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Robby emptied himself out.
A few hard thrusts, back arched, and there was the release. Cleansing, numbing, like water rushing through the gates.
When he really wanted to come, Robby had to lean back and snap his hips hard but not too hard, straining in the opposite direction. Necking, kissing, roaming hands; that kind of affectionate foreplay happened on the couch or against the kitchen counter, not on the bed.
After, he stayed for however long the situation demanded. He wasn’t callous but he liked his own bed, preferred to wake up in the middle of the night and piss barefoot in his own toilet. Sometimes he stayed for an hour, sometimes longer, before reaching for his pants, dropping a few kisses, and heading for the door. It helped he had a reputation but also that he worked the early shift.
“Hastings was here, looking for you.” Dana flagged him down towards the end of his shift.
He balked, tried to cover it up by saying it was for a consult.
“Uh, huh.” She eyed him above her readers. “I didn’t ask for an explanation, I just delivered the message.”
“I’m just saying, you’re not seeing what you think you’re seeing.”
“She’s a big girl, she told me herself. Plus, it’s none of my business.”
“If she was down here, it was in a strictly professional capacity.”
Sliding her iPad onto the desk, Dana cocked one hand on her hip. “Dr. Robby, do I look like some wet behind the ears first year? Or like I got dumped into this mess straight from nursing school? I’ve been doing this job a long time, and I’ve been doing this job a long time with you. I can sure as hell tell when you’re lying to my face.”
“It’s not like that,” Robby sighed, but Dana just shook her head. “Well, it’s not like that anymore.”
“Like I said, it’s none of my business. Lord knows you’re both adults, can do whatever the hell you like.”
“Somehow I get the feeling you’re disappointed in me.”
The glasses came off and she took her time scanning him up and down. “No, just tired of watching someone make the same mistakes over and over again.”
“I am not—”
But she’d already turned away, walking towards Perlah. “Believe it or not, I picked up a lot of psych training over the years. All I can do is see the pattern, Dr. Robby.”
“I’m happy,” Robby called after her.
“I’m sure you think you are.”
A busy social calendar made it easier to shake off the ED, is what Robby told himself. Drinks, dinner and then he didn’t have to think, didn’t really have to feel. For a few moments, everything boiled down to sensation. It was physical, sweaty, all endorphins and steady, beating rhythms.
“Hot date tonight?” Jack slapped him on the back a few days later, taking custody of the board.
“You’re assuming I’m going out?” Robby didn’t have a habit of announcing his plans, not around Dana and especially not around Jack.
“I know you’re going out.”
“How so?”
Jack laughed. “You’ve got a tell. Trimmed beard. Plus your pants. Nicer than the cargos you usually wear, but not so nice that they can’t get a little blood or urine on them.”
“It’s concerning you know that about me, Jack.”
“I bet there’s an extra shirt hanging in your locker, too. Always a sure sign Dr. Robby’s got plans for the evening.”
“You know, it could just be an extra shirt.”
Smirking, Jack walked towards South 8, where Dr. King was monitoring a DVT. “You’ve also looked at your watch eight times in the last ten minutes. We got this, take off. I’m sure he or she doesn’t want to be kept waiting.”
“She is just a friend. In town for a guest lecture at Pitt Med.”
“Uh huh. Have fun, brother.”
It irked Robby more than he wanted to admit. Not that Jack had clocked his evening plans but that it hadn’t bothered Jack in the slightest. There wasn’t a hint of animosity or jealousy or judgement in his tone. All he’d done was quirk a smile; the same stupid, intense, half-grin that made Robby want to hold his jaw and lick his back molars.
He couldn’t shake it, not through the long dinner and then the brief drink that led to a frustratingly weak, shallow orgasm. He came, but it was localized, not full body. It went straight from his dick and out into the condom that he slipped off, tied and threw into the waste basket. It must’ve been in his eyes or his mouth or the way he kissed her after, but she didn’t ask if he wanted to stay the night, just shrugged into the hotel bathrobe and, after a respectable amount of time, walked him to the door.
He was home by 10, where he sat on his bed and stared at his phone, finger hovering over Jack’s name. Sometimes they texted on shift, checking in on patients, commiserating, but today nothing had lingered. Still, Robby punched the keys.
louie been in tonight
He may as well have sent Jack a blurry picture of his spent dick, desperate for a scrap of attention. Twenty minutes later, his phone buzzed.
you’re home early
***
Jack was with a patient when Robby came on shift. A little girl, possibly six, maybe seven, it was hard for Robby to tell when she was on the exam table. From the door, he saw lacerations across her arms and forehead. Jack had his gloved hands on her abdominal area.
“Dr. Robby, meet Ronnie Alvarez, age 6, the backseat passenger in an Uber trip gone south. Mom is stable and responsive next door. Ronnie, I’m going to poke around your stomach a little bit, okay? I need you to tell me where it hurts.”
She nodded at Jack, before turning big, brown eyes towards Robby. “My real name is Veronica. Everyone calls me Ronnie.”
“Is that so? My name’s Michael but everyone calls me Dr. Robby.”
Jack pressed along her belly in a slow, precise pattern. “Does that hurt?” She shook her head. “How about now? You feel anything sharp or uncomfortable?”
“I like Veronica,” she said, unbothered by Jack checking for an internal hemorrhage. “It sounds more grown up.”
“I like Michael too.” Robby evaluated her with his eyes. No obvious signs of significant head trauma, good movement in her extremities, clear speech and eye contact.
Next to him, Jack finished his exam, smiling at her lack of a pain response. “I’m gonna order a CT scan, just to be safe,” he mumbled, which is what Robby would’ve done too.
“What’s a CT scan?”
“Well, we send you through a big machine and scan your insides, to see if anything is bleeding.”
She frowned. “My insides feel fine.”
When he looked down at the table, Robby noticed that her hand had curled around Jack’s. Just two fingers twined into his pinky. “It’s still a good idea to check,” Jack said. “We can’t always tell what’s going on inside. Now, if I had x-ray vision, no problem. I’d scan you right here. Until I get super powers, we’re going to use the machine.”
“You use it on everybody?” Veronica turned her head, catching her mother through the glass. Jack shifted slightly, to block her view.
“Only on our most special patients. It doesn’t hurt,” he promised. “They even let you listen to music.”
“Anything I want?”
“Anything you want.”
“Taylor Swift?”
“Taylor Swift? Never heard of her.”
Later, after the handoff and in the lounge, Robby poured old coffee into his mug, waiting for Jack to ask about his night. His tongue itched to lie, to deny that anything had gone down but also to rub Jack’s face in dirty sheets.
“You see they’re trying to cut back on nurses again?” When he glanced at Robby, his face was bland, passive, not like he was imagining Robby fucking someone on all fours. The indifference made Robby want to push him up against the counter, bite the thick muscle of his shoulder.
“Yeah, apparently there’s a memo circulating.”
They gossiped. Nurse gossip, patient gossip, hospital gossip, until Jack grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“I’m handing off to Chen tonight, right?” Robby blurted. “Want to do something later?”
Jack paused, stuttered mid-step, which was unlike him. “Dinner?”
“Sure. Dinner or,” he waved a hand through the air. “Or you could just come over.”
“Or we could just have dinner.”
“Jack—”
“Dr. Robby, trauma patient incoming.” Dana pushed open the door. “ETA less than two minutes.”
“You need me?” Jack asked, but Robby waved him off, knowing he and Langdon could handle it.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” Robby said as they walked out, feeling the lie in his chest.
Jack just tipped his fingers in goodbye, leaving him with Dana’s sour expression. She slapped the chart in his hand, pivoting on her heels.
“What?” he snapped.
“Nothing,” she said. “You’re not a fast learner, are you?”
He caved within a few hours.
just dinner
His phone didn’t buzz until early afternoon, after Jack had woken up.
pick you up at 8
Robby didn’t like to eat at the places near the hospital. There were always too many nurses, doctors, therapists lingering around every corner. They went down across the river, where it was just them over steak, mashed potatoes, lemon pepper green beans.
When they were working together, across a patient or huddled over a chart, they were always moving. Eyes, hands, legs, all working. Now their lack of movement struck Robby as odd. Stillness, he found, didn’t really suit him.
Jack eyed his bouncing leg, the way his hands kept scratching at his beard. “How’re you making it through the day?” he asked.
“You know how it goes. Patients keep you on your toes and if they don’t there’s always Dana.”
“How about when you’re not at the hospital?”
A few months ago, after PittFest, after the roof, they’d gone out a few times, blurring the line between friends and co-workers. Jack had been the one to pull it all back. He’d shaken his head after Robby had taken a summer kiss too far and quietly put his shirt back on. “That’s another story,” Robby said. “I stay busy.”
Jack snorted. “I’ll bet.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“If you say so.”
There was a twinkle in the gray of his eyes though, like he found the idea of Robby’s love life amusing and not heartbreaking. If the roles were reversed, if Robby heard that Jack had been fucking someone on the 12th floor, maybe dating Walsh, he’d have crushed the wine glass in his hand. The image of it, Jack with his knees spread on a bed, a woman under him, made his dick twitch. When he thought about it being a man, he got frustratingly hard.
“How about you?” He had to clear his throat. “How are you making it through the nights?”
Jack put down his fork, kept Robby’s eyes. “Better these days than before. But I work at it. It kicks my ass some days.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Jack would tell him how he was doing, how he was really doing. “How bad was it before?”
“Bad. Waking up in the middle of the night sweating through my sheets. Thought about getting on ketamine at one point, just so I could get through the day. Couldn’t talk to anyone. Didn’t keep up with the guys from my unit. Stopped calling my family. Had the scanner going all the time, even when I was in the shower. All the regular stuff.”
A conversational door had been swung open and Jack practically begged Robby to walk through. “Sounds rough,” Robby said. “Glad you’re doing better.”
Their dessert came. A hunk of apple pie that they ate slowly, a lake of vanilla ice cream forming around the edges.
“I still use a lot of tricks, to stay even,” Jack kept going. “Working nights helps. Therapy. Going to the gym. Being in the reserve.” Jack picked up his napkin, reached across the table and wiped at a spot right under Robby’s bottom lip. “Got more ice cream in your beard than your mouth.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Hang on, it’s dripping.”
Robby stilled, watching the tilt of Jack’s mouth, which for a moment was simultaneously hopeful and sad. “I don’t fight the stuff I know I can’t change,” Jack said. “At some point I realized, that old life, that old me, is never coming back. So I’m adjusting to the new version.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“It is.”
When the check came, Robby snapped it up. “First rule of dating. He who invites, pays.” He fought the urge to pull out Jack’s chair, take him by the arm, help him into his coat. He wanted a long walk by the river but the rain had picked up and Jack’s car came too quickly. They were heading in separate directions and the hug they exchanged was quick but warm and it wasn’t until later that night, in bed, that Robby kept remembering Jack’s hand on his waist, his fingers gripping the back of his neck.
***
He could fill an entire shift, thinking about being slammed up against a wall, legs spread. Maybe bent over the arm of a sofa, hands digging into the flesh around his waist. For a while, the images were faceless, nameless, but suddenly it was jack jack jack.
“How about breakfast?” Robby asked the next time their shifts didn’t overlap. “I can pick you up.”
For a moment Robby thought Jack might actually say no. He hesitated, glancing around the ED, like someone would stop him from making a bad decision. Finally, he smiled. “Breakfast. 7am. Don’t be late.”
Jack didn’t look like shit when Robby came back, but he looked tired. He’d swapped out his scrubs for a warm gray fleece and his eyes had a rumpled, sleepy look. Robby didn’t want breakfast, he wanted to drag Jack home, strip him down to his shorts, push his face between Jack’s legs and choke.
They went to a diner near Jack’s place that was loud and crowded, until the manager tucked them into a back corner where all they had to do was murmur at each other.
“Long shift?” Robby asked.
“They seem to be getting longer.”
When Robby tried to talk shop, Jack brought up the Pens and then Robby’s bike. He didn’t mention the helmet, didn’t mention the upcoming sabbatical that everyone was calling a midlife crisis. Even this early, in late June, the city had started to steam and Jack said he was considering shorts instead of scrubs.
“Oh, I don’t think the Pitt can handle those knobby knees,” Robby laughed. “Myrna though, she might be an exception.”
Laugh lines sprang up around Jack’s eyes. Deep and worn, carved over the years. The kind that made Robby want to be crushed under Jack’s weight, smothered in the curve of his forearm. “You sure you don’t want to come over?” he asked.
Smile faltering, Jack reached up, rubbed the back of his hand against Robby’s cheek. “It’s not a matter of want. Wanting something isn’t the issue.”
The waitress came by, called Jack sugar and filled their coffee cups. He waited till she was out of ear shot. “You’re too cautious,” Robby said.
For once, Jack didn’t meet his eyes. “Not cautious. Protective.”
“Christ, Jack, I don’t need protecting.”
“Not you. Me. I am very protective of this—” he tapped his heart, with two fingers. “I don’t throw it around.”
“That’s not fair. It’s not,” he took a breath and scanned the room. “It’s not just about the sex. I think you know that.”
“Ok, then tell me how you’re doing. Tell me how you’re really doing.”
The word stayed perched on his tongue, but Jack cut him off. “Tell me something other than, I’m fine.”
“I am fine.”
For a moment Jack didn’t say anything, turning his head this way and that through the diner, before pinning Robby with his eyes. “I don’t care who you sleep with. I really don’t.”
Robby flinched.
“Everything you’re doing now, man, I’ve seen it in a lot of guys who come home after serving. You’re not off the deep end, not yet, but I don’t want a front row seat to whatever is going to happen next.”
“You’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?”
“You are an easy read,” Jack hissed. “Do not think that fucking your way through the executive suite of this hospital is something you’ve been subtle about.”
“Fuck you.”
Slinging his backpack over a shoulder, Jack slid out of the booth. Robby threw a couple of twenties on the table and trotted after him, yanking his elbow to a stop. “I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”
Jack shook his head. “That’s not the point. This isn’t some monogamy bullshit. I’m not worried about your virtue or mine. We’re all adults, who, hopefully, have been using condoms.” From behind them, two nurses Robby didn’t know pushed past them through the diner. Jack turned his head, waited for the door to close. “Robby, listen. I am your friend, I will always be your friend, but you are in a lot of pain.”
“Are you my therapist all of a sudden?”
Jack grabbed his arm, held it tight. “You’re not swimming in it, you’re drowning. Coming up for air every now and then, but that’s about it.”
Robby tried to yank his arm free, but Jack kept his grip. “I can see it because I have been there, brother. I can’t fix it for you. I can’t drag you to every therapist in Pittsburgh. I can’t make you start talking, really talking, to your friends.”
“Let me go.”
“I will have dinner with you, I will have coffee, drinks, come watch a game, go grocery shopping with you, anything you want. But us sleeping together would not make you happy. It wouldn’t fix a damn thing in your life.”
He jerked his arm free. “You’re an asshole.”
“Michael—”
“See you at work, Dr. Abbot.”
***
For the next two handoffs, Robby tried to keep it professional, cool, but Jack’s expression every time they talked stayed achingly kind. His eyes kept their warmth, he touched Robby gently on the back, didn’t flinch when Robby brushed him off.
“You doing okay?” Jack asked later, following Robby into the staff lounge.
“Apparently not, according to you.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I snapped. I’m just trying to be careful, for both of us."
With his back turned, Robby opened and closed cabinets at random, looking for a mug for coffee that he didn’t want. “I appreciate your concern, Dr. Abbot. Thank you for the apology.”
“My offer still stands. Coffee, drinks, dinner. Whatever. Anytime. I’m not on shift tonight, if you’re around.”
He laughed, short and bitter. “My social calendar is full, but thanks anyway.”
“I’m still your friend, Michael.”
He slammed the cabinet door. “Stop calling me that.”
“I know it’s a lot easier to stay angry, man.”
“Of course you know that. You know everything, Jack, including what and would not make me happy.”
“Maybe getting laid is the key to your happiness. Fine. You want to sleep your way through the hospital directory, go ahead. I’m just offering to have dinner.”
“Isn’t it way past your shift? Shouldn’t you be at home, not having sex, meditating, getting 12 hours of therapy a day, whatever it is you do.”
“Who’s being an asshole now?”
“This isn’t new for me. Don’t act surprised.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that. I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t need help! You are not Caleb or Kiara. I am not your god damn charity case!”
The coffee cups practically rattled with the sound of his outburst. It brought Dana rushing through the door. “What the hell is going on in here? You want to have a lover’s spat, take it outside.” She looked between them both, taking in Jack’s distraught grimace, whatever was across Robby’s face. “I’ve got actual patients to deal with, in case one of you wants to help.”
Robby followed her out, vision blurry with wounded rage. Not for the first time, he was glad for the chaos in the ED that let him move without stopping, without thinking. No matter how often Jack’s tender and open expression drifted into his head, Robby was able to shove it back out, away from any part of him. He thought of leaving early, letting Langdon take the handoff, but Jack showed up well before his shift, ending any thoughts of an escape.
“About time someone held your feet to the fire,” Dana mumbled, as Jack went to his locker.
“Langdon can bring Jack up to speed,” Robby said, watching him cross the room. “For now, keep Dr. Abbot in triage.”
“I’m gonna do no such thing,” Dana said. “Not my job to control the feuding attendings.”
“We’re not—”
“And before you try to pull rank, we got a trauma coming in. Arterial bleed, pulling in now. Want to handle it or should I get Dr. Langdon to do that for you too?”
McKay walked with him outside, right as the rig pulled in. With one ear he heard the medics shout vitals and treatment protocols, the other still held the buzz of Jack’s voice over the past few days, oscillating between frustration, anger, kindness. The stretcher got lowered, and Robby meant to push forward, through the doors but there was a sharp twist and something hard and bright and metallic flooded into his mouth.
“Shit!”
He’d slipped. Tugged too hard on the metal bar, lost his footing and bang. Drumbeats of pain radiated down the right side of his face, something sticky and warm had already drifted into the corner of his mouth.
Through the ringing in his ears, he heard McKay wheel past him. “Dr. Robby, this one is on me. Get that cut checked out, boss.” Someone had him by the elbow and from the eye that wasn’t blurry, he could see Perlah and Dana rushing over from the desk. They had him in a chair before he could say he was fine and in N3 before he could counter that it wasn’t that bad.
“Gonna need this cleaned and patched up before you can get back out there,” Dana said, pulling on gloves. She tilted his head, to better see the gash above his right eye. “Doesn’t look too deep, just messy.”
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, face throbbing, shoulder burning. He must have twisted it, trying to catch himself.
“Hell of a scratch. I’ll get Dr. Abbot to take a look—”
“No, don’t,” but Jack was already coming through the door, eyes a frightening level of intensity.
“You alright?” he asked.
“He’s fine,” Dana answered for him, quickly squeezing his hand. “He’s always fine.” She swung the curtain shut as she left, cocooning them both under the harsh, fluorescent lights.
“What happened?” Jack snapped on gloves and stepped between his knees.
“I tripped.”
“Hit anything beside your head?” Gently, Jack lifted his chin, wiping antiseptic at the trickle that ran down the side of his face.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.” Robby watched the gauze pile up, bright red littering the tray. He was astonished that a color so vibrant, so full of life, could come out of him.
“Lucky you didn’t catch your eye,” Jack muttered, dabbing carefully under the eye socket, around his orbital lobe. This close, all Robby could smell was heat, sweat, a hint of Jack’s cologne. Even through the blood and the antiseptic, the familiar smell made his eyes sting.
“This is intern work, Jack. You can let someone else take over.”
“I could but I don’t want to.” Light fingers continued their short journey over his face, his cheek, checking for bruising. “This hurt?”
Robby shook his head, eyes just beyond Jack’s broad shoulders.
“Hey, look at me.” He spoke softly, like Robby was a child sprawled out on a med table. “Track my finger. Anything blurry? Distorted? No? Good.” Ghost fingers trailed over Robby’s cheek, upper lip. “Any numbness?”
Robby didn’t trust his voice. Just shook his head.
“You’re alright. Liquid skin outta do it, though you’re this close to stitches.”
He stepped into the box of Robby’s right leg and arm, breaching personal space because he could. All Robby had to do, if he wanted to, was tip his forehead to rest it along Jack’s broad, welcoming chest. Suddenly, he was tired. Very, very tired.
Jack crushed the Dermabond ampule in his fingers and brushed a thumb against Robby’s temple. Even through the plastic, the prophylactic, he felt the heat, the comfort of such a simple touch. He tried to turn his head away, but Jack shook his head, holding him in place. “It’s okay.”
Robby’s lungs filled with fluid, like a man drowning from the inside.
“Nasty cut but we can fix it.” His breath stirred Robby’s eyelashes, drifted across his face, more intimate than any kiss. “Tilt your head to the side, that’s it.”
Robby’s chest contracted, thumped like heavy machinery. Nostrils flaring, breath coming heavy, he closed his eyes. Jack pretended not to notice. “There’s always a sting to these things. Like a thousand little papercuts.”
Robby’s stomach hiccuped, paunch jumping like a tadpole out of the water. He chewed the inside corner of his bottom lip, trying to school his features into neutral, but a tear slipped down his right cheek. With the back of his thumb, Jack easily wiped it away.
“You’re alright. Almost done.”
The rhythmic jumping that had started in his stomach spread to his shoulders, and they bounced like he was on a dance floor. Another tear escaped, same eye, same track down his cheek. Jack left that one alone and it traveled like a raindrop through his beard, all the way down his neck.
“Easy,” Jack murmured, holding the cut closed, nose brushing against Robby’s hair. Robby wanted to take a huge breath, a big belly full of air, but his lungs, his chest were already submerged, overflowing, with unshed mucus, tears.
“You’ll need something for the pain,” Jack said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Snot ran into the gray of his beard. It was a slow, undignified leak, and Jack wiped that away too, gloved thumb squeaking against skin. He was choking, everything trying to force its way out, all at the same time.
“Michael, open your eyes.”
When he did, Jack was achingly close; the freckles and stubble of his cheek blurring like an Impressionist painting. Robby was hyperventilating now. His breath came hard enough to shake his hands, his legs, his entire body. His organs wanted to cave in on themselves, fold up under steady hands and a forgiving gaze. Jack ripped off the gloves and cupped the side of his face.
“You hurt anywhere else?”
He swallowed hard, a lump of indefinable grief lodged in his sternum. Jack held his eyes, a mirror of his own restrained agony.
Robby shook his head. “No.”
“You sure?”
He blinked fast, trying to clear his vision. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Jack brought their foreheads together, noses bumping. His eye lashes fluttered against bruised skin, his fingers trailed through Robby’s beard as if he were wiping off errant vanilla ice cream. “You fell hard,” Jack said. “Just tell me where it hurts.”
Robby clutched his wrist, fingernails breaking the tender skin, and began to talk.