Chapter Text
He doesn’t make it three months.
He barely makes it three weeks. And if he’s being honest with himself, Robby knew going in that it would end in one of two ways. And he’s enough of a failure to know that coming home, bike on a trailer behind the rented car he drove back across the country, is the choice he was always going to end up making. He needed the time away, he knows this. But the bike was always a band-aid, not a cure.
He doesn’t tell anyone he’s coming back, except for Jack, who texts him that Whitaker has settled into the house like it was always his, the ever-present bags under his eyes lessened slightly. He can’t bring himself to kick the kid out early, so he makes plans to move into some form of temporary housing and spend the last two months of his sabbatical doing . . . well, he’s not sure what, exactly. Probably sitting on the couch, feeling useless.
After AirBnB ends up being a bust, he calls Jack.
“So, how are . . . things?”
There’s a scoff on the other end of the phone. “You mean, how are we holding up without you?”
Robby doesn’t dignify that with an answer.
“Al-Hashimi has everything running smoothly. She asked if I’d go on days as the second attending. You know how a crisis always brings people together.”
“Me being gone is a crisis?”
Jack’s voice is cool when he replies, “I meant the cyber attack.”
“Oh.”
The silence that follows stretches out long enough that Robby is forced to cough to break it. “So . . . you know anywhere I can stay for a couple of weeks?”
As it turns out, Abbot’s neighbors are visiting their kid in France for all of August and September. Robby has been to the building before, for a late-season Penguins game, one of those fancy newfangled high-rises with touch fob entry and door codes and huge panes of glass. He’d had a hard time picturing Jack in a place like that at first, but had to acknowledge the elevator made things much easier than the third floor walk-up he’d been in before.
He gets a code to the door via email, plant watering instructions, and more quickly than he would have imagined, he finds himself in an apartment not his own, on a couch firmer than he would like, and with nothing to do for the foreseeable future.
The quiet is worse here than on the open road, no television to blare and keep the thoughts from running through his head. The residents have an overstuffed bookshelf, though, which he spends more than a few hours just looking at, overwhelmed, before diving in with a copy of Moby Dick.
He’s just reached the part where they run into the Jeroboam when he sees movement coming from the apartment opposite. A door opening, lights flicking on. A familiar figure silhouetted, clearly visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Robby puts the book down, lifts his hand in greeting.
Jack tosses off a quick salute, before turning and disappearing into another room.
He doesn’t see him again for the rest of the night.
Didn’t realize you were right across the way, he texts the next morning, a thumbs-up reaction coming in response.
It’s dark in Jack’s apartment. Robby had thought maybe he was still sleeping, and then remembers he’s on days.
He spends the rest of the morning alternating between reading and looking through the window at the world around him.
There’s a narrow courtyard below, and plenty of apartments to spy on, to see how everyone else goes about their day when they don’t have lives to save.
Two floors down has a dog that spends twenty minutes straight barking at a bird that won’t stop flying back and forth outside. Catty-corner is a family with a toddler who keeps picking up books, turning one stiff page, before abandoning it for another. One down, three over has a trumpeter practicing scales on a loop. Of Jack’s apartment, Robby can see the front door, half of the couch, and a table and chairs that he knows hasn’t been used for eating at since Molly died.
More exploration finds a stereo system he’d missed behind a cabinet door, flipping on the radio, WQED playing Beethoven. The last time he’d heard it was in a movie he saw on a date over a decade ago. He thinks about changing the station, then remembers his general taste in music could reasonably be considered oldies these days, which makes him feel worse in a new kind of way, and lets the Beethoven play on. Still oldies, but refined.
He picks up the book again and makes a half-hearted attempt to keep going, pausing only to receive a grocery delivery and to make himself a turkey sandwich. No mayo in the fridge, so it’s dry and underwhelming.
The radio is starting a full performance of The Magic Flute by the time there’s movement across the way. The past hour has found Robby sitting in the increasing dimness of oncoming dusk, thinking, Get up and turn on a light, over and over, book abandoned by his side. He doesn’t feel hungry, but knows he should eat, thinking about texting Jack if he wants to order a pizza, watch whatever sport that’s on and let the soothing noise of the television lull him into sleep on the couch. Jack will let him crash, won’t make him walk down the hallway to the loneliness of 17J. He lifts his gaze to see Jack walking in—
—followed by Samira Mohan.
They’re both laughing about something, a wide grin on each face as they divest themselves of backpacks, as she closes the door behind them, locking it with a familiarity that signifies this isn’t her first time in the apartment.
Robby goes very still, hoping they won’t notice him, won’t see him in the shadows.
He hadn’t realized they were friendly, close enough that she feels comfortable to walk past Jack into the rest of the apartment without him, carrying a plastic bag of takeout, while Jack rummages around in his bag, pulling a sheaf of papers out before following.
And then it all makes sense—Samira had been thinking about an elective before he’d left. Jack is helping out with her applications, there to discuss them over the dinner she’d brought as recompense. She’ll need the help, considering how late she’s left it.
Slow, to the last.
With that, Robby stands, to find his own food, leaving the lights off as he goes.
One tasteless plate of pasta and canned sauce later, Robby walks back into the living room, leaving the lights off as he retrieves the book from where it rests open on the couch. On the radio, the Queen of the Night is singing her famous aria, threatening to disown her daughter if she disobeys her. Almost against his will, he glances up and over into Jack’s apartment.
He can see Samira on the half of the couch visible to him, resting her back up against a throw pillow. Part of him feels some misplaced anger at the sight, at her in the spot that he’d planned on being his this evening, followed by shame at feeling it at all in the first place, a plan that had existed only in his own head, a plan of desperation.
As he keeps staring, he notices that there’s something off about the way Samira is breathing—almost like she’s having another panic attack. He starts forward in alarm, his vision focusing, sharpening.
From what he can see, her breath is coming in small pants, her head thrown back against the pillow, her mouth making small movements Robby supposes are cries for help. “Dammit, Jack, where the fuck are you?” he says aloud desperately, about to turn around and run down the hallway and pound on the door himself, when he catches a glimpse of exactly where Jack is and realizes he’s gotten it all wrong.
Samira’s hands are fisted into his hair, as he lifts his head to smile wickedly at her from where he lies between her legs. Robby can see the glint of the slick around Jack’s mouth as he crawls his way up her torso, as his left hand pushes up her tank top to reveal a long expanse of perfect skin, the gleam in his eyes as he lowers his mouth to the nipple that’s just out of Robby’s sight, making her shudder.
He needs to leave. He has to go.
He shouldn’t be seeing this.
His feet are frozen in place.
How long has this been going on? This isn’t some fumbling first time, Jack moving up even further to kiss Samira messily, as she rises up to meet him as his hand sets a punishingly steady pace between her thighs, pulling back, saying something that has her nodding desperately, her eyes locked on his. Robby can see the moment he adds a second—no, third—finger, the way Samira’s head falls back onto the throw pillow, the visible oh my god, Jack he pulls from her.
Since when has she called him Jack?
To his growing shame and horror, Robby can feel what seems to be all the blood in his body rushing to his dick, helpless to stop it.
In the window, Jack is sliding back down again, adding his mouth to his fingers as they work relentlessly, Samira’s hands roaming, unable to keep still—across her face, through Jack’s hair over and over, plucking at her nipple, as the tension strung throughout her body continues to grow. He can imagine the sounds she’s making, the huffs of frustration he's heard countless times at work, only more desperate, her breath hitching. Her hips buck up at one particularly vigorous thrust, and Jack slides his left forearm over her pelvis, holding her in place.
Robby’s hands ache to reach down and give himself some relief, but he stays still, breathing shallowly, not wanting them to notice any movement across the way.
She’s close now, he can tell, a wrecked desperation on her face, her hips stuttering against Jack’s ministrations.
Almost against his will, he takes one step forward, as Jack hollows his cheeks, sucking exquisitely, as Samira’s head turns to the side, making direct eye contact with Robby.
She stares at him for one, two, three seconds, her eyes shooting daggers into his soul. Only then does she come, her gaze fixed on him, a silent cry escaping her lips as her back arches, as her eyes flutter shut, as Jack watches her come down, his mouth still working at her until she breathes out a heavy sigh.
Robby doesn’t know if he’s ever been harder in his life.
Samira clutches at Jack with shaky hands, pulling him up, saying something that has him grinning boyishly at her, as he tucks some strands of hair that have come loose behind her ear, leaning down to kiss her tenderly, cupping her face with his hand like it’s something precious.
It’s only then that Robby turns away, this, the one thing that has him feeling like he’s seen too much. He moves quickly through the shadows into the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed where he spits frantically into his hand, grabbing his cock roughly, coming in fewer than two thrusts into his fist, hating himself through the few seconds it takes.
His breath comes raggedly, like he’s sprinted a mile.
He can’t ever do that again.
The next night finds him in the shadows once more.