#rojack

“Lovebug” AU (bc I’m uncreative) where Jack gets bitten by some weird, fucked up looking beetle behind the gas station (it was the same area he found starburst so he thought it was gonna be friendly and reached out to it) and he’s not bothered by it for the rest of the shift but over time he starts noticing how… affectionate, he’s being without meaning to. 

He’s unconsciously standing so close to Rosa that they’re almost touching, holding onto Benji’s jacket before he leaves, tried holding O’Brien’s hand once, and even ends up hugging Jerry on accident a few times. At first it’s just the touching that’s an issue, especially bc it happens every time he spaces out/isn’t paying attention and his body just goes on autopilot. Then he starts catching himself staring at Rosa or Jerry (he’d be informed later that he looked textbook lovestruck by Benji later), or even blurting out some embarrassing confessions to O’Brien and Benji (with Amy he told her that she was really good at ordering him around and he didn’t mind if she did it more often, and he offhandedly mentioned to B that he liked it whenever he manhandled him cos he was ‘moving too slow’)

Standing too close to Rosa or unconsciously holding her hand, Rosa never said anything about it, but whenever jack caught himself he apologized profusely and made an effort to sit further away from her at the counter. But every time he stopped focusing on it, his body always found its way back to her. He felt like he was being possessed again, but now he wished this weird urge was as simple as digging holes rather than putting his social life in a hole.

Working with Benji almost as bad. It didn’t happen as often, since Jack saw him most when he was about to take over for a shift, but there were a few times where Benji was moving to leave with jack waving him off, only for him to stop in his tracks. Jack is already zoned in on his book, so he doesn’t bother asking if something’s wrong at first. But he can feel Benji’s eyes on him after a second so he looks up. “Something wrong?” 

Benji tilts his head down at, and Jack follows his gaze down his extended arm, then to his hand, which is holding the edge of his coworker’s jacket and preventing him with leaving.  

It only happened around a handful of times, each with Jack wanting to die from embarrassment as he apologized with the excuse of, “new meds, you know?”, before benji finally started learning to just stand out of arms reach of his boss when he left.

The one that shocked him the most was with Jerry. Apparently, it was happening for weeks without Jack even knowing, which baffled him to no end, especially since Jerry himself didn’t say anything about it. The only reason he knew about it was because Rosa saw it happen recently.

It was just her and Jack working that night, but Jerry had decided to visit. He came in caked from the knees down in mud, coming right up to Jack and babbling about the “weird new god he met in the swamp” before Jack interrupted him and told him to rinse the mud off his boots before he hoses him down behind the gas station. When Jerry takes off to the bathroom sink, Rosa is looking at jack incredulously.

“What?”

“What was that for?”

Jack is taken aback. He thought that the request was reasonable.

“Well, you just mopped like an hour ago so I—“ Rosa shakes her head.

“No, no, I mean. The hug! ”

Jack furrows his brow. 

“The… hug?

“Yeah, you just hugged him!”

“I did what now?”

This was another weird symptom to add to the new growing list of concerns (one that he’d probably lock away in the vault by the end of the day). Jack sighed and rubbed his forehead. 

“I… I dunno. It’s a first for me.”

“No it’s not!” Jerry interjected as he made his way out of the bathroom, only a little less muddy than he was previously. Jack stared him down for an explanation. “You’ve been hugging me in greeting and parting for the last couple of weeks, dude. I thought this was your way of relieving stress or something.” He explained with a shrug.

Jack absentmindedly reaching for Amy’s hand in the car goes a little like this:

A: what do you think you’re doing?

J: what?

A: your hand. It’s on mine.

J, looking down:  …

J, pulling his hand away and cringing: reaching for… your gun??