Work Text:
March 18th, 2025
It's almost seven in the morning and you're more than ready to go home. Exiting Trauma 1 you're met with Dana already in her usual spot in the hub. She sets the phone down not looking very happy, shoving some papers in a drawer when she sees you walking over.
"What's all the commotion in there for?" She gestures towards the room and you look back watching Abbot leaving behind you also headed for the hub to chart.
"MVA induced claw clip ingrained cranium, hopefully on a safe trip to the OR now." You remove your own clip from your hair. "Remind me to always get this off before I leave to catch my bus."
"Ouch, will do." That's all, really?
"What's up? You just got here and you already look stressed out." Not a rare thing for the charge nurse, but she looks specially stressed out right now.
"Well, since you're both here." Abbot stops typing at that. "Ok, so I have good news and bad news."
"Oh, that's never good." You just want to go home, come on.
"Bad news first." He fully turns to her expectantly.
"That was Robby on the phone, he's sick and he's not coming in.
"Bad case of the man flu, he'll get over it." You half joke.
"And Dr. Mohan also texted to let me know she’s not coming in either."
"Oh, I see where this is headed." You already know what she’s going to ask. "They must be actually dying if they’re not insisting on still working."
Abbot cuts in again. "Probably caught the same bug in that lecture last week."
"The norovirus thing?" There was this whole mandated event they got picked to attend with doctors from all the hospitals in the area the week prior, guess it checks out.
"Ironic, I know." You laugh him after that.
"You guys can't even pretend to be worried?" Dana eyes you over her glasses.
"I'm sure they will live. Me? Not so much if you ask what I think you're going to ask."
"I'm gonna ask it anyway. Can you stay until I can bribe someone from days who's off today to come in? We're already understaffed as it is."
"When you ask so nicely." You slowly hit your head on the counter but Abbot sets his arm down on it so your forehead hits his hand instead the second time. You look at him annoyed he's stopping your attempt at a self inflicted work related injury. He doesn’t have much of a choice in leaving since Robby won't come in to relief his shift, guess you could stay too. "What's the good news?"
"I'll let Abbot deliver them to you once I know you're not gonna run away."
"Not fair."
"Go get some breakfast kid, morning rush will catch up to you soon."
You get up from your moping spot deciding the cafeteria food will have to do for now. "I'll have you know I'm not happy about this."
"Couldn't tell by your frown, sunshine. Go."
Five yours later and you're exhausted, the non NPO patients are receiving their lunch and you were just now able to sit down for five minutes. The morning rush was brutal and the cases were finally seeming to slow down by a miracle. You're yawning beside Dana after checking on your last few patients.
"What was up with those two, they have the same surname." She's eyeing the names of the two patients you saw earlier on the board above you.
"They’re twins. They're fine, just high out of their minds after eating too many gummies so they came in after getting paranoid. They're probably more alert than me right now though, god, I'm so tired, I just want to go home." She has to stand your whining after asking you to stay.
"Listen, things are slowing down for now but I can't exactly send you home in case more patients come in. The other day shift Attending is driving from out of town and I have an R2 who won't pick up the damn phone that was supposed to come in if we needed extra help."
"I need a nap."
"You and me both."
"Do you mind if I set up camp under the counter by your feet and sleep for five minutes?"
"So I trip over you and fall on my ass? Yeah, not happening, kid. Use one of the on call rooms."
"Will you call me if something comes up?"
"Yeah, yeah, go. Sleep some for me too, while you're at it."
"I will, thank you."
Jack doesn’t get much sleep normally, the police scanner keeps him company in his worse insomniac moments when he tries and fails to rest. Having to stay extra hours today is really getting to him by midday, he's not young anymore and as much as he tries to stay on top of things, getting poor sleep is really starting to affect him lately. Spending too many hours on his feet pressing his weight into his prosthetic isn't exactly doing him any favors, either.
Dana forces him to take a nap after he accidentally tips her energy drink to the floor and he reluctantly gives in, why the hell not. There aren't any urgent trauma patients and she can be scary when she wants to.
He sighs in relief after he takes off his shoe and then prosthetic leg sitting on a side chair, massaging his leg ready to move to the bed. The chair creaks under his weight as he gets up and supports himself to move and what he thought was a pile of blankets moves on the small mattress at the noise. He sees your loose hair and your confused face squinting at the dark trying to see who's in the room.
"Jack? Did I miss a call or something?" This is the first time you call him by his first name and it sounds like you've already been asleep for a while, maybe still not totally awake.
"Shit, sorry. I didn't know there was anyone here, the door was unlocked." You need to be more careful.
"Did you lock it?" Doesn’t seem like you care much.
"Yeah, but it's fine I'll leave you to it, I'll find another room."
"You can stay." You lower yourself down on the pillow again, not a care in the world.
"I don't want to bother you." He'll have to get the prosthetic back in place.
He hears you yawning and sees you moving to the corner of the bed by the wall. "You won’t, just stay quiet and sleep and let me sleep." Seems like that's your only priority right now, he can respect that.
He sits on the bed debating on how to move from there. "Just so you don't freak out in case you wake up first."
You interrupt him opening one eye. "You sleep naked and you have a tramp stamp?" He can still see your smirk in the dark.
"What?" That's one way to make him less nervous, Trouble. "No, I'm missing my right leg bellow my knee."
You dare to scoff at him closing your eye again. "That's way less exciting, doc."
"I'll keep that in mind, Trouble. My prosthetic is on the floor by the bed, don't trip on it."
"I'll do my best. Sorry if I move, not a quiet sleeper." You speak half into the pillow.
"You're good." He'll be on the outside of the bed anyways, you won't be able to fall past him. He finally lies down resting his back and getting a deep breath in before blacking out.
You don't know how much time passed after you found the on call room and got under the covers. Could be days with how disoriented you feel, you even remember hallucinating Abbot coming in at some point. Right.
Except you feel really warm, you open your eyes now facing the blank wall feeling an added weight against your back. The blankets were nowhere to be seen and you could feel a leg between yours, his nose quietly breathing at the side of your neck, stubble lightly scratching your nape and his soft shirt touching the exposed skin of your lower back where your scrub top lifted up. You move your neck now able to see a strong arm hugging your waist and if it wasn’t for him feeling like a furnace against you, you're sure you'd be feeling very warm yourself right now.
Still, you're warm from his body heat, mortified and weirdly actually very comfortable. Like you could sleep for another twelve hours if the outside of this room wasn’t the PTMC where you work and you weren’t pulling a double against your will where you ended up sleeping entangled with your Attending. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
Calming yourself down you can feel the cadence of his heart beating against you where his chest touches your back, you close your eyes again breathing deeply which leads to noticing you can also smell him this close to you and it's good enough to get you moving, you have to get away from him before you say or do something stupid.
You try to escape his embrace opting for slowly sliding down the mattress as quietly as you can so you don't wake him up. You manage pretty well, still hearing his quiet breaths until you stand in the small space by the end of the bed and the wall, you're careful not to get tangled in the blankets that are on the floor, moving to the side of the bed so you can get your shoes back on and leave the room. Except you trip on something on the floor once you manage to get away from the tight corner, immediately feeling two steady and very warm hands holding the back of your upper arms before you can fall face first.
"Told you not to trip." His low voice sounds raspy at your back.
"And I said I'd do my best." I was busy thinking that was a fever dream, sorry. So much for not saying or doing something stupid.
"You okay?" He pulls you towards him getting you back to sitting on the damn bed. What are you doing, dude?
"Fine, you?"
"Could use more sleep."
"I'm sure you could." You get your shoes back on as Abbot sits up dealing with his prosthetic and a knock on the door startles you.
"You two in there?" You can hear Dana laughing through the door, great.
"Yeah." You say maybe too quietly.
"We'll be right out." Abbot answers for you both.
Back in central squinting at the bright lights of the ED you stop by a smirking Dana to ask for updates on leaving and finding a hole to hide forever.
"So, how was your nap?" Of course Abbot is right behind you again. Messy haired with an imprint of the pillow on his face, you probably look the same.
"It was fine." A 'no comment' would have sounded too suspicious, let's not feed the gossip circle. Good thing Princess and Perlah are busy elsewhere.
"How about your nap?" She turns to Abbot who rests his stupid freckled thick arms on the counter beside you.
"Barely shut my eyes with those snores."
"I don't snore." How dare him?
"Yes, you do."
"At least I wasn't the one drooling on the pillow."
"Tell yourself that until you believe it, kid."
"Uh huh, should I restock the condoms in the side table? I'm the one who puts them there." Of course your favorite charge nurse would make things worse.
"Do people actually have sex in that bed?"
"You'd be surprised."
"Gross, who's changing the sheets?"
"I would hope you would have if it was needed." Is the seriously scolding you right now?
"Will you quit it? How long was I out and can I leave yet?"
"About and hour, and yes you can. The resident that's actually filling in for Mohan is in triage right now so you're good to go. Just fill them in on your cases first."
"Ok, thank you. Please don’t ever ask me work extra hours ever again, cause I won't do it." She will and you'll do it anyways.
"Lying is a sin, kid."
"So it's the envy I'm feeling of Robby and Samira for being home right now. Did you check on them? They're okay?"
"They're fine. Already spoke about coming to work tomorrow."
"They're so alike, it's stupid."
Dana eyes Abbot now typing at his usual computer and back at you. "Tell me about it."
"Alright, I'm gonna go. Good luck holding down the fort."
"See you soon, dollface."
Jack is looking at you walking towards chairs when he’s startled by Dana setting a bunch of papers on the counter in front of him.
"Tell her the happy news yet?"
"Shit, no. Didn’t exactly have much time."
"Sure. The Attending is in Trauma 2 right now if that interests you, Dr. Abbot."
"Right." He gets up going to find his replacement so he can do the actual shift change and find you again.
He spots you sitting on the stairs not long after, typing away on your phone, he has the papers in hand and you're not exactly meeting his eyes so he decides to sit beside you on the steps.
"Ok, so I have good news and bad news." He tries to mimic Dana earlier and fails miserably.
"Why do people keep telling me that today?"
"Don't sound so excited."
"Sorry, I'm tired." You hide your face on your arms over your knees. "Good news first."
"As of next month, your transfer request to nights has officially been accepted. You just have to sign these and it's done."
You eye him suspiciously taking the papers.
"You can say no." He fakes offense at your hesitancy, smirking at you when you finally look at him.
"I didn't think I couldn't. What’s the catch?"
"Except for today and tomorrow which you now have off you'll have to work days for the rest of the month. They're understaffed and need the time to organize the schedule with other transfers."
"I think I can manage that with a healthy amount of complaining."
"Atta, girl. You're not forgetting anything?"
"I don't think so?" You face is still soft with sleep.
He reaches his pocked for the claw clip he picked up in the on call room side table, he recognized it as one of yours. You grab it from his hand hesitating a bit.
"I think I'm done with these for a minute after that MVA."
"Yeah, that was a sight to behold." You're back to avoiding looking at him, choosing to face the door instead. He heard you mention you take the bus home, the least he could do was give you a ride home after today. He stands climbing down the last steps and stopping by the exit. "You need a ride home?"
You shake your head lightly. "It's okay, I'm meeting a friend from another floor for lunch. Might as well stay awake if I have to change my sleep schedule back to days for a bit. Thanks for offering, I'll see you next month, I guess."
April can't come soon enough.