You should write smth about a patient hurting Robby and him being a bitchy patient :)
i made it established rabbot bc i’m truly a sucker for that. i hope it lives up to your imagination!!
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Sometimes, very rarely, Robby wishes that the days at PTMC got busier. Even with the headaches that seem chronic, the back pain that is a forever ache, and the caffeine addiction that seems to be progressing, sometimes all Robby wants is a major trauma to come through those doors.
He knows, logically, that he shouldn’t wish for harm on others just so the buzz in his head will become more of a hum. Often, he wonders if he is alone in that wish. He notices the way Dana starts to tap her foot when the ED becomes quiet, a word that he would be yelled at for even thinking. He notices the same energy in Jack as he starts fidgeting with his hands. Everyone has their tells. Robby’s is that he circles the ED, hoping that maybe he missed a bed that needed checking up on.
Yet, all the beds are checked. The interns and residents are peacefully working on charts or finishing up with the latest suture. Robby is the only attending on shift, and he keeps checking the clock, wanting the next 13 minutes to pass so it’s 7 p.m. and he’ll be able to see Jack again.
He often finds himself thinking of Jack during these slow moments. His mind is on the edge between hoping for more chaos within his ED to hoping the slow stays steady so Jack will have an easy night. He always likes the way Jack tries to hide a faint smile when he sees a clear board during handoff.
He remembers the specific time when he had the day off after leaving Jack with a clear board. He remembers the way Jack crawled into their shared bed, thought Robby was asleep, and cuddled up next to him.
“Thank you for the board tonight,” he remembers Jack whispering, believing the other man won’t hear him. “My leg has been bothering me. You knew that though, didn’t you? Thank you. I love you.”
Robby remembers how he had to suppress a sigh of relief as Jack latched onto his back, how he had to hold himself back from turning around and facing Jack. In that moment, he would have given anything to say those three words back, but he knew Jack wouldn’t have said any of that if it weren’t for silence their bedroom brought or the darkness their curtains produced. He saw Robby’s steady breaths as a gateway to whisper those words, and Robby wasn’t going to ruin moment by revealing his open eyes.
As he makes his rounds, hoping it will be the last one of the night if no more traumas come it, he lets his small smile due to the memory stay on his face, not caring who is to see it. Him and Jack made their relationship public knowledge just a couple weeks ago. Robby’s plan was to sprinkle in mentions of it to their colleagues while Jack decided he wasn’t going to play the long game and just called Robby babe during hand oof. Sure enough, the minute Princess heard that, the rest of the ED knew in 20 minutes.
The HR paperwork was hell, but it was nice that the both of them didn’t have to act like they enjoyed each others company only in a brotherly manner anymore. Sure, they couldn’t do much besides hug during handoff because the both of them are weird about PDA, but Robby relishes in the fact that he doesn’t have to hide his smile anymore.
He is about to enter the last room to check up on a patient when the gurney gets rolled in. It’s a runaway behavioral health unit patient that escaped earlier due to paranoia.
It was 6:52 when the patient came in. Jack will be walking in any minute to meet Robby for handoff.
It was 6:52 when the patient came in. He was thrashing on the gurney and screaming in agony? Paranoia?
It was 6:52 when the patient came in. Robby didn’t hesitate to rush over and try to treat the man or calm him down, whichever needed to come first.
“He needs to calm down!” One of the paramedics yells. They aren’t able to get the restraints on.
Robby goes through the motions. Their ER faces enough of patients who resist treatment that he doesn’t even blink. He slips into doctor mode. Clinical, fast, precise with no hesitation.
They take the patient to trauma 1, nurses in tow prepping IVs.
The patient, who has been identified as John Summers, is containing his thrashing as he screams.
“GET OFF ME!” He scream, no longer just screaming. “OFF! GET OFF!”
Those three words become the man’s mantra. Perlah tries to calm the man down, hoping that he’ll listen. He doesn’t. No one is able to get the restraints on him and Robby is struggling to check his bleeding head out.
“Sir-“ Robby starts, he is cut off the second Perlah officially tries to get the IV in. The main shoots his arm up, narraowly avoiding Perlah but instead hits Robby right on his nose with enough force to make him stumble back. He doesn’t fall, and he tries to gain his composure back, ignoring the way he can feel blood trickling down.
Before he can say anything more, John twists his arm out of the hold a nurse had on him, turns his body on the bed, and jumps out, coming towards Robby.
Thank god Perlah got out of the way, he thinks before a dull pain makes his way to his chest. He realizes quick enough that John pushed him, if the crack that pulses through his wrist as he tries to break his fall tells him anything.
His wrist slips and he ends up with the back of his head banging on the floor. John soon follows.
He faintly hears someone, he doesn’t know who, yell for security. The next thing his mind processes is the grip of hands around his neck and the lack of air he is getting.
Then, another bang in the back of his head.
At that point, no sound fully process. He hears people screaming. Yet, all he can process is the feel of the sick texture of blood below his nose, the throbbing pain on his head, and the tightness around his throat.
Almost as soon as all of the pain began, it all stops. John gets pried off of him by a security guard. There’s still chaos around him, but all he cares about is sucking in air as fast as he can. He coughs and gasps, but the feeling of oxygen make his way down into his lungs feels almost like a privilege at that point.
He feels his head gets slightly picked up, and he soon feels cold hands checking the back of his head. He knows someone who has cold hands, he’s been held by them before, but the fog in his brain is too powerful for him to understand that.
A light is shined on his eyes and someone is asking questions at a rapid pace. The answers leave his mouth before he knows it. They must have been right, however, given the sigh of relief he hears.
The fog clears a bit as he is slowly picked up and brought to get a CT scan. He still doesn’t really answer any questions, now only focusing on the pain the man’s hands left behind.
“It’s only a concussion,” he hears someone say eventually.
“Yeah, only a concussion,” he hears a man reply in an exhausted and irritated tone. He forces himself to pick his head up regardless of the pain it shoots down his neck, just to see who that was. He knows that voice, he knows he knows that voice.
It’s Jack, his brain supplies. And, soon after, fuck, he probably saw all of that, didn’t he?
He knows Jack is going to freak out. He know the way he is wired. He lost too many people from the army, his parents, his wife, to not react like that.
I need to be fine, he thinks. I need to make it fine.
“Woah woah Mikey, lay down,” Jack says, slightly pushing Robby shoulder. “You were just attacked, you have to lay down, Mike.”
“No, I’m fine, it’s fine,” Robby counters, no matter how weak his voice sounds.
He sees Jack give Dana a look and she quietly exits the room. Jack then pulls a chair up next to the bed, all the while Robby tries to push his way off the bed.
“Robby, sit down.. come on,” Jack tries weakly. Robby continues to try and get up and say that he fine no matter how much his head throbs and the cast on his wrist digs into his skin.
“Michael.” Jack sternly says, looking straight into Robby’s eyes. He notices the way Jacks eyes are red and his hair looks like someone has been running their hands furiously through it. Before he knows it, Robby is laying back down.
“I’m fine, Jack, I’ll be fine,” Robby says, even as he lays back down into the bed.
“Robby. You have a severe concussion, a broken wrist, and bruising around your neck,” Jack lists. “You are not just leaving.”
“Is he gone?” Robby asks, hoping the fear that flashes over his face was masked fast enough. It wasn’t, given the way Jacks stern look softens ever so slightly.
“Yes, he was sedated,” Jack says.
“Michael,” Jack starts, and he knows he’s is in trouble as his full first name is said. Jack takes Robby’s hand in his and lowers his head ever so slightly so Robby can’t escape his gaze. “Listen to me when I say this. I walked in and the first thing I hear is a wave of yelling and the first thing I saw was people leaving the trauma one room. You know what I saw the minute I turned the corner? You, on the floor, with hands around your neck and your head getting banged on the ground.
No- no it’s not your fault, okay? I’m not saying that. But right now, I need you to understand me when I say that I don’t ever want to see that again. And I know… I know I have no say in that pretty much, but right now- you can’t.. fuck Mikey you can’t just leave after having gone through that. Please, I know you don’t want to be here, but please just stay, I… I want you- I need you to stay, just for overnight observation. Please Mike, please.”
His voice starts to break and he stutters more and more by the end of it. He is begging Robby to stay as tears start filling up in his eyes. Robby squeezes his hand back as he accepts the fact that his weakness will always be Jack. The man is pleading for him to stay, and Robby can’t even imagine a world where he says no.
“Yeah… okay, um, I’ll stay,” Robby says.
Jack bows his head into their conjoined hands and lets out a sigh of relief and then a small laugh that hold no real humor behind it. They share the space in silence besides their sniffles and Jacks small cry.
The silence is broken eventually, not be any monitors beeping or another plead, but instead by Robby.
“You know what I was thinking before the patient got rolled in?” He asks. Once Jack, who is now resting his chin on their hands, staring up at Robby, shakes his head no with a faint smile, he continues. “You… I was thinking about how I couldn’t wait until handoff just so I could see you again.”
“You’re such a sap,” Jack manages to get out mid giggle. Robby playfully take his hand out of Jacks and shoves him slightly, making Jack rest his back on the chair. “I love you.” Jack adds as he entangles their hands again and rubs his thumb over the back of Robby’s hand.
“I love you too,” Robby replies, and he would say it a thousand more times in this lifetime just to see the way Jack lights up and bears all his teeth in a smile.
