Archive of Our Own

1

Jack would like to say he slept at least a little the night after PittFest and the MCI. But it would be a lie. Robby slept, however, which counted for something.

He lay there awake, listening to the sound of the city finally slowing to a halt and then thrumming quietly in its holding pattern. Robby was in a holding pattern, too, but it was good. The man was there in the bed beside him, long limbs tucked up close to his body in a way that would surely leave him tight-muscled and sore, but he was snoring softly. Jack listened to his breathing and used it to regulate his own.

Jack maybe dozed a little, long about four a.m. They were both on their sides, facing the same direction. Jack reached out his hand and touched the rise of Robby's hip, the warmth of which was palpable through a pair of boxer shorts and a blanket. He didn't want to get any closer. The heat, literal and otherwise, was difficult to even contemplate. But it was good to touch him — the way he hadn't been able to a few hours before, when he'd been on the wrong side of the railing and Jack had had to use words and pleading eyes to make him stay.

Thankfully, it didn't turn out to be hard to do that. Who knew if the man actually wanted to be gone or if he just needed to feel the weight of the moment. All Jack knew was he didn't breathe from deep in his chest again until Robby picked up his stethoscope from where it hung on the railing and put it back around his neck.

Hours later, he had to keep reminding himself to breathe deep. For a few minutes in the pre-dawn hours, lying close enough to Robby's body to breathe in the scent of him and perch his fingers on the broad stretch of his gluteus medius, he was maybe unconscious, just for a little while.

When he was aware again, Robby was on his back, the blankets pushed down almost to his hips, and he looked a lot less peaceful in his sleep. But he was, indeed, still sleeping, so Jack turned the other way and lay there, listening to the world waking up, waiting for Robby to wake up, too.

2

He got to work fairly early the next evening, still feeling unaccountably guilty about bowing out of the remainder of his shift the night before. Nobody would have blamed him for taking tonight off, much less for leaving after a few hellish hours of serving as primary on an MCI with a team that wasn't his own, that was down one senior resident and filled with the shiniest of new kids. Not that they hadn't acquitted themselves well. God knew they had come through, even Shamsi's doe-eyed kid. 

The point was, he didn't need to be here, but at the same time, where else would he be? He'd finally slept a couple of hours, long after Robby left and he'd eaten something approximating an actual meal. Shen was back on shift, too, and they just nodded at each other as he wound his way around and through the department.

Robby fell in step with him as he got closer, and they also nodded at each other, Robby reaching out to pat him on the back in greeting but otherwise staying silent.

Once they reached the locker room, Jack asked, "How was it today?"

"The usual," he replied. "Mercifully."

The man was clearly in a hurry to get free of the place, which struck Jack as a good fucking sign. He wasn't in some miserable spiral of adrenaline, pushing himself forward. He was clear-headed enough to know where he didn't want to be.

Robby pulled the dirty black scrub top over his head, fighting static cling to keep the t-shirt underneath, an army green, from going with it. Jack watched as a whole expanse of his lower back, there at his lumbar curve, suddenly went on display then vanished again.

It wasn't like he'd never seen the man shirtless, but there's always something about seeing skin when it isn't meant to be seen. The t-shirt, once tugged back down, was tight at the neck, and it pulled awkwardly at the shoulders and biceps. 

About the time he turned around, Jack remembered: because it's my t-shirt.

That morning at his place, after they'd spent a long time talking about nothing and everything followed by a few hours of Robby sleeping like the dead, he'd forced him to at least shower if he was determined to go in. Without even turning on the light in the bedroom, he'd dug out a shirt and a —

Fuck. 

He kept his mind on the shirt, because the alternative was worse. Because Robby was, if he were to guess, still wearing a pair of his boxer briefs.

Granted, they were a pair out of a new package. He'd accidentally bought a size too small, but that made them perfect for Robby's slimmer hips and thighs. He'd gestured at the middle drawer of the dresser and told the man to take them all with him if he wanted. 

(He did not even pause to think how weird it might seem that he knew precisely how different the shape of the man's body was to his own. He hoped like hell Robby had been too tired to think about it.)

The shirt, while a welcome distraction from the underwear situation, was a whole different problem. There wasn't much to it. It was a dark olive drab t-shirt, faded but not terribly worn by time. It had just a logo and a string of letters where a breast pocket would be: VRPTF. 

Veteran Risk Prevention Task Force.

Had he genuinely handed the man a t-shirt for an Army Medical anti-self-harm committee?

He wanted to laugh — and it was funny, in a dark and nasty sort of way — but he was honestly still stuck on the fact that Robby was wearing his shirt. Now he was pulling his hoodie on over it, but he stopped when he caught Jack's wide eyes.

He gave him a questioning look. 

Jack said, "That's my shirt."

Robby just nodded, replied, “I'll wash it and return it."

"That's not…" Jack turned away to rummage through his backpack. "Yeah. I guess I just forgot. This morning feels like…years ago."

Robby didn't question why it would be so long ago for him, given that he wasn't spending that time slogging through a day of work. 

(No, he was sitting at his kitchen table trying to read case studies to distract himself from thinking about his fucking stubborn friend and whether he'd need to pull him back from the edge again.)

Robby snorted out a sardonic laugh. Then, by way of explanation, he said:

"I googled the acronym."

Jack grimaced, flashing him a contrite look. 

"I didn't really look at it when I pulled it out. Assumed it was one of like ten random Army Medical shirts."

"Ah.”

Jack shrugged, adding, "Promise you it wasn't a dig or anything. I like to think I'm not that kind of asshole."

"Actually, it's been sort of perfect," he replied with a half smile. "Every time I took myself too seriously today, I remembered I was wearing borrowed underwear and a deeply ironic shirt."

Jack gave him a friendly grin, trying to maintain the levity of the moment against what it might be. 

"Told you — those Hanes are yours now. Don't be in a hurry to get the shirt back to me either. Probably haven't worn it in…well, a long time."

He knew precisely how many years. The last time he'd been in that t-shirt had been when he was in country on that last tour, cut short when he sustained his leg injury. He knew the shirt was clean — he wouldn't have put it in the dresser if it wasn't — but he had the strangest feeling that if he were to lean in and smell it, it would rocket him back to a place and time, to dry heat on his neck and the persistent smell of burned flesh and the whirring of an industrial fan directing stale air at his feet.

But, no, it would not smell like his time patching folks up in a desert. Today, it would smell like industrial soap and nitrile gloves and Robby. That kind of made him want to lean in anyway.

It would probably also smell like his own shampoo and self-indulgent body wash — because Robby had been butt-ass naked in his shower this morning, hadn't he?

Why should he care about that? He's literally seen Robby nearly naked before. He's shared hotel rooms with him, seen him stand at a sink in nothing but a towel, looking both more and less bulky than he imagined, less hair on his chest but more on his stomach, before he disappeared back behind a door to dress.

(That had been long before he was even sort of falling in love with the man, much less inescapably caught in the frustrating whirlpool of caring for someone who more and more refused to care for himself. Of course, he had never learned how, maybe, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with.)

He watched Robby zip up the hoodie then stand there, hands in his pockets, head cocked, as if working up to something. 

Jack threw out an invitation to engage: "You look better."

"Than last night? Yeah."

"Than this morning, too."

Robby gave a small shrug, then he caught his eye and said, "Thanks for making me shower and eat something."

Jack just nodded. Now he was the one who had trouble with eye contact. He smiled, looking mostly over Robby's shoulder, and said:

"Thanks for drinking just enough whiskey and going to sleep when I told you to. And not fighting me about sharing the bed."

Robby gave him a sort of ceremonial nod, like a bow, and said, "My lower back thanks you."

Jack didn't trust himself to even pat the man on the shoulder as he moved past him to call up fresh scrubs. As he pulled them on, pants then shirt, and began setting himself right for work (stethoscope, phone, pen, protein bar), Robby didn't move.

When Jack was clearly ready to go out into the chaos with him and take the handoff, but before he actually made a move for the door, Robby said:

"Was your first therapist because of this?" He plucked at the shirt. "We he an Army guy?"

It was a little like whiplash, even if it wasn't completely unexpected, so he let himself just react with the frankness he was known for: 

"No. And she was, yeah. Didn't fucking work."

"Because she was military?"

"Because she didn't get my sense of humor. But she got me, what I needed — because it was painfully obvious and nothing remotely surprising for an Army headshrinker. Referred me on to someone I clicked better with. Which is a real thing, by the way. Sometimes it takes a second to find a good fit."

Robby was listening intently, so he kept talking, even if it felt kind of weird.

"My guy now has never touched a gun in his life. I think he thinks I'm maybe a little crazy for serving, but he's not hostile about it, just…deeply suspicious, I guess? That works for me. Reminds me that it's just a part of everything. It turns out to be way more important that he also lost a wife. But, anyway, whatever it is, he doesn't coddle for a second — unless I need it, and he always knows when I do."

"Are there therapists for doctors?"

He gave him a pretty skeptical face but tried to make his voice calm: "You know there are."

"I know what they tell the kids when we do supervisory check-ins, but—"

"But nothing. Besides our on-staff counselors, there's a whole world of psychiatrists and therapists that specialize in helping medical workers and first responders. There are also plenty of practitioners for more garden variety emotionally constipated Gen Xers that don't know how to slow down and breathe or process their shit."

Robby smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. Instead of taking the out, playing it off, he sucked in a shallow, shaky breath and said:

"I need help."

"Yeah you do. You scared?"

Robby gave a minimal nod.

Jack said, "What would you say to someone who needed you to mechanically debride a wound, maybe a spider bite?"

"What kind of person?"

He obviously wasn't trying to be difficult, but it was such a Robby question, he almost laughed.

"Dana, let's say."

Robby replied, "It’s gonna be weird, and it may hurt like hell. You know that. I wish it didn't have to, and we'll do what we can to mitigate the pain. But it has to be done. I can promise it's the only way it starts getting better."

Jack nodded, adding playfully, "Don't want it to gangrene, Evans. Trust me."

Robby nodded, too, then he said quietly, "What if it already has, you know?"

Jack was torn between deep sympathy and wanting to laugh at the dramatic but very sincere pitch of the man's emotions, neither of which was exactly the right response. He also wanted to embrace him, but he was confident that wasn't the most useful approach at the moment.

So he stepped in front of him and laid his hands on his shoulders. "Can I be blunt?"'

"Can you not?" he asked. Then he shook his head. "I meant that literally. Is that even possible for you? But go ahead — say what I need to hear."

"Yeah?" Jack asked, taking his hands back but remaining there in his personal space, looking into his eyes.

"Please."

"It seems scary mostly because you only know about it from the experience of it. You don't have a more objective context. We see that all the time in the ED, yeah?”

Robby nodded. 

He continued: “God knows the pain is real, but the cause is probably not unusual or a mystery to the kind of people who specialize in this shit. Let them help you through it, even if it does turn out to be gangrene. What would you do if it was, you know? Just let bits of you start falling off?"

Robby just nodded and gave him an amused smile, like that wasn't a sort of insane thing to say to comfort a person. Like it actually worked.

The urge to hug him was physical now and almost overwhelming, but it felt like too much, like if he didn't step just right he would blow this whole thing up.

Instead, he said, "You're off tomorrow, right? Come over after lunch and let me help you do some research and make some calls?"

(And be where I can keep my eye on you. Feed you. Make you sleep. Fucking take care of you.)

At that, Robby exhaled and nodded. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yes," Robby said. "That would be… Yeah."

Robby didn't move for a moment, so Jack patted his shoulder and let his hand hold there for a moment. He didn't know what it felt like to Robby, but for him it was I'm here but also thank you and thank God. Then Robby nodded again and led him out the door into the noise of the transition to nightshift.

3

Jack went up to the roof around midnight. It made him a little queasy stepping through the door.

The thing about his flirting with jumping off the roof: he was never going to do it. That's not to say he hadn't had his moments of wanting to be gone from this fucking world, but those were precisely the moments he didn't go up on the roof. 

The roof was for recentering. Once, he'd been prone to standing there contemplating the universe, real existential bullshit, and sometimes that was still true. But now he mostly just watched the light play over the buildings or the sky change colors at dawn and dusk. He breathed in and out, trying to calm his nervous system and simultaneously feel grounded in the world around him, however terrible it was. 

But it wasn't just about him. At some point, he'd started going up there because he knew Robby would come fetch him. Robby was the one who held shit together, not just him but always him. It wasn't conscious at first, but Jack was ashamed to say that, by now, he was making a choice some days to go through this ritual, without thinking about how he was showing the man, at least once a week, a way to look death in the face and —

Jack sat down with his back to the wall by the door. The sky was dark; the city lights prevented him from seeing all but the brightest stars. He'd used Robby as his north star for too long. He hadn't thought about what it meant for the man to lure him back from the edge of oblivion so many times. If he'd only told him: the emotions were serious, but the threat was not. It was comforting to him to contemplate pitching himself dramatically off the side of a multi-story building, in a way that it shouldn't be. And in a way it couldn't be again, he was certain. 

He let himself sit there feeling the breeze on his face, cooler than just a couple of weeks before as autumn closed in on the city — for ten minutes. Any longer and Ellis would come looking for him. As it was, she would give him the eyebrow when he went back down. He would give her the eyebrow back. 

And he would push on. There were so many people to come drag his ass off the roof, figuratively and literally. He hoped like hell Robby understood that there were so many people that would do the same for him. Not just Jack, of course, but always Jack.

4

When Robby rang his bell the next day, it was technically still morning. He was still in the same clothes, which was a little worrying. However, he was carrying a pizza box and a six-pack of a local craft IPA they both liked, so he decided to take one thing at a time.

"I'm guessing you haven't eaten," Robby said.

"Just some old man cereal when I got home."

"Old man cereal?"

"Store brand Grape Nuts."

Robby just snorted out a laugh and nodded.

He set their lunch on the counter that divided the living room from the kitchen then peeled the hoodie off.

They stood on opposite sides of the counter and ate straight out of the box. Robby was surprisingly jovial and talkative, and it didn't seem forced, just conjured up from the deeper reserves of his mental energy. He was still tired, and there was clearly something heavy hanging there, but maybe it was easier for him to hold it now? Jack wasn't sure. 

After Robby finished a slice, he took a long drink from the bottle in front of him, and it was only then that Jack realized he was staring at the man — because Robby was clocking him doing it. Robby met his eyes without any real surprise, and with deliberate attention, like he wanted him to know he'd been caught.

There was such an instant and palpable shift in the energy between them that Jack felt his pulse jump and fly.  

Robby said, "Thank you, again, for holding me by the hand after all the shit the other night. I'm sure I didn't make it easy."

"That's what friends do."

Robby paused, then he asked, "Do friends sleep with their hands on each other?"

Jack felt his face flush, the heat traveling up to the tip of his ears, even.

"Sorry."

"I'm not upset about it," he said evenly, maybe too evenly to be anything other than manufactured. "Just curious."

He affected a shrug. "I always did like sleeping with someone else in the bed."

"Bullshit."

Jack rolled his eyes, which then flitted all around the room. Anywhere but directly on Robby. There it was — panic rising up in him now, despite the great control he usually had over his fight-or-flight response. He'd only thought this was a kind of quicksand before. Caught in Robby's gaze, a gaze that felt knowing, now, he couldn't move. 

"I've shared a bed with you before," Robby said. "You don't get close, not even accidentally. Even on a big-ass hotel king, you sleep on your back without moving a muscle, but you sleep light, like you expect to be up and running at a moment's notice."

"Hard to do with one foot."

Robby gave him an un-amused face.

Jack threw his hands up in the air and said, "We were fucking exhausted, brother. I don't know what else to tell you."

Robby nodded in exactly the way he does when he's about to upend a stubborn resident's facile observations. It was an expression he would normally direct at Langdon, words quick like a stab, although the technique he used now was more akin to his approach to Mohan, all revealing questions:

"What if I was wearing one of your old black Metallica shirts, so faded they're basically gray?" He smiled a little, adding, "Or the Iron Maiden one that I'm pretty sure is literally falling apart?"

"It was for the tour behind Fear of the Dark. Last record before Bruce left the band for a while."

"You love that shirt."

"It's comfortable. Fits nice."

"What if that's what you gave me?"

(He can see it now, the way it would pull on the man's shoulders, the way it would feel against his hands.)

"I would," he replied. "What's your point?"

Calmly, like he was still just proposing a hypothetical, Robby then asked: "What if I had to wear some of your actual underwear?” 

Now, that — that sent a miserable zing of arousal through him. The overriding feeling, though, was want. 

Maybe Robby saw it, or maybe he was just testing, just pushing to see how far this would bend. His tone became even more intimate now, completely unimpeded by what the two of them were supposed to do and be. 

“What if you had just taken them off your body before I put them on, and they were still warm?" Robby said. "Or what if I was picking them up off your bedroom floor…where we had dropped them?”

Jack tried to take in a breath, but his chest wouldn't expand — not until he saw the bewildered smile on Robby's face, one threatening to bloom into astonishment.

"So I’m not crazy," Robby said. 

Jack shook his head. Soon, he was unable to look him in the eyes, but he could feel Robby's gaze hot on his face, his body.

With a little more venom than was necessary, Jack retorted, "Are you just shocked or actually pissed?"

"I'm definitely not pissed," he replied with a shake of his head, in an amused voice so warm he could feel the rumble of it in his body. "Not at you. How long?"

"Yeah, no way I'm—" Jack gave him a quick look of desperation then shook his head again.

Robby's eyes kept him pinned. He felt more than saw the man round the end of the counter and step just into his personal space. But when Jack looked up again, Robby had his arms crossed over his chest, like he did when he was protecting himself or else protecting others from a desperate outlay of his emotions.

"How about I start, then," Robby murmured. "You remember that waste of a conference in Milwaukee a couple of years ago? It was fucking freezing. February, I think. We came in one night from a really boring mixer, and you got the first shower. I was jealous, frankly. Then you came out in nothing but a towel, and I was suddenly warmer than I'd ever been in my life."

"Fuck off,” he muttered, eyes unable to hold Robby's again. 

Of course, his heart did a ridiculous leap, physically and metaphorically. 

Robby grinned and said, "I'm so serious. I—"

Operating on instinct now, Jack all but yanked the man's body into his and kissed him so hard their teeth clacked together. As he quickly moderated himself, he felt Robby alternate between kissing him back passionately and sort of giggling against his mouth. Once Jack settled back into himself again, he understood the feeling. He was giddy, too. That was the only way to describe it. He was still rattled with adrenaline, but it didn't matter anymore, not really. It felt like something beautifully wild flowing through him. Robby's facial hair was soft against his upper lip and chin. He tasted like beer and kissed him like he fucking meant it.

When he came out of the kiss with a gasp for air, he kept their foreheads pressed together so he could dive back in. Soon. In the meantime, Jack had just enough blood left in his brain to do a little math.

"That was more than a couple years. More like six, seven?"

"Look," Robby said against his jaw, now dragging kisses over his stubble as though to distract him. "Look, I haven't been pining, okay? It was so out of the realm of possibility. We weren't…close like this, not then. You were just this cute guy I knew. I was still working out whether I really was attracted to men."

This was, of course, news — which the man was dropping here as though it were a known dimension of him that was maybe so familiar he'd forgotten about it. He wouldn't have, of course. He couldn't. Because they'd had that conversation before, about himself, something like four years ago.

"Ahead of me, then," he confessed, stretching his neck to let Robby get better access.

But Robby pulled back and searched his face. Fair enough. He supposed the man had no reason to know that he hadn't been labeling himself queer all that long, that when he told Robby about it he was speaking the words out loud for the first time.

(Because he'd never, ever talked about the quick and dirty moments during his service, hands yanking at the zippers on fatigues, weapon-worn fingers on his cock or the wet pull of a mouth, or his own knees getting dirtied up in a way that would have gotten him in trouble if he wasn't a doctor but a weary grunt or a shiny el-tee, like the men whose dicks he was eagerly sucking. He'd done his best not to even think about it. He could only avoid those corners of his mind for so long, though.)

Bottom line: as a consciously bisexual man, as someone who owned what he wanted, he was a late bloomer. No, fellow late bloomer, apparently.

Jack laughed, and it would have been an easy thing if he wasn't shaking a little. 

"Not by much, mind you," he said with a pointed look of challenge.

He kissed Robby again on the mouth, then, at least partly to head off any heatless bickering or verbal waffling, and he took the opportunity to pull their hips flush together. Robby gave a soft growl at that, rocking into him gently. He dropped his forehead against Jack's shoulder.

"I know this is maybe the worst possible time," Robby said. "I know I'm a mess. I didn't even... This wasn't supposed to be some weird coming out thing. At all." He pulled back to look at him again and said with a wry smile, "Sometimes I open my mouth around you without knowing what's going to come out of it, but for some reason that seems to work for us."

"It does," Jack replied, kissing that hopelessly honest mouth, helpless to keep himself from soothing the man's nerves. But Robby was apparently bent on doing the same, because he took his face in his hands and spoke soft and low:

"You looked kinda mortified a minute ago, so I wanted you to know that I'm there, too. Feeling all sorts of things. Like, for example, how you were one of the first men I was ever around that made me think, Oh no, this is a real thing, isn't it? I want this."

Jack felt a little like the air was punched out of him, which must have been obvious. 

"Fuck," Robby said with a nervous, self-deprecating laugh. "Not the only. Just the right place, right time." Jack was looking at him again, which seemed to somewhat calm Robby's nerves. He sighed and said, "It's just… Well, I looked up with new eyes, and there you were. And then I had to figure out how to just be friends with you."

"You’ve known I’m into men for a while now. I know we haven’t talked about it much, but…"

"Didn't mean you'd be into me," he replied with a shrug, answering the unspoken question.

He was so matter of fact about it that it made Jack's stomach ache. How did he not know? Was this Robby's generally shit self-esteem, or had Jack fucked this up, despite his best efforts?

"What are you talking about?" Jack said. He let his hands slip down over Robby's ass and just rest there, learning the slight, perfect curve of it. "You are a gorgeous redwood tree of a man." Robby finally went a little pink at that, and he ducked his head again. So fucking cute it kind of took his breath away.

He knew what the man was thinking, because he was thinking it, too: why hadn't he ever showed it? That was probably a conversation they'd need to have, but it was a complicated one. Then again, they were maybe in the same boat — why hadn't Robby said something when he came out to him? — which would make things easier. He hoped, anyway. But not at this very moment. 

Jack spoke softly into Robby's neck just under his ear, trying to say all the things he could articulate right now to convince him: "Why wouldn't I go for you? You're brilliant. You're capable of being so fundamentally decent, which I didn't even know was a thing I needed. Okay, sometimes you can be sort of difficult about shit, but that generally works for me, too. You're honestly distracting as all hell on pretty much a daily basis." He kissed his neck and pulled back so he could look him in the eyes and say, "And I can't help but smile when you smile?”

Robby was grinning in response, but he groused, "Test my glucose."

Jack just pulled him closer, hands squeezing his ass a little for good measure. 

"Hey," Jack said, "if we're doing this — and I think I know you well enough to say we're doing this if you're mocking and molesting me in my kitchen — you'll have to get used to awkward sincerity."

"We're definitely doing this. If you want to."

"Do you want to?"

"Why does it have to be on me?"

"It's on both of us," he said firmly but soothingly. "Just so you know, I was touching you on purpose last night. Two nights ago. Whatever. Point is, I kind of couldn't help it." 

Jack pulled his hands back to those hips, slipped his left hand under the waistband and sought out the top of his iliac crest.

"Jack," Robby muttered.

"I take it you liked that, too?" 

"I liked it so much," Robby murmured in response, "despite feeling like death warmed over, that I may or may not have jerked off in your shower."

"Shit," Jack said, arousal washing through him. "Filthy bastard."

"You have no idea."

Jack wanted nothing better than to haul him to the bedroom. Hell, he could drop to his knees right here. But he pressed his hands flat to Robby’s chest, holding him apart a little, so he could capture his gaze. 

"Sexy as this is, Mike,” he said, “I need you to answer me honestly: Is this about the stress of the last couple of days?"

"Caused by it? Absolutely not. But it was a catalyst."

"Explain what you mean."

Robby's hands drifted up to his own, covering them where they pressed flat against his pectoralis major.

"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I took a long walk, and it was like I could feel everything inside me shifting into different places. I can see some parts of myself and my bullshit a lot more clearly. Well, maybe not clearly, but I at least know there's shit there to deal with. And I will. I definitely don't want to…die. I've never felt that before. I don't struggle with it like you do. I'm not in denial about that; it's the truth. But since I want to live, I have to do better. So that I don’t get to that place again."

"Glad to hear it." He slipped his hands out from under Robby's and used them to cup his jaw. "You scared the shit out of me, you know?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

He watched his eyes well up with tears, but he was doing his best to stay in control. Jack wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but he didn't have it in him to make the man cry, not tonight. Maybe not ever.

"Not telling you to make you feel bad." One of his hands slid around to stroke the nape of Robby's neck, and he thrilled to feel him press back into his touch. "Just need you to know it fucked me up. I'm probably still a little fucked up."

"Jack."

"This is not me blaming you." He kissed his mouth softly, then he planted another kiss over his beard, on his way to murmuring in his ear: "I'm just telling you how much you mean to me. You get that, right? How important you are…"

Robby pressed his face against his neck. His voice was soft but sure when he said, "I am…so fucking grateful you're in my life. You're good for me. I'm a little afraid I'm not good for you, but I'll work on it. I promise."

"Okay," Jack said. "I'll take it. But don't go churching me up too much. There are gonna be downsides if you're determined to get tangled up with me."

"As if I'm not already."

He pulled back so he could look him in the eyes again, even if that was absolutely perilous, a dual threat of completely disarming sincerity and whatever it was in his own soul that simply could not cope with big brown eyes on anybody he was attracted to. 

Jack said, "I'm bossy. Very bossy."

"Oh, really?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Safeword bossy, or just…?"

"Just. Jesus."

Robby rolled his eyes and gestured for him to continue.

"I have routines," he said firmly, "and I get grumpy when they're disrupted. I forget to be sympathetic to other people's shit. Like, all the time. I waste money on food. I drink crap beer when you're not here."

"Ooh, let me try. Let's see… I only have one good leg, which I think people should be put off by for some reason. Nevermind that I lost it as a goddamn army doctor. I refuse to take off my wedding ring, which may or may not be healthy but is definitely a way to keep people at arm's length." Here, he slipped out of character for a moment to reassure him: "It's not a problem itself or anything I need you to change, okay, I just worry what it's an indication of." Back in character again, he added, "I like to flirt with jumping off buildings but get kinda pissy when other people do the same."

"No dealbreakers there?" he asked, trying not to think too hard about that last thing especially.

"Nope."

“Make sure you tell your new therapist about all that shit.”

“Will do." Robby's hands came to his neck. "So… At the risk of you thinking I'm trying to dodge this particular conversation, I need to change the subject."

"Sure."

"Do you like cold pizza?”

"There are people that don't like cold pizza?"

"Philistines," Robby replied. 

"Why? You got somewhere you gotta be?"

Robby brought his forehead to rest against Jack's, murmuring, “If you don’t take me to bed now, I might lose my mind.”

“Well, I do like your mind.”

“I hope you like me for more than my mind.”

Jack smirked and said, “Lots of things, especially your enormous fucking hands.”

Robby had the temerity to both blush at that and also give him a kind of saucy grin.

Robby murmured, “You are so fucking sexy it's kind of annoying." His fingers slipped back and carded into his hair now. "I wanna map every freckle with my tongue.”

“Excellent," Jack replied, and his body gave an actual shiver. "I actually have no idea what a full beard feels like between my thighs.”

At that, Robby held his head still and kissed him long and dirty. Eventually, one hand slipped down between them, and he gripped Jack's half-hard cock through his worn jeans. Jack was not in the least bit sorry about the vulgar moan that elicited, given how Robby whimpered a little into the kiss in reaction.

They did not cling to each other as they headed down the hallway to the bedroom. That felt a little too cute for the feelings animating them at the moment, but at the same time maybe a little too frantic. Robby sat on the bed and watched him shed his jeans and sit on the bench by the closet to hastily pull off his prosthetic. He gave the stump a cursory rubdown, just to even out the sensation a little, but Robby flapped a hand at him and gave him a look that said something like, Don't rush, dumbass. So he worked at it like he normally would, until the lack of prosthetic felt like a relief. 

As he did, Robby said, "You ever keep that on during sex?"

He snorted. "Only when I'm doing it standing up."

"I don't have the coordination for that, and I've got two feet."

"Honestly, by the time I decided I wasn't into supply closets and makeshift yoga poses, I was also not into fucking anyone I'd feel the need to perform for." He pushed himself up on his remaining foot and, eyeing the elbow crutches leaned up against the nightstand, instead just launched himself toward the bed. As he gripped the footboard and sat down, he added, "Just don't imagine you'll be able to manhandle me because of it."

"I would never," Robby said. He was biting his lip. "Unless you asked."

Maybe Jack’s breath caught in his throat for a second. Maybe. 

Now that Jack was close enough to touch him again, he let a hand slip over the man's thigh, saying, "Why are you still wearing so many clothes?" 

He let his hand drift into place at Robby's fly, just resting on the waistband.

Robby replied with a smirk: "I didn't know if you'd need to take the shirt off yourself."

"Fuck off," he said with an eye roll.

"You really didn't pick this one on purpose?"

"I really didn't. I basically hadn't slept. I had just enough alert and functioning brain cells to pick a color that might survive work stains, but otherwise, no. You look nice in that green, though."

"So, the fact that it's your shirt is…?"

"Everything I didn't know I needed in my life. But it's past its expiration date, mon frère."

At that, Robby grinned and reached back to pull it off by the back of the collar. Jack wanted to be pressed against that broad chest immediately, but Robby was reaching for the hem of his shirt. Jack slapped at it and just pointed at Robby's fly and said, "You take care of those. I'll worry about me."

He was mildly surprised when Robby shucked off not just the jeans but the boxer briefs, too, all in one go. It made him hurry to strip off his own clothes, to more quickly get to the part where he pressed him down onto the bed and settled himself between his open thighs. 

As he climbed over him, he had a second to take a peek at his dick, which was cut and just the right kind of big. When he brought their hips together, finally, he had the wisdom to remember to keep his eyes open so he could watch the way Robby's face went slack even as his hands gripped Jack's ass for dear life and pulled him closer. 

Even through the thrill of it, as they took a little time to just grind and occasionally trade kisses into gasping mouths, he could feel Robby retreating, mentally. 

"Stop overthinking," he murmured.

"Trying. Feeling like a dumb teenager."

"Well, you aren't. You know what your body likes, and you know more than you realize about how to get off with a guy. Focus on that. If you want to try the more complicated stuff, we can work through that later, alright?"

"I don't know if I'm a top or bottom," he murmured.

You're a top, his brain immediately supplied. You have to know that.

But he said, "Not necessarily an either/or. I like to bottom, but you're not exactly small, and I'm not going to fight you too hard if you want me to stick it in."

He could actually feel Robby's face get hot as he laughed and then retorted, "You eloquent motherfucker."

"You should probably try both ways, honestly. Right now, though, can I suck you off?"

Robby nodded, and it was like Jack could hear his heartbeat roar in his ears. 

Hands pressing his thighs open just a little wider, Jack bent down and took just the head between his lips. Robby withstood a little teasing for a moment, then Jack pulled off long enough to ask, "What do you like?"

"Blow jobs," he replied. When Jack gave him a face, he said, "Seriously. Everything about them. No matter what, it takes me ages to get off this way, so don't think you have to follow through. It's just foreplay for me, usually. Wind me up and switch to hands whenever you want." 

He brought up a hand and traced two fingers along the warm length of him, earning him a very gratifying hip wiggle and a gorgeous sigh.

"Hair?" Robby asked, already threading his fingers through Jack's curls. His voice was shakier now.

"That's fine. Just don't pull too hard. I'd like to keep it, you know. Also, if the apparently impossible happens and you're about to go off, warn a guy?"

Before Robby could prolong the conversation, Jack wrapped his hand around the base of his shaft and took as much of the rest as he could into his mouth.

"Holy shit," Robby said through gritted teeth. His hips bucked a little, but he didn't thrust up and choke him. Not that Jack would've minded overly much, but he reckoned they could explore that aspect of things later, when Robby might be more capable of trusting him to really, really like gagging on it a little.

He tasted like, well, a guy who had been working, but fuck if he cared. He'd always liked the rawness of sex, all the ways bodies could taste and smell and feel. There between his legs, he realized that he was actually pretty familiar with the underlying musk of Robby's body. It was dizzying being this close. 

Normally, he put himself on autopilot while he was giving head, following the rhythm with utmost concentration but no real thought, like making stitches down the path of a clean wound. But at this very moment, his senses were overloaded with it all, and he had to keep his hips pressed hard to the mattress so he wouldn't grind, so he wouldn't be tempted to slip a hand down there. The man deserved the satisfaction of making him come, knowing it was him that did it. 

Robby's hand in his hair didn't pull. He was just holding the back of his skull for dear life. His other hand drifted to Jack's neck and jaw. He nudged at his chin, trying to get him to look up.

Robby's pupils were blown, and his mouth was a little swollen from kissing him. He caressed Jack's cheek — in between suppressing violent thrusts of his hips — and said, "Feels so good. Fuck.” 

His eyes slipped closed, and Jack felt a burst of pride (because, yeah, this was not a dick for novices, and he couldn't even pretend it was) and a new wave of very insistent lust.

Jack kept at it for another minute or two, then he gave his cock a few more vigorous pulls with nice suction and released it with a wet pop, just for effect. Quickly, he clambered up on top of him again, his own untouched cock dragging against the man's hip.

Jack closed his hand around Robby's slick cock and stared down at him, saying, "Your hand. Fuck, please."

One of Robby's hands grasped for his shaft, then the other pulled his face down to kiss him. It couldn't have been more than a dozen tugs before Robby was moaning into his mouth and suddenly spilling between them. 

For a hot second, Jack thought he had pushed himself too far, past the point of overstimulation, but then Robby was snapping back to reality and watching him intently, that big, calloused hand of his picking up some of his own come and using it to further ease the slide over his dick. 

At some point, it began to feel more like Jack was fucking his fist, and Robby played into that, coaxing him into moving his hips to shove his cock through the now-wet grip of his hand. His thrusts slowed, got sharper, and his hips finally stopped as he felt an orgasm fly through him. He painted Robby's chest obscenely. A drop or two actually hit his chin.

"Fuck," Robby said.

"Shit,” he said with a gasp. “Goddamn, Michael."

He felt so raw, but also so very good. Robby's other hand slipped around his thigh, the closest part of him he could reach, like he just needed to check in. 

"I got you,” he was murmuring, still milking it out of him. 

Eventually, he had to swat Robby's hand away. He stayed there in a crouch, looking down at him, feeling slightly hysterical.

"All good?" he asked him.

Robby replied, "I love when sex is messy."

"Really?"

"Yeah?"

God, I love you, Jack thought. What he said, however:

"We're absolute morons. How long could I have been making a mess of you?"

"So stupid," Robby replied with a very serious face that quickly shifted back into a grin.

"Get tested soon, okay? I'm gonna need to do that again, except with you inside me."

Robby shuddered at that. Definitely did not recoil at the notion of being put in the driver's seat. He just said, "No condom? I thought that made it easier."

"It does. Are you interested in easy?"

Robby giggled, then he said, "I mean, sometimes, yeah? Sometimes I'm a real lazy bastard."

"That's good, too. Honestly, you and me naked together is…" He shook his head, unable to articulate it.

But Robby did: "Everything," he said, then he pulled him down again, for a long kiss. 

Eventually, he let him roll off of him, but he frowned at him when he made a move to push off the bed to go after towels. Robby pressed a hand into his chest.

"I can bring you crutches or the leg," Robby said, "or you can let me fetch the towels while you keep your sexy ass on the bed."

When Jack didn't answer immediately, Robby strutted off toward the en suite bathroom.

Jack grinned, calling out, "What makes you think you're allowed to talk to me like that in my own home, Robinavitch?"

Soon, Robby was throwing a wet washcloth at him and retreating again, closing the door behind him. By the time he heard a toilet flush, he had wiped the spunk off his hands and torso. Most of it had gotten on Robby. When Robby emerged from the room again, Jack threw the towel back.

"Disgusting," Robby said with a grimace. Like he didn't have far grosser things on his hands on a daily basis.

"I thought you liked messy?"

"I do,” he replied as he rinsed the towel in the sink. “Right up until it starts to feel like my body hair is being lacquered to my skin."

"Mostly your jizz, babe." Robby raised his eyebrows. Jack clarified, "On the towel."

Robby was almost back to the bed when he stopped in his tracks, making a face. "We left the beer out," he said, then he padded out toward the kitchen.

When he came back, Jack had righted the pillows and blankets. 

Now that he'd gone out of the room, Robby was suddenly just a little shy about walking around naked. Not enough to get back into his underwear, but enough to hold his body with some self-consciousness. He was also very clearly Thinking Thoughts again.

Robby said, "We have things to do. Serious things."

"I haven't forgotten." Jack patted the bed. "Indulge me, just for a little while. I need a big spoon."

"I can do that." He didn't sound convinced, but he climbed in anyway.

Robby didn't pull the covers up over himself, instead curling up against his back, one of those lovely hands settling at his hip and making exploratory circles up and over, down and back, rinse and repeat. 

Over and over, he was touching him where he'd been touched two nights before.

"See," Jack said. "Perfect spoon skills."

"Spooning is not a skill."

"Maybe not. Making someone feel cared for is."

He could feel Robby's smile as he kissed his shoulder. "I don't know why you think your sincerity is awkward."

"Because recognizing and vocalizing emotions is still a thing I do by rote, because I know I'm supposed to."

"You're ahead of me this time."

"Give it a try. What kind of feelings are rolling around in there right now?"

"Honestly? Little bit of disbelief. Tiny bit of gay panic — except not really, more like I think I'm supposed to be panicking but I'm not."

"Been there. The rest?"

"I feel big spoon-y, I guess. Like the kind you cook or serve with? One with holes to drain through, but sturdy. Steel or something, not plastic."

"A metal slotted spatula. Definitely tell your new therapist that one."

He just snorted.

Jack said, "You sound exhausted, brother."

"I think you sucked all the energy out of me through my dick."

"Sleep a while if you want."

"Yeah. Think I could."

"Don't freak out if I'm not right here, though. Not leaving the house, at least not until time to go in. You stay as long as you want."

"'Kay." After a beat, he said, "You're going to have a tidy list all cued up, aren't you?"

"Oh, that's mostly done. But there were some people I didn't get the first time and need to circle back to."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." He grasped for the hand thrown over his torso and pulled him closer by it. "I mean that. Anytime. You still have the spare key I gave you?"

"The emergency key?"

"The boyfriend key."

Robby kind of squeezed him at that. "You sure you want to—"

"Yeah. However that sentence was going to end — yes, I'm sure."

Robby laughed and said, "Okay."

"I mean it's not as if— Wait, you said okay?"

"Yeah."

He grinned to himself, wiggling back a little against Robby's body and saying, "Awesome."

"Now, you stop that if you want me to sleep, boyfriend."

"Fine," he murmured. "More later."

"Lots more."

They settled into comfortable silence, and it wasn't long before Robby was dropping off. By the time Jack extricated himself from the man's arms, he was sleeping hard. His face was creased in worry, but only softly. His body, however, looked relatively relaxed. 

So was Jack's. He sat on the edge of the bed just looking at him for a minute or two. The knot of tension that had been constricting his chest was starting to release itself. Behind it was pain, but that was something he could deal with. It would fade. This thing with Robby, it wouldn't. He was sure of it, now. He just had to trust that, someday soon, Robby would be sure of it, too.