Work Text:
“What do you mean, you signed us up for the team building rope course?”
Jack could feel a migraine beginning to build behind his eyes. He had been looking forward to the night — the second in a four-day string of days off for both of them, meaning neither were actively irritated at being awake during Normal Dinner Hours, and Robby was currently doing battle with a large quantity of fresh vegetables to be turned into a genuinely delicious pasta sauce.
(Robby was an excellent cook, provided you were interested in eating precisely two varieties of food: elaborate Italian pastas, and suspicious-looking combinations of preserved fish, barley, mushrooms and cabbage that tasted lovely even if they made the entire condo reek of brine and caraway. Robby claimed this was due to the “Jewish-Italian Non-Aggression Pact of 1965” which was not, as far as Jack was aware, an actual thing.)
“I meant what I said,” Robby said, eyes firmly focused on his hands as he chiffonaded a large bunch of curly parsley. “I thought you’d be on board with this, I’m surprised to hear you pushing back.”
“The last time there was a corporate wellness thing, I had to drag you there, and then I was the one brutally attacked by goats.”
Robby looked up from the cutting board, continuing to chifonnade the parsley as he did so, in flagrant violation of safe knife skills and suggesting a loose attachment to the continuing possession of his fingertips.
“They were very fierce,” Robby said solemnly, like the asshole had not burst into an earth-shaking cackle so powerful he had collapsed on the spot and been precisely zero fucking help.
“Gloria said it was a requirement, and then Dana promised we’d have fun.”
Jack looked him. It did seem like a vaguely plausible reason, but — “Liar.”
“What gave it away?” He looked sheepish, but unrepentant.
“Dana’s met you. She’d never promise you’d have fun.”
“Rude,” Robby said, still not making eye contact. “I have fun sometimes.”
“When I make you, yeah, you have fun.”
“That is a very rude thing to say to the man who is currently making your dinner,” Robby said, “Careful, I could poison us both.”
“First murder-suicide in history to be prompted by a benign observation that a fifty-four-year-old man who works multiple twelve-hour shifts a week rarely has fun unless his much younger and hotter partner makes him.”
“That is hurtful, and I will stab you,” Robby said, brandishing his good knife at him.
“That’s the emptiest threat I’ve heard all day,” Jack said. “You wouldn’t do that to Suzanne, you won’t even let me chop vegetables with her.”
“Suzanne would understand,” Robby said. “And I would take her to my Knife Guy afterward, just in case.”
“I cannot believe that it took you fifty-four years on this earth to get a therapist but you’ve had a Knife Guy since you were — what, twelve?”
“Technically, he was the family knife guy, then,” Robby said. “And Marco knows he’s never allowed to die. Entire neighborhoods would collapse.”
Robby had almost successfully distracted him from the subject of the ropes course, but Jack was a smart guy. He knew when he was being led down a garden path through the needlessly whimsical pathways of Robby’s personal history and away from the point at hand.
“Right, you’ve explained,” he said. “Anyway, focus, man, ropes course. Team building. You. Me. Why?”
“You can use prepositions, you know, you won’t die,” Robby said mildly. “And Isortofsignedmynameonthepaperwithoutlooiking.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I, uh, sort of signed my name on the paper without looking.”
“How.” Jack stalked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed the bottle of merlot Robby had out for the bolognese. Taking it in hand, he took a long drink directly from the bottle. “Even you wouldn’t just sign something without looking at it.”
“Dana handed me a sheet! I thought they were orders! I foolishly assumed my dear friend wouldn’t trick me like that, I thought it had to be patient care related.”
“Sorry, you’re telling me that you thought it was a piece of paper that contained information that could determine whether or not someone would live or die, and you signed it without looking? And that you thought we still used paper charts, for some reason?”
“Dana wouldn’t let me kill a patient,” Robby said. “And one day, mark my words, EPIC is going to crash, and the whole hospital will fall to its knees, and who will be the savior? The guy who still carries a pen and remembers shorthand, that’s who.”
“You have such specific and sad dreams.”
The Better Teamwork Through Torment — or whatever the fuck the Wellness Committee had actually named the cursed activity, Jack would complain about the names that the Wellness Committee gave to things but complaining about the actions of the Wellness Committee was, he knew, a great way to find yourself conscripted onto the Wellness Committee — was scheduled for 1:00PM on a Sunday, in deference to the collective circadian rhythms of both shifts; and when Jack rolled out of bed and stumbled down the hallway to the kitchen there was a moment, perfect and pure, where he’d forgotten about the day to come.
His brief moment of zen was interrupted by the soft thwap of a plastic bottle hitting him in the chest.
He caught it before it hit the ground, because he wasn’t that old yet, thank you so much, and glared in the direction of the open bathroom door.
“Why are you throwing,” he checked the bottle, “Sunscreen at me at 12:30 PM on a Sunday?”
“Only you could say 12:30 PM with the same disdain most would reserve for, say, 5:00 AM,” Robby said.
“It basically is 5:00 AM, my time, I wouldn’t be awake if somebody hadn’t signed us up for a fucking ropes course at 1:00 PM on my first day off this week.”
“I’m sorry for not being sufficiently culturally sensitive to Night Shift People,” Robby said. “And I threw the sunscreen at you because you’re going to burn to a crisp without it, you’re all blonde and soft underneath the silver.”
“Go fuck yourself, you started going grey in 2009, I’ve seen the pictures.”
“Yeah, but you’ve finished.” Robby emerged from the bathroom into the hall, running his hands through his hair as he did so. He liked to pretend it stood up like that naturally, the prick, and wasn’t carefully arranged with the tender precision Robby normally reserved for emergency tracheotomies.
As soon as he emerged fully from the bathroom and came into full view, Jack felt his soul begin to leave his body.
“Oh, Michael, no,” he said before he could stop himself. “No, you can’t wear that, I forbid it — wait, I thought I threw those shorts out?”
“I waited until you left for work and rescued them,” Robby said unrepentantly. “They’re perfectly good, I can’t believe you’d throw them out.”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine why I’d throw out the shorts you made because you spilled a full bottle of red wine on the leg while celebrating your younger sisters’ med school graduation, many, many years ago.”
“And then I cut the stain off,” Robby said. “And look at that, perfectly fine shorts.”
“Those shorts are old enough to vote,” Jack said in despair. “I think the initial jeans might qualify for Social Security at this point, there’s no way those were ever purchased new, I have Met You.”
“So? They’re perfectly fine,” Robby said. “They fit perfectly.”
They were basically painted on, was the thing, and the inseam was 3 inches if it was anything, and — look, Jack was a red-blooded American man, he didn’t believe that either of those things meant that Robby shouldn’t wear them, but under no circumstances should he ever wear them in front of anyone they worked with, and if Jack hadn’t thrown them out, he absolutely would have.
And, well, now they were here.
“I have bought you nice shorts,” Jack said. “I know I have.”
“I’ve told you, those are for company and Shabbes.”
“Shabbes Shorts are not a thing.”
“How would you know? Besides, what a waste, to throw these out? C’mon, I expect better than that, my mother would rise from the grave if she knew I’d thrown out perfectly good pants.”
Ah, yes. This was also why intermittently, Jack had to come in from night shift and be very fucking quiet about it so he could sneak the collected empty pasta sauce jars from the cupboard without Robby waking up and noticing. He had to do it one jar at a time, or Robby would become suspicious; however, if he didn’t do it at all, the jars would accumulate, and they would never be able to access the perfectly-nice drinking glasses they actually owned, because, contrary to Robby’s deeply-held personal beliefs, money could be exchanged for goods and services.
“I refuse to have to argue with the ghost of your mother,” Jack said flatly. “Refuse, do you understand me? I will not be dealing with a ghost Jewish mother-in-law.”
“You’re being very unkind to your ghost Jewish mother-in-law, Jack.”
“Go make me some coffee, you fucking prick.”
The shorts should have been the first warning.
Because when Jack emerged into the kitchen having showered and put on his own perfectly fucking appropriate for work events outfit of shorts that went to just above his knee, like a normal goddamned man, and an old PT shirt that was very comfortable and which, if he was being honest, he should also probably consider getting rid of, lest he begin to turn into Robby; it was to see Robby sitting at the kitchen table, glasses perched on the end of his nose as he did the crossword, wearing The Shirt.
Now, admittedly, Jack had to own some of this. He had thrown out The Shorts, and The Shirt was equally worthy of disdain, but for personal reasons, had been unwilling to do the same with The Shirt. The Shirt had been stolen from the merch table at a B-52s concert at some point in Robby’s misspent youth, meaning that it was older than many of their colleagues. Tragically, the state of Robby’s wardrobe was such that the mere act of being old enough to be a fully qualified attending physician would not be sufficient reason to disqualify it from wear — were Jack to apply that criterion universally across Robby’s wardrobe, the man would only own scrubs, his favorite hoodie, and the perfectly nice articles of clothing Jack purchased for him and that Robby insisted were all “too nice to wear”.
But it was one of Robby’s favorite shirts, and he had worn it to meet up with some old college friends last summer, and when he had returned home, reeking of cigarettes that he swore he had not personally smoked, it was to the discovery that someone’s cigarette had burned a perfect, single hole right in the top of the sleeve.
Rather than taking it as an opportunity to throw out a shirt that, again, was old enough that it could have multiple children and it wouldn’t even be weird, he had then cut the sleeves off.
This would have been fine - again, none of the things that had thus far happened to a shirt that had been able to rent a car for over a decade would have meant that it was categorically not allowed to see the light of day.
The problem was that, as far as Jack could tell, all of Robby’s abilities to modify clothing that were not the kind of thing his mother would have taught him — he could and would fucking darn socks with the best of them and insist the entire time that this was a normal thing for a well-compensated professional to do in the 21st century — were learned exclusively during Robby’s sluttiest and least-supervised eras.
So the shirt was a tank top, now, but it — it was more than a tank top. The sleeves had been cut low in the sides in a long swoop, there was simply no fabric between the shoulder and Robby’s fucking belly button, and the ancient cotton blend had rolled over on the unfinished seam and exposed even more skin.
Jack couldn’t bring himself to throw it out. He would have, if he were a better man, or if he had ever thought there was even an iota of a chance that Robby would wear it in public outside of some very specific events, but now he was reaping the consequences. His Catholic school teachers were laughing from beyond the grave; he should have known that nothing good would ever come from giving into his horniest instincts.
“You cannot wear those in public,” Jack said. “You look like an aging stripper.”
“I was a go-go boy, not a stripper,” Robby said. “You know the difference, c’mon, don’t be crude.”
“I am going to kill you with a gun,” Jack said. “Nobody would blame me. Dana would give me an alibi.”
“This is very intolerant, coming from you,” Robby said cheerfully.
“Please change, I am begging you —“ he was interrupted from his heartfelt plea by the buzz of the buzzer. “Who is that?”
“Oh, Dana said she was driving up with Princess and Perlah, asked if we wanted a ride.”
“And you said yes?”
“Why not? Team building, right?”
“You’re punishing me,” Jack said, feeling very stupid for it taking so long for him to realize. “You’re punishing me for the goats.”
“Now, would I do a thing like that?” Robby grinned brightly at him. “C’mon, chop-chop, times-a-wastin’.”
When they opened the doors to Dana’s olive-green Jeep Wrangler, it was to a general response of sarcastic cheers and mostly sarcastic wolf-whistles and Jack was going to kill Robby.
“Lookin’ good, champ,” Dana said from the driver’s seat. “Jack, you might have to take the middle, sorry, we didn’t think that through when we offered the ride.”
“Oh, you know what, I can just — it’s all good, you guys can go have fun without me, I have laundry to catch up on.”
“Not a chance,” Robby said. “I can take the middle seat though, not a problem.”
“Robby, if you take the middle seat in those shorts, you’re gonna need to be written up,” Dana said. “Jack, c’mon, it’s not far.”
“You know what I miss?” Jack said mournfully. “When you were all scared of and/or impressed with me. Or both.”
“I was never either of those things,” Robby said.
“He was both,” Princess and Perlah said simultaneously.
And just like that, they were on the road.
Teamwork and Tiedowns or whatever it was being called was held at a ropes course outside of the city, about forty minutes away, and by the time they arrived — after a car journey in which Dana spent the majority of the time trying to pry out anecdotes from Robby about his go-go days — the kids, as Jack preferred to think of them at all times, were already there; wearing sensible shoes and leggings and loose shirts; not a single one of them was dressed like they were going to a seedy club, and when Perlah opened the side door and they all started to pour out of the van Jack could see the exact moment they all recognized their attending, standing as tall as an oak tree, shorts that were ten seconds away from being publicly indecent and a shirt that arguably already was and Robby raised a hand in greeting, exposing his entire left tit to the open air, causing his piercing to glint in the sun.
“Oh no, he’s hot,” Santos said, her mournful voice the first thing Jack heard. “Fuck, dad can’t be hot.”
She promptly flushed from head to toe, an overwhelming aura of red that suggested she had never meant that thought to see the light of day.
Robby must have heard it — it was loud enough that everyone had heard it — but he didn’t say anything, just grinned at the group that had gathered. “Are we ready to get started?”
“I didn’t think you were coming, Dr. Robby,” Javadi said, and although she was clearly trying to look anywhere other than Robby’s thighs she was making a valiant effort to Be Normal About It. Jack wished her the best, really he did, but he would be shocked if she was able to maintain that over the next four hours.
“Yeah, boss,” said Langdon, who had also clearly decided to try to be normal about it. He was steadfastly looking at the sky, the trees, anything other than Robby, and based on the kid's height difference with Javadi, Jack was pretty sure the kid was specifically trying to avoid looking at Robby’s nipples, “Didn’t strike me as a ropes-course guy.”
“I am not,” Robby said. “But Dana reminded me of the importance of setting a good example, and reminding all of you that you’re never done building a team, no matter how old you are.”
“That’s not what I told him,” Dana said, as she finally joined them, a large cooler in one arm and a deck chair in the other. ‘I told him that he didn’t have to climb, he just had to come, and that I would buy him his favorite canned cocktail if he did.”
“Well, yeah,” Robby admitted. “I figure Jack and Dana and I can sit down here, offer shouts of encouragement, work on our tan, drink canned Pina Coladas, while all of you learn about the importance of trusting each other through the healing power of zipline.”
“I want to sit with you guys,” Langdon said quickly. “The others are too young, they’re going to crush me.”
“No can do, kiddo,” Dana said. “The Pina Colada and deck chair option is only valid for those among us whose knees are in bad need of a date with an arthroscope. Talk to me in a few years.”
“It’s ok, Dr. Langdon,” Mel said, her smile wide and sympathetic. “I can help you. I got my outdoor adventure patch in Guides on a ropes course.”
“Girl Guides gives ropes patches?”
“Outdoor adventure patches,” Mel corrected. “ C'mon guys, let's go.”
The kids were objectively too excited about what was to come — Shen had begged off on the grounds that he “had a family he enjoyed spending time with” and Collins had apparently noted that she was “too intelligent to ever think team-building ropes courses sounded fun” and further, was completely immune to Robby’s puppy-dog eyes. Dana had nothing she could hold over her to convince her, either, because she was simply too competent.
The others were there, in all their bright-eyed, bushy-tailed glory, and this was going to be a disaster.
The gum-chewing, dead-eyed 19-year-old in running shorts who gave the safety briefing made a valiant effort at corralling the crew; she had also clearly been warned, because when Langdon gave her his most winning smile and said “It’s okay, Maria, we’re doctors, you don’t need to go over that stuff.” She flashed a glare at him and said “I know, that’s why there’s a whole extra liability form for you guys, I’ve been warned.”
Forms signed — they promised not to hold the facility liable in the event of any number of creative possible maimings, ranging from death to amputation, and when Jack smiled brightly and asked if that applied retroactively, gesturing at his leg, she snapped her gum at him and said
“Probably, but I am not paid enough to know the answer to that question.”
She glanced around the group. “Do any of you have climbing experience?”
They all nodded.
She looked at them. “Really? All of you?”
“They all work in an ER, honey,” Dana said kindly. “They hand them mountain bike helmets when they graduate med school.”
Maria did not look like she was sure if they were joking. “Okay,” she said after a minute. “I am going to fuck off over to the golf cart there, call me if anyone gets stuck or dies.”
Robby leaned over to murmur in Jack’s ear. “She’s definitely hot-boxing the golf cart, right?”
“What, do you care?”
“No, I was wondering how much I would have to bribe her to see if she would share.”
“God is punishing me,” Jack said. “That’s what this is. He has seen my earthly acts and found them wanting and now my punishment is I am here, with you, on this day.”
“Knew we’d make a Jew out of you one day,” Robby said briskly. “Help me set up the lawn chairs, I’m looking forward to this part.”
Mel went first — the Outdoor Adventure Patch clearly having served her well, because she climbed up to the first platform with ease, daintily navigating the suspended obstacle course that led to the next platform before turning around and waving brightly at the others.
“Piece of cake!” She said cheerily. “C’mon, who’s next?”
“Farmboy, you’re up,” Santos said. “We all believe in you.”
Whitaker looked at her, cocking his head. “That’s a joke. You’re making fun of me.”
“I am,” Santos confirmed. “But you’re still up next.”
Whitaker shrugged, and easily ascended to the platform — wiry limbs easily finding each foothold and dancing between the obstacles with the same grace King had shown, and when he reached Mel on the platform, she gave him an incredibly forceful two-handed high five that nearly knocked him from the platform.
“Easy,” he called back, clearly trying to avoid looking like he was delighted with himself, but not really succeeding.
Jack looked away from the children to see that Princess and Perlah had their phones out, entering something into a shared spreadsheet.
“You’re not working, are you?” He asked. Neither were drinking — but surely even they weren’t so committed to the fine art of emergency medicine to attempt to do so from an adventure park.
“Betting odds,” Perlah said. “Want in? We’re accepting bets for first injury and type of injury.”
Jack took a sip of his own Pina Colada, glancing back at the group of children. Matteo was ascending the ropes now, skin gleaming in the summer sun, and when he glanced back to the small group on the ground, which now comprised solely of Langdon, Santos, and Javadi, it was to see that Javadi was sweating. Jack did not miss being 19, he decided.
“Five on King twisting an ankle,” he said after a minute. “She’s too confident.”
Robby glanced over at them, “Ten on Javadi fainting from hormonal overload.”
“Robby," Dana said sharply.
“What, are you disagreeing?”
“No, I’m mad you got there first,” Dana said. “Ten on Langdon straining his shoulder, he doesn’t work out like he used to.”
“No, but he’s a father now, kid’s got dad strength,” Jack said.
He finished his canned Pina Colada and looked back at Dana. “Did you only get Robby’s favorite beverage, or is there something in that cooler for all of us?”
“I got you some of those beers that taste like you’re deep-throating a forest floor, yes, Jack,” Dana said. “What would you do without me?”
“Perish,” Jack said simply, and rummaged in the cooler until he found a Triple IPA.
The kids all made it to the middle platform, though there was a bit of a slip-up from Santos — she had started out confidently, but the obstacle course had threatened to trip her up — and they had all clipped themselves to the new guide wires that would take them through the climbing course that led to the Tarzan swing, and when they looked back at the Ground Crew they all gave them an appropriately supportive and slightly-intoxicated cheer.
This was extremely important, Jack knew. You didn’t become a doctor or even a nurse because you had a wholly uncomplicated relationship with praise from a stern authority figure many decades your senior.
Look, Jack had left the Army as an O-4. It could be argued that he had, in fact, made a career of dealing with bright-eyed youth with Dad Stuff.
The second stage of the climbing course was harder, and it was here that the first injury occurred — Langdon, having evidently decided that it was important to set an example, had volunteered to go first, and when he missed a handhold he smashed his face heavily into the side of a tree. There was blood everywhere, and he groaned, holding onto the handholds with all of his might.
“Need help, Langdon?” Robby called up from the ground. “We can go find Maria, get you down.”
“No, I’m fine,” Langdon tried to say. It came out more as “IM THIBE”, but the message was clear. He made his way down the rest of the course until he made it to the platform that led to the Tarzan swing, and then stopped, rubbing at his face.
“I’ve got it, Dr. Robby,” Mel said brightly, before almost skipping across to the next platform, navigating the slightly-more challenging handholds with ease.
“You always were my favorite child, Mel!” Robby said. Jack glanced at him. He was four canned Pina coladas in, now, and were it not for the fact that Robby was both annoyingly tall and had made any number of regrettable choices throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Jack was sure it would be more obvious to the others.
“You can’t tell someone they’re your favorite child in front of your other children, Robby,” Dana said. “You’ll give them anxiety.”
Princess nodded. “You have to tell them you love them all equally.”
“But some of them are simply better,” Robby said. “Surely we should be reinforcing that.”
Perlah was nodding, while Princess, Jack, and Dana looked at them both in horror. “You and I need to talk about this sometime. I’ve been saying that for years. Didn’t do me any harm.”
“You don’t have children, right, Perlah?” Dana asked.
“No, I have two cats, and I don’t love them equally.”
“I am … so .. happy for you?” Dana said, her voice rising as she did so. “I think that I am happy for you.”
Perlah merely nodded.
“It’s not broken!” Mel reported. “Just banged, he’ll be fine.”
She clapped him on the shoulder. “You read for the swing, Langdon?”
“Of corth,” Langdon said, with the air of a wet cat desperately trying to recover its sense of dignity.
Jack should have seen it coming. But he was two triple IPAs in, now, and had been getting very into the kind of supportive heckling he had never had the opportunity to do at an actual child’s sports game, and so he didn’t realize that things were going wrong until they had already done so.
Because Santos was the last person to climb the harder course, she’d been gesturing for others to go ahead of her, making comments that bordered between supportive and deeply sarcastic, and she got about fifteen feet across the climbing holds leading to the Tarzan swing, and froze.
“You ok, Santos?” Robby called. Five canned Pina Coladas in him, now, not that Jack was counting.
“Fine, boss! I’m just — I’m resting.”
“You need a hand?” Mel asked. “The next hold is about three feet northwest-west of your left hand.”
“What the fuck kind of direction is northwest-west?” Santos spat. “No, I’m fine, I’m — Agh!” She had gone for another hold with her left foot and missed, grabbing at the guide rope. She missed that, too, but the self-belay held, leaving her twisting in the wind.
“Fuck,” Robby pushed himself up from his lawn chair. “I’ll get Maria.”
“I don’t think the high teenager is going to be much help here,” Jack hissed. “Santos! You alright there?”
“Fine,” she shouted. “I just — fuck, I can’t get back on the course, fuck, this is such bullshit, I don’t — “
She was panicking, it was clear, she wouldn’t be able to grab the handholds even if she swung closer, her hands were probably sweating too much to grip.
“Hold my beer,” Jack said, handing the IPA to Robby. “I’ll go get her.”
He was, perhaps, a little drunk, but he had frankly done much more challenging things under much worse circumstances; some of the most challenging medicine of his life had been accomplished while he was fuelled purely by Rip Its, snus, and sheer will, and so he ran to the front of the course, attached the auto-belay, and made his way through the course without really thinking too hard about it.
He made his way to the part of the course where Santos had gotten stuck — she was now twisting a little in the breeze, her face screwed up in pure terror, and he wedged himself firmly into the hold nearest to where she was stuck and held out a hand.
“Need to work with me a little, Santos,” he said. “Grab on.”
“I’m not sure I can,” she said, and she was clearly terrified, because she had forgotten to be mortified.
“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” Jack said, his voice soothing and professional. “Just need to extend your left arm a bit, okay? I’ll pull you back to the hold.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide with horror.
“Trust me,” he said. “I got it, ok?”
She nodded finally, face set and determined, and she reached out and he pulled her back onto the course with ease.”
“Scared of heights?” He asked conversationally.
“Not until today,” she said, and she was blushing now, turning a deep red.
“Hey,” he said, voice low. “Nobody’s gotta know. All they know is you slipped, right? You get over to the other side, use that swing, nobody will ever know any different.”
“Sorry, a girl tells you they’re scared of heights and your response is ‘just use that terrifying swing to get down, nobody will ever know?'”
Jack shrugged. “You’ve got two options, the first is, Robby summons a high teenager to get you down from the platform and everyone knows, or, you use the terrifying swing, it’s over in a few seconds, and nobody ever has to know any different.”
“Why aren’t you being an asshole about this?”
“I am drunk and did not want to be here in the first place,” Jack said. “That was the most excitement I’ve had all day.”
She nodded.
“Now, c’mon, to the platform.”
Once they had both made it to the platform, Santos was immediately surrounded with enthusiastic cheers and hugs and she looked like she was about ten seconds away from punching one of them.
Javadi was staring at him, though, with the same expression she had directed at Matteo half an hour previously.
“Oh no,” she said, “Other Dad is also hot.”
Jack grinned at her, and she was fortunate that she wasn’t as pale as Santos, because her full-body blush was almost hidden by her darker skin. Almost.
There was general applause from the peanut gallery, and Jack edged his way to the platform.
“Robby, you asshole, did you drink my beer?”
“Sure did!” He said. “Nice work, Jack, very heroic.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “You better join me up here or I’m gonna be very upset.”
“I thought we agreed we didn’t have to climb!”
“We did, and then I rescued one of your trainees —“
“— Our trainees, Jack —“
“— And you drank my beer, so yeah, I am now demanding you join me on this platform so we can both use the fucking Tarzan swing to get back down.”
Robby looked at him, before necking the remaining beer in his hand and setting down the empty bottle. “Yeah, that seems fair. One second.”
This interaction was, it turned out, far more exciting then Santos, who was attempting to recover her dignity with the air of a cat that had recently fallen into a full bathtub insisting that nono, it meant to do that, as the group turned to watch Robby click himself into the auto-belay and then make short work of the course, and when it came time to climb the second set of holds which had given Santos so much trouble, he shifted, exposing his entire left side to the open air, nipple piercing glinting in the afternoon sun, and Jack allowed himself a moment to appreciate how The Shirt made his shoulder muscles look as he progressed through the holds.
There was a reason he hadn’t thrown it out.
Everyone else was looking, too — a mix of horror and appreciation that Jack could respect. His own attendings had been exclusively deeply terrifying career Army medical officers. He wasn’t sure he would have coped if they had also been hot.
“Is that a tattoo?” Javadi squeaked. “Dr. Robby, do you have a tattoo?”
Please let it have been one of the normal ones, Jack prayed silently. Please let it be one of the ones with depth and meaning.
God had never answered his prayers, and he didn’t then, either, because when Robby pulled up onto the platform that was objectively too small for the horde of trainees and two old and sweaty men, he glanced over at Javadi.
“Got a few, yeah,” he said. “Misspent youth.”
“They’re all in Latin, very boring,” Jack said, trying to get in before this could go where he knew it was headed. “If you ask him to start giving you reasons why he’ll start talking about death and responsibility, you don’t want that.”
“No,” Javadi said. “No, I speak Latin, I know that. I meant the one on his lower back.”
“Oh, that one?” Robby asked, and at least the hangover from the Pina Coladas was going to fucking suck, Jack could comfort himself in the fact that at least Robby was going to have to pay dearly for continuing to have the same tastes in alcohol as a man in his fifties as he had done when he was a youth covered in body glitter, “Song lyric, I think.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Robby, you — you think you have a song lyric tattooed on your lower back?”
“It’s a tramp stamp,” Santos said, having recovered enough of her dignity to make the obvious joke. “Dr. Robby has a tramp stamp.”
“That is a very derogatory way to speak about a form of body modification that was popular among many groups of people at the time,” Robby said seriously, “But particularly woman, and is, in all honestly, a misogynistic and homophobic description that I would have hoped we would all have left behind twenty years ago or more.”
“Right,” Langdon said, “Sorry, teaching moment aside, why do you not recall whether or not you have a song lyric as a lower back tattoo?”
“Oh, I was on molly at the time,” Robby said with a smile. “Shall we get started on the swing?”
They eventually all made it to the bottom of the course, and Jack and Robby walked over to rejoin Dana, Princess, and Perlah.
“Very hot, both of you,” Dana said dryly. “You were showing off on purpose, right?”
“I’ll never tell,” Jack said seriously.
“What were you talking about up there?” Princess asked. “You were gone for so long, we almost summoned the high teenager.”
“Body modifications,” Robby said, stretching as he leaned back in the lawn chair.
The kids were clustered in a group a little distance away from them, drinking and chatting eagerly among themselves, and every so often they would glance over at their attendings and nursing leadership and start chatting in a lower and more fervent tone.
“I think they’re updating your lore document,” Princess said.
“I wasn’t aware I had one,” Robby said.
“It’s extensive and at least 45% accurate, at last review,” Perlah reported. “You may wish to provide notes.”
“I’m an old man, I have to retain some mystery.” He reached over into the cooler. “Why are there banana bags resting beneath the beer, ladies?”
“In about half an hour, I’m going to offer to run a drip for anyone who wants it at fifteen dollars a pop. Fifty for attendings.” Princess said.
“Well, that’s only fair,” Robby said, snagging another canned cocktail. “Jack, want a beer?”
He held his hand up without saying anything, and grabbed it. Taking several swigs, he glanced over at Robby, who was absolutely drunk, now, because he was staring at him in open admiration.
“Hey,” he said, smiling despite himself.
“That was very hot,” Robby said. “You rescuing Santos like that.”
“I’d say she’d never live it down, but I think they’re all focused on your tramp stamp, now.”
“Yeah,” Robby said with a smile. “Figured.”
“That was on purpose,” Jack said. He was stupid for not realizing it earlier, but in his defense, he was both drunk and somewhat blinded, both literally and spiritually, by the nipple piercing glinting in the sun.
“Sure,” Robby said. “I mean, it’s also not a lie, I was on molly at the time.”
Jack grinned at him. God, he loved this stupid, stupid man.
“Hey, Michael?” He asked. “Wanna really fuck up your lore document?”
Robby grinned. “Dr. Abbot, I would love nothing more,” before planting a large, drunken, open-mouthed kiss on him.
The kids were catcalling them and the nurses were now actively spraying them with beer and canned cocktails, Jack was pretty sure that a piece of newspaper was being lobbed at his head by Dana, and when they broke apart he was smiling like an idiot.
“I’ve got a pitch for the next Wellness Committee activity, by the way,” Robby said. “Do you think we could convince Gloria to cover group tramp stamps?”