Chapter Text
vi
Dennis has never done this period, the mid-Christmas slump, with quite so much of a feeling that he wants to be somewhere else. It’s distinctly pathetic, and he thinks if Trinity weren’t there he'd probably be over at theirs in a heartbeat, pretending none of this shit ever happened. As it stands, she is there, and she’s keeping him resolutely on track.
The heating costs a bomb, so they wrap up in a million layers and put Festive Fireplace on the TV to make the place seem warmer. Jack and Robby are probably cosy, underfloor heating and actual fireplace - well, gas powered thing with fake logs. Dennis doesn’t like this kind of cold. It makes him want to shut down, cut off, make like a burrowing animal and hide until the winter’s over.
Trinity returns from her hookup a few hours after Jack drops him off, slings her bag on the couch and takes a thirty minute shower before winding her way into the lounge and demanding the details of his holidays.
“So. How was Christmas on The Great Plains?”
“Shitty,” He answers, truthfully. He's been buffering on the same spot on the couch for the past hour and a half, stuck in the vortex of his phone screen.
“No divine babies in your cowshed?”
“Unsurprisingly, no. They put down my favourite cow.” and then, off her face, "You're allowed to make one joke.”
“I would never,” she says, expression a picture of piety.
“I think that's probably the last time I go home.”
He picks at the edge of the couch.
“Mine was delightful, thanks for asking.”
“Sorry, shoot. Did you have fun with your… date?”
He sees her raise an eyebrow at the non-curse. It always happens, after he's been home for a while. Small children, and grown adults treating him like he’s still one too.
“Oh yes,” she says, salaciously, “And my foster mom sent me this,” she holds up a sweater in shades of pink and orange, waves it in his face, “She sees anything lesbian, she sends it to me - even if it's Temu garbage. I think it would look cute on you.”
He bats it away.
“My brothers are wreaking havoc with the Nerf shit I got them, so everyone’s happy.”
“Bet you can’t wait until your mom’s in some ED with a ruptured cornea.”
“Shit me,” she drawls, and he immediately regrets it, “You're a ball of fuckin’ festive spirit, aren't you? You want cocoa? Would that calm Dr Whitaker down?”
He hides his face in his hands.
“Sorry. Yes, please.”
He doesn’t know why he’s so sharp tonight. It might have something to do with the fact that he can’t feel his toes.
“Can we have the heat on yet?”
“Not until 7, shitbag.”
He deserved that, he figures. He listens to her clatter about in the kitchen cabinets, then the sound of fridge and microwave. In the middle of the soundscape, like she’s trying to make it seem nonchalant, she asks; “Have you heard from them?”
He picks at the fabric a little more.
“Jack picked me up from the airport.”
He can practically hear her roll her eyes.
“Permission to tell those old men to leave you the fuck alone?”
It's light-hearted, but he knows there's steel under it.
“It's fine. He said he was sorry for what he said. Robby wants to have dinner tomorrow.”
This earns him a look from over her shoulder.
“You're not gonna go, are you?”
“He wants to talk.”
“Dennis.”
“I need to talk to him about it. I start oncology at Presby next week, and I might not get another chance.”
The possibility hangs in the air, that he's not coming back to PTMC, like, ever. She nods in concession, and brings two steaming mugs over to the couch. As she sits, she shoves her ice cold feet under his legs.
“Shit.”
“Pussy.”
She takes a sip.
“Do you know what you'll do if you don't match?”
“Not sure. Someone once told me I could make a killing in Eastern European gay porn.”
“Huckleberry!” she smirks, “You're getting funny.”
It was her that told him, so true to form she's really just laughing at her own joke. He shrugs.
“Always was. You were just too blinded by my good looks to notice,” she raises an eyebrow at him, impressed by his humour, he assumes, “Nah. I'll probably be at Presby the rest of my life.”
“Not a bad place to be.”
She's saying all the right things, but it doesn't stop him fixing her with a Look. He doesn't want to be at Presby, they both know that.
“Fine. Go see Dr Daddy and tell him it's over, and then come home and spend New Year's pulling me a stone butch. Sound good?”
He hooks her proffered pinky with his own.
“Sounds great.”
She keeps him pulled in with her surprisingly strong finger.
“And don't even think about fucking him. Okay?”
He nods. She narrows her eyes.
“Dennis. I mean it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Robby's put on an honest to God shirt on, with buttons and everything. He's trimmed his beard, his nails are clipped and clean and his hands are soft, and after a month back home Dennis weirdly finds it a turn off.
He opens the door looking nervous, smoothing down the front of the shirt in question and stepping to the side to let Dennis in. He doesn't crack out the under the arm trick, which Dennis is grateful for, cause it would weaken his already pathetic resolve immensely. He does smell fucking good though.
He's cooked. Dennis can tell, cause the kitchen looks like a bomb's hit it and Jack cleans as he goes. Dennis unwraps from the January cold, toes off his shoes as Robby hovers and then decides to put a record on, set the ambience with some jazz. It must be Jack's, cause Dennis knows Robby's side of the vinyl shelf is all Nick Cave and Talking Heads.
“I wanted to invite you to my place,” he tells him, “I know we've never– but Jack said you might feel on the back foot, so.”
It's the kind of thing Robby drives himself crazy with - anxious spirals about being seen as respectful, doing the appropriate thing. The irony is palpable, but this is good. The place has Jack imbued in it, with the music it feels like he's part of the conversation. Dennis can see the couch from here, crime scene and place of many a sordid event, same as the lounge rug, the kitchen counters covered in mess.
They eat at the table, formal, like a date. Dennis sits as Robby pours him a glass of wine. It's one candle away from a cry for help.
He brings the food through - Dennis clocks gnocchi as relatively low effort, high impact and crucially hard to fuck up - then he sits, opposite while the music hums in the background. It's kind of like what the idea of dating Dr Michael Robinavich would feel like, he imagines - good food and wine and jazz on vinyl instead of takeout on the couch, or finding out you've slept with a pair of your attending's underwear under the pillow.
The conversation starts out difficult from the jump.
“Jack told me about what you said. About where you were living in the summer?”
Dennis nods, palms itching. He knew it would come up at some point, but didn't think that's where they'd start.
“I wish you had told someone,” he goes on, and Dennis’ face is warm, “UPitt has all kinds of financial aid. I hate to think of you–”
“I can look after myself.”
It goes down about as well as he imagines. Robby swallows and looks at him.
“I know you can. That's not what I said.”
Dennis reaches for his wine and takes a large gulp. The table falls back into silence, undercut by the sounds of cutlery on Jack’s raku tableware.
“How were your holidays?” Dennis asks, to get in there first, cause he knows that's gonna be Robby's next tack. He’s not particularly interested in hearing about Janey, or Jake, but he can put up with it for the sake of the conversational upper hand. Robby can probably sense his indifference, cause he doesn’t really answer the question beyond politeness.
“Fine, how were yours?”
“My aunt is an antivaxxer who's convincing my niece that I'm poisoning babies, my brother's wife is pregnant again and my favourite cow had to be put down. So.”
Robby looks like he doesn't know what to say. It might be one of Dennis’ favourite expressions on him, normally, eyebrows raised, head tilted slightly. Endearing in a way when Dennis catches him out, but here it makes him look kind of useless.
“That sounds difficult,” he manages, ever the diplomat.
“Yeah.”
More silence. He reaches over to top up Dennis’ wine.
“Did you get your email?” he asks, then, and Dennis can see the way he doesn’t meet his eyes when he does.
“Mmhm,” he says, and Robby nods, looks at him for more. He doesn't give it.
Doesn't give anything for the rest of the meal, just eats and drinks his way through his half of the bottle. He watches the way Robby's thumb plays with the spine of the cutlery, slides along its edge.
When they're done eating, he takes their plates through to the kitchen. For old time’s sake.
“Dennis,” Robby says, after him, “You don't have to–”
“It's fine,” he says, and Robby gets up from the table, follows him through to the kitchen. He scrapes the scraps off into the bin, pulls the dishwasher open and sets the plates inside, one after the other.
Robby steps forward, right up into his space, reaches a hand in an abortive movement like he wants to stop him but isn't sure if he's allowed to touch. Dennis isn't sure either. He hasn't decided. But it means that when he stands back up, Robby's right there, using his extra six inches so fucking unfairly to take all the air out of this particular patch of space.
“C'mon,” he says, like Dennis is supposed to know what that means, and the worst part is that he does. He looks at him, the crease of his brow, the smile lines from his eyes, pools of dark rich brown and perfect windows into every single one of his neuroses.
He thinks about his promise to Trinity. Thinks about the warmth radiating off him as he stands here, begging for him, wanting him, and that doesn't mean nothing to him yet. He thinks it might still be everything.
So when Robby tilts his chin up with a single, gentle finger, he doesn't stop him. And it might even be him that leans up, he's not sure, because when he relays this to Trinity later it will all have been Robby, Robby's fault and lips and hands and Dennis doing nothing, passive and mishandled. He does lean up, though. In the truth of it, happening now, he does kiss him, closed mouth and firm at first, and then open and starving.
Robby's everything leans into him.
“Can I fuck you?” he breathes, into Dennis' mouth, and Dennis nods, heart, body, cock responding before his head has time to make sense of it. He winds his arms around Robby's neck, feels the way his hands move to him with the permission given, and he grabs him close, hand high on the back of his thigh.
He ruts up against him, feels the outline of his cock heavy in his jeans, his own hard in his pants. It's pathetic, the way Robby has him coming up onto his tiptoes, and then he lifts him, so he's half on the counter, and he thinks about self respect, or preservation, or any of those he seems to be lacking.
There's a puzzle piece missing - it’s apparent in the silence, the mess of the kitchen, the bag and coat absent from the hook. Everything happens fast, unrestrained, they want and then they take and there’s nothing more they need to consider.
Robby hitches his knee up further, then lifts him fully, legs wrapped around his waist. He walks them all the way through to the bedroom, like, all the way, like he's a guy out of a movie who isn’t in an age range at risk of a herniated disk, before sitting himself down on the bed, Dennis in his lap. His stomach is doing treacherous flips.
“How do you want it?” he asks, and Dennis pushes him back by way of an answer, back to the sheets, straddles him and sets to unbuttoning his pants. He’d prepped at home, a frenzied hopeful thing cause he hasn't fucked anyone in weeks, and he kind of already knew when he made that promise to Trinity that he wouldn't be able to keep it.
Robby keeps trying to touch him, run hands up his arms, feel out the muscle, so Dennis lets him, shifts them further onto the bed as he does, twists out of his shirt, pants. He tugs Robby’s down his legs and he lets him, just lies there and watches with those big sad wanting eyes like he knows that despite them being here, doing this, it’s the end of something.
Then his shirt, and Dennis allows himself the minute to run his hands over the broad span of his chest, dark hair, the solid heat he’d been dreaming of in the drafty staleness of his childhood bedroom, in the cold pews of the church, even in Trinity's place. It’s here, in the low golden light of the apartment, Jack’s apartment, king bed big enough for the three of them, lube tucked down the side of the couch, everything insulated and easy, protected from the outside world. It’s so far from real life. Dennis can see that now.
He sinks down on him all the same, tight from the intervening hours, burn-stretch a good feeling, grounding, something to focus on that’s purely bodily - no twisted feelings, just breathing through it until it settles out to something manageable.
Robby's inside of him, and he looks down at his face, feels sick with how much he loves him, how much he could keep doing this forever if Robby asked. He needs him to push him away, make it hurt.
“Daddy–” he’s saying, before he realises, and Robby groans, hands coming up to grasp at his hips.
“Yeah…” he breathes, reverent in the way he touches, treating Dennis like he’s precious, fragile. Dennis wishes Jack was here - Jack would know what he needed, wouldn’t be afraid to give it to him.
“Daddy, please,” he says, trying to work out how to get through to him, as Robby starts to move.
“What, baby?
“I need–”
“I'll give it to you,” Robby promises, canting his hips up into him, “Anything, just tell me what you need.”
“Hit me.”
Robby’s brows furrow. Dennis could laugh, because anything never means that, only means what he’s willing to give.
“What?”
“Hit me, please, just–” he takes one of his hands, holds it up to his face. Robby cups his cheek, bullshit, tender, so not what he wants. The pad of his thumb traces his cheekbone.
“It's what you want?”
“Yes,” Dennis bites in frustration, “I just fucking asked you. So stop being a bitch and just –”
The blow comes sharp, strong and sudden, and Dennis looks down at him, sees his nostrils flare and his knitted brow as his cheek throbs. The offending hand grasps him at the meet of his jaw, just like it did that first time they kissed, all those months ago, and he swims a touch, out of focus with the adrenaline and the pain.
Robby's thumb slips into his mouth, or he takes it in, he's not sure, all he knows is it’s between his teeth and he can run his tongue over the whorls of the pad of it as it presses down into him.
He rides him harder, feels the way it burns his quads, his face, tugs at Robby’s hair to make him gasp.
Robby's hand is soothing his cheek, thumb damp and tracing and he keeps trying to pull him in, to kiss him, to apologise, but Dennis needs to see him, all of him, can't get caught up in his mouth and the cradle of his hands.
It's like they're on two different rhythms - Robby's trying to slow it down and Dennis wants it hard, as hard as he knows Robby can give it, and he's got strong thighs from the last four weeks and twenty years of horseriding so he keeps the high ground, sets the pace himself for the both of them. He wants Robby to hit him again, but knows he won't, pushes against him until Robby cracks.
Only he doesn't. What he does is tip them back, until Dennis is laid back on the sheets, and he cradles his face in his hands as he kisses him, fucks him slow and tender and unsatisfying. It's not fair, the way his weight pins Dennis to the bed, the way Dennis can't escape, or move, or breathe.
“I love you,” Robby says, smothers him with it, and it makes Dennis feel like crying, “I love you, baby. Gonna come. Can I?”
There’s no Jack to give or withhold permission, so he does. Inside him, because where else, then leaves him empty and aching as he moves down his body to take him in his mouth. It feels good, the way his tongue moves; he hates that Robby knows him so well - what he likes, what he needs. He comes with a shudder all the same, washing over him. The wave of regret hits instantly. This needs to be over.
So when Robby tries to pull him in, he shifts out of the way and off the bed, heading through to the bathroom and all but slamming the door shut behind him.
He takes the meat of his arm between his teeth and sobs - silent, shaking. He's gotten good at this, knows how not to make noise. It’s confirmation, if nothing else. They can’t do this anymore.
Robby’s not stupid. Dennis knows he’s worked out that he’s come back all fucked up, that something is irreparably damaged. He knows he’s waiting outside the door, can hear the shift of weight as he cleans up with shaking hands.
“Can I come in?”
Dennis tries to level his voice.
“One minute.”
He washes his hands, wipes cold water under his eyes to calm down the puffiness and leaves the bathroom under Robby's arm before he can see his face, red and tear stained.
“All yours.”
“I didn't need the bathroom, Dennis. I wanted to know if you're okay.”
“Well, I'm fine.”
He goes for his clothes, to have something to cover himself. It's like a perfect mirror of last month with Jack, so he at least feels like he's treating them equally.
“Are you leaving?” Robby asks, uselessly, and Dennis really isn't sure.
“No,” he says, then, “I don't know. I thought we were gonna talk.”
“I– I thought, at dinner.”
Dennis could laugh. He looks at him, standing there in his flannel sleep pants.
“No, you said I should've told you I was homeless, and I told you about my shitty Christmas. That's not talking any of this out.”
Robby’s hand comes up to rub at his face, like Dennis is a particularly difficult patient he’s having to handle.
“In all honesty, Dennis,” he says, “I don't know what you want from me.”
“I don't know what you want from me! What can you possibly want from me that you don't already have?”
Robby doesn't have anything to say to that.
I can't keep doing this, I– I can't–” he says, and keeps talking, cause it's all coming out of him now and he feels like if he stops, loses momentum he'll fall apart in tears, “I go home, and I can’t tell anyone shit about my life, ‘cause this is – whatever this is – on top of everything else, and my mom and dad didn't even– They don't– Trinity thinks I'm some kind of freak or a victim and we can't even talk. And I don't– I'm just some hanger on to your life with Jack. I don't have anything.”
He's crying anyway, and it's pathetic, the way he still lets Robby fold him into his arms and hold him tight and fast through it. Not for the first time, he wants to hit him, fight him, struggle against the weight of him, but his hold is too secure. He presses his head into his chest, hard, like he's trying to ram him, like a fucking animal.
“Okay,” Robby's saying, “Okay, okay.”
And he takes it, lets him bash his skull into his sternum until he's worn himself out, and loosens his grip enough for Dennis to extricate himself.
Once he's calmed down he feels stupid and childish and embarrassed and selfish and cold. He sits on the edge of the bed and wipes at his cheeks, the one still raw and pink from the blow and Robby stays where he is, up against the headboard. He looks down and realises the t shirt he's picked up is Jack's. It’s absurd. He tears it off and throws it into the corner of the room, watches the way the sudden movement and the thump against the wall makes Robby jump a little. It feels good to scare him, Dennis thinks.
“What did Jack tell you?”
“That you were upset. That you were right, and we haven't been fair.”
“And you thought we should fuck about it?
Robby takes that one. Dennis can feel him absorb the sharp point of it. He doesn't say anything back. Dennis doesn't think he has anything really to say to that. The silence stretches between them.
He's tired. Tired of this, of playing and pretending and wondering and the ground being uneven under him.
“Are you going to be interviewing me?” he asks, eventually. Robby sighs.
“I'm required to sit on the panel, yes.”
“Can you tell them to turn me down?”
He doesn't even know if that's what he wants. He doesn’t really know how to get himself out of all of this mess without cutting loose.
"I'm not going to do that,” Robby says, calmly.
“Why?”
“Because I want you on my team.”
“So you can keep me around for when you feel like it?”
“No,” he comes back, measured, “Because you're the best candidate for the role. You're capable, you're compassionate. You care about this city and its people. My staff knows you - they ask about you. They want you working with them. Trinity's been giving me hell these last four months, and I know why. It's because she cares about you. You have things, Dennis. You have people who are backing you.”
He takes a deep breath, then:
“And I'm sorry. For the way I've been treating you. It's not fair. I love you, Dennis, and I have to work out how to deal with everything that makes me feel. That's not on you.”
It feels like a wave washing over him to hear it, his eyes fill and he turns away to hide it. He doesn't think Robby is a bad person. He doesn't think he's manipulated him, or abused him, but it’s still good to hear the apology. By good, it feels like he might shake apart or cry or hang his head between his knees to keep from fainting.
Robby knows he loves him. He doesn't need to say that bit back.
What he does ask is:
“Have you been going to therapy?”
Robby chuckles, low.
“Jack made a compelling argument.”
“What was it?”
“That he'd put me in for a workplace counselling referral if I didn't.”
Dennis can't help but laugh. It's so Robby: the only thing that could convince him to go to voluntary therapy is the threat of involuntary therapy. He studies his hands, bitten-down nails from the last months of overthinking.
“I don't think we should do this. Not right now.”
It comes out easily. He really thought it would be harder to say.
Robby sighs. The sound twists Dennis’ guts, but he doesn't look at him, or take it back.
“Do I get a say in this?” he asks.
“Not really, I don't think. Maybe when all this is done. Interviews, matches. Whatever. We could try again.”
He glances at him, then. Robby nods, but his mouth is a hard line.
“That makes sense.” He says, stiffly.
“Are you mad?”
“No,” he lies, Dennis can tell. Then, the truth: “Not at you. At myself, I think. For fucking this up.”
Dennis thinks a lot of things might be easier if Robby let himself off a hook a little more.
“I don't think that helps anyone.”
“You're probably right.” He takes a breath. “Can I hold you?”
He ends up with his head to Robby's shoulder, goes into him like he always has. His bones feel tired and the record in the living room has finished, stuck in the loop of the final groove playing dusty static. Robby settles a hand in his hair, fingertips massaging the roots.
“What does it make you feel?” Dennis finds himself asking, softly, “Loving me.”
“Dennis–”
"You know you've never actually told me. You just kept–”
He presses on Robby's shoulder, some way of expressing the push-pull of the last six months.
“What is that?” Robby asks, half-amused.
“You. Pushing me away. Or, like. Pushing down your feelings, maybe.”
“Ah,” he nods, plays along, ‘No, that's good. Spot on. Versatile.”
There's a silence, and Dennis can feel the way Robby's breathing is deliberately slowed. He's trying to regulate himself, and then he opens his mouth and Dennis realises he's actually going to answer his question. The words come out carefully, one by one.
“Excited. Frightened. Guilty. Old. Young. Very stupid. Out of control. Like I've given you a knife and rolled over.”
“I'm not going to tell anyone.”
“No,” he groans, and Dennis’ stomach clenches, “Fuck, Dennis I didn't mean that. You really still think that's all I care about?”
“I don't know. Sorry.”
Robby inhales: a big shaky thing, Dennis takes a minute to look at him, and realises he's crying. He must have been the whole time.
“I guess we were pretty selfish.”
“Yeah. I'm trying to forgive you for it.”
“You don't owe us that.”
“I know,” he does know that, he just wishes it could stop hurting. Words and psalms bounce around his head, ways for working through pain. “I just keep thinking…”
“What?”
“Nothing. Doesn't matter. It's just a passage.”
He still doesn’t know if they work, any of them, or whether they’re just words. Adult lullabies to make the world feel less sharp without ever stopping the blade.
“Tell me,” Robby says, and the words rumble through his chest, warm Dennis from the inside out.
“It's from Nehemiah. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
He takes the squeeze of Robby's hand on the nape of his neck, like how all this began, really.
“You're not God, Dennis,” he says, sends it through him in a vibration to his heart, “You can be mad a little while longer.”
It's not easy, but Dennis is pretty sure that's how he knows it's right.
He leaves before Robby wakes up, takes a minute to watch him sleep while he fetches up his clothes. It could be any other morning, the rise and fall of Robby’s chest under worn cotton just the same as ever. Jack’s toeing off his boots as Dennis makes it to the entryway.
“This is it, then?” he says, no bullshit, and Dennis nods. He lets him wrap his arms around him: solid, secure.
“Gonna miss you, pup,” he says into his shoulder, presses a kiss there, and when he steps back his eyes are misty. He blinks it away and looks at him with that familiar intent stare. “Door's always open.”
And as Dennis leaves through it, he knows it's the truth.
epilogue
Dennis matches with Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Centre's Emergency Department for residency beginning July 2026.
Trinity comes to Match Day, gleefully cosplays as his overbearing mom and snaps a million pictures. She's there with her phone camera trained on him as he opens the envelope, and amongst the sea of proud parents she holds her own, even if she does tackle him and exclaim You fucked med school in the ass, baby! a little more loudly than is probably appropriate.
The words on the page blur a little. He thinks it probably took him until he was standing here reading them for him to work out they were what he wanted. They are what he wants.
Robby and Jack are good to their word - they don't invite him over, don't call except for one time, cause they found Dennis had left some shirts and underwear in their laundry before the holidays. They pass it to Trinity, who passes it on with a promise that it's the last time she's going to be a messenger pigeon for his scandalous ex-situationships.
So the flowers show up by post, along with a small box, with instructions to open after his match envelope.
It's from Robby. He knows this before he opens it, because Robby has the penchant for gifts, just like Jack does for acts of service.
When he opens the box it's confirmed. Inside, a silver cross on a delicate chain is nestled on black velvet. He's left the gift receipt in. On the back, a single word underlined.
Balance.
On the first day of Dennis’ residency the trees are full green and the sunlight is beaming. He shows up, notebook neatly in his breast pocket, cross tucked under the collar of his shirt, and stands at Central to take a look at the board. MVC, abdominal lac, a three year old with foreign object aspiration - it's been nearly a full year since he last had anything to do with this board, the desks instead a site of waiting and watching and curled up feelings. It feels good to be here with a job to do. He takes a hug from Dana that could crush steel.
Jack's on his way out, hair tousled and bag on his back. He passes by and squeezes Dennis’ shoulder once, firm, leans in close to his ear.
“Knock em dead, pup.”
Dennis resists every urge to watch him leave.
And then, approaching from the direction of the staff lounge, a familiar figure in undershirt, scrub top & cargos. Hands that Dennis has turned over in his own, traced the lines of with his fingertips. Body that he's given himself to more times than he can count. Face comprised of simple, easy features - strong nose and kind, kind eyes. He reaches Dennis, smiles warmly and holds out a hand.
“Dr Whitaker,” he says, “I'm Dr Robby. We're very pleased to have you with us.”
fin