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“Ow, ow, ow,” Robby grunted, hand finding the small of his back and the pain pulsing there.
Santos stepped in front of him to take over intubating the patient. “You need to see a massage therapist.”
He cocked an eyebrow down at her. “As your attending you need to run any treatment plan by me. And I think that’s a stupid plan–”
“She’s right,” Mel offered from the other side of the man currently having a very inconvenient heart attack. “It’ll just get worse the more you ignore it. And I’ve seen you reach for your back at least once every shift we’ve shared for the past three weeks.”
Robby narrowed his eyes at her. “Who’s side are you on?”
“Side?” Mel tilted her head, bemused.
Thankfully, the patient chose that exact moment to flatline.
He also ended up surviving… which was good considering Robby was more than happy to use his medical emergency to get out of the conversation.
Unfortunately, it seemed the entire ED had gotten word of Robby’s back issues.
When Abbot finally cornered him during shift change over to growl “Go see a fucking massuse or something, for fucks sake” he was just about ready to give up.
“Dr Robby?” Whitaker asked five minutes later, backpack slung over one shoulder and blue eyes a little too wide.
Robby sighed. “If this is about my fucking back, I swear to god, kid.”
Dennis’s guilty little grimace told Robby everything he needed to know.
“I don’t want some stranger touching me, okay? Since when was that a controversial opinion?” Robby knew he was being a hypocrite. He was grateful that Dennis seemed to let it lie with nothing more than a fond shake of the head.
“What about if it wasn’t a stranger?” Dennis said, hands already up like he was telling Robby not to shoot. “I did a course on physio before I came here. And I could look up proper technique and stuff.”
If Robby was a better man, he’d have said no.
The thought of Dennis’s hands on his skin was already enough to get warmth rushing into his gut.
There was no world where this would end well.
“You want to give me a massage?” Robby asked, in lieu of nipping this idea in the bud.
It was worth it just to see Whitaker’s ears turn a tempting shade of red. “I… um… I mean… I… yeah, I guess I do.”
It was Robby’s turn to blush. “Oh.”
“I just…” Dennis sighed, hands finding the hem of his scrub shirt like he needed to hold onto something solid to stop from evaporating with embarrassment. “You look like you’re in a lot of pain. And it’s not something to fuck around with. We need you fighting fit.” Dennis’s face did a complicated little dance before settling on a hopeful if nervous smile. “You’re the captain, remember.”
“Oh Captain, my captain,” Robby muttered before deciding to make a mistake. “Fine.”
“Fine?” Dennis repeated, voice a little high and weak.
“Yep. You can come to my place tomorrow if you don’t mind spending your day off with me.” Robby leant forward to grab the notebook from Dennis’s pocket before jotting down his address.
“Your place?”
“I’m not being shirtless anywhere near Santos. There’s no way I’d be able to relax.” Robby shivered and tossed the notebook back to Dennis who fumbled with the catch. “She’s terrifying.”
“Shirtless?”
“Are you just repeating me?” Robby asked, head ducking to meet Dennis’s eyes. “Look, either show up there tomorrow at 2pm or don’t.”
“2pm,” Dennis muttered, eyes dropping to the paper clutched against his chest.
Robby glanced at the ceiling before sidestepping Dennis and wandering out into the street.
Either, Dennis would help him fix his back or he wouldn’t.
Half of Robby was desperate to feel those deceptively strong hands against his spine.
The other, much more responsible half, knew that he was playing with fire.
With any luck, Dennis would realise how weird this whole thing was and lose his address.
*****
Robby had no such luck.
“What are you doing here?” Robby asked, hip cocked against the doorframe.
Whitaker froze, still on the bottom step of the stoop leading to Robby’s townhouse. “I thought…”
“I said 2pm. It’s 1:55,” Robby said, smirking when Whitaker readjusted the duffel bag on his shoulder.
“I…you’re fucking with me, right?” Dennis ducked closer like he was giving a Shakespearean aside and Robby couldn’t help but chuckle fondly.
“Yeah, kid. I’m fucking with you,” Robby said, rolling his eyes and following the motion with his body to lead Whitaker inside.
He turned to tell Whitaker to take off his shoes but Whitaker had already toed off his dirty sneakers next to the shoe rack.
It was strangely intimate to see Whitaker’s socks against the wooden floorboards.
There was a hole at his left big toe and Robby wanted to offer him a new pair.
“Where do you want to do this?” Dennis shuffled awkwardly and Robby realised he was staring.
“Couch?” Robby asked despite knowing Dennis needed more room to work than that. But he needed the plausible deniability. He needed Dennis to be the one to suggest–
“What about your bed?” And wow, Dennis was a lot more forward than Robby had given him credit for.
And maybe that was the whole point.
Robby wasn’t his boss right now.
He was a patient.
And care came first.
“That would work,” Robby allowed, voice a little softer than he intended.
Dennis beamed at him and Robby felt the warmth in his chest swell into something more dangerous than mere fondness.
They climbed the stairs in silence as Robby wondered if he could text Abbot to come and save him from the trap he’d not only willingly walked right into but also set with his own traitorous hands.
“Your house is, like, really nice,” Dennis said when they made it to the landing, head craning to see into the makeshift office-come-library that Robby wished he spent more time in. “It suits you.”
“Suits me?” Robby asked, glancing around as he tried to figure out what conclusions Dennis was drawing from the space.
“Yeah. Warm, lived in,” Dennis shrugged. “It’s nice.”
“Is ‘lived in’ a polite way of saying messy?” Robby asked, despite having spent most of the morning trailing around his house tossing laundry into the basket.
And how did he even manage to get socks in the downstairs bathroom?
Dennis’s mouth opened for a moment before he shrugged, bright grin dimming.
And Robby couldn’t have that.
“I’m fucking with you,” Robby said, punching Dennis’s shoulder lightly.
Or that’s what he meant to do.
But his hand wrapped around Dennis’s shoulder all on its own.
Thumb finding the dip of his collarbone gently.
He squeezed it once before dropping his hand again.
His palm burned even in the absence of Dennis under his fingers.
“Through here,” Robby said once the silence had grown too comfortable to be anything other than suffocating.
His bedroom was relatively bare; it wasn’t something he’d noticed before but now, with Dennis’s eyes darting around like he wanted to memorise every inch of the space, it felt damning.
His closet was open, clothes spilling onto the floor from the toppled laundry hamper.
A book– Animal Farm– sat open on the bedside table, reading glasses perched on the splayed spine.
The sheets were rumpled despite his best attempt to make his bed that morning.
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” Dennis said, eyes sparkling in the light that splashed across the room through his half-drawn curtains.
“Sorry?” Robby tilted his head, taking in the shy smile that tugged at Dennis’s lips.
He scratched the back of his neck before gesturing at the book. “It’s from Animal Farm… but you might not have made it that far yet so… yeah.”
It made a sweet type of sense that Dennis just knew that off the top of his head.
“I started it last year,” Robby admitted. “I barely made it past the first chapter.”
“Oh,” Dennis muttered as he bobbed his head in an awkward facsimile of a nod.
Silence stretched for a few moments before Robby remembered why Dennis was stood in the middle of his bedroom looking lost.
“Where do you want me?” Robby asked, trying (and failing) to keep his voice light. It came out as more of a growl and he winced when Dennis’s eyes widened.
“Umm, bed?” Dennis said, pointing at said bed. “But you should, um, take your…” He flicked his fingers towards Robby’s shirt with a grimace.
The thought of Dennis’s hands against his bare skin had been consuming his mind all day but, now that he was actually faced with the reality of the situation, he felt inexplicably shy.
“I can turn ‘round?” Dennis offered before spinning on his heel and facing the corner of Robby’s room.
For one brief moment, Robby considered just bolting through the door and out of his house to get away from the situation he’d put himself in.
But there was no world where his back would be able to cope with the sudden movement.
And that was the whole reason Dennis had offered to help Robby in the first place.
With a decisiveness he didn’t feel, Robby hooked a hand over his shoulder and dragged his t-shirt up and off.
He threw it in the general direction of his hamper and Dennis’s head turned slightly to watch it hit the rim and flop onto the floor.
There was something humbling about crawling onto his bed, over the covers, and having to grunt through thick pain before lying on his stomach.
If there had been any lingering worry (or hope) of this being ‘sexy’, he was fairly sure the noises he’d been making alongside the visuals of his aged softened lovehandles had banished that thought from whence it came.
“I’m ready,” Robby muttered, head turned to face away from where Dennis was no doubt still watching the far wall.
Dennis hummed softly before his bag hit the floor as Robby’s eyes scanned his bedside table.
A zip dragged open and Robby tensed despite himself.
“Where does it hurt the most?” Dennis asked, voice muffled as if he’d plunged his whole head in his bag to stop from having to look at Robby’s skin.
“Either side of my spine, at the bottom, I think I slept wrong.” It was vaguely humiliating to have to admit.
Dennis just hummed again.
But he sounded much closer.
A bottle set down on the opposite bedside table and Robby wished he’d faced the other way.
“Here?” Dennis asked; his voice was as soft as his touch as he lay his hand on Robby’s flank. His thumb dragged gently over the tense muscle at Robby’s spine.
Robby swallowed, tongue suddenly too heavy for his mouth. “Mhm.”
“And the other side?” The bed dipped as Dennis knelt on the mattress and a second hand landed on his side, opposite the first.
Robby should send him home.
He should laugh and say that he changed his mind.
That he’d just pop some painkillers and sleep it off.
There was no world where it was ethical to ask Dennis to stay as heat pulsed hot and urgent through Robby’s gut.
“Yeah,” he said instead. “Right there.”
Dennis’s hands withdrew and Robby had to bite his cheek to stop from whimpering.
A cap flipped open and an obscene sound squelched through the room as fire oozed through Robby’s veins.
“Try to relax,” Dennis whispered.
And then two warm slick hands dragged slowly from the swell of Robby’s shoulders down to the dip of his spine.
The palms of Dennis’s hands pushed at Robby’s waistband for the briefest of moments and Robby’s hips twitched.
“Does that hurt?” Dennis asked, thumbs dragging from his spine to either side; kneading almost absentmindedly at the soft fat and tight muscle at Robby’s waist.
It hadn’t hurt.
It hadn’t felt anything less than pure bliss.
“A little,” Robby lied.
Dennis hummed, thumbs pulling back to meet in the centre of his spine. “Tell me if it gets too much?”
“I can handle a massage, kid.” And, God, he sounded half-ruined already.
The mattress shifted and when Dennis spoke next his breath ghosted over the shell of Robby’s ear. “Promise me that you’ll tell me if it hurts.”
Robby’s cock throbbed, trapped between his own hips and the bed. “I promise.”
“Good,” Dennis praised as he pushed his hands back up Robby’s spine.
Strong fingers worked at the tense line of Robby’s shoulders and all Robby could think about was the way that rat’s neck had snapped under the same hands.
How the rat had felt the warmth of Dennis’s palms around its neck before it had died.
How Dennis’s biceps were probably flexing the same way now.
It shouldn’t have been as delicious a thought as it was.
But then Dennis found a knot in the meat of Robby’s shoulder and dug a thumb right into the painful node.
It took him a moment but sweet relief pulsed from under Dennis’s hand as Robby felt a muscle that had been tense since medical school suddenly relax.
Robby moaned.
He wasn’t proud of it.
But holy shit, Dennis was working actual miracles and Robby was but a man.
Above him, Dennis laughed. Just the gentle tinkle of nerves and a little bit of pride. “Good?”
Robby grunted, unable and unwilling to ruin the moment by doing something as stupid as talk.
It was enough for Dennis to continue his ministrations across Robby’s shoulders.
Robby didn’t try to stop the grateful huffs and cut off moans that spilled from his throat. He wouldn’t have been able to anyway. Not when he could feel the painful aches of his body slowly melt under Dennis’s palms.
“You still with me?” Dennis asked an amorphous amount of time later, voice so low that if Robby had actually fallen asleep then he wouldn’t have woken.
Robby might be boneless but he certainly wasn’t asleep.
In fact, he might have one bone left in his body and it was currently leaking through his boxers.
“Yeah.” The word was weightless, breathed out with a deep sigh as Dennis’s warm hands rested loosely on Robby’s flanks. Fingers curled around the softness at his sides and, if his brain wasn’t currently floating on a lust-filled cloud of bliss, Robby would have been embarrassed at the slight twitch of his hips.
“If this hurts, I need to know.” Dennis’s hands didn’t move and Robby realised he was waiting for a response.
“A little hurt is good,” Robby said because apparently Dennis had clawed out his filter and loosened his tongue.
A small silence dragged but Robby couldn’t focus on it. Not when Dennis’s fingers flexed against his skin.
“I’ll be gentle,” Dennis whispered.
It was a lie.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe the molten anguish that dragged through Robby’s back was as gentle as Dennis could be.
Either way, Robby’s hands fisted in the sheets under him immediately.
“Relax,” Dennis soothed, thumbs retreating to the edge of the hurt and apologetically pushing the pain away slowly. “Just try to relax.”
It was probably worrying that Robby was still painfully hard even after his veins had been flushed with fiery agony.
But Dennis was working with a level of authority that Robby had never seen before.
In the ER, Robby was the boss.
But here, in Robby’s bedroom, Dennis was–apparently– the one in charge.
Dennis didn’t try to work the knots in Robby’s back loose directly again.
He skirted around the shape of them and eased the immediate pain.
Dennis’s thumb tucked under Robby’s waistband and boxers to knead at the muscle at the small of Robby’s back.
And really, Robby’s hips flinched on their own as a thick moan dragged out of his chest.
“Sorry,” Dennis soothed, thankfully mistaking Robby’s lust as mere pain. “Can I–?”
“Yeah,” Robby grunted without even waiting for the question.
It was a gross miscalculation when Dennis’s hands slid around and under Robby’s stomach.
“Fuck,” Robby groaned as Dennis flicked open the button of his jeans and carefully pulled them an inch down his hips.
His cock throbbed as Dennis’s hands dug into the muscle at the top of his ass cheek, right where the pain from his back turned into sweet pleasure.
Dennis grunted, putting his weight behind his palms as he worked Robby closer to the edge.
The bedframe rocked with each slow push and blissful pull.
Robby couldn’t control the noises he was making.
He was so close now.
It took everything in him not to roll over and do something.
But then Dennis knelt on the mattress, strong thigh pressing hot and firm next to Robby’s hip.
And Dennis’s entire weight pressed against Robby’s ass as he finally worked a stubborn knot free.
The noise Dennis made was obscene, rough and dirty and thick with exertion.
Robby’s gut clenched.
His cock pulsed between his legs.
And he came harder than he’d ever come in his entire life.
He moaned Dennis’s name; it spilled over his lips like it was the only thing that mattered.
“Shit,” Dennis muttered as his hands splayed across Robby’s lower back. “I– did I hurt you?”
A callused thumb dragged over one of the dimples next to Robby’s spine as reality slowly crawled over Robby’s oil slick spine.
“No, I… you…” Robby tried, mouth dry and boxers wet.
Dennis hesitated. “Are you sure?”
Robby reached behind himself, hand searching for Dennis’s wrist.
But then oil coated fingers tangled with his as Dennis took his hand.
“I feel better than I have in years, kid. You did good.” Robby might hate himself for taking advantage of Dennis’s naivety but Dennis shouldn’t feel bad for trying to help.
The fingers nestled between his squeezed. “Good.”
Robby lay there and Dennis panted behind him.
“I should go,” Dennis whispered, like he didn’t want to. “If you can sleep like this, you should.”
Robby nodded, reluctantly pulling his hand free. “Yeah, I’ll see you in the Pitt.”
Dennis huffed a soft laugh as he dismounted the mattress. “Let me know when you want me to come back.”
It was dangerous how urgently Robby felt the need to tell him to just stay. To drag him onto the mattress next to him and repay the favour.
“Come back?” Robby asked softly.
“Yeah, you’re back is fucked. It’s a miracle you can still walk around.” Dennis threw something into his bag; Robby finally gave up and rolled his head to watch Dennis.
He’d taken off the sweater he’d arrived in and the sleeveless t-shirt he was left in showed just how strong he was.
His biceps flexed as he wiped his hands on a towel; Robby wasn’t so cock drunk that he thought Dennis was jacked but he had a wiry utility to his strength. In another world, he could imagine Dennis wrangling machinery on a farm or tossing bundles of hay onto the back of a tracker.
Dennis glanced up, cheeks smushing behind a wide easy grin.
He was never this loose in the ER and Robby realised he didn’t actually know him.
He’d just given Robby the best orgasm of his life and Robby wished they had met under different circumstances.
Maybe at a bar.
Or in a coffee shop.
Then Robby could get to know him without the beep of a heart monitor or the smell of piss colouring the mood.
“Dr Robby?” Dennis asked, head tilting with concern.
“Do you have a favourite character?” Robby asked, desperate for just one fact about the farm boy with the deceptive strength and kind eyes. Yearning for something that wasn’t measured in milligrams or beats per minute. Who was Dennis Whitaker when he wasn’t wearing scrubs? “In the book.”
Dennis’s eyes darted to the bedside table before falling back on Robby’s face. “Boxer.”
“The horse?” Robby asked, trying to remember the pages he’d read months ago.
The light from the window was dimmer and Robby wondered how long they’d been in his bedroom. It cast Dennis’s pale lashes in a soft warm glow as he nodded and Robby wanted to feel them flutter against his lips.
“You should read it,” Dennis settled on, hands wringing nervously in the towel still held in his grasp. “I think you’d like it.” Then he shrugged, tossing the towel in his bag with a sigh. “Or maybe you won’t. What do I know?”
It was an odd thing for him to say and Robby almost sat up.
He almost asked Dennis to stay for dinner so they could talk about horses and rats.
But then he remembered the mess in his pants and he could do nothing other than watch as Dennis slung his bag over his shoulder.
“I can work on your back a bit more next week. It’ll take a few sessions before it’ll feel better but… you should take care of yourself. You deserve to not be in pain.”
And then Dennis was gone.
Robby read three chapters that night.
*****
Dennis didn’t mention the massage at all during their next shift.
In fact, he acted exactly the same as he had in every other shift he’d ever had in the ER.
Disarmingly charming and wickedly smart.
It was driving Robby crazy.
Every time Dennis picked anything up, Robby’s eyes darted to the flex of his bicep or the flash of strength through his forearms.
Every time Dennis tied off a stitch, Robby watched his fingers deftly flourish around the needles with a hunger near corporeal.
Every time Dennis said his name, Robby’s gut clenched and heat dripped down his spine.
He made it to the end of their third shift before he dragged Dennis into the break room. “I need you to come back.”
Dennis’s mouth opened, closed, then reopened. “Right, okay, yeah, I can, um, I can do that.” His wide eyes darted to the door before meeting Robby’s eyes full on. “When?”
“Tonight?” Robby asked despite knowing how unreasonable of a request it was.
“Oh,” Dennis chewed his lower lip as his hands found the hem of his shirt. “I… um…”
“You got a date or something?” It came out too mean. Too affected. Too jealous.
Dennis just barked out a laugh. “God, no. Santos asked me to…” He pouted for a minute, eyes scanning Robby for some sign, he must have found what he was looking for because he leant in conspiratorially. “Santos is having girl trouble and wanted to have a tête-à-tête…” Dennis wobbled his head around the french. “...so I think that means we’re like friends now.”
“You didn’t think you were friends before?” Robby asked, folding his arms and studying Dennis like he was a particularly challenging crossword. “Didn’t you move in with her?”
“Well, yeah but that was because…” Dennis’s face did a complex spasm that looked almost painful as he shot Robby a panicked look.
“That was because…” Robby repeated; this felt important. Like he needed to file Dennis’s relationship with Santos next to Animal Farm in his mental folder titled ‘Facts About Dennis’.
“Would tomorrow work for you?” Dennis asked, voice an octave too high for the conversational whiplash to be casual.
Robby just forced a slow breath out of his nose. “Yeah, tomorrow works. You could come straight to my place after work.”
“Won’t that look weird?” Dennis smiled but there was something tight around the edges and Robby didn’t know what that look meant but he knew he didn’t like it. “If we leave work together?”
“Jack comes to my place all the time,” Robby lied.
Jack Abbot was lots of things.
Social was not one of them.
It was part of the reason they got on so well.
Their friendship was unshakable.
And almost entirely maintained by rooftop chats between shifts and 2 am phone calls when the night got just a little too dark to be alone in.
“I’m not Dr Abbot though,” Dennis said like he wished he was.
“No, you’re not,” Robby agreed, though he didn’t know why Dennis looked so sad about it. “Talk to me, kid, what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”
Dennis shook his head like he was trying to erase whatever thought was bothering him before smiling up at Robby. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll bring my stuff tomorrow. Then we can head back to yours.”
“Okay,” Robby said because, as much as he wanted to pull Dennis apart to know why his hands had started shaking, he needed him back in his bedroom more than he needed to be a good person.
Dennis avoided him the entirety of the next day.
It wasn’t noticeable to anyone else.
He shadowed McKay until Robby asked her to consult on one of his patients and then Dennis vanished only to be found with Mohan a few hours later.
Robby missed him.
And it was terrifying.
He’d always assumed his attraction to Dennis was purely physical.
That his cock was ruling his brain.
But he was hurtling towards the realisation that his heart was far more involved in the whole process than Robby was prepared to admit.
When his shift finished, Dennis was gone.
It wasn’t like it was a date but Robby felt stood up nonetheless.
If he was being honest with himself, he felt jilted. And when had weddings stopped scaring him?
He made it three blocks with Creed blasting through his airpods before a hand caught his elbow.
Without conscious input from his brain, he turned and slammed his attacker against the exposed brickwork of an artisan coffeeshop. Three androgynous teens with puke green iced drinks and matching hair turned to stare at him.
“Robby?” Dennis squeaked.
But he wasn’t pinned; strong hands pushed Robby’s forearm back easily and he looked more concerned than panicked.
“Jesus, kid! Why are you following me?” Robby barked, yanking his headphones out as he tried to level his breathing.
Dennis’s eyes darted around like he was trying to figure out where he’d made a mistake. “I thought… you said…” A hand gestured to the bag slung over his shoulder.
“Why didn’t you wait for me at work? I thought something had come up?” Robby said and it was only half a lie.
“Sorry?” Dennis said like Robby was the one acting weird.
“Come on,” Robby grunted before turning and taking off down the street. “You’re making me more tense, not less.”
Dennis just trotted along next to him.
“How did the thing with Santos go?” Robby asked when the silence made him want to pull his own teeth out.
Dennis seemed less affected as he pouted at his shoes. “Fine.”
“Fine? I’m gonna need more than ‘fine’,” Robby said, eyes catching on the thumb that worried at the strap of Dennis’s bag.
“She bailed.” Dennis’s voice was smaller than Robby had heard it before. “She got a better offer, I guess.”
“Better than you?” Robby said, unable to think of anyone he’d rather spend an evening with. And wasn’t that damning?
Dennis clenched his jaw, lip snarling up for the briefest of moments. “You don’t have to be mean.”
Something horrible crunched into Robby’s gut. “Why did you move in with Santos?”
“Why do you care?” Dennis shot back, blue eyes burning with something icy and bitter.
They’d stopped walking at some point.
Robby couldn’t remember when but Dennis’s grip on his bag strap was tight enough for his knuckles to turn white.
“Why wouldn’t I care, Dennis?” Robby asked, voice soft in the piss yellow of the street lights.
The look Dennis gave him would have rotted wood and rusted steel. “Can we just go to yours?” Then Dennis inhaled through his nose and forced his shoulders to relax. “Please?”
Robby was nodding before Dennis even finished the plea.
He’d do anything to stop Dennis looking like that again.
And if that meant getting him into the warmth of his home, then who was he to deny him?
The rest of the walk was silent.
And charged.
The easy company of earlier was long gone. Replaced with something brittle and brutal.
When Robby finally opened the door to his home, Dennis’s hands had finally stopped shaking.
“I should shower,” Robby said into the foyer as he kicked off his shoes. “Before you…”
“Okay,” Dennis muttered, his own shoes resting next to Robby’s. “I’ll set up in your bedroom.”
He didn’t wait for Robby’s reply before he trudged up the stairs and into Robby’s space like he belonged there.
Robby wished that he did.
He let himself believe that he and Dennis were returning to a home they shared.
That Dennis was disappearing into their bedroom.
That Dennis was his.
He shook the thought off with a reluctance that was branded into his very bones before he followed Dennis up the stairs.
He turned the shower to the coldest it would go and scrubbed the guilt and lingering worry off his skin with rough hands.
The water almost hurt.
He was sure he deserved it.
Later, with sweatpants low over his hips and chest hair drying in the warm air of his home, he knocked on the doorframe and Dennis looked up from where he was sitting on the edge of his bed.
Animal Farm was resting loosely in his hands.
“You read more of it,” Dennis said, waving the book vaguely in the air.
He’d kept Robby’s page like it was important. Maybe it was.
“I did,” Robby grunted as he dropped his dirty clothes into the laundry basket. A sock tumbled to the floor and he bent to pick it up with a grunt.
“What do you think? So far, I mean.” Dennis carefully returned the book to the bedside table and stood.
“I don’t know.” It was the truth.
Dennis nodded like he’d expected that. “You mind if I shower too? I’m pretty sure I got all that puke off me from Mr Mitchel but I feel like I can still smell it.”
It was unwise for Robby to cross the room and step into Dennis’s space.
It was unwise for Robby to lean in.
It was unwise for him to meet Dennis’s eyes as he inhaled.
He did it all anyway.
“You smell good to me,” Robby muttered; he stepped out of Dennis’s space and snatched the book off the table. “Go shower, I’ll read another chapter while you’re gone.”
Dennis watched him for a moment. Eyes following Robby’s chest as he breathed slowly.
“Don’t,” Dennis said. “I need you relaxed and you’re on chapter nine.”
Then he stalked out and towards Robby’s bathroom.
It was good that Dennis had told Robby not to read.
There was no world where water splashed over Dennis’s naked body in the other room and Robby could pay attention to a fucking book.
The lingering chill of his own cold shower had long dissipated by the time Dennis wandered back into his bedroom.
Blonde curls clung in damp clumps against Dennis’s forehead and Robby wanted to run his fingers through them so badly he had to clench his fists to stop from reaching out.
Dennis was wearing the same sleeveless t-shirt that he’d worn the first time and Robby felt fond warmth flare in his chest.
“How’s your back been?” Dennis asked, slowly rounding the bed to stand beside Robby.
“Fine,” Robby lied and he wished he’d lay down before Dennis had come back in.
It was too much to be sitting in his own bed, facing the very thing that had been driving him to distraction, with his shirt off.
It felt too much like playing with fire.
“I know you’re lying,” Dennis said, eyebrow cocked. “I work with you, remember. And you could barely pick up your sock earlier.”
Robby held his hands up. “You caught me.”
Dennis smirked, lip twitching as he tried to hide it. “Lie down for me?”
Robby shimmied down the bed, sheets bunching up under his body, until he was lying flat on his back and looking up at Dennis.
“Is your chest hurting you too?” Dennis asked, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Because at your age, you should probably go to the hospital if you’re having chest pain.”
Robby opened his mouth to say something extremely witty and funny.
But then Dennis dragged a finger along the thin gold chain at the hollow of Robby’s throat.
And Robby could do nothing but try to remember how to breathe.
“It suits you,” Dennis muttered. “The gold.”
“Silver suits you.” Robby sounded ruined as he nodded at the chain tucked under the collar of Dennis’s shirt; his voice rumbled out of his chest and there was no doubt in his mind that Dennis could feel the vibration of it through his finger.
Dennis’s eyes snapped up to meet Robby’s. “No… it really doesn’t.”
The air turned heavy.
Thick with something sweeter than lust and more vile than yearning.
Robby licked his lips and Dennis’s eyes dropped to watch his tongue. “I–”
“Roll over,” Dennis said, hand gone from Robby’s chest and eyes far away.
It wasn’t even really a conscious decision for Robby to comply.
He shifted, kicking the sheets away until he could settle more comfortably.
Dennis didn’t ask him if it hurt before pressing palm-warmed oil into the clean skin of Robby’s back.
But when his thumbs found an old knot next to the base of Robby’s spine, he whispered a soft apology before carefully working it loose.
It took longer this time for Robby to drift into boneless moans and blissful groans but Dennis got him there all the same.
He was already hard when Dennis gently tugged his sweatpants a little lower on his hips and started on the worst of his hurts.
“Is this okay?” Dennis asked, fingers kneading at the stubborn node of agony at Robby’s flank.
Robby nodded, not fully trusting himself to speak without begging.
“You remind me of Boxer,” Dennis muttered into the space between them. “I hate that you remind me of Boxer.”
Robby tried to turn but a strong calloused hand splayed open between his shoulder blades.
“You deserve more than you’re prepared to accept,” Dennis whispered.
And then the hand not splayed on Robby’s spine, trailed lightly down the oil slick skin to rest just above Robby’s waistband.
“Let me?” Dennis’s voice was lower. Rougher. Desperate. “Please, Robby?”
Robby knew what he wanted.
What he needed.
But he knew that Dennis was wrong.
Robby didn’t deserve anything.
And Dennis deserved the world.
“You should go,” Robby heard himself whisper despite every fiber of his being begging to let Dennis do whatever it was that he had planned.
The hands at his back vanished and Dennis was out of his house before he could even roll over.
Robby had a second cold shower that night.
And for the first time in a while, the night was too dark to be alone.
Abbot answered on the first ring.
*****
It hurt more than Robby was prepared to admit that Dennis acted as if nothing had happened.
He didn’t disappear when Robby asked him to shadow him as he worked on a patient.
He didn’t argue when Robby couldn’t stop reaching for him anytime they passed each other in the ER.
He didn’t seem to give a shit that Robby had kicked him out of his bed.
“What did you do to Huckleberry?” Santos asked after a week of Robby staring wistfully at Dennis and Dennis pretended nothing was amiss.
“Nothing,” Robby said because it was true. Sure, doing ‘nothing’ hadn’t been what Dennis had wanted to happen but Santos didn’t need to know that.
“Liar,” she snapped.
And Robby didn’t understand how Dennis had been so wrong.
Santos was his friend.
You didn’t go toe to toe with your boss over an acquaintance.
“Why did you ask him to move in with you?” Robby asked in lieu of addressing her accusation.
The reaction was immediate.
And worrying.
Santos glanced behind her quickly before yanking Robby into an empty exam room.
“Are you fucking serious?” Santos looked ready to murder him and Robby was inclined to let her. “That’s why you’re being a dick?”
Robby folded his arms and tried not to match her aggressive energy. He wasn’t entirely sure he was successful. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You… what? Thought you’d convince him you didn’t give a shit about all his baggage and then you find out he was homeless and you throw it all away.” Santos spat the words between them like they were poison.
Robby felt sick with them so maybe they were. “What?”
“Was all that bullshit about pretending to care about him just a lie?” Santos continued, unaware of the bombshell she’s just dropped.
“Trinity,” Robby’s hands found her shoulders and he knew he must have looked gutted when her eyes went wide. “What do you mean Dennis is homeless?”
“He’s not,” she said, blinking rapidly. “He lives with me now.”
“Trinity.” Robby had to snap his mouth shut to swallow down the bile that swelled at the back of his throat.
“I thought you knew… wait.” She shook her head and the angry tilt of her eyebrows returned. “If that’s not what you’re being an asshole about then what is?”
“I’m not being an asshole,” Robby said and he wasn’t sure why it felt like a lie in his mouth. “Why was he homeless?”
“His family found out he was gay and kicked him out of the flat they were paying for.” Santos shook her head when Robby gasped. “You know this! You know all of this!”
“No, I really don’t,” Robby muttered, mind grinding slowly over the revelations.
Santos shook her head again, like she was stuck in a disbelief so potent it was hurting her. “That’s why you didn’t want to meet him at work. Because you thought people would think you were gay too.”
“I’m bisexual,” Robby said.
Santos looked so scandalised that Robby could only be offended.
“Everyone knows I’m bisexual.”
“No one knows that!” Santos screeched, hands flying up and dislodging Robby’s from her shoulders. “How would people know that?”
“I dated Dana’s husband before they got together,” Robby said. “Jack and me only know each other because we hooked up back in med school. This is not new information.”
“Then why are you being an asshole to Dennis?” Santos begged, shoulders slumping as she clasped her hands together.
“You’re the one being an asshole to Dennis,” Robby snapped, temper finally failing him. “You bailed on your bonding night for a better offer.”
Santos at least had the wherewithal to look scandalised. “He said he didn’t mind.”
“Well, he did,” Robby snarled, hiding his own panic behind anger.
“If you know him so fucking well, why didn’t he tell you he was homeless? Hmm? Or that he was gay?” Santos looked half wild and Robby needed to stop hiring people who had all the same flaws as he did. “Why did come home last week and fucking cry?”
Robby didn’t have an answer to that. “If you know him so well, why did he say you weren’t friends?” It came out too quiet. And cruel. It came out far far too cruel.
“Fuck you,” Santos spat, eye welling with tears.
“Right back at you,” Robby muttered before stalking back out into the ER.
Thankfully, three GSWs chose that exact moment to wheel through the doors of the ambulance bay and the rest of Robby’s night was lost to blood and death.
Dennis was gone when Robby resurfaced, two hours after the end of his shift.
It didn’t matter.
He was pretty sure he didn’t deserve to talk to Dennis ever again after he had thrown him under the bus with Santos.
The walk home was silent under the streetlamps and fine mist of autumn rain.
His shower was cold but this time there was no one to warm him as he slid into bed.
So he did the only thing he could think of.
He reached over and pulled Animal Farm off his nightstand and started reading chapter nine.
He hated Boxer.
The strong wise old workhorse who carried on through pain.
He helped build the windmill even with a broken hoof.
Robby hated how much he felt like an old workhorse.
He hated that he knew he was Dennis’s favourite.
But then Boxer collapsed and Robby couldn’t breathe.
Boxer didn’t have a Dennis of his own.
He didn’t have a sweet little farm boy to tell him he deserved more than the pigs were willing to give him.
Robby sobbed when the pigs sold Boxer to the knackers.
He sobbed when Boxer was taken to the slaughter.
And then he sobbed some more when the pigs used the money to buy whiskey.
He was still sobbing when he dialed Dennis’s number.
It only took one ring.
“You told Santos I didn’t think she was my friend?” Dennis barked, anger thick even through the static.
Robby choked on a sob and the line fell quiet.
“Robby?”
“I’m…” Robby’s breath wheezed and hiccuped as he cried. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll be there in five,” Dennis said, suddenly moving.
Robby let the phone slide out of his hand as he huddled against his bedroom wall.
Adamson had been worked to death too.
He’d died from a disease he caught in the hospital.
Robby couldn’t save him either.
When the door opened downstairs, Robby couldn’t remember if he was the horse or the pig.
But he knew he wanted to be the rat. Safe and dead in Dennis’s strong hands.
A hand carefully cupped his jaw and he was pulled into a safe strong embrace.
He was rocked, slowly, as a hand petted his hair.
It was nice.
Safe.
He knew in an abstract sort of way that he was muttering. And trembling.
But…
He wasn’t sure what he was saying.
Just that he needed to say it.
It took him a long time to drift back into his body. It felt like it happened one cell at a time. Dripping back into the rotten corpse of a rat still cradled in the arms that killed him.
“You’re not a rat,” Dennis whispered, voice hoarse. “Not to me.”
Robby swallowed, throat burning from talking. “I’m the horse.”
Dennis hesitated, leaning just enough to meet Robby’s eyes. “Yeah, you’re the horse.”
“He dies too. In the end,” Robby didn’t know if he was making sense but Dennis hummed anyway.
“It’s more in the middle than the end,” Dennis said, hand trailing slowly from Robby’s scalp to the base of his spine. “And you’re not Boxer. Not yet.”
“You just think I’m working myself into an early grave,” Robby hated metaphors. They always hit you right where it hurt. “Like Adamson.”
“Adamson was like eighty. I’d hardly say it was an early grave,” Dennis grimaced bitterly before glancing guiltily at Robby. “Sorry.”
“Why the fuck would you think I’d like that book?” Robby asked, vaguely aware that he was still huddled against Dennis’s chest like a child. He made no move to extricate himself. “Did I really piss you off that much?”
“It’s not a book you’re supposed to like,” Dennis said, clearly grateful for the change of subject. “It’s a book that changes you.”
“You wanted me to change,” Robby realised.
The hand at the small of his back splayed wide, thumb resting on the knot Dennis hadn’t been able to work free yet. “You like being in pain. I think… I think you’ve convinced yourself you deserve it.”
“You said I don’t let myself have the things I deserve,” Robby muttered, leaning to press his temple against Dennis’s shoulder. The angle was all wrong and it pulled at the twinge in his back. He let the hurt fester. “I let myself have this hurt.”
“You don’t deserve this hurt,” Dennis sighed, shifting until Robby’s back stopped hurting and his nose was pressed against Dennis’s jugular. “You deserve to feel good. That’s all I was trying to do. I’m sorry for over stepping.”
A glint of silver caught in the weak light that tumbled through Robby’s window and he reached out to trace the chain around Dennis’s neck.
He tugged it free of the sleeveless t-shirt Dennis was wearing and he realised that maybe Dennis always wore that shirt because it was one of the only shirts he owned. This close he could see the frayed blunt edge at his shoulders. It looked like it might once have had sleeves.
The chain fell free and a thin battered cross rested against the worn cotton of the shirt.
“I don’t know why I still wear it,” Dennis confessed into Robby’s hair. “It never suited me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your family? Or that you were homeless?” Robby asked, finger still tracing the cross like it could spell out the answer to this whole mess.
“My parents are really nice people. Kind. Protective.” Dennis swallowed and Robby felt the bob of his adam’s apple against his cheek. “And I love them.”
“They aren’t that nice if they kicked you out for being gay,” Robby carefully tucked the cross back behind Dennis’s shirt.
“That’s not…” Dennis huffed, frustrated. “You’re nice to me. You’re kind. You’re protective.”
Robby felt Dennis’s words grow weaker, frail and frayed like his t-shirt. “I love you.”
“You don’t have to lie just to make me feel better,” Dennis said so easily Robby knew he believed it. “I just mean… they were the best parents I could have ever asked for and I fucked it up. You’re the best doctor I’ve ever seen… I was always going to fuck this up.”
Robby pushed himself away from Dennis’s chest just far enough to meet his eyes. “I’m not lying.”
“See,” Dennis smiled but it was a sad thing. “I told you. I fuck things up. I fucked up this thing with you by being myself. I fucked up my friendship with Santos by being myself. I… sometimes I wish I was Boxer. People mourn Boxer. They mourn Adamson. They’d mourn you.”
“I’d mourn you,” Robby tried, voice thick. “Dennis, I’d mourn you.”
“You’re just proving my point. You’re nice. I’m not nice. I’m… I’m rotten.” Dennis shrugged, like he knew this about himself as well as he knew gospel and it was absurd that Robby hadn’t figured it out yet. “I offered you a fucking massage just so I could put my hands on you. You were in pain… are in pain, and I… I was a selfish rotten–”
“Stop,” Robby whispered, hand lifting to cup Dennis’s cheek as he snarled. “I only agreed to the massage so you would touch me. If you’re rotten then I’m right there rotting with you.”
Dennis huffed out a wet laugh. “Isn’t that a thought?”
“I love you,” Robby said because he really needed Dennis to hear it. “I love you so much that I don’t want you to be with me.”
Dennis tilted his head, nose scrunching up in confusion. “That doesn’t make, like, any sense.”
“I’m old as fuck. You’re in your prime, kid. Why would I want you to throw away your best years by being with me?” Robby chuckled and it was worth it just to see Dennis’s eyes light up at the sound. “My back hurts. I have panic attacks. I cry at a horse dying in a book. I’m not someone you should be wasting your youth on.”
“Everyone cries when Boxer dies. He’s a metaphor for the exploitation of the working class. If you don’t cry you're, like, the worst person ever,” Dennis dismissed, hand waving in front of Robby’s face. “And I have panic attacks. I had one in the toilet after the first time Myrna hit on me. I had one after I left here the last time. I had one when Santos told me she needed to talk like three hours ago, dude. And I can help with your back. I am helping with your back.”
“So, to clarify, you want to be with me?” Robby asked, fond and bemused and love-sick all at once.
“No,” Dennis sighed. “I want you to want better than me. You deserve someone who isn’t broken.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why do I deserve someone who isn’t broken?” Robby asked, hand finding Dennis’s chest again. “And, follow up question, can you name one person who isn’t broken?”
Dennis squinted at the ceiling. “Dana?”
“I think Dana’s very happy with her husband,” Robby chuckled. “And besides, between you and me, I’ve had to talk her off the roof enough times that I feel confident in saying she’s a little broken.”
“The roof?” Dennis looked horrified and Robby just twirled a curl behind Dennis’s ear around his finger .
“To recap, I’m Boxer and you’re rotten?” Robby asked, smiling when Dennis nodded like that was obvious and he was an idiot for needing to clarify. “Do you think Boxer deserves to be happy?”
“Duh,” Dennis raised an eyebrow at Robby. “He’s a metaphor for–”
“Yes, yes, the exploitation of the working class, I remember.” God, Robby loved him. “But I mean if Boxer is a metaphor for me. Does Boxer deserve to be happy?”
Dennis’s eyes softened immediately. “Yeah, you and Boxer deserve to be very happy.”
“Right, and do you think that being gay makes you rotten?” Robby asked, holding a finger up when Dennis’s mouth dropped open. “Be very careful what you say because I know at least four lesbians, two gay men, and a bisexual i.e. me who would be very offended if you spoke flippantly.”
“I… you’re bi?” Dennis asked, aghast.
“I really gotta tell Princess another scandalous hook up story from my youth so she can spread it around. My reputation is slipping,” Robby muttered before raising an eyebrow at Dennis. Its effect was somewhat lessened by the fact that they were still huddled on Robby’s floor and Dennis was cradling him in his arms. “Answer the question.”
“I don’t think being gay is what makes me rotten, no.”
“That’s not what I… okay, how about this?”
Robby kissed him.
Just the quick chaste press of lips against lips.
With a reluctance that hurt, he pulled away just far enough to rest their foreheads together.
“You make a very strong argument, Dr Robby.”
“If I get out of my own way, can you try to get out of yours?” Robby asked.
Dennis nodded, eyes darting to Robby’s lips.
“Good, now can we get up off my floor because by back is, to no one’s fucking suprise, killing me?” Robby huffed.
Dennis immediately stood before ducking to help Robby stand. “Can I stay? Tonight?”
“I’d be offended if you didn’t, kid,” Robby said, pulling Dennis towards his bed before pushing him onto the mattress. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. We are going to go the fuck to sleep and then in the morning, you are going to tell me if this is actually what you want.”
“And when I say it is what I want?” Dennis asked, grinning as he slid under the covers and beckoned Robby in to snuggle against his chest.
“Then either you are going to fuck me or I am going to fuck you,” Robby muttered against Dennis’s collarbone. “Dealer’s choice.”
“Better hurry up and sleep so we can hurry up and wake up.”
Robby was going to reply.
He really was.
But then his body realised how fucking exhausting it was to sob for hours after a twelve hour shift and he passed the fuck out.
*****
Robby woke up alone.
He tried to be surprised as he stretched, back clicking with the motion.
His hand slid against the sheets next to him and they were still warm.
Dennis must have just left.
He briefly considered ringing Abbot but the devastation hadn’t settled in his throat just yet and he had to figure out how to tell Jack that he was in love with someone half his age.
A soft noise sounded from the landing at the top of the stairs. Like someone was shifting their weight and the floorboards were protesting.
Robby was across his room and yanking open the door before he could think about it.
If Dennis was still in the house then he had to stop him from leaving.
They had to talk.
And kiss.
If they could kiss again, that would be ideal.
Dennis spun, eyes wide and phone pressed to his ear. “I know, Trin. I know.”
A voice squeaked through the speaker and, though Robby couldn’t pick up any words, it sounded pissed.
“No, I know.” Dennis held a hand up, either to tell Robby to back off or to beckon him closer. Robby crossed the short gap and slid his hands around Dennis’s waist without a second thought. The reaction was immediate; Dennis sagged against his chest as his hand fisted in Robby’s shirt. “I’m sorry for leaving last night. I just–”
“Are you safe at least? Because if you’re back on the fucking eighth floor, I’m gonna be so pissed, Huckleberry,” Santos’s voice was rough and Robby knew she’d been crying.
“I’m not at the hospital,” Dennis muttered, ears pinking.
Static swelled across the line. “Are you with him?”
“Trin–”
“Put him on the phone,” Santos snarled. “Put him on the fucking phone right now or I’ll come round.”
“You don’t even know where he lives,” Dennis said, sounding thoroughly unconvinced.
“Do you really want to test that theory, Huckleberry?” Santos said, far too smug and crazed to be anything other than deeply concerning.
Robby just carefully pulled Dennis’s phone from his grasp; he ignored the panicked look Dennis threw at him in favour of pressing it to his ear. “Hi, Santos.”
“You’re breaking like nine hospital policies,” Santos said and Dennis tensed against Robby’s side. “If you break his heart again, I’ll break your nose and then tell the board.”
“If I fuck this up again, I’ll tell the board myself,” Robby replied.
Dennis made a sad noise in the back of his throat before tucking his head under Robby’s chin.
“Can you put him back on the phone?” Santos asked, voice calmer than he’d heard it in a while.
Robby just held the phone next to Dennis’s ear.
“I’m here,” Dennis muttered, voice muffled against Robby’s chest.
“If you need me, text me. You’re my best fucking friend and I’m sorry if I made you feel like you weren’t. But I’m here if you need me, Huckleberry.” Santos sniffed and Robby had the distinct impression that she didn’t know he could also hear her. “I love you, Dennis. Now go fuck that old man.”
The line went dead and Robby slid the phone back into Dennis’s pants pocket before hugging him properly.
“I’ve never had a best friend before,” Dennis whispered.
“Now you do,” Robby replied because he didn’t know what else to say.
“How’s your back?” Dennis asked like he didn’t really know what to say either.
“It’s pretty good actually.” Robby flexed it slightly as Dennis’s hands slid to rest on either side of his spine. “How are you doing?”
Dennis leant back, big blue eyes sparkling in the soft morning light. “I don’t think my parents kicked me out for being gay.”
Robby’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay.”
“I think they wanted to kick me out for years before that and it was just an easy excuse,” Dennis said, softly. “I think I bother people. I’m a bother.”
“Maybe to them,” Robby said because he didn’t want to tell Dennis he was wrong even if he thought he was. “But not to me. Or Santos.”
Dennis hummed, considering. “I’m going to choose to believe you.”
“How gracious of you,” Robby said, smiling when Dennis nodded in agreement. “We’ve got a couple of hours before we need to leave for work.”
“We do,” Dennis agreed. “Want me to give you another massage?”
Robby just ducked to kiss Dennis; he’d meant for it to be quick. Just a soft reassurance that he wanted this.
But then Dennis pulled his hips closer and nipped at Robby’s bottom lip.
And fire dripped down Robby’s spine and pooled, low and urgent, in his gut.
Robby was a big man. Six foot something and heavy.
Dennis pushed him back, tongue still licking into his mouth like he could drink his need from his throat, with a strength that seemed inhuman.
It was easy to just give in.
To let Dennis manhandle him into the bedroom and push him back onto the mattress.
Robby grinned, flat on his back and staring, as Dennis straddled Robby’s hips and pulled his shirt off.
His chest was smooth, just the palest smattering of hair dusted the space at his sternum.
Robby slid his hands up to thumb at one of Dennis’s nipples; the stilted moan that whined out of Dennis’s throat was sweeter than any whiskey.
“What do you want, Dennis?” Robby asked, surprised by the rough drag of his own voice.
Dennis looked at him.
Really looked at him.
Wide blue eyes drinking him in and analysing him.
It was intimate.
To be seen and see in return.
“Let me take care of you,” Dennis whispered before ducking to seal his request into Robby’s mouth with the press of lips and the nip of teeth.
Robby palmed at Dennis’s ass, lazily rolling his hips and feeling the pleasure fizz in his toes. “Anything,” Robby muttered when Dennis moved to suck and bite at the pulse hammering in his throat. “Anything you want.”
Teeth dragged over his throat as strong hands slid up and under his shirt. “Anything?”
And wasn’t that dangerous.
Robby sat up just enough to let Dennis pull his shirt off for him before he settled back against the mattress. He used the moment to cup Dennis’s cheek and meet his eyes. “I’d let you kill me, Dennis. When I say anything, I fucking mean it.”
He watched his words hit Dennis, bright baby blue engulfed with black as his pupils blew with want.
“Then relax. I’ll take care of you,” Dennis whispered, lips dragging against Robby’s before he licked back into Robby’s mouth greedily.
Robby had never really cared about kissing before.
It was always a distraction.
A delay to the main event.
He realised that in his fifty-plus years of life he’d just never kissed someone like Dennis before.
He could just do this for the rest of his life.
The lazy roll of his hips was absentminded. An afterthought to the push and pull of Dennis’s tongue in his mouth and teeth at his lip.
Dennis’s hands were everywhere, slowly dragging blunt nails over his ribs, rolling Robby’s nipple between his thumb and forefinger, pushing into the softness at Robby’s gut, gripping his biceps hard enough to bruise.
Time turned amorphous, dripping molten love against Robby’s mind and numbing him to everything wasn’t Dennis.
Teeth and spit dragged against his collarbone, his nipple, his gut.
Dennis settled between Robby’s legs, resting his cheek against the soft fabric of Robby’s sweatpants and blinking up at him through long pale lashes.
It was almost embarrassing how wet the front of his pants were and how obvious his hard cock was beneath the fabric.
But Dennis’s cheeks and chest was flushed the prettiest shade of pink, his own erection tenting his boxers. And Robby couldn’t remember when Dennis had taken off his pants.
Robby cupped Dennis’s cheek, thumb dragging against the plush swell of his lower lip. “You sure?”
Dennis nipped at his thumb, dragging his teeth over the rough pad before kissing the hurt away, as he dragged Robby’s pants down and off.
The hard jut of Robby’s cock bounced free, precum smearing the hair at his gut and connecting the tip to his belly button with a thin thread that glinted in the morning light.
Robby’s hands slid into Dennis’s hair, fingers finding the soft curls at the crown of his head.
“Been thinking about this,” Dennis whispered, words ghosting over the throbbing tip of Robby’s cock and making it twitch.
Robby licked his lips, toes curling when Dennis blew a slow breath over his cock. “How do I live up to a fantasy?"
He knew he was being self-depricating. He was north of fifty and past his prime. He knew that.
But then Dennis’s big eyes shone up at him and his conviction in his own mediocrity crumbled. “I could never imagine you. You’re, like… you’re really beautiful.”
Robby’s breath caught in his throat at the sincerity in Dennis’s face.
But then Dennis kissed the bundle of nerves at the tip of Robby’s cock once before he swallowed him down in one smooth movement and Robby lost the ability to form high level thoughts.
Dennis paused, nose nestled in the thick grey sprinkled hair at the base of Robby’s cock.
His eyes fluttered shut, throat working to keep from gagging as Robby’s head found a place beyond the back of his throat.
Robby’s hands flexed in his hair, urging him to move, to breathe, to look at him.
Dennis just moaned, loud and sharp. The vibrations thrummed through Robby’s cock and he had to recite his thirteen times-tables to stop from cumming down Dennis’s throat right then and there.
A hand cupped Robby’s balls, rolling them gently and tugging every so slightly, as Dennis finally started bobbing his head.
And Robby realised he was ruined for anyone else.
Not that he ever wanted anyone but Dennis to touch him.
But Dennis’s throat was made for him and him alone.
Tight and wet and hot.
Vibrations dancing through his length as Dennis moaned around him.
Robby dropped a hand to press at the hollow of Dennis’s cheek, feeling his own length drag past his fingers through Dennis’s velvety smooth skin.
Wide black ringed in icy blue blinked up at him, far too sharp for the level of love-drunk Robby was riding.
It should have been enough of a warning that Dennis was looking at him like he needed to catalogue his reaction.
But when an oil slick finger dragged down Robby’s taint to press lightly at his entrance, Robby grunted in surprise as his hips jerked in the opposite direction.
Dennis pulled free of Robby’s cock with an obscene pop, politely ignoring how Robby had practically choked him in his shock. “Robby?”
“Keep going, I just… I haven’t…” Robby waved a hand before pushing it back into Dennis’s hair.
“You haven’t in a while?” Dennis asked, hands moving to rest on the inside of Robby’s thighs.
Robby swallowed, cock still leaking against his stomach. He wanted this. He really fucking did. But he couldn’t pretend this was easy for him. “I’ve never…”
He half-expected Dennis to laugh at him.
Dennis just pressed a kiss to Robby’s thigh as he waited for him to work through his thoughts patiently.
“No one’s ever wanted to before,” Robby said, wincing when he heard the words outloud. “I mean, I’ve slept with men before but never… I never wanted to either. Before.”
“Do you want to now?” Dennis asked, thumb rubbing soothing lines into the soft furry skin on the inside of Robby’s thigh. “Because I’m okay with whatever. I like whatever.”
“I want to. If I haven’t killed the mood by being a weirdo.” Robby was aiming for lighthearted.
He was pretty sure he missed it by a mile when Dennis pressed another kiss to his thigh. “If you change your mind, I’m happy to ride you.”
Robby’s cock throbbed at the thought and a glob of precum spluttered out onto his stomach.
Dennis just raised an eyebrow at him. “Would you rather I rode you?”
“No. I mean, next time, for sure. But… I want you to… if you want to?” Robby said, awkwardly.
Thankfully, Dennis really did seem to like the cringey old man that was lying naked in front of him and fumbling through his words.
And then Dennis licked a long line up his cock and swallowed him back down.
Robby felt something settle in his chest like the last piece of a puzzle slotting satisfyingly into place as Dennis reached up to cover one of Robby’s hands in his hair and encourage him to guide Dennis’s head to the pace he wanted.
Dennis’s other hand stayed firmly at Robby’s thigh, thumb still dragging a soothing line at the soft skin there.
Robby let himself get lost in Dennis’s mouth, pace turning a little rougher as Dennis moaned on Robby’s cock with each pull of his hair or rough thrust into his throat.
Anticipation was bubbling with the hot urgent desire in Robby’s gut, cresting until he thought he was going to explode. “Touch me, Dennis. I want you to. Please.”
Dennis moved immediately, like he’d been waiting for Robby to beg.
He rubbed at the puckered skin for a moment, urging Robby to relax, and then Dennis was slowly fucking his finger inside.
Robby’s back arched, head thrown back and cock buried in Dennis’s throat, as Dennis found his prostate with the precision only a doctor could have.
“Fuck!” Robby barked, chest heaving as sparks danced in his peripheral vision.
Dennis’s hand gently squeezed Robby’s wrist and he immediately let go of Dennis’s hair.
The sound Dennis made when he pulled off Robby’s cock was pained, halfway between a wheeze and cough.
But the grin he shot Robby was nothing short of cocky.
“Fuck, Dennis. I’m so–”
“Oh no, that was so fucking hot.” Dennis slowly fucked his finger in and out of Robby as he pulled in a few deep breaths. “I just didn’t want to pass out because then you’d probably freak out.”
Robby pulled Dennis up, ignoring the little pout when Dennis realised that Robby wasn’t going to let him choke on his cock again. “Give me another,” Robby whispered before kissing Dennis. Salt burst over his tongue and his cock twitched at the knowledge that he was tasting himself in Dennis’s mouth.
A second finger slid in alongside the first and Robby forced a slow breath out at the slight burn.
“You’re doing so good,” Dennis whispered between kisses. “So good for me.”
Robby’s hands were shaking when he cupped Dennis’s jaw as he rested their foreheads together. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Dennis said, bracing himself on a forearm next to Robby’s face and brushing his fingers through Robby’s hair. “So good. Perfect.”
A third finger slid in and Robby keened, panting as Dennis kissed his cheek.
“You’re so used to being in charge,” Dennis muttered, almost more to himself than to Robby. “But you deserve this. You deserve to be taken care of.”
“Fuck, Dennis,” Robby grunted, hips rocking to chase the feeling of Dennis slowly working him open.
Dennis kissed Robby’s forehead before gently pulling back to kneel between Robby’s thighs; he stopped moving his fingers but didn’t pull them free. Not yet.
“If it hurts, tell me. If you want to stop, tell me. If you have anything to say at all, tell me.” Dennis glanced around the room before meeting Robby’s eyes again. “Condom?”
“I haven’t had sex since my last check-up so… I’m clean,” Robby muttered, cheek flushing red. “But, if you… top drawer.”
“I haven’t had sex since my first day in the ED,” Dennis admitted, like it should have been obvious. “And I had that bloodborne pathogen test last month after the hematoma incident, so I’m clean too.”
Robby just blinked at him. “Since you started in the Pitt?”
“Since I met you,” Dennis clarified.
And Robby was going to have to ask him about that.
To double check that he was the reason.
But Dennis chose that moment to slide his fingers free so he could dribble oil over his cock and line himself up.
And Robby’s brain turned into precum and leaked out of his cock.
“Breathe,” Dennis urged before slowly sinking into Robby.
He was absently aware that it did kind of hurt.
But it was nowhere near enough to eclipse the heady pleasure and violent love that lit him up from the inside out.
“Dennis,” Robby moaned, arching into Dennis as he ran soothing hands up and down Robby’s side.
“Fuck, Robby,” Dennis said, voice impossibly soft and breathless.
A blissful eternity later, Dennis’s hips pressed flush with Robby’s ass and he leant forwards, driving himself another inch deeper, to press hot open mouth kisses to the hollow of Robby’s throat.
“Just… I need…” Robby whispered, voice rough with the feel of Dennis pushing against his fucking diaphragm from how deep he seemed to be buried.
“Long as you need,” Dennis said, teeth nipping at Robby’s chest like he wanted to chew through bone to kiss Robby’s heart directly. “Fuck, you’re so tight.”
Robby found one of Dennis’s hands resting against his waist and tangled their fingers together. “I’m good now. You can… fuck… you can move.”
Dennis pushed their joined hands up until Robby’s was pinned about his head. With his other hand, he carefully pulled Robby’s leg up to rest the crook of his knee over his elbow.
“Easy, kid,” Robby chuckled but he knew the sting was gone when his voice came out too soft and Dennis looked at him far too fondly.
Dennis just turned to press a kiss to the skin next to Robby’s knee. “You’re not going to break, old man. And if you do, I’m here to put you back together again.”
“Fuck, I really love you,” Robby whispered, incredulous as to how he hadn’t realised it the second he saw Dennis.
Dennis’s entire face softened, eyes glowing with love. “I love you too.”
Robby grinned, wide and goofy. “Glad we cleared that up. Now ruin me.”
“My pleasure,” Dennis promised.
Dennis pulled almost completely out before rocking back home.
The force of his thrust pushed them both up the bed a few inches and Robby had to throw his free hand up to brace against the bedframe.
Dennis just fucked Robby slow and deep and brutal.
He slammed into Robby’s prostate with each forceful roll of his hips.
The hand not holding Robby’s against the pillow snaked between them to jerk Robby off in time; if Robby closed his eyes, it almost felt like he was fucking himself with the tight ring of Dennis’s fist squeezing whenever Robby clenched down.
He just kept his eyes on Dennis.
He looked glorious like this.
Covered in a sheen of sweat and strong muscles flexing under the soft padding of fat.
The silver cross swung between them, clinking softly against Robby’s star of David every time he ducked to kiss him.
“I can’t…” Robby moaned, gut tightening as pleasure and love swelled in his gut. His thighs were shaking and he knew he had seconds before he was going to be ruined. “Dennis.”
“It’s okay,” Dennis whispered, teeth dragging against Robby’s throat. “I’ve got you, remember? I’ve got you.”
And that was all Robby needed before he clenched down around Dennis and painted his own stomach with thick ropes of white desire.
He felt Dennis whimper sweetly before burying himself deep inside Robby.
They just stayed there.
Breathing in the sex heavy air and lazily pressing kisses to whatever sweaty skin was closest.
Robby was trying to work out what to say when his phone rang.
Dennis immediately went to pull away but stopped with a strangled noise when his necklace yanked him forwards.
The cross had tangled with the star and hung between them, connecting them as Dennis’s wide blue eyes met Robby’s.
“Stay?” Robby whispered, desperate.
Dennis grinned. “Forever. Or… until we have to leave for work.”
Robby answered his phone as Dennis tried to untangle their necklaces. “Yeah?”
“You got time to talk?” Jack asked, voice a little too thin to be reassuring.
Robby glanced up at Dennis.
Dennis just kissed Robby’s cheek and undid the clasp on his own silver chain, leaving the mess of the knot resting on Robby’s chest before he wandered through to Robby’s bathroom.
“I can talk, what’s up?” Robby said, wincing when he felt Dennis’s cum dribbled over his thigh.
“I just… why do you sound like that?” Jack asked and Robby could practically hear the tilt to his head.
Robby froze. “How do I sound?”
“Like you just fucked someone through a mattress.”
“I… I definitely didn’t not fuck someone.” It was only not a lie on a technicality.
“Holy shit, did you and Whitaker finally–”
“This cannot be why you rang,” Robby barked, rolling to sitting until he could find his old pair of boxers and wipe his own cum off his chest.
Jack laughed, loud and bright. “It definitely isn’t why I rang but it’s what we’re going to be talking about!”
“Jack, I know. Okay? I know I shouldn’t be–”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Jack said, cutting Robby off. Wind blew over the receiver and Robby knew that Jack was on the roof. “You deserve to be happy.”
“People keep saying that to me.” Robby heard the water turn on in the bathroom and wondered if he could make up a reason for why he had to join Dennis.
“Maybe they keep saying it because it’s true?” Jack offered, quietly. “But you’ll have to make sure he doesn’t get special treatment. “
Robby glanced at the book, forgotten and crumpled in the corner of the room. “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
“Why the fuck are you quoting Animal Farm to me?” Jack asked, as a heavy door clanged shut and Robby knew he was back in the stairwell.
“Has everyone read this fucking book?” Robby asked, throwing his hand up to drag through his hair.
Jack laughed and it echoed down the stairs. “Are you the pig then?”
“Nah,” Robby said as the cross finally came loose and dropped to the carpeted floor. “It’s just a story, Jack. Not everything has to be a metaphor.”