iris
Recent bookmarks
-
Tags
Summary
A washout service dog who can't stop caring about strangers. A man who can't remember the last time he touched something alive that wasn't crashing. Jack looks at both of them and sees the same animal.
Bookmarked by iris
26 Jul 2026
-
Tags
Summary
Some people might call it a sixth sense, but Jack Abbot is a doctor, so when he walks into the ED already feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, he knows it’s not magic, it’s his amygdala reading infinitesimal changes in the room. He isn’t conscious of it, exactly. But he’s not not conscious of it, either. His subconscious brain is processing minute changes in the environment, in the energy around him, in voice tone and volume, in motion and stillness. Patterns, and the changes therein. His therapist calls it hypervigilance, a trauma response. Jack calls it paying attention.
And okay, maybe it overreacts sometimes, this hypervigilance, but it's rarely wrong outright. So when he gets that feeling of something bad about to go down, Jack turns toward the source without consciously deciding to.
His eyes meet Robby's across the ED, and his entire body goes cold.
"Lena, call security," he says, the low whip-crack of his voice cutting through the conversation at the desk. "Get them here quiet. And call the police."
Bookmarked by iris
24 Jul 2026
-
Tags
Summary
It hits him, then, like anaphylaxis is contagious: his chest feels tight, his breath frozen. He’s mad at Jack for getting so exposed. He’s mad at the patient for bringing in the allergen in the first place. He’s terrified, seeing Jack sweat, hearing Javadi read “90 over 70,” and even as Jack’s breathing begins to slow, and even as his systolic starts climbing, Robby is scared stiff.
Jack mumbles something around the mouthpiece of the nebulizer.
“No,” Robby snaps. “Shut up and breathe.”
Bookmarked by iris
08 Jun 2026
-
Tags
Summary
Robby makes the end of an interminable work day a whole lot worse.
Bookmarked by iris
07 Jun 2026
-
Tags
Summary
Robby follows him as Jack starts working on the coffee, taking a seat at the peninsula that divides the kitchen from the rest of the apartment.
“You still like it burned or have you gotten better taste since last time?” he teases, throwing a quick glance at Robby, who makes a face at him.
They don’t do this often, crashing at each others’ places. Jack honestly can’t remember when exactly that last time was. Close to a year, he thinks, a Pirates game with a rain delay that then went into extra innings. It’s not that they don’t hang out when their schedules allow for it, it’s just that there’s always been more of a distance in their relationship outside work, like somehow the halls (and roof) of PTMC allow for more vulnerability than the halls of their own homes.
“At this point I'll take whatever you give me and I'll like it,” Robby says, definitely with a grimace this time.
-----
OR, five times Jack comes home to Robby unexpectedly at his place, plus one.Bookmarked by iris
31 May 2026