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To say that Robby is exhausted would possibly be the greatest understatement of the century. Exhaustion, physical, mental, spiritual… it all hangs on him, sitting on his shoulders and weighing him down. He’s not sure how much further he can go before he can’t carry it any longer.
And he’s not sure what’s going to happen when he can’t.
But he’s way too tired to even go down that road right now. The adrenaline that has been carrying him the last few hours of the shift has finally started to wane, leaving him flagging halfway through his walk home. And he’s dead on his feet, ready to just slide down to the floor when the door to his apartment closes behind him. He doesn’t, no matter how nice it sounds to pass out right then and there after the fifteen hour shift from hell.
With a weary sigh, he pops his airpods back into their case, and immediately the quiet of the dark apartment crowds in on him and threatens his already tenuous grasp of what's left of his sanity. With no distractions to keep his mind off everything that went wrong today, those thoughts are ready to come creeping back.
And it would be even easier to let himself sink into it again. To go back to the dark, festering part of his mind that catalogue all of the loses. Instead he drops his bag unceremoniously to the floor, and reaches for the dusty bottle of whiskey in the cabinet. He pours himself a drink and downs it in one smooth gulp, savoring the burn as it goes down his throat, the same with a second. The third he picks up and carries with him to the bathroom.
As much as he’d love to go to bed, and sleep for what he hopes is the next twelve hours, maybe more, he does need to shower. He squints against the brightness of the bathroom light when he flips the switch. As his eyes slowly adjust to the light, he takes a sip of his drink and sets it on the counter with a gentle clink. He almost doesn’t recognize himself when hef finally looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes are red and just a little puffy, both from crying and exhaustion, and he looks like hasn’t slept in days.
And well, he hasn’t, if he’s honest. He hasn’t slept well for weeks, he never does when it gets close to the date Adamson died.
Striping off his clothes feels like peeling off a scab, leaving him feeling vulnerable in the small room. He chases that feeling away with the rest of the whiskey in the glass, the liquor helping to boost the little buzz he’d gotten from the post-shift beer, all in the hope to remove himself from his emotions for a little while.
Just to feel numb and detached from it all.
Robby goes through the motions of the shower, standing under the stream of water, hot enough to scald his skin to a bright pink. But the heat soothes the aches from the day, and at this point he’ll take whatever relief he can get.
When he’s had enough, he dries off and slinks to his bedroom with the towel slung around his hips. He finds a pair of basketball shorts that are clean enough to throw on before collapsing face first into his pillow.
He heaves a relieved sigh, his body and mind rejoicing at finally, finally being horizontal. The pillow is blessed cool against his skin, overheated from the shower. There’s a tiny, frankly annoying, voice in his head saying that he should get back up and eat something before he sleeps.
Even the idea of ingesting anything is enough to make his stomach do flips in response, so it’s really not hard to stomp down that particular train of thought. That will just have to be a problem for future Robby to deal with.
As it is, he barely has the energy to blindly reach for the blanket that’s bunched up against the wall and pull it over himself. With a sigh, he sinks further into the mattress, and while he really thought, hoped, that he would be able to fall asleep quickly, but he can’t say that he’s too surprised when he ends up laying there, unable to sleep at all.
It’s cool, dark, and quiet, save for the slow hum of a fan, perfect sleeping conditions. But with nothing to distract himself with, he can’t stop his mind from running a mile a minute, over thinking every thing that happened at work today.
There was so much loss today. Too many lives, snuffed out way before their times. And has Robby tosses and turns, trying to find a comfortable position, he can’t help but think about things he might have done to change the outcomes.
He recounts every case, every death.
The screams of parents who have lost their only child.
The pain of children not yet ready to say goodbye to their parent.
Everyone from Pittfest… the sheer terror that filled the emergency department…
And just like that, the next breath he tries to take gets stuck and it feels like all the air is sucked from the room. He blinks and he’s right back in The Pitt, coding the girl he spoke to on the phone just a couple hours prior, when she was happy and healthy and whole.
He closes his eyes and he can feel Leah’s lifeless body under his hands, slippery with blood that flows from her wounds now matter how fast they pumped it in.
“Fuck.” Robby says to himself, his voice wet sounding to his own ears. He grinds the palms of his hands into his eyes, until he sees stars. “Fuck.”
If he had just kept trying maybe it could have been different. One more precious bag of blood, a few more minutes of CPR, and then maybe, maybe, maybe…
Maybe if he hadn’t given his ticket to her…
Maybe it would have been him in her place instead…
Maybe it should have been…
A sob burst out of him, tears leaking from his eyes and soaking into his pillow. He lets himself curl into a ball then, and just cry.
He’s not entirely sure how long he lies there, sniffling, the wet spot on his pillow growling bigger and bigger, but at a certain point it becomes unbearable, he’ll really drown here if he lets himself.
“Fuck it.” he mutters to himself, slipping out of bed with a wet, congested sniffle. He wipes his eyes, pulls on a baggy hoodie, slips on a pair of shoes and leaves, spilling out into the night. If he can’t sleep, he might as well go for a walk.
He lets his feet carry him on muscle memory alone, down streets lit by the street lights and dark alleyways. After walking for a while, he almost wishes that he’d put on a pair of sweatpants. It’s unseasonably cold tonight and the breeze is making goose bumps erupt over his legs.
Before he knows it, Robby finds himself at Jack’s door. It’s not the first time he’s found himself here, especially after a rough shift. And he’s sure it won’t be his last. They’ve had a thing, he’s refused to give it a proper name for years, and it wouldn’t feel right to do it now. Some might say it’s a friends with benefits situation, but to Robby that didn’t feel right. But it didn’t change the fact that they had a thing, dancing around each other for years. Talking each other down, pulling each other up, blowing off steam when they need to.
It worked, what they had.
But still, as soon as his knuckles make contact with the wood, the knock echoing unnaturally loud, guilt crashes into him. Jack had the same night that he just had, what right does Robby have to just show up at his doorstep, looking for…
He’s not even sure what he’s looking for exactly.
Company? Comfort? A distraction?
Frankly, doesn't deserve whatever he thinks he needs, and he sure as hell shouldn’t be bothering Jack with it. Not tonight.
God he doesn’t even know what time it is. He left his watch and his phone on the counter back at his place.
But he knows that it’s late, ungodly late. And after the night they had, Jack might actually be asleep again.
Instead of waiting, he turns his back and…
The creak of a door opening cuts through the silence.
“Mike?”
Robby freezes, hunches his shoulders, making himself look impossibly small as he slowly turns back.
“Jack.” He says, hoping he doesn’t come off as pathetic as he feels. “Um, look, I’m sorry, if you were sleeping, but I uh, I couldn’t sleep and you know how it is.”
“Yeah, yeah I do.” Jack quickly looks Robby up and down. He can’t believe that he somehow looks even worse than when they left PTMC a few hours ago. Jack can tell that he’s been crying, his eyes are a tell tale red, that he’s all too familiar with. Not to mention the bags under his eyes are the biggest he’s ever seen on Robby, in all the year’s he’s known the man. He looks more than exhausted. “Come on, get in here.”
“Sorry.” Robby mutters again as he slips inside, guilt compounding when he notices that Jack’s using his crutches. “Didn’t mean to disturb your night.”
“Don’t worry about it, man, I was still up.” Jack says, his brain going into overdrive, performing complex mental calculations on how to best handle this situation and what exactly Robby needs from him. “So, did you decide that you actually wanna talk about it, or are you feeling more solution oriented about your predicament?”
Robby sighs, coming to a stop in the middle of the small living room. Jack’s place always felt more cozy than his own, and it still holds true. The room is lit by a warm yellow glow from the lamp, the TV is on, playing reruns of mash. It’s warm and inviting and…
And Robby is still not sure why he felt the need to come here tonight.
“I don’t know.” Is all he can get out, and even those words feel like they’re going to get lodged in his throat. He listens as Jack moves behind him, the smallest sound of rubber making contact with the hardwood floor.
“This isn’t a booty call is it?” Jack asks, leaning one of his crutches against the couch to place his hand on Robby’s shoulder. He feels great for a fraction of a second, because that little joke does manage to get a small laugh out of Robby. He thinks that he can definitely talk Robby back from whatever breakdown he’s on the precipice of, just like the roof.
That is until the laugh turns into a full sob, that seems to take the both of them by surprise.
“Shit.” Robby gasps, twisting away from Jack, shrugging the hand off his shoulder as if it burned. “I’m fine, I’m okay.”
”No offense man,” Jack says, watching as Robby furiously wipes at his eyes, as if that will erase the evidence of his crying. “You are maybe the least fine you have ever been, which is saying a lot.”
“You know, it’s fine, that you’re not fine.” Jack says, continuing to speak when Robby remains quiet, because what else is he supposed to do? “No one would blame you, man. Hell, there isn’t anyone in the world that would be good after a night like that.”
Robby just shakes his head, his face buried in his hands.
“D’you hear me, Mike?” Jack says, putting his hand back on Robby’s shoulder again. “Look at me.”
Robby sighs heavily, Jack feels him shiver under his palm. He half expects Robby to walk away, but he’s pleasantly surprised when Robby turns, dragging his hands down his face as he does.
What he isn’t prepared for is for this man, sniffling, wet tracks down his cheeks, looking pathetic as hell, to push forward, closing the short distance between them, and kiss him square on the lips.
It’s easy to fall into it, to lean in and kiss back, parting his lips when Robby’s tongue swipes across them. And this is a Robby he knows how to handle with clear needs, but it only takes a fraction of a second for his mind to catch up to his body and remember that Robby was on his way to another breakdown just a second ago and that this may not be the best course of action.
It still takes more willpower than he’d like to admit to pull away, pushing Robby back with a hand on his chest.
“Stop it, just hold on for a sec,” Jack says, looking into Robby’s red rimmed, wet eyes. “Is this a really good idea right now?”
“Jack,” Robby whispers, working hard to keep his voice from trembling as he stares into Jack’s eyes. He grabs his hip, digs his fingers in. “Please, please just let me have this. Let me have something good tonight.”
Robby asking for what he wants, well, it makes it hard to resist the urge to give in and give it to him. In fact, with the way Robby is looking at him right now, he’d probably give him anything.
With a tilt of his head, Jack slides his hand from Robby’s chest up to rest of his cheek, and his heart pangs with the way Robby presses into it.
“Okay, yeah, anything you want.” Jack mutters quietly, just between the two of them, as he thumbs away a tear that escapes in that moment. He knows that this is probably, no, it’s definitely not a good idea. But Robby is a grown man, and so is he.
They can deal with the fall out later.
With a smirk Jack pushes Robby backwards, just enough that he falls back to sit on the couch. He drops his remaining crutch, clattering to the ground loud enough that he’d probably be hearing it from the neighbors later. But he doesn’t have the time to care about that right now.
“Comfortable?” he asks, as he climbs onto Robby’s lap. He gets his answer in Robby’s hands finding their place back on him, quickly sliding their way under his shirt and to his skin. Robby just nods, still looking up at him, eyes shining and pleading, like Jack could make everything better.
And for Robby, he would fucking try.
Straddling his thighs, Jack kisses Robby, licking his way into his mouth, their tongues sliding together like silk. He tastes faintly of salt and a hint of whiskey. He runs his own hands up Robby’s chest, feeling the lithe muscle under the soft fabric of his tee shirt. He squeezes his pecs and feels Robby squirm underneath him.
“That feels good, doesn’t it.” Jack whispers.
Wanting to tease more out of him, Jack threads his fingers up into Robby’s short hair, dragging his nails along his scalp, smirking against Robby’s lips when it earns him a soft gasp.
“You know, I've always loved the little sounds you make for me.” Jack says, nuzzling into the side of Robby’s neck. Without warning, he grabs Robby’s hair and pulls, pulling his head to the side, giving him the perfect spot to sink his teeth, and Robby moans under him, his hips jerking under him searching for contact and nails dragging down his back. “Just like that.” Jack nearly moans back in response against Robby’s skin, grinding his ass down.
“Jack,” Robby snaps, quickly grabbing Jack around the waist and flipping their positions with Jack pinned and pressed into the couch cushions. Robby makes sure that he’s got one of his knees between Jack’s legs, applying just enough pressure to the bulge growing between his legs as he leans in. “Do you ever shut the fuck up?”
“How ‘bout you make me?” Jack says, like it’s a challenge. “Wait, wait, hold on, before you do anything, hand me that pillow?”
“Really?” Robby grabs the pillow and watches fondly as Jack tucks it under his head
“Okay, that’s better, you may continue.”
Robby can only roll his eyes, but he doesn’t waste any time as he dips down and starts kissing Jack’s neck, sighing as Jack’s hands roaming over his back, one wandering back into his hair, and that sends shivers down his spine.
“That’s it,” Jack continues to talk, encouraging Robby to take what he wants, drinking up the groan that kicks out of Robby when he rolls his hip up, grinding their clothed dicks together. “How do you want this to go?”
Robby pulls away, meeting his gaze, with pupil blown wide as he shimmies his shorts down just enough to free his cock and unceremoniously shoves Jack’s sleep pants down far enough to to wrap his hand around his dick.
“Fast and easy, then.” Jack signs with Robby’s first tentative stroke, quickly getting the picture. He pulls Robby back down into a forceful kiss while he shoves his other hand between them to wrap around Robby’s cock.
It only takes a second for the two of them to find a rhythm, hips moving in time with each other's hands as they fall in sync. Jack can feel Robby’s breaths, hot against his neck coming quicker and quicker, his movements getting jerkier.
“That’s good, Mike,” Jack pants, he can tell that Robby is close already. With a few more tugs, and well practiced twists, Robby tenses on top of him, his face buried in his neck as he comes, his hips grinding slowly into Jack’s fist. He knows that there’s a mess on his shirt now, but he’s not too pressed about it. “That’s real fuckin’ good.”
He’s about to ask Robby to keep going, because he’d like to come to, but before he can even open his mouth, Robby’s heaving breaths shift into heaving sobs. Jack would like to say that he’s shocked, but this is right on par of Robby, if he’s being honest.
“It’s okay,” Jack whispers, wrapping his arms around Robby as he chokes on a heaving breath, rubbing his hand steadily up and down his spine, applying pressure. “Just get it out, man, let it all out.”
Robby mumbles something that he can’t quite make out with his face pressed into his shoulder.
“What?”
A sniffle, and shaky breath as Robby turns his head. “Shoulda been me. It should have been me.”
“Still don’t know what you mean, man.”
“The girl, Leah. I gave… I gave her my ticket to Pittfest. I was supposed to be there with Jake, not her.”
Everything about that specific part of the night was starting to make a lot more sense now.
“You know that isn’t how it works.” Jack says, his voice soft in the quiet of the apartment. His heart is breaking for Robby right now. “You have no way of knowing what would have happened if you’d gone instead.”
“If I had just gone, then she’d still be alive at least, and Jake…”
“Maybe Jake would have been the one to die, Mike.” Jack snaps. He hates saying it, the last thing he wants to do is to put anything else out there for Robby’s head to use against him. But he needs to hear it. “You can’t know what would have happened differently, so there is no use in dwelling on it, so stop it already.
Jack lets Robby get it all out of his system, crying until he can feel a gigantic wet patch against his chest and shoulder. He rubs Robby’s back, slow and steady, the entire time, whispering the occasional comforting word here and there.
They lie there until Robby calms down, laying like a full dead weight on top of him. He’s actually pretty sure that Robby’s cried himself to sleep, with how his breath seems to have evened out and slowed down.
Jack lies there, in comfortable silence, even though their dicks are still out and Robby’s cum is drying between them. He contemplates the pros of letting Robby sleep on top of him like this, versus the consequences of sleeping on the couch.
On one hand, if Robby was actually asleep, he’d feel awful waking him up when he so clearly needed the rest. And it’s not like holding Robby as he sleeps is a hardship.
But on the other hand, neither of them were going to be happy tomorrow if they both slept on the couch, when they woke up with sore backs. He could already feel his hip aching from the pressure of Robby on top of him.
“Hey,” Jack whispers, gently scratching his nails down Robby’s back. “It’s time to wake up.”
“M’not sleepin’.” Robby mumbles, not lifing his head. In fact, he snuggles in even closer.
“You could have fooled me,” Jack says with a small laugh. “Seriously though, you’re heavy, you gotta let me up.”
Robby groans about it, but he slowly extricates himself from Jack’s arms, reluctantly, since he had been just on the edge of sleep, finally. But he sits down, quickly adjusting himself back into his shorts. He feels a little like he’s floating as he sits back and closes his eyes.
His head feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton, and his eyes feel swollen, but he does feel a little bit better, after… whatever all that was.
Robby lies there, drifting on the edge of consciousness, until he feels a nudge against his leg. He cracks his eyes open to see Jack standing in front of him, shirt changed and prosthetic back in place.
“Hey, have you eaten anything since we left?”
Robby shakes his head as he sits forward. “I should probably go.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Jack says, walking towards the kitchen. “You are spending the night, whether you like it or not. Come on.”
Robby watches Jack go, and really contemplates getting up and leaving. He’s thoroughly embarrassed himself, though Jack doesn’t seem to care. He could probably sneak out, he’s never actually spent the night here before.
They always leave when they’re done, it’s just easier that way.
He looks at the door and his heart just isn’t in it. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to be alone. Instead he gets up and heads into the kitchen.
“Sit down.” Jack says, leaving no room for argument.
“Hey, um, I'm sorry, about all of that.” Robby says, his eyes fixed on the table, but they jump up as soon as a chair pulls out, the legs scraping against the tile floor. Jack sits across from him, holding an apple in one hand and a knife in the other. He watches, entranced as he often is, by Jack’s hands and the way the muscles in his arms flex as he slices into the golden yellow apple.
“You don’t have to apologize for nothing, man.” Jack says, holding out the apple slice against the knife for Robby to take.
“At least let me say sorry for leaving you hanging.” Robby says, cringing just thinking about it, not usually one to start crying after sex.
“For the last time, just stop saying you're sorry. I don’t care.” Jack cuts another slice as soon as Robby has finished off the first. “It doesn’t matter to me. You feelin’ better?”
“A little.”
“Then it’s all fine.” Jack says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “It’s all good.”
They sit in silence for a little bit, Robby eats the entire apple in little slices, and he does feel better for it.
“You really should talk, if not to my therapist, then to someone.” Jack says, getting serious again. “I mean it, you’ve been going like this for a long time and we both know that this, it’s just not sustainable. I worry about you.”
Robby frowns, turns his eyes back to the table as shame washes over him, because Jack’s right, and he’s also known it for a long time.
It doesn’t make it any easier to accept though
“Yeah, maybe.”
“It’s not perfect, the talking and shit, and i’ll be honest, sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.” Jack says. “But it does help, as much as you let it.”
“I’ll give it a shot” Robby slowly looks up, making eye contact with Jack, his eyes sting a little, tears once again threatening to spill, but he blinks them away. He has cried enough tonight. “I’m not making any promises, but I’ll try.”
“That’s all I'm askin’ of you.”