Work Text:
XXX XX 8299 ABBOT, J
// IN 02.18.2013 // 06:51
// OUT 02.18.2013 // 19:19
Jack barely notices the familiarity of the date as he punches out. Why should he? He’s not an eight year old. He doesn’t expect cupcakes or pony rides. Nobody ever owed him anything just for existing, and very few offered. Yeah, for a while, he was lucky enough to have someone make him a thoughtfully planned dinner, but he usually squandered that by working overtime. For two years now, he has nothing to fail to appreciate. Those days are over, and this one will be too, in about five hours.
One last trip to the head, then Jack goes to get his shit from his locker so he can blow this taco stand.
Okay, so he did forget about the bottle of birthday Bruichladdich in there. Cut a guy some slack. Adamson presented it to him about ten hours and six codes ago, all right? He was very polite, very grateful to the Doc, even though he still hasn’t opened the bottle he gave him for New Years. He’s fucked up enough without adding drinking alone to his routine.
While Jack muddles through checking his leg and putting his prosthetic back on, Robby comes swanning in. As he fiddles with his lock, he gives the contents of Jack’s cubby a quizzical look.
“Is it your birthday?” He points at the whisky.
Jack burrs his lips like a tired old horse. “That depends on how long I’ve been sitting here, zoning out.”
“How did I not know when your birthday was until now?” Robby demands of himself. “What an asshole! Happy birthday, man.”
“It’s no big deal,” Jack shrugs. “Thanks.”
“What’s that make you anyway? Star sign, I mean.”
With a sigh, Jack stands up to get his stuff. “The one that makes people sing at me.”
Robby grins. “Aquarius?”
“Don’t do it,” Jack warns.
“Thiiiis iiis…how we do it!” Robby hoots out, unexpectedly swerving from the norm. He cups his hands into a bullhorn. “This is how we do it.”
“Jesus.”
“Let's flip the track, bring the old school back. This is how we do it-”
Jack can’t help but laugh. He’s a miserable son of a bitch, but he’s not made of stone. “Wow,” he says, impressed. “Thank you for ruining my birthday in a new way.”
“What can I say, I’m an innovator.” Robby rolls his wrist and takes a tidy bow.
“You’re something, for sure,” Jack smirks. “Someday if you’re lucky, science may even define it.”
Robby’s a bit of a showboat, but he’s all right really. He’s easy to talk to. Funny, reliable. Able to hold his own against whatever bullshit this place throws at him. Jack once saw him catch a psych hold’s fist like he was wearing a catcher’s mitt, and it was so badass Jack almost swung his head around looking for a camera crew. And on top of being a talented doctor, Robby's so nice it doesn’t even piss Jack off that he’s obviously Adamson’s favorite. He’s probably Jack’s favorite person in the ED too.
“So, do you have any special plans?” Robby asks.
“Not really,” Jack admits.
Robby pulls his coat out of his locker and shrugs it on, frowning. “We should go do something! Whatever you want, I’m buyin’. Steak dinner? Movie? Laser tag?”
“Do they still have that?”
“I think the real question is do we still have the knees for it? There’s only one way to find out,” Robby says, bouncing his eyebrows.
When Jack tries to imagine what sort of lively activity he’d be up for tonight, his cheeks flush. Mostly he’s been keeping busy off the clock by working out and finding rec leagues with forgiving attendance policies. He even got a running blade so he can train for marathons when the weather thaws out again. But it’s kind of a double edged sword. Why’s he trying to look his best when no one's looking? He misses being fawned over and felt up. He didn’t feel as doomed by simply existing in his body when there was someone who wasn’t afraid to touch him.
Jack snorts. “I’ll be honest man, the fun I’d really like, I’d prefer no one pay for.”
Robby clasps his hands and affects a distinguished tone. “If you’re talking about getting laid… Doctor Robby’s Birthday Boutique is happy to provide a top of the line wingman service, complimentary with any drink.”
While Jack is skeptical that Robby’s charm is capable of mitigating his own current void of charisma, a few drinks with a friendly face could be enjoyable, actually.
“What the hell,” Jack says, slinging on his backpack. “Let’s give it a shot.”
Thanks to his more southern origins, and Pittsburgh's combination of hills and ice, Jack tends to carpool in the winter. Redundant transportation is one bit of logistics he can cross off the list, right away. When they get to Robby’s car, they start working out the rest.
“So, what are you looking for? What’s your type?” Robby asks, while scraping ice off his windshield. “Petite, low key animal lovers?”
He’s describing Sofie, obviously. Robby and her didn’t cross paths all that much before she died, but it’s not a bad profile. Sofie was the sort of unassuming, relaxing presence that drew in people and animals alike. Anywhere she lived, she must have halved the stray population, single-handedly. Getty, the rescue she had long before ever meeting Jack, had the loyalty to die within a year of her. Now here Jack is, still struggling along. Outdone by a cat named for a gas station.
Jack frowns as he does his best to clear up the passenger window with his elbow. “What would you think if you went home with a guy and you saw a couple cat condos, but no cat. And a bunch of pictures of some woman there’s no trace of in the bathroom… Serial killer, right?”
Robby grimaces. “Maybe we should use my place as a base of operations. I’ve got a pretty great local bar, and a futon in the study you’re welcome to.”
“You are so fuckin'... You have a study?” Jack blinks at Robby across the hood of the car. “What are you studying, how to be a hundred year old philosophy professor?”
“Touché.” Finally done with the windshield, Robby opens the car door. “Mostly I'm studying how to lower my expectations of a social life by not calling it a ‘guest room’.”
With that, he disappears into the vehicle.
Jack joins him inside, and shivers through the slow transformation of the car’s icy air. As they get going, he tries to think around any other awkward obstacles. “Do you have some shorts I can borrow?” he asks.
“Sure, it’s all of twenty degrees out. You want a tank top too?”
“I just don’t want to do the whole song and dance where I gotta warn someone about my leg,” Jack sighs. “It’s easier to weed people out from the jump.”
Robby glances at him with a frown tempered by a practitioner’s sensitivity. “Is that usually a problem?”
“Used to be, before Sofie… I haven’t tried with anyone since.” While Jack answers him, he checks his reflection in the visor mirror. “Didn’t used to have this counting against me, though,” he says of the gray patches in his stubble. That only started popping up in the past few years.
How is it that Robby is still so ageless? He’s a few years older. He’s got a good head of hair, and the beard he grows in every winter keeps coming back in solid. No real wear and tear except for some deep set lines between his eyebrows, that only serve to make him look like he knows what he’s talking about when he’s advising a patient on something life threatening. He’s the textbook example of a persuasively handsome doctor, really. He could tell you he has to chop out your heart and you would just nod and ask if you have to sign any paperwork first.
“Granted it’s been a while since you’ve been out there, man, but I think you could still clean up,” Robby laughs. “Last time you were single, you were pre-med, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you have no idea how jaws drop when you say you’re a doctor... It’s a little unsportsmanlike, honestly. Sometimes I say I’m a penniless greeting card editor just for the challenge. Nothing to offer but borrowed poetry,” he trails off wistfully.
Jack snorts. “Be poetic. Right now.”
“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
Jack laughs in surprise. It’s stirring. But this has to be a total act, right? Robby can’t be all the other things he is and deep.
“Why not just read straight from The Pick Up Artist?” Jack teases him.
Robby makes a wavering sort of sound as he stares at the road ahead. “It’s not usually the picking up part that’s my problem. It’s after, when I’m too married to my job that ruins it.”
“Yeah. That’s a popular one around here,” Jack observes.
When they get to Robby’s house, Jack follows him upstairs so he can borrow a change of clothes. He’s been over a few times for a department party or to carpool, but this is probably the first time he’s been alone with Robby here, and definitely the first time he’s made it much farther than the living room or the bathroom. God, Jack can’t remember the last time he made a social call to any friend’s house, can he? That’s fucking grim. Hard to dwell on, though.
It seems to Jack that the further they go into Robby’s personal zone, the denser the evidence that he really is a poet at heart. There are all sorts of mismatched pieces of art and objects hanging on the walls, but somehow without the slapdash of a flea market. Playbills, foreign textiles, sheet music, a vintage board game, and a Chagall print hung with equal dignity to a crayon drawing 'For Dkr Rabbie’ dated back almost twenty years ago. Each piece feels like it’s in some kind of meaningful relationship to the things around it. Robby’s walls are as meandering and interesting a conversation as anything he says with his mouth.
Once Robby locates some shorts for him, he leaves Jack to go put sheets on the futon. While Jack changes, he scopes out the bedroom a bit. There’s a pair of antique lamps that look like they’ve been rewired from kerosene. A plum colored bedspread. Lots of plants, dangling in intricately knotted hangers. They’d have to dangle, really, because there aren’t many flat surfaces that don’t house a stack of books. Robby’s got everything from matching sets of classic lit, to comic books, to medical texts, and airport bestsellers, all mixed together. Maybe the most amusing of the unexpected collections is the hefty, leather-bound T.E. Lawrence wedged next to a source book for fans of Twin Peaks and an instruction book for the bass. The man is a true omnivore.
Jack finds Robby in the guest room that is not a guest room, putting the final touches on the futon. Oh, there’s the bass. Neat. Is it lame that he would drop the plan to hit the bar and just hang out and let Robby play, if he wanted?
“Hey, you fill those out better than me,” Robby says, when he notices Jack snuck in. “You’ve actually got an ass.”
“Squats,” Jack shrugs.
Robby circles around him to grab a pillow from the closet. “Maybe you should keep ‘em!”
“What? You don’t have to-"
“Too late, I’m calling reverse dibs. They’re yours now. I foresee great things in your future together…”
In a gesture of gratitude to his host, Jack drops his backpack on the bed and draws out the bottle of Laddie. “Can I tempt you before we go?”
“Absolutely,” Robby grins.
It’s a good thing Robby says yes. The burn of the whisky in his chest is just about the only thing keeping Jack from shattering in half on the walk over to the bar. The sleety mix that’s been falling off and on all day catches them about half way there. They dart between storefront awnings all the way down the last block, then they collide in a slippery sandwich when the bar’s front door is not the push-to-enter Jack was expecting.
“Shit. Sorry,” he says, grabbing Robby to save himself from bouncing back out into the rain. “Fuck, it’s cold.”
With a breathless laugh, Robby grabs him back and then rotates them so Jack can get through the door first. “Hey there! It’s less of a full contact sports bar, more of a speakeasy kinda joint,” he says.
As they step inside, Jack can appreciate the difference right away. “I didn’t know there were any bars left without a TV screen every five feet.”
“I know, right? It’s a gem.”
“Yeah, they definitely have those,” Jack notices.
The place is lit almost exclusively by a row of chandeliers, dripping with faceted glass. They catch the colors cast by rope lights that line the edges of the bar and the suspended wine rack. Robby steers Jack toward a corner seat by his shoulders, then points out a handy set of hooks for their coats. He seems to know all the secrets of the place, reaching over the bar and helping himself to the stash of menus tucked under the lip.
“The turkey burger’s shockingly good. The marinara is not,” he tells Jack. “Honestly, I think they gave up when that Italian place we passed came in. Decided to play to their strengths.”
While they wait for their orders, a keyboardist tests out his gear. By the time he gets into the swing of his set, their dinners come and the place starts to fill. Couples, mostly. A handful of elderly singles, lingering over a drink and a book. There’s one family with a young child. Then a gaggle of college age girls who are too young to be of interest to Jack, but who get things going in the space cleared for dancing. Good of them to brave the ice and then break it. It seems like the musician is performing the same set list he would have played for a Valentine’s gig this past weekend. Mostly upbeat crowd pleasers. Something to work with, if ever-
“Hey, look,” says Robby, tilting his head at some newcomers. Two women of a more professional age, one a bit on the tall side, and the other with a head of miraculous curls, considering the shitty weather. “If I hop out of my seat, there’ll be two empty right next to you,” he grins.
Jack stacks their empty plates to free up some real estate on the bar, and wouldn’t you know it? That’s where the two ladies decide to take up residence. They slink out of their coats to reveal some fairly dressy outfits, and discuss amongst themselves what they might like to drink. The curly haired one has an unplaceable accent that sidetracks Jack’s brain from coming up with anything of his own say. That’s where Robby comes in, as reliable as ever. When the two friends hit a lull in their own conversation, he leans in toward the bar, bracing himself on the back of Jack’s stool, so that he’s invading his space more than theirs.
“It’s my buddy’s birthday but he won’t fess up to how old he is,” he shares with a laugh. “Any guesses? If you get it right, drinks on me!”
“Oh? Hmm.” The tall blonde one turns to consider Jack with a surveying eye. “I’ll try…”
The curly one laughs. “All right.”
Robby improves their chances with an offer. “You can ask him a pop culture question, if it helps.”
“Uh oh,” says Jack. “I’m not great with dates, so watch out.”
The tall blonde woman smiles like she’s got this in the bag. “Does asking your name count?” she checks. “If your name is Richard I know what side of Watergate you were born on.”
Jack shoots Robby a look. “Does that count?”
Robby chuckles and hikes up one foot on the base of Jack’s stool, and an elbow on his shoulder. “You’re skating on thin ice, but that’s a freebie,” he decides.
“I’m Jack.”
“Sara,” she offers with a polite handshake. “This is Carla.”
“Michael,” Robby waves.
It’s always a little weird when Jack hears him introduce himself this way. Like he’s pretending to be some ordinary guy.
Sara nods thoughtfully, then leans into the counter, engaged. “Okay, Jack. What kind of animal is Rocko?”
Jack goes with his first impulse. “Trick question- a pet rock?”
“Ooo. No...” Sara leans back in her chair again. “You’re a little older than my sister if you don’t know.”
“Bah! Pet rock,” Carla shakes her head. “You Americans will sell anything.”
“You’re not wrong,” laughs Jack. “Where are you from?”
“Brazil.”
“Ah! Some great modern architecture there,” says Robby. “I love Oscar Niemeyer.”
“Of course you do,” Jack sighs at him. Of course Robby would have a favorite Brazilian architect. Of course.
“Well that makes you old enough to be my grandfather,” Carla jokes to Robby. She then considers Jack. “What about… What was your first Nintendo game?”
“Mm! That’s a great question,” says Sara.
Jack exhales through a clenched smile. “I dunno, we grew up pretty broke. It might skew things,” he warns. “NES Super Mario.”
“Gotta be forty-something,” Sara reasons. “Forty, exactly.”
“No, look at him. Younger. Thirty-eight?” says Carla.
“Ha. Thirty-seven,” Jack admits, finally. “We, uh, didn’t get the original Nintendo until after the new system came out.”
“Well, happy thirty-seventh birthday,” Sara says with a smile.
Robby connects with the bartender, then. “Let me get theirs, too,” he tells him. “...Maybe you didn’t guess it, but you ladies still brought the heat,” he reasons.
Everyone makes their order and thanks Robby while he pays the bill. Sara and Carla are certainly friendly enough, but Jack keeps waiting for it to click- who’s interested in who? Maybe Carla and Robby can nerd out about the guy with the hot dog name, but that doesn’t mean Sara has to like him by default. He’s not sure if he’s into either of these ladies, really. They’re pretty enough, but their personalities are still very abstract.
“What’s your Nintendo game of choice, then?” Robby asks Carla.
“Oh, I never got good at anything but Tetris,” she laughs.
“Same here,” says Sara. “But that was my jam back in the day, used to fight off my sister with a rolled up magazine for the TV...”
“Sisters, man." Jack shakes his head. "Gotta keep ‘em in line. Mine were phone hogs.”
Sara is suddenly struck by a realization. “Oh my god, is that why I'm addicted to Candy Crush?”
“You know, there were some studies that showed playing Tetris within a few hours of a trauma can reduce PTSD flashbacks,” Robby muses. “So if you ever have a car wreck or something, fire it up. Can’t hurt.”
“Really?” Carla pulls a face. “How do you know that?”
Robby coughs. “I read a lot for work.”
Even Jack hasn’t read that one, and he puts people back together after car wrecks all day, every day. He gives Robby a plotting look over the rim of his glass as he drinks. Fine, Robby. Be ordinary.
“Yeah. He's a greeting card writer,” Jack smirks.
Robby mutters something about stolen valor under his breath.
“We’re in admin over at Carlow,” says Sara. “Mostly systems stuff. Blah. Boring. What do you do?”
“I’m an ER doctor,” Jack says.
It’s more or less as Robby predicted. Their smokily made up eyes go wide.
“Wow.”
“Oh, that’s gotta be intense.”
“It has its moments, that’s for sure.”
Carla’s curly head tilts in warranted curiosity. “Wait. How do you guys know each other?”
“Terrible explosion at the Hallmark factory. If it weren’t for this guy-” Robby can barely get through it before he breaks off laughing.
Jack casts his eyes up the chandelier above him. “Michael-”
“Sorry, I have this stupid joke about greeting cards. He just humors me because he’s a good friend,” Robby rushes to say. He gives Jack’s hair a playful ruffle. “He is really a doctor, though. A good one.”
Jack rolls his eyes at this dork of his. “He does know all kinds of literary shit,” he insists. “You can put him on the spot. It’s a fun trick.”
“Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth,” Robby grins at him.
“Ah, you guys are funny,” laughs Carla, with a forgiving wave of her manicured hand.
“Yeah...” Sara gives them a joint look up and down and definitely clocks Jack’s leg, but whatever verdict she comes to is interrupted by the arrival of her and Carla’s cocktails.
“I’ll be back with your shots, guys,” says the bartender. “Barback forgot the bottle.”
“Good help is so hard to find,” Sara chuckles.
“Hey!” says Carla, giving her a light swat. “You hired me.”
Sara turns back to them. “Thanks again for the drinks! We’re gonna go dance,” she tells them, with a nod to the back of the bar. “Maybe we’ll see you guys over there if your shots ever come, huh?”
Jack shrugs, and Robby crosses his fingers. With that, their new acquaintances depart.
“Debrief?” Robby spins around to sit in the stool next to him again.
Jack draws a deep breath. Where to begin? “I appreciate you trying to make me look good,” he says. That he’s sure of. The rest? Eh…
Robby laughs. “That’s not hard to do.”
“Next to you it is. Brazilian architecture? Really?”
“Just wait ‘til you hear me quote the fights historical from Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical...”
“Yeah. Whatever that is you’re doing right now. It’s hard to stack up against."
“Pfft. C’mon.” Robby scratches his head. “You’re younger and hotter.”
Jack narrows his eyes at this man who he’s known for a few years now, but over the course of this evening has come much closer to really understanding. He’s not superficial like that, or flighty. He’s endlessly curious and much more sensitive than he lets on. It makes Jack want to look out for him. Someone like that usually deserves more consideration than they get.
“You’re one of those people who wanted to do everything when you were a kid, aren’t you?” Jack says. “I bet you wanted to be a rock star president lion tamer.”
For a moment, Robby is speechless. Direct hit.
“…I had a lot I was trying to live up to,” he finally says. “Probably the same as anyone who winds up a doctor.”
It reeks of a whitewash. It only makes the warm feeling Jack has for him settle in deeper.
“Maybe you should go and dance with them,” Jack says, hopeful on Robby’s behalf.
“We’re not here for me… What do you think?”
“Horses and water,” Jack sighs.
Robby flutters his eyelashes at him. “Now, now, cowboy. That’s not a nice way to talk about the ladyfolk.”
Jack gestures between them. “We are the horses.”
“…So, they’re not doin’ it for ya?”
“I don’t know. Something just… doesn’t hit me right, or if it does, I don’t want it to?” Jack shakes his head. “I guess I’m looking for something different.”
With a glance to the dancing at the back of the bar, Robby hazards a guess. “Do you...not want to be with someone who reminds you of Sofie in any way?”
“Maybe that’s it."
Robby synthesizes this as though it were a differential diagnosis. “So, no blondes, no sexy accents. All right. The night is young! We start over on brunettes with voices for broadcast,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “Unless you want to ask the bartender what color his hair was before he went bald?”
Jack laughs. “He has a ring on.”
“So do you. Hang on.” There’s a fresh gleam in Robby’s eye. “Is that an option for you?”
Now Jack is the speechless one. There were some awful things that happened to him overseas he had to box up and put away when he came home. Some of the more innocuous things that happened in the vicinity got shoved in, too. There’s not as much left to lose in admitting it these days, and even if there is, this is not someone who would judge Jack for it.
“I fooled around a little in the Army,” he says, evenly.
Robby hums. “Honestly, good for you. I missed my one shot at a youthful dalliance... I was in the middle of my med school hypochondriac phase,” he frowns.
The bartender finally returns then, shots in hand. “Bottoms up, boys!” he says, setting them on the bar.
Jack is first to pick up his shot, which he does without looking away from Robby and the churning of his thoughts. His own are starting to gather into an undeniable conclusion. Jack’s been staring right at the sort of enticing personality he wants from a lover this whole time, hasn’t he? He’s been enjoying this look underneath Robby’s hood. He wants to get his hands dirty on him. Jack throws his shot back and thunks the glass down, determined to ask.
“So… Are you still young at heart?”
Robby pauses and drinks his shot just as emphatically. “...You know how it is, Jack.” He slides around his glass on the bar in a restless circle. “We were born into a post-Bowie world. I don’t think they make Kinsey zeroes anymore.”
No bones about it, they’re eyeing each other up, now. Jack can feel the heat of those dark eyes, roving all over him.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” he asks.
The expression of Robby’s open mouth tumbles around before settling into a smirk. He stretches out a leg, letting its warmth brush along Jack’s inner calf. “I could be very gallant right now, and offer to jog back and get your pants,” he says.
“You could, yeah…”
“You could put ‘em on for the walk back to mine, and then once we get there- dot dot dot?”
Jack feels a throb he hasn’t felt in a long time. His starved libido offers up more fillers for Robby’s blanks than he knew he was stockpiling. No way is he letting Robby out of his sight.
“I think I could suck it up and walk back cold, if we’re quick.”
Robby slips down off his stool, momentarily landing between Jack’s knees, one hand on his thigh. “Let's be quick, then.”
The dash back to Robby’s is even colder and darker than the journey to the bar, as several store fronts have shut down in the meanwhile. The sleet and snow flying in Jack’s face look like a launch into hyperspace. He surprises himself by setting the pace when Robby’s strides are quite a bit longer. It’s that fucking cold and his pants are that fucking short.
“Fuck this. I’m going back to Oklahoma. Fuck.”
Robby skips along at his side, grinning his head off. “Aww, that’s a shame. We’ll miss ya.”
“This is overkill,” Jack gulps against the cold. “You can have… a t-totally miserable winter… without… b-below freezing temperatures!”
“Oh man.” Robby snickers. “This is amazing. Something Jack Abbot can’t tough out. Is this how The Flash feels when he beats Superman in a foot race?”
“Shut up!”
“You know I’m bound by law to say ‘make me’, right? And then you’re gonna have to stop and-”
Jack stops short and shoves Robby into the nearest brick wall. “My hands were already freezing, and now they’re wet,” he growls, gripping into Robby’s jacket.
They’re so close their noses are already touching and their breath is fogging in the air, and then it’s not, or at least if it is, Jack can’t see it because he’s kissing Robby and his eyes are shut. As the initial press turns into a hungry back and forth Robby folds his arms around him and melts down the wall a few inches, completely given over to it.
When Jack finally lets him go, Robby straightens himself by walking his hands up the wall behind him. “-And then you’re gonna have to stop and kiss me, and you’ll get even colder,” he finishes saying. He wipes frozen saliva off his beard, grinning again.
Jack is, of course, extremely aware of this trade off. He plunges his hands in his pockets and shivers and glares at Robby until he pushes away from the wall and back into a sprint.
“Fuck these shorts!”
“I offered to get your pants so I could take them off you!” Robby calls out, chasing after him again. “Thought it was a pretty good bit of seduction...”
“Would’ve been a better bit if you’d thought of it before I put myself in hypothermia the first time.”
“I tried to tell you you had a nice ass!”
“Not in those exact words,” Jack barks over his shoulder. “If you had, maybe we could have been passed out on the futon by now.”
Robby’s chuckle is belly deep. “I would not have fucked you on the futon,” he assures him. “I am too old for that...”
“But it was fine if I did it with some strange woman?”
They stop at an intersection and wait for an oncoming car to pass. Robby crowds up behind Jack on the curb, nestling his chin on his shoulder and wrapping an arm around his waist. The additional warmth is very much appreciated.
“When I was a thirtysomething, I spake as a thirtysomething, I fucked as a thirtysomething: but when I became a forty year old, I put away my futon,” he recites in his ear.
“That’s New Testament.” Jack reminds him. “Are you Jewish or not?”
Robby presses his hips tighter against his backside. “You can check in a few minutes...”
It’s a miracle Jack doesn’t drag him into traffic to get inside sooner. As badly as he wants to grab and grope him, he manages to keep his hands off Robby until they finally make it to his front door. Then it’s no holds barred, whatever the hell that originally means. Robby would probably know, but Jack can’t ask and Robby can’t answer, because as soon as they make it inside, they’re liplocked again.
They zip out of their wet coats as they stumble along the front hall, and then dump them on the floor. With those out of the way, Robby backs Jack into the corner by the bottom of the stairs, up against a full-length mirror. Is this what it feels like to be part of his collection of exceptional things, one of his curious fixations, pinned to the wall? Seems like a pretty good gig.
Finally, Jack finds some place to warm his hands, tucking one up the back of Robby’s shirt, and the other under the swell of his occipital bone. Robby groans into his mouth at the skin to skin touch, and then wedges his own hand between them so he can palm Jack’s bulge through his pants.
“God, Robby.” Jack’s head rolls back, thunking against the mirror. “If we don’t get upstairs we’re gonna have to do this on a lot worse a surface than a fucking futon…”
Robby eases up on him, instead grasping the bottom edge of Jack’s tee shirt and using it to pull him away from the wall. “C’mon, then. Let’s upgrade.”
Up the stairs they go again, past all of Robby's keepsakes. This time Jack is laser focused on only one fascinating thing. He watches Robby from behind as he pulls off his shirt. No sneaky tattoos that Jack wasn’t aware of there, but there are several moles he and his tongue will need to take a closer look at when he gets a chance. Can’t leave a job like that to the idiots in derm. To be a good guest, Jack follows Robby’s example, tossing his shirt aside too.
As soon as they’ve cleared the stairs they’re arm in arm again and kissing, hands swarming on bare skin. Jack lets Robby lead him in a sort of slow spinning step through the dark of the upper hall, into his bedroom. It’s not a true dance, but Jack can almost hear music. It’s something like a dream then, when Robby breaks away and makes it real by docking his phone on a speaker.
Jack sits on the foot of the bed and raises an eyebrow in response to the sensuous effect of some brassy, bassy jazz. “Do you have a sex playlist?”
“This is the Jaco Pastorius birthday concert,” Robby corrects him with a scoff. “I would never leave an occasion as important as your birthday to random chance.”
“The date of which you only just learned today. Okay,” Jack snorts. He starts with his various unfastenings while Robby makes adjustments to the room. “Any chance you have crutches hanging around?”
“I should have some in the closet. I hope... If I have to go to the basement to look for ‘em, you might lock me down there and claim squatter’s rights.”
No need for that. Just as soon as Robby pokes his head in, he finds them and passes them to Jack. He situates them on one side of the bed with his prosthetic and shoe.
“Great. A washcloth or something would probably be handy, unless you really want me to mark my territory on these.”
“Coming right up.” Robby nods. He flips on a lamp as he circles back around the bed. Frowns. Flips the lamp back off, and draws back the curtain on the window for the ambient light instead. “D’you like candles?”
Jack smirks at him. “How else are we gonna do a ritual sacrifice?”
“So many people these days neglect the fundamentals. Look where that’s got us.”
“The gig economy?”
“Gamification!”
“Selfies…”
Jack could keep going like this for a fucking while. Not that he’s getting old or anything.
Robby shudders like he’s also reminded of their impending mortality. “Did you get stuck with that guy who was goofing off with his phone and fell into the cacti at Chapon’s?” he asks.
“Yeah, until I got sucked in for that MVA. Safety wanted to bet on how many spines we pulled out of him. Gave up after counting four hundred.”
“Yeesh.”
While Robby steps out for a moment to grab some wipes, Jack fishes out a few books lost amongst the pillows. Nice to know he’s been deemed equally worthy to take to bed as Oxford’s English.
Robby returns with a clap of his hands. “Now, without any further ado…”
“Man, take your pants off already.”
“…My thoughts exactly.”
Jack lays back so he can shove down his shorts and briefs in the middle of the bed, and by the time he’s free, Robby is naked on top of him. They lick their way into each other’s mouths again and roll around together, getting a sense of where they line up. They find where it feels best to tangle their legs, and how hard they can grind their sensitive parts into each other’s flesh. Of course Robby is weightier and firmer and hairier than he’s used to his partner being, but it surprises Jack how much that doesn’t surprise him. They already spend so much time navigating close quarters together, slinging other people’s bodies around, after all. This is way fucking better than being with a stranger- being with someone he knows on some physical level. After all the mindfucks he’s been through, he likes something he can predict. Well. Mostly. The new factor of Robby’s dick hardening, lengthening, prying between his thighs packs more of a punch than he was prepared for. Jack can’t help but whimper with want. When in his life has he ever done that before?
Robby chuckles at his cheek. “Any requests for the DJ?”
“Shit...” Jack licks his bottom lip, swollen from so much attention. He’s nothing but hot blood, a liquid taking the shape of its container, which at this moment is Robby’s arms. It feels like if he lost his grip on Robby’s shoulders he might soak right through the bed like a sponge. “Whatever… Whatever you want…” Jack breathes. “You could play the whole catalog.”
“Sounds good. Sounds really good when you gasp like that,” Robby rumbles, low and gravely.
With that, Robby drags his bearded mouth down Jack’s neck to his chest, then his belly. His long fingered hands glide down Jack’s flanks and thighs, then wrap around his knees and spread them apart so he can settle between them. He kisses him just below the navel where his breath rises and falls the fastest, then follows the trail of scrubby hair down to the root of him.
“Fuck, Robby,” Jack puffs when he takes his dick into his mouth.
Having lost hold of his lifeline, he squirms helplessly. Maybe it was foolish, but Jack expected more trial and error, considering Robby’s lack of a past. Not the perfect tension of his lips and fingers, sliding down him. Not the way he involves his tongue, without hesitation.
“Is it just that it’s been forever for me? Or are you a liar, and you’ve done a fucking fellowship in fellatio…”
Robby hums a laugh on him. It must be difficult for him of all people to not get a word in as rapidly as he likes. He gives Jack a good pump with both hand and mouth before popping off. “I’m just the dog that caught the car,” he says. “Though I guess it helps I’ve been the car before...”
“Nah,” Jack shakes his head as Robby sinks his hot mouth down on him again. “This is probably just another thing you’re- ah- freakishly good at. Ha. Jeeesus fuck. Like that... just like that…”
A particularly well timed suck makes Jack’s toes curl. He hooks his legs around Robby’s back for a moment before thinking better of it.
“Sorry…”
This has gotta be new enough for Robby without the oddity of his-
“Mmn.” Robby backs off of him just long enough to kiss his thigh in reassurance. “Don’t be sorry. Relax.”
Jack hooks his legs again and draws a sharp inhale as Robby gets into a groove. He finds a sustainable pace, squeezing up and sucking down and humming the occasional laugh at Jack as he writhes. When he’s confident with his oral technique, Robby adds some flourish in the form of an expertly informed finger, curled inside him. It’s so fucking good, and Jack’s getting close, but he doesn’t want to just blow his load and be on his way like with the other guys. He wants to go further. He doesn’t want it quick or quiet this time, or he wouldn’t have picked Robby. This could be so much better because it’s not so one sided. When’s he gonna get another chance like this? Never.
“God. Okay. Got a request.”
“Mmm?”
“Look at me?” he asks.
Robby’s deep dark eyes turn to peer up at him with a smug crinkle.
“Yeah,” Jack grins at him. “Hhff. Doing so good, you fuckin’ show off… but let’s pump the breaks.”
Robby stops bobbing his mouth and fist, but keeps his one finger where it is. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Not a reflection on your performance. Just thinking I’d rather be kissing you than coming down your throat.”
“That’s cute,” says Robby, scrunching his nose at Jack.
“Get up here.”
Robby climbs back up the bed on all fours, as commanded. His hard length is wet at the tip when it drags along Jack’s thigh. He scoops an arm under and around him again, and then sighs wearily as they relax into a slow paced kiss.
Jack can’t help a chuckle. “Harder work than it looks like, huh?”
“Mmhm,” Robby agrees. His lips are more sluggish after all that, but so soft and tempting. Jack can’t stop nibbling at him. “Guess that’s- mmm- why they don’t call it a blow vacation...”
“Hah. Ahh. Mmmn…”
After a while of making out, Robby blindly reaches an arm up to the headboard. When he finds what he’s looking for he tilts them on to their sides and pulls Jack’s knee over his hip, spreading his ass a bit. “Want me to keep going?”
“You fuckin’ better.”
He offers his palm for Robby to spill some lube into, so he doesn’t have to extricate his other arm. Whatever doesn’t end up stuffed inside of Jack a moment later ends up slathered to Robby’s neck as he hangs on.
“Don’t stop,” Jack gulps as he fingers him open. The stretch is fine, it’s necessary- “Just. Try not to- uhnfuck- do that.”
Robby laughs himself silly, because apparently there’s nothing funnier to him than Jack losing his cool. Still, he stops targeting his prostate. “What’re you afraid of?” he coos to Jack. “Having too good a time?”
Oh, so he’s just gonna target his brain instead.
“You asshole.” Jack slides his hand down to find Robby’s dick. “What if I try to make you come before you can get around to actually fucking me, huh?”
“Hhh.” Robby huffs at his stroking. “I still get to come all over your rockin’ bod? Not seeing the problem. Mmm.”
Jack knocks his skull into Robby’s like making their brains touch could make him understand. Unfortunately he’s going to have to use his words.
“Haven’t had sex in like, two and a half years, man, and I’ve barely even had the heart to jack off, so it’d be really great if it lasted more than a minute just in case I gotta make this last basically until I die.”
Robby snorts. “Oh buddy, don’t worry about that, I’d do this again in a heartbeat.”
“Oh.”
Jack had not considered that as a possibility.
“Yeah. So stop worrying at every step of the way if you’re enjoying this right, and just enjoy it.”
“Slow, though,” Jack says.
“All right, all right.” Robby grins and leans into a kiss. “Just keep me posted if you change your mind," he says.
“This good for you too?” Jack squeezes him up and down, nice and easy.
“It’s gorgeous,” Robby purrs at him. “You’re gorgeous. And it’s gonna be gorgeous fucking you…so…slowly.”
Truthfully, Robby is better at slow than Jack is. Add it to the Dr. Perfect list. Whatever. It’s good incentive for Jack not to fall prey to his own desperation. He doesn’t want to rush what Robby is obviously enjoying by begging for him to hurry up. He doesn’t want to do this like he’s just getting it over with. He wants to try and trust that something good can happen to him for once. He already knows that Robby is a man of his word. So just trust it. Just let him do what he so clearly wants to do.
When Robby is satisfied with his preparations he gets a condom and lays back to roll it on. “Okay, who what where when how are doing this?” he asks.
“I mean, this looks pretty fucking good,” Jack says, already creeping over to better appreciate the view.
Robby’s eyebrows peak in delight. “Oh yeah?”
“Spent a decent chunk of time in this bed underneath you, time to get another angle,” Jack reasons. He straddles a leg over him and leans forward so Robby can line himself up.
“From the pit to the balcony seats, right on...” Robby guides the blunt head of his dick to Jack’s hole with one hand and holds him by the small of his back with the other. “You ready, buddy?”
“Yeah.”
Jack breathes out and lets himself relax, lowering his body a bit as Robby moves to meet him. The push together is only a matter of an inch or so at first, but the relief of it finally happening feels like it travels miles, shooting off down every tiny nerve fiber. Jack’s seat on Robby rises and falls with his sigh as they merge, little by little.
“There we go.” Robby’s holds fast to Jack’s hips as he calibrates his own. “Want me to start moving?” he asks quietly. “Or you want me to go all the way…”
“Fuck.” Jack has to squeeze his eyes shut to think. He can’t use this many senses at full capacity right now or he’s gonna have an aneurysm. “Move a little… until you can go all the way.”
“Got it. Yeah. That works.” Robby keeps it shallow, just the head of him in and out, but he kicks into gear. “That really fucking works… You feel so fucking good, Jack.”
Jack breathes through the ache and tries to focus on the music for a minute until he levels out enough to find his own rhythm. As they get going, Robby swarms his hands up and all over his body. He makes use of enough adoring adjectives about it to make the dictionary Jack evicted from the pillows deeply jealous. Sorry, not sorry, Oxford. The next thing he knows, Robby has bottomed out and Jack’s looking down at him, his hands clasped where Robby’s ribs and muscles meet in a surprisingly defined serration.
“Do you swim for exercise?" Jack asks, gripping his fingers into Robby’s sides. He’s starting to glitter with sweat and it’s fucking stunning, smearing under his touch.
Robby laughs in surprise. “…Are you stalking me?”
“Maybe,” Jack smirks. “Or maybe I just know more about bodybuilding than you do.”
“Since you’re so sure I know everything about everything,” Robby teases, “-I’ll assume stalking. Thank you, I’m very flattered.”
“Better be. It’s a real time suck.”
Robby smolders up at Jack with those deep dark eyes as he rolls his hips. “Now I know you’re watchin’ me- hhf- gonna have a hard time keeping it decent in the locker room…”
Jack knows he means at the gym, but he has a flash of a thought- the kind of insane thought you’d be bound to have if your long time coworker was suddenly balls deep inside you not three hours after a shift- them fucking at PTMC, rattling the lockers louder than the evac alarm.
“Nnnfuck… If we’re gonna do this again-”
“Can’t at the hospital,” Robby nods, understanding perfectly. “But that’s just one- mmgff- measly building in the whole wide world!”
Jack might have to shut his eyes again. “If you’re gonna grin like that right now…I’m gonna need you never to smile at work ever again.”
Robby slaps one hand over his mouth and leaves it there even as they keep at it. His muffled moans are kind of spectacular, but c’mon.
“…You’re gonna be a problem, aren’t you?”
He nods slowly, eyes crinkling all the more.
You know what? Maybe this is the perfect kind of problem for Jack to obsess over for a while. Shelve some of the old ones. They’re never going to get solved anyway. God knows Jack’s been needing an attitude adjustment. He’d been thinking he might try therapy again, but maybe having a reckless workplace affair is a better pick-me-up. More rapidly effective, for sure.
“Fuck it.” Jack stops and peels Robby’s hand away from his face. He likes looking at it too much. And kissing it. “Mind if we flip over?”
Robby pats a hand on his thigh. “Too tired to keep ridin’, huh cowboy?”
Jack rolls his eyes and slumps off of him as dramatically as he is capable of. If they’re gonna make this a regular thing he’s gotta set the record straight.
“Tulsa’s huge, man,” he sighs up to the ceiling. “Statistically almost nobody from there is a cowboy, and if they were, they wouldn’t call themself that.”
Robby chuckles as he climbs back over him. “Right, that’s where I come in,” he says and drops a kiss on his lips.
“Only one place I’m interested in you coming in,” Jack frowns.
“Oh yeah?” Robby rumbles. He finds Jack’s knees on either side of him and guides them into position. “Back in the saddle then.”
To show his annoyance, Jack throws his arms around Robby and drags him down into a Fuck Me Or Else kiss. Of course Robby kindly obliges.
This round is not as leisurely as the first. They rock and buck together in hurried bursts, slowing only to laugh and catch their breath for more. It’s hot and frenzied in the way reunion sex is usually hot- everyone’s getting off on the combination of novelty and the familiar. It’s hard for Jack to justify the wave of emotion that accompanies his orgasm without the comparison. He hasn’t felt anything approaching a kind of gratitude to be alive in years until he was here, damp, fragrant, and rubbed raw by Robby’s beard, fully aware that he can’t shower, but somehow feeling… refreshed?
No, it’s even better than that. He feels like a fucking cherry tree.
When Robby has his wits back and has cleaned up, he collapses next to Jack once again. “Well! Happy birthday to you,” he hums.
Jack looks at Robby, looking at him like he’s something to be celebrated. Something unbroken. His throat prickles in a way he thought it couldn’t anymore, after being all used up.
“Thanks,” he sniffs. “I, uh, I think I got what I needed. Thank you.”
Robby smiles a little deeper. “Yeah, of course… You wanna wind down for a bit and then try to sleep here?” he asks. “I don’t think either of us is used to it, but hey. You can always banish me to the futon if you can’t stand me elbowing you in the kidneys.”
“I dunno,” Jack says, already holding out an arm in invitation. “Turn around and show me what kind of blunt force trauma I’m up against.”
Despite his doubts he can make it through the night, Jack really does try. He holds Robby long enough that he falls asleep still tucked under his arm. Jack even manages to be entranced by the slight swinging movements of the hanging plants and the hum of the heat vent, himself. He probably knocks out for an hour or two before he wakes again. His bladder has something to say about the amount of booze and post coital thirst slaking that happened tonight, but that’s not the worst of it.
It’s the sheer panic, ice cold in his veins. It’s his heart pounding so hard, his hands shaking so bad that he struggles to find Robby’s radial pulse to check that he’s still alive. It’s remembering that night when he finally couldn’t find Sofie’s, and all the times before that when she woke up first, crying in pain and wishing she hadn’t woken up at all. It’s having to shove that all down, down someplace unnoticeable so that he doesn’t scare the shit out of Robby. He’s bleary eyed and more breakable than he knows. Protecting him from hurt like Jack wants to may mean having to leave him unguarded.
“Mmmwhat’d I do…did I snore?” he wonders, when he should be more worried about the vise of Jack’s grip on his wrist.
Let go, let go, let him go and get away.
“Nothing, babe, nothing.” Jack shoves himself clear across the bed. Before he can be sweet talked into staying, he starts socking up for his prosthetic. “I’ve gotta go. I need a few more solid hours. A workout. A shower.”
“M’kay. That’s okay…” Robby rubs his face and stretches his limbs and then sits up so he can get out of bed. “Let me get your stuff from downstairs, at least.”
“Yeah, I think pants would be a good idea this time.” The chuckle Jack forces is a little strangled, but he manages to steady his breathing by the time Robby comes back.
He lays Jack’s things down on the bed, then comes and kneels up on the edge, across Jack’s lap. He kisses him goodbye, tired and tender, allowing Jack to twist them and lay him down in the bed again. Even as worn as he is, Robby catches hold of his arm before he lets sleep take him back.
“You’re okay, right?”
“Yeah. I'll see you in a few.”
“Good.”
As Jack slips away, his thumb brushes at Robby’s wrist one more time. “I wanna see where this is going. So…do me a favor and don’t die any time soon,” he says, as lightly as he doesn’t feel about it.
“Ha.” Robby shuts his eyes with a smile and settles down into his pillow. “Don't worry," he says. "M'not planning on it...”
