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The thing that startled Robby was just how long it took him to realise what he'd done. He'd strode across to meet the incoming ambulance, taken note of what info the EMTs had to pass on, accompanied the gurney into Trauma One, supervised Cassie and Nazely's assessment and stabilisation of the patient—penetrating gunshot wound to the abdomen, lower right quadrant; congratulations, you've just won the hopefully-once-in-a-lifetime chance to have Yolanda Garcia rummage around in your insides—and only then did it hit him.
He'd been outside, on the phone with Jack, when he'd first heard the wail of an approaching rig. Their discussion of whether to try the fancy new pizzeria around the corner from Jack's place, the one that made a big deal about the unusual toppings it offered, or to stick with the more basic but tried-and-true option when watching the game tonight, had had to wait. "Gotta go," Robby had said, distracted by trying to estimate how far out the ambulance was, "see you later, I love you."
Now, Robby stood there in the trauma bay and the full horror of what he'd done slowly dawned on him. He'd told Jack that he loved him. He'd told Jack that he loved him, and then he'd hung up on him.
"Fuck," Robby said.
He snapped off his nitrile gloves, binned them, and pulled his phone from his pocket pinched between thumb and forefinger, as if gingerly handling some kind of medical waste. Nothing. No missed calls, no voice mails, no texts except for a scam telling him he needed to pay a missed toll fee in California. Nothing at all from Jack, and Robby couldn't decide if that was the best case scenario or an even bigger nightmare.
Hand-off to Shen and Ellis was its typical clockwork, and on the drive over to Jack's condo, Robby went through various stages of bargaining with the universe. Maybe Jack hadn't heard him. Reception in the ambulance bay could be spotty. Calls sometimes dropped. Or maybe Jack would laugh it off, assume it was the meaningless consequence of the kind of brain fart you sometimes got near the end of a long but humdrum shift, like how a little kid in elementary school might thoughtlessly call their teacher 'mom' in front of the whole class.
A little voice in Robby's head, one that sounded suspiciously like his recently-acquired therapist, said what are you bargaining for, here, exactly? Which was one of many reasons why therapy was doing a number on his temporomandibular joint, because clearly Jack had been getting along just fine before now with Robby not admitting to anything, even though Robby had surely been painfully, mortifyingly obvious, and wasn't the whole point of therapy sessions for him to learn how not to leak his feelings all over everything and everyone?
And really, Robby thought as he parked in front of Jack's building and sat there rubbing at the hinge of his jaw, was it correct to call what Robby felt for Jack love? Or, if he did, well, there were lots of different kinds of love. It didn't have to be that kind. Did it? Robby strained to recall all those ancient Greek words for love that he'd learned in a long-ago philosophy gen ed course. Philia. That could have been what he meant. Who was to say that Robby hadn't meant brotherly love? He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, one two three.
It's still bargaining if you're splitting hairs and looking for get-out clauses, his little internal therapist voice pointed out.
"Fuck," Robby said.
In the elevator on the way up to Jack's condo, Robby wondered if there was scope for him to invent some sudden emergency. If he could just text Jack and say, Sorry, can't make it tonight after all, every pipe just burst in my bathroom for no apparent reason or Broke years-long vow never to eat hospital cafeteria good, have food poisoning, see you in 24048 hours. He could do that. But he also thought: well, hell, face the music. Play stupid phone games, accept stupid phone prizes.
See you later, I love you.
"Fuck," Robby said, with emphasis.
He knocked on Jack's door, and then immediately realised that he'd been so distracted by what he'd said that he'd forgotten that he'd promised to do something in the first place. As soon as Jack opened up—wearing shorts and a ratty old t-shirt, his curls in disarray—Robby blurted out, "I didn't bring any pizza."
Jack studied him, slow and steady from head to toe, and then said, "We're really working on our conversational segues, huh? Interesting."
"So you did hear it," Robby said as Jack stepped back to let him in.
"Heard it, yeah," Jack said, closing the door and using one of his crutches to point towards the living room. Robby went, glum. The pre-game show should have started by now, but Jack's TV was switched off. An almost-empty glass of whiskey sat on the coffee table. Robby had the distinct impression that he wasn't going to be watching the game that night.
"Heard it," Jack went on, "thought about it. Processed." He spoke with that precise, Dr-Abbot-y enunciation that could be terrifying when turned on a wayward med student and that now made Robby wince.
"I'm sorry," Robby said, hoping that Jack could hear the sincerity in his tone. "I wasn't trying to... It was a lapse, it doesn't have to mean anything, I can keep a handle on it."
"Oh my god," Jack said, in tones of disbelief as resonant as if Robby had just confessed to liking low-fat popcorn, or thinking that the Pirates had a real chance of winning the World Series this year.
"I mean it, I'd never expect you to..." Robby shrugged, and tried to convince himself that maybe a little mortification was good for the character. He looked at the floor. "I can go, if you don't want—"
"Sit," Jack said, and pointed at his couch. Robby sat. Jack picked up his glass and knocked back the dregs of the whiskey in one big gulp. Robby grimaced. That boded. "Okay."
"'Okay' what?"
Jack squinted at him. "You think you're getting to steer this conversation right now? Because that happened earlier, and look where that got us."
"Jesus," Robby said.
"Let's leave him out of this," Jack said and, setting his crutches down, moved to straddle Robby's lap.
"Um," Robby said.
"So here's the thing," Jack said, "all that trying to woo me with fancy pizza? Unnecessary. Because brother, surely you know a sure thing when you see it. But I will say—"
Robby was long familiar with that particular tone of Jack's voice. He rolled his eyes, preemptively.
"—as first declarations of like, your undying passion or whatever, you could do with a little more finesse. C'mon, do over."
"My undying passion?" Robby echoed, parsing out each syllable slowly.
Jack stared impassively at him and raised both his eyebrows. "Well?"
Robby took a deep breath and fought not to close his eyes. Jack wanted him to say this—surely Robby could be brave enough to say this to him, face-to-face. "I love you. I'm in love with you. I don't know when it first started but I do know that I can't imagine myself now without that.... that fact of loving you being at the core of me." Robby's jaw worked; he didn't think he was getting this right. "I don't, uh, I don't have a good track record with words. I don't sing love songs well, but for you, I wish I could."
Jack leaned forward and rested one hand gently on Robby's chest, right over his heart. The expression on Jack's face just then terrified Robby; it made him want to keep speaking.
"I said it because it's what I'm always feeling." Robby thought about how he'd first realised that he thought about Jack more than he was supposed to. How he'd caught himself constantly looking for Jack across the Pitt whenever their shifts overlapped, needing to reassure himself that yes, Jack was just over there, even though some sixth sense of his was always keeping faithful track of Jack anyway. "When I say hello in the morning, I mean I love you. When I tell you good night, I mean that I love you. When I—"
Their first kiss was a slow thing, a tremendous thing, with as much weight and heft to it as the feeling of Jack in Robby's lap. Robby's hands came up to settle on Jack's waist, and his head swam like he was the one who'd drunk the whiskey, instead of just having licked the taste of it from Jack's mouth.
"How about now?" Jack murmured eventually, voice gone raspy. "Still mean it now?"
"Yes," Robby said, and he'd never wanted Jack to believe him about anything so much as he wanted Jack to believe him right now. Fervent, he said, "Jack, I—"
"I love you, too," Jack said, and he was smiling he'd just discovered the map to some unsuspected country, and the only thing that startled Robby now was how long it had taken them to speak.