Work Text:
You were purposely taking it easy today. Laying in bed well past an acceptable time, leaving normal chores like ‘dishes’ or ‘vacuuming’ for later, not worrying about things like a shower or a bar.
An easy, quiet Saturday.
You had spent the night prior out closer to the suburbs, having a backyard party with some friends you met at comedy show forever ago. It was a last minute thing, a wistful goodbye to summer before the never-ending gray skies descended over Pittsburgh for the next six months. It started as what you’d expect a get together amongst a group of thirty-somethings to be like: quiet introspective conversation about local politics and social change over wine and cheese.
When you finally rolled over in bed to look at your phone, however, you saw evidence to the contrary. As contrary as it could possibly get. It seemed that everyone else in the group chat was also meeting the midday sun and sharing their perspectives of how the evening went.
First was the photo of a large inflatable duck pool, still in the box. The next photo was you hovering over the pool, already inflated, holding an Iron City in one hand, and the running hose in another. After that was a group photo of you and your friends, all wearing matching baseball caps and sunglasses, the red tint in your cheeks giving away your inebriation.
A video, ten of you crowded around a table in the yard, playing flip cup as people cheer you all on. Another video, shot by you, of the sun setting as the two couples of the group exchange kisses with their respective partners while you all sit around a fire pit. You can tell you shot the video because you're cracking jokes as the couples make googly eyes and kissy faces at each other.
Then, finally, come several videos, time-stamped well after midnight, of you all screaming along to karaoke. At one point you’re standing on the couch, one foot on the arm, the other balanced on the back, your eyes cinched shut as you belt along to “Separate Ways” by Journey.
It all explained your slow movements so far today. You thanked someone above for no actual hangover, but you were in your thirties, and getting home at 2am was just way past your bedtime now. It always made you achy, tired, and cranky for the next 24 hours. Like a toddler. To make matters worse, you were going on a work trip in two days and you have yet to do laundry, let alone pack your suitcase.
So here you sat, on the floor of your living room, a genuine mountain of now-clean laundry in front of you. To your left was an empty basket, for your folded items; and to the right was your suitcase, already filled halfway with pairs of dress pants, a spare pair of shoes, and enough underwear to get you through the week.
You had been locked in for several hours with this, folding, organizing, reconsidering what to pack; and by now the sun was again starting to set as you glanced up and out your windows. The passing of time was accented by the low rumble of your stomach, letting you know it was dinner time. Getting up to cook was an excuse for you to get the shirts you needed to pack out of your closet anyway, so you planted your hands on the floor and started to push yourself to your feet.
And a sharp pain radiated all the way up your back.
Immediately you lowered yourself back to the floor, rolling to one side as several four-letter words left your lips. Trying again, you rolled from your fetal position up onto your knees, bent over with your hands on the floor. Your back was now throbbing and as much as you tried, you just couldn’t get up.
Panic started to bubble in your chest, immediately thinking about those news stories of elderly people who pass away alone in their apartments after a medical event and aren’t discovered until they start to decompose.
“Okay,” you said aloud, “That’s not helpful.” You thought for a minute about calling 911, but you felt immediately guilty because you weren’t actively dying, you were just a grown adult, not even middle aged, who threw their back out doing laundry.
Then you remembered your neighbor was a doctor. You’ve only spoken to each other a few times but you remembered the black scrubs you always caught him in as he came home after his shift. Yeah, the black scrubs that were so tight around his biceps he could probably hulk his way out of ‘em.
It was a long shot, but you fished your phone out of your pocket and placed it on the floor in front of you.
“Siri, call ‘Neighbor Jack’ on speaker for me.”
“Calling ‘Neighbor Jack’ mobile,” and the rings echoed through the speaker. By the fourth ring you started to panic again, wondering if he was asleep, or at work, or just had never actually saved your number when you exchanged them forever ago.
After a beat, the other line connected, and you hear some rustling, like his phone is being pulled against fabric, before you finally hear a quiet raspy voice on the other end.
“Yeah this is Dr. Abbot.”
You exhale in relief and say your name. “Y’know, your next door neighbor?”
Another pause, you swear you hear a faint yawn, before he replies. “Yeah, yeah of course. What’s, uh, what’s going on?”
A laugh escapes you, and it’s more strained than you realize. “Well, you’re never going to believe this, but I kind of can’t get up off the floor.”
“Did you fall?”
“No, but I did something to my back, and no—“
“Where are you?”
“In my apartment.”
“I’m on my way.” And the line goes dead. Seconds pass and you hear a knock at your door, the knob turning before you can respond. Luckily you had left it unlocked since you grabbed a package from outside earlier.
The door opens and in walks Jack, backpack slung over his shoulder. He’s in a tight tee shirt and flannel pajamas, gray curls wild with sleep, and guilt claws at you that you woke him up for something this stupid. He calls out your name and your reply so he can follow your voice. What he doesn’t expect to find is you on all fours, back to him, the slow rise and fall of your breathing trying to keep yourself calm. You’re in sleep shorts and an oversized tee shirt, your hair in a wild bird’s nest of a bun. Jack almost thinks this is some kind of weird prank, like sending a strippergram to a bachelor party before you crane your head to look over at him.
“I swear this isn’t what it looks like.”
He sets the backpack down next to you, kneeling down meet to your eye level. A warm hand soothes your shoulder as he meets your eyes. “Tell me what happened.”
You give him the whole play-by-play of what put you in this predicament, and as he listens, you can see him think about possible diagnoses.
“Okay, well, you’re definitely not paralyzed, so let’s start by getting you into a more comfortable position, huh?” You nod, head dipping down, and as it comes back up, Jack’s gone from sight.
Then you feel him behind you. Steady hands on your hips make you almost gasp, but the feel of his thighs, damn near straining against the flannel, against the bare skin of your own legs makes you choke on that gasp and heat immediately pool between your legs.
With gentle but firm persuasion, Jack eases one leg, then the other, to extend out and between his own. His touch as his hands run down the length of both legs is feather-light, like he’s afraid you’re going to break underneath him. You’re left in a plank pose, Jack straddling your legs, when a hand between your shoulder blades eases you to fully lay down on the ground on your stomach. His hand pushing you down stirs something in the core of you that you’re actively trying to ignore. Exhaling against the floor, you turn your head to get a glimpse of Jack in your periphery. Knees spread wide to accommodate your legs between them, he’s unzipped his backpack and taking out several items and pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves. You can't stop the thought of what you both would look like in the same position with significantly less clothes on.
“Gonna have to lift your shirt to take a look,” he says quietly. You just nod, head resting on your crossed arms as you feel his hand dip under the fabric and run up your spine, pulling the shirt up with it to expose the bare expanse of your back to the air conditioning. His hands are, quite frankly, all over you, but the pure clinical nature of it all has you blushing in embarrassment, not arousal.
“No bruises, no immediate visible irregularities, that's good,” he says aloud, “where does it hurt the most?” And your arm swings around to point at the small of your back, in the middle. “It starts there and radiates out and down.” He nods as he looks where your finger is pointing.
“Ok, right now, scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how’s your pain?”
“Like, 6.5?”
You feel his finger tips rest against your sides, and then the thumbs land where you pointed and press down. “What about now? Better? Worse?”
“About the same. Maybe a little better?”
He repeats this several times, each time your answer is the same. He hums in thought as his hands shift down to your hips again. “Ok, T12 to L2 are good, let me check 3 to 5.” Before you can respond, his fingers hook in the waistband of your shorts and pull them down several inches. You’re glad you’re at least wearing panties, although in this particular moment, you’re regretting that your ridiculously good looking doctor neighbor is staring directly at the collage of cartoon R2-D2s that are floating in space across your ass while the waistband says BEEP BOOP in the round.
Jack tries, so goddamned hard, to not laugh, but you hear the snort that leaves him and you lightly thud your forehead against the floor.
“This is what I get for staying out past my bed time, what the fuck was I thinking?”
You hear a chuckle from behind you, again his gloved hands are pressing and inspecting the area and you turn to see a smirk pull at the corner of his mouth.
“You sure sounded like you had a good time. Your late night a cappella rendition of ‘Paparazzi’ was, in a word, haunting.”
“Don't lie, I’m not that good of a singer.”
“No, I mean it scared the shit out of me to hear that echo in the hall at 2am. Thought I was literally being haunted.”
“Ha. Ha,” you dead pan. “Sorry I woke you up, though.”
You feel him shrug against you. “Don’t worry about it. I’m off for a couple days, but I didn’t want to break my sleep cycle too much so I was awake.”
“Still. You didn’t need to hear that. Nobody needed to hear that.” He chuckles as he sits back on his heels and removes the gloves. From the corner of your eye, you watch him. “What’s the verdict, doctor?”
His mouth twitches at you calling him doctor, barely, and he turns his head to look at you. “Welp, it’s nothing serious, you don’t have a herniated disc or anything. It’s central to your back and hips, no pain in your legs so it’s not sciatica. Most likely it’s just a muscle cramp or knot.”
“What’s the difference between the two?”
He’s reaching for one of the things he pulled from his backpack, you can’t fully see it, but you can hear the cap coming off. “So a muscle cramp is a sudden full contraction of the entire muscle, like a charley horse in your leg, right? Usually it’s really intense pain that subsides after a while, once you can get the muscle to relax. A knot, however, is this lump in the muscle that’s hard and tender to touch. The pain usually is no where near as intense and immediate, but it can linger for much much longer.” He's rubbing his hands together and you assume it's some type of hand sanitizer he's using.
“And your recommendation?”
His hands are against your skin again, this time spreading a lotion across your lower back. It makes you stiffen under his touch, but he waits, unmoving, for a beat before you relax into his hands. Whatever he put on his hands is cold at first, but it adjusts to your body heat quickly. As it glides across your skin, you feel the deep pressure of Jack’s fingers as they massage the area. What he put on you starts to tingle almost like ice against your skin, then it heats up. It’s enough to calm the immediate pain you were feeling, but it’s also enough to allow Jack’s hands to flow across your skin with little resistance.
It takes longer than is comfortable for him to answer your question, not that you entirely care anymore at this point. Both of his hands are applying a steady pressure to your left side, starting at your waist and following the line of the muscle down almost to your ass. He repeats the motion twice more before doing the same on the right side. After minutes of this silence, his hands glide back up your spine and slow to a stop. Then they’re gone from you entirely. Jack grunts deep and low in his chest, and you hear a familiar clicking of joints as he rises to his feet. He bends down to fix your shorts, giving you a soft pat pat on the exposed skin right where your leg meets your ass. You’re not sure if its the Icy Hot or not, but where his fingers made contact burns.
You watch a pair of shoes enter your field of vision and look all the way up to see Jack towering over you. “Ready to stand?” The reality is you aren’t, you feel like a warm pile of pudding right now, but his hands are held out to you.
So with a deep inhale, you push against the ground with your hands, rising to your knees once more. You take one hand, then the other, and he helps pull you to your feet. You’re still wincing in pain, but it’s nowhere near as sharp or as intense as it was an hour ago. He smiles down at you and you’re smiling back, admiring the way the wrinkles by his eyes bunch together.
Jack is the one to finally let your hands go, bending to pick his things up off the floor. The backpack goes back over the shoulder, and he puts a bottle of Icy Hot into your grasp.
“Take some ibuprofen, stay hydrated, and use that cream no more than 4 times a day. A hot shower, bath, or even a heating pad will help, too. I’ve probably got a spare heating pad if you need to borrow one,” he trails off for a moment before he focuses back on you. “Stretching it out will help too. Do you do yoga?”
You shake your head. He makes a face. “It’s really great strength training. Plus a great way to just…clear your mind. I know a great place to do sunrise yoga if you ever want to join.” It’s almost sing-song how he extends the offer to you. He turns for the door and you follow, finding relief in your ability to move about the room.
He’s already half way out the door when you call to him. He stops and glances at you over his shoulder. “Thanks, Jack. You’re a lifesaver.”
Fully facing you now, the cocky smile is dialed up to 100. “That’s literally what I do, sweetheart.” It’s so corny it makes you groan and wave him away back down the hall. He takes two steps backwards, still watching you.
“Hey, if you’re still hurting tomorrow give me a call. I’ll let you watch Star Wars on my couch and give you another massage.” Your smile drops at the offer, and suddenly your mouth is bone dry. He sputters too, realizing what's just left his mouth. “It helps increase blood flow to the area and promote healing-- Jesus, that sounds even worse.”
Now it’s your turn to suppress a laugh. He just turns his back to you and starts walking down the hall to his door. “Okay, we’re both even on the embarrassment scale now!”
You watch him disappear into his place, and your phone is already in your hand to text him.
You: So is there a snack requirement for the movie and massage?
Jack: Not if you like popcorn and cold beer.
You: Ok, a follow up question. Am I allowed to repay the masseuse with a massage of his own?
Three dots appear and disappear several times before you get sent another text.
Jack: …only if they’re wearing as few clothes as you were.
You simply respond with a heart.