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Robby should not be here.
Not only should he not be here—it's a terrible, maybe catastrophic idea, that he's here, in a half-seedy, half-okay bar, the night before his very first shift in an actual hospital.
He hears his grandmother's voice in his head, admonishing him, reminding him that he has to be good. Hears his own voice, telling himself he doesn't have to be good: he has to be perfect.
But it's like something else has taken over tonight.
The accumulated stress, maybe, or the nerves, or the wild desire to not be Michael Robinavitch.
To not carry the weight of being the good Jewish boy who comes from a rough neighborhood—Glen Hazel, you know, he's one of those—but has potential, because he's going to be a doctor, haven't you heard?
So he's nowhere where he might be recognized—nowhere near Glen Hazel or Hazelwood or Squirrel Hill—he crossed the river, told himself all he was doing was familiarizing himself with the whereabouts of the hospital where he's supposed to start tomorrow, but he didn't even make it to PTMC.
Instead, he's here, alone in a dimly lit bar, staring down at a glass of extremely low shelf bourbon and trying desperately to make his brain stop, just for once.
"I'd offer to buy you another one, but I'm not sure I can be responsible for the onset blindness if you drink more of that shit."
Robby glances up, startled, to meet warm, hazel eyes intently focused on him.
The man is shorter than Robby, but he has wide, defined shoulders and really perfect forearms that Robby can't help but notice, and there's something about him that takes up space, that demands attention.
He's a little mesmerizing, honestly, which is why Robby can't understand why the guy's talking to him, of all people.
Not when Robby's made something of a habit of taking up less space, being less noticeable, especially after he hit a growth spurt when he was a teenager and kind of kept growing.
The look in the man's eyes shifts the longer Robby stays silent. Robby can see it going from interested to disappointed, and before he even realizes he's speaking, the words are out of his mouth.
"So buy me a better drink."
The man grins, and Robby feels the smile in his solar plexus. Is it weird he's having a little trouble breathing? He's going to be a doctor, in theory—he should know this, right?
"Okay, fair enough," the guy says, gesturing to the bartender in a way that apparently ensures Robby's horrible bourbon gets replaced by less-horrible bourbon.
It's fast and strangely competent and Robby feels a little hot under the collar about it, which he tries to chalk down to the fact that he's a med student and hasn't gotten laid in way too long.
But then the man turns back to look at him, raising his own drink in a toast, and, no. It's not just that Robby is horny. They guy really is that hot.
"Do I get a name, now that I've saved your eyes and other major motor functions from alcohol poisoning?"
"Um. Robby. My name's Robby."
The guy raises his eyebrows—was he expecting another name? Does Robby not look like a Robby?—but leans a little closer.
"Well, Robby, I'm Jack," he says. "And feel free to throw that drink I just bought you at my face if I'm reading this totally wrong, but I'd love to take you back to my place."
Robby stares at Jack for a beat, and without letting himself think about bad ideas, or being good, or being perfect, throws back the bourbon—it was definitely better than what he got for himself, the burn in his throat is warm instead of acidic—and he stands up.
"Lead the way."
They leave the bar walking close together but not touching. Maybe it's to give them plausible deniability but all it does is make Robby feel like the scant inches between their arms are magnetized somehow, that the heat of Jack behind him, close but not too close, is scorching.
The walk feels interminable even though it can't be more than two blocks, maybe three, and then Jack is leading Robby into a small building, up some stairs with fairly dismal lighting—saying off-hand, "Sorry, elevator's been broken for, uh. Always."—and finally into a studio apartment that Robby barely has a chance to take in before Jack is pushing him against the closed door and leaning up for a long, deep kiss.
Robby kisses back, feels himself melt into the kiss, into Jack's strong arms, thoughts empty of anything but the way Jack's hands are clutching his hips and one of his thighs is between Robby's legs, pressing against Robby's dick.
One of Jack's hand travels up from Robby's waist to the back of his neck and then to his hair, clutching it hard, and it makes Robby moan loudly.
"Oh, you like that, huh?" Jack says, voice low, pleased. "What about getting on your knees for me while I keep a hold of your hair, would you like that, too?"
And Robby doesn't even think about it, he's kneeling almost before Jack's finished speaking, glancing up for further direction.
"Fuck, what am I going to do with you?" Jack asks, releasing Robby's hair for a moment to unbutton his jeans, and a zing of satisfaction goes through Robby when he sees his hands are shaking slightly.
They haven't exchanged anything but names, Robby knows nothing about Jack except that he's gorgeous and intense and has perfect arms, but there's something about him.
So Robby replies, "Anything you want," means it, and takes Jack's dick into his mouth as deep as he can, desperate to feel the weight of it, to nearly choke.
"Fuck me," Jack hisses, one hand back to clutching Robby's hair, the other on the side of his jaw, incongruously tender.
Robby hasn't done all that much with girls or with guys—too nerdy, then too shy, and then too busy—but this isn't the first time he's had a dick in his mouth and he tries every possible thing he learned to make it good for Jack, letting himself get lost in the rhythm, in the pleasure-pain of it.
Jack pulls him back after a while, says, "Wait, wait, I'm about to come and unless you have a different plan, I'd really like to fuck you."
"I'd like that," Robby replies, hoarse.
"Good," Jack says, smiling, and it's the same smile from the bar, the one that left Robby a little breathless, but it's more intimate, somehow—it feels, for no real reason Robby can pinpoint, like it's a smile created just for Robby, just now.
Jack leans down a bit, helps Robby up and braces him while the feeling comes back to his legs, warm hands running under his shirt and across his back and up his shoulders the whole time, like Jack is making sure Robby's okay, or maybe that Robby's real.
Robby hasn't ever felt more real, he doesn't think—it's like Jack's hands are creating him, defining him, as they sweep across his body, and Robby wants more of it, so he grabs the neck of his t-shirt and pulls it off unceremoniously.
Jack hums, pleased, and leans in to kiss Robby's newly uncovered chest, sweeps a hand down Robby's stomach and then keeps going, until he's rubbing Robby's dick over his pants, and, fuck, Robby might just come like this.
"Your shirt, too," he manages to say, starts pulling at Jack's shirt without too much coordination until Jack gets with the program, leans back a little and takes it off.
And, fuck, if Jack's arms are perfect, the rest of him is a work of art—his abs and chest sharply defined, his shoulders thick with muscle—so it takes Robby more than a few seconds to clock the dog tags.
He wonders if he should ask, say something, but he has no idea what, and before he can come up with anything Jack's pushing him impatiently further into the apartment, presumably to an actual piece of furniture.
It winds up being Jack's bed, because the apartment really isn't too big, and Robby thoroughly enjoys how Jack pushes him down onto it, giving him a deep, fast kiss, before pulling back to take Robby's pants off.
"Jesus, you're all leg," Jack says, running an appreciative hand down one of Robby's aforementioned legs and making him shiver.
"Yeah, and would you maybe want to get between them already?" Robby asks, impatient, because at this point he's far too turned on to even try to filter himself.
Jack huffs out a laugh but takes a small step back to finish taking off his jeans and collect lube and a few condoms from the small nightstand, and then he's finally between Robby's legs, pressing him down into the mattress for a kiss so thorough Robby loses a bit of time.
He feels outside of his body but also entirely in it, every nerve and tissue and muscle lit up and reacting to Jack's steady, warm hands, his fingers opening Robby up, his dick pushing into Robby one perfect inch at a time.
They find a rhythm soon enough, and Robby already wants more, wants again, even as Jack's fucking him, and maybe it's the accumulated sleep deprivation of med school or the fear of facing his first day in-hospital tomorrow, but maybe it's not.
Maybe it's Jack, maybe it's the alchemy of Jack and Robby and what their bodies are doing right now.
Jack pushes in deeper, harder, and Robby takes it, nods quickly at Jack's whispered, "Okay?", rubs against the hand that cups his cheek, feels utterly skin-drunk.
Robby comes first, spurting between their joined bodies, and when he feels Jack pull back he clutches him closer, harder, and after two, three thrusts, he feels Jack coming inside him.
The sound of their breathing—nearly in sync—feels incredibly loud, suddenly, and Robby can't make himself move, can't fathom letting Jack go.
They lie quietly together for a moment, just looking at each other, and Robby has the overwhelming certainty that this staring is even more intimate than fucking had been just a minute ago.
Eventually the reality of their bodies intrudes, and Jack pulls out slowly, mindlessly running a soothing hand down Robby's flank when Robby hisses a little.
Robby feels unmoored, can't make himself do anything but look at Jack's shadowy shape moving efficiently around the small studio space, getting a washcloth, grabbing water, and he quietly, contentedly submits to being cleaned up, forced to drink half a glass, and then manhandled into the sheets.
He closes his eyes; he falls asleep.
Something wakes him up, an indeterminate amount of time later.
Maybe Jack shifting in his sleep, maybe a loud neighbor down the hall coming in late.
It's still nighttime, but probably closer to dawn than not, and the peace Robby felt in Jack's arms, surrounded by Jack's body, vanishes in a single thought.
My first shift at a hospital is tomorrow.
It's a terrifying, sleep-banishing realization, and before he can think too much about it, Robby inches out of Jack's hold and gets out of the bed.
Jack shifts again, a slight frown marring his face, but he doesn't wake up.
Robby stares at him for a little longer than he should, regretful, wishing he could be the kind of guy to say fuck it, the kind of guy who'd show up straight from here to their very first day of MS3 in a hospital in yesterday's clothes and the tacky feeling of sweat and lube on his skin.
But whoever Robby was able to be tonight, with Jack, he's right back to being Michael Robinavitch—good Jewish boy, responsible, a little quiet, but he's going to be a doctor, you know?—and so he gets quietly dressed in the dark, steps out of Jack's apartment, and makes his way home.
He doesn't regret tonight—he couldn't—but as his steps take him closer back to his own place he's already filing it away and closing the chapter, letting it become a perfect memory he'll take out and revisit every once in a while, full of wonder and longing.
And then, of course, he sees Jack the next day at PTMC, about twenty minutes into his shift.
Robby's in the middle of a fast-paced, slightly hectic tour of the ED given by the one of the senior residents, Adamson, when he spots him: wearing scrubs, talking to a patient, and it takes everything he has to keep himself from reacting.
"Ah, and here—this is Jack Abbot, MS4, doing a rotation with us between deployments," Adamson says. "We're hopeful the US Army won't see fit to give him orders before he completes his education."
Jack gives a rueful shrug, says, "Not really up to me, Dr. Adamson, but I definitely wouldn't complain," and then he finally looks at the gaggle of MS3s, sees Robby, and does nothing.
Doesn't raise his eyebrows, doesn't pause, doesn't even stop writing on the little notebook in his hand.
It's like Robby's a stranger.
And, well. Maybe Robby is.
Even more than a little sleep-deprived, Robby knows he looks totally different this morning than he did last night: he took painstaking care to look as professional as possible, to look like the sort of person that can be trusted with people's lives even if at this point he's only going to be trusted with taking their urine samples.
Jack doesn't really look like the guy who bought Robby a drink last night, either—there's no insouciant grin, no heat in his eyes—and it occurs to Robby that he never considered just how much Jack had drunk, before approaching Robby.
He never thought about whether Robby was the first choice for Jack, in offering that drink, or just the first one to accept it.
It hurts, even though it shouldn't, even though Robby's the one who walked out.
It's just that the idea that last night was nothing to Jack, worse than nothing—a drunken blank—it's intolerable.
But it's Robby's first day as an MS3, and he knows he's probably going to have to learn to tolerate much, much more, so he swallows, buries his disappointment as deep as he can, and focuses on Adamson's words for the rest of the tour.
He can act like Jack's a stranger, too. He has to.
The rest of his first day doesn't have any similar surprises, but it's still one of the most intense days of Robby's life.
The ED is non-stop: Robby goes from drawing blood to taking a patient's history to doing chest compressions to pretending he totally believes that someone just tripped ass-down onto a cucumber to doing sutures and to being carefully, patiently coached while he intubates an actual human being.
By the time his shift is over, Robby is shatteringly, completely exhausted, and utterly transformed.
He bumps into Jack—Abbot—by the lockers, and reminds himself to nod calmly, reminds himself they're strangers.
"How was the first day, then?"
Robby glances up from his locker, and Abbot's looking at him with raised eyebrows, apparently genuinely interested.
"I think I stopped feeling my feet like three hours ago," Robby replies, honestly. "And I think I want to specialize in emergency medicine."
Abbot tilts his head, narrows his eyes a little, evaluating. Then he nods, expression resolving into a quicksilver smile, and he says, "Welcome to the club."
And Robby thinks—they're strangers, yeah. But that doesn't mean they can't become friends.
So they do.
"I can't believe we're having the ED Christmas party here," Mohan says, looking around the bar with trepidation.
"Hey, now, this is a true Pittsburgh institution," Jack says, mock-offended. "I lived around the corner from here years ago, actually, spent quite a few good nights in this place."
"If only they'd cleaned since then," Ellis puts in, voice deadpan.
It's not far from what Robby was thinking, actually, but he hadn't dared say it out loud. The decor in the place is stuck way, way back in the mid-eighties, and Robby's pretty sure he sat in the exact same stool by the bar when he came here the night before his first ever shift at PTMC, because the leather is cracked in the same way.
He deliberately forces himself away from remembering anything else that happened that night, the same way he's done reflexively for years, because that way lies madness.
Or at least the beginning of a very maudlin night.
And now, some four months after Pittfest and at least three months into finally finding a therapist he sort of, mostly, most of the time, feels okay with, Robby takes a deep breath. His team doesn't deserve a maudlin night. He doesn't deserve a maudlin night.
So he focuses on the here and now.
Which is apparently Jack trying to sell an extremely dubious Mohan and Ellis on the quality of the bar's pierogis.
Before Jack can defend the honor of the bar any further, Robby leans in and says, "I should probably also remind you that this isn't actually the ED Christmas party, it's the after-party."
"I don't think you can call juice, water, and really terrible hors d'oeuvres in the cafeteria a party, no matter what Gloria says," Mohan says, frowning, and Ellis nods in agreement.
"Oh, don't mind Robby, he just doesn't want to get into any sort of liability back-and-forth with Gloria," Jack tells them. "If you don't watch out, he'll pull out a form from somewhere and make you sign it."
"Oh, hell no, I am not signing any damn forms," Ellis says. "Samira, let's go grab a table and order a round for everyone. I'm even willing to try the pierogis."
Jack stares after them for a moment, his lips twitching into a smirk he's hiding very badly, and he turns back to Robby with dancing eyes.
"I do love how easy they are to wind up," he says.
"Well, they weren't there for the great Outside Activities Form Cold War of 2018," Robby points out.
"True," Jack says, and then shakes his head, laughing a little. "Man, Adamson had everyone going with his totally zen, calm thing, but he was actually a little shit." He pauses, raises an eyebrow at Robby. "Like mentor, like mentee, I guess."
"On the advice of counsel, I invoke my fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to confirm any little shit tendencies one way or another," Robby says.
"You're a doctor, not a lawyer, you asshole," Jack tells him, rolling his eyes. "Also, you act like I haven't caught you hiding out in the fifth floor Pedes play room like, a million times, and I know you're the one who keeps grabbing those rubber spiders and leaving them in interesting places in the Admin office."
Robby rises his eyebrows but refuses to reply, and Jack rolls his eyes again, but Robby can see how amused he is.
He feels relieved, that he and Jack haven't lost this.
That even after the shitshow and a half of Pittfest, of being dragged back from the literal and metaphorical edge, Jack still sees Robby as a person, as his person, rather than a ticking time-bomb or the tragic aftermath of a car-crash, which is the way that people have looked at him at different times since September, because of course the rumor of his breakdown went father than the night nurse and Langdon.
Jack's been—he's been Jack.
Robby's friend, brother, exasperated antagonist, needling mother hen pretending he's not mother-henning, stark voice of reason, but never, not once, not even for a second, pitying.
And, sure, being in this bar of all places, sitting in this particular bar stool, it's bringing up other memories of what Jack's been to Robby, at least once.
But that happened a very, very long time ago—before a residency in New Orleans and a redeployment to Fallujah, before relationships that crashed and burned, before the loss of a limb and a spouse, before the loss of a mentor. Before the loss of so much that Robby feels, sometimes, that he's more loss than person.
He's trying to learn how not to feel that way anymore. It's a work in progress, one horrible therapy session at a time.
"Hey, where'd you go?" Jack asks, leaning closer to him, that sideways lean he always does into Robby's space.
"Sorry," Robby says automatically. "Just, um. Memories."
Jack looks at him for a moment, evaluating, and then nods.
"Yeah, I get that. It's a little crazy that this place looks exactly the same as it did the night we met," he says.
Totally calm, like he's saying something perfectly normal.
Like they've ever, ever, talked about this before.
Like he remembers.
All Robby can do is stare at him, open-mouthed.
"What?" Jack asks, frowning a bit.
"I—I thought maybe you were just too drunk, so you just. Didn't really remember," Robby says, with a helpless shrug.
"I'd have to be comatose to forget sleeping with a beautiful guy tall as a fucking redwood with Bambi brown eyes, Robby, fuck," Jack tells him, vehement. ""I was under DADT back then, still in active service—it's not like I could talk about all the gay sex I wasn't supposed to be having even if I wanted to."
And, of course. Of course Jack was. Adamson told them all, that next morning—Army, fingers crossed he doesn't get redeployed.
Robby never really made the connection, though. He feels so stupid, so suddenly, helplessly angry at his oblivious, twenty-something self.
"So now you know why I pretended I didn't recognize you," Jack says, raising an eyebrow. "But how come you didn't say anything? I remember that morning, man. I remember that whole shift. You were this quiet, soft-spoken blank wall."
Robby smiles a little, pained.
He looks at Jack, wordlessly, because he'd sound ridiculous putting it into words, but he just honestly, truly thought—
"Mike. I can't believe that you really thought I forgot you," Jack says, shaking his head a little. "But I guess it tracks. You were ridiculously self-deprecating, even back then."
"I mean, can you blame me that much, though?" Robby finally replies, because he was stupid back then, sure, but it wasn't the craziest thing to conclude. "You looked, well. Basically the way you look now, minus the gray hair, and I was—"
"You were fucking gorgeous, is what you were," Jack interrupts, sounding almost angry, leaning in even closer to Robby's side, ducking his head so Robby can't evade his gaze. "You still are."
Robby feels a little bit like he's been struck by lightning.
It's as if a door that's been closed between them for years, for as long as they've known each other minus one night, has suddenly been blown open.
Robby's held Jack through paralyzing nightmares after they've fallen asleep on the couch watching a hockey game; Jack has, very literally, cleaned up Robby's puke during a particularly brutal bout of flu that Robby refused to go to the hospital for.
They've passed instruments back and forth, gloves covered in blood, communicating with nothing but half-words and raised eyebrows, saved hundreds of people together.
Lost them, too.
They've screamed at each other across more than one patient's bed, and they've sat together in the suffocating silence of the viewing room through more than one patient's loss.
They've laughed together, and they've drank together, they've roomed together for incredibly annoying medical conferences they usually skip in favor of room service and shitty TV, and they've even attempted to fish together, to disastrous results.
But in all that time, Robby has deliberately forced himself not to look at Jack as what he also has been all this time: maybe the goddamned love of Robby's life.
And maybe since that long, long ago night, when Robby let himself feel exactly what he wanted to feel and be exactly who he wanted to be, rather than what he had to.
When he sat right here, in this shitty bar, on this cracked leather stool.
"Would it be—do you think it would be wrong if we left right now?" he asks quietly.
Jack looks at him for a long, considering moment, and whatever he sees in Robby's eyes makes his eyes go molten.
"I don't give a single, solitary fuck," he says. "We're leaving."
With that, Jack stands up, taking out his wallet and passing his card to the bartender, quietly telling him to put everything the two extremely loud tables in the back drink on it, before turning back to Robby with raised, expectant eyebrows.
"Okay," Robby says, and follows him out the door.
Jack's place isn't the same shitty studio in the rickety building from way back when—he definitely needs a working elevator now, obviously—but it's also not too far away.
They walk the five, nearly six blocks in silence, their steps synced the way they always do when they're walking through the ED together, but it's not in awkward.
It feels peaceful, the quiet between them. Like the quiet after a decision's been made, like the quiet after a storm.
When they make it to Jack's place, Robby automatically moves toward the kitchen to get them glasses of water, heats up the hot compress Jack keeps next to the microwave for his stump—between the shift and the truly shitty cafeteria party and the bar and the walk, there's no way he doesn't need it—and he listens for the familiar sounds of Jack getting undressed, taking off his prosthetic, the clicking of his crutches as he goes to the bathroom.
Robby heads to the bedroom with the water and the hot compress, puts them in the nightstand, and he stops, for a second.
Usually he'd go back to his place, now, or if he were staying he'd grab one of Jack's old PT shirts to sleep, but—
"The next thing you're doing better be stripping down and getting on my bed, Michael Robinavitch, no ifs, ands, or buts," Jack says behind him.
Robby turns to look at him, tries not to act like some sort of Victorian waif and faint over the sight of Jack Abbot in nothing but tight black briefs.
"There's gonna be at least a couple of butts," he shoots back, because he can't not.
Jack gives him a look, tilting his head, and Robby runs a hand across his beard.
"No, I know. We're on the same page, Jack," he says. "I just—I got a little scared for a second there, I think."
Jack walks closer, until he's right in front of Robby, and starts unbuttoning Robby's shirt.
"Nothing to be scared of, Mike," he says softly. "I'm gonna blow you a little, and maybe you'll fuck me or I'll fuck you, and then we'll fall asleep, and in the morning we'll have breakfast, and then you're moving in here or I'll move in with you—we'll compare utilities bills to decide. Yeah?"
"Yeah," Robby says quietly, because of course it's a yes, and then he leans down to kiss Jack.
The kiss goes from zero to a hundred in a split-second, from oh, hi, it's you again to fuck, yes, it's you again, and Jack's methodical unbuttoning of Robby's shirt turns into practically ripping it off him, his hands going up to Robby's shoulders, and then one of them traveling up to his hair.
Robby shivers and feels Jack smirk into the kiss—of course the asshole remembered, of course he did—and then Jack's pushing him onto the bed, settling his crutches against the nightstand, and turning the full force of his attention to taking off Robby's jeans.
"Little help, here?" he mutters, and, right, Robby's kind of been staring at him with his mouth slightly open, but, well.
Who can blame him.
He raises his hips, wiggles out of the jeans, and then Jack's between his legs, kissing him deeply again, the feeling of skin on skin intoxicating.
"I—uh, I think we might need to amend the plan," Jack says, pulling back from the kiss, panting a little.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I—I need to be inside you, I just—I need to, Mike," he says, and it does something to Robby, that Jack's so out of control, that for once his relentless calm-under-pressure has cracked.
"Yeah, yes, please," Robby says, because his own calm cracked a you're gorgeous ago, and anyway, "You can blow me in the morning."
Jack nods quickly, a little frantically, and then he's making an absolute mess of lube between his fingers and Robby's ass, his fingers pressing in and making Robby tilt his head back in pleasure-pain, because, hell, it's been a while.
"Okay?" Jack asks, still moving his fingers, dropping an absent-minded kiss on Robby's chest.
"Yes, fine, fuck me, please," Robby replies, because he might just come from Jack's fingers at this point.
Jack takes his fingers out, fumbles a little with the condom, and then he's guiding himself inside Robby, hot and relentless, his body pressing down on him deliciously.
Robby feels overwhelmed, suddenly, at the feeling of Jack on top of him, Jack all around him.
He feels like he's in his twenties again, finding an epiphany in a one-night stand that ended up in nothing but smoke, but he meet's Jack's eyes and he sees the sheer weight of emotion reflected right back, and thinks maybe it wasn't smoke, after all.
It was everything, and they were just too young to understand it.
He leans up for another kiss and Jack obliges, and they breathe against each other as their bodies move again and again and again, until Robby's coming between them, Jack following after two, three more thrusts.
They lie panting, Jack collapsed on top of Robby, and after a few breaths, Jack pulls out. Robby wants him right back inside, he wants to do it all over again, feels light-headed with joy at the realization that it's not a pipe-dream anymore—that it can happen again, that it will.
"It's your turn to get the washcloth and more water," Jack says, after a moment. "I've only got the one leg, now."
And Robby starts laughing, because it's such a Jack thing to say, so he drops a kiss on top of Jack's hair and goes to do just that while Jack deals with the condom.
When he comes back Jack has the hot compress on his stump—it's probably just lukewarm, at this point—so Robby takes over, carefully massages it the way he's seen Jack do countless times.
Jack leans back on the pillows, sips from the glass of water, and looks at Robby quietly.
"What?" Robby asks, leaning over to open the nightstand drawer to find the ointment Jack usually puts on.
"You're not walking out on me when I fall asleep this time, right?" Jack says, his voice light but a little apprehensive.
Robby briefly stops applying the ointment, looks up to meet Jack's eyes.
"No, Jack. I promise," he says seriously. Then he leans in, kisses Jack quick and dirty. "We have blowjobs and breakfast in the morning, remember?"
Jack's lips quirk into a smile, Robby's smile, and Robby feels it in his chest.
"And moving in," Jack says.
"And moving in," Robby echoes.
They stay like that, looking at each other, and the past and the now collapse into a future that Robby finally feels he can keep.