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Jack's grief, at the moment, looked like a swollen hand wrapped around an ice cold bottle of beer. It felt like a broken metacarpal or two and a ring that was starting to cut off the circulation to the finger. It was tears drying on his cheeks and an inescapable tightness in his chest. It sounded like Guns n Roses, the guitar weeping over 'November Rain'. He'd never be able to listen to Axl Rose's voice again. "Fuck," he muttered, five or six or eight beers deep. He wasn't bothering to keep track. "Fuck."
His grief looked like a hole in the wall in his kitchen right above the spice rack. Splintered bones and crumbled dry wall and the overwhelming smell of cinnamon and oregano and clove amid broken glass. He couldn't use his crutches with his hand the way it was, and putting his prosthetic on with one hand was messy at best, but he thought maybe he deserved this. All of this.
"Fuuuuuuuuuck."
When his finger started turning a concerning shade of purple and when it throbbed mercilessly, he took the bus and stumbled into the ER on a mission to find Robby, his busted up hand shoved deep in his jacket pocket. It wasn't going to fool many people but in his state, that hardly mattered.
"Jack…" Dana gasped, rushing out from behind the desk to greet him. His wife died two days prior and it was clear by the looks he was receiving as everyone stopped what they were doing and froze in place that everyone knew. They hadn't seen him since it happened, he'd called Gloria in the middle of the night and told her he wouldn't be coming in for a while and the word had spread like wildfire. He didn't tell a single one of them in person, not even Robby. "How ya doin' kid?" She came in for a slow hug, and he let her wrap herself around him. He winced when she moved his arm and he knew immediately that she'd caught the hiss. "What's going on? What do you need?"
He looked around absently before pulling his hand out of his pocket just enough that she could see. "I did something a little dumb."
"Ya think?" she asked, gently tucking it right back in where he had it before leading him toward an empty room. There weren't many but they could spare one for him. "What'd you do?"
"Saw a spider on the wall. Decided to punch it to death."
"Did you get the spider or just the wall?"
Jack shrugged helplessly. He swayed where he stood. "No idea."
"Well, darlin', I know who you came here for so I'm gonna go find him. Stay here."
"Yup." Jack's eyes were wide and he swayed while he waited, the throbbing in his finger intensifying by the second. When he didn't think he could stand any longer, he decided to chance crawling up on the bed. It wasn't exactly graceful but it definitely didn't go as badly as he'd imagined it would.
He was lying on the bed with an arm thrown over his face, his skull feeling suddenly like it was stuffed and overflowing with cotton when he heard the footsteps approach. He needed a drink of water badly.
"Jack?"
Robby's voice entered the room before he did, and soon Jack could feel his presence even without opening his eyes. The lights were turned down, the door was closed, and he could smell Robby's musky mid-shift scent. The scrubs and hand sanitizer and sweat. The smell of adrenaline and exhaustion.
"In the flesh…" he drawled sleepily without moving. Suddenly his entire body hurt.
"Dana says you did a real number on your hand. Can I see?"
"Suit yourself."
Robby gently pulled Jack's hand out of the pocket and over to him. He didn't look it over, didn't move anything, just held it. The goal, for the moment, was just to touch him. "You need ice and an x-ray."
"I know."
"And your ring…" Robby started a little quieter. He was hesitant but firm. There was no choice. "I don't think I can save it."
"…'s ok…" Jack whispered, turning away. It wasn't okay, nothing was, not by a long shot, but he'd come to terms with it on the way over. His wife was dead and his ring was toast and he was circling the drain himself. Robby was still holding his hand, supporting it with one beneath it, blanketed with one above, and the warmth was overwhelming. Warmth Jack didn't think he deserved. He wanted to pull away, he wanted to leave.
"I'll cut it off and take you down for an x-ray. Gonna stay with you okay?"
"You're busy. You don't have to."
"Yes I do." He wouldn't elaborate. He wouldn't play Jack's self-pity game. "You could have called me, you know."
"I know."
"I really wish you had."
"I wanted to…" Jack whispered. "I just couldn't."
"I'm so sorry, brother."
"Yeah…I know…"
Robby numbed the finger before cutting the ring off, and he tried to do it as quickly as possible. Without any fanfare, he set the snips down and slid the ring into his pocket before forcing Jack into a wheelchair and adjusting his legs for him. In his state, it was a miracle Jack was even sitting upright. As he settled Jack's legs he could feel that the prosthesis was a little too tight and misaligned and knew he'd tried to do it drunk as a skunk and single handed. He crouched down and lifted Jack's pant leg, working quickly to remove it before tucking it in beside his friend. "You forgot your sock…" Robby muttered, inspecting his leg for bruising and sores. Who knew what Jack's last two days had looked like.
"Couldn't get it on."
"That why you tightened the leg up so much?"
"Yeah."
"I'll find you a sock and help you get it on after x-ray."
Jack knew it wasn't necessary, and if anyone else had tried to touch him that way they would have taken a foot to the face but not Robby. Never Robby. And it was a relief to have it off.
Jack didn't say a word as they made their way down to imagining. His head rolled to the side a little, eyes blinking slowly.
"How much did you have to drink?"
"Dunno."
"You had anything to eat today?"
"Dunno."
"Jack…"
"Not today, Mike."
"Yeah. Alright."
It was silence the rest of the trip through imaging. Robby threw a little bit of a fit and made them make room for Jack, taking a couple of quick x-rays and saying he'd do the reading. It was pretty obvious already, he just needed to make sure nothing needed setting and he wanted to know exactly where the breaks were.
Jack didn't meet his eyes even when Robby grabbed him a bottle of water, popped the top and handed it to him. A muttered thanks was the best he got. Robby took the long way back to the ER, the back hallways that didn't see as much traffic, the service elevator that only maintenance was ever brave enough to take. It slammed and clunked as they changed floors and he thought now would be a pretty interesting time for it to get stuck, but it landed where they wanted just the same as always.
"Do you need help with anything?" Robby asked when the silence got a little overwhelming. Jack was rarely silent.
"Nah."
"What's on your mind?"
"Nothin'."
"Bullshit. Your brain's like Grand Central Station. Things coming and going all the time."
"Empty."
He was staring at his hand. It was packed under a pillow filled with ice and mostly numb, but he knew his ring wasn't there and it was the only thing he could really think about. He didn't know if Robby threw it away or put it in his locker, maybe it was still on the tray in his room. Didn't matter much.
Robby made splinting his hand take about as long as possible, mostly because he was worried about Jack and the longer he kept him at the hospital, the longer he could keep an eye on him. And the longer he went without another drink. He downed three full bottles of water in the time it took to mold the splint and get it fitted. He hated these stupid contraptions and missed the old days of stiff padding and ace bandages.
"You always take this long or you just have a crush on me?" Jack muttered with no noticeable inflection in his voice. Not entirely monotone, but as close as he'd ever heard come from that man's mouth. "Cos you already know my number. You can take me out anytime."
"I can huh?"
Jack turned his eyes up at Robby and watched his face while he worked. He was being so gentle, the kind of gentle Jack really only noticed when he treated pediatrics patients. Softly Robby started humming a tune that sounded vaguely familiar to Jack and his head lolled to the side as he listened.
"CCR?"
"Steppenwolf."
"Sounds like CCR."
Robby smiled and shook his head. "You're drunk."
"Am I?"
Dana popped her head in when Robby was finally finishing up, peeking at the situation. Jack's prosthetic was laying on the bed and he was sitting patiently still in the wheelchair. He hadn't wanted to move when they got back. "Everything good in here? I thought I heard someone humming CCR."
"See? Told you."
"It was Steppenwolf."
Dana's eyes got wide and she let out a shotgun laugh. "Blast from the past!"
"We're old…" Jack mumbled morosely. Robby set his hand gently in his lap and scooted his stool over until he was beside his friend in the wheelchair. Dana watched the exchange and guarded the door. She thought maybe, finally, this was it. Everyone else thought they were already practically married but Dana knew better - it was only a matter of time, if they would just let their walls down for a few minutes.
"You might be old but I'm in my prime," was what Robby said, pressing his nose to Jack's temple and breathing in the scent of him. Beer, Jack Daniels, sweat. The hair at his temples was stiff after two days of dried tears in bed. Jack nodded halfheartedly. "You wanna stay here a while and sleep this off?"
"Don't feel like sleeping." He hadn't slept in two days and didn't think that was bound to change anytime soon. He couldn't even look at his bed.
"How about popping down to the caf and I'll buy you a turkey on wheat with some tomato soup?"
"Pass."
Robby nodded solemnly. "Would you at least let me give you an IV to sober you up?"
Jack finally turned his head, coming nose to nose with Robby. "Don't wanna be sober yet."
"Yeah. Okay."
"How about I find someone who can take you home?" Dana chimed in. Both men turned to look at her like they'd forgotten she was even there.
"I'll take the bus."
(x)
No one saw him again until the funeral. They heard through the grapevine where and when it was, and Gloria - to her credit - made sure everyone who wanted to attend was able. She hadn't anticipated quite so many people taking her up on the offer and they were strained for the two hours of thin staffing, but she didn't regret it.
The funeral was packed. Jack looked around at the room full of people mingling and eating all dressed in black and he couldn't seem to find the end to hospital employees who showed up whether they'd met his wife or not. At one point he became so overwhelmed he cornered Dana and shouted at her, a momentary lapse that he'd apologized profusely for about twenty times since. He would probably continue apologizing well into the next month.
"Who the hell is staffing the ER if everyone is here?!" he'd wondered a little too loud. She didn't even flinch.
"We all love you, kid."
She handled his outburst with the kind of maternal grace he'd come to love watching applied to patients but decided there was no way he actually deserved it himself.
"How's the hand?"
"It's fine. I'm thinking I might take the splint off. Robby was overreacting."
"I saw that hand, I don't think he was."
Jack shrugged and decided he didn't want to talk about that day anymore. He'd hung a picture from the thrift store, a boat or some stupid thing, over it and figured he'd fix the drywall sometime. Or maybe never. Maybe he'd leave it there forever. The spice rack was thrown away, all of the spices and the entire stupid thing in the trash.
She hovered over him and followed him around after worrying about him for over a week with no answer to any of her calls or texts. He'd gone radio silent. None of them could blame him, not really, but they were worried. He didn't look too bad - his eyes were red rimmed from crying and he looked exhausted, asking him if he'd been sleeping would be pointless. It was written all over his face, in his sleepy posture, in the way he favored his leg like it was a little extra heavy.
"Hey, Jack? Can I see you outside for a sec?" Robby asked, interrupting his spiraling thoughts and Dana's intense scrutiny. Jack looked around at the reception and shrugged helplessly. Dana gave Robby a concerned look and said nothing. He read it loud and clear.
"Yeah. Okay." He hated it inside but felt guilty stepping out even for a moment. His entire family was there, everyone he worked with, old military friends, SWAT buddies…the place was packed for him and he was walking out. But once he got outside, he found that he could breathe again. It was stifling in there, his chest was tight and the air was thick. Dishes and silverware clattering, people laughing or crying, the overwhelming smell of flowers and tater tot casserole. The city's smell was a welcome change.
And Robby stood so close that Jack could feel his warmth. "You holding up okay?"
"I guess," Jack replied.
"You haven't been returning people's calls or texts. They're worrying."
"I don't know what to say to anyone. Everyone's being so nice but I'm just…I don't know, brother. I'm lost."
"Well. I think you should at least call me back sometime. Screw all these other jokers, but I get priority. I've known you longer."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Robby paused and reached into his pocket. The interrogation was over, he'd said his piece. "Here," he said, handing Jack a small velvet box. Jack took it in his good hand and stared at it for a minute perplexed.
"Here? Really? This is where you finally decide to pop the question? You're not even on one knee."
"Just open it you smart ass."
Jack blinked back the immediate sting of tears when he saw his own wedding ring inside, all in one piece. The blinking came fast and furious but did nothing to stop the eventual tears. He couldn't even hide it. His breath hitched in his throat and before he knew it, he was gasping and sobbing and swiping at his eyes furiously with his sleeve to try and stem the flow. "Fuck you," he whispered, letting out an exasperated laugh followed by several more choking sobs. "What the fuck."
"I know a guy who works with metal. He's a welder but his hobby is jewelry. His wife designs these rings and he makes them…" he was rambling but Jack was still sobbing and it made him a little nervous. "Anyway. He owes me a few favors for treating cuts and burns off the clock. I hope you don't mind."
"Mind?" Jack managed to eek out. "Why would I mind?"
"I don't know. I took something of yours that was pretty personal and fucked with it without asking."
"I thought it was gone."
"You know, I actually made a pretty damn clean cut through that thing, my buddy said it was an easy fix. You might need to have someone redo some of the engraving if you want but otherwise its like it never happened. Saved your finger too, by the way. That was gnarly."
"Wasn't that bad."
"How much of that day do you actually remember?"
Jack smiled as he finally managed to catch his breath. It was more of a twitch than a full smile, but Robby wasn't going to be picky. It was gorgeous anyway. He never could quite get over Jack's smile. "I remember you humming CCR and trying to gaslight me into thinking it was Steppenwolf."
Jack looked at his finger, still swollen from the incident with the wall, and slipped the ring box into his pocket while Robby grumbled under his breath about how much of an asshole he was.
"You're welcome," Robby finally said, patting Jack on the shoulder. Jack cleared his throat and nodded, choking back another embarrassing round of tears.
"Yeah. Thank you. It means a lot, brother."
(x)
Jack wore the ring every day once his finger returned to normal, and while the intensity of the grief began to slowly fade into his every day life - never really going away but becoming part of him that he carried around, the ring became something new. He wore it for her, a symbol of undying love, a reminder of what he'd lost but it reminded him of Robby too. Of sacrifice and friendship and the blurry lines of love. He stood at the charge desk and he flicked the ring with his thumb nail over and over and he waited for Robby to show up for their morning briefing. Every day, the same thing.
Sometimes Robby brought him tea, something warm to help him wind down. It rarely worked and he still wasn't sleeping much (or at all) but there was something about the ritual of Robby handing him that paper cup and him burning his tongue on the hot liquid that renewed him for the day ahead.
"Don't get shot today," Robby would say as Jack slung his backpack over his shoulder and limped out of the ER. He couldn't hide it by the end of his shift and he'd long ago stopped trying to do so for everyone else's comfort.
"I'll do my best."
He usually did. Robby's tea had slowly replaced his after work beers as a way to wind down. Sometimes the demons got loud, sometimes the darkness couldn't be sated with a little cup of hot leaf water and on those nights he nestled the six pack in his lap and let it happen. Those nights were getting fewer and farther between. And it was usually on those nights, three beers deep, that he returned Robby's calls.
"You good?" Robby would ask and Jack would swallow a lump in his throat and try to come up with something clever to say and falling just short of the goal. It usually ended up with Robby on his doorstep to help him wade through the darkness.
He helped Jack pack his wife's clothes neatly into plastic totes and stack them in the back of the closet. He couldn't quite part with them yet but at least this way he wasn't faced with them every day. Her coffee mug was washed and put into the top shelf of her nightstand beside her Bible and her hairbrush.
"My therapist says I should keep her things close, but out of sight," Jack said. "I can find something if I want to but I have to start coming to grips with the fact that she's not just gonna walk in the door and life will go back to normal."
"And you're okay with that? You don't have to do any of this so soon. You can take your time."
Jack sucked in a shaky breath. "I haven't taken a shower in two weeks," he started. "Because I know all of her stuff is in there. The smell of her shampoo. The little leg hairs from her razor on the wall where she taps it and forgets to rinse. Her hair wrapped around the bar soap. Dammit Mike."
"You need to take care of yourself. You want me to take all of her stuff out of the shower so you can get in?"
Jack hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I don't think I can do it by myself."
Robby didn't mind wiping down the shower walls and putting her toiletries in a little basket beneath the sink. He left nothing but a bar of soap, a wash cloth and the shower stool by the time he was finished.
Jack didn't need help getting in the shower, but he didn't argue when Robby helped anyway. He turned on the water and helped him out of his clothes, waiting while Jack removed his prosthetic and leaned it up against the wall carefully. Robby slipped Jack's arm over his shoulders and helped him get into the shower and onto the chair before he closed the curtain and gave him some privacy.
While Jack sat beneath the hot water and wept silently, while he washed himself and gritted his teeth through an intense minute of phantom limb pain that came on out of nowhere, Robby got his towel ready and waited.
Jack could live on his own, he was more than capable, but Robby wondered how much his wife had done for him out of pure love. How much comfort she was, how much planning she did to make sure Jack had everything he needed without having to worry. The staff at the ER moaned about how awful it must be to lose a lover, but Robby was now faced with something new: Jack had lost a caregiver on top of everything else.
"I'll be fine," Jack managed to say after Robby helped him out of the shower nearly a half hour later. The bathroom fan couldn't keep up with the steam and the whole room was so hot it took your breath away. Slippery and naked, Jack's body hugged close to Robby's as they moved from the bathroom into the bedroom for clothes, they had lost all inhibition long ago. Gym showers were hard for Jack to maneuver and rarely as disability friendly as they proclaimed to be and Robby had become a pro at helping him out whenever they carved out time to go. When they worked the same shift it was easier, now it wasn't as often but this felt like second nature. "I can do this on my own. I just…"
"I know. But if you want me to help, or just be here, you know you can just call me. Just because you can do something on your own doesn't mean you have to."
"You just want to see me naked."
Robby smiled. "No secrets there."
(x)
It was a full year before Jack had the guts to kiss Robby for real.
The tea exchange and briefing happened on the rooftop, the brisk Autumn air whistling through the buildings. "Green tea with honey," Robby said as he handed Jack the cup.
"Grass water. My favorite."
"You sounded a little rundown when I called you this morning to tell you I was running late."
"Rough night."
"Aren't they all?"
Jack shrugged and sipped at his tea, burning the tip of his tongue. The astringent herbal taste was starting to grow on him. Robby stuck to his Pitt break-room battery acid that they had the audacity to call coffee. He said it was the only way to fuel up for a shift. Jack's lip twitched and he fiddled with his ring again.
"Anything I need to know?" Robby asked. He was standing so close and Jack was about to vibrate out of his skin. He'd told himself repeatedly that this was a bad idea, that he should stop kidding himself, that he needed to stop being so foolish because Robby's flirting was just friendly banter and nothing more but as he turned and locked eyes with Robby he knew he was wrong. This wasn't foolish, it wasn't a bad idea, it was a lifeline. Maybe for them both, but definitely for him. Just because he could do everything on his own didn't mean he wanted to, and he was desperate to have Robby closer to him. Every day.
"What?" Robby asked, raising an eyebrow. Jack cleared his throat.
"Nothing," he started. His palms were sweaty and his heart was beating too fast, hammering against his sternum almost painfully. "Nothing, I just…" And then it happened. He leaned forward, hooked Robby by the back of the neck and kissed him.
It had been well over two decades since he'd kissed a man, and the feel of Robby's beard against his lips was startling. Not enough to back away, but it took him a second to remember what he'd done and then he was biting back on the flood of shame that tried to follow. He should have asked first, they should have talked first. Robby wasn't as spontaneous as Jack, he didn't thrive on adrenaline like he did.
"Bout time," Robby whispered with a smile and all of the fear Jack's bones had ached with disappeared. He reached down and kissed Jack's hand, kissed the wedding ring that was still on his finger, and lingered there a moment. The heat from the tea cup brushed his skin.
"I can take that off if you think I should…it's probably time huh?"
"No. Leave it on."
Jack smiled and a flush rose from his neck up into his cheeks. "Yeah?"
"Of course, brother. I cashed in some pretty big favors for that. You can wear it forever."
"I don't think she'd mind. She always said we'd make a cute couple."
"She said cute? About us?"
"Yeah," Jack whispered, shaking his head. "Crazy lady. Nothing cute about us old farts."
"Not a thing!" Robby laughed.
They kissed again, and again, and even though they were on the rooftop in scrubs they lingered there in the space between Jack's shift ending and Robby's beginning for as long as they could.
They had plans to meet up with some friends from the hospital for drinks after Robby's shift ended, and while they kissed they each came to the conclusion that it would be in their best interest to cancel. It sounded a lot more fun to stay in and explore the freedom of finally kissing and touching without having to follow anything up with a snarky comment or joke or excuse. A couple of beers and a movie would be more fun than any bar, and Jack could take off his prosthetic and actually relax for the night.
And that was exactly what they did. Jack ordered them a pizza, Robby brought the beers, and they found easy laughter and familiar camaraderie mingled well the newness of kissing.
As far as first dates went, it was both underwhelming and completely perfect.
While they relaxed with full bellies and watched Easy Rider, Robby massaged the soreness from Jack's leg and gave him hell when Steppenwolf started playing 'Born to be Wild'.
"CCR right?"
"Fuck you, Robinavitch," Jack drawled with an easy smile.
"Not on the first date."