Chapter Text
Jack only ever knows he should be seeking out a little dynamic settling when Robby starts grabbing at the back of his neck and shoulders.
Robinavitch is a bloodhound at that shit usually. Can talk a patient off the ledge with a little one-on-one registered dominant talk, and usher them right on into psych before his dynamic gets the best of him. He straddles the line between mentor and Dominant with a capital “D” flawlessly, thoughtlessly. Because Robby rarely if ever takes the time to satisfy that part of himself.
And really somehow Robby does it for them all. Can wave a calm hand, or that stupid smile and bunched hoody, and suddenly his crew is calm, well calmer, and listening . He must be off the charts in his dynamic, but that's really the one thing the hospital keeps locked down and tight from prying eyes and other staff. Dynamic charts and test results. And not even test results really.
Robby hasn't even told Jack himself how much he rates, gets this weird hunted look on his face any time it comes up within The Pitt crew, like he's waiting for some bastard to poke their questions his way. Never happens though, outside of patients Robby’s poker face screams please don’t ask me that . In a haunted broken hearted way.
So they leave it alone.
It was a sticking point with the hospital when he first started working at The Pitt, made him do those idiodic bi-weekly check ins for dynamics that refused to find regular partners and patterns, but each and every one of his evals came back clean, stable, overall satisfied. The only thing that ever tipped those scales wrong were his actual mental health check ups.
That's why Jack really doesn't understand how Robby just knows when it's him, hell he’ll sidle up on a late shift seconds after the first thought of needing some play starts to get to him and somehow Robby is right there scratching that itch.
Calling him Jack, or god forbid Jacky just to piss him off, like he’s still fucking twenty somthing, or putting a warm and dry hand right in the dip between his neck and shoulder, ushering him where he wants him to go, saying he’s capable to all the bright eyed babies they let into the ER. Standing shoulder to shoulder, so close that if Jack really wanted to, really needed to, he could lean on Robby, just enough.
And that could float him till the weekend, put him sky high for the rest of his shift, and somehow Robby still didnt fucking know.
Michael Robinavich was blind to only his and Jack Abbot's needs. At least consciously.
***
It starts like everything else starts. Because Robby’s is an oblivious son of a bitch that wouldn’t know an invitation for a kiss, a quick fuck, or a full blow relationship–collars and everything–even if it hit him square in his pinch pressed mouth.
Jack is tired . Admittedly so, recklessly so. He took a double shift, his leg kills, and he hasn't had any action in a solid 2 months. Including Robby's little slip ups. His bones are dust, his mouth is even dryer, and driest of all are the sahara stripped words that seem to shake themselves out of his mouth.
He's been sighing all day, loud enough where even Dana is starting to look at him a little sternly, she's the only other dynamic that he would allow that from. Walsh tries it, but fuck her, and he knows they both enjoy the snipes. Keeps them fresh and unswayed.
“What's going on, man?” She only really calls him that when he’s being like this.
Man, like he isn't about to throw up all his shit in her lap.
“Tired, fuck , beyond it really”
And he sees one of her sharp eyebrows twitch, and a wry little thing sneaks itself across the space where her mouth should be.
“Aww what, Mikey not giving it good enough for you anymore?”
Mikey? Jack snorts before he can stop himself. Mikey always gave it good enough and could probably give it up better if Jack just opened his mouth and said it.
Maybe.
Or he’d freak out and ask Jack if he should go talk to his therapist, or worse, Psych. Fuck.
“Mikey— ” he scoffs again, “is currently the only one giving it good enough… ma’am .” He tacks that title on the end, full of that beaten in military respect, the kind that makes Dana smile because it sounds ridiculous outside of any other context but the goddamn army but Jack really means it.
He knows full well he’s being obvious in the ER, and Princess is starting to look like she’s sitting up in her seat a little too well, like she’s really engaged in charting and whatever the hell is about to come out of Jack's mouth.
He sighs again, and Dana keeps flashing her pearly white teeth as he leans back, leg splayed out as the chair creaks back dangerously. Jack has his head tilted back, much farther than he usually would, given the circumstances. But Dana is safe, watching him, and well shit he is tense.
“You want a little help over there Abbot, or you just want me to watch?” She sounds amused albeit a little terse. Dana never likes seeing anyone unleveled. Bothers her, and like Robby she'll do just about anything to at least make sure no one crashes in her line of sight.
Jack blows a hard breath, that really is a thought. One he could take advantage of here. Nothing too special or racy, Dana’s committed, and he hates anyone having to take care of him when he's desperate. Wanting it is one thing, needing it is another.
He must take too long, because at his next motion to inhale Dana speaks clearly and with just enough influence over her words that he's listening, “Well then, just breathe , for me Jack, can you do that?”
Fuck, now he’s done. Jack knows he twitched at the command, but he didn't open his eyes. In the grand scheme of things it's so simple it could barely count as anything, but if his time in dire straits taught him anything, it's to take what you can get.
So he does.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
He’s trying not to sink. Not here, at work, in the goddamn ED, but maybe he underestimated how thin his control was getting.
Dana is still murmuring somewhere off to his side, still watching him, he's still safe. The noise of the ED keeps him present, in his role, in his Jack Abbot skin. Not the faceless thing he can become sometimes as a Sub–really a Switch–or a soldier.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Ou–
His breath catches on the exhale. Because suddenly there's a rough dry hand slipping across his neck. Deft fingers slipping into the notch of his ear and jaw, thumb pressed firmly against his carotid. Tenderly. And he didnt even fucking flinch. Didn't hear him, see him coming, but he knows who it is and he drops.
Jack knows he’s gone, dead to nothing but Robby's firm hand because the world around him is silent. Deathly so, blessedly so. He knows nothing, is nothing, could become anything under Robby's hand.
He knows he’s stretched back further, bared his neck even more, and is probably putting on the show of a lifetime for the ED, for the staff around him, for fucking Robby . But fuck, he wants to be good , because maybe if he is Robby would jus–
In a flash his own hand is up to fit around the one around his neck. Jack felt Robby's fingers tremble back, almost twitching off of him. But he's started something that can't be finished in the ED. That he can't even begin to walk back. Jack Abbot is failing, put away somewhere dark and quiet, and it's unthinkable that Robby would not be there with him where he should be.
He’s not thinking, moving on instinct, speaking on instinct, trusting on instinct.
And with a wide eyed, pupil-blown stare, straight into the roar of Pittsburgh’s Trauma Medical Center Emergency Department, Jack Abbot whispers for Michael Robinavitch to, “Take me home. ”
And in the next breath he's right back in his body where he Should. Fucking. Be.
***
Jack Abbot has been to fucking war, and he has never been this fucking terrified. He's had his leg blown to hell, smooth off, and he doesn’t think the pain will touch what he knows is up next.
He can see it already, Robby snatching his hand back, backing away like Abbot will collapse. Looking terrified and mournful all in the same breath. Horrified at what had occurred, what he had done.
And then subject Jack to those assholes up in the dynamics department on an involuntary hold, infinitely more sorry that he has to be, because he's a good doctor and would never let a dropping anything out of his sight. Not a Dom, not a Sub, and never a Switch.
And then he would be even more fucked, really relegated to Dr. Jack Abbot, spending weeks avoiding him, avoiding their rituals, Robby would shrink back. Uproot himself from Jack’s fucking life and never grow there agai—
Instead hard and flinted brown eyes greet his blown ones. Instead of terrified Robby looks grim, downright serious as his hand only tightens across Jack's throat. “Dana, will you please tell Gloria I– we–had an emergency?”
Jack doesn't even hear her reply, and for shit sure can’t make out the look Robby has shot his way. All he knows is that Robby hasn't lost the hold on his throat once and that despite it all he's stayed belly up for Robby, guts all out for anyone to see.
Robby's hand moves, shifts away from the shield at his Adam's apple, and Jack’s sure he makes some sort of noise that’ll make him want to slit his own throat later, and he's shushed while the hold glides to the back of his neck. Firm fingers carding into the short hair at the base of all of his ashen, more salt than pepper curls.
“Come on up,” as Robby pulls at the base of them there.
And well, next thing he knows is he's up.
Robby steering them through the ED. Bright lights almost blinding him as questions his way are fielded or downright ignored. Jack couldn't be more dead to the world unless he were shot through between the eyes.
***
The one thing Robby knows is that Jack Abbot is an intense man. He knows it, he's seen it, feels the force of it just by sharing the same air as him. Abbot is immovable when he wants to be, downright unchanging, timeless in the sense of old stone, smoothed down, buffed out, but a rock nonetheless.
Jack is silent. He’s a quiet man really. Usually. Could talk Robby's ear off for some reason, but he knows that under that current Jack is still, watching, waiting . An unseen riptide of a man.
All of that energy is laser focused on him right now, in his hazel rusted wide eyed gaze.
Jack is gone, blown out of his skull by Robby’s clumsy fucking hands and even clumsier skills.
He didn't mean it, didn't even realize he had been so close to the surface. Robby knew he was low on his meds, and hadn't taken the time to up his dose on suppressants, but he didn't expect to catch Jack or himself by surprise like this.
And well, Jack isn’t down exactly, like in the traditional sense. Nothing sleepy or soft about him. Nothing languid, or slow, nothing syrupy about the man. Instead Jack has straightened up, to an almost painful degree. Face slack, but eyes focused , searing him right between the eyes.
He looks every bit of the soldier Robby only half knows him to be.
Blown pupils follow his every movement, bounce across the contours of his face, look him right in the eyes, his mouth, his hands that are now resting loosely but firmly on both sides of his neck as they stand there making a small scene in the ED and hearing nothing. Saying nothing.
“Jack, can you hear me, man?” Robby watches as his eyes register the movement of his mouth, nothing in his face twitches in recognition.
“Jack, I’m so so sorry. Can you speak? You want me to get Dana back?”
Jack hasn't so much as twitched. Hasn't swayed into his grip, or out of it. He's just waiting, at the ready.
Shit .
Jack Abbot is waiting for orders . Ones that Robby doesn’t have in him to give, that he can make himself give. The very idea scalds him, makes him want to snatch both his hands back and step firmly, out of the shared bubble they’re in. Makes him want to walk back into the chaos of the ED and be absorbed in the swirling mass of doctors, nurses, staff, patients, to become another moving indistinguishable piece.
A pipe dream under Jack's eye.
He feels Dana slide behind him, and watches in further dismay as Jack's eyes don't even begin to follow her movements. From the man that makes eye contact his part time job, Robby feels how out of his depth he is the longer he stands unmoving.
“Michael ” she spits. Downright hisses into the back of his neck.
“Get him out of here, NOW.” It's a bitter thing, to have Dana so mad at him and so sure he can handle what's coming his way.
“Move him, now ”
“Tell Gloria for me?” Jack's eyes clock his mouth again.
“GO, Robinavicth”
And eyes like flint watch Robby nail the coffin shut.
“Let's go, Jack.” An order, something he will never be able to take back from between them, a line he's tried so so hard to remain uncrossed. Stepped on, smushed from his carelessness.
And in one quick exhale, hissed out like a bullet, Jack seems to drop back into himself, eyes wide but he's listening, he’s really watching, shaking a little. Vibrating in his skin really but only from where Robby is holding him. Trembling under his hands.
Grabs his bag, pivots on his good leg, and grips Robby's hand so tight he watches his finger whiten in protest, and marches them both out of the ED.
***
Jack wants to say he made it home, but he doesn't. He makes it to Robby's home.
Or better yet Robby makes him make it to his home.
He spends the car ride back in silence, a weighted heavy thing that's sitting in his chest like an anvil waiting to drop him over.
Robby actually gave him a fucking command, and has continued to give him commands in their shortish ride back to his condo.
Jack wants to speak, open his mouth, say anything .
Come on Abbot, come on, fuck fuck fuck, at least say something,
But he's fixed, fastened, bolted down somewhere tight where only Robby could reach to pull him back out again.
The whole ride over, Robby has rather unsafely had his hand balled up on the back of his neck. They mostly make easy turns and easier streets to where they're going, and he should feel unsafe as the outside blurs by him in smears and flashes while Robby approaches something that looks like speeding but he can’t .
Jack is panting like a goddamned dog, breath coming out in great awful puffs of air. They sound wrenched out of him, and they are. Wretched things that make Robby press him head down in between his own knees to try and force some air into him while he feels the car speed up a little more.
And shit if it doesn't work. The world’s gone a little darker around him, his knees blocking out the worst of it, boxing him in. Jack is old, and it puts a little strain on his back, but Robby's hand takes care of it.
Slipping away from his nape, Jack knows he whines or does something equally as disgraceful, because Robby shushes him, and the hand is once again on him.
Scraping, scratching, kneading to the best of his ability. Big long strokes that keep him in the moment, while Robby murmurs off to his side about some stuff he's sure to hear later but can't focus on right now.
His hands stow their way into his hair, pulling right down at the root, trying to make himself fucking think.
Robby's own replace them across his skull, with that big palm of his and deft fingers cradling the tender base of his skull, while those fingers card through the mess of it all.
Jack feels a sharp pull.
“Fuck! ” he moans, low and loud, and agonized groan that makes Robby's pulling stop and start up again in an instant. Really going after it.
“That's perfect Jack, thank you.” Robby is breathing other words into the air around them, probably nonsens, but it doesn't matter. Robby thanked him. Jack–freaking the fuck out–is still being good for Robby. He’s breathing for the other man, living off of his hand and any words he tosses his way,
The car stops.
And for one heart aching moment Robby is gone .
Jack thinks he must have died. Logically somewhere deep down he knows Robby had to stop the car, had to get out, to come get him. Instead, he finds himself momentarily weightless, horrifyingly so, bitterly so. Nothing to anchor him down, nothing to hold him. It's a feeling he chased, that he thought he craved, thought he needed. Now, in this moment he's petrified.
Hot summer air breezes into the car, as Robby yanks him from the passenger, then they go stumbling.
Stairs, a stairwell, a front door and the blessed darkness. Cool air and an even cooler cooler floor because fuck him he sinks to his knees.
Jack thinks that maybe he hears a downright strangled sound behind him. Any other moment he would think it funny, the way Robby sounds like he swallowed his tongue, but shit that should have hurt, and it did, at least he thinks.
He’s a mess. But that did hurt, distantly so. Jack wants out . Of his fucking scrubs, his fucking leg, and this goddamned headspace.
“Fuck, fuck, okay okay, that’s fine Jack, come on right here.” Robby still sounds strangled but hes worked in some of that attending charm. He’s got a nice stable constricted airway sound about him now, but there's no waiver in Robby's voice, and he doesn't sound like he's about to cry that much so Jack figures he's still safe for now.
He watches as Robby sits on the couch and Jack, well, drags himself over to him. Like he’s some injured dog and not a grown man that can walk and make decisions for himself. But he can't, at least right now.
Robby is here to do all that for him.
Jack knows he's putting on a show, knows he doesn’t care too. He has his face pressed into the rough almost threadbare fabric of Robby's jeans, huffing what is sure to be hours upon hours of hospital grime and air. But as he sucks up the warmth and the frankly concerning trembling twitches of Robby's leg under him, all he can think is that he wouldn't rather be with anyone else.
***
Think , Robinavitch.
Jacks a little calmer, but he's still whining against his leg, rubbing a pinking mark into his cheeks while he tries to catch his breath. Robby thinks about how he hasn't washed these jeans in who knows how long and how Jack doesn't seem to care at all.
Think.
Robby can take a breath, a moment. His condo isn't filthy, a little cluttered, a little like someones been just breezing through instead of living there, because that's what he's been doing. But not filthy. Janey sometimes sends someone to clean, and well it was cleaned semi recently. He knows his sheets are clean, and so is his bathroom, and that he has clean clothes somewhere.
Jack is still warm on his leg.
Robby reaches down, runs his hands through sweat through curls, and Jack only curls in on him tighter, face scrunched up and eyes ducked tightly away from his gaze.
And well, Robby doesn't like that. And he's not thinking, and he doesn't have a handle on himself like he wants.
His hands slip a little higher, right to wear Jack's hair is the thickest, and it's plenty thick for how old he is–pretty bastard–and he tugs . Sharply, sharper than he ever would.
“Jack.”
He didn't mean to put another command on it. Robby is slipping further away from himself.
And those eyes snap to him again, wide watchful. The other man has a pinkening mark on the side of his face, right under the cut of his cheek. Blood all pulled to the surface, splotchy and raw, and Robby wants for one bright moment that it takes his breath away.
“How do you want this?” Christ he sounds like he still smokes, words pulled out of him like they dragged over gravel.
Jack on his part doesn't look or sound any better, so Robby decides he’ll just worry about the humiliation of this all later, the heartbreak of it later . When Jack isn’t so fucked up, when he isn’t so fucked up and can apologize properly.
“I want…” Robby grips Jack's hair tighter, presses the man's face back against his legs, watches even more of the fight bleed out of him, “I want you to put me down, Mikey.”
Mikey.
Robby's heart drops to his ass. Mikey, Mikey, Mikey .
He’s so fucked. His cock twitches and it's not even about that right now.
He hates himself.
But he can do this for Jack, make it through for him.
Robby pulls Jack's head up again, and breathes his damnation into the heated air between them.
“Limits and Safewords?”
***
Now, Jack knows he is no spring chicken, and that Robby is even older. But something about that black look in his eyes perks everything he thought went and died in him right up.
He can’t think, Jack is 49 years old, harder than he’s ever been in his life probably and there is nothing coming out of his stupid fucking empty skull.
Come on Abbot, tighten up man.
But he can’t . Robby has this terrible black look in his eye, hungry, ravenous almost. Desperately searching for him while he waits.
Robby tugs again. Makes it mean again .
And the words come falling right out.
“I don’t like humiliation, or lies. You can’t hurt me, like really fuck with me. Nothing with the leg until we talk about it. I’m not that much of a freak.” He’s mumbling around his words, slurring them out at the man above him really.
Robby is still watching him.
“Nothing dirty … you know. Feces, nothing like that. Blood is okay, if it’s from a little pain.”
Robby's hands convulse in his hair, pulling the strand in a tight stinging kind of pain. Jack is certain a few have come out.. And well he likes that too.
At this point he's all but scrubbing his face into the seam of Robby's pants, little hurts catching and scraping, it's going to be so obvious when he has to go back to The Pitt. It’s going to look like a friction burn, like he got fucked . Face pressed against rough carpet and hammered into.
Jack likes the idea of that, so much so that this speech doesn't even mean anything anymore.
“Colors are okay, Mikey. Red, yellow, green… Hangfire if I need to stop. Mikey please .” Jack is not above begging. In fact, he loves it when it gets to that point. When Jack Abbot is no longer and his dynamic replaces him. When he becomes clay to be molded.
Okay, okay, okay. Robby is saying something and Jack can’t really hear him, because he’s fucking mumbling . He wants him to just spit it out. He knows this is fucked up. Knows they can't walk this back and that after this Robby will probably run and it'll be the worst. But he just needs the other man to SPEAK U–
“Do you like commands?” Robby whispers almost, in a voice so low and so dark Jack thinks for a moment that maybe he doesn't know this man at all.
“Yeah ” Jack breathes out, he wants it so so bad.
“Strip.”
***
Jack is spread across his bed. Jack is naked and he’s hard and he’s taking these big gulping breaths that makes something wicked tremble inside Robby.
Jack has a blush splotching across his face and neck, steadily steadily making itself known across the rest of his body, pulling out freckles. Because Jack is a fucking redhead.
Robby knows he's staring like the creep he is. But Jack has a light fine dusting of blond hairs across his entire body. Because he’s a redhead, that went grey earlier than Robby did. And now Robby is paying for it. Like the pervert he is.
He knows Jack is out of it, because he’s not making any jokes about it, how infatuated Robby is. Like he hasn't been watching him watch Jack for the last 5 minutes as he drags his hand across his skin, scratching lines and yanking on hair. Completely ignoring anything besides the mans freckles and stupid fucking blond hair.
Robby manages to drag himself into focus just as his hands drift into the dip of Jack’s hips, and all the rough hair there, tugging in a way that must be a little unpleasant–judging by the way the other man squirms–while watching a single bead of precum slide its way out of the ruddy cock in between his legs.
Jack, objectively, has a nice cock. And Robby is being objective here. It’s beautiful, darker than all the skin around it, a dusky pink and perfectly proportionate. Looks useful, ready to be used, just how Jack is. Ramrod straight with a slight curve towards the belly. And he's wet. Jacks been running like a leaky faucet the longer Robby sits and rubs over him. Watching him. His hips pumping and flexing in stifled little jerks that lights matches up Robby’s spine.
And in a cold almost sobering thought Robby thinks Christ I love him . And he doesnt say it because hes not a fucking jackass.
“How d’you wanna come?” He’s mumbling again, slurring his words.
“Please,” is what Jack manages to eke out for him, words falling out of his mouth as his hips keep pumping towards his hand.
So, Robby wraps his hands around the heat of him and gets to work.
***
You couldn't pay Jack to repeat the sound that comes out of his mouth to anyone but Robby.
First of all he sobs immediately. Contact ripping the noise from the hot pit of his guts. Robby’s hands are huge, and kind of rough and he's not being gentle at all. Really stripping him. They grip and tug and pull and Jack isn't sure if he wants to push into it any more than he can just sit there and take take take .
With each passing slide Jack feels his sanity slide somewhere lower, anchored to the hand around his cock. The touch is almost white hot, it's too much really, the brand of Robby's hand against his tender flesh and he still wants more.
Second of all he’s pumping his hips wildly, can’t hold them still for a second and that means that Robby has slid his elbow into the dip of his hips to pin him down, and in his bodies incessant efforts to embarrass him it means that Jacks hand is now gripping wildly at the heated bicep he can now reach. And that Robby is just letting him.
And third of all he won’t just shut the fuck up.
He’s singing at this point. Please please please, thank you thank you thank you falling from his lips.
“Mikey, please !” and little punched out uh uh uh ’s every time Robby wipes his thumb across the head of him, sending a fever pitch of keens and even more please and thank you’s and whatever else his mind makes up if it keeps Robby's eyes on him and interested.
And Robby leans over, places a chaste kiss at the head of him, and whispers, “come .”
What other choice does Jack have then to fall?
Heat pools out of him in long agonizing pulses, his cock is throbbing to the beat of his aching heart as his teeth clench from the force of his orgasm. He should be loose, boneless, but he can’t muscles spasming in time to the flames that seem to engulf him. All while Robby watches, holding him through it and refusing to move his hand while Jack flailes, begs for something, anything to make Robby let the calm take him.
Robby is eyeing his cock while it continues to dribble out its interest at him, still pressing fire into him. And a pang of fear strikes his heart as Robby removes his hand only to lower his mouth onto the softening length of him.
“Wai– !” But it's too late.
Heat engulfs him as Robby takes devastating pulls. Tongue mean, slipping against his slit and worrying under the head of him.
Jack thinks he might really be crying now as he wails. For Robby to stop or to wait or to please just give him a break or to just let him come again. But Robby won’t stop and he's all the more grateful for it. All the more thankful that all the other man does is hold him down and make him take it, not a safeword in sight. Because he needs this Jack needs to do this for Robby, let him take from his body as much as he wants.
And as the next wave comes up Jack is only a body for Robby to use. His face is wet with tears, and his body is soaked with sweat and heat and whatever else he's managed to release between them, and it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but Robby's mouth on his cock and the hands holding him by his thigh and hip.
He opens his mouth to yell and Robby pulls him through to the other side in a freefall of bright sensation.
Tears slip down his face, and his throat stings as he sucks in air. Jack thinks he came, maybe he did, maybe he didn't, doesn't matter. Robby is here, next to him. Bringing him back to earth, making sure he doesn't slip away.
Hands and cloth wipe his eyes. Robby kisses over one of them. Making his way down to suckle at the hollow of his throat and at the salt and tears that have gathered there. Jack moans exhausted, cock still jumping at the sensation. He could keep going if that's what Robby wants he thinks. It would kill him, but he could keep going.
Mercifully Robby moves on. A hand fixes at the top of his leg, well what's left of it, and Robby waits. Jack doesn't give a shit if Robby takes off his leg, so all he does is push the limb into his hand a little harder as the man moves to remove it.
Robby wipes the sweat there too.
And finally when Jack is all tucked in again, hydrated, and still floating, Robby slips into bed behind him and without much preamble shifts his hand up his chest and palm into the hollow of his throat. Thumb once again resting on his tripping pulse.
“Baby, go to sleep.”And Jack is sure he didn't mean to say it, doesn't much matter anyway not while he leans into it and shuts his eyes. Heart thumping wildly like its setting itself up to burst as Robby continues to pet over his pulse.
And Jack sleeps, calm and steady through the night.
***
The next morning Robby is greeted by an empty bed, and emptier house, and promptly decides to cut his heart out.