(no subject)

[physicianheal]

Robby's always loved live music. He prefers clubs and festivals to stadiums or arenas. In this bigger venues, you're too far away, and you didn't get the benefit of being there. In a club or a festival crowd there's the smell of alcohol and sweat, the press of bodies, and this collective thrum that went through every body there. They're communal experiences. At their best, they're spiritual. He's not got high hopes for this band in particular, but there's guitars and drums and decent cheap beer, and he's managed to talk Jack into coming, so it could definitely be worse.

He comes back to the corner that he'd parked Jack in with two bottles of beer in hand.

"How're you holding up?" He asks, offering one.

Comments

[jackabbot]

Jack gave Robby a Look. He was in a corner with a good view of the fire exits, but that didn’t mean he was that happy about it. The shit he did for Michael Robinavitch and his insistence that this band was going to be worth going out and being surrounded by people young enough to be his literal children. Jack didn’t get nervous in crowds or with people brushing up against him like some people did, but that didn’t mean he was entirely enjoying himself.

“Someone just brushed past me and said ‘scuse me grandpa’,” Jack informed Robby, but he also took the beer and tapped it against Robby’s.

[physicianheal]

Robby has been the recipient of that Look many times over the years that he's known Jack and, honestly, he thinks he's immune to it at this point. He just grins and takes a sip of his beer. He shakes his head, glancing over his shoulder towards the stage, where the band are still setting up their equipment.

"If it makes you feel better," he says. "I don't think I'm old enough to be anyone here's grandpa, and I've got a few years on you."

[jackabbot]

Jack sipped his beer, which was a nice porter, and did a little mental math.

“Considering how stupid I was about condoms when I was in high school, it’s probably a miracle I’m not someone’s grandpa,” he shrugged. “I used to keep em in my wallet in my back pocket like everyone did.”

They all thought it was cool for someone to see the little ring from the condom packet on the outside of their wallet, some kind of proof that they were cool enough to be having sex, whether they actually were or not.

“At least you’re kind enough not to get me an IPA,” he noted. He didn’t dislike them as much as he sometimes acted like he did, but they weren’t his favorite.

[physicianheal]

"It's like I know you as a person," says Robby, blandly, sipping his own beer, which is an IPA from a Darrow brewery that he's found that he particularly likes. "And value a quiet life."

He huffs a laugh at the comment about condoms.

"God. Same." Honestly, in a relationship he could still be kind of lax, which he isn't about to admit to Jack. He hasn't told Jack about the conversation he had with Heather, what she'd told him without telling him. It wasn't his story to tell.

[jackabbot]

"Picked the wrong fuckin' specialty for that," Jack noted, since EM was not what anyone picked if they wanted a quiet life. At least the sun had started coming up and going down on its normal schedule again a couple of days ago.

"Why are we here again? You know we can listen to music and drink beer at one of our apartments."

Robby was dressed up a little bit, maybe, with one if his nicer obscure band shirts and a pair of Carhartts that probably hadn't had every possible bodily fluid on them yet. Jack wondered if maybe he knew someone in the band that he was trying to impress. If he was and he'd dragged Jack out to play wingman, Jack was leaving every single late-arriving "fell on a vegetable" patient for day shift to deal with for the next week.

[physicianheal]

"We are here because it is absolutely not the same and you know it," says Robby, taking another sip of his beer and glancing over his shoulder again. Someone steps too close and jostles him forward a step and he ends up catching himself with a hand on the wall to the side of Jack's shoulder. It's definitely starting to fill up, which is a good sign.

"Quit acting like someone's grandpa. Christ."

[jackabbot]

Robby got jostled nearly into Jack and braced himself on the wall so that he was sort of leaning into Jack and Jack had to look up to keep talking to him. They were definitely in each others' personal space right now, but it wasn't something Jack was uncomfortable with. He was certainly aware of how close Robby was, though.

"But then who would I be?" he replied with a smirk. "How'd you hear about this band again?"

[physicianheal]

"Well, there is that," says Robby, staying leaned into Jack's space because, honestly, it makes talking easier anyway. "One of the interns at work was telling me about them and it's one of those rare times when neither of us are at work so..." He shrugs. "Here we are."

He probably ought to step back from Jack but Jack's not showing any kind of discomfort and, honestly, Robby likes an opportunity to be this close.

[jackabbot]

“I’d ask why you didn’t invite Nikita, but I bet she’d never willingly go anywhere this crowded and with so few exits,” Jack noted. Nikita wasn’t his type —- too icy in every way —- but he respected her skills as a paramedic. If she ran the call, he knew that the patient would come to him in the best possible condition.

Someone rushed past them to hug another someone and Jack put a hand on Robby’s waist just for a second to stabilize him.

[physicianheal]

"You're probably right. Also, she had other plans, so..." He hadn't actually asked Nikita, but he also knows that she's with someone else she sleeping with tonight. He never asks for any details, because she'll tell him what she wants him to know. Anything else isn't his business.

Someone jostles him and Jack's hand goes to his waist to steady him and God, Robby doesn't want to draw attention to it, just in case Jack leaves it there. He sips his beer instead. "I don't think I even know what kind of music you listen to."

[jackabbot]

Jack dropped his hand from Robby’s waist since they were both stable. He was leaning back against the wall and Robby probably could have stepped back by now, but if Robby wasn’t moving, Jack wasn’t moving.

“Good to know I’m the backup plan,” Jack noted. He wasn’t offended, but if he wasn’t giving Robby grief, Robby would probably send him for a CT scan and a stroke workup.

“It’s not gonna help you stop calling me grandpa, but I like Cash, Mellencamp, Springsteen, Petty, maybe a little Woody Guthrie. Whatever the fuck genre that is.”

[physicianheal]

"Always." What he doesn't say -- almost, but he catches himself -- is that if the sex with Jack was as good as the sex with Nikita, he'd definitely be the top of the list.

"I listen to a lot of that," he says. "Doesn't mean you're not also a grandpa."

[jackabbot]

“As opposed to your hipster crap?” Jack challenged, because that word had been applied to Robby at least once here. It was probably due to the habitual hoodies over his scrubs, his insistence on Carhartts instead of scrub pants, and the glasses.

Someone was trying to squeeze behind Robby again as the crowd got heavier but they were definitely not sober enough to be walking in a straight line. They’d careened into two tables and a column so far. Jack realized what was going to happen but not quickly enough to warn Robby. In the next moment, they’d bumped their shoulder hard into Robby’s back and then just kept going.

[physicianheal]

"You're not helping yourself," says Robby, and he's not paying attention, so when the shoulder hits between his shoulder blades, he pitches forward, catching himself on the wall beside Jack's head, but not until they're chest to chest.

Which. He's been worse places.

[jackabbot]

Jack let out an involuntary "oof" when Robby landed essentially on top of him and pinned him to the wall with his hands on both sides of Jack's head. Jack was suddenly aware of the fact that they were touching from shoulder to knees, essentially.

"Still think this was a good idea?" he asked, since that was twice that someone had bumped into Robby and the band hadn't even started playing. He could still breathe, but Robby wasn't a small guy.

Neither Robby nor Jack wore any kind of cologne or aftershave to work. Smell was a part of the diagnostic process sometimes and they also worked around people who might be sensitive to smells for many reasons. Robby was wearing something tonight, though. It smelled kind of green, so it was probably a beard oil.

[physicianheal]

They're pressed close enough that Robby can feel it when Jack breathes. It would be the easiest thing in the world to bend his head a little more and kiss Jack. Jack's cologne smells of cedar and spice.

"I've been worse places," he says.

[jackabbot]

"The bar for that is not high," Jack pointed out with a smirk. Robby was, as usual, a fucking furnace, but Jack was alright with that too. The main door to the bar was open and it was still January. Also, it was Robby. Jack was still working with Sam to understand his feelings and what he wanted to do about them, but being close to Robby had always been something he'd been comfortable with.

"You planning to stay there all night, brother? Or are you gonna give up and stand next to me in the hopes that no one bumps into you again?"

[physicianheal]

Robby actually finds himself reluctant to move, but in the end, he does shift, leaning back against the wall to Jack's side, close enough that their shoulders butt up against each other. Admittedly, Robby has to slouch slightly to make that happen.

"Better?"

[jackabbot]

He’d suggested Robby move, but he still missed the warmth of him once he did. But it was probably better for everyone if there weren’t two dudes pressed against each other like that anyway. Jack had grown up having to avoid any appearance of anything not straight, even before he’d enlisted. He knew it wasn’t like that now, mostly, but the lessons were hard to unlearn.

He glanced over at Robby, who was slouching to make sure he was shoulder to shoulder, and half-smirked.

“I can live with it,” he agreed, and sipped his beer. “If I ask you what kind of music this band plays, will I understand what you’re talking about?”

[physicianheal]

"Punk's not quite right, but it's close enough," he says, sipping his own beer, absolutely not looking at Jack's mouth or the slide of muscles in his throat when he swallows. "That ought to give you a vague idea, even if it's not your scene."

It suddenly strikes him as funny that Neil refers to Robby as Jack's old man, not the other way around.

[jackabbot]

Jack nodded. Punk was fine. He’d never been much of a punk person, but he didn’t have a problem with the genre in general.

“As long as it’s not country or Skynyrd, I’m good with it,” he agreed. “Too much goddamn ‘bro country’ when I was deployed, and PFC Witt was playing Skynyrd on repeat in the Humvee when we all got ‘blowed up’.”

He wasn’t sure who’d started that particular slang term, but everyone called being near an IED when it exploded being ‘blowed up’, whether they were injured or not.

[physicianheal]

"Yeah, that's definitely not my thing either," says Robby, and if the thought of Jack in that humvee when it was hit makes something greasy and unpleasant roil in his stomach then at least it doesn't show on his face.

He nudges Jack's shoulder with his.

"Maybe you'll even like it."

[jackabbot]

"I might," Jack agreed, because he might. He was reserving judgment to the best of his ability, partially because he trusted Robby not to make him endure something truly terrible and partially because if Robby did, Jack could give him shit about it until the end of time.

"If this is terrible, you have to watch Space Hospital with me without complaining."

[physicianheal]

"Fuckin' Space Hospital," grumbles Robby, largely good natured. He doesn't know what Jack sees in that stupid show, but it also hasn't stopped him sorting on the couch watching it with him. Even if he does usually complain.

"Deal."

[jackabbot]

"I can't even say it's so bad it's good," Jack agreed. "It's just bad. But you know, that's what people think we do, so it's kind of useful to be aware that someone might actually expect me to diagnose spinal meningitis by looking at them for ten seconds."

That had happened on a recent episode, and not even with an alien that might have had some kind of superpower. It was just a normal human character.