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It took Jack an embarrassingly long time to realize what happened.

The way Michael held him like he was trying to memorize the exact indents he mad against his skin. The subsequent months of nothing. At first he was afraid for a different reason. He’s seen it with some of his guys, felt it for a while after coming back.

God.

Robby felt.

He felt for an elderly person who sat on a park bench with the ghost of another. He felt for a young child racing through the park fully trusting the world to be kind to them. He felt for dogs that rambled along with their owner even as their body sags with exhaustion.

It was something Jack could never fully comprehend. How a man who bleeds every emotion could somehow be a doctor, an emergency doctor, of all things.

And he might’ve always feared that one day Robby would feel just a little too much of the wrong thing.

He nearly cried with relief when he heard Michael’s voice. It was calm and even and completely unaffected after hearing Jack’s voice. That was the first hint. One that Jack couldn’t even see until hours later after pulling himself out of a spiral.

I’m sorry, sir, but I really don’t know you. Sir. Robby called him sir.

Sir is for E-1’s who sound like their balls haven’t dropped yet. Sir is for random civilians who see him in uniform. Sir is for cheeky assholes like Martinez. Sir is not for Michael Robinavitch who knows him too well to ever have that distant respect.

I hope you find who you’re looking for. But it’s Robby. He was looking for Robby. He’s always looking for Robby.

Why does Robby sound like he doesn’t know him?

He’s not the type to pull some elaborate cruel prank.

Some part of his brain—the doctor, the person that looks at twenty injured men and determines who’s actually got a shot at surviving—pieces it together. The wedding. The sudden disappearance. The apparent lack of memory.

But he’s a soldier, he doesn’t leave a man behind. He doesn’t abandon his battle buddy, and Robby’s been his since they were twenty one with brains melting during Physiology.

Charlotte find him manically trying to call Robby back.

She doesn’t try to stop him once he explains. She holds him when realty hits and his calls aren’t even going through anymore.

~~~~~

The world has some fucked up sense of humor. Truly, cruelly.

Dr. Robinavitch is in front of him. Ten years older with a beard and the implication of crowsfeet. He has his hand out to shake Jack’s. They’re on the same panel, how to handle trauma in unprecedented events. The aftermath of a hurricane and an active battlefield respectively.

Dr. Robinavitch looks good, healthy with a slight bounce in his step. He mentions a boy, Jake. The way he sounds…it’s like he’s his own son.

Jack notices Dr. Robinavitch mindlessly rub his chest. Right between his ribs.

Jack makes sure to stay clear of Dr. Robinavitch.

~~~~~

Jack comes to Pittsburgh to die.

He promised Charlotte after the convention fiasco to never look up Michael Robinavitch. Not professionally and certainly not personally. She demanded this for his own sake and that’s why he was resistant. It wasn’t until she started to sound bitter that he finally acquiesced. He was always better at doing right by others than by himself.

Charlotte’s dead now. He laid her to rest a month ago. Most everything was sold or given to various family members. Jack certainly wouldn’t need it.

The only thing he keeps is his ring.

He slides into the emergency department without any resistance. He’s not planning on staying too long but he doesn’t wish to go out on that bad of a note.

He’s placed on nights which is inconvenient because Robby’s a day attending. But it’s so poetic Jack can’t find it in himself to try and change shifts. It’ll just mean his plan will take a bit longer. Which means more suffering. More penance.

He doesn’t fall in love with Michael, he woke up to it. Something latent turning over and coming back into conciousness. Jack doesn’t immediately try to befriend him, but they’re about the same age, unmarried, and in the same nightmarish job.

It starts with dragging their feet during handoff, the evolves to drinks at the bar, then mutates to going over to Robby’s. His town house leaves Jack hollow, every room is shifted 2.5 inches to the left. Almost in the form of home decor.

It’s the same hybrid of classic wood, mid century modern, and esoteric mad scientist. There’s no pictures of Robby during med school.

Jack starts to insist they go to his, citing accessibility. Robby is needlessly apologetic about being ‘inconsiderate’. Jack figures he needs to buy a coffee table and some plants to not seem suspicious.

It’s easy, loving Michael Robinavitch. It’s easy to love his compassion, his dedication, his loyalty.

The flowers remain stubbornly dormant.

Years past. Adamson dies. Jack starts therapy and greatly minimizes his reason for coming to Pittsburgh. Robby continues to decline. There’s still no damn flowers.

Neither of them say anything.

Pittfest is another type of beast. One that everyone handles with depressing efficiency. Over worked, over stretched, under paid, and not protected. They still do their damn jobs.

He finds Robby on the roof on the wrong side of the barricade and Jack thinks, “This is it. If he goes I go. One way or another.”

Not exactly how he planned it all those years ago, but it would hurt. It might be enough for absolution. No it won’t. Nothing will.

But he can’t let Michael die.

The leave that night and for a moment Jack can imagine what life might’ve been like if they weren’t cowards. If Robby fessed up. If he just reached out during those eleven months. If he tried to explain during the conference. If he confessed now.

Maybe they never would’ve been lovers, maybe they’d always just be brothers in arms. But there would’ve been this comradery and some delusional part of Jack thinks it would be enough.

By the time the 4th comes around everyone’s lost and nothing is okay. Jack’s finally watching his oldest Robby fear come to life. Robby feeling too much of the wrong thing.

It’s ugly.

He’s mean.

He can’t even look Jack in the eye.

Jack’s never left a man behind. He doesn’t plan to now.

“It’s you and me.” A vow and a curse and the only thing keeping either of them here.

Robby rides off and Jack wonder for the nth time why he doesn’t have and flowers.

He loses his mind quietly in the peds ward (thankfully void of children and corpses). Why are there no flowers. He loves Robby. Probably had for much longer than he was ever aware of. And Robby can’t love him. Because that’s the whole point of the surgery and Jack hates him for making that call and loving him for doing what he must to survive and hating himself for being the cause of all this and maybe hating Charlotte because if not for her he would’ve figured it out eventually. Right? Would he? He would have to. Because the alternative is he would’ve just forced Robby to suffer permanently and what kind of friend, doctor, person would he be?

Thankfully Pittsburgh’s kind and Jack’s spiral is uninterrupted.

He gets back to his house and he notices a motorcycle.

He practically trips through the door. Would crawl over glass of that’s what it took because what if he’s too slow and Robby decides to leave?

There, on his couch, wrapped in an old sweatshirt of their Ala Mater, Michael looks like he did thirty years ago.

Jack doesn’t wake him. He brews some tea, black tea with honey just the way Robby’s Bubbe makes it.

Michael wakes up only because his body isn’t so exhausted that it can’t sense another presence in the room.

Jack’s sitting on a chair. There’s the tea on the coffee table he scrounged from a garage sale because it was only meant to be needed for two years.

Jack and Robby know each other fairly well in this life. Jack knows Robby’s coffee order; Robby knows Jack’s IPA preferences.

Jack shouldn’t know Robby prefers black tea but doesn’t drink it as often because he can it reconcile his job with its caffeine to liquid ratio. He definitely shouldn’t know he prefers it brewed on the lighter side with only half a teaspoon of honey.

Robby look and Jack and something nudges closer to it’s correct place. The switch precariously tilting to the correct side and closing the circuit.

He sounds like he’s testing out the name.

"It's always an adventure," Robby says with a wry grin.

"Only way out is through," Jack replies. They set off.

They don't hurry- there's no reason to hurry. They're far enough away from the trailhead that even if they ran, it wouldn't make a difference. They keep going- alone on the trail, they sing songs, terribly. At one point, Jack starts calling out marching songs that his drill sergeant would use to help them keep pace in BMT. At one point, Robby slips on the slick earth and covers his pants in mud up to the knees. The whole time they're laughing, they just keep laughing.

By the time they make it back to the truck, they're soaked to the bone and shivering, with the biggest smiles on their faces. When Robby removes his boots and what had to be a cup and a half of water pours out, they break into more laughter. It isn't even that funny, but the endorphins, the sheer what the fuck, this might as well happen, of it all- just shines of light of hilarity on everything.

Jack had spare socks and spare shirts in the car, but their shoes and pants are fucked beyond repair. They'll just have to stay wet for the three hour drive back. It was worth it- they had more fun on that hike, soaked through the bone, than on any hike Robby could ever remember.

On the drive back, the weather breaks. The clouds shuffle off, the clear blue sky is revealed and a golden light shines over everything. Classic rock is on the radio; Jack singing along to the guitar solos instead of the lyrics, for some reason- and Robby thinks I could have missed this.

It's the kind of thought that couldn't stay inside, so he says it. "I could have missed this." At Jack's raised brow, he continues. "I almost killed myself. I could have missed this."

"I'm glad you didn't, brother. I'm glad I didn't, too. Would have been a shame to miss today."

"It's beautiful." It sounds stupid, it sounds trite, it would sound absurd to any person other than Jack, but he feels like he's witnessed a miracle. The unexpected summer thunderstorm, the blue sky, the sun shining through the clouds. It's all so beautiful. Somehow, he can actually see it now. He took so much for granted. He never appreciated it, not anything.

He does now, in this moment.

And Robby. Just keeps thinking it. He feels the breeze through his window and hears someone laughing far away and he thinks I could have missed this. He and Jack argue over a game and he thinks I could have missed this. He holds a baby, freshly delivered in his hands. I could have missed this. Even the sadness is a blessing somehow. He almost missed out on so much.

He tries to take a picture any time the thought strikes him, that way he can look back and see the proof that even though things are still so bad sometimes, it's still a miracle that he's allowed to see it at all.

He explains it to Jack and Jack- in the dead-pan way he says jokes with an utter seriousness, like what he's about to tell you is life or death information- says "Every day's a gift, brother. That's why they call it the present." And Robby laughs and laughs and shoves him for being a piece of shit.

"I was trying to be open and honest, brother. Why do you have to ruin everything?" Robby moans, though the smile is still on his face.

"In the spirit of me ruining everything-" Jack takes his hand, pulling him in for a kiss. And oh, Robby wasn't expecting that. Hadn't expected that at all, but it's so good, and how could he have never expected this? It seems so obvious in hindsight.

I could have missed this, Robby thinks, the rest of his life unfurling before him- an open road, a hand in his, sun golden on everything. Even the future sadness, even the future pain. He sees the sun, and even if he doesn't, he knows it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing the sun is there. In knowing he has someone to dance through the darkness with.

In the bathroom, Robby pisses, rinses and brushes his teeth. While he gathers a new toothbrush for Whitaker, he grins to himself. What a lucky bastard he's been tonight. He hadn't expected the new MS4 to be so receptive to his modest advances. All along, he must have been feeling the chemistry too.

When he returns from the bathroom, Whitaker is sitting on the side of the bed, pulling on his jeans. "I, uh, I take Venmo," he says. "But I can do cash if it's easier for you."

He’s never really had the opportunity to, not until he got with Robby — and even then, when he’d be up late texting (sexting, he can hear Trinity correcting him in his head) his man, it was all text or breathless voice notes.

The first time Robby had send him a dick pic, Dennis had dropped his phone onto his chest and cum all over himself.

Because he’s seen Robby before, dozens of times, but it’s so different like this. The dim light of his bedside lamp casting shadows across Robby’s knuckles, the tip of his cock a dark red, the hair trailing down his lower stomach that Dennis knew so well he could feel the phantom sensation of it against his tongue.

It drove him a little crazy. He’d ask Robby for a ‘picture’ — their codeword that wasn’t really a codeword, but it was enough for them to — whenever Robby had a day off or was at home during the evening and Dennis couldn’t make it over.