Work Text:
."Hey, Robby, everything okay?"
Robby stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Jack. The man was watching him from the entrance of the exact same bay where he’d found him minutes earlier, in a scene with Dr. Mohan that could be interpreted in a thousand different ways—and which he preferred to avoid overanalyzing.
"Nothing an old-school dinosaur can't handle," he smiled, a bit falsely, given the situation they were in. "What about you? Done with your volunteer work for the day?"
Jack’s expression looked offended. Robby knew his friend well enough to read the look as: Are you seeing this massive trainwreck they’re dumping on you, brother?
Instead, in typical fashion for both of them, his posture was far more calm and indifferent than that.
"Looks like I’m needed more here than over there." He walked over to him casually, his eyes never leaving Robby for a second—classic Jack.
"It's your day off," he reminded him, fighting the urge to look away. "Don't you have a 4th of July barbecue to be at or something?"
"I had one in mind," he hummed affirmatively, finally stopping right in front of him. "But my favorite person to celebrate these holidays with told me he was leaving today, so I didn't plan anything."
Robby had to hold back a snort at the comment, shoving his hands into his scrub pockets and rocking back on his heels.
"Is tagging along with SWAT your way of killing time when I'm not around?" he asked with an amused smile, which his friend returned with a knowing look.
"I gave golf a few solid tries," he joked, closing the distance just enough to rest his hand on Robby's shoulder. "I still haven't thanked you for back there."
It took Robby a few seconds to understand. His mind traitorously jumped first to the scene with Dr. Mohan and Jack in the bay, as if his friend were thanking him for his discretion during such an... intimate moment.
A tightness squeezed his chest just thinking about it, but his facial expression must have betrayed some unease because Jack frowned when he noticed.
"For my colleague, Hiro?" he clarified, giving the gratitude actual context.
Ah, right. The officer they had saved moments before.
"Don't even mention it. You practically saved him yourself," he muttered, brushing the hand off his shoulder and looking away, unable to stop himself from feeling a bit stupid for not catching the reference sooner.
The scene in the bay had thrown him completely off balance.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
Robby looked back at Jack, meeting his friend's worried expression. One that, unfortunately for him, was becoming more and more frequent. Especially since he started his appointments with the therapists.
"Have you thought about setting aside an hour at the end of the day to process everything you've gone through at work?"
Why would he want to do that? He had enough on his plate remembering the faces of everyone he couldn't save on his trauma table, hearing the beeping of the vitals monitors and the hum of the mechanical ventilators in the silence of his home.
"Managing your lifestyle the same way you manage your work only ensures you can't hold down consistent relationships."
That was total bullshit, especially because he did have constants in his life.
Jack Abbot, for example.
His best friend. Who he met in undergrad over thirty years ago, and who he kept seeing even when he went to study at USUHS in Maryland to serve the country. Who he stood beside at his wedding, and who he said goodbye to when he deployed to Iraq for seven years, keeping in touch only through letters.
Who he went to visit after he returned, and accompanied through his leg rehab. Who he went with to the cemetery to visit his wife's grave, and who he watched as life kept dealing him blow after blow.
So yeah, Jack Abbot was his constant.
"We should grab a beer sometime and swap war stories, maybe."
Or maybe that was coming to an end too, just like everything else.
"I'm fine," he answered, lacking the energy to process anything else. "I need to go find Danna so we can organize the board and figure out how to manage this disaster."
He turned around. He knew Jack well enough to know that right now, he was staring at him with that silent anger over how uncommunicative he was being.
Whatever. He just had to wait for this shift to end so his only worry would be his bike and the open road. He didn't want to think about anything else.
"You've been avoiding me."
Robby was starting to regret not having left that very morning.
He took a discreet breath through his nose before looking up from the chart he was filling out with a pen. His eyes locked on Jack, who looked annoyed; something very rare for him.
"Hey, Abbot, need something?" he asked in the softest tone he could manage, trying not to betray his irritability over what happened with Al-Hashimi.
Jack seemed to relax a bit seeing that he wasn't avoiding him as much as he thought; maybe a little, but he couldn't say that, so he leaned over the counter in front of him and spoke in a low voice.
"Are you okay?"
Robby brought a hand to his temple and rubbed it. Swallowing the urge to tell everything to go to hell and ride off on his motorcycle, he returned to his chart just to avoid confronting his friend.
"Aren't Dr. Mohan or Dr. Al-Hashimi around for you to assist?" he deflected, seeing if he could get his worried friend off his back. "I'm sure they’d appreciate your help."
Whatever Jack was going to answer was interrupted by a feminine presence arriving at his side.
"Hey, Michael, can we talk?" Noelle smiled conspiratorially, carrying her clipboard of charts. Robby looked at her in surprise.
"Miss Hastings, three times today," he murmured, getting up from the chair. "And remember, here I'm Dr. Robby."
Noelle rolled her eyes, amused.
"Come on, Jack knows who I am," she dismissed it, stepping closer to him. "I've got complaints from the other floors; you've been sending beds up without authorization."
Robby smiled slyly.
"Sorry?" he offered the apology with zero actual intent. Noelle sighed and shook her head in resignation.
"Try not to overdo it, okay? We don't want the hospital collapsing under cases we can't handle," she stated, turning on her heel and leaving the way she came.
"If only that applied to us too!" he called out with amused irony, turning to look at Jack, who looked serious, which worried him. "Is something wrong?"
Jack looked at him in silence for a moment, shifting his gaze from him to where Noelle had just retreated.
"Did you forget she told me the other day that you sleep with the TV on? Why are you still with that girl?"
Robby was taken aback by Jack's acidic tone, softening instantly when he caught the underlying concern.
"We're supposed to end things today before I leave," he shrugged, picking up the chart from the desk. "She knows it; she seemed more than mentally prepared for it this morning."
Jack scoffed, his lips twisting in displeasure.
"She got her anecdote about sleeping with the Chief of the ER; I guess that’s more than enough for her."
The comment was... weird.
"Wow, you really don't like Noelle," he whistled in amusement. Considering how gentlemanly Jack could be with women, it was rare to hear him speak like that about one, even one of his hookups.
"I'm just saying, don't be surprised if by the time you get back, the whole hospital knows your habits," the older man sighed, pushing off the desk to stand up straighter. "You should stop settling for any pretty face you find out there, Robby. Find someone who's on your level."
Thump-thump.
"Managing your lifestyle the same way you manage your work only ensures you can't hold down consistent relationships."
The only one on his level was Jack.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He closed his eyes and turned around, lacking the energy to confront that intrusive thought. He started walking toward whatever case needed his presence amid all the 4th of July chaos.
It wasn't a new thought, unfortunately. If someone asked him a few drinks deep, being completely honest, when that idea first popped into his head, he'd say undergrad. Times when being gay wasn't accepted, not for doctors and certainly not for the military, stacking the deck against them.
Then Jack partnered up, got married, while Robby still tried to convince himself that, if he just tried over and over again, one day he could let go of his feelings for his best friend and finally "be normal."
Thirty years since then. The only gift time had given him was understanding that he was normal; the only thing wrong was his unrequited feelings.
"Maybe when I get back from the trip I should start experimenting with men..." he muttered to himself under his breath, surprising even himself for finally considering the possibility.
He had never imagined dating a man other than Jack. Acknowledging that he could try with someone else was new.
Maybe therapy actually was working.
"You're awfully clingy today, are you going to miss me that much?" he asked without needing to turn around to know Jack was right behind him. They were both in the back parking lot of the ER, where he was getting ready to hop on his motorcycle.
There was a brief silence that felt strange. Robby turned to look at his friend, who was contemplating him with an expression he recognized all too well: the one that showed he wanted to talk about way too many things, but didn't know where to start.
"This hospital certainly will. Good job today, you handled it excellently," he started with that, softening Robby's heart as he watched him step closer.
"Oh no, don't think you're going to keep me here with flattery, Abbot," he smiled, amused, earning a snort from his friend. "You'd better go get those drinks with Al-Hashimi. I'm sure you two will hit it off and you won't even notice I'm gone."
He turned around to put his helmet on, a little unsettled by the number of motorcycle accidents they'd seen today.
"You should talk to your next therapist about taking a compliment," Jack arrived at his side, looking the motorcycle up and down, but didn't say anything about it before fixing his eyes on him again. "Langdon asked to speak with you."
Robby's eyes widened in surprise. If he was expecting Abbot to bring something up, it wasn't that.
"I don't want to know," he grumbled, getting on the bike and firing it up to hear the roar of the engine, providing some noise for his silent mind, tormented by echoes.
"I won't tell you, then. I'll let you deal with it when you get back."
Robby felt his hands freeze on their way to the handlebars, paralyzed by the tone and the wordplay of his friend, of the person who knew him better than anyone, and vice versa.
Shit.
He turned his head and met Jack's steady gaze. Expectant. Critical.
The silence between them was only broken by the rumble of the engine, but between them, there were no more words left that they didn't know how to express. Robby sighed heavily.
"I like you," he blurted out suddenly, hyper-aware that it was the only thing left pending to say, which the other man had surely already figured out.
Because it was obvious Jack knew he wasn't planning on coming back. As much as Danna, Noelle, or anyone else hinted that his break wouldn't last long, after today, he felt more than determined to leave for good.
He could visit Jake at his graduation... drop by to see Collins... see some new scenery...
His therapists insisted on processing what he lived through every day; he preferred to escape it. Better than falling into a depression, or something worse.
Like Langdon.
His biggest failure as an attending: the inability to notice that the pressure had broken his best resident. That he ended up becoming an addict stealing meds from patients.
He hoped Al-Hashimi could do more than he did to help the residents carry the weight of the ER.
"I know," Jack commented, just as flatly as always. "The feeling is mutual, you know that."
Robby smiled slightly, without looking at Abbot.
Yeah, of course he knew. They both knew each other entirely too well to not have figured it out at some point in their lives.
"I want to try men this time, you know? Therapy is working," he threw out there with sincerity and amusement at the same time.
Even though he couldn't see him, he knew Jack was rolling his eyes at the comment.
"Oh yeah? And how many more therapists are you going to see until you finally decide to give us a shot?"
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Robby looked at him in genuine surprise. Jack was serious, sporting that black shirt that looked incredibly good on him.
Damn it. He shouldn't have postponed this trip so much.
"Robby," Jack stepped a little closer to where he was, causing another little skip in his racing heart. "Ride safe, alright?"
Before he could answer that, Jack completely closed the distance between them to initiate a kiss. A soft touch, which unintentionally deepened when Robby pulled him closer by the neck and Jack gripped his shoulders.
Thirty years. Thirty goddamn years he'd been wanting to do that. The feeling was everything he had imagined and more.
He felt Jack's warm hands touching his skin. Their lips parted, only for him to feel them now trailing down his neck, drawing a soft sigh of pleasure from him.
Losing himself in Jack was easy, way too easy. For the first time, his mind stopped being so loud, focusing only on the sensation of Jack kissing him, Jack touching him.
The sound of an approaching ambulance was the only thing that managed to break the moment. Jack's lips pressed against his one last time, softly, before putting some distance between them.
And damn, how calm Jack Abbot looked—just as unflappable as ever—was enviable. Robby felt like he was going to melt right there on the spot.
Stupid, sexy military man.
"I'll talk to Langdon when I get back," he grumbled reluctantly, noticing the slight upward curve of Abbot's lips.
The ambulance parked at the ER bay doors and the paramedics started moving, calling out the case details. Chen walked out of the hospital and looked a bit surprised to see them, but didn't interrupt, following the patient inside.
"Buy me a souvenir when you get to where you're going," Abbot told him, tilting his head. "And do us both a favor and..." he leaned forward a little, right next to Robby's ear. "If you feel like experimenting with men, I'm first on the list, Michael. Don't forget that."
Robby felt the breath knocked right out of his lungs. Abbot turned on his heel and waved goodbye without looking back, noticeably happy, the son of a bitch who just derailed his entire existence.
Three months was way too long. He’d try for seven weeks, tops.