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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man as tall as Dr Michael Robinavitch, and in possession of both an MD and a set of wistful, brown eyes, must not only be aware of his own worth but also have at least some fucking game. It is a endless source of pure, sparkling joy for Dr Jack Abbot, that Robby absolutely isn’t, and absolutely fucking doesn’t.
The new med students all go through it, every year (unless they are what Ellis calls ‘terminally, blessedly lesbian’). It ranges from deep respect verging on hero worship all he way up to blushing, dropping shit, walking into shit, messing shit up - all because Dr Robby walked by and said they were doing a good job.
Most of them settle down fairly quickly, but some hold out, little bright lights of hope flickering in the long, dark corridors of emergency medicine. They’ll try to flirt, clumsily or brazenly, sometimes both - but it just doesn’t register to Robby. He thanks them for their seemingly platonic praise, he turns their bid for drinks into invites to the post-shift park beers. He smiles and offers mentorly pats on shoulders and has wise words for tough moments, and he doesn’t seem to notice their rosy cheeks or the bright longing looks that follow him as he walks away.
The patients fall over themselves wanting to thank him, asking for him to come take a final look, to double check and over see discharge. And yeah, Jack absolutely gets that. Something painful and scary, possibly violent and/or traumatic happens, and this steady colossus of a man shows up and makes it all better? Holds your hand and tells you it’s gonna be okay? That’s romance novel shit. But Robby doesn’t notice that either. He just maintains a warm professionalism and wishes them a speedy recovery.
It’s an on-going, interdepartmental issue. If you’ve been at the hospital for longer than a year you know Robby’s a lost cause, but people still come down to the ED sometimes just for a taste. Rumour has it a fight broke out in pedes once because they couldn’t agree who’d get to go down for a consult and watch Robby hold a toddler in his big strong arms. Radiology once got so backed up Gloria had to come down and deliver stern words because half the staff was finding reasons to go by the ED and get a look at Robby’s new tattoo peeking out under his scrub top.
Hell, not even Walsh is immune. She’ll come down to trade some verbal blows with the cowboys and she doesn’t much mind if it’s with Jack or Robby, but Jack sees the carefully hidden respect, the heat in her eyes that only flares when Robby won’t let her cut someone right there in Trauma 1. She’ll glare and grumble, but her eyes’ll follow Robby’s hands with a laser focus as he magics up an airway. When she leaves with a final angry swish of her ponytail, she still looks like she got what she came for.
All these people, all this longing, all this want - and Robby is impervious. Oblivious. Other people don’t exist to him in that capacity, their desire is inconsequential, because he only has eyes for Jack.
Crude come-ons or smooth lines don’t faze Robby, not in the slightest. But if Jack lowers his voice just a little bit and tells Robby he did something well? The man blushes, bright red. Jack kind of wants to scream it from the roof, wants to rub it very publicly in several faces around the Pitt; That big man? Your boss, your chief, your god in this department? He follows me home like a dog, and he’ll beg me to fuck him if I want him to.
Not because he’s jealous or because he feels the need to stake his claim - they’re both it for each other, Jack’s not worried - but because he wants to brag. He wants to crow and gloat and fucking swagger around the Pitt. Jack Abbot, lacking a leg and most social graces, who disaster preps a little too hard and flinches violently at loud noises if he doesn’t just flat out freeze, who either stares for too long or can’t make eye contact at all, who stands on the edge of the hospital roof to swear to himself that he won’t ever take his own life - that Jack Abbot. He bagged Michael Robinavitch.
But Jack doesn’t do that, he doesn’t brag. He doesn’t make a show out of it, doesn’t put his hands on Robby more than he needs to during handover, doesn’t hand Robby his coffee while making pointed eye contact with a wide-eyed Dennis Whittaker (who, to his own dismay probably, is the polar opposite of terminally, blessedly lesbian).
He just goes home, and waits. And when Robby’s done with his day, and Jack has the night off, that man makes his way over. And he kisses Jack like he’s been storing up all that desire, all that longing that people have been throwing his way, like he’s taken it for himself and is turning it on Jack instead.
And in the darkness - not the long empty halls of emergency medicine, but the comforting darkness of Jack’s bedroom - Robby worships. He pours his heart out against Jack’s skin, and he breathes out the evils he’s had to witness. He cries, sometimes, softly, against Jack’s sternum, when the weight of the world is pressing down on him too hard, when the grief threatens to call him up to the roof as well.
In that darkness, they learn from each other. In that darkness, they bury their grief in each other’s bodies and create new worlds, better ones, with new beginnings. In that darkness, Jack asks and Robby gives him whatever he wants - his mouth, his hands, his thighs. Robby begs and Jack relents, benevolent, until they're both soaked and panting, until their knuckles whiten from holding each other so tight.
So when the light comes creeping back in, and the entire Pitt worships the ground Robby walks on? Jack isn’t worried. He’s fucking proud.
