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Silence between them has never been this suffocating, and it should be alarming to him. Yet, as Jack and Samira sit there on the curb of their house in the car, rain falling hard outside like it's a precursor to some biblical flood, he couldn't think anything beyond the throbbing pain of his bruised face because he stubbornly refused to take the good stuff—for obvious reasons, given his history of medication the normal dose wouldn't do anything and he's better without anyway. He needs to feel the pain on his face and the newly-stitched knife wound on his right arm, a sliver of penitence for his mistake of allowing himself to get hurt. No amount of opioids could numb the pain of disappointing her, so why bother?
He had objected to letting her drive in the rain, but Samira shot him a look he'd never seen on her face before, one that seemed very close to cold indifference, and he folded immediately. They had arrived five minutes ago, but nobody had moved. There's an umbrella under the backseat, and he could've offered to take it for both of them, but he didn't and she didn't bring it up. They just sit there in uneasy silence because somehow they know there's a conversation to be had that would change everything, and coming home without starting it would be a betrayal of the safe space they have built for each other.
Samira takes pity on him (or so he believes) and breaks the silence. “When you said you picked up a shift, you didn't tell me it was a TEMS shift.”
Jack closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Of course this is where he fucked up big time. They've talked about his adrenaline-chasing habit and Samira had told him without a doubt that if they want to make this relationship work, he'd have to stop trying to tempt fate and put himself in the line of fire for some stupid reason like preventing the theft of a goods warehouse. It’s different from standing on rooftops, she insisted.
“I don't even know you're still on their payroll.” Samira continues, staring straight ahead and not giving him the mercy of feeling her direct disapproval just yet. “Maybe that's on me. I never asked about it. I just stupidly assume you understood what I wanted from you back when we agreed to be together.”
“I'm sorry.” Jack croaks out. “I have no excuse.”
“I don't need your self-pity, Jack. I need you to assure me that we're on the same page about this.” The tone of her voice frustratingly level and patient, like she's explaining to a resident the reason why some procedures are preferable to others and why we never take out sharp objects embedded in the artery in the ER.
“I didn't see the harm in keeping my name in rotation for the TEMS reserve.” This is when the resident fuck up and a spray of arterial blood stains the floor of the trauma room.
“If I tell you to quit now, would you do it?”
“I'm not their first choice, Samira, I'm their last resort. I can't turn my back on people who need me.”
Samira gives him a bitter laugh and says “Then I can’t be with you anymore.” before opening the door and stepping out into the rain.
“Shit.” Dread pools low in his gut, making him spring into action and leave his own seat to catch her there, right in front of the entrance of the house they’ve built together for the last year. Hand gripping her wrist, hard enough to tug her backwards and keep her out here in the open with him, because if they come in like this they’d never come out the same–and he can’t lose her. “Samira, wait, let’s talk about this–”
“No,” She doesn’t try to break free, but her lack of effort is somehow worse. “The thing is, you don’t know, Jack. You can’t know for sure that you’re their last resort. What if you’re just convenient because you’d never refuse their call? And don’t tell me it’s not like that—I’ve met the people you work with over there, remember?” She turns around now, fiery eyes piercing through his chest and burning him from the inside. “They love you over there at the police station.”
“Samira…” He tries even though he knows his camaraderie with them is indefensible. It’s the ingrained nature of his military training, a clear line of command and brotherly bond with his peers means security, and security saves people’s lives.
“I don’t know why I thought I could change the way you see your so-called friends.” Samira snaps. “Jack, in that station you’re surrounding yourself with people who undermine me and the work I believe in.”
“Don’t.” Jack warns her, with more grit in his voice now, rougher. “You don’t know them.”
“I know them well enough.” Samira almost yells. “And you should know better. You work in the ED! You know how many people walk in wearing handcuffs bearing wounds that have nothing to do with their crime. You know how rape kits stay in the hospital’s fridge for months. And that’s just from the things you’ve seen at the hospital. What about things they hide, things they don’t want you to know about?”
“Samira,” He’s angry now. She’s accusing him and people he knows for bad things that’re reflected in vague statistics and crude generalization. “That’s not fair,”
“Fine, let’s try this then.” Samira yanks her hand out of his grip, and he lets her go—too easily. “You, Jack Abbot, are a disabled veteran doctor. Fifty-one years old. You’re not the only one with TEMS training in this city. There are tons of other, equally capable people with less baggage. Yet, they keep bringing you in. Why?” She steps closer to him, staring up at his pained expression with unbridled anger. “Because you keep returning to them. Because you keep showing them that you’re willing to endanger yourself again and again, and for what? Tell me, what did they call you in for today?”
All Jack can think of is: she could be sick. She's still wearing her Presby scrubs, drenched from head to toe with her long curls sticking to her face and the sides of her neck and he needs to get her out of here, he needs to get her inside the house. “There was a robbery.”
He sees something break in her eyes. “Just like back then. Fourth of July.” Her voice gets smaller. “Today you're getting away with just bruises and a cut. Are you going to be taken to my ED with a bullet inside you next? Jack, I can't do this anymore.”
She turns and walks into the house and he lets her; he lets her turn the key and go inside without him. For a moment he's frozen there, cold and pathetic. He has to force her to stay. She can't leave him like this. What would he become without her? This past year has been a blessing for him and his hollowed out self who’s been learning to fall in love again, opening himself to be fulfilled by the presence of another person again.
How could she take everything away from him like this? Over some bruises and a shallow wound? She’s being unreasonable.
The next time he’s aware of his surroundings, he’s inside of the house, trailing drops of water towards the living room, catching up with Samira who’s about to turn towards the bedroom to take some towels and with the full force of a man who’s been trained to maim and be maimed–his hands are pushing her back until she collides with the wall and let out a surprised yelp that he catches with his mouth, wanting to swallow her breath and climb inside of her to curl up and stay there (or make her stay).
She’s struggling, but he’s too strong and he has her wrists gripped in one hand, raised above her head. His other hand clutching the back of her head, pulling her wet curls and tilting her head up to meet his forceful kiss. It’s not pretty–all teeth and bite and muffled yells of his name that gets increasingly desperate before she finally succumbs with her jaw slackened and her brows slanted in a defeated expression, melting together with him.
“You can’t leave.” He whispers as he trails his lips across her cheek, down her jaw and the side of her neck to suck on the pulse point there and leave a dark mark of his possession. Tasting rain and salt of her skin on his tongue, he begs/commands/pleads: “I won’t let you.”
“You’re hurting me.” She whimpers because his grip on her wrists is a grip meant to restrict enemy combatants, not a lover. “Let me go, Jack.”
“No.” He shifts on his feet and lifts his right knee–what’s left of it–between her thighs, hand moving to her hip to force her to move, to grind her cunt on him. “No, I’m going to show you why you can’t leave me.”
“Jack,” Samira gasps out, eyes wild and crazed. She is wet, and not just from the rain–he knows it, knows how he can arouse her with a single kiss, knows how she wants him as much as he wants her. How easy it is for him to slide inside her with little effort because when they’re like this they’re mindless creatures starving for each other’s flesh and blood.
He proves it by shoving a hand down her scrub pants and gripping her cunt, letting her wetness pool on his palm, moving it back and forth because he wants to prolong this torture and it’s too easy if he touches her the way she wants (fingers pinching her clit, plunging deep and curling in her cunt). No, he wants to punish her first and let her burn to cinders before he shows her mercy.
Samira let out a hungry moan, “D-don’t, Jack, please–”
“But you want this.” One hand keeping her wrists above her head. Another rubbing her cunt, making her hips follow the rhythm of his teasing out of their own volition. His tone almost mocking, belittling. “You’re so wet. Just from one kiss and you’re all ready for a good hard fuck. How can you leave when you want me like this? When you’re this hungry for my fingers? My cock?”
Don’t leave. Don’t leave. A repeated mantra in his mind.
Samira looks almost scared now–she’s seen something on his face, heard the threat in his voice. Something unhinged and terrifying. She stares at him like she doesn’t know him anymore–and she’s pissed.
She surges forward to bring him into her kiss this time–tongue slipping into his mouth, forcing him to shut up and take it. She’s liquid fire flowing inside him and he takes and takes–
Her wrists free from his grasp and she’s opening his cargo pants, unzipping him and slipping a hand down to grip his cock, hard, and make him grunt out in pain.
Fuck. It’s so good. It’s painful and it’s so good.
Two, three steps behind and he’s sitting on the arm of the living room sofa. Samira steps back to strip herself naked, peeling her wet scrub top and her bra in one go, stepping away from her pants in a flash. And he follows, whatever he needs to do to feel her skin on his so that they can melt together as one. Keeps his prosthesis on because he knows he’d need it to show her the extent of his power, his will to live and continue living, his determination to make her stay–
Don’t you fucking dare leave. He might have groaned the words out loud because the look she gives him is full of spite and hatred–two emotions he’s experiencing from her for the first time. His blood boils from the fire of her rage, and she looks heart-wrenchingly beautiful in the semi-darkness: water dripping down her face, her body, her exquisite breasts that never fails to make him thirst for her, hard nipples begging for a bite and a taste; then the curls trailing down from her bellybutton, the mess of it that hides her dripping, hungry cunt. He’s there to worship her with his body, he really is–and she’s not going to deprive him of his only means to satiate his spiritual draught.
He pulls her forward by her arm into another bruising kiss, forehead pressed together, whispers of threats and loving words in the same breath. “Fuck, ‘Mira, you’re so beautiful. You can’t leave me, you hear? I won’t let you. I won’t. I’m a part of you, and you’re here, you’re in me.” He takes her hand and puts it on his sternum, right on top of his racing heart. “Feel this? This is yours. I’m never going to die because this is yours. There’s nothing to fear, ‘Mira.”
“That’s not true, Jack.” Her voice trembles with emotion. “When you went out there today, you didn’t think about me at all, did you?”
“I’m so sorry, baby. Please.” Jack begs. “Please, don’t leave me. You’re right, it’s my fault–”
“I have to,” She breathes out the words into his parted lips, tip of her nose grazing his. It's tender and all the more devastating in its softness. “You lied to me, Jack. You thought you wouldn't lose me even when you rip yourself in pieces, and I can't be the one who has to stay and watch you break apart like this. If you won't listen to me, maybe you can find someone else who–”
“No.” His hand yanks her head away from him with a rough jerk, making her yelp in surprise. His eyes menacing and dark. “There will never be anyone else, Samira. You're the last. I've known it since I first met you–I love you. I love you so fucking much it hurts.”
She glowers at him, her anger now cold and sharp, cutting where it hurts the most. “Prove it, then.”
He turns them around, bending her forward on the back of the sofa and embracing her from behind with a hand around her neck and an arm across her middle. A veiled threat he dangles in front of her with the tightening grip around her neck. Not enough to choke her yet, but he wants her to be aware of the cruel strength he's capable of wielding. He wants her to know he's going back out there under fire not to chase death but to live–because his blood runs for the danger of it and it's the moment of thrill that grants him power to face down unquestionable threats and survive.
“I can break you if I want to.” He says, as if he's dispensing justice or granting mercy to the unworthy. “But I won't, because I love you. See? I’m not a good man. I’m capable of terrible, dark things you’d never dream of. I don't expose myself to danger to hurt you, Samira. I do it to spare you from this.”
Her breathing changes and he feels it with his entire body. He sees it–tears dripping down her face and the beginning of sobs wreaking her chest, making her tremble with the force of something very close to grief. Why is she doing this? What is she grieving about?
Then it occurs to Jack that she's grieving him.
“That's what I'm most afraid of, Jack.” She sobs and he feels her break apart in his hands, his close embrace doing nothing to keep her together. “I’m afraid you’re the one who’s going to leave me, and for what? For some stupid cause that serves the wrong people, and it’s because you think I can’t handle you–the good and the bad. All of you.”
“Oh, Samira, baby, no.” He kisses away the tears, licking the salt as a paltry attempt to close her wound. “Don't cry, I can make it all better, I promise.” His right hand smoothing down the bush of her cunt and prodding her clit to give her the relief she's been craving. “You want me to take it out on you instead? You want me to be mean?”
She moans and it's a raw, drawn-out sound that's been ripped out of her body by force. Agony and arousal in equal measure, and he's never been so hard for her, never been so ready to possess her like this. He loves her so much that her pain becomes his and it transforms into this beautiful thing that he wields like a mace for both of them, to protect and hurt.
“Fuck, baby,” he whines high and pleading, rubbing his cock on the small of her back, smearing precum on her cold, damp skin. “You want it to be painful? I can hurt you if it'll make it all better. Do you need me to remind you how good it feels to have my cock in you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
He slides in.
Not without difficulty. Despite her being drenched, they also haven't been having sex for weeks and she's too tight in a way she's not supposed to be. It might be in the name of love, but becomes a violation the moment he forces himself in.
Samira shrieks and it rattles him. He's not even halfway in, and he's hurting her, but she keeps moving her hips backwards instead of pulling away–she wants him deeper inside.
It takes a couple more thrusts before he gets there, and Samira’s pained moans morphs into pleasured grunts as his hips finally meet her ass in a satisfying loud slap that echoes in the room. He continues the harsh rhythm, keeping a hand around her throat and her back plastered on his chest. The chill of the rain becoming heated vapors, an entirely different wetness drips down his balls and between her legs. It’s filthy and desperate; the way he’s using her but also begging to be a part of her.
“Let me in.” He breathes out, out; as if he’s stuck in the prison of his body and her pleasure is his key to freedom. “Baby, please.”
Samira reaches back, grasping him by the back of his head, and she answers his plea with a simple command in a trembling voice tinged with hazy desire: “You know how to touch me, Jack. Do it, make me come. Be good and give it to me.”
The hand on her hip slides down to stroke her clit, hard and fast, just like how she likes it when she’s desperate to come. He’s seen it countless times, loves it when she masturbates in front of him because he’s addicted to the sight of her being undone–even better when it’s by her own hands.
Her orgasm a whiplash of intense pressure and clenching muscles, and he’s right there with her, too pent up to hold himself back for the sake of his fragile ego or masculine pride–he’s too far gone. He hides his pleasured groans in the sinfully soft skin of her shoulder as he spills inside; his cum mingling with her slick, staining her thighs, dripping onto the floor–and it’s the high he’s been chasing all his life, this feeling.
He’s still chasing his breath when she forces him to step back and pushes him until he lies down on the sofa, parallel with the length, head propped up on the armrest. Then she pulls on his hair, hard, before she straddles his chest and says–growls, really, “We’re far from done.”
Yes. Yes. He wants to scream his joyful delight as she rises further up, shifts her knees until her dripping cunt is right there over his face. He welcomes her with both hands propping her up, grasping her ass and she grinds down on his open mouth. Her taste explodes on his tongue and it’s heaven–it’s salt, bitterness, and iron combined; an alchemical reaction of their passions transformed into this scrambling, frenzied union of their depravity.
He eats her up like it’s his last meal on earth, and it’s trite but it’s true–the muffled noises he makes as she smears their combined filth on his face are pathetic, wretched.
“Yes. Yes, Jack,” She gasps, feeling his tongue sliding between her pussy lips to take more of them into his mouth, the movement of his jaw as he feasts on her scraping his rough stubble over the insides of her thighs, rubbing delicate skin to rawness. Her hand continues to tug his curls, his nose rubbing her clit, his pathetic high-pitched whines sending delicious vibrations inside her and she’s rapidly approaching her climax once again.
He relishes the changing of her taste as she comes–cleaner and lighter, the traces of his cum rapidly diluted by her essence and it’s better because it’s the best meal he’s ever tasted in his life bar none.
She unseats herself from his face, slides down, and buries her face in his chest. The puffs of her breath tickling his damp chest hair. His arms come around her, clutching her close like she’s his lifeline. Both of them panting hard and fast.
Jack closes his eyes, his tongue licking his lips as he chases the traces of her still, wants to relish every bit of her and–
He gasps when he feels her fist closing hard around his soft, oversensitive cock.
“Fuck, Samira, what–”
“Shut up.” She spat the words, angry. “And stay still.”
And now her lips close around his length and it’s sweet, sweet agony.
He feels it all with mind-numbing intensity–her tongue scraping the frenulum, dipping into the urethral opening; her cheeks hollows in as she sucks him deep, painful pressure forcing his overworked nerves to respond with pain signals, but all he knows is she’s devouring him in return–starving for him, and it’s so good. She’s pressing a firebrand into his raw wound, searing his flesh to cauterize his bleeding.
He’s not even aware that he’s shouting out random animal noises; his body devolving into a primitive collection of mindless organs capable only to respond to stimulation and nothing much. Everything that is Jack Abbot exists only in the soft cradle of her mouth, sucking him in and taking, taking his flesh as sustenance, as life-giving essence.
He comes for the second time and it’s torture, whatever left of him flowing into her mouth and she keeps it there as she raises again and passes it into his mouth, forcing him to taste. She’s there, feeding him and ravishing him again–angry biting kisses as she draws blood from his lower lip, mixing with his cum. It's dirty and debasing, and he wouldn't want it any other way.
He’s entirely numb except for the taste of their filth in his mouth. He can’t feel his lower half anymore. All he knows is Samira: Samira on his lap. Samira’s handful of breasts on his palms. Samira, who’s crying again, falls apart as he catches her tears with his lips, begging her not to leave him alone in the cold.
“I’m sorry, Jack.” She sobs. “I’m sorry.”
##
He wakes up alone in bed, opens his eyes to the gaping doors of their shared closet, now half-empty. Takes his crutches and gets up, hobbles into the living room. It’s spotless, as if last night never happened–but he knows it’s not true.
His stitches had burst open and she had to close him back up again under the stark, harsh light of their bathroom mirror. He had sat there in silence. Didn’t even flinch when she pulled his skin back together with brisk, practiced moves.
I’m still going away for a bit, Jack. She had said. We need some time apart. I need to regain my trust in you somehow. I can’t do it when we’re here together because you’d distract me with making vague promises in middle of fucking. It’s not going to work.
Okay. He responded with a faint, weak whisper. But you will come back?
Her tired eyes took him in–his sad, aging body, the years of grief and hardship manifested in the lines of his face.
We’ll see, Jack. She answered with a hint of warmth, but misery took charge, breaking her voice into a gravelly rasp. We’ll see.
This morning, he sits on the floor of the living room, in front of the sofa they had picked together the month they’ve signed the lease to the house. They’ve had conversations about their life together five, ten years down the road. He has a ring hidden in his go-bag, waiting for her to finish the big race disparity research paper she’s been working on for years–finally fully funded by a grant she won last year.
He’s fucked it all up. The time they spend apart will be complete torture. There’s a non-zero chance she’d leave him here alone forever with everything that could have been.
Jack lies down naked on the cold floor, cries and cries until his tears dry out and all that’s left is an empty shell, broken beyond repair.