Work Text:
The Pitt on a holiday always feels like a silly place to be, some warped version of the real world where wildly contrasting poles converge. Colorful metallic banners stapled up around bulletin boards, like something out of an elementary school class, framing PSA flyers about annual TB testing for employees and hand-inked open invites for barbecues and potlucks and post-shift drinks. Patients who come in giddy and celebratory with minor lacs and patients who come in with open tib-fib fractures and intractable vomiting. Maybe some store bought treats for everyone to pick on in the break room — staling cake donuts, or pink and red and crystalline sugar-sweetness, or thick, tooth-achey icing dyeing the corners of people’s lips as they show her what was or wasn’t found in someone’s CT or labs. Nurses wearing pins on their scrubs or headbands with bopping hearts on them, doctors sporting jovial moods looking forward to their later plans with family or significant others. It’s sweet to witness, and also sometimes a little jarring, like when she watches Princess run towards North 5 from the PDS urgently with purple sequined hearts bouncing atop her head.
Samira’s never been like this — never been one of the doctors with something to look forward to after shift on a special day. She’s not even sure what she’s supposed to be looking forward to, to be honest. Jack had told her he didn’t need her to do anything; he had some whole plan she wasn’t privy to, and all he needed was for her to be prepared for him to pick her up from her shift, which was at this point a normal occurrence anyway. So it didn’t feel like anything was significantly different. Nothing she could pinpoint, at least.
“What’s got your tongue today?” Trinity Santos, ever the charmingly brash one on the floor at all times. Samira’s softened towards her over the past few months, though, as the younger doctor settled into her role as an R2, more open to constructive feedback when she wasn’t eye-rolling about her workload, more open even to cracking open the thick iron door holding her tough exterior together and exposing the softer parts underneath.
Samira turns around on her chair to face Trinity. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You’re—” she wiggles her fingers in a circle the size of Samira’s head. “—thinking about something.”
Samira chuckles and clicks out of a chart. “As I am most of my waking hours.”
“You know what I mean!” Santos follows as Samira heads towards Central. “C’mon, you can tell me,” she sing-songs, catching up to Samira. They’re shoulder to shoulder now. “You got secret Valentine’s plans?”
“Secret plans, sure, you could say that,” Samira allows her as she stops outside the door of Mr. Poole’s room.
“I knew it! I fuckin’ knew you were seeing someone. Please, give me one detail about them, I swear I won’t tell anyone.” Samira raises an eyebrow. “Okay, I promise I won’t tell Perlah. Or Princess!” When Samira just shakes her head as she knocks on Poole’s door, Trinity tries defending her stipulations. “Come on, that’s like, the best promise I could possibly offer you. Even if I tell Huckleberry, it would virtually be like you didn’t tell anyone anyway. Our lips are sealed!”
“I’m not telling anyone,” Samira vows.
It’s already past the halfway mark of their shift when Santos manages to gain an ounce of leverage against what she’s been trying to wear Samira down about for hours. He wasn’t supposed to be here, he’s not scheduled, she wasn’t prepared to see him until six p.m. But he’s always had a penchant for surprising her when she least expects it — same way her feelings had snuck up on her until it felt like she was choking on them — and right now is no different.
The familiar, quiet sound of a paper cup being set down on the hub counter beside her. The familiar warmth as he sidles up near her elbow, the familiar scent of him, soap-clean, a hint of sandalwood.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says to him without turning in his direction, trying to temper the smile he always manages to coax out of her.
“Well, happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Dr. Mohan,” Jack responds, familiar voice quiet in her ear, and she can hear the grin in his voice as he says it, can practically see the crinkles by his eyes as if she were really looking at him. She thinks, suddenly, that she loves him.
She allows herself a twist of her head so she can look at him, and there it is, the bright smile, that glinting look in his eye he always saves for her.
“I got up early today, I was a little excited,” he explains, low and conspiratorial. “Call it—” his eye flits upward to the ceiling, his nose scrunching as he thinks for a moment. “33rd date jitters?”
Samira’s eyes widen an unsubtle amount. “Shhh!” She could whack him. Lovingly, of course. God, she really does like him. Could be terminal.
“Anyways,” she starts again, pointedly. “You have something fun planned for your Valentine’s Day?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He manages a subtle squeeze of her elbow as he lowers his arm from the counter. Samira can’t help the smile that takes over her face the moment he walks away.
When she tears her gaze away from following him, Samira catches Trinity’s eye across the hub, a sharpness in it like she’s read everything underpinning that brief interaction, and she curses under her breath.
Well, if the jig is up. She goes after Jack.
“Hey,” as she catches up to him. “You didn’t say why you’re here.”
“Can’t make a special delivery to my favorite resident?” Samira sips from the cup — warm spices, cinnamon and ginger and clove on her tongue.
“Is that all?” Samira asks, hopeful almost. They’re nearly alone now, past the empty pedes room, approaching the doors Samira knows lead to the…
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he says again, grinning as he shoulders the door open and waits in the opening. “Coming?”
She follows, and even as she does, she finds herself questioning it. “Don’t tell me this is what you had planned for our day.”
“And do enlighten me, Dr. Mohan,” he teases, “what do you mean by this?” He badges open a door to a room. Samira blinks, thinks back to the last time they were in this room together. Three a.m. quiet, silencing her groans into her elbow as she bucked her hips down over his face.
She pulls him into the room with a fist tightened in the cotton of his T-shirt. Even as she’s incredulous, disbelieving — both about the kind of girlfriend she’s discovered herself to be and about the fact that he came into work just to lure her into an on-call room, some kind of lecherous feral mood overcoming her nagging need to attend to her patients — she can’t help herself around him. He flips some switch in her; it had surprised even him when they first started dating.
“Don’t tell me you drove to work just to see if I’d follow you in here,” she urges as she gets her hands up and under the hem of his shirt.
“Yeah? And why not, sweetheart? Why can’t I tell you that if it’s the truth? I’m not allowed to surprise my girlfriend at work?” He seems content to let her hands roam, his own hands practically twitching by his sides as if he’s holding himself back from touching her, content to just watch and see what she’ll do.
“No one knows yet that you’re here surprising your girlfriend,” Samira says as she holds his head with both of her hands, carding her fingers through his hair, pressing her nose into his shower-damp curls. “So when someone sees you turning up like Cupid with chai for your favorite resident and me following you down this very particular hallway, it’s a little suspicious, no?”
“I like to think I’m subtle,” Jack grins. “Or, at least about as subtle as I’ve always been. I always bring you coffee.”
That part’s true, at least. Samira’s smile mirrors his own. She leans closer into him, her palms running up his abdomen now, her nose tracing the apple of his cheek.
“I have a question for you, though,” he adds.
Samira hums, her lips curving up, so close to kissing him. “And I may have an answer.”
“If you’re so opposed to being seen following me down this hallway—” Samira pulls away so she can watch his expression; she loves this playful tilt of his head, the gleam in his eye, undercurrent of fondness all the way through— “why’d you follow me?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she repeats his words. Her palms over his pecs now, her mouth pressing kisses along his jaw, scrape of his stubble scratchier than it was yesterday when she kissed him on the roof before handoff. She retraces her path back down to his lips, barely touching as she confesses to him, “Santos is onto us.”
“Better lock the door then, Samira,” Jack replies before kissing her.
Samira always thought it was strange to read people describe kisses as capturing, but that truly is the best word for what Jack does to her — an elbow hugging around her waist and holding her tight to him, his palm engulfing half her face as he cups her gently, tilts her where he wants her, his lips claiming, tender and soft and sizzlingly sexy all at once.
His tongue around hers, she hitches a leg up around his hips so she can pull herself closer. “You’re crazy,” she utters as she pulls away for air.
“Crazy for you,” is his groaningly predictable response that she giggles at anyway.
“No, really. We can’t keep doing this at work.” He lets her talk, busies his mouth with other pursuits, kissing and licking down the length of her neck, towards the stretch of collarbone he knows will be hidden by her scrub top. A hickey to match the deep-purple one on her other side.
“Don’t break my heart, baby, it’s Valentine’s Day,” he rasps as he looks up at her, his mouth wet and pink with saliva. “And besides, you love it so much, you can’t even pretend you don’t.” One of his hands slips itself under her waistband now, under her panties, comes back up shining and slick, Samira gasping at the featherlight teasing touch. He holds up his fingers for her to inspect, like: See?
“Bastard.” She raises a palm to his chest, forcing him backwards toward the cot.
“Yeah, I know,” he says, his eyes crinkling in the dim light.
Fucking hell, he’s right and knows it, she can’t even pretend she doesn’t love this.
“Tell me where you want me, sweetheart.”
“Take your shirt off and sit down,” she instructs, pulling her own top off over her head, discarding it who cares where. He obeys, perching himself on the edge of the cot. When she’s standing in front of him, he widens his knees to make room for her. Hands around the back of her thighs try pulling her in, trying to guide her so she can straddle him, but Samira doesn’t budge an inch.
“Tell me what you want, baby, please,” he whispers, breath tickling the skin of her stomach as he kisses her there, glances up at her. “Lemme give it to you.”
Samira bends down to cradle his head for a kiss — their tongues twisting together, hot wet slide and little groans passed back and forth between them — before she kneels.
“Oh,” he says, syllable stretching out long, a taut rubber band of desire pulled between their teeth. “Oh, no, baby, your knees—” he tries, weakly. Doesn’t often let her do this unless she nearly begs for it, thinks he shouldn’t want it as bad as he does.
“It’s Valentine’s Day, Dr. Abbot,” Samira says, looking up at him through her blinking lashes as she works to unzip his pants. Palm cupping his cock through his briefs, his hands immediately brushing her hair back from her temples. Saliva pools in her mouth, thick like the sticky want simmering low in her belly.
“God dammit, sweetheart,” Jack groans. “God, fuck, you’re— this really isn’t what I had in mind when I…” he tries protesting.
“Should’ve thought harder about that, then,” Samira counters, shoving his waistband down over his hips. “I’m the one whose shift you’re interrupting, yeah? So I get to be in charge.”
“Jesus fucking Christ—” the words fade when Samira gets her hand around him, full and thick in the circle of her fingers. She opens her mouth over him, her tongue hovering just above the head of his cock, drawing the moment out. She gives him a pump, her fingers catching on the vein that runs along the underside, closes her lips over the tip, sucks his pre-cum into her mouth. She loves making him feel like this, woozy kind of weightlessness to the way his hips buck up uncontrollably, fucking up slowly into her mouth until he’s half-seated inside. She just lets him, likes seeing the way his chest rises and falls with the breaths that rush out hard, likes seeing the flush creeping down his cheeks and neck, the way his abdomen twitches with restraint.
She pulls her mouth off him slowly, letting her tongue linger and swirl artlessly. “You don’t have to hold back, you know,” she tells him.
“Trying to make this last,” Jack grits out, his voice tight.
“You don’t have to,” she assures him again. Wants to see him lose control. Lowers her mouth over him again, her jaw clicking as she opens it wider to make room for him. She’s almost got her nose pressed to his pelvis when she feels a distinct force beneath her, his shoe sliding under the apex of her thighs.
“I know you need something, baby,” he says, his hand gripping tighter in her hair, stealing her attention away for a second. “Let me make you feel good.” Samira sighs with her mouth around his cock, vibration of her groan as she lowers her pussy onto his waiting foot, sighing relief of the pressure that had been building up when her clit catches on a ridge of his boot. “Fuck, yeah, that’s it.”
She bobs her head over his cock as she grinds with the same rhythm, sucks hard the way he likes, stinging feeling on her scalp as he pulls her hair giving her that good kind of lightheadedness she likes. She hums around him again and he lets out another groan, the muscles in his thighs flexing with what remains of his thin thread of self-control. She rides out the moment, holding him deep in her throat as she rolls her hips harder down on his shoe.
“Fuck, you’re so good, sweetheart, so fucking good, fuck.” Fine sheen of sweat over his pinkening chest, matching Samira’s own. She feels a drop of her sweat drip down between her breasts, sees him follow it with his eyes.
“Jesus.” He frees a hand from her hair to swipe up the bead of sweat, brings his thumb to his mouth to lick it up. He lets his mouth hang open after that as he looks down at her; Samira loves the way he looks like this, wanting and so open with it. “Can you—”
And Samira knows already — knows what he wants and isn’t surprised that she knows — and yes, she can, for him she can. Starts to rock her hips back and forth with more fervor now, letting him fuck her throat as she chases her own pleasure. One hand comes up to pinch his leg, slowing his thrusts as she whimpers around him, waves of pleasure starting to spring down her spine. Her fingers dig in, half-moon marks pressing into the crease of his thigh, and he keeps time with shallow jerks of his hips, his cock hitting the back of her throat now as her clit throbs with every grind of her hips over his boot, her pussy starting to flutter around nothing.
“Oh, that’s it, beautiful, there you go,” Jack encourages her, “there’s my girl,” as she comes, her jaw loosening around his cock until she lets him go.
His hand now around himself, he strokes leisurely while she comes down from the high. Samira can’t tear her eyes away from him, can’t decide what to watch — the wide knuckles of his fingers circling his cock as he grips it hard, the flush high on his cheeks that makes the white of his stubble stand out, the wildness to his curls thanks to the eager drag of her fingers through his hair.
Samira braces her hands on his knees as she pushes herself up to standing, letting out a wanton groan when he starts to press his face lazily along her front, his hands firm around her hips as he noses the waistband of her pants down. He raises his eyes up to hers.
“I wanna remind you, this really wasn’t the plan when I decided to come here,” Jack smiles softly. “But I’m not complaining.”
Samira hums happily, and then starts to toe her shoes off, pull her pants down. Off the bewilderment of his furrowed brow, she giggles. “What, you think I’m done with you?” She says as she moves to straddle him.
“My god, woman,” her boyfriend says fondly, all head-shaking and disbelieving awe. “You just love rearranging all my plans, huh?” He secures his arm around her waist, lifts her as he rises from the cot, sets her back down gently while he remains standing above.
Samira can only hum again, squirming as he moves her the way he wants her. “Mmm. Yeah, I really do, baby,” she coos as he runs his fingers along the wetness over her panties, pulls them to the side with two fingers.
“So fucking worth it,” Jack says as he fits his cock inside her and slides in, like coming home.
Afterward, when Samira’s sat on the edge of the cot, swiping sweat from her collarbone with her undershirt and re-dressing herself as presentably as she can manage, she reaches over to Jack beside her and squeezes his knee.
“Have I earned enough brownie points for you to give me any sort of hint about what we’re doing later?” she tries. That only gets what she would best describe as a guffaw out of him.
“Brownie points? Baby, you don’t need brownie points when it comes to me. You really wanna know? ‘Cause I’ll tell you.”
His openness is so endearing that all her curiosity seems to dissipate instantly. No, she’ll take the anticipation.
“Never mind, don’t tell me,” she squeezes him again. He hooks an arm around her shoulder and pulls her towards him so he can press a kiss to the top of her head. “I know I’ll love whatever it is. I’d be happy with just this, honestly. This is already shaping up to be a great Valentine’s Day.” She hugs her arms around him too, one around his waist and the other resting on his chest, lets him keep pressing kisses to her temple.
“Let me raise the bar at least a little higher than a call room tryst, sweetheart,” he teases, tipping her chin up to face him with a gentle hand. “I think we can do a little better than that for our first Valentine’s.”
Samira smiles up at him. She likes the sound of that, their first Valentine’s of who knows how many. She nods, slow and steady, his heartbeat she feels beneath her fingertips syncing with hers, before they share a long and lingering kiss.
“Now let’s get you back out there, Dr. Mohan.”
She leaves the room before he does to mitigate suspicion — but then just five minutes later, when she’s breezing past where he stands at the hub chatting with Dana, he practically spins on his heel to catch her as she goes by.
“Hey,” he greets, casual as anything. His hand moves as if to reach for her, but he holds himself back before Dana’s watchful eye can spot it.
“Hi.” She can see the question tacitly asked with his raised eyebrow: See you at six? She allows herself a small smile in response — and doesn’t even care that she’s completely giving themselves away as she extends her hand towards him. Doesn’t care that Dana’s right in front of them, that Trinity might be nearby, that Perlah and Princess are likely hovering somewhere around here. Because — really, it’s simple now, she sees — because she loves him.
She loops her pinky around his, squeezes them together: Yes.