. Vulnerability always felt like standing on the edge of something steep, and your first instinct was to retreat. To make sure no one thought you needed anything at all. The second you saw him, the words spilled out in a rush—fast, nervous, unfiltered.
"Jack, you don’t have to...make this a thing. You don’t owe me anything just because you’ve been crashing at my place. I didn’t mean for it to feel like you had to invite me back or—"
He cut you off before you could spiral further.
“Hey.” Just that—firm but quiet. A grounding thread. His hands settled on your arms, near your elbows, steadying you with a grip that was firm but careful—like he knew exactly how to hold someone without hurting them. His fingers were warm, his palms calloused in places that told stories he’d never say out loud. His forearms, bare beneath rolled sleeves, flexed with restrained strength. And God, you hated that it made your brain short-circuit for a second.
Of course Jack Abbot would comfort you and make you feral in the same breath.
Then he looked at you—really looked. “I invited you because I wanted you there. Not because I owe you. Not because I’m keeping score. Not because I'm expecting anything from you.”
The wind pulled at your sleeves. The heat rose to your cheeks before you could stop it.
Jack softened. Offered the faintest smile. “I want you here. But only if you want to be.”
You let out a breath. “Okay,” you said. Soft. Certain, even through the nerves. You smiled, more to yourself than to him. Jack’s gaze lingered on that smile—quietly, like he was memorizing it. His shoulders loosened, just barely, like your answer had unlocked something he hadn’t realized he was holding onto.
Be vulnerable, you told yourself. Open up. Allow yourself to have this.
True to his word, it really was just two blocks from your place. His building was newer, more modern. Clean lines, soft lighting, the kind of entryway that labeled itself clearly as an apartment complex. Yours, by comparison, screamed haunted brick building with a temperamental boiler system and a very committed resident poltergeist.
You were still standing beside him when he keyed open the front door, the keypad beeping softly under his fingers.
"5050," he said.
You tipped your head, confused. "Sorry?"
He looked at you briefly, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud but didn’t take it back either. “Door code.”
Something in your chest fluttered. It echoed the first night you’d given him yours—unthinking, unfiltered, just a quiet offering. This felt the same. An unspoken invitation. You’re welcome here. Any time you want. Any time you need.
"Thanks, Jack." You could see a flicker of something behind his eyes.
The elevator up was quiet.
Jack watched the floor numbers tick by like he was counting in his head. You stared at your reflection in the brushed metal ceiling, the fluorescent lighting doing no one any favors. Totally not worried about the death trap you were currently in. Definitely not calculating which corner you'd curl into if the whole thing dropped.
When the doors opened, the hallway was mercifully empty, carpeted, quiet. You followed him down to the end, your steps softened by the hush of the building. Unit J24.
He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and stepped aside so you could walk in first.
You did—and paused.
It was... barren. Not in a sterile way, but in the sense that it looked like he’d just moved in a few days ago and hadn’t had the energy—or maybe the need—to settle. The walls were bare and painted a dark blue-grey. A matching couch and a dim floor lamp in the living room. A fridge in the kitchen humming like it was trying to fill the silence. No art. No rugs. Not a photo or magnet in sight.
And yet—somehow—it felt entirely Jack. Sparse. Quiet. Intentional. A place built for someone who didn’t like to linger but was trying to learn how. You stepped in further, slower now. A kind of reverence in your movement, even if you didn’t realize it yet.
Because even in the stillness, even in the emptiness—he’d let you in.
Jack took off his shoes and opened up a closet by the door. You mirrored his motions, suddenly aware of every move you made like a spotlight landed on you.
"Make yourself at home," he said, voice casual but low.
You walked over to the couch and sat down, your movements slow, careful. Even the cushions felt new—firm, unsunken, like no one had ever really used them. It squeaked a little beneath you, unfamiliar in its resistance.
You ran your hand lightly over the fabric, then looked around again, taking everything in. "Did you paint the walls?"
Jack gave a short huff of a laugh from the kitchen. “Had to fight tooth and nail with my landlord to get that approved. Said it was too dark. Too dramatic.”
He reappeared in the doorway with two mugs in hand. “Guess I told on myself.” He handed you the lighter green one, taking the black chipped one for himself.
You took it carefully, fingers brushing his for a moment. “Thanks.”
The warmth seeped into your palms immediately, grounding. The scent rising from the cup was oddly familiar—floral, slightly citrusy, like something soft wrapped in memory. You took a cautious sip. Your brows lifted. “Wait… is this the Lavender cloudburst... cloudbloom?”
Jack gave you a sheepish glance, rubbing the back of his neck. “It is. I picked up a bag couple of days ago. Figured if I was going to be vulnerable and dramatic, I might as well commit to the theme.”
You snorted. He smiled into his own cup, quiet.
What he didn’t say: that he’d stared at the bag in the store longer than any sane person should, wondering if buying tea with you in mind meant anything. That he bought it a while back, hoping one day he'd get to share it with you. Wondering if letting himself hope was already a mistake. But saying it felt too big. Too much.
Jack’s eyes drifted to you—not the tea, not the room, but you. The way your shoulders were ever-so-slightly raised, tension tucked beneath the soft lines of your posture. The way your eyes moved around the room, drinking in every corner, every shadow, like you were searching for something you couldn’t name.
He didn’t say anything. Just watched.
And maybe you felt it—that quiet kind of watching. The kind that wasn’t about staring, but about seeing. Really seeing.
You took another sip, slower this time. The warmth helped. So did the silence.
Small talk came easier than it had before. Not loud, not hurried. Just quiet questions and softer replies. The kind of conversation that made space instead of filling it.
Jack tilted his head slightly. “You always look at rooms like you’re cataloguing them.”
You blinked, caught off guard. “Do I?”
“Yeah.” He smiled softly into his mug. “Like you’re trying to figure out what’s missing.”
You considered that for a second. “Maybe I am.”
A pause, then—“And?”
Your gaze swept the room one last time, then landed back on him. “Nothing. This apartment feels like you.”
You expected him to nod or laugh it off, maybe deflect with a joke. But instead, he just looked at you—still, soft, like your words had pressed into some quiet corner of him he didn’t know was waiting. The moment lingered.
And he gave the slightest nod, the kind that said he heard you—really heard you—even if he didn’t quite know how to respond. The ice between you didn’t crack so much as it thawed, slow and patient, like neither of you were in a rush to get to spring. But it was melting, all the same.
Jack set his mug down on the coffee table, fingertips lingering against the ceramic a second longer than necessary. “I don’t usually do this,” he said finally. “The… letting people in thing.”
His honesty caught you off guard—so sudden, so unguarded, it tugged something loose in your chest. You nodded, heart caught somewhere behind your ribs. “I know.”
He gave you a sideways glance, prompting you to continue. You sipped your tea, eyes fixed on the rim of your cup. “I see how carefully you move through the world.”
“Thank you,” you added after a beat—genuine, quiet.
He didn’t say anything back, and the two of you left it at that.
Silence again, but it felt different now. Less like distance. More like the space between two people inching closer. Jack leaned back slightly, stretching one leg out in front of him, the other bent at the knee. “You scare me a little,” he admitted.
That got a chuckle out of you.
“Not in a bad way,” he added quickly. “Just… in the way it feels when something actually matters.”
You set your mug down too, hands suddenly unsure of what to do. “You scare me too.”
Jack stared at you then—longer than he probably meant to. You felt it immediately, the heat rising in your chest under the weight of it, his gaze almost reverent, almost like he wanted to say something else but didn’t trust it to come out right.
So you cleared your throat and tried to steer the tension elsewhere. “Not as much as you scare the med students,” you quipped, lips twitching into a crooked smile.
Jack huffed out a low laugh, the edge of his mouth pulling up. “I sure as hell hope not.”
You let the moment linger for a beat longer, then glanced at the clock over his shoulder. “I should probably get back to my place,” you said gently. “Catch a couple hours of sleep before the next shift.”
Jack didn’t protest. Didn’t push. But something in his eyes softened—brief, quiet. “Thanks for the tea,” you added, standing slowly, reluctant but steady. “And for… this.”
He nodded once. “Anytime.” The way the word fell from his lips nearly made you buckle, its sincerity and weight almost begging you to stay. "Let me walk you back."
You hesitated, chewing the inside of your cheek. “You don’t have to, I don’t want to be a bother.”
Jack was already reaching for his jacket, eyes steady on you. “You’re never a bother.” His voice was quiet, but certain.
You stood there for a moment, hesitating, the edge of your nervousness still humming faintly beneath your skin. Jack grabbed his keys, adjusted his jacket, and the two of you headed downstairs. The cool air greeted you with a soft nip. Neither of you spoke at first. The afternoon light was soft and golden, stretching long shadows across the pavement. Your footsteps synced without effort, an easy rhythm between you. Shoulders brushed once. Then again. But neither of you moved away.
Not much was said on the walk back. But it didn’t need to be. When your building came into view, Jack slowed just a little, as if to make the last stretch last longer.
“See you in a few hours?” The question came out hopeful but was the only one you were ever certain about when it came to Jack.
He gave a small nod. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
The ER was humming, a low-level chaos simmering just below the surface. Pages overhead, fluorescent lights too bright, the constant shuffle of stretchers and nurses and med students trying not to get in the way.
You and Jack found yourselves working a case together. A bad one. Blunt trauma, no pulse, field intubation, half a dozen procedures already started before the gurney even made it past curtain three. But the two of you moved in sync.
Same breath. Same rhythm. You knew where he was going before he got there. He didn’t have to ask for what he needed—you were already handing it to him.
Shen and Ellis exchanged a look from across the room, like they’d noticed something neither of you had said out loud.
“You two always like this?” Ellis asked under his breath as he passed by.
Jack didn’t look up. “Like what?”
Ellis just raised a brow and kept walking.
The case stabilized. Barely. But the moment stayed with you. In the rhythm. In the way your hands brushed when you reached for the same gauze. In the silence afterward that didn’t feel like distance. Just... breath.
You didn’t say anything when Jack handed you a fresh pair of gloves with one hand and bumped your elbow with the other.
But you smiled.
Days bled into nights and nights into shifts, but something about the rhythm stuck. Not just in the trauma bay, but outside of it too. You didn’t plan it. Neither did he. But one night—after a particularly brutal Friday shift that bled well past weekend sunrise, all adrenaline and sharp edges—you both found yourselves back at your place in the evening.
You didn’t talk much. You didn’t need to.
Jack sank onto the couch with a low sigh, exhaustion settling into his bones. You brought him a blanket without asking, set a cup of tea beside him with a familiarity neither of you acknowledged aloud.
That night, he stayed. Not because he was too tired to leave. But because he didn’t want to. Because something about the quiet between you felt safer than anything waiting for him outside.
You were both sitting on the couch, talking—soft, slow, tired talk that came easier than it used to. The kind of conversation that filled the space without demanding anything. At some point, your head had tipped, resting against his shoulder mid-sentence, eyes fluttering closed with the weight of the day. Jack didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe too deep, afraid to disturb the way your warmth settled so naturally into his side.
Jack stayed beside you, feeling the soft rhythm of your breath rising and falling. His prosthetic was off, his guard lowered, and in that moment, he looked more like himself than he ever did in daylight. A part of him ached—subtle, quiet, but insistent. He hadn't realized how much he missed this. Not just touch, but presence. Yours. The kind of proximity that didn’t demand anything. The kind he didn’t have to earn.
You shifted slightly in your sleep, your arm brushing his knee. Jack froze. Then, carefully—almost reverently—he reached for the blanket draped over the back of the couch and pulled it gently over your shoulders. His fingers lingered at the edge, just for a second. Just long enough to feel the warmth of your skin through the fabric. Just long enough to remind himself this was real.
And then he leaned back, settled in again beside you.
Close. But not too close.
Present.
The morning light broke through the blinds.
You stirred.
His voice was gravel-soft. "Hey."
You blinked sleep from your eyes. Sat up. Found him still there, legs stretched out, back to the wall.
“You stayed,” you said.
He nodded.
Then, quietly, like it mattered more than anything:
“Didn’t want to be anywhere else.”
You smiled. Just a little.
He smiled back. Tired. Honest.
The first time you stayed at Jack's place was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Everything was fine—quiet, even—until late evening. Jack had a spare room, insisted you take it. You didn’t argue. The bed was firm, the sheets clean, the door left cracked open just a little.
You don’t remember falling asleep. You only remember the panic. The way it clutched at your chest like a vice, your lungs refusing to cooperate, your limbs kicking, flailing against an invisible force. You were screaming, you think. Crying, definitely. The dream was too much. Too close. The kind that reached down your throat and stayed.
Then—hands. Shaking your shoulders. Jack’s voice.
“Hey. Hey—wake up. It’s not real. You’re okay.”
You blinked awake, heart slamming against your ribs. Jack was already on the bed with you, hair a mess, eyes wide and terrified—but only for you. His hands were still on your arms, steady but gentle. Grounding.
Then one hand rose to cradle your cheek, cool fingers brushing the flushed heat of your skin. Your face burned hot beneath the sweat and panic, and his touch was steady, careful, as if anchoring you back to the room. He brushed your hair out of your face, strands damp and stuck to your forehead, and tucked them back behind your ear. Nothing rushed. Nothing forced. Just the quiet care of someone trying to reach you without pushing too far.
You tried to speak but couldn’t. Just choked on a sob.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “You’re here. You’re safe.”
And you believed him.
Then, without hesitation, Jack brought you into his arms—tucked you against his chest and held you tightly, like you might disappear with the breeze. There was nothing hesitant about it, no second-guessing. Just the instinctive kind of closeness that came from someone who knew what it meant to need and be needed. He held you like a lifeline, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other firm across your back, steadying you both.
Eventually, your breathing slowed. The shaking stopped. Jack stayed close, his hand brushing yours, his body warm and steady like an anchor. He didn’t leave that night. Didn’t go back to his room. Just pulled the blanket over both of you and stayed, watching the slow return of calm to your chest like it was the most important thing in the world.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered eventually, voice hoarse from the crying.
Jack’s gaze didn’t waver. He reached out, cupping your cheek again with a tenderness that made your chest ache.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said firmly. Not unkind—never unkind. Just certain, like the truth of it had been carved into him long before this moment.
Jack and Robby greeted each other on the roof, half-drained thermoses in hand. Jack looked tired, but not in the usual way. Something about the edges of him felt… softened. Less on-edge. Lighter, one might say. Robby noticed.
“You’ve been less of a bastard lately,” he said around a mouthful of protein bar.
Jack raised a brow. “That a compliment?”
Robby grinned. “An observation. Maybe both.”
Jack shook his head, amused. But Robby kept watching him. Tipped his chin slightly. “You seem happier, brother. In a weird, not-you kind of way.”
Jack huffed a breath through his nose. Didn’t respond right away.
Then, Robby’s voice dropped just enough. “You find someone?”
Jack’s grip tightened slightly around his cup. He looked down at the liquid swirling at the bottom. He didn’t smile, not fully. But his silence said enough.
Robby nodded once, then looked away. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Thought so.”
"I didn’t say anything."
Robby snorted. “You didn’t have to. You’ve got that look.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “What look?”
“The kind that says you finally let yourself come up for air.”
Jack stared at him for a second, then looked down at his cup again, lips twitching like he was fighting back a smile. Robby elbowed him lightly.
“Do I know her?” he asked, voice easy, teasing.
Jack gave a one-shouldered shrug, noncommittal. “Maybe.”
Robby narrowed his eyes. “Is it Shen?”
Jack scoffed. “Absolutely not.”
Robby laughed, loud and satisfied. “Had to check.” Then, after a beat, he said more quietly, “I’m glad, you know. That you found someone.”
Jack looked up, brows drawn. Robby shrugged, this time more sincere than teasing. “Don’t let go of it. Whatever it is. People like us... we don’t get that kind of thing often.”
Jack let the words hang in the air a moment, then gave a half-scoff, half-smile. “You getting sentimental on me, old man?”
Robby rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
But Jack’s smile faded into something gentler. Quieter. “I haven’t felt this... human in a while.”
Robby didn’t say anything to that. Just nodded, then bumped Jack’s shoulder with his own. Then he stretched his arms overhead, cracking his back with a groan. “Alright, lovebird. Let’s go pretend we’re functioning adults again.”
Jack rolled his eyes, but the smile lingered.
They turned back toward the stairwell, the sky above them soft with early light.
It all unraveled around hour 10.
A belligerent trauma case brought in after being struck by a drunk driver. Jack’s shoulders tensed when he saw the dog tags. Everyone knew vets were the ones that got to him the most. His jaw was set tight the whole time, his voice sharp, movements clipped. You’d worked with him long enough to see when he started slipping into autopilot: efficient, precise, but cold. Closed off.
He ordered a test you'd already confirmed had been done. When you gently reminded him, Jack didn’t even look at you—just waved you off with a sharp, impatient flick of his wrist. Then, louder—sharper—he snapped at Ellis. "Move faster, for fuck's sake."
His voice had that clipped edge to it now, the kind that made people tense. Made the room feel smaller. Ellis blinked but didn’t respond, just picked up the pace, brows furrowed. Shen gave you a quiet glance over the patient’s shoulder, something that looked almost like sympathy. Both of them looked to you after that—uncertain, searching for a signal or some kind of anchor. You saw it in their eyes: the silent question. What’s going on with Jack?
When you reached across the gurney to adjust the central line tubing, Jack barked, "Back off."
You froze. “Dr. Abbot,” you said, soft but firm. “It’s already in.”
His eyes snapped to yours, and for a split second, they looked wild—distant, haunted. “Then why are you still reaching for it?” he said, low and biting.
The air went still. Ellis looked up from the med tray, blinking. Shen awkwardly shifted his weight, silently assuring you that you'd done nothing wrong. The nurse closest to Jack turned her focus sharply to the vitals monitor.
You excused yourself and stepped out. Said nothing.
He didn’t notice. Or maybe he did. But he didn’t look back.
The patient coded minutes later.
And though the team moved in perfect sync—compressions, meds, lines—Jack was silent afterward, hands flexing at his sides, eyes on the floor.
You didn’t speak when the shift ended.
A few nights later, he was at your door.
You opened it only halfway, unsure what to expect. The narrow gap between the door and the frame felt like the only armor you had—an effort to shelter yourself physically from the hurt you couldn’t name.
Jack stood there, exhausted. Worn thin. Still in scrubs, jacket over one shoulder. His face was hollowed out, cheeks drawn tight, and his eyes—god, his eyes—were wide and tired in that distinct, glassy way. Like he wasn’t sure if you’d close the door or let him stay. Like he already expected you would slam it in his face and say you never wanted to see him again.
“I shouldn’t have—” he started, then stopped. Ran a hand through his hair. “I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”
You swallowed, but the words wouldn't come out. You were still upset. Still stewing. Not at the apology—never that. But at how quickly things between you could tilt. At how much it had hurt in the moment, to be dismissed like that. And how much it mattered that it was him.
His voice was quiet, but steady. “You were right. I wasn’t hearing you. And you didn’t deserve any of that.”
There was a beat of silence.
"I panicked,” he said, like it surprised even him. “Not just today. The patient—he reminded me of people I served with. The ones who didn’t make it back. The ones who did and never got better. I saw him and... I just lost it. Couldn’t separate the past from right now. And then I looked at you and—” he cut himself off, shaking his head.
“Being this close to something good... it scares the hell out of me. I don’t want to mess this up."
Your heart thudded, painful and full.
“Then talk to me,” you said, voice thick with exhaustion. The familiar ache began to flood your throat. “Tell me how you feel. Something. Anything. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s on your mind, Jack. I have my own shit to deal with, and I get it if you’re not ready to talk about it yet, but—”
Your hand came up to your face, pressing against your forehead. “Maybe we should just talk tomorrow,” you muttered, already taking a step back to close the door. It was a clear attempt at avoidance, and Jack saw right through it.
“I think about you more than I should,” he said, voice low and rough. He stepped closer. Breath shallow. His eyes searched yours—frantic, pleading, like he was trying to gather the courage to jump off something high. “When I’m running on fumes. When I’m trying not to feel anything. And then I see you and it all rushes back in like I’ve been underwater too long."
At this, you pulled the door open slightly to show that you were willing to at least listen. Jack was looking at the ground—something completely unlike him. He always met people’s eyes, always held his gaze steady. But not now. Now, he looked like he might fold in on himself if you so much as breathed wrong. He exhaled a short breath, relieved but not off the hook just yet.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whispered. “But I know what I feel when I’m around you. And it’s the only thing that’s made me feel like myself in a long time.”
He hesitated, just for a second, searching your face like he was waiting for permission. For rejection. For anything at all. You reached out first—tentative, your fingers lifting to his cheek. Jack froze at the contact, like his body had forgotten what it meant to be touched so gently. It was instinct, habit. But then he exhaled and leaned into your hand, eyes fluttering shut, like he couldn’t bear the weight of being seen and touched at once.
You studied him for a long moment, taking him in—how hard he was trying, how raw he looked under the dim light. Your thumb brushed beneath his eye, brushing softly along the curve of his cheekbone. When you pulled your hand away, Jack caught it gently and brought it back, pressing your palm against his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut like it hurt to be touched, like it cracked something open he wasn’t ready to see. Then—slowly—he leaned into it, like he didn’t know how to ask for comfort but couldn’t bring himself to pull away from it either.
Your breath caught. He was still holding your hand to his face like it anchored him to the ground.
You shifted slightly, unsure what to say. But you didn’t move away.
His hand slid down to catch yours fully, fingers interlacing with yours.
“I’m not good at this,” he said finally, voice rough and eyes locked onto you. “But I want to try. With you.”
You opened your mouth to say something—anything—but what came out was a jumble of word salad instead.
“I don’t know how to do this,” you said, voice trembling. “I’m not—I'm not the kind of person who’s built for this. I fuck things up. I shut down. I push people away. And you…” Your voice cracked. You turned your face slightly, not pulling away, but not quite steady either. “You deserve better than—”
Jack pulled you into a bruising hug, arms wrapping tightly around you like he could hold the pain in place. One hand rose to cradle the back of your head, pulling you into his chest.
You were shaking. Tears, uninvited, welled in your eyes and slipped down before you could stop them.
“Fuck perfect,” he whispered softly against your temple. “I need real. I need you.”
He pulled back just enough to look at you, his hand still resting against the side of your head. His gaze was glassy but steady, breathing shallow like the weight of what he’d just said was still settling in his chest.
You blinked through your tears, mouth parted, searching his face for hesitation—but there was none.
He leaned in again, slower this time.
And then—finally—he kissed you.
It started hesitant—like he was afraid to get it wrong. Or he didn’t know if you’d still be there once he crossed that line. But when your hand gripped the front of his jacket, pulling him in closer, it changed. The kiss deepened, slow but certain. His hands framed your face. One of your hands curled into the fabric at his waist, the other resting against his chest, feeling the quickened beat beneath your palm.
You stumbled backward as you pulled him inside, refusing to let go, your mouth still pressed to his like contact alone might keep you from unraveling. Jack followed without question, stepping inside as the door clicked shut on its own. He barely had time to register the space before your back hit the door with a soft thud, his mouth still moving against yours. You reached blindly to twist the lock, and when you did, he made a low sound—relief or hunger, you couldn’t tell.
He kicked off his shoes without looking, quick and efficient, like some part of him needed to shed the outside world as fast as possible just to be here, just to feel this. You jumped. He caught you. Your legs wrapped around his waist like muscle memory, hands threading through his hair, and Jack carried you down the hall like you weighed nothing. He didn't have to ask which door. He knew.
And when he laid you down on the bed, it wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t careless.
It was everything that had been building—finally, finally let loose.
It was all nerves and heat and breathlessness—everything held back finally finding its release.
When you pulled away just a little, foreheads touching, neither of you said anything at first. But Jack’s hands didn’t leave your waist. He just breathed—one breath, then another—before he whispered, “Are you sure?”
You frowned.
“This,” he clarified, voice thick with emotion. “I don’t want to take advantage of you. If you’re not okay. If this is too much.”
Your hand came up again, brushing his cheek. “I’m sure.”
His eyes flicked up to yours, finally meeting them, and he asked softly, “Are you?”
You nodded, steadier this time. “Yes. Are you?”
Jack didn’t hesitate. “I’ve never been more sure about a damn thing in my life.”
And when you kissed him again, it wasn’t heat that came first—but a sense of comfort. Feeling safe.
Then came the warmth. The kind that started deep in your belly and coursed in your body and through your fingertips. Your hands slipped beneath his shirt, fingertips skating across skin like you were trying to memorize every inch. Jack's breath hitched, and he kissed you harder—desperate, aching. His hands were everywhere: your waist, your back, your jaw, grounding you like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.
Clothes came off in pieces, scattered in the dark. Moonlight filtered in through the blinds, painting soft stripes across the bed through the blinds. It was the first time you saw all of him—truly saw him. The curve of his back, the line of his shoulders and muscles, the scars that marked the map of his body. You’d switched spots somewhere between kisses and breathless moans—Jack now lying on the bed, you straddling his hips, hovering just above him.
You reached out without thinking, fingertips ghosting over one of the thicker ones that carved down his side. Jack stilled. When you looked up at him, his eyes on yours—soft, wary, like he didn’t quite know how to breathe through the moment.
So you made your way down, gently, and kissed the scar. Then another. And another. Reverent. Wordless. He watched you the whole time, eyes glinting in the dim light, like he couldn't believe you were real.
When your lips met a sensitive spot by his hip, Jack’s breath caught. His hand found yours again, grounding him, keeping him here. Your name on his lips wasn’t just want—it was pure devotion. Every touch was careful, every kiss threaded with something deeper than just desire. You weren’t just wanted. You were known.
He worshipped you with his hands, his mouth, his body—slow, thorough, patient. The kind of touch that asked for nothing but offered everything. His palms mapped your skin like he’d been waiting to learn it, reverent in every pass, every pause. His lips lingered over every place you sighed, every place you arched, until you forgot where his body ended and yours began. It was messy and sacred and quiet and burning all at once—like he didn’t just want you, he needed you.
And you let him. You met him there—every movement, every breath—like your bodies already knew the rhythm. When it built, when it crested, it wasn’t just release. It was recognition. A return. Home.
After the air cooled and the adrenaline had faded, he didn’t pull away. His hand stayed at your back, palm warm and steady where it pressed gently against your spine. You shifted only slightly, your leg draped over his, and your forehead found the crook of his neck. He smelled like your sheets and skin and the barest trace of sweat and his cologne.
He exhaled into the hush of the room, chest rising and falling in rhythm with yours. His fingers traced lazy, absent-minded lines along your side, like he was still trying to memorize you even now.
You were both quiet, not because there was nothing to say, but because for once, there was nothing you needed to.
He kissed your lips—soft, lingering—then trailed down to your neck, his nose brushing your skin as he breathed you in. He paused, lips resting at the hollow of your throat. Then he kissed the top of your head. Just once.
And that was enough.
The two of you stayed like that for a while, basking in the afterglow. You stared at him, letting yourself really look—at the way the moonlight softened his features, at how peaceful he looked with his eyes half-lidded and his chest rising and falling against yours. Jack couldn’t seem to help himself. His fingers played with yours—tracing the length of each one like they were new, like they were a language he was still learning. He toyed with the edge of your palm, pressed his thumb against your knuckle, curled his pinky with yours. A man starved for contact who had finally found somewhere to rest.
When he finally looked up, you met him with a smile.
"What now?" you asked softly, voice quiet in the hush between you. It wasn’t fear, not quite. Just a small seed of worry still gnawing at your ribs.
Jack studied your face like he already knew what you meant. He let out a soft breath. His hand moved carefully, brushing a stray hair from your face before cupping your cheek with a tenderness that made your chest ache.
"Now," he said, "I keep showing up. I keep choosing this. You. Every day."
Your lips pressed together in a shy smile, trying to hold back the sudden sting behind your eyes. You shook your head slowly, swallowing the emotion that threatened to rise.
He tilted his head a little, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Are you sick of me yet?"
You huffed a laugh, shaking your head. "Not even close."
His fingers tightened gently around yours.
"Good," Jack murmured. "Because I’m not letting you go."
And just like that, the quiet turned soft. For once, hope felt like something you could hold.
You fell asleep with his arm draped over your waist, your fingers still tangled in the fabric of his shirt. His breaths were deep and even, chest rising and falling in a rhythm that calmed your own. Neither of you had nightmares that night. No thrashing. No waking in a cold sweat. Just quiet. Any time you shifted, he instinctively pulled you closer. You drifted together into sleep, breaths falling in sync—slow, steady, safe.
And for the first time, the dark didn’t feel so heavy.
thank you for reading 💛
<3 - <3 - <3 - <3
Hiiii May i request a dr robby x virgin reader? Maybe shes an ER intern whos getting transfered to another department making her officially no longer under direct supervision of Robby, thus free to pursue. And when they do get down and dirty, she's on her third orgssm when he pulls out and finishes on her skin. She's surprised thst there's so much of his spend creaming down between her legs (and he's still hard, he's in his 50s and he's still hard aaaa flips her over and continues, hands all over her aaaaa)
Full fic or hcs or just scream with me is okay i just need to tell someone aaaaa
I’ve been thinking of virgin reader x Robby and I’m so glad you requested it. 😩🩷
- The second you get transferred, Robby can’t stop thinking about having you for himself. He’s finally be free to peruse you, and you’re the only thing on his mind.
- You’d been flirting with one another for months now. The conversation came easy between you both, and you’d slipped up one night and told him you were a virgin. He hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.
- As much as he wants you, he can’t make the first move. You’re younger, inexperienced, and he’d never forgive himself if he made you feel pressured or intimidated. He needs to know this is what you want too.
- So when you do just that by kissing him one night over dinner, any resolve or self restraint he had went out the window. Sweet kisses turned hungry as his guided you flush against him, his mouth soft but eager as he stumbled blindly through his apartment to his room, muffled laughter echoing between you two.
- You can’t stop admiring as he strips down, much to his embarrassment, but he can’t stop looking at you, either. Your lush curves, soft thighs just waiting for him to sink his teeth into..
- Despite how desperately he needs you, he rails himself back in. He takes time to kiss over every inch of you, mouth hungry as he suckles and bites at your nipples. His hands roam over every inch of, squeezing your hips and grabbing at the generous flesh of your thighs.
- Oh, he can’t wait to taste you. His tongue glides slow through your folds, savoring the taste of you and moaning at how wet you already are. He guides your legs apart to gain better access, tongue sliding into you as his thumb rubs your clit.
- You have to beg him to finally make love to you, he’s so invested in tasting you. But he wants to make sure you’re ready.
- He’s so fucking thick you’re almost worried he won’t fit. But he’s gentle and slow as he works you open, sweet talking you the whole way. “That’s it, baby, almost there. You’re taking it so well.”
- You’re panting and whimpering by the time he’s fit inside you, hips flush against yours. His hands hold your thighs apart, easing into a slow pace as he groans low and throaty. “You’re so fucking tight, baby, feels so fucking good.”
- He spends the next hour making you cum over and over. The first orgasm was mind blowing and left you breathless, but his hips never relented. He pushes your legs to your chest, giving himself a perfect view of his cock inside you.
- “Look at that, baby. Look how fucking wet you are, soaking my cock like that.” The angle change left you speechless, his cock nudging your sweet spot over and over.
- Your legs were left trembling from the first orgasm, but his continued thrusting had you choking on your moans. “R-Robby, fuck- please-“ You were sure what you were even begging for, you were almost drunk on his cock at this point.
- “That a girl, take it. You can take it, princess, let me make you feel good.” His sweet words had you tumbling over the edge again, crying out his name and writhing as your walls fluttered around him.
- He hadn’t finished himself yet. He was holding out for one more from you, he wanted you to experience this first.
- He let your legs fall to the bed and couldn’t help but smirk at the way they shook, toes still curled. He grabbed your hips and easily flipped you over onto your stomach, cock nudging and slipping into you easily.
- Your whined and pushed your ass back to him, answering his silent worry of if you wanted more. He didn’t hesitate to fuck back into you, hands kneading and spreading your cheeks, licking his lips as he eyed the creaming ring on the base of his cock.
- “One more, babygirl, give me one more. Cum on my cock, princess. You can take it. You deserve it.”
- He didn’t need to do much to have you falling over the edge one last time, your body shaking as your muffled moans and cries were soaked up by the pillow.
- He pulled out and came with a groan over your plush cheeks, head thrown back and neck taught as he coated your skin. You managed to look back over your shoulder to watch, the sight of him caught up in pleasure making you moan faintly.
- You were pleasantly surprised to see how hard he still was. His cock was hanging heavy between his thighs, shaft glistening as he admired the mess between your legs.
- He watched you roll over and make room for him, a smile on your tired face as you whispered shakily. “More. I want more..”
- You didn’t have to tell twice.
Father Figure
Pairing: dbf!Joel x Reader
Summary: Parents’ Weekend looks a little different this year with Joel showing up in the place of your father.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected piv. Dad[dy] kink. Age gap. Oral (m!receiving). Premature ejaculation (Joel cums in his pants while he’s kissing you AS REAL LOVERS DO). Drinking and drug use. Gratuitous dad rock references.
Note: We all saw that video. This was begging to be written.
Another note: For a more immersive read of the pregame, listen to my freshman year Kegs & Eggs playlist (yes, it sucks).
Word count: 19.0k
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Freud would’ve had a field day with this shit.
Really, there was no sane explanation for the obsession that seized you and your friends come Parents’ Weekend every year. But there it went. Again. Like clockwork, all the forty- to fifty-something fathers arrived for their first meal on campus. Like the cock-starved coed she was, your roommate bumped your shoulder as you walked and nodded to the first set of families approaching the dining hall. Out of the pack, you spotted four grey heads.
“Would, would, would, and would,” Aly observed, almost clinically. Her strides were long and resolved in their path
“That one could get it.” Her brother shrugged on your other side. He tipped his chin up, then added: “Look.”
And look you did. The batch of men, women, and all their college-aged children struck you as little more fun to ogle than your average wall of paint waiting to dry. Though the moms and dads were, admittedly, the kind of attractive you rarely saw outside an L.L. Bean magazine—as were all the rest of the kempt and polished crowd that populated your school—you were hungry as fuck. You’d agreed to join your roommate’s family for the kickoff banquet of the weekend, and you needed food. On top of that, you’d sworn off middle-aged men forever.
Aly and her brother didn’t know that, though, so you played the game and trudged ahead. When a handsome blue-eyed man born in 1970-something stood back and held the door open for your trio going in, you had to fight back a smirk at the look Aly gave him after thanking him.
“Oh, he wanted me bad,” she hissed once safely inside.
“Looks a bit like Rob Lowe,” you offered noncommittally.
“What about your dad? Is he gonna be here tonight?”
That last fragment of conversation had come from Aly’s brother, and the curiosity in it was sincere. Then he’d wiggled two dark brows your way and said he bet your dad was a silver fox like no other, and you’d had to roll your eyes before strolling into the wide open dining area. You were late; the food, evidently, was all already served.
“My dad’s at home with a broken femur, so…no,” you answered slowly. Starting to weave your way through a sea of round tables and following Aly’s lead as you did, “Probably not your type. Just old. Very embarrassing.”
You stuck your index in your mouth and pantomimed gagging, and the sophomore beside you just laughed.
“Yeah? Desperate, too?” he challenged.
“Pathetic, really,” you replied.
For a second, you felt a pang of guilt at the way you were describing your father. Surely he couldn’t deserve being characterized like that. Then you recalled how he’d boned your mom’s best friend while he was married, had never really made amends after the fact, and was still fucking said mistress’s brains out on the reg to this day.
You’d done plenty of wrong behind his back, to be sure, but that kind of took the cake for fucked up betrayals. He could stand for a little bit of ribbing every now and then.
Presently, Aly was paving the way straight toward a pair of bright and beaming faces at a table near the back.
“Our parents named us after a goddamn Grateful Dead song and the city they first saw the band in concert. Nobody does pathetic better than Scott and Michelle.” She waved her arm in a wide arc and grinned over there.
And you would’ve gladly countered that no, that actually makes them very fucking funny and cool, but the chance to do that was gone in a moment—the next had you approaching their table and meeting with big hugs.
Even for you, who had never seen these people before in your life, there was a warm welcome. You got long, suffocating embraces and cheery greetings of, ‘Oh, you must be Aly’s roommate!’ and ‘We’re sorry you got stuck with our shithead kid’ before you had a grin plastered on again and were being ushered to sit down.
You took note of the little placards opposite each chair, counted four, five, six of them altogether, with an empty spot beside your own, per usual, and you took your seat.
“Dallas, honey, I love you,” the woman across the table, Michelle, said with all the restraint she could conjure up, “I love you to pieces, but what the hell are you wearing?”
That steered the conversation in a decidedly light, playful direction from the start, with Aly’s brother defending his decision to be decked out in full school-sponsored athleisure tooth and nail. He’d been recruited to play lacrosse, so naturally, wearing the far-too-tight crimson lycra was all part of the deal. Aly insisted that he just wanted to show off the biceps he didn’t have, Scott hypothesized it was the crisp, wintry Boston air that had made his son dress like a total douche, and Dallas tried bringing the inquisition to a speedy end by lifting one middle finger up and flipping his napkin into his lap.
“Fuck you guys, I’m hungry,” he declared, emphatic. Fighting the urge to laugh along then grabbing a fork.
Just as fast as he’d picked it up to dig in, though, his mom was slapping the silver utensil out of his hand.
“Not yet,” she chided.
“Why? We’re all here,” Dallas groaned.
“Because,” his father returned, scrubbing at the stubble on his chin before casting a quick look around him, “We’re still waiting on one more to join us. See?”
With that, Scott nodded toward the card next to you, and immediately, your cheeks warmed. You shook your head, mouth working a little less fluidly than you would’ve liked as you piped up and told them—assured them all, rather:
“My dad’s not coming. He got a little, uh…hurt at work.”
And you were certain that would be the end of it. You’d just moved to grab a fork yourself, eyeing the plate full of food in front of you then, when another hand stopped you on the spot. It was Aly beside you, grip insistent as she gave your wrist a little shake, and in your periphery, you could see her tilt her head the opposite direction.
She was staring, silent—totally unlike herself.
Normally when something crossed her path nearby to make her twist her whole fucking neck to get a glimpse, it was followed by a dry remark. A comment, a compliment, or a lewd invitation to fuck me, please.
While the last of the three clearly wasn’t an option to use around her parents, you at least would’ve expected to hear something. When nothing came, you turned your head too, having just snagged a bite of roast beef on your fork and shoveled it in before looking that way.
You followed her gaze and nearly inhaled the food.
With a startled gasp and a ‘Christ!’, your eyes widened to find a man who wasn’t your father at all—just his best friend and your ex-fuckbuddy, Joel Miller, walking over.
It was a sight you weren’t prepared to see in a million years. What the everliving fuck this man was doing two thousand miles from Austin, Texas, on your college campus, striding into the very first meal of Parents’ Weekend, looking like that, was so far beyond your comprehension you couldn’t speak. You just stared and sucked in the sharpest, strangled breath, fought back a cough, and tried not to die swallowing a cube of meat.
From the way that man was approaching you now, asphyxiation might not be the worst, you thought idly.
Joel’s here.
Joel’s here, and he’s wearing slacks and a button-up.
Joel’s wearing business casual, and he’s walking over.
Who the fuck does this man even think he’s trying to—
“Sorry I’m late,” Joel cut in, smile bright and easy on his face. Then, stepping behind your chair, leaning down:
“Hey, sweetie. How are ya?”
He kissed the top of your head.
The tone sealed his fate completely.
Joel was pretending to be your father.
This wasn’t his brightest idea.
Call him sick, insane, selfish, besotted, or rotten straight down to his core, Joel Miller was no longer one to care. He had a goal in his head. Less than a week ago, you’d left him high and dry in Austin after having told him you loved him—in the middle of climax, but aloud, no less—and the month before that, you’d left him again. Back to college, where you could happily pretend he didn’t exist.
Tonight, he wasn’t letting that happen. This weekend, Parents’ Weekend, was of course reserved for families, but Joel knew your father wasn’t coming. He knew you wouldn’t be expecting your dad or anyone else to be there, and since you’d taken to the usual course of ignoring all his calls and texts, he felt he’d had no choice.
You couldn’t stay closed off like this forever.
Eventually, you’d both have to reckon with what this was and how to move forward, or the mess of the last month would never change. You would never believe he saw you any differently from a one-off hookup or a taboo outlet of pleasure. And if that was all you saw him as, so be it. But he had to get the truth of it out now, one way or another.
Even if he had to roleplay the father figure and play the most fucked up game of paternal charades known to man, he’d get the answers he needed this weekend.
You were good at games. Unfortunately, Joel was better.
He’d take this fake-out to the max and be the best faux father you’d never asked for. Maybe you’d hate him for it.
As he’d squeezed your shoulder and sat down beside you at the table, felt your gaze heavy and stunned on his, he also couldn’t help but hope you might still love him after.
“Scott Ingram. Pleasure to meet you.” The broad hand had been extended his way before he was even fully seated. The face across from him was kind. Intrigued. Tinged with a faint trace of curiosity, “So you’re dad?”
“Stepdad, yeah.” Joel had had to leave a bit more room for plausibility before he’d made his formal introduction.
Then he’d met Michelle. Aly. Dallas. The latter two more piqued with interest than the first, as though unsure of what they’d just been told, but willing to go on anyway.
“Old and pathetic my ass,” Dallas had murmured your way, low enough for Joel to know those words were meant for only you to hear. You stiffened in response.
“So glad you could make it up! Is your leg doing better?”
Aly had smiled warmly over at him, and Joel had only hesitated a second. Then he remembered his friend.
“Oh, my— yeah. Just…peachy. Yeah. All healed up.”
He didn’t flit a look to you; he could feel the searing imprint of your gaze and the way you hadn’t bothered to hide your frown when he’d referenced the leg he’d never broken. The way you could’ve pulverized the napkin in your lap to dust from how hard you were squeezing it in your fist—you didn’t like to admit it, but that was your nervous tic, and Joel knew it well. He propped his elbows on the table and didn’t miss the way a head turned his way from a neighboring group. Then another. He hated every starch white button-up he owned with a burning passion, but he couldn’t deny this one was eye-catching.
Not that it mattered, really, because the only glossy gaze he cared to snag was presently nailing him with daggers in its path. Still, it was a comfort to know he’d make a good-looking corpse if that look of yours ever did kill him
“Oh, my, my, oh hell YES—”
The sing-song trill of a baritone beside him roused him from his trance. He looked over and saw Scott grinning.
“—honey put on that pa-a-a-a-a-arty dress!”
It was Michelle that finished the line for him, while they both bobbed their heads along to the Tom Petty song blasting overhead. Evidently, dad rock would be alive and well all weekend. Joel wasn’t mad to see that happen.
“You a Tom Petty fan?” Scott jerked his chin up to him.
Before he could answer, though, Michelle interjected:
“I’d say he’s more of a Simon & Garfunkel guy.”
Whatever the hell that meant. Joel smiled.
“Mom, Dad. Please stop,” Aly moaned.
“Seriously.” Dallas’s mouth was full.
And, just as he fought to swallow the heaping glob of food he’d just crammed in, his dad snapped his fingers.
“No, I know it! You’re a Billy Joel man, Joel. No doubt.”
Joel blanched as white as the shirt on his back. You coughed. He hadn’t even noticed you’d chanced a bite of food beside him, but now you were sputtering—choking on a morsel of beef or mashed potatoes or something—and he didn’t think twice. He pivoted right to you and dropped a hand on your back in the space between your shoulder blades. He patted you twice, eyes a little wider.
“Hey, you OK?”
Fleeting memories of a night not too long ago flashed through his mind: driving town by town, state after state, blaring Billy Joel extra loud in his Bronco with you riding shotgun. It had been something special between you then. Now, your gaze was on him like you despised him.
“I’m fine,” you answered, tone clipped.
You shrugged his touch away. Joel blinked back to Scott.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he said, thoughts occupied by you all the while, but he reckoned it was something his neighbor had wanted to hear, because he saw a satisfied little smile cross his lips, ‘I told you, Michelle.’
“Everybody likes Billy Joel, dad.” Aly rolled her eyes.
And Joel would’ve liked to look your way again. Maybe dropped the fatherly moue for half a second and flashed an apologetic look shared just between you and him. But then the conversation shifted; the whole table began to eat, more pleasantries and questions about home life and backgrounds followed, and all the talk from there converged on where they were planning to go out after dinner—how they’d make the very most of Parents’ Weekend. You sat back and ate in silence, mostly. You wouldn’t meet his gaze for even a moment, and when you rose from your seat to get another drink, Joel felt himself stand too, as if out of habit. He hadn’t meant to.
It hadn’t been his intention to follow you out of the dining area, strides swift to try and keep up, but he did.
It hadn’t been his goal to corner you by the soda dispenser, either. Away from the eyes of everyone else, or at least in a private enough space not to be seen by too many people, Joel felt a little more at liberty to talk. He lowered his voice and drew even closer then to speak.
“Sweetheart—”
You’d filled a cup halfway with water. As soon as he’d said that word, ‘sweetheart,’ you turned and chucked its contents directly in his face. Liquid splashed up at him, and for a second, Joel had only to stand there with his eyes closed and his body completely frozen in place.
Water dripped in silence before he wiped at his chin.
At the same time, you were tossing your cup aside.
“Don’t you dare fuckin’ call me that,” you growled.
Then, shortly: “What the fuck is your problem?!”
Honestly, he didn’t know. He opened his eyes.
And, just as he raised both hands in a semi-conciliatory kind of gesture, you scowled and backed away from him.
“You’re sick, Joel. Pretending to be my goddamn da—”
“I know. I know,” Joel winced as he spoke, wrinkles no doubt creasing even deeper along his face as he saw yours fall. You weren’t happy to see him in the slightest. “I know it’s fucked up. I just…needed to talk to you, hon.”
“About what?!”
He could feel the heat rising to your cheeks. He wanted to cup them in his hands, or else kiss the frown off your lips in a way that would be totally inappropriate for a stepdad to do, but already, he sensed his resolve was eroding. It didn’t matter, anyway, because you weren’t letting him get within an inch of you, based off your look.
“Darlin’,” Joel sighed, “There’s just so much—”
Of course, the next moment was punctured by a voice. His words were cut short; you were both forced to turn.
“It’s all settled now,” Aly declared with cheery conviction. She snagged a cup and started filling it up with Sprite, “Pregame at Dallas’. Seven Oaks after. Lucky’s after that. Maybe a brief intermission at The Alley, if you’re up for it. Afters at A.J.’s, probably. Depends what the vibe is like.”
Joel had barely processed half of what was said, and it still sounded like a lot from where he stood. He blinked.
Then Aly’s eyes fell to his collar, and she lifted a brow.
“You got a little…drinking problem there, Joel?”
He glanced down at the mess on his shirt and tried to smile with her. It was hard to fight the color jumping to his cheeks simultaneously. He scrambled for the words.
“Oh, uh—”
“Dad’s real smooth with it,” you cut in, suddenly, like the paternal moniker was nothing at all. You didn’t look back, “I’m fine drinking wherever. Your parents coming, too?”
Aly’s grin stretched even wider. It looked devious.
“They wouldn’t miss this bingefest for the world.”
At just the intonation of those words, Joel’s pulse sped up. He saw a knowing look pass between you and your roommate, and in a second, he sensed he was fucked.
He really shouldn’t be drinking tonight.
A hundred shots probably wouldn’t have been enough to kill it—this ringing in your head hurt like a motherfucker.
Joel wanted to talk.
Of course he wanted to talk.
Just on his terms, on his time, with your closest friends and their family members all assuming he was your dad.
Because that made a lot of fucking sense.
You’d meant to split from Joel the second you showed up. Dallas’ off-campus house was many things, but small and quiet were not among those descriptors, and you planned to use all of its space to your advantage tonight.
Simply put, the place was a glorified playground for college degenerates. Afforded the distinct honor of housing eight members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity in 2,700 square feet for over fifty years, the Craftsman home was no small wonder to anyone who saw it standing today: the house was shit. Dallas loved it.
You’d enjoyed it, too, for at least the first year or two of college. Then you’d wisened up to the antics of a few too many numb-skulled Pikes, got tired of listening to the same ten tracks being blasted in your ears every other weekend, and decided you’d just stick to the bar scene, where at least patrons were prohibited from standing on elevated surfaces and breaking bottles over their heads.
When Dallas rushed, and eventually joined the fold last year, you’d been hesitant to go back. Then, when he’d promptly decked the first guy who tried dragging you up onto a table with him, you figured you could safely visit again and not have to worry while your friend was there. The kid did a pretty good job of weeding out assholes.
“My lady.” He stood and bowed before presenting you with a fifth of Pink Whitney like it was the finest wine.
The bottle was half empty. You’d been passing it back and forth for the last hour in between rounds of pong.
“Been sayin’ shit like that ever since he saw Gladiator II.” His housemate Cory called from closeby. He flicked his wrist once and sank his shot in the second to last cup.
“You are not General Acacius, brother,” Cory’s teammate Pete chimed in. With a lucky throw of his own, he hit the final Red Solo cup and shook his head like it was nothing.
You were all on the third floor, away from the noise downstairs. While the so-called ‘pregame’ surged ahead on first, in the basement, and outdoors, you’d managed to find relative quiet among eight or nine friends and acquaintances, plus a guy railing lines off a frisbee in the corner. Nobody knew where the fuck he’d gotten it from.
“I like to pretend,” Dallas said with a shrug. Then, once you’d taken a swig of the pink drink and handed it back: “My parents play next. Gavin, put the coke away, please.”
Gavin sniffed the air at least four times like he had a cold. Then he tucked his credit card back in his wallet, put the wallet in his pocket, and knocked the frisbee on the floor.
‘Yessir’ was all you heard before he was leaning back contentedly. The girls Cory and Pete had just played seemed equally indifferent as they sauntered off—likely looking to get their hands on whatever the hell else the redhead had in his jeans and quick to forget about the game. Blow was way too easy to spread at these parties, and clearly, no one gave a shit about redemption round.
“Gavin.” Dallas’ tone was a warning.
At the same time, his housemate had just snagged an ID where it was left on the table and held it up to the light.
“Hang on, it looks like this guy, uh…” Cory squinted to read the text on an apparently too-old driver’s license. “Looks like he called dibs on next round…Joel Miller.”
Your grip tightened on the spot. You said nothing. Cory was just then starting to remark that this dude’s the spittin’ fuckin’ image of that one guy from Game of Thrones, Dallas, come look, when the door to the room swung open, and in walked the man of the hour himself.
Joel was joined by Scott, Michelle, and a horde of others.
Well, maybe five in total. They were all freshmen girls.
Giggling, grinning freshmen girls who were quite literally hanging off his body on either side, or else trailing behind him, admiring him like he was the single greatest thing.
Where were all their fathers? That was your fake dad.
Christ, that sounded bad, and you hadn’t even said it.
When Dallas offered you the bottle again, you declined. You were more than just buzzed. And Joel was drunk.
Apparently.
And was he—well shit, were they trying to strip him?
One of the bubbliest girls from the group was tugging on Joel’s shirt. Three buttons were already undone, and a smooth, tanned patch of flesh glistened through the ‘V’ in the fabric. He’d been working up a sweat downstairs.
A sea of black-and-grey hairs peeking out through the trough of cotton was the last thing you saw before you had to look away. It was too familiar. And there you saw some girl fresh out of high school, feeling him, teasing at the material while she bounced on the balls of her feet.
“You are so lying!” she slurred, voice pitchy and shrill.
What was worse, you couldn’t even fault the girl for it. That had been you just a few short years ago, hadn’t it?
Beside her, her friend snagged his sleeve: “Show ussss!”
Scott and Michelle had approached the table where Dallas was setting up the cups for the next round and you were trying not to stare. You reckoned you were failing pretty miserably at the task when the next thing Mrs. Ingram did was lean in closer to you and whisper.
“Real hot commodity with the girls, isn’t he?” It was soft.
She was right.
You forced your gaze to your feet, pretending to assess the wet and sticky mess underneath them. You hummed.
“Yup. Real ladies’ man,” you answered quietly. Strained.
“They’re convinced he’s got some ink hidden under his shirt. That’s a creative way to get a man topless if I’ve ever seen one.” Scott chuckled next to you, tone teasing.
Something twisted in your chest, though you couldn’t quite place what it was. It hardly felt like jealousy at all—but that was worse, somehow. Joel was your stepfather in every other mind but yours and his, and here he was, soaking in all this attention that you couldn’t give to him.
Maybe that was for the best.
Joel deserved a woman he didn’t have to love in secret.
“OK, who’s up—Joel or mom and dad?” Dallas asked.
“I’m out. Joel can take my place. And don’t we—”
Pete snapped his fingers, then pointed at Cory.
“We forgot to grab the other keg, didn’t we?”
“Fuck me.”
“Let’s go.”
They were gone in a second. That left Joel, Scott, Michelle, plus one open spot. Dallas set the last cup.
“Who’s gonna be Joel’s partn—”
“ME!”
That had to have come from three girls, at least. One on the couch and two more on either side of Joel, along with a slew of hopeful looks from others in his orbit.
They’d dispersed some, thankfully. Though not physically clinging to your pseudo-stepfather and begging him to peel off his shirt, they stayed close.
One of them giggled and nudged her friend: “Maya can!”
The girl who’d just been playing tug-of-war with the front of Joel’s button up waved her hand in mock indignation.
“I suck at pong. You go, Claire,” she crooned.
It was clear from the sideways glance the first girl had flashed that she wanted Joel to protest. Maybe insist that she play anyway, if you had to guess. It was all so confusing—what with how this group was flirting, and fighting, and insisting simultaneously that they couldn’t possibly play, even though they’d like to, but maybe…
Your skull started ringing again.
You were just about to turn to leave, when Dallas cut in:
“Sorry, ladies. Gonna be a Daddy-Daughter duo tonight.”
Then he gestured to you, beckoned to Joel, and grinned. Your stomach could’ve plunged to that floor you’d just been pretending to study. You quickly jerked your head.
Even Joel, for all his calm and unaffected dealings, the pretty damp mop of hair hanging in ringlets against the sides of his face, and the way he kept pretending not to be concerned by the flock of girls, had to pause a beat. You saw his throat work. Before you could try and decipher the look that was crawling up his face, you made the split-second decision to interject yourself.
“No, Dallas. I’m not playing again.”
You tried to avoid grinding your molars.
This time, the tone he heard wasn’t one of a thinly veiled acceptance—something begging to be disputed when it tried to decline the offer—but instead an emphatic ‘no.’
No way were you playing another game with this man.
Joel already had your head fucked ten ways to Sunday by being here at all, and now you had to pretend to be platonic, his goddamn beer pong partner, while a gaggle of freshmen girls sat frothing at the mouth for his dick?
Yeah, but no.
Hard fucking pass.
You didn’t care what it looked like. You shot Dallas a look, grabbed a stray Solo off the table, and made your way to the door, calling something over your shoulder about being too tired to play, and offering your spot to Maya.
That should make your old man happy enough.
It wasn’t like he could do anything here with you.
And then you left. Before you did, though, you passed Gavin and the mysterious white bag he was starting to fish out of his pants, and without thinking, you grabbed his hand. You didn’t like doing coke, had never seen the point in taking your level of intoxication that far out on an ordinary night, but, all things considered, this evening was anything but normal. You deserved some relief. If that couldn’t come in the form of Joel packing all his shit and leaving, then so be it. But you weren’t about to hang around and play the nice and polite stepdaughter when all you wanted to do was scratch your fucking eyes out.
A few lines wouldn’t be the worst way to start the night.
Joel wasn’t drunk.
He wasn’t tipsy, either.
And even if he had been, he wouldn’t have appreciated the way this hazel-eyed firecracker had nearly crushed his toes from how hard she’d jumped up and down at hearing you abdicate your position. Maya had shrieked, and Scott and Michelle hadn’t been able to fight back smiles, and trying not to wince too hard, Joel had politely excused himself. He’d claimed that he needed some air.
The oxygen he found down the hallway a few minutes later was stale as shit, but he couldn’t exactly complain.
He’d asked for this, after all: the thumping bass, shaking floors, passageways that reeked of weed and cheap perfume, and girls that refused to let go of his neck.
Well. He hadn’t asked for that last thing.
Thirty years ago, he might’ve found it cute—what Maya and Claire and every other glossy-gazed Phi Mu seemed to be offering with every bat of their lashes. Now, if the arms latched around his throat weren’t yours, the idea just made him sick. He cleared his throat and walked.
And before long, his feet had carried him to the end of the hallway. Where in the hell had you gotten off to?
Would you be back soon?
And why had you taken that kid with you?
Joel’s palms were sweaty by his sides. He didn’t like being kept in the dark—didn’t think traveling some 2,000 miles to be closer to you would still leave him wondering like a fucking idiot if he would see you again.
Then he reached for the nearest door. A bathroom.
The door was just cracked, allowing a sliver of light to shine through and a peek at a sea of tile flooring to greet him. Joel pushed on the knob without thinking to knock.
When he stepped inside, he had to stop.
It was too much to process and walk at once.
For the first time in his life, he felt shell-shocked.
You were on your knees in front of that red-haired fucker. Stabilizing one hand on a denim-clad leg in front of you, patting his thigh, having him murmur something back—probably words of encouragement for how nice your mouth felt around him—and then tilting your head up.
Joel could only see you from behind. His vision was red.
“What the fuck are you DOING?!” he bellowed out.
The two of you leapt apart, your head jerking back.
He wasn’t thinking. Joel blew straight past you and went for him, the little pencil-dicked Pike who’d just had his dick down his stepdaughter’s throat, presumably, and he grabbed him by the shirt. He shoved him hard against the bathtub on the wall, watched him flail a few steps, and then, before the kid could recover his balance, Joel shoved him again. He might’ve tripped further back and fallen into the tub, had the older man not reached for him again—and reared back to punch him square in the face.
That blow never landed.
In the next instant, a smaller body was forcing itself in between him and the kid, and the only other thing Joel could see through his own blinding rage were your two eyes—wide and panicked and horror-stricken, clearly.
“JOEL.”
Still not prepared to retreat, Joel reached out again.
Your hand knocked his down in a blink. Hard.
“J— Dad. Dad. Stop. Please don’t hit him.”
Suddenly, that tone was approaching a plea. You must’ve caught a glimpse of the rage pulsing through his veins and sensed it might’ve been too much for him to control—but of course, Joel knew better. He could always stop.
He stepped off and turned to you at once, teeth bared.
“How the fuck could you even—” he started again.
“I’m sorry, dad,” you broke in, words sounding like a sob, “It’s not his fault. Really. I— I didn’t mean for you to see.”
Sucking some other guy’s cock. Yeah, of course not.
Joel’s face flared with an anger unlike anything he’d felt in years, and if it weren’t for the skittish sack of shit stumbling away, and the warning that was starting to radiate off your skin, he would’ve liked to knock him out.
He might’ve, if the kid hadn’t run out of the room.
If you hadn’t turned slightly, he might’ve yelled again.
And then he saw it, from where you’d pivoted—the toilet.
Sitting on the smooth white porcelain lid in three thick stripes, the sight greeted him like a punch in the gut.
He wasn’t sure what it meant for an excruciating second. He stared. Then he processed what that substance was.
You’d been crouched over the toilet doing a line of coke.
He wanted to feel relief. For a moment, maybe, he did.
When your eyes narrowed on his and you shook your head in a scowl, it didn’t feel like he should be happy. Or ready to celebrate this latest discovery. Instead, realizing that you hadn’t been blowing a guy in this bathroom but were simply doing drugs in front of him, Joel felt bile jump up his throat. It was like a knot the size of his fist, and he wasn’t sure how to react, but he couldn’t stand that look on your face. You were just as angry as him.
“What the hell was that all about, Joel?!” you snapped.
He opened his mouth to speak, but you cut back in:
“Sorry, sorry—I mean ‘dad.’ You fucking asshole.”
“And this is why you up and left?” Joel hissed.
“I just—”
“Do you realize how dangerous that is?”
“I didn’t—”
“What that could’ve been laced with?”
He pointed to the cocaine on the lid of the toilet—apparently there hadn’t been enough space on the skinny porcelain sink to set up your lines—and at the same time, to Joel’s amazement, you sank to your knees.
“Well, I don’t know, dad, why don’t we test some out?”
And then you swiped a casual touch through a line and lifted your index to your mouth. With your other hand, you pulled at your bottom lip a little, and were evidently about to test your drugs the old fashioned way: by rubbing the powder against your gums to see if it made them numb. Joel swatted at your wrist before you did.
“Don’t,” he growled. Without even realizing it, he reached and grabbed your chin. His fingers engulfed half your face in an authoritative, upward-tilting grip. “Put that stuff anywhere near your mouth, and you will regret it.”
That didn’t seem to stir you, but your hand stayed put.
Joel stepped away just as quickly. He went to the door.
He shut it.
And when he returned, you hadn’t moved from where you’d been knelt. He was glad. Something quiet and dull throbbed between his ears, though he wasn’t recovered enough from the shock of the last few minutes to really investigate that. He just stood back over you, frowning.
His voice was lower when he spoke again:
“What am I gonna do with you, honey?”
It was a question as much for himself as it was for you, and your lips twitched at the end of it. You shrugged, and you sank back onto your heels, peering up as you did.
“You thought—” you started, soft.
“I thought you were in here blowin’ that little shit.”
Your smile split into a grin. Your eyes glistened.
“Is that so?”
Joel didn’t have the strength or the presence of mind to answer, so instead, he just nodded. His scowl deepened.
“You and me,” he resumed, having just exhaled a breath, “We’re gonna have ourselves a little chat later. Got that?”
And he meant it. Not just about drugs and other men and the dangers of accepting cocaine from strangers. He had more to tell you tonight than his overwrought mind was likely capable of sharing right now, but he’d say it.
Soon.
Eventually.
Once he got this bulge in his slacks sorted out.
With you, it was never a conscious decision, and it rarely ever occurred at times it was appropriate to happen. Like when your friends and their family and half of the Pike fraternity weren’t all milling about around this house. When he hadn’t almost decked a kid for giving you coke.
When you weren’t shuffling on your knees to greet the growing erection in his pants with a grin on your face.
“Will this ‘chat’ come before or after you fuck Maya?”
That was it.
Joel seized hold of your head again—this time, from the back. One palm rounded the base of your skull and yanked your face forward, mushing your nose and your lips against the fabric of his pants in an obscene sort of kiss. He made you rub your face against the hardened tent there, and he groaned when you whimpered. The reverberations of it traveled from his groin to his brain in two milliseconds flat and made him think insane things.
Like having your mouth right now.
Taking from you here what he thought he’d almost lost.
The sight of your head hovering anywhere near another man’s crotch made it crystal-clear to him, though he’d known it well before: he wanted you. He needed to have you. How you could even crack the joke about a shred of his attention being elsewhere had him tightening his hand in a fist in your hair. He didn’t care if it felt wrong.
“You know what girls like Maya can do for me?” he said.
He tilted your head back so your gaze could find his. He didn’t let you answer, but he let you stare for a second, and then he worked your pretty parted lips over the front of his slacks again. He let the taut grey fabric tease the cusp of that opening, tasting a bit, before drawing back.
“That’s right,” Joel went on as if you’d just responded, “Nothing. Absolutely fuckin’ nothing. Open your mouth.”
And you did. Wider. From the look of it, there was spit pooling inside, and your tongue hovered just within it when your lips met the front of his pants. You cupped your mouth around his clothed erection and kissed it.
Your eyes were locked on his as you did. The sight felt extra obscene—Joel couldn’t ignore the fact that he was dressed in near-formal attire, and you had on jeans and a tight cropped tank. He looked polished and professional; you were a beaming pretty thing making space between his legs to kneel. You felt like a dream with your lips over his swollen, aching cock; Joel felt old. Paternal, almost.
Was it wrong to think you needed to be taught a lesson?
Of course it was. He wasn’t your dad. He didn’t do that.
But when you smiled up at him with your lips still brushing his straining bulge, Joel couldn’t resist the smallest impulse to wonder—what if he showed you?
What if he let you know exactly what he wanted, how he needed it done, and that he only ever craved it from you? If he couldn’t say it outright in words, he could guide you.
Teach you.
Your tongue traced the seam of his zip, and he groaned.
“Damn near gave your old man a stroke, y’know that?”
“I know,” you said softly. Kindly, “I’m sorry, daddy.”
His cock throbbed at that last affectionate word.
His hands couldn’t help themselves: one stayed planted on the back of your head, and the other made its way to his belt. He undid his buckle, button, and zip in a blink.
“And what was that prick’s name?” Joel grumbled.
“Gavin.”
Your mind seemed two million miles away from any shit-brained fratboy at the moment as your gaze fixed itself on the length he was working out of his pants just then.
When it bobbed out and got within an inch of your rapt expression, your lips parted on instinct; you leaned in.
Swiftly, Joel’s hand on your head halted the movement.
“Gavin, huh,” he returned, tone treading on patronizing. He knew you were salivating for that little pearl on his tip. He gripped your hair hard. “This what you’d do for him?”
You whimpered.
“No, daddy. No, just— just you.”
Joel hummed his approval but didn’t let you move. He watched you eye the head of his cock like there was no single sight more appetizing in the world, and then he saw you lick your lips. You’d get positive reinforcement.
He would take things slow, and by the end of it all, he hoped to have made it clear that this was what he wanted: you, and only you. That he didn’t want you doing this with anyone else other than him. Here, now, or ever.
The last was a lot to say, so he fed you an inch instead.
He let his cock slide between your lips and stretch them.
You breathed something soft and sweet at the first intrusion of his tip; your mouth cushioned that inch, and his head was immediately enveloped in warmth. Your tongue darted out to greet him in a gentle lick. Joel groaned again, and his fingers constricted in your hair.
“That’s it, honey,” he told you, “Suck on daddy.”
His hips hadn’t meant to jump, but the pleasure from just the cusp of your mouth was too much for him not to flinch a little. He stabbed another couple inches in that pliant ‘o’ and felt you work your jaw open to take him whole. You looked so obedient. You were doing so good.
You bobbed your head gently, and his hand didn’t need to coax you at all. You were hungry, mouth sliding up and down his thick, throbbing dick and leaving trails of spit in its wake. You wanted to please him now; he could feel it.
You had no idea what you did to him. All he wanted now. It was like trying to explain a color in words, and all the man could do was just hold your head in place and watch you take him. When your back straightened and one palm braced itself up against his thigh, the other about to curl around the base of his length, he shook his head.
He brushed that hand away and made it rest on his other leg, so you were left with just your mouth around him.
You peered up, confused. Joel was, too.
He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do, but he knew he had to lead the way. Make you see what he wanted you to by guiding your motions and filling your mouth the way he needed. He tried as much by shifting his left hand to meet the right at the back of your head. Gently, he pushed your face forward to suck more in.
“Breathe through your nose, baby. Wanna feel you.”
Feel you deeper, he should’ve said. Either way, it made for a slow and painstaking slide down your tongue—sensing you flatten it and inhale a shallow breath as he worked his way in—and at the stretch, you gagged a bit.
Joel eased up, just enough to let you flit your gaze to his.
“You wanna feel me, too, sweetheart?” he asked gently.
You nodded, mouth still full of cock. Your eyes glistened in a way that said you might’ve guessed there was more to it, but you weren’t exactly in a position to ask just what. You let the fingers of both his big hands splay against the back of your head, and your jaw slackened more. Your gaze stayed on his as his cock slid deeper.
In that, there was wordless, tranquil reprieve. The sight of his spit-soaked length stuffing your mouth, skin all shiny and wet, and the way he kept going further and further and further, until your soft pert nose grazed the hairs of his belly, made Joel’s member swell harder still. There was scarcely an inch in between your lips and his heft of stomach. Your eyes were still fixed on him, and as the seconds ticked by, there was moisture welling at the corners. Joel moved his hands to thumb at those tears.
“Good girl. You’re doin’ so good for daddy,” he praised.
And something stirred in the depths of his body when he felt you try to nod again, like you were thrilled to be giving him pleasure and wanted to show it in some way.
Joel could’ve stayed like that for hours if his dick would only have let him. As it was, though, he felt the stir in his stomach accompanied by something else—a familiar pinch, and a warning jolt of pleasure. He cursed quietly.
You’d just started. He’d barely got an inch down your—
“Fuck,” he cursed again, when he sensed you swallow around his dick. The head of himself was breaching somewhere deep within your throat, and he felt it.
This wasn’t what he’d planned. You’d taken him deep before—at your father’s birthday bash last month, actually—but then you’d been blowing him under a table. He couldn’t hold your gaze or watch your throat open around him, couldn’t see the minuscule wince in your eyes or try to brush that discomfited look aside with his thumbs in the way he could now. He felt it in the pit of his gut, though: he would burst if he didn’t slow down.
With that one grounding thought, Joel tried pulling out.
Your body below him responded in sharp protest.
‘Daddy, no’ seemed almost to jump off your tongue, though it was presently weighted down by his cock. Your nails worked deeper into the fabric of his pants, like the tight, possessive grip was all you could manage to let your intentions be known to him. Then the look flared in your irises, too. They were begging him to stay in place.
Joel obeyed. Though it was you on your knees for him, lips, tongue, and throat pulsing and sucking to give him the utmost pleasure, he felt pangs of powerlessness, too.
He couldn’t help it when your lips stretched more, when your mouth opened wider, and your throat took him in all the way. He was fucked. He let out a sharp, hoarse grunt to let you know as much, and he cursed out loud again.
And then, completely axing his every well-laid plan, Joel felt the first rope of cum unload from his throbbing tip. Then another. And another. And another hot flurry of pleasure cropped up from that place your mouth was presently attached to him, and this time, the wave was too much to be overcome. The whole thing flooded him.
Without a hope of beating out that primal instinct, Joel just cupped your face in his palms and let his climax fill your throat. He couldn’t think, and while you seemed a tad surprised at how early it came, you didn’t fight it, either. You simply sat back, peered up, and let him fuck your mouth in the gentlest, most desperate thrusts, mind likely eager to feel his spend paint your open throat.
You hardly had to swallow at all—hardly could swallow, with how deep he’d gone. His cum jetted in milky strings through your plush, wet channel, and Joel could feel it gliding down with just a moment’s hitch of resistance.
Impaled as you were, you gagged once, and he withdrew in the next instant. He didn’t wait for you to catch your breath or for his cum to get down inside you. He felt too much to be troubled now; he yanked you to your feet and drew you into him. He pushed you back against the sink.
Your legs latched around the backs of his, and your body was thrust against the mirror. It was tender, somehow. Joel didn’t fight to claim your lips or invade your mouth with stifling kisses; he just pressed you to the reflective glass and hedged you in under him. He kissed you gently.
In between movements against your body, he mumbled:
“I’m sick of missin’ you all the damn time, sweet pea.”
He wasn’t sure where it came from. It just came.
Much like he had, except the stringy ropes of cum that had spurted from his dick seemed far less of a mess than whatever the fuck was coming out of his mouth right now. He felt exposed as soon as he’d spoken it you.
Then he saw your lips twitch. You kissed him back.
Someplace within where your mouth slotted over his, you were able to get out a couple murmured words yourself.
“I wish you didn’t have to,” you returned in a whisper.
You snaked your arms around the back of his neck and kept kissing him, over and over again, like your body was just starting to melt, and the heat was making you dizzy.
Joel could relate. Every time you touched him, he felt it.
He gripped your legs where they were still curled around his sides, and he held you tighter to him. He pressed his torso to yours until he was half-sure he was hampering your breaths, and then he pulled back. Briefly. Panting.
When he opened his mouth to speak, you cut in for him:
“I wish you could…be here. I wish we didn’t have to…”
Hide.
Your mouth seemed to have your mind and your usual reservations beat by a mile. It was moving fast, like his. Before you could stop yourself, your thighs constricted around his hips, you pulled him in closer, and just as you were about to finish that last quick, splintered thought—
“We’re leeeeeeeeav—OH! Shit!”
Aly Ingram’s sing-song tone was shortly supplanted by a shriek. She’d thrown open the door, unannounced, and when she saw the two of you collapsed against the sink, Joel’s undone pants hanging precariously over his hips and your mouths scarcely two inches apart, she jolted.
Or jumped, really.
She almost leapt through her skin, it seemed, and before she could even begin to recover, she just slapped her hands over her eyes and stumbled back. She was drunk.
“I didn’t see that! I did not seeee—”
“Aly!” you half-hissed, half-groaned.
“I literally didn’t see shit. You’re all g—”
Before either you or Joel could utter another sound, or attempt to split apart, Aly let out a second shrill yelp. This time, it was because she’d just tripped over a trash can backing out. She’d only very narrowly regained her bearings, had grabbed hold of the doorknob and was dragging the door shut, when the girl all but sang again:
“Have fun, be safe! Don’t make babies!!”
Joel scarcely knew how to react to that.
As it turned out, your roommate was open-minded.
Ply her with four or five shots of tequila and a couple High Noons, and she’d probably believe the moon was made of cheese if you told her in a serious enough tone.
But your goal tonight hadn’t been to convince her of a lie—it was to get a big, ugly truth off your chest that you’d been hoping to keep under wraps this entire weekend.
Now, after getting caught with your fake stepfather’s jizz drying in your throat, you had had to come clean about this thing. It wasn’t a story you’d wanted to tell, but it was one that needed sharing given the circumstances.
Aly had laughed her ass off when you told her everything.
Blame it on the strobe lights, the thumping music, or the thick, fetid air of the bar you’d just arrived at, but Aly had laughed a lot. She’d squeezed her eyes shut and slapped the tabletop beside her, like that was the single most insane thing she’d ever heard, and why don’t you write her a How-To? She’d love some tips on boning old men.
“He’s not that old!” you’d protested over your beverage.
She’d bought the drink. She said news like this was cause for celebration, and you couldn’t deny that. Smiling as you spoke, you figured this was good.
In fact, you thought getting caught by your closest friend was one of the best things that could’ve happened, all things considered, because now you knew at least one person was supportive and in your corner regarding Joel. On top of that, you had someone to help cover your ass—if a touch or a look between you two was too suspect, she’d tell you. From the second your group had Ubered to the bar, she’d been keen to see you close…though not too close. Presently, she grinned and squeezed your leg.
“I think you two would make a damn cute couple.”
“Huh?” You had to shout over the music to be heard.
“A cute couple!”
“Come again?”
You were really trying your best, but the blare of Bon Jovi overhead was a bit too much. You leaned in closer to her.
“YOU AND JOEL WOULD MAKE A CUTE COUPLE!”
And, as if on cue, Joel and Aly’s father reappeared at the table, holding the drinks they’d left to buy. Thankfully, the volume in the room was near-deafening, and neither seemed to have heard a word of hers. Scott was nursing some bottom shelf whiskey concoction while Joel double-fisted two shitty beers beside him. You had to admit, the latter looked good from where you sat: one more button was popped on his icy white shirt and a smile was plastered on his face, eyes straying to you more often than they should. The moment after that, you were doubly grateful for the blast of ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ in this bar—the next thing you knew, Joel was dropping his head casually and murmuring in your ear,
“Aly sure likes to stare, doesn’t she?”
Followed shortly by:
“Wanna give her somethin’ to watch?”
He was clearly joking. Your cheeks warmed anyway. Then, when he started to lift his head, he left a quick, parting kiss to your temple that could’ve been construed as a paternal gesture. To anyone else but you, him, and Aly, it likely was. Your gaze slid from Joel’s face to his forearms, where the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. He smelled like pine, sweat, and Natty Light, and you were just about to tell him that somehow that combo worked for him, when Scott interposed, loud as hell.
“You ask her yet?!” he bellowed.
He knocked shoulders with Joel in a playful way, and the pair nearly stumbled sideways. Scott elbowed his ribs.
“He’s drunk as shit,” Dallas observed idly.
“Well, what’s he—” you began to say.
Before you’d even finished the question, your answer came in the form of Joel nodding, visibly pretty buzzed himself, as he waved his friend off with a shove and a laugh. Scott just grinned bigger as Bon Jovi gave way to Steely Dan over the speakers. Joel leaned back to you.
“Scott invited us to go skiing out in Jackson, Wyoming.”
“He loves planning trips drunk,” Michelle added.
“Like they’re best friends,” Dallas chuckled.
You ignored Aly’s half-concealed smirk on hearing that; you were too stuck on the look Joel was giving you. Like he was drunk, but dead serious—like he’d agreed to this.
Something set for a future date, however nebulous and far-fetched and stupid the idea may have been, made your insides stir a little all the same. You tried tamping it down with another sip of your drink, but you still shared a glance with Joel. He was watching you more intently.
“Is that something you’d wanna do, hon?” he asked.
You might’ve liked to warn him that he was drawing too close—that his breaths were too warm on your cheek and Aly was straightening in her chair, blinking harder—but anything even approaching a remonstrance was evidently never meant to leave your mouth, as the next second had you nudged off your barstool, taken by the hand, and dragged toward the bustling crowd at the center of the room. Scott had suggested dancing; his son had readily agreed and was now leading you out to the crowd himself. You snagged one fleeting look at Joel.
Mr. Ingram had been dying to get out there, apparently. Behind you, the man spun his wife the best he could through the jam-packed dance floor of students and parents bumping their way through the very best of the ‘70s and ‘80s. He took a few graceless turns himself; while Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, and AC/DC reigned supreme over the wide open space, he pulled some mildly impressive moves. More importantly, though, he didn’t give a shit how he looked. This encouraged your group to let loose a little, too, and you somehow found yourself burrowing even further into the sea of people.
Your arms were compressed on either side of you. Your shoulders were bumped, and nudged, and given little more than a quarter of an inch for your chest to expand in the shallowest of breaths. Every pull of your lungs was an effort, and still, you couldn’t help but smile as you ran a quick look over the heads of everyone around. This was fun. Private, even. With dozens of nameless, faceless bodies gyrating in time with the music, you could blend right in. You could pretend that everything was normal.
Even with the press of a familiar form at your back, you could pretend it was just the crowd forcing him there—that Joel had just sauntered in behind you by accident.
It was risky, to be sure. The lights above flashed in bright white bursts, undulating with every pulse of the song being played, and it wasn’t too far from you that Aly and all the rest of them were strewn throughout the crowd.
But Joel hadn’t seemed to have noticed. Beneath the myriad limbs of the bargoers around you and him, he moved a hand to your waist. It hovered precariously for half a second, then tightened. It drew you closer to him.
You tried to push it away on instinct, heart jumping in your throat: what if Scott or Michelle or anyone else turned their heads at that moment and found him touching you there? What if the grasp their eyes caught wasn’t the wholesome, blameless kind that was meant to be shared between stepfather and stepdaughter? Who the hell was supposed to do the explaining to them then?
Clearly Joel wasn’t all that concerned about it; he slid his palm back up your side and gripped your hip hard after you’d nudged him off. He took a daring step forward, and you could feel him shake his head behind you. Smiling.
“And if I made a joke about father-daughter dances—”
“I would kill you with my two bare hands, Miller.”
Your backside glanced off his front. It wasn’t so much a deliberate move on your part but a byproduct of the rhythm. Some soft rock song was coming to an end, and your body rolled gently with his. The friction was minimal. This kind of proximity was easy to be explained away, if Dallas ever happened to look in your direction—
“Joel!”
Something hard pushed into your ass. You had to steel yourself quick, eyes darting furtively about to make sure no one had seen what you’d just felt between your legs. Then you tried wriggling away, off of him, and were rewarded with another hand on your side. It gripped the flesh just above your hipbone with a tender conviction.
Joel’s lips grazed your cheek briefly. His grip loosened.
“See what you do to me?” he murmured, and the fingers that he’d eased around your waist were turning you back.
Facing him now, away from your group. More bodies filled in between you and them, and the force of that influx pushed you closer to Joel. It shoved you together. It almost couldn’t be helped—that was what you kept telling yourself, anyway—when your frame melded to his, and his hands lowered to your hips, and one finger worked its way through your taut, denim belt loop in a manner completely unbecoming of a normal stepfather.
That callused finger held you firm to him with your jeans. It didn’t give an inch, and his eyes on yours did the same.
You were drifting further out. This didn’t matter as much. Anyone who saw you now would just have to guess that you were Joel’s, and Joel’s was yours—if only for now.
Your lips and his were gravitating closer then, too. You were just about to part yours to speak, when one soft, opening sequence broke out in the air, and you groaned.
No fucking way.
An all-too-familiar mid-tempo tune flooded the room and coursed in and out of your skull with a low, rhythmic tick.
It was eerie. Dreamy. Nearly haunting in the way it rang out right here, right now, with Joel’s hold on your sides tightening more and more with every passing second.
You hoped like hell he didn’t know this song, though you were half-certain this was a big hit from back in his day.
When Joel tipped his head back and fell right in step with the swaying cadence, you weren’t left guessing for long. Of course this slick bastard liked George Michael.
Of course he did.
What more of an appropriate song to be dancing to now, other than fucking ‘Father Figure’ of all the throwbacks?
Joel lifted both arms in a half-shimmy, half-slide and flashed a shit-eating grin down at you. It was smug.
‘For one moment, to be warm and naked at my side.’
Joel raised his brows with it, as if hearing the lyrics for the first time and being shocked. He wasn’t, clearly, as he rolled his shoulders in a stupid and seductive way, and dragged you closer to meet his body’s movements.
‘Sometimes I think that you’ll never understand me.’
Right. You would likely never understand Joel Miller.
‘But something tells me together we’d be happy.’
Well…as long as your father didn’t kill him first.
Emboldened by the pre-chorus beat and the ever-increasing swell of people around him, Joel snaked an arm around your waist. He let your body fall in line with his, rolling in gentle sorts of motions until he could find what kind suited you two the best, and he led the way.
When his head dipped to yours, you could feel it coming.
‘I will be your father figure. Put your tiny hand in mine.’
This time Joel was singing along, grin wide on his face. As if to mirror the lyrics, he took your hand and squeezed it. You might’ve rolled your eyes or pulled away when the man leaned down and slid his touch to your wrist. He kissed your palm. Then he kissed it again, sponging his lips to the skin in time with the rhythm of the song. It was both innocent and lewd. Wholesome and sensual.
Something trapped between perverted and polite, like Joel was testing the waters while trying not to make it seem that way at all. You kept moving in time together.
Joel’s other hand held you to him. His fingers flexed.
“You can’t…”
When his grip slid to your ass, you shook your head.
As much as you would’ve liked to indulge the urge that was currently flooding your system, the timing was off. The choice to give in now was wrong, and risky to make.
Your roommate and her family were no more than fifteen feet away. No matter how many strangers stood between you and them, Joel was toeing a dangerous line with his hand lowered to where it was. With his face only inches away and a sly grin spreading on his lips, it was clear he knew better than this. But he was eager to talk.
“You feel that, sweetheart?” he asked softly.
Where that single term of endearment had once made you bristle, you now sensed it warming your insides.
You nodded but were quick to add: “Joel, we can’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because…”
You found yourself trailing off again, just as you felt Joel’s erection grind into your front, somewhere close to the space between your legs. It rubbed right where you needed him. While another stream of airy, dreamlike notes floated out and a tenor’s voice crooned if you ever hunger, hunger for me, you peered up to find Joel deep in contemplation. He didn’t blink when you met his gaze.
Instead, he nudged you sideways. You inhaled a breath, and not long after that, you felt your back pressed to one of the lone barstools sitting at the outskirts of the room. You’d strayed far. And now, away from all the people that you’d come here with, you had two big hands sliding up the sides of your body. Cupping your face. Guiding your mouth to meet a warmer, more desperate set of lips than you’d ever been expecting to find. Joel’s kiss was rough.
It was open and aching—a wound not willing to be soothed by anything other than your tongue on his. Swiftly, he coaxed your jaw open and slid in. He licked in. He practically panted into your mouth, fingertips carving crescents in your cheeks from just how hard he was holding your face. He didn’t let up, and that hunger bled from his lips to yours. You felt a heady wave wash over your brain, and at the same time, your thighs tensed.
You pulled away.
Your lips were bitten numb. Your cunt was throbbing.
While your pulse thundered through your ears like a fucking kickdrum, your grip loosened on the front of Joel’s shirt, and you started to turn yourself from him.
What you needed to do was leave. What you couldn’t stand was getting caught again, and risk it being someone who wouldn’t take to it as kindly as Aly had.
But even as you walked, you felt a pulsing in your skull.
Between your legs, the feeling was worse, like there was something thrumming a frantic beat in that precious and defenseless place that you knew was needing him most. You were weak. You swiped a hand over your mouth like that would do anything, and you kept walking, knowing how closely Joel would be following you all the way out.
On such a clear, frigid night, the air outside should’ve been a relief. Instead, your pulse hammered and swelled. Your cheeks burned. You could’ve ground your teeth so hard that you cracked enamel, and it still wouldn’t have been enough to bite back the words inside your throat.
You turned to Joel wanting to tell him no. The expression that met yours said he was expecting as much—and was preparing to object—when you swiftly cut him off again.
It should end there. Nothing good ever came of you shedding your inhibitions or clothes with Joel Miller.
He reached out; you winced. You shouldn’t say it.
“Let’s go home, Joel.”
You were running again.
You’d nearly knocked him to the floor the second he’d turned the key in the door of his dingy little motel room, lips frantic over his and hands making fists in his shirt. It was exactly what he’d been hoping to see—part of why he’d booked this place and made the drive that weekend, to have you cradled in his arms again—but as he crossed the threshold with you all over him, Joel grew unsettled.
He couldn’t quite place the feeling, but something told him that you were only here to escape an unsavory urge. Like he was a bad habit to be flooded from your system.
You seemed to say it with every motion of your hands: skating down his front, clawing at the buttons, busying themselves with quickly trying to rid him of the fabric while your eyes stayed trained anywhere but on his face. It stung. Normally Joel wasn’t the type to ruminate on the reasons why a girl might be tearing his clothes off, but tonight, with you, this wasn’t what he usually did.
The ache unfurling in his chest wasn’t the kind to be imparted by just anyone, he kept reminding himself.
Which was why he took hold of both your wrists. Tightly. Just as you were about to try and peel his shirt from his shoulders and expose the whole naked expanse of his chest, he stopped you. He swallowed as you groaned.
“Joel.”
“You didn’t want me kissin’ you at all back there.”
In the bar, outside the building, in the car ride over here. You’d scarcely let him hold you for half a minute before begging to be taken home, and now that you were inside this room, alone, now you wanted to be touched by him.
Joel tried not to feel stupid saying it aloud, but hell, he felt pretty fucking pathetic peering down at you then.
You shook your head. Took a small step back from him.
“Yeah. Trying not to get us caught again, remember?”
And when you backed off, you stayed off, if only to start unfastening the little straps of your top and kick your shoes off your feet. You made your way over to the king-sized bed at the center of the room and sat down. Joel took off his own shoes but didn’t follow, opting instead to rest his weight on the old TV stand across from you.
He planted his hands on the hardwood surface on either side of him, watched you shuffle to the edge of the bed, and had to steel himself when the next pieces of clothing came sliding off your body. You were lifting your shirt over your head, then dragging your jeans down your legs.
Before you were stripped bare, Joel cleared his throat.
“I said we were gonna have a little chat later, too.”
He sounded like a dad. This really had to stop.
Instead of following his lead, you only kicked your pants off at your feet and leaned back. Joel approached the bed, and you greeted him with a coquettish look, like you already knew where this was going. But you couldn’t.
Joel made sure that you wouldn’t when he cupped your chin in his hand and made you tilt your face up to him.
“Honey,” he started, stern, while you reached for his belt.
You’d almost succeeded in threading your fingers through the leather and tugging it loose when Joel’s grip drew tighter. He jerked your chin up in a pinch, ignoring the roll of your eyes, and for yet another beat, he felt that obscure urge to discipline you again. Like you needed it.
If he could just control himself and play things right…
“Listen, I’m not trying to be your father.”
Wait. No. That came out wrong.
Your eyes widened some.
“Oh, really, daddy?”
Well, shit.
Joel straightened where he stood and tried not to puff out his chest like an old father-type might do, but the effort was useless—everything the man said and did was like the fucking calling card of a patriarch. He scrubbed a hand over his face and pretended not to see you grin up at him, your gaze bright and fiery as the Fourth of July.
He could hold important conversations and still not try to jump your bones immediately. He could control himself. He could slap on a semi-austere look and just tell you.
“I love you, you know that, right?” he blurted out.
Your eyes widened again, this time in alarm.
“Christ, Joel.”
You were sliding back on the bed. Shaking your head and pursing your lips in a grimace like this wasn’t happening.
“We’re not doing this again,” you added in a grave voice.
Joel was already making his way up after you—again, like a fucking moron, he felt—crawling on hands and knees across the moth-eaten, coral-colored bedspread and trying not to panic and failing miserably, per usual.
“‘S’alright if you don’t wanna say it back, I just—”
“I didn’t mean to say it in the first place, Joel!”
But there was a strain in your words. Denial.
You were working in earnest not to expose that sliver of self that wanted him, too. Joel could feel it. He planted his knees on the mattress and met you closer to the headboard, where your breaths were coming in faster. You shook your head, but you also didn’t stop him when he drew in even closer and lowered his body to yours.
He was hovering, almost.
Just as he’d been poised above your soft, beaming face all those weeks back in some little podunk town—at Balmaceda’s Mountain Lodge, where you’d been stuck together, only to fuck each other for the first time that night—he pressed a touch to your side. He rubbed his thumb just over your hipbone, where the panties you had on still clung to your skin, and he watched you tense up.
It was like before, only worse: now you knew his touch, and he knew yours, but there was a dread in your eyes.
As if you couldn’t stand to be under him, you slid back.
“Joel, please…don’t,” you murmured hoarsely.
“Don’t what?” His stomach dropped.
“Don’t ever say that again.”
That he loved you?
Joel never thought one string of words could hurt him so much, but there it was. While his heart unwound and his ego met with a swift and unceremonious death, he felt something like agitation twist inside him, too. Cruelly.
This was what he’d come this whole way to tell you.
The man could handle rejection; that wasn’t the problem. What bothered him now was how unflinchingly committed you seemed to misunderstand his intentions. Something surged in his chest again, and this time, it wasn’t all hurt—it was anger, too. Why you refused to accept that someone might love you was beyond him.
He didn’t reach for you again or crowd you further, but he raked a hand through his hair and heaved a hard sigh.
“Why won’t you believe me?” This time pleading.
“It’s not that I won’t—I just can’t, Joel. I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
You started to speak, but then that balloon of rage swelled bigger in his chest, and it wasn’t meant to be directed at you—it was only meant for himself, why wasn’t he enough—and he spit the words like venom.
“Haven’t I shown you that I mean it? That I— I— I care? I’m here. I came to see you. I’m telling you that I love you. How else am I supposed to show the woman I love that I care when you won’t let me in an inch, except when—”
“Except when you’re seven deep in me?” you scoffed.
It was bitter and derisive, and you slid farther back.
“For Christ’s sake,” Joel gritted through his teeth.
He didn’t even wait for you to interject, as he came back: “Is that all you think of me? Is that what I am to you?”
His voice was loud, and he hadn’t meant for it to be.
He was pushing off the bed, watching you sit back.
“I just think it’s real convenient,” you snapped again, “Betraying my trust by not telling me about dad’s affair, finding me in a weak moment, letting me believe you feel the same so you don’t have to deal with this…this…guilt.”
Joel couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“You think I did all of this out of pity?”
“I think you’re trying to be a—”
“That I would lie about it?”
His heart rate was spiking. He felt his pulse thudding in his ears as he stalked around the footboard and scowled.
“Joel, I—”
“No.” He shook his head hard. He was sincerely trying not to fit the bill for ‘hot-headed, explosively angry father,’ but the efforts he made seemed all in vain. Joel could hardly talk now without raising his voice to a shout.
“I have—” he started, only to stop himself, swallowing.
His throat ached, and he almost choked on his words.
“I have been in love with you this whole fuckin’ time!”
His eyes burned. The sound came out angry, hoarse. Maybe he was; he just couldn’t contain it anymore. Silence filled the open space, and time distended.
He couldn’t stand the way you wouldn’t believe him, even now, as you straightened and shook your head.
“No, you haven’t.”
“I have.”
“You don’t mean—”
“You don’t get to tell me what I mean!”
He stared back and watched your gaze erupt in ire. Indignation. Lips drawing tight and teeth baring and hands gripping the bedspread beside you, as if enraged.
“I do. I can. You’re— you’re full of shit.”
Your words made him want to hurl something at a wall.
“Am I?!” he bellowed.
“Yes!” you spat.
“How can you say that?!”
And, without meaning to, Joel’s knee hit the side of the nightstand while he turned abruptly from you. The whole thing shook; the lamp nearly toppled, and the man immediately reached for it, then out to you. The gesture was a reflexive apology, but you responded by shoving his hands off. An angry sound racked through your body as you moved from him—“You—you don’t mean it, Joel.”
“I do. I mean it. Believe me, I do.”
That sound from his chest could’ve been half a sob.
He reached for you again, knees sinking with the springs of the mattress beneath him, and you shuffled further back. Your movements slowed. Suddenly, Joel’s stopped.
He couldn’t see it without a wince—your hands shaking. Your fingers tried making fists but failed, and in an effort to conceal the fear they held, you seized the comforter.
His throat ached, and that pain only soared in a second.
“You can’t…you can’t mean it if I’m just a secret to you.” Your tone was a rasp. The lips that spoke it were curled, revealing teeth still gritted. Eyes filling with more tears, “You can’t say you love me if…if you’re just gonna leave.”
By the end of it, your words were ground to a murmur. Your voice was hushed and slow and begging to be spared notice, as though every syllable hurt to say.
Your bottom lip was quivering too. He knew you were kicking yourself for it—could see the embarrassment etched into your gaze as you blinked back nothing, then one, then two, then a barrage of slow, hot tears—but no matter what you did to fight it off, your body trembled.
The whole thing was practically vibrating with hurt. Humiliation and anger had evidently joined the mix, and before he could even think to speak, you mumbled again:
“You’re gonna leave me, Joel.”
The hurt wouldn’t stop.
“You don’t love me.”
Your voice cracked to continue, pain clinched with a sob.
“You can’t.”
In the look that met his, he saw a wall of warring fears. It wasn’t all for him, either. There were wounds that were the work of years beneath the surface of your skin, ones entrenched in flesh since long before he’d ever known you or laid a finger on that part himself. It started young.
Your lashes battled to keep the tears at bay, but the floodgates had opened. Your secret was gone. There was no sense in feigning indifference when the truth was laid bare—that you didn’t deem yourself worthy of love, and likely never had. Regardless, you worked hard not to cry. You scrunched your nose, mashed your lips together, and stared anywhere but him, and the tears kept flowing. Gently, but without slowing, they streaked down in turn.
“No, sweet pea, I love you. I love you. I ain’t leavin’.”
It was all Joel could do to keep his own vision clear.
He already knew you wouldn’t believe him, but that didn’t stop him from saying the words all the same.
“I— I said it first,” he went on, words tumbling out.
You turned wet, sad eyes to him in utter silence, and that made him want to ramble on forever. As long as it took.
“At the fair, a month before you ever said it, I was trying to tell you I loved you then. You ran off before I could.”
That was the truth.
If Joel had any hope of regaining your trust, it would need to start there. And out of one truth came another.
“I already knew I loved you before that. I would’ve said it, except it just felt wrong, with all that…that stuff I knew.”
He meant knowing about his best friend, your father, and his little rekindled romance with his former mistress. It wasn’t right, keeping you in the dark about something like that, but he also hadn’t wanted to hurt you. There was more to the story that complicated things further, and frankly, Joel had been too swept up in the novelty of this thing you two had had to choose the smarter path.
That didn’t excuse what he did. Hell, it only hurt him worse seeing your eyes gloss over and stay fixed on his.
Knowing you’d trusted him not to hurt you—and he had.
If you didn’t accept what he told you now, he wouldn’t fault you for it. All he could do was slide off the bed and pull you to a perch on the edge, while he planted himself on the carpeted floor and kneeled in between your legs.
Cupping your tear-stained face in his hands, pleading:
“Baby.”
You blinked back at him but ventured nothing.
“Sweet pea, I am not keeping you a secret.”
A beat.
“I’m not leavin’. I want more—need more.”
And for some reason, that felt like a weightier admission than he’d even thought possible. He wasn’t good at this.
He wasn’t quite cut of a cloth to know just how to soothe you and make things right, but he did know that holding you felt right to him. So he did. He rubbed his thumbs in little circles over your warm, wet, puffy cheeks, and he pulled your face closer to his. He held your gaze and watched an internal war wage somewhere far behind your eyes as you tried to contend with this new feeling—that of being wanted and needed and loved as you were.
You sniffled between his two broad palms.
“I want you to stay,” you said softly.
Joel’s heart hammered at that.
He couldn’t hope to leave out the rest. He let go of your face then and felt an irresistible urge to go on, even if it was much too soon and he had meant to show you later. As stupid as the idea had been, he’d already made it, and there was no going back anyhow. He would tell you here.
He reached in his pocket for his wallet. He broke your gaze momentarily to take it out, flip it open, and then card his fingers through the bills a few aching moments before pulling it out—the thing he’d wanted to show you.
When he held it up, a set, he flitted a quick look to what he’d lifted between you and him, as if the sight might give him answers on what to say. Sadly, nothing came.
Joel was totally on his own in explaining what this was. Lucky for him, though, you didn’t seem keen to judge.
“They’re…they’re tickets,” he started. Stupid.
You raised a brow, trying to read, and he forged ahead. Just as the words first appeared to register in your mind, and the faintest look of shock took shape, he hurried out:
“Billy Joel’s got a show comin’ up in Austin this June. I…I thought— well, I hoped, I guess, that maybe we could…”
Spit it out, Miller.
Spit. It. Out.
He frowned.
“I’m no good at this. Sorry. I wanted us to go…together.”
And then…
“And I want your dad to know about us before then.”
There it is.
The last lynchpin in the man’s resolve was gone. He’d said it. There was no turning back from what he’d offered, or what it required, and now you knew he wanted things to be real and committed. Serious.
Terrifying.
Your eyes remained fixed on his. For a second, that look, and your whole upper half, appeared so still Joel thought you might’ve stopped breathing altogether. You blinked. Glancing down at the tickets in his hand and batting your lashes again, as if you weren’t quite sure how to answer.
Then, at last, he heard a sharp inhale—Or was it an exhale? He couldn’t tell—and before he could blink back or wonder so much as a thought, the breath was battered out of his own chest. You rushed him.
You’d moved so fast, hugged him so quick, Joel scarcely knew what was what until he felt your arms snake around his neck. You joined him on the filthy, soiled floor and dropped your knees on either side of his body in a kind of straddling hug. It was as swift as it was unexpected, and it took him a second to adjust. But no longer than that.
Joel was relieved to feel your warmth. Squeezing him. Choking him, almost. He didn’t think you’d ever held him that hard in his life, so he did all he could to soak it in.
It was only when he heard another sob that he paused.
“You…you want to?” Your voice was tiny against him.
“‘Course I do, darlin’,” Joel answered in a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He cupped the back of your head to him and held you tighter, “Of course I do.”
Then, because the impulse struck again: “I love you.”
He didn’t need you to say it back; a look was enough. When you drew back and met his gaze, eyes still doused with tears but smiling faintly at him, Joel was content to see your acceptance. Allowing love in in some small way.
And when your lips succeeded that look, meeting his in a soft kiss, and your body shifted up toward the bed, he didn’t protest. He kissed you back. Joel didn’t have to have love spelled out in words for him to feel what you meant. You said it gently, but somehow with even more force than when you’d stumbled into this room together, touch beckoning him in as you laid back on the mattress.
Admittedly, every inch of this place was seedy. On such short notice Joel hadn’t had much of a pick among his choice of accommodations, and the shortage showed. Still, when you slid up that old, worn bed and stretched yourself in wordless welcome, he couldn’t have asked for more. He only wished that he could give you more, but for right now, at least, that was out of the question. He leaned in and found your lips like second nature, slotting between your thighs and kissing you harder. The concert tickets had shortly been cast aside on the night stand.
“I love you.”
It slipped out again, and Joel didn’t care. His tongue chanced past the seam of your lips and, once inside, explored every contour, ridge, and crevice it could find.
While he did, a touch palmed your breasts over your bra. Your skin was warm; gaze soft, the last he’d seen of it. The scent of you rose to greet him like a mist of some wild intoxicant: citrus, mint, a tinge of sweat, and a liter of your favorite fruity drink, if he’d had to guess. You flooded his senses. It wasn’t enough for him simply to hold flesh in his hands and explore your body with his lips and tongue; Joel wanted to consume something more, though he hardly had the words to articulate it.
You unclasped your bra just as his mouth slid down to your neck. There was a beat—your sharp intake of breath when his teeth met skin and marked it with the tenderest bite—and then your arms reached out. You discarded your bra and bared yourself to him, and when Joel tilted his head to take in the view, he had to groan your name.
There was no other logical route for him to go.
You’d just begun to wind your fingers through his hair when he slid down to greet that newly-exposed place.
“I love you,” he repeated against your skin before drawing one nipple between his lips. He kissed it.
Your grip grew tighter.
“Joel, please.”
His teeth had only reappeared a second to tug the pebbled flesh between them, tongue hungry and wet and laving gently across that hardened peak, when your legs wound around him too. You pulled his body into you.
Joel was helpless to the inducement. His torso fell more heavily to yours and his lips suckled with a vigor that betrayed sheer desperation. He felt it strain in his pants. When he moved from one breast to the other, he heard a wet pop, and the whimper when he re-attached himself was enough to make the bulge he felt swell even bigger. His tongue caressed in laving, measured motions along the curve, and he tried not to grow overly eager from it.
Don’t get too excited. You need time. Lots and lots of—
“Joel,” you exhaled on a particularly harsh press of his mouth. Your ribs heaved with it. “Come— come here.”
He was clambering back up in an instant. The ministrations of his lips that had practically engulfed your skin and smeared it with his saliva were swapped in a blink with them returning to your chin, jaw, and cheeks, planting kisses in between the words he murmured next.
“Yeah? Every—” To the side of your mouth. “Everything OK, sweet pea?” Feeling guilty but also simply needing to calm himself down. “Too fast?” Another to your cheek.
It wasn’t like the two of you hadn’t gone too far, too soon before. In fact, it was a pretty regular occurrence with the sex you had. Joel just needed a reset—had to make sure this was alright, and that he could cool down if needed.
He felt a pinch in his groin but ignored it.
Suddenly, your gaze was on his again.
Fingers carded through the sweat-damp, striated tufts of black and silver hair at the sides of his head, and you leaned in closer until your nose and his were touching.
“Here,” you pressed him, low. Need crept into those words, and your grasp constricted. “Stay here, please.”
It was clear you were inviting him back to your lips, to kiss them, so Joel did just that. He bracketed his arms on either side of your head and let his mouth explore as it had before. Where he resumed at equal force, you met him with still more warmth and wanting and open fervor, tongue curling around his in some soft and wordless plea
Below the belt, Joel was throbbing. He didn’t need to reflect long at all to know what that meant. Then your lips parted wider, your ankles dug deeper in the backs of his calves, and your hips started grinding against him.
Dry humping.
Whining at the friction.
“Feels…feels so good, Joel,” you told him breathlessly.
“You like that?” His lower half mimicked the motions.
Need blossomed across your face as the ridge of his cock rubbed in just the right way through his slacks. Something harder than he meant—a thrust, like he was fucking you into the bed—shook your frame, as well as the mattress underneath it. Springs creaked. Metal groaned. Warmth spread, from the pit of his stomach to where your body met his. The movements kept going.
You were slick beneath him. You must have been. Your whines had heightened to punctured gasps and your hips were so desperate, rubbing your barely-clothed core to the front of his pants and brows pinching as if—
You were already expecting this to end.
You didn’t think that he would stay.
“Baby,” Joel panted again.
By now, desire consumed him, but the urge to smooth that tiny crease of worry was coursing just as powerfully. He swallowed, gripped the linens beside your head in one hand a little harder, and opened his mouth to speak.
Another flick of your hips. Another sigh. Another whine.
Another pinch somewhere deep within him, and a groan.
Suddenly, your hands were on his shoulders, sliding up and toward his neck. Your fingers clawed for his hair.
“Joel,” you panted back.
Joel had tried to slow the motions of his lower half to talk, but yours had only sped up to grind yourself against him. He could feel the heat bleeding from you now. Wetness formed and expanded in a patch through your pink cotton panties and likely stained his front, or would.
His cock was swollen stiff and throbbing. Precum pearled at the tip of him, no doubt, and with every jerk of your body, he could feel it smearing and aching to slip in.
He wanted to be inside you. His balls twitched, his stomach ached, and his senses were suffused with you, a white-hot desire to paint your mouth, your skin, or your insides with his cum nearly as strong. But he had to stop.
Then you kissed him.
Joel’s lips were still parted when your mouth found his, kissing him sweetly and without reserve. Your fingers that had threaded through his hair pulled taut. Hard.
Your center slid up the length of his fully clothed cock, and with one more press of your legs, Joel felt you.
He’d never wanted anything more in his life, and still, he fought to speak—to reassure you that he wasn’t leaving.
“Joel—”
“I know, I know. Baby, I—fuck.” His breath hitched in his throat when his bulge pulsated again. His head swam.
With what meager resolve the man still possessed, he ventured another kiss, then drew back. His eyes dropped and searched your expression, half-crazed, and just when the words were taking shape again, you parted your lips and brought them to his. You rolled your hips, balled your fingers into fists through his hair, and with your mouth and his a quarter-inch apart in puckered, pretty ‘O’s, panting with every thrust that shook the bed:
“I love you, Joel.”
It was a breath, and the taste had never felt sweeter.
One more jerk of his hips and you were drawing in once again, panting in his mouth as if to make sure he heard.
“I— I love you. I love you so much,” you murmured, low.
His cum unloaded in thick, hot ropes. He couldn’t stop it.
Joel Miller, at the age, maturity, and level of experience he could boast, had never cum virtually untouched and in his own fucking pants since…he couldn’t remember when. But he was. His spend pulsed out from the head of his cock in dizzying bursts, and his stomach clenched. He gripped the bedspread and let out a guttural groan while he soaked the front of his boxers from inside them.
His dick throbbed and leaked, and his breathing slowed. He mumbled something back, quietly—‘I love you, too.’
Then he pushed up and off of you, out of the bed.
Seconds stretched; he didn’t feel it. Stars burst behind his eyes with every step, and he staggered that path to the bathroom like his life or his pride might depend on it.
As a matter of fact, the damage was already done. He’d jizzed in his pants like an overeager teen getting his dick touched or sucked for the very first time. What was worse, you hadn’t been doing either when he came; you’d told him you loved him, and that was enough.
Enough to make him look like a goddamn idiot, Joel thought without blinking. He kicked the door shut behind him and reached for the zip of his pants.
Sticky. Wet. A whole fucking shitshow below the belt.
He ran the tap. He had his undone slacks and boxers pulled down past his hips, and he was facing the sink in seconds, assessing the extent of the damage. Then his face flushed red at the sight of the sticky, milky mess swarming his groin and he could’ve kicked himself. He settled for yanking a towel out from one of the cubbies beneath the counter and running it under the water. He daubed quick and without much precision, gaze darting to find dozens more clumps of his spend strewn about than he thought possible. He’d cum an absurd amount.
Before he chastised himself, though, he had to pause.
“Joel?”
Your voice was soft. Sometime since he’d unzipped and started scrubbing his crotch in vicious circles, you’d appeared at the door, head peeking around curiously.
You must not have been standing there for long, because you actually drew closer to join him. Feeling comfortable enough in roughly thirty square feet of space, you shut the door again and leaned your hip against the counter.
If Joel didn’t know you better, and he wasn’t already occupied with wiping cum off of his cock and balls, he might’ve searched your face for a smile. A smirk, maybe.
It wasn’t like teasing each other was suddenly off-limits now that Joel was brimming with embarrassment. Half your communication was giving the other shit for little mishaps and quirks, and he expected that his last accident in the bedroom would be no different.
He flinched when you reached out instead.
Hooking your fingers under the waistband of his pants and his plaid boxers, you shuffled in closer to him and let out a breath. You tugged once, twice—gently, so as not to further disrupt the mess or make him wince—and then coaxed the fabric down his legs, lower and lower.
When you peered up at him, Joel couldn’t find so much as a trace of amusement in your eyes or on your lips. You just nudged his slacks to the tiled floor and hummed.
“It’ll be easier if we wash it off in there.”
You nodded to the shower behind him.
Joel turned slightly, as if considering or trying to get a glimpse of the freestanding shower with its wide-open, mildewed curtain seeming to beckon him in, then stopped. He turned back and chucked his towel.
“Alright,” he said while kicking his pants off at the ankles. Talking softly and not meeting your gaze, “That’s fine.”
He pivoted once more to peel his shirt off and make toward the shower by himself, and you surprised him, again, when you bypassed his much larger frame and hopped in first. You slid your panties off and tossed them into the pile of clothes by the sink, and you twisted the knob on the wall. You sidestepped the first stuttered sprays and drew the curtain back in wordless invitation.
Joel hovered, eyes scanning the cramped space.
“I don’t think we’re both gonna fit in here.”
Then, as though to emphasize his point:
“I can wash off by myself. It’s…fine.”
He hadn’t meant it to sound so stilted, but that was just how he felt: stiff and awkward and raw with feelings of recent embarrassment. He tilted his head to the side.
Your head tipped right back, and you raised a brow.
“Just get in, Miller. Freezin’ my fuckin’ ass off.”
And there was a smile: the first one. Faint.
Not mocking, snide, or condescending. Just the kind to usher him in and drag the curtain behind his hulking body, wipe a slick, wet hand over your mouth and grin—‘You do know I’ve seen you naked before, right?’—and that set his mind at ease. He almost smiled himself.
“So you remember that I’m a grower, not a shower.”
Joel cupped his hands over his softening length in faux protective fashion, as if you hadn’t seen the thing dozens of times by now. When he sidled up and cornered you between the soap tray and the shower stream, he found the edges of his lips kicking up a little, unable to help it.
You’d seen him hard, soft, and everything in between—mostly hard when near you. Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that you were getting to experience him like this.
That made him lean in closer. Chance another joke.
“Looks like your old man’s stamina has taken a hit, too.”
Joel had meant it to sound playful. Suggestive, even. Instead, it came out dismal and gruff, like he was trying to overcompensate for something he was sorely lacking.
He might’ve wanted to kick himself again, were it not for the next move you pulled on him, which was enough to pluck his thoughts—and his breath—out of his body.
Without wasting a second to pretense or teasing, you simply brushed your hand down his front and touched him, gently. He was softer, smaller, and almost wholly spent from his last exertion; still, you reached and wrapped your fingers around his length with care.
Sparks ignited from the place where you trailed. Joel had to swallow a groan, oversensitive and fairly stunned, and his palm came to rest on the wall behind your head. His chin dipped toward his chest while his gaze dropped too.
He watched you stroke him once, rub your thumb along the tender skin, then bring your left hand to join the mix, carrying a bar of soap with it. You started from the base.
“Baby,” Joel rasped. The muscles of his stomach clenched while you drew circles to spread the soap.
“My old man,” you repeated affectionately.
It was artless and kind. Friendly and gentle. Most every other time he’d been touched where you had him, the hands had meant to arouse, and seek something else. Here, you were trying to help. Clean him sweetly and without concern for yourself while also drawing him in, like you always did. It made his chest hurt—and not in a way totally unconcerning for a man his age. Nonetheless, he leaned into that feeling and shifted his body to yours.
His head and your head were now doused with water, his hovering above so close that little droplets streaked from his chin down your slightly upturned face. Joel could feel you watching him. He flicked his own gaze back to meet yours, and as he did, your palm stroked him from root to tip. His hips jerked involuntarily; he swelled in your grip.
His cock stiffened but still remained far from fully erect. Joel swallowed, anchored his hand harder on the wall, and wished himself a decade or three younger, at least.
“You alright with this?” he muttered.
“With what?” you mumbled back.
Joel sucked in a breath just as your hand, and the soap, slid back down his length, and rubbed casually around it. You assumed a leisurely pace and scrubbed his tummy.
“My body ain’t what it was—”
“And it’s more than enough.”
Suddenly, your eyes weren’t just resting on his but pressing. Piercing. The circles working to clean his skin increased in pace and force, and you set the soap aside. You nudged him closer to the water, but all Joel felt was the urge to draw you with him. The shower stream pelted his chest, his belly, his freshly soaped lower half, and past the suds, a gradually hardening cock. Gradually.
You had him in your hand; you were rinsing him clean. Joel should’ve extended some murmured thanks, a calm and uncalculating touch coming to rest on one of your shoulders while you did him this innocent favor. Your lips twitched. His cock hardened. Then your back was flat on the shower wall, and Joel was hovering over your drenched and naked frame again, only his touch was descending to your hip instead. He held it firmly.
“You could have your pick of any guy—”
“Good thing I only want you.”
Your grip tightened too. Now that you’d scrubbed him clean, you seemed ready to let go in the next second, but old habits died hard. Joel leaned in to nose your cheek.
“That so?” His hand moved from your hip to what he knew would be a scorching heat between your thighs.
Two thick fingers glided through your folds and forced a whimper out of your throat. You were soaking wet, and not just from the shower’s spray. Joel rubbed that slick, delicate seam with all the self-control he could muster in the moment, and he kissed your cheek. Every inch he could feel of you was brimming with warmth and need.
You tilted your chin and caught his lips. You parted your legs and held his almost-fully erect length in your grasp.
“I— I mean it, Joel,” you answered him, surprisingly soft then. You kissed the sides of his mouth while you continued to stroke up and down. “I want you.”
Joel’s hips shifted involuntarily. As if moving of its own volition, his lower half stirred beneath your touch, and shortly, he had your legs spread wider and his body slotting in the gap between. His fingers pushed deeper.
And, just as his hand was all but cupping your mound and the wet heat of your cunt was pulsing against him, Joel slowed. He sucked in a breath and met your gaze.
“How do you want me, sweetheart?” he murmured.
In reply, you gripped his base and guided him closer. Flicked your thumb over the fat, leaking tip and sighed.
“Right…here.”
“Right here?”
Joel hadn’t meant to move you so quickly, but one blink and your hand was off him completely; your back was turned to him, and your ass was pressed flush with his groin. He had to hunch in the tight, wet, fog-infested enclosure with his chin jutting in over your shoulder and his palm splayed over your tummy. He spoke softly again:
“You want daddy in here, pretty girl?”
Your whine was all he needed to hear.
And perhaps it would’ve been wise to wait a beat or two. Work two fingers in and out of your aching cunt, drag his tongue through your folds, or else use his throbbing tip to ease you open for him. Before he could even think to make use of his hands, mouth, or head, though, you were reaching behind and taking him yourself. You pressed a palm to the wall and pushed up on the tips of your toes, and with impatience bleeding through your every movement, you slid back onto him. You did it quickly.
In the absence of adequate foreplay, entry wasn’t swift. Joel almost choked at the feeling of how tight you were around him—how rigid and warm and narrow you felt on that first slide. He planted a grounding hand next to your own out of sheer necessity. He held your hip in his other and swallowed a groan that seemed fit to nearly kill him.
“Sweetheart,” he panted against your neck, “Easy. Easy.”
You tried to nod your understanding but slid up just as fast. From a glimpse of your profile, Joel could make out some consternation fanning out. Your brows pinched.
The pretty, slick ‘o’ encircling his cock clenched again, and it was evident you were trying to force the motion back down against your body’s wishes. You whimpered a little and dropped your free hand between your legs.
Joel kissed your jaw. Your cheek. Your ear. Partly to remind you that he was fine to take things slow and partly to quiet his own hammering heart inside him.
It wasn’t working.
You were just so. fucking. tight.
“I— you gotta slow down, sweet pea,” he hissed through gritted teeth. Your walls pulsed again, and it nearly sent him spiraling. The second your ass met his hips and he was buried to the hilt, he stifled a groan into your neck.
“But I need you, daddy,” you whined, “Need you inside.”
Another grunt. Another moan. Another suffocating pulse.
“I’m gonna blow if we don’t slow down some, honey.”
It was mortifying, but it was the truth. Tonight, Joel just couldn’t seem to keep his cum confined to his balls like he normally could. Presently, they rested firm and heavy against the globes of your ass and were just then preparing to hit a rhythm as you rocked back and forth.
Your gaze flashed to his over your shoulder.
“That’s OK. You…you can— oh.”
Before you could finish that thought, your words were torn from your tongue and lost to a shuddering moan. His cock plunged deep within your soft and airtight channel, and your head lolled back a little more.
Out of habit, Joel pulled out and then plunged back in, feeling the wet clutch of you stretch around his cock.
“I can what, honey? What can daddy do?”
Lax as his voice made him sound, the man was coming apart at the seams; he had only to search your face for a fleeting, desperate moment, find you hungry as he was, and he thrusted even harder, absorbed the shockwaves of your pleasure while he fucked you up against the wall.
Gradually, the spatter of water on white glossy tile gave way to the sounds of your skin and his hitting again and again. Your face softened, and the once-taut walls eased to accommodate his girth. You squeezed Joel from base to tip, making the most obscene noises when he slid in and out, and from the look you gave him then, he could sense the need before it ever left your lips. He saw desire fill your pretty, glossy stare and felt compelled to sate it.
Again, it seemed you were begging him to stay.
Expression so pleading and sweet and soft.
“Daddy, I— I want you to cum inside me.”
Joel almost blew his load on the spot. His hips had to stutter in place—so taken aback by what you’d just said—but then you were bouncing back and forth again, neck craning to flash him the most winsome smile.
“Oh, honey…”
“Please.”
He’d finished in you before. It had been an accident. The night had ended with you and him hauling ass to the nearest CVS and hitting the Plan B like it owed you money. And now you were asking him to do it?
“I’m about to start my period. It’ll be fine.”
The half-starved look in your eyes said you’d been thinking about this for awhile. Maybe not with your rational brain, but certainly in earnest. Your smile said it.
Joel’s good sense was shot. He knew it was wrong. He was assured beyond a shadow of a doubt that if your dad ever learned he’d deliberately painted your insides white—or worse yet, knocked you up—his best friend would personally sever his dick and sauté it for lunch. Still, the urge to be joined with you in this brand new way was damn near debilitating. He couldn’t tell you no. So instead of doing what he should’ve done, he simply said:
“OK.”
For some reason, it felt wrong to finish in the shower. So he cut the water, toweled you both, and took you to bed. He slid under thin, sodden, wildly outdated motel sheets without letting his lips disconnect from yours once. He propped your legs around his hips and kissed you harder. He found a home within the furthest recesses of your body he could find, and his heart still throbbed for more. It was the best and worst agony, to be so delirious in the need for someone else, but each time you met him and accepted him in, his pleasure soared to new heights.
His cock dragged in and out of your heat in sloppy, shallow thrusts. He felt your wetness ease his passage and welcome him deeper, until the mouth of your cunt was stretched as taut against his base as it would go and your walls were pulsing with need. You squirmed underneath him. Your whines turned into whimpers, and the whimpers became ragged, hiccuping gasps as you clawed at his back and begged for more, more, more.
“‘M’so full. Feels so, so good, daddy,” you breathed.
“Yeah?” Joel said, and he glanced between your bodies to see you stretched and stuffed to the brim with cock. He groaned involuntarily. “I fit so nice, don’t I, baby?”
“You— you do, daddy. You do.”
“Can I fit a little more in?”
Your eyes widened.
As soon as realization dawned, you nodded your head and gripped him tighter. You hardly needed another stab of his hips, his thumb on your clit, or so much as a word spoken besides—at just the thought of being filled with his seed, your body seized in anticipation. It was you trembling, shuddering, clenching hard and reaching bliss before you even meant to get there, really. You were wholly overstimulated and clamoring for more, the pulses of your cunt milking his cock with all you had.
Joel scarcely had the presence of mind to get a syllable out, but he knew what he needed to say before his pleasure took hold. He smoothed a hand over your cheek, cupped it, and lowered his lips to yours, so only the cusp of his mouth and his stubble were grazing your open pout and the words he spoke were all yours to hear.
Sliding deeper. Meeting and holding your gaze with bare, uncontrived sincerity: “I’m yours, baby. I’m all yours.”
His balls tightened. He wanted to say more to set your mind at ease and assure you what you meant to him, but evidently, your bodies had other plans. In the next moment, he felt a familiar warmth spurt from his tip, and his hips jerked. His cock burrowed as deep within your wet, pliant walls as it could go, and he unloaded rope after rope of his cum. Joel let out a full-throated groan.
The wild hum of his pulse through his skull all but rendered him deaf to the sounds around him, but he knew he told you that he loved you; he knew you said it back. He felt you anchor your heels into the backs of his legs and accept him completely. You spent what felt like hours kissing, writhing, panting, and murmuring words of the warmest affection. In reality, this lasted seconds.
With you underneath him, in his arms, it didn’t matter.
“I love you, Joel,” you whispered again, smiling.
He grinned and kissed you, “I love you more.”
And he’d meant what he said: every inch of him was yours. Every moment you would let him have from that point forward, he’d spend showing you that he was there to stay. He didn’t care how long it would take to prove it.
For once, he didn’t care what your dad would have to say
SOLID WORK; dr jack abbot x dr!reader
words: 4,700+
content warnings: my minimal medical knowledge, doctor humor, abbot’s filthy mouth, some smut, fluff <3
notes: i am so beyond new to this fandom and to tumblr so please stick with me but i couldn’t not write this🫶
・❥・
”Solid work.”
My breathing slows as I start to process the complexity of the procedure I had just performed. I’d probably be blushing at Dr Abbot’s praise if it weren’t for the adrenaline coursing through me.
“That was your save. Not mine.”
Trust me - I am never jumping to credit a man with my work but that was the truth. I may have physically done everything but the idea and the instructions that made it possible were all Dr Abbot.
I look back down at the patient. I tell myself it’s to make sure this is all real. That I really just did that. But if I am being honest it’s to avoid Dr Abbot’s unwavering eye contact.
“Hey-“
He is not gonna let me. I look up to meet his gaze. So rock solid but somehow so warm all at once. He may as well be staring right through me.
He lightly rests his hand on my forearm to stop me from going for the suture. To stop me from giving him anything other than my undivided attention.
“-you are the smartest person in here. Take the win.”
I can’t help the exasperated smile that spreads across my face. He’s right. I’ve only got a couple months left of residency. I should just take the fucking win for once in my life.
Abbot, much to my surprise, smiles back. And he has dimples because of course he does.
He’s calm under pressure, he lies on official paperwork to get a teenage girl the abortion she has every right to, he’s the actual smartest one here, he’s kind to everyone in this ED regardless of the stress he is under, and…he still has his hand on my arm.
His hand. The veins there don’t hurt the eyes either.
We must both realize his lingering touch at the same time because he is clearing his throat and pulling away. He reaches for a surgical instrument he doesn’t need. Picks it up and then puts it down.
I swear there is a faint blush on his cheeks but if I think about that too long one will appear on my own.
“Let Whitaker stitch this up. Go home - get some rest. Your shift ended hours ago.”
“I love Whitaker but he is so slow we may as well let the wound heal all on its own.”
Dr Abbot laughs. Genuinely, truly laughs as we exit out of the trauma bay. So loud that Robby looks over and asks if he’s okay.
Don’t get me wrong. Dr Abbot has a wonderful sense of humor. A wicked one, actually. But it’s one of those dry, witty kinds. Not the animated, giggly kind.
I tell myself it’s not a bad thing that I’m proud to have gotten a good laugh out of him. That it’s not a bad thing that it gave me butterflies. That’s it’s not a bad thing that I am laying in bed wondering how the hell I am going to get him to do that again.
・❥・
Jack lets out a low moan as he recovers. His eyes are dazed, his head slightly tilted back but not so much so that he can’t keep eye contact with me.
His hand that held the makeshift ponytail in my hair starts to massage my scalp as the other hand reaches for my chin and tilts my head up to meet his strong gaze.
Once he’s got me where he wants me, his thumb travels from my chin to my lips, swiping what’s left of his release off of it.
“My good girl. So good for me, yeah?”
My thighs involuntarily clench together at his words. He knows it too. I nod as his thumb presses further into my mouth, my lips wrapping around it.
His mouth quips into a smirk, “Solid work, doctor.”
I roll my eyes and bat his hand away. Standing up from my knees on my own. Ignoring his arms trying to gently guide me up instead.
“That! That is exactly what I am talking about!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, baby.”
Jack just laughs as he grabs my wrist, turning me back towards him. He’s quick to have me pinned up against our shower wall - his strong thigh spreading my own apart as he plants long slow kisses across my neck.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Back when I was a resident, otherwise known as a couple months ago, Jack consistently praised what I was doing by saying “Solid work.”
The way he did always made me dizzy. His voice would drop an octave and he’d look me straight in my eyes while he said it. There is nothing inherently sensual about the phrase but it took me a while to realize he was not complimenting the other residents like that.
Him saying it during sex started as a joke. Harkening back to when, as he puts it, I was so painfully oblivious to his flirting. To which I responded, “That was flirting?”.
He said it again to me at work the next day. Being completely and utterly genuine. I don’t even remember what I did but I did it well and he is always the first to acknowledge that. So he was confused when I just huffed in annoyance and peeled out of the room without so much of a glance at him.
I wasn’t annoyed at him. I was annoyed that now all I could think about was him. His hands, his biceps, his tongue. Everything. And I still had six hours of my shift to go.
He followed me into the on-call room I was going to find some refuge in. He locked the door behind him - closed the curtain for good measure.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
And then I felt bad. He thought something was actually wrong. That no way I’d ever brush him off like that when he was just trying to compliment me unless something was seriously wrong.
His eyes bored into mine, genuine concern and love pouring out of them. And here I was just being a brat.
I tried to be sly about the way my eyes trailed the veins bulging out of his biceps. I tried to be sly about the way I was imagining my hands tugging on his salt and pepper curls that were just slightly askew from a couple hours work. Unfortunately for me, Jack can read me like a book.
“Did you just stomp out of the ED because you’re needy?” Jack couldn’t contain the grin that spread across his face at the realization.
“Well maybe if you weren’t always going Mr Christian Gray on me with the praise-“
“I don’t even know who that is but all I said was ‘Solid work’-“
Jack stops himself as he remembers the past couple nights. When he was saying the same thing in a much different context.
I can’t say I’m entirely innocent. Or innocent at all really. I love throwing in a ‘sir’ every now and again at work to tease Jack. So he does the same to me with other phrases - constantly.
And he said the same thing in that on-call room that he is saying to me right now, “But what I do know is how fucking wet you are for me. So stop pouting and let me taste you, yeah?”
He swipes a finger through my soaked folds before he’s the one sinking down to his knees as I try to keep mine from buckling.
・❥・
“Solid work, Dr Abbot.”
I smile down at my sparkling new engagement ring and then up at the love of my life.
“Seriously? You can tease but I can’t?”
“What’s that saying again? Happy wife, happy life?”
Neither of us can wipe the huge grins off of our faces. No one knows we’re engaged yet. Just how we wanted it.
A couple of months ago, right after I had taken an attending job at The Pitt, Jack had broached the topic of marriage. We’d talked about it before. We both knew we were spending the rest of our lives together. But we hadn’t actually talked about the timeline of it all - the logistics.
Jack was always extremely hyper aware about how our relationship affected me. He didn’t want it to interfere with my career or all of my hard work. So as much as he would’ve walked down the aisle six months ago, he wanted everything to be on my terms.
“Hypothetically - if I were to propose, say within the next month - would you say yes?”
“Hypothetically - if I ever say no to a marriage proposal from you - please get me a psychiatry consult.”
Jack laughed - in an airy way where you could tell he was relieved. I kissed him. There was no universe in which I ever said no to a proposal from him.
He pestered me with questions. He wanted direction but not so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised when the time came.
I told him I didn’t want anything fancy. No big party although I did want to have a small gathering with our friends and family at some point afterwards. A nice sized diamond but not gaudy. No grand gestures - just him being him is all that I wanted.
And he executed perfectly. Because when does he not. It was our first night in the new home we had bought. He said we could get a hotel while we waited for our furniture to be delivered. But I wanted to do one night with no furniture, an air mattress, some candles, and a pizza delivery.
“Like camping.” I had said.
“You hate camping.”
I laughed because he was right but he obliged me anyways. He carried me over the threshold and I made a joke about how he’s got to be careful - being old and all.
Then he carried me right over to the air mattress, said something like “Can an old man do this?” and went on to coax four orgasms from me - one from his fingers, one from his tongue, one from his thigh, and finally one from where I wanted him most.
When we were done, I threw on one of his old tshirts and a pair of boxers. He just had on an old pair of sweats and a white tee. We stared into each others eyes like two lovesick teenagers until he said “Come here - I gotta show you something.”
“Babe, the house is empty.”
“Get over here smart ass.”
Jack picked up a candle and lead us over to the fireplace. He set the candle on the mantle as I read what was now engraved into the stone ‘The Abbots - Est 2025’
“So this is why you were getting all of those random tools from Amazon.”
Ever the handy man he is. Then he was on his knee. His bad one. To which I told him he didn’t have to do that. And then he said he would even if it killed him. And I think I said something stupid like “Not on my watch.”
I don’t even remember what he said after that. He doesn’t either. We both blacked out from sheer happiness. All I really remember is him asking me to do him the honor of being his wife and me pulling him up off of his knee and saying ‘Duh!’ as fast I could before kissing him. Over and over and over again until that air mattress was just a deflated extension of the wood floor beneath it.
・❥・
Dana’s hand rests on my thigh gently. My leg stops shaking. My mind doesn’t stop racing though.
I'm not an anxious person. If anything, I can be relaxed to a fault. But I am an intuitive person - and something is wrong.
Where is he?
“Relax. When is that man ever late?”
“That’s why I’m worried.”
You would think I didn't have my own license or car the way Jack insists on driving me everywhere. He tells me it is to keep our insurance from being sky high. I may or may not be a bit accident prone when behind the wheel. I tell him it's because he's obsessed with me. He always huffs a laugh and murmurs something about two things being true at once.
The Pitt makes sense. Ever since Jack started taking on more day shifts to balance out our conflicting schedules, a lot of times we are arriving and leaving here together. But on the off chance we are not, he is still picking me up. Always with some kind of treat in hand - usually a McDonalds Diet Coke much to Jack's dismay.
Jack takes the saying 'If you're not early - you're late' far more seriously than anyone I have ever met. The day shift typically gets off at 7 PM which means he is usually here to gossip with Robby on the roof by 6:35 PM.
“Go - take a case! He’ll be here to pick you up before you know it.”
My dissents are quickly met with Dana shooing me from the nurses station and personally squaring my shoulders to the board.
I haven’t even read the first name when Robby appears at my shoulder.
“Where is your fiancé?”
“Say that any louder and you’re going to be my next patient.”
“Yeah because you two are so inconspicuous with the whispering and the giggling and the big honking rock on your finger and the-“
“-disappearing to 'clean' the on-call room.” Dana finishes Robby’s sentence as they both double over in laughter.
Dana, Robby, and Collins are the only people in the ED that know about Jack and I’s relationship.
Collins knew I had feelings for Jack before I even let myself go there. Robby knew Jack had feelings for me before he let himself go there. So they took matters into their own hands.
Collins had a $100 on Jack breaking first. Robby $100 on me. And he had an extra $100 to spare when he bribed Dr Ellis to ask me to take her night shift for a week. Oh, how that backfired on him.
Three shifts later and Robby was $200 in the hole.
Six months later, I was moved out of my city apartment and into Jack's house.
Dana offered to drive me home after shift one night. Because it was cold and rainy and my apartment was close by. My apartment that I no longer lived in.
Jack wasn’t picking me up - he was out of town at a conference. I insisted on taking an uber, the bus, walking - anything that meant not explaining to Dana why my new address was the same as Dr Abbot's. She wouldn't take no for an answer and yelled "Oh, I knew it! Bridget owes me $100!" when I finally fessed up.
One year later, almost to the day that Robby had to pony up on his bet with Collins, I had an engagement ring on my finger.
Tonight, after he picks me up, Jack and I are going to pilates together.
It was only a matter of time before Robby and Collins gave it another go and I bet Jack that Robby would fold before Collins.
What's the point in betting money when we share a bank account? Seeing Jack in the pink pilates grippy socks he does not know I got him will be priceless.
“Well, when you find him please tell him that he is late for our date on the roof."
"Stop dragging him up there - you already have a date tonight!"
"Yeah, one in which I need his advice on."
"Oh please, you're talking to the wrong Abbot if you need advice on how to woo Collins." Dana interjects. Not everyone in the ED knows about Jack and I but they do know Heather and I are best friends.
"Oh, I wasn't aware you two had tied the knot already. Do you want me to change your name on the board? I can do that right now actually. Does HR know? It'll just take a moment-" Robby teases.
I grab the remote out of Robby's hands as he laughs, "Okay fine - go have your little roof date but do not take long!"
"Well, we'd already be done if he wasn't late. Where is he by the way? He is never late for anything.”
“Yeah, don’t remind me.”
I step forward, my elbows on the counter of the nurses station and my head now in my hands as I groan.
“Relax. It’s Jack - we couldn’t keep him away from this place even if we wanted to. Especially with you in here.” Robby squeezes my shoulder and is off to what I assume to be the roof.
I check my watch before I stand back up to scan the board for real this time - 6:50 PM.
Where is he?
I pull my phone from my pocket. There’s no new message from Jack lighting up my home screen but I open up our conversation anyways.
From Jack: I miss you
From Jack: I can’t believe Langdon is getting to hang out with you right now and not me
From Jack: If you stay at that damn hospital any longer we’re gonna have to start forwarding all these packages you order there
Little does he know one of those many packages holds his new pilates socks.
To Jack: Oh please - as if more than half aren’t all your little go bag gadgets
To Jack: And to think our colleagues think I’m the drama queen
“Incoming - Trauma 1!”
I’m happy for the distraction. I’m gowned, gloved, and ready to go before the patient is even rolled in.
The doors to Trauma 1 fly open - but not with a patient. Just Dana.
“I’m going to get Robby! You should not have to do this.” Dana is staring pointedly at me before she’s off. I don’t even get a chance to respond.
Weird. I know I’ve only been an attending for a couple months but Dana had more confidence in me on my first day as an intern than she did just now.
I now understand why as the patient is rolled in front of me.
There he is.
Unconscious. Cold. Clammy. And slightly bloody from a small cut on his forehead.
My world stops.
“Heart attack.” Langdon is here.
Somehow all I can think of is Jack’s text from earlier. I want to laugh but I can’t. What if I never get one again? I’m supposed to see him in pink pilates socks tonight. Not in a body bag.
“CLEAR!”
Suddenly all the pieces from the past couple days are coming together and I cannot believe I didn’t catch it sooner. Can’t believe he didn’t catch it sooner!
“CLEAR!”
His dizziness. The increase in massages of his amputated leg. The quick heart beat. The rash.
I hear the commotion around me. But I’m not processing any of it until it’s directed at me.
“I said CLEAR! Move!”
This cant be happening. So I decide that it’s not going to.
“No!” My voice comes out way more feeble than I meant. Way more feeble than anyone in this ED has ever heard me.
“Well I hope you enjoyed being Abbot’s favorite because you’re going to kill him and your career in one go.”
“Langdon - he is not having a heart attack.”
“Yes he is!”
“No he isn’t - take off his leg!”
“Take off his leg?! Okay, you’re literally going insane. And I’m supposed to report to you?! I know I went to rehab but oh my gosh - CLEAR!”
“I’m going to clear you out of this trauma bay if you do not get out of my way.”
You know how they say a new mom could lift a car off of her new born baby? I’m pretty sure that’s the phenomenon I am experiencing right now. I don’t exactly know what other worldly force is taking over me right now but I do not question it. I am watching myself from outside of my body as I spring into action.
I shove Langdon to the side as I lift up Jack’s pant leg to remove his prosthetic. The prosthetic that noone else in this room would’ve known he had.
He doesn’t keep it a secret but he doesn’t exactly advertise it either. Especially when he refuses to sit down on a double shift. Ironically enough, that’s probably why he is on this table.
I spot what I’m looking for immediately but Langdon is the one who speaks it out loud, “Pressure ulcer - he’s in septic shock.”
“Thanks for finally using your brain Dr Langdon but we’re going to be using mine from here on out.”
“Blood ox is 91.” Someone yells. I don’t know who. What I do know is that 91 is dangerously low.
“Scalpel.” I demand.
“What are you going to do?”
“We need to drain this fluid before his organs start to fail.”
The first and only time Jack taught me this procedure it was his save. Now it has to be mine.
I tell myself that one day we will be sitting in front of our engraved fireplace. Old. Like, actually old. Not the fake old that Jack tries to pretend he is. With kids and grandkids - telling them the story of how Jack saved his own life through the transitive property. So I better get to work.
“Scalpel. Now.”
Langdon slams the scalpel into my hand. I ignore the looks around the room. The looks that say ‘The only person qualified to perform something like this in an ED is the patient’.
“Your funeral. And his.” I ignore Langdon.
I must have cut the most perfect incisions of my life. Performed the most flawless procedure anyone has ever seen from me. I don’t remember any of it.
The loud beeping slows. His blood pressure rises. Then his blood oxygen. Then the bag I drained is full and being disposed of by Dana.
When did she get here?
Robby’s hand is on my shoulder, trying to pull me away.
When did he get here?
I hear him tell Whitaker to get a suture and close up the wound. Oh, the irony. Credit where credit is due - Whitaker has gotten much quicker under Jack’s patient teaching. Thank fucking goodness.
I think of the first real laugh I got out of Jack. My eyes start to tear up but I stop myself. I will hear that laugh again. Over and over and over again. So much so that I would get sick of it if that was even possible.
Robby is apologizing profusely into my ear. He has nothing to be sorry for. But I can’t manage any words. So I just let him move me out of Whittaker’s way but I do not leave Jack’s side.
I can’t seem to register anything beyond Jack’s face that I’m seemingly trying to force into consciousness with my stare alone.
“Where the hell did you learn that?”
My head turns to Whitaker at his question but it swivels so fast back to Jack I think I give myself whiplash. Because I don’t speak - he does.
“Solid work, doctor.”
I’ve never been happier to hear those words come out of his mouth.
“Oh my god.” My hand clamps over my mouth as my head dips to Jack’s chest, my arms wrapping around his shoulders.
My adrenaline tank plummets to zero and I am absolutely sobbing into Jack’s chest. Whatever was coursing through my veins during that procedure is coming out in what feels like gallons of tears and hiccups.
I don’t care who’s in the room. I don’t care that everyone is slack jawed and staring and so beyond confused. I don’t care that out of the corner of my eye I see Perlah slapping a $100 into Princess’s palm.
All I care is that Jack’s hand has found its way into my hair and when I place my shaking hand on top of it to make sure it’s real - it is. Even better - it’s warm and dexterous and alive.
He’s alive and he’s here.
He gently guides my head out of his chest. I lift my chin up to look at him - give him the eye contact I know he is seeking. That we both are.
“Baby - I’m okay. I’m okay, I’m safe, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
His voice is as steady as ever. His heart beat matching it. The beat that was so faint what seems like moments ago.
I let it calm me down. I place a kiss to his chest and lean up to do the same to his forehead. My hand tangles in his salt and pepper curls as I hold his sweaty forehead to my lips and then bring my own forehead down to meet his. I close me eyes and breath him in.
He’s alive and he’s here.
“Welcome back, brother.” Robby manages to choke out through a couple tears of his own.
“Just wanted to make sure you guys weren’t getting lazy at the end of your shift.”
We all crack a smile but only Robby speaks, “Does this mean I have to work a double?”
“Not if you go park my car. It’s in the ambulance bay.”
I speak a full sentence for what feels like the first time in days, “You drove here?”
“We had a date. Plus, I wasn’t feeling quite right.” Jack nods down towards his amputated leg like it’s nothing but a minor inconvenience.
I dig into his pocket and toss Robby his keys. Robby calls for a CT and a room with a bed before ushering himself and everyone else out to give us some privacy.
“And how are you feeling now?”
“I’m feeling like I’d like to make the woman who just saved my life my wife.”
My hand immediately flies to the small cut on his forehead. The blood dry and crusty, “How hard did you hit your head? We’re already engaged.”
Jack chuckles, places his hand on mine and squeezes, “I barely hit my head when I fell out of the car. I’m fine - I just really don't want to live another moment without being able to call myself your husband.”
So we don’t. Not really anyways. I make Jack get every fucking scan in the book that I think we hit our insurance deductible in under an hour. He humors me by lying in the bed in one of the ER rooms as I pump a myriad of fluid and antibiotics into him.
After a few hours his blood oxygen is perfect. So is his blood pressure and his heart rate. I don’t think I’ve taken my eyes off of him once. Or my hands. Running my hands through his hair, caressing his forehead, squeezing his forearm. Just to reassure myself he is here.
He understands what I’m doing. Hears what I cannot say. He grabs my hand on its next pass through his hair and presses a kiss to every single knuckle before speaking, “Baby, I’m sorry I scared you. I scared myself honestly. But I promise, I am not going anywhere. Ever. And I am so sorry you had to go through that. You should have never had to operate on me. I don’t know how you did that. I mean if it was flipped. If I saw you come in like that-“
His voice falters, his bottom lip quivers and he pulls me into the tightest hug as we both begin to cry. I think if we could crawl into eachothers skin, we would.
We stay there like that for a while. Until Jack grabs my face, kisses every single part of it, then whispers “I love you so much but I think if you pump anymore fluid into me you’re going to water board me.”
As if on cue, Robby whips the curtain open, “To the roof we go!”
“You can’t be serious.”
Robby holds up some kind of certificate as Collins and Dana round the corner.
In the hours I spent nursing Jack back to health, I went to the bathroom one time. And only because I hadn’t gone the last four hours of my shift and I own a huge water bottle.
In that one bathroom break, Jack had managed to get Robby ordained online and enlisted Dana and Collins to ‘decorate’ the roof.
We’re still gonna have our wedding ceremony and the reception and the whole ordeal. But I agree with him - I can’t go another second not married to him. Not after today.
So we go up to the roof. Jack still in his hospital gown and me in my scrubs. Robby officiates, Dana sings because she can’t help herself, and Collins ‘witnesses’ which really means crying.
Jack is kissing me before Robby can even say, “You may kiss your bride.”
When we come up for air, Robby claps both of us on the back and says, “Solid work, you two.”
I just kiss my husband again. Because he is alive and he is here
Pairing - Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x daughter!reader, Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw
Word count - 3,513
Warnings - brief mention of abandonment, allusion to sex, mostly fluff
Summary - Jake's daughter notices the obvious feelings between her dad and Rooster and schemes to get them together
A/N - hey y'all I strike again with another installment of the 'Hangman junior' universe! This took me a hot minute to write bc I was so determined to get this right. I really hope I did this idea justice and y'all enjoy it (and if you notice the lil 'Set It Up' reference in there you're awesome!) Anyways I'll stop rambling now. As per y'all, please send in requests, feedback and enjoy!!
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By only being raised by your dad your whole life, you had learnt to read him like the back of your hand. You could tell when he was hiding something from you, and you could tell how he felt about people just by the subtleties in his expressions as he interacted with them. With Coyote, you could tell your dad was relaxed. He’d laugh, smile and there’d be no evidence of tension in his body. You figured that’s what it was like to have a best friend you trusted with your life. With the rest of Dagger Squad, it was a similar situation. Your dad was completely relaxed around them, always cracking jokes, beating them at pool and rubbing it in their faces. Your dad was relaxed and unguarded around most people he surrounded himself with. So what made Rooster the exception?
The first time you had noticed the way your dad acted around Rooster was after the team had returned from the uranium mission. The team had gone out for celebratory drinks and when Rooster had clapped your dad on the back and thanked him once more for saving his and Maverick’s lives you noticed your dad tense up. His grip tightened on the neck of his beer bottle and a light blush spread over his cheeks as he cleared his throat and nodded with his signature cocky grin before he could finally find the words to speak.
You noticed that as time passed, Rooster started acting in a similar manner. He became more hesitant to initiate any physical contact with your dad, even things like a friendly slap on the back became too much for him. You saw how when Rooster was playing ‘Great Balls of Fire’ he’d look over at your dad as he sang. You saw the way Rooster averted his eyes and blushed deeply on the beach when your dad had tugged his shirt off as they prepared to play dogfight football. And you especially didn’t miss how your dad blushed when Rooster did the same thing.
“Hey, dad? How come you’ve never dated someone since my birth giver took off?” You asked the question innocently one night as you lay across the sofa with your head in your dad’s lap, curious about why your dad had never dated anyone your entire life. Your dad scoffed lightly at you referring to your mum as your ‘birth giver’ but since she never played a role in your life you felt she didn’t need the title of mother.
“Believe it or not, it’s hard to get time to yourself when you’re working a job and raising a kid.” Jake says with a grin poking you in the side as you swat at his hand.
“Well, I’m old enough to be left alone now so you can go on dates. Or I could spend the night at a friend's if you wanted to bring them home.” You reply, adjusting yourself so you can look up at your dad.
“Most people don’t want to date someone who already has a kid.” He then admits, his gaze dropping to you briefly before back up at the tv.
“I’m sorry.” You say, feeling guilty for being part of the reason your dad couldn’t go out on dates.
“Hey, you don’t have to apologise. You didn’t ask to be born. I’m happy enough with it just being us two. Maybe I’ll start dating again but you are and always will be my first priority.” Jake reassures, running a hand through your hair and smiling down at you gently. You smile lightly up at your dad before turning so you can watch the movie on the tv again. As you watched the movie you started concocting plans in your head about pushing your dad and Rooster together before your dad could start seeing someone else.
Your first plan was to set them up. You texted both of them one day asking if they wanted to meet at your favourite café after they finished work but didn’t tell them two big things. One, that you had invited the other. Two, you weren’t going to show up. Thankfully both your dad and Rooster replied to your message saying they’d meet you at the café at the time you sent, and you smirked to yourself as you sent them a smiley face emoji. Your dad was the first person to arrive, ordering himself a coffee and sitting down at the table you and him usually occupied when you went to this café. Not long after he sat down, Bradley came in, at first not noticing Jake but after getting his drink and turning around, he saw Jake sitting alone, scrolling through his phone. Bradley had to give himself an encouraging pep talk to get his legs to take him over to where Jake was sitting.
“Hey, Hangman.” Bradley greets casually, his coffee in one hand as he looks down at where Jake was sitting.
“Bradshaw, fancy seeing you here.” Jake replies, looking up briefly at Bradley before turning his attention to his coffee cup so Bradley wouldn’t see the blush that was threatening to coat his cheeks.
“What are you doing here?” Bradley asks, as he glances around the café and hoping he doesn’t say he’s here on a date.
“y/n asked if I wanted to meet after work. We haven’t had time recently to come here and chat, so I figured it was a long overdue father-daughter thing. What about you?” Jake replies, following Bradley’s line of sight while silently hoping he doesn’t say he’s waiting for a date.
“Funny, y/n asked me the same thing. She didn’t say anything about you coming along. Not that I’m bothered.” Bradley says with a laugh, quickly flushing red and apologising in fear of sounding rude.
“If it’s any consolation, she didn’t mention you either. You’re free to sit here until she gets here. Maybe she’s having problems and she’s too scared to tell us outright.” Jake says as he gestures for Bradley to sit opposite him. Bradley plants himself in the seat opposite and the two begin conversing. At first, they discuss their usual topics of conversation, how work was going, and whether they were going for drinks with the Daggers at the Hard Deck on Saturday. They were the only kinds of conversations the two were used to having. Bradley often asked how you were doing if you weren’t around, wanting to know from Jake if things were going okay but that was as personal as their conversations would get. When the two ran out of their normal conversation topics they sat awkwardly for a minute. Jake picked his phone up and sent you a text, questioning you about your whereabouts.
“You know when I saw you in here, I thought you were here for a date and y/n had recruited me to spy on you with her.” Bradley chuckled to himself as he glances up from his coffee cup to make brief eye contact with Jake, looking away quickly before a blush threatened to take over his cheeks.
“That does sound like something she’d do.” Jake laughs as he imagines you and Bradley trying to discreetly spy on him on a date in the small café. Jake’s laugh was like music to Bradley’s ears. Back when the two were first called back to Top Gun, hearing Jake laugh was a rarity since they were always busy bickering. Bradley would never forget the first time he heard Jake laugh properly. It was at the beach a couple of days after the uranium mission, and you’d tagged along. You had sneakily brought a bucket with you and filled it up with seawater when no one was looking, and the second your dad’s back was turned you dunked the water all over him. Bradley remembered how Jake was quick to sling you over his shoulder and walk towards the sea with you squirming and trying to free yourself from his grasp, even calling out to Coyote and Rooster for help who both pretended they couldn’t hear you. Once Jake was waist-deep in the water he dropped you into the ocean, throwing his head back as he laughed when you emerged drenched from head to toe. When Bradley heard Jake’s hearty laughter, he swore his heart stopped as a small smile graced his lips. He was so entranced by the laughter that he didn’t hear Fanboy calling for Rooster’s attention as the football came flying at him and hit him square in the chest.
“Something’s telling me she’s not turning up.” Jake then says after checking his phone for the hundredth time and still not seeing a text from you on his screen. Both men’s hearts sank at the realisation because they instantly assumed the other was going to get up and leave now that they had no reason to hang around at the café.
“Well I paid for this coffee so I don’t know about you but I’m going to sit here and finish it.” Bradley says, hoping and praying that Jake does the same thing.
“I might have to do the same. No point wasting a coffee.” Jake says with a large smile that Bradley mirrors. The two find themselves falling into easy conversation and talking to each other about things they had never considered ever talking to each other about. They talked about the football game they had watched the other night at Coyote’s house and playfully debated whether that team deserved to win or not. When they’ve finished their coffees they smile sadly at each other, expecting this to be the moment they part ways for the day but neither of them wanted this to end.
“Hey, how about we got to the Hard Deck and have a couple of drinks. If we head there now we’ll be able to get our drinks just before the rush hits.” Bradley offers, mentally prepping himself to be shot down.
“Are the others going?” Jake asks, opening his phone and finding the Dagger Squad group chat to see if he missed something.
“No. I was hoping it could just be us two.” Bradley asks gently spinning the coffee cup in his hands and directing his focus to that.
“You asking me on a date or something, Bradshaw?” Jake asks with an amused tone as he raises an eyebrow while Bradley flushes red.
“I- I was just. Like-”
“Relax, you don’t need to blow a fuse. I mean I wouldn’t mind if it were a date but if you’d rather it just be as friends then that’s okay too.” Jake says and Bradley swore at that moment he couldn’t have gotten any redder in the face than he has right now.
“I mean… I want it to be a date. Only if you’re comfortable with it though.” At Bradley’s words, Jake’s smile softens, and he’s reminded of all the reasons why he liked him in the first place. Not only was Bradley insanely attractive and able to keep up with Jake’s wit. He was kind and always put the feelings of others above his own.
“Guess it’s a date then Rooster. Let’s get going I don’t want to get there when it’s busy.” Jake says, rising from his seat as Bradley follows suit, the two smiling shyly at each other before exiting the café and heading in the direction of the Hard Deck.
Penny was shocked to see Hangman and Rooster enter the bar without the rest of Dagger Squad trailing behind. Her shock only increased when the two ordered their beers and went to sit at a table in the corner of the bar rather than standing alongside the pool table or dart board. Since it was quiet in the bar, she watched the pair curiously and couldn’t stop the smile gracing her face when she noticed the shy smiles and light blushes on their cheeks. Penny had also been someone who noticed the way the two acted around each other and had been silently hoping they’d figure out their feelings and get together. She also hoped that Dagger Squad weren’t planning on showing up to the Hard Deck tonight because if they were she was willing to fight them off so Rooster and Hangman could have an undisturbed evening together.
“You know, the more I think about it. The more I think y/n Cyrano’d us.” Bradley says with a slight chuckle as he takes a sip from his beer.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jake asks with a raised eyebrow, confused about what Bradley was going on about.
“It’s a story about a guy who helped this guy date a girl he had a crush on. In other words, she set us up.” Bradley explains, an amused expression on his face at Jake’s confusion. When Bradley elaborates, Jake nods along.
“That kid is too smart for her own good. She sees things others don’t. It would explain why she asked me the other night about why I haven’t dated anyone since her mother took off.” Jake says, a flash of hurt appearing in his eyes at the mention of his ex.
“Hey, we don’t have to talk about that. But if anything this set-up shows how much y/n loves you. She just wants her dad to be happy.” Bradley says softly, finding the sudden courage to reach across and gently take one of Jake’s hands in his. Jake initially tensed up at the sudden contact, not used to any gentle contact.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to-” Bradley apologises, releasing Jake’s hand.
“No. You’re okay.” Jake says, taking Bradley’s hand again as the two smile softly. By the time it started to get late, neither man wanted to go their separate ways.
“I really enjoyed tonight. Do you think we could do this again sometime?” Bradley asks as the two exit the Hard Deck, both of them relieved they had an uneventful date that wasn’t crashed by Dagger Squad.
“You have my number, Bradshaw. Just text me a time and place.” Jake replies with a wink and a smirk as the two bid each other goodbye and make their way home separately.
It took a couple of dates for Jake to get the courage to ask Bradley if they wanted to become an official couple, but he didn’t regret it because he ended up having the best night of his life. He spent the night at Bradley’s and when he finally arrived home the next morning after reluctantly leaving Bradley’s bed, he found you in the kitchen making yourself some breakfast.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you up, kid.” Jake says, trying to sound casual as he walked into the kitchen. He thought because it was a Saturday morning, you’d be having a lie-in so he could sneak in and get changed without you noticing.
“Just woke up early.” You shrugged, your focus on making your breakfast.
“Did you have a good night? Must’ve been some date if you only just came home.” You smirk to yourself as you quickly glance your dad’s way.
“How’d you know that’s what it was?” Jake retorts, moving past you to pour himself some coffee.
“Like I said, you didn’t come home at all. If you’re out at the Hard Deck you’re always home by one am at the latest.” You explain, adding the bacon and eggs into the pan, glancing over at your dad to silently ask if he wants breakfast too.
“Plus you have hickeys on your neck.” You continue nonchalantly with a shrug as you add more food to the pan for your dad as he chokes on the coffee he was taking a sip from. He then pulled his phone out of his pocket and used the selfie camera to look at his neck, groaning under his breath at the bruises.
“Damn it, Bradley.” He whispers, inspecting the bruises closely while silently being grateful that it’s the weekend.
“You and Bradley, huh?” You asked with an amused smile as you busy yourself with flipping the bacon as the pan hisses.
“We know you set us up the other week at the café.” Jake chuckles as he puts his phone in his pocket and picks up his mug once more. You simply shrugged and plated up the food before grabbing cutlery.
“Bradley’s also coming around later so just expect him. And don’t go out with your friends we want to talk to you.” Jake says as he picks up his plate and crosses to the table, with you following behind him.
“You’re gonna tell me you’re a couple, right?” You ask with a raised eyebrow as you dig into your breakfast.
“How did you-”
“You spent the night together and you just called him Bradley, twice. You never call him that it was always ‘Bradshaw’ or ‘Rooster’ before.” You shrug as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. Jake couldn’t stop the small smile that appeared on his face. You truly knew him like the back of your hand and the fact he was dating Bradley didn’t bother you made him feel more accepted than he has in years.
“Well, Bradley’s pretty nervous about telling you. He knows you set us up but he’s just worried. Just let him tell you.” Jake explains, eating his own breakfast and glancing up at you with a gentle expression.
“You got it.” You reply with the signature Seresin wink before returning to eating your breakfast. After finishing your food and cleaning up after yourself you excuse yourself to do some homework while you wait for Bradley to arrive.
It was late afternoon when Bradley turned up at the house. Jake was the one to greet him at the door, giving him a quick kiss and ushering him into the house as he lightly scolds him for the hickeys left on his neck from the night before. As Bradley settles himself into the sofa, Jake calls for you to come downstairs, silently reminding you to let Bradley explain everything on his own terms before entering the living room with you.
“Hey, Bradley.” You greet with a smile as you sit yourself in the armchair that sat proudly alongside the sofa while your dad stood behind the sofa, behind Bradley with both hands braced on the back of the sofa.
“Hey y/n/n. We have something we need to talk to you about.” Bradley starts, feeling worry clutch at his heart as he begins to talk. His hands instinctively search for Jake’s who slips his hand into Bradley’s grip, giving him a supportive smile.
“When you set us up the other week at that café, we ended up having a better time than we thought we would. I ended up asking your dad if he wanted to go for drinks at the Hard Deck. That date turned into a couple more and… I just thought you should know that we’ve made it official. And I’m not trying to force myself into your family or anything. We just thought you deserved to know.” Bradley explains, his worries about seeming like he was forcing his way into your family coming to light as he spoke, making your expression soften as you moved to the sofa to bring Bradley into a hug.
“If my dad’s happy, I’m happy. And you make my dad happy. I’ve seen it since the uranium mission. You make each other happy and that’s all I want.” You say as Bradley moves to hug you back, smiling up at Jake who rubs a thumb over the back of Bradley’s hand.
“And you’ve been a part of my family since the uranium mission. So don’t ever feel like you’re butting in.” You continue as you pull away from the hug, looking up at your dad who presses a kiss to the top of your head.
“Well said kid.” Jake grins, ruffling your hair as you groan and swat at his hand.
“You staying for pizza and movie night, Bradley? I feel like you have to. You can even spend the night as long as you guys aren’t too loud.” You say, making both men blush at your last comment.
“She saw the hickeys.” Jake says with a laugh as he tugs down the hood of his hoodie, exposing the marks Bradley had left the night before.
“This is a good lesson of ‘do as I say not as I do’ because I don’t think your dad needs to be having heart attacks over hickeys any time soon.” Bradley says with a laugh as you fake gag and punch Bradley’s shoulder jokingly.
Neither Bradley nor Jake saw the afternoon at the café going any further than just a friendly chat over a cup of coffee but the courage that grabbed at both men in the café caused them to go down a road they never thought they’d get to go down. But they couldn’t have been more grateful for it. Even if it was a set-up caused by Hangman junior.
taglist (comment or message to be added):
@zbeez-outlet @kaceywithak
Masterlist
On Call
Characters - Michael “Robby” Robinavitch x OFC , Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, Frank Langdon, Dana Evans, Jack Abbot Summary - Rose Reilly is a surgical resident specializing in trauma medicine under Drs Robinavitch and Abbot. A series of scenes involving Robby and Rose. Tags: Angst, Mutual Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Tension, , Sex, Mutual Pining, Suicidal Ideation, Comfort/Hurt, Where the comfort also hurts One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Spotify playlist
actually melting thinking about jack’s knowledge of anatomy plus of your body and how he puts it into practice like a clinician. a hot doctor who knows all your spots and will either hit them all at once or really drag it out to tease you?? he’ll take care of literally everything and do things to you that you didn’t even know you wanted or needed it’s deadly i’m dead
yeah, so this is my first time writing for Jack and it's probably a mess but I had to write something just to rip the bandaid off. thank you, anon for being my first Abbot ask. ilu with all my heart. 💙
warnings: 18+ mdni. Jack Abbot x afab!reader. fingering. asphyxiation. not super filthy.
Jack knows what you need before you do.
He can sense your energy and mood; the slightest imbalance.
Sometimes, all he needs to do is to curl a hand around the back of your neck, fingers softly tugging your hair, while he slides two fingers inside your cunt.
"I know, I know." He coos down at you. His piercing eyes keep you grounded as you gasp from the sudden stretch. "It's a lot. But you can take it."
The intense pressure builds and builds while he steadily works his sticky fingers in a come hither motion and smothers your clit with his thumb.
"Feel that?" He asks, curling his fingers against a hidden spot you had no idea about. Your body explodes, nerves spasming like lighting struck, but he keeps his hold locked tightly.
Deep and raspy, Jack laughs before tipping his head to steal your gaze. He waits until you nod before he continues. "That's a special little spot."
He hooks his fingers against the spot once more, forcing a shocked gasp from your lip as he stokes the fire burning deep in your belly.
A sly smirk tugs at the corner of his lip. "My favorite, actually."
Other times, when you're beyond stressed and need to forget about the world, Jack teases you until you cry in his arms. Keeping you stuffed full of his cock, thrusting over and over until you're on the cusp of bliss, only for him to pause and withdraw, leaving your empty cunt spasming around nothing.
He knows all you need is to take what he gives you. Pleasure, pain, or a mix of both. If he wants to, he'll take you apart piece by piece with his bare hands only to put your back together again.
Jack tempts fate when it's needed.
He moves quick and precise, curling a skilled hand around the front of your neck, letting the heavy weight settle on your sweaty, overheated skin until the time is right.
Another frantic mewl spills from your lips, along with fat tears rolling down your cheeks. Only then does Jack press his thumb down against your carotid.
He knows it's reckless.
With his cock buried deep, spreading your folds, he cuts just enough blood to make you woozy. He thrusts into your warmth with an endurance only army medical doctors have. He watches you tremble, your mouth bobbing like a fish out of water, waiting until he gives you any bit of solace.
Slowing your brain's blood flow can turn south real quick, but Jack enjoys the control. The feeling of you struggling under his touch.
The way you look at him like he's the only thing left in your world.
"Atta girl."
feel free to scream at me -> 💌
Twenty-year-old Y/N returns to the ruins of District 12, seeking something—anything—of the life she lost. Grieving, self-contained, and carrying the weight of a brutal past, she finds herself quietly drawn into the lives of Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch. As unexpected friendships form and long-buried parts of herself begin to resurface, Y/N starts to wonder if it’s still possible for something soft to survive the wreckage.
Pairing(s): Haymitch Abernathy x Female!Reader (romantic), Katniss Everdeen x Female!Reader (platonic), Peeta Mellark x Female!Reader (platonic)
Warnings: themes of grief, past emotional and verbal abuse from a parent, past self-harm (cutting), past alcoholism (Y/N) / ongoing alcoholism (Haymitch), references to non-consensual sexual experiences (no explicit scenes), PTSD, mental health struggles, age gap romance between adults (20s and 40s), eventual suggestive scenes, death, descriptions of death/gore, mentions of bombing, descriptions of district 12 after the bombing, might be slightly divergent from canon, peeta was not hijacked
All heavy topics are treated with care, but reader discretion is advised.
this is basically just a suuuuper long slow burn friends to lovers. Y/N’s backstory is very detailed but i have not and will not describe her appearance. the first 5 or 6 chapters are basically just providing Y/N’s background and building a foundation for the rest of the story.
Shadows of the Past - Six months after the Second Rebellion, you return to the ruins of District 12. Haunted by memories and loss, you wander through the wreckage—until a flicker of light draws you toward something, or someone, unexpected.
Fragments of Home - In the unfamiliar stillness of Victor’s Village, you find yourself cared for by an old friend and a stranger. As wounds are tended to, new connections begin to take root—quiet, cautious, and strange in their kindness.
The Space Between - You move through the stillness of what remains, caught between memory and reality. In the space left by loss, something quieter begins to grow—unspoken understanding, and the first fragile steps toward connection.
The Club - A nightmare drives you outside in the dead of night—and you’re not the only one who couldn’t sleep. An unexpected conversation beneath the stars begins to chip away at the walls you’ve built.
The Quiet Shift - You wake to a new day and begin to settle into your new reality. A simple visit turns into something more, as laughter and conversation spark the beginnings of something long forgotten: friendship.
Porchlight - Three months into your return, you’ve slipped into a quiet routine—baking with Peeta, trading late-night banter with Haymitch. But comfort doesn’t come easy, and even the smallest moments of ease shine like a porchlight in the dark.
The Shape of Warmth - You spend the day with Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch—what begins with a truth leads into something softer, steadier. Something that feels almost like belonging.
more to come! :)