Chapter Text
Operation: Emotional Consequences very quickly stopped being subtle.
Not because the Pittlings lacked finesse. Mostly because they discovered flirting with Jack Abbott was incredibly entertaining.
The man reacted to compliments like a stray cat being offered organic food. Suspicious. Quickly startled. And then occasionally delighted.
And once the rest of the department caught on, things escalated catastrophically.
The problem was that Jack flirted back automatically. Not consciously. It was instinctive. Easy smiles. Dry humor. Eye contact that lingered just enough to make people feel singled out. He just... didn’t realize people meant it.
Like when a paramedic called him pretty while dropping off a patient.
Jack laughed outright. “Pretty?” he repeated. “That’s not usually the word people use.”
The paramedic shrugged. “Doesn’t make it inaccurate.”
Jack looked genuinely caught off guard by that. Robby dropped a pen.
The effect this was having on Robby wasn’t lost on the entire ED. He looked grumpier and seemed like he wanted to bolt every time someone complimented Jack. When Ahmed asked Jack where he got his aftershave from, Robby looked ready to implode. But true to form, he remains too emotionally repressed to do much about it.
The Pittlings started inviting Jack out to places almost immediately.
At first Jack assumed they were being polite. Then Santos actually dragged him out after shift. Then it happened again. And again.
Suddenly Jack was going to trivia nights and getting drinks after work. He was being bullied into karaoke and turning up at Mateo’s apartment to watch the game. He remained baffled by this development but adapted quickly.
“You know,” Mel said one morning over a breakfast sandwich, “you’re surprisingly social.”
Jack looked deeply offended. “I’m incredibly social.”
“You growl at people.”
“That’s character.”
Jack was fun. Once he relaxed, really relaxed, people started understanding why Robby had gotten attached in the first place.
Jack remembered little things. Bought rounds without making a big deal of it. Texted people dumb memes at three in the morning. He had a dangerous smile and terrible opinions about music.
And every time someone openly flirted with him, he reacted with this bewildered little pause first. Like he still couldn’t quite process that it was genuine.
Somewhere along the line, Jack Abbot accidentally acquired a social life.
It really showed at post-shift drinks. The Pitt Crew were always out for drinks so nothing unusual there. The ED staff practically lived in bars and diners after work anyway, clinging to each other through shared trauma and mozzarella sticks.
Usually Robby came too.
This time he’d left early with some orthopedics resident after shift, hand brushing casually against her lower back as they headed out the door together.
Jack had watched them go for exactly half a second before taking a sip of beer and saying, very evenly, “So are we ordering food or what?”
There it was again. That careful neutrality Jack wore whenever this happened. Not angry. Not jealous. Just quietly swallowing something sharp and pretending it didn’t hurt.
This was when the group decided this was about more than flirting. Jack was fun to be around.
He told ridiculous stories. Knew obscure dive bars. Was weirdly good at pool. Had opinions about cars that caused an argument with Santos for three straight hours.
Mateo discovered Jack had once driven across three states at nineteen because “a guy I liked said he missed the ocean.”
“Did you at least get laid?” Santos asked.
Jack looked offended. “Obviously.”
Whitaker nearly inhaled his fries laughing.
And slowly, over the next few weeks, the group dynamic shifted. People started texting Jack directly, and not in an Operation: Emotional Consequences way.
Memes.
Invites.
“Come out with us.”
“You working tonight?”
“Mateo’s making us all go to this awful club, save me.”
And every single time, Jack sounded faintly surprised to be included. Like he kept expecting the invitation to be accidental.
The first time Mckay invited him to a movie night, he’d blinked at her for a full two seconds and gone: “You know I’m nearly fifty, right?”
Mckay stared at him. “Do you think you turn to dust after forty-five?”
“Emotionally, yes.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Then there was bowling night, where he turned out to be infuriatingly good and deeply smug about it.
“You contain multitudes,” Javadi told him after he got three strikes in a row.
“I contain rage and lower back pain.”
And through all of this, Robby watched the problem grow teeth. Because now it wasn’t just flirting.
Now Jack had become woven into things. Into group chats and inside jokes and Friday night plans. People sought him out automatically. There was always a seat saved for him somewhere.
And worse… Jack was happier.
The old tiredness was still there, because emergency medicine devoured everyone eventually, but something lighter had started surfacing underneath it.
And Robby hated the ugly twist of relief and jealousy that caused in equal measure.
Because he liked seeing Jack happy. Even when he wasn’t the reason anymore.
That was the part slowly killing him.
—
The gym thing started accidentally.
Mateo had bullied Jack into coming after shift because “You’re built like a divorced firefighter, Abbot. You clearly lift.”
“I don’t know what that means, lift what?”
“It means put on sneakers.”
Jack complained the entire drive there. Then immediately got competitive once inside. Naturally.
“You absolutely did not just add more weight because that guy looked at you,” Mateo accused.
Jack glanced over. “What guy?”
“The guy currently staring at you.”
Jack looked genuinely baffled. Across the gym floor, a dark-haired man near the cable machines quickly looked away after being caught.
Jack blinked once. Then looked back at Mateo.
“I think he just needed the bench.”
Mateo made a sound like an injured animal. “Abbot. He has been watching you deadlift for ten minutes.”
Jack paused.
“Huh,” he said finally.
And for the first time since this whole disaster started, Mateo watched realization settle properly into place. Not cockiness or ego. Just surprise.
Mateo softened immediately.
“Oh,” he said quietly.
Jack frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
But later, when the guy eventually approached to ask if Jack wanted to grab a smoothie sometime, Mateo watched something quietly important happen.
Jack smiled. Small and warm. A little startled around the edges. But genuinely pleased.
And when he said yes, he sounded like he still couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to.
—
By the time the end of the week rolled around, the entire ED had become disturbingly invested in Jack Abbot’s love life. Not because Jack encouraged it. Mostly because every tiny development produced visible psychic damage in Robby. And apparently that was excellent entertainment.
“Gym guy has a name, by the way,” Mateo informed the nurses station during handover.
Robby, who had been peacefully reviewing labs thirty seconds earlier, visibly tensed.
Nobody missed it.
“Oh?” Santos asked innocently.
“Thomas. Physical therapist. Cute. Into Abbot in a very sincere way.”
Whitaker clutched his coffee dramatically. “Sincere. God, that’s brutal.”
Robby kept his eyes on the chart in front of him. “Can you all please do your damn jobs.”
Jack wandered in halfway through this conversation carrying coffee and looking mildly windswept from the rain outside.
Mateo pointed at him immediately. “Tell them about your date.”
Jack froze. Not because he was hiding it. More because he clearly hadn’t expected anyone to care this much. “Oh my god,” he muttered. “You people are the worst.”
Across the desk, Robby was very carefully not looking at him.
Which meant he was listening to every syllable with the intensity of a hostage negotiator.
“So?” Santos prompted.
Jack shrugged, trying for casual and almost succeeding. “It’s just dinner.”
Mateo looked scandalized. “Do not undersell this. You got asked out at the gym like a romantic comedy protagonist.”
“It’s not that serious.”
“Neither was Titanic until it hit the iceberg.”
Whitaker nodded solemnly. “Beautiful and doomed.”
Jack rolled his eyes, smiling despite himself. Then the board lit up with a new ambulance alert and the conversation dissolved into work.
But Robby carried it with him for the rest of the shift like a stone in his shoe. Dinner. Jack had a date. An actual date. Not flirting. Not teasing. Not some hypothetical future possibility. Every time Robby saw him that day, the thought returned sharp and unpleasant.
Jack with someone else.
And Robby had spent months convincing himself that meant something safe. Stable. Permanent in its own undefined way.
Now, for the first time, he realized Jack might actually leave.
—
The argument happened near the end of shift.
Robby found Jack in the locker room, changing out of his scrub top, hair still damp from a rushed shower after a trauma case.
“You working tomorrow?” Jack asked casually while pulling on a hoodie.
“No.”
“Lucky bastard.”
Robby leaned against the doorframe. “You coming over Saturday?”
Because despite everything else, this part had become routine over the last year. Saturday nights. Takeout. Falling asleep tangled together on Robby’s couch. Pretending none of the complicated parts existed.
Jack paused halfway through zipping his hoodie.
“Oh,” he said. “I can’t tomorrow.”
Robby frowned slightly. “Why not?”
Jack looked almost awkward suddenly. Not guilty. Just uncertain. “I’ve got that date.”
Robby felt something ugly twist hard in his chest. “With gym guy.”
Jack nodded once. “Yeah.”
And there it was. The thing Robby had apparently never imagined happening. Jack choosing someone else over him.
Maybe Robby wasn’t automatically first anymore.
“Oh,” Robby said.
Jack’s expression shifted immediately. Because he knew Robby well enough to hear it.
“Michael.”
“What?”
“You’re doing a face.”
“I’m not doing a face.”
Jack stared at him for a second. “You literally are.”
Robby looked away first, jaw tightening. “It’s fine.”
“Okay, now I know it’s not fine.”
Robby gave a short humorless laugh. “You have a date.”
“Yes?”
Something in Robby’s expression flickered strangely then. Confusion mixed with irritation mixed with something almost wounded. “You’ve never skipped Saturday before.”
And Jack went very still, suddenly tired. “Right,” he said quietly.
Robby realized too late how that sounded. “I didn’t mean-”
“No, I know.”
Jack sat down heavily on the bench beside the lockers, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. For a moment he looked older somehow. More worn out than usual.
“You know this whole thing was your idea, right?”
Robby stiffened immediately. “I know that.”
“You wanted casual.”
“I know.”
“You wanted open.”
“I know, Jack.”
“Then what exactly are we doing here?”
The question sat between them. Robby opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Because the awful truth was that he didn’t know.
Didn’t know why the idea of Jack at dinner with someone else made him feel slightly sick. Didn’t know why he suddenly wanted to cancel the entire arrangement the second it stopped revolving around him.
Jack watched him struggle for a moment. Then sighed softly and stood back up.
“It’s just dinner,” he said gently.
Which somehow made Robby feel worse. Because Jack sounded like he was comforting him.
Robby hated that. Hated the careful gentleness in Jack’s voice. Hated feeling like the unreasonable one. Hated that this entire situation was technically his own fault.
Mostly, he hated the image currently stuck in his head of Jack smiling at somebody else across a dinner table.
“It’s just dinner,” Jack repeated quietly.
Robby scoffed before he could stop himself. “Right,” he said sharply. “Because apparently you’re dating now.”
The second the words left his mouth, Jack’s expression changed. Not dramatic. Just... closed.
Robby immediately wanted to take it back. But exhaustion and jealousy and panic had already gotten their claws into him. “You know,” he continued, unable to stop digging, “for somebody who claimed they were happy with casual, you moved on pretty fast.”
Jack stared at him for a long moment. Then he gave one short nod. And said calmly “That was a shitty thing to say.”
Honestly, Robby almost wished he’d yelled.
Instead Jack just grabbed his bag and headed for the door.
Halfway past him, he stopped briefly. “You don’t get to be mad at me for finally acting how you do,” he said softly.
Then he walked out.
Leaving Robby alone in the locker room with the horrible sinking feeling that he’d just broken something fragile with his bare hands.