Work Text:
She sparkles sometime around November.
Maybe she always has – no. Jack knows she has. He’s seen glimpses in the moments he’s allowed himself to look at her at work. In the moments when he lets his gaze linger a millisecond too long, in the moments when her hands are steady and there’s a smile on her face and she has a question so she’s looking at him.
She's electrifying at work.
But Jack notices her sparkling in November across a crowded bar at the Christmas work party – yes, November, because there’s no universe the day and night shifts are given a night off together in December. It starts then, he thinks. A spark across the bar as he’s coming back in from second-hand smoking with Dana.
It’s all red lips smiling over a cocktail glass, a shimmery dress and dark curls loose around shoulders. So not-work appropriate that it has Jack staring for a second too long, brain shutting down for a moment because here, in a so not-work environment he allows himself to.
The shitty ambient lighting may as well be a spell with how he fixes in place.
She raises her glass at him, twirls the cherry in it around with her finger and looks towards the exit. That’s how it starts the first time – though maybe he’s been under this particular spell for years with how his heart jumps in his throat. How he wishes he’d had a real fucking cigarette with Dana instead of just standing outside while she smoked hers.
Samira nods towards the exit for a chat, for a quiet moment – Jack doesn’t know. Can’t bring himself to know, even when he has an inkling. Not now. Not when he has so many things telling him no. Not when his left hand still feels heavy, not when the ring on it still glistens in spring. Not when she’ll finish her fourth year of residency soon , not when he catches sight of Robby and Heather sitting together in the corner. Maybe after she finishes her residency. Maybe then Jack can let himself a bit closer to the sun. Then. Only then.
Samira nods towards the exit again, pops the cherry into her mouth and pushes off the bar and Jack is powerless to do anything but follow her.
The night devolves the way it was always going to: smudged red lipstick, his back rubbed raw from the brick wall she shoves him against it, his hand catching on the glitter of her dress. All the pieces fall into place as a terrible rendition of All I Want for Christmas is You meets their ears, muffled through the wall, with weeks, months, years of whatever’s been going on between them sparking. And suddenly Jack can’t bring himself to care – not about her finishing her residency, not about how that is not Maria Carey’s high note, not about how the back door could open any second and put an end to all this. Jack lets himself get caught up in the moment; with Samira’s curls through his fingers and her pawing at the zipper on his jacket. That’s how it starts.
***
She shimmers in the middle of January.
Late ( “Or early, depending on how you’re looking at it.” Santos happily provides) New Year celebrations in Robby’s backyard. Shitty sparklers amongst lukewarm beer, bubbly laughter rising over visible breath, LED garden lights hastily strung over a back fence trying to battle the overcast weather – everything so fucking dim compared to Samira standing beside him.
She’s wearing a black woollen jumper this time, hair shoved into it’s usual claw clip but she may as well be doused in glitter– she’s five hours post shift and making time for celebrating a New Year with him.
And all Jack can think about is last year and the Christmas party that spilled out into the alleyway.
He’s lost count of how many times he’s thought about it, but usually it’s in the safety of a trauma bay where he’s quickly whisked away from that line of thinking to do his damn job. Or in the quiet of his apartment when he was taking the last of the Christmas cards off of the mantel, with the usual safety net of twirling the band around his finger to shut it down. Even if the cards from his in-laws always have an undercurrent of “stop standing still, Jack.” to them beneath all the holiday cheer.
They still haven’t talked about Christmas, but in many ways they don’t need to. They fell back into a comfortable rhythm at work. So far it’s been back to friendly chats over case files and shit filter coffee and Jack thought maybe it was a one-off.
Now though, she meets his eyes from across the party, eyes sparkling with the same look as in December, and he knows it’s coming this time. Jack Abbot is many things, but naïve isn’t one of them.
As the party winds down and tea candles and 2026! glasses get shoved into the recycling bin, Jack starts circling her, subconsciously, consciously, spellbound, possessed – it doesn’t fucking matter. He's powerless to do anything but follow her.
They don’t even make it to her apartment. She takes him (and she takes. Jack is just along for the ride, as always) in some parking lot off the freeway; reaches over and pulls the lever under his seat to slide it back a few inches before climbing into his lap. Skirt hiked up past her thighs, hair a mess, the orange hue fluorescence of the streetlights giving him glimpses of what she looks like when she’s taking him, wet and tight and oh-so-fucking magical.
Jack has to force himself to keep his eyes open, has to force himself to blind himself looking at her.
He can make out the blush rising up her neck as she dips her head to look between them, slides a hand up her thigh because he has to touch – smooth muscle built from days spent running around the ER – and slides them further, high and higher until he gets a hand on her clit and she shoves forwards, desperate, forceful, demanding him to apply more pressure and Jack is desperate to give her what she wants.
She shoves forward again, curses and “C’mon, c’mon - Jack, please.” fall from her lips as she chases her orgasm, and Jack knows he’ll never see anything prettier than this. Even if orange hued glimpses after parties is all he is ever allowed.
***
She shines brighter than the sun in July.
July is as shitty as it always is. Idiots with fireworks and public holidays aside, Jack hates summer. Hates the humidity, hates how his scrubs cling to the hollow of his knees, hates how the sweat that collects there causes his prosthetic to rub. Hates dumb idiots with barbecues and weak swimmers who take to the beach. Jack hates summer shifts.
But this one isn't so bad.
Because amongst the seventh "worst shift ever" this week, there’s leftover birthday cake in the breakroom. By the time Jack rocks up there’s only middle pieces left with melted icing that sticks to his fingers long after he’s finished it. A maddening combination of tacky, sugary, sweet that follows him from bay to bay. Even after multiple hand washes, it still catches every time he snaps a new pair of gloves on.
Mohan – and it’s Mohan at work. It has to be. Even if he still hears Not-Maria Carey and “ You’re in me. We’re a bit past formalities, Doctor Abbot.” being giggled into his collarbone in the quiet moments his thoughts are allowed to wander.
Anyway, Mohan also has an edition stuck to her; a comically big badge clipped to her breast pocket proclaiming she’s 3 TODAY!! with a hastily Sharpie'd 0 that he bets was Shen’s doing.
He almost feels for her, working a double on her thirtieth birthday but as another Fourth of July weekend victim is wheeled in he sees her take a deep breath and launch into the consultation with the patient; sees the glint in her eye that she only gets when she’s truly happy (demands breathed into his collarbone, a sweet cup of coffee shoved her way, satisfaction after a patient is discharged, lopsided smile she gives when she declines his lifts home and she always declines when he offers after work).
It’s her birthday, but as Jack clasps his hands behind himself and steps back to merely observe, he thinks he’s the one that got the best gift today.
***
Everything glows orange in September.
The streetlights have this orange-tinted hue that haunts him as he leaves his shifts. His version of morning pushed back to it’s rightful place of late evening with a change in rotas, body clock royally fucked. The leaves are tinted bright too with mixtures of oranges and yellows that greet him as he exits the building; a spectacle just before they lose it all in November, clinging onto the last dregs of summer just like Jack is.
He blames the fact he even notices on the lack of sleep.
He blames it on another day coming in early to help. Blames it on ending up on the same bench in a different evening. Blames it on yet another shift of ignoring how fucking orange Samira glows inside the ER.
He sees the orange around her all the time now, unable to unsee her underneath streetlights just like these ones. In the past few months it’s all begun to blur together – bright smiles under the white fluorescent lights at work, the way her mouth twists when she’s coming, bathed in shitty orange streetlights – and Jack catches himself thinking about it all the time now. He catches himself thinking about it all in trauma bays when he looks up to watch her work, at the lockers when he’s collecting his car keys, in the staffroom when he’s reading an article she sent him, on the drive home when he passes the car park. He can count on one hand how many times he’s seen Samira like that, and lost count of how many times he’s seen Mohan on the other, but it doesn’t matter because both are Samira.
And it’s Samira he can’t stop thinking about, in every way he’s had her.
The last of the day crew (which he’s now a part of for the time being he supposes) begin to fill the benches beside and across from him. Another shitty shift they’re all reeling from, and another shitty IPA is thrown his way to swallow it all down with.
He’s mid-swig when she sits down beside him. Shoulders sagging with the relief of finally getting off her feet, neck lolling to the side to watch him, and this time the streetlights hide nothing . Jack sees the circles under her eyes, the fatigue waiting to drag her down, like his own is clawing at his eyes. He sees the orange tie-dye undershirt peeking out from her black scrubs, the way it’s weighing down on her too. He can see it all.
She gives him a tight lipped smile and knocks her beer can against his own.
Jack doesn’t have any words left tonight, and she must know it. Maybe she doesn't have any left either, because she doesn’t speak. Just scoots up the bench until she’s right beside him, the heat of her thigh radiating through his scrubs and rests her head on his shoulder. A sigh of relief Jack feels against his neck and in his fucking bones, as she relaxes against him.
It’s not frantic movement in his car, not rushed and aching against a brick wall. It’s solid. Peaceful. Slow. It’s something Jack can feel and see clearly.
***
It's his brilliant idea not to drink in October.
He has some non-alcoholic shit in a pink plastic cup – Robby’s idea of course, because only he would think to buy pink cups for Jack’s birthday party – and it’s not great, but it’s not bad .
It goes down a lot smoother with the knowledge that Jack has to be sober for what’s going to follow. Because Jack Abbot is many things: a birthday boy, hopelessly in love and stupid for it – but naïve isn’t one of them.
It’s all a waiting game, really, and Jack’s been waiting. He’s been waiting since July, since January, since December and Not-Maria Carey, and before even that; since links to articles turned to casual texts that had been anything but casual to Jack. Since spring when he twirled the ring around his finger and thought maybe now.
This time it’s all pink lips around pink solo cups, jeans and t-shirts, and Jack’s jacket wrapped around her because she left hers inside and he had the compulsion to hand over his own. Shared looks over a dwindling party and looking for excuses to make a sort of early exit because Jack is the designated driver because it was his brilliant idea not to drink.
It devolves the way it does every time. A courteous offer of a ride home that makes a pit-stop in some parking lot because Jack can’t fucking help himself, and it’s his birthday and she’s wrapped in his jacket and her hair is tangled all up in his hand and he thinks he’s allowed some grace. Just this once. Just like every other time they’ve done this.
“What does the birthday boy want?” She says into his ear and it’s like Christmas and his birthday and every wish on every birthday cake he’s ever had coming together all at once.
Jack pushes up, with the need to be deeper, to be closer to her. Needs her everywhere. Needs this to last forever. Needs her.
He voices none of this though, just grabs her wrist where it’s slid down to feel where they’re joined; fingers curled around the base of him, and brings it up to the hollow of his own throat. Tacky, sticky and sweet – her wrist still covered in his jacket – as she gets the message and tightens her hand, thumb sweeping over his Adam's apple, fucking perfect.
It doesn’t last long after that. A few frantic thrusts up, a ragged breath pushing past the warmth of her palm, and he’s spilling inside her, adding to the mess in his lap.
He pushes forward, desperate, forceful, demanding to kiss her after, if she’ll let him. God , he hopes she lets him, lets him drive her home. Lets him have this.
She relaxes against him, pink, spit-slick lips quirk upright. Her nails scrape against his scalp and Jack isn’t proud of the noise he makes at that, but she smiles anyway.
“Happy Birthday, Jack.” Samira says brightly at him.
***
There’s glitter on her face when he reaches her on Octobe– nope, it’s waaay past twelve – November first.
It catches in the light of the ER ever-so -slightly as she moves towards the lockers. A small pumpkin, a mixture of black and orange shimmering on her left cheek. Something a kid painted while they waited on the mother to come back down from an MRI, the face paint still in the mother’s bag after a Halloween party gone wrong.
It’s a little smudged, more of a greasy smear now with some of her hair streaked orange from the residue but it’s – she’s – still sparking in the early hours of the morning.
She’s beautiful.
There's so many things telling him no. The work Halloween gathering isn’t scheduled for another week, two weeks before the Christmas party because there’s no universe they ever celebrate a holiday on time. They're still at work. But Jack forces himself to approach Mohan anyway. Not under the guise of courtesy after a party, not after a drink too many. He approaches her after a decently okay shift that hasn't forced them into the cold of the park.
The paint twitches upwards with her smile when she spots him.
“Want a ride home?” He asks.
The morning devolves in the way it was always going to: a quiet yes, an early morning diner and trading knowing smiles in daylight. All the pieces fall into place between lukewarm coffee and his hand catching on the material of her scrubs when he pushes in her chair at the diner. That’s when it starts again – only this time for the better.
It’s mundane and quiet. It’s all tired eyes across the table, uncomfortable work clothes, bitten lips smiling against streaky face paint and dark curls revolting against her claw clip. So beautiful in the early hours of the morning that it has Jack staring because here, in the small hours of the morning after Halloween, he's allowed to.
He’s halfway through his cup when he meets her eye over the table and Samira nods towards the exit.
“I think this is the part where you take me home, Jack.” Samira says before pushing off the table and Jack is powerless to do anything but to follow her.