Chapter Text
It’s been a very long time since Jack Abbot has felt jealousy twisting a tight knot in his stomach. That he’s cared deeply enough about someone for jealousy to be a reaction, even a subconscious one.
The night started with him being subjected to watching Shen bring you an iced coffee to start your shift. Observing you walk around the entire ED with another man’s name visible in overt, black ink on your coffee cup hurt his heart more than he would ever admit aloud.
Then when his possessiveness got the better of him, he placed you on an MVA case with him, just so he could keep you close, only for that to result in him having a front row seat to the new overnight on-call neurosurgeon hitting on you.
What makes Jack most envious is the new surgeon would be a much more age appropriate choice for you, unlike himself who is old enough to be your father, which only further carves out an empty abyss where his heart should be.
Jack’s last straw, you’re now standing beside his oldest friend, shoulders practically touching, guiding your gloved fingers as you perform your first ultrasound guided central line. For a moment he worries the crushing nausea might even be the signs of an MI, he’s the right age for the risk factors, but it feels too low in his gut for it to be a cardiac issue.
It's no different than a procedure Robby has done with countless residents, in the exact same room you’re standing, but it’s the signature smirk he flashes you when you’ve successfully placed the tube, commenting something which makes you look up at him with big, endearing eyes that makes Jack’s chest ache.
He has studied you across the ED long enough to know that’s your usual reaction to applause from a superior, but it doesn’t stop the bile green envy rising in his stomach wishing he was standing that close to your body, being the one giving you the praise you rightly deserve.
Yearning for you to be looking at him like that.
And just when he wishes for your eyes to be on him, you look up, gazing out towards the hub where he’s standing.
When your eyes meet his through the glass of Trauma 1, you offer a shy yet sweet grin. It’s not the same beaming smile you shone in response to Robby’s undeniable attempt at flirting (Jack’s been his wingman too many times to mistake that glint in his eye), but there’s something precious about the fact that this smile is just for him, you’re not putting on a show in front of your boss and for the rest of the trauma room.
Jack doesn’t even mind that you’ve caught him staring for how his heart blooms warm and fuzzy in his chest at you noticing him while ignoring Robby’s attempt at teasing banter.
Damn it, he shouldn’t be feeling this way about a resident. He’s your teacher, your boss, he has a position of power over you.
It’s that thought that drags his eyes down to the charting he’s delayed by watching you. As much as he might be attracted to you, nothing can happen between an attending and his resident.
Even if you are his best resident. His most promising resident, with a thirst for knowledge, the most adorable laugh and such kissable lips.
God, he hates himself.
Jack tries not to pay attention in his peripheral version as the doors of Trauma 1 swing open to see if it’s you stepping out. He finds himself doing that constantly when you’re on shift together.
“Abbot.” It’s the way you say his name that makes him smile. Low and cheeky, as if you’re reminding him you caught him staring, but silently promising it’ll be kept a secret between you two.
“Rookie.” It’s what he’s called you since you started at PTMC, a nickname which originated from not knowing who you were that first day, but is now uttered to distance himself from the feelings associated with speaking the rhythm of your name.
It’s the same rhythm his heart beats to.
“You doing anything when we finally get out of here?” You ask, checking the time on your watch before noting something in your patients chart.
He fails miserably at not staring at how you tuck your lower lip between your teeth in concentration. It’s simultaneously so cute he can’t help but smile like an idiot, and entirely too seductive, it makes him want to bite your lip between his own teeth.
He has to force out a cough to clear out the lump forming in his throat so you don’t perceive the tremor in his voice.
“Just getting some sleep before another shift with the SWAT team.”
Your mouth contorts in a way that makes his heart clench, as if you don’t approve the content of the answer he provided.
“You like putting yourself in dangerous situations don’t you?” It feels like a rhetorical question, that's punctuated with a cute tilt of your head.
“You sound like my therapist.” It’s not intended as a joke, more an attempt by to avoid the depressing reason why he needs to keep himself so busy and with such hazardous tendencies, but you quietly chuckle and shake your head all the same.
You open your mouth as if to say something sharp and witty back, but he can see the gears turning behind your eyes as you decide to let the words die on the tip of your tongue.
“Well just be safe, some of us like having you around here.” Is what instead leaves your lips and it makes his heart swoon. It’s the first time in recent memory someone other than the therapist he pays good money for has expressed concern for his well-being.
“Are you included in that?” He quirks his brow, leaning forward on the desk so that your faces are now close enough that he can smell the body spray he knows you keep in your locker to freshen up during the long shifts.
He knows it’s pathetic, but he needs to hear you say you like coming into work and seeing him, that you’ll miss him if he’s gone, anything that suggests you enjoy his presence. If he can’t have you in the way he wants, romantically, devotedly, writhing beneath him, he’ll settle for you simply confessing you want him even as a coworker.
But you smirk, not giving him what he wants.
“Nah, I was talking about Shen.” There’s a sparkle in your beautiful eyes as you tease him, and it quickly becomes his favourite sight in the world. He’d be the butt of all your jokes if it meant he had an unlimited supply of that view.
Then the little giggle that you let slip from your lips almost does him in entirely. That would have to be his favourite sound too now.
“Just… stay safe Abbot.” Your voice is lower now, sounding much more serious than you typically do in what is usually bantering conversations with him. Your eye contact is so intense Jack can practically feel how you’re imploring him not to take any risks through telepathy. “You know how Shen worries.”
It’s that small addition that makes him grin. Shen is about the most easygoing person to walk through the halls of PTMC. Even though he doesn’t know for sure, Jack feels confident you’re using Shen as a cover for your own anxieties.
“I will, Rookie.” He promises. Jack never much cared about if he were injured during his work with the SWAT team - after his wife passed, he didn't have anyone left in his life to care if he lived or died, maybe besides his mentally unstable longtime friend.
But for you, and having the opportunity to hear that captivating laugh of yours again, he’ll be extra careful.
Jack watches you walk away with that same shy smile you flashed him through the glass of Trauma 1, wishing you’d look back at him so he could revel in the gorgeous colour of your eyes for just a moment longer. But he is sadly disappointed when you turn into Central 11 without so much as a glance in his direction.
“You are so gone for her.” Robby comments in a low voice just for Jack’s ears, having tracked where Jack’s eyes were looking, before sitting at his work station.
“Fuck you.” Jack mutters under his breath as he finally puts his head down to complete the chart he’s been working on since ogling at you working in Trauma 1.
He’s your teacher. As much as it might be fun to sneak glances at you throughout his shift, to a small degree exploit the system as your attending to assign you to his cases, and fantasise about what being with you might be like whenever his head hits the pillow before sleep takes him, Jack knows he can never reveal the truth. He would never compromise your residency for something as frivolous as his heart. He knew after the first case he worked with you as an intern that you were something special, he would never jeopardise your potential just to get into your pants.
He’s not Robby.
Jack might casually flirt and charm while in the ED, but when it comes down to it, he’d never endanger your education.
He’d never cross that line.
Besides, you’d never feel the same way about someone who’s practically double your age, right?