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There were a lot of people Robby wanted to see when he got back. The last hundred miles or so of the return drive into Pittsburgh was spent rehearsing conversations and apologies in his mind, a seemingly neverending list of people that deserved his gratitude and humility in equal parts.
Dennis was first. Robby recognized the old pickup truck as soon as he pulled into the driveway, and he hated the immediate pang of preemptive anger that hit his gut, an involuntary defensiveness and assumption that he’d have someone else in his home. As if Dennis -and the rest of the crew- didn’t deserve to have full lives outside of their relationship to himself. But Dennis was alone when Robby opened the front door, and he put his own bag on the floor next to the younger man’s, where it sat packed and ready to go with Dennis upon his departure.
He took his time settling back into real life, but the inevitable came to pass as it always does, and Robby made his return to work. He tried to slip in quietly and begin his apology tour as unceremoniously as possible and was more or less successful, the only boisterous Welcome Backs coming from a couple of frequent flyers who’d not known about his extended vacation until he’d already left. And while Robby had tried not to make a priority list, there was one name that stood out above the others, and when he’d had a chance to speak to everyone else, he beelined toward the breakroom where he’d seen the recipient of his final act of groveling slip away to get a cup of coffee before the day got away from them.
Dana had seen the look Robby gave her upon dipping into the room and shooed people away from the door as it swung shut, giving them space and whatever limited privacy the windowed walls would allow as Robby crossed the room and cleared his throat. “Hey. Jesse.”
Jesse’s eyes lifted from the mug in front of him. He’d been staring at it as Robby approached, watching as the contrasting colors of coffee and milk swirled and danced under the rising steam, grounding and hypnotic as they coalesced into a warm shade of caramel. “Welcome back, boss.”
“Jesse, I owe you a massive fucking apology. What happened to you never should’ve happened. I should’ve kicked those pricks out as soon as-”
“It’s fine. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was.”
“It wasn’t.” Jesse’s tone was firm but warm, his natural tenor always smoothing over the jagged edges of his ever-present sarcasm. “It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t my fault. Everything is fucked right now, man, we all know it, we all see it. I just got caught in the crossfire for… I don’t know. Doing the right thing.”
They exchanged a small smile that quickly bloomed into something brighter, punctuated with relieved, breathy laughter as Robby reached for his own mug. “Yeah, guess so. Would you do it again?”
“Of course I would. ‘With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care’.” With a smile, Jesse picked up his mug and shifted his weight until his hip was leaned against the counter. “And, you know, fuck those guys and everything they stand for.”
“I just need you to know that I’ve already been talking to legal, and I know they’ve been in contact with the union, but…” Robby shook his head and huffed out a heavy sigh while forcing down the lump quickly forming in his throat. “I’m just really glad to see you back here, and I need you to know that I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you’re never put through something like that again on my watch, alright?”
Jesse nodded and clinked their mugs together. “Funny thing, I was about to say the same to you.” He waited a beat, studying Robby’s face as it contorted into forced incredulity. “I, uh- That last day before your sabbatical. You were off, man.” Robby inhaled sharply, but Jesse simply raised his palm, shushing the doctor with the gesture, before continuing. “Don’t give me any it was a weird day shit, Robby, I’ve known you too long for that to work with me, and I’m not going to sugarcoat things the way Dana and Jack will.”
“I wouldn’t say Jack is a sugarcoater.”
“He almost went into psychiatry. He’s able to walk the line between treating you like a friend and a patient in ways I’m able but unwilling to.” They shared another smile before Jesse’s expression turned serious, and he set his mug down, freeing up both of his hands to rest on Robby’s shoulders. A quick glance over Robby’s shoulder to the door offered Jesse reassurance that Dana was still standing guard, and he leaned in toward Robby. Their foreheads pressed together, and Jesse took a deep breath before speaking, his voice quiet and broken like an old record as he spoke. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”
“Jesse, that’s-”
“Just shut up and let me talk, okay?” There was love in his voice, even as it trembled, that buffed away the sharpness of his words, and Robby only nodded in response. “I’d been wanting to talk to you, I was planning on talking to you. And then everything happened and- The whole time, the whole fucking time I sat there, just alone with my thoughts, they were all on you. All I could think about was all the shit I should’ve said as soon as I realized what was going through your head. I had to focus on anything other than my own situation to keep myself from completely unraveling, but the only other thing I could think about was you.”
Robby’s own hands seemed to not know where to go or what to do, and finally he sat his own mug down to wrap his palms around Jesse’s forearms. There was intimacy in the silence between them, in the quiet sniffling and soft, heavy breaths forced out of Jesse’s lungs, battered by his rabbiting heart. “I’m here now, though. Yeah? I’m back, all in one piece. And so are you. We both made it back.”
“At what cost?”
“Elaborate.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Jesse’s palms were migrating, fingertips tracing Robby’s collar as they moved to either side of his neck until coming to a stop. The blood coursing through Robby’s veins was grounding and tactile under Jesse’s touch, and he sighed heavily as his eyes fell closed. “Or did you go out hoping it would find you?”
“I think I’m more of the ‘meet halfway’ type.”
“And?” It was at that moment that Jesse’s composure cracked, snapping like a twig and opening the floodgates. To Robby’s knowledge, Jesse had cried exactly one other time at work, some twenty years prior, after losing his first pedes patient. It wasn’t that Jesse didn’t feel; if anything, he felt more deeply than what many in their line of work considered healthy. But Jesse took care of himself in ways that Robby admired and, if he were smart, would aspire to: therapy, medication, hobbies, a thriving social life…
It was almost more than Robby could take, and his heart rate ticked up as teardrops spilled from Jesse’s eyes and pattered against the toe of his boot. Jesse seemed to notice, too, the thrumming in Robby’s carotids beating against the nurse’s fingers. But before he could move his hands, Robby laid his atop them and wrapped them up in his own. “Hey, Jess, look at me.” Their eyes met briefly, Jesse letting his own fall almost as soon as he felt Robby’s boring into his pupils, studious and concerned. “Hey, let’s go to the family room and talk, yeah? C’mon.”
Robby moved to Jesse’s side, walking them in such a way that the younger man would be mostly obscured by his own body as they made the short walk from room to room. When the door opened, Dana and Robby exchanged a short, knowing look as he unceremoniously guided himself and Jesse to the family room before dipping in and locking the door behind them.
“Sorry.” Jesse scrubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes and sniffled as his gaze fell to his own lap. He was seated on the couch, and Robby joined him, tentatively sitting down just close enough that their knees bumped as he settled into the broken-in cushion. “I’m still new to panic attacks. Never really got them until, you know…”
“Are you taking anything to…?”
Jesse nodded, but kept his eyes downcast, drumming his fingers on his knees in a feeble attempt to ground himself. “Yeah, I’m- It’s fine, I’m fine. I take Buspirone daily, Klonopin as needed. And, um, Paroxetine for-”
“PTSD.” Finally Jesse looked back up, and Robby was already looking back from beneath a furrowed brow, his own eyes glistening with tears that threatened to spill over. “You’re still in therapy, right? And we’re covering all this? Workman’s comp?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s all kind of a shitshow still, but the rep has been doing the brunt of the legwork on everything. Union is covering what the hospital isn’t.” Robby’s eyes were soft, and Jesse wanted to curl up in his gaze and bask in it. “Can we talk about literally anything else?”
“Of course. Yeah, no, of course we can.”
Finally Jesse let out a deep breath, and he allowed himself to lean over and rest his head against Robby’s chest. Another wave of tears sprung to his eyes when he felt the older man reciprocate the affection, wrapping Jesse up wordlessly in his arms. “I’ve missed you.”
“Missed you, too.”
“I’ve been missing you. This.” Jesse shifted slightly, just enough to slip his arms around Robby’s middle and lean into him more. “Is this okay?”
“More than okay.”
“Noelle…?” Robby only shook his head before resting it atop Jesse’s. “You know you two were more obvious than you thought you were, right?”
“I’m starting to gather that.” Soft lips pressed to the crown of Jesse’s head as Robby buried his nose in sweet-smelling silver curls. “It was just casual.”
“So were we.”
Robby’s body stiffened, bracing itself against the sting in Jesse’s words. It wasn’t malicious or even incorrect, but it still ached, because much like he always did, Robby had been the one to manufacture emotional distance, always afraid of tethering himself. “Jesse, I-”
“It was six years ago. It was a weird time.” Jesse allowed his body to further loosen against Robby’s. He closed his eyes at the steady rise and fall of Robby’s chest under his cheek, smiling at the even, percussive thump of his heart and fruitlessly willing his own to slow and match its pace. “I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t’ve made it through with my psyche intact without you.”
Robby believed him, because he himself would’ve taken a long motorcycle ride off of a short buffalo jump much sooner and more completely if not for the reciprocal grounding Jesse had provided. It had started as two bachelors who knew their loneliness would become dangerous during the vast unknowingness of a global pandemic. Adamson’s death had only driven them closer, and at some point Jesse had stopped sleeping in Robby’s guest bed and moved into Robby’s. By the time restrictions were being lifted and the light of normalcy was twinkling at the end of the tunnel, Robby was certain he was within days -maybe hours- of saying something he couldn’t take back. And Jesse had been as perceptive as ever, packing up his things and going back to his own home permanently while Robby was at work.
“You’re stronger than I’ve ever been, Jesse.”
“Maybe. But it’s exhausting.”
Robby’s arms tightened around Jesse’s shoulders, and he dragged his nose along the younger man’s hairline as he whispered softly against his brow. “What is?”
“Being strong.” His eyelids fluttered shut at the warmth of Robby’s breath on his skin, and he tilted his face upward, chasing the source of it.
“You don’t have to be strong with me, Jess…” Jesse’s breath on his lips had Robby feeling hazy and nostalgic. He missed the weight of Jesse’s body on his mattress and the sound of him singing in the shower and the taste of coffee and American Spirits on his tongue. “Let me be strong for you.”
Robby had worried he’d get homesick during his sabbatical and that everyone who said he wouldn’t last one month, let alone three, would be proven right. And while returning to the comforts and familiarity of his own home had certainly been welcome after three months of hotels and campsites in state parks, Robby felt no more or less home than he had 2,000 miles away. It wasn’t until Jesse’s lips pressed to his for the first time in years that Robby realized he’d been living in homesickness for so long that he no longer recognized it. “Robby…”
“I didn’t find what I was looking for while I was gone.”
“Did it find you?”
That same something he couldn’t take back that had scared him into pushing Jesse away before was back. And while it was still scary, Robby had committed himself to strength, and he gave himself over to it. “I love you.”
Robby wished he could slow time to examine the series of expressions that crossed Jesse’s face over the course of a handful of seconds: Delight, relief, confusion, trepidation, caution… “Love you, too, man.”
Robby’s hands cupped Jesse’s face, holding him in place, forcing himself to make eye contact and immerse himself in the blue pools of the nurse’s eyes. Honesty came easy to Robby. It had to. Being direct and factual and no-nonsense was part of the job, and if he couldn’t handle being direct, he was in the wrong line of work. But there was a fine line between honesty and vulnerability. Telling someone else what was wrong with them was, as cold as it felt to admit it, easy. Clinical. Telling someone else what was wrong with himself, though, was scary. Setting himself up for pain was never easy, but convincing himself that pain wasn’t the inevitable outcome of vulnerability was ten times harder. But the look in Jesse’s eyes was one of a man in need of comfort, and Robby was willing to throw himself into whatever raging fire of insecurity stood between them if it meant keeping Jesse safe from the flames. “No, Jesse, I… I’m in love with you.”
It was both painfully slow and mercifully fast the way Robby’s body took on Jesse’s weight fully, the younger man moving to blanket it with his own while their lips met again in a way that was as delicate as it was urgent. There was no desperation to it, no fear of it slipping through their fingers. Just a simple homecoming that was as much Jesse’s as it was Robby’s.
Just as their lips began to part enough for Robby to gather the familiar taste of Jesse on his tongue, there was a gentle rapping on the door, followed by Dana’s voice. “You fellas alright in there?”
Their eyes widened, and they smiled against one another’s lips before Robby lolled his head backward to project his voice toward the closed door. “Five minutes.”
“Take your time.”
Jesse pressed another kiss to the corner of Robby’s lips. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Sticking around.”
Robby’s face fell slightly, just enough for Jesse to notice and drag the tips of their noses together, and he whispered quietly in response, his words ghosting across Jesse’s lips. “I needed to see you again.”
“See me forever.”
“I’d love that.” His chin rested atop Jesse’s head as the nurse nuzzled his face into Robby’s neck. “Will you come over after work? Stay the night?”
“Of course. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”