A necessary argument

[jackabbot]

Jack was, to put it mildly, cranky. He was probably beyond cranky and into the state that he’d only seen very small children achieve. He, unfortunately, was not allowed to sit down where he was and refuse to move from that spot while also screaming. He had to continue behaving like a mature adult with an advanced degree and a position of responsibility.

He’d just finished working a double because on top of the usual holiday-related scheduling craziness, people also got sick or injured, which meant they couldn’t work and thus Jack got to work twenty-four hours in a row. Robby might have taken the shift for him, but Jack didn’t ask because Robby essentially wasn’t talking to him for reasons he refused to explain or even acknowledge. More importantly, he was pretty sure Robby had already worked his legally allowed hours this week. Jack hadn’t. Well, now he had. He’d also spent entirely too much time pulling Christmas decorations out of places they should not be.

So he was bone-deep tired and annoyed at humanity, his leg hurt like hell and might be starting a pressure sore, his best friend wasn’t talking to him, and to top it all off, it was his fiftieth birthday. He generally viewed birthdays as proof he’d survived another year and that all the various things in his life that might have killed him hadn’t managed it. He didn’t celebrate birthdays, exactly, but he respected them.

He was not feeling respectful right now. He was feeling like finding the nearest bar and drowning his entire existence in bad beer. He was feeling like going and buying a pack of cigarettes, even though he’d given them up at Landstuhl, mostly because they’d suggested a nicotine cessation plan at just the right moment. He was feeling like being anywhere but here, if that was possible, which it wasn’t because Darrow didn’t work like that.

So, yeah, he was cranky. He stopped in front of his door to fish out his keys, then hissed as his lower back cramped. He breathed through it, but it didn’t help his mood at all. As soon as he got inside, he was taking the damn prosthetic off and then calling for some Thai delivery because he did not feel like cooking.

Comments

[physicianheal]

Robby huffs a laugh at that, going back to his food, Jack's leg still in his lap. What passes for his bedroom in Jack's apartment is the walk in closet and it doesn't have much in the way of sound proofing. Still, he thinks he'll be pretty glad to lie there and listen to Jack snore.

"It's okay, you know," he says. "If we never come back to this. I'll figure it out."

[jackabbot]

"We'll come back to it," Jack said firmly, because Robby had been brave enough and honest enough to say something that was vulnerable, and he deserved for Jack to not just say "Noted" and move on.

He ate a few more bites of his shrimp pad thai and then grabbed a chicken satay skewer and dunked the end in the peanut sauce.

"Thank you for this, by the way. The last thing I wanted to do after that double was cook, and of course you knew that."

Robby had been able to predict that Jack would have chosen the Thai place and ordered what he knew Jack would want because Robby knew Jack better than literally anyone else on the planet.

[physicianheal]

"I did know that," says Robby drily, with a nod. He's been there himself, too many times. He takes another swallow of the open beer, another couple of bites of his food. "And you are welcome. It's my pleasure."

He can ignore, he thinks, the way it feels to look at Jack after his revelation. He can just sink into how comfortable it feels to be close.

"I really wasn't going to miss your birthday. Especially now we're in the same decade again."

[jackabbot]

"If you're trying to give me shit about being old, it ain't gonna work," Jack pointed out, although he didn't really think that was what Robby was trying to do. "Too many times when I didn't even know if I was gonna get one hour older to be worried about a new decade."

The most obvious of those times was still laying across Robby's lap, but there had been more, times when his entire unit had been pinned down with no certainty of extraction or even artillery support. He still had nightmares about some of those times and he probably always would, according to his therapist.

[physicianheal]

"I would never," says Robby, and means it. While he's spent time in warzones with DWB, he's never been in combat the way Jack has, and he knows the kind of doctor that it's made him. He's watched Jack do complicated things he'd only ever seen in med school as casually as he would knot shoelaces and known, without a shadow of a doubt, that it's something he learned to do in the dark, under fire.

"Anyway, older looks better on you that it does on me." He gestures to the grey in Jack's hair, and then scratches his nails through the grey in his beard.

Most days, all he feels is tired.

[jackabbot]

“Don’t sell yourself short, man,” Jack teased, pointing his satay stick for emphasis. “I’ve heard the staff talking about that distinguished look you’ve got going on there.”

Jack heard more than people thought, probably because he could walk and stand very quietly if he needed to do that. Robby nearly always knew Jack was behind him, but most other people didn’t. If Jack did manage to sneak up on Robby, it always made him a little smug.

[physicianheal]

"Distinguished? Nobody in that Department has referred to me as distinguished, and you know it. You're full of shit, man," says Robby, picking up his fork again and going back to his food with a roll of his eyes. God, he's missed this -- this easy closeness. He doesn't feel this still with anyone else.

[jackabbot]

“So the LPNs who were talking about which doc they wouldn’t kick out of bed for eating crackers definitely didn’t say Robby? Huh. Must’ve hallucinated it,” he replied, because they definitely had mentioned Robby. Also Jack, but he wasn’t gonna blush about it. Robby had never stopped blushing when anyone said anything nice about him, not since he was in his twenties.

“Gotta talk my doc about those rare side effects.”

[physicianheal]

"You definitely should," says Robby, cheeks flushed pink, resolutely concentrating on the food in front of him. It's not that he doesn't believe Jack -- he does. He just prefers nurses who've got other things to worry about, like Princess and Perlah.

"Glad you're not my patient," he says, ignoring Jack's leg still in his lap as evidence to the contrary.

[jackabbot]

“Fuck you, I am a delight,” Jack replied. He was glad that they’d gotten through that argument and were back to giving each other shit at all times except during patient care (and sometimes even then, although not as much here).

“So what’d ya get me?” He motioned to the little stack of presents on the coffee table.

[physicianheal]

"You want me to bring them over?" asks Robby, glancing over at the gifts. There's an expensive massage gun, some heat pads and some pretty expensive sheets -- when he'd last done laundry in this building instead of in his own, he'd thrown some of Jack's stuff in, and noticed that he was still using the crappy sheets that came with the apartment. "Or do you want me to give you a hand over to the couch? If you're done eating."

[jackabbot]

He looked down at his plate, which he'd cleaned to the point of making someone's dead grandmother happy. He needed some food in his stomach to work with the beer and the drugs he was going to be taking, but he didn't want too much food either. He was definitely going to have leftovers, which was the best thing about this particular Thai place.

"I think I'm done. I'll put the leftovers away in a little while," he said. "If you could get my crutches I can get myself to the couch. Or I can put my prosthetic back on."

He actually could not do that right now, since his residual limb had expanded a little now that it was not trapped in his socket, but it was fun sometimes to wind Robby up.

[physicianheal]

Robby knows that Jack's just being an asshole, not that doesn't stop him shooting him a look as he gently shifts Jack's leg out of his lap and gets up to fetch his crutches from their usual spot.

"I'll do leftovers and dishes later," he says. Jack's already said he doesn't want him to go anywhere.

[jackabbot]

That was exactly the look he'd expected before Robby brought his crutches back to him. He got himself into them and pushed up from the chair. He'd switched to forearm crutches pretty much as soon as anyone had let him and he'd never go back to axillary crutches if he could avoid it. Those things were hell on the armpits.

"Thank you," he said sincerely. He was feeling better now that he'd had food, gotten off his leg, and wasn't arguing with Robby. He'd still let Robby take care of the leftovers and the dishes, though, if Robby was going to volunteer.

He went over to his spot on the couch and sat down, then looked at the presents.

"Is there one of these I should open first?"

[physicianheal]

"You're welcome," says Robby, turning away as Jack moves over towards the couch. He grabs the beers that he'd opened -- that he'd mostly drunk, so far -- and carries them over, setting them down on the table. "You want pain meds and water, or are you going to wait until you get into bed?" He pauses, aware that he's still in doctor mode, and that, ultimately, Jack knows what's best for him. Still. He perches on the arm of the sofa, shaking his head.

"Not really. They're all fairly self-explanatory." Maybe not the sheets, given the conversation that they've just had, but he'll offer clarity when he gets to it.

[jackabbot]

Robby accused Jack of being a mother hen, but he had his own tendencies to that. Fortunately, Jack didn't usually mind, and he especially didn't mind right now. Robby could mother hen him all he fucking wanted to if he'd keep talking to Jack about what was going on in his head.

"Water yes, drugs no. I've got about a thirty minute delay after I take the Vicodin before I pretty much fall over," he replied. He hadn't had to take his Vicodin around Robby in a long time, so Robby didn't know how fast Jack metabolized it these days. Jack did, though. He could practically set a timer on his watch for it.

He picked up the smallest package first and opened it up to find a portable massage gun.

"Oh, my therapist was just telling me I oughta get one of these. Wait, have you been violating HIPAA and talking to my providers?"

[physicianheal]

"Well, then, yeah, let's keep that until you're ready to sleep," he says, because the last thing he needs is to haul Jack's dead weight about the apartment. His back's a delicate thing at the best of times, these days. He does get up and head into the kitchen to grab Jack a water, though.

He snorts a laugh.

"I just have a sixth sense for these things," he says. "They're useful."

[jackabbot]

That actually reminded him that he needed to designate Robby as his medical POA as well as his next of kin. He'd put Robby's name down as his emergency contact when he'd started at DGH, but both of them knew the importance of having all the paperwork in place in case something happened.

"Fuck yeah, they are. I've threatened to steal the one from Dr. Green every other time, I think."

He opened the next package, which was a set of rechargeable, wireless, heating pads with Velcro so that the pad could be wrapped around an arm, leg, or back.

"Ooooh. What is this theme, Spoil Abbot for his Birthday?"

[physicianheal]

"Well, now you don't have to descend to petty theft." He sits down on the other end of the couch, body turned towards Jack's with one leg curled up on the cushion in front of him. He rolls one shoulder in a shrug. "Big birthday. Seemed only right to splash out a little."

[jackabbot]

"Using your doctor money to buy my affection," Jack tsk'ed lightly, as if there was any need to do that and as if Robby thought he did need to do that. Robby might not be sure what Jack thought about Robby's new or renewed interest, but Robby did know Jack loved him.

Jack wasn't sure what Jack thought about Robby's new or renewed interest. He made a mental note to mention it to Sam next time he saw him.

He opened the last package and raised both eyebrows at Robby.

"Uh, did you buy this before or after The Mistletoe Incident, as we might call it?"

[physicianheal]

"Using my doctor money to buy you shit you ought to have already used your doctor money to buy for yourself," he says, taking another sip of the beer. When Jack opens the last package and shoots him a look, he feels his face flush. He'd known that this was coming, but he still hadn't been entirely prepared for it.

"Before," he says. "Your sheets are shitty, man. I sleep in a closet when I'm here, and mine are better."

[jackabbot]

"How the fuck do you know ... wait, you threw my sheets in with yours a few times, right?" Jack said, answering his own question before he even finished asking it. He wasn't commenting on the blush. He never did. He did smirk, though. Fifty-three years old and Robby's skin betrayed him every fuckin time.

"And from that you apparently developed opinions on the quality of the linens this place supplies to their new residents."

Honestly, Robby wasn't wrong. They weren't good sheets. But Jack had always been good at sleeping wherever and whenever he needed to and he'd gotten used to it, so he just hadn't bothered. In some areas, he'd spend his doctor money on whatever he needed. In others, he didn't tend to.

[physicianheal]

"Leaving yours sitting there when I was doing mine just felt like kind of an asshole move," says Robby, as casually as he can manage, taking another sip of beer. "And I had opinions on the starter sheets already. I've been here longer than you. I just had more feelings about you still using them." He gestures with the bottle in his hand. "Now you don't have to."

[jackabbot]

The thing Jack had to remember, and honestly he knew he forgot it sometimes, was that Robby might not ever talk about any feeling he'd ever had, but he noticed shit and then Jack had extremely expensive sheets in his hand. They hadn't even come in a little plastic package. They were too fancy for plastic. They'd come in their own fabric pouch with buttons on it. He ran his fingers over the fabric and it was so incredibly soft. It was going to feel really good against a sore leg.

"Thanks, man. Seriously. I know you said you weren't going to let a new decade slide, but you could have just gotten me a gift card to the coffee place or the Thai place. Instead you got three things that you know will make my life better."

[physicianheal]

The thanks don't help Robby's blushes fade any. At home, he probably would have gotten Jack gift cards or something similar but, here, their lives are intertwined in a far more fundamental way. He remembers telling Frank Langdon he didn't have a best friend. Maybe he still doesn't. Maybe that doesn't even sum up everything Jack is, any question of attraction put to one side.

"Yeah, well," he says, somewhat gruffly. "You're welcome. And I'll do the dishes, but you're changing your own sheets."