Chapter Text
Right on time, taking me by surprise
Must have been in your eyes, like me, oh, my
Where you been my whole life?
Where you been my whole life? Oh-oh
Dating had always felt like a chore—a time consuming, anxiety riddled, unsatisfying chore. Most of the men you matched with on dating apps made it abundantly clear that they were only interested in casual, no strings attached fun. It was never fun for you—maybe in the beginning, when you would exchange a handful of flirty texts that had butterflies flapping in your stomach and a giddy smile blooming across your face. But then, once they had you where they wanted—laid out on their questionable smelling sheets, straddling them on their lumpy, faded couch—all the promises they had made over the phone suddenly vanished.
Nine times out of ten they didn't even bother with foreplay, hitting you with "does that feel good?" before spilling in a condom within two minutes of sporadically thrusting into you. You never lied, never bothered with faking a moan—let alone an orgasm—just to satisfy their ego. They were shit at taking care of a woman's needs, and you weren't going to spare their feelings just because it was polite.
So, why you were on a date on your rare Friday night off from working in the ED was fucking beyond you.
You wanted to blame Santos, she was the one who had set the date up after all. She claimed she was sick of hearing you bitch and moan about your dry spell, saying that if you weren't going to get back on the apps then she would find someone for you. And honestly, after working at PTMC for a few years—getting increasingly frustrated after every twelve hour shift you spent with Dr. Abbot—you owed it to yourself to give dating one more try. Maybe this would be the guy that would finally touch you right, finally make you feel something more, scratch that itch that you couldn't reach yourself.
He was your type, just as Santos had raved. Well, your new type. At some point, maybe around month two of swapping to the night shift, your thumb had slipped and the dating apps started showing you men at least fifteen years your senior. Men with fine lines crinkling their eyes, salt and pepper scruff lining their jaws, their terribly posed selfies accentuating their age.
But, surely, these men would be experienced enough to care for a woman's pleasure, right?
Wrong.
God, you were so wrong.
You gave up after two failed dates—one ending shortly after the appetisers because he was still married, the other ending when he got aggravated because his dick was staying semi-hard and had an ego too big to take viagra. Oh, and he refused to make you feel good if he wasn't getting anything in return.
You deleted the apps in the uber on your way home. You tried to convince yourself that it was these men that you kept picking and not you. You sure as hell weren't the problem. Comparing them to your extremely off-limits attending had nothing to do with it, either.
Santos said he was a regular at her gym, no mark on his left hand where a wedding band may have been, with an enticing smile and deep eyes that promised a good time. If only she had spoken to him for more than a couple of sentences.
You internally cheered when your phone vibrated on the table in front of you with an incoming call. You didn’t even bother checking caller ID, you would gladly take a call from a scammer if it meant it got you out of one of the top five worst dates you’ve been on in your life.
“Excuse me,” you muttered to the man sitting across from you before lifting the phone to your ear. He rolled his eyes and gave you a dismissive wave, sipping on the ridiculously expensive whiskey he’d ordered for himself.
“Hey, hon,” Dana’s urgent voice came through the line. “Sorry to interrupt your night off, but we need you in the ER. Ellis has come down with a nasty stomach bug, and the place is about to overflow with patients from a multiple MVC. Night shift needs you, kid.”
You couldn’t resist the sigh of relief you let out. Being elbows deep in traumas sounded a lot better than continuing your date with the misogynistic asshole in front of you.
“I’m on my way,” you replied to Dana, ending the call and gathering your clutch. You offered a fake apologetic smile to your date as you stood up from your chair.
“I’m really sorry,” you weren’t, “but I’ve been called into work. Life of being an ED doctor.” You offered an awkward chuckle.
He let out a sigh, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “So you’re not coming home with me, then?” Your eye twitched. “Least you can do is pay for your half of the bill.”
And there it was. The disgusting norm that comes with modern dating—the man only footing the bill if he knows he’s getting his dick wet.
You pulled a twenty dollar note out of your wallet, slapping it onto the table with more force than necessary. You shot him a sickly sweet smile before turning on your heel.
“Have a nice life, dick.” You muttered to yourself, pushing open the door to the restaurant. You pulled out your phone, ordering an uber straight to PTMC.
— — — — — —
“Holy fuckin' smokes!” Dana exclaimed, her eyes locked on the sliding doors to the ambulance bay.
Despite the chaos engulfing the Pitt, her outburst caught the attention of the nurses and doctors hanging around the hub. Half of the day shift had their bags hanging off their shoulder, midway through saying their goodbyes.
It was almost cartoonish, the way they slowly spun, their eyes following the path of Dana's. A couple pairs of eyes bulged, a med student's jaw slightly dropped, and a smug smirk curved Santos' lips.
"Oh damn," Princess whispered, McKay and Mateo humming and nodding their agreement.
They had seen you plenty of times before—right before the start of a long shift when you were bright-eyed and eager, at the end of a double when you were sunken and hollow, stumbling into an uber after one too many at the local bar. But, they had never seen you like this.
There was a shift in the air, one that you seemed completely oblivious to. You were walking the path from the ambulance bay to the staff lockers, mind focused on getting into your spare pair of scrubs and out of your stupidly uncomfortable shoes. You briefly wondered how long into your shift it would take for your knee to start twinging, for the muscles around it to start straining because you decided to wear nice shoes instead of practical ones.
They were shoes you had bought to match the dress that had been hanging sadly in your closet for the past four months. It was a nice dress, one that you had been eager to wear and finally you had a reason to. Now you were regretting wasting it on that douchebag.
It wasn't just the dress that everyone was taking notice of, wasn't the only thing that had the room momentarily holding its breath. You looked…different. Still like yourself, but with your best features highlighted—making you stand out in a crowd. Not that you even noticed the attention on you.
Dr. Jack Abbot was leaning his elbows on a desk in the Hub, his back turned in your direction. Dana's abrupt—but not unusual—outburst had him looking over his shoulder, doing a double take when he realised it was you that had Dana swearing. He straightened his posture instinctively, turning and folding his hands behind his back like a soldier standing to attention. His eyes followed you as you kept walking towards the group of fleetingly stunned medical professionals.
He always noticed you, more than he cared to admit. He gravitated towards you from the second he saw you on your first day shift years ago, drawn to you like a moth to a flame. You were intelligent, quick-witted, determined but you were also kind, compassionate, empathetic—all important attributes for a doctor to have. You were his best resident. And you were beautiful.
It was a matter of fact to him, that you were pretty in a way that had his pulse tumbling and breath hitching. He knew it was dangerous for him to be attracted to you—his resident that was way too young and had way too much of her life ahead of her. So, he never did anything about it. He kept things strictly professional, pretending like he didn't have a file cabinet tucked away in his brain where he stored every little detail about you.
He convinced himself that every detail he knew served a purpose, that it made him a better attending and in turn made you a better resident. It was to help you, which then meant you could help patients.
Knowing the exact way you liked your coffee? That was so you were well caffeinated and less grumpy towards patients when the four am low hit.
Noticing when you took more frequent deep sighs, accompanied with rubbing your temples? That's when he knew you needed fresh air to ward off an incoming headache, and then you would be fine to treat more patients.
Carefully watching the way your face lit up when he bought your favourite snacks? Just confirmation that you were getting sustenance, so you would have the energy to continue your hard work as an ED doctor.
It was habit for him to catalogue everything about you, and now you were giving him details to store that had nothing to do with improving your work as a doctor. The way the light reflected off your lip gloss, how you filled out your dress and made it look like it was designed just for you, the sway of your hips thanks to the shoes you were wearing.
He couldn't control the drag of his eyes down your body even if he wanted to. And that's when he saw it—the three faint scars on your left knee. The fluorescent lights above made them stand out more, and his eyes were glued to them. Two were barely an inch long, laying in horizontal slits either side of your kneecap—keyhole scars. The third one was more noticeable, running in a clean vertical line along the very top of your shin. He recognised the surgical scars immediately.
“I feel sorry for the poor bastard we dragged you away from.” Dana's raised voice knocked him out of his trance, the sounds from the ED around him rushing back into his ears.
He turned back to the desk, back to his charting before anyone could see how he had been looking at you—before you could see. His eyes still flicked back to you over his shoulder, observing how your pretty glossy lips were pulled in an out of place pout and your brows were furrowed in what looked like annoyance.
You sighed at Dana's comment, resisting the urge to roll your eyes. He wasn't a poor bastard at all, he deserved being walked out on. Before you could reply to the day charge nurse, Santos let out a long low whistle from her spot leaning against the Hub, right next to Dr. Abbot.
Whatever pleasantries you always had loaded for your coworkers disappeared in an instant, anger and irritation flaring hot in your chest. Your jaw clenched and your eyes narrowed in a glare, a single finger raising to point accusingly at your fellow resident and friend.
"Don't you fucking dare, Trinity." You seethed, pulling more attention towards you.
Whitaker froze in his spot, his hand's pausing on the keyboard where he had been finishing up his charting for the day.
"Oh, shit," he whispered, worried. "You never call her Trinity."
It was true. She was only ever Santos or Trin to you, Trinity was saved for the extremely rare occasion that you were mad at her.
Perlah and Princess stopped in their tracks, exchanging knowing looks with growing grins on their faces. They could wait a few more minutes before heading home.
Santos' eyes widened briefly, surprise flooding through her—she wasn't the one who had called you in and ended your date early.
"What did I do? Not my fault there's a ten car pile up." She raised her hands in mock defense.
"You're the one who set me up with a misogynistic prick!" You couldn't help but exclaim, your hands starting to shake with the unleashed anger you had been feeling since the second you sat down at dinner.
The group gathered around the Hub went still, eyes darting towards each other as they watched the rare scene of you losing your temper. The women around you shared a collective wince, immediately understanding your situation. They didn't even need you to explain what happened, they already knew how awful men could be—especially in your line of work.
Jack couldn't stop the protectiveness that ran deep through his bones at your statement, couldn't stop the jealousy souring his gut at the fact you were out with another man. A man that apparently did not deserve your time, did not deserve how beautiful you looked. He didn't think any man deserved you, even himself.
He wanted to know what happened, wanted to know who deserved a beating for treating you poorly. The possessive rage bleeding in his veins was new and incredibly dangerous.
The doors to the ambulance bay split open, a handful of paramedics rushing in with gurneys carrying bloodied victims from the MVC Dana called you in to help with.
Robby emerged from Trauma one, glancing around at his staff loitering while chaos rushed around them.
"Hey! What are you all doing standing around? Get to work!"
Everyone shifted into gear at his yell, splitting off to assess the new patients and to prepare rooms for their treatment. The day shifts with one foot out the door already slowly inched towards the exits.
You passed Dana as you rushed towards the staff lockers to quickly change, her hand briefly squeezing your shoulder.
"I'll be here if you need to vent, hon." She threw you her signature mother bear smile. "God knows I've dealt with my fair share of misogynistic pricks." And she had the battle scars to prove it, too.
— — — — — —
The frustration from your awful date lingered, only being subdued during the frantic hours you treated the patients from the car crash. You focused on what you knew best, on providing the utmost medical care you could.
Even after the influx of injured and critical patients from the crash, you had to handle the day patients that had been waiting for hours. The last of the day shift went home by ten pm, looking like zombies and talking about a goodnight drink at the park before they split ways. Just after midnight, multiple dirt ridden trucks pulled up into the ambulance bay—dumping off a load of drunks that had ruined their faces and fists by starting a bar fight.
Your frustration rose back up to the surface as you tried your best to treat the belligerent drunks, their acrid breath hurling derogatory insults at you despite how you were helping. Some nights this behaviour was easy enough brush off, to file away for you to scream about later. Not this night though, you were already feeling torn down by a date's outdated and chauvinistic views and now it was just more fuel to the fire.
Dr. Abbot was standing next to you, observing as you examined a drunk's head lac, asking questions to determine the best plan of action.
He was standing next to you when the drunk grumbled out loud, his glazed eyes glued on your scrub covered chest. "Don't think you belong here with those."
Jack watched as your hand faltered, a grimace flexing your jaw at the crude comment. He opened his mouth, whether to tell the asshole off or to reassure you he wasn't sure, but you met him with a sharp look and shake of your head.
He was next to you again, letting you take the lead on a hip dislocation. Unfortunately, it was another one of the bar fight idiots—an old man who slipped from standing on the bar. You treated him how you would any other patient—your hands in the exact same position.
"Bit further up, sweet-cheeks. That's where I need your hands most." He leered with a sleazy grin.
Your hands slipped, a flare of disgust and rage tearing up your chest. Your breathing grew heavy, coming out in quick audible bursts. Angry tears started to fill your waterline.
Why were men so fucking awful?
Dr. Abbot stepped in from behind you, adjusting his stance to block you from the drunks invasive eyes. He gripped the man harder than necessary, leaning down with an authoritative, deadly glare.
"Shut your fucking mouth," he simmered, pushing the man's hip into place with more force than required.
After exiting the room you leaned against the wall to take a breath, pinching the bridge of your nose as you willed yourself to calm down.
"Hey," Dr. Abbot's low voice mumbled in front of you. You lifted your head to find him peering down at you, worry softening his hard features.
"You doing okay?"
He watched you visibly collect yourself, pulling in a deep breath and squaring your shoulders. The faint tremble in your jaw gave you away, though.
"I'm fine. Nothing I can't handle," you muttered, crossing your arms across your chest. You couldn't break down over a couple brass comments, not when you've witnessed much worse happen to your fellow female colleagues.
He lowered his chin towards you, his shoulders dropping. He spoke in a soft, private tone. "Doesn't mean it's okay, kid."
He sighed and took half a step closer, careful not to invade your personal space. "You've had a long few hours of dealing with pricks tonight." He paused, a faint smile gracing his lips. "I promise we're not all bad."
You rolled your eyes with an amused scoff. "Yeah, that's what they all say."
Still, you couldn't help but feel hope at his words—because you knew they weren't all bad, you were reminded of that every time you worked with him. And the other men who worked in the Pitt alongside you. But, you always noticed the good qualities in him more than anyone else.
You noticed how he never flaunted his money, yet was always the first to pull his phone out to call an uber for a struggling patient. How he often door-dashed dinner for the ED staff, careful to make sure everyone's dietary requirements were catered for. You noticed the way he positioned himself between an aggressive patient and female staff, becoming an immovable shield. And you sure as hell noticed how gentle he was with the younger patients, how his voice softened as he put them at ease.
You hated how much you noticed about him. Hated how hours, days, weeks later a warmth still curled in the pit of your gut. You hated how much you wanted him, hated how his soft hazel eyes and hardened lines threw your world off its axis.
What you hated most was that you knew you would never find a man like him. You were stuck dating assholes because the one man you wanted was the last man you were allowed to have.
He kept his eyes on you as you pushed away from the wall, heading towards one of the day shift patients in the West rooms. His eyes tracked the subtle hitch in your step, the way you shifted more weight onto your right leg. It was something he had noticed before, when the sun would breach across the horizon signaling the end of the night shift. He never focused on it too much, filing it away as tightness after being on your feet for twelve hours straight. But now, after seeing the scars your scrub pants kept hidden he knew it was more than that, and you were only halfway through your shift. It was obvious your knee was bothering you. He felt his own knee twinge in sympathy.
— — — — — —
"So," Mateo started, leaning back in one of the swivel chairs at Central. "What happened on your awful date?"
You didn't have to look up from your charting to see the cheeky grin on his face, you could hear it bleeding through his voice.
"You've spent too much time with Princess," you muttered in reply.
Shen peered up from his spot in the Hub, his ears perking at the mention of a date—the man loved to gossip, especially with a dunkin coffee in his hand. He grabbed the tablet he was working on, his lips pursed around his straw as he walked over to you two. You felt his presence before you heard him.
"What's this I hear about a date?" He leaned his hip on the desk next to you, raising his eyebrows in interest and slurping his coffee.
You sighed, bringing a hand to your left thigh to rub a twitching muscle—you were really paying for those stupid shoes you wore earlier.
"Why is it that I'm always surrounded by men?"
"Hey!" Lena exclaimed as her and Bridget walked past you three. "We're still here—and we want to hear the date story too!"
You didn't even remember them being near you when you first got to work, seething at Santos about her awful blind date set up—gossip traveled fast at the Pitt, especially at shift change when the nurses overlapped.
After taking a look at the relatively calm board, the two women came back to Central with matching curious grins. It was nearing the end of the three am witching hour, when the influx of crazies quietened down and the exhaustion started to creep into your bones. You had just over three hours of your shift left and you figured venting about the thing that had been simmering in your chest wouldn't do you any more harm.
You didn't notice Dr. Abbot hovering in the doorway to Central nine, midway through removing his gloves when the unmistakable sound of gossip reached his ears.
He was curious, he couldn't help the way he shifted closer—focusing on your voice over the other sounds filling the ER.
"Where do I even start," you muttered, lifting your head to meet the intrigued eyes of Mateo sitting across from you.
"Firstly, he didn't hold the door open for me as we entered the restaurant—just let it swing into my face." You chuckled bitterly, "should've taken that as the first red flag."
Lena and Bridget nodded along sympathetically, knowing the worst was still yet to come.
"He then proceeded to order for me—both my drink and food when we had barely spoken a word to each other."
Shen shrugged next to you, and you focused a glare on him. "He ordered me clams. I fucking hate seafood." That made the man wince.
Jack drifted closer to the conversation, standing a few feet behind you. You were too caught up in the annoyance that lingered from your date to notice his quietly commanding presence.
"When I told him what I do for work, he went on a five minute monologue about how the ED is no place for a woman."
That gained a collective eye roll and groan from everyone gathered, even pulling silent wince and twitch of the mouth from Jack.
"You stayed after that?" Lena questioned, her face showing how incredulous she found the situation.
You groaned in response, lowering your head into your hands. "I know, don't remind me." Your voice was muffled by your palms.
You took a breath and lowered your hands, loosely crossing your arms over your chest to ground yourself. "That wasn't even the worst part…" you trailed off.
"After bragging about his job as some finance hotshot, he said that because it takes him all over the world—by that, he meant he goes to Canada sometimes—he needs to have romantic partners in every city he travels to."
"Yikes," Mateo blurted with a wince.
"Said that it's his right as a man to have multiple partners, but that the women he's seeing can only exclusively date him."
Jack couldn't stay quiet any longer. There was a deep burning in his chest the more he listened to you.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered with a humourless chuckle. "Where the hell did you find this guy?"
You whipped around quickly, shocked and flustered that your attending had heard all about your terrible date. You expected him to be annoyed at you all for sitting around gossiping, but you could only find disgust and another unreadable emotion clenching his jaw.
"I didn't find him," you mumbled with a shrug. "Santos set it up. Said he's a regular at her gym."
"I'm surprised you weren't more mad at her earlier."
"I was actually relieved when I got Dana's call asking me to come in." You let out a small laugh, feeling ridiculous that you preferred the night shift chaos over a date with an attractive man—well, he was attractive until he opened his mouth.
Jack felt a misplaced sense of pride blooming in his chest at your admission. He took it personally when you said you would rather be with him—the night shift—than on a date.
"To top it all off, he made me pay for my half of the bill when he realised—"
The rest of your vent was cut off by one of the medical assistants wheeling in a patient from chairs.
"This is Mr. Wilson, mid sixties, he's been erect for the last eight hours."
The irony of the situation didn't get lost on you, a small snort slipping from you. Shen patted your shoulder before straightening up.
"I got this." He had the decency to leave his dunkin coffee behind as he walked over to the patient.
"So, Mr. Wilson. Did you take anything that might have lead to this condition?"
Five minutes later you were sat alone at Central, some of the lingering frustration now eased from your shoulders. A freckled arm appeared in front of you, placing a cup of coffee and your favourite protein bar next to the keyboard you were typing on.
You looked up in time to see Dr. Abbot's face tilted towards you, a soft smile smoothing his features.
"Thanks, Doc." You breathed with your own faint smile.
He responded with a smooth wink, one side of his mouth quirking up before he turned and headed towards South.
You watched as he left, noting how his gait shifted to accommodate his prosthetic leg. Your eyes trailed up his back, watching the subtle shift of his muscles beneath his scrub top, lingering on the freckles sprinkling his neck before landing on his silver curls. God, how you wanted to tug on those curls. A rush of warmth flooded your body as images flashed through your mind unprompted, unwanted. Images of you running your fingers through the curls while his head was between your thighs, hazel eyes dark with his own desire.
You spun back around before anyone caught you staring, quickly chugging your coffee and burning the roof of your mouth in the process. You took it as a much needed distraction to the heat gathering in your core. All he did was give you a goddamn coffee and snack.
— — — — — —
It was just after five am when your knee buckled, straining from the long night and making you audibly wince. You were back at the Hub, hands clenching the counter as you tilted your foot against the half wall trying to stretch the tight muscles pulling on your knee.
It offered you temporary relief, one of the knots on your lower calf slightly easing. But it wasn't enough—the hard to get knots clustered on your upper calf were too deep, too close to the joint to get any relief from a quick stretch. You sighed as you felt the joint start to throb, a clear indication that the inflammation was flaring up.
That steady presence you quickly came to admire fell next to you once again, a veiny hand placing a tablet on the counter. You tried resisting following the lines of veins up his forearm, but you knew it was a losing battle so early in the morning. The fluorescent lights were still bright above you, but the early hour made everything feel soft—like the calm before the day shift storm.
"ACL reconstruction?" Dr. Abbot's voice grumbled low next to you.
"Huh?" You questioned, your brows scrunched in confusion. The patient you had just seen was a young teen with a fever that wouldn't break, possible meningitis.
Dr. Abbot tilted his head towards your leg that was still in a half stretch position.
"Your knee, I saw the scars when you came in earlier. Is it giving you trouble?" A line appeared between his brows, his cute mouth curving downward in a concerned frown.
He knew it was giving you trouble, he didn't need to ask. He had observed you the whole shift, feeling concerned when you stilled with a huff and changed your stance to accommodate the pain. He knew the pain of an injured joint all too well, could feel his own leg starting to scream at him after ignoring the tenderness for over ten hours. His fingers itched to help you, to offer you some comfort and take away your pain. He told himself it was because you were his resident—he couldn't have you hurting and disrupting your job as a doctor.
You straightened under his watchful gaze, distributing your weight evenly on both legs—a jolt of pain had you shifting to your right with a subtle wince.
"Reconstruction and a meniscal repair, too." You answered his first question. "Nothing I can't handle," you repeated your earlier statement, trying to brush off the obvious discomfort you were feeling.
He shot you a deadpan look, not buying your bullshit. He crossed his arms across his chest, leveling you with his quiet, intense authority that had fire tingling under your skin.
"What happened?" He asked gruffly.
You sighed out of habit—it really wasn't that big a deal.
"A not-so-friendly soccer match in high school." You shrugged, looking away from his unwavering stare. "Hurt like a bitch, but it's been over ten years. I've learnt to deal with it."
He grasped your elbow gently, leading you away from the Hub despite your complaints. He lead you to an empty patient room in North.
"Dr. Abbot, what are you—my patients—"
"Shen and Crus have it covered, you're allowed to take a break." He let go of your elbow, turning to close the curtain halfway—giving a slight semblance of privacy.
You stood awkwardly near the patient bed, feeling flustered from his attention and stubborn to prove you were fine.
He shot you another look, something between amused and impatient.
"You're in pain. Sit."
Again with that goddamn commanding tone, the one that always had you shutting your mouth and obeying.
You sat down on the edge tentatively, not missing the faint smirk twitching his cheek.
He was enjoying this.
You couldn't focus on the thought for long—your attention being seized by him grabbing stool and rolling it in front of you.
"What are you doing?" You asked with a single brow raised, watching as he sat down on the stool and patted his leg.
"I'm helping my resident," he said nonchalantly, like this was something he did all the time. "Now lift your leg. Doctor's orders."
You huffed with an eye roll, succumbing to his authoritative charm. You placed your ankle in his lap, careful to not rest the full weight on him. You weren't sure whether this was crossing a professional line—it felt just shy of being intimate, of being more than just your attending helping you with an old injury.
You could feel the strength of his thighs beneath your leg, how they were pure hard muscle. It was something a resident shouldn't notice about her attending—something she definitely shouldn't store away for later, when she was home alone with her hands between her thighs.
His hands gently grabbed the bottom of your scrub pants, slowly pushing the fabric up your leg. It felt way too intimate for such a simple act—his bare hands brushing against your skin, eliciting a path of fire and goosebumps in their wake. You no longer had control over your eyes as they dropped to watch his hands, catching sight of the wedding ring he still wore. He rolled the pant leg above your knee, his eyes darting up to yours for consent—moving his hands down at your small nod.
His hands gently pressed around your inflamed joint, the heat radiating up to his skin before he even touched you.
He gave a disappointing shake of his head. "You need to ice this, kid."
"I will when I get home, promise." Your voice was low, quiet. "It's not usually this bad—it's, just…it's been a long night." You don't know why you were explaining more than necessary, maybe you didn't like feeling like you had disappointed him.
Even with the door wide open, the noises of the ED fell away around you—fading into a faint hum as you looked into his hazel eyes.
"Why is tonight any different? I don't think I saw you limp once on the Fourth of July."
Your breath hitched without your permission—he was paying enough attention to you to make note of that?
His hands travelled down from your knee, fingertips lingering briefly on your scars before wrapping around your lower calf. His calloused fingers pressed into your skin, feeling around for the tight knots.
A steady stream of shocks ran up your leg from his touch, gathering in a simmering warmth in the pit of your belly. His hands on you felt way too good, you started to regret accepting his help. You would not be forgetting his hands on you any time soon.
Jack was doing his best to keep his head clear—repeating to himself that this was to relieve your pain. But, god, your soft skin and the smell of your lotion cutting through the usual antiseptic was making it hard to focus on anything else. Add in the way you were looking at him with big, trusting eyes and he was a goner.
His mind betrayed him further, thoughts of how you prepared for your date earlier clouding his mind. Was your smooth, tempting smelling skin just a coincidence, or were you planning for more? He remembered the dress you wore—how could he ever forget it?—and his thoughts strayed to what you might've been wearing under it, what you may be wearing under your scrubs. It was a seriously dangerous train of thought to have, especially with your leg in his lap.
He watched your face carefully, looking for the slightest wince to indicate you were in pain. He pressed harder, rolling a knot and catching the way your body tensed in response.
"I didn't wear the most sensible shoes earlier," you mumbled. There was something about the two of you alone in here, with his hands carefully tending to you that made you more…vulnerable. Open. "Wasn't expecting to work a twelve hour shift—I went with shoes that matched the dress." You finished with a small shrug, looking away from his piercing eyes.
"Ah. The date that keeps on giving," he grumbled bitterly.
His hands pressed further up, reaching your mid calf. You felt the cool band of his wedding ring press into your skin, and it made this feel even more personal and intimate.
"What were you saying earlier? When he made you pay half the bill…" Dr. Abbot's voice trailed off, eyeing you expectantly with raised brows.
You scoffed, the disgust you felt almost twelve hours before still sitting on your tongue.
"Yeah, that. He said the least I could do was pay my half since I wasn't going home with him."
Jack's brain short-circuited for a brief second, his grip on your calf tightening a fraction.
"That's…awful. I'm sorry."
You looked away from his intense gaze again, your heart doing something stupid in your chest. It was hard to miss the mix of anger and concern swimming in his eyes, the way his jaw clenched and shoulders tensed.
"That's modern dating for you." You let out a humourless chuckle, "some assholes even try to claim it's for the sake of feminism." You rolled your eyes with a sigh. "It's part of the reason I gave up on dating, I was hoping the guy today was going to be different." You couldn't help the self deprecating chuckle that slipped out.
"God, I didn't realise how bad it was out there."
Jack didn't know what else to say, couldn't think of much past the rage boiling his blood. A man had really said that to you? He wanted to show you that there were some redeemable men in the world, but by the sounds of it this wasn't this first time a man had said something like this to you.
His thumb swept across your shin soothingly, a motion he wasn't even aware of. But you were. It was all your body could focus on, every nerve ending rushing to the spot his rough skin was rubbing tenderly against yours.
He resumed his massaging of your calf, his fingers pressing higher "You reckon there'll be new gossip for people to focus on by my next shift?" It was your attempt at deflecting the conversation, talking to Dr. Abbot about your lackluster dating life wasn't exactly on your list of favourite things to do.
Jack jokingly checked his watch. "You're next shift is in what, fourteen hours?" He shot you a cheeky smile. "I'll make sure there's something else to talk about by then," he finished with a smooth wink.
It's something you've seen countless times—Dr Abbot's inherently flirty nature. You've seen it in the way he smiles at Samira, how he easily asked Dr. Al-Hashimi out for drinks when he first met her. You knew not to take it personally, he handed flirtatious comments out like they were as necessary as breathing.
Still didn't stop the hoards of butterflies wrecking havoc in your stomach.
"Thanks," you muttered, suddenly self-conscious from his gaze. It felt like he could see right through you, and you added it to the long list of things you hated about Dr. Jack Abbot.
"Don't mention it."
You both fell quiet as he continued his massage, the conversation coming to a natural end. His fingers reached the most sensitive part of your calf, right behind your knee where the muscles pulled on the joint. He pressed down on a knot, your hand shooting to his shoulder for stability as pain flashed from the tender muscle. He focused on the spot more, watching your face as a small whimper slipped through your lips. Your leg spasmed in his hold from the pain.
"That's the spot," he muttered absentmindedly.
He continued his ministrations, finding a handful of small knots just below your knee that provoked similar responses. Your hand didn't leave his shoulder, clutching his shirt tighter when he pressed on an extra sensitive spot. He started to file away new details that had nothing to do with your jobs or the hospital. The faint pained whimpers you let loose, the pinch in your brow when he worked on a sore spot, the way your breathing had shallowed. Those were all things that were making his scrub pants sit a bit too tight. Gradually, your leg relaxed in his hold and the pain evaporated from your facial expressions.
He rolled your scrub pant down your leg, the act feeling just as heightened as before. He gave your clothed shin an affectionate pat before lowering your leg to the ground. He stood from the stool and walked to the curtain, pulling it fully open. He needed to get back to work, needed to do something with his hands so he could get rid of the itch to touch you again.
"Thank you, Dr. Abbot." You said as you stood up, relief washing over you as the throbbing in your knee eased to manageable. You almost forgot what it felt like when it wasn't in pain.
"No problem, sweetheart."
Your head shot up to him at the term of endearment, another dangerous burst of heat rushing through your body—the feeling of sweet serotonin flooding your system. Your eyes bulged as you noticed the dusting of red climbing up his neck and cheeks. He cleared his throat and made his way to the open door, stopping with one foot out in ED. He looked at you over his shoulder, still frozen next to the bed.
"Come find me next time it flares up, alright?"
You briefly nodded, feeling slightly light-headed from the whole ordeal.
"Yes, sir."
His shoulders tensed at your choice of words, a primal part deep down in his gut rearing it's head. He felt his cock twitch in interest and he knew he was fucked. You really shouldn't have said that to him.
He took a breath and rolled his shoulders back, a small limp to his step as he made his way back to the Hub.
You watched him as he left, a heavy feeling of dread and hopelessness washing over you. This was now past the point of an innocent crush on your attending. This was something you had to cautiously keep in check or else it could derail your whole career, ruin your reputation as an upstanding resident at this hospital.
Why the fuck did he have to be so hot, and be a decent guy on top of that. It wasn't fucking fair.