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It started as a joke, really. Jack had asked Robby to stop by the pet store on the way home from work; Den was being bitey, he said, pick up some good chew toys for him. It wasn't Robby’s fault he didn't know where the chew toys were. He’d never been there before. Why would he? He didn't have a dog.
So when he was wandering through the dog aisles, doing everything in his power to avoid the 18 year old minimum wage worker, and he stumbled across it, he couldn't help but take a photo of it to send to the group chat with his husband and boyfriend.
Snuggle Puppy. A little dog plush with a heartbeat and heat pad made to help soothe anxious pups. Reminded him of someone he knew.
What he wasn't expecting was the immediate response from Dennis. Or more like responses. Four in rapid succession:
WHAT
omg
buy
PLS
And then a minute later:
please can you buy it for me, daddy? thank you!!
That one was definitely due to Jack’s interference. He’d been trying to train some manners into their boy. Robby tried—and failed—to bite back a fond smile, rolling his eyes as he dutifully grabbed the toy off the shelf to put into his basket before continuing down the next aisle to find what he had actually come in for.
He left the store with over a hundred dollars of toys. They were mostly rubber—the ones advertised for teething puppies—a few new ropes because he knew those were Dennis’s favorites, one of those Kong treat dispensers, and, of course, the snuggle puppy. He may not know too much about the whole puppy thing, that was definitely more in Jack’s wheelhouse, but damn did he know how to spoil his baby.
And Dennis loved it. Named it ‘Jacky’ like that wouldn't be incredibly confusing. Would carry Jacky around with him whenever he was home. If he was in the right headspace, he'd even carry it room to room in his mouth by the scruff of its neck like it really was his little puppy. Robby and Jack had to sneak ‘baths’ for it when Dennis slept because he always protested putting it in the washing machine, but God did it get gross fast from being drooled on constantly.
Robby was half surprised and half relieved that the boy never tried to take it to work with him, but he didn't doubt that Dennis had definitely considered keeping the toy in his locker during the day, heartbeat thumping away in there like some Edgar Allen Poe story.
One time, Jack made the mistake of pretending to tear it up when he and Dennis were play-fighting. Got down on his hands and knees—ignoring the way his joints groaned in protest—and swiped the pup out from under Dennis. Took it between his teeth and shook it from left to right with a playful growl.
Dennis had started whining like he was actually hurting it. Pawed at Jack and looked at him with those big, sad, wet puppy eyes until he dropped the toy and apologized. Jack pressed a wet kiss to Dennis's cheek and carded his fingers through the messy blond curls as Dennis cradled his puppy to his chest protectively.
But as much as Dennis insisted on carrying it around during the day and evening, always having it just within reach, each night he’d put it in his dog bed in the living room before following Robby (and sometimes Jack) to bed. Would lay down on one of his boyfriends, pressing his ear to their chest, and letting their strong heartbeat lull him into a comfortable sleep. The only good thing about their conflicting schedules is that there was always someone to cuddle with at night.
Until there wasn’t. Until Robby was called in on what is supposed to be his day off at three in the morning by the charge nurse after a particularly bad pileup from the rain. Until Robby was trying to carefully extract himself from a sleeping Dennis that was acting more like an octopus than a puppy. A bleary eyed Dennis that was insisting that I can come in with you, pushing back against Robby’s you need the sleep, they might need help tomorrow.
Dennis had never spent a night alone at their place. Sure, he'd been there by himself for a couple of hours at a time when Jack and Robby were both at shift change or someone had to run some errands alone, but he'd never had to lay in the still, dark, quiet of night alone.
Robby didn't even have a chance to think about that as he rushed out the door still pulling his scrub top on, pausing for a few short seconds to press a kiss to Dennis’s forehead as the boy murmured himself back to sleep.
The shift was, predictably, hell. The only caveat to it being that it was a rare occasion where Jack and Robby got to actually work together; working perfectly in sync as they juggled the overload of traumas. Jack elected to leave his car in the parking lot overnight so they could drive home together, he could just catch the bus for his next shift and retrieve it then. Neither of them wanted the other one on the road alone after something like that.
They pulled into the driveway around 8:30 am and they weren’t expecting the house to still be so silent and cold. Even on his days off, Dennis was usually up at 6, maybe 6:30 at the latest. Their footsteps echoed in the entryway. It was strange, ever since Dennis started staying over at their place more often than at his own apartment that he shared with Trinity, the townhouse always felt warm and alive. There was always the sound of giggling or whining, one of Jack’s old records playing over the stereo system or a YouTube video murmuring over the TV speakers, long forgotten about by the younger boy who initially put it on.
The quiet was eerie, like their night in the ED had followed them home.
Jack sighed, wasting no time before heading to the bedroom to get his damn prosthetic off him, the poor weather always made it extra uncomfortable. Robby took an extra beat at the door, trying to will himself to leave all that shit at the door and not let it ruin the rest of his day. His day off that he was intending to spend with his boys. His happy, healthy, safe boys.
“Uh, hey Robby? You should come over here…”
Jack’s voice startled him out of his haze. He shook his head slightly before focusing in on where Jack was standing in the hallway that leads to the bedroom, leg still on.
Fuck. Dennis.
Jack’s face gave nothing away. Robby’s mind went to the worst case scenarios, how could he not after their night? He rushed to the bedroom door, fingertips gripping the doorframe as he peaked in. Jack’s body pressed against his back, warm and solid, and he relaxed into it at the sight in front of him.
Dennis was curled up in the middle of their bed with his face pressed into the pillow Jack usually slept on. The blankets were pushed down enough for Robby to see that the younger man was in one of his old hoodies, a threadbare thing that he'd probably had for over a decade. One that he’d definitely last seen in his dirty clothes hamper.
The rain had stopped, the sound of water draining down the gutter quiet enough that Robby could hear the slow, even breaths coming from the bed. And a rhythmic thumping.
Because there, in the center of it all—the calm in the eye of the storm—was Jacky. Robby could barely see it from where it was half-hidden under their boy’s torso, pinned to the bed. Made to help soothe anxious pups. Dennis looked incredibly small and vulnerable somehow, even though he was a grown man, even wrapped around the dog toy that was barely larger than Robby’s hand.
“What the fuck did we ever do to deserve this?” Jack murmured into Robby’s neck.
It was cloudy outside; the soft haze of after-storm sun peaking through the parted curtains to cast a soft blue-grey light over the room. The now-dried tear tracks staining Dennis’s cheeks were barely visible.
Robby’s heart ached to think about Dennis alone here. Dennis crying himself to sleep in their bed. Dennis rooting through his dirty laundry to find something that reminded him of Robby. Dennis padding out to the empty living room to grab Jacky—needing it to fall asleep with because he didn't have the steady heartbeat of one of his boyfriends to drift off to. Dennis nuzzling impossibly further into Jack’s pillow, chasing the lingering scent of his shampoo.
Dennis stirred, unconsciously aware of his boyfriends’ presence. His face scrunched up before he blinked his eyes open slowly.
“Hey,” he choked out, voice scratchy and raw from crying himself back to sleep. His back flexed as he stretched his arms out in front of him, body tensing and cracking as he stretched.
“Ooh, biiiig stretch,” Jack chuckled as he brushed past Robby to finally enter the room. He unbuckled his pants and shoved them down his legs, sitting down at the foot of the bed to work his prosthetic off.
Dennis smiled at the line, smiled even wider when Robby joined him on the bed. Still fully clothed. They could wash the bedding later, whatever.
Not even five seconds after he laid against the headboard, Robby had a lap full of cuddly puppy. Dennis wormed his arms around Robby’s thick waist, smushing his face into the older man’s soft belly.
“Missed you,” the boy mumbled into the fabric of the shirt, “Both of you.” He sniffled and it almost broke Robby’s heart.
A large hand came up to smooth over the sleep-rumpled blond curls. “Missed you too, sweetheart. We were thinking about you the whole time. Did Jacky keep you company while we were gone?”
“Oh uh…”—Robby could tell Dennis was blushing even without seeing his face from the way shrunk in on himself—”Yeah it was just—I couldn't fall back asleep, it was too quiet without anyone else here.”
Jack—real Jack, human Jack—groaned as he settled into the other side of the bed, running a hand gently over the warm skin of Dennis’s back under the oversized hoodie. “I get that, pup, I usually have the TV blasting in the other room when I’m sleeping when neither of you are home.”
Dennis hummed in contentment, pulling away from Robby so he could lay on his back between the two. Jack picked up the toy, shaking it in front of Dennis’s face like it was alive, accompanied by quiet barking noises, until the younger man giggled at it, relaxing back into the pillows. Jacky was laid on his chest so that its artificial heartbeat reverberated through his ribcage.
Robby sent a silent thank you out into the universe that Dennis didn’t get called in to help with the overflow of patients as he closed his eyes and drifted back into a blissful sleep.