Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

It’s not a surprise that the medical students are always hanging off of Robby.

That’s just what med students do. They bond with the supervisors who are teaching them, they connect with mentor figures at the hospital, they develop little crushes on the physicians they look up to. Jack and Robby have both had their fair share of infatuated students half their age trailing after them with hearts in their young, dumb eyes.

In time, Jack’s gotten used to it. Every round of students is the same. It’s ultimately meaningless; what he and Robby have— even if largely undefined— is far more real. At least they’ve got meaning between them, something solid.

Robby just cares so goddamn much, though. About everyone.

So, really, it’s sort of impossible for Jack to not notice the special attention he pays to Dennis Whitaker.

Every unique case that walks through the door gets Robby’s special attention. Frank Langdon had it for a while, and Jack managed to endure that. But there’s something about the way Robby looks after Whitaker— how he has other people observing him, how he seeks him out to check on him, how he goes out of his way to help him. It makes Jack itch.

He’s not jealous. For him to be jealous, he’d need to be protective over something that’s his, and Robby isn’t his, is he? Not technically.

“And whose fault is that?” Jack asks his reflection in the hospital’s bathroom mirror. His own face offers no answers— none that he wants, anyway. “That’s what I thought. Idiot.”

The thing is— it’d been easier, when this all started, not to let Robby tie him down. Their jobs are hectic, and their lives are messy, and it’d just— it’d been easier this way. Even guessing that Robby is incapable of being casual— even after they once drunkenly half-discussed his inability to stay light and his desire to take everything so seriously— he’d still jumped into bed with him. And he keeps jumping, and Robby keeps telling him that it’s fine, that he’s open and unbothered and breezy, but Jack is starting to think that he isn’t.

He doesn’t think he’s being so open and unbothered and breezy, either.

Ultimately, he is aware that he is a flight risk, and he knows that he is flirty and— and jumpy, and noncommittal, but that’s who he is. That’s how he likes it— or, liked it, he supposes. That’s who he’s always tried to be, who he has tried to stay, if only because he doesn’t know who else to be— but it’s not working like it used to.

He’s not sure that he’s chill anymore. At least, not about Robby.

Which is probably why he can’t stop prickling every time he sees Robby sling his arm across Whitaker’s shoulders, or heap praise on him after a successful decision, or constantly bump into him because the med student is always right there behind him.

“He’s a fucking kid,” Jack reminds his reflection, as if incredulous and shocked by the very thought of Robby having interest in someone like Whitaker— as if he doesn’t remind Jack way too much of a young Robby, as if they wouldn’t be a perfect little matched set of their own. “Fuck him. Fuck this, what are you, in fucking high school? You jealous of a fucking kid, Abbot?”

The bathroom door pushes in, then, and Jack shoves away from the sink, pretending he wasn’t just confronting himself in the mirror as he strides back out into the internal chaos of the emergency room.

As always, his eyes seek out Robby first. It’s not difficult; he’s usually a head above everyone else, easy to pick out of a crowd. Jack’s gotten pretty good at finding him right away.

Just like he does today.

Right in time to see Whitaker scurrying up behind Robby, eyes so wide he looks like a deer staring down a tractor trailer.

As Jack watches— inching a step closer with every moment, a hunter trying not to draw the attention of his prey— Whitaker seems to take a deep breath and square his shoulders. After a second, he takes another, deeper breath, then reaches up to tap Robby on the shoulder.

“Doc— Uhh, Robby?” he asks, and Jack shuffles a couple steps closer, pretending he’s reading the screen above his head. The digital letters may as well be an ancient language for all he’s processing them as he eavesdrops.

“Yeah, Whitaker, what’s up?” Robby replies. Jack chances a glance in his direction and finds Robby’s head turned down, glasses on, eyes skimming rapidly over a sheet of papers shuffling between his hands. When Whitaker seems to hesitate a beat too long, though, Robby glances up at him, thumb holding his place. “Dennis? You doing alright?”

Jack returns his attention to the screen, fighting back a scowl. Fucking Dennis. Fucking— cute little farmboy Dennis—

“Yeah, I’m— Uhh— Yeah, I’m okay,” Whitaker stammers out. The shake in his voice makes Jack nervous, and he doesn’t even know what the hell is going on. “I just— I just had a question? I guess I had a question. And Trin— Trinity— Uhh, Santos, you know her, she said— She said I should just ask you?”

Hearing that, Jack has to turn, bewildered, to see Whitaker blushing a furious red as he stutters in front of a confused-looking Robby. To Jack’s own defense, though, he’s not the only one watching; more than a couple of patients and nurses have stopped to witness whatever it is that’s happening here.

“I mean, yeah, just ask me,” Robby tells him, reaching up to tug his glasses off.

Fuck you, Jack thinks cheerfully, feeling a throb of affection and lust rush through him at the sight. Ridiculous.

“Right. Uhh— Oh, right.” Whitaker dusts himself off, though there’s nothing on the front of his scrubs— for once, Jack thinks, uncharitably— before he glances down and seems to gather himself. After yet another deep breath, he looks up to Robby and asks, “So, would— If— I mean, you’re really— Uhh, you’re tall?” His blush, if possible, burns a deeper red, so much so that Jack briefly worries for his circulation and breathing. “I just— That’s not what I meant to say. Um, I think you’re really— handsome, and tall, and nice, and I— I think it would be nice if maybe we could— we could get a drink? Or dinner, or— something?” Into the brief stunned silence that follows, he hurriedly tacks on, “Uhh— Together, I mean.”

Jack isn’t the only one staring. In the aftermath of Whitaker’s offer, Robby seems momentarily shell-shocked, and Dana whispers, “Oh, my God,” softly behind her computer.

A nauseating surge of emotion rushes through Jack’s system. He feels— stupid, like he should run over there and take Robby by the shoulders and lick him in front of everyone. All he wants is for people to know Robby is his.

Looking towards Robby, feeling that panging throb of mine, mine, mine, he has to actually stop himself from hurtling the desk and biting him and marking his territory, and what the actual hell is that all about?

“Oh. Oh. Uhh—” Robby looks up from Whitaker as if casting about for some sort of lifeline, glancing around him. Everyone avoids his eyes, acting as if they aren’t watching this whole thing unfold like it’s on a television screen and not right in front of them.

The only person who doesn’t look away is Jack, and Robby briefly snags on him, their eyes catching. Jack tries to give him a teasing expression, something amused and supportive; he’s worried he shows too much teeth.

Robby’s brow furrows as he looks back down to Whitaker. His voice drops lower, more private— more intimate, Jack’s mind helpfully points out— in telling him, “Dennis, I’m not sure that’d be appropriate. We work together.”

That’s it. He stops there.

Jack’s stomach twists.

Whitaker blows out a harsh breath, jerking his head in a nod. “Right. No, right, of course, I’m— I’m so sorry, that was really unprofessional of me to—”

“Do not even worry about it,” Robby assures him. “Hey, any guy would be lucky to have you, okay?”

Still staring, incredulous, Jack gets to witness Whitaker’s furious red blush become a far more pleasant pink as he ducks his head in that aw, shucks way of his and mumbles out, “Thanks. You, too, I just— Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. Seriously,” Robby insists— and there he goes, with his arm around Whitaker’s shoulders again. “I’m not mad. It’s flattering. You’re a good guy, Dennis.”

If Jack were gripping the counter’s edge any tighter, he thinks he’d be leaving dents. It would be unprofessional of Robby to date one of the medical students, but that’s not what he said. He said ‘we work together.’ Does his relationship— or, whatever this is— with Jack not mean enough for Robby to think it’s unprofessional? Would whatever relationship he would have with Whitaker have been more serious? More impactful, more meaningful, more than what he has with Jack? Does this not affect him?

Isn’t that what Jack wants?

He wanted Robby to be unaffected. He wanted them to be casual, wanted Robby to feel like they weren’t serious, like what they had wouldn’t impact them in any significant way.

When he’s confronted with the evidence that it’s working— that he’s getting exactly what he thought he wanted— why does he feel so sick?

And why— why— did Robby not just say, ‘I’m seeing someone?’

That’s what they’re doing, isn’t it? Seeing each other? Or is that too serious, too? It’s a label that has prickled Jack in previous relationships, but— it feels like an apt description of what they’ve been doing. They do see each other often, after all— swapping onto each other’s shifts, crashing at each other’s places, sneaking off together as often as possible. It’s not technically inaccurate to say that that’s what they’re doing.

It’s the easiest out. ‘I’m seeing someone.’ Not that Whitaker’s fighting back, just— it would’ve been simple, wouldn’t it? And true.

Maybe he just didn’t want Whitaker to ask for more details, half of Jack’s brain supplies, while the other half repeats, or he doesn’t think he’s seeing someone, or he doesn’t want people to know, or, or, or— over and over in a vicious loop.

He and Robby aren’t technically together. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine if Robby didn’t say he’s seeing someone right now. Even if he and Jack often see each other. He’s not upset. He’s definitely not jealous, and he absolutely did not want Robby to say that, or think that, or feel that.

All the same, Jack can’t help but edge around the nurses’ station, finally relaxing his grip, to approach them and say, “Hey, looks like there’s a patient just came in presenting all the symptoms of aquagenic urticaria. Wanna help me out?”

Jack witnesses up close as, in a split instant, Robby takes his attention off of Whitaker and transfers it over to him instead. A racing, warm spread of gratification rushes through his body as Robby claps Whitaker on the back and leaves him behind to catch up to Jack, keeping his pace instead.

“Sure thing, brother,” Robby replies, and their shoulders brush, don’t separate— casual. Intimate. “What’re you staring at?”

Jack forcibly tears his eyes off of Robby, tells him, “You’re blushing,” and feels his stomach flip when Robby just laughs, nudging him with his shoulder.

“I just got asked out on a date,” Robby informs him. He dips his head, lowers his voice, adds, “As if you weren’t listening.”

“Oh, did you, now?” Jack asks, and Robby exhales a half-amused breath. “And what’d you say?”

Robby glances over his shoulder, then back down to Jack, just as he’s slipping his glasses back into place. Even if Jack wanted to look and see what grabbed Robby’s attention, he doesn’t think he could rip his eyes away from him again.

“Nah,” Robby replies. “I got plans.” Tucking his sheaf of papers under his arm, clapping his hands together, he requests, “Show me the patient,” and Jack takes off with him, glad that— at least, for now— Robby’s at his side and nobody else’s.

Still, he can’t help but comment, “You know, you are pretty tall. And handsome—”

“Shut up,” Robby says without breaking stride, a smile flickering across his expression, and Jack bounces right alongside him, all else already slipping away.

2.

Part of the fun of accepting an additional shift during the day is that Jack gets to see Robby and work directly with him almost the whole time. It’s a big part of the appeal of coming in when he’s supposed to be asleep, if he’s being completely honest. When it’s going well, it’s like playtime, and Jack always likes playing with Robby.

Which is why he’s been looking for him since he got on the clock, and why he’s starting to get a bit frustrated— and a little concerned— that he can’t find Robby anywhere.

If he’d left a shift early for any reason, Jack’s sure he would’ve texted. It’s not like Robby to just disappear, either; in the Pitt, he’s almost always within arm’s reach, and if he’s not, he’s only ever a good shout away.

All the same, Jack’s repeated calls of, “Dr. Robby?” continue to go unanswered.

“Dr. Abbot?” a different voice calls, and Jack whirls to see Dr. Mohan striding towards him. “Were you looking for Robby— Ah, Dr. Robby?”

“Yeah, you seen him anywhere?” Jack asks, still scanning the room even as he talks to her. He likes Mohan, she’s good at her work and manages to keep up with him; when Robby’s unavailable, he doesn’t mind pulling her alongside him. 

“Not since he said he needed a second in the bathroom,” Mohan comments, then frowns.

“What?” Jack asks, a shiver of unease running through him. Robby being unaccounted for for any length of time here is not a good thing, he thinks, and especially not on a hectic day like today is becoming. “When was that?”

“Like— Ten minutes ago,” Mohan replies. “Shit. I should’ve—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Jack stops her, readjusting the shoulder strap on his bag. He still hasn’t had a second to put it down. “I’ll find him. He probably—”

“Who, Dr. Robby?” Princess asks, returning to her station. “Dr. Collins went into one of the single-stall bathrooms with him a little while ago.” She grins, leaning in towards them; her voice has gone low and conspiratorial when she asks, “I didn’t know they were a thing, did you?”

Jack frowns, glancing in the direction of the family bathrooms.

“No,” he replies, stomach twisting sharply. “No, I didn’t.”

He knows they were a thing, he knows there was a time when Robby had run after a relationship with her. Hell, Robby had asked him if he could, and what would Jack say? After he’d made such a big deal about them not being serious, about how it was okay for them to see other people, about how they weren’t in a real relationship?

Just because it was years ago now doesn’t mean Jack doesn’t still fucking kick himself sometimes when he remembers it all. At least they’re in a more stable and secure place at the moment—

Or, so Jack thought.

His first instinct is to reject the desires, to tell himself that he shouldn’t even want this. His therapist has been trying to help him with should and should not, though, and with wanting things that are good for him— stability and security among them, and about pursuing what he wants to do, not what he thinks he should do.

But Robby didn’t ask this time, and he’s been alone in a bathroom with Collins for at least ten minutes, and envy overtakes curiosity in the pit of his stomach as he pushes off and starts striding for the bathrooms without listening for another word from anybody.

If anyone should be cornering Robby alone in a bathroom at work, it should be Jack. It wouldn’t even be the first time. What, Robby couldn’t wait ten minutes for Jack to show up and give him a hand? Couldn’t—

The closer he gets to the bathrooms, he thinks he can pick out voices. There are many people speaking, of course, but— familiar voices. Robby’s and Collins’s voices.

Then, he realizes, just Collins’s voice, and his blood starts pumping a little too hard.

Something furious and possessive starts gnawing on Jack from the inside out. He can feel its teeth sinking in as he slinks nearer, listens more closely, trying to make out individual words.

The first thing he actually hears is, “That’s it,” murmured in one of Collins’s softest voices. “That’s it. I got you.”

Jack’s hands ball up tight. He has to force his fingers to unclench from his fists, taking steadying breaths— in through his nose, hold, out through his mouth, hold, just as taught— to keep himself from losing his cool.

It’s fine. It’s fine, obviously, because him and Robby aren’t anything serious. They just—

It’s just that—

Jack was looking for Robby so he could yank him into an empty bathroom and say things like, ‘That’s it, I’ve got you,’ to him.

“Get it up,” Collins says on the other side of the door, and Jack frowns at the wood separating them, bewildered. The gentleness of her tone and the words she’s using— what the fuck are they even doing together—

Jack hears the low rumble of Robby’s voice in reply, though the words themselves are inaudible.

A heartbeat later, he hears Robby cough, then retch, and he’s banging his fist on the side of the door before he can even think it through.

Fucking hell, of course they’re not— getting off together in the bathroom for ten minutes. Flirtatious, yes, but Collins and Robby have never really been so unprofessional as to hide out and fuck while things are crazy out in the emergency room. That’s more Jack’s bad influence on Robby.

“Occupied!” Collins’s voice shouts back, clear and firm.

“I know, let me in,” Jack insists. Though he tries to keep the flare of panicked emotion out of his voice, he’s not quite sure he succeeds.

There’s a brief moment of quiet before the door audibly clicks open and Collins’s face appears in the exposed sliver. When Jack starts to step forward, though, she doesn’t move, blocking his way, and he frowns at her.

“What the hell’s going on?” he demands, a moment before repeating, “Let me in—”

“Robby’s just not feeling well, he’ll be out in a minute,” Collins tells him. Her gentler tone is gone, replaced with something harder, defensive. “Don’t worry—”

“What do you mean, Robby’s not feeling well?” Jack asks, heart racing. “What’s wrong with him?”

“It’s nothing,” Collins insists, and all of Jack’s hackles rise up at once. Of course it’s not nothing if Robby is sick, and— and Collins should not be protecting Robby from Jack. The whole thing is so ass-backwards he can barely process it for a second; the first person who should be at Robby’s side, looking after him and protecting him and taking care of him, is Jack.

And Jack wasn’t there, so Collins took over. Which he is not envious over, because Robby is sick, and that would be ridiculous for Jack to feel.

“If it’s nothing, then let me see him,” Jack counters.

Collins’s face creases into a frown. Jack’s just about to continue arguing when Robby’s scratchy voice asks, “Who is that?” from inside the bathroom, echoing around the tile.

Collins evaluates Jack for a long moment before she answers, “Dr. Abbot.”

“Oh— Shit. He can come in,” Robby mumbles, just barely audible enough for Jack to pick up on. Even after he says this, Collins seems to hesitate, and Robby tells her, “He knows. It’s okay.”

His voice is horrible and scraping. Jack would feel worse about slipping his way past Collins the way he does if Robby didn’t sound like he’d been gargling nails for the last hour. Accordingly, it’s not a surprise to find Robby hunched over the toilet in the tiny room.

“Hey, man, what’s going on?” Jack asks, moving to kneel beside him, pressing the back of his wrist to Robby’s clammy forehead. His fingertips find his carotid pulse a moment later, feeling out the slightly elevated rhythm there.

“Just cramps,” Robby replies, pathetic, slumping into Jack’s hands. The idea that he was doing exactly this with Collins just a minute ago—

Jack has to force it from his mind. His stupid, inappropriate jealousy is not a now problem; Robby knelt on the floor, curled over the toilet bowl, is a far more pressing issue in the moment.

“They’re a little early, aren’t they?” Jack asks, trying to run through his mental calendar. He didn’t think Robby was supposed to get his period for a couple more days.

“Just came early,” Robby tells him. “Wasn’t expecting it.”

“Were you feeling rough earlier?” Jack asks, pulling his bag off and dropping it at his side.

“No,” Robby answers as Jack digs through one of the side pockets. “I mean, tired, but I didn’t realize it was this until I was already here.”

“Mohan said you’ve been out ten minutes,” Jack comments. “Dehydrated?”

“Maybe,” Robby replies, letting his head fall to rest against his forearm, braced still on the toilet. “Can’t keep anything down right now.”

Jack hums his acknowledgment of this, withdrawing the bottle he keeps of the same painkillers Robby uses. He takes out a long pad, too, and passes it over to him.

“I already gave him a tampon,” Collins informs him.

“He prefers pads,” Jack replies without raising his head, leaning in to press his hand to Robby’s forehead again. “Feel like you’re gonna be sick again, Mikey?”

“Definitely,” Robby replies. Based on the ashen grey of his face, Jack believes him.

“Cramps?”

“About an eight.”

“Yeesh.” Jack takes out one of his water bottles, sets it down beside the pill bottle and his bag. Shifting upright, he kneels beside Robby to set his hand in the center of his back, starting to rub there in slow, even circles. “You’re gonna be alright. I gotcha.”

Robby leans against him, tilting into Jack’s touch. It’s so sad to watch that Jack can’t help but shuffle closer, letting Robby rest his full weight against him in a slump.

“You know when he’s supposed to get cramps?” Collins asks over his head. In all honesty, he keeps forgetting about her being here— he keeps forgetting about everything in the world outside of Robby, actually.

“Yeah, of course,” Jack replies, before he can think better of it. Robby stiffens slightly against him; Jack keeps rolling with, “Gotta know when my partner in crime is gonna want to kill me, don’t I?”

“Shut up,” Robby complains into Jack’s shoulder.

Collins surveys the two of them, then tells him, “That’s weird, Abbot.”

“Yeah, well. I’m a weird guy,” Jack replies, because he can’t tell Collins he keeps track of Robby’s fucking menstrual cycle. He especially can’t tell her why, that it’s— it’s because they’re casually fucking, obviously, and for no other reasons. Nothing else would be relevant anyway, he supposes. “Want me to start tracking yours, too?”

Collins throws her hands up, palms-out, answers, “No, that’s— That’s okay, thanks, I think I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” Jack hesitates, then adds, “Thanks for helping him out.”

“No problem,” Collins replies, still seeming as if she’s studying the two of them. “Can I— Is there anything else I can do? Or is he—”

“I think I got this,” Jack tells her. Glancing down, he asks, “You good, Robby?”

Robby gives a shaky thumbs-up, still curled into Jack for a brief moment before he lurches forward with a gag.

“Yeah, he’s good,” Jack says, moving to rub Robby’s shoulders, holding onto him as his body convulses with his next heave. “His cramps get really bad, this happens every month, poor guy. Unfair’s what it fucking is.”

As if Robby doesn’t have enough to deal with, he also gets some of the worst periods Jack has ever seen. He has as long as Jack’s known him; he’ll get to the point of fever and vomiting within hours once he starts feeling cramps and losing blood. It only lasts a day or two at most now— and Jack’s been improving at getting that time down significantly— but it’s still shit when it happens, and Jack hates watching Robby’s body consistently fall apart on him like this.

“We got it covered, though, don’t we?” Jack asks, rubbing Robby’s shoulder with the heel of his hand, and Robby spits into the toilet. “Yeah, we got it covered. Thanks for pitching in, Collins, I owe you one.”

There’s a beat of silence from above them before Collins says, “Well— Alright, okay. Let me know if you need anything?”

“Can do,” Jack replies, at the same time that Robby gives another rattling thumbs-up.

“Okay,” Collins repeats. She seems to pause for a moment, watching them, and Jack doesn’t quite understand the mixture of concern and amusement in her expression. He doesn’t get time to understand, either, when Collins just says, “Feel better, Robby,” and slips out of the bathroom, leaving them alone.

Jack didn’t even realize he wanted to be alone with Robby until he is, and he can feel something settle down inside of him.

“I’ve got you now,” Jack promises him as Robby collapses against him again, one arm wrapped around his own lower stomach and the other grappling for Jack. “Don’t worry, babe, I gotcha.”

“Good,” Robby exhales, clinging to Jack with tight fingers, and mentally, Jack can’t help but echo the sentiment.

3.

“Is this really necessary?” Robby complains, arms held out at his sides at stiff and awkward angles.

“You’re a Hospital Hero, aren’t you?” Jack asks in return.

“No,” Robby protests. “I’m a doctor.”

“And a stupid hot one,” Jack adds, ignoring Robby’s inhaled breath, sure he’s just going to object. “Sorry, stupid hot doctors get put on the Hospital Heroes calendar. I don’t make the rules.”

“You just follow them,” Robby accuses, and Jack gasps, theatrical, as he continues to pool baby oil in his hands.

“Don’t you ever accuse me of rule-following again, Robinavitch,” Jack bites out. “Rules are made to be broken.”

“Says the former soldier.”

“Key word being former.” Jack rubs his hands together, then tells Robby, “Brace for impact.”

Robby’s muscles all tense as Jack’s oil-slick hands meet his bare chest. They’ve been shuffled off to the corner to get ready for their part of the photo shoot— absurdly titled Night and Day Shift, he learned from the assistant who gave him the baby oil. Their turn is coming up after the photographers finish with the three cardiologists they’re currently posing for February. The ridiculous faux sterilized medical tray waiting for them has a collection of props they’re encouraged to use; Jack’s been eyeballing the tongue depressors since they got here.

The two of them were also given a wardrobe— which is really just two pairs of actual scrub bottoms, and two useless costume stethoscopes. Robby’s been glaring at his own shirtless reflection ever since they changed in the back room of the little photography studio and came out here.

They were both volunteered— voluntold, more like— by Gloria to participate in the Hospital Heroes calendar, and just seeing the vehemence with which Robby had rejected the concept had led Jack to insist they do it together, if only to see Robby get all flustered with his shirt off in front of a bunch of strangers.

In concept, this had been a great idea. Phenomenal, even.

In practice—

Well.

People won’t stop fucking staring at Robby.

It makes sense— the entire point of the calendar is to have the hottest people from different departments at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital— but, still. Isn’t everyone here supposed to be a professional? Doesn’t that mean they don’t stare at their subjects? Even— Especially— when their subjects are not actually professional models themselves?

Not that Robby couldn’t be a professional model. But—

But Jack has thought that before, when he’s seen Robby in all sorts of different situations— and positions— and that’s his thought to think, and his body to stare at, and— and— and his Robby.

Except he’s fucking not.

Robby is not Jack’s anything. Well— Save for his best friend, favorite coworker, fuck-buddy—

Okay, so, Robby is Jack’s most things. He’s just not his partner— not in the traditional, serious, real sense, anyway— so he’s not everything, even if— even if Jack is realizing now that he— he kind of wishes he were. Everything, that is. Since—

Well, in his head— he supposes, Robby already is everything.

Oh.

Oh.

Fuck.

Whenever that fucking happened.

Jack can’t think about that right now, he can’t focus on feeling for Robby when he has to focus on literally feeling Robby, his baby-oil-slick hands gliding across his familiar chest.

He’s so warm. Every inch of Robby blazes with heat right now, even without his shirt; Jack can feel the blood in his own veins heating up at the feeling of Robby’s chest hair prickling up under his palms, his hot skin beneath his fingertips.

“That’s cold,” Robby complains, squirming a bit beneath Jack’s touch. “Couldn’t have warmed it up for me, Doc?”

“Sorry, my bedside manner’s shit when there’s no bed,” Jack replies. “Now, stop wriggling, you’re a grown adult man—”

“Getting covered in cold oil,” Robby protests. “And your bedside manner’s shit even when there is a bed.”

“Take it back,” Jack insists, “I have higher patient satisfaction scores than you.” When Robby only laughs, Jack tweaks both of his nipples at once. “Take it back—”

Robby jerks with a gasped-out, “Hey, fuck you,” that Jack’s laughter drowns out. He catches him by the hips before he can escape any further, letting his shining hands glide effortlessly across to the hard muscle and soft fat of his stomach. His hair curls under Jack’s hands here, too, and Jack tilts in a little bit closer, letting his palms drag down towards the elastic waistband of his scrubs.

“Looking good, Mike,” Jack murmurs, observing the slightly-tanned glisten of his skin, the oiled sheen of his body hair, the way he seems to glow. He’d still be pasty-pale if Jack hadn’t dragged him out in the sun every day this week just to lay down and try to get some color before today, and Jack feels a possessive pleasure in knowing that part of the reason Robby looks like this is because of him, because Robby listens to him and sits outside with him and trusts him.

“I look like a fucking show pony,” Robby complains.

“You look good,” Jack repeats, stroking his hands back up from Robby’s waist to his shoulders. When he looks up into his eyes, he can see them darken, blown black pupils consuming the honey-brown of his irises. Letting his fingertips dig into Robby’s shoulders, tilting them just a little closer, he starts to suggest, “Hey, how about you help me with—”

“Can we have August now, please?” one of the photographers calls.

Robby’s shoulders actually slump, the hopeful eagerness evaporating from him and leaving only tense frustration. Jack understands; the same exact feeling is curling up in his gut, too.

“You can oil me up later,” Jack whispers up to him, throwing a wink in his direction before he caps the baby oil and spins. His voice raises significantly when he asks, “You wanted August?”

A different assistant from the one who gave him the baby oil earlier steps up; this new person is a tall woman in all-black, freckled arms exposed in her short-sleeved v-neck, brightly-orange hair tied up in half a bun. The rest of her curls spill down all the way to the small of her back.

Jack notices all of this in the back of his mind. It probably should have thrown up a few red flags that he’s actively not interested in her— certainly not while he has Robby shirtless and oiled-up, anyway— but he doesn’t actually pay all that much attention to her, not really.

Not until she starts paying attention to Robby.

As if he’s the only one being photographed right now, she beelines straight for him, taking up the baby oil Jack only just capped and set aside.

“You can come with me,” she says to Robby— or, presumably, to the both of them, though she’s looking only at Robby.

If Jack were thinking coherently, he’d be insulted that Robby is apparently more attractive to this woman than he is. He’s equally shirtless and about to be just as glistening with oil, and he’s not fucking ugly, he’s sure of that.

He’s not thinking coherently, though, so he’s glaring at her hands on Robby’s shoulders, spreading more oil across his skin as Robby tenses up beneath her touch, and thinks, Get your hands off of him, with more hot vitriol than is likely actually warranted towards someone who is, technically, just doing their job.

Her bright green eyes are fucking sparkling as she comments, hands stroking down Robby’s chest as he tries not to fidget under her touch, “You need a little more right here, just stay still for me, Doctor, okay?”

Okay, this is not just doing her job.

Jack’s vision is throbbing in time with his pounding heart. He’s standing right here, and she’s just— just running her hands all over his bare fucking chest like she owns him.

Jack wants to own him.

Fuck.

Robby’s eyes meet Jack’s again then, and he can see the clench of his jaw, the furrow of his brow, the discomfort written across him in his shifting limbs and his frown and his restlessness.

Oh, fuck no. It’s one thing to touch Robby and piss Jack off; it’s another thing entirely to touch Robby and piss him off.

“Hey, I think he’s good,” Jack steps in to say, stepping up close enough between Robby and the assistant that his shoulder brushes Robby’s, leaving behind a tacky slide of baby oil. “I, on the other hand, haven’t gotten anything yet, hm? Should I oil myself up now, or…?”

The assistant looks up at him with those wide, blinking eyes, like she has no clue what he’s talking about or possibly insinuating.

“Of course! Here you go,” she tells him, passing over the slender tube. Oil slips around inside, nearly spilling on him; he catches it at the last moment against his chest. He’s squeezing out a handful when he hears her say, “And, Doctor, I think we’re going to have you stand… right over here.”

Jack’s head snaps back up when he hears Robby’s soft exhalation, a slight grunt as he’s tugged by the assistant towards the prop medical tray in front of the white backdrop.

Tugged by the hips.

“You just stand right— right there,” she tells him, positioning him just so, hands gliding up to his waist to turn him slightly. Jack’s grip on the oil tightens, and a blurt of fluid fills his palm; he looks down with a frown, then smears it across his bare chest, wishing that he could enjoy this more, that this was still a game between him and Robby, that this was fun and not— not infuriating him.

Rubbing his hands vigorously over his own chest, Jack abandons the oil tube and joins Robby in front of the backdrop. Tilting his head in, he grins at the assistant, asks, “Hey, hi, and where do you want me?”

Both of them turn towards him in the same moment. The assistant looks frustrated, but Robby’s pink-faced and looking down, eyes fixed on Jack’s chest, making his heart flip for a good reason this time.

“You stand right next to him,” she instructs— though, she doesn’t position him the way she’s positioned Robby.

“You need some help with that?” Robby asks him, starting to turn towards Jack. There’s a moment where Jack’s breath catches, waiting for Robby’s hands to make contact with him, but that touch never comes; instead, the assistant just redirects Robby back into position. “Oh. Uhh—”

“Stay right over here, if you—”

“He’s good, actually,” Jack cuts her off, his voice firm, and actually puts himself between them then. “I’ll pose him myself, see?”

Twisting around, Jack catches Robby’s eye and sees the hectic blush across his cheeks. His heart racing, he winks up at him, then sets his hands on his shoulders and pushes down. It takes Robby a moment, but then he understands; he sinks downwards, letting Jack propel him onto his knees, until he’s knelt in front of him, eyes still fixed on Jack’s, staring up at him.

“There,” Jack exhales. Heat pools low in his gut at the softening of Robby’s expression, the way his discomfort has dripped away and left behind only the trust currently fixed on Jack. “Now… Face the camera, Mikey.”

Robby hesitates, then shifts, twisting so his chest is facing the camera; Jack takes advantage of his brief distraction to grab one of the tongue depressors from the metal cup on the tray, spinning it between his fingers. When Robby glances back up at him, Jack reaches down and takes his chin in his hand, squeezing lightly.

“Open wide,” Jack instructs him, smiling like it’s all a fun joke. He can feel Robby’s pulse hammering in his throat, just beneath his fingertips. “Now, stick out your tongue and say ahh.”

For a moment, Robby’s breath just catches, eyebrows raising, paused for a still and silent moment beneath him. Jack’s sure he’s not going to do it; his face starts rushing with heat, and he can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or concern or lust or—

Robby parts his lips, then lets his jaw fall open. He does just as Jack’s asked, letting his tongue slip from his mouth, and Jack can barely breathe when he presses the flat against Robby’s tongue, pushing in until he sees the small divots around it. From his angle, he can see the saliva gathering in Robby’s mouth, and it makes his own lips twitch towards a smile.

“Does this work, Mike?” Jack asks him, and Robby dips his head in a slight nod. “Good. I think so, too. Makes you look really good. Y’know, for the cameras.”

A warm blush spreads across Robby’s face, staining him pink. The freckles that used to be so prominent when they were younger seem more obvious now, and Jack strokes his thumb over one before glancing up again.

Looking back towards the photographer, the assistant, and the rest of the staring and mildly-stunned crew, Jack asks, “Well? Are you going to take the picture? His knees are fifty years old, he can’t keep this up much longer.”

Robby’s teeth close around the tongue depressor with a snap, and Jack laughs, everything forgotten but him, in the moment. So long as Jack’s hands are the only ones on Robby— he can forget everything else.

For now.

4.

Jack never thought that being a doctor would require so much of him outside of actual doctoring.

And he really, truly never— never— thought that being a doctor meant that sometimes he would have to wear a whole suit and attend ridiculous gala events so people who donate to the hospital can get to talk to him and the other doctors.

Why they want to talk to them, he’ll never understand. He always assumed rich people who donated to hospitals did it so their names would be on wings and so they could have the credit with their social peers and a tax break or something, not so they could rub elbows with the exhausted employees of the hospital while everyone’s all dressed up and pretending their only mutual ground isn’t a place where people shit and puke and die constantly.

In the end, that’s the only mutual ground anyone has, doesn’t it? But in a positive way, Jack thinks, because he’s working on reframing. It’s good that they can all connect, even if it feels— ridiculous, and a little fake.

At least they get free food out of it.

Over by one of the buffet tables on the hotel rooftop where the gala is being hosted, Jack tugs at the tight collar his bowtie has made around his throat. He should’ve worn a regular tie like a regular person so he could loosen it regularly, but between the two of them, he and Robby had only had one necktie— bright white, patterned with orange and yellow and green flowers, dark-green stems intertwining— and one bowtie— knit and pale pink.

Jack doesn’t even remember who originally owned what; they’d played best-two-out-of-three rock-paper-scissors for the necktie, and Robby had distracted him by kissing him senseless, and he’d ended up losing miserably.

When they first parked outside together, Jack had caught Robby by the necktie and kissed him breathless and senseless before he could even get out of the car.

Now, he’s languishing by the buffet table, holding a plate of smoked salmon and tiny meatballs on tinier sticks, watching wealthy strangers flirt with Robby like it’s the last day before he goes off to war.

It’s the same thing every time. People of all ages, all backgrounds, all desires— people drape themselves on Robby, on Jack, on half the staff of the Pitt when they get cleaned up. Jack gets it— they’re a good-looking group— and it never really gets too serious. It’s not bothersome, not really. Just a waste of time more than anything.

A couple of older men— and one particularly charming woman, who keeps letting her hand rest against his chest— have been hanging around Jack all night, but there’s no real intent to it. They say nice things, they flirt, they have a good time, they keep donating to the hospital, they do it all again six months later. An unexpected part of the job— truly, something he never thought would be required— but he can handle it.

Getting a little bit of attention is never a bad thing. At least, it shouldn’t be a bad thing, but—

Christ, one of Robby’s admirers tonight is pushing it.

Whether he’s pushing his luck or Jack’s fucking buttons, he’s not sure yet. Probably both with the way the guy is acting, which— currently involves him laughing uproariously at something Robby has just said.

Jack scowls at his plate. Robby’s funny, yeah, but this is just theatrics. Besides, the only person Robby ever makes laugh that hard is him. He wouldn’t make some stranger laugh that way.

The guy looks old enough to be Robby’s father, for God’s sake. He’s not unattractive— he’s got the whole silver fox thing, or whatever, and he’s dressed pretty well— but still. Jack can’t help but fume silently at the just— absolute lack of decorum, honestly. Just— impolite, and unprofessional, and— and—

Another loud laugh erupts from the man practically glued to Robby’s side by the bar. Jack’s grip tightens on his plate so hard he hears the plastic crack; he has to loosen his hold, his white knuckles regaining their color as he takes a deep breath.

Of course, that fucking guy wants to hang off of Robby. Who wouldn’t? Especially while he’s looking like this, all— all broad, soft angles in his forest-green suit, one of two he owns that actually fit him, and it fits him well. He’s all— accentuated in it, everything that Jack finds most compelling about him— physically— seeming to be put on obvious display.

He keeps fiddling with his fucking glasses. Jack wants to grab him by the collar and blow him in front of everybody. Stupid fucking—

“Hey,” McKay interrupts his furious thoughts. Like the rest of them, she cleans up pretty well; the long teal dress she’s got on makes her look nice, and she’s wearing her hair down, like they’re all real people. She’s actively biting a hunk of lamb off a wooden skewer; she points the little stick at him as she asks, muffled, “Didn’t Robby wear that last time?”

Jack glances down at himself and the black suit he’s worn to these things since he decided his dress uniform just made him feel twitchy and pissed-off.

“I don’t think he’d fit in it, to be honest,” Jack comments. Glancing back up at her, he shrugs in a little bit of a roll. “He’s kind of all shoulder. And, like, half a foot taller than the rest of us.”

McKay rolls her eyes, swallows, says, “No, the tie, dipshit.”

“Hey—”

“We’re not at work,” McKay reminds him.

“Remember what that stupid HR presentation said last year?” Jack viciously bites a meatball off of a toothpick. “Anyplace two or more employees are is a workplace, no matter where we are.” Circling in an aggressive circle with the tiny stick, he says, “This is a workplace. Wouldn’t know it based on how some people are acting—”

“Okay, this doesn’t feel like it’s about me,” McKay interrupts him. Leaning nearer to him, examining his face more closely, she asks, “Are you alright, Abbot? You seem kinda…”

She makes a waffling motion with her hand, her expression halfway between concern and amusement, and Jack is getting really sick of people looking at him that way.

“I’m fine,” Jack tells her, eyes flicking over her shoulder to Robby again. The guy is still there, the amber drink in his hand half-empty, leaning in closer to him to whisper something near his ear with this— this sly kind of smile that makes Jack’s blood slime through his veins. “Jesus Christ—”

“Who the hell are you glaring at?” McKay asks, turning on her heel, trying to seek out the end target of his line of sight. “Robby? Did he do something? Are you two in, like, a lover’s spat, or—”

“We’re not— No,” Jack insists, eyes snapping to her again. “We’re not even—”

“Yeah, okay, save that for someone with no eyes, ears, or sense,” McKay mutters, eyebrows lifted, smiling around her next bite off her plate of lamb skewers. “What’d he do, then? Kick you outta bed, mope too loudly f—”

“Okay, would you just—” Jack says, but he cuts himself off as he looks up again, unable to resist watching Robby still, and catches the tail end of the stranger putting his hand on Robby’s back.

On the small of Robby’s back.

Oh, hell no.

“—hold this for a second, please?” Jack pivots, pushing the plate into McKay’s hands.

“Yeah, sure, I’m your butler,” McKay comments as he strides past her. “Hey, where the hell are you going?”

Jack barely hears her. He doesn’t even process a single word he does hear; he’s too focused on Robby, on the way his whole body went rigid with tension at the touch on his body, on the fact that he is being touched at all, on— on someone that isn’t Jack touching Robby in an intimate place in front of all these people, everyone—

A hot, protective rush consumes his brain, making his ears ring. He’s at Robby’s side in an instant, quick as a flash, throwing his arm up and across his shoulders, yanking him in towards Jack and away from the stranger.

He wishes he could wind his arm around Robby’s waist. He wishes— He wishes he could put his hand on the small of Robby’s back and— and he wishes he could pull in him and make a claim and show everyone that he is his, not something meaty to be manhandled by strangers but something special to be handled by Jack and Jack alone.

“Hey, I lost track of you,” Jack says into his hair, letting Robby linger there for a second as he huffs against Jack’s throat, angled into him sideways. “Can’t get away from me that easy.”

“I’m sorry, I was speaking to Michael,” the stranger interrupts them.

Jack lifts his head, frowning at the guy. That same protective heat inside of him is growing all the hotter with every second, possessive fire eating up his insides.

“Well, Michael came here with me, and I’m hungry, so I’m taking him back.” Jack lets his arm around Robby’s shoulders glide down until he’s wrapping his fingers around his wrist instead. “C’mon, they’ve got those spicy deviled eggs you like.”

Robby’s eyes drag up from Jack’s hold on his wrist to his eyes, and there’s a single beat where he looks at them with those eyes, always looking like he’s pleading with Jack for something.

When he blinks and takes a breath, he says, “Really? Yeah, lead the way.” Glancing back towards the stranger, he says, “Nice to meet you,” before Jack is tugging, drawing him away from the conversation in every way he can manage. “Would you slow down—”

“You gotta see these eggs, man,” Jack says. “They’re just like—”

“What the hell was that?” Robby asks, planting himself, jerking Jack to a sudden stop. He nearly trips over himself with the displaced momentum; he probably would have, if Robby didn’t grab him about the shoulders and steady him. “Slow down, Jack, what the hell? What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” Jack lies. “I saw the eggs, I realized I lost you, I—”

“That is not—” Robby cuts himself off, sighs, glances away. After a moment, he pushes his glasses up, digging the heel of his hand into his eye. He always just looks so tired, no matter how many times Jack shoves him into a bed to actually sleep. When he blows out a breath, eyes still fixed on something off to his left, he asks, “Do you wanna talk about what just happened?”

“Nothing just happened,” Jack repeats. “Some guy was getting fucking handsy with you and I—”

“I knew it—”

“There’s nothing to know,” Jack snaps. “He was making you uncomfortable, I wanted it to stop. That’s it.”

Robby’s quiet for a long moment. Jack studies him, waiting for him to look back, but Robby just drags his hand down his face, then to the back of his neck, rubbing at the nape. He displaces his collar, just slightly, and Jack sighs, stepping forward.

“Stop fucking with this,” he tells him, knocking Robby’s hand away. He straightens his collar, adjusts the line of his coat on his shoulders, reaches for his tie. The knot is a little askew; Jack tightens it, reminding Robby, “You look nice if you stop touching everything.”

“I’m not touching anything,” Robby argues.

Jack doesn’t comment, tightening his tie up to his throat. When he steps back, admiring his handiwork, he still just can’t stop prickling.

His hands itch, and so he steps back in, fidgeting with the hem of Robby’s jacket. It feels like it’s not right, and he tugs again, frowning, trying to get it to sit correctly like it had been before.

Robby starts to protest, “What the hell are you—”

“Turn around,” Jack cuts him off, stepping back slightly. The look Robby gives him is nothing short of bewildered— and possibly concerned for Jack’s mental well-being. “Turn around.”

Though he hesitates, Robby does as he says, turning until his back is facing Jack instead of his front. Frowning, Jack smoothes the deep green material across Robby’s shoulders, down the planes of his back, over his hips and waist and across—

—Across the small of his back.

His hands linger there, dragging to fix the heavy fabric. It’s not sitting right, not until Jack’s touch passes over it. Then— Then, it feels right again, and he pushes at Robby’s shoulder to turn him back around to face him once more.

“There,” he says, letting his hands brush over his lapels, straightening them out. “How’s that feeling? All better, right?”

Robby eyes him for a long second. The air between them feels thick, and Jack briefly believes that Robby will reach out and take his hand, or— or kiss him—

But, Robby only nods, and the moment between them cracks and shatters, the air thinning out once more.

“Yeah, it’s a lot better, thanks,” Robby says. “I owe you one.” Fixing his glasses, nudging his knuckles up under the frames to push them back into place, he asks, “So… I came here with you?”

Jack’s insides flare with heat again, his stomach feeling like it’s rising up into his lungs.

“Well, yeah,” Jack replies, heart hammering. “You don’t remember? I parked, you put the coins in the meter, it was a whole thing?”

The look Robby gives him then is loaded— and then gone a heartbeat later as Robby looks away from him, and Jack gets the sensation of sand slipping through his fingers.

“Right,” Robby replies, then claps his hands together and starts to pull away. “So, where are these eggs you can’t stop talking about?”

“Oh— Right,” Jack says, twisting to try and find where he thinks he might’ve seen them earlier. His eyes catch on McKay by the tables, still staring at him, eyebrows lifted, all concern gone and amusement taking its place in full force.

Jack takes it back. He hates when people look at him that way the most.

“They’re right over here,” Jack tells Robby, jogging to catch him and steer him in the opposite direction from McKay.

And if he lets his hand settle for a brief moment at the small of his back, there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s just— guiding him into going the right way, of course.

And if Robby doesn’t pull back—

Well. He’s probably just interested in going in the same direction, is all.

5.

Jack has moved around a lot in his life.

When he was younger, he liked that sort of thing. The world seemed huge and diverse and filled with opportunities for exploration and discovery and connection, and he’d chased that high as fast and as hard as he could. At first it’d just been traveling with the meager money he’d saved, but that’d been practically nothing, and the military let you travel on their dime, so.

Easy decision, he’d thought at the time. More fool him.

When he came home, it was hard to actually stay in one place. He couldn’t get a prosthetic and relearn walking fast enough; he needed to move, to get out. The realization that everything was so temporary and so fleeting— that everything could be gone, his life included, in a heartbeat, for no reason more than a random accident or a stranger’s whim— is a hard one to outrun.

At one point, he’d thought being in love and getting married would maybe make everything just a little bit easier.

Once again, more fool him.

For those first few years after— after everything, Jack felt the pressure of this knowledge— of this fear— more and more every day; it made it pretty much impossible to stay close to people, to care where he lived, to want to do anything, which is what he thought he should do, what felt simplest to do.

Coming back to medicine made sense. Bouncing from hospital to hospital made sense. Don’t put down roots, don’t tie anyone to you, don’t get hurt, don’t get hurt, don’t get hurt in a way that you can’t heal from.

Until Robby reached out to him again and told him about an opening in the Pitt, and Jack had felt something he hadn’t ever understood before, not really: the urge to stop.

Nobody else understands it— they see him at the hospital, see how he’s go go go, call him Jackrabbit and comment on his speed and laugh at his rushing through life— but, truthfully, this is the slowest he’s ever gone. He’s tired; he’s had a long life of going, going, going, not just at work but in every aspect, across every part of him.

Once, he’d so forcibly rejected the idea of putting down roots that he considered himself instead a leaf on the wind: flighty, going where life takes him, incapable of settling down and becoming more, eventually destined to pass from this world without anyone really noticing too much, and content to do so, recognizing this as his lot.

Now, he’s realizing that he might have had enough of soaring all over the place and being moved around by whims. He never thought it would ever actually happen, but— he does want something solid. He wants roots put down, and a place to rest that feels familiar. He wants things to belong to him. He wants a home.

The Pitt gives him just the right amount of thrill in his life. His therapist likes to call it his controlled chaos, as if he has any control over what happens in there— but, he gets the general point. It’s something he has a say over, not his entire life up in constant flames.

He’d happily stay in Pennsylvania with Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. Or— whatever happily is for him, at this point. This is actually, probably, the happiest he’s ever been, which is— a little fucked-up and insane, but also? Kind of nice.

So, when Gloria starts using words like tenure track in their biannual employee evaluation session, he doesn’t feel the jolt of dread he’s expecting, or wariness, or denial, or anger, or even fear.

Instead, he finds himself nodding along and agreeing. He finds himself excited by the prospect.

He’s practically bouncing by the time he’s let out of the meeting. Those sessions don’t always go well, but this one— this one was practically glowing, and he must be doing something right if he can please the administration and his patients and his coworkers all at the same time.

Speaking of coworkers—

Jack’s already on the hunt for Robby, knowing his session was earlier this afternoon and that he should still be here somewhere, waiting for Jack’s to end. He’s not working today, but most of the day shift regulars are; Jack finds himself stopping at Dana’s station, rapidly patting his hands on the counter, asking, “You seen Robby anywhere?”

“I think he was advising Dr. McKay on something,” Dana tells him with a lift of her eyebrows. Jack returns the expression, exasperated.

“He’s not—”

“I know he’s not working, he insisted,” Dana replies. She sighs, and something that looks like genuine sorrow crosses her face, which is— not what Jack is expecting. Concern for Robby, maybe, or a similar exasperation to his own, or maybe even frustration, but not sadness. “I’m gonna miss him.”

“Aw, no,” Jack says, leaning further over the counter with a frown, rolling up onto the toes of his sneakers. “You’re not really leaving this time, are you? This place wouldn’t run without you, you know that.”

The expression on Dana’s face then makes Jack’s blood run cold, a creased combination of confusion and pity.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dana corrects him. A divot has creased in between her eyebrows. “I meant when he leaves.”

Jack can feel sweat beading up all over his body. He’s starting to regret stealing Robby’s sweatshirt before they left; it feels too thick now, too heavy, his heart hammering just below the fabric that smells so much like him, still.

“What do you mean, when he leaves?” Jack demands, falling back down onto the flats of his feet. “Where the hell is Robby going? His life is— is here, why would he go somewhere else?”

“I don’t know,” Dana tells him. There’s such sympathy in her voice, he’s nauseated. “I just know that Dr. King overheard some of his conversation with Gloria and it sounded like—”

“He wouldn’t do that, though,” Jack protests her. “Sorry, I just— He wouldn’t just do that without talking to me first.”

There’s a brief flash of deeper confusion on Dana’s face before it openly melts away into understanding, and realization, and Jack’s hammering heart pounds all the faster, blood roaring in his ears.

“Oh, Dr. Abbot,” she says, her voice a sigh. “I’m sure he wouldn’t. Dr. King probably just misunderstood.”

“Right.” Jack’s palms clap down on the countertop again as he repeats, “Right. Right, okay— Right. I’m just— Y’know, I’m just gonna—”

He points to the side, then jogs off, craning his neck, searching out Robby— or King— or McKay— or anyone who can tell him this is a bad fucking dream, because he did not— because— because—

Because there is no way that Jack has lived his entire life not wanting to be anywhere in particular, and when he finally, finally finds a home, it’s taken from him.

That—

But—

He slows to a stop right there in the middle of the ward.

His home isn’t being taken from him. He’s got a nice condo, and he’s got a job— tenure track— and he’s got friends and he’s got roots and—

And he’s only now realizing that none of that means much at all if he hasn’t got Robby.

He did finally find a home, he was right about that. He just thinks he might have made that home in Robby.

Just in time to lose him.

A pang surges through Jack, possessiveness and pain; he exhales, “Fuck,” running his hands up and through his hair, feeling like he’s about to peel out of his skin.

“Sorry?” Javadi asks, and Jack jumps. “Oh— Oh, no, I’m so sorry, I thought you were talking to me—”

“Have you seen Robby anywhere?” Jack asks her.

She blinks up at him, lips parted, stunned.

“Dr. Robby?” he repeats. “Have you seen him? He’s, like—” He lifts his hand over his head, stretches his arm, “—this tall, and he usually looks like someone just shot his dog in front of him, and—”

“Right. Right, um— I— I think he went with Dr. McKay? Um, down that way?” she says, and points down towards Trauma One. “Is everything—”

“Thanks, Doc,” he replies, already darting off.

Javadi’s faint, confused, “You’re welcome?” comes as Jack’s sliding across the floor, nearly colliding with the food cart, righting it at the last moment in his haste to keep moving, to find Robby, to go go go.

There’s a furious, insane kind of fire consuming Jack’s insides right now at the idea of Robby leaving his hospital— their hospital, their home— and going somewhere else. It’s like— It’s like he’s leaving Jack, leaving him behind in this place where he’ll never see Robby again, or work with him, or— or—

God, it’s making him feel crazy in a way he’s never felt before. He can’t— He can’t just let Robby leave. He can’t, he— Robby is his best friend, he—

Fuck, he’s so much more than that, and he doesn’t fucking get it, because Jack doesn’t know how to just— just tell him, to be a normal person in a normal relationship and normally communicate this, and because he’s fucking it all up Robby’s leaving, he’s going, he’ll be gone, and he can’t— he just can’t believe Robby would just— just leave. He can’t understand why Robby wouldn’t talk to him about it first, he thought— Jack thought— Jack thought they were something. He thought—

He just thought this meant something, that— that he meant something. He should mean something, shouldn’t he? He should be something? They should be something?

Even if they aren’t anything normal or official or— or real—

Just thinking that makes Jack’s stomach turn. Being with Robby is the realest thing he’s ever felt, and he’s lost part of a limb. The idea that this isn’t real just because they don’t— what, they don’t technically live together, or call each other their partners, or go on dates, or—

Well, they kind of live together, since they’re always at one of their places, or in their hidden room in the hospital.

And, well, they kind of go on dates. Often. Pretty much every time they have a free moment together, they spend it in each other’s company.

And—

“Fuck,” Jack whispers again to himself, checking the dry erase boards at every station, looking for McKay or King or even fucking Robinavitch, if he’s decided he’s just gonna be working— “Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“Hey, I heard you were looking for me?” McKay stops him to ask. “Whoa, hey, slow down. You doing okay?”

“Where’s Robby?” Jack asks, breathless, singularly focused.

“He literally just went out the doors,” McKay tells him, pointing, and Jack whirls to see Robby’s back moving through the sliding doors out into the ambulance bay.

“Thanks,” Jack tells her, already off like a shot, sprinting, calling, “Robby! Hey— Mike, wait up!”

Robby turns at the sound of his voice, coming to a stop so abrupt that Jack nearly crashes into him and barrels him over. He steadies himself with his hands against Robby’s chest, watches his expression actually brighten for Jack’s arrival, even through his confusion, and his heart twists furiously.

He cannot lose Robby. He cannot. Robby is his; losing him to anyone else, anywhere else, anything else is not an option.

“Jack?” he asks, catching him by the upper arms. “Hey, I was just looking for you, where did— Hey, hey, what’s up? What happened?” The lightness in his face starts to drip away. “Did something happen in your session? What did Gloria say? Because I swear, I’ll—”

“No, what? No, my session was great,” Jack stops him.

“What?” Robby asks. “Jack, b— Wow, yeah, that’s— That’s great! Then—”

“What happened in yours?” Jack demands, and Robby just stares down at him, bewildered. “Why am I hearing from Dana that you’re leaving the fucking Pitt?”

“What?” Robby repeats, this time with real surprise in his voice.

“What the fuck, man?” Jack spits. The anger he’s feeling is unlike any he’s ever experienced in his life, fueled by so much hurt he can hardly stand it. “You were just gonna fucking leave me? Where the fuck are you going that’s so much be—”

“Jack, slow the fuck down,” Robby cuts him off. “What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere, what— I’m not leaving you, why would Dana say I’m leaving you?”

“Because if you—” Jack starts, then stops. The words jamming up in his head are all the same, and he can’t hold them back, can’t stop himself from saying, “She didn’t say you’re leaving me, she said you’re leaving the Pitt. But if you— If you leave here, okay, you’re leaving me, and I don’t—” Jack digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, doubles over, gasps out, “God, this is pathetic, what— What the fuck am I doing, begging you not to— Jesus Christ—”

“Okay, come here,” Robby says above him, and then his hand is on the center of Jack’s back. “Up, up, up— Okay, there we go,” he adds, once Jack is unfolded and upright again. “Alright, let’s sit down—”

“I don’t want to—”

“You’re sitting down,” Robby says over him, “and taking a deep breath— hell, take a bunch of them— and then you’re going to tell me what you’re talking about, because, brother, I am lost, and you seem— You seem really upset—”

“Of course I’m upset!” Despite his volume and vehemence, Jack still lets Robby escort him to the closest bench outside the hospital, planting him down on the sun-warmed green metal. “Who wouldn’t be upset?”

“And what’s upsetting you?” Robby asks him.

“Don’t take that fucking tone with me, Mikey, I swear to God,” Jack warns him.

Robby throws his hands up, palms-out. “I’m just trying to understand what you’re talking about, man. Take a breath with me, okay?”

“I don’t—”

“Take a breath with me,” Robby repeats, firm, before he grabs Jack’s hand and plants it against his chest. “In, two, three, four— hold it, two, three, four— and out, two, three, four.” Jack exhales, and Robby says, “Again,” and counts off each second again, guiding him through breathing. It slows him down a little bit, though his heart’s still hammering; Robby’s is going pretty fast, too, just beneath Jack’s palm, and he curls his fingertips into the soft material of his worn, too-tight US Army—

“Hey, that’s my shirt,” Jack comments, frowning slightly. “You’re gonna stretch it out.”

Robby laughs once, more a huff of breath than anything. “Are you high right now? What the hell is happening?”

Jack’s eyes flick up from his hand against Robby’s chest to his face— to his warm brown eyes, the confused creases, the smile lines and the scruffy beard and the pink flush and the tiny freckles and everything he has spent so, so long memorizing about him.

“Dana told me King told her she heard you talking about leaving in your session with Gloria,” Jack tells him, and it feels absurd as he leaves his mouth, like a playground game of telephone, but— if it’s true—

“What?” Robby asks, bewildered. “No, I didn’t. I mean— She asked at one point if she had to worry about me looking for jobs elsewhere, and I told her, look, could I be happier moving somewhere else? Hell yeah, I could. There’s plenty of places that wouldn’t fucking destroy me the way this place does, but— Y’know, I also told her none of those places would be the Pitt. None of them would have what this place has, none of them—”

He stops short. His heart, on the other hand, doesn’t get the message, and seems to pound even faster beneath Jack’s touch.

“None of them what?” Jack asks, voice dropped low in between them and them alone.

“None of them has you,” Robby tells him. “And, frankly, Jack? If I’m being perfectly honest? I just— I really, really just don’t care to be anywhere you’re not.”

Jack stares up at him, his own heart racing, a twin match to Robby’s. If they took readings and laid them one over the other, Jack suspects the lines would be exactly the same.

“So.” Jack rubs a small circle into Robby’s chest with his thumb, the thin fabric bunching up with each pass. He can feel the heat of his skin beneath, leaking into the material. “You’re not leaving.”

“I’m not leaving,” Robby tells him. A smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “Good to know I’d be missed if I did, though.”

“I’d kill you if you did,” Jack warns him, and Robby’s smile becomes a laugh. “Shove you right off their roof. Then you wouldn’t be fucking anywhere, how about that, Michael, hm?”

“It sounds kinda shitty, actually,” Robby replies.

“Very shitty,” Jack agrees. “The shittiest. So, don’t do that.” He huffs. “Fuck. Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“Nah,” Robby says, though he seems amused.

Jack can’t help but stare up at him, mortification seeping away in the face of the sheer depth he feels for him, the relief he experiences in knowing that he’s not leaving.

After a second spent looking into Robby’s eyes— amused, affectionate, not going anywhere— Jack can’t help but murmur, “God, I wish I could kiss you right now.”

The good humor in Robby’s expression seems to recede a little. Jack sits up straighter, wants to grab it back, but Robby’s already saying, “Yeah. Me, too,” a moment later and starting to withdraw.

“Hey,” Jack stops him, catching his hand now that he can’t feel his heart. “Once we’re home, I’ll kiss you so good you won’t remember how pathetic I just was.”

A half-smile flickers onto Robby’s face.

“Sounds like a date,” he says, rising to his feet. Jack keeps hold of his hand, gets up with him, and wonders why— despite all assurances to the contrary— part of him still feels afraid of Robby leaving.

+1.

New Year’s Eve is possibly one of the worst nights at the hospital all year, and it’s especially bad down in the Pitt.

In that one night, Jack will see more car accidents, alcohol poisonings, fight injuries, fireworks burns, food poisonings, and on, and on, and on, than in, like— the entire month of March combined. This year is a special kind of hell for some unknown reason— maybe Jack did something karmically horrible that he doesn’t remember between last year and today— and on top of all of that, the hospital’s entire computer system crashed from midnight until nearly four o’clock, and the entire place had just been a fucking shitshow.

Texting Robby at one o’clock at night had been a move born of pure desperation, but he can’t bring himself to regret it. He shot straight over, and he’s been a fucking godsend all night, keeping a level head when nobody else can seem to, not even Jack. It’s unclear where this infinite well of patience is coming from, but Jack hopes it doesn’t empty anytime soon. He kind of needs him right now.

It’s the worst night in the Pitt in months, and Robby’s just— handling it.

From the moment he shows up, he embraces Jack outside the doors, kisses him just below the ear, and asks, “Alright, where do you want me?” Every patient that comes in, every student that runs up with a million questions, every fluid and every flatline and every fucking thing flung his way, he just keeps handling it, and Jack—

Jack’s trying not to get distracted by him.

It’s just that he’s so— he’s so good, he’s so— skilled, and he’s on the ball, he’s just— rocking every single thing he’s doing, treatments and diagnoses and lessons and patients and emotions, he’s nailing it. Even on this, the worst night in memory, he’s still helpful, and patient, and calm, and Jack is just—

Fuck, he’s so fucking in love with him.

And he’s exhausted, and he’s been working non-stop for hours, and he hasn’t eaten more than a few fistfuls of trail mix from the bag Robby shoved in his pocket, and he’s fried, and he’s got more patients than he does blood cells.

Most of his focus is on the work. A fragment of it— a fragment— can’t stop thinking about Robby, looking for Robby, finding him once passing out sandwiches, later helping Whitaker change an old woman’s bandages, later still crouching to talk to a toddler girl crying in the hallway.

That last one had nearly sent Jack over the edge. Watching the tiny thing hold her arms out to him and Robby just pick her up and pull her in, embracing her while she cried—

God, he’s got to do something about this. It’s actually distracting him how much he’s in love with Robby, how much he needs to act on it. He knows he’s at the end of his rope— and he knows tonight is a rough night, he knows he’s stressed and strained and all messed up, he knows that— but he just can’t shake the feeling that something has to be done, and it has to be done soon.

All this chaos— all this insanity— all this horrible, fucked-up trauma around him like a hurricane— and still, his brain, just. I love Mike, over and over and over. Ridiculous. He has a job to do.

Taking the steadying breaths his therapist taught him— one hand on the chest, one on his stomach, in for four, hold for four, out for four, repeat— he stops outside the doors, just to suck in some fresh air in the ambulance bay for a second.

It’s there that he notices the sky is starting to lighten; the sun is coming up.

His next exhale is deep, and he closes his eyes, just trying to calm himself enough to go back in there. When his hands stop shaking quite so badly, he throws himself in once more, striding down the hall with determination towards the last place he knew Robby to be: giving orders over by the board.

This can’t be difficult. They’re already essentially dating one another, and living in the same place, and— together. Telling Robby he loves him will be easy, right? It’s true. It’s just an extension of the things they do and say all the time.

Besides, he’s told Robby he loves him loads of times. Robby already knows that, he just— doesn’t really get how much, or the— the depth of what Jack’s feeling. And Jack—

He knows how they started this, how it’s been going. He knows that it’s mostly been him that hasn’t wanted to nail anything down, but he— he doesn’t really want that anymore. The idea of locking down with anyone else still gives him the heebie-jeebies, but— with Robby? It just feels right. The only thing that scares him there is losing him.

Before, he didn’t understand why people wanted someone there all the time. There in their house, there at their job, there in their bed, just— always there. He didn’t get it.

Now, he has Robby.

What’s not to get?

“Hey, hey,” he says, rounding the corner, practically vibrating, but Robby is no longer where he left him. It makes sense; he whirls, doing a quick scan, and doesn’t turn up with him right away. Leaning over towards Dana, he asks, “You seen Robby?”

Dana doesn’t even glance up from the tray she’s preparing to point towards a closed curtain and tell him, “He’s in with Elisa Dawson.”

“The pills,” Jack remembers. She’d come in just after midnight; one of her roommates found her after she swallowed a bottle of stolen painkillers.

“Yeah.” Dana does stop, then, and glances towards the curtain. “Poor thing. I kept hearing her crying in there but we just— We haven’t had anyone come down to talk to her yet, she just keeps waiting. They said they’re short-staffed. I believe it, but— You know how it goes. Robby couldn’t take it anymore, he went in to talk to her himself.”

If anyone is the right person for that tonight, it’s Robby. Still— It doesn’t stop a prickle of unease from stirring up in Jack’s stomach. It’s a lot to take on, and he can’t help but worry about Robby. Especially in moments like these.

“He’s still in there, I’m sure he’ll be out soon,” Dana assures him, returning to her work.

“Yeah,” Jack comments. “That’s Mikey all over, isn’t it?”

Dana’s hands pause for a split second, but it’s a split second Jack notices.

“It is,” she agrees. She passes him the tray; he takes it, startled, before realizing it appears to contain something resembling a meal, albeit with prepackaged food from the cart and options from the limited vending machine selections.

“What’s this?” Jack asks her, bewildered.

“That is breakfast,” Dana tells him. “Make sure the two of you eat this, you hear me?”

“What?” Jack frowns. “We don’t—”

“Yes, you do,” Dana insists. “Your brain isn’t going to work right if you don’t eat, and people will die. You want that on your conscience, Dr. Abbot?”

“Jesus,” Jack laughs. “You play hardball.”

“Nights like tonight, I’ve gotta,” she says. Nudging the tray to bump into his chest, she repeats, “Eat it. Go get Robby and hide for ten minutes, we can handle this.”

Jack hesitates, then echoes, “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Come find us if you need anything,” he adds, taking a backwards step.

“I’ll try not to,” Dana says, “but okay.”

“I love you,” Jack tells her, and hopes it’ll be as easy to say the same thing to Robby.

She just waves him away with a smile before turning to the patient tugging at her sleeve asking for a sandwich. Jack takes the out and jogs over to Robby’s curtain, stopping just outside to listen and see if he’s actually still in there.

The rumble of Robby’s voice is right there, and Jack smiles, an automatic and involuntary thing. In the next beat, he steps back, making sure he can’t hear anything being said, giving them their privacy.

He can see their shadows through the curtain, though, and he can hear the murmurings of their words. It means that he can watch as they shift closer, and he can hear Elisa start to cry again, and he can hear a corresponding hitch in Robby’s voice not long after. That makes a lump form in Jack’s throat; he has to swallow past it just to breathe.

Even not knowing what they’re saying, the low and intimate tones of their voice speak volumes. So does, too, the way that their shadows merge a moment later, and Jack realizes Robby is embracing her.

The surge of jealousy Jack feels then is unexpected. He’s been telling his therapist about this possession he feels over Robby, this protective envy, this— this jealousy, and he’s supposed to notice when he’s feeling this way and name the feeling so he can explore why it’s there, and—

Well, he’s noticing it now. He’s naming it now, it’s jealousy, but—

It’s not, he realizes, that he thinks Robby has any feelings for this woman. She’s a patient, and he’s a professional, and that’s never been a concern Jack has ever had. It’s not because they’re hugging, or because she’s a threat, or anything so ridiculous as that. No, he—

He’s jealous because he wants that to be him.

It’s deeper than envy, it’s that— that Robby is being so vulnerable with this person, and sharing himself with her, and Jack wants him to do that with him. He wants Robby to cry with him, and hug him, and tell him the dark things that live inside of him that he doesn’t tell anybody else about. He wants Robby to share the most intimate and vulnerable parts of himself with Jack, and— and God help him, but he wants to share his own most intimate and vulnerable parts of himself with Robby in return.

His knuckles pale with his tight grip on the lunch tray. He’s surprised to find the backs of his eyes prickling, and he takes a breath, staggering back a step.

It’s then— of course, it’s then— that Robby’s shadow separates from Elisa’s and emerges from behind the curtain. He’s obviously been crying, red-faced and sniffling, his eyes swollen, and he stops short when he realizes Jack is there.

“Jack— Dr. Abbot,” he says, clearly surprised.

Behind him, Elisa looks up, a shadowed and hunched-in thing, looking too young and too exhausted and too pressed down on by this world by far. Her eyes dart from the tray in Jack’s hands to his face and down again, and she frowns.

“Is that for me?” she asks.

“Sorry, we can’t have you taking any solids just yet,” Jack tells her, passing the tray off to Robby so he can lean in past the curtain. “But as soon as I get the okay for you to eat something, I’ll come back myself with the finest water you can drink. Sound like a deal?”

“Okay, yeah,” she agrees, a small smile quirking at the corners of her mouth. Swiping one wrist below her eye to catch tears, she says, “Sorry, Dr. Robby was just going to get more tissues, I can’t stop crying.”

“Oh, please, God, don’t be sorry. If I apologized for crying, I’d never shut up,” Jack tells her, patting himself down for a packet of tissues.

“You never shut up now,” Robby comments.

“Isn’t he charming?” Jack asks Elisa, and she exhales a little laugh. “That’s my partner i— Aha!” Withdrawing a closed plastic packet of tissues from his pocket, he passes it over, says, “Yours to keep. Cry all you want, seriously. If you can’t cry here, where can you?”

“Thanks,” she says. After a beat, she asks, “Is it okay if I lay down for a little while and sleep?”

“‘Course, you can,” Jack tells her.

“You need anything, you press that button,” Robby explains, points it out to her, pushes it into her hand, “and a nurse’ll come. You want me, I’ll come, too— or Dr. McKay.”

“Or you?” Elisa asks Jack.

Robby glances at him, Jack can see out of the corner of his eye, but he just smiles at Elisa.

“Yeah, or me, for sure,” he promises her. “Ask for Dr. Jack Abbot, I’ll be here in a flash.”

Another watery smile for him, and he wants to pump his fist in the air, success. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash?”

“It’s a gas, gas, gas,” he replies. “Now, try and get some sleep, okay? Mikey and I’ll be a shout away.”

“Okay,” she agrees. “Thank you both. I’m so sorry.”

“Ah, save your sorries for someone who needs ‘em,” Jack tells her. “I certainly don’t have any use for it.”

Jack scoots out on one last smile, letting Robby say his goodbyes while he reclaims the tray from him. A couple of sandwiches on paper plates, mini bags of M&Ms from the machines, an upturned bag of stale potato chips, and four tiny water bottles. After a night like they’ve been having, this is more like a banquet than most meals Jack has eaten in his entire life.

As soon as Robby emerges, tugging the curtain shut behind him, Jack’s reminded of his puffy eyes and red nose and tear-stained cheeks.

Robby, evidently, realizes this as well, and the first words out of his mouth are, “I’m fine.”

Jack sucks in a shaky breath.

The first words out of his mouth are, “Come with me.”

Before he knows it, he’s turning and striding away. He doesn’t look back to check if Robby is behind him; he doesn’t need to. His presence can be felt just behind him, trailing at Jack’s heels, sniffling, confused.

“I’m not in trouble, am I?” Robby asks. “‘Cause I really think crying is actually going to up my patient satisfaction score this time.”

“You’re not in trouble,” Jack assures him, his heart hammering in his chest. He ducks his head into the first room he suspects to be empty, only to find an elderly man asleep and on a ventilator. Not ideal; he keeps going, ducking into the next room: empty of everything except a bed. Perfect.

“Okay, but you’re not really saying much of anything, though,” Robby points out. “And you usually never shut up, so, you’re kind of freaking me out, man.” When Jack turns, Robby is closely scrutinizing him. “Are you okay? Like, actually, are you doing okay? Because you can tell me.”

And isn’t that what Jack just decided he wants? He wants this between them, he wants that vulnerability and intimacy and trust, he wants to feel open with Robby, he wants Robby to feel open with him, he— he loves him.

He loves him.

“Okay, I was going to tell you this later,” Jack says, putting the tray down on the abandoned counter. “Like, way later. Maybe never sort of later.”

“O…kay?” Robby’s voice is slow. “You’re not dying, man, are you? Because I don’t know if I—”

“No, God, no, I’m not dying,” Jack tells him. A wry laugh escapes him before he admits, “Even if I feel like it, sometimes.”

“Okay, Jack, honey, I don’t want to ruin whatever effect you’re going for here, but you’re starting to really freak me out,” Robby tells him, the amusement beginning to escape him like air slipping from a balloon. “What’s going on, what’s wrong?”

It says a lot, Jack thinks, that him trying to be honest with his feelings reads as something’s wrong. At least he’s trying to fix it now.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Jack insists. “The only thing that’s wrong is— Fuck, Mike. I think I made a mistake.”

“Oh. Okay,” Robby says, accepting this easily. “What was it? I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t fix, brother, we can figure it out.”

“No, see, but here’s the thing,” Jack tells him. He can’t stop fidgeting; he crosses to the bare, unmade bed, sitting on the creaking edge. After a moment, Robby grabs the wheeled stool and rolls it over, sitting himself right in front of Jack. “What, you gonna treat me?”

“Depends. You need treatment?” Robby asks.

Jack’s eyes flick back and forth between Robby’s. The idea of losing these eyes eats him up inside; the thought of someone else being looked at by them the way Robby looks at him? It destroys him.

“Maybe,” he confesses. “Mikey— Mike, I— Look, I know what I said before.”

“When before?”

“Before— When we started this before, that before,” Jack reminds him. “When I— Okay. Mike, I told you I didn’t want anything serious, and I didn’t want to be tied down, and I know— I know I’m not great at commitment, right? I know that, and— and lately, it feels like we’ve been doing… not that?”

A deep red flush of color starts creeping up Robby’s throat, climbing his ears.

“Oh,” he says, leaning back. “You— Okay.” He exhales a shaky breath, then repeats, “Okay. Wow, I just—” Running a hand back through his hair, scratching at the back of his head, he asks, “I guess I just thought—” and his voice breaks.

Jack’s heart launches into his throat. “What the h—”

“Sorry,” Robby tells him, pushing to stand. His heel catches in the bottom rung of the stool, and he stumbles backwards, cursing, “Shit—”

“Mike, sit your ass down, where the hell are you going?” Jack demands.

“I’m sorry,” Robby repeats. “I knew you didn’t want a fucking relationship and I went and made one anyways, didn’t I? I should’ve—”

“What?” Jack interrupts him, just as Robby’s shoving his glasses up, pushing the heels of both hands into his eye sockets. “No— No, Mikey, that’s not— I’m telling you I want that.”

Robby shoves his hands further up. They get tangled briefly in his glasses; he yanks them off, his face gone all-over red now, and echoes Jack’s demand of, “What?”

“I want a fucking relationship with you,” Jack tells him, voice raised. “I want to be the guy who— who can be there for you how you deserve, who can be an actual partner to you, not this— this twitchy fucking mess—”

“Jack—”

“And I’ve been thinking about it, and, Robby— Mikey, I— I know you have a hard time being casual—”

“That’s no reason to—”

“And I’m so fucking glad,” Jack continues over him. “I am just so fucking glad that you do, because if you didn’t stick around me when I was a lost goddamn cause, I wouldn’t have the best thing in my life right now. I wouldn’t have you, and I— There’s no point to any of it without you, you know that? You ruined my life by making it fucking incredible. And I can’t even hate you for it, I—” His laugh is a little hysterical. “I love you for it, I—”

Robby staggers back to him, and Jack catches him by the hips, drags up over his stomach and his chest to clutch either side of his face, drawing him in until their foreheads bump together.

“I want to be with you, I want to be serious, I want to— I want to do stupid shit with you like live in the same house and sleep in the same bed and— I don’t know, marry you, if that’s a thing that you—”

“J—”

“I think I’m in fucking love with you, Mike, and I’m going crazy, I can’t— I can’t take it anymore,” he insists, and Robby pushes into a kiss with him. It’s not their first, not by a long shot, but it has the same explosion inside as if it were.

It’s not their last, either. Similarly, not by a long shot.

Robby’s tongue slides along Jack’s for a hot moment before withdrawing, and he grips his head on either side, just as Jack is doing to him, clinging to him, hanging on tight.

“What do you mean, you can’t take it anymore?” Robby asks, his breath warm against Jack’s lips.

On a laugh, Jack asks, “What, no comment for the rest of it?”

Robby pushes into another kiss, his teeth nipping at Jack’s lower lip, drawing a soft whine out of him. When they part again, Jack swallows, thick in his throat.

“Okay— Okay, I—” Jack takes a breath, sighs, lets his forehead fall into Robby’s. “You’re going to think I’m a colossal fucking asshole.”

“I already think that,” Robby replies, and Jack pinches his ear. “Exhibit A—”

“Shut up,” Jack tells him. Robby does just that, albeit with a shit-eating grin. “Just— Okay, you can’t laugh at me.”

“No promises.”

“Asshole.” Jack sighs, then admits, “I’m fucking— I’m jealous, okay?”

Robby blinks at him.

After a moment, he starts to smile.

“You said—”

“I said no promises,” Robby reminds him. “You’re jealous? Of who? Elisa?”

“No, not Elisa,” Jack shoots back, but it’s not technically true. “Well— Yes, Elisa, but not for the reasons you—”

“Wow. You are an asshole,” Robby comments.

“Shut up,” Jack repeats, and Robby laughs harder this time. “I’m not jealous of Elisa specifically, I’m jealous of the whole— the whole fucking world, Mikey, Jesus, do you even know how people interact with you?”

The way Robby cocks his head, clearly amused and confused, makes Jack’s blood race.

“What are you talking about?” he asks, like he genuinely doesn’t know, and—

“God,” Jack says. “You genuinely don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” Robby asks. “People mostly don’t like me. I’m—”

“Oh, you are a little stupid,” Jack comments. Robby swats at his chest. “Knew it had to pop up some time, face that pretty. Something was missing, one loose screw— Who are we kidding, you’re all loose screws—”

“Pot, kettle,” Robby cuts him off. “What don’t I know?”

“You can’t be serious,” Jack insists. “How could you not realize everyone’s tripping over themselves all the time just to, like— be near you? Seriously, I— Also, wait, how could you not think I’m insanely jealous of all the attention you get? Man— I’ve been trying to work it out in therapy, I swear, I am, I know I don’t own you, but— God, I’m just jealous all the time. I thought I was being too obvious about it.”

For a second, Robby just stares at him.

Then, he actually bursts out laughing. Jack doesn’t even know the last time he saw him laugh this hard.

“You are such a dick,” Jack accuses him, even as Robby’s laughter draws up a smile of his own. “I’m working on it—”

“No, you— Please, just—” Robby wheezes, places his palms over his face, bends double before he lurches back upright with a laughing groan. “We can’t be this stupid.”

“Jury’s still out,” Jack tries.

“No, they’re back, and we’re really, really guilty,” Robby tells him. His hands drop, and he waves his glasses in Jack’s direction with a wild swing. “Do you think I’m not jealous of everyone who talks to you?”

Jack blinks at him, bewildered. “What?”

“Of course I am, just— look at you, Jack,” Robby says, hand slashing up and down as if to encompass Jack’s entire self. “You’re cool, you’re hot, you’re smart, you— Actually, you know what? I can’t believe I’m saying this, you’ll never let me live it down—”

“No, keep going,” Jack says, grinning. “Tell me how cool and hot and smart I am—”

“Okay, I’m already regretting this,” Robby stops him. “But— Seriously. Jack, you— I don’t know how you don’t see it. Everyone’s flirting with you all the time.”

“Huh.” Jack hasn’t picked up on that, but, then again— “I guess I didn’t notice.”

Robby snorts. “Yeah, okay. You just didn’t notice—”

“Yeah, I didn’t notice,” Jack repeats. “I’m paying too much attention to you and the fact that I’m stupid in love with you. You take up a lot of my energy, Robinavitch. I want it back.” His brow furrows, and he insists, “You can’t seriously be jealous of other people. With me.”

Throwing his hands up, Robby exclaims, “Of course, I am!”

“Why? You know I’m locked down on you,” Jack demands, and Robby just gives him a knowing look. “I mean— But, I’ve been here, haven’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Robby replies. “Or— I didn’t, I guess.”

Jack needs him to understand. He really, really needs him to understand.

Clasping Robby again on either side of his face, he draws him in for a kiss— long, slow, trying to inject as much of the tenderness and affection and feeling inside of him for Robby that he can into it. When they part, Robby panting small, hot breaths against his lips, Jack tells him, “What we’ve been doing— What we have right now isn’t enough for me anymore. I can’t have  you looking at someone else the way you look at me. I can’t, Mike. I love you too much for that. I want you to be mine.”

Robby nods, kissing him again— lightly this time, close-mouthed, and no less intense for it.

“I am. And I know,” Robby tells him, mumbled against his lips. “I know. I can’t do it anymore, either, I can’t— I don’t think I ever could—” He exhales, eyes slipping back open and finding Jack’s again. “Fuck, I forgot to tell you.”

“What?” Jack asks, heart throbbing.

“I love you, too,” Robby tells him, yanking him in for another kiss.

Jack dissolves into him. The relief is immense, and the love moreso, and the lust—

He pushes at Robby, nudging him backwards towards the bed, already moving to grip his scrub top by the hem and yank it off over his head.

“This isn't going to be easy,” Robby warns him, like Jack doesn't know that, like it's been easy before now, like it might not be worth it to Jack. “I don't know what happens next—”

“I know,” Jack stops him. “But it’ll be easier than being apart, right? ‘Cause we’ll have each other.” He tugs his top off, glides his hands down Robby's bare chest. “As for what happens next, my plan is to make you cum—”

“Jack—”

“—as fast as I can, because I told Dana I'd also feed the both of us, and I think we're running out of time,” Jack tells him, a moment before he licks a stripe from Robby's shoulder up the column of his neck to his ear.

Beneath his hands, Robby shudders, and Jack takes the opportunity to sink his teeth into his throat.

The resulting moan that rumbles out of Robby sinks deep into Jack, settling into his core. He runs his tongue over Robby’s hot skin between his teeth, tasting salt, then sucks, and Robby buckles against him.

“Sit,” Jack mumbles into his throat, pushing Robby down to sit hard on the edge of the empty bed. “Good.” He kisses the mark he’s left on his throat, withdraws. It’s already suitably dark, even after only a few seconds. “There you go.”

“Did you just leave a hickey on me?” Robby demands, like he doesn’t love it. He’d have more of an annoyed punch to his words if he weren’t breathless, chest heaving, eyes blown, face flushed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Now, everyone will know you’re mine,” Jack points out. He can’t help the cheeriness in his own tone. “Want another one? I can spell out my name—”

“Get over here, you s—”

Whatever Robby’s about to call him disappears between their mouths as he yanks him into another kiss, fitting Jack between his spread knees. His hands skate up beneath Jack’s top, too, scraping over his bare chest, and he rises up to his nipples, palms flat over them, just enough of a teasing touch to make Jack shiver.

Jack keeps kissing him for as long as he can as he sinks down to his knees in front of him. When he can’t reach his mouth anymore, he trails down his throat, over his shoulder and down his chest; he kisses one nipple, making Robby jerk, before he continues onto his stomach, lingering at the elastic edge of his scrub bottoms. He bites at the band, tugging it out with his teeth before he lets it snap back against Robby’s skin.

“Take ‘em off, Mikey,” he instructs him, and Robby scrambles to do exactly that, shifting onto one side so he can wriggle out of his pants. His underwear comes right with them, and Jack yanks it all down to his ankles and off with his shoes, keeping him boxed in there as he pushes in between his thighs and spreads them apart with his shoulders. “Hook over, c’mon.”

He coaxes one of Robby’s legs over one shoulder; Robby shifts the other one, asking, “Are you sure you’re—”

“If you think anything’s gonna stop me eating you out right now, you’re stupider than both of us combined,” Jack breathes, cheek resting against Robby’s inner thigh, studying him from up close. “God, you’re pretty.”

“Don’t look at my cunt and tell me I’m pretty,” Robby complains.

“Why not?” Jack asks. “It’s true. You want me to lie?” He presses a kiss inside his thigh— then, inspired, he bites down on the same spot, too. Robby jars beneath him, shivering like he’s a one-man earthquake, and Jack exhales a breathless sound of adoration into the mark he’s sucking into the meat of his thigh. His voice is muffled when he murmurs, “Mine.”

“Yours,” Robby repeats, curling over him, one hand seeking Jack’s shoulder to steady himself while the other threads through Jack’s hair. He stops at the back of his head, hangs on tight, grip hard enough that it prickles down Jack’s spine, and he groans into his thigh.

“Nobody else gets to fuck you like this, do they?” Jack asks against his skin, and Robby shakes his head in a rough jerk. “No. Just me, right?”

“Just you,” Robby whispers.

“Yeah, just me,” Jack echoes. “And nobody else gets to kiss you, do they?” Robby shakes his head again, panting as Jack inches closer, breath disturbing the dark curled hairs of his bush. He’s humid here, heady with sweat and heat, and Jack closes his eyes, inhales. Robby’s grip on his hair tightens. “Nobody else gets to taste you here.”

“Just you,” Robby repeats, “Jack, please—”

Jack reaches up, taking hold of Robby’s waist in one hand, making sure to hold him hard. He wants to see his fingerprints painted on there when this is all over.

Bracing himself, he yanks, drawing Robby right up to the edge. His knees ache— his right throbs— his heart is still hammering— but it all sinks into the back of his brain. Nothing seems as important as leaning in, tilting Robby’s hips up, and spreading his cunt with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand so he can lick a stripe up his slit to his cock.

“Shit,” Robby gasps out. “Jack—”

His thighs press in harder on either side of Jack’s head, his grip on his hair so tight that the backs of Jack’s eyes burn. He tilts his head and kisses him on his lips right there, letting his eyes close as he slips his tongue inside, just as he had when he was making out with him before.

He makes sure to keep his grip tight, to eat him out with feeling, to make sure Robby feels every single thing he’s doing to him, every single emotion he feels, everything, everything, every good thing he deserves.

Maybe it’s okay if he’s protective, if it means Robby falls apart with him and him alone, safe and trusted and held; maybe it’s okay if he’s obsessed, if it means he knows Robby inside and out, and still wants to know more. Maybe it’s okay if he’s jealous, because then he can bite into Robby’s thigh and declare him, “Mine,” in a voice muffled by his flesh, and maybe it’s okay if he’s possessive, because then Robby can tighten his hold and drag him back to his cunt and whisper downwards, “Yeah, Jack, all yours.”

And maybe— maybe— it’s okay if he’s in love with Robby, because he thinks Robby’s in love with him, too.

“Jack,” Robby rumbles over him, glasses slipping off his nose, almost falling down before Jack reaches up to push them back into place with a single finger. Robby exhales, smiling. “Jack—”

“I gotcha,” he murmurs into him, returning his hands to his waist, matching back up with the bruise of his hand, fitting himself back into place. “I gotcha, I’m here.”

Robby bows closer over him as Jack ducks back in, redoubling his efforts on eating him out. He tastes, just— so fucking good, salty, rich, the natural depth of Robby. Jack can’t get enough of him, he can’t, and he takes his fill, tongue slipping tight along the velvet inside of him. He’s messy in making out with his cunt, and determined, and he drags one hand down to catch on Robby’s cock in hard circles, and Robby gasps out, “Jack, Jack, Jack, fuck— Jack, holy f— fuck me—”

Jack rumbles a laugh into Robby’s cunt, and he twitches, all his limbs jerking.

“Jack, please—” His voice is a whine, and he can’t stop yanking at Jack, repeating his name over and over, a waterfall spill of, “Jack, Jack, Jack—”

Dragging upwards, Jack kisses his way to Robby’s cock, pushes his little hood back and sucks hard at him, until Robby’s groaning and his slickness is pouring out under Jack’s tongue and his name falls apart in Robby’s mouth, crumbling into nothing more than desperate, breathless, wanting sounds. When he cums, he clutches Jack’s head, curls over him, pulled taut as a bowstring for a long moment before he slumps, panting through the waves with a heaving chest and an all-over flush and tears budding in his eyes.

For his part, Jack just eats him out through it, eyes occasionally flicking upwards to survey Robby’s status. His own cock has been mostly-neglected until now, even in his own mind; as Robby trembles through the aftershocks, though, he allows himself to acknowledge it, and he’s so hard he’s aching.

Lucky him, Robby swats at his shoulder in a lazy drag, murmuring, “Get up here, c’mon, we’re running out of time.”

“That’s my boyfriend, the romantic,” Jack comments. He lets Robby take his hands and help him stagger upright; it’s not easy with all his blood seemingly leaving the rest of his body to throb through his cock instead.

“Don’t say boyfriend, it makes us sound like teenagers,” Robby complains.

“What do you want instead, then?” Jack asks, shoving his pants down, tugging his cock out. Reaching forward, he swipes his fingers through Robby’s slit, enjoying his full-body twitch in response. “Partner? Husband? Soulmate? Significant other? Sweet—”

“Jack—”

“Nah, that one’s already taken,” Jack comments as he brings his slick fingers to his cock and jerks himself once, twice. It feels so goddamned great, and he lets his head fall all the way back, eyes slipping shut, as he groans out, “Fuck, that’s good.”

Robby reaches out and yanks him in by the hips, mouthing at Jack’s chest like there’s not a thought in his head. Running his fingers through his hair, Jack draws him in closer, then pushes him away, laying him down flat on the hospital bed so Jack can climb up and crawl over him, fitting himself between his thighs.

A heartbeat later, Robby’s dragging him in for another kiss, and Jack’s lining his cock up with Robby’s cunt and pushing in, gasping out into Robby’s mouth, “Mike— Mike, fuck, you feel so goddamned good, I love this— I love you— Shit—” He swallows, pulls back enough to meet his eyes. “Hang on tight,” Jack warns him, and Robby just manages to get his arms around Jack before Jack is fucking him. There’s no way they have all that much time left before Dana— or someone else— will actually come looking for them; Jack has a job to do before that happens.

He grips Robby tight by the hip, fitting into his handprint once more; his other hand, he uses to bring Robby’s leg up, forcing him to flex a little more so he can sink more deeply into him on each thrust in.

Robby groans, and Jack can’t help but huff a laugh. “I’m gonna get you doing yoga, old man.”

“Can you focus?” Robby spits back. “For the love of fuck, Jack—”

Jack drops his head down, silences him with a kiss, fucks into him again, again, again, pounding into Robby until the bed is squeaking under them and Robby’s gasping out his name again. He tries to wriggle a hand between them, but Jack bats it away, shoving his own hand down to circle Robby’s cock again, again, again, until he’s cumming with a breathless, rumbling whimper for a second time around his cock, walls tightening and contracting and throbbing.

“Mike,” Jack moans into his mouth, long and drawn out, as everything inside of him coils up tight. He fucks in again, and this time, he spills inside of him, biting hard at his lip in the process, drawing another low whine out of Robby’s throat.

The warmth seizes him, and he dissolves into it, unable to think of anything but Robby in these moments and more than content to float in it.

Jack’s hips keep moving almost of their own accord, fucking Robby through their orgasms until he literally can’t anymore, collapsing on top of him, panting for breath. Robby’s no better beneath him, chest rising and falling rapidly beneath Jack’s cheek; he can hear the hammering of his heart in his chest, a mirror to his own, and he kisses messily over the pound of it, visible through his skin.

“We probably have, like, two minutes left,” Jack comments, raspy. “Oh, shit.”

“You sound awful,” Robby points out, sounding worse. “For the love of— Jack.”

“As if it’s all my fault.”

“You told me you loved me,” Robby reminds him. “The hell else was I supposed to do?”

“Yeah, that’ll hold up in court,” Jack says, pushing a kiss to Robby’s cheek before he’s slipping out of him with stifled grunts from each of them. “‘Sorry, Your Highness, I just had to cum twice on the clock, my boyfriend loves me.’”

“I said to stop saying boyfriend,” Robby replies. “Give me a sandwich, would you?”

“‘Stop saying boyfriend,’ Cinderelly, ‘get me a sandwich,’ Cinder—”

“I’ll eat yours, too,” Robby warns him, and Jack grabs the tray, sliding it over to him just as Robby’s tugging his pants back up.

“You’re still a mess,” Jack points out.

“Yeah, well, it’s my mess,” Robby says around a mouthful of M&Ms. “Maybe I like it.”

Jack’s about to protest on principle alone before he actually processes the idea of Robby walking around for the rest of his shift here with Jack’s cum inside of him, and he feels briefly light-headed, so he lets it go.

Instead, he says, “Speaking of your mess,” and throws his scrub top at him. “Cover that shit up.”

“Sorry, the shit you left on me?” Robby asks. “How bad is it, what’s the damage?”

Jack looks him over, and Robby is—

He’s all flushed-pink, smiling. His hair’s a mess, and he’s got bruises littering his throat, his chest, his belly, his hips, his thighs. In all honesty, he looks marked-up and fucked-out and well-loved and obviously so very proud of himself, and Jack can’t help but smile.

Jack left those bruises when he was kissing him, because Jack loves him, and he loves Jack, and that’s— that’s it. Nothing to be jealous of, because Robby is his, and the evidence is all over him, and inside of him— in more ways than one. The possessive streak in Jack has been rewarded, and he will reap handsomely.

Speaking of handsomely—

“You look so good like this, Mike,” Jack tells him. Robby holds up a green M&M, and Jack takes it between his teeth. “You look like you’re mine.”

Robby laughs, popping an identical M&M into his own mouth.

“Makes sense,” Robby replies. “Well, consider your territory marked.”

“Good,” Jack murmurs, pushing into a kiss that tastes like chocolate and salt and the two of them, hanging off of Robby and having Robby hang off of him in return, satisfied in knowing that, when they both have to stumble back out onto the floor in roughly thirty seconds, everybody will know— will finally, finally understand— who Robby belongs to.