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diaryofafeelsaddict · 24 days ago

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I ran out of tag space wtf

But main take aways - you write trauma and the healing process so beautifully. Sprinkle in all the healthy coping mechanisms and lessons from therapy about communication so Doll and Jack are always so in tune with each other? Ugh. While this whole series has some pretty heavy topics, it's so well written and the things they learn to help are so artfully woven in and I just....your mind is a wonderful thing to be able to churn this out. Jack and Doll deserve that kind of care taken with their story and I can't wait for the wedding in part 5.

Also, Doll is totally valid at the end there. I've had several friends that eloped for various reasons before having a big wedding too, and all of them have said if they had to do it over again, they'd do it same way cause it took so much pressure off them for the big wedding. And then they could have their really personal vows be just them or with just a couple people they trust most. I can see her and Jack maybe doing that to take some of the pressure off if needed, but can see them just talking things through so they know it's just her spiraling cause she's exhausted and stressed from work.

And, cause I ran out of space in the tags, I can't wait for Robby to be crying during the wedding while trying to officiate. Cause I know he will, even if they don't see it at the time cause they're too lost in each other and saying their vows and everything.

For real though, I think I'm gonna save her "should is a stupid word" speech to refer back to when I need it cause that hits hard in all the right ways, and I love you so much having written that.

No Man's Land Part 4

Jack Abbot x F!Reader

You can find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here!

40.5k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: Angst, discussions of being shot and the shooting, anxiety about partner’s safety, emotions, Robby is sad and has a bad day, discussion of Robby, Jake and Leah (Pitt-Fest happened before Reader and Jack got together), panic attack, anxiety, pretending the Buhl Planitarium is open late, alcohol, vague discussion of Jack’s time in the military, unprotected PIV sex (BC implied with committed relationship), some voyeurism-ness if you really squint hard, oral sex, dom Jack briefly, manhandling briefly, FLUFF, Myrna, Reader: can bake, will take Jack’s last name, struggles with body confidence, is not scared of horses, gets drunk, enjoys prehistory, Author: copped out of writing a lot of sex sorry, half assed the sex she did write sorry again, is terrible at summaries; did not proofread or edit

Summary: Normalcy is shattered. You and Jack recover and have some fun.

AN: Nobody is judging 40.5k harder than I am. I genuinely feel bad about the word count because I know it can make it harder to read, especially at once, but it gets really hard to cut it into shorter parts sometimes. So please know I really appreciate you taking the time to read it all and then interact with it. Likes and reblogs and comments and your guys thoughts mean so much to me and really do inspire me. I am short on serotonin and all the interactions give me a little burst of it, genuinely. That all said, we start off pretty heavy but after the first scene things get much fluffier and happier for the most part so it's 100% a much, much lighter read than Part 3. I should have Part 5 out by the end of the week! And again, thank you so much for reading.

You and Jack fall back into a routine, back into normal. Things are really starting to actually feel better. But all it takes is one thing to upend it all.

You weren’t looking forward to this Monday. Neither was Jack. Both of you were simultaneously surprised and unsurprised the day even came. Both of you were also aware that the fragile normal you’d just settled into was shattered, even if only temporarily and even if you knew it was coming. Both of you hated it.

Trial.

The shooter wouldn’t plead. So you and Jack find yourselves standing outside of the Westmoreland County Courthouse. The case had unsurprisingly been moved from Allegheny County and you were grateful for that. It would have been another level of fucked up to have to confront the man that shot you in the courtroom he shot you in. Even in the same courthouse would have been bad.

It’s the first day. Jury selection. Jack told you that you didn’t need to be here every day, that it was okay to only come on the day you had to testify. You knew he was right but some part of you needed to be there for the whole thing. It’s not like it was going to be a super long trial. But long enough and emotional enough to destroy normal. Both you and Jack have to take a week off work, stay in a hotel so you don’t have to constantly drive back and forth. The trial shoves it all right back in your faces again.

You hate how easily normal is obliterated. How easily that man is stealing normal away from you again.

“You sure about this?” Jack asks as he squeezes your hand. He’s not questioning you or your decision, just asking if you’re okay and ready.

“No. But also yes.” You look over at him. “You’ll be here every day with me, right? I know it’s a big ask, and that it’ll be just as hard for you as it is for me at times and I feel bad about asking you to put yourself through that for me but I just need to be here. I have something to prove to myself even if I can’t figure out exactly what it is.”

“Course I will, Doll. I’d never let you go in there alone, not to face him or this in general.” He steps in front of you and wraps his arms around you, pulls your head to his chest for a moment as you wind your arms around him. “And you’re not asking me, nor am I being put through anything. I’m here supporting my fiancée. I’ve got you,” Jack murmurs before leaning down to kiss you. You let yourself get lost in it, lost in him, even with as chaste as he keeps the kiss.

You look down once you’ve broken apart, can’t bring yourself to look him in the eyes for your next question. You already know the answer to it but you just need the reassurance. “If this, being here more than I have to be makes me slide back or get worse again. You… You won’t get mad, right? At me for kind of causing it in a way?”

Jack knows why you’re asking the questions, knows that your use of right at the end of the first is because you already know the answer and just need reassurance. He’ll give it to you as much as you need.

“No. I won’t be mad at you. I won’t be mad at all. Healing isn’t linear,” he reminds you, “and that’s okay.” You give him a little nod and one of his hands finds your chin and he hooks a finger under it, pulls up gently to see if you’ll move your head, he would never force you. You let him pull your chin up and look at him. “And Doll, even if you do slide back, it is not because of you. You wouldn’t be causing it. Okay?”

You look at him for a moment, really try to fully believe what he’s saying, before giving him a small nod. Jack kisses your forehead before releasing you and lacing your fingers together again for the walk inside.

You sit in the back, off to the side. It gives you your own little bubble but you can still see everything. Everyone. Him.

At the beginning before voir dire starts the Judge reads out all of the charges. It’s obvious when he gets to the count number that represents you. You’re the only person he’d shot that day who lived. So you’re the only attempted murder. It’s difficult for you to hear yes, to cope with the reality that someone tried to murder you. To hear it spoken about that way. You’d spoken with the district attorney about it though during witness preparation so you had your head wrapped around it a bit.

Hearing it levels Jack. It takes a second because he’s in some weird denial about it but Jack’s brain finally lets him accept it and think about it. That was you, that count represents you, attempted murder, someone tried to murder you. That man tried to murder you and take you away from him. There’s a few seconds where Jack thinks he might be having a heart attack because it gets so hard to breathe at the thought. Rationally he knew that’s what it was, that’s not really a realization for him. It’s just hearing it phrased like that. Attempted murder.

Being there is hard. Hearing it all. Seeing it all when security footage gets played. You knew the video was coming. They’d showed you it during witness preparation. Jack knew it was coming too because you told him, but he didn’t realize how much it would impact him, having to see it all play out, even when the video isn’t of where you were on that day. More will be played when you’re on the stand. The video of you. Where you’re so clearly visible and what’s happening is so clearly visible.

During a recess on the first day while the defendant is still in the courtroom Jack pulls you a little closer to him. “Doll,” he says lowly, not quite a whisper, but low enough to keep it just between the two of you. “I know it’s hard. I know I don’t even know how hard it is for you but I need you to look at him for a second, please. Just a second.” You turn your head and do as he asks as much as you don’t want to. You know he wouldn’t ask you for no reason. “I know you still feel guilty and like my feelings are your fault, like you caused all of this, that our need to heal and recover is somehow on you, somehow your fault. But it’s not. It’s his fault. It’s on that man sitting in that chair. Nobody else. I want you to try and remember that.”

You get a bit teary and don’t say anything for fear of bursting into tears, just nod and turn into him. His arms were already open and waiting, hand finding the back of your head and holding you close. You bury your face in his neck, take in deep breaths through your nose to smell him, let him overwhelm as many of your senses as possible right now to keep you from crying.

You cry when you get to the hotel that night. And the next. You hate it, you tell Jack, because it means you’re going to end up crying on the stand and you don’t want to give that bastard the satisfaction. Jack holds you and reminds you it’s okay to cry up there if you need to. You won’t be the first or last, but that he understands. And he thinks you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.

Then the day comes. Your name gets called and then you’re up there sworn in and testifying. The DA plays the video of it. It’s the first time Jack sees it. He didn’t even know there was video footage of the courtroom, of where you were actually shot. He didn’t know there was video footage of you being shot, even if you can’t really tell when it happens from the video. It destroys a little piece of him, completely rattles him. But he knows that right now he has to be strong for you.

You surprise yourself but not Jack. You don’t cry on the stand. Don’t give him the satisfaction. You completely and totally wall yourself off. Shut down emotionally. Make yourself deliberately numb. It’s just what you have to do to survive this. When you’re asked to identify the man who shot you you’re able to pretend to be cool, unbothered, even, as you describe what the man who shot you is wearing.

Jack on the other hand does cry a little. Because it’s hard, it’s really fucking hard to hear this. Yes, he’s heard it before because you guys have talked about it, but it’s different hearing it here in front of all of these people, seeing and watching you react to the video. It’s hard to watch you totally shut down emotionally because he can see it in your eyes, but he understands why you have to. It’s hard watching you get cross-examined and needlessly grilled like there isn’t clear video showing it happening.

It’s hard to watch the fucking video. To finally have a visual of what happened to you that day. To know that at some point during the video you get shot. It makes him nauseous, so nauseous at points he worries he’s going to face the choice of being sick right where he is or having to run out of the courtroom on you. He never does though, is pretty sure it’s knowing you need him that keeps it from getting to that point. He hates it. All of it. And he feels so selfish thinking about how hard this is for him when you’re the one up there on the stand.

When you’re finally finished you walk back over and sit next to him, give him a small smile that falls a little when you see his red eyes. You’re completely out of it and not truly present and he gets it, doesn’t try to pull you back. Instead he gives you a little smile back, pulls you close and whispers in your ear how fucking proud of you he is, how much he loves you.

You grab dinner at a place across the street from the courthouse after the trial adjourns for the day. Neither of you say much but Jack is happy when you actually eat a fair amount. The car ride back to the hotel is also largely silent. Jack knows you need it to be, need just the background hum of the radio playing. Both of you know that if you start talking now you’ll fall apart and you really don’t want to fall apart in the car. You want to be able to fall apart in Jack’s arms.

You make it into the hotel room and hear Jack lock the deadbolt before you freeze. You’re not sure what it is about the hotel room that suddenly makes walking or doing anything seem impossible. Maybe it’s the knowledge that you’re finally in a safe place where you can break down in Jack’s arms at war with how badly you don’t want to break down at all. Maybe you feel like if you do nothing, if you don’t move or speak or do anything, then you won’t break down and you won’t have to feel everything you’ve been keeping down today.

Jack knows. Even with your back to him and unable to see your face he knows you’re stuck. He walks up behind you and rests his hands on your hips, gives them a gentle squeeze.

“Do you want to shower?” he murmurs.

It takes you a moment to fully process what he says and formulate an answer. “No,” you whisper.

“Okay,” Jack whispers back, kisses your temple. He squeezes your hips again and pushes on one and pulls on the other gently to get you to turn around so he can help you get in the bathroom. He puts the toilet seat down and gets you to sit on it.

He gets his teeth brushed, stands close enough to you that you can lean your head forward and rest your forehead against his side while he brushes. Once he’s done and has washed his face he turns to you.

He’s silent as he grabs one of your makeup wipes and tilts your head up with one hand before he starts cleaning your face with the other. He’s so careful around your eyes getting your mascara off it makes tears stream down your face.

Jack doesn’t comment on them, just tosses the wipe and gives you a kiss and a thigh squeeze before offering you his hands. You take them and let him pull you up and get you standing in front of the sink face to face with him. He grabs your headband and pulls it on, secures the rest of your hair the way you usually do to keep it from getting wet. He makes eye contact with you for a second and while you’re present enough, he knows you’re not going to take it from here. He grabs an extra towel and drapes it over you to cover your front. It’s not much but at least something. He uses his foot to slide over the shower mat so that it’s between the two of you.

Jack gets a washcloth wet with warm water and uses it to wet your face, grabs your face wash and puts some in his hand, starts to rub it together and then on your face. He sees your lip tremble for a second but you don’t let yourself cry. He turns the water back on, grabs the washcloth in one hand and gets it soaking, a towel in the other. He squeezes the washcloth over part of your face to rinse it, holding the towel just below to catch the water. He repeats it over and over, soaking the washcloth, shifting to a new part of the towel until your face is completely rinsed. He pats your face dry with a hand towel then wrings out the washcloth and hangs it and the towel he’d been using up to dry.

You track him with your eyes, something about watching him and the strong grace he moves with soothing you. He gets your toothbrush wet and toothpaste on it. You open your mouth a little automatically for him and let him brush your teeth for you. It is one of the most intimate and loving things Jack has ever done for you. And you love it.

But you hate that you can’t take care of yourself, start to wonder how long Jack will be willing to take care of you like this, like you’re a child. You know it’s one night and that you’d do it for him forever if you needed to, but it feels different for you. He holds your face so gently as he brushes your teeth for you. When he’s done he turns the water on and puts some in a glass for you, hands you it. “I can’t do this part for you Doll or you know I would.”

You force yourself to sip from the glass and spit in the sink, rinse your mouth a few times. You give the slightest nod when you’re done and Jack wipes your lips with a towel, rinses the sink out before getting you back to sitting on the toilet.

He grabs the first product in your nighttime skincare routine and smooths it out over your skin. He gives it a second to absorb like you always do and then he grabs the next product. Your lip and chin tremble harder than they have all night at it and you have to shut your eyes and look down for a moment. He knows your whole routine. Just from observing you. Just because he wants to know so he’s prepared for this, for the time you can’t do it for yourself. You know he knows your morning routine and shower routine too.

You open your eyes and tilt your face back up for Jack, the two of you looking at each other for a moment before he starts rubbing the next product in. There’s no hesitation in his eyes, no irritation or annoyance that he’s having to do this, no frustration or anger, no sadness or pity. Just love and adoration and pride. You weren’t expecting to see pride. He gives you a little smile and then starts rubbing it in and the way his eyebrows come together and eyes narrow slightly in concentration makes your heart flutter because he’s so adorable. He finishes your routine in perfect order, gets your headband off and hair back as you like it and puts some lotion on his own face and then holds his hands back out for you again.

You take them again and he leads back to the main room, carefully strips you and gets you into your pajamas before helping you slide into bed. He’s quick to change and turn all the lights off except for the lamp on his bedside table. He sets an alarm for the morning and gets his prosthetic off. It’s still fairly early but he knows it’ll be a while before you sleep. He also knows you’re not leaving this bed tonight.

He turns and arranges some pillows so he can be propped up a little against the headboard. Once he slides in and gets settled on his back you move closer to him, lay on your side and cuddle into him, your top leg hooking over the top of him as you roll into him and get as close to him as you can, head on his chest.

“Thank you.” You whisper it so softly it’s barely audible.

“Nothing to thank me for, Doll.” Jack has his arms wrapped around you tightly, pulls you into him a little more, shifting himself at an angle just slightly so you can get closer. “You know my routine and would do the same for me.” He feels you shake your head slightly. He knows you’re not saying that you wouldn’t, but that it’s different, he can hear you saying it, and trying to explain it really is because his routine is shorter. Jack also knows that you need to let yourself do this, let yourself cry and feel everything from today. He hates it, hates how much it will hurt you, but he knows it’ll hurt more and for longer the more time you wait to do it.

“I love you.” He leans his head down and nuzzles his nose in your hair, kisses the top of your head. “And I want you to know how fucking proud I am of you. For having the strength to get up there and watch what happened to you all over again in front of the man who did it. For doing what you wanted and I knew you could do, not crying and giving him the satisfaction. For being here for the full trial and going back again tomorrow and the next day and until there’s a verdict. I’ve got you, okay? Always. Unquestionably. So whenever you’re ready.” He’s trying to give you subtle encouragement, let you know that he knows what you need and is here for you. You start to shake a little and he knows you’re at the edge. Jack whispers your name.

That’s what does it. His whisper of your name. You fall completely apart in Jack’s arms, sobbing into him as he hugs you tighter, doesn’t let any of the pieces slip past him. All you can do is sob for a couple of minutes, choking on air and your tears every time you try to say something. As much as you’re weeping because you’re sad it’s more panicky this time. Jack can tell from the way you shake and cling to him.

“I, I h-hate this Jack, I hate it!” You finally manage to get out after several minutes. Your hand fists at the front of the t-shirt he’s wearing to sleep in. “I hate that I let him get to me like this. I hate how, I hate, I hate how scared he made me feel.”

It’s been a while since Jack has seen you this worked up, panicking more than crying. It’s hard for him not to step in, but he knows you need this. “All I could think about was, was watching him point a gun at me and shutting my eyes and I heard, I heard the gun go off, but I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t and I thought I was okay, I really did Jack, I promise, I promise I wasn’t trying to lie in the, in the t-trauma room.”

“I know,” he whispers into your hair, “you were in shock and had so much adrenaline you didn’t feel it.” He kisses at the top of your head, runs his hand up and down your back and keeps one holding the back of your head. “I’ve got you. You’re safe here.”

That makes you cry harder because you know you are. You always feel safe with Jack. Sometimes the only place you feel safe anymore is when you’re with him. “I know, I know, I just wasn’t,” you’re interrupted by a wracking breath, “I just wasn’t with you, wasn’t with you on the stand and I, I was scared and kept thinking what if he had a gun again somehow.” Jack shuts his eyes at that, clenches his jaw tight. Seeing you like this breaks his heart, causes him physical discomfort and hearing how scared you were, how you thought you might get shot again makes him feel the familiar pressure and rush behind his eyes of tears forming. But Jack’s wrong. You weren’t thinking about getting shot.

“I didn’t even,” you sniffle a couple of times, “I wasn’t even thinking about, about what if I get shot again, I was thinking what if he turned and shot you Jack, what if it was you, what would I do, what was I supposed to do and and how would I go on if you died, and, and” you take in a couple of hiccuped breaths and the tears Jack felt forming start to slide down his face because you were worried about him. Not yourself. “And then it made me feel worse because what if I had died, what would’ve happened to you? You would have been, been so sad Jack and I wouldn’t have been there to help you and I hate, hate thinking about you being that sad J-Jack and don’t ever want you to hurt like that.” You take a huge choked breath in. Jack knows you need to let this out but you’re getting close to a point of him intervening because of how hard you’re starting to panic, escalating quickly the more you talk. Hearing this kills him and his tears fall harder even as he keeps his focus on you. “Then I felt bad, felt guilty because of what I said to you in the hospital about if I had died, and wishing I had, and you could grieve, grieve properly and move on because just thinking about it.” You take in another breath but it’s shallow, blown out quickly as you start to hyperventilate. “Just thinking,” a breath in and out, “about it, I could never,” more hyperventilating, “never move on from you and I, I,” you start to feel a little dizzy, “I said that to you and made you, made you think it.”

“Okay, Doll.” Jack knows you’ve tipped over an edge and have said enough and need help calming down and regulating. “You’re going to make yourself pass out, I need you to follow my breathing, yeah?” Jack grabs one of your hands and brings it to his chest even though your head is already there. He adjusts his breathing to deep breaths in and out and feels you trying to follow him through your tears and hiccuped breaths. “Five things you can see, please. If you can.” He knows with the tears and swelling of your eyes it might be hard.

You wipe at your face a little with the sleeve of your shirt. “The sheets, pillows, your shirt, your arm, the wallpaper.”

“Good.” He kisses the top of your head. “Four you can feel.”

“Your shirt, your hands on my back, how warm you are, my face throbbing.”

That last one hurts Jack a little and he has to fight from sniffling and making you aware he’s crying. He doesn’t want you to start taking care of him and he knows you will. He clears his throat and hopes you won’t think anything of it. He’s sure if he doesn’t he’ll sound like he’s been crying. “Three you can hear.”

You take in a deep breath, breathing calming and starting to match his. “The AC, your heart and your breathing.”

“Two you can smell. Again, if you can. I know your sinuses are probably swollen.” He gives you another kiss to the top of your head.

You try to take a couple of breaths in through your nose. It’s not completely in vain. “You. Your body wash and you.”

“And one you can taste.”

“Metal. The adrenaline.” He’s the one who taught you that. “It’s fading though.”

“Good, I’m glad.” Jack kisses the top of your head again and can feel you go to speak. “Don’t apologize for anything, but especially not the shirt.” It pulls a little laugh from you which makes him smile. He’s conflicted, wants to kiss you so badly but knows you’ll be able to tell he was crying and he doesn’t want you to feel responsible. He reaches over and hits the button on the lamp on his table. The darkness provides cover. “Let me kiss you?”

You nod, move your head back and lift up a bit as he leans down to you, gives you a couple before you both settle back. And then you sit in a comfortable silence. There are words at times. Most from Jack, quiet reassurances, he loves you, he’s got you, he’s so so so fucking proud of you. Some from you, apologies he tells you not to give, thank yous and you love hims. Eventually you fall asleep in Jack’s arms and he lets you. He doesn’t wake you to try and get to some resolution of your feelings tonight. That’s not what you need. You need sleep.

Jack stays awake a bit just holding you and studying your face. Your eyes and lips and nose are all swollen, lashes still a bit clumped from your tears. You snuffle more in your sleep because of how swollen your sinuses are. And he loves you, so fucking much. And he hates seeing you like this, hates seeing you struggle despite how human it is.

Jack knows all too well that life breaks parts of you sometimes. But it doesn’t mean you’re broken, it means you’re human. Life forces you to learn that all humans have pieces of them they’ve had to try and fuse back together. That to be human is to break at times.

He knows that in grieving and healing, you pick up the pieces and tape them back together, and when they fall apart again because the adhesive of the tape wears away you glue them back together. Each time you put the pieces back together the bond used to do so is stronger because you’ve grieved and healed a bit more. So when something hits just right and the glue fails, you pick the pieces back up and weld them together.

But Jack knows all too well that even what’s welded together rusts. Metal corrodes and holes form on welding seams. Because no bond is ever perfect, ever strong enough to keep together something whole that’s already been in pieces. Grief never goes completely away. He knows this will never go completely away. Not for him and not for you. And he accepts that, the way you accept that the things that have happened to him and resultant grief will never go completely away.

That doesn’t stop Jack searching for the perfect thing though, the perfect thing to do that will make it like this never happened. The perfect words to tell you or the perfect look to give you or the perfect kiss to give you or the perfect way to hug you to bond everything back together permanently so that you’d never have to hurt over this again.

Neither of you wake until the alarm Jack set goes off in the morning. You’re in the same position you fell asleep in, both of you out hard. You stir on Jack’s chest and he shifts you both so that your face is next to his, pulls you further out of sleep with kisses to your face and neck. You don’t talk about your panic attack much, he checks in with you, makes sure you’re okay and asks if you want to talk about it. You tell him you don’t, you just needed to get that out and if you talk again you’ll break down again and you just want to finish the trial and talk about it once you’re home. Jack respects that and doesn’t push, just gives you a kiss and says okay.

You don’t know it but once the trial is over and there’s a conviction Jack asks the DA for a copy of the tape that was played while you testified. The DA, rather inexplicably, agrees and gives him a copy of it.

And Jack becomes obsessed with it.

He goes to bed with you. Some nights he waits until you’re asleep to slip out of bed and go watch it at the kitchen table on his laptop. Other nights he falls asleep and wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to watch it. Over and over and over again.

You notice that he seems more tired than usual. You ask him about it and he chalks it up to getting used to being back at work after being off. You believe him but there’s a certain part of you that has a little doubt. You don’t push it though, know sooner or later it’ll come out or he’ll come to you.

Jack doesn’t get the opportunity to come to you about it. Because one night after he’s slipped out to go watch it at the table you wake up, have a moment of panic when he’s not next to you. But his side of the bed is warm and when you open your bedroom door and walk out in just his t-shirt a faint glow from the kitchen reassures you. He must be getting a drink.

You pad to the kitchen and are confused to see him sitting there, headphones in, watching something on his laptop. You feel bad because there’s no great way to get his attention without startling him. But as you get closer you get a glimpse of what he’s watching and ice floods your veins.

“Jack?” You call loudly, hoping he’ll hear you, and he must, just enough to make him glance to see if you’re really there or if he made it up.

He knows by the look on your face that you’ve seen what it is he’s watching. He pauses the video wordlessly, pulls off his headphones. The two of you watch each other for a second. “Where did you get that?”

Jack looks away from you, back at the laptop. “DA.”

You nod slowly. “Just gave you a copy?” Jack looks back at you, defensive. You hold your hands up. “I believe you, I’m just… surprised I guess. That they would do that.”

He shrugs. “Well they did.”

You shift on your feet a little as you try to think of how to progress the conversation. You don’t want to force him to talk to you but you need to know what this is about. “Is this why you’ve been tired? How long have you had it Jack?”

“Does it matter?” He fires it back just a little too quick, a little too acerbic. You furrow your brows and let your lips pull down a little. “No, fuck-” he sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. That was defensive. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.” You nod at him, a silent acceptance of his apology, give him time to collect his thoughts. “I got it a few days before you started noticing I was more tired than usual. Week or so ago, maybe.”

You take in a little breath and let it out. You’re mad at yourself for missing it, for not pushing him more on why he seemed so tired. Mad at yourself for letting him suffer alone because of you. You catch yourself. You’re internalizing his feelings into guilt. You think back on what your couple’s therapist has taught you both to stop. Or at least to try to.

“Why?” you ask delicately as you walk a bit closer to him. “Why did you want it?”

Another shrug. It’s unlike him. Very unlike him. “I don’t know.” He glances back at it again. He’s still a little defensive. “I just wanted to see what happened.” You don’t say anything, just tilt your head a little. You can tell he wants to say more. “I wanted to see what happened to you. Up close. I thought maybe it would help me relate or understand better.”

You can tell he’s being truthful, you know he is, that he would never lie to you. But you can also tell he’s still trying to figure out how to tell you the whole truth. “Why alone? Why not watch it with me, talk to me about it?”

“I didn’t want to put you through that just because I wanted to try and understand more.” He’s too stoic. His face too emotionless.

“Honey, if you’ve been watching this for a week” you let out a sharp breath as the realization of it really hits you. “If you’ve been torturing yourself by watching this for a week, I… You should have come to me. Did I do something? Is there a reason why you didn’t want to?”

He lets out a little huff. His façade is starting to crack. “Like I said,” it’s a touch snippy, and you know he feels bad about the way it comes out the second he says it, can see it in the way his eyes narrow just slightly. “I didn’t want to put you through it.”

“Jack-”

“Because how was I supposed to watch it with you?!” It’s not yelled, his voice isn’t raised, not as such. He just says it with a certain force, not of anger but of sorrow. “How was I supposed to watch it with you?” Jack repeats, voice cracking as tears make his eyes glassy. “How was I supposed to sit here and watch it with you?” It’s whispered. His whole jaw trembles as he clenches it to try and keep the tears away, shaking his head a bit. Jack lets out a breath through his nose and looks at you.

“I’m a doctor. I take away people’s pain, I make them better. And I can’t take away your pain now or make you better, mentally or physically, and I couldn’t when you got shot or when you were in a coma or any of the times you’ve panicked or sobbed into me and I am just so fucking aware of it. Of how I fail you. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad or because I want to make your struggle about me or to make you feel guilty for leaning on me. I want that. I need it. You need it. We need it. It’s not your fault, at all, it’s his, and I don’t want this to make you feel guilty even though I know it will, but I still want to talk to you about it as selfish as that sounds maybe.” Jack stops to take a breath in. You both know it’s not selfish.

“It kills me that the thing I do, the thing I do well, I get to you, the most important person whose pain I could ever take away and make better and I just can’t. You’re the only person that matters. Fuck everyone else. And I can’t use my skills and knowledge to make you better. I’m failing you, I feel like I'm totally failing you, and sometimes I get so in my head and sit and start worrying about the day you’re going to realize I’m failing you and just how badly I’m failing you and leave. The day you realize that I’m able to take away everyone else’s pain and make them better but not yours, not you. The day you realize how unfair that is and how totally fucking shitty of me that is.” He lets a shuddery breath out.

“And so I watch this video like it’s going to give me answers.” He shakes his head a little as a few tears slip down his cheeks and he takes a breath in through his teeth. “It’s like I think if I can identify the exact moment you got shot somehow that’ll give me all the answers and I’ll know exactly what to do and how to take away your pain and make you all better so that this never hurts you again. I’ll know the perfect way to hug you and hold you and kiss you and how to look at you and know what you need to hear and then I’ll do it all and put all the pieces back together just like that,” he snaps his fingers, “so that you’re better and aren’t in pain.” More tears stream down his face. “Because that’s what I do. I take away pain, I make people better. But not for you. Not for the most important person, the only person who matters.”

Jack sniffles and wipes some of the tears off his face. “And I know it’s stupid, and it’s not how the world or healing or grieving or any of it works but I have to try. I have to try everything, just in case maybe the world and healing and grieving will work like that for this, and this will be the rarest outlier case that makes no sense but somehow is real.”

“Oh sweetheart,” you murmur as you walk over to Jack, lean over him and run your hand down his chest, kiss at his neck. Jack leans his head in against yours, hands coming to clutch at your forearms. “It’s not stupid. It’s not stupid at all.”

“I just hate it,” he whispers. He turns his head into yours more and you understand, turn yours to so you can kiss him, let him take whatever he wants and needs from you. “I hate that I can’t make this better and take away your pain. I hate seeing you hurt and being so useless and helpless. And I hate how I’m making it about myself.”

“I know you do. But you’re not making it about yourself. This happened to both of us,” you say against his lips. You let your hands run over his chest for a moment. It’s one of those moments where how much you love and adore and need him overwhelms you. You never thought you’d ever have anyone who would sit alone at night and watch a traumatizing video over and over for weeks just to try and figure out how to help you. And as much as you wish he hadn’t because you don’t want him hurting himself, the fact remains that he did and that means something. It means a whole lot.

The feelings make you want to cry not from sadness but just from the overwhelm and a bit the frustration of knowing you’ll never be able to tell him how much you love him. “I love you so much. Come back to bed with me?”

“Okay. Love you too,” Jack whispers and nods before stealing one more kiss from you. He lets you lead him back to your room and into bed. You turn on your bedside lamp so that you can see each other better, both of you leaning against the headboard and turned towards each other a bit. You grab one of his hands and start to play with it.

“It’s not stupid,” you repeat. “At all. It is sweet and loving and yeah, a little heartbreaking for me, but that’s okay. You are allowed to feel what you feel. And I am so glad that you told me, okay? Feeling how you do is valid and it makes so much sense to me.” You bring the hand you’re playing with up to your lips and kiss each of his third knuckles before looking back up at him, getting that true eye contact that he loves.

“But, Jack, my love, you are not my doctor.” You say it so gently yet so firmly, like there’s no room for debate because there isn’t. And Jack knows that and that you’re right. “You need to remember that. You’re my partner. My fiancé. You’re not my doctor. I don’t expect you to be my doctor. You aren’t failing me. In any capacity. I promise you.”

Jack shrugs. “Still.” His fingers play with yours. “I’m a doctor. I make people better and I can’t make this better for you.” You nod at him, think on your feet and decide to run with it since he’s fixated on the idea right now and you know it’ll get through to him better.

“You are. You are a really really fucking good doctor Jack. One of the best. But you don’t send every patient home in perfect condition, completely pain free and fixed and all better, with no healing left to do or pain to experience do you?” You let it linger just a second to make the point. “No. You can only heal them so much sometimes. Probably most of the time because healing takes time and is more than what you as a doctor can do for anyone. People have to do some of the healing on their own. So you admit them to a service. Or you send them home with pain killers and discharge instructions,” you give him the smallest smirk at that which makes him huff a little and his lips twitch upward. “And you set them up with follow up appointments and sometimes you give them casts or braces or stitches or sterile dressings or crutches or a sling or whatever else.” You tilt your head at him. “You, Peter, are all of those things for me.”

Jack’s eyes water again a little bit at your statement, eyebrows furrowing inward and up a bit, asking if you mean it. You nod.

“You say that you can’t take my pain away or make me better but you do Jack. You do. Just by being here. By showing up for me every day no matter how bad I am, how sad or how grumpy or how quiet or anxious or numb or whatever. Just by kissing my forehead in the morning and saying you love me as you walk out the door and filling up my drink when you get up and making sure some part of you is always touching some part of me when we’re sitting on the couch together. You’re always here. Even when you’re physically not. I know for a fact I could call you at work and say I needed you, fuck I wouldn’t even have to say it, you’d hear it in my voice as I said your name and you’d be on your way. I could call you anywhere and you’d show up. You know how much pain that kills? You know much better that makes me? Just to know I have you? Just to know you love me? To know I’ll never have to sit here alone in the grief and guilt and sadness? To know you’ll always sit here with me in it if that’s what I need? I don’t know where the fuck I’d be with all of this without you Jack.” You lean in and kiss his forehead, rest yours against his after a second.

“You are not failing me. You are healing me, Jack. Helping me heal. Helping me get better. You take away my pain, even if some days it’s not completely. There’s some pain even the strongest drugs can’t get rid of completely. But you make it so that it’s always bearable and hold my hand and me while you do it.” You pull your head back, run your hand through those salt and pepper curls you love so much. “I know that you think you need to find the perfect thing to say or do to make me better and pain free from this forever, but we both know that’s not real life, just like I can’t find those perfect things to make you better or pain free from all of this forever. Every kiss and hug and smile and I love you and pat on the ass and cheeky boob squeeze when you walk by me in the kitchen or wherever and cuddle is perfect, and puts me back together a little tighter so that it hurts a little less. Yeah, there are some bad days where I feel like I’ve taken seven thousand steps backwards, but you know who the person taking those backwards steps with me and holding my hand and helping me take the first step forward again is?” You give him a soft smile with slightly crinkled eyes you can only hope reflect how much you love him. “You.”

Jack reaches for you, pulls you up against him in a tight hug. He doesn’t really know what to say in the moment, feels like words have run out. “Thank you.” You can feel him shaking a little and it makes you squeeze him tighter, kiss at his chest wherever you can reach.

“Any time. Always.” You know he wishes he could say more but that he can’t, not as he processes it all, especially with how exhausted he is. And you’re okay with it, more than. He doesn’t need to say anything as long as he heard you and tries to take what you said to heart.

His hands slip under his shirt that you’re wearing just to seek out more of your skin, just to help ground himself a little further. You pull back a little and his hands are already moving to get the shirt off you and tossed to the floor. You settle back on his chest in a close hug.

“I’m sorry for not saying anything. And for keeping the video from you. I know I should have talked to you about it, I just really wanted to find the answer on my own and I became convinced it was somewhere in that video.” Jack nuzzles his nose into the top of your hair. “I’m not saying that as an excuse either.”

“I know you’re not. And I forgive you, to the extent there even really was anything to forgive. I understand Jack, I really do. But it’s going to be okay. We’re going to keep getting through this together.” You move your head from his chest to capture his lips in a couple of sweet kisses. “And now that trial is over we’re getting back to normal again and we’ve got France soon. What happened isn’t going to define our lives or our life together, Jack. We’re not going to let it. There’s just going to be hard moments.” There’s a few minutes of comfortable silence as you just hold each other.

“Do you feel guilty? Because of what I told you? Like you’re somehow responsible?” Jack murmurs, keeping your faces close together, hands running up and down your back.

“Honestly? A little.” You nod as you make the admission. “But I’m thinking about what we’ve learned in couple’s therapy and trying to use the things we’ve talked about and so it’s not so bad. Not like it would have been if we hadn’t started going. You feel guilty?”

Jack nods into your neck before kissing you there. “A little, yeah. Like you said though. Not like it would have been.” He slides his hand up your neck as he moves his head back, holds your face. “We’ll delete it tomorrow,” he nods. You nod back at him, bite the tip of his nose, making him fake scoff and shake his head.

“Let’s go back to sleep?” You scratch at his scalp and Jack leans into it, eyes fluttering closed.

“Mmm,” he hums, nodding and rolling you over so that you’re on your back. His hands find the waistband of his pajama pants. “There’s one more thing I think I’d like to do. You know. To make us both sleepy.”

You bite your lip and giggle as he starts taking his pajama pants off. “Oh yeah?”

Once the pants have joined the shirt on the floor Jack looms back over you, presses his body against yours, hips grinding against yours just enough to pull a little gasp from you when you feel him. He nods as he leans in and kisses you. “Yeah.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It comes up fairly early on, while you and Jack are both still at home and chatting about wedding stuff one night. You’re on the couch with your head in Jack’s lap, attention split between the show you put on TV, listening to Jack think out loud while he does the crossword and scrolling Pinterest.

“Four words lead to this declaration.” Jack has the crossword on the armrest of the couch, his left hand intermittently resting gently on the side of your neck, thumb brushing over your cheekbone, or on your arm. He clicks his pen in thought. Because of course he does the crossword in pen. “Three letters. Nothing filled in.” You hum in acknowledgment at him, your way of saying you’ll think.

“Pennsylvania recognizes self-uniting marriages. We could just marry ourselves,” you suggest.

“We could, yeah.” You turn your head and look up at Jack after he says it. There’s something on his mind. “Five letter word for blowhard.”

“Storm,” you both say at the same time, share a little laugh about it. You sit up and Jack makes a little noise of discontent.

“I’m staying right here, don’t worry,” you tell him as you curl up next to him and wrap your arms around his left upper arm. “You don’t want that.” It’s half question half sentence. You’re trying to give him the space and opportunity to say what he’s thinking about who he’d like to marry you.

“I, no. It’s not that I don’t want that or that I wouldn’t love that.” He shakes his head.

You give him a second. “But you’d prefer something else? Someone else?” An imperceptible nod.

“It’s going to sound stupid.”

“I sincerely doubt that.” You give him an encouraging smile.

Jack clicks his pen a couple of times before turning to really look at you. “I was thinking, what if we asked Robby? I know he’d have to do the whole getting ordained online thing, but…” Jack trails off for a second. “He just, before you, before I had you, Michael saved my life more than once. Metaphorically speaking. And he’s saved your life. Literally. And he’s my best friend and I don’t know. It just felt like maybe it was right.”

A slow smile pulls up on your face, all gooey and in love. “I think that feels perfect.”

“Really?” Jack raises his eyebrows at you. He’s not really shocked per se, it’s just one of those moments where it falls out of his mouth.

“Really.” You nod. “I know how much he means to you. He means a lot to me too. You know the whole saving my life thing.” You lean in and give Jack a kiss on the cheek.

“Okay,” Jack nods with you. “We’ll have to find a time to ask him, decide how I guess.”

“I have confidence that we will figure it out. We have time.” You squeeze Jack’s arm and then pull away, start to go back to the position you were in.

“I do,” you say as you settle your head back on Jack’s lap.

“A little premature, but I love to hear it.” Jack smirks at you as you look up at him.

“The crossword clue.” You playfully roll your eyes at him. “Four words lead to this declaration. The answer is I do. The four special words are ‘will you marry me.’”

You end up deciding to do it at the Pitt one day.

You considered planning it and asking to do dinner and make it a thing but that all felt a little too formal and almost pretentious. It didn’t fit. Doing it on the fly while he was working felt right.

“Can we talk to you?” Jack asks Robby, you standing next to him holding his hand. Jack just finished his day shift at eleven thirty in the evening, had you come to the hospital around seven just in case he got off on time. You chilled in the break room the last four and half or so hours, chatting with people as they came and went.

Robby looks between the two of you. “This feels ominous.”

“Yes or no question Michael.” Jack deadpans.

“Jack!” You chide him a little, but your smirk belies you.

“I’m sorry,” Jack mutters, “can we please talk to you?”

Robby rolls his eyes at Jack calling him by his real name. “Yes. I suppose you can.”

“Thanks Robby!” You smile at him.

Robby thinks it’s odd. You seem almost nervous and so does Jack, but Jack is harder to read at the moment. The shift he just finished was the last on his run and he didn’t get off within four hours of when he was supposed to a single one of those three shifts. Plus this shift was particularly trying. Between all of that and him still adjusting to being back he’s exhausted. It makes him even harder than usual to read.

“In here,” Jack nods, opens the door to the family room.

“Okay, you guys are kind of freaking me out because this is ominous and now you’re taking me into a room where we tell family members their loved ones have died.”

“It’s not bad, I promise.” You try to smile at him reassuringly. Robby nods at you like he doesn’t quite believe you as he sits down in one of the chairs, you and Jack taking the two across from him.

“So.” You clear your throat. “Obviously you know we’re getting married.” You hold up your left hand and flash the ring at him, which pulls a little smile from Robby.

“Robby,” Jack starts. But he stops. He looks emotional, like this is a hard conversation to have but not because it’s bad but because it means something. Jack takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Michael,” he starts again, earning a slight eyebrow raise from Robby because of the tone, “we were wondering if you would consider getting ordained and officiating our wedding. If you, if you’d marry us?”

Robby’s head lolls forward a little and his eyes widen, brows raised as he looks at Jack and then you and then back at Jack and then away from you both as he leans back. “Wow,” he breathes out and laughs a little. “Holy fucking shit you guys! I thought you were bringing me in here to tell me one of you had some terrible illness.”

You and Jack laugh a little, your hand finding his and squeezing.

But it’s then that your words really hit Robby. He looks back at the two of you. He’d deny it if anyone asked but his eyes are a little glassy. “You want me to marry you?” He has to clear his throat of some emotion. “Really?”

“Please,” you nod.

“Seriously,” Jack says quietly.

Robby still looks a bit stunned but a huge smile pulls onto his face. “I, fuck, wow, yes. Yes, of course. I would be honored.” He stands and you follow, let him pull you into a big hug. “You’re sure about this?”

“Of course.” You smile at him as he releases you. “Nobody else we’d rather have do it.”

Jack stands up behind you and you step to the side, let the two embrace.

“Thanks brother,” he says quietly to Robby.

“I mean it Jack. It’s an honor.” The two step apart and you lean into Jack, all three of you smiling at each other.

You exit out of the room and walk by the lockers so Jack can grab his backpack and you guys can leave. You wait by the desk, chatting idly with Robby and Samira until Jack walks up behind you.

“Ready Doll?”

You can hear how tired the poor man is. It almost makes you feel a little bad about sharing the thought you just had. Almost.

“You know, I just realized that everyone up on the altar will have seen my boobs!” Your lips turn up and turn into something between a grin and a smirk.

You hear Jack take in a big breath and release it as a breathy, “Oh my god.” He just shakes his head and finds your hand with his, laces your fingers together. “Come on, you, we’re done here.”

Jack starts walking towards the doors, tugging you along with him and you just giggle.

“Oh so you’re just leaving me here to explain that?” Robby calls after you. It just makes you giggle louder.

“I’ll show you my tits if it’ll make you feel better, Fruitcake,” Myrna offers Robby from her wheelchair, suddenly right behind him, as she raises her eyebrows at him and goes for the hem of her shirt.

“Jesus!” Robby nearly jumps. “Where did you even come from? When did you get here? Stop lifting your shirt up!”

You turn around a little and look back over your shoulder and wave. “Bye! Thanks again Robby!”

Beside you Jack lets out a tired and huffed laugh because he loves you so much. When you turn back around he slips his hand out of yours and winds his arm around you, making you do the same. Jack pulls you a little closer to him and presses a kiss to the top of your head as you walk out the doors. “I love you Doll.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You okay?” Jack asks, squeezing your thigh and interrupting your thoughts.

It takes you a second but you look over at him. “How could I possibly be anything less than okay right now, Peter?”

“Hey,” he laughs quietly, “I was just checking. You seemed a little zoned out.”

“I’m on a plane, in very nice seats, sitting next to my unreasonably handsome fiancé who I’m on my way to France with.” You set your hand on top of his and squeeze. “I was just thinking I’m glad this came after the trial.”

The trial finished about a month and a half ago, just long enough for you and Jack to heal from all the emotions it stirred up and settle back into your routine so that things were normal when you had Robby drop you at the airport earlier tonight. You had been concerned for a bit that the trial might shortly after your trip. Neither of you wanted that because then it would be all either of you were thinking about during the trip.

“Me too.” Jack nods. “I’m ready for some time alone with you, truly alone and away from all the bullshit. I’m glad I decided we’d start with a couple of days in Nice. That was very smart of me.”

You giggle and roll your eyes at him. He’s right though, it was. “It’ll be very nice to have some time to just lay out on the beach and relax before making our way up the country.” You pull the armrest up and lean into Jack who wraps his arms around you. “I’m ready to nap on the beach with you under an umbrella.”

Jack yawns at the word nap. “Yeah I’m going to need a nap on the beach alright.” He’d booked you a red eye, leaving at almost midnight Pittsburgh time so that you get to Nice in the morning and can maximize your time in France. You both know the first day will be a lazy one though and you’re both more than okay with it. Napping on the beach together being an option and all.

“You should sleep,” you encourage him.

“You should too.” He raises his eyebrows at you a little.

“I don’t sleep well on planes.” You shrug.

“Yeah, but you sleep well on me.” He cocks his head at you and gives you a bit of a lopsided smile.

You laugh silently through your nose, shaking your head at him. “You’re pretty slick sometimes, you know that?”

“I just speak the truth, Doll.” Jack pulls you a bit closer to him and grabs the traveling blanket you’d brought with you from the seatback pocket where he’d put it earlier. You help him spread it over the both of you and then snuggle into him as much as you can in airplane seats. Jack’s breathing evens out pretty quickly. It takes you quite a bit longer to find sleep, but once you do Jack is right. You sleep pretty well.

Nice is gorgeous and relaxing and so what you and Jack need, some lazy time together to focus on each other and nothing else. Your hotel is stunning and right on the beach giving you easy access to it. You’d spent your first day at the beach too given how tired you were and how nice it was to just lay in the sun together and relax. You’d walked around Nice your second day and picked up the car you’d be driving through the country in. You’d taken a little drive to Grasse, and looked around, gone to Fragonard and done the museum before you and Jack decided on a perfume for you and cologne for him.

And now you and Jack are spending your last day in Nice back at the beach all day.

You’re both laying out on towels on the sand currently, your stuff on top of the shaded lounge chairs you’ve claimed. Jack’s wearing the beach leg he got so that he can be in the sand and sea. The softness and warmth of the sand is relaxing against your backs. If you and Jack weren’t intermittently talking you’d probably fall asleep.

There can’t be much more than a foot between you and during a lull in conversation Jack blindly feels for your hand. He plays with your fingers once he finds it. You sit up and take a moment to admire him.

“France looks good on you, Dr. Abbot.” Your eyes trail up and down his body appreciatively. With the time you’ve spent out in the sun Jack is unfairly tanned, skin glowing. It makes his freckles pop even more which is something that drives you insane. You’d really noticed it yesterday when the two of you showered together.

You dragged him out of the shower quickly and to bed so that you could try to kiss and count each one while telling him how hot and gorgeous he is, how unfairly so and that you can’t believe he’s given himself to you, that you’re the one that gets to see him like this and have him. You’d spent the rest of the night loving on him.

And apparently you’re not ready to be done.

“Oh yeah?” He turns and smirks a little at you.

“Yeah.” You lay back and roll on your side, put your elbow in the sand and rest your head in your hand.

“I love your hair like this.” You run your free hand through it. He didn’t get a chance to get it cut before you left. It honestly can’t be more than a centimeter longer, but it’s just enough to show off his curls a little more, especially when they’ve dried from the sea’s salty water. “Just a little longer. Gives me a little more curl to enjoy.” You hum for a second. “To pull on.”

“Really?” Jack’s basking in your attention and love

You pull your eyes from his hair down to his face. “Yeah, really,” you nod.

“You want me to keep it this length always?”

“Would I like that? Absofuckinglutely. But it’s your hair. And I love it shorter too, like when we met. So you should keep it how you like it.” You scratch at his scalp a little. “I will love my salt and pepper curls no matter their length.”

“Yours?” Jack raises his brows and gives you a teasing grin.

“Mhm.” You nod. “Mine.” You roll a little more and lean your head towards him. “Just like these are also mine.” You kiss at the freckles on his shoulder and chest, PG enough for the beach but with enough of a lingering edge and a nip to make him feel it in his groin.

“Yeah?”

“And so is this.” You drag your nails down his happy trail, stopping just short of his cock. Obviously you couldn’t rub it here to make your point as much as you’d have liked to.

Jack lets out a harsh breath through his nose. “Careful, Doll.” He can feel himself starting to get hard.

“What?” It’s all fake innocence and pout. “All of you is mine. Isn’t it? Just like all of me is yours?”

“Of course.”

“So let me have you tonight. Let me appreciate what’s mine, focus on you.” You grab one of his hands and bring it to your mouth, kiss at his fingertips. You give the tips of his ring and middle fingers the quickest kitten lick. “Because your face twisted in pleasure, and the groans I pull from you, and the way you say my name and look when you come are also all mine.”

Jack has to sit up and bend his knees at that. His heart is beating much faster now, lust and need coursing through his veins. He’s hard and that’s a problem in these swim trunks.

You follow him, sitting up and leaning back on your hands. “Unless you wanna go back to the hotel room now?”

“Yes,” he breathes, a frustrated edge to it.

You smirk. “Let’s go.”

“We have to wait a minute.”

“Oh?” You raise a single brow at him. “Why’s that?”

Jack huffs. “You know exactly fucking why.”

“I swear, I have no idea what you mean,” you’re giving him your most innocent doe eyes, the subtlest hint of a smirk at the corners of your mouth, “Dr. Abbot.”

Jack’s jaw clenches hard, eyes searing into you. “Get up.”

You do as he asks, start to collect your things. Your movements are hurried, you’re just as desperate as him, swimsuit sticky already with how wet you are for him.

You go to grab your towel but Jack stops you. “Yeah, yeah, I got the towels, thank you very much.” You furrow your brows together for a second in genuine confusion before Jack stands up and quickly drapes your towel over the arm he’s holding against his lower abdomen and grabs his and does the same so that the towels hang down and cover what would otherwise be his very obvious erection.

“Oh dear,” you tut, finally letting a self-satisfied grin pull on your face. “That’s why we needed to wait?”

“Go.”

“Yes, sir.”

He tries to stay stoic but you don’t miss the way he clenches his jaw again and rolls it, how he shifts on his feet just slightly. You widen your smile and kiss his cheek before throwing the last few things in your bag and taking his hand.

You giggle as you walk back. With how much bigger Jack’s steps are than yours and how fast his desperation for you is driving him to walk you’re almost having to jog a little to keep up with him.

Once you’re back in the hotel room and have literally just dropped all of your shit and the towels and get to the side of the bed you try to push Jack back onto it but he doesn’t let you, uses your motion to push you back onto the bed.

You whine and try to get up. “No. You can have me tonight like you said.” Jack’s hand comes to your chest and pushes you back down.

“Jack!” You whine. But you can feel your heartbeat in your clit, have to rub your thighs together a little, which doesn’t escape Jack’s notice.

“You really thought you were going to get me painfully hard in public and call me Dr. Abbott and sir and get away with it?” Large, strong and dizzyingly warm hands make quick work of your swimsuit and toss it aside.

“I thought you’d let me focus on you.” You push your lips out in a little pout.

Jack leans over you, caging your head in between his arms. He ghosts his lips over yours. “You thought wrong.”

He pulls up and starts taking off his swim trunks. You make a high-pitched noise of protest as he gets off you. “Not even a kiss! You won’t let me have you like I want and you won’t even kiss me when you were right th-”

“Stop talking.” It’s firm. He’s hit order territory. It makes you shiver. You like it when he gets like this. This edgy kind of dominant that’s distinct from other times he’s dominant. Just a little rough at the right moments. Manhandling you however he wants. Using you for his pleasure.

You could reply in one of two ways, both of which would rile him further, just in different ways. But right now the choice is clear.

That makes you smirk and arch a single brow at him. Jack already knows what you’re about to say. “Make me.”

Jack hums a dark laugh and smiles at you. “With pleasure Doll.”

You’re a little confused when he walks around to the foot of the bed and grabs under your arms and yanks you further onto the bed. The suddenness of it makes you shriek a little. “Jack!”

He moves your lower body so your legs are out in front of you comfortably facing the head of the bed and then pulls you down further so that your head is hanging off the bed. Jack’s a little rough shoving his fingers in your mouth to open it and get them wet. You know what’s coming when he pulls them out.

Jack lets out a slightly strangled sigh of relief at the feeling of your mouth around him. “There we go, hm, Doll?” He leans over you, shoving himself further into your mouth but not too far, he controls the angle of his hips. You realize he didn’t just move like that for himself when the two fingers wet with your saliva come to circle your clit and slide down, tease your entrance. You already know he’s going to edge you like this.

You swallow your whine when he pulls his hand away and then are choking around him from the shock and pleasure when his hand comes down to smack your clit. “Look I’m even being so nice,” Jack coos at you, “giving you what you wanted. Because this is what you wanted right? To be choking on me?”

Jack pulls out of your mouth so you can answer. You take a couple of breaths before you do, mostly to prepare yourself. “I don’t know. Is it?”

“Hm,” Jack laughs again, smacks your clit before pinching at it, pulling another little shriek from you and a moan of pleasure that he can see you fighting to keep down. He likes when you make him work for it. “Be careful what you wish for, Doll.”

After dinner that night, which you were actually a little surprised you were able to walk to, Jack does let you have like you talked about on the beach. He’s a man of his word and it’s quite the opposite of a hardship.

The next day you guys hop in the car and start driving. You hit Arles and then go up to Avignon to look around, spend the night there and go walk through the city to find a cute café to have breakfast at.

From there you head to Nîmes, and then on to Carcassonne. You spend the later part of the day looking around the town before heading to the hotel you’re staying at. Carcassonne leads you up to Rocamadour.

All of France is beautiful, but there’s something about the way the town is literally built into the side of a stone cliff that really stuns you both. It’s just so incredible and makes you feel so small in a way for some reason. It’s hard to comprehend the reality of it.

“I could spend so much money here,” you whisper to Jack. The two of you are browsing in the most incredible leather store you’ve ever been in, and probably your favorite shop of the trip so far.

Jack stops walking and flicks his head a little, staring at a spot on a table a bit down from you before looking down at all of the things he’s carrying in leather bags you’re getting. “I think you are spending so much money here, Doll.”

He doesn’t mean it in a bad way, isn’t complaining about it at all. He’d buy you the whole store if it would make you happy and he feasibly could. He’s happy to spoil you, though he’s well aware there’s going to be a fight when you go to checkout about who’s paying.

You look back at him and stick your tongue out a little at him. He rolls his eyes at you and does it back as you walk over to him and show him a little cosmetics bag you’ve picked up before adding it to one of the bags he’s holding. Jack nods at it appreciatively. “It’s not all for me.” That’s true. You’re getting quite a few gifts here for all the people in your lives. “The leather is just so beautiful and well priced.”

“It is.” Jack picks up a nice leather wallet and looks it over. “And not everything we’ve got here is something you picked out, I’ve added my own stuff.”

“What?” You look up at him with mock offense. Jack’s eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head, bunching his shoulders up. “And you haven’t been showing me?”

Jack looks at you for a second. “No?” You give a little scoff, but it’s teasing. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to?”

“Well, you are,” you say matter of factly. “So show me.” You nod when he doesn’t move, smiling at him. You’re adorable when you’re this excited. “I want to see! I like seeing! That’s half the fun of shopping!”

“Okay! Okay! Give me a minute to dig it all out!” Jack laughs a little, shaking his head at you. A wave of love and adoration for you crashes into him and he gets a little overwhelmed by it as he goes through the bags to pick out what he’s put in. He just loves you so fucking much. He shows you and you love all of them, take another spin through the whole store before checking out.

You leave Rocamadour then and head to Lascaux II. You’re particularly excited for this one. You’re in awe the second you get down into the replica cave. Jack almost wants to record you in Lascaux II because of how fucking precious and cute you’re being and how completely fucking oblivious to it and how it’s affecting him you are.

“This is so incredible,” you say for probably the tenth time. “Look at this Jack. I couldn’t do this now. Imagine them doing it 20,000 years ago. That’s just… I don’t even know. It’s making me bizarrely emotional.”

“Aw, baby.” Jack breathes through a little laugh, pulls you close to him. He gives you a little squeeze and kisses your forehead before you step away to go back to chatting with your tour guide as everyone looks around this room. He knows it defeats the purpose of the visit for him and that you’d lovingly chide him if you knew, but Jack doesn’t care and spends more time smiling and watching you take it all in and chatter away with the guide than he does looking at the cave paintings. He never wants to leave.

The tour, however, does come to an end and you look around everything else and the gift shop and leave Lascaux, head to Limoges to spend the night and tour tomorrow. From there you tour Château de Chambord and then Amboise, where you go wine tasting and get quite tipsy together before making your way back to your hotel room with the both of you in a fit of giggles.

In the morning, you and Jack leave Amboise and drive to Ohama Beach and the Normandy American Cemetery. It’s not sad as such, just kind of somber, which makes sense.

You and Jack walk through the rows silently, hand in hand with Jack reading name after name. It gets to him a little. Makes him feel kind of bad. Here he is all the way in France on vacation doing this and thinking about people he doesn’t even know. He lives less than four hours from Arlington and hasn’t been back since the last funeral.

He thinks about the rest of his unit, the ones still alive. They’d all moved across the States, settled different places where they or their spouses had family or just wanted to live. They kept in touch though, texts and calls. He went to a couple of weddings, knows each time someone welcomes a baby. All but one are coming to the wedding and the only reason he’s not is because his wife is due only two weeks later.

He’s told you some about them. He realizes in the moment though that he’s told you more about what happened when he lost his leg. You know pretty much everything, everything he can remember at least. It took him a while to open up about it, not even so much because it was hard to talk about, talking to you about it was actually not easy but not as hard as he thought it would be because he knew you had him and would really be listening and there for him if he fell while talking. It was more he struggled with the idea of you having to know, having to carry it around similar to how he does, less so obviously but still. He didn’t want that for you, felt it was like a burden almost, a cross to bear with him. But he’d spoken with his therapist about it and been able to see it wasn’t.

“You know if you ever want to take a trip to Arlington I’m there with you, yeah? You don’t have to go alone unless you want to.” You squeeze his hand.

Jack smiles to himself and nods. You would know what he’s thinking about right now. “I know.” He squeezes back. You don’t say anything else, know that you don’t need to.

You end up getting sandwiches from a little café and have lunch sitting on a wall overlooking the beach. Jack shares some stories about his time overseas and on base here, most of them funny and making the both of you laugh. “Have I ever shown you pictures?”

“A couple, yeah. From weddings after or photos of new babies or pregnancy announcements.” You give him a small smile and tilt your head. “You don’t have to show me or tell me anything, you know?”

“I want to,” he nods as he pulls his phone out. It takes him a minute to find them, but when he does he scrolls through them and tells you the context, points out who everyone is. Tells you who was lost, little things about others, where they are, if they’re still in.

One he shows you is old, from when he first joined. “Oh my god, you’re a baby!” You take his phone from his hand as he laughs. “Look at you! How old were you here?” You look up at him. Jack tells you and you look back down at the phone. “Wow,” you breathe, “do you have more of you younger?”

“Yeah.” He takes his phone back from you and scrolls. He’s a little bit older in these ones. “Right before I deployed on my first tour.” He swipes. “This was taken the day we arrived over there.”

You bite your lip to try and hide your smile. You know it’s maybe not appropriate in a way, but you only do so because of how young he looks. You’ve never really seen him this young before. It’s always been much younger, baby photos, middle school, high school graduation.

Jack bumps your shoulder with his. “You got any of you this age?”

You grimace at that and shake your head. “I mean, yeah, but you don’t want to see them, trust me.”

Jack barks a laugh at that. “I trust you on everything Doll, but not that.”

You deepen your grimace as you look at him. “You should.”

He shrugs. “Prove it then.”

You groan at the challenge. “Fine,” you mutter, “but I expect a ‘you’re right I’m so sorry for doubting you’ and you take my ‘I told you so’ without comment or a look.”

Jack’s giving you a look already because he knows you’re full of shit and he’s going to love them. “If that’s warranted then I promise I will. But I know it won’t be.”

You drive into Paris in the late afternoon early evening, get checked into your hotel. Jack did good. Jack did real fucking good. Your room has a stunning view of the Eiffel Tower and a big jacuzzi tub. It’s just large enough but is still small enough that it’s cozy and romantic. You look around with big eyes and a look of disbelief.

“Jack, this is so beautiful.” You open the balcony door and walk out onto it. You’re almost a little speechless. Not even from how beautiful the room is and the view and the tub but from the fact that he chose this hotel and this suite for you. Because you know the only thing he was thinking of when he booked it was that he wanted to spoil you and make you happy and see you smile. “It’s incredible.” You murmur it but you know he’ll hear because you can feel that he’s standing right behind you even if the noise of the city covered his footsteps. You recognize his presence.

Jack’s hands find your hips and his chest presses into your back as he kisses the top of your head. “I didn’t order the champagne.” There’s a very nice bottle sitting in a bucket of ice for you, two flutes on the table it’s next to.

You turn, shaking your head at him. Jack’s hands opening and settling back on your hips once you’ve turned all the way. “That’s not what makes it incredible.”

Jack gives you a little knowing smile and nods. “Anything for you, Doll.”

You lean up and kiss him, again and again until you’ve managed to maneuver the two of you so that Jack’s pressed against the balcony wall as you makeout. “You know this is very unfair,” you whisper against his lips when you break apart for air. Jack flicks his eyebrows up at you. “You get to plan the honeymoon too. When is it my turn to plan a vacation and spoil you?”

Jack laughs softly, catches your lips in another kiss and slips his tongue into your mouth for a second. “You can have the next one, okay? After the honeymoon.”

“Okay, good.” You kiss until you’re breathless again and then pull apart.

“What would you like to do before the Tower and river cruise tonight?” Jack asks you with a little tilt of his head. “Champagne and a little moment on the balcony?”

“I’d like to start,” you take a step back so that he can walk past you and into the room, “with you getting on the bed. Fully clothed.”

He cocks his head further. “You don’t have to do anything to thank me. I wanted to do this for you. Wanted to see the smile you gave me when you walked in and looked around.”

“I know I don’t,” you reassure him with a nod. “But I want to. I want to suck your cock for you and see the smile you give me right after you’ve come.” Hands squeeze your hips a little harder. “So please. Get on the bed.”

Jack looks at you for a moment, genuinely wanting to make sure you know you don’t have to and he didn’t do this so that you’d take him in your mouth once you’d seen the room. When your eyes and expression convince him he nods and does as you ask.

Once Jack’s finished and recovered you decide to head out and walk around, just soak in the City some before you go to your reservations at the Eiffel Tower.

Jack thinks he could live here and spend every day for the rest of life watching you and the look of wonder as you lead him through Paris.

You and Jack share champagne on the top of the Eiffel Tower before you find a cute Seine side café for dinner. At 10:30 you board the boat that will take you up and down the Seine letting you see lots of the sights uplight and bathed in different shades of light. They of course pause down by the tower just before 11 and once it hits the Eiffel Tower sparkles and your face lights up exactly how Jack knew it would. He snaps several photos of you, the angle perfect and letting him get your profile and the tower in the same shot before he gets your whole face so he never has to even imagine this look again. His favorite is the one he gets when you turn to him beaming to thank him for this because of the expression on your face and how happy you are and how you’re looking at him like he’s the only thing on the planet that matters to you.

It’s his phone’s wallpaper before you even disembark.

The next morning you start with Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle before heading to the Louvre.

“I think it’s this room.” Jack nods towards one.

You take a cursory glance at it and keep walking. “It’s not. It must be further up.”

“You didn’t even look!” Jack catches back up with you in two strides.

“I promise you that when we get to the room you won’t need to ask if it’s the room.” You look up at him and try to give him a convincing smile. He narrows his eyes at you but nods.

You guys walk up a bit more and come to another doorway off the side of the hallway.

“Ah,” Jack clicks his tongue. “I understand now.” You share a look with him but don’t say ‘I told you so’ or even give him that specific look.

You only have to glance at the room to know it’s the one housing the Mona Lisa. The huge mass of people making it difficult to even get through the doorway makes it quite obvious. You and Jack slip in and stay off to the side. You manage to get a good opening and are able to work your way in a little bit to see it before you quickly get out of the room, overwhelmed and done with all the people.

“It’s smaller than I thought,” Jack comments as you walk down the hall a bit away from the room.

You stop walking and look up stoically at the wall in front of you before looking at him as he keeps walking for a minute before realizing you’re not next to him and spinning. “Doll?”

“If only you had someone who told you that it was going to be smaller than you thought before you even stepped foot into the country.” You tilt your head at him. You’re not mad or annoyed, just playfully teasing him. The smirk pulls up on Jack’s face just a little too quick. He said it to fuck with you. “You asshole,” you mutter, narrowing your eyes and shaking your head as you walk ahead again.

Jack chuckles as he catches up with you. “Sorry, Doll, I couldn’t resist.”

You shake your head, have to laugh with him for a second. “It’s not even you doing it, it’s the fact that it fucking worked on me.”

“I can be very convincing.” Jack laces his hand with yours and squeezes.

You slow to look at a painting but look at Jack first. He’s already looking down at you, smiling, shoulders tensed just slightly in a way that tells you he’s about to lean down and kiss you. “Yes you can, Dr. Abbot.”

That earns you a little twitch under his eye before he leans in and kisses you.

You spend the next day at Versailles. “Golf carts?” You furrow your eyebrows but smile.

Jack lets out a bitten back laugh. “You know it doesn’t scream Jardins du Château de Versailles, but with how big the gardens are I get it.” He looks around. “They have a little train too.”

You and Jack have finished touring the palace proper and have walked out to see the gardens and trianons. You shake your head. “Oh no. No, no. We are so renting a golf cart.”

“Yeah, I know.” He grabs your hand and starts walking towards the booth you rent them from. “I knew the second you said golf carts.”

“Are you saying I’m predictable?” You bring your other hand across you to poke the side of his tummy. “Ow!” It doesn’t even hurt, it was just more unexpected. “I’m not saying that at all, believe me, Doll, you never fail to keep me guessing. I’m saying that wanting to rent a golf cart to drive through the gardens of Versailles is so you that it’s like they decided to do it just for you.”

You smile a little at that. You like knowing you keep him guessing but that he thinks things are very you at times. “I’m driving.”

Jack nods. “Knew that too.”

The day after Versailles you do more of Paris. You’re walking around the Palais Garnier headed towards the gift shop, your tour of the opera house having just finished.

“We could do a Phantom of the Opera roleplay.”

Jack breathes out a laugh that makes it clear how much that is not what he expected to come out of your mouth. “We could do a Phantom of the Opera roleplay,” he mutters, shaking his headband bowing his chin to his chest for a second. He looks back at you. “We could, yes.”

“It would be very hot.”

Jack laughs. “Any roleplay would be very hot with you, Doll.” You’re both keeping your voices low enough for only the two of you to hear.

You stop walking and smirk at that. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jack emphasizes the word as he nods.

“You’ve thought about it before?” you simper, resuming walking.

“You haven’t?” Jack shoots back with a smirk of his own. “What have you thought about?” You need to know now, need to know if they match your own fantasies and if you could taxi back to the hotel right now and act one out, tour of the Catacombs be damned.

“We can talk about it at dinner. Or after dinner.” He squeezes your hand and keeps walking you both towards the gift shop.

“Or we can talk about it now.”

Jack knows this is a battle he’ll lose and he’s honestly okay with that. “Can we at least do the gift shop and then grab some food and talk while eating? I’m hungry.”

“Yes. I can live with that, but can’t live with you being hungry.” You let go of his hand as you walk in the gift shop so that you can look at things. “I’ll be speedy.”

The rest of your trip passes too quickly for either of your liking. Before you know it you’re walking into your hotel room for the last time. You’re back a little earlier than usual but you’d decided to come back after dinner to spend the night together in your room and in the tub and on the balcony just focusing on each other. Neither of you are looking forward to having to go back to work. Back to being apart. It’s going to be hard going from being together 24/7 to only having mornings and nights except for the weekends if Jack has it off.

You’re both ignoring it, don’t want it ruining your last night here. There will be plenty of time to be sad about it tomorrow at the airport and on the plane.

You order a bottle of wine and bring it to the tub with you, sit and soak across from each other while giving each other foot massages and talking about your favorite parts of your trip.

“This isn’t a very fair deal, you know.” You can hear the teasing in his voice.

“I can’t help that my hands are smaller and not as strong as yours! I’m doing my best!”

Jack laughs. “That’s not what I meant, you give the best massages.” You raise your eyebrows at him and shake your head to ask what then. One of Jack’s hands falls from your foot to find the other one underwater. “This,” he pulls it up and puts it next to your other foot, toes sticking out of the water a bit, “is what I meant.”

“Oh my god,” you roll your eyes at him and flick some water at him. “You are so full of shit, Jack Abbot. You know for a fact that once you’re done with my other foot I’m going to get closer to you and massage your leg. If anything, it’s nice for you because my hands get a break and aren’t as tired so I can go longer.”

You’re correct. Jack does know that for a fact, he just likes to fuck with you sometimes. “Did you just flick water at me?”

Your head shrinks back a little at the question because it is not what you were expecting. You let out a laugh. “And what if I did?”

Jack tightens his lips together and nods his head at you once quickly. “Then I would have to do something about that.” You stare at each other for a moment, your eyes narrowing as you try and figure out what his move would be.

“Don’t.” You try to stay serious but laugh a little. “You will send water everywhere.” You know he isn’t just going to flick water back at you or even send a wave at you. The playful look in his eye tells you that he’s going to lunge for you which will force the water forward with him and out of the tub just so he can grab you and pull you close to him.

Jack’s smile widens. “We have lots of towels.”

“Jack.” You try so hard to stay serious but his adorable goofy grin makes it nigh on impossible. “I don’t want to spend our last night in Paris mopping up the bathroom floor.”

“You should have thought of that before you flicked water at me.” He shrugs.

You scoff in shock and gape at him. “How was I supposed to know your reaction to a small flick of water was going to be to want to attack me at the opposite end of the tub and make a fucking tsunami in the procecss?”

“That’s just a risk you take with me Doll.” Jack clicks his tongue and shakes his head with mock solemnity.

You stare at him. He’s going to do it. “You’re cleaning it up.”

“You’ll help.” Jack smirks.

You both know he’s right. “Fuck you.”

That makes Jack grin at you and lunge.

You find yourselves sitting on the balcony now. You’re dry from the tub and wrapped in the big fluffy towel robes the hotel has. Jack had at least managed to angle his lunge so that most of the water was pushed toward the tile wall behind the tub and not on the floor. It hadn’t taken long to mop up with towels.

It’s getting later, closer to time to go to bed. As much as you’d done a good job of ignoring the reality that your trip was ending, it’s harder to now, and some of that sadness is in the air. It grows a bit with the small lull in conversation.

Jack glances down at his watch. He leans back in his chair a little, appreciating how deep the seat is. He stands and moves his chair so that it’s just inside the balcony door. It’s a good height, his feet are flat on the ground when he sits in it. He grabs the small table and drags it to be what he estimates is the right distance from the chair. “Peter?” Your heavy confusion is evident in your voice.

Jack sits back in his chair and beckons you. “Come here, sit on my lap.” You’re never going to turn that down, so you do without really thinking about it. But before you can sit, “Robe off. I want to feel you. You can put it over you like a blanket.” It makes you pause for a second but Jack opens his robe so that it won’t obstruct your skin from touching and so you do as he asks, then sit. “Good girl.” It’s whispered low and right at your ear.

He adjusts you so that your back is against his chest as you pull the robe over your like a blanket as he suggested even though you’re back in the privacy of your room. Your feet instinctively find the edge of the table to rest on and help you balance since you can’t reach the floor like this.

“I love you,” he murmurs, slips his arms from his robe and wraps them around you under yours.

You swallow hard. “I love you too,” you whisper.

You stay like that for a couple of minutes, Jack holding you on his lap and you resting your head back against his chest. Jack slips a hand down to your thigh and squeezes to get your attention. “Spread your legs.”

Your heart rate picks up just at his words. “Why?”

You ask the question but do as he says while you do. “Good,” he praises you again. The hand that had squeezed your thighs dips between your legs. “So I can do this.” His finger circles your clit once and then slides down. He smiles at how wet you are. “Always so ready for me,” Jack murmurs against your ear.

“Jack,” you breathe out his name, hand wrapping around his wrist, not to stop him but to anchor yourself. You can feel him growing hard behind you and you grind into him a little.

It makes him grunt a “Fuck.” Jack’s other hand slides up and grabs one of your breasts, squeezing at it before rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger at the same time he slips a finger inside you.

“Oh,” you moan. “More! Please,” you pant. He’s quick to listen to you and slip another finger inside of you with how wet you already are.

Jack’s breathing harder too, cock fully hard and aching with each wiggle of your ass as he makes you squirm. “Is that enough?” You shake your head against him, try to roll your hips in time with his fingers drawing in and out of you as they curl perfectly so that he’ll slide even deeper. “That’s not an answer.”

“No!” The word shakes as you cry it, Jack’s hands already winding you tight.

“Another one?” Jack slides another finger into on this pass and you keen for him, wiggling so much he groans from the stimulation and how it’s not enough. Once you settle again he resumes, works his fingers in and out of you, spreading them inside you sometimes. You’re letting out the softest high pitched moans with each breath you pant out. “This is enough?”

“No,” you shake your head hard. “No, no, I need your cock. Now. Please. I’ll be so good,” you start to babble just a little, “so good for you.”

“You already are being good for me.” His hand stills with his fingers buried in you. “My sweet good girl.” Jack lets out a harsh grunt at how tight your cunt squeezes his fingers at that. “How could I ever say no to you?”

He slowly pulls his fingers from you and brings them up to his mouth to suck clean. “You taste so fucking good,” he almost growls. “Makes me want to get you on the bed and just eat you out all night instead.”

You whine at that, torn between the thought of his tongue and his cock as grind yourself back against him. You shake your head. “Need you. Need your cock, please Jack. Tongue later if you want, later.” Jack laughs softly at your conflict and then the desperation with which you ask for his cock. “Cock first Jack, please.”

“Shh,” he soothes you, using one arm to lift you up a little and adjust you into a position that will work to get him inside of you. “I’ve got you Doll. I’ve always got you.” Jack shifts a little. “Help me, yeah?”

Your hand is there almost immediately to help guide him inside of you. “Fuck Jack, fuck fuck fuck.” Every word is moaned out as Jack moves his arm and helps you lower yourself onto him.

The groan Jack lets out once he’s bottomed out in this position is strangled and almost pained. “You are so fucking tight like this Doll,” he’s panting hard now and he hasn’t even started to actually fuck you, “holy fuck.”

“I know,” you whimper, shaking a little from the pleasure already. “You feel even bigger, I feel you everywhere.”

Jack starts to thrust up into you. With the angle there’s not a ton of movement but there’s just enough for his head to rub that spot inside you over and over and over again with every thrust. Your robe eventually falls off but neither of you give the slightest fuck, you’re in the room anyway and plenty warm.

Your hands cling to him, one at the side of this thigh and the other at the upper part of the arm he has diagonal across your chest and tummy, fingertips ghosting teasingly over your collarbone and making you shudder, every so often running along the bottom of your jawline.

Both of you are already panting and struggling to form coherent sentences, when the top of the hour hits and the Eiffel Tower starts sparkling.

“Oh,” your panted breath catches in your throat.

“Thought you might like that,” Jack grunts out as he keeps fucking you. He slows a little though, wants to draw it out.

Jack’s hand slips under the back of your neck and he shifts you to the side a bit so he can see your face better and you his. It’s now his breath that hitches as he takes in you in, eyes roaming your face and chest, greedy and unabashed. The glittering light falling all over your face makes you look unreal, ethereal and divine and how on earth are you his? “Gorgeous,” he rasps between heavy breaths. “You’ll never fucking- fuck” Jack throws his head back for a second as a heavy wave of pleasure rushes through him at the way you clench even tighter at his words before looking back down at you, eyes burning into you hotter than they ever have before, “you’ll never fucking know how perfect you are to me.”

Coupled with the way he’s looking at you as he says them, Jack’s words fully steal your breath for a moment as you stare back at him, go beyond making it harder to breathe. You have never felt more loved or more beautiful than you do right now. And you know that Jack isn’t just saying it solely because he’s in the throes of passion and that he’s not just talking about your looks. He means it all of the time, he thinks it all of the time. You’re always perfect to him, in every way.

“Breathe for me baby,” Jack coos at you through a panted breath out.

The reminder has you taking a shuddery gasp of air in. “Jack, I, I.” You shake your head a little as pressure builds behind your eyes, tears starting to form. You don’t even know what you’re trying to say, there’s no real words, just Jack. He nods at you to soothe you and tell you he knows.

It almost feels silly or cliché somehow but there’s something about the sparkling lights that almost makes it more intimate. His eyes look beautiful like this, the flicker of the light showing off every color in them. The constantly moving shadows on his face highlight every feature, highlight just how handsome he is, especially like this, flushed and panting and sweaty. He’s breathtaking. He’s yours. Body, mind and soul. This man has given you all of him, keeps giving it every day.

You somehow get your voice steady enough to whisper to him. “You’re beautiful, Jack.”

His hips stutter at the compliment. Jack’s not sure he’s ever been called beautiful before. There’s a little shake of his head that you catch as the Tower stops sparkling. He’s not disagreeing with you, he’s trying to explain he doesn’t know what to say.

“S’okay, you don’t have to-” You’re cut off by a gasp as Jack’s hips shift. “Oh Jack!” you mewl, “Jack, Jack, Jack. Don’t stop, please don’t, please.” Your reaction tells him he’s found the perfect stroke and so he keeps it. Doesn’t stop or slow down or speed up, just keeps it and revels in the way one of your hands finds his hair and tugs, the other clawing and surely bruising his thigh just above his knee. “You don’t h-have to say anything,” you finally choke out as tears of pleasure hit your eyes, “just know you are.”

Jack holds your eye contact, always does whenever possible. You watch as they grow glassier with every stroke. You talk to each other through looks, thank you and I love you and I can’t believe you’re mine and what did I do to deserve you and you feel so fucking good.

Jack finally breaks the silence with a low “I love you,” like he hasn’t been telling you how much he loves you with his body and eyes this entire time.

“Love you too,” you breathe on a pant out, “love you so much. Please, Jack.”

Jack’s hand finds your clit, starts working you perfectly. He has you memorized and you know it. There’s no lead up, no working his way into the touch you need to come. He’s just there with that touch immediately. Because he needs you to come.

“Fuck Jack!” you moan, jolting at his touch and how direct it is, how he’s so desperate there’s no lead up. “I’m gonna come.”

“I know,” he pants. “Come for me.” With how tight you are Jack knows that seconds after you come he’s going to follow. “Please Doll.” Jack can feel how close you are, rubs at your clit just a little faster as his hips get sloppy. “Need it, Doll. Fuckin need it. Make me come, please.” They’re all choked out and broken with how out of his mind on you he is. He keeps winding you tighter, so tight you still and go silent, become convinced your muscles are going to break all your bones with how deep the pleasure has you clenching them. “Please. Love you so m-much. Need it sweet girl, please.” The last please is cracked and pure desperation. Jack rarely begs but he is right now.

It shatters you.

Your orgasm rips through you, white-hot and searing every nerve in your body with unbridled bliss. It’s dizzying, has you clawing at Jack and tugging his hair even harder as you struggle to breathe through it, tears finally sliding down your face as you sob a little, almost unaware of how Jack’s name drips off your tongue so fast they slur together.

Jack is mere seconds behind you, coming with a broken shout of your name. He shakes from the ecstasy of it, from how fucking good you make him feel, wave after wave of pleasure making him breathless as he struggles to cope with the rapture. “Doll,” he groans, over and over, “fuck, you’re so good,” his words are strangled, caught in his throat and forced out because he needs you to hear them, “feels so good, love you, love your pussy, fuck.”

Jack is completely pussy drunk as he fucks you both through the crest, doesn’t still his hips or his fingers on your clit. He drags it out of you, never wants it to stop for either of you, never wants to leave this moment.

But once he feels it ebbing for you he moves his fingers off your clit, leans over you to reach your lips and kiss you. It’s sloppy and breathy and there are moments where he can barely kiss you back with how overrun with pleasure he is. You keep sighing his name, keep whimpering it as tears keep slipping down your face.

His hips keep thrusting as he works himself through it, sloppy and even less movement hunched over you to kiss you but it doesn’t matter. It and how tight you are and how you’re fluttering around him as you try to come back down is enough to drag it out of him and keep him coming.

“Are you?” you breathlessly giggle at him.

“Yes, fuck!” Jack hisses. “You’re too good, pussy’s too good I can’t,” he pants, almost sounds pained by the pleasure, “stop.”

You deliberately clench at his words and it pulls another groan from Jack, pulls a little more cum from him, and a grunted “Fucking shit!” as he stills his hips but pushes up to grind against you a bit.

Jack stops grinding after a few seconds because it becomes too much, rests his forehead against yours as you both shiver with aftershocks for a few minutes. Eventually he brings his head up and rests it against the back of the chair with his eyes closed as he pants and readjusts you, both of you hissing at the movement of him inside you as he does. He wraps his arms around you tighter, and you exchange murmurs of sweet nothings as you both attempt to come back to earth.

“Oh fuck,” Jack pants after a few minutes, still trying to catch his breath. “You’re fucking unreal.”

You giggle at him. “Mm, I’m very real, Peter.” It’s a little slurred.

He just hums at you, words still hard. You sit like that for another couple of minutes, Jack’s hands starting to rub and down you as your fingers draw soft circles in the crease of hips. “I want to get us to bed so we can cuddle properly but I’m not sure if I can walk.”

“I know I can’t,” you laugh. “Cum is going to get everywhere.” It’s already leaking out of you, always does, but with how long and how much he just came it’s going to be worse.

“I’ll get you to bed and eat it out of you,” Jack mumbles. He means it too, as tired as he sounds. He’s not really tired as much as he needs more time to recover.

“I might actually cease to exist if you do,” you tease.

Jack chuckles at that. He knows he’d have to wait too long to give you time to not hit a more painful than pleasurable hypersensitivity the second he started. “Can’t have that.” Jack doesn’t have to say more, doesn’t have to reassure you he’ll take care of you and clean you up. You know he will. He takes in a big breath and lets it out. “Alright, I can feel you getting cold, we’re gonna do it.”

You nod against him and take your feet off the edge of the table and fall forward a bit, Jack slipping out of you in the process, little moans from both of you at it. Jack keeps strong hands on your hips as you stand up, legs just a bit wobbly. He follows you up and gets beside you, wraps an arm tightly around you. It’s actually not as bad as either of you thought, you recovered better than you realized while sitting with each other. Getting to the bed is pretty easy, all things considered.

Jack shuts the patio door and then grabs a washcloth, gets it a little wet with warm water before coming over and cleaning you up. He takes it back to the bathroom and rinses it, leaves it to dry with all the other towels, shaking his head slightly at the sight.

And then he finally climbs into bed with you, rolls on his side and starts pulling you close to him at the same time you move towards him. Once you settle he smiles as he looks at you, his eyes flitting about your whole face before settling on your eyes. “There she is, my pretty girl.”

“My handsome man.” Your voice is rough, a bit ragged from the moaning, but not as bad as after the second proposal.

Jack leans in and kisses you. Just because he can and he loves you and he’s in bed with you in Paris and you’re marrying him.

You look sad when he pulls away, maybe it’s more a preemptive forlornness. “I’m going to miss this,” you murmur.

“I know. I am too.” Jack nods. Because he is. He hates seeing you upset but he wants you to know that he hears you and your feelings are valid before he tries to distract you. “We’ll always have Paris.” He fails to hide the smile that wants to grace his face, corners of his lips twitching up a little.

“Oh my god,” you laugh, shaking your head. “I can’t believe you just said that.” It worked. You’re smiling now, distracted.

“What?” Jack sings the word a little. “You were supposed to be impressed I can quote Casablanca at will.”

“I don’t think one needs to even have seen Casablanca to know that line.” You love him, him and the way he validates you but coaxes you into a better mood when it’s right.

“Okay but I have.” He waggles his eyebrows at you. “Have you?”

You smirk. “We said no questions.” A little challenge for him.

Jack nods, presses his lips together and pulls them down, raises his eyebrows at you. “Here’s looking at you, Kid.”

“Aha!” you laugh, “you really have seen it and you remember it!” A bigger smirk pulls on your face. You want to see how far he’ll go. “Play-”

“I’m not singing As Time Goes By,” Jack cuts you off.

You gape at him a little, smiling as you do. “I love you so much.”

“Did you mean for that to be a quote?” He smirks.

Your jaw slackens a little bit as you smile. “I-” you shake your head. “No. No I did not.”

Jack laughs softly. “I love you more, Doll.”

You shake your head at him, lean in to kiss him, to taste him and consume him and be consumed by him. And then you blink and it’s morning, and blink again and you’re walking back into your apartment together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hawaiʻi is always a good option, especially if you don’t want to go international.”

You and Jack are out on a date. He’d planned it, chosen a nice restaurant where you currently find yourselves, your favorite cuisine, of course. You’re doing something after but he won’t tell you what yet. It’s the weekend after the string of anniversaries. Your second anniversary together which you spent together out doing your favorite things together and getting a couple’s massage and having sex.

That anniversary was followed a month later by the anniversary of the shooting and when you went septic and when you came home. There had been a lot of emotions with these three, but you and Jack got through them together. You didn’t try to ignore the meaning of the day as such, but you did try to take the days back, especially the day of the shooting and the day you went septic. So you spent the days together doing fun things both out and at home and enjoying each other and your time with each other and laughing and being close and having sex and yes, sometimes crying. Jack had thought a date the weekend after the last anniversary passed would just be a nice little thing to do, so he’d planned this.

“You don’t want to go international?” Jack asks.

“No, no I never said that. I’d love to go international. I’d prefer to go international, honestly. I was just thinking out loud.” While you take a sip of your drink you make a little thinking face that Jack finds so adorable. “Fiji looks beautiful. Or any of the Caribbean islands. Bali. Mexico.” You get another bite of your food on your fork but pause before bringing it to your mouth. “We could go ziplining any of those places I bet. Ooh! Or horseback riding on the beach!”

Jack gives you an amused smile while you take your bite. “Anywhere else?”

You bob your head back and forward as you chew while thinking. “I’ve always thought one of those Viking river cruises would be cool! They go a lot of places now I think, and that would be a really cool way to see a region of Europe potentially.” You hum. “A tour of Italy. Or Spain. Or Croatia maybe!” You realize you’ve been doing all of the talking. “What about you? I’ve been the only one throwing places out there, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Jack shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink. “I was having fun listening to you think of places and watching your face as you spoke about them. You’re very cute.” You give him an almost shy shrug and Jack is tempted to end the date here and now and take you home to have his way with you. “I like all of those places. Ireland would be cool I think, especially if we got a car and drove around. I’ve always wanted to do Japan too. Kyoto and Osaka. But then Greece or Crete or Cyprus also sound amazing.”

You nod as he speaks, smirk a little. “You’re going to have one hell of a decision to make, Peter.”

“I am,” Jack laughs softly. “Really depends on what we think we’d like to do on our honeymoon.”

“Each other, ideally. A lot.”

Jack lets out a huffed laugh, he should have seen that one coming. “Well, yes of course. There will be a lot of doing each other I have no doubt, Doll. But you know, do we want to do museums? Do we want to go look at historical sights? Do we want to just lay on the beach all day? Do we want a combination of all three?”

“No, I know what you mean, I was just teasing.” You run your foot up and down his left leg under the table. “I would be happy with any of those, genuinely. I know that’s not particularly helpful, but you could pick wherever you wanted and I’d love it. As long as we’re together.”

Jack smiles at you. He knows how much you mean it and he understands because he feels the same way. You guys could stay at your apartment for a week on a honeymoon and he’d be content. That’s not going to happen on his watch, but still. He knows it’s about the person and to some extent the reason and not so much the place. “That’s very sweet.” He lets his foot brush against the side of yours under the table. “It’s very unhelpful, you’re correct, but it’s very sweet too.”

You playfully roll your eyes at his teasing. “I mean it. And you want to plan the honeymoon and do this as a surprise and I don’t want you to feel like you have to pick a place I said or that we have to do any of the things I said. We have a whole life together to go see all the other places.”

“I know,” he reassures you, “I don’t. I just wanted to hear your thoughts and ideas.”

“Okay.” You nod and finish off your drink. “As long as you know that the honeymoon destination that will make me the happiest wife is the one that you pick because you put the time and effort into thinking about it and picking it and planning it.”

Wife. You say it so nonchalantly but Jack’s brain glitches out and scrambles at the word. Of course he knows you’re going to be his wife, but hearing you refer to yourself as it leaves his mind fuzzy and reeling in the best way. It takes a second for him to process the rest of your sentence.

“Jack? You okay?”

“I’m perfect, Doll. You okay?” The smile he gives you as he says it is so beautiful you curl your toes in your shoes to keep from screaming.

“Yeah,” you nod, “but what was that? Something happened there for a sec.”

Jack’s smile doesn’t fade. He almost feels a little self-conscious in a way, being so affected by it. Sometimes it still fucks with his mind that you are going to be his wife. That you choose him. That he’s lucky enough to get to love you and be loved by you. But you are, and you do, and he is, and there is nothing in the world that makes him happier or prouder and so he doesn’t fucking care that the word got to him.

“Wife.” You raise both of your brows at him, raise your chin a little too in question. “You said ‘honeymoon destination that will make me the happiest wife’ and my brain just got totally snagged on the word wife for a second.” You bite your lip and giggle at him. “Don’t laugh at me!” He’s laughing as he says it, no real meaning or force behind the statement because he knows you’re not really.

“I’m not! I just think it’s cute!” You tilt your head at him. Something about the revelation makes you emotional in a way because you get that way with him and the word husband. And you get that way because it hits you how lucky you are and how much you love him and how proud you are to be his and call him yours, and so the thought of him having those same thoughts about you makes you emotional. “You say husband sometimes and the same thing happens to me, and so I just think it’s cute that it happens to you too.” You shrug a little. You seem almost flustered. “And, I don’t know,” you shake your head slightly, “it just makes me feel good knowing the same thing happens to you when you hear me say wife.”

“Of course it does.” Jack gives you his own shrug. His smile turns a little teasing. “Lots of things you say snag my brain sometimes.”

“Oh? And what things-” You’re interrupted by your waiter asking if he can clear your plates and if you’d like to see the dessert menu. “Yeah, I guess we’ll have a look, thank you.” You take it from him and help him collect your plates. Once he’s gone you look back at Jack to finish your question but he’s smirking and shaking his head. You know he won’t tell you.

“Anything look good?” He asks, nodding at the menu in your hand. You roll your eyes at him, but your smile makes it clear how you really feel.

You look over the menu, hum to yourself a bit as you do. “It all looks good.” You hold the menu out for him to take. “Look, you can practice your decision making skills now and pick for us.”

Jack shakes his head and smirks. “I don’t need the menu. I know exactly what I’m having for dessert.”

“Oh my god,” you mutter under your breath, closing your eyes and shaking your head. But again, your smile gives you away. You open your eyes back up and keep shaking your head at him. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Mmm,” Jack hums. “Technically you didn’t take me here. I took you here. On the date. That I planned.” You roll your eyes at him. “Let’s skip dessert here. We can get it after the next thing, okay?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “I want to know what the next thing is.”

“And so you will soon.” Jack flashes you one of those smiles of his that completely disarms you before turning his head and grabbing the attention of the waiter to get the bill.

Once you and Jack step out of the restaurant you lace your fingers with Jack’s and wrap your other hand around his upper arm. “So do I get to know what we’re doing next now?” You shake him a little bit to show your excitement and emphasize how badly you want to know.

Jack smirks at you and cocks his head. “You know I wasn’t going to tell you.” You pout at that and he brings his free hand up and swipes his thumb over your downturned lip. “But you’re so cute and adorable that I will.” Your eyes widen a little, sparkling in the street light. “We’re going stargazing.”

Your head tilts forward a bit, a confused smile pulling onto your face. “Stargazing?”

“Stargazing.” He nods at you and gives you quite the self-satisfied smile at your reaction. You’d told Jack early into your relationship that you found space and stars incredibly interesting, and that you like looking at constellations and learning about their meaning. He happened to see something in passing that reminded him about it and gave him the idea. “That okay?” Your silence doesn’t worry him, but he just wants to check.

You shake your head a little. “So much more than okay. I love it, thank you.”

“Good, and you’re welcome, the pleasure of setting it up was all mine, Doll.” He offers you his arm and it makes you grin and giggle like a love sick fool. You take it, looping your arm through his and letting him lead you to wherever it is you’ll be stargazing together.

It requires a trip on the light rail and when you get off you’re even more unsure of what exactly Jack’s plan is. You’re near the Steelers’ stadium. “Are we stargazing at the stadium? Are they like doing an event?”

“Nope.” Jack pops the ‘p’ a little and leads you down the street.

“I’m very lost, I don’t think I’ve ever been down here at night.” You pause. “Not sober at least.”

Jack chuckles softly to himself. “Hold on, we’re almost there.” You guys walk a bit more and Jack stops. “We’re here.”

“This is where we’re stargazing?”

Jack points to the building up just a bit in front of you. “The planetarium.” You look where he’s pointing, the hand not holding his coming to rest over your lips. “I saw that they were doing late night programs and it made me think of you. You said you liked stars and space once, constellations. I’d love to take you real stargazing, and I promise to one day, but I wasn’t sure how long it would be until we could steal away to somewhere with a lot less light pollution. So I thought this was a nice compromise. I know we might not be able to talk as much as if we were out in the middle of nowhere, but at least we’ll have someone explaining what shit is. There’s a couple different shows we can see too.” He thinks it’s ridiculous how his heart rate speeds up, how he’s engaged to you and seen you almost die and been with you for more than two years and he’s still nervous about whether you like his date idea.

“Compromise?” You laugh breathlessly as you turn back to him. “Jack, this is… incredible. I…” You close your mouth and laugh a little. “I’m kind of speechless. I had to have told you that back when we first started dating. I want to say I can’t believe you can remember but fuck,” you shake your head a bit, “I think you just remember everything about me.”

“I try to keep track of it all. Sometimes I get lucky and my memory gets pinged, like when I saw the poster for this.” He lets out a breath. “Okay, good. I’m glad you like it, I got kind of worried there for a second.”

“I more than like it Jack.” You slip your hand from his so that you can take his face in your hands. You smile at him and you’re sure it looks as gooey and in love as you feel. He knows that look.

Jack stifles a laugh. “You wanna say it together?” You keep the smile but scoff a little. “What? You get a look. It’s this very particular smile. I know what it means.” You squeeze his face a little and take a small breath in.

“You’re a romantic, Jack Abbot,” you and Jack say in unison. He beams as he shakes his head at you, laughing softly and looking at you like you personally hung the moon and all of the stars you’re about to go see together just for him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the anniversaries pass you and Jack really start to focus on wedding planning. While you didn’t want a two year engagement because you both just wanted to be married already, you knew it was the right call. You didn’t want the first anniversary of the shooting to fall a month and a bit after the wedding, since you’d chosen your anniversary as your date. And you needed the extra year for that day to fall on a Saturday, so you both felt it was just meant to be.

The first thing you end up really doing for the wedding is your registry. You weren’t even going to make a registry until Dana found out and convinced you that you should. It’s a spur of the moment thing one weekend. You haven’t done anything for the wedding really but you have a date and that’s enough to start a registry so you decide to go do it even though it seems out of order. It makes a great date for the two of you that has you laughing and dreaming about your future together. Neither of you expect anything from anyone. You make a couple at different places, to give people options. And because it’s fun to do.

You and Jack browse Crate and Barrel. You don’t know why the sight of him in Crate and Barrel makes you a little giggly, but it does. “An espresso machine.” Jack cocks his head at it. “What do we need an espresso machine for?” he asks, scanning it in anyways despite his question.

“Espresso.” You offer no further explanation.

Jack stops walking and lets out a deep sigh, hanging his head for a second and then shaking it to himself. But you both know he loves it, the sass. “You hardly drink espresso,” Jack points out.

You shrug as you keep perusing. “Well maybe I would drink more if we had an espresso machine.”

“You really want someone to buy us an espresso machine?”

“Nobody is actually going to buy us an espresso machine. People know us better than that. And if they don’t then that’s what returns are for.” You turn around and smile at him. He’s shaking his head at you but wears a smile.

“And when whoever gets it for us wants to come over and doesn’t see it out on the counter?” He raises his eyebrows in a little challenge as he walks closer to you and uses his free hand to squeeze your hip.

You contemplate for a second. “We’ll make a list of people we can never invite over. Or we’ll keep the espresso machine.”

Shortly after making your registries you nail down a venue. It’s fairly overwhelming trying to find one in Pittsburgh because of the sheer number of options. And that’s just if you stay in Pittsburgh and don’t consider the surrounding areas. “I don’t know, Doll, I’m not good with that stuff. With words.” You and Jack are driving around the city looking at different options today.

“I don’t know, Jack, the speech you gave as you proposed was pretty damn good.” Jack throws you a look. “They don’t have to be flowery or some crazy level of poetic beauty or whatever. All they have to be are vows from you. From your heart. I’m going to love them no matter what as long as they come from you. It’s not like I’m some poetic master.” You put your hand over his where it rests on your thigh. “If you really don’t want to, I’m not going to make us I just-”

“No,” he cuts you off because he doesn’t want you to get the wrong idea. “It’s not that I don’t want to, at all. I do want to. I don’t want us to get up there and only say the traditional vows. I like the idea of personal vows, I want that.” He lets out a big sigh. “I’m just concerned about my ability to… execute.”

“Can you name a challenge you took on and failed to rise to the occasion and execute?” You trace random shapes on the back of his hand, wait for an answer. One never comes. “That’s what I thought, because I know I’ve never seen it happen. Why don’t we plan to do them, and if we get closer and you’re concerned then we can revisit, yeah?”

Jack shakes his head as he pulls into a parking spot at the next place. He turns to look at you once he’s parked. “We’re doing them. No reevaluating. I want to do them. I have a lot to say to you, a lot to promise you.”

You beam at him. “I have a lot to say to you and promise you too.” You lean over the center console and push your lips out for a kiss that he’s happy to give you. “Come on. Maybe this will be the place we do all of our saying and promising.”

This place will overwhelmingly not be where you and Jack get married. It is comically bad. You and Jack are both having to focus hard on not losing it with laughter.

The person showing you around is blissfully oblivious to your guys’ struggle. It’s not even so much that the place is bad, it’s how different it is than the photos you saw online. Your brain is truly hurting trying to figure out where the photos you saw online were taken and how the spaces could have ever looked like the photos.

“I would love to know who took the online photos for them because they sure are talented,” Jack whispers as you follow the man into the reception room.

“Same, I’d hire them for our wedding in a second.” You have to swallow hard right after saying it to keep from laughing.

You and Jack both walk around the space and pretend to be interested as the man continues to talk about all the various features of the room. You make the mistake of glancing up and over at Jack. He’s not even looking at you, he’s standing behind the man showing you around who is somehow still talking about the features of the room staring at him with a look of concerned horror mixed with bewilderment.

You spin so that you’re facing a wall and neither Jack nor the man, hand flying to clamp over your mouth as you bite your lip hard to keep from laughing. You walk away a bit, standing over near a random swatch of carpet embedded in one corner of the dancefloor.

“Oh, yes!” The man calls to you and you shake your head to yourself a bit, have to let out a small scoffed laugh just to ease some of the tension in you. “The dance floor is great, isn’t it! A great size and the flooring is beautiful.”

You nod. “Yeah, it’s so pretty,” you force out, voice a couple of octaves higher as you hold in your laughter. You don’t have to be looking at Jack to know his eyes snap to you, the shit-eating grin that pulls up on his face radiating off him even from across the room.

You already know he’s on his way over to you so you take a couple of deep breaths and pull yourself together. You focus on the wall in front of you. You know that if you look at Jack you’ll break.

“Everything alright, Dear?” Jack asks in a whisper as he walks up to stand next to you all fake saccharine and concern in his tone. The man has launched into some tale about some famous Pittsburgh native who had their wedding here.

“I’m great.” You nod, swallowing hard. “I’m really great.”

“You sure?” He’s smirking now. “You can’t even meet my eyes.”

“I’m not looking at you. And you know why.” You shake your head, keep your eyes focused on the wall in front of you.

“But I have a very cute face. You tell me so all the time.” You can hear his pout.

“Jack,” you warn, lips twitching up.

“Okay! Okay!” The way he gave it up so quickly has you on edge.

“Jack. I swear to god.” You do your best to sound stern but there’s too much of a laughing lilt to your voice to be at all effective.

“I said okay!” he protests. You’re still suspicious.

And you’re right to be. You and Jack move across the room and get a bit closer to the man, do your best to pretend you’re interested in the story and the space. You make the mistake of looking away so that Jack is no longer in even your peripheral vision. And that’s when he makes his move, casually reaching his hand towards you and pinching your ass.

“Jack!” You manage to keep your shrill laughed yell of his name at a relative whisper as you bat away his hand. The only thing that saves you from cracking up is your very smart choice not to look at Jack.

Not quiet enough though. The man turns around. “Pardon?”

You’re immediately grabbing Jack and turning him, pretending to point at something across the room. Your voice is still a couple octaves higher as you fight back the laughter. “Oh, I was just pointing… that out to him.” You smile and nod at the guy. It evidently placates him enough because he launches straight back into whatever his current story is about.

“That? That is what you came up with?” Jack whispers, finally looks like you’re making him struggle to keep from laughing.

“I couldn’t pick one of the many fucking thats in the room fast enough!” This time you reach out to poke his side but he’s too fast, catches your hand with a smug grin. But you’ve played this game enough times with Jack.

While he focuses on the hand he ends up catching you’re subtly moving your other hand near him. So the second that smug grin hits you poke his side, arching a brow and giving him his own smug grin back when he jolts and lets out half a laugh that he then pretends was a cough.

You look away from him and take a few steps away because it’s getting to be too much again. “Jack.” Another warning as he comes up behind you again, still too much laugh in it for it to be particularly effective.

“I promise I’ll be good.” You believe him this time, can hear it in his voice. He presses his lips to your temple.

“You better be,” you whisper. You can feel him smile and give you another kiss there before pulling away.

Mercifully, the man concludes the tour and asks if you’d like to come in to book a date and discuss options. You’ve recovered enough to let him know you guys are going to look at a few more just to be sure.

Both you and Jack are surprised when the guy appears to be fine with that and doesn’t insist you come back to his desk for some hard sell. You’re sure fucking grateful for it though because there’s no fucking way you guys would have kept it together at a table with this man.

The man walks you to your car which you both find odd, but the look you exchange is an agreement that the move fits the vibe of the place.

You had both been doing so well, no longer on the verge of tears of laughter. But then the man tells you what weddings start at for the event and you both have to stifle laughs because there is no fucking way anybody is paying that much for this. You just nod at the guy and accept the second brochure he gives you as he tells you that if you guys decide to do the wedding here he can offer you a thirty percent discount.

Jack decides this is the perfect time to return to your little game.

“Thank you very much, we’ll be in-” Jack chooses then to pinch your ass again, making you blurt out half a laugh that you somehow manage to stop from devolving into the fit of laughter you have the urge to break into. You clear your throat. “We’ll be in touch, thank you.”

You stand there frozen and smiling until the man is far enough away and then let out a long breath. Jack pinches your ass again.

“Oh my god! Jack Daniel Abbot!” you shrill as you turn to him. “You were so trying to make me come unglued in there and out here you asshole!” It’s all bark and absolutely no bite. You’re not mad or even really trying to chide him. You love it.

“Oh?” Jack laughs. “Whisky on your mind, lover? Because I know my middle name isn’t Daniel and I know you know that.”

You huff and roll your eyes. “It just came out okay! It’s just what rolled off my tongue in the moment because I’m so mad at you!”

“Oh no, you’re not mad at me. Not even a little. You fucking love it.” Jack smirks, looking like the cat who got the cream. And he’s right and he knows it.“But would you like to see what can roll off my tongue in the moment?”

For whatever reason that’s what makes you crack. That comment. Within seconds you’re laughing so hard you can’t breathe, and Jack is right behind you.

“That was so bad,” you almost whisper through your laughter. You both laugh so hard you go soundless, laugh so hard it hurts and you both cry. You end up leaning into Jack to help stay standing because you can’t stop fucking laughing.

“I can’t breathe,” you laugh, keep laughing even after you say it, tears dripping from your eyes.

“If you can laugh and talk you can breathe,” Jack manages to get out, wiping away some of his own tears of laughter.

“Oh,” you give him a fake glare through your tears, “don’t you get fucking medical with me right now, Dr. Abbot.”

You both start to calm down, laughter trailing off and giving way to sniffles and coughs to clear your throats, the occasional giggle from both of you. Jack gives one last huff of a laugh. “Come on, Doll. Let’s get in the car.”

Jack’s hand finds the small of your back and he leads you the little bit of the way left to the car, opening the passenger door for you and shutting it once you’re in. You’ve been together over two years now and him opening and closing the door for you still makes you melt. It’s just so Jack in a way you don’t know how to describe.

Jack gets in the car and closes his door and you both let out long breaths at the same time before spending a moment in a comfortable silence, both of you thinking back on that entire tour.

“That was certainly…” you trail off, giving a long shake of your head as you look for the word.

“Something,” Jack fills in for you. “That was certainly something.”

You and Jack burst back into laughter. It doesn’t last anywhere near as long this time, but you both get a little teary again because the whole thing is so fucking absurd.

“Is it bad…” Jack trails off, sniffling and wiping some tears from his eyes as he laughs a little more. “Oh god,” he sniffles again, “is it bad that it’s so bad it almost makes me want to get married there?”

You shake your head, laughing harder for a second. “No. No, because I had the same thought for a second. It would be so bad it would be good. It’s like The Room.” The thought makes your laughter pick back up for a second before you both finally start to come down.

“We’re not going to actually do it though, right?” Jack asks as you both recover from all the laughing.

“No.” You shake your head a bit as you sniffle and wipe the last of your tears off your face. “Absolutely not, no.”

“Alright then let’s get out of here.” Jack leans over the center console and gives you a quick kiss.

“Yes,” you type the next venue into your phone so the directions show on the car’s infotainment screen, “let’s.”

This time, you both fall in love with the venue almost immediately. It’s perfect for the two of you and just the right size for your smaller and more intimate wedding. You and Jack wander up and stand at the place you think you’ll set up the altar, turn to face each other and hold hands. “What do you think?” you ask him quietly.

“I think that this is where I’m going to be standing the first time I see you in your wedding dress,” he smiles.

“Yeah?” you breathe. “You love it?”

“I think it’s perfect.” Jack wraps his arms around you and pulls you close. “Wanna practice the best part?” You giggle as you nod and wrap your arms around Jack’s neck. Jack’s smiling as he leans in to kiss you. It’s lingering but chaste. Jack pulls away from you and you’re immediately back to smiling at one another. He leans in for another kiss and this time he catches you by surprise when he dips you and you feel him laugh against your lips. He brings you back up, keeps holding onto you. “We have a venue.”

You nod, still smiling, probably look like a love drunk fool but you don’t care. “We have a venue.”

The next item crossed off the list is a dress for you. You keep your group small, a friend from work and Dana, Heather and Mel, the Pitt crew you’ve become the closest with through all of this.

You stand at the desk with the four of them, Robby, and Jack. Dana had put in for a half shift so she could attend and you’re collecting her on your way to the store. “You’re sure you don’t want me to come? Robby can handle it here by himself.”

“Excuse me? Have you looked at the board?” Robby points up to it.

“I’m sure.” You give Jack a knowing smile. “You get to see it on the day when I’m at the top of the aisle my love.”

“Alright, I just thought I’d offer.” Jack holds up his hands. You know he’s dying at the thought a little. It’s one thing for him to know you’ll be getting a wedding dress. It’s another for him to know you have a wedding dress and he can’t see it.

“You’ll be fine Jack.” Dana swats at him.

“You know I could come? If you’d like a male perspective,” Robby offers. “Jack can handle it here by himself.” You have to bite your lip to keep from laughing, Dana not even trying to hide her snicker while your friend, Heather and Mel turn their heads.

“Absolutely fucking not!” Jack hisses. “Michael does not get to see my wife in her wedding dress before I do!”

Nobody comments on his slip. On the way Jack just called you his wife. You bite your lip even harder at it and look to the side and exchange glances with Mel, who shoots you a wide eyed look of excitement and surprise at it.

You look over at Robby and smile. “I appreciate the offer Robby, but I think the five of us will make out okay. You guys ready?” You look at the group. When everyone agrees you turn your attention back to Jack, walk over to give him a quick kiss. “Have a good day at work, Peter.”

“Have fun dress shopping.” He kisses your forehead. “I’ll see you tonight.”

You nod at him and the five of you leave out the ambulance bay doors. It’s not a long trip to the wedding dress shop you found, a short ride on the light rail and up a few blocks. Your consultant is nice, asks what you’re looking for. You’re not really sure and not trying to box yourself into anything so you’re kind of open to anything. You tell her about the venue, the general feeling you’d like the dress to have, your budget and trust her to go pick the dress.

It’s strange sitting in the dressing room. You think back on everything, your whole relationship with Jack, how much you’ve already been through together. You fidget with the ring on your finger as you wait. He really did do a great job picking out a ring and you love that it’s bespoke and so yours alone.

Eventually your consultant returns with an overwhelming amount of sparkle and tulle and lace and chiffon and silk organza and taffeta in every shade of white and some blush tones. You start trying them on. You try on five or six, come out to show your party four of them. You all agree that none have been quite right. You get closer as you try on dresses but it’s hard not to feel a bit discouraged. You want to find the one so badly.

Once you’re out of the last dress your consultant runs back to the stockroom, tells you she thinks she’s thought of the perfect dress. You take a little gasp when she walks in with it and shows it off to you. It’s stunning just on the hanger. Just having it on before you turn to see yourself you already feel like it’s the one. The dress you’re supposed to marry Jack in.

“Oh wow,” you breathe as you turn around and look at yourself in the mirror of the dressing room. Tears start to form but you do your best to blink them away. You head out to show the group and you aren’t even conscious of it, but you’re beaming.

You get up on the pedestal and face yourself in the mirror. The dress highlights all the right places, the color goes perfectly with your skin tone and makes you look glowy. But most importantly it makes you feel good, which can be so hard for you to find. As you take yourself in you realize the dress makes you feel how Jack makes you feel when he looks at you. Special and beautiful.

“What do you guys think?” Your consultant helps you turn towards them.

“That’s the one.” Dana smiles back at you.

“Unquestionably,” your friend agrees.

Heather and Mel agree as your consultant brings over some accessories including a beautiful veil for you to decide on. You turn back and look at yourself in the mirror all done up and are handed a tissue because you get so teary. It’s perfect.

“You guys think Jack will like it?” you ask.

All of them laugh a little at that and you half turn back around. “What?” You give a little laugh too because of the looks on their faces.

“As cliché as it is, you could walk down the aisle in a trash bag and Jack would love it and think you’re the most beautiful thing in the world.” Heather smirks at you.

“He’s going to love this. You look so, so beautiful.” Mel beams at you. “And gorgeous and stunning.”

“He’s going to fucking lose it when he sees you,” your friend laughs softly, squeezing Dana’s arm as Dana leans into her a little to show her agreement.

“He’ll cry.” Dana nods, a little teary herself. You know she has a special relationship with Jack, that they’ve known each other a long time and she, like Robby, has seen him through some of the worst moments of his life, helped save him too.

“He fucking better,” you laugh through a sniffle, blotting at your eyes. You look back at yourself in the mirror and get a bit teary again. “It just makes it so real, you know? We’re really getting married. I’m getting married to him in this dress.”

“So you’re saying yes?” Mel asks, huge smile on her face.

“Yeah,” you nod. “Yes. This is my wedding dress.” Everyone claps and gets up to give you hugs. You take some photos of course and then get everything bought, get told to make sure you have your shoes by the time of your first alteration appointment. The five of you grab an early dinner and then you head home and wait for Jack.

You’re chilling on the couch with your feet laid out on it, head propped up a bit with a pillow and the armrest, scrolling and watching tv. You’re in one of Jack’s old oversized t-shirts and a pair of booty shorts. The way you’re laying on the couch though makes it seem like you have nothing on under them. You hear the sound of the door unlocking and Jack step in. “Honey, I’m home!” he calls out teasingly as he drops his bag and gets his shoes off. “Well,” Jack drawls, voice lower than normal, walking towards the couch, “this is a sight I could get very used to.”

You laugh and affectionately roll your eyes at him as he starts to crawl up the couch between your legs. You drop your phone to the side and widen your hips to help accommodate him. “Hi.” You smile at him and give him the kiss he seeks. Jack lowers himself so that he’s laying on you, chest to chest with his head resting to one side. He can hear your heartbeat and lets out a big sigh, shoulders sagging a bit. “Long day?”

“Yeah. Not a bad one, just long.” You start running your hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp and it makes Jack hum, nuzzle into your chest. “That constant kind of busy that’s just draining some days.” He can’t help but let out another hum of contentment as you let him lay on you and scratch his scalp and let him listen to your heartbeat and smell you. Let him become enveloped by you. It’s always so relaxing. Sometimes he falls asleep and you stay like that until he wakes up hungry and realizing you both need dinner.

He lets out another big sigh, this one full of fake hardship. “Plus I had to spend all day thinking about my fiancée out getting her wedding dress and knowing she won’t show me or give me a hint about it.” He playfully bites at your chest over his shirt, his voice so deliberately overdramatic it makes you laugh. “You find one?” You can hear the smile in his voice now.

“I did, yeah.” He can hear the smile in your voice now. You don’t say anything more, in part because you have nothing else to say and in part because you know he’s going to comment.

When you don’t speak he fills the silence like you knew he would. “You wanna show me? Give me something? A little hint?”

He can feel the vibrations of the quiet laugh his words pull from you. “Not particularly, no.” Jack makes a little noise of protest. “Alright. A trade.” Jack nuzzles into you again in acknowledgment. “You can see me and the dress if I can know where we’re going for our honeymoon.”

“No!” Jack says immediately. “I want it to be a surprise.”

His head moves with your chest as you laugh properly at that. “That’s how I feel about my dress.” You let one of your hands come up to his face, brush your thumb over his cheekbone. “You know I’ve never actually seen you in your dress blues, so really your dress blues are your dress.”

“I’ll show you a photo of me in my dress blues if you’ll show me a photo of you in your dress,” Jack is quick to offer as an alternative trade even though he knows it’s in vain.

“Nope.” You pop the p. “I’ll wait to see you just like you’ll wait to see me.”

You decide not to wait on wedding bands though, not to pick them out for each other and have them be a surprise for the other like some couples prefer to do. You guys want the experience of going in and doing it together.

You go, of course, to the local store where Jack got your engagement ring. The owner is thrilled to meet you and see the woman he helped Jack design the ring for. You talk about wedding bands and what you’re looking for. You guys walk around and pick a couple out and then the owner brings over more options, from simple metal bands to more intricate bands with diamonds for you, a couple of men’s options with diamonds too.

Jack picks one he likes and slips it on his finger. He looks down at it as he clenches his fist to see how the band thickness feels before straightening it back out. It hits him, how he’s really going to be married. To you. And seeing a ring on Jack’s finger levels you in a way you weren’t expecting.

“Wow.” It’s a little breathy, the way you say it. It makes Jack look over at you. “I thought getting the dress made it feel real, but this, you with a wedding ring on… wow.” You look up at Jack and give him an equally breathy laugh.

“Yeah,” he breathes back, clearly also a bit dazed. “Put one on,” he encourages.

You take your engagement ring off, pick one and slide it on, stare down at your hand. “I know you’ve had a ring on but still,” Jack swallows thickly.

“It’s a wedding ring,” you murmur, staring down at your hand. You slide your engagement ring back on and hold your hand out again, the wedding ring you tried on sitting nicely underneath it. “That’s so wild.”

Jack starts laughing because that’s such a you thing to say. He leans into you and gives you a kiss on the cheek. “I love you,” he murmurs.

“Love you too,” you hum back. You both try on quite a few more. It’s easier for the two of you to pick one for Jack than it is for you. You’re overwhelmed by all the options. “I’m glad I didn’t have to pick out the engagement ring,” you mumble.

Jack nods with you. “I’m glad I just saw the ring and knew it was almost perfect. And I’m glad we’re picking this one out together.”

“I don’t know how to decide. They’re all so pretty.” You wiggle your ring finger a bit so the diamonds catch the light as you evaluate the current option you’re wearing. You take it off and then look over the tray of rings you haven’t tried. One catches your eye. It’s over in the corner of the tray by happenstance so it was easy for you to overlook with all of the choices. You recognize it as one of the ones Jack had picked out when you were looking around. You slip it on and evaluate by itself. It’s perfect. You slide your engagement ring on top and it remains perfect, the wedding ring complementing your engagement ring as though they were made to be worn together, even with their differences.

You hold your hand up again, wiggle it. “I really love that look,” Jack murmurs. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is,” you agree. “It’s perfect.” You pull your eyes from the rings and look up at Jack who’s already looking down at you with a soft smile. “This is the one. This is my wedding ring.” You lean up and kiss him. You keep it chaste and short since you’re in public with the owner nearby. “You picked it out, you know.”

Jack nods, eyes earnest and crinkling a bit at the corners with the small smile he wears. “Yeah I remember. I had a feeling. But I didn’t want to pressure you. And I promise I don’t love it just because I’m the one who picked it out.”

“I know, I never thought that.” You look back down at your hand and grab his left hand, place yours on top, fingers offset by one so that his wedding ring sits next to your engagement and wedding rings. “We have our wedding rings.”

Jack grins at you, eyes sparkling like the gemstones surrounding you. “We have our wedding rings.”

About five months out from the wedding you go catering and cake tasting. Jack loves to pretend he doesn’t have a sweet tooth but you know he does. It’s why you love baking for him so much, because you know he loves it and enjoys everything you make. You know his likes well by now. He likes sweet but not too sweet.

“That’s alotta fucking cake.” Jack’s eyebrows are raised as he watches the woman bring the big tray of cake samples over to you.

“Well,” you have to fight back a laugh at the way Jack said alotta fucking cake. “We certainly won’t be able to say we didn’t have options.” The woman sets the tray down. Each small slice of cake has a number in front of it, and she hands you a piece of paper that describes each of the cakes as identified by their corresponding number. “We need a whole ass pamphlet to explain what the options are.” Jack snorts at that, pulls his phone out and takes a photo quickly. “An experience you don’t want to forget?”

“I’m sending it to Robby.” He glances at you and you quirk an eyebrow at him. “He wanted to come to the cake tasting so fucking bad.”

“So you’re showing him what he’s missing out on?” You smirk at Jack.

“No, I am encouraging him to find someone so that he can have his own cake tasting. I’m tempted to send it in the group chat with Dana so that she gets on his ass about it.” He looks so amused with himself you have to chuckle. Jack puts his phone back on the table next to yours. “Sorry. Just had to do that. I’m focused now.”

You laugh softly and lean into Jack a little, each of you holding the pamphlet with one hand. “Lemon blueberry with tangerine icing is interesting.”

“I bet it’s good, though. Refreshing. Oh, espresso ganache,” Jack has to hold back a laugh. “How fancy.”

“I think you’re going to like that.” You point to a different one. “Ginger-infused cake with cognac. I think that’s the one that says fancy.”

“Espresso ganache? You really think I’m going to like that? I prefer my coffee black, my americanos black. Not with mocha or whatever else. Ginger cognac does sound fancier though. I bet it’s good.”

“I am quite certain you’ll like it in the context of a cake.” You keep looking. “Almond. I like a nice simple almond cake. Oh fuck, cannoli cake I bet that’s so good, it has cannoli filling layers.”

“Yeah but their almond cake isn’t going to beat yours, so. I’m not convinced about the ganache.” Jack shrugs. You smile to yourself at his compliment. “English lavender with earl grey buttercream is probably good. Red velvet. But again, yours is so good. Glazed donut is interesting, but okay. Butterscotch bourbon, that’s probably really good. Oh, here’s the winner. Sultry chocolate cake. Not just chocolate cake. Sultry chocolate cake.”

“It sounds like something for the honeymoon suite. Imagine having to put that on the placard things or whatever that tell people what the cake is. Sultry chocolate cake. And you haven’t tried the ganache yet, of course you’re not convinced.” You take in a breath and look up at Jack. “I think we just have to start trying. Unless there are any you want to eliminate right away.”

“We’re here now with them in front of us. Might as well try them all.” Jack shrugs. “How about starting with the strawberry champagne cake?” You nod and Jack grabs the slice and sets it in front of you. You each take a bite and make a little noise of appreciation at how good it is. You keep trying new flavors, some immediately being taken out of contention.

“Let’s try the glazed donut. I feel like it’s going to be kind of weird,” You say as you grab the plate and bring it in front of you both. “Like if you want the taste of glazed donut at your wedding just have fucking glazed donuts.”

Jake takes a bite and hums in appreciation. It’s not bad. “Donuts aren’t as elegant.”

You fake roll your eyes at him as you take a bite. You shrug. “It’s not terrible, but I just come back to have donuts.”

“Agree, it’s not bad but also not going to be our wedding cake flavor.” Jack nods. You both look over the pamphlet and try a few more, a couple of which you’re really considering.

“Cannoli next?” He knows this one will likely end up in the serious contenders section of the table, clears a spot for it. Jack grabs the slice and sets it in front of the two of you, takes a forkful.

“I’d always rather be your cannoli than glazed donut,” you hum softly as Jack starts to chew.

Jack chokes a little, managing to get the bite down in stuttering gasps, coughing and reaching for the bottle of water they’d given you as you pat his back and bite your lip. You feel bad, you hadn't meant to make him choke. Once he settles you take a bite of the cake. Unsurprisingly, it’s really fucking good.

“What did you just say?” Jack’s finally able to whisper, voice a bit scratchy.

You furrow your brows in feigned innocence. “That I’d always rather have cannoli cake than glazed donut cake?”

“No,” Jack draws the word out and gives a little laugh. “I don’t think so.” You deepen the furrow of your brow in mock confusion. “I think you should admit it, lest you end up my glazed donut for a while.”

You snort. “Please. You love filling your cannoli way too much. I’d be your glazed donut maybe once before I was back to being your cannoli.”

“Is that a challenge?” Jack narrows his eyes at you.

“No.” You pull your lips down and shake your head as you take another bit of the cake on your fork. You look back up at Jack. “It’s a statement of fact, Peter.” You finish bringing the fork to your mouth and take the bite while maintaining eye contact with him.

“Oh,” he laughs out the word softly. “Is it now?”

“Mhhhm,” you nod as you keep your mouth closed and chew. “And I love that fact about you so much, because like I said, I’d always rather be your cannoli than glazed donut.”

“Good,” Jack nods, trying his hardest to seem unaffected and succeeding in relation to everyone except for you. “Thank you for saying it.”

“I think it should go in the serious contender area.” You flick your chin at the cake.

“I already made a space Doll.” Jack gives you a little smirk. “I know you and your tastes very well by now.”

You try a few more, none of which either of you really cares for. Then Jack goes to try the cake featuring the espresso ganache. You look at him expectantly with a little smirk on your face. You can see him fighting to keep his face neutral as he tries it. “Okay. I’ll admit it. You were right, it’s actually really fucking good.”

“See!” You poke at his tummy. “I know you and your tastes very well, Jack Abbot.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jack takes another bite. “I think this is actually one of my favorites. You could totally recreate this at home I bet. I could have it for every birthday or special occasion.”

You consider it as you take another bite. You probably could. But then a slow smirk draws on your face and you look at Jack. You can’t help yourself. “Jack, my love. My darling. Love of my life. Do you know what making this at home would require?” Jack shakes his head while working on another bite. Your smirk grows. “An espresso machine.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can tell by the way he unlocks the door and steps in. He doesn’t say anything as he locks the door behind him. Jack just drops his bag and looks at you.

“Rough shift?” You grimace a little just from his expression. He looks demoralized almost, which is rare for him.

Jack walks over and sits next to you on the couch, leaning in to grab a kiss before answering. It feels a little different than his usual home from work kisses, lasts a little longer.

“You could say.” He lets himself sink back into the couch. You wait, see if he wants to volunteer more. Jack shakes his head a little. “Just lost a few people, more than usual.” You reach over and squeeze his thigh, move a bit closer to him and lean on him a bit. You know feeling close to you can help.

“I’m sorry it was a bad day, Peter,” you murmur. You know that there’s not much you can say that will help right now. This is one of those parts of Jack’s job that hits much harder some shifts than others and no words will take it away or fix it. All you can do is listen and be here for him and let him know he doesn’t have to bear it alone.

“No kids.” Jack shrugs. “I guess at least there’s that.” Jack’s hands grab your hand from his thigh, hold it between his.

It’s a cover. There’s something about the way he says it, his tone and the particular mannerism of his shrug and the way he picks up and holds your hand between his. You nod to yourself slightly. He can’t say it out loud. Either can’t or doesn’t want to. But you know.

“How far away was the wedding?” you whisper.

Jack lets out a pained laugh. “Fuck,” he mutters. He squeezes your hand and you know he’s saying thank you for knowing and seeing me and understanding and asking when I couldn’t say it. “Six months.” You rest your other hand on the top of his and squeeze gently. “And now he’s going home alone with a funeral to plan and a wedding to cancel. God, and I feel so fucking selfish and like a terrible person for saying this with what that guy is going through but I really could have done without having to watch him slide her engagement ring off her finger.” The fingers of his bottom hand instinctively search for yours.

You wince at his words, heart aching at the thought of him having to watch that scene unfold. “Thinking that doesn’t make you selfish Jack, it makes you human.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jack drops your hand and rubs his hands over his face. “I don’t want to dwell. It was just a rough day.”

You respect his wish, don’t keep talking about it or try and get him to open up to you about it more right now. He’s told you that’s not what he needs. “Can I get you anything? Beer? I could go draw you a bath?”

Jack finally turns his head as it rests against the couch to look at you. “No.” Jack reaches for you, grabs at one of your hips and thighs. You get that message too and slide yourself onto his lap so that you sit perpendicular to him. Jack rests his forehead against the side of your neck for a second and breathes deep before pulling back. “I just want to be here with you for a bit.”

“Then here for a bit is where we’ll be.” You give him an adoring smile and lean in closer to him, cup his face with your hands. You kiss all over his face, but not in a flurry like you do sometimes. You take your time, plant each kiss deliberately and linger it for just a second to make sure Jack really feels it. You start at his hairline, move back across his forehead. You kiss each of his eyebrows and the space between them, his temples and then his eyelids, soft lashes fluttering against your lips. You kiss his cheek bones and the bridge of his nose, the apples of his cheeks and then the tip of his nose. You kiss the skin around his mouth, the bottom of his cheeks, and then his jawline and chin. And then you kiss his lips and Jack takes over.

You yield to him, let him take control and deepen it, your hands sliding down to hold onto his scrub top as Jack licks into your mouth and groans. He’s needed this all day, all fucking day. Needed you. He doesn’t even need more, he just needs you, in some capacity. Eventually the two of you are forced apart by the need for oxygen.

“I’m here,” you murmur.

Jack takes in a big breath and lets it out a bit shakily. “Yeah,” he brings his hands up to cup your face, looks you in the eyes. “You are.” You let yourself lean into Jack, rest your head on his shoulder as his arms wrap around you to keep you close. You just sit like that for a while, let Jack hold you and feel you and come down from work.

“So I was thinking,” Jack starts.

You can’t help yourself. “Uh-oh, we’re in trouble now.”

Jack rolls his eyes at you and clicks his tongue, but he’s grateful for it, the way you help shift the mood. He needs it, to have a good night with you, the two of you just being normal together. “I was thinking that once we’re back from our honeymoon and have settled for a couple of months, what if we started looking at houses? Or a townhouse? Condo even, I guess. Something that’s ours. That we own together. As the Abbots.”

You pull yourself up from resting on him and blink at him for a moment, brain processing what Jack just asked. Not in a bad way, in a holy shit you can’t believe this man just asked if you wanted to buy a house together way. “You want to buy a house with me?”

Jack bites back a smile. “I want to do everything with you, Doll. Part of the reason I asked you to marry me.”

“No! I know, I don’t doubt that or you, I’m sorry if I made it seem that way-”

“You didn’t,” Jack interrupts to quell your worry, one hand rubbing your back. “It was a very adorable reaction.”

“Okay, good.” You let out a little laugh. “I don’t know, I know it’s only like four months away, but sometimes I still can’t believe I’m going to be your wife and you’re going to be my husband. And we’re going to be the Abbots.”

Jack squeezes your hip a bit at wife. “I get it. Sometimes I still can’t believe it either.” He lets out a bit of a sigh. “You know what would help me believe it more and make it even more real?”

“Oh I have a feeling I do,” you mutter, eyes preemptively rolling.

“Seeing you in your wedding dress.” There’s the slightest edge of hope in his voice even though Jack knows you’re not going to say yes. Doesn’t stop him from giving you his biggest puppy eyes though.

“There it is.” You shake your head at him. “Not happening, sir.” You pause for a second. “But I do think it’s kind of cute how you keep trying.” You boop his nose and he moves his head up to playfully try and bite your finger. “To answer your question though, I would like that. A lot.”

A slow smile spreads over Jack’s face. “Yeah?” He nods once as he says it.

“Yeah.” You nod too and lean in to kiss him. “I want to buy a house or something with you.” You run your hands through his hair and tug at his curls just slightly as you kiss him again, a little way you have of saying you love him.

“That reminds me,” Jack breathes when you break the kiss finally. “Do you want me to keep my hair this length for the wedding or get it cut shorter like I kept it when we met?”

You shrug. “It’s up to you, it’s your hair. You didn’t give me any input on my wedding hair.”

“Well no, but it’s a bit different.”

You give him a bemused smile. “I don’t think it is Peter.”

“A little.” You go to speak again but Jack beats you to it. “Your preference? Please.” He gives you a little pout.

“Jack,” your eyes dart around his face a little trying to read him before moving up to his hair, “you know what my preference is. But I want you to be happy and feel good more than I want my preference.”

“Do I?” He ignores the last sentence which makes you laugh slightly. You realize something in him just wants to hear you say it right now. That you love his curls, that you prefer it at the just slightly longer length he has it now because it shows more of his curls. Just to feel close and talk about the wedding without talking about the wedding given what happened today.

“I love your curls. I prefer it at this length because it shows them off a bit more, but you’re the most attractive and handsome man I’ve ever had the privilege of laying eyes on, let alone calling mine, however you have your hair.” You run your hands through it, smiling to yourself a little without even fully realizing it. It’s a bit fluffier right now, the curls pulled out a bit from how much he must have ran his hands through his hair this shift. You love it so much. Love him so much.

“And I love the salt and pepper. God, Jack, I really fucking love the salt and pepper.” You shift on his lap slightly, roll your ass just a little. “I love it everywhere.” You look him in the eyes and lick your lips.

Jack’s eyes darken as his pupils dilate, cock starting to harden in his scrubs. Jack has started to go gray everywhere and you can both very easily and very clearly remember the night it first became visible enough for you to notice. He throbs just at the thought. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” you hum as your hands find the hem of Jack’s scrub top and start pulling it off. You deliberately keep his undershirt on, love the way he looks in it alone, how tight it is against all of him. “All of it drives me insane.” Jack lifts his arms and you finish getting his scrub top off, tossing it wherever. You nuzzle your cheek against his, stubble grown out a bit since he last shaved. “Stubble too.”

You slide yourself off Jack’s lap and he whines a bit, tries to grab at your thighs to pull you back but you don’t let him. “Shh, let me do this for you, okay?” You coo at him as you move yourself to stand in front of Jack, his legs opening for you automatically.

“Doll,” Jack breathes as you sink to your knees in between his, one hand starting to rub at his now fully hard cock over his scrub pants. “You don’t have to do this-”

“Oh I know I don’t have to, Jack. I want to. I’ve been thinking about having you in my mouth all day. So please?” You push your bottom lip out for him. “Let me help you relax, Dr. Abbot.”

“Fuck,” Jack groans, eyes fluttering shut and head tipping back a little already. “You’re so good to me.”

“No, I just treat you how you deserve,” you hum as your hands find the waistbands of his scrub pants and boxer briefs, eyes taking in the outline of his cock intently before you go to pull them both down at once.

“Wait.” You pull your head back to look up at him and take your hands off his waistband. Jack grabs a pillow. “Here, put this under your knees. I know you like the bruises but you need to let the ones you have heal.”

“You’re so good to me.” You mirror his words back at him, eyes sparkling with adoration as you take the pillow from him and put it under your knees. You smirk as you return your hands to his waistband. “Just makes me want to give it to you even sloppier, Jack.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Thank you for having a late lunch with me and dropping me off at work,” Jack gives you a little smirk as you stop near the fire hydrant at the corner where the street turns into the ambulance entrance. He’s working an odd mid shift today to help cover. 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. It kind of sucks because it’s a Saturday, but you at least made the most of the morning and had a nice lunch out together.

“Anytime, Peter. Thanks for asking.” You smile at him and set your hands on his chest as his come to rest on your hips. “Do you know what is exactly three months from today?” Your eyes sparkle as you say it.

“Hmmm,” Jack hums, pretending to think. “The best day of my life?”

You press your lips together and smile, tilt your head at him and grab at his scrub top a little. Your eyes get just a little bit glassy because you know how much he means it. “That was really good,” you laugh.

“I thought so.” He gives you a self-satisfied grin. “It’s true too.”

“I know,” you nod, “it’ll be the best day of mine too.” You slide your hands up around his neck and hug him, relish in the feeling of his hands sliding off your hips and around your back as he returns your hug, backpack hanging off one shoulder like always. “Have a good shift, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” he nods. “You should just take an uber home.” You raise your brows at him. He glances up at the sky. “It might rain. You don’t have an umbrella. It’s not a long walk home but it’ll feel like it if it starts to rain.”

He’s right. The clouds do look threatening but when you looked at the weather earlier it said it wasn’t going to rain until later. Hence why you didn’t bring an umbrella. “Okay.” You shrug and pull out your phone. “I’ll let you know when I get home. I love you.”

“I love you too.” Jack pulls you in for one last kiss, lets it linger before pulling away and squeezing your hand. He turns and walks down towards the ambulance entrance and you stay where you’re at while you order an uber.

Jack nods at Robby as he walks in, slows for a second when he hears a car honking. It’s harder to tell this far away but it’s definitely coming from the direction he just came from. It stops though and he takes a couple more steps when the sound of screeching tires, crunching metal, shattering glass, the high pressured spraying of water and screaming draws everyone’s attention. An accident right outside the ambulance bay. Good spot for it, Jack thinks until it hits him. The water. The fire hydrant.

You’re standing on that corner.

No, no no no. This is not fucking happening. This is so not fucking happening. It’s three months to the fucking day before your wedding. The universe cannot possibly be this cruel.

The problem is Jack knows it can be. That it often is.

And he knows that you were standing on that corner because of him. Because he asked you to have lunch with him and walk with him to work. Because he said you should just get an uber home and you listened to him instead of walking like you were going to. And now what? He’s going to be left with a wedding to try and cancel and a funeral to plan and wedding rings you never got to give each other and a wedding dress he never got to see you in?

All that and a hope and a prayer Dana has a photo of you in your dress so he can see you in it just once.

All of these thoughts go through his mind in mere seconds. Jack is panicking. Silently and for the most part stoically. He looks up at Robby for a second and Robby just knows by the look in Jack’s eye.

Jack drops his backpack and takes off running out the door, multiple people following him. They’re all headed to help victims, anyone who might need help. Jack is headed for you and you only. He almost hopes he doesn’t see you but he knows there’s no way you got an uber and drove far enough away in the twenty or thirty seconds it took him to walk in.

But there you are.

Walking down from the corner towards him and calling his name and trying to reassure him already, holding your arms out a little for him as he gets to you, not sure what his instinct will be. As soon as shit had stopped flying you’d started walking quickly towards the ambulance entrance doors, taking a bit of an arc to avoid getting soaked. You knew Jack likely heard the accident and would be worried and out looking for you.

He says your name as he gets closer to you, panting less from the short run and more from the intensifying panic. “Are you hurt? Were you hit?” Slip of the tongue there that you both catch. His hands cup your face as he looks over your face. They drop quickly though to hold so that his eyes can trail unobstructed up and down your body almost methodically.

“I’m okay, I promise.” You grab his hands. “Jack, I’m okay. I wasn’t involved and the crash wasn’t even that bad, it sounded much worse, some guy drove straight into an empty and parked car and someone swerved to avoid him and hit the hydrant. I saw it coming and moved down the street.”

“No offense Doll but I’m okay is so the fuck not going to do it this time.” The way he says it isn’t mean or snippy or angry. It’s scared. Jack finally looks at you, really looks at you in your eyes. “You’re coming in for an exam. You could have been hit by debris, a sharp piece of headlight plastic and you’re probably having an adrenaline rush so you might not feel it and you’re in all black so I can’t get a good look at you and blood isn’t obvious. So just, you’re coming in and I’m going to look you over.”

You tilt your head a little and go to say something but stop for a second as you fully take in Jack. In addition to the sacredness in his voice you can tell he’s panicked by how he looks physically, pupils blown wide and chest heaving. He looks like he could be sick at any moment. While you know you’re genuinely fine this time you know that Jack doesn’t and that he can’t believe you as much as he trusts you, he just can’t, not on this, not after what happened last time. You know Jack’s not going to be able to see another human being until he’s checked you over.

“Okay.” You nod at him.

“Doll, please don’t argue, it’s not excessive or overdramatic-”

“Jack,” you say his name and drop his hands so that you can hold his face with yours. “I said okay. Let’s go in and to a room, yeah?”

“Oh,” Jack nods. He shakes his head slightly and it’s like he comes back to. “Yeah, yeah, come on.” He wraps an arm around you as you walk towards the ambulance entrance like he’s trying to be prepared to catch you when you drop any second now. Because he is. Because Jack is convinced he’s going to get you in a room and find something wrong, some horrific injury that’s going to leave you fighting for life again. Because Jack is right back to that day, the PTSD episode taking over his mind fast and gripping him like a vise.

He grabs his bag as you walk by it, catches Dana’s eye as he opens the door to central 6 and leads you inside. She gives him a knowing nod as Jack pulls the curtain to give you privacy since the door has a window.

You set your purse on the bed and turn to face Jack, grab the hem of your shirt and start to pull it over your head. Jack sets his backpack down and his hands find yours before you can.

“Let me,” he whispers, eyes still a bit crazed. You move your hands and nod, lift your arms when needed so he can pull your shirt off. He tosses it over your purse and looks at you, asks a silent question with his eyes.

You nod and Jack unhooks your bra, puts it on top of your shirt. His hands find the waistband of your pants and underwear and he kneels as he pulls them down. You rest your hands on his shoulders as you pick up one foot at a time for him to get them all the way off. Jack stands back up and sets them on top of your bra and shirt.

It feels like you should be uncomfortable or embarrassed standing like this, naked in front of a fully dressed Jack, even though he’s seen you naked a thousand times now, showers with you all the time, and has seen you in far more compromising positions than this. And in some sense it is because you don’t have a ton of self confidence despite all of Jack’s constant praise and body worship. But it’s also not because it’s Jack and the way he looks at you and takes you in, even now for the reason he is, makes you feel like the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and like he’s thinking to himself how lucky he is that you’re his and he gets to have you and see you like this. That you let him. And that is in fact what he thinks to himself.

Jack starts with your face out of habit of looking in your eyes. A hand gently trails behind his gaze, fingers running softly over your skin, pressing just a bit like they’re looking for something. Jack just needs to feel you, feel your body and warm skin. He moves from your face down to your neck, covers it all before his eyes move to your shoulder and down your arm to your hand.

It’s not clinical, the way he looks over your body. It could feel clinical easily given the setting and the fact that Jack is checking for injuries. But it’s not. Instead it just feels like the man who loves you is taking in every piece of you to make sure you’re unharmed. Like a man who is so in love with you that he won’t be able to function again until he’s made sure you’re uninjured is taking reassurance from you body. Like being loved.

His eyes and hand go up and down you slowly, methodically. He does the top half of your body first and then crouches to do the lower half. Not a scratch on you. Jack stands back up, kisses at a couple of your scars as he does and then your forehead and then your lips.

Neither of you have said anything since Jack whispered to let him and you haven’t needed to, still don’t need to. He grabs your bra first, helps you get it back on then does your shirt for you. He crouches again to help you with your pants and underwear, pulls them up with you as he stands back up. You adjust your clothes and smooth them out a little as you get situated again, Jack’s eyes still trailing over your body some.

It’s then that he looks back into your eyes. They’re normal now, his pupils aren’t dilated and he doesn’t look so out of control with worry. There’s definitely still some worry there, but not like there was. Jack starts to move just a half second or so before you, stepping closer to you and cupping the back of your head with his hand. He pulls you into a hug like that, one you were already moving to give him. His hand stays on the back of your head, moving to the side a bit as he holds your head to his chest, his other arm wrapping around you to hold you tight. You wrap your arms around him, let him hold you as tightly as he needs to and hold him back just as strong.

Jack nuzzles his nose in your hair and smiles at the familiar scent. It helps ground him. He presses a couple of kisses to the top of your head, lets his lips linger with the last one. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispers. He releases you so that you can take a step back and look at each other. But his hands stay on your waist to keep you close, thumbs brushing back and forth absentmindedly, your hands rest on his chest. “I’m sorry if I was mean out there, I hardly even remember, I was just so…”

“You have nothing to apologize for. You weren’t mean, I promise, Jack. You were just worried. That’s okay.” You slide your hands up his chest to his neck into his hair, scratch a little. You know he loves it. “Did it help?”

He wraps his hands around your waist and pulls you a bit closer again. “Yeah, thank you. For letting me. I just needed to know and see with my own eyes that nothing had happened to you.”

You smile at him. “Of course, it was a pretty easy ask.” You try to give him a little smirk to see if he’ll smile and he does, just slightly. “Jack,” you tilt your head at him, encouraging him to speak to you but not demanding it. He’s still way in his head even if he’s come down from the panic he was in.

He lets out a long breath and sits in one of the chairs. “I was standing there and heard it and thought to myself that was a good place to crash. Right by an emergency room. And then it hit me that you were on that corner. And it was like the entire world was falling out from under me again. I was right back there in a way, it was like I was right back there.” He shakes his head a little and runs a hand through his hair. You know where he means.

You step closer to him and he automatically opens his legs so that you can stand between them. You rest your hands on his shoulders. “That makes sense.”

Jack settles his hands on your hips and bows his head forward so that his forehead rests against your tummy. “Maybe, yeah.”

“No, not maybe.” You move your hands, one rubbing the back of his neck and the other running through his hair. “It does make sense Jack. It was a PTSD trigger even if the circumstance wasn’t exactly the same. You feared for me and my life. Of course it’s going to take you back there. And I know it’s not my fault, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you’re going through this and feeling this way right now and hurting. And if there is anything I can do to help Peter, please tell me.”

Jack squeezes your hips and lifts his face a little to give your tummy a kiss. “You’re already doing it,” he mumbles against you. “Just being here and letting me look you over and talking to me.” He pulls his head from your tummy and looks up at you, cocks his head slightly. “You know?”

“I do,” you nod. “Because you do the same for me. You heal me just by existing in this world with me.”

The two of you share a moment of eye contact before Jack pushes his lips out. You lean down and kiss him until he pulls away. “I should get to work.”

You nod. “Probably, yeah. I actually need to talk to Dana about my last fitting so it’s good I ended up coming in.”

There’s a comfortable silence as you share a look. Jack knows that you do need to talk to Dana but that it’s not the only reason you’re staying. You’re giving him a little more time to come down with you still in his sight. “Okay. Just let me know before you go, yeah?”

“Of course.” You smile at him and give him another kiss before the two of you leave the room. After you speak with Dana you find a reason to hang around the Pitt for a while longer. You chat with everyone who’s on and gets a couple of minutes to spare, hang around the desk without being intrusive or disruptive. You can feel Jack’s eyes on you frequently as he runs around from patient to patient, nurse to nurse, doctor to doctor. The two of you share a look at some point and you can see the gratitude in his eyes even as far away as you are.

Eventually though, you know you need to leave. You track Jack down to let him know.

“I’m going to head home, okay?” You smile reassuringly at him.

Jack stiffens just slightly for a second. When you rest your hands on his chest he relaxes a bit. “Yeah,” he nods, “okay, that sounds good. Make sure you get some dinner, yeah?”

“I will if you will.” You give him a knowing look.

“You know that’s not fair.”

You give an overdramatic huff. “Fine, but please try and have dinner if you can.”

“I promise you I will try.” He pulls you in for a hug and kisses the top of your head. “Text me when you’re home, yeah?”

“Of course, Peter. Call if you need anything. Or text.” The two of you step apart and Jack walks you over to the doors. “I love you.”

Jack leans down and kisses you. “I love you too.”

You try so hard to stay awake for Jack, but you slip asleep reading your book on the couch without even realizing it. You had told yourself when you laid out on the couch that you would end up falling asleep but you convinced yourself you wouldn’t because you were at such a good spot in your book. Famous last words. The book is now face down on your chest rising and falling with your steady sleeping breaths.

Jack thinks it’s odd when he opens the door and the lights are on but you don’t say anything. You’d have heard the door. He drops his bag and takes a few steps in to see if you’re on the couch or just forgot to turn the lights off when you went to bed. Maybe you left them on for him deliberately.

He smiles when he sees you asleep on the couch, walks over and grabs your book off your chest and marks the spot for you. You stir awake at it, blinking rapidly to clear your eyes before giving him a sleepy smile.

“Sorry, I tried waiting up for you.”

Jack smiles wider. He loves your sleepy voice. “I can see that,” he teases. “Don’t apologize. Let’s go to bed, yeah?”

You nod and sit up. Once you’re standing Jack grabs you for a quick kiss. “Dinner is in the oven staying warm for you, bring it to bed.” You yawn a little. You rarely have to do this anymore now that Jack works days but whenever he’s covering a night or mid if you make a real meal for dinner you always leave some in the oven for him with it set to warm. It is really such a simple thing but makes Jack feel so incredibly loved and taken care of and cared about and appreciated. “The granola bar or yogurt or whatever you had stored away that you ate doesn’t qualify as dinner.” You give him a knowing look, a little bit of the edge lost with how sleepy you still seem.

“Thank you, Doll.” You just nod at him, wait for him to grab it. You both change and you sit on the bed with him while he eats, chat a bit about his shift.

“You want to talk?” He knows you’re referencing what happened earlier today with you. “Need to?” Jack also knows you’re not pressuring him, just genuinely asking and reminding him that you’re here if he needs.

“I’m okay, honestly. Being busy at work helped,” Jack explains once he swallows the bite he’d taken.

When he finishes the two of you go to the bathroom and brush your teeth, wash your faces and get ready for bed. You curl up together once you’re both in bed. You wind up with Jack’s head on your chest, tangled together in the perfect position that’s comfortable for you both. “You’ll wake me if you have a nightmare?” You’re half asleep already when you ask.

“I will, promise. But I think I’ll be okay.” Jack nuzzles against your chest a little, telling you without words that the sound of your heart beating in his ear seems to keep them away. “I love you.”

“Good. I love you too.” Your words are all sleep slurred and Jack chuckles a little. “Sleep tight Peter. Less than three months now.”

And it’s just under two months until the wedding when Jack pushes open the trauma room door and raises his eyebrows at Robby. It’s nearing the end of their shift. “What’s up?” He’s a bit confused why Robby called him in. It’s an MVA victim and the patient, while critical and in need of further stabilization, diagnostics and treatment, isn’t circling the drain. Robby can handle this with his eyes closed. He has a great team running it with him too. So Jack is confused why Perlah came running to grab him. “You’ve got this-”

“Jack, it’s Leah’s sister.” Robby’s voice shakes as he says it.

“Oh fuck.” Jack doesn’t need Robby to say anything more. He goes to grab a gown and gloves and jumps in, displacing a new intern.

“We can’t lose her Jack, we cannot fucking lose her.” Robby’s shaking his head as he finishes intubating her. “I can’t talk to her fucking parents again.”

Jack finishes off a chest tube and after a minute Jesse yells out a new round of vitals. They’re strong as she stabilizes further, strong enough that Jack can take a second.

“Robby,” Jack calls to him but Robby doesn’t look over, just starts moving to do something else. “Michael!” That gets Robby to look up and Jack catches his gaze. “We’re not going to.” Robby’s frenetic anxiety has made the entire room far too wired. “Okay everyone stop!” Jack isn’t mean about it, but it’s firm. There’s no room to argue or do anything but stop. “She’s stable for now so everyone take a breath.” Jack is still looking Robby in the eyes. Everyone takes a breath and lets it out. “Alright,” Jack nods, “let’s go.”

Jack is right. They don’t lose her. She stabilizes nicely and gets admitted and taken upstairs. Robby tries to talk to her parents but Jack doesn’t let him. He’s not sure where Robby went off to, but he can guess.

He calls you first quickly. You answer on the second ring. “Hi! Sorry I was turning the bath on to soak, so it took me a sec to get to my phone.” Jack smiles to himself at you explaining as if you needed to. “You have nothing to apologize for, Doll. I just wanted to let you know that I’m finally fucking off but it’s going to be a bit still.”

There’s an edge to Jack’s voice that concerns you. It’s almost like he’s had a bad day but not quite. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“I’m okay, I promise.” He lets out a sigh, rubs his free hand over his face. “Robby had a MVA victim today. Leah’s sister.”

“Oh fuck.” You walk over and turn the bath off.

Jack lets out a little laugh at that. “Yeah. Robby called me in and told me it was her and I said the exact same thing. She made it. She should be fine, she’s admitted upstairs. I spoke with her parents this time.”

“Robby’s not though.” Your heart aches for him. It’s around that time of year too. You weren’t around for Pitt Fest, but Jack has told you pretty much everything at some point or another.

“Robby’s not though.” Jack confirms. “I’m pretty sure he’s up on the roof. I’m going to go talk to him and then some people are going to the park now, I’m going to try and get him to go to see how he is.”

“Okay, Peter,” you murmur.

Jack knows the sadness lacing your voice isn’t because he’s just called you to let you know he’ll be home even later than he already texted you he’d be. It’s because you’re sad for Robby. That empathetic heart of yours is something he loves about you so much, but he knows it means you feel real emotional distress at times. “He’ll be okay.”

“No, I know, I just… wish I could make it better for him.”

“I know you do Doll. I do too. I’ll text you, okay?”

“Yeah.” You nod even though he can’t see you. “Jack?” You say it before he can start to say goodbye,

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s really hard watching your best friend hurt. I’m here, okay?” You chew on your lip a little. You know it hurts Jack to see Robby struggling and vice versa.

“I know you are. Thank you.” You can hear the smile in Jack’s voice. “I love you and I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home.”

“Okay, love you too.”

Robby is exactly where Jack expects to find him. “You’re not allowed to jump off the roof,” Jack calls to Robby as he walks over to where he stands beyond the guard rails.

“Jack, I really don’t want to do this again. It’s too much déjà vu for one day.” His voice is steady at least. He’s not crying or near tears. Jack takes that as a positive. He gets closer and leans against the guard rails near Robby.

“We don’t have to do anything. But you knew I was going to come up here to find you,” he says pointedly. Robby tries to shake his head at first but ends up giving him a nod. Jack can tell Robby really doesn’t want to come apart here again. He gets it. “I’m serious. Can’t have my officiant jumping off the roof. Especially not this close to the wedding.”

That at least gets a huff of laughter from Robby. He lets out a long breath and shakes his head. “I don’t know Jack.” Robby turns and ducks back under the guard rails and stands next to Jack. “It was years ago,” Robby laughs and runs a hand through his hair, “but right now it feels almost like that night.”

“Yeah,” Jack nods slowly. “That’s PTSD for you.”

“I recognized her.” Robby looks over at Jack. “They looked so alike. But I couldn’t place her. And then someone was going through her stuff and read her name and it hit me at the last name. Leah’s sister. I felt fucking awful that I didn’t recognize her. I should have. Shouldn't have forgotten. And then it was just like I can’t lose her. I can’t do that to her parents again. And I should be over it, and it shouldn’t fuck with me this much still.”

Jack lets the words hang there for a minute, in part to see if Robby will say anything else. “First,” he starts, “should is a stupid word.” That earns him a look from Robby that Jack waves off for later. “Second, she wasn’t Leah. You shouldn’t have recognized her. They looked similar, yes, but still. You’d never seen her before, had you?” Robby shakes his head. “Then how would you have known? I get the not losing her thing. And even if you hadn’t called me in you wouldn’t have. You’re a good doctor, Michael. Leah was effectively DOA, you know that.”

Robby takes in a big breath and lets it out. “Yeah.” He shrugs. “Still.” It’s whispered and Jack knows Robby’s getting close to his limit.

“I know. Come on, let’s go to the park. Even just for one.” Robby grimaces at Jack. “It’ll be good for you.”

Robby gives Jack a look that says he doesn’t believe him but nods anyway and they head down, sit on their usual bench. It’s much livelier than it had been when Jack thinks back on the night of Pitt Fest. More people.

Everyone chats and laughs but Jack can read Robby and knows it’s all fake, all forced and shallow. It’s unsurprising but Leah’s sister hit him hard. Jack wonders when the last time he spoke to Jake was.

After what can only be five or so minutes Garcia smirks and looks over at Jack. “Your girl decided to join us?”

Jack’s brows furrow together in genuine confusion before his eyes follow Garcia’s. Sure enough, there you are, in leggings and one of Jack’s oversized sweatshirts you’ve stolen. Jack tilts his head as he gets up and walks towards you, reaching you before you hit the group. His heart rate ticks up a little.

“Hey,” he calls to you before he reaches you, his hands wrapping lightly around your upper arms when you’re close enough, eyes starting to move over you. “You okay? Did something happen?”

You melt a little inside. He’s so protective and caring. You know some of it stems from trauma but he was like this with you before you were shot. You bring your hands up and squeeze Jack’s forearms softly. “I’m okay, promise. I didn’t come for Pitt services.”

Jack believes you but he can’t help the way his eyes give you one last scan. The way they linger at your torso doesn’t escape you. “Okay, good.” He releases your arms and you his as he pulls you in for a hug, kisses the top of your head. “So why are you here? Not that I’m not thrilled to see you or that you can’t come see me randomly.”

You separate a little so you can look at each other. “I don’t know. I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Robby shouldn’t be alone. As long as you’re okay and don’t need my undivided attention.” Your eyes flit around Jack’s face as you look for any signs he does. “I love Robby, but you always come first.”

Jack smiles at you and shakes his head slightly before leaning in to give you a kiss. It’s chaste, there’s no tongue or real movement, he just lets it linger to communicate how much he loves you and appreciates you. “I’m okay.” He looks you in your eyes like he loves. “I promise.”

You nod. You believe him, know he is. “Good.” The two of you exchange small smiles and agree on the plan without speaking a word of it. It’s just intuitive. Jack swallows hard because you’re so good not just to him, but everyone in his life.

Jack laces his hand in yours and walks you over to the bench with him. You greet everyone, smile and nod at Robby as you sit down by Jack. You aren’t there long before Robby stands up and says he’s going to head out, starts walking.

“You ready?” Jack asks you. You nod at him, both of you saying your goodbyes.

You don’t wait for Jack though as he finishes saying goodbye. Instead you walk quickly to catch up with Robby.

“Robby!” You call out as you get close. He stops of course, turns to look at you, is about to ask if something is wrong. “Come to ours.”

He raises an eyebrow and takes a deep breath in as he gives a single nod, grimaced smile pulling up on his face. Jack told you at some point. He’s not mad about it.

“That’s very kind, but I’m fine. I’ll be okay.” He starts to turn to walk again but you follow beside him.

“I don’t know that I believe you that you are fine, and it’s okay not to be.” You give him a little look when he looks over at you. “Even if you are, you don’t have to work towards being okay alone.”

Robby’s steps slow. “It’s okay, honestly.” He sounds much more emotional now but also like he doesn’t know what to do with the offer for some help. “I’m sure Jack would like some alone time to decompress.” He’s trying to deflect.

“I spoke to Jack before I offered, he’s okay with it.” The two of you are standing again. “Well it’s less of an offer at this point and more me telling you. You shouldn’t be alone and I know you well enough at this point Robby to know that you don’t want to be. So come to ours.” You grab a fistful of the sleeve of his sweatshirt. You know you have him and don’t need to say more but you give him another reason. His favorite thing you bake. “Let’s go. I’ll make you white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies.”

You don’t wait for him to say anything, just tug at him by his sleeve and turn around, start walking over to a waiting Jack. Robby doesn’t protest, walks by your side.

“She’s persuasive isn’t she?” Jack smirks as you approach.

“She grabbed my sweatshirt and started pulling, I’m not sure if that’s persuasion.”

“I said I’d make him white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies,” you tell Jack as you release Robby’s jacket and lace your fingers through Jack’s outstretched hand.

“You better,” Robby huffs as he smooths out the creases your hand had caused in the sleeve of his jacket. The attitude is all fake.

“Or what, you won’t marry us?” you fire back, largely to distract him.

“Ha!” Jack laughs loudly which makes you join in. Even Robby has to as much as he tries not to.

“I am a woman of my word, thank you very much. I will make you the cookies.”

It’s not a long walk to your and Jack’s place. You kick off your shoes and walk in as both men drop their bags and get their own shoes off. You’re in the kitchen by the time they come to find you, assembling supplies and ingredients.

You glance up at them as they walk in. “Shower. Both of you. If you want. But also do it.” You look at Robby. “There’s a clean towel on the guest bed for you, and I put a pair of Jack’s pajama pants and a shirt on the bed for you too. There should be stuff in the shower but just yell if you need something that isn’t in there.”

Jack’s standing a little behind Robby and staring at you. It’s one of those moments where he really thinks you’re too good not just for him but for the world. You did all of this after getting off the phone with him, planned for it, came to see him, yes, but also to check on Robby and silently ask Jack whether Robby needed this, to not be alone. All because Robby is his best friend. You and Robby are close in the sense that he’s Jack’s brother effectively and so you know him well and most everything about him and love him like family, but you’re not best friends. This is something you’re doing for Robby, yes of course, but also for Jack and he knows it. Jack catches your eye and mouths he loves you. The smile you give him says you love him too.

“I will, uh. Thank you.” Robby gives you a small nod, both he and Jack walking down the hall to their respective rooms.

While they shower you order a pizza and start on the cookies. The dough doesn’t take too long to make and you have it blast chilling in the freezer and grab the pizza from the delivery guy and have it on the counter by the time Jack comes out and finds you in the kitchen. “Hi.” He wraps his arms around you from behind and hunches a bit so he can kiss at your neck.

“Hi.” He can hear the smile in your voice as you tilt your head to give him more access to your neck. “You okay? Nice shower?”

Jack lets his lips stay against your neck. “I’m good, Doll. And it was okay.” He kisses his way up to your jaw. “Would have been better if you’d been in it with me.”

You giggle, turn your face more so that you can share a real kiss. “Tomorrow. I promise.” Jack hums, loosen his grip around you when you go to turn all the way. You run a hand through his still wet hair. You really do love that he’s keeping his just slightly longer now all the time. “I love your hair,” you sigh, tilt your head at him. Ever since France he’s been keeping it that centimeter or so longer. He doesn’t have a huge preference and you’ve made it clear just how much you love it like this. And he does too with how feral it can make you and how it lets you tug on it even harder when he’s got his between your legs or is fucking you.

Jack lets out a laugh through his nose. “You know I’ve picked up on that.” You tell him you love his hair all the time, play with it all the time, run your hands through it. You love his curls and the salt and pepper. He teases you all the time that you’re the reason for the increasing amount of salt.

“I’m jealous.”

“Picked up on that too,” Jack laughs. “You got us pizza?”

“Mhm, I knew the chances of either of you having eaten something substantial were slim to none.” You give him a soft smile.

He loves you so much. The way you anticipate his needs, seem to think of everything. He’d love you as much as he does even if you didn’t, but you do. Jack tilts his head and leans in for a kiss, this one far less chaste than any you’ve had since parting for the day much earlier this morning. Jack starts to deepen the kiss even more, push you into the counter a little as he gets closer and you let him, scratch at his scalp to make him groan.

The shutting of the guest room door startles you both and ends the kiss. Jack whines softly as he leans his forehead against yours. “Eat, Jack.” You poke his tummy softly. He grumbles a little but kisses your forehead and walks over to the box of pizza, grabs a slice. “You too,” you tell Robby once he walks back into the kitchen. “Eat.”

Robby looks over at the pizza and nods. “Thank you.”

Jack opens the fridge once he finishes his first slice and pulls out two beers. “Doll?” He raises his eyebrows at you.

“No, I’m okay but thank you for asking.” He nods at you and takes the tops of both, hands Robby one and grabs another slice of pizza, as does Robby. You’re all mostly quiet as they eat, grabbing more slices when they finish one, and you take the dough out and scoop it out onto some cookie sheets. You give both of them a look when they each grab a little dough out of the bowl to eat.

Jack and Robby move into the living room while you finish and get the cookies in the oven, a timer set. You follow them into the living room, just for now. You’ll give them some time together once the cookies are done.

The two sit at opposite ends of the couch, both leaning on the armrests a bit. You sit right next to Jack, feet curled up almost under you and lean back into him a little. “Tell her what you said on the roof.” You look back over your shoulder with your brows slightly furrowed at Jack. “You’ll see, just wait.” Robby’s brows are even more furrowed than yours. He has no idea what Jack means or what part of the conversation he’s referring to. “About being over it.”

“Oh,” Robby runs a hand through his hair and looks at you. “I should have recognized her and I didn’t. I should be over it. It shouldn’t fuck with me this much this far out. And normally it doesn’t, but today it sure fucking did.”

You nod as soon as he says the word, squeeze Jack’s hand. “Should is a stupid word.”

Robby lets out a little laugh. “So I’ve been told.”

“I didn’t tell him the rest,” Jack informs you. “I think hearing it would benefit him though.”

“You could have told him.”

“Yeah, but I like hearing you say it. And it seemed like something that would be more convincing tonight coming from you.” Jack runs his hand up and down your thigh now.

You nod, look at Robby, catch his eyes so that you’re really looking at each other. “Should is a stupid word,” you repeat. “Nothing should or shouldn’t be. Things just are. And it’s okay for them to be as they are. It’s okay for this to be as it is. It’s still going to fuck with you, Robby. Some days more so than others. And no fucking shit it did today. It was her sister, in your trauma room. You’ve gotta give yourself some grace.”

Robby is quiet, has to look away from you as he thinks. But you saw how glassy his eyes grew, how close to tears he was before he looked away. Jack knows he isn’t sure how to respond to that. So he moves the conversation forward a bit. “When’s the last time you talked to him?”

Robby takes in a deep breath through his nose and holds it for a second before letting it out as he shakes his head. “Couple of months. Four or five maybe.” He clears his throat to try and get rid of some of the emotion, takes a sip of his beer. Jack shifts slightly so he’s a bit more turned, can rest his hand on the top of your thigh. “He just doesn’t want to talk. He’s still mad. I think at least. Sometimes I feel like it’s something else but can never figure out what. Talk about it in therapy every now and then, but there’s not much left to say.” Robby swallows thickly, sets his beer down.

You and Jack are both quiet for a moment. You’re trying to read both Robby and Jack, trying to see if further input from you is wanted or if this is a shut up and listen moment, or something Robby is telling Jack for later, when they’re alone.

Jack can damn near hear you thinking and squeezes your thigh. He’s sure Robby needs to hear whatever it is you have to say. You shift down the couch a little, sit a bit closer to Robby, fully facing him on the couch with your legs crossed under you. You grab his hand and hold it. Not like you hold Jack’s but like you hold the hand of a friend you’re comforting.

“Sometimes you don’t think he’s mad anymore. Sometimes you convince yourself he’s not mad anymore. I think, maybe, instead you think he’s over it, or as over it as he’ll ever get and he’s just done with you.” You let out a small breath as Robby squeezes your hand hard. All three of you know that you’re right. “You think he has gotten used to you not being there, has moved on from you and doesn’t want you to be in his life anymore. You think he’s no longer angry and grieving and confused and struggling. You think he just doesn’t need or want you. And the thought that he just doesn’t need or want you hurts much more than him blaming you for her death ever did. Because he’s a son to you. And so the thought that he just doesn’t need or want you anymore is the pain of losing a child in a way, Michael. You’ve gotta try and let yourself feel that.”

Robby looks at you. “Holy fuckin shit.” He’s stricken and you know it’s an uncomfortable realization but if life and therapy have taught you one thing it’s that sometimes having words, knowing how to say what you’re feeling, is helpful, makes it better, no matter how hard those words are to say or hear. “You… I…” Robby drops his head, takes his hand back from you so that he can hold his face in his hands.

“I know,” you murmur. You scoot just a bit closer and wrap your arms around him from the side, rest your head on the back of his shoulder and just hold him in the hug as he finally starts to cry.

Robby drops one hand from his face and holds onto your arm that’s across his chest, just as something, someone to ground him. He never has this, never has someone with him when he’s like this except for maybe occasionally his therapist and every so often Jack. And you’re offering him this platonic affection and comfort of a hug and so Robby lets himself have it.

You don’t say anything or move. Just hug him silently. Jack watches the two of you and thinks about how funny it is that he’s always thinking there’s no way he could love you more and then you do something, something like this, and somehow he does.

The timer for the cookies goes off around the time Robby starts to calm down so you take your arms back and get off the couch, give Jack a quick kiss before going to the kitchen. You get the cookies on the cooling rack and fan at them a bit so they set up enough for you to get them on a plate, take them into the living room.

Robby and Jack have sat quietly together while you’re gone to give Robby some more time to collect himself. You set the plate on the middle of the couch between them. “I’m going to bed, but come get me if you need anything. There’s more cookies in there too, if you run out.”

You step a little closer to Robby off to the side and lean over, run a hand over his hair and hold the back of his head while you kiss the top of his head off to the side. You move over to Jack, stand between his legs and lean down for a proper kiss, hold his face in your hands. “I love you,” you murmur against his lips, smiling.

“I love you more.” He wraps his hands around your wrists and gives you another kiss, another few, honestly, Robby still so out of it he doesn’t even make a comment or fake a gag. You giggle a little and give him one last one before pulling away and heading into bed.

“She’s right,” Robby admits once your bedroom door closes. He grabs a cookie, so does Jack.

Jack takes a sip of beer and nods. “She usually is.”

Robby shakes his head and rubs his face with his hand, takes in a deep breath. “I never know what to think with him, Jack. Sometimes we text and it feels so normal. Other times it feels like he’s sending answers because he feels he has to and like it’ll end the conversation faster. Sometimes we do frequently, a couple of days in a row and then this. We go months.”

“When’s the last time you spoke on the phone? Or facetimed or whatever?”

Robby has to think about it, grabs another cookie while he does. “His birthday. He answered when I called. It was short, but he answered. That was like nine months ago.”

Jack raises his eyebrows to himself as he grabs another cookie. Nine months is a long time. He’s not judging Robby, at all. It’s just a long time and he knows how much it must kill Robby.

“She got married,” Robby says quietly.

“Janey?” Jack’s kind of surprised by the news but he doesn’t really know why.

“Yeah.” Robby shrugs. “So he really doesn’t need me,” Robby tries to laugh, “he has someone else, someone who didn’t kill his girlfriend.”

“You didn’t kill his girlfriend Robby. And I have a lot of doubt that some guy his mom married when he was over 18 has replaced you.” Jack finishes his beer and sets the empty bottle on the end table. “Jake loves you, a lot.” Jack shakes his head as Robby starts to interrupt him, grabs a cookie and shoves it at him to try and keep him from talking. “No, don’t tell me he doesn’t. I saw him that day before he left, I saw how he looked at you. He might have been mad at you, might have hated you in a way, but he loved you when he left the hospital Michael.”

“I don’t know if that makes it better or worse,” Robby sniffles. “Even if he loves me and I haven’t been replaced and even if he needs me,” Robby shrugs. “He still doesn’t want me. And not wanting me wins over the rest and I don’t know what to do with that.”

Jack sits up a little and lets out a breath. “Have you tried asking him if he wants to do something together, in person, since he started talking to you again?” It had taken six or seven months for Jake to respond to Robby’s texts after Pitt Fest. He gave Robby the coldest of shoulders at Leah’s funeral, almost looked mad he was there.

“No. Why would I? He doesn’t want to and then it just makes it awkward for him to have to try and find a way to say no.” Robby shakes his head, finishes his own beer and sets it to the side. “I don’t want to put him through anymore than I already have.” He grabs another cookie.

“But maybe he does want to, Robby. He’s still a kid, even though he’s over 18 and it happened when he was 17.” Jack catches Robby’s gaze. “Maybe he doesn’t know how to text or call first or maybe he doesn’t know how to ask you to do something or be back in his life and have things be like they were before Pitt Fest because he thinks he hurt you too bad and doesn’t know how to apologize and can’t imagine you ever forgiving him. Maybe he thinks you don’t want him. Maybe he’s hurting just as bad as you are and maybe he misses you just as much as you miss him.”

Robby’s gaze falls from Jack’s and Jack can tell he’s thinking. Jack can tell he’s hoping.

“I don’t,” Robby starts but then stops, shakes his head a little. “You think?”

Jack shrugs. “I think it’s a possibility, yeah. Wouldn’t surprise me.”

Robby nods. He grabs another cookie and Jack sits with him in silence.

“I think I need to sleep on it,” Robby finally says.

Jack nods. “That’s a good plan.” Jack knows that’s also Robby’s somewhat subtle way of ending the conversation. Jack stands up and grabs his bottle, holds his hand out for Robby’s. “You taking those to bed with you?”

Robby rolls his eyes as he stands up and grabs the plate and follows Jack into the kitchen. “No, just a couple.” Jack snorts a laugh as Robby grabs some and a paper towel. He gets the rest of the cookies and those left on the plate in a ziploc and sets them on the counter in front of Robby. Robby tilts his head at him.

“She made them for you. So they’re yours.” Jack shrugs as he walks out of the kitchen towards your room. “I hope you don’t get too many nightmares tonight,” Jack calls back to Robby. It’s his way of saying sleep well because Jack more than most people understands what sleeping is like after a PTSD episode.

You’re asleep on Jack’s pillow when he walks in, he’s just able to make out your form in the darkness. He heads to the bathroom and quickly brushes his teeth and gets ready for bed.

Jack slips in behind you, bare chest pressing into your back as he wraps his arm around you and pulls you even closer. You stir, push yourself back into him as you take in a breath. “Hi Peter,” you mumble. Your sleepy voice is so precious and adorable Jack swears he has to stop himself from biting your shoulder.

“Hi Doll, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers back, kisses the side of your face.

“Wasn’t sleeping hard, trying to wait for you. Didn’t work,” you let out a little sleepy laugh that turns into a yawn. You can feel the vibrations of Jack’s chest when he chuckles at you.

He squeezes you a little for a second and then fully settles behind you. “Thank you. For doing this for Robby.”

You hum softly. “Course. Robby’s family, you don’t need to thank me.”

“Still. Not every girlfriend or fiancée or wife would do this, even for family. I know it’s been a long week for you and that you’ve missed me and Robby coming over meant we wouldn’t get much one on one with each other tonight.” Jack kisses at your neck. “You didn’t have to. Do any of it. Show up or get him to come over or get pizza or make cookies or talk to him.”

“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. For him and you. Even with as much as I wanted it to just be us tonight. He needed to not be alone.” You give another little yawn, smack your lips a little. “And what can I say?” It’s a little sleep slurred. “Guess I’m not every girlfriend or finacée or wife.” Jack’s arm is still draped over you and you grab his hand, bring it up and kiss haphazardly at his knuckles. “Just yours.”

Jack nuzzles his nose against your neck and kisses there. “You’re not just anything.” Hearing you say you’re his always gets to him and he can feel himself filling out a bit, especially with your ass pressed back into him. “But you are mine, yes,” Jack confirms. He feels your breathing start to slow and even out as you fall back asleep. “And I’m yours.”

A week later you and Jack are laying in bed reading and intermittently chatting. It’s Friday and it has been a long fucking week for you. Working late and going in early and barely taking lunch and just constantly busy. And it’s all been particularly emotionally draining.

“Are you having anyone walk you down the aisle?”

That question makes you pause, sit up a bit stiffly and look up from your book. Somehow during all of the planning it never occurred to you. “I… don’t know I guess.” You shake your head as you look over at Jack.

He shrugs. “I just wondered. You don’t need to have it figured out right now, there’s still time.”

“Yeah.” You nod to yourself. But you stay sitting up and stiff. Jack watches you out of the corner of his eye and glances at you every now and then, hoping you’ll relax and go back to reading. He hadn’t meant to upset you or cause you stress or anxiety, but he realizes now with how exhausted and emotionally zapped you are from the week your brain has been looking for a reason to spiral and he just unknowingly at the time handed you one.

He sets his book down on his lap. “Hey.” You look over at him and Jack can almost see the dizziness you’re feeling in your eyes from how fast your thoughts are churning in your head. “You don’t need to know right now, okay? You don’t need to decide tonight. There’s seven weeks still. You have time.”

“No, I know.” You nod at him. And you do know. Jack watches you carefully. “I’m just thinking now.” You slip out of bed and start to pace. Jack chides himself mentally for his comment even though he knows he didn’t deliberately give you something to spiral about, he still hates the fact that he did. “It’s going to be so much attention on me. On us.” You look up at him as you pace. “At the altar. Walking down the aisle, like everyone is going to be looking at me and what if I fall? And then the first dance and cutting the cake and like we have to say our vows in front of everyone and what if I just like forget how to read.” It would be funny if it weren’t causing you such real distress. Jack’s eyes stay on your face so he can try to read your expression as you pace at the foot of the bed. “Maybe we should downsize the wedding, maybe that would be better and then there wouldn’t be so many people.”

“Downsize the wedding,” Jack repeats, very obviously confused to an extent because you’d discussed this together when you started planning and were deciding how big you wanted your guest list. He’s about 95% sure this is anxiety and exhaustion talking, but he wants to hear you out of course, wants to help and that means listening and asking questions so he fully understands you. “In what way?”

“Yeah, like what if we just didn’t have a big wedding? Just like a handful of people, maybe less.” You walk over and sit facing him on the edge of his side of the bed. “Or like you know,” you shrug, “what if we just flew to Vegas tomorrow and eloped?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know that’s like a little baby kind of cliff-hanger but I felt like I had to keep it interesting I’m sorry! 😭 I hope it was otherwise okay! I did not feel particularly great about any of this but it's hard to know if that means something or is just how I always feel lol. Part 5 and the wedding will be here soon!!

If you made it this far, seriously thank you, I know it's a lot to read and I appreciate you taking your time to read, I know how precious time to yourself can be so I am very grateful. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments!

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#jack abbot #jack abbot x reader #the pitt #omg omg omg #i knew this was gonna be a beast of a chapter #so i left it until the next time i worked to read (yes it took a whole 12 hr shift i did have patients to scan in the middle lol)#the trial at the beginning? so proud of her for testifying #how her and jack are so supportive of each other and give each other such grace through it?#using what they learned in therapy to be there for each other #jack spiraling over the security footage #totally get it #they have such a healthy relationship #its amazing to read #the qhole france trip and all the little snippets of it?#so happy for them that the trip was after the trial it was exact what they needed #wedding dress shopping with dana and mel and heather? so glad she has them as friends #the wedding planning was giving me flashbacks to my work partner planning her's out #rub it in robby's face with the cake tasting!!!#i need someone like her to give me ghe same speech she's given jack and robby now #that 'should is a stupid word' one #i so envy jack having someone like that to #jack's whole panic attack with the car accident was so real tho #was trying so hard not to cry for him at work it was a problem #and how supportive she was for robby too?#just make a girl cry wtf #was also trying so hard not to laugh during that visit to the one wedding venue #reminded me of my friend looking at venues and some of em we looked at online before she showed them to her hubby #worst timing when i got to that part cause i was scanning an abdomen and had to breathe my patient so my reading was interrupted too much #im running out of tag space wtf #i loved this so much. so beautifully written (as always cause duh its your writing) i cant wait for the wedding & robby crying during it

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vampsol · 3 months ago

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⟢ PAIRING: jeon wonwoo x fem!reader ⟢ WORD COUNT: 11K ⟢ GENRE: angst, smut, sprinkles of fluff ⟢ TAGS: heavy themes of grief/death including a mentioned drunk driving incident (do not tread lightly if these topics are difficult for you to read), minor character death (including a child, but it is all offscreen), coworkers au, pet names (baby, doll, etc), light breast play, fingering, protected sex. ⟢ SYNOPSIS: Wonwoo is the last person you expect to find at a grief support group, but he may just be the peace that you need to weather all of your storms. LINK TO FIC PLAYLIST -ˋˏ✄┈┈ AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an incredibly personal story for me, as I have suffered parental loss and it is one of the hardest things I've gone through, but in a way, writing it out has helped heal a small part of me, so I am happy to share this with you all. Bless to my friends beta-ing this for me—Allie (@lovetaroandtaemin), Raven (@shadowkoo), Lily (@prkhaven), Sulkie (@innocygnet), and Tiya (@gyubakeries), and everyone else who read snippets of this before it became what it is now. The fic's title inspo is from a song by Lizzy Mcalpine!

GRIEF DOESN’T END, BUT IT CHANGES SHAPE OVER TIME.

The white text over the image of a pastel sunrise initially made you gag when you stepped into the room, the church’s banner haphazardly put up to prepare for today’s session. Now, it’s all your brain can focus on as the surrounding attendees share their stories. The initial greetings stopped thirty minutes ago, with many at the waterworks now to your secondhand chagrin. Others nod and provide supportive commentary, but you don’t have it in you, silence the only usable response. A few people you recognize from the first few weeks surround you; others are brand new, red-faced as they meander through the reasons for their attendance.

The four walls reek of silent regret and raw sadness, the sniffles and coughs of those trying to hide their pain sticking to the air like heat on a summer day. You’d prefer it to be a hotter season, if only to focus on something else but the ridiculous text looming over you. But the winter chill that accompanies the gloomy atmosphere is another unpleasant reminder of the dangers of wishful thinking.

You could say all the stories and puffy expressions don’t hit a nerve somewhere deep inside of you, but then you’d be a liar. As you’ve learned in the past year, though, you’re getting very good at hiding and denying.

It’s been forty-five minutes of passive listening on your end, but your attention remains on the chalky slopes of text against the yellow sun disappearing into the mountain formation.

“It’s been six months, and I still don’t know what to do. When I think I’ve gotten over one stage, I’m reminded of something that sets me back.” One attendee you’ve known from the start, Suzy, continues on while staring into the coffee cup in her hands. She’s typically meek in tone, solemn while her hands stay in her thick coat as she recalls the details of her twin sister’s battle with leukemia. But today, there’s a new aura about her, something clipped and biting that is unique to see in this place.

Maybe she’s on the stage of anger this week.

“You know I’ve said healing isn’t linear, Suzy,” Seungcheol, the director of the group, says in a supportive tone.

“I get that, but can I get a break from feeling more than one stage at once? For the love of God.” She blanches immediately and mutters out an apology, making you chuckle to yourself.

You used to think that the phenomenon was a myth, a way for people to rationalize their pain by separating all of it into clear, definable chunks. While you’re now well acquainted with each piece of grief, they all remain a mystery in your eyes. You’re unsure who to ask for the right answers, and you’re not opening your mouth now to humor the group with questions.

The plan has always been the same: attend each session like you’re supposed to, get your slip signed off, and go home. That was the routine for the past two weeks, nothing more to add or subtract. When people addressed you, you weren't unfriendly, but you didn't offer any information. These things considered, you’re adamant about keeping with tradition for the remaining six meetings, including this one.

Yet, the second the door of the church opens, and you see Jeon Wonwoo enter, you know it’ll be impossible to continue staying under the radar.

Wonwoo apologizes profusely as Seungcheol pulls up a chair for the newcomer. Wonwoo’s wearing a scarf that covers a substantial amount of his face, but you’d recognize his wire-frame glasses and that black mop of hair anywhere. He may barely be an acquaintance, but he’s not terrible to look at. “My car was giving me trouble this morning, so—”

“No problem, man,” Seungcheol cuts him off. “Nobody’s late here. You’re always arriving somewhere at the moment you’re meant to, I always say.”

You roll your eyes and tuck your arms tighter into your chest. The older guy always has a plethora of slogans for personal growth up his sleeve. You reckon he probably made the fucking sign with the awful font and stereotypically hopeful photography? It’s anyone’s guess, but you have a good one.

Some hair falls into your face just as Wonwoo sits across from you in the large circle. You think that just might save you from being seen, but recognition crosses his face out of the corner of your eye, and you curse under your breath, knowing you’re fucked.

Jeon Wonwoo, from the legal team at the publishing house you both work for, sees you, the quiet girl from the marketing department. He must have some idea why, given his department’s close relationship with your higher-ups, and that makes your intestines twist in a way akin to food poisoning. You think it may be the perfect time for the world to split open under your feet and take you away, but that’s only a dreamer’s level of luck.

“So, Wonwoo, you’re a newcomer, as we can see. What brings you to the group?”

Wonwoo stutters on an explanation, his cheeks turning a shade of pink. “I think the lady before me was in the middle of her story, but maybe I can share after.”

Seungcheol winks in acknowledgement and goes back to Suzy, continuing where they left off in their discussion. “So, for the stages…”

You feel the heat of Wonwoo’s gaze from across the circle. He’s probably trying to decipher just exactly what led you to this place. Not the church, per se, but the situation at hand. Tired of the burn of his irises on you, you turn your stare on him. His eyes look small under the guise of his glasses, but they enlarge considerably when you make it known you’ve caught him ogling. With your mouth in a thin line but your eyebrows quirked up, you send him a silent dare to continue staring. To your pleasure, he pales and turns away, looking in the same direction as everyone else as Suzy continues on with her rant.

Any secondhand inkling you had to share with the group before the end of the program dies with the turn of Wonwoo’s head, and you prefer it that way. His presence gives you an excuse to not break from routine. Not like you were going to, anyway.

“He was there?” Wooyoung ruffles his hair in secondhand embarrassment, the sound of his nervous expel of breath drowned out by the music in the bar. The local hotspot was a mere five blocks away from your work, and it rarely became overcrowded before you guys had the chance to leave, so coming around now and then with your best friend was still doable, even under your circumstances. It was hard to say no to Wooyoung when he gave you such toothy grins and pleading words. “You barely come out anymore, at least try to spend some time with me for a bit? It’ll be good for you.”

He had to be the only person left you could stomach being around, and the last man on the planet who could handle your latest less than sunny disposition.

Wooyoung immediately goes back to making his shot for the solid blue ball close to the top left-hand pocket when you shoot him a glare that even he can’t joke himself out of. “You think he’ll say anything?” he asks as he moves his pool stick back and forth, testing the waters of the angle he’s chosen to hit the cue ball from.

“I hope not.” You groan and knock your head against your pool stick. Replaying yesterday afternoon in your head, you barely could get through the workday filled with pitch proposals and strategy meetings. You couldn’t help but wonder if Wonwoo was lurking around every corner of the building, waiting to discuss how he saw you and tease you for something not meant for teasing. He didn’t seem like the type to do so, but you expect less and less from the male population with every passing day. “He probably already knows about what happened anyway.”

Wooyoung hits the ball, but it veers a little too far for the shot to be completed. He swears, an audible “fuck me” rolling off of his tongue. You make haste going for the striped orange ball, and with no seconds to spare, you hit it into the center right cup. You land another two before your best friend has a chance again, but it doesn't matter. All that’s left for you to shoot in is the eight ball.

“One day I’ll manage to get close to beating you.”

“The night’s still young,” you respond before chugging down what’s left of your bottle of soju. The alcohol goes down your throat smoothly, but it doesn’t soothe the itch that still sits under your skin. With another few drinks, and you teetering on the line between buzzing and full-blown drunk, you think you’ll be able to forget the feeling exists.

That sting only intensifies when you see a handful of guys from the legal team walk in, Vernon and Jihoon trailing behind Wonwoo’s towering form. Their presence causes you to miss the eight ball entirely, the cue ball slowly rolling towards a pocket until it falls in.

“Goddamnit, man,” you curse. You reach for your drink, but you curse again when the empty bottle touches your lips.

Before Wooyoung can ask, he turns his head to see the men going up to the bartender and gnaws at his lip. “Maybe they won’t notice us?”

“That’s as likely as you getting a girlfriend,” you tease. You pull a couple of dollar bills out of your pocket and set your pool stick down when you see the men edging away from the bar-top. It may be a risk when they’re still so close by, but your dry mouth tells you to take the chance. “I’m gonna get us another round.”

You place your hands firmly on the shining wood of the bar, the gloss of it contrasting with the rough calluses and paper cuts across your hands. A few fingers beckon the bartender over with a new set of soju bottles. The green glass that holds the liquid refracts against the overhead lights. It’s so bright, you don’t notice the figure whose shadow mars their outlines.

“Didn’t think you were the drinking type,” Wonwoo finally pipes up. Where his voice yesterday was quick and bashful, and his typical tone at work is clinical to the letter, the cadence of it now is warm, like a smooth pool of honey.

His arm brushes yours as he places a few bucks of his own on the bar for the bartender to take. The contact raises gooseflesh across the space where his skin met yours for the briefest of moments. It sends a new itch up your spine, one that’s barely familiar and on the cusp of foreign. You lie to yourself with careful precision, swearing in hushed tones inside your brain that it doesn’t ignite a long, burnt-out flame somewhere inside of you, and you almost believe it.

Almost.

“I also didn’t used to go to work-mandated support groups, but here we are.” You aim your bottle in his direction with the slightest of tips, a sarcastic salute that doesn’t make your secret any easier to address out loud. You sip gingerly, the pull of your lips from the bottle long and slow, but the alcohol holds no solution for your bitter tongue or sick stomach.

You know this, and you drink anyway. It’s better than the alternative.

Wonwoo’s the one who takes the bottle from your mouth. A few dribbles of soju trickle down your chin, but before you can snatch it back, he says, “I’m not going to say anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I wasn’t worried to begin with.”

He nods with a close-lipped smirk, in no way believing your glib. The bartender brings three gin and tonics for Wonwoo’s troupe, and you can’t hold back the giggle that erupts from deep in your throat. “Typical.”

“What? G and Ts are too good for you, miss marketing expert?” Vernon and Jihoon call their coworker with a loud shout of his name when they see their drinks are ready, but Wonwoo throws them an expression that shuts the younger men up.

“Who said I was an expert? That’s Soobin’s role, anyway.” You tut your head in a random direction. You have nothing to prove to Wonwoo, but you take pride in your job being higher than one of meager content creation. He chuckles, and the sound tickles your ears in a way you push down. “I’m a trend analyst.”

“Oh, really? Is that why you don’t speak during the meetings? You’ve already predicted that sharing is a waste of time?”

You sober immediately at his questions. You grip the neck of the soju bottle tighter as you try composing an answer, anger prickling the base of your neck. What can you say that gives nothing away and keeps with the pre-set banter, all while you remain even-keeled? You land on, “It’s not like that,” and make your move to walk away, bored with the conversation now.

Wooyoung looks over at you like you’re crazy, and you know the thoughts immediately swirling in your best friend’s head. You haven’t flirted with a man in probably half a decade, at least, but if the nerd isn’t getting any, the very least you could do is entertain some sort of romantic attention for the two of you.

Wonwoo grabs your arm softly, his fingers setting the same fire the contact from before did, but it holds an entirely new scope and set of stakes. “Humor me. What’s it like, then?” His voice is featherlight, gentle in its prodding. He holds no judgement, his earlier words only teasing but clearly striking a nerve in you he’s trying to amend with his new tone.

You avoid his gaze, finally landing back on the pool table where Wooyoung awaits. The kernel of an idea pops up alongside your smile. “Play me for it.”

“What?” Wonwoo chuckles, perplexed. You point towards the table with your index finger, and Wooyoung immediately turns his head, attempting to hide his spying to no avail.

“You win, I’ll tell you why I’m in that group.” Your smirk grows, the cheshire cat smile that now adorns your face growing with every word. “I win, you tell me what you were doing there yesterday in the first place.”

You put a hand between your incredibly close bodies, a fact you did not realize until you offered some ante for Wonwoo to chew on, and he takes the bait like you expected him to. “Deal.”

He shakes your hand firmly. It’s another set of touches that warms you to the bone in a way liquor never has before. You shuck that information to the side as you walk to the pool table with Wonwoo hot on your heels. He stops to deliver the drinks to his awaiting team, but he makes it to you with a few quick strides.

“Want me to break, or do you need to prove you can play first?” you ask with the same tantalizing smile you wagered him with.

He takes a hefty sip of his tonic and licks his bottom lip to catch the alcohol that threatens to spill over. “By all means.”

If only he knew how stupid it was to let the lady go first this time.

Wonwoo stares down into the pocket the eight-ball just flew into. While he’s mystified how you managed to just destroy his record and prove him wrong in a matter of ten minutes and three plays, you smirk openly. It always used to bug ex-boyfriends and situationships when you were better at a more masculine task or hobby than they were, but you always flicked their comments back with a middle finger and a nonplussed demeanor. It’s a delightful change of pace for someone as attractive and confident as Wonwoo to be mystified by your capabilities, even at the expense of his pride.

“She beats me all the time, man. Don’t sweat it.” Wooyoung tries to walk up and rustle your newly defeated opponent on the shoulder. He thinks better of it when Wonwoo gives him the same glare you threw at the younger guy a short time ago.

Your best friend offers to grab you another drink as you laugh, but you shake your head. “Gotta head home. Carat can’t feed herself.”

Wonwoo gives you a quizzical expression as Wooyoung leaves, and you respond with, “My fish. Very adamant about her feeding schedule.”

He flashes a high-wattage grin, and the feelings he’s stirred in you tonight try to scratch their way back to the surface, but you repress them once again. It means nothing, anyway. You won’t act on it, and the guy is probably ready to hightail it back to his friends by now.

He offers to walk you out, and all your preconceived notions upend themselves into the air. Wooyoung pulls you by the shoulder when you say goodbye and whispers, “If you miss out on that guy now, you’re even more ridiculous than I thought. And I’ve seen you suck your thumb while you sleep, remember that.”

When you make it to the driver’s side door, you remember it’s time to collect your payment. Now or never. “So, gonna tell me why you were in the group yesterday? Or will you chicken out with the best two out of three rounds?”

“Easy, I’ll tell you,” he says, concealing a grin until his next words come out. “But, it’ll be during dinner tomorrow night. My place?”

You gulp down heavy air, again recognizing the clear proximity of your chest to his. You can see the slow rise and fall of his upper body, his heart steady but clearly put on edge. He’s patient but barely, waiting for you to either accept the invitation or decline with bated breath.

“Why?”

You don’t mean for the word to come out the way it does, one-fourth hopeful and the remaining three-fourths speculative. It’s not like you’re unappealing under normal circumstances, but the girl who would’ve jumped at the opportunity for a date with a cute guy is not who’s standing in front of Wonwoo right now. You want to be her, trade your place for hers to make the smile on his face brighten, but you’re unsure how to get her back, and if there’s any point.

“Because I owe you, don’t I?” You shrug your arms, not saying no but not giving him confirmation either. “And you’re not the type to not collect when you’re owed something.”

“What makes you think that?” Some of your fire returns as you cross your arms, body posture exemplifying your intrigue.

“Because you wouldn’t have bet against me knowing you’d win if you were.”

There’s no witty remark or sarcastic comeback that comes to mind. He so easily saw through you, it scares you into saying yes right there. But, even while ruminating for a moment, you search for reasons to deny him of your company, and you find none. If tonight wasn’t so bad, what’s one more without expectations?

“Sure,” you finally say, and he gives you the grin you were looking for that could go toe to toe with any city streetlight. That mesmerizing, gum-revealing grin that makes a part of your knees weak.

You knew he was nice to look at from faraway in the secrecy of your cubicle, but it’s at a new level now, one that’s unquellable.

On the drive home, as you replay his smile in your mind’s eye, you know without a doubt that the buzz in your veins isn’t just because of the soju still lingering in your bloodstream.

It’s not, under any circumstances, a date.

You parrot the words as you move around your bedroom, the clock on your dresser practically screaming at you to leave while the day is young. Work ended an hour ago, and you’re still stumbling on what to do about your attire.

No way is this a date. I’ve been on them before, I know it when I see it.

The recesses of your mind try to commit every sentence to memory as you put on lipstick, curl your hair, and throw an old dress under a denim jacket. It’s habitual to look nice for a new person, you remind yourself. It’s not like Wonwoo won’t welcome you into his home if you’re wearing a greasy t-shirt and pair of sweatpants, but you digress. You’re simply collecting on your payment, and if he takes it any other way, that’s his problem to deal with.

The ride to his apartment is tense, to say the least. A million thoughts run through your head while you grip the steering wheel tight during every turn and stop through the city to his downtown complex. You try to make light of the building that greets you, thinking about how much legal counsel must make to afford such swanky living spaces, but it doesn’t help. Your hands tremble, no matter how forcefully you clench your fists to stop the shaking.

He’s Wonwoo, a guy who has an interest in seeing you outside of a professional setting, and you’re you, half emotionally composed on your very best day as of late. You have some basis for being nervous, no matter what one would call the meeting arranged between you two today.

He called it dinner, so you’ll start there.

Greeting you at your door in a black V-neck and gray jeans, he looks too clean for someone who must’ve been lounging around before you arrived. “You look nice. Got a hot date or something?” He bites his lip in satisfaction when you huff out a breath of air, blowing off his harmless dig.

“I’m here for the information I won last night. And the plate of food you promised me.”

He beckons you inside with a smile and an arm pointed inside, and you walk through the threshold with all the knots in your stomach, reminding you of their presence with every step.

Wonwoo’s living space appears to be stereotypical for a guy in his mid-twenties. The apartment’s all dark wood and grey wallpaper, from his industrial bar table to the kitchen marble, but he’s made it his in his own way. Some action figures line a bookshelf near the kitchen, and a guitar sits on its stand in the corner of the entertainment center dominating the living room. But you glean little pieces of information about him from the tchotchkes that surround you. The black cat plushie that sits on the sofa, the NASA magazines he must have a subscription for, and the sounds of jazz playing low on the TV all indicate the quiet eccentricities of his personality.

He’s a secretively unique guy on the page and in person, and you admire it. Some part of it scares you, how easily you’ve grown accustomed to him in a few short meetings, but that’s not anything to mull over right now.

“I was just fixing the pasta when you showed up. You can sit anywhere.” He moves his head in either direction of the couch or the table, but you saunter over to his side instead.

The aroma of the tomato wafts across your nose, the sauce definitely homemade rather than store-bought. You peer over into the pot, the margarita-covered penne mixed in with vegetables and meat. “Who knew you could cook?”

Wonwoo chuckles, hearty and deep, as he stirs the food in the pot. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me yet.”

Yet. He says the word with such relaxation, like it’s inevitable you will discover more information about him. Like he’s certain you’re not going anywhere. It has to be a delusion of the future filling him with such confidence, without a doubt.

Shortly after that, the table’s decorated with towering plates of pasta and a lit candle at the center. The mixed scents of vanilla, jasmine, and tomato sauce blend harmoniously somehow.

You share small talk about Wonwoo’s cooking skills and your pool abilities over dinner, bantering throughout with the dry humor you delivered yesterday. Wonwoo takes it all with a smirk, volleying it back at you with charm that makes you forget your dinner exists altogether. You don’t eat all the food on your plate, but you’ve never been more full.

Both of you migrate to the couch with your glasses of wine, leaving the plates on the wood’s high-top and getting comfortably lost in more conversation. Suddenly, you remember exactly why you’re there, and you turn the tides of the conversation to address the purpose of your attendance. “So, the support group.”

Wonwoo laughs into his glass, shaking his head in a gesture that tells you he was just waiting for the inevitable. “What do you wanna know?”

“Why were you there?”

Wonwoo’s smile turns small, still bright but a tad dimmer, and a stone sinks down deep into your stomach. “It was my mother’s birthday that day. She died three years ago in April, but her birthday is always the hardest day for me to get through.”

“It was a sudden sickness, one that we didn’t expect her to get.” He runs his thumb along the ring of his drink, his finger leaving an opaque smudge. He looks back up eventually, the ghost of his small smile haunting his features. “I’m just grateful I had the time with her that I did before it was too late, you know?”

Wonwoo’s words reroute all the knots from your core to your throat, making you unable to speak. You click your own nails against your drink in a pattern, counting the beats in sequence to avoid the tears welling in your eye ducts. One, two, three, four taps.

Four becomes five until Wonwoo brushes a hand along your knee. “Are you alright? I know that was heavy, but a winner deserves her prize, right?”

You appreciate Wonwoo trying to lighten the mood that you’ve darkened with your silence. The slam of the bottom of your wine glass startles Wonwoo a smidge, and while you didn’t mean to scare him, you know you need to leave before you fall apart.

“This was fun, Won, but I-I have to go.” A tear falls from your face as you speak, another escaping before you can make the waterworks disappear. Wonwoo holds your arm the same way he did a day ago when you were so close to leaving before. This time is different, though.

Wonwoo’s worry for you and whatever’s haunting you replaces his previous somberness. You recognize the contortion of his face like the back of your hand. You’ve seen it in family members and their condolences. The friends you kept and even the ones you lost from being distant. Even coworkers you never spoke to and random strangers who could recognize the shadows of loss.

It disgusts you, and you can’t bear to see it from Wonwoo of all people. You attempt to yank your arm away like your life depends on it, but he doesn’t let you slip away so easily. “Will you talk to me, please?” he asks. “You don’t have to hold back whatever you want to say.”

“I’m not, not at all. And it’s presumptuous of you to assume I am.” You shake your head, voice sputtering on some kind of laugh. “You don’t know me.”

“I think I do.” Again, the space between you and him is virtually nonexistent. Your hearts match in rhythm, despite your sadness and apprehension. The unspoken strings between you snap one by one with every movement of his hand, slowly reaching higher until his hand cups your face. His thumb runs over your jaw bone.

You don’t know whether to pull him closer or run now that’s holding you with a looser grip, and the thought is as sobering as his mouth a breath from yours.

“I have to go.” You clutch his wrist with your hand, but you make no move to turn and walk away. You leave indents in his skin from your nails gripping him, but he doesn’t break his hold either.

Then, in a broken trance, he lets you go and steps back, swallowing hard. “I’ll see you at work, then?”

You nod. “Thank you for dinner.”

“Anytime, really.”

You think about the importance of words, what they carry and how deeply they can mean when a person you care about says them. “Yet” and “anytime” have never been of significant value to you before, passing vocabulary that’s left little for your heart to grasp onto. But he says it without facades, each vowel and consonant holding the undercurrents of his desires. You feel your knees buckle a touch as you ponder it on your way out of his apartment and to your car. Your thoughts dwell on what that kiss would’ve felt like, and the panic that follows when you realize how badly you wanted it.

A week flies by, and then two more, until you realize you’re always passing Wonwoo’s cubicle with a cup of coffee, or he’s pestering you with a sticky note or two regarding legal jargon you’ll never read up on.

Neither of you mention what almost occurred in his living room so long ago, but it feels like only a second between that moment and the present when he’s inhabiting your space at work or blowing up your phone.

You don’t know why he started calling and texting right around the time you were prepared to shut your eyes for sleep, but it was a comfort you didn’t mind cherishing before dreamland took you under its wing. His explanations of corporate law terminology to the plotlines of One Piece became your lullabies.

A regular person can’t cement themselves in your life overnight, but Wonwoo is anything but regular.

As you’re filling out your timesheet for the week, your thoughts circle back to Wonwoo as you notice him in the conference room with the rest of the legal team. Vernon talks animatedly with his hands as Minghao and Jun type down notes. It’s a riveting silent film, but the only actor you’re interested in is pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose incrementally, and it makes you melt in your chair.

You have emails to type, spreadsheets to complete, and here you are acting like a high schooler with an unrequited crush.

Pulled sharply from your daze, Wooyoung bats you on the shoulder with his clipboard. San from HR laughs at your best friend’s assault on you, your acquaintance’s chest rippling as you rub your shoulder and give Wooyoung your signature glare. “What the fuck?”

“You should focus on the November report instead of ogling your new piece of man candy.”

"I don't know what you're talking about," you reply, calm and collected, even though someone has now turned the judgement on you for your prying eyes. Wooyoung had his own priorities as a market strategist; he had no business judging you for taking time off of business tasks to ogle.

You return to your initial view of the conference room, watching the gentleman in the confines of the glass office.

You don’t expect Wonwoo to be staring right at you when you turn your attention back to their meeting. Wooyoung and San talk amongst themselves about your comical behavior in the third person, but you don’t mind them and their idiocy. You’re too focused on the man who’s a dozen feet away.

Wonwoo practically gives you the same glare you delivered to him in the support group the first time he was there, but his eyes are all humor and no bite. He holds his binder up a smidge, signaling somehow for you to look down at the one propped against your laptop. You find a blue sticky note sitting on the front of it, and you know Wonwoo must’ve stuck it there when you went to the bathroom a half hour ago.

7 PM showing of Spider-Man Saturday. You in? X

It’s a measly set of perpendicular lines in Wonwoo’s handwriting, nothing extravagant on the sticky note itself. How can the letter and his proposition turn your heart into mush so easily? And why does it make you immediately nod in Wonwoo’s direction?

What was he doing to you?

You’ve watched the 2003 film many times in your life—you could recite the lines by heart, truth be told—yet seeing Toby McGuire swinging around in a latex suit still brings childlike wonder out in you. You smile into your handful of popcorn at the scene before you, the kicks and punches between Spiderman and the Green Goblin in the middle of Manhattan amplified by the theater’s sound system.

You dressed up a bit more this time for the outing with Wonwoo, despite your self-insistence on keeping it casual. Nothing had happened between you up to this point, only the opportunity for a kiss that never came. Who was to say anything romantic would happen now in the darkness of a theater?

The movie cuts to Spiderman swinging Mary Jane to a hotel high-rise away from the chaos of Times Square, and Wonwoo picks that moment to take the hand not holding more popcorn into his own.

It’s a funny feeling, the moment before something unexpected happens. It’s like your body bristles to a point of high alert before you’re struck with the reality something is occurring, for better or worse. He rubs the back of your hand in slow, delicate circles, and it feels like the start of something good while every cell inside of you screams to run.

The flutter inside of your stomach at his touch dies when you give into the spiraling thoughts, a cruel voice reminding you the butterflies won’t last. It carries the face of a person you’d rather forget. A smile that haunts every hour of your existence, and eyes you wish you could look into one more time outside of your nightmares.

You tug your hand free and speed out of the theater, not bothering to look behind you to see if Wonwoo is following you. You know he is, his calls of your name muffled amid the horrendous laughter ringing in your ears. When you’ve stopped running, you realize it’s raining all around you outside. The alleyway behind the theater only provides so much cover, but Wonwoo doesn’t care. All he wants to do is hold you as you’re hyperventilating, so he does.

“Hey, hey, hey. What happened?”

You hiccup, unsure how to go about saying the words when a phantom hangs over your shoulder and whispers words you have no willpower to fight. What makes him any different from everyone else? Nothing, and you know it.

“I’m right here,” he swears like it’s true, and you see red.

“Until you get sick of it, right?” You can’t look him in the eye as you say it, but it doesn’t make it feel less true expressing it out loud. “This isn’t gonna change. You’ll always wonder what’s wrong. I’ll never give you a valid excuse because I barely fucking know myself and shut you out. You’ll get bored really quick, Wonwoo, so what’s the point?”

“What are you talking about?” His mouth hangs at you accusatory questions, and it only makes you laugh harder.

It’s easy to pretend your tears are only rainwater splashing down your face.

“There’s no point chasing after me anymore. I’m not worth the hassle, and it’s too much baggage for you to unpack, so don’t waste any more of your time.” You move his hands from your face with weak fingers and watch his arms fall limply at his sides as you turn to head towards the sidewalk and back to your car.

Wonwoo’s laugh is so bitter, you can taste it on your tongue. “You may think that what you’re going through is something nobody can understand, but a part of you knows you’re being ridiculous right now.”

You shake your head and continue down your path, barking back at him with a “Go fuck yourself.”

“You’re not the first person to lose someone, and you won’t be the last!” You stop walking down the alleyway, and you hear the sharp intake of breath on Wonwoo’s lips. He takes another second and set of steps to get closer to you before saying, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

You turn sharply, hair whipping across the open air. “You wanna know why I’m in the group, Won?” Your question drips with rhetoric like venom, sarcasm bordering on fury. “Because I got tired of all the noise of everything after…after—Chaewon just wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone about work and what was going on with me. And everyone at that point kept poking with their pity until the shit I said and did that day happened.” You flail your arms at your sides, the rain soaking through your sleeves.

It was unprofessional, a huge moral deficit, as your boss put it. Especially when all Chaewon asked for was a valid reason for an extension on your trend report. “No coworker, especially not a subordinate, should treat another coworker that way. Your personal matters should not impede on your ability to be a team player.”

Your boss used every administrative play in the book while looking over the materials you ruined for the newest magazine issue, and that was before you screamed in your department head’s face. You didn’t mean to hurt Chaewon the way you did, but admittedly, it felt good to do it.

It was nice to let a part of you run free, even if it was a vulgar and unapologetic piece. But if you had known it would cost you every ounce of your pride and some semblance of your privacy, you would’ve thought twice.

Your entire body is drenched by the time you finish your tirade, as is Wonwoo’s. “So yeah, that’s why they put me in that pity party of a support group. Because God forbid I snapped one fucking time for a valid fucking reason.”

“They just wanted you to get some help. Everyone needs that sometimes,” Wonwoo murmurs. He tries to step closer, each movement apprehensive, like he’s cornering a rabid cat into a carrier.

His movements make you feel like one, a wounded animal in need of immediate attention without regard for its unwillingness to accept it. It turns your eyesight red, and you think you may just be feral at this point. “I don’t need anyone’s help, Wonwoo! Not that group, not Seungcheol, not the damn lackeys in that fucking office, and especially not—”

Wonwoo gives up the pretenses and yanks you into his arms. He plants a hand across your hair and squeezes you in his hold, still tender despite the vice grip he has you in. The tightness of his hug shakes something loose in you, and you barely recognize you’re crying until Wonwoo cradles you closer and shushes you, even as the rain beats down on you both. “I’m here,” he promises.

“I don’t need to be saved, Wonwoo,” you say through fractured, sob-laced hiccups. Your eyes look past his brown ones, into the depths of his soul as you ask—plead even—“I just want to make the pain stop.”

“Let me help,” Wonwoo offers, rubbing the apples of your cheeks with his thumbs. It may be the most ridiculous, careless thing you can do at the moment, but when the urge to kiss him comes, you don’t stop it.

Call it an emotional break or a sudden rush of your suppressed desire shining through, but the second you press your lips to his in that brick alleyway, you don’t regret it. He tastes like salvation, of unbreakable promises. It could either heal or ruin you, but you don’t mind if it’s a little of both.

The raindrops cling to your clothes like a second skin, latching onto every curve. It’s easy to shed with the help of Wonwoo’s hands. By the time you’re an inch away from the doorframe of his bedroom, he’s wearing his briefs, and you’re left in your underwear. His warmth wraps around every part of your body like a campfire, stoking all the cold out of you and bathing you in the heat he provides. The thunder roars on, and lightning splashes the sky in white streaks, but the only light that sustains you is him.

“Is this okay?” He mumbles as he grazes the underside of your bralette. The material is so drenched that he can see the peaks of your nipples through it, but he’s trying to keep his composure and go at a speed you’re comfortable with.

You don’t hesitate, not wanting the moment to be dampened by your worst thoughts. They’re at bay now, and you want to use that time for what it’s worth. “More than okay.” You unclasp your bralette from your back, letting the wet garment plop to the floor. “Touch me, please.”

His index finger drags so slowly across your nipple, the ripple of electricity that tickles your skin follows the same tempo. While you’re willing to go fast, Wonwoo cherishes you with reverence. Even as he takes your nipple between his lips, moving his fingers down your stomach and into your underwear, he remains patient. “So wet,” he groans against your skin when he guides his fingers along your slick folds. It’s like he’s discovering a precious treasure before him, twirling your wet curls in his hair with his free hand as he runs the pads of his opposite fingers through slick heaven.

You tremble in his hands, all the nerves in your body a hot, frenzied mess in his hold. He thumbs your clit in slow circles, making it hard to stand any longer in the in-between space of his living room and bedroom. “Woo, I want more.”

He takes his fingers from your center and lifts you into his arms. Your legs wrap around him instinctively, and he chuckles into your throat. “Needy little thing, aren’t you?”

You giggle before he reattaches his lips to yours. His kisses taste like rainwater and second chances, physical proof that not everything has to be lost. He never lets you go or takes his mouth away on the slow trek to his bed.

Wonwoo sets you down gently, his eyes giving away all of his vulnerability. “You’re beautiful, you know that right?” You blush, wrapping an arm around your face, but he pulls it away and kisses each finger on your hand. “Every inch of you.”

The words go unsaid, but the bite of his lip and dark hood of his eyes tell you his desire goes beyond lust. I want to explore you forever.

Even the parts of you that you’ve deemed too dark, too painful, too unworthy of anyone’s entry. His expression tells you he may just take the risk and split you open fully to see what’s inside. With his eyes peering deeply into your soul, you think all he sees is hope. Like your heart holds the sun that peers out after the worst downpour in the world.

He rolls his briefs down his hips until his length springs free, knocking into the lower segment of his abdomen from how hard he is. “And you called me beautiful,” you say, breathless. Wonwoo’s cock drips pre-cum at the swollen tip, and you have no qualms sitting up and reaching out to encase him in your palm, running his essence across his skin.

He tips his head back and his mouth goes slack, a curse leaving his tongue. “You may kill me.”

You smile and run your lips along his neck, dragging your canines along the skin of his jugular. “If I do, I promise it wasn’t my intention.”

Before he can get too lost in the pleasure of your fingers wrapped around him, he traps your body between his own and the sheets below you. He doesn’t stop kissing you once he finds your lips again, even as he stumbles finding a condom in his bedside drawer and rolls the latex onto himself.

You don’t need to prepare for the eventual drag of his cock between your walls, already dripping from his previous touches, but he envelops you completely when he fills you to the hilt. He fits so snug inside of you; you think he could sit there forever and never leave. “You’re so tight, holy shit,” Wonwoo moans as he begins moving his hips.

You release a garbled moan, the sound practically swallowed by his tongue in your mouth. He takes and teases, but he always gives it back, rolling his lower half into you with a deliberate pace that helps you inch closer to a release. It paints the back of your eyelids in slow strokes. The act of getting there is as beautiful as the release itself when it’s with someone like Wonwoo giving you such perfect bouts of pleasure.

This feeling, like Wonwoo, is addictive and addicting in the same instance. You think you could get used to this, and it’s not just the lust having its way with your mind. Having all of him like this, his days and nights, rain or shine, may just be possible with the way he pours his devotion into your body. You just have to give him the opportunity.

He kisses you with the strength of a thousand stars exploding at once, and that’s the moment you fall apart underneath him. You let yourself bask in the feeling of your orgasm. You clutch onto his shoulders tightly as your walls spasm around him, sucking him in for every drop of pleasure he has to give.

He spills into the condom soon after, his hips stuttering and his kisses stilling as he feels his body succumb to the same pleasure you felt a few moments ago. The look on his face is pure bliss, the laugh on his lips the softest sound to accompany the pitter patters of rain on the window.

He throws the latex away before nestling back into the bedsheets with you. His arms wrap around you like vines as you rest your head on his chest. It's a comfortable silence between you, no words needing to be said to express your feelings for him.

I know you could love me forever if I give you the chance to.

You feel his response in the slow fall of his heart rate and the small snores he emits in the crown of your hair. The softness of his being is all you need to fall asleep too, and you think it may just be worth it to let him in.

The moment you wake, you feel a wave of nausea creep through you. The thoughts that erupted in that rainy alleyway a handful of hours ago come back with a vengeance. They clutch your throat with a begrudging hand until water streams from your eyes, hitting Wonwoo’s pillows like bullets. You try to subdue the sobs that rack your body, terrified of waking the man sleeping next to you, but it proves to be a fruitless fear. He sleeps like a stone through it all, immovable and solid.

With weak limbs and a fuzzy mind, you unbind yourself from Wonwoo’s hold and collect your things when you get out of the bed. Every piece of your heart breaks, the glued pieces of porcelain cracking once again into a heap on the floor as you walk away and out of his apartment.

It could only last for so long, that peace he provided, and you feel foolish for thinking a few hours of pleasure could change the new reality you’ve come to grips with long ago.

What the fuck did I do? I shouldn’t have gone out with him again. I’m so stupid.

Driving home in the rain, you try to turn on the radio to something that will be loud enough to drown out the spiraling thoughts and the sounds of your sobs reverberating through your tiny car’s interior. With a cruel twist of luck, Billy Joel’s “Everybody Has A Dream,” blares through the speakers. The piano chords and Joel’s whistles are ones you could recognize anywhere, and it stops your brain from falling further down the hole you’re accustomed to.

It’s his song, the song you have barely gotten through a note of without bawling.

You stop your car in the center of the road, despite the light being green in front of you. Cars screech behind you and blare their horns, some even roll down their window in the soaked night to curse at you, but you don’t care. The entire world could burn down, and all you would hear is the keys of the piano signaling your send-off.

The rivers on your cheeks become floods, all-encompassing and combating the leftover parts of the storm raging on outside of your vehicle. It makes the veins in your head pulse like a bass drum, but there’s nothing else to do, even if the song’s faded out by now. The DJ’s voice fills the space, but you can barely hear him.

You hate your father; the realization strikes you like a penknife to the heart as you press your forehead into the steering wheel, knocking your knuckles into its center until your own horn screams back at you. You hate him for leaving you alone to pick up the shards he created by going away too soon, sooner than you were prepared for. How could he part from you with such a gaping hole left in your chest and no roadmap for how to fix it? Was it even possible to mend such a wound when its shape was present everywhere you looked?

You continue to sob, no grounding techniques or motivational words coming to mind as your heart restarts just to bleed out all over again.

Some time after the funeral, a doctor told you grief often changes the chemistry of a person’s brain. It undergoes neuroplastic changes and leads to alterations in emotional regulation and cognition. It made sense, given the way you exploded on Chaewon two months ago in front of everyone in the office. And all of that, the choice to either take a mandatory leave or seek counseling, led to that ridiculous fucking support group. And all the moments you shared with Wonwoo since then.

Guilt bubbles up behind your anger until it overtakes it, the way you’ve been acting almost shameful. You don’t regret him, but you regret this tugging you’ve done with his emotions alongside your own. But what other options have you had at your disposal? You’ve been stumbling around in the dark for so long, the light is not something someone easily accustoms themselves to again.

And Wonwoo is a person who exudes a radiance unlike anyone else you’ve ever met. You can’t believe there’s a chance he can truly seep into the darkness you live with now and soak it up for you. Not without him taking on some of it himself.

You decide when the tears come at a slower pace that you won’t let him; he’s worth more than that. And it might break what’s left of the fraction of hope you held onto when you met him, but you’re grateful he gave you something at the very least. It’s better than nothing.

“I still think about what it would be like to kill him, even if I know it wouldn’t solve anything.” Hongjoong grumbles, twiddling his pack of nicotine gum between his fingers. “In my dreams, I do. I do it before he has the chance to make it past my driveway. Before I forgot to watch her playing.” Hongjoong breaks into a fit of angry sobs, and it tugs at your heartstrings bitterly.

The police and cops ruled the death of Hongjoong’s five-year-old daughter vehicular manslaughter. The guy who committed the crime had been remorseful and received less time because of his allocution. According to Hongjoong, he forgave the stranger a long time ago, but you don’t think anyone blames him for the anger and resentment that still lingers.

“Do you think your wife or other children gain anything by continuing to harbor this anger?” Seungcheol asks with no judgement, just objective curiosity.

It strikes a nerve in you, so deep it pulls a response out of your lips before you can stop it. “That’s a fucked up question to ask.”

Suzy gasps, hiding the sound behind her coffee cup. Hongjoong looks surprised himself, but Seungcheol is pleased to hear your voice. He’s only ever tried to make small talk with you while he’s filled out your slips after every session, but you’ve never given him any room to work with. Until now. “Why do you say that?”

“Because…” you ponder the answer, the coherent reasoning jumbled amongst your impulsive thoughts. “It’s a bit unfair. Sure, maybe he’s not the same husband and father he used to be, but what does anyone expect? His oldest kid dies, and he’s supposed to shelve that for the sake of others?”

“Nobody’s asking that of him,” Seungcheol responds. “I asked if it serves anyone for him to hold onto negative emotions.”

“Whether it does or doesn’t, big fucking whoop. Grief doesn’t serve anyone with anything purposeful. It’s all bullshit pain we’re supposed to make better somehow in just the right amount of time or else. Otherwise, everyone has to tread around it like it’s a disease. It’s exhausting.”

You barely registered Wonwoo’s presence in the room, but his messy mop of waves concealed in a beanie adds a second layer of pain to your words. You’ve evaded his texts and calls for the past two days. Avoiding work yesterday didn’t help the way you thought it did, Wooyoung texting you profusely with secondhand messages you didn't want to be reminded of.

It was better this way. You repeated the words to yourself like a mantra when the first batch of Wonwoo’s messages appeared on your lock screen. But seeing him now, you know it was a lie.

Heartbreak, like grief, lacks a purpose beyond the demand to be felt.

Wonwoo clears his throat. He tries to pose the question to the entire group, but he stares so deeply into your eyes when he says it, everyone knows it’s only for your ears to cling to. “Have you ever considered that the reason you think it serves no purpose is because you don’t let anyone in to help you make sense of it?”

Your bottom lip quivers despite your urge to compress your feelings, the anger that was simmering in your stomach now at a rolling boil. You kick the chair from under your legs as you leave the circle, cursing the entire time. You hear Seungcheol request a ten-minute recess for the session, and you know without a doubt the walking slogan is following you.

You keep your focus on the brick wall of the bakery that shares a back alley with the church when Seungcheol finally makes it outside. “Don’t say—”

“I’m just out for a smoke. Was needing a break anyway.” Seungcheol flicks his lighter to life and has a cigarette between his lips in the next second. A huge plume of smoke leaves his lips, and the acrid smell of smoke hits your nose, but you don’t turn from it. He reaches into his pack and hands you one once he lights it.

You chuckle sadly as you weigh the cigarette between your fingers. “How did you know I used to smoke?”

“You suck in a breath when you get angry, and your hands shake like you’re going through withdrawal. That used to happen to me when I tried quitting the first time.”

You nod. “I haven’t really done it in a while. Haven’t had the energy to go buy anything besides frozen meals and water.”

The silence between you both is deafening. Seungcheol doesn’t pry, although that’s his very job, to help you face your emotions head-on, and you don’t elaborate on your points from earlier in the group session.

“My wife died five years ago,” he finally says. He flicks the cigarette at his feet, digging the ashes into the surrounding dirt with his foot. “Was a drunk driver on the way home coming back from a restaurant. I was driving.”

You try to respond, but no words come. The lining of your throat kills them all before they can leave you, like butterfly wings that never unfurl. He goes on amidst your silence. “It took a long time to realize it wasn’t my fault, just terrible timing.”

You turn to look at him, but he keeps his attention on the shops and sidewalks surrounding the church, cold air leaving his mouth in grey clouds. “I’m sorry,” you say, the two words with no serrated edges this time, the anger from your voice gone.

“‘S nothing for you to apologize for. You didn’t know, and I don’t talk about it all that much.” He gives you a knowing stare with the shrug of his shoulders, no bitterness in his expression as he explains without words that you’re more alike than you would’ve known. You can’t imagine the guy having a bitter bone in his body, even if he has reason to. “But that’s why I started this. Going on about it may not help all the time, but I can let some of it go when I know I’m not alone, even if that feeling only lasts for a minute.”

“Are you saying that I have to explain why I’m like this with everyone to feel better? That’s your nugget of wisdom?”

Seungcheol's eyes turn solemn, disappointed but not surprised at your rhetorical questions. “What I’m saying is that pain isn’t avoidable. You know that better than anyone by now. And locking yourself away clearly isn’t working.”

You fight back the tears passing through your eyelashes and puff again. “I don’t need your backdoor psychology, Choi. Even if you and everyone in that group has more than some idea of what I’m going through, it’s not the same.”

Seungcheol chuckles without humor as he hands you another cigarette, his fingertips lingering over your palm in a familial way. His touch is warm despite the winter weather, the contact a salve over the cracks that have formed in the past few days, and it makes you feel worse somehow. “Whether you push people away or not, your capacity to hurt isn’t going anywhere. Wasting time you’ll never get back by being alone does nobody any good, especially yourself.”

“I don’t do anything for anyone like this,” you respond, words breaking. Your hands shake as you take two more drags, smoke filling your lungs as the shadows continue looming. “I can’t give any parts of me when I don’t know what’s left to give at this point.”

“Speaking from my experiences with you—which I know are limited—I’d say you’re not giving yourself enough credit.” Seungcheol plucks the cigarette from your hands once you make it to the end. “And I bet your little friend would say the same thing, if not more.”

Like the call of a siren song, Wonwoo comes through the back door of the church, a bit embarrassed to intrude, but relieved to find you before you left. It’s all over the sudden sag of his chest and the downturn of his eyes.

Seungcheol smirks to himself while he puts his pack back in his coat pocket. “Speaking of the devil, I’ll leave you to it.” He pats Wonwoo on the shoulder as he makes it to the door of the church. The closing of the back door punctuates the silence between you.

“Are you finally gonna talk to me?” Wonwoo asks, his voice teetering on desperation and indignation. He doesn’t want to be angry, you can tell, but it all comes out in the crinkle of his eyes and the line of his lips.

You don’t blame him, either. You’re the one who left him as soon as you woke up, no verbal or written explanation left behind to keep him from assuming the worst. “What do you expect me to say, Won? I don’t—”

“Don’t say you don’t know what I want from you. I’ve been clear about that since the first day we saw each other in this fucking church.” You’re taken back by him cursing, the act one you’ve not seen from him often, but he keeps going. “I want to help you. Whether that’s as your friend or something more, I can accept that. But what I can’t accept is you keeping up this act you’ve been putting on.”

“It’s not an act,” you say defensively. “It’s too hard to let anyone in. It may be hard for you to accept, but that’s the truth.”

“You need better practice at lying, sweetheart.” When your face crumbles with defeated confusion, Wonwoo goes on. “If it was so hard, you wouldn’t still have Wooyoung in your life. You wouldn’t have kicked my ass at pool, and you definitely would’ve done a better job at avoiding me. You may not want to admit it now, but you’re using your grief as an excuse to run away from feeling anything else.”

“You don’t know me,” you say, the words an echo that reaches through time with an entirely different meaning.

“I think I do.” His chest is barely an inch from yours, and before you know it, your lips join in a bruising kiss. It’s desperation from the days you spent without each other, almost stitching the time between that night you were in his bed and now together like a crochet tapestry. It’s yearning to be better than how you’ve been, to do better for the man who wants to teach you how to find happiness again.

Most importantly, it’s hope, unadulterated and unembroidered with the promises of what would’ve been. It’s only now, and that’s enough. It would always end this way, you think. Wonwoo holds you so close he may squeeze you into his coat to keep you from running away. A muddled cry escapes you before your lips connect again, your tears wetting the space between your mouths.

When you part, you think you may never let him go again, and this is the penance you’ll pay for the rest of your life for thinking you could ever handle being without him. “Where do we go from here?” you ask with glassy eyes, finding a glimmer of peace in the way Wonwoo holds you close to him with all the gentleness and love in the world.

“We heal.”

ONE MONTH LATER

None of the group members believe it when you offer to go first during the second to last session. You had half a mind to not to, promising Wonwoo you would share on the final meeting day so you wouldn’t have to suffer through another gathering with everyone knowing your story. Wonwoo only held you closer, stilling your trembling body with kisses to the crown of your head and his reassuring words whispered into your hair. “You’re stronger than anyone in that room, and it’s time you prove it.” You love him for that, among the plethora of a million other things, but that’s another conversation for another time and for only the two of you to share.

Suzy, Hongjoong, and the rest of the group follow you with understanding eyes, a response you used to dread. But now, you accept it just to get by. Seungcheol stares with immeasurable pride behind his eyes as you clear your throat.

“My dad passed away a year ago now,” you start, hands shaking but firm against the plastic coffee cup. “It was sudden, so sudden when the call came I didn’t believe it. I called the cop that told me about the accident a liar, like it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t happen to me, and not to him. Not yet, anyway.”

“You always think that you have more time to spend with someone, to tell them all the things you didn’t have the courage to say to them when they were still around. And that’s how I felt about him and our relationship, like I’d have a lot more moments to fix what I needed to for the two of us, and for myself. Maybe I never would’ve been ready, anyway, but—I couldn’t accept that all those chances, all those opportunities, were gone when he was, too. Most of the time, I still don’t. It doesn’t feel real, like it’s this thick fog I’m under that’ll eventually clear.

“And that’s why I’m here with you guys. And maybe talking about it now can help me to get through it the right way.”

You don’t look up from the floor as you continue, but Wonwoo’s hand on your thigh and Seungcheol’s leading questions ground you through it all. The tears flow, and the words leave your lips with all of their broken seams. Each thread of your heart unwinds, the experience equal parts freeing and devastating in the release.

Whoever the creator of the slogan from that third week of the support group is—Seungcheol, a random stranger, or a prophetic person who knows all too well the tragedy of grief itself—you’re growing to believe time can bend every sad emotion into something manageable, especially grief. And yes, you have yet to see what your own grief ultimately turns into, but you know you’ll take comfort in the fact you won’t be alone when that day comes.

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