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Dennis isn’t sure why he noticed.
Well, that was a lie. Even to himself. He noticed because he always noticed Robby. Despite the chaos of the ED, he always seemed to know where Robby was. And so even though Dennis was working up a patient, he knew that Robby was in with Duke. He saw when Robby left Duke’s room. He noticed Robby’s too-gentle shutting of the door. The long, still, moment he stood facing the door, shoulders hunched, head down. And he noticed the shift in Robby’s body when he began walking away. Not looking around as he usually did. Not scanning the patients he passed, not giving advice or praise to the staff. He moved on a mission, eyes on the floor, straight out of the ED.
Dennis turned back to his patient. Not his business. Not his business if Robby was upset, not his business where he was going. “The X-rays show that it’s just a sprain. You’ll need a sling and to rest for at least a few weeks. Let me grab that for you and I’ll be right back.” He talked to his patient on autopilot, returned her smile, left her bedside all while reminding himself that Robby was absolutely not his business.
Of course, Robby was the only attending on shift. And he wasn’t in the ED. So maybe it was a little bit his business.
He asked Princess to grab a sling for Mrs. McCullough. He told Santos he needed to step out and asked her to keep an eye on his patients, because he knew she would and knew she would (for now) respect the look he gave her to make it clear he needed some privacy. They were friends. Mostly.
He followed the path Robby had taken out of the ED, through the door into the waiting room. He automatically glanced around, making sure nobody was dying, while he thought through where Robby could have gone from here. Anywhere, really. He could be seeing Gloria upstairs. He could be running up to check on a previous patient in surgery, or making his way to the roof. He hoped it wasn’t the roof.
But Dennis had also spent a lot of time in the hospital, and he knew where he would go if he needed privacy. And so he walked quickly to the elevators, made his way to the eighth floor. The whole floor was still dark, still quiet. Still not enough nurses to open up the beds, and he could feel the small flame of anger in his chest, an anger he knew was a gift from Robby. He had only ever been a doctor here, had only ever known the constant crush of patients and lack of beds and boarders and endless, endless waittimes. He wouldn’t have known to be mad about it if he hadn’t heard Robby lecture Gloria and anyone else who would listen about the lack of nurses. He’d often sat at central, charting and listening. Sometimes flying under the radar was a good thing; it meant he knew more about the inner workings of the ED because he was just quietly there, like a toddler playing with blocks while the grown-ups talked.
He didn’t hear anything as he walked down the hall, but he had spent enough time on this floor that the silence and the dark didn’t bother him. After so many hours under the fluorescents of the ED, it was almost comforting. Even as he peered into rooms, looking for Robby, he thought about coming back here, maybe the next time he had a double. Sleeping without being barged in on by another doctor looking for a bed or a lost patient or a crying family member. He missed sleep.
He was just outside his old room when he heard it. A shaky breath, a shifting of clothes. His chest clutched for a moment, an old impulse, as though Robby had caught his secret crash pad, would find out that he was homeless and broke and pathetic. But he didn’t live there anymore, and he pushed the panic down. He had a home and a bed that didn’t have safety bars and someone who he could share a pot of coffee with and he even had a bank account with more than five dollars in it. This wasn’t about him. It was about Robby.
He stood in the doorway and looked into the room that wasn’t his anymore but was still familiar, and there was Robby. Sitting on the edge of the bed where he used to sleep. Where he used to lay and pretend he wasn’t thinking about Robby, the bed where he’d had to strip his messy sheets and sneak them into the EVS hampers before the sun was up. It did something to him, something he couldn’t think about yet, to see Robby sitting on that bed.
But of course, the Robby on the bed wasn’t the Robby he had thought of in those days. This Robby had his elbows resting on his knees, his long body folded over, the heels of his hand digging into his eyes hard enough to hurt. This was the Robby from the pedes room. Different - not crying, not praying - but the same. Stuck. Stuck in something that Dennis couldn’t name, hadn’t experienced.
He didn’t say anything this time. Remembered how before speaking had been met with silence. Instead he crossed the room and sat next to him. Felt the thin mattress sink, carefully positioned himself close but not so close to be touching. Robby didn’t move, kept his head down, eyes hidden. But Dennis could almost feel Robby’s breath as he made a noise between a sigh and a laugh. “It’s always fucking you,” he said.
And Dennis realized he had no idea what the fuck he was doing. Why had he followed him here? What was he going to say? Why was he purposefully interrupting this man’s deserved moment of reprieve? He should go. He should leave Robby alone, get back to work, maybe check on Robby’s patients while he took the time he needed to get his head back in the game.
Dennis stayed.
They sat in silence for a moment. Dennis could feel Robby’s attention turn outward, towards him. Just a bit. Without conscious thought, he shifted his own leg so it pressed against Robby’s. Just some human touch. Dennis knew Robby was starved for it; the way his hands constantly found his own nape or arm, the way he sometimes briefly melted into Abbott at a shift change. Robby spent so much time touching people clinically - checking their pulse, opening their jaw for an intubation, probing a wound. Dennis had long since figured that Robby needed another outlet for touch, needed the safety and comfort of a body that wasn’t dying to anchor him to this plane of existence. So he never minded when those hands found his skin, and he pretended that he let it happen for Robby’s sake and that the warmth he felt from it didn’t matter all that much, actually.
Robby’s leg pressed back. Lightly. Briefly. But he knew Dennis was there, and that was good. He wasn’t so wrapped in his own grief or panic or whatever it was that he couldn’t tell what was happening.
“It’s me,” Dennis finally said. It was unnecessary. But he didn’t have a plan, he was going off instinct and didn’t know where it would lead him, but if he thought too hard about any of this he wouldn't be able to help.
Dennis liked to help. Needed to help. He was sure if he ever went to the therapy that Robby hypocritically kept suggesting it wouldn’t be hard to draw a line from being the youngest child on a farm who was primarily noticed when he was helpful - when he stacked the extra hay, or did his brother’s chores without being asked, or mended the clothes in the mending basket before his mother could get to them - to his decision to go to med school. He had thought he could help through God and the church. Had thought he could join the clergy, that he could serve his congregation and serve God and make the world better that way. But he needed to be hands on. He needed to feel the weight of the hay, the beat of a pulse, the stretch of his own muscles shoving a cow or lifting a body, to know that he was doing what he was supposed to. That he was helping.
Robby didn’t respond, which made sense, because it had been an stupid thing to say. “You okay?” He tried again. Maybe he should do a psych rotation. Maybe there was a script for panic attacks he didn’t know about.
No response. Dennis could feel Robby’s body tense, tighten, turning inward again. Ignoring the idiot R1 next to him. His next breath was shaky, as though the tears were close and he was going to give up fighting them off.
He really didn’t want Robby to give up.
He moved off the bed, crouching slightly in front of the other man. He wrapped his own hands gently around Robby’s wrist, thumbs touching his palms. Dry from the endless sanitizer. Warm. Familiar, because Dennis always noticed the feel of his hands, catalogued every touch in a demented filing cabinet in his mind that he mostly tried to ignore. He pulled down, trying to expose Robby’s face. Trying to look him in the eye, make him see that there was someone here, that they were in the hospital, that whatever terrible scenario Robby was playing through in his head wasn’t real, or at least wasn’t the only real thing.
Robby resisted at first and Dennis almost gave up. Almost let go. But instead he kept the downward pressure steady. Not fighting, not trying to overpower, just steady. The same way he would check a patient’s mobility when the patient knew it would hurt. Not a battle of strength, but knowing what needed to be done and taking the lead.
And after that moment it worked and Robby allowed himself to be led. He dropped his hands to his knees, raised his head ever so slightly. And Dennis was suddenly, viciously, aware of how close their faces were. He was going to move back, he promised himself he would, he just needed to look in Robby’s eyes first. He noted without meaning to that Robby’s pupils were dilated, knew it was a response to adrenaline, that his vision might be blurry. But that was background. What he focused on were the tears that were glistening but hadn’t spilled, the gaping openness his stare.There was a moment where Dennis could have sworn he knew everything about Robby, could see every pain he had ever suffered, could name every heartbreak and patient death and the generational trauma and every hope that had gone unfulfilled and later been buried. He sucked in a breath at the depth of it, at the strength of still mostly standing through it all.
And Robby’s gaze hardened, and the pain wasn’t gone, but it was something uglier and meaner and it was directed at Dennis.
“Why the fuck are you here?”
His voice was low, raspy, the way Dennis liked it best if he’d ever thought to have an opinion on such things. What a great fucking question. Dennis leaned back, ever so slightly. Still too close but no longer sharing the same breath. Why was he here? It may have been a shitty fucking day, but they could do without Robby for a few minutes. Until of course they couldn’t, but Dennis couldn’t pretend to himself anymore that that’s why he was here. He just cared. He wanted to help.
“I was worried,” he said. He paused, considering what came next. He could shrug, say just wanted to check in, see you down there and leave. They could pretend it never happened. He could pry: is Duke going to be okay? You two must be really close but that’s not Dennis’ way, even if the questions had been floating through his mind all day. He could give Robby’s shoulder a weird heterosexual punch you got this, Cap’n, but no. “I wanted to help,” he said finally. The truth, but not the whole truth. I want to take care of you. I want you to be OK. I want to be able to put your pieces back together even though I don’t have any right. I want to stop worrying about you. I want to think about you without it hurting.
Robby scoffed. Dismissive.
But Dennis was good at helping. He knew that. It was the one thing he was sure of, what he always knew about himself even when the rest of him seemed unknowable, a tangle of sin and dreams, and doubts. He reached a hand to Robby’s face, cupping his cheek, the feeling of his warm skin and scratchy beard creating a new file in that cabinet in the back of his brain. A new space on Robby’s body that he knew. A new sensation to turn over, later, when he was alone and half asleep and he didn’t have the fortitude to talk himself out of it.
Robby’s eyes were still hard. His breath was shallow. He didn’t react to the hand on his face. Didn’t lean in. Didn’t pull away. But kept his eyes locked on Dennis, Dennis who was still in a crouch that was becoming uncomfortable but he didn’t know how to move without ruining everything.
It was probably only a moment, but later Dennis would swear it had been years, a lifetime, of them touching but not connecting, of Robby’s eyes cold and lost and Dennis’ legs getting tired from the crouch. He almost started when Robby’s hand found his own, as he pushed Dennis’ hand off his face. Not roughly. Just leading.
Leading Dennis’ hand right to the inseam of his scrubs. Putting his larger hand on top of Dennis’ smaller one. Pushing down. Not asking.
This was wrong. Dennis knew it. His brain was telling him on repeat this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong. The refrain continued even as his hand moved of its own accord. Even as he found Robby’s cock and rubbed it through his scrubs. As his own hands moved, Robby’s lifted. It lit something up in Dennis, the same as when Robby complimented a procedure, but with more heat. He had done the right thing. Dennis’ gaze lowered to his own hand, almost surprised to see its ministrations over the scrubs, the swell of Robby’s hardening cock beginning to show, filling his hand. He looked back to Robby’s face. Eyes still laser focused, not showing his pain, unknowable.
Dennis got on his knees.
He planted his hands on Robby’s thighs, inelegantly scooted between his legs. He felt something go through Robby. Relief, maybe? Maybe Dennis was projecting. This was where he was supposed to be. This is wrong this is wrong this is wrong. But he was helping. He knew how to do this. He knew how to make Robby feel good, at least for a little bit.
He lowered his mouth to where his hand had been. Mouthed at his cock through his pants, was rewarded by a sharp intake of breath, by hands gripping his shoulders. He didn’t look up. He didn’t trust what his own face would show. He loosened Robby’s scrubs, pulled them and his underwear elastic of his boxer briefs out and down and freed his cock. He stroked it, gently, purposefully not thinking too much about what it looked like or how big it was or how it was going to feel in his mouth or how it would feel in his ass. That was for him, for later. This was for Robby.
He worked his hand up and down Robby’s shaft, mouth hovering, he was sure Robby could feel his breath and he tried to keep it even. This is wrong this is wrong even as he felt his own dick twitch, even as his saliva pooled in his mouth at the feel and smell and goddamn beauty of Robby’s cock in his hand, hard and large and something he never should have seen outside of his own mind’s eye.
Robby’s hands shifted, moved to his nape, a spot they’d been dozens of times. And this was different but it was the same because Robby was telling him where to go, was pushing his mouth down towards his cock with the same gentle strength he would turn Dennis around a corner.
And maybe Dennis should be asking more questions or saying no or doing anything other then gathering his spit and drooling it onto the tip of Robby’s cock. Dennis had done this more times than he might admit, had found himself on his knees for boys and men who swore they were straight, who told Dennis he was pretty like a girl and they definitely weren’t gay, but Dennis’ mouth was so good they couldn’t resist. And so Dennis knew how to tease, knew how to make it last, knew how to make sure it was his name on those definitely straight men’s lips when they came.
He didn’t know what this was, but he knew it wasn’t that and he wasn’t trying to prove anything, he was trying to help. And so he relaxed his throat and took Robby as deep as he could. And if he moaned around Robby’s dick, if his own dick swelled as he swallowed around the length of him, that didn’t matter, that wasn’t the point. The point was Robby’s fingers tangling in the curls at the back of his head, his breath stuttering, his hips jerking up reflexively as Dennis swallowed him down, gagging slightly but not pulling off or stopping.
Dennis had watched Robby perform what could reasonably be called miracles with his hands. But maybe this was the real miracle, those same hands covering basically the whole back of his skull, the not quite painful sensation of his hair being pulled, as Robby guided his head, the push and pull of the rhythm Robby guided him in. Dennis’ hands continued to clutch Robby’s thighs. He almost lifted them, to reach for Robby’s cock, his balls, to shove his hand up the front of his scrubs and catalogue the feeling of his skin there. But as his hands lifted imperceptively, the grip on his hair tightened - a warning that went straight to his dick, that forced a moan from him, even as his hands clenched back down on Robby’s thighs. Another pull, but this one a reward.
Dennis followed Robby’s lead, gave himself over to the hands in his hair, sucked where he could, took his tongue around his cock, memorized each vein, the taste of it, the fullness, gagged when Robby’s cock touched the back of his throat and dug his nails in. He nearly got lost in it, nearly forgot the hard floor against his knees and the burning of tears in his eyes and the clenching of Robby’s quads under his hands. But as he began to sink into that space, or maybe because he started to sink, Robby’s hips hitched up. Dennis could feel Robby’s cock twitching against his tongue, he gasped as the grip on his hair tightened past pleasure and he knew Robby was close. His own hips stuttered forward uselessly, he hollowed his cheeks as he sucked, Robby still in control, still moving Dennis’ mouth up and down, faster now. Dennis willed himself not to come untouched in his scrubs, even as Robby let out a small grunt, the first noise he’d made this whole time. Dennis swirled his tongue around Robby’s head, the next held back grunt landing like praise. And he knew Robby was on the edge, and he was forgetting who this was for, that he was supposed to be helping because surely this was exactly where he belonged, getting his face fucked by his boss, by Robby, and Dennis couldn’t stop himself from finally raising his eyes to Robby’s. Robby, whose eyes were still open, who had been watching Dennis this whole time. His eyes were slightly glazed but he still had that shielded, cold look. The look of someone who was about to make their shit everybody else’s problem. The look of someone who was hurting so bad they had to turn it outwards, someone who couldn’t sit with their pain for even a moment for fear that it would consume them. Dennis saw that look and held it and loved it, loved him, loved him despite being pushed onto his knees in an abandoned hospital room, loved him precisely because of it.
Dennis didn’t know what Robby saw in his eyes. Maybe he saw the expression of someone who held power. Who was kneeling but knew what he was doing, who made a choice and stood by it. Maybe he saw the vulnerability of someone who would do this every day, who would beg for it if he had to, who didn’t know how he would be able to move through life if this was the only time he got to have Robby’s cock in his mouth. Maybe he just saw what he wanted to see, someone else, a different person, a different life. Dennis knew he would never ask.
But it’s that seeing that tips Robby over the edge. Whether he’s seeing Dennis or who he wants Dennis to be, it’s that connection that has his cock pulsing, sending hot thick ropes of cum into Dennis’ mouth. Dennis holds eye contact as he swallows it down, as Robby thrusts in too far, as he gags, as Robby’s eyes finally close and he is able to feel something good, and for just an instant Dennis is sure that they are both there in the same place, that this is real and Robby is here and with him. But it’s only an instant. Then Robby’s hands loosened their grip, slowed the rhythmic push and pull of Dennis’ head. Dennis felt Robby take a purposeful breath in. They were still.
With Robby’s cock still in his mouth, Dennis watched Robby open his eyes. And he saw Robby come back. Not Robby from pedes, not the hard stare of the man who scoffed and shoved Dennis’ hand onto his dick. But Robby, who was fucked up but still alive and asked Dennis to house sit and yelled at everyone but was trying.
The relief was instant. He had helped.
He got a moment. A moment where Robby almost smiled, where his hands tangled in his hair and it felt more like a caress than a demand. But then, like a door closing, guilt and shame took over Robby’s face. Dennis could only imagine how he looked. Mouth still open around the length of him, this idiot R1 who had taken things too far. Robby opened his mouth to…what? Apologize? Dennis wasn’t sorry, and he wasn’t sure he could handle it if Robby was. He had done a good thing and he wasn’t ready for it to be second guessed or dismissed because Robby felt as though he’d done something wrong, when the wrong was what had brought him back to himself. Dennis had brought Robby back.
But even as the thought filled his chest with something like pride, Dennis looked away. He gave Robby the space to collect himself. He finally moved his hands from Robby’s thighs, gently removed his mouth, resisted the urge to lick him clean, to see if he could make Robby whimper. Tucked him back into his scrubs. Stood.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Dennis said, even though Robby hadn’t spoken yet. Dennis ignored the self-deprecating half laugh from Robby. Instead he turned Robby’s chin, forced him to look at his swollen lips and red cheeks and burning eyes. No shame. No regrets. He allowed himself to kiss Robby, just a gentle press of lips that Robby didn’t push away but didn’t lean into. Knew that Robby could taste himself on his lips.
“I’ll see you back in there, Robby.”
He walked away. He knew it was wrong. He knew Robby was leaving and it would probably never happen again and if anyone ever found out he’d just be the twink with daddy issues who let himself get used by an unwell man. He could picture Dana’s look of sympathy with crystal clear accuracy, knew in a distant part of himself that that was not the reputation he wanted at his job that was more than a job, that was a lifeline and a calling and a home.
But he had helped. And, for now, that was enough.