the fox on the wall sees all

Six months later, Jack gets a call from an unknown number, but he knows exactly who he’s talking to from the first breath.

“I’m looking for Jack Abbot.”

“Mikey?”

“Uh, yes. Hi.” Robby clears his throat. “Sorry to bother you.”

“You’re not a bother,” Jack rushes out.

There’s an uncomfortable pause. Jack never used to have those with Robby. “I’m in the process of moving,” Robby says eventually. “And I found a box labeled ‘for him,’ it’s really tightly wrapped. I think it’s got multiple layers, and well, you’re the only person I could think it would be for.”

Jack swallows. “You can open it. If it’s for me, I give you permission. If it turns out not to be, whoops.”

A rhythmic clacking comes through the speaker as Robby taps the back of the phone. “I think it’s wrapped up so I don’t open it. If I’m remembering right.”

“You don’t have any idea what’s inside?”

“No fucking clue. Which usually means it’s you.”

Of course. Because Jack is no one to this Robby. Nothing but a scary, old box hidden in the depths of the past. “Well, I’ll give you my address and you can send it my way.”

Jack comes home everyday for the next three weeks hopeful and dreading the possibility of the package arriving. When it finally does, he sits it on the counter and debates whether or not he should open it at all.

“You should,” Amy encourages. “Worst case scenario we throw it out.”

“We” holds a lot of Jack’s fear for him. Together, they open the box, layer by layer, until all that’s left is a shoebox with an envelope taped on top. Jack breaks the seal with shaky hands, the paper is crinkled and tear-stained.

Jack,

I’m sorry I have to write this. I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to tell you, but I needed you to know that this isn’t your fault. I know you’re blaming yourself, just like I’m blaming myself, but there’s no point.

I wish there was a way to do this without forgetting you, but I know this is what’s best for both of us.

I sincerely wish you a long and happy marriage. Truthfully, if you weren’t getting married I may not have had it in me to go through with this, but I know if she loves you half as much as I do, you’ll be well taken care of.

I’m sorry. I miss you already.

—Mikey

Inside the box is every photo Robby ever had of them. Jack flicks through them with blurry vision, and tells Amy as many stories as his trembling voice can handle.

Eventually, he does marry Amy. It’s the best day of his life despite an obvious missing piece. And then he endures the worst fifteen years of his life.

He loses his leg, his wife, damn near his mind, and somehow winds up applying to an Emergency Department in Pittsburgh.

Jack barely makes it two steps out of his interview before he collides with a broad chest.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” a terrifyingly familiar voice says.

Jack’s heart sinks. “Mike.”

Robby’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Oh, um.” He squints. “Jack! Jack, hi. How have you been?”

“Been better,” he admits. “Was hoping for a fresh starts, but…”

“Are you applying here?”

“I was, but I can find somewhere else.”

“No, no. I mean, obviously, I understand if it’s uncomfortable for you, but I wouldn’t mind.”

Jack’s heart thuds. “You wouldn’t?”

“No,” Robby shrugs. “No reason to avoid you anymore.”

If Jack had two good knees instead of one finicky one he’d fall to the ground and thank God for finally showing some mercy.

Working with Robby is strange. He’s so different than the Robby Jack knew, and not just because of the grey hairs and new wrinkles, but there’s also the faint remnants of Jack’s best friend in him. Enough that Jack asks if they could spend time together outside of work.

After a moment of silence, Robby nods. “Don’t see why not.”

Hanging out with Robby is eerily similar to how it was twenty years ago, but there a few, undeniable, difference that sting.

Robby still has the same taste in movies, but they don’t sit close enough to touch. And he blushes as easily as he ever did, though Jack is careful not to tease him for it.

Over two years they grow closer and closer, and just when Jack thinks he might have his best friend back Robby sits him down. He keeps his eyes low, and uses the same voice he does when delivering bad news at work.

“Jack, I— I think I might be falling in love with you again.”

Jack’s not really sure what to say to that. They’re sitting in the corner booth of their favorite bar, and all Jack is certain of is that their game of pool won’t be happening tonight. “Oh?”

Robby sniffs, cold and embarrassed. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jack says. He reaches across the table and pats Robby’s hand, retreating the second he sees Robby flinch. “Emotions happen, man. We can’t help it.”

“Right, but what happened last time—“

“We were young then. And you’ve caught it early, so we can handle it this time.”

Robby huffs. He looks up with big, sad eyes. “I am handling it. I don’t think we can be friends.”

Jack’s throat closes.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be,” Robby continues. “I like spending time with you.” He laughs. “Obviously. But, I clearly can’t handle being around you without, wanting more.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to ignore each other.” Jack’s eyes dart around the bar as if a solution might jump out at him.

“I don’t want to ignore you, but I don’t think stuff like this is a good idea.” Robby’s chin trembles. “We can’t talk at work or if there’s some event with a lot of us, but the one-on-one time has to stop.”

“What if we dated?” Jack blurts out.

Robby blinks. His eyes are pathetically red. “What?”

“We could date. It’s not that different than what we’re doing now anyway. I might fall in love with you too, or you’ll realize you’re too good for me and get over it on your own.” Jack smiles, but even without seeing his reflection he knows he looks more manic than comforting.

Robby fiddles with his fingers. “Do you like men?”

Jack deflates. “First time for everything?” Robby scoffs and sinks lower in his seat. “Do you like men?”

“Yes, Jack. I thought that was obvious.”

“You date girls all the time. I thought maybe I was special.”

Robby’s knuckles graze over his sternum. “Clearly, you’re special.”

Jack leans forward, he forces his hands to dig into the table instead of lunging at Robby the way he wants. “Let’s just give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?”

A mean, barking laugh erupts from Robby. “I develop Hanahaki, again, and no one has ever survived a second surgery.”

“It won’t get to that point,” Jack pleads.

“It might.” Tears drip down Robby’s face. “I don’t remember how it felt the first time I fell in love with you, but I do remember the flowers.” He shakes his head. A voice, more feeble than Jack has ever heard in his life comes out of Robby, “The pain… I can’t go through that again, Jack. I just can’t.”

Jack’s own tears fall. A heavy coil twists around his heart. “I don’t want you to either.”

He slides over to Robby’s side of the booth and holds him close. They cry together in a pitiful lump under the warm light of the bar.

“I’m sorry,” Robby whispers.

“Don’t be,” Jack murmurs. “I’m glad I got to be your friend again for a little bit.”

“I am too.”

For weeks, Jack spends his free time crying. He makes himself sick with tears, pouring over the box of forgotten memories.

One day, about an hour before shift change, a late stage Hanahaki patient bursts through the ambulance bay. There’s nothing they can do for her, the disease has progressed too far. She lays lifeless in the ED covered in blood and peonies.

Jack crawls his way up the stairs and lands on the roof. He looks to the horizon and debates leaving Pittsburgh; he looks at the concrete and debates jumping.

It’d be easy. Just one more step and he’d be back with his wife, or at least away from Robby. No longer killing someone he holds dear with his mere existence.

The door creaks open behind him. “What are you doing out here?” Robby calls.

Jack could take one more step and be free, but if he did, his friendship with Robby would die with him. No one would ever know that they were once happy, that there was a brief moment in time where they could be attached at the hip with no risk of death. Not even Robby.

He steps back, and turns around. Robby stands before him. Fifty years old, greying, wrinkled, a miserable with age, but alive. He made a hard decision to make sure of it, and now Jack will too.

Jack knows all of Robby's tattoos, has kissed his way across all of them at one point or another, has applied lotion to them when they were new and makes sure they're healing well. He suspects, when Robby says he's going on sabbatical, that he'll come back with one or two new ones. Four is the upper limit for the three month period, Jack thinks. Robby tends to get new tattoos when he's feeling restless, says the sensation of it all settles him.

Jack says that he'd be more than happy to provide all the sensation Robby can handle, but Robby tells him it's different. The fire of a tattoo hits his nervous system different than the way a paddle or Jack's hand or the cat o'nine or the strap does.

Sure enough, when Robby comes back, Jack can see two new tattoos peeking out of his shirt sleeves the second he gets his jacket off. He immediately moves to examine them, and they're about what he would have predicted Robby would get. He's added what Jack guesses is Charon and the boat crossing the River Styx below the existing "memento mori" and there's now a a dog tied behind a cart in the same spot under the old "amor fati". It feels right, to Jack, that Robby would choose to expand on those two tattoos at a time like this.

Once he's looked them over, though, he wastes no time in telling Robby to go to the bedroom. Jack has been without his favorite person for three months, and he is itching to get his hands on that skin, to dig his fingers into the muscle, to bite his way along the fat. Robby goes without complaint, toes off his shoes and heads down the hall like he never left, like he isn't freshly back from the last four hour leg of his trip home.

When Jack enters the bedroom, Robby is stripped naked and kneeling at the foot of their bed. His head is tilted down, but Jack can see where his eyes were watching the door, looking for movement. Jack walks over and stands between Robby and the bed, runs his fingers through Robby's hair and tilts his head back so he's looking up at Jack with those big brown eyes.

Jack undoes the button and zip of his own pants, pushes them down and sits on the edge of the bed.

"I want you to get me hard, and then I'm going to fuck your face. Gonna make sure you feel it in your jaw every time you open your mouth tomorrow to tell people about all the shit you did while you were gone. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Robby says, eyes still locked on Jack's.

"Good," Jack says, and pulls Robby's head down to his crotch.

Robby is very good at this, has had years of practice when it comes to sucking Jack's cock, and he gets Jack fully hard in what might be record time. Jack hadn't touched himself much while Robby was gone, usually only on mornings he had trouble sleeping, so the sensation of finally having Robby's mouth again is divine.

Jack fists his hand in Robby's hair to control him and starts fucking himself into Robby's mouth in earnest.

It doesn't take long, not really, and if you pressed him, Jack might admit it was the fastest he had come since the first time he fucked Robby while they were young and clandestine in college, Jack an MS1 and Robby an R3 picking up some extra cash as a tutor.

When he comes, he curls himself over Robby's body, like he's trying to meld them together. He cries out his pleasure, and looks down, wants to see the vision that is his cock disappearing entirely down Robby's throat.

Except that isn't what he sees at all. Instead, what Jack's eyes focus on is a third new tattoo. This one sits just below where the collar of Robby's shirt would fall along his upper back. It's a simple font, which is typical of Robby, but the words run hot through Jack's body. His cock twitches at the sight of it, aftershocks rocking through him in a way they haven't in years.

Because there, written upside down so that they could only be read from an angle like this one, are two words: yes, sir.

Robby may as well have just bought Jack a ring, and Jack wastes no time pulling Robby up off the floor and into his lap, wraps his hand around Robby's cock at a viscious pace, kisses him sloppy and wet, mutters filth into Robby's mouth in between bites and licks.

"You're such a fucking shit, Mike, getting that tattoo. Lets the whole world know that you're mine, that you belong to me, that nobody gets to have you except me. Fuck, Mike, you're perfect."

And he means it. He reaches one hand behind Robby and presses against his hole dryly. It's nothing, not really, not compared to some of the things Jack has gotten inside of the man, but in the moment, it's enough. Robby comes messily between them and lets his forehead collapse down onto Jack's shoulder.

After they sit together, breathing heavy and taking turns pressing soft kisses to whatever skin they can reach, Robby sits up a little straighter.

"So, you like it, then?" Robby asks, eyes hesitant as they bounce across Jack's features.