Chapter Text
“So, riddle me this.”
As much as Robby hated not having Dana in the ED, he had to admit this was nice. They had been destroying a pre-assembled charcuterie board—one that was almost certainly intended for more than two people—in Dana’s kitchen and talking for the past hour, just talking to each other uninterrupted. In all their years working together, Robby was sure they’d never been able to talk for this long without one or the other of them being pulled away. Dana’s daughter, Izzy, had a soccer game in Philly, so she and her father were out of the house for the weekend. Robby couldn’t get a read on whether Dana was happy or not to have been left out of the father-daughter bonding experience.
Dana was on her third glass of wine. She took another sip before continuing, “You and Abbot, you’re still doing whatever it is you do?”
Robby regarded her warily over the brim of his own glass. Since he’d told her about his and Jack’s after-hours situation, she hadn’t brought it up again. Neither had Robby, for that matter, but a part of him still thought of her as a colleague, and that part was loath to share any personal details, especially any that might find be frowned upon by the HR department.
Not that there was anything they had to be concerned with. Robby just would rather not have to explain to anyone how he slept in the same bed as his colleague.
“Yeah, sometimes,” Robby said. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to qualify it.
Dana had her attention fixed on a cracker on her plate, which she appeared to be grinding into a fine dust.
Robby shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling very much like he was summoned to the principal’s office. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s just…” Dana began, but then shook her head. “Nah, never mind, it’s the wine talking. None of my business.”
But now that she had broached the subject, Robby couldn’t let her leave it floating in the air like that. “You don’t approve?”
“No, no. If you’re happy I’m happy. Really, you should just ignore me.”
“Dana.”
She rolled her eyes but leaned in closer, resting her forearms on the table between them. “I just worry about you, is all.”
Robby raised an eyebrow. “What, think Jack’s gonna strangle me in my sleep? I think I’ll take that risk.”
“You know I love ‘im, Robby, it ain't about that.”
“What is it about then?”
Dana seemed to assess him then, perhaps trying to suss out what his reaction might be to what she had to say. Eventually, she said, “It hasn’t been that long since Pittfest.”
Robby wasn’t fast enough to suppress his reaction. He was sure Dana caught his slight wince. “Yeah, so?”
“So don’t think I’ve forgotten how you were on the edge of the roof that night.”
Robby sighed, reaching for the bottle to top up his glass.
Dana continued, “It’s just easy for things, emotions, to get muddled. You know, someone’s there for you at the right time, you get some new feelings…and if you’re already in a vulnerable place—”
“I’m fine, Dana.
“Right, yeah, for sure,” She said, “But is it really the best time to have that sort of complication? Especially with someone you work with? And if you get your heart broken, what then, you gonna head back up to the roof?”
“Fuck’s sake.” Robby ran a hard hand over his face and through his hair. “Heartbreak isn’t on the table. We platonically spend time together because it keeps us both sane. That’s it.”
“Right, because I always snuggle up with my platonic friends at night.”
“It’s not—you’re making it sound like—we aren’t having sex, Dana!”
“Oh, great,” Dana said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “If you’re not touching each other’s dicks everything’s fine then.”
Robby gaped at her, unable to process what she’d just said. Dana pointedly took another sip of her wine.
“Everything is fine," Robby assured her again.
“If you say so, I’m just sayin’, I was there for the great Rollins break-up of 2022, and—”
“Rollins? Who called us Rollins?”
“—And that was when you hadn’t recently almost pitched yourself off a building.”
Robby growled with frustration. “Again, I wasn’t going to jump. I’m fine.”
Dana took a breath and softened her approach. “I’m just worried. Surely you can see why I’m not thrilled about the prospect of you getting your heart broken right now.”
Robby felt like he was going to scream. “For the last time, I am not having sex with him. No hearts are getting broken.”
“Hate to break it to you, Robby, but one of those things doesn’t guarantee the other.”
“Dana,” Robby said, gesturing emphatically in the space between the two of them, “Nothing concerning is happening. We’re both two adults who can handle ourselves. It works for both of us, Pittfest notwithstanding.”
That caught Dana’s attention. “Wait, this has been going on since before Pittfest?”
Robby needed to learn to shut his damn mouth. He took another sip of wine instead of responding.
“How long?” Dana demanded.
Robby rolled his eyes. “A year? Give or take, I don’t know, I haven’t been counting.”
“And you sleep in the same bed?” Dana asked.
“Sometimes.”
“How often?”
“Depends on our shifts.”
“So whenever one of you has a day off?”
“I guess.”
“Three or four days a week off for each of you, offset between your two schedules…let’s say an average of five days a week—”
“Dana—”
“Then you see each other the other days at work, for handoffs and whatever else—"
“Yes, but—”
“So you spend every day together, huh?”
“Yes, but that’s hardly a marker of—"
“Nah, you’re right that’s not dating,” Dana conceded.
“Thank you.” Robby said, with some relief.
“That’s practically marriage.”
Jack felt a familiar presence slide in beside him as he looked over the charts of the night.
“Good morning.”
Jack sent Robby a dry stare. “Yeah, take a look at the board and then tell me how you feel.”
“Eh. Same shit, new day. Come on.” Robby nudged him with one shoulder. “We can do handoff, get you out of here a bit early.”
“Trying to get rid of me already, are we? I see how it is.”
“A guy tries to do something nice, this is the thanks he gets?”
Jack just grunted in reply and pushed the pile of charts in front of him across the central desk. Robby slipped on his glasses.
“One trauma waiting on OR, car verses pedestrian, stable,” Jack rattled off, “In 9 and 10, we have a couple teenagers with alcohol poisoning, twins, they won’t be feeling too hot when they wake up, but they’ll be fine. Problem is, the parents are getting back from out of town this morning, so you’ll have the fun job of talking to them.”
Robby hummed thoughtfully. “Great.”
“Myrna’s in, apparently she has sharp abdominal pain this time.”
“For real?”
Jack scoffed. “No, of course not. But I told the cops we needed to observe her as an appendicitis risk.”
“Naturally.”
“Last I saw, she was parked over by the north nurses station. Anyway, the rest are fairly self-explanatory. Plenty of busy work for the minions.”
“I hope that’s not the nurses you’re referring to.” Perlah raised her eyebrows at Jack from her post. She’d been taking on the charge nurse role on a part-time basis. She professed to hate it, but she hadn’t quit yet.
“Never,” Jack promised, “I save the derogatory nicknames for med students.”
“Dr Abbot,” a voice said from behind them. Jack turned to Mohan as Robby continued perusing the charts. “Sorry, are you off the clock?”
“Not quite yet, go ahead.” Jack didn’t let himself pick favorites on the night shift, as a matter of principle. Day shifters, on the other hand, seemed like fair game, since his opinion of them had no material impact on their lives. Mohan was definitely his favorite on the day shift. Sometimes he thought Robby didn’t appreciate what a rising star he had in that one.
But that was none of Jack’s business.
Mohan started explaining her case. It didn’t sound particularly noteworthy to Jack, but she had a hunch she wanted to test for, and her hunches often paid off.
Jack shrugged. “Sure, go for it.”
“Well, hang on now,” Robby interjected before Mohan could get away. Damn, so close. “An LP is a fairly invasive test, and even with insurance, it’ll cost your patient a pretty penny.”
“But if she’s right,” Jack argued, “It’ll save the patient a lot of money and pain further down the line. So it’d be better to check it out now.”
“For a statistically unlikely diagnosis?” Robby slid his glasses down his nose to look sternly over them at Abbot. “The issue the patient came in for is resolved, yes? So why are we hunting for problems?”
“Because Mohan has a hunch, and I trust Mohan’s hunches.”
Mohan for her part, kept opening her mouth to speak but deferring to the attendings as they argued over her. Jack would’ve checked in with her if he wasn’t busy trying to outwit a very clever doctor, who, unfortunately, did have something of a point.
“We can’t justify further testing based on a hunch. I’m sorry, Mohan, but please discharge and move on to another patient.”
Mohan nodded, but Jack stopped her from turning away with a hand. “No, hang on, this is a teaching hospital, Robby. Mohan’s an experienced resident, she wants to try something, I think she should run with it.”
Robby took off his glasses completely, staring Jack down, but Jack flattered himself that he had a pretty damn good stare. He would win.
Robby apparently agreed with that assessment, because he looked away, glancing at Mohan, before looking back to Jack. “Dr Abbot, could I talk to you privately?”
Well. Shit. Jack had no choice but to nod his agreement and follow Robby to the nearest semi-private space. Which happened to be the pedes room. Jesus, Robby couldn’t have picked any other place? Was he really that self-flagellating?
Robby snapped the curtain across the door as soon as it closed behind them giving them all the privacy he could. Then he rounded on Jack. “What are you doing?”
Jack tilted his head with a shrug. “What do you mean?”
Robby ran an irritated hand over his beard. “I mean, why are you fighting with me in front of the residents?”
“One resident, and you’re the one who tried to overrule my call, mon frere.”
“Mohan reports to me, not you.”
“Maybe when you’re on duty, but it’s still my shift for another,” Jack checked his watch, “15 minutes. Besides which, she didn’t ask you, she asked me.”
“Do you know how hard Gloria has been on my ass about unnecessary testing and patient satisfaction scores?”
Jack scoffed. “Gloria’s always on your ass about something. What’s this really about?”
Robby snapped, “Maybe I just don’t like how comfortable you’ve gotten—" Robby cut himself off with a snap of his jaw.
Jack stared at him. “How comfortable I’ve gotten…what?”
“I just…Dana mentioned…listen, if this, us, our after-hours…whatever, is going to be a problem, then—”
“How does that have anything to do with this?” Jack had never seen Robby acting like this. It was almost childish, worrying about his authority like he wasn’t the best damn doctor Jack had ever worked with. Not that Jack planned on giving him the satisfaction of admitting that. But now Robby had his panties in a bunch about Jack challenging him. Now. How many times had they butted heads over the years and had no issues? Why was he freaking out now?
“This is about the medicine,” Jack continued, “This is about teaching, sure, but it certainly isn’t about you and me sleeping in the same bed.”
“I am the chief of this department—”
“Granted.”
“So,” Robby said, “I can’t have you trying to fight me on every possible—”
“I’m not trying to fight you on everything, I just think Mohan deserves the benefit of—”
“That’s beside the point!”
“What,” Jack asked, his temper flaring, “I’m not supposed to have an opinion? Just roll over so that if HR ever gets on your case about the two of us you can prove that I still follow orders like a good little soldier?”
“HR is never going to—there’s nothing here for HR to know about!”
“Right, so why are you freaking out about appearances? Because what I think you should really be thinking about is why you don’t trust Mohan.”
“I do,” Robby said slowly, clearly trying to keep his temper in check, “I’m just also trying to teach her.”
“But you shoot her down an awful lot, why is that? Would you have done the same with Langdon?” Langdon was a low blow, but Jack was on a roll now and he couldn’t stop his tongue. “For that matter, would Mohan, or Collins, or hell, even Mckay, have gotten away with what he did for as long as he did?”
Robby’s voice dropped low as he stared past Jack at the animals on the wall. Jack wondered if Robby even knew how often he did that. “You think I’m prejudiced?”
“I think you don’t challenge the ones who remind you of you as much as the ones who don’t. For a one-to-one comparison, R4 to R4, would Collins have been able to get away with what Langdon did?”
“Well, that’s completely fucking different.”
“How?”
“I never dated Langdon!”
What? What? Jack reeled as he reoriented his entire understanding of what went on the ER. “You dated Collins?”
Robby looked at him in surprise, apparently startled out of his anger for a brief moment. “You didn’t—does the night shift tell you nothing?”
“Maybe I just don’t believe in gossip,” Jack said, not wanting to admit he was put out that no one had bothered to keep him in the loop. Sure, he was an attending, but he wasn’t a snitch. People could tell him gossip, if they wanted to.
“Yeah, I mean it was a long time—that’s not the point,” Robby said, trying to refocus the conversation. “Maybe, probably, I have some unconscious biases, but that is not what happened just now. And while we’re on the subject, maybe you have some biases to consider as well.”
“Oh, please, do enlighten me,” Jack said dryly.
“I just think it’s interesting that you go to bat for Mohan fairly often. Why her?”
“I don’t know, Robby, you tell me.”
“I think you’re attracted to her, and that influences your judgement.”
“What, jealous?” It was out of Jack’s mouth before he even thought about what he was saying. Why would he say that? Sure, he was pissed off at Robby, but goading him using their own relationship was the last thing Jack wanted to do. Jack would be kicking himself if this made Robby self-conscious enough that he stopped crawling into Jack’s bed.
Robby, for his part, was staring at him, mouth slightly parted with an offended bewilderment. If he weren’t so shocked by the question, he’d probably be cussing Jack out by now. As it was, they both stared at each other, unable to formulate a follow up to that pipe-bomb of a word.
Then, in the quickest, briefest slip-up—so small that Jack would never have noticed if his gaze weren’t firmly locked on Robby’s eyes—so minuscule that it could have been nothing, if not for the way Robby’s ears turned pink immediately afterwards…
Robby’s eyes darted down and back up.
What. The actual fuck. Was that.
Did Michael Robinavitch just look at Jack’s mouth? Was he reading that right? No, that couldn’t be, because they had a very specific type of friendship. Sure, lines had gotten a bit blurred since they started sleeping in the same bed, but that was just practicality. They were good for each other. Kept each other from walking off the roof, that sort of thing. But they always slept with pajamas, or at the very least boxers and t-shirts when it was too hot, there was always a line that neither of them had ever intended to cross. But now…
Was that what Robby wanted? Had Jack been being a total ass, this whole time, playing with Robby’s feelings when Robby wanted something more? Surely not.
And then there was a morbid sort of curiosity rising in Jack. After all, how was their relationship all that different from a romantic one? Sure, they didn’t have sex or go on dates or any of the other traditional relationship stuff, but they spent more time together than with anyone else. Jack even had a toothbrush at Robby’s apartment. And a few sets of clean clothes. And he’d been thinking about ordering another shower stool, so he didn’t have to run home to shower…
They were already standing close from where they’d been arguing in hushed voices, only a few inches apart. It would take so little movement from either of them to close the distance. But neither of them wanted that, right? To lean in just a little further…
The door swung open, and Collins rounded the curtain. “Trauma coming in. Two minutes out.”
Collins glanced back and forth between the two of them. Collins. Collins, who Robby had, apparently, dated.
“Everything alright?” She asked.
“Yes,” Robby said, thankfully finding his voice before Jack did. “We’ll be right there.”
Collins nodded uncertainly and closed the door behind her.
Robby turned back to Jack, all business now. “Mohan can have her test. You’re right, I should put more trust in her.” His ears had returned to their normal color. Jack could’ve imagined the whole thing. Sometimes a glance was just a glance, a reflex, a meaningless movement of the muscle.
Suddenly, Jack seemed to have a great weight on his left hand, the cold metal of a ring pressing into his skin.
Jack nodded tightly. “Thanks.”
Without another word, without allowing himself the luxury of another thought on the matter, Jack pushed open the door and Robby followed him back into the fray.
Robby called Dana on his break. She didn’t answer, which was inconvenient, because she was the only person in the world who currently knew the situation between Robby and Abbot. Which made her the only person in the world who he could talk it through with.
Robby’s phone buzzed as Dana texted him.
Out with Izzy. If it’s about the job, ask Perlah. If not, ask Abbot.
Well, that was spectacularly unhelpful. Robby was about to put his phone away and try to enjoy a few moments of silence in the break room, when another message popped up.
Oh, but if it’s about Abbot, ask Collins.
No fucking way he was asking Collins. No way he would allow word of this to get back to her in any way, shape or form. For professional boundaries, Robby told himself.
Robby just needed to get his shit together. He could sort this out on his own. Honestly, nothing even happened. He got into a pissing fight with a colleague, big whoop. Robby would apologize next time he saw Abbot and that would be the end of it.
But as Robby sat down to his chicken wrap, the memory kept bobbing back to the surface. For a moment there, when Abbot had held his ground, arguing so close in Robby’s face, and then when Abbot asked ‘Jealous?’ with that devil-may-care smirk…For a moment Robby had actually taken the question seriously. Could he be jealous? Surely not. Jealous that Abbot got to play the fun uncle with the residents, maybe, who let the kids get away with more. That was all.
If Robby had one brief slip-up, one tiny fraction of a second when he thought that maybe, possibly, Jack was about to kiss him, then that was no one’s business. It was just a weird, stray thought. Besides, it was almost certainly just a remnant of the conversation with Dana. She’d gotten into his head, that was all. His relationship with Jack was strictly platonic, and it always would be.
The door to the break room opened. Of course it had to be Collins. Just Robby’s luck. She grabbed a Tupperware from the staff fridge and popped it in the microwave before turning to him.
“So what were you and Abbot fighting about this morning? Anything I need to know about?”
God forbid Robby get to enjoy his rare break in peace.
“Nothing,” He said evenly, “Just the usual, you know. Gloria is on my case about patient satisfaction scores.”
Collins gave him a curious look as she retrieved her food and sat down across from him. It looked like a curry of some kind. Smelled good.
“Since when does Abbot care about that?”
Robby shrugged. “Maybe he’s gunning for my job. He can have it.”
Anyone else would have accepted Robby’s explanation. Collins, as the only other PTMC employee who could claim to having slept next to him, knew Robby too well to be brushed off. “Everything alright?”
“Yes, Dr Collins, everything is fine.”
It was the defensiveness of his tone that must have given him away. Collins set down her fork slowly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“With you? Not a chance.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “With me, specifically?”
Robby did not like where this was going. Not one bit. “With any of my colleagues.”
Collins looked very suspicious now. Robby needed to get better at lying.
“What did you do?” She asked. “You look like you’ve done something stupid.”
“That’s just my face. I figure it saves time if everyone just assumes.”
Even self-deprecating humor couldn’t distract her. She was staring at him with an intensity that made him squirm. Okay, time for half-truths. That was the only possible way he could wriggle out of this one without it becoming a huge deal.
“Can I ask you something?” Robby said.
“Sure,” Collins replied, cautiously.
“Do you think I routinely act on my unconscious biases?”
She snorted. “Wow, what a politically correct way of asking whether we can tell you pick favorites.”
“I don’t pick favorites.”
She gave him a look. “This really isn’t something you should be asking me, for so many reasons.”
“So I do?”
“So don’t ask your ex-girlfriend!”
“You know,” Robby said before he could think about what he was saying, “Abbot didn’t even know about us.”
She paused ever so briefly while she processed what he’d just said. “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Robby?”
“Well—”
“You’re telling me,” She said, dropping her fork to place her palms firmly on the table, “That in the course of your brief argument with our esteemed colleague, you dropped into conversation that you and I used to go out? Just for the hell of it?”
Well, when she put it like that it sounded bad. Robby saw Javadi’s face appear briefly in the inset window of the break room door, but his expression must have convinced her that she didn’t need a break that badly.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Look, maybe we can just eat, okay?”
Robby sighed. “I’m sorry.”
She softened. Heather always was too forgiving for her own good. Then, as if a sudden thought struck her, she asked, “How on earth did that even come up? You two don’t strike me as the sort to sit around exchanging information on your love lives.”
She stabbed at her curry with absentminded force.
“Uh…I don’t know. My biases, I guess.” Robby felt his face flush, which was strange, considering that wasn’t even a lie.
Collins stared at him. Robby took a bite of chicken wrap to escape her gaze.
“Oh my god,” she said, awe dawning on her face, “You are such a slut.”
Robby choked.
“A city full of eligible singles, and you fuck another coworker?” She said, dropping her voice to a whisper, with no mercy for the airway obstruction she’d caused.
Robby managed to cough the lettuce clear of his airway in time to say, “I am not fucking anyone!”
…Just as Perlah pushed open the door.
She stared open-mouthed at the two of them, Robby still red-faced from coughing, Collins wearing an expression torn between delight and horror.
“Um. Incoming trauma, semi verses SUV. Three injured. 2 minutes out.”
Robby threw his chicken wrap in the trash on his way out the door, wildly aware that his pronouncement would be public news within minutes.
Jack lay in bed, listening to the crackle of the police scanner.
He didn’t sleep well, as a general rule. If he could get to sleep, he’d be out like a rock until an alarm or a nightmare jolted him awake, but most of the time he’d be laying there awake for hours first.
Of course, it was different when Robby slept next to him. For one thing, he never turned on the police scanner when Robby stayed over. God knows that man had enough death prowling around in his head, he didn’t need Jack adding to it.
Jack’s therapist disapproved of the police scanner, just as he’d probably disapprove of the Robby situation, when Jack ever got around to telling him. But that was a problem for later.
“10-70 in Eureka, make that a 10-73, corner of Allen and Emerald. Fire and medical response 5 minutes.”
Probably a house fire. Couple of neighborhoods over. There were a lot of young families in that area, and Robby was on duty, that would be a rough situation for—
Jesus Fucking Christ could Jack think about anything else for five minutes?
He caught himself twisting his ring around his finger again. Fourth time today, not that he was counting. Most days, he could almost forget that he still wore it, so accustomed to its presence as he was. It was more a part of his body than even his prosthetic. An indelible part of himself established so far in his past that Jack could not imagine a life without it.
Why it was bothering him today, Jack had no clue.
His therapist would say that grief is not a linear thing, that Jack should take a moment to sit with the feeling, to let himself grieve again. But Jack was supposed to be sleeping right now, not processing emotions, and Derek wasn’t there to force Jack to face his demons. Suck it, Derek.
“Dispatch, active 10-89 in the Southside Chase Bank.”
“Copy that, unit 297, sending backup.”
Bomb threat. Shit. Still, Jack couldn’t justify rolling up to work without any sleep for an unconfirmed threat. Robby would send him away. Unless there were victims rolling in from the 10-73 in Eureka. Jack wanted to be back there, not here in the oppressive stillness of his empty apartment. So still and quiet. He should get a fan, just to bring some motion into the place for when Robby’s snoring and twitching didn’t fill the space with some kind of life.
Or maybe Jack should get a dog.
Jack dismissed this idea. Couldn’t exactly leave a dog unattended for 12 hours at a time, the poor thing would lose its mind in the boredom of this fucking apartment. It would be selfishness in the extreme to trap something innocent in the orderly prison Jack had created for himself.
Again, Derek’s voice rose in Jack’s mind, telling him to find something meaningful in life beyond work. A hobby. A relationship. An appreciation of art. Fuck off, Derek.
“10-56a, near PTMC. Transporting subject now.”
Jack’s breath caught, but he forced himself to breathe evenly. Slowly. He even counted out some box breaths for good measure. See, Derek? He was making progress.
Still, Jack didn’t think he’d ever reach a point in life where his heart wouldn’t leap into his throat at a 10-56a. Especially now, near the hospital. Thankfully, ‘near’ and ‘at’ were very different things. Robby was fine. Besides, Jack thought darkly, if Robby were to do the deed, it wouldn’t be classified as an attempt at suicide. Robby was too competent a physician for that.
Jack rolled upright, reaching for his prosthetic. His chance at sleep was well and truly down the drain now. He’d hit the gym, and then come back to try and get an hour or so of sleep before his shift. It would help, he reasoned, to tire out his brain with exercise. He’d stop thinking about things like suicide, and Robby’s expression in the pedes room, and the ring, which currently felt like a vice around Jack’s finger. Maybe he needed to get it resized. Yeah, that was probably why he’d been fidgeting with it so much. Jack resolved to look into that later, as he finally switched off the scanner.
Chapter Text
“We got him up to the OR, but he crashed on the table,” Jack said, and steeled himself for the response. Derek was pretty good about not saying ‘and how did that make you feel,’ but he had a host of other, equally annoying phrases to encourage Jack to elaborate on his emotions. Which was great, that was exactly what Jack paid him for. Unfortunately, it also sucked.
This time, however, Derek just watched Jack.
Which was another of his annoyingly effective techniques. Sometimes when he knew Jack was holding something back, Derek would just sit there in silence until Jack caved. Jack gave in early this time and filled the silence. “Which, you know, was awful. Six years old. I suppose I had a bit more distance, because he died in OR and not, you know. In front of me. But still, I’m sure you’ll tell me that the kid has something to do with why I’m not sleeping again.”
Derek sighed and capped his pen, deliberately setting it and his notebook to the side. That was one of his rarer moves, and usually meant he was about to say something Jack really, REALLY didn’t want to hear.
Which, again, was exactly why Jack came here, but he would still complain about it.
“Are you ready to cut the bullshit yet, Jack?” Derek asked. A large, bald, Black man in his sixties, Derek was semi-retired after a long career of specializing in veteran and emergency responder PTSD. He had well and truly stopped giving a fuck about beating around the bush.
Jack raised his eyebrows. “You think the tragic death of a six-year-old child is bullshit?”
“Look,” Derek leaned in, resting his elbows on his knees and hitting Jack with an intense stare. “You can waste my time and your money telling me about every patient you lost in the past two weeks and how it made you feel, if you want. No skin off my nose. But don’t for a minute think I haven’t noticed what you’re doing with your hands.”
Jack looked down. He’d been rubbing his left hand for god knows how long. The ring finger. Right above the knuckle. Where, if one looked closely, one would see a slightly paler line of skin.
“When did you take it off?” Derek asked.
“I need to get it resized.” Jack wasn’t sure why he said it. It wasn’t as if Derek had ever fallen for an evasion as obvious as that. Maybe Jack just felt like he had to put up a fight, for his dignity’s sake. A sort of masculine defense mechanism, obscuring the matter until Derek forcibly pried him open.
“Is there someone new in your life?”
“God no. I work all night and sleep all day, how would that ever work?”
Derek smiled tightly. “Would you like there to be someone new in your life?”
Jack glared at him. “No.”
“And yet you took it off.”
“To get it resized.”
“So it’s at the jeweler’s right now?”
Derek knew full well it wasn’t. Jack rolled his eyes and reached up to the neck of his t-shirt, pulling out the chain around his neck. It felt very Lord of the Rings, wearing the plain black band on a chain around his neck. Jack had visited the storage unit the day before. Found her old jewelry box. Ditched the cross that used to live on this chain, tossing it back into the jumble of earrings and bracelets. Replaced it with the ring. Fastened the chain around his neck so it rested lightly on his sternum.
He’d thought it might help it be less distracting, but apparently Jack fidgeted with the space the ring used to sit in just as much as he’d been playing with the ring itself.
Robby would probably have found some sort of metaphor in all that, but Jack didn’t really go in for metaphors.
“It was bothering me,” Jack said, letting the ring fall back to his chest. It lay incriminatingly on top of his shirt.
“Have you thought about why?”
“Told you,” Jack growled, “I’m getting it resized.”
Derek scanned Jack with his eyes, calling him on the lie without making a sound.
Jack pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, rubbing hard. When he looked back at Derek, Derek was still staring at him, unimpressed.
“I’m sleeping with my boss,” Jack blurted out. For the first time in years, Derek jerked upright in surprise. Jack grinned the first genuine smile he’d had in days. “Gotcha.”
It was Derek’s turn to rub a hand over his eyes, apparently exhausted with Jack’s sense of humor. Jack chuckled before continuing.
“Nah,” Jack said, returning to the matter at hand. Therapy. “But you remember Robby?”
“Yeah, uh, Robavitch, right?” Derek reached for his notes, leafing back through all his dirt on Jack. “The chief attending?”
“Robinavitch, comma Michael, yes,” Jack supplied. “More commonly known as Dr Robby.”
“Yeah,” Derek had apparently located the page he was looking for. “Last time we talked about him, you were worried about the anniversary of Dr Adamson’s death. How’d that go?”
“That was the day of the Pittfest shooting.”
“Oh. That must have been…”
“Yeah, yeah, we unpacked all that ages ago.” Jack waved a hand dismissively, studiously ignoring Derek’s raised eyebrow. “Robby had a rough time with it. But what I didn’t tell you is that he and I have been looking out for each other outside of work.”
“And this relates to your wife how?”
Jack looked away sharply. Derek was always blunt with him, which Jack appreciated, but most of the time he’d rather take a kick to the groin than talk about her directly. Derek waited.
“I found Robby on the roof. At the end of his shift. On the wrong side of the safety barrier.”
“He attempted suicide?”
“No. I don’t know. You know I go up there, and I’ve never—well, I mean, not yet, we’ll see how I feel after I get outta here.”
Derek didn’t seem to find that funny. He was a great therapist, but sometimes great therapy got in the way of a great bit. Jack shrugged it off.
“He sometimes comes to talk to me up there,” Jack said.
Derek nodded slowly. “So you might say you feel responsible for Dr Robby’s actions.”
Now there was a question. Did Jack feel responsible? “He did join me up there at the start of the shift. Talked my ear off until I came downstairs with him. I don’t know, maybe I’m just wondering if I put it in his head, you know?”
“You can’t control anyone’s actions but your own.”
Jack blew out a puff of air, in mock awe. “Wow, that’s incredible,” he deadpanned, “Never heard that one before. You’ve just changed my life.”
Derek snorted, apparently finally warming to Jack’s sarcastic mood. “Just because it’s a cliché, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
Jack conceded the point with a tilt of his head.
Derek pressed on. “You say you and Dr Robby look out for each other. You ever talk to him about Elise?”
“No.”
It came out sharp and quick. A desperate denial. An implied ‘absolutely the fuck not’ with fewer syllables.
Derek made a note in his book, probably a reminder to interrogate Jack further on the matter when they had more time left in a session.
“I think you know what your homework is,” Derek told him. Like an asshole.
Robby woke up alone on his day off. It wasn’t too unusual, with Jack on nights, so it took Robby a few moments as he shuffled to the kitchen to realize that he had slept well past when Jack should have gotten off duty.
It had been ages since either Jack or Robby had willingly slept alone. Sure, they usually only overlapped for a couple of hours, but they were a great couple of hours sleep.
Jack had been looking worn around the edges lately, too, like he wasn’t sleeping. Dark rings around his eyes, more coffee than Robby could condone in good conscience, and Robby could have sworn he saw Jack’s eyelids drooping at handoff the previous morning.
None of it made much sense. As far as Robby had observed, Jack never had issues sleeping, so what exactly was he doing with all that time? It wasn’t as if he had any hobbies. Perhaps more importantly, why was Jack avoiding him? This wasn’t about the Mohan argument, was it?
Only one way to find out. Robby pulled out his phone and typed a message to Jack.
All good?
Almost immediately, three dots appeared on the left side of the screen as Jack typed. Then they vanished.
Okay, that was interesting. With a stab of pain, Robby recalled a conversation with Jake from months before. Back before he and Leah became official, Jake told Robby that she typed and deleted a lot, which (Jake informed him) meant that either Leah was interested and trying to come up with the right thing to say, or she was pissed off. But then, Jack was an adult man, not a teenage girl, so the rules probably weren’t the same.
Poor Leah.
Robby shook this train of thought off as his phone buzzed in his hand.
All good, just had to go see someone. See you tomorrow?
Robby responded with a thumb’s up emoji, even though that message had illuminated absolutely nothing. ‘Had to go see someone?’ That could mean anything.
After a twelve-hour shift, Robby couldn’t imagine going anywhere but to bed. It would have to be something or someone important. Who was this mystery person? Jack didn’t seem to have a thriving social life outside the hospital. If he were having a post-shift social debrief, he’d have just said so. Which meant that there was probably either a very new or very old character making an appearance in Jack’s life.
If it were an old army friend, Jack probably would have mentioned it in advance. So probably someone new, which meant...
Robby’s gut twisted.
Did Jack Abbot, notorious depressed loner…have a date?
Jack stood in the rain. He appreciated it, honestly. There’d been times when the weather was beautiful and sunny, and that was much worse. It was worse when the world was lovely.
He said the same thing he always did. It felt just as pointless as it always did.
The stone and grass said nothing in reply.
Robby groaned as he lowered himself to sit on the roof next to Jack, backs to the wall. Jack sat with his legs stretched out in front of him. Robby thought about mirroring him, but there was a collection of bird shit splatters in Robby’s general area that discouraged that idea. He sat with his knees pulled up, touching the ground as little as possible.
At least they were on the right side of the barrier this time. And the weather had cleared up since the downpour the day before.
“Long night?”
Jack shrugged, not turning to look at him. He looked awful. Robby wondered if he’d slept at all.
“Why the long face?” Robby asked, lightly, for lack of something better to say. Jack inhaled sharply next to him, his hand gravitating to his chest and rubbing at his breastbone.
“You alright?” Robby asked.
“Fine.” Jack dropped his hand to his lap. “Tired.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious, I’d gathered that one. You look like shit.”
Jack huffed a laugh. “Yeah, haven’t been sleeping much.”
“That have anything to do with your hot date yesterday?”
Jack’s head jerked halfway in Robby’s direction, a sharp, aborted motion. He looked just as quickly back out at the skyline. “What?”
“Whoever it was you were seeing. I assumed it was a date, was it not?”
Jack’s hands fidgeted in his lap. He wasn’t usually a fidgeter, but then, strange things happened when one didn’t sleep. After a pause, Jack said, “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Someone’s in a cryptic mood this morning,” Robby teased.
For a moment, he thought Jack would snap at him, or maybe get up and walk away. Instead, Jack took a deep breath and said, “My therapist thinks I should open up to you more.”
“Sounds like a smart man.”
“Yeah. He’s good.”
Robby waited, hoping there would be more, but Jack lapsed into silence.
“Open up to me about what?”
“The offer still stands, by the way. He could refer you to someone.”
“Jack,” Robby said, tiring of the deflections. They had to get back down to the emergency room sooner rather than later, so he needed Jack to pick up the pace on his revelations.
“I don’t come up here to kill myself, you know.”
Robby’s chest clenched. He’d really thought it wasn’t that bad, today. Jack looked tired, yeah, but he’d had the mystery date yesterday, and today he was on the safe side of the barrier. Honestly, this was the first time in a while Robby had found him up here. Maybe the part of Robby that was still holding on to some kind of hope actually believed things were getting better. That they were making each other better.
That naïve part of Robby probably needed to grow up. They were each too fucked up to save the other. But it wouldn’t stop Robby from trying.
“You better not,” Robby said, “If you jumped, I’d probably have to do something drastic like get an emotional support pet.”
Jack snorted. “Imagine you with a Pomeranian.”
“At least a Pomeranian wouldn’t leave me with that hellish board downstairs. But for real, man, what’s going on?”
Jack lifted his hands from his lap, holding them out in front of him. They weren’t particularly beautiful hands to look at, but they were strong and they saved lives. They were good hands. Hands that Robby would trust his life to any day.
Robby wondered what Jack was looking at.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Robby,” Jack said, dropping his hands to his lap again.
“For what?”
“You’re good for me.”
The words sent a bloom of warmth through Robby. It was a relief to hear. Sometimes he hadn’t been sure. Jack glanced at him, before looking back out at Pittsburgh and continuing.
“I admit it, you are, you’re good for me. The problem is, and it’s a huge problem: I think I might be bad for you. Hell, I lead by example, I showed you how to poise yourself on the edge of the roof. I like flirting with death, sure, but I shouldn’t have given you her fucking number.”
Robby tipped over the peak of the emotional roller coaster Jack was putting him through, and his stomach plummeted. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Sorry. It’s just…Derek, my therapist, you know what he said? He said that I can’t control anyone’s actions but my own. But that isn’t true, is it? It’s my fault you were up here, I put the idea in your head. I can’t…I can’t do that again, I can’t be the reason you die.”
Suddenly, Robby was drowning. He couldn’t make sense of this, none of Jack’s thoughts seemed to follow each other in any logical manner. It sent waves of pure panic through Robby, and where the panic ebbed, it was replaced by anger.
“You think I need your help to figure out how to kill myself?” Robby snapped. “We work in a hospital, there’s a hundred ways I could do it, all you taught me was how to do it cinematically.”
As ways to comfort your depressed friend go, furiously telling him that you are plenty qualified to kill yourself without his help would not have been Robby’s first choice. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be very eloquent while his chest was collapsing. His breath came faster. His awareness narrowed. He could only pray he wasn’t about to have a complete breakdown like he did on the day of Pittfest.
Robby completely missed whatever it was Jack was saying, trying as he was to control the tempest in his mind. He pressed his fists in his eyes until he saw stars.
Then Robby felt a steady arm around him, pulling him to the side. He fell into Jack’s shoulder, dragging himself back to awareness.
“Fuck, man, see? This is exactly what I’m talking about.” Jack’s gruff words were belied by the gentle way he scratched his fingers through Robby’s hair.
“I’m fine,” Robby said, automatically.
“Yeah, sure,” Jack said, squeezing Robby closer.
Robby slowed his breathing, matching it to Jack’s, who wordlessly started breathing deeper and slower for the both of them.
“You aren’t bad for me, Jack,” Robby murmured into Jack’s shoulder.
“I’m bad news in general, you’re just the only sucker who hasn’t realized it yet.”
Robby pulled back slightly so he could look Jack in the eye. “I thought we’d moved past this. Your shit is my shit, remember? We help each other.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jack said, abruptly. He gave Robby another quick squeeze before leveraging himself to his feet. “Come on, sooner we get this over with, sooner I can get some sleep.”
Robby took Jack’s offered hand, using Jack’s weight to pull himself to his feet, but he kept a hold of Jack’s hand before the other man could turn away. “Jack, seriously. What’s going on with you?”
“I’ll tell you later. It’s a long story.”
Again, Jack tried to pull away, and again Robby held fast. “You’re off tonight. See you at yours?”
Jack grimaced apologetically. “Nah, not tonight, sorry.”
Robby tried to release Jack’s hand, relenting, but Jack kept hold of him for another moment.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said again, “I’ll come find you tomorrow, yeah? Just not tonight.”
His dark eyes were sharp and serious through the rings of exhaustion. His rough hand—the hand that Robby would most want to be the one opening his rib cage and massaging his heart back to life, if it ever came to it—lingered on Robby’s.
Robby had no choice but to trust him.
“Tomorrow. Sure.”
Jack was going to talk to him. He really was. But he couldn’t do it today, of all days.
He promised himself, as he left PTMC, that he’d go to Robby tomorrow. And goddammit, he’d make himself talk to Robby.
He just had to survive this day first.
Robby awoke as the mattress bounced beneath him.
He jolted half upright, but was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Shh, shh, I’m sorry, go back to sleep.”
It was wrong. Something…something was wrong about it and unease ate away at Robby’s stomach. He reached for the bedside lamp, switching it on to reveal Jack Abbot, fumbling with his prosthetic. The visual of the situation made Robby even more concerned. Jack was wearing a tie, something Robby had never once seen him wear. If asked, Robby probably would have assumed Jack didn’t own formal wear, unless it was a dress uniform from his army days. More confusing still was the way Jack was struggling to remove his leg, an action he’d performed multiple times a day, every day, for years.
Then Robby got a whiff of the smell.
“Are you drunk?”
“Tis my night off, such things are permitted,” Jack said, grandly, finally getting the release to work and dropping the prosthetic unceremoniously on the floor. He stripped off the liner and then started crawling across the bed to Robby. “Lie down, come on. Bed time.”
Robby did the opposite, leaping to his feet.
“What the fuck. What the fuck? Okay.” Robby’s half-asleep brain finally caught up. Drunk Jack Abbot. In his apartment. In his bed. Okay, this was fine. Robby knew perfectly well how to deal with drunk people, he just didn’t expect to have unexpected chaperone duties thrust upon him in the middle of the night. Robby grabbed his phone off the nightstand to check the time. 1:52 am.
“Okay. Stay there,” He told Jack.
“Come back, I’m tired,” Jack complained in slurred mumble, collapsing onto Robby’s side of the bed.
Robby fled into the kitchen. He retrieved a glass and filled it with water, but before venturing back into the bedroom, he braced his arms against the counter briefly. Robby’s mind was reeling. Sure, Jack often danced on the edge of a mental health crisis, same as Robby, but he’d always been high functioning in his depressive, post-traumatic tendencies. This was a new level of worrying.
Unless it wasn’t. Maybe Jack had gone out with old friends, whoever he’d been seeing the day before. Well, two days ago now, considering it was now two o’clock in the morning tomorrow. Maybe Jack had been having a grand old time and this was nothing more than an older man realizing he couldn’t hold his booze like he used to.
Robby hoped it was that, but it hardly seemed likely.
He grabbed a plastic bin from under the sink on his way back.
When Robby returned, Jack was sprawled out across the entire bed, muttering to himself.
“It’s pearl, you know, traditionally. But tradition schmadition, you know? You know, it’s just—am I saying ‘you know’ a lot?”
“Sit up and drink some water,” Robby said, placing the plastic bin within easy reach.
Jack flapped a hand at Robby, making no move to sit up. “I’m fine, doc, thanks. Can I ask you a question?”
“If you sit up and drink water, you can ask me anything.”
Jack clumsily made his way into an upright position, with significant assistance from Robby. After a few gulps of water, Jack asked, “Why’d you look at my lips, Robert?”
“Robert?” Robby asked, amused despite himself.
“New nickname for ya. Obvi.”
“Right, obviously. How much have you had to drink?”
“Not relevant,” Jack said, taking another sip of water. At least he was hydrating now.
“It’s relevant, trust me, I’m a doctor. How much?”
Jack shrugged with his entire body. “I dunno, I didn’ count”
“God, Jack, you know that’s dangerous.”
Jack’s eyes glazed over, and he stared off into space for a moment. “Robby, I think…”
He didn’t finish the thought, but Robby had been around the block enough times to recognize the signs and shoved the plastic bin in front of Jack, rescuing the glass of water with his other hand. It wasn’t a moment too soon. Jack wrapped himself around the tub, his face pushed deep inside as his body heaved, vomiting profusely.
Robby reached over and rubbed his back gently as he convulsed.
When the vomiting subsided, Robby removed the bin, flushing the contents and rinsing it out before he returned. He placed the bin securely back in Jack’s arms.
“Keep ahold of that for me.”
Jack nodded emphatically. He still looked a bit green around the gills. Robby reached for the shoe that Jack had so kindly trekked across his duvet and started untying it, as Jack resumed his drunken mumbling.
“I thought ‘bout skydiving, this time. You know, doin’ a silly one. Do you think she’d think it’s funny?”
“Who?” Robby asked, absently, tugging off the shoe, before reaching for Jack’s tie. Jack obediently let Robby undress him but did not respond to the question.
“I always think, every time, that it’ll be better this year, you know? Fucking pearl, right?”
Robby hummed agreement, slipping off Jack’s tie and starting on the buttons.
“Derek’s gonna—”
Whatever Derek was going to do, Robby didn’t find out as Jack leaned precariously over the bin. He didn’t vomit again, but it seemed like a close thing. After few moments of heavy breathing, Jack straightened again, and let Robby continue unbuttoning his shirt.
Jack wasn’t wearing an undershirt. That wasn’t a problem, Robby had seen Jack change plenty of times and wasn’t shy about the other man’s body. But Robby was surprised to see the chain. And Jack’s ring.
Robby hadn’t noticed its absence on Jack’s hand. He wondered how long it had been. They’d never spoken on it; Robby never asked, and Jack never volunteered any information. After time, the ring became just a part of Jack’s look. The image of Jack Abbot in Robby’s brain always wore dark scrubs, a stethoscope, and a dark ring on his left hand.
Jack caught sight of the chain too. He wrapped his fingers tightly around the ring, before looking up to meet Robby’s eyes. “I don’t even like pearls. Bullshit gemstone. Grow in fuckin’ fish not the ground like they’re s’posed to.”
To Robby’s surprise, Jack’s eyes grew wide and damp as he looked searchingly into Robby’s face. Looking closer, there was also a rim of red around them, which Robby hadn’t immediately noticed in the dim light. Jack had been crying.
Jack. Jack Abbot. Mr ‘brush you off with a dark joke and move on.’ Sure, he could brood to put Batman to shame, but in all their years working side by side, Robby could not remember ever seeing Jack cry. That was much more Robby’s style.
But now Jack’s face wrinkled in the effort of holding back tears.
“Fuckin’ pearls, Robby," he said, voice cracking, "You know?”
Robby didn’t know. Robby was so far from knowing, he felt like a first-year med student all over again. No, worse, he didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree in knowing what the fuck was going on here.
Robby did the only thing he could think to do. He took Jack’s face between his hands, making Jack meet his gaze again.
“It’s gonna be okay, Jack. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Jack made a sound that Robby hoped was a laugh. “That’s kinda the…you know, the…what’s the word? The ‘something’ of the issue.”
Thankfully the search for the perfect word seemed to distract Jack from what he was feeling. The lines around his eyes smoothed in favor of the ones on his brow.
“The word,” He said, “you know, the thing that’s the important…like the whole…the center, but not?”
“Core?” Robby suggested.
“No, its…oh god its right there.”
Robby dropped one of his hands to Jack’s shoulder and rubbed it fondly. “Tell me tomorrow, you might remember after a good night’s sleep.”
“You get what I’m saying though?”
Robby very much did not get what Jack was saying but investigating further seemed counter-productive to the mission of getting them both to sleep.
He nodded vaguely and asked, “Can you get your pants off?”
“Buy a girl dinner first,” Jack mumbled, but he unbuckled his belt and kicked off his slacks, revealing plaid patterned briefs. Robby tossed the pants over a chair, hoping that might save them some wrinkling, and grabbed Jack a pair of sweatpants from his dresser. Jack pushed them away petulantly. He seemed to have been hit with a wave of exhaustion after giving up on his search for the perfect word.
“I just wanna sleep, Robby, please.”
Robby wasn’t worried about alcohol poisoning. Jack was more or less coherent, responsive, and had vomited up the remaining booze in his stomach. The rest was up to Jack’s liver and kidneys, so he felt pretty good about letting Jack sleep. So long as he wasn’t at risk of choking on his own vomit.
“Alright, Dr Abbot,” Robby said lightly, “Do you remember recovery position?”
“Yessir.”
“Great, can you show it to me? Come here, edge of the bed, come on.”
Robby confiscated the vomit bin and placed it on the floor next to the bed. Jack scooted to the edge, still Robby’s side, but Robby would allow it this once. He folded himself into a clumsy recovery position, one knee bent, hand tucked under his cheek.
“Good job. Now stay like that, okay?” Robby stood to turn the light back off.
“Robby?”
“Yeah?”
“You aren’t leavin'. Right?”
Robby smiled softly and slid a hand around the back of Jack’s neck, gently squeezing him by the scruff. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Jack let his eyes droop closed.
Robby turned off the light and slid into bed behind Jack, throwing an arm over the drunk man to further keep him locked in recovery position. After a few moments, Jack’s breathing deepened, so Robby was surprised to hear his voice again when Jack murmured, “Elise said that too, once.”
Before Robby could formulate a response to that, a light snore from Jack told him that the other man was dead to the world.
Probably for the best.
Robby hadn’t even known her name was Elise.
Notes:
Tragic, rom-com shenanigans once again thwarted by a middle-aged man's immense trauma.
Chapter Text
Jack awoke to a feeling like a dull hammer taken to all sides of his brain.
Oh no.
Just as long as he didn’t sit up, it wouldn’t get any worse.
He must have groaned because a voice asked, “You awake?”
Jack just groaned again in reply, which made the voice chuckle. Sick bastard. The mattress shifted as the man beside Jack moved away to reach for something.
“Here,” the voice said, “Sit up and drink this.”
“I might puke if I sit up.”
“There’s a tub on the floor, aim for that.”
Jack cracked his eyes open to see the dim room, shifting his head slightly to look at Robby. “Oh god, how bad was I last night?” He croaked.
“You had very strong opinions about pearls,” Robby said with a quiet smile, “Come on, drink this and then we’ll get some food in you.” He held out a bottle of blue Gatorade.
Jack threw an arm over his eyes. “No food.”
“No food, no ibuprofen.”
Jack lowered his arm to glare at Robby. Robby wordlessly held out the Gatorade.
Jack pushed himself, slowly, carefully into a slightly more upright position. Even the few inches change in elevation was enough to send a sharp stab behind his eyes and a wave of nausea crashing over him. Jack pressed his eyes closed and breathed through it, reaching out for the bottle blindly.
Robby pressed it into his hand. Jack drank. It didn’t help.
The bed creaked as Robby stood and crept away.
Jack didn’t know how long the other man was gone, Jack may have drifted off again, but when he returned, Robby was holding out a plate of toast. Jack pushed himself into a fully upright position and accepted the offering. It was only two very tentative bites in that Jack became aware that he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. And, of course, the ring.
“Couldn’t wait to get my clothes off, huh?” Jack joked, weakly.
Robby raised his eyebrows. “You know me, just can’t keep my hands off a hunky man.”
They lapsed into silence as Jack chewed slowly and tried not to gag. Robby, sitting one leg folded under him at the end of the bed with a mug of coffee in hand, watched Jack intently. A diagnostician at work.
But he didn’t ask.
Once Jack had eaten an amount of toast that Robby deemed sufficient, Robby nodded towards a pill bottle on the nightstand, and Jack flushed down two ibuprofen with another gulp of Gatorade. Then he stole Robby’s coffee and had a gulp of that too, for good measure, wincing when the bitter black coffee hit his tongue. Weirdo never put milk in it.
“I’ll make you your own, if you’re ready to get out of bed.”
Jack sighed, but slowly, delicately made his way to standing. Robby held out a hoodie and sweatpants, which Jack was only too willing to don, before shuffling after Robby into the kitchen.
Jack deposited himself at the kitchen table, sagging forward to rest his head on the cool surface.
“You’re too old to get that drunk,” Robby supplied, as if Jack wasn’t wildly aware of that fact right now.
Coffee appeared in front of him, milk and sugar already stirred in. Jack wrapped his hands around the mug, worshiping it like the beautiful, holy thing it was.
Robby still didn’t ask, but Jack owed him an answer anyway.
“Pearls, huh?” Jack asked, his voice still a gravelly mess.
“You were pretty fixated on them, yeah.”
“30 years.”
Robby looked at him softly, gentle concern written across his kind features. Dark, curious eyes reflecting Jack back at himself.
“Pearl,” Jack said, “That’s the 30-year anniversary.”
Jack watched Robby’s face cycle through emotions. Confusion, horror, pity, morbid curiosity…Jack looked down at his coffee rather than watch any longer. He cleared his throat and continued.
“That was my hot date the other day. My wedding anniversary.”
“Shit, Jack, I’m so…”
Jack shrugged the apology off before it was even out in the air. “It was a long time ago. We were kids. I was twenty-two, Elise was twenty. April 27th, 1995.” Jack was aware of Robby still watching him, but he couldn’t look up. “Follow-up questions?”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I told you yesterday I’d come find you.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t think you meant at two in the goddamn morning.”
Jack snorted and regretted it instantly, with a sharp stab of pain through his skull. “Fuck, don’t make me laugh.”
“Sorry.”
“I just…April 28th, its…fuck, I don’t know how to say this.”
Robby waited patiently.
Jack took a grounding breath. “We got married on the 27th. It was lovely. We were happy, I think. Had a good few years, I mean, at first I was in med school all the damn time, then my residency, but she’d be there when I got home, and we…I thought we were happy. Maybe I was wrong. We were waiting to have kids until I got out of residency, so I could be more a part of their lives, you know?”
He looked up, finally. There was a terrible apprehension in Robby’s eyes. The look of a man who knew the end of this story but still prayed every time for Orpheus to keep walking.
“I lost her on April 28th, 2001. Day after our fucking anniversary.”
Jack was rubbing hard at his hand again, in the place his ring should be. He inhaled sharply, dragging himself back to the present and separating his hands.
“So that’s it, that’s why I’m always a mess for two days in April, and why Derek thought I should talk to you. That’s the whole sordid history.”
It wasn’t, of course. Jack had skirted the meat of the matter, the actual reason Derek had connected Robby with Elise. The crux of it, that was the word.
Of course, it took Robby no time at all to notice the omission. Jack hadn’t really thought he would get away with it. Robby’s broken face and already damp eyes only confirmed it.
“I’m not going to ask,” Robby said, because of course he did. Of course he was going to make Jack do this himself. Like some twisted exercise Derek would dream up.
Robby wouldn’t ask, and Jack couldn’t tell him. Unstoppable force, meet immovable object.
Jack took another gulp of coffee. The ibuprofen was starting to kick in, which was the only positive element of this entire situation. “Please,” Jack choked out, finally, “Please ask me. I won’t be able to do it if you don’t.”
It was a cruelty, and Jack knew it.
Robby’s voice was unsteady, thick with emotion, when he asked.
And Jack told him.
For the first time, the words flowed out easily. Jack told him everything. About cutting their anniversary dinner, the last one, short because he had an early morning. About his shift the following day. He remembered every detail of that shift and he recounted it for Robby. It was one of those magical days, when emergency medicine felt like being a god. Everything going so damn well. He made a save that felt like a miracle. He even stayed late just for the love of it.
Then he told Robby about the journey home on the train, which Jack didn’t even remember, not really, but he’d gone over that day so many times in his mind that he’d half convinced himself that he could. He told Robby about approaching their shitty apartment building, the one he’d kept promising they’d be able to move out of. He told Robby about the crowd on the sidewalk. The ambulance. The cops on the roof, seven stories up.
The letter, neatly folded in an envelope on his pillow. Handwritten in her perfect cursive.
Robby broke when Jack told him what the letter said, covering his eyes with one hand as he shuddered a silent sob. He pulled himself together efficiently, probably for Jack’s sake.
Jack watched Robby, meeting his red-rimmed eyes evenly. He'd had wrung out all his grief the night before, all that was left was a grey emptiness. And a killer hangover. Robby gulped the rest of his reaction down, forcing himself to appear put together. Jack would probably be touched if he had the capacity right now.
“Fuck. Okay. Fuck. Are you—”
“Robby, you better not fucking ask me if I’m okay.”
Robby swallowed and nodded. Accepting. There was a pause, then. Robby had nothing to say, and Jack had no way to help him.
“Thank you,” Robby said, finally, “For telling me.”
Jack just shrugged and drank his coffee.
Derek’s eyes followed Jack as he claimed his usual chair. The hardbacked one. There was a sofa in the office, and it looked fairly comfortable, but Jack never used it. He’d asked Derek, at one point, whether the chair verses sofa choice was a test, and Derek had declined to comment.
Jack kept taking the chair anyway.
“I’ve earned a gold star this week,” Jack announced, by way of greeting.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Had a very adult conversation. I had the mother of all hangovers at the time, but still counts. Told Robby about Elise.”
“How’d that go?”
“He danced for joy; how do you think?”
“So he was upset?” Derek asked.
“Yeah,” Jack confirmed, “But then he thanked me for telling him and that was the end of it.”
It wasn’t. Not really. Because that night Jack had slept in Robby’s bed again. He’d wrapped his arms around Robby and fallen asleep like that. He’d slept for ten whole hours, the first full night’s sleep in weeks. And the morning after, as Robby left for work, when Jack was still half asleep…
Robby had kissed his forehead.
Robby must have thought he was still asleep. It certainly wasn’t the sort of thing they did routinely. Well, it wasn’t as far as Jack knew, he supposed Robby might get up to anything while he was asleep.
Discussing any of it with Derek would involve confessing that he routinely slept with his arms wrapped around Robby. Admitting that the ‘sleeping with the boss’ joke was only half a joke. It had been almost a year, at this point, that Jack had been omitting this information from his conversations with Derek, and the longer he waited, the worse it got. Jack wouldn’t know how to begin confessing to it all, even if he wanted to.
“Is he the first person at work you’ve confided in?”
“No, but the first since Adamson.”
“Right,” Derek said, “so it’s been years. Why now?”
“I don’t know, Derek, maybe because you as good as told me to?” Jack said, dryly.
Derek regarded him gently. “But you actually did it. I know you, Jack, I know full well you only do the homework I give you about 20% of the time. I don’t mind it because I know you’re making progress in your own way. So when you actually do what I suggest, or even rarer as in this case, do what I suggest without complaint, I know it’s something that you want, even if you’re not ready to admit that to yourself. You wanted to confide in Dr Robby.”
Jack leaned in, resting his elbows on his knees and giving Derek the full weight of his stare. “Now I suppose now you’re going to tell me that I’m equating him to my dead wife.”
“You tell me, Jack, do you equate him with your dead wife?”
“Nah, he’s nowhere near as pretty.”
Derek was just as unimpressed with that comeback as Jack had assumed he’d be. “You get that ring resized yet?”
“Sorry, I’ve been a bit busy trying not to have a complete breakdown on the anniversary of my wife’s suicide.”
Jack was going to lose this contest, and he knew it. Derek knew it too. If Derek ever got tired of having to verbally wrestle with Jack for the first few minutes of every session before Jack started opening up, he never let on.
“Tell me more about him.”
“Like what?”
“What is,” Derek checked his notes for the full name, “Dr Michael Robinavitch like?”
Jack tilted his head in thought. “He’s great at his job. Good with the students, even better with patients. And the medicine? Fantastic. Trust him as my doctor any day.”
Derek nodded. “And personally? Putting work aside for the moment.”
“There is no putting aside work. It’s all there is for guys like us.”
“For you, sure,” Derek quipped, “but he can’t possibly be as lonely, self-destructive, and generally boring as you.”
Jack laughed sharply. “Lonely and self-destructive I’ll take, but I’ll have you know I’m very interesting, you’re just tired of hearing from me.”
“Does Robby find you interesting?”
What kind of a question was that? “You’d have to ask him.”
“You see him outside of work?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Work.”
“You could do that at work, what else?”
“Our respective traumas.”
Derek didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. “Which is an extension of work, in a way.”
“He has a kid, kind of. Complicated situation, but he helped raise him.”
Derek seemed to find this tidbit of information to be a signal that he was getting somewhere, because he noted that down.
Jack continued. “And apparently, he used to date our coworker. Heather Collins, fourth year resident. Just found that one out the other day.”
Derek looked up, assessing. “Why did he mention that?”
“To win an argument, but he still lost.”
“What were you arguing about?”
“Work.”
“Jesus, Jack, work with me here.”
Jack sighed and relented. “I thought he was being an idiot about one of the residents. He accused me of wanting to sleep with her.”
“Do you want to sleep with her?”
Jack forced himself to actually consider the question, instead of continuing to brush Derek off. “I mean, no question, she’s beautiful. Smart. Gives us attendings are run for our money. But she’s just a kid, she has to be, what, 26? And that’s not even getting into the power imbalance. So no, I don’t think so. I get my hookups off Tinder, not in my workplace, like a normal person.”
“Speaking of, how is your sex life?”
Trust Derek to be as blunt as possible. Jack steeled himself and answered honestly. “About as lively as you’d expect from an aging widower. I haven’t gotten laid in over a year.”
“And you’re still on Tinder?”
“No.” Jack wasn’t sure why this particular session was turning into an interrogation, but he was sure Derek was going somewhere with it. Derek always had a destination in mind. “Not for a while, I just haven’t been wanting that recently.”
“Are you straight, Jack?”
That question shot Jack’s eyebrows to the roof. He went for the easy quip while he processed. “Wow, I had no idea you felt that way, but probably best we keep this professional.”
Derek smiled, softly, and waited for Jack’s real response.
Jack scratched the back of his neck, awkwardly. “Shit happens in the army, man, I don’t know what that makes me. I haven’t had any, uh…encounters with men in civilian life.”
Except for the fact that he slept cuddled up to his department chief, but that was hardly a marker of his sexuality. There was nothing sexual about holding Robby in his arms.
Derek nodded. Thankfully he didn’t make a note of it in his notebook. Not that Jack was particularly ashamed of it. He had been at the time, but he’d changed quite a bit in the intervening years. It just seemed like something that didn’t belong in a file somewhere.
“You’ve mentioned Robby in conversations about your wife twice now, do you realize that?”
Sometimes Jack wondered whether Derek could read his mind.
“Well, he almost jumped off a roof, so you can see why it might come up,” Jack drawled.
“Does he remind you of Elise?”
“No,” said Jack, honestly. “No, he’s nothing like her. She always had this brightness, you know? Sure, she was depressed, I know that now, but at the time…she was spontaneous. Energetic. Excitable. Young. Maybe a bit manic sometimes, I don’t know, I’ll leave the diagnosing to you, but…Robby’s not like that. He’s grounded. Steady. Hurting, but not…he pushes it down. He looks after everyone else first, always, and I just realized you tricked me into describing him.”
Derek laughed. “What can I say, I’m good at what I do.”
Jack smirked. It was good, the game of it. Derek luring him out into honesty. Jack wanted it. He wanted to get it all out there. He just wasn’t sure he still knew how to do it.
“I’ve been worrying lately…” Jack started uncertainly. Derek didn’t interrupt when he trailed off, so Jack forced himself to continue. “I’ve been worried that I’m hurting him.”
“How so?”
“I guess…what if he’s just doing all this for me, you know? Looking after me instead of himself. Is it selfishness that I’ve been letting him?”
“How exactly does he look after you?”
Jack looked away, which was a mistake. If anything was going to confirm to Derek that Jack was hiding something, that was his tell.
“Jack?”
Jack didn’t look at Derek but he knew this was endgame. Cards on the table. Go all-in or go home.
“It seemed so reasonable, when it started. Practical. I had a rough night, he took me home to his apartment, and he just…”
What did Robby do? Not much. He was just there. A breathing body. But more than that, he was Robby. He was wonderful.
“He had a nightmare. I tried to help and we ended up…”
There was no way to spin this, what they’d been doing. Jack hadn’t said it out loud to anyone, because he knew exactly what they’d think, what he’d think if anyone said it to him. He should’ve asked Robby how he broke the news to Dana.
“And so,” Jack picked up without finishing either of the previous clauses, “Now we do it all the time. If I get off work, I go crawl into his bed instead of my own, and vice versa. And it helps, Derek, it really fucking helps. The reason I haven’t been sleeping recently is because I’ve been spending less time with him. Before that, for the past year, I’ve been sleeping so much better, because I was—”
Jack cut off, not quite able to say it.
“Is it sexual, or?” Derek asked.
“No. No sex, just…”
Jack still didn’t look at Derek. There were waves of shame pouring through him and he wasn’t entirely sure why. Possibly for letting it get to this point. To the point where Robby looked at his mouth, and Robby kissed him on the forehead, and Jack stopped being able to wear his wedding ring.
That epiphany hit like a semi-truck. Fuck. The ring fit him just fine, didn’t it?
“So,” Jack said, pulling himself back together, “I have to end it, right?”
“God, no,” Derek said.
Jack snapped his neck around so fast he may have given himself whiplash.
“No, Jack,” Derek said, “I’m not going to tell you to end it. If you choose to, that’s your prerogative, but…listen, there’s an old saying in the therapist world that I think might apply here, want to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“It goes: ‘Don’t be a fucking idiot, Jack Abbot, you’re allowed to get close to someone.’”
Jack breathed a shaky laugh. “That’s weirdly specific.”
“You’re telling me,” Derek said, laughing, “When they taught me that in school, I never thought I’d get a chance to use it.”
“But it’s not…It’s not a relationship, we aren’t dating, we aren’t fucking, it doesn’t make any goddamn sense, Derek.”
Derek shrugged. “So?”
“So,” Jack struggled to articulate the problem, “What, I’m just supposed to kill any chance he has of settling down just because being around him is good for me? So that I can sleep?”
“Is he an adult with decision making capabilities?”
“Yes, but—“
“Define ‘settling down’ for me.”
Jack shrugged. “Finding a partner, falling in love, moving in together, etcetera.”
“Right.” Derek was looking at him expectantly. As if he’d made some kind of point.
“He’s a great guy, he deserves to have all that. I don’t want to get in the way of it.”
Derek just stared at Jack for a long time after that.
Chapter Text
Robby hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to Collins one-on-one since the incident. What he had gotten the chance to do, was to hear and see various staff members whispering about him in various languages.
A guy loudly announces that he is ‘not fucking anyone’ one time.
The good news, if it could be called good news, was that Robby was too focused on Jack’s revelations to care all that much about what anyone was whispering about him.
Robby felt like he’d failed. Jack had opened up to him. Told him something that he told no one at the hospital, something so dark and painful he couldn’t speak of it unless explicitly asked. And Robby couldn’t come up with a single damn thing to say.
Thank you for telling me.
That was a bullshit sentence, wasn’t it?
They hadn’t spoken about it in the days since. That seemed to be the pattern they were falling into. Have a breakdown, talk it through, and then pretend it never happened. Yeah, that was probably a healthy way of going about it.
And the knowledge of Jack’s wife’s…of Elise’s death. God, that re-contextualized every conversation they’d ever had, didn’t it? What was it Jack had said?
I can’t do that again, I can’t be the reason you die.
Because Robby had gone to Jack’s spot. The roof spot. Where Jack went to…to what? Robby wasn’t sure he knew anymore. To punish himself, maybe. To remember. To imagine. But, unlike Robby, perhaps Jack never went there with suicidal thoughts running through his mind. Perhaps it was a kind of mourning. A kind of prayer.
Robby had to bring it all to the surface, standing at the edge of the roof, forcing Jack to be the one to bring him back. Fuck.
“Hey, Fruitcake.”
Robby came back to awareness of his surroundings with a jolt. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t seen Myrna scoot her wheelchair over to his workstation. He hadn’t gotten the chance yet to ask Perlah what Myrna was supposed to be in for today, but it didn’t really matter.
“Afternoon, Myrna. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Nurses say you’re fucking someone.”
Robby looked over his glasses at her, scratching the side of his beard. “You have a medical concern for me, Myrna?”
“You tell me who it is, I’ll tell you which ones are talking about you.”
“I’ll pass, but thank you for the offer.” Robby returned his attention to the paperwork in front of him. Seemed like he’d started zoning out about two pages ago, so he turned back to re-read what he’d missed.
“If its Dana, and you fuck her around, I’ll get someone to cut your balls off.”
That got Robby to turn back to Myrna.
She grinned sharkishly at him. “I know people.”
Thankfully, Robby was saved from that bizarre interaction by the appearance of Collins.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Yes,” he said with some relief, “Yes, you can.”
As he followed Collins, Myrna called after him, “Don’t forget what I said, Fruitcake!”
“What’s her angle this time?” Collins asked.
“Oh, you know. Threatening me with bodily harm if I mess with Dana.”
“Oh, good.”
Collins led him out into the ambulance bay, which was strange. He’d assumed this was about a patient.
She turned to face him with a steely determination, lowering her voice. “I wanted to apologize for what I said the other day. It was unprofessional.”
Ah. The incident. Robby wasn’t the sort to bring it up again, but now that it was offered up on a silver platter, he couldn’t resist the mischievous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He covered it quickly by running a hand over his beard.
“Well, Collins, as chief of this department I have to take sexuality-based harassment very seriously.”
She tilted her head to the side, taken aback.
“I may have to report this incident, hey, do you think it qualifies as homophobia? I think I’ll throw homophobia in there.”
Collins gaze hardened into a glare as the lightness of his tone registered.
“And as a feminist,” He continued, “I’m very disappointed in you for resorting to slut-shaming. Its 2025, Collins, free love for all.” He threw up two peace signs for good measure.
“Okay, wow, we’re done with this conversation,” Heather said, turning to walk away but with a distinctly amused glint in her eye.
“Come on, I’ve got so much more material!” He called after her, laughing. “I haven’t even threatened you with sensitivity training yet!”
Robby giggled to himself as Heather flipped him off over her shoulder. Then he sobered when a voice cleared their throat. He turned to see Santos watching him, arms folded.
Shit.
Of all the residents, it just had to be Santos, didn’t it? She must have been out of his line of sight, behind one of the parked rigs. Robby’s eyes darted back to where Collins had been, but she’d already disappeared back inside. No backup.
“Just a friendly joke,” Robby explained, weakly, which he instantly realized was the skeeviest sounding way he could have described it.
Santos just shrugged and clapped him on the shoulder as she passed. “Whatever you say, Fruitcake.”
She walked back through the doors, leaving Robby alone in the ambulance bay. Good God, these kids. Back in Robby’s day, interns had some respect for their superiors.
“No, I’m telling you, Santos put good money on ‘man in another department,’ I think she knows something.”
“How would she know something?”
“Gays have the best gaydars. I haven’t been picking it up, but if she is, I believe her.”
Jack sauntered over to the conversation, ostensibly to return an iPad to the charger, but perhaps also with a touch of curiosity. “Who are we gossiping about this time?”
The two nurses exchanged a look, seemingly unsure if it was a genuine question or if they’d just been busted. Jesse was on loan from the day shift to cover some vacation time, but Josefina had been working with Jack for years now. Apparently, he’d earned some trust, because she confided, “Dr Robby is having a secret affair with someone in the hospital.”
Well, that was a surprise. Not the affair (Jack could put two and two together with the best of them, and figured he was almost certainly the other player of that particular rumor) but the fact that they were both entertaining the idea of Robby being with a man.
Jack disregarded all his management training and leaned in to join the conversation. “But he’s only dated women in the past, right? Jake’s mom and Collins, etcetera?”
Jesse regarded him with surprise. “You knew about Rollins?”
Rollins? Is that what they were calling it? “I’ve still got two eyes, don’t I?” Jack said, instead of admitting that he only recently found out, years after the fact.
“That doesn’t mean anything, though. Maybe he was repressing his sexuality,” Josefina suggested.
“Or,” Jesse said, “We could dispense with binary thinking. He could be a Kinsey 1. Or maybe he’s just been more discreet with men.”
“Kinsey what?”
“Look up the Kinsey scale, when you get a chance. Basically just says that sexuality is a spectrum.”
“Right,” Jack said. Great. More homework. “But he’s old, like me, doesn’t seem like his way of thinking.”
Josefina shrugged. “Feelings exist long before we put labels on them. If he met someone, developed a connection, maybe he hasn’t worried too much about how it impacts his identity. Honestly, sometimes I think we’d all be a lot better off if we worried less about definitions.”
Jack supposed that made a certain amount of sense. In a new-age, queer-theory, beyond-his-limited-understandings kind of way. But he’d be the first to agree that sometimes people stressed the little details too much.
“You know,” Jesse said, “I think I saw Robby talking to Dr Briley from oncology the other day.”
Josefina looked surprised. “Briley? Isn’t he in a relationship?”
“Is he? Well, still. Stranger things have happened.”
“Nah,” Jack said, “Robby’s got too many morals to ever be the other woman.”
“Personally, I think he’s back with Collins,” Said Dr Ellis, joining the three of them at the central desk. “But if you aren’t too busy feeding the company gossip mill, I could use your eyes in 12, boss.”
Josefina scoffed. “He said he wasn’t screwing anyone to Collins. Can’t be her.”
“Well, he wasn’t actively screwing anyone,” Jesse said, “Maybe she was joking about messing around on the clock.”
“Okay, both of you find ways to make yourselves useful, save the scuttlebutt for you own time,” Jack said, deciding to finally put an end to this madness. He nodded to Ellis and followed her towards room 12 as she began filling him in.
“58-year-old man decides to cycle across the continental United States. Not a shocker he had a medical emergency on the way. Cardiac event. He’ll be fine, he just can’t try to continue to his destination, or he’ll collapse again, at minimum.”
“Okay, so we’re sending him home, rest is up to his PCP, yes?”
Ellis gave him a meaningful look. “Except he refuses to give up on the journey.”
Jack whistled, once again impressed with people’s idiocy. “Tell me he started on the west coast.”
“Started in New York.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “At least it’ll be a short flight home.”
He pushed open the door and addressed the patient. “Hi, I’m Dr Abbot, I hear you’ve—”
“Oh my god, Rabbit Abbot?”
Jack swiveled his head to look at the man at the patient’s bedside. The face was about 15 years older than when Jack had last seen it, but recognizable, nonetheless.
Chip. So cleverly nicknamed for the tooth he’d chipped in basic training, though as he smiled widely at Jack, it was clear he’d gotten the damage filled in the intervening years. It took Jack a beat to remember the man’s last name.
“Chip Suarez. How the hell are you?”
“I’m fine, man, fine.” Chip pulled Jack in for a quick hug before turning excitedly to the patient. “Dames, you’re in good hands, Rabbit here is the best there is. I told you about that time he stitched up Paddy’s ass in the middle of a shootout?”
Ellis was staring at Jack with a delighted twinkle that told him he’d be getting called Rabbit for the next month, at the very least. He’d really hoped to leave the nickname far behind when he left the army.
Jack stepped forward towards the patient. “Hopefully you won’t need me for that today. You gonna introduce me?”
“Oh, yeah, Rabbit, this is my—” Chip hesitated ever so briefly over the word, “Husband, Damian. Damian Suarez, now.”
Ah. That made sense. Funny how things lined up, Jack had just mentioned his sexual encounters in the army to Derek, and now here Chip was. They’d had a few brief stolen moments. Hands, usually, but once Chip’s mouth, and frantically adjusting their fatigues once they’d finished. No romance in it, just biological appeasement. Jack still running from a ghost.
Jack was glad Chip had found something more suitable.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Suarez.”
“Please,” the older man said, “Call me Damian. Any friend of Joaquin’s…”
Joaquin. Jack wondered absently if he’d ever known Chip’s first name. Or if Chip knew his.
“Damian. So, I hear you two are biking coast to coast?”
“Well…” Chip said, hesitantly.
“Yes, yes we are,” Damian insisted, “It’s our honeymoon.” He was a good ten years older than Chip, but at this stage of life, that hardly mattered. Except, Jack supposed, if one were to try to bike to California.
“Off to a rocky start, though?” Jack asked, gently.
“I’ll be fine, Joaquin worries too much.”
Jack sucked air through his teeth apologetically. “Sorry, but I’m gonna have to take Chip’s side on this one. Plenty of ways to celebrate a marriage without giving yourself a heart attack.”
“Not the way we do it,” Damian said, shooting a devilish smile at his husband.
Chip’s eyes darted anxiously at Jack. Old habits. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Jack smiled at Damian. “That may be so, but personally I’d rather have a cardiac emergency in a nice hotel somewhere than out on the open road with spotty cell service, a hundred miles from the nearest hospital.”
“You aren’t going to convince me, Dr Rabbit. I know I’m getting old, but I keep in good shape. We’ve been talking about doing this for years, and I intend to follow through.”
“Even if it kills you?” Jack asked, bluntly.
“It won’t.”
“Okay.” Jack met Chip’s eyes over his husband’s hospital bed. “Chip, you wanna take a walk with me? Catch up for a minute?"
Chip squeezed Damian’s hand. “I’ll be right back,” He said, and followed Jack out towards the hub.
“Congratulations, man,” Jack said as soon as the door closed behind them.
Chip watched him apprehensively as he said, “Thanks.” Then after a beat, “He can’t do it, can he?”
Jack shook his head softly. “Not unless you want to join widower’s club. It’s great, we have a potluck on Wednesdays.”
Chip laughed, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. As they reached the hub, Jack grabbed an iPad to fill in some notes on his conversation with Damian, giving Chip a moment to think.
“He hates feeling old.”
“Don’t we all.”
“I just—” Chip cut off, glancing back towards room 12. “I really wanted this for him. He’s spent all his life in New York, never traveled further than Jersey. This was our dream, you know? We didn’t even have much of a wedding, we were saving for this instead.”
Jack sighed, setting the iPad back on the charger. “Sometimes life has other plans.”
“You don’t believe in that shit, unless you found god after you left us.”
Jack appreciated the polite way of saying ‘after your leg got blown off.’
“Nah, but you know what I do believe?”
Chip looked at him intently. Jack tried to summon something that wasn’t bullshit, something he actually believed in.
“It isn’t about a wedding. Or biking across the country. Or feeling old. It’s about the person next to you. For however long you’ve got them, right? And it’s about making sure you hold onto them for as long as you possibly can, ‘cause let me tell you, Chip, losing them just about kills you.”
Chip looked away. Jack didn’t blame him. Last thing anyone wanted to hear right after their wedding was the grief of losing a spouse.
“Ch—Joaquin.”
Chip met Jack’s eyes again.
“Tell him you won’t do it. You’re the only one can convince him.”
Chip nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Jack.”
That sent a stab of guilt through Jack. Chip knew his name, probably always had. Jack was a fucking dick, wasn’t he?
Chip turned to make his way back to room 12, but then he turned back for a moment. He leaned in, watching carefully for a reaction, and kissed Jack on the cheek.
“I hope you’re looking after yourself, Rabbit.”
Jack swallowed around the lump in his throat and nodded. Chip turned and walked away.
Jack let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He turned, intending to walk over and check the board, when he stopped in his tracks. There, across the room, Robby was watching him.
It must be 7 o’clock.
Notes:
listen. I once again underestimated the length that this fic would be. I am now shooting for five chapters, but honestly? who knows.
Chapter 5
Notes:
I'd love to blame the hiatus on the fact that I have a job now, but to be entirely honest I rewrote this part like 12 times and I'm still not sure I like it. I might take another stab at it sometime, but for now I hope you enjoy this ending! :)
Chapter Text
The man—he must have been a patient or family member, because he sure wasn’t part of their team—leaned down an inch or two and kissed Abbot on the cheek.
Robby tried to look away, but his attention was drawn to the scene with an inescapable gravity.
He was a handsome man: a bit younger than Abbot. Tall, athletic build. Beautiful tan skin. Dr Abbot must have completed some incredible miracle of medicine on the night shift to earn that. Either that, or Jack was about to receive someone’s number.
The man said something to him, and Jack nodded, then the man turned and walked away. An unfamiliar feeling rose in Robby’s throat, but he swallowed it down. This wasn’t the time nor place to investigate new feelings. This was work. Before Robby could reorient himself, Jack turned and his eyes locked on Robby. Jack’s eyebrows jumped, ever so slightly.
Robby made his way over, feeling Jack’s gaze on him the whole way. What, did Jack think Robby was going to be a dick about this? Jack could be kissed by whomever he wanted; it was none of Robby’s business. Really.
“Good morning,” Robby greeted as he reached the hub, Jack’s inscrutable stare still drilling a hole through him.
“Morning. That wasn’t what it looked like.”
“Why, what did it look like?”
Jack didn’t rise to the bait. “He’s an old friend, his husband’s in 12. Cardiac event, but we’re discharging him soon.”
‘Old friend’ could mean just about anything. It was none of Robby’s business, but he found himself dying to know anyway.
“He…seemed nice.”
“Uh-huh,” Abbot grunted noncommittally. “Big hitters from the night, we have one with 2nd degree burns to the face and chest in 7, O2 is down slightly, but we haven’t had to intubate yet. Keep an eye. Exposed bone fracture in 15 is set, but needs pins, waiting on OR. 10-year-old and 12-year-old brothers in pedes, got into cleaning products. Older brother dared the little one to drink some, then panicked knowing he’d get in trouble and did it too. 12-year-old will be fine, 10-year-old has some chemical burns to the esophagus. Had to intubate but he’s stable for now.”
Robby sighed. Another day in paradise. “You get a psych follow-up for the 12-year-old?”
“Pediatric specialist gets in at nine, but a social worker’s already been in to talk to the whole family. Mom’s in there now, dad’s in the cafeteria.”
“Okay.” Robby scanned the board. “Not too bad, overall.”
“Wasn’t ‘til you just jinxed it.”
Robby tilted his head with a hum of agreement. It’s not that Robby was an especially superstitious person, but he tried to avoid saying anything too positive, for fear of being blamed when things went south. On the other hand, Jack professed not to be superstitious, but Robby had seen him knock on wood enough times to know that Jack didn’t take any chances.
Robby opened his mouth to ask another question about the ‘old friend’ when he was interrupted by Ellis jogging up to the two of them.
“Abbot,” Ellis said, “He’s leaving AMA.”
“Who?”
“Suarez.”
“Fuck.”
Robby trailed after Jack as he dashed over in the direction of 12, intercepting the ‘old friend’ and the man who was, presumably, his husband.
“Leaving us so soon, fellas?” Jack asked it lightly, but Robby could hear a sharp undertone.
“Thank you for your help, Dr Abbot,” the husband (Suarez?) said, “but we want to get back on the road.”
“I strongly encourage you to reconsider.” Jack said, sounding awfully like what he wanted to say involved much stronger language.
“It was nice to meet you.” The man moved past Jack. Jack’s jaw shifted, the only sign on his otherwise still form that he had registered the statement.
Jack’s old friend hesitated.
“Chip.” Jack looked at him imploringly.
‘Chip’ looked part apologetic, part devastated. “He said he’d do it with or without me. I have to…I have to go with him. ‘For however long,’ right?”
There were very few times in his relationship with Jack that Robby had felt certain he knew exactly what was going on in the other man’s head. This was one of them. He watched Jack’s heart break in real time.
Then Jack raised his shields again.
“Okay,” Jack retrieved a notebook from his cargo pants pocket and scribbled his phone number on a page. “Call me when you get to California.” He tore off the page and held it out.
Chip reached for it, but Jack held tight for a moment. Chip met his eyes.
“Or if you don’t.”
Chip nodded somberly, his eyes wide and tragic. He took Jack’s number and followed his husband.
For a long moment, Jack stared into the empty space Chip vacated, breathing in that specific way he did when he was trying to regain control. Slow and rhythmic.
Robby reached out a hand, tentatively. Part of him expected Jack to flinch away or shake him off, but when Robby touched his arm, Jack just raised his eyes.
“You just had to jinx it, huh?”
Robby smiled weakly in reply, squeezing Jack’s bicep. “You okay?”
Jack shrugged the shoulder Robby wasn’t holding, apparently either not know the answer or not wanting to share it. “If you’ve got it from here, I might head out.”
“Yeah, of course. But I’ll see you tonight?”
“Shen’s on tonight.”
“I know.”
They were dangerously close to the ears of their colleagues, but somehow, that didn’t seem to matter right now. Robby needed to know. He needed confirmation that in twelve hours, he’d be able to find Jack, and put him back together if need be.
Jack seemed to evaluate the question, exploring the contours of Robby’s face. Then he said, “Yeah, I’ll see you tonight.”
Robby took it like the victory it was.
Jack didn’t go home immediately, instead going straight to the gym and throwing all his rage into a punching bag. All that served to do was attract a few concerned looks.
Then, sitting in the locker room, he downloaded Tinder. His old profile popped back up after entering his phone number, and nothing much had changed about him in a year, so he left it as was.
He swiped for a few minutes, ignoring the smells and sounds of the locker room. To be fair, most people were already at work by nine, so he was more or less on his own with the retirees.
Jack hesitated over a Jennifer, 42. There was nothing particular about her, no single trait that he could point to, but something made Jack reach for the chain around his neck. Maybe it was her dirty blonde hair. Maybe it was her bio, describing her as an avid reader with a spontaneous streak. Maybe it was as simple as the way she held herself. Jack closed out the app.
Once he was away from the stench of a men’s locker room, safely back in his parked car, Jack smacked the steering wheel with all his strength.
Palm stinging, he opened the app store again.
Robby slipped into Jack’s apartment. He always tried to be quiet, but as Jack slept like the dead, it didn’t usually matter too much. Tonight, however, he heard an unfamiliar sound emanating from the bedroom door.
Robby had heard tell of Jack’s police scanner, but hearing the static sounds and muffled voices, it occurred to him that he’d never once heard it running. That had never struck Robby as odd until that moment. It was almost as if Jack went out of his way to keep it off when Robby was around.
When Robby pushed open the bedroom door, Jack was obviously awake. He lay on his back, on top of the duvet, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t look up as Robby stepped into the room.
“Be advised, 10-49 on Smithfield.”
“You can turn that off,” Jack said. It was on the dresser, out of reach of the bed.
Without a word, and without touching the scanner, Robby changed into the sweatpants and t-shirt that were neatly folded and waiting for him in Jack’s top drawer. He was pretty sure the shirt had originally been Jack’s. He couldn’t remember buying it, but Jack never said anything about it, and it always turned up folded with Robby’s clothes.
“Can I get a 10-28 on plate Alpha Uniform Victor 7091? Silver Chevy.”
Robby crawled into bed and pressed himself along Jack’s side. Jack lifted his arm, and Robby took the invitation, scooting in to prop his head on Jack’s shoulder. Jack’s arm fell to hook loosely around Robby’s neck, hand resting across Robby’s chest.
They lay side by side in the dark, kept company by radio static and intermittent phrases.
“10-53, intersection of Chestnut and Carpenter. No ambulance required.”
“What’s a 10-53?” Robby asked.
“Vehicle collision.”
“No ambulance, that’s good.”
Jack hummed his agreement.
Questions were burning a hole in Robby’s tongue again. He so badly wanted to ask, but he could not for the life of him figure out how to broach the subject. Any of the subjects, when it came to it. It was a tricky business, trying to get Jack to open up. Robby didn’t envy his therapist.
Finally, Robby settled on, “Have you gotten any sleep?”
Jack shrugged, which Robby took to mean ‘no.’
“Unit 194 on 10-63.”
“10-63?” Robby asked.
“Lunch break. Or in this case I suppose it’d be dinner.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, dispatch needs to know they’re off duty for a bit.”
That made sense. Robby needed to know when his team went on their breaks, he should have realized other professions would have similar check-in requirements.
Enough beating around the bush. Robby mustered himself to begin the conversation.
“I read the chart notes on Damian Suarez.”
Jack stilled. From his position on Jack’s shoulder, Robby couldn’t read the emotion behind it.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I had to close it out.”
“Sorry, I forgot.”
Jack had never forgotten to close out a chart in all the time they’d worked together. It was the last thing he did before leaving, wrapping up anything he could and filling Robby in on all the rest. Robby did not believe for a moment that Jack had suddenly developed a memory disorder. Jack left it for him to read. Robby supposed he should be touched, but he couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been easier to simply explain Damian Suarez’s situation.
Robby waited, hoping that Jack would continue. After a moment, he was rewarded for his patience.
“Do you think there’s any chance he’ll make it?” Jack asked quietly.
Robby sighed. Honestly? No. But Jack would already know that. “I don’t know. Stranger things have happened.”
“Miracles and all that?” Jack’s hand rested heavily on Robby’s chest, atop the Star of David. Miracles. Sure.
“We’ve got to have hope, right? Or else what are we doing here?”
Jack hummed, but it didn’t feel like agreement.
Just then, Jack’s phone made an unfamiliar, trilling notification sound where it was plugged in on the bedside table. Jack made no move to check it.
“Chip is a good guy. We called him Chip, his name’s Joaquin. But I wasn’t…I wasn’t at my best when I knew him. Think I might’ve hurt him.”
“He didn’t seem to hold a grudge.”
“Nah he’s not the type.”
Jack’s phone made the strange sound again. Again, Jack did not react. Robby’s attention caught on Jack’s hand, still resting in the center of Robby’s chest.
“Didn’t stick, huh?” Robby asked.
“What?”
“Your ring.” Robby raised his hand to Jack’s and traced the band lightly. He felt Jack’s chest hitch through his shoulder.
It took a moment for Jack to gather himself enough to speak. “I loved her. I think I forgot to mention that in all the other…sometimes it’s hard to remember to say it. I’ve missed her longer than I loved her. But I did love her.”
“What was she like?”
Jack paused again. Maybe lost in memories or perhaps considering how to change the subject. Robby wasn’t sure he would get an answer.
“She was a librarian.”
For another moment, Robby thought that was all he was going to get.
“But, uh, she believed in things, you know? That kind of librarian. The kind that hosts programs for underprivileged kids. Tries to make a difference”
Robby felt Jack’s voice rumble through him as he spoke. It was soothing. Meditative. Lying there, feeling Jack speak, imagining this bright, wonderful woman who destroyed the Jack Abbot that was.
“She was amazing. She was kind. She was unpredictable, and energetic, and spontaneous. She had this brightness about her, lit up a room. She had a mean streak, though. I don’t want to make her out to be some…she was a person. A flawed, broken, wonderful person. My person. And I couldn’t save her. I don’t…I don’t know how to describe her.”
“I would’ve liked to meet her.”
“Yeah, the two of you would get along like a house on fire. She’d love you.”
Robby suspected the feeling would likely have been mutual, and, yet, somewhere deep within him, an ugly part of Robby wasn’t sure he could forgive the ghost of Elise Abbot. Robby wasn't proud of it.
“Do you think she’d find this weird? Us?” Jack asked.
“How would I know, I never knew her.”
“But, if it were you. Hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically, if I’d been your wife and died?”
Jack either didn’t register the incredulity in Robby’s tone or chose to ignore it. “Yeah.”
If it hadn’t been asked so earnestly, Robby would have brushed it off. It really, really wasn’t his place to say. To put words into a dead woman’s mouth. But Jack hadn’t asked the question with any of his usual caustic humor. He wanted a real answer, so Robby tried to give it.
“I think I’d be glad you had someone looking out for you. That you weren’t alone.”
A cynical part of Robby’s brain told him it was a lie. Honestly, if you’d asked the version of Robby that existed in 2001, the version that had not yet had the chance to grow as the world became a more accepting place, as he met friends and colleagues all over the gender and sexuality spectrums, he’d probably spout some ignorant bullshit. He certainly wouldn’t be here, curled up in bed with his male colleague.
Unless Elise was a much better person than Robby, there was a good chance she’d react badly. But Robby was hardly about to say that to Jack.
The two of them lapsed into silence again, broken only by the crackle of the police scanner.
“Responding to possible 2702, backup on standby.”
“2702?” Robby murmured.
Jack hesitated.
“10-47, dispatch, 10-47.”
“Copy, ETA 10 minutes.”
“Public drunkenness. Could you turn that thing off?” Jack asked.
It was only after Robby had turned the scanner off when it occurred to him that Jack lied. Robby let it go. He trusted Jack’s judgement as much as his own, and if Jack thought he’d be happier not knowing, Jack was probably right.
Robby returned to Jack’s side, letting out a breath as they fit back together. This time, Jack’s hand came to rest in Robby’s hair.
Jack had always been a tough nut to crack emotionally, but he’d never shied away from physical contact. At least, not from Robby. Fingers started absentmindedly twisting through Robby’s hair. It was a nice sensation; Robby leaned into the touch.
“I would’ve liked to meet her,” Robby repeated.
They lay in silence for another moment. Then Jack’s phone made the sound again.
“Do you need to get that?” Robby asked.
“Nah, it’s just Grindr.”
Robby’s brain, still off imagining Elise Abbot, took a moment to process the statement.
He might be old and out of touch with popular culture, but there were some things that had leaked into even his knowledge of the modern world. He knew Will Smith slapped someone at the Oscars. He’d listened to at least one Chappell Roan song. And he knew that Grindr was a hookup app for gay men.
Robby had known Jack for years. Surely, he’d have found out by now if Jack…if that…for fuck’s sake, they’d been sharing the same bed, Robby thought he would have noticed if Jack were entertaining other guests. But then, he did know Robby’s schedule…and the man was almost obsessively tidy…
“Grindr? You’re on Grindr?”
Jack twisted to watch his face carefully, not replying instantly.
“Do you…I mean, is this a usual pastime of yours?” Robby was trying to keep his tone as even as possible. It’s not like it was any of his business. Sure, it was information that one would generally expect to know about the person sleeping across from you, but Robby wasn’t entitled to that information. He couldn’t be upset by it.
The sound happened again. Okay, maybe Robby was upset by it. Maybe he wanted to chuck that phone out the window. Maybe. But he shouldn’t be, it was none of his business.
“Would it be a problem if it was?” Jack asked, which wasn’t a fucking answer to the question. Robby wished, not for the first time, that he could read Jack’s face better. The man hid everything behind that fucking mask of macho-military bullshit.
Robby bit back a flash of anger. “I’d probably want to know when you last changed your sheets.”
Jack had the fucking nerve to smirk at that. Robby was going to strangle him in his sleep.
“I downloaded it this morning. I was curious.”
“Curious?” Robby lost his restraint and snapped out the word. Still, it was a relief to know that this was a new development and not a consistent practice. “You’re curious about the sexual habits of gay men? We work in an ER.”
They’d discussed it before. Robby had made some joke about sexual injuries, and Jack pointed out that Robby missed the vast majority of them on the day shift. Jack knew things about the sex lives of the population of Pittsburgh that would make Freud blush.
Jack was still watching him, evenly. It was infuriating. “I tried Tinder first.”
If Jack thought that would be a comfort to Robby, he was mistaken. “If you want your bed back to have some fun, just say it.”
Jack’s hand stilled in Robby’s hair. “That’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you want, Jack? What the fuck are you doing, downloading Tinder and Grindr and practically making out in the middle of the ER with Chip or Joaquin or whatever the fuck his—”
“I didn’t make out with—”
Robby pushed himself up on an elbow to look Jack in the eye. “And your anniversary, and your ring, and your wife, and poor fucking Mohan, and now you’re telling me that you hurt Chip somehow, like that isn’t the vaguest, most ominous way of talking about it. What, did you cuddle up to him at night too until you got tired of him?”
Jack, fucking bastard that he was, let the corner of his mouth twitch, as if he were amused by something. As if any of this was fucking amusing. “Oh my god. You actually are jealous.”
“I’m not fucking—” Robby snapped his jaw shut. No answer to that statement was going to make him not sound jealous. It was a lose-lose. Jack was fully, openly smirking at him now. Fuck that guy. Robby rolled away from him.
“Hey, wait—”
Robby was on his feet, reaching for the clothes he’d abandoned on the floor. “No, no I hear you, loud and clear. You want to hit the apps, play the field; I’d just get in the way of that, so I’ll give you some space, shall I?”
Robby was half out of Jack’s shirt when Jack snapped, “Michael, will you sit the fuck down?”
Using his first name felt like a dirty trick. Jack said it so rarely. Robby stared at him, breathing a bit too heavily, Jack’s shirt pulled halfway off around his forearms. Soft underbelly exposed.
“Why?”
All traces of smirk had disappeared from Jack’s face as he looked up through his eyebrows at Robby. There was a gentleness in his hazel eyes that he usually reserved for patients, and somehow the thought that Jack was treating him like a patient just enraged Robby further.
Jack opened his mouth to say something, but Robby cut him off, chucking the shirt at him. “You can be a real twisted fuck, you know that?”
“Yeah, of course I know. Please don’t—”
Robby struggled with his cargo pants. One of the legs was inside out and the fabric seemed dead set on forcing him to stay.
“Please don’t leave.”
Jack stood. His prosthetic was still somewhere over by the nightstand, so he couldn’t step towards Robby. He wouldn’t be able to stop Robby if he tried to leave. He simply stood in front of him, and for the first time Robby could remember, Jack Abbot asked him for something.
“Please stay?”
Robby bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to bolt. He wanted to get the hell out of dodge, but he didn’t. Jack held out the shirt.
“I don’t need your fucking shirt,” Robby snapped. Jack lowered his hand. "I don't get you sometimes, Jack, I really don't. It's like you make problems for yourself just for the hell of it. Like you don't know who you are without the fight. You're never not at war. You hate the war. You hate the war but you keep it going in your head just because you're fucking scared of what happens when it stops."
If there was any line left between them, anything still to be crossed, Robby had crossed it now. He knew that. And yet, despite all the rage Robby threw at him, Jack just accepted the vitriol with a slight nod.
“Will you come back to bed?” Jack asked, quietly.
“Give me one good reason.”
Jack sighed. “If I delete Grindr, will you come back to bed?”
“It’s not about—its none of my business who you fuck.”
“Sure it is.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Robby still stripped bare in his boxers, everything on the line.
Jack swallowed and continued, “It could be your business. If you wanted it to be.”
Just what the hell was that supposed to mean? Robby took a step forward without thinking. He absently wished he was wearing his glasses, to see Jack’s face clearer up close. As if any amount of magnification could help him decipher Jack’s expressions.
For another first in their relationship, Jack broke eye contact before Robby did. “What do you want, Robby? Do you want a girlfriend? A wife? Standard nuclear family? ‘Cause you aren’t gonna get that by ending up here every night.” Jack spoke in the general direction of Robby’s collar bones. Robby found himself missing the intense scrutiny of Jack’s eyes.
“I won’t drag you down,” Jack said, “You should get away from me. Put yourself out there, get back with Collins or find a new person or…or something, man, just save yourself while you can.”
“I thought you wanted me to stay.”
“It isn’t about what I want.”
“What do you want?” Robby asked.
“Fuck off, I asked first.”
What did Robby want? Honestly? Robby wanted to erase the whole conversation and go back to normal. He wanted to go back to the start and turn off the police scanner without asking about it, crawl into Jack’s bed, curl around him and fall asleep like that. He wanted nothing to change, nothing substantial anyway. He wanted to forget about Chip. He wanted Grindr to shut the fuck up.
Finally, Robby forced out something close to the truth. “I just want this. Whatever the fuck this is.”
Without another breath, Jack surged forward, closing the distance between them as if he’d just been waiting for permission, and pressed his lips to Robby’s. Robby caught him on instinct, hands finding the stubble of Jack’s beard as their faces met.
Robby would have thought it would feel strange, kissing a man. Kissing Jack.
It didn’t.
It felt familiar. It was just Jack. The man he’d slept next to half the week for the past year. The man who could fall into place beside him in any crisis without a word, finish his thoughts, anticipate his every move. The man who may not have been able to save his wife, but he sure as hell brought Robby back from the same ledge.
It should have been strange kissing him, but it was no stranger than wearing his shirt.
Jack pulled away. It was a short kiss. Quick. Chaste. Experimental. Jack searched Robby’s face for a reaction.
“So we’re doing that now?” Robby asked, for lack of a better idea.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“Not at work.”
“No,” Jack agreed.
Robby’s hands lingered on the sides of Jack’s face, holding him there, a few inches away. “But here…Sure. It’s nice.”
Jack’s phone trilled that stupid fucking sound again.
“Jesus fucking—” Jack said at the same time Robby said, “I’m going to break that thing.”
“I’ll delete it. I don’t need that shit, I just…I just wanted to know if it was something I still itched for. But it’s not, it hasn’t been for a year. This is good. If this is what you want, then this is good.”
Jack had his hands at Robby’s waist, another thing that should have been weird especially considering Robby’s waist was both currently unclothed and extra padded in a way the kids these days might describe as a dad bod. But it was just Jack. Jack’s hands. Familiar, steady, and comforting.
Besides, Jack was probably half only using him for stability, balancing on one leg as he was.
“You never answered the question," Robby said, "What do you want?”
Jack opened his mouth, about to answer, when he surprised them both with a bark of a laugh.
"What?" Robby asked, unsettled.
"I just realized that rat bastard Derek is going to be so fuckin' smug."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Definition of settling down. Fuck. Never mind, don't worry about it. You asked me what I want?"
Robby was growing tired of these evasions. "What do you want, Jack?"
Jack finally, finally, gave him an answer. “I want you to stay.”
Robby stayed.
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