NIGHT SHIFT.
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Jack Abbot, MD. | Physician. Emergency Medicine and Critical Care. Soldier / Veteran. Military medic. | Maverick. Humanist. The controlled chaos; the calm in the storm.
i’m tired of hating myself all the time, and i’m tired of betraying the people i care about, and most of all... i’m sick of being some tool for you to use.
mohabbot is such a juicy ship in the sense that samira doesn't notice any of the things abbot thinks are worth noticing. instead she notices things he doesn't spend two seconds thinking about. abbot shirtless? she doesn't care. him paying for her patient? now we're talking!
— two of them and the wind-down of evening din. Jack tucked his chin, now face-to-face with Robby, and looked him in the eye. He whispered, intense and sturdy, far sturdier than he felt inside, “Look at me. Are you good?”
“Tag; I’m it.”
Jack said this playfully, though his insides felt tight and uncomfortable, like skin fresh after a beach-day sunburn. It brought along a raw, hollow feeling, but he knew he would be able to manage it, tuck it away to deal with later when there wasn’t a crisis. —
— As Robby stepped closer to him, he closed the distance, moved in to meet him. Jack clasped his hand in turn around Robby’s bicep, but didn’t let go so easily; he used the leverage of a step to press their shoulders together. It created an instant, intimate bubble of just the —
what doesn’t kill you leaves disfiguring scars. what doesn’t kill you fills you with paralyzing self—hatred. what doesn’t kill you makes you afraid for the rest of your life. what doesn’t kill you might make you kill them.
— habitual gesture, he rubbed at his bare forearms and biceps. Callouses on his palm dragged just right against his body hair. Fingers itched to touch Robby from behind, but he didn’t. Not yet.
“You need to tap out? You can tag me in, you know. I’m right here.”
Jack looked at the back of Robby’s head in profile, where messy strands jutted out and faded into the steadying background of the quiet, overnight sky. But what Jack really saw wasn’t his friend, his companion, but a dizzying slideshow of strangers: —
— But that wasn’t helpful to say. Nothing good came of commiserating at the edge of a rooftop, where urban traffic buzzed just below. Where the moon was the only witness to the endless potentials for sin.
Jack cleared his throat and shook his head. Idly, in a comforting and —