They're standing close, Jack's hand on Robby's shoulder, almost where it meets his neck. They're talking about nothing, voices low, Jack's thumb slowly strokes back and forth, just once. Robby smiles at something he says, that real smile that makes his crows feet sink deep.
"When's the honeymoon?" Dana asks, suddenly the real world crashes in and Robby steps back.
Jack grins, bright as the sun, always ready to play. "Next week. Two weeks in Bali, just me and lover boy over here."
Robby snorts. "Bali? I specifically requested somewhere with no sand." Jack's the one who hates sand, but he can pretend. He can play. Jack so loves to play, to tease, to drive Robby insane.
"Sand's everywhere, sweetheart," Jack tells him. The pet name warms him, even in jest.
"It certainly will be after a two week beach honeymoon," Robby shudders, horrified at the very thought.
"Okay enough, enough," Dana groans. "Patients. People dying. Stop flirting and work, for the love of god."
"Okay, I thought about it." Jack appears beside him in that almost spooky way he does. "One of those honeymoon resorts in the Poconos."
"Didn't they condemn them all?"
"Looked it up. Couple of them are still around- one has a champagne hot tub."
Robby looks at him like he'd just suggested taking a nice, intimate swim with a brain eating amoeba "Keep this up and you’re getting divorced before we even make it on the honeymoon."
"Okay, I really thought about it this time." Jack says, coming around to stand in front of his computer.
"Oh god," Robby moans, not even looking up from his charting.
"No, listen. This is great. Ireland." Jack waves his hand, like he's presenting a prize on a game show. "There’s a painting- Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs. Only shown twice a week for an hour."
Robby actually looks up, because this one isn't a joke. "Why Ireland? Why that painting?"
"You love stories about knights and fair maidens."
"How do you know that?" Robby asks, actually shocked. How did Jack know that? The contents of Robby's reading life are between him and his Kindle. The books in his house are respectable reads, things people would expect him to have. And he does like those books, but a man must have simple pleasures to keep the horrors at bay.
"I know everything about you," Jack says. "I'm in your head." To bring the point home, he flicks Robby between the eyes. Robby bats him away, and they lose a moment to a slap fight.
"Anyway, we could see the painting. I have an in to see the Anatomy Museum at Trinity College so we can tour their collection and their archives. Then we could go out to the country- see some of your family. You know, the woolly kind."
"What?" Robby is not following at all.
"You’re sheepish."
Robby just glares at him. He's about to chock this up as just an extended path for a pun, but Jack put actual thought into this. A lot of thought, it seems. "You know we'd have to get married first. Before we could go on a honeymoon."
"Okay, let's do it." Jack shrugs, like Robby had just suggested Thai over Indian for take-out night.
"You’re being funny," Robby says, voice flat as he returned to his charting. He did not find this funny at all, thank you very much.
"I'm always funny-"
"Funny looking," Robby grumbles, force of habit.
"-and anyways, it's not such a bad idea." Jack finishes, ignoring Robby entirely.
That makes Robby look up. Slowly, he removes his reading glasses. He levels Jack with a Look. "We're not even dating."
"Aren’t we, though?" Jack asks, drumming his hands on the counter.
They are... strange. About each other. Too enmeshed. Always circling each other, always at each other's houses. Neither had been on a date in... who knows how long. A two-headed creature, open one's mouth and find the other's lungs. Strange.
"We don't kiss." Robby says flatly, like that was the proof. Because it was. They didn't kiss- Robby would know. He thought about it often enough.
"We could change that." Jack's hands fall still, an intense look in his eyes.
"You actually want to get married," Robby says in astonishment. "To me."
"Who else?" Jack asked. Who else, indeed.
"You want to get married before even taking me on a single date, never having kissed a single time, and you decide the best place to ask me to marry you is at work." Robby's brain is malfunctioning. This has to all be a strange dream.
"And they say romance is dead," Jack sniggers.
Robby throws a pen at him. "I'm not that easy, brother. You'll have to convince me. Wine and dine me first, buy a ring you put actual thought into. Ask me again after having taken me on... 10 dates."
"10?" Jack asks, hand on his heart. "That’s just cruel."
"Look at that, it just went up to 20." Robby puts his glasses back on. "20 dates and 20 minutes of uninterrupted peace- starting now- to finish my charting."
"You drive a hard bargain," Jack whistles. "But it's a deal. I will be on your doorstep at seven tomorrow night. Wear something snazzy."
Robby flips him off, something dangerously warm in his chest. He would have settled for five dates. Hell, he would have accepted none. But it was good to make Jack work for it a little. It was animal enrichment.
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