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1
Jack loves Robby. This has been a longstanding constant, like the sun rises in the east, or the moon is always there even if you can’t see it. It’s only recently that the earthly constant has morphed and turned into: Robby loves him back.
Fucking bliss, paradise on earth would be how Jack would describe it. If Jack thought he loved him before, when all he could do was admire from afar and try to keep the bedroom eyes under control and comfort Robby in whatever way he was allowed—
That has nothing on now. Waking up in Robby’s arms, or if he wakes up alone, it’s only because Robby is up making him breakfast. Seeing him naked on a regular basis. Having someone there to help with Jack’s nightmares for the first time in a long time. Going on dates. He never thought he’d go to dinner and a movie again in a way that mattered so much. Didn’t know his heart could still leap like a teenager.
And it’s an all new kind of torture working opposite shifts.
Thankfully, Jack has a solution for that. Missing your new boyfriend? No problem! Just steal his clothes and wear them to work.
Yeah, Jack understands the appeal of being on the other side of that cliche for the first time in his life.
Jack usually runs hot, but the ER does get cold in the dead of night, and he would happily suffer the sweating when it means he can Jack turns his nose into Robby’s hoodie and breathes deeply, inhaling detergent and Robby’s cologne and lotion.
Jack stole it off his floor after an evening delight, knowing Robby would be too tired to notice. Old man, Jack thinks fondly.
Now, whenever his knee twinges, whenever he deals with a rough patient or procedure or just needs a moment to remind himself of the good outside these walls, he buries his face in this and breathes the way he would breathe into Robby’s chest. It’s too big on him even with the sleeves pushed up, but that just makes him smile.
Ellis eyes him up and down with her squinty, searching gaze, and Jack braces himself. “Is that Dr. Robby’s hoodie?”
Jack thinks about it for a moment. About how she’s the biggest gossip hound in this place, about the hell he’ll catch from Robby when it gets back to him—but that only makes Jack smile.
“Yeah,” he says, raising his chin high. “It is. Anything else you wanna know?”
“Plenty that you won’t tell me,” she replies with a shit eating grin, brushing past him on her way to her next patient.
2
The second time is unintentional.
At handoff one time, Jack finds Robby smiling and in a better mood than perhaps he’s ever been at the end of a shift. And he hears the nurses and more gossipy day shift doctors talking about how Robby was whistling today, was making more jokes than ever and laughing and putting smiles on the sourest faces. And Jack knows when something is being said behind his back with intent for him to hear it.
Robby was whistling on his way out from Jack’s apartment this morning, too, with a promise to see him tonight, that he’d be counting down the hours.
He actually blew Jack a kiss on his way down the steps, backpack slung over his shoulder, eyes shining with affection and a smile blessing his oh so kissable face. Jack had to grip the doorframe to keep from running down to drag him back inside.
Jack is happy to know he was happy today, happy that he spread his good mood throughout the ER for Jack to walk into. He can feel the way Dana’s looking at him, watching him with knowing eyes as he stares lovingly at Robby’s profile, but he doesn’t say anything. Robby is still whistling as he walks out, and Jack’s chest almost bursts.
3
“Jesus, Abbot. Your boyfriend claimed his territory?”
Jack is never fazed by the things Walsh says, but it still takes him a moment to parse through what the fuck she could be talking about. She never calls Robby by name when he’s not there, but hearing your boyfriend, even in her faux-venomous voice, makes warmth bloom in his chest.
“Left hickeys all over you,” she says, apparently taking pity on him and gesturing at his neck while making a face. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Jack walks to the nearest reflective glass and peers closely into it. Indeed, Robby marked him up good, and it makes a little more sense now why he was so smug when Jack left tonight.
Jack thought it was the usual post nut affection and clinginess in Robby’s face, but he’s not mad at the alternative. It makes a hot flush run down Jack’s spine at the thought of Robby seeing this and sending him off with a sense of satisfaction, of marking Jack up for everybody to see.
He shrugs, biting back a smile. Oh well. “Not all of us spend our free time obsessed with the mirror. Got dressed in a hurry.”
“Gross,” Walsh says, as if he’d regaled her with dirty details, and walks away with her head held high. “Put some concealer on those.”
“Don’t suppose you have any on you,” he says, already knowing what the answer will be.
She shoots him a look over her shoulder. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t share it with you.”
“Gee, thanks, princess,” he says, and scratches the back of his neck, wondering what he’s gonna do.
She hesitates, turns around, and her eyes soften just the slightest bit. “Just this once, I’m taking pity on you. Like a stray dog. Follow me to my locker.”
“I think Robby’s the stray dog between us,” he says, falling into step beside her.
“Would you prefer feral mutt?”
Jack doesn’t dignify that with an answer. Walsh unlocks her locker quickly and digs around in her purse, then sticks the tube in his hand once she’s found it.
“It’s not your shade, pasty redhead,” she says, as though he hasn’t been tan for years, “but it’ll do for now. Get some for yourself and keep it on you from now on.”
He nods. “Thanks. Why the change of icy heart?”
“Happy for you,” she grumbles like it pains her to admit it, “though I’m only gonna say that once. Don’t let it get back to your boyfriend.”
Like that’s gonna happen. Like Jack isn’t going to tell Robby about this as soon as he slides into bed in the morning.
Jack grins and salutes her with the tube as he goes off to find the bathroom. If he can win over Walsh, he can win over anybody.
4
“What’s this I’m hearing about my reputation getting sullied?” Jack asks one evening as they’re cleaning up after dinner, recalling a conversation at work. Ellis was all but bursting with pride to tell him about it the second he settled in.
“What reputation is that?” Robby asks with a smile that still makes Jack’s heart flutter. Hopefully always will. “Being an insatiable flirt?”
“You left out charming and sexy, not to mention highly successful flirt,” Jack corrects, nudging his shoulder. “So what’s this I’m hearing about me being all bark and no bite? Stumbling over myself?”
Robby rolls his eyes. “Sometimes the kids—the med students ask for advice, or they look like they could use some advice, so I give it to them. Relationship advice,” Robby clarifies, and only because both hands are buried in soapy dish water does he not grab the back of his neck like he does when he’s self conscious.
“Which I feel slightly more qualified to give now that I’m in a relationship. And…I didn’t say it, but they started talking about you. Me and you. The conversation was getting away from me, and it—it came up how you could charm the pants off anyone. And then I told them how you struggled with me,” Robby says, smiling, “before I realized what I was saying.”
“Struggled?” Jack asks with a slowly building grin.
Robby turns fully toward him, one hundred percent attention, and says, “I’ve seen you flirt. With Walsh. With patients, sometimes, to calm their nerves. With nurses. With the fucking barista or the waitress. Always charming and sexy and smooth,” he says, dropping his voice a bit, hands sliding around Jack’s waist, making him tingle.
“And you have to admit that wasn’t the case when you were asking me out. How many tries did it take you to get that question out?” he asks, outright grinning now, a flush high on his cheeks but his eyes still shining. Jack wants to kiss him so fucking bad, and he remembers he can. He does.
When he’s had his fill—for now; he never will—he says, “Yeah, but that was just for the hell of it. That was never really going anywhere. That never mattered. This, with you—that fucking matters.” Jack gestures to him. Robby’s eyes soften, and his head tilts softly, and god Jack loves him. “That’s why I stumbled ass over tits trying to ask you out, baby. Because I’ve been in love with you so long I couldn’t fathom being allowed to talk about it.”
That seems to render Robby speechless, the flush returning, so Jack internally fist pumps and thinks still got it. Then Robby’s soapy hand comes up to cup his cheek and tilt his head up for a kiss, and Jack hopes it never stops feeling like this. Like the first time, the stomach swoop, the breathlessness afterward, the way he attempts to string his thoughts together.
At this age, with so much baggage weighing him down, he shouldn’t get to have this. He didn’t think he ever would have this. But he does, and god help him, he always will, and Robby is looking at him and his lips are moving. Jack blinks.
“I am sorry,” Robby says. “For talking about you like that. For sullying your perfect reputation.”
Jack smiles and squeezes the back of his neck. “I’m not. This is the only flirt that matters. The only one that counts, and I got it right. Don’t care about anything else. I’ll be known as the man who tripped over his own shoes when trying to ask a guy out if it means I got the guy.” He winks.
“Fucking romantic bastard,” Robby says, wiping at his eyes.
Jack is still smiling. “I leave that title to you.”
5
When Jack hears the door of his apartment slam, he’s already smiling. “Hey, honey, how was your day?” Jack asks, drawing his knees up to his chest on the couch to make room for Robby, making a beeline for him.
“Really?” Robby says, seamlessly climbing onto it beside him, trying for mad and falling more into fond. “This is how you entertain yourself? By torturing me?”
“You’re fun to play with,” Jack says. “Not to mention easy.”
Robby yanks down the collar of his shirt and scrubs and shows off the mark Jack left there, still an angry red. “You’re lucky this shirt covered that most of the time.”
Most of the time? Jack wonders delightfully, then he’s being kissed and pushed back into the couch, and all thoughts become less important. When Robby pulls back to give him some air, Jack is all smiles. “Had to pay you back, didn't I?”
“Asshole,” Robby mutters, dipping back down.
Jack grins, hands tangling in Robby’s hair. “So I assume you liked my pictures?”
Robby makes a wounded noise into his skin. “Had everyone at work questioning where I was when I kept disappearing into the bathroom, why I was red, if I was alright,” Robby says, still sounding put out, working on Jack’s fly. “I don’t remember what excuses I gave. All day, driving me crazy with your nudes—”
“Tasteful half nudes.”
“–and your dirty texts. Couldn’t think straight. I have some apologizing to do next time I see them. I don’t want to know what they think, and god, I wished I could’ve blamed it on you. Your fault.” Robby jabs a finger at him.
“Sounds like I have to make it up to you,” Jack says, grinning. “Get up here.”
+1
It’s been a long shift.
A tiring one. Jack is eager to get the fuck home and get to sleep, but seeing Robby at the handoff, fuck it takes the edge off. They go over the board, both silently thankful that neither had to come find the other on the roof, and Jack tries to keep his tired brain on track to get through the last of it even though every part of him is screaming to take Robby in his arms.
The hug they shared for two seconds when Robby came in wasn’t enough, but Robby pulled away with his mind on work before Jack could complain.
But now, with work officially handed off, Jack grabs him by the collar and leans up on his toes —the sheer fact that he has to do that when he never has before with anyone else is dizzying all by itself—and plants one on him.
It’s a hell of a kiss goodbye, especially for public, but Jack is tired and trying to erase the memory of the shift and he just wants the comfort of this man, damn it. Maybe once he’s slept he’ll regret it, but he doesn’t think he will. Robby kisses him back. Jack melts.
Jack knows the kids are staring, probably cashing in on a fucking betting pool started by Dana or Ellis or Walsh—and he doesn’t care. He likes it, in fact. Fuck yeah, this one’s all mine, no one else’s, he’s thinking, hopes it shows in the smirk on his face when he pulls back and finds Robby looking fondly at him.
And then he quickly turns beet red when he remembers where they are and what Jack just did. But he doesn’t look mad about it—he still has that glint of affection in his eye that Jack has gotten used to seeing.
“Get used to it,” Jack whisper-shouts, still grinning. “Now that they know, there’s no reason to hide it.”
Robby risks a look around them, finding far too many eyes trained on them, and says, “It seems like we weren’t hiding it all that well to begin with.”