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"So. There's uh. There's this thing."
He knows as he's asking that he shouldn't. He'd decided the night before, airpods in and Leon Bridges flowing through his ears, that he wasn't going to do this. That this was the kind of thing he needed to do on his own.
He was so fucking tired of doing things on his own.
Whitaker scoots towards him beneath the sheets, his pale skin starting to goose-bump in the warm yellow rectangle of streetlight that cuts across the bed through the crack in Robby's curtains. His hair is mussed and there are a few stray drops of Robby's cum still clinging to his face — one at the corner of his mouth, another just below his cheekbone like a tear. He burrows into Robby's ribs, making a little humming sound that means some wordless version of, "keep going? Say more."
He lets one arm drop from where they're folded behind his head, tucking the smaller man into his side like the precious thing he is. He drags his nails across the thin skin along either side of his spine, can practically feel the marks rising up behind them like cherry pink mountain ranges.
Dennis Whitaker has a lot of talents, but taking Robby's marks beautifully is one he won't ever get as much credit for as he deserves.
Mainly because so few people have ever gotten to see it. Abbot, mainly. Samira, once, with McKay. Otherwise, it was one of the few precious things Robby allowed himself to be selfish over, to hoard for himself with hands made for giving.
"Nick Bradley." He doesn't need to say more. It's not like either of them would ever forget, not really. Cold rain, fitting for the day. Starched black suits, strangling necklines, the cloying scent of too many bouquets. A hand, slipped into his; his hand, wrapped firmly around another. Increasingly desperate kisses flavored like peat and oak barrel, whiskey burning under frantic, searching mouths. Let lips do what hands do; they pray.
Whitaker presses a soft kiss to the fifth intercostal space and Robby shivers.
"What were you thinking?" The man's voice is thin, but strong. Soft. He still sounds so young, even two years into their relationship, and not for the first time it makes Robby feel…something, buried deep in his gut. It wasn't shame, he could never be ashamed of Dennis, but something closer to a fear. A fear that he wasn't doing no harm. That one day all his greater sins would rear up to bite at his heels like vipers, and he'd leave a gap behind him, a scar in the earth of Dennis Whitaker's soul.
That he would go first, and the only thing more devastating than being in a world without Dennis would be the look on Dennis's face left behind in a world with no Robby.
"Hey," he says again, finger jabbing lightly into the soft flesh above his kidneys. "Where'd you go? Where are you right now?"
Robby looks down and moves the hand on Dennis's lower back up and into his hair, pulls until the hairs stretch taut and the line of Dennis's neck is tense, and then he leans up and kisses him, can't quite reach enough to make it as deep or as bruising as he wishes it were, but. It's an answer, none the less. "I'm right here. Always where you are."
"Sorry," is what he actually says when they finally break apart.
Dennis shakes his head, his slightly-too-long curls making a susurration sound where they rub across Robby's beard. "Nothing to be sorry for." A beat, and then softly, carefully, "Tomorrow?"
Robby's turn to nod, his chin knocking ever so gently against the top of Dennis's head. "Tomorrow. I want, uh. I was. Um." He chuckles a little bit, feeling that familiar uncomfortable squeeze around his heart. He'd been doing so well, working with Shannon, finally prodded ever so gently into talking to someone who wasn't Abbot, gently prying open the nesting dolls of trauma that he'd been stacking ever since Adamson's passing. And when she'd suggested…this, he'd been so ready for it at the time. It had seemed like such an easy answer, such a simple way to bring together so many of the frayed edges.
As if anything involving Michael Robinavitch's heart could ever be easy, for him or anybody else.
"I want to go to synagogue." He says them so quickly it comes out as one jumbled mash of consonants and vowel sounds. He clears his throat and tries again, though he's pretty sure Dennis heard him the first time.
There's space where there hadn't been before, as Dennis scoots back just enough that he can meet Robby's eyes, search his face in that silent, inquisitive way he always does, that way that leaves Robby feeling flayed in the most tenderest of ways, the flesh pulled from his bones until the raw beating of his heart is on full display.
And he's not sure what he's expecting Dennis to say, but for some reason, the simple nod and the warm, "Okay, yeah, absolutely," still manage to throw him for a loop. A warmth fills his chest, something golden and small like candlelight, and he nods more, again, with more assurance.
"Okay," he says, an echo down the well, Narcissus at the pool. "Okay."
And then he pulls Dennis back, fills the space he'd left with the best gratitude Robby knows how to show, acts of service that leave them both panting, sweaty, cum drying on the sheets between them as the witching hour blooms and sleep takes them, slow and syrupy.
***
"You won't, uh. The prayers…" Robby isn't entirely sure how to say what it is he's trying to say. He doesn't know why he suddenly feels the need to walk Whitaker through what's about to happen like he's back in grade school, trying to prep his soccer team for what the pre-party portion of his bar mitzvah will look like. It's not the first time Dennis has been to synagogue. It's not even the first time he's been to synagogue with Robby. Two weeks after the funeral, tears staining the collar of his shirt, same hand wrapped warmly in his as he steps back through the door, the fabric of his talit carrying a stale, packed-away smell, the knots of his tzitzit running like water through the fingers of his un-held hand. The cadences and rituals like a child in his father's suit, at once familiar and almost comically unfitting. After, holy sounds, swallowed by the waiting saint of a doe-eyed god.
Dennis squeezes his hand and nods. "I know. Are you…?"
"Saying the Kaddish?" Robby nods. It had taken him longer than he wanted to admit to email the local rabbi, to figure out the shape and color of what he could do, of what the community could do for him, of the whens and hows of trying to meld something laid to rest with something sprouting, however slowly, back toward the sun.
Dennis nods back, and for a moment, that's where they're suspended. Hand in hand, sun setting over their shoulder as Robby takes a deep breath and Dennis gives his hand a squeeze. He pulls at the cuffs of his dress shirt, rubs his empty palm down the crease on the front of his slacks. He left his tiny cross at home — really only wears it the day after a bad shift anymore, thinks of his meemaw, her arthritic hands steady as she'd slipped it over his head after his confirmation — but his hands still flutter momentarily to the dip beneath his Adam's apple.
He's nervous, Robby thinks, and it makes him smile, that small smile that doesn't quite wrinkle the corners of his eyes, but squeezes his cheeks into something rounder, more youthful, as he leans down to press a quick kiss to Whitaker's cheek.
The shorter man starts a little, his big eyes going even bigger for a second as a beautiful pink crests the top of his cheeks, a California coastline at dawn. "What was that for?"
"Do I need a reason?"
The blush deepens, port wine on crisp white linen, and instead of an answer, Dennis just shakes his head and presses up onto his toes to plant a kiss on the tip of Robby's nose. Robby snorts, swats at him playfully until Dennis catches the other hand and plants a much less playful kiss to the inside of Robby's wrist.
"Proud of you," he says into the skin he just kissed, his voice almost melodic in its softness, his vowels rounding and flattening in a Midwestern accent kissed by his time in Pittsburgh.
Robby opens his mouth to say something, finds that there isn't a string of words in existence to quite convey what he means, so he simply nods, feels a familiar wetness along his lash line as he takes a big, steadying breath. He has to be the one to take the first step, and so he does, Dennis shadowing his footsteps with silent solidarity.
***
"Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra" the words feel heavy on his tongue, unfamiliar shapes in his mouth that still feel familiar to his bones. As he speaks, his head bows, and raises, and he does his best to keep his focus on the warm wood of the back wall, but he can feel Dennis's eyes on him the entire time, and every time he lets his gaze wander, he finds a pair of bright green eyes looking at him like he hung the moon.
"Chirutei, v’yamlich malchutei b’chayeichon" Robby's scratchy tenor does its best to trip up and down the intonations, his fingers curling into his palms as the rest of the room watches, and waits. He recognizes a few faces in a vague, fuzzy way, other Jewish doctors from the PTMH and West Gen, a couple long-familiar faces from when he would come with his family as a child. They watch, and he prays, and when it comes time for them to echo him in a long "amen", they do, and he feels something swell in his chest.
His faith is a complicated thing, but this plucking of a heartstring buried deep beneath his consciousness feels anything but. It's sunrise on the Allegheny. The long-delayed cry of a baby clinging to life with out-sized ferocity. The sweet, broken soprano of Nick Bradley's mother as she'd sang through "You Are My Sunshine" without missing a note, tears streaming down her face. He breathes, and one catches on something jagged in his lungs, and then he's not singing anymore, he's crying, the words still coming, choked and nasally and he can feel his cheeks redden, can feel the cool rush of tears as they drop down his cheeks. He cries, because he mourns, and he mourns, because he remains.
Because he remains in a world where so many don't.
He finishes the prayer and practically throws himself down into his seat, both elbows digging into his knees as he presses his forehead into his hands and he feels the slow, muffled drag of Dennis's hand up and down his back. He hears the service continue around him, but feels like he's underwater, like he's pressed back into the corner of cartoon-animal'd walls, the silence of the makeshift morgue and the shattering volume of Dr. Adamson's passing existing simultaneously in the whirlwind of his brain. He squeezes his hands, his fingers tingling, the sound of his own blood too loud in his ears, when he feels a cool puff of breath pass over his ear.
"We bow in worship," Whitaker whispers, "and give thanks unto the Supreme King of kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He who extends the heavens and establishes the earth, whose throne of glory is in the heavens above and whose power's Presence is in the highest of heights." It's the Aleinu leshabei'ach, and Robby has no idea how Dennis knows that, theology degree be damned, but here he is, the words of long-dead prophets brought to life again with a reverence that endears, that covers any multitude of mistakes or mistranslations.
He drops his hands away from his head and sits up, can't bring himself to look away from Whitaker's mouth as it continues to softly form, "You shall know and take to heart this day that the Lord is God, in the heavens above, and on earth below. There is no other."
"There is no other," Robby repeats, his voice threadbare and full of holes, torn open by losses too big to suppress and slowly knit back together by the patient diligence of a Midwestern puppy.
Dennis's eyes are bright, practically blazing as the hand tracing trails up Robby's back finally slows to a stop, slipping into Robby's warm grip as he phantom whispers, "hey," and smiles. "You did great."
Robby's exhale shakes just enough that they both hear it, and Robby nods. He shifts his gaze back to the rabbi, tries to focus what attention he has back on what's left of the service. But he shifts a little closer to Whitaker on the bench, slides until he can feel them pressed together at the hip. He uses his index finger to trace a heart on Dennis's palm, and it's the best way he knows how to say "thank you".
***
"So tell me," Robby says, his voice gruff between inhales, breaths short and fast and on the edge of panting. He's seated fully inside of Whitaker, strong, sinewy legs wrapped around his waist and nestled into the space where the back of the couch and the cushion meet. The leather groans quietly beneath them, their sweat-slick bodies not quite enough to prevent a little bit of friction, a painful cling to the outside of thighs and the inside of kneecaps. "Do you memorize prayers for the dead in every faith, or am I just a very lucky guy?"
Whitaker makes a sound that starts as a chuckle but quickly cuts off into something high, almost keening, as Robby shifts, sliding his hips forward, pressing up slowly and strongly into Whitaker's prostate. A spurt of precum lands just above Robby's bellybutton, covering the dark hairs there in a pearlescent sheen that starts a noise deep and low, almost subsonic in Robby's chest. He snaps his hips again, and another few drops follow the first, glistening like sea water. Whitaker, his pupils blown and his motions hesitant, reaches down and rubs the pads of his fingers through it. It makes Robby jump a little, the slight sudden pressure, and the involuntary movement seems to knock something loose inside Dennis.
"E-eternal rest grant to them, oh Lord," he starts, voice low and broken, tongue dragging heavily along his bottom lip, his arms moving slowly to wrap around Robby's neck, his upper body canting forward until their foreheads are pressed together. "Let perpetual light shine up them." His hips shift, slowly, dragging across Robby's lap. The movement drags Robby's balls along the cool leather and he hisses, pushes off his heels to move them both a little further back up the couch. He thinks, momentarily, about flipping them, about cradling Dennis's body beneath his own and taking what he needs from Whitaker's boundless mercy, but. Then a hand that isn't his finds purchase along the back of the couch, and Robby was a fool for ever really thinking he was in charge, anyway.
Dennis arches his back as soon as his hands wrap around the study couch back, his other one unwrapping from Robby's neck and following suit, trapping Robby beneath him in glorious restraint. He looks up the long line of Dennis's neck, doesn't stop to think before sitting up enough that he's able to trace back a single drop of sweat to its source, the soft skin just below Dennis's ear, and when he sucks softly on the skin there, laves it with the flat of his tongue, Whitaker moans like a lost, wounded thing. "May their souls and all souls — fuck," he bites off as he finds the right angle, fucking himself backwards onto Robby's cock, rhythm stuttering as his pace becomes almost frantic.
One of Robby's hands moves from Dennis's hips around to his cock, catches Whitaker's eye and forces him to watch as he spits into his hand, and they're both wet enough that it's not needed, but that doesn't stop Dennis's eyes from rolling back as he watches Robby's broad hand wrap around his dick, doesn't stop the soft, broken moans that escape his lips as Robby's rhythm matches his own, fast and needy and bordering on desperate. "May al-all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace."
He rushes through the last words like he's giving last rites to a room full of the dying. La petite mort.
"Amen," Robby says, and maybe it's sacrilegious and maybe it's more pious than every silk-wrapped priest in a castle of ivory and gold, the way he sees a microcosm of the universe behind his eyes when he grits his teeth, digs his fingers into the soft skin over Dennis's iliac crest, and comes so deep inside Whitaker that for a second Robby's brain confuses the tears on his cheeks with drops of Robby's cum.
"Amen, amen, amen," Whitaker keeps repeating, a chant and a mantra, a mourning prayer all his own as he dies and resurrects over and over again in Robby's arms. Both hands are still braced against the back of the couch, bangs plastered to his forehead, cheeks stained red as communion wine, and he bites his lower lip hard enough to draw blood as he finally comes, long thick ropes of white that cover the top of Robby's hand, paint down his wrist and forearm, a few drops slipping between Robby's fingers and down towards the place where Robby's body is still fully joined to his.
He's shaking. They both are. Time wraps around them, the world muffled and still and turning a second into an hour and an hour into the space between breaths as Dennis lets his weight fall into Robby's chest, and Robby lets his chin hook over Dennis's shoulder, squeezing him tight in an embrace that's more than a hug, less than what Robby wants to do (fit their molecules together until the empty space that composes most living things is instead replaced only with one another).
Eventually, Robby's cock goes soft enough to slip out of Dennis, and Dennis's hips start to ache enough that they shift, wade gently back into the sea of regularly-moving time and space. Robby pulls the crocheted quilt from Whitaker's mom off the settee in front of the fireplace, drapes it over Dennis's shoulder as he burrows down into the leather of the couch, already half-way to sleep and a soft smile playing on his lips. Robby rubs his hair, leans down and presses a kiss to his temple. "Rabbah emunatecha," he offers to the quiet. How great is your faith in me.