Chapter Text
The first time Jack met Michael was during their first year of med school. Jack had been tired, searching the lecture hall to make sure it was empty before he yawned. It hadn’t been.
Michael had been sitting in the middle of the room, still writing notes in a red notebook. His hair was shorter, shorn at the sides, and he was hunched over. Jack had been, for lack of a better word, starstruck by such a guy. He was beautiful in a way that made it seem as if nothing could ever be his fault, striking in a way that made Jack’s organs twist in his stomach, and so heavenly that it made Jack recall Sunday church from when he was a kid. The way they described angels, the way they painted them, the way stained glass was fitted together.
Jack actually couldn’t believe he’d seen him, so he blinked and looked back over. He was still sitting there.
“You realize class ended, right?” Jack asked, tugging his backpack higher on his shoulder. His voice rang out over the lecture hall a little too loudly.
Michael looked up, and the full weight of his gaze made Jack freeze. “It’s only over when I feel like it is.”
“I think—” Jack cleared his throat, ignored the heat in his veins. “—they have another class in here soon. We can go study in the library.”
“We?”
“Only if you want company.” Jack managed a neutral shrug. “Besides, it does help when you have someone to bounce off of.”
The first study session had been serious, focused, and everything Jack had thought it would be. He had managed to comprehend most of the work, but…Well, Jack wasn’t sure what he had expected from Michael. He didn’t offer any personal information, didn’t make small talk, and had the most complex questions at the ready. They’d exchanged numbers, since Michael had felt they really helped each other.
Dozens upon dozens of study sessions followed them over the next couple of months. And Jack learned a lot as Michael got more comfortable. He was Jewish (though he rarely practiced), still didn’t eat pork though, was really into music (even went to a few festivals during the summer), and desperately wanted to graduate (Jack wholeheartedly agreed).
It was a relationship Jack could maintain despite being in med school—a thing a lot of friends and partners had never understood. There was only one expectation of him, and that was that he attend.
It was nice. At the beginning.
—
Jack stares at Michael across the ER now. Heat whips through his gut; he feels sick. He never thought he’d see Michael again, didn’t think they’d cross paths, considering all 50 states were free for them. Jack could’ve gone anywhere else, but had settled on PTMC because of its excellent emergency department.
He can’t quit now. It’s only his third day as the attending.
He might throw up.
Jack yanks his eyes away to glance back down at the chart in his hand. He has to focus. It’s almost time for him to go home, and he must get these patients to the day shift attending.
“Who’s the day shift attending?” Jack asks Lena, the night shift’s charge nurse.
“Dr. Robby.”
Oh, thank God.
Then Lena gestures to Michael. “Sorry, Dr. Robinavitch. That’s what everyone calls him. You might like him. You might hate him.”
What a black and white way of putting it. Everything about the two of them is muddled by history, bad choices, secrets, and Jack’s nagging fear of abandonment. Their departure had been ugly. It’d hardly been a break-up, since they were never together. Jack had begged Michael to love him, had begged him to accept their relationship, but Robby had seemed deadset on pushing Jack into a box.
Jack steadies himself and nods. “Thanks.” He has to force one foot in front of the other to get to Michael—Robby. Whatever, it doesn’t matter because Jack doesn’t plan on addressing him if he can help it.
Jack doesn’t play at niceties and gets straight to telling Michael about the patients. A girl who’d been found on the sidewalk is still waiting on psych, two other patients are waiting to be taken to surgery, a man is still fluctuating between stable and not, etc. Jack doesn’t leave any pauses between his words to avoid having to extend the conversation further. He doesn’t want to hear Michael’s voice, doesn’t want to look into eyes he’d memorized, doesn’t want anything to do with the man.
When Jack finishes, he turns to go to the locker room. Doesn’t look back. Thinks he should. Can’t.
Please don’t remember who I am. I can’t stand the thought of it.
Jack is far too old for this. There are too many years between them to still be mad or sad or whatever Jack feels. His therapist had said listing out the feelings could help him feel better, but it doesn’t. It just makes him confused because he can’t actually identify what he feels.
He should be over it. He’s been with others, loved others, thrown himself into relationships the way he hoped they’d do for him. They hadn’t. No one ever had.
Not even Michael, whom he had loved so hard, whom he still dreamed about in his nightmares.
Jack jerks the locker open, gathers his things, and tries to slip out without Michael noticing. He doesn’t.
This day is so wonderful.
“Jack? Dr. Abbot?” Michael’s voice says behind him. It’s harder, sterner, than it had been in med school. But maybe that’s because Jack had heard it at its softest, whispered in his ear while they lay in bed together.
“I’m off.” Jack doesn’t look at Michael. “Any questions you have can be found in the patient chart, and Dana has my phone number.”
He leaves the hospital without waiting for Michael’s response. His body hurts; his heart aches. He would have to quit. It was the only solution to this very overwhelming problem.
Breathe. Jack forces himself to calm down, to let the lashing heat leave his gut, to slow his racing heart. They worked different shifts; they’d hardly see each other.
I can do this, Jack thinks. He has to make this job work. He already put down a payment on his house and ordered furniture that matched. He wants to build a life in this city, and he would. He could ignore everything he knows (or thinks he knows) about Michael.
He could survive it this time—existing in the same space as Michael.
Their history means nothing, and neither does Michael to Jack.