jackabbot | A necessary argument

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robby

A necessary argument

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.

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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?"

"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."

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?"

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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.

"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."

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."

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."

"That is completely fair," Jack agreed. "You wouldn't do it right anyway."

Jack still tended to make his bed to the standards of his drill sergeants. It was just habit at this point, almost as ingrained as walking out of a treatment room and sanitizing his hands. Robby had never had drill sergeants, although they'd both had charge nurses who would have given any drill sergeant a run for his money.

He ran his fingers over the fabric of the sheets one more time and realized that if he didn't move now, he was going to fall asleep on his own couch. His belly was full, his leg was less unhappy, he'd had a few sips of beer, and he wasn't arguing with Robby. He was done.

"I would probably fuck up the corners," admits Robby. He studies Jack for a long moment, his eyes unreadable. "You need anything else, or should you just go to bed while I tidy the kitchen?" Robby's got no intention of going anywhere. There's still things that they need to sort out, but that'll come, when it comes. Until then, this will do. It'll more than do.

"I should go to bed," he agreed, because of course Robby had noticed that Jack was fading fast. He'd take a shower first, just to wash off the day and the hospital, but he could sit down for that too. Accessibility features were useful for a lot of things, including being really tired.

"If you don't hear the shower go off in fifteen minutes, knock on the door to make sure I didn't pass out against the wall."

He was mostly joking, but not entirely. He did take very fast showers most of the time, which was another habit he'd never broken.

"I can do that," says Robby, getting up and gathering up his mostly drink beer and the other one he'd opened. There's no way he's going to be able to sleep straight away, so he'll clean up and then read and drink the other beer or something before he goes to bed.

"You need anything bringing through?"

Jack pushed himself up from the couch and onto his crutches with a groan that Robby was almost certainly going to give him shit about. Jack was looking forward to it.

"Do you mind grabbing the bottle of Vicodin from the kitchen?"

Robby knew as well as Jack did that it was better to store drugs in a non-humid area, so Jack kept them in a cabinet in the kitchen. He also gave less than no fucks about Robby knowing exactly what medications he had been prescribed.

Setting the beers down on the counter, Robby goes straight to the cabinet that he knows Jack keeps his prescriptions in. He glances through the bottles until he finds the Vicodin and grabs it, pausing to also grab a water from the fridge.

"Nightstand, or..?"

"Yeah, thanks," Jack said as he crutched his way to the bathroom with a soft chorus of "fucks". Some parts of him were still angry, even if his brain and heart weren't.

"Are you on tomorrow? If you are, I won't be offended if you leave so you can get enough sleep over the snoring."

He had lost track of everyone's schedule at this point, but then he was pretty sure the scheduling team had lost track of everyone's schedule at this point and they were all just showing up and seeing what happened.

"I'm off tomorrow," says Robby as he walks into Jack's room and sets water and pills down on the nightstand on the side of the bed that he knows that Jack sleeps on. The double doors that had previously led to the walk in closet and now lead to his cell of a guest room are open, and he gently closes them before he moves back out into the apartment to put away left overs and do the dishes.

Even if he was working tomorrow, he's got no intention of going anywhere.;

"The good citizens of Darrow will have to survive without our expert care, then," Jack noted. He slipped his arms out of his crutches and braced one hand on the doorframe, then put the other out to stop Robby, who was clearly heading back towards the kitchen and dining room.

"Hey, c'mere," he said, and wrapped Robby in a hug. He could balance on one foot for a fucking long time if he needed to, but he was also not averse to using Robby as a little bit of support in the hug.

He hadn't really realised how much he needed it until it was happening, until Jack had wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in close. Instinctively, his arm goes around Jack's waist, supporting him as much as he's hugging him. He closes his eyes for a second. He knows he shouldn't linger, but he also suspects that Jack won't mind.

He'd hugged Robby sort of on impulse, but as soon as Robby almost melted into him, he knew it was the right decision. Jack leaned a little of his weight on Robby, but Robby also put an arm around Jack to help. There was a metaphor or something here and he wasn't going to mention it now. Instead he stood there, hugging Robby. Eventually one of them was going to have to move, but it wasn't going to be Jack unless he was at risk of falling asleep on Robby.

It takes real effort to break the hug, one hand cradling the back of Jack's skull for a moment before he lets him go.

"Happy birthday, Jack," he says, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I'll be here if you need me. Okay?"

Jack dropped his head to Robby's shoulder when he felt Robby cradle the back of his head. Robby had held countless babies just like this and Jack was pretty sure he felt as secure as the babies generally did. Eventually the hug had to end, and it did, but not before it definitely crossed the line from "hug" to "holding each other". Jack did not give one flying fuck and he didn't think Robby did either.

When it did end, he stepped back and borrowed the door frame again, then made sure he made eye contact with Robby in case Robby was going to get all shy again.

"You always are, brother," he said firmly, to make sure Robby understood Jack wasn't talking about just now.

He's used to Jack's eye contact and, for once, he didn't make him work for it. He nods, swallowing hard.

"I do my best, man," he says. That's all he can do.

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A necessary argument

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