Chapter Text
The bar was busy in the comfortable way. Warm lights. Sticky tables. Music loud enough to blur conversations together but not loud enough to stop Whitaker from passionately explaining some terrible medical podcast he’d found.
“No, listen,” Whitaker insisted, pointing with a mozzarella stick, “this guy genuinely thought he could remove his own appendix.”
“That’s brave,” Mateo said.
“That’s another level of stupid,” Dana corrected.
Jack snorts into his cocktail. Not beer. Not whiskey. A violently purple cocktail with odd shaped ice cubes and edible glitter and a high alcohol content. Jack liked beer as much as the next guy, but he likes to try whatever new cocktail he can find when out.
“You ordered something called a graveyard glitter bomb?” Robby asks.
Jack takes a sip through two straws at once. “And I’d do it again.”
“You are a fifty-year-old man.”
“I was in the military. I deserve whimsy.”
Across the table, Mel nearly chokes laughing.
The Pitt crew had taken over an entire back corner by this point. Half out of scrubs, half still wearing hospital fleeces because none of them had the energy to fully become normal people after shift.
Robby sat relaxed beside Jack, one arm slung lazily behind him along the booth. Jack leaned into the contact automatically while stealing fries off Robby’s plate like a man seemingly incapable of ordering his own side dishes.
“You could order fries, you know,” Robby pointed out.
“Yours are superior.”
“That sentence means nothing.”
Jack grinned around a mouthful of stolen potato.
Across the table, Mohan was midway through roasting Santos’s choice in beer when a waitress appeared carrying a cocktail glass glowing radioactive pink beneath the bar lights.
“For you,” the waitress said to Mohan, setting it down carefully. The whole table went quiet in that immediate predatory way friend groups do when drama appears.
Mohan blinked. “Uh?”
The waitress nodded subtly across the room toward a guy leaning against the bar trying very hard to look smooth about the entire thing.
Whitaker let out an audible “oooooooh.”
“Oh my God,” Santos muttered immediately. “Samria has an admirer.”
Mohan looked deeply suspicious of the drink. It was in a tall thin glass and had dry ice.
“I don’t trust beverages that smoke,” she announced.
The table dissolved into overlapping commentary.
“Drink it.”
“Don’t drink it.”
“Make Whitaker drink it.”
“Absolutely not,” Whitaker said instantly.
Mohan finally sighed dramatically and took a cautious sip. Then immediately recoiled. “Oh, that’s vile.” The table erupted laughing.
“It tastes like somebody dissolved a Yankee Candle in vodka,” she complained, shoving it away.
Jack, meanwhile, looked personally intrigued. “Coward.”
Before anyone could stop him, he picked the cocktail up and took a long sip. Then another.
His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, I like this.”
Robby looked at him with deep fondness and concern in equal measure. “Of course you do.”
“It tastes like glitter and bad decisions.”
“Exactly.”
Jack took another sip happily.
Across the room, the guy at the bar straightened slightly, clearly expecting Mohan to look over.
Instead, he watched Jack Abbot drink nearly half the cocktail in one go. The guy’s expression darkened instantly. He stared for another beat. Then abruptly turned and headed for the exit.
Santos frowned after him. “Well. That’s weirdly dramatic.”
Jack watched the guy leave, then glanced down at the cocktail in his hand thoughtfully. “Hm.”
“What?” Robby asked.
Jack took another sip before answering. “I guess I’m not his type.”
Whitaker choked on his drink so violently Mateo had to hit him between the shoulders.
“Oh my God,” Santos wheezed.
Even Mohan buried her face in her hands.
Robby just shook his head slowly, smiling helplessly while Jack looked unbearably pleased with himself. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And yet,” Jack said, nudging his knee against Robby’s under the table, “you married me anyway.”
“That’s on me, apparently.”
Jack grinned lazily and raised the glittering cocktail like a toast while around them the bar pulsed on, warm and noisy and utterly unaware that the night had just tilted quietly off course.
—
Jack finished the cocktail. Then another drink after that.
At first nothing seemed off.
He was laughing. Relaxed. Leaning comfortably into Robby’s side while Robby absently rubbed circles against the back of his neck. But maybe forty minutes later Robby noticed Jack getting quieter.
Jack stared at the table for a little too long after conversations moved on. His responses lagged half a second behind everyone else. Once or twice his eyes unfocused entirely.
“You alright?” Robby asked quietly.
Jack blinked at him slowly. “Mm.” He rubbed at his face. “Think that drink hit harder than expected.”
“You’ve had three drinks.” Robby pointed out, gesturing towards Jack’s empty glasses.
“Yeah.” Jack frowned slightly. “Feel weird though.”
Robby’s posture sharpened instantly. “How weird?”
Jack squinted like he was trying to focus through fog.
“I don’t know, just a bit woozy, a little nauseous.”
Before Robby could push further, Jack stood.
A little unsteady. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom.”
“You want me to come with you?”
Jack snorted softly. “Think I can survive a piss alone, Michael.”
But Robby watched him walk away with a crease already forming between his brows. Something wasn’t right.
Five minutes passed. Whitaker got up with a muttered, “Bathroom,” and disappeared through the crowd.
Less than a minute later, the situation changed.
Whitaker’s voice cut sharply through the noise. “Robby!”
Every head at the table snapped up. Robby was moving before his brain caught up.
The bathroom corridor smelled like bleach and stale beer. Whitaker stood just outside the men’s room, pale as death.
“He’s collapsed.”