Chapter Text
Jack cracks open a beer in Robby’s kitchen, the hiss and pop of the can loud in his ears.
Double IPA, brewed somewhere upstate near Lake Erie. Bold and bitter enough to bully his taste buds around, and high enough in alcohol content for a few of them to knock his socks clean off by nine PM. Perfect for a night like tonight.
Robby’s waiting for him in the living room, sprawled out on one side of his big, comfortable couch. Jack can hear the quiet drone of the television in the background, just commercials now, until the game really kicks off. Jack takes a long sip of ice cold beer and just listens to the sounds of Robby’s condo: television, the gentle thrum of electricity, the rattle of Robby’s fridge, and the distant sounds of neighbor’s voices muffled through the walls. It’s familiar, at this point. Homey. Not like Jack’s house, which is too quiet at the best of times and as still as a crypt at the worst.
Night time is the worst, for the quiet. It’s one of the reasons why Jack works nights. It’s why, on a night off, he’s here at Robby’s and not at home by himself.
Jack digs out a can of salsa from the fridge and gathers up a bag of corn chips, ready to head back into Robby’s living room, when Robby’s voice reaches him from the other room. Loud, but not quite a shout.
“Bring me a beer too, yeah?”
“Not your maid!” Jack shouts back, but he’s already opening the fridge and pulling out a can of one of Robby’s preferred beers, piling it into his arms with all the rest of his spoils, which have now become a careful balancing act.
The beer he grabs is something light and wheaty and mild, what he knows is Robby’s preferred poison. It’s a noted contrast to Jack’s near-constant desire for tastes that are sour and strong. Robby keeps his fridge stocked with both of their favorite beers. Ever since Jack’s wife died, there hasn’t been a time where Jack couldn’t waltz into Robby’s condo and grab himself something from the fridge to knock back, something perfectly suited to his tastes. The habit was likely born from the short time Jack holed up in Robby’s guest room, but it’s continued for years since, likely driven by Robby’s innate desire to provide for those around him. Jack can’t fault him, nor can he even make fun of him for it; while Jack doesn’t stock up on beer, Robby’s favorite whiskey sits pretty in Jack’s liquor cabinet, right next to two crystal glasses that Jack’s never used with anyone else.
“No, if you were my maid, you’d be much nicer to me,” Robby says, as Jack makes his way back into Robby’s living room, arms laden. Jack drops his spoils down on the coffee table, passes the beer over to Robby, and slumps down on his side of the couch with a sigh. In the background, it looks like the hockey game has started up, but Jack only pays it a shred of attention. He’s here for company, for Robby, more than anything else.
Jack smirks. “Yeah, because you’d have to pay people to be nice to you.”
Jack’s been crawling up the walls the past couple of weeks. Coming to Robby’s feels like a reset. Or a partial one, anyway. As close to it as Jack can get, these days. Even just relaxing next to Robby on the couch feels like a bite of pure relief.
“I pay my staff,” Robby says. “And they’re not nice to me at all.”
“PTMC payroll pays them,” Jack corrects.
Robby huffs and cracks open his own beer. Jack watches as he swallows down a few long gulps, eyes on the way Robby’s Adam's apple bobs with each swallow. His beard is getting long, which means he’s been extra stressed. When isn’t he, though? Ever since Jack met him, Robby’s always been packed to the gills with stress, with frustration, with carrying the weight of the world around him -- but these days, with every passing hour, the stress in Robby seems to build exponentially. Jack doesn’t know how to fix it, just like he doesn’t know how to fix his own emotional shit. But he does what he can. He tries to be there for his friend, even if it’s just adding another beating heart to his condo for a few hours before the man passes out from sheer exhaustion.
“Anyway,” Robby says.
“Did you have a point other than sharing the fact that you were imagining me in a maid outfit?” Jack asks with a wink.
Robby coughs. He glares at Jack.
“You were the one who brought it up.” Robby isn’t quite pouting, because he wouldn’t dare, but his ears have gone an annoyed red.
“Because you know I’d look good, brother,” Jack jokes. “Gotta keep reminding you of that, it’s why you keep me around.”
He raises his can toward Robby in a mock-cheers and then takes another long sip.
“I think if you were my maid, you’d leave my house worse than you found it,” Robby tells him with an easy roll of his eyes.
“But I'd look good doing it,” Jack says, continuing the easy line of the joke. Jack Abbot in a position of subservience? Laughable.
“Yeah, yeah,” Robby says, and Jack can tell that his heart isn’t exactly in the line of joking. His steam has worn out far quicker than usual.
They normally josh around like this, but normally Robby’s giving as good as he gets, and it’s no fun hitting a stationary target.
Jack settles into the couch, getting a little more comfortable, a little more casual.
“What’s up, brother?” Jack asks.
It’s a testament to how stretched-thin Robby is that he doesn’t even fight the question. On a normal day, they’d dance around it. Robby would say something like Why does something have to be up? and Jack would needle him for some time between fifteen minutes to two hours with increasingly thinning patience until Robby spilled his guts.
Instead, Robby just says, “I ran into Caleb today.”
This could mean one of a number of things. Jack knows that Caleb and Robby had a thing for a little while, something Robby and Jack don’t talk about for whatever fucking reason, despite the fact that Jack hears about all of Robby’s other hookups, his finger not quite firmly on the pulse of Robby’s ill advised situationships, as his younger residents might define them. Caleb is also a therapist, which Jack knows rubs Robby the wrong way on the best of days, and a conversation with that in the driver’s seat could have gone any number of ways. Their conversation could have had to do with a disagreement over a patient, too, but Jack doubts that’s the case, or Robby would have brought it up differently.
“Yeah?” Jack prompts, not wanting to push Robby in any one direction.
“One hour in the ED for a consult and he thinks he has me all figured out.”
“Wanna tell me about how wrong he was?”
He takes a lazy sip of his beer, eyes on Robby.
Robby sighs. Jack watches the way his shoulders loosen just a little bit at the prompt, how just bringing up how frustrated he is helps release the tension in him.
“He thinks I'm stressed.”
“Keen powers of deduction. No one suspected.”
“More so than normal,” Robby clarifies. “Which isn't—It's not wrong. It's been a hell of a week.”
Hell of a week, hell of a month, hell of a year. From everything Jack has seen, Robby’s stress levels have been climbing by the day. And while some days are better than others, Robby’s stress level never quite falls, never edging back down toward a middle ground or any point of stability. There's only so high Robby’s tension, his stress, can climb before he snaps. Jack’s seen it happen in countless others; he doesn’t need to see it in Robby, too. He’s well aware of the situation, he just doesn’t know what to do about it.
“He suggest some time off? Therapy?” Jack asks. He's been casually suggesting both of those things to Robby for pretty much the entirety of their friendship with absolutely zero progress made.
Robby laughs. Which… isn’t what Jack expected.
“Brother, you would not believe what he suggested.”
Now Jack’s curious. He looks at Robby, eyebrow raised. Questioning.
“He told me to go to a club. Or at the very least a Service Office,” Robby says.
Jack’s other eyebrow joins the first, both raised in surprise.
Robby’s right. In no universe would Jack have pulled that theory out of a hat, that's for certain.
“Really,” Jack says.
Robby shrugs. He’s doing that thing where he’s smiling, laughing, but all of him is tense, coiled up tight.
“He thinks this is all due to repressed instincts.”
Robby says it like it's a stupid theory. At first, Jack would have written it off immediately, too. But the more Jack thinks about it, the more it -- well. It could be plausible. It’s certainly worth giving some thought to. But he can’t give away his interest too fast; he knows Robby too well for that. So, for now, he plays along with Robby’s reticence.
“You're the Chief Attending,” Jack says. “You’re not exactly in a subservient position.”
“That's what I told him,” Robby answers. “Apparently overseeing an entire department, teaching, and supervising dozens of staff doesn’t count as service for dynamic needs.”
He scoffs, like the idea is preposterous.
“All I ever do is exist in a position of authority over others,” Robby says.
It could be preposterous, Jack acknowledges. Those activities, that position, could potentially fully meet someone’s dynamic needs -- but then again, it’s just as likely that they wouldn’t be any help at all, depending on an individual’s distinct requirements, their overall personality, and their dynamic strength. A real complex equation, which would probably be influenced by just how long they were hypothetically ignoring their needs, too. The longer dynamic needs are ignored, the harder they are to meet. That’s straight out of a textbook and they both know it.
“Yeah?” Jack prompts. “What do you think about that?”
“Careful, brother,” Robby says, “you sound like a shrink.”
His tone drops low like a warning and Jack ignores the prickle that slides down his spine in response. Robby’s dominance is strong enough that even the most stalwart of dominants find themselves deferring to him, especially when Robby squares his shoulders and actually decides to act every inch the dominant that he is. And Jack isn’t immune, either.
Instead, Jack just grins. Takes a sip of his beer. “I should have gone into psychiatry. Probably wouldn’t have lost the leg.”
Robby reaches over and shoves Jack’s shoulder like he always does when Jack brings up his service, the leg. The time before he ever met Robby. It’s a silent acknowledgement alongside a slightly less quiet reprimand, a reminder that he doesn’t love Jack joking about his missing limb, the war, his trauma, no matter how much he understands why Jack does it in the first place.
Then, Robby leans back against the couch and sighs. He falls quiet for a moment, before speaking again: “I think it’s a stupid theory. It’s just stress, not repression. I need a vacation, that's all.”
He probably could do with a vacation. They both could. But even Jack knows that’s not going to fix whatever is wrong with Robby, as much as he would love for that to be the answer.
“It could make some amount of sense,” Jack says slowly, carefully.
After all, while Robby does supervise an entire department, he also stretches himself real thin. There’s no way he can focus his energy on one person, much less everyone, which means that while he might be scratching that itch for others with a few words of praise or a firm hand on the shoulder, he’s too detached, too clinical, to get anything out of it himself. It’s a job duty, a responsibility, not an inherent act of his dynamic. And that’s completely ignoring the entire lack of intimacy of each and every interaction Robby has with others -- including with his ill-advised workplace hookups -- the personal connection just isn’t there, not in the way that Robby clearly needs to actually let loose to relieve some of that pent up tension..
If Jack thinks about it, last he saw Robby even-keeled and likely meeting his dynamic needs was… years ago, probably. Back when Robby and Janey were still a thing. The man buries himself in his work and avoids intimacy like the plague and he has for years. The closest he ever gets to sharing an intimate moment with anyone these days is falling asleep on Jack’s couch, or Jack falling asleep on his.
It doesn’t help that Jack’s never seen the man proud of his dynamic in the first place. Robby easily supervises a department without complaint, he excels at taking medical students and residents under his wing, and he dolls out warranted praise like it’s the most natural thing in the world -- but Robby never struts his stuff like some dominants; he never leans into it. If anything, he leans away: his supervision, his shepherding, his praise -- all of it is strictly professional, shying away from any kind of dynamic edge. Jack’s never asked him about it, but then again, he’s never thought much about Robby’s relationship with his dynamic either. Not until now, when there’s nothing to be done other than put it under a microscope.
And now that Jack’s looking, it’s clear as day: Robby has been ignoring his needs. Obviously so. The state of things is glaringly evident now that Jack views the situation head on, eyes wide open.
“What do you think, brother,” Jack asks. “You think he could be onto something?”
Robby does that thing where he huffs and very decisively doesn’t look at Jack, refusing to make any sort of eye contact. But Jack is patient. Jack squares his shoulders, sets his jaw, and stares at Robby until Robby eventually folds and looks at him. Jack’s had a lot of practice with that one.
“I'm not going to a club. And I'm not going to an office,” is all that Robby says.
Which means that he agrees. That he’s given Caleb’s assessment some thought and consideration, and he’s come to the conclusion that Caleb is right. Or at least that there’s a world in which his theory holds some kernel of truth.
Jack figured he’d have to fight a little harder on this, do a little cajoling to try and test the waters a little bit. But maybe Robby is just as tired as he looks. Or maybe, deep down, Robby knows exactly what it is that he’s been lacking for so long that it’s eating him up inside.
Frankly, Jack would love it if Caleb were right. It would be the easiest, simplest solution for Robby’s stress levels. Even if actually expressing some of his dynamic needs didn’t fully fix him, it could help. And anything, at this point, would be better than nothing.
“So, don’t go to a club. Or an office,” Jack says. “Find a steady hookup or something.”
“And how do you suggest I do that?” Robby asks.
“An app.” Jack shrugs. “I hear they’re all the rage these days.”
Robby makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat and finishes his beer. He sets the can down on the table just a little too loud and Jack levels him with a look.
“OK. How do you do it, then?” Robby asks.
The thing is, Jack’s never had a problem with scratching a dynamic itch. It helps that he’s never really… had much of one in the first place. He’s a good leader, a good dominant. He knows exactly how to command troops -- or staff, now -- he knows how to assess a situation to provide the best outcomes for all involved, and he knows how to doll out praise in a way that best fits with whoever is the recipient of that praise. And that’s just scratching the surface of it; Jack is an exemplary dominant on paper and in practice. It’s just that he’s never felt the lack that everyone describes, that itch for more when his dynamic hasn’t had a chance to shine. He knows it happens to others, it just doesn’t happen to him. Maybe he’s kind of broken, but does it matter, if it’s not affecting his daily life?
Sure, he gets stressed at work, wound up tighter than any coiled spring, but that has nothing to do with his dynamic. He’d know -- he’s tried to scratch that itch whenever the stress gets to be too much, and it doesn’t do much of anything for him. He’s tried just getting laid or having a scene or both. Nada. So, he just goes to good old fashioned therapy instead. And, when that doesn’t work, he picks up too many hobbies to count, keeping himself too busy to feel much of anything at all.
“I make do,” Jack says.
“Real insightful, thanks, man,” Robby snarks.
“You against an app?” Jack asks.
“It’s impersonal. It’s faceless. It feels like cheating.”
Jack thinks about it. He can see where Robby’s distaste comes from. Despite the fact that Robby has some of the biggest hangups with intimacy Jack’s ever had the pleasure of witnessing, the man craves connection, a regular serial monogamist -- but then he hits the bricks the second things get real, the second someone actually gets close enough to see him. Honestly, an app might be helpful for someone like him, to aid in forging a connection before the pressure of physical connection even happened. But, just like everyone else in the ED, Robby’s also busy. He doesn’t have the time to nurture a connection with a stranger like that. He’d forget to reply, or plain and simple just not have a chance to, and leave his conversational partner high and dry. Throw in trying to find someone to meet dynamic needs and not just a hookup, and it’s a recipe for abject disaster.
“I can see that,” Jack agrees. “So, maybe not an app.”
Jack finishes his beer, then gets up and meanders to the kitchen to grab both of them another drink, thinking as he goes.
If Robby is against apps and clubs and Service Offices, the best option would be finding an already known acquaintance, someone Robby both doesn’t have to get to know and someone he already trusts. Robby doesn’t keep too many friends outside of the hospital, but there are countless coworkers who would be champing at the bit to start up such a relationship with Robby, however transactional -- except Robby’s already slept with most of them. And while many might be rearing to go for a repeat performance, Robby would likely write that option off before Jack could even get the suggestion out of his mouth.
Robby has a few closer friends down in the Pitt itself, but that solution is more difficult, more complicated. Starting up a situationship with a direct coworker has the potential to get messy; Jack knows from experience, as Robby has occasionally -- and unwisely -- let his flings happen three feet from where he works. Definitely not in the cards.
Robby's kitchen is so intimately familiar around him. It smells like Like lemon soap. Like coffee. A little bit like home, given the sheer amount of time Jack spends here.
The beers are cold in his hands.
There’s really only one option Jack can think of. And it’s simple enough.
Jack walks back into the living room and sits back down on the couch. He passes Robby a can, pops open his own, and takes a long sip of bitter liquid, feeling the way the cold travels down his throat. Then, he swivels on his seat, tucks his flesh leg up underneath him, and turns to face Robby on the couch.
“So, you let me do it,” Jack says simply.
“I’m not sure I follow,” Robby says. “You’re going to find me someone?”
Jack shakes his head. “Nope. You need a submissive; I can be your submissive. Easy enough.”
Robby’s answering facial expression immediately tells Jack that he doesn’t believe it is easy at all.
“Jack, that’s ridiculous. You’re a dominant.”
Jack just shrugs. “And?”
“That’s just not—that’s not the way it works. You can’t just submit to me.”
Robby’s tone is incredulous. His beer sits unopened and forgotten in his hand. Jack sets down his own can, reaches over, grabs and opens Robby’s, and then presses it back into his open hand.
“Brother, I spent years in the Army being told what to do. You think I can’t follow orders?”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it? Besides, you tell me what to do at work all the time.”
“And half the time you don’t even do it! Jack, come on. This is absurd.”
For someone else, maybe it would be -- there are plenty of dominants out there whose entire self worth is tied up with their dynamic, some sort of complicated Gordian knot, but Jack isn’t one of them. He’s never felt all that much of a connection to his own dynamic; it was just another box to check off, an obvious and foregone conclusion. Privately, Jack’s always assumed he’s fallen on the lower end of the dynamic scale. A dominant, sure, but barely. He doesn’t really need it, doesn’t hear the call of it in his bones; it’s a part of him, sure, but not something that defines him, nothing that shapes who he is as a person, fundamentally.
This is just a favor. Even if he did care about his dynamic, going through the motions of submitting to a friend who needs it doesn’t say anything about him, other than illustrating Jack’s devotion to their friendship. Which is something Robby should already know by now.
“You think I couldn’t go down on my knees for you, man? That’s insulting.”
“Jack—”
“Actually,” Jack interrupts, “that’s ableist. This is workplace discrimination.”
Robby sighs exasperatedly. Through his teeth, he says, “We are not in the workplace.”
“OK, so, what’s your hesitation?” Jack asks. “Really, brother. Lay it on me.”
Another sigh. World-weary. Or perhaps just Jack-weary. Robby leans back on the couch and takes a long sip of his now-open drink. Jack watches him, eyes keen on Robby’s every movement, every micro-expression, assessing.
Finally, Robby seems to come to some sort of conclusion he can articulate, lips pursing tight before he starts talking.
“You wouldn’t enjoy it. Stop—” Robby says, throwing a hand up to shush Jack’s immediate protest, “let me finish. You’re a dominant. We both know that. You could go through the motions for me, as you said it’s easy enough, but it would be a chore. You’d hate it. Going against your dynamic is, at best, annoying, and at worst, causes undue stress that has the potential to lead to countless psychological conditions. You’ve seen the literature, man.”
“You think I couldn’t handle a little discomfort?” Jack asks, tone serious. “You think I wouldn’t do a chore for my best friend?”
He doesn’t think psychological ramifications are going to be a problem; this isn’t a case of a sex worker spending years working as the wrong dynamic in abysmal conditions. This isn’t someone being forced into an abusive relationship. This is friendship. This is helping someone he trusts with his entire life. This is a favor with an expiration date.
Jack thinks about all of the times he’s spotted a coworker, peer, or fellow soldier who needed a spot of dominance when Jack wasn’t particularly feeling like providing. Even when he wasn’t in the mood, it’s always been easy to offer up what they needed, even when he wasn’t getting much out of the deal. A hand on the back of their neck; a warm, praising tone coupled with a squeeze of their shoulder; hell, even talking someone down to their knees in the middle of a desert night after a fire fight. It can’t be all that different, at the end of the day.
“You’d do the same for me,” Jack says without a doubt, “if our positions were reversed.”
Robby swallows. His throat bobs. “I’d want to,” he says slowly. He sounds sorrowful. “I’m not sure I could.”
Which is… fair. Jack can’t actually imagine Robby submitting to anyone, even if he was just going through the motions, even if he was trying to do his best friend a favor. His dynamic is obviously strong, his instincts too ingrained. Maybe that’s where he and Robby differ. Maybe that’s why Robby has a problem and Jack doesn’t.
“OK, but I can,” Jack says. “I’m happy to, brother, if it means you might get some goddamn relief.”
Jack would do literally anything in his power to make Robby’s life better, to give him some well-deserved peace.
But Robby, who is looking at Jack with something akin to abject horror, still looks far too skeptical at Jack’s skills. At the feasibility of this plan.
Jack’s pretty sure it would work. Ninety percent. Maybe seventy-five. But what’s there to lose, really? If it doesn’t do anything for Robby, if it leaves him still wanting, they’ll just pack it up, call the failed experiment a wash, and laugh about it for the rest of their lives. There’s nothing, Jack figures, that could destroy their friendship at this point. They’ve been through far too much together.
“Or are you just too chicken shit to dom me?” Jack smirks.
At that, Robby almost startles. He isn’t a person to startle easily, but he also clearly wasn’t expecting Jack to taunt him quite like that. Robby’s eyebrows go up, surprise clearly written on his face, in the wrinkles Jack’s watched develop over the years they’ve known each other. Robby isn’t smiling, but he isn’t frowning, either. He looks caught off guard, off balance.
Jack grins. It feels a little bit like he just won something.
“Wow,” Robby says slowly. “You auditioning for the role of brat now, too?”
“Let’s not complicate things,” Jack says. “We start simple, work up to things like brat.”
“Jack.”
Jack takes a long sip of his beer. “Yeah, brother?”
“Come on, man. You really can’t be fucking serious about this.”
The thing is, Jack is serious. Deadly so. He’s always serious when it comes to Robby, to offering up something that might help his friend. This isn’t something he’d joke about, and Robby must know that. At this point in their friendship, he’s got to have Jack’s measure by now.
“Mike,” Jack says. “I think Caleb’s onto something. You ignore your dynamic needs for long enough and your head’s gonna go topsy-turvy. You’ve been letting this go for way too long and it’s eating at you. Let me help you.”
He watches as Robby swallows, as Robby’s eyes dart across Jack’s face, searching, trying to find something that isn’t there.
“You realize what you’re offering, right?” Robby asks. He sounds like he’s hedging.
“Are you worried this is going to be awkward?” Jack asks.
The expression that crosses Robby’s face tells Jack that he nailed it in one. Or has at least gotten to the bottom of one of Robby’s hangups, because there are surely more.
“Of course I am,” Robby says after a beat. “It wouldn’t exactly be our typical game night.” He nods at the television, where the forgotten hockey game plays on.
“Just a different kind of game,” Jack says with an easy shrug. “Besides, who says we can’t still watch whatever’s on?”
He imagines sitting on the floor instead. Maybe kneeling, maybe just sitting. Robby’s hand in his hair, the game still playing on in the background. Taking Robby’s direction when needed, maybe getting him another drink or maybe resting his head against Robby’s knee. It wouldn’t be all that different, would it?
“Come on, man. You’re being way too chill about this.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like it’s all that much of an ask. Unless you’re into some real freaky shit. Are you? You seem boring, but feel free to prove me wrong.”
Robby huffs. He reaches out and shoves at Jack’s shoulder again. “And if I was?”
“We’d figure it out,” Jack says. “Let me help. What do you need, brother?”
And they would, he decides. Whatever Robby needed, Jack was willing to provide. He’s done worse for less.
Robby finally just sighs, deep and put upon. He leans back against the couch and runs a hand down his face. That’s the first hint of tired resignation right there, Jack spots it, eagle eyed. And now that he’s identified it, all he has to do is squeeze his fingers into that crack and widen it enough to fit himself through.
“I don’t need anything, Jack,” Robby is saying. “What I need is to have never mentioned Caleb’s hairbrained theory in the first place. You’re like a dog with a bone.”
“How about this,” Jack says. “We give it a try. Once. We keep it real light and simple. And if it doesn’t do anything for you, we drop it. I drop it.”
Robby raises both eyebrows, dubious. “Will you?”
“Scout’s honor,” Jack says. He was never a scout, but Robby doesn’t know that.
Robby takes a breath. He looks at Jack, at the television, and then down at his beer. His shoulders relax minutely as he caves, breath falling out of his lungs in surrender in the shape of a quiet sigh.
“Sure. Fine. You win—why the fuck not? Let’s do it.”