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Chapter Text

Jack had lost his ability to feel self conscious and embarrassed around the same time as he lost his wife. Something broke in him that day and he lost the ability to give a shit what others thought of him. Probably the only good thing that came out of that. 

He felt like he should feel self conscious when he walked into the skateboard shop at eleven am on a random Wednesday, fresh from his therapy appointment. His homework for the week was to reclaim something from his childhood. He wasn’t sure why he immediately thought of skateboarding, but it was the first thing that popped into his mind as soon as his therapist mentioned it. 

It wasn’t that he had been some expert, but it had been something he’d been doing with his ragtag group of friends whenever he couldn’t stand being at home. Which was often. He had stopped sometime during high school and he couldn’t really remember why. 

Unsurprising, the store was completely empty, apart from a bored looking store clerk who was scrolling on her phone behind the register. When the door chimed, she flinched and hurried to put away her phone, immediately plastering on a customer service smile. 

“Hey, can I help you?” She said as she got up and started making her way towards him. This was probably the most excitement she’d had all day. 

“Yes,” Jack cleared his throat. “I’m looking to get back into skateboarding. I haven’t stood on a board in about thirty-five years. And I still had two legs back then.” 

He was wearing shorts and his prosthetic wasn’t exactly hidden. He wasn’t sure what reaction he expected, but he didn’t expect the clerk to absolutely light up, her eyes sparkling with excitement. 

“Oh man, that’s fantastic,” She said with a grin. “We’ll get you all kitted out, get you back on that board. And don’t worry about the leg thing, have you heard about Oscar Loreto Jr?”

And that was that. They spent almost two hours together and she helped Jack pick out what he needed. She was a damned good saleswoman and he walked out of the store having spent about twice as much money as he had intended. But he was an attending doctor, his wallet could handle it. 

Excitement rippled through him as he walked, holding onto his newly purchased items. He was going skateboarding. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, he had a few days off from work and Robby did too. Oh, he couldn’t wait to tell Robby about this. Jack smiled to himself and he felt happy. Properly happy, for the first time in god only knew how long. Probably since he lost his wife. 

He was acing his therapy homework. 

The skatepark was more or less empty. A few teens smoking and lazily rolling around were there, probably ditching school. They didn’t even acknowledge him as he plopped his skateboard down and sat down on a bench. He spent a few minutes looking up videos of people skateboarding with prosthetic legs and watching their tutorials. It didn’t seem that hard. 

Jack pocketed his phone and stood up, grasping his helmet. As a kid, he’d never used a helmet and rolled his eyes whenever someone did. But as an ED doctor, he’d seen the aftermath of skateboarding accidents where the patient wasn’t wearing a helmet. So he was going to wear a helmet. 

He could feel the teens watching him as he carefully stepped on the board. Even though it had been over three decades since he last did it, the muscle memory was there. It took a while to adjust to the prosthetic. But eventually he got into it. 

He spent the next hour just skating around, getting familiar with the board again. It was all coming back to him. What a lovely way to spend the afternoon. At some point, the teens left and he was left alone in the park. 

Then, disaster. He was just lazily rolling around when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something large and brown charge towards him. He barely had time to register what was happening before the dog charged right into him, knocking him off balance. 

It felt like the fall went by in slow motion. He landed unfortunately and he could feel his leg snap as his knee twisted. Pain shot through him and he cursed loudly as he fell onto the hard concrete. 

Jack’s head was spinning and he had the wind knocked out of him. He forced himself to take a deep breath and take stock of the situation. With a groan, he pushed himself up on his elbows. His knee was clearly dislocated and while there was no obvious deformity of his lower leg, the pain told him that it was most likely broken. At least his prosthetic seemed intact. 

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” 

Jack looked up as an older couple came hurrying towards him. The man caught the dog by its collar. It was wagging its tail and seemed completely unbothered. At least it hadn’t been injured in the collision. 

“He never runs away,” The woman said as she looked down at him. 

“Well, he did today,” Jack pointed out, grimacing at the pulsing pain in his leg. 

“I’m going to call 911,” The man said. “You just stay down, sir.” 

“I don’t really have a choice,” Jack muttered. “You don’t have to call an ambulance, I’ll call a friend to pick me up.”

“We’ll pay for it, of course,” The woman assured him. 

That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the closest hospital was PTMC and Jack could think of about a million things he’d rather do than be brought to his own damn ED on a stretcher after a fucking skateboarding accident.

God was punishing him. He must have done something heinous. Was it the frequent sodomy? Jack didn’t know what it was, but he was being punished for something. He felt heat crawl up his cheeks as the sounds of the sirens grew closer. Apparently he had slammed into the concrete so hard that it rebooted his ability to feel embarrassed. 

His heart sank as the PTMC ambulance turned around the corner and carefully drove into the park. Jack closed his eyes and tipped his head back, silently praying that it wasn’t one of the paramedics he knew. But no such luck, as the ambulance came to a stop and Crowe jumped out of the passenger seat. When she spotted him, her face split into a wide grin, looking like the cat that got the canary. 

“Well, well,” She grinned and grouched beside him. “What have we here?”

The couple looked at each other, probably shocked at the way the paramedic spoke to him. They couldn’t know that they knew each other. 

“Crowe, I will pay you to take me to Presby,” Jack pleaded. “Or West Penn. Please. Whatever you want.”

“No can do, bossman,” Crowe said as she looked at his leg. Stars exploded in front of Jack’s eyes as she reached out to touch it, the pain making him feel sick. “This needs a tier one trauma center.”

Chapter Text

Robby was counting down the hours. It was his final shift before several days off. And his days off lined up with Jack’s days off. A rare miracle. He couldn’t wait. They probably wouldn’t get much done and they’d probably spend most of the time in the bedroom. They had known each other for the better part of two decades, but their relationship was new, only going on a few months. 

It was a relatively q-word shift (he wasn’t even going to think the word, he didn’t want to jinx it) and he finally had time to catch up on his charting. He might even be able to leave on time after handover. He longed to be home, to be in Jack’s arms. Maybe he’d pick up takeout on his way back. Unless Jack was planning on cooking something. 

Robby was pulled out of his daydreaming by the sound of the automatic doors opening and the wheels of a gurney. He looked up and felt his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. Jack was on the stretcher, arms crossed over his chest and lips pressed together. He was staring stubbornly at the foot of the bed, which now housed zero amount of functioning legs. 

“Jack Abbot, 49, skateboarding accident,” Crowe was grinning, looking way too pleased with the whole thing. “No LOC, wore a helmet, good vitals. Left knee clearly dislocated, slight deformity of the ankle. Morphine administered en route.”

Robby bit the inside of his cheek as he walked over to look at the broken leg, which had been stabilised with a vacuum splint. Jack was glaring at him, almost daring him to make a comment. 

Impressed by both his own restraint and that of his colleagues, they managed to get Jack to North 5 without anyone making a single comment. Jack kept his arms tightly crossed over his chest and kept staring daggers at Robby, as if it was his fault Jack decided to go skateboarding. Robby had so many questions. 

“I didn’t know Dr. Abbot only had one leg,” Whitaker whispered to Santos as they walked into the room. 

“Well, now he has none,” Santos whispered back and snorted at her own bad joke.

It turned out that along with the dislocated knee, Jack had gotten a displaced tib fib fracture. Robby grimaced as he looked at the x-rays. Collins, Santos, Whitaker and Jesse joined him, peering over his shoulder. 

Jack was still glaring at them. He hadn’t said much, apart from quietly threatening to castrate Robby if he made any dumb comments. 

“We’re gonna have to do a closed reduction,” Collins pointed out.

“Yep, we need to relocate the knee and-” Robby started 

“I know what needs to be done, just shut the fuck up and do it,” Jack growled, glaring at the small group of people huddled around his bed. 

“Okay then,” Robby clapped his hands together. “Jesse, fent and propofol-”

“No, fuck that!” Jack interrupted, suddenly panicked. “You’re not giving me fucking propofol infront of the kids!” 

“Jack, don’t call the students and interns kids, we’ve talked about this,” Robby chided. “And it’s going to really hurt.”

“I don’t give a fuck!”

“Stop swearing.”

“Don’t give me propofol," Jack growled through gritted teeth. “Do it without.”

“Are you fucking insane?” Robby felt his eyes widen. “You can’t be serious.” 

“Can everybody stop swearing?” Collins sighed deeply. 

“Look, I survived an IED in Iraq, I can survive a closed reduction without propofol,” Jack crossed his arms over his chest again. 

Robby and Collins glanced at each other. Robby then shrugged, gesturing for them to carry on. They all looked at him with wide eyes. Collins turned towards him, leaning up to whisper in his ear. 

“Twenty bucks he won’t make it more than a minute,” She whispered. 

It turned out Collins was wrong. Jack made it almost two minutes of them manipulating his injured leg before he slammed his hand down on the bed, yelling for them to stop. He was pale and his eyes were filled with tears. 

“Fine, give me the fucking propofol,” He growled. “But no one can hold anything I say against me, clear?”

“We’re all professionals,” Collins pointed out as Jesse went to grab the drugs.

It was clear when the drugs kicked in. Jack’s face went from an intense scowl to a dopey smile with half-closed eyes.

“How’re you feeling, Jack?” Robby asked and touched his partner’s shoulder. 

“Woohoo,” Jack slurred. “All good, brother.” 

“Excellent,” Robby snorted and patted Jack’s shoulder. “Let’s get this over with.”

Robby stayed by the head of the bed and watched as Collins guided Santos and Whitaker through first relocating the dislocated knee and then set about aligning the broken bones. Jack didn’t flinch and barely reacted for the first few moments. 

“I love you, Robby,” He slurred suddenly. 

Robby flinched and looked down at Jack with wide eyes. He could feel the others looking at him as heat crept up his neck. They hadn’t told anybody about their relationship. Robby was fairly certain Dana already knew, but other than that, they tried to keep it on the down low, at Jack’s request. 

“I love you so much,” Jack mumbled. “Do you love me? Cause… Cause I can never tell, y’know? You always look so sad.”

Robby knew that he was probably the same shade as a stop sign by now. He could feel the heat in his face and his mouth felt dry. 

“Okay, I think you guys have it handled,” He said to the others and cleared his throat, preparing to leave. 

“Oh no, I think we need you here to keep the patient calm,” Collins grinned at him.

“I mean, sad in a hot way,” Jack’s continued mumbling interrupted. “Dad bod, as the kids say…”

Robby felt like he might actually combust. 

“Why don’t you just rest until they’re done?” Robby suggested, doing his best to ignore the burning shame that went all from his hairline down to his toes. 

“Gotta rest up for our days off,” Jack laughed airily. “Yeah, brother.”

If the earth wanted to open up and swallow him, he would be fine with that. 

Chapter Text

Robby glanced at the clock. It was almost time to start wrapping up for the day, but he could only feel melancholy. He wouldn’t be walking home to collapse into his partner’s arms, instead he would be taking the elevator up to sit by said partner’s bedside as he woke up from anesthesia. Decidedly not how he wanted to spend his first night off. He let out a long sigh. 

“Any word on Jack?” Collins sidled up next to him. 

He had managed to avoid her ever since they sent Jack up to ortho, she had been looking at him as if she was on the verge of bursting out laughing. Not that he could blame her, if the tables had been turned, and her partner had been going on a propofol induced ramble, he would probably be in the same state. 

“He’s out of surgery, but he needs to stay overnight,” Robby made a point to not look at her. Even so, he could already feel himself blushing. 

“So,” She leaned in close. “You and Jack, huh? What’s that like?”

“I thought you and I weren’t doing this kind of thing,” Robby pointed out. 

“How long has this been going on?” She continued, as if he hadn’t said anything. “Can’t believe I didn’t notice it. But it makes sense. Your friendship has always been worryingly homoerotic.”

“Don’t you have charting to do?” Robby asked. 

Collins just laughed and ruffled his hair. 

“Happy for you two freaks.”

Robby rolled his eyes and ducked away from her. He grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. Collins and the others could handle handover, he had been through enough for the day. He was halfway to the elevator when he heard Santos’ voice drifting from somewhere. 

“Who do you think tops? I think Abbot, he has that top energy.” 

He felt his cheeks heat up once more. Jack was going to kill him when he realised everyone knew that they were together. 

“What do you mean, ‘top energy’?” Javadi asked. Oh no. She was so young and sheltered. She was Shamsi’s daughter. Robby felt a meeting with HR in his near future. 

“Well, Crash, that means-”

Robby was saved from what would probably be a rather colourful explanation of what “top energy” was by the doors to the elevator closing.

Jack drifted in and out of sleep to the lovely soundtrack of Robby moving around the apartment. There was a dull ache in his leg, his throat felt sore and his body just felt heavy in general. He wasn’t sure how long he lay on the sofa, curled up under a blanket before there were two dull thuds of cups being put on the table and then the TV was turned on. 

“Scoot,” Robby said gently and tapped his shoulder. 

Jack grumbled as he inched himself down a bit. The sofa dipped as Robby sat down and a warm hand settled on his bicep. Once Robby was settled, Jack moved around so that he could place his head in Robby’s lap. He hummed contentedly as Robby started running his fingers through Jack’s curls. 

“I love you, Jack,” Robby said suddenly over the sound of the tv. “Just want you to know that.” 

That was a weird thing to say, apropos nothing. But Jack didn’t have too long to consider it before he drifted off again, lulled to sleep by the murmur of the tv and Robby’s fingers in his hair. 

“Love you too,” He mumbled, just before falling asleep.

It wasn’t the relaxing time off Jack had hoped for. Sure, it was nice to have Robby wait on him hand and foot, and to be pampered. But Jack would have preferred to have that while also having at least one functional leg. 

“So…” Robby said suddenly as they lay in bed together on their final evening off together. “You’re gonna be laid up for a while. I’ve already approved your request for time off.”

“I wasn’t aware I’d put in a time off request?” Jack asked and looked up from where he’d been resting his head on Robby’s chest.

“Well, I’ve approved it, you have six weeks.” 

By the tone in Robby’s voice, Jack could tell that there was no point in arguing with him about it. And all the arguing in the world wouldn’t change the fact that he wouldn’t really be of any use in the ED for at least six weeks, until he could start PT and get his strength back. So Jack just shrugged and settled back against Robby’s chest. 

“Anyway, I thought that I’d just warn you that everyone probably knows about us by now.” 

Robby said it so quickly that the words almost bled into one. Jack had been feeling pleasantly sleepy, but he suddenly felt wide awake. 

“How?” He asked, wracking his brain. He would remember if they’d done anything to- Oh no. 

“The propofol,” Robby said, confirming his suspicion. 

“What did I say?” Jack asked, dread filling his stomach. 

“Well, you did tell me you love me. And that I always look sad, but in a hot way.”

“All this just because I wanted to relive one of the few good things from my childhood,” Jack said glumly. “And because some people can’t leash their fucking dogs. I feel like I should sue. Should I sue? They looked pretty flush. Hey, what happened to my skateboard?”

“I don’t know, I was a bit more concerned about your leg,” Robby pointed out. “I’ll buy you a new one. You can teach me.” 

“Oh, I am never skateboarding again.”