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It had been Jack’s insistence, the moving in together after Stef died and after Janey then Heather in quick succession.
“How better to keep each other sane?” Jack had said, “You’re here almost every night anyway and the guest room smells like your aftershave.”
He’d sounded so reasonable at the time that Robby had near instantly submitted to the idea, half his things in the condo before he stopped to think about the implications, only to promptly have Jack remind him that it just made sense.
The rest of his things had migrated over thereafter and for the next few years, there were smiles, laughter, happiness again in the spaces that had gone dark. The ghost of COVID slowly left, taking the worst of the memories with it, but not enough... definitely not enough.
You rocked that shit down there tonight.
Had he?
Really?
Robby curled tighter into himself, water pounding down on him from the shower head, and through the headache, he wondered what time it was.
He’d tried to time it right, swallowed down all the pills with OJ and some eggs, just something to keep himself from getting nauseous, stop him from automatically vomiting as his stomach began to digest the vicodin overdose.
Did it when he heard the scanner in the other room announcing an incoming trauma to PTMC, knew that Jack would be tied up with a patient. His phone would be unattended, he wouldn’t see the text for a time.
The dizziness had hit first.
Collapsing, fully clothed, into the shower had seemed like the right idea, seemed like the best place to be.
He leaned his head to the glass panel, eyes fluttering closed.
“Oh, Michael.”
Eyes flew open.
“Hey.”
A breathy, “Jack,” and a sudden thought of FUCK because Jack was there, Jack had opened the shower door and crouched down without a care for the fact that he was getting water everywhere,
Jack wasn’t going to let him finish this.
“I didn’t call,” he murmured into the air and the splish-splash of the water.
“You texted. That’s just as good, brother, kept your promise.”
(“I need you to promise me something.”
Abbot looked over at his friend, cheering from the TV as the Pens scored a goal filling the room. “Okay, what?”
Stef had been gone all of a few months. He’d broke into fits of grief, heart pounding as he disappeared into rooms to have a cry; Ellis had tried to use one of those rooms and learned quickly to not bother Jack from Lena.
Robby stared back, brown eyes locked on his. “If I’m not there and things get dark, you call me.”
He was silent for a minute.
Therapy had helped, but he continued to struggle with the desire to slip off the roof of the hospital at sunrise, to eat his service pistol in the midst of the night, let a TEMS mission be a blessed cover for letting go.
A breath huffed out of him.
He had an opportunity though, one tiny bright spark in the dark of it all.
“If you’ll promise the same.”
“I am not actively suicidal.”
“You’re passive about it, Robby. So if this is going to be good for the goose, then the gander best agree too.”
Robby looked down at his hands, one holding a beer and the other clenched on his knee. He contemplated the mild backfire, then heaved a sigh, and finally agreed, “Fine. If things get dark, I’ll call you.”
“And I will too. Promise.”)
“What did you take, hmm?” Jack coaxed, voice soft and gentle and his hand landed on Robby’s cheek. “Was it mine or yours?”
Two different levels of drugs, three different places he would have to look. Robby was tempted to lie, buy more time to let his body absorb the too-much. Instead, he chose to say nothing, watching Jack with glassy eyes, constricted pupils, and when Jack reached for him, he reached back.
Comfort. He wanted comfort.
What he got was calm, steady, unbearably kind fingers into his throat, a trigger for his gag reflex, and he watched from outside himself as he brought up a handful of pills, spit and stomach acid a mucus soup with the powdering white tablets.
“Good job, Mike, good job. That’s 11. You take the whole bottle?”
He nodded.
“Okay. 18 more in there then, huh?”
The fingers came back. The vague thought to bite down on them passed through slowly, like it was on a time delay and he was regurging before he could fight it.
“Think that’s 9.” Jack reached for him again, the hand back on his cheek. “I’ve gotta grab the narcan, Mike, and this water is getting cold, you wanna come with me? Help you get out of these clothes?”
“Cold.”
“Yeah, brother. Cold. Come on, I turned on the heaters, nice and warm out here.” He pulled back, caught Robby’s arms in his hands, tried to offer stability, assistance... help.
Robby swallowed down against the vein of clarity that was trying to surface in the fog. He didn’t want it, he didn’t need it.
Jack was there. He’d make everything right.
“I can...” He leaned up, trying to get purchase on the slick tile, hands splayed and nearly collapsed onto his face. “Oh.”
He felt the grip on his arms tighten in response, head contacting the meat of Jack’s thigh as it was shoved into the space. “I got you. Just a slip, brother. That’s it.” Shifting, moving, Jack was on his feet then and crouched into the right position to help with bracing. “Put an arm over my shoulders, good job. Right, gonna straighten up, you tell me if your head says it’s too much.”
Too much?
Fuck.
“Too much. Hurts.”
He’d already been swung out of the water, out of the shower. Jack let him back down and stripped him of his shirt as he was laid to the floor, his back bowing against the warm-cool glass. A towel was wrapped over his shoulders, his belt quickly unbuckled before he could think to argue and his pants gone in what felt like milliseconds but probably was longer.
He barely clocked that Jack had gone away before the other man was back, bathrobe and the black pouch, the one from his SWAT bag, the one with the narcan and charcoal. He pushed his cell phone onto the counter, too close to the sink, too loud too.
Lena: “They’re 10 out, Jack.”
Robby gathered some spit in his mouth, wet his heavy tongue. “Who?”
He didn’t get an answer. What he got was his bathrobe put over his front, his arms looped through, and then the spray of the narcan, head pinned back by Jack, hand on his forehead. He pushed against it, grumbling nonsense.
“Easy, Mike. You nauseous yet?”
Yet.
Still have 9 more tablets in your belly, still absorbed who knows how much from the ones Jack made you bring up.
Right.
“No.”
“Good. That’s good.” He crept closer, something to his side shaking and mixing and Robby didn’t look–he knew, he knew what was coming–gaze clearing ever so slightly to realize that Jack looked fucking terrified under the physician-heal-thy-self-and-thy-family mode he’d activated. “You back with me some?”
“Jack.”
“Brother, we gotta get this in you.”
Charcoal. Charcoal he’d mixed into slurry with water and whatever dregs of gatorade had been left in the empty bottle he always kept around for specifically this.
“No.”
The narcan had started working, the fog peeling back, the headache rolling forward with his urge to fight, his urge to feed the void... everything.
“Lena, what’s my timing on medics?”
His phone crackled to life again. “Five.”
“This, here, now and me, or I’m letting Amboy drop the tube. This isn’t negotiable.” Jack was firmer now, could see the clarity building in Robby’s eyes as the initial overdose cleared, but his voice still broke a bit as he added, “Please, Mike.”
He was shaking, unable to take the bottle himself, and he suddenly understood the bathrobe doubling as a bib, charcoal spilling from his mouth as he swallowed it down, down, down, into a belly that was on the verge of rebellion.
Blackened lips told him, “Stop,” and he pushed weakly at Jack’s hand.
“Almost done with it. Just a little more.”
“Not gonna keep it down if...”
“Then bring them up. They’ll have more charcoal in the rig.” He forced the last mouthful, watched Robby gag, watched their hard work spew forward onto the back of white terrycloth. Hands reached into the mess, no gloves and no regard for biohazard protocols right then, fished through the thick sludge.
“Approximately 6 whole tablets, could be the remnants of 2 more.”
Dana then: “Thank Jesus. Fuck.”
Lena then: “Medics are outside.”
Caleb then: “We’re ready here, Jack.”
Robby felt his hands go numb, his feet go numb, the trembling strike right down to his guts. “Jack...”
A forehead knocked into his, hazel eyes on brown, attention so focused it blocked out the noise of the front door, the banging of Amboy and Crowe as they entered the door code Lena was no doubt supplying.
“It’s gonna get better, brother. I promise.” A heavy breath. “Sometimes the only way out is through, okay?”
Robby held his gaze and murmured, “You gonna be there?”
“Every step of the way.”