Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dennis wonders when he first noticed it—the lingering looks, the hesitant touches, the way every flicker of silence is jaded. Serrated. Like his lungs are being pulled taut, expanding with every slow drag of air, until they feel bruised. Used. Tender to the touch.

Robby has favourites—everyone knows that now. Trinity told him that he was the one next in line, taking the spot that once belonged to Langdon. After what happened, Dennis didn’t feel like it was a good thing; she rolled her eyes at him, playful but never dismissive, and told him that Langdon was the anomaly in that squeaky-clean line of carefully picked proteges. 

“But you, huckleberry?” She said, drunken, her voice sort of fluttering like a broken hiccup. “You’re like a loyal little duckling; it’s probably why he’s so obsessed.”

There it was again—that thing that she kept insisting was real. 

“I have eyes, dingbat,” she told him when he finally caved and asked what she meant. “No one would miss the way he keeps seeking you out.” 

Dennis didn’t even remember what it was he said after, just focused on making sure Trinity wouldn’t fall and crack her head on her bedframe. It was a quiet walk back to his room after and, yeah, Dennis didn’t remember much of the conversation but he remembered what he felt. He remembered the storm that bubbled in his heart; the miasma of ache and longing and disbelief. Then, he remembered his own dismissal. His denial.

Robby has favourites. Dennis wonders if that’s a good thing.

Dennis is the youngest in his family. He was the smallest too. The runt of the Whitakers; the baby. It was adorable when he was five; it stopped being endearing when he hit puberty and he was still unable to match the strides of his older brothers who took up so much space just to exist.

They learned not to rely on him, leaving him to his prayer cards and to his rosary and, later on when he could read better, to the Bible. Looking back, perhaps it was a merciful thing. That in exchange for his… softness, he learned the word of the Lord. That if he could not toil the land, then at least he knew who to pray to for a good harvest. In their father’s eyes, somehow, someway, Dennis’ faith was just as good as his brothers’ labour. 

Dennis was thirteen when he first led the prayers for their everyday lives.

“Come on, son,” his father had said just before their dinner. “Why don’t you pray for our food?”

He remembers the shock, the way his heart swelled as his father looked upon him the way he always saw him look at his brothers—pride doesn’t even cover half of it—and started a stumbling prayer. He stuttered throughout, tripping on the words he borrowed from the Bible. He was so excited to show how much he knew, hoping that they would see how much he learned. 

The prayer trickled to an end, the rest of them uttering their own smatterings of, “Amen,” before his father, then his mother, then his brothers, rowdy and big as their bodies began to fill out in their growth spurts, clambered back to their seats and pounced on the food. 

Jeremiah was the one to notice him still standing up. 

“What’re you waitin’ for, shortstack?”

“Oh, uh—”

“What? Y’want yer medal for the prayer? Sit ‘fore we eat everythin’.”

Ethan snorted from beside Jeremiah, the two of them bumping shoulders at what Jeremiah said, and only quieting down when their mother shot them a look. In their silence, she turned to Dennis and nodded at him to sit. He swallowed the lump on his throat, the excitement that bubbled up from his belly dying down, before he dropped to his chair and ate his fill. 

The food tasted bland for the first time. Later, when he would remember the Millers and how badly their harvest had gone, leaving them many nights fed only with the ones shared to them by Dennis’ mother, he would ask the Lord for forgiveness for his ungratefulness. Then, he would take the rustling leaves and the quiet beat of the wind as answers to his prayers. 

Perhaps it was then that their dynamics changed, or perhaps not; either way, Dennis remembers it clearly—the way his brothers would leave him behind on purpose, their sharp words, their secretive gazes like he existed in a plane different from their own. He felt isolated more than anything. 

Submerged only in the Book, only ever noticed in the sparse curl of their father’s affection as he asked Dennis for prayers after prayers, he thought that it was no surprise that he wanted to go to school for Theology. That he wanted to learn more about the Book, get his degree, then come back home as a priest. 

It was silent after his admission, his words falling like they are tethered to an anvil. Even his mother’s knitting sticks stopped their quiet glide, and with the rowdiness of his brothers being smothered too, Dennis felt bare as he stood there, waiting. 

It was Benjamin who finally broke the silence.

“Denny,” he said. “We don’t have that money.”

Dennis knew. He knew, of course he did. His father asked him to pray for their farm enough times for the reality to settle, the hard truth unfurling like a thorn that was difficult to swallow, but, still, Dennis insisted. He insisted because he felt like he was stuck. The parish could only ever teach him so much, and with no credentials, he couldn’t be more than a volunteer. And Dennis, he—

He heard a calling. 

It was a calling so strong, it pulsed beneath his ribs. He felt it thrum in his chest, singing along his veins, and it reverberated ever louder when he was at the church, helping people out. It was almost maddening, this fire that burned within him, and not for the first time did Dennis feel trapped in the makings of his own faith. 

“I know,” he murmured, fidgeting. “But I just. I would really like to go to school.”

The silence that followed was sharper. Jeremiah wasn’t even looking at him anymore, his jaw clenched and his brows furrowed as he looked outside like he could see past the suffocating darkness. Even Ethan wouldn’t meet his eyes, like he already dismissed Dennis’ plea.

Dennis wanted to cry. The feeling of helplessness crept up from the pads of his fingers up to the coiling lump in his throat. He wondered if this was it. If everything that he felt, that echo, would dissipate this way. He would have to pray for forgiveness again. Forgiveness for not having enough fortitude. Forgiveness for not knowing what to do; for not relying on Him. 

In the midst of his quaking heartbreak, his father called him. Even his brothers stopped avoiding Dennis’ turmoil to stare at their parents, suspended in the moment.

Then, in the next breath, Jeremiah was on his feet.

“No!” He snarled, more animal than human. Dennis never really saw him this angry. 

“Jerry—”

“No! Pa, you said- you said the farm ain’t doin’ good an’ now, what? Yer gon’ send Denny away with the little money we still have!?” 

The way Jeremiah spat out Dennis’ name shocked him. For all their arguments, he knew that his brother loved him. That in spite of everything, Jeremiah still loved him—because Jeremiah knew; things that Dennis had cried about, went to church for, knelt on the pew for, Jeremiah knew. But this anger that he was showing burned Dennis, and his name spilled from Jeremiah’s lips like magma. Even their mother was startled, her hands finding her mouth in her surprise. 

“You shut yer mouth, Jerry,” their father hissed, standing up to meet Jeremiah head-on. “Yer actin’ all worked up o’er money that ain’t yours!”

Dennis breathed in sharply just as Jeremiah lurched away at their father’s words like he’d been punched. From the corners of his eyes, he saw even Ethan and Benjamin react in their own surprise because their father had never done this. 

Everything that was from the farm was shared by the family, money even more so. It was one way to ensure that none of them knew what greed and selfishness looked like. Money is the root of all evil, their father used to tell them. Saw it from my siblings—I don’t ever wanna see you boys go down that road, y’hear me?

Their father seethed, blind to everyone’s storm, and Jeremiah, who was their father’s best son, turned to Dennis with a snarl.

“This is all yer fault,” Jeremiah spat out before leaving. Ethan followed him without sparing another look at Dennis. Even Benjamin staggered out of the room with stuttered goodbyes, and Dennis stayed there, feeling his brothers’ ire and abandonment, and he remembered his prayers just minutes ago. How he asked the Lord that it wouldn’t come to this. 

The Scripture and its story of brothers—was Dennis always meant for this fate?

“C’mere, son,” his father grunted after a while, sagging back to his rocking chair with a long exhale. Dennis stepped close, ignoring the way his lips quivered as his emotions eroded the cages of his ribs. “Sit.”

Dennis dropped to the ground by his mother’s feet. Her hands found his cropped hair, blunt nails raking over his scalp in a soothing manner.

“We’re so proud of you, Denny,” she murmured, the first she ever said that night. “Your brothers are too.”

His nose curled at her lie. She chuckled, pinching his cheek after a while. “Silly boy.”

“You’ll go to school,” his father said, cutting through the quiet flutter of his mother’s comfort. He fixed Dennis with a hardened look after seeing the beginnings of Dennis’ protest. “Farm’s gettin’ too crowded, Denny. With how it’s progressin’, we don’t want to put all the eggs in one basket, y’hear me?” 

His father’s words petered into something softer, into something more exhausted, and Dennis blinked because he never saw his dad this tired. He looked older as he sat there, nursing half a bottle of mead—his parents shared even that—and Dennis wondered if he was feeling the sting of Jeremiah’s anger too; if their father saw how cruel he’d been to slap those words at Jeremiah’s face; if he saw how cruel he was for favouring Dennis. 

“Y’hear me, son?” his father asked again.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Dennis replied, stumbling on his words again.

His dad grunted and that was the final reply he got for the night. 

Later on, as Dennis tossed and turned on his bed, waiting for Benjamin to come to their shared bedroom so he could talk to one of his nicer brothers and ask for penance from him too, disappointment would flare up again because Benjamin wouldn’t come at all. In the morning that followed, neither Jeremiah nor Ethan stayed in the house long enough for Dennis to say any word to them. 

It stung, but time ran and the season changed, and Dennis was leaving Broken Bow. Somehow, Jeremiah was the one who was tasked with driving Dennis to the airport. The drive was quiet. Stifling. The road kept stretching on, putting greater distance between him and his family, and Dennis—

He couldn’t even feel guilty about it. He couldn’t even be scared of the unknown because he just felt so happy. He just felt so settled with his decision. 

Jeremiah’s truck lurched to a stop as it parked outside the less busy spot of the terminal. Dennis shuffled, waiting for his brother to say anything—a goodbye, a rebuke, maybe even an apology—but nothing came.

“Jerry—”

“Just go, Denny,” his brother said with a sigh. Dennis’ lips wobbled and he watched as Jeremiah furiously scrubbed his palms on his face. When he was done, he looked at Dennis, exhausted himself, and added, “You don’t belong ‘ere, anyway. Y’never did.”

What he said hit Dennis with a ferocious ricochet. He fumbled with his words, feeling the sting prickling the back of his eyes, and he waited for Jeremiah to say something kinder. To explain himself. To hug Dennis before he could leave but Jeremiah just watched on, counting down the seconds himself. 

“I’d miss you,” he rasped out after a while. 

Jeremiah hummed, not saying anything. 

Dennis clambered out of the truck like he had been set on fire, trembling fingers digging his luggage out of the trunk. He slammed it shut, stepping up the curb, before rushing to the terminal without another look back. 

He heard Jeremiah’s truck leave just as fast. 

While he sat there, waiting, Dennis prayed. 

When he was nine, Dennis had kissed a boy. 

Matthew was the only boy in his family; the youngest of seven. When they first met, Dennis had asked him if he ever felt left out by his sisters. Matthew said he never was. Perhaps it was his quiet question, curious more than anything, but after that the Turner girls started treating Dennis differently. Coddling. Babying. Dennis never really liked the attention, but he welcomed it with a gentle cadence.

If he was asked, Dennis would say that he doesn’t even remember how the kiss happened, just that it did. He would say that it was just a child’s play; that they were just copying what they saw on the TV. It was as close to the truth as Dennis could remember. 

But what he remembers clearly was the fallout—Matthew’s sister had seen them. 

Dennis sat outside on the porch, waiting for Jeremiah to pick him up. There were a flurry of voices inside the Turner house, rising atop each other, crashing in their distress. Distantly, he heard Matthew’s whimpers. His apologies. His stuttered excuses. Dennis remembered thinking that perhaps he had to make up a lie too for when Jeremiah asked what happened. 

Jeremiah didn’t. He knew before Dennis could even utter anything. 

He watched as his older brother stood before him, his face unreadable except for his pursed lips. Dennis remembered shaking, thinking that Jeremiah would scream the way Isabelle yelled at Matthew, but his brother just stared at him for a long while before sighing. 

He beckoned Dennis to stand up. Gravel crunching underneath his feet, the only other sound shared between the two of them was Jeremiah’s following murmur. “Yer goin’ to church tomorrow, Denny. Yer gon’ have to ask for forgiveness, y’hear me?”

“Okay,” Dennis told him. 

“Good.”

He would go on to forget about this until he turned sixteen and he met Lucas. 

“Swear to God, Denny, if you don’t act right, I’ll tell pa—”

“No! Jerry, please. Please, Jerry, I promise I won’t- I promise he- I won’t ever see him again. Please, Jerry, anything but dad knowing—”

Ethan told him once that he hated him. Dennis had cried until he threw up and when their mother asked what in God’s name did Ethan mean, all his brother could say was how selfish Dennis was. How greedy he became. 

“Why do papa and Jerry love you more when yer so useless!”

Jeremiah took Ethan away, who was yelling and scratching, and Dennis had watched, warm in his mother’s arms, as they left without sparing him another glance. Benjamin would tell him later that Ethan was just jealous. That he would get over it soon, too. 

Dennis counted down the days, then the weeks, then the years. Ethan never seemed to forgive him enough for there to come a time when they could return to what they used to be.

Jeremiah laughed, his voice crackling from the other end of the call.

“I knew it. Fuckin’ knew it, Denny.” 

Dennis' breath rattled, his cheeks warming up because it wasn’t an accusation, not really, but it was condescending. Dismissive. 

“Y’were never comin’ back. Saw it from yer eyes when I dropped y’off ages ago. Knew yer ass ain’t thankful enough to help out with the farm—”

“Jerry, no- that’s- I’m doing this. To help.”

Jeremiah laughed again, but this time it sounded mean. Like a pretense of humour. 

“Sure, whatever y’say. I’ll tell pa—he’ll be disappointed but s’about time you let him down, anyway.”

The call dropped with a loud click. That was that.

The Lord favoured Abel and for that, he was killed by his brother, Cain.

Jacob had favoured his youngest son and for that, the boy was sold away by his brothers.

The Scripture and its story of brothers—was Dennis always meant for this fate?

Robby has favourites. Dennis tries not to read too much into it. 

He doesn’t even know how it manifested until Trinity told him where to look; it wasn’t from the touches or the looks, but it was folded in Robby’s quiet check-ins, in his reassuring presence. Dennis, for a long while, thought that it meant that Robby didn’t trust him. A good call, maybe, especially after that chaotic first day, but Dennis felt slighted. He felt hurt. None of the others were shadowed the way he was. 

Trinity laughs when Dennis tells her this. Like a real belly-deep laugh as though what Dennis said was a joke. 

“Oh, shit you’re serious?” 

Dennis purses his lips and keeps his mouth shut. She groans, all dramatic before plopping down beside him. “Huckleberry, no way you’re that dense.”

He blinks. “I’m… not?” 

Trinity looks at him, really looks at him, before she groans again like something just clicked in her mind. She tips her head back to the cushions, blinking up at the ceiling, and Dennis watches, transfixed by how easy she was to read. He never really thought that they’d be this close; he expected that their friendship would only run as roommates, closer colleagues than the rest, maybe, but never like this. Not sitting-on-the-couch-to-gossip-after-Trinity-made-them-dinner close. 

He wonders if he has to thank God for blessing him with her. He wonders if this is what Brother Roland meant when he said that things, even the worst ones, always happened for a reason—his money running dry, the way he shuffled in between shelters; were they all meant to happen so she would come and save him?

“Hey,” Trinity says, nudging him out of his spiral. “I think that old man likes you.”

“What.”

She shrugs. “Dunno, man. He’s just a little too close, maybe curious.” She licks her lips, hesitation clear in her eyes. “Maybe he’s avoiding another Langdon situation.”

Ah. 

Therein lies the crux of his discomfort—he isn’t Langdon’s replacement. He isn’t Robby’s pet project. More than anything else, he didn’t want to be one.

His face must’ve looked weird because Trinity laughs, something that didn’t hold any humour, and when he turns to her, she has her hands pressed to her face. Dennis scoots close, hesitant. 

“Are you okay?”

She shoots him a look from underneath her palms. 

“Be honest with me, Hucks,” she starts, her voice coming out like a quiet sigh. “What’s up with you two?”

Dennis’ breath staggers, his body reacting like Trinity had just sliced him open to peer into the mess past his blood and his bones, weaving her way between his muscles until she could settle there in the aching thrum of his heart. He doesn’t even know where to start—in pedes, when Robby pushed him away? In their lockers when Robby caught him by his shirt and told him how proud he was to see Dennis grow as time crawled by? Or there, by the benches, the two of them sitting close together, not enough to share heat but close enough that Dennis could see the stretch of Robby’s thighs or the webbing of his veins in the back of his palm? 

It feels like Dennis is always dancing at the precipice of something fragile. He knows that what he felt for their attending is not an innocent admiration, and he is fine with that, you know? He is fine with living with the burden that his feelings have become; they sit atop his lungs, pressing down every chance they get, but Dennis wills himself to live through the ache. The yearning. The hunger that is so great, a parable can be made out of it. 

That isn’t the problem. The problem is that Dennis is starting to think that Robby liked him back. 

Foolish, is he not? To even dare think that a great man like Robby saw Dennis’ mess and still choose to love him.  

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, after a while. He sniffs, trying to will away that foolish dream before Trinity can smell the blood in the water. “I wish he didn’t hover, though.”

“Why don’t you tell him, then?” Trinity hums. 

He huffs. “Trin, how—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“—would I even go about it? ‘Hi Mister Dr. Robby Sir, can you please trust me to work on my own? I swear I’m not stealing Benzos.’” 

She barks out a laugh. “Sure, yeah. I bet you to actually say that to him.” 

He waits for her to say more, but Trinity just turns back to the TV. It is an out. Trinity is giving him an out. 

Dennis taps the cushion closest to her two times—thank you; she taps back, shut up—before he slides back to his side of the couch, and pretends to be into whatever show it was she put on. 

Robby is having a bad day, and everyone could see it. He wasn’t snappier or meaner, but he was more distracted. Impatient. Everyone’s been walking on eggshells around him, trying to avoid being the trigger to a meltdown, and Dennis wants to say that’s unfair because they haven’t seen Robby at his worst—how broken he looked, crumpled by the weight of his own grief—but the day trickles on, full of patients and procedures to mull over, and Robby slips from Dennis’ mind within the blur. 

“Ugh, I wanna do a cholecystectomy,” Trinity drawls, dropping beside Victoria before fishing for her own slice of pizza. When asked, all Dana said was that a “happy” patient dropped the food off for them. Mateo had joked if it was possibly laced with poison and Dana had laughed, her eyes crinkling, before asking Robby if there was a way to confirm that the pizza was fine. 

“We’re not allowed to do that yet,” Victoria tells her, still furiously tapping on her phone. She got addicted to this new game; said Harrison introduced it to her. 

“Yes, well, that’s ‘cause you’re a student, Crash,” Trinity says, leaning close to watch from Victoria’s shoulder. “I’m an intern though so surely that’s a perk I have, right?”

“No, not really,” Mel chirps, looking up from her phone too. Dennis wonders if it’s Becca she’s on the phone with or Langdon. “Interns don’t get to do cholecystectomy yet.”

Trinity groans and tears a piece off her pizza, chewing with such venom like it’s cardboard in her mouth and not food. Dennis watches her with a curious smile as he tries his best to not to laugh. She sees his vain efforts anyway, and quirks a brow at him.

She points at him using her pizza, and says, “Hey, y’know, if Huckleberry asked, I bet Dr. Robby would let him do it.”

Victoria, still distracted by her phone, hums. “No, yeah, I see it.”

And Dennis knows that they don’t mean anything bad about it; that it’s just an observation, rooted in nothing but what Trinity kept telling him was the obvious partiality that their attending has for Dennis, but their words hit him like he’s been doused with ice. 

All of a sudden, it wasn’t Trinity who’s talking to him anymore. It was Ethan and his anger and his accusatory gaze; Ethan who looked at Dennis and saw nothing but what others have done for him, and not Dennis for who he was; Ethan who called Dennis selfish—“Why do papa and Jerry love you more?”

Was Trinity thinking the same way? Did he think he was selfish? Greedy? 

“Whitaker?” Her voice is faint, throbbing with a quiet urgency. 

He hears himself bubble out a brittle laugh; hears himself say, “I- yeah. Yeah, I’ll ask.”

Their faces wrinkle in worry. Trinity’s pizza is on the table. That’s not good, the table isn’t that clean.

“We’re not asking you to—”

“No,” he rasps out, laughing. “Lemme just- yeah, I can- I’ll just go.”

He’s gone before he even knows what he’s doing. 

Dennis had been a little bit in love with a man five years his senior back when he was doing his undergrad. 

Rayan was their TA for his mandatory elective, Bio and Lab. He was sweet. Smart. He was charming. The one time that he had to teach the class, as part of his own curriculum, he taught the material so well that Dennis didn’t even need to curl up awake for nights to relearn and understand the lesson. Rayan made Dennis look forward to going to school; he’d been a sort of lifeline as Dennis waded through the waves of his dwindling faith. Dennis was so sure that when love finds him again, it’d feel the way he felt for Rayan.

How wrong he was. 

The moment he realized that what he felt for Robby was something more personal and intimate than awe, Dennis stopped knowing how to act around the older man. The ease of talking to Robby, of coming to find him, to confide in him and ask for his guidance, through stumbling words and nervousness—all of that left Dennis. They spilled from his pores, draining him of any normalcy that he could cower behind. He was left to bite on his tongue, with trembling fingers hidden in his pockets, and eyes that refused to meet Robby’s since. 

He felt like a fraud. Like he shot himself on the foot, and now he’s left to deal with the mess of his spilling affections. Dennis didn’t think love would come like this; crashing on the fabrics of his confidence and shattering what else was not razed by his suffering. 

He thought it would be kind. He thought it would be fun, the way he never had the chance to experience as he bulldozed through college and medical school; the way he remembered praying for it. Not like this—a hand on his shoulder, a warm weight on his side, a voice that rumbles out his name, and the softest eyes. Not like this when all he could do is yearn from afar. 

So when Trinity told him to look, to notice, how could Dennis deny himself? He searched for scraps, trying to find where he fits in his attending’s life. He tried looking past the rumble of Robby’s voice and in the spaces between his fingers. He tells himself that, surely, Robby couldn’t, but he lingers.

He lingers. 

Dennis feels the chill settle deep within his bones. The monitor sputters, before a long, resounding beep fills the space. He stands there, aching, sweat beading down from his temples. Someone moves, shuffling behind him to shut the machine down, but Dennis can’t focus on anything but the patient. His patient. 

He hears someone speaking, Carlos’ time-of-death being recorded and other murmured conversations about who will have to call his son, his only next-of-kin in file, to tell him that Carlos didn’t make it. Dennis wants to be the one to do it; he wants to do this final thing for his patient, but his body isn’t moving and his mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and Dennis feels lost.

“—come back here for a debrief. Whitaker?”

The familiar weight of Robby’s hand falls on his shoulder. It wakes him up, lifting him from the fog. He turns, blinking away from the gurney—Carlos’ body is already covered with a sheet—and meets Robby’s gaze.

His eyes are warm pools of comfort. It makes Dennis’ heart stop, and everything catches up on him. The exhaustion, the fear. The way Dennis felt Robby’s "favouritism" like a burden, the same way his father’s softness—the one only reserved for Dennis—had been. Like there’s a rug underneath him that would be pulled soon, and he would be left all alone. Broken. Chafed. 

He wondered if Robby’s been doing this—the tenderness, the gentle nudging—at the expense of the others. Was Robby cutting his time with them short to hover around Dennis? Was Dennis—

Was he being selfish again? 

Sound surges back to his ears. His heart is beating so loud, it mixes with the usual clamour of the Emergency. He feels heavy. Wrung out. 

He moves, shrugging Robby's hand off him. He thinks he hears the stuttered breaths from the other man, but Dennis couldn’t focus. He needs to go. He needs to go now.

“Whitaker—”

He ignores Robby, side-stepping past him with urgency. Pinpricks raze the backs of his eyes; Dennis knows that if he stays any longer, Robby would see him cry.

“Whitaker, wait,” Robby tries again, following him closely.

The door’s so close to his reach, and just. Dennis needs air. He needs to go—

A rough palm closes around his wrist. It is warm. It is big. It is a touch that Dennis kept dreaming of.

He doesn’t even know why it’s this that makes him cry. A shaky sob spills from his mouth, and Dennis tries to bite the sound before it could ring out, but Robby murmurs something, startled, then he’s standing in front of Dennis, worry rolling off of him in waves. His hand is still around Dennis’ wrist, holding on like he can’t risk Dennis running away. 

Dennis can’t blame him because he knows he would.

“Hey,” Robby says, so careful and caring, and Dennis really wished he didn’t love him. “It’s- you did amazing out there. Carlos is—”

Dennis’ ears go blank, and whatever Robby is saying was lost on him. Carlos. Fuck. They’re still with the patient, and Dennis is over here crying over some childish love when he should be out there saving lives. When he should be stopping whatever this is.

“I need to go,” Dennis murmurs. His voice is a quiet tremor. 

“No. No running away,” Robby replies, patient. “You need to calm down—”

“Please, Dr. Robby,” Dennis mutters, and he wonders how he must have sounded for Robby to pull his hand away like he’d been burned. Dennis breathes, slow and deep, and he blinks the tears away. He’s aware that he’s still being watched; that Robby’s poised like he thinks Dennis would run away if he isn’t any closer, and Dennis is just. 

He’s tired of this.

“I won’t fuck up anymore,” he hears himself say. “I don’t need you monitoring me as much, Dr. Robby. I can come to you if I need help.” 

He looks up at Robby, and tries a smile. It feels like a grimace more than anything.

Robby’s eyes are furrowed. “Whitaker, this isn’t about trust,” he says. “I worry about you.”

…Oh.

Dennis feels like he’s been punched, and shame licks past the tremors to curl around the feverish warmth of his blood. How ridiculous he was for thinking he was special to Robby. Jesus. He really thought that Robby liked him; that he was getting special treatment when all along Robby was just looking out for him because Dennis gave him reasons to.

He wants to laugh. To leave. He wants to tell Trinity that this is all her fault for feeding into the yawning of Dennis’ desire. 

Robby looks like he wanted to say something more, with the way his eyes tracked Dennis’ own—he wonders what he must look like to his attending—but someone barges into the room, calling out for Robby’s help.

It’s Samira from the sound of it.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” Robby says before turning back to Dennis. “I’ll come find you after this.”

He leaves, rushing out to follow the rush of the paramedics as they wheel a patient to Trauma One. Dennis stands there for a moment, letting what happened sink into him—the tears, Robby’s hand so close to holding his own, the realization.

Shit. He really needs to find Trinity. 

Trinity gives him a quick glance over and tells him, warily, “Looks like y’need a drink or two there, Hucks.” 

“Yeah,” he says, huffing a fond laugh. “That’d be lovely.”

She hums, still eyeing him. Dennis swallows down the lump, the shame, but the words won’t come. She gives him an awkward pat when it’s become obvious that there’s nothing else he can say, before leaving him to find Dana.

Dennis follows Trinity out the door when they’re stopped by Robby.

“Whitaker, one sec over here.”

Trinity turns her shocked eyes at him. Dennis waves her away with a quiet, “I’ll see you later?”

Robby and Dennis stand there, waiting until Trinity’s no longer in their line of sight. When she’s gone, Robby tells him to follow him. 

They take the elevator up. It is quiet inside the lift, the two of them trying to pretend that there’s nothing amiss despite the big space nestled between the two of them. He follows Robby up the last flight of stairs, and Dennis blinks in mild surprise when they pop out of the roof. He wonders if this was a deliberate choice so that he won’t try to run away again. 

Robby crosses over to the rails. Dennis follows him on unsteady steps, feeling so conscious of how isolated they are from everything. There are no hospital lights here, no sterile scents, no machinery buzzing. Just the quiet whirr of cars and the flickering yellow street lights. 

It feels… personal. 

“What you said a while ago,” Robby starts. Dennis turns, looking at him from the corners of his eyes. “What did you mean by that?”

Dennis’ mouth runs dry, the shame churning again in his stomach. His ears feel feverish against the cool air, and he hopes that Robby can’t see him clearly. 

“It’s—”

“Don’t say ‘nothing,’ Whitaker,” Robby cuts off gently. “You were… not in a good place a while ago so surely there’s something that’s bothering you.”

Dennis is quiet for a while, trying to sort through the chaos in his mind. In the next silence, he finally admits, “Santos says you have favourites.”

Robby breathes in sharply, his jaw clenching. It wasn’t the reaction Dennis expected but it lit the fuse in his heart, guiding him to the shallow ends of his rippling emotions. 

“Says I’m your new one.”

Robby looks at him with furrowed eyes, his lips pursed in a line. Dennis has to say it. He needs to know—

“Dr. Robby, am I just Dr. Langdon’s replacement?”

There’s a beat, then Robby’s reaching for him. Dennis stays there, unflinching, his eyes tracking the movement. He’s so used to Robby touching him—tethering him, redirecting him, holding him still—but he’s never seen Robby reach for him like this, all rushed and clumsy like Dennis would disappear if Robby wasn’t fast enough.

“No,” Robby says, shaking his head. His voice is a quiet quake. Self-conscious. “You’re not Langdon’s replacement—Whitaker, you’re not like Langdon.”

He says it like a confession; like it is something more than a clarification. Dennis blinks at him, entranced. 

“And everything else?” He’s not in control of himself anymore; he’s given into the tepid hunger. “The hovering? The touches?”

Robby’s hand twitches from where it’s curled around Dennis’ forearm. For a second, he thought that Robby would let go. That the dance would begin again. That Dennis would have to wade through the lapping tides, the crashes, the whirlpool. But Robby doesn’t let go; instead, he just fixes the way he’s touching him—sliding his palm from Dennis’ arm to his wrist—and, oh, his hand is so much bigger compared to Dennis’. 

“What do you think?” Robby replies. Dennis rips his gaze from where they’re touching to meet Robby’s crinkled eyes, his smile so soft it lights up his whole face. Dennis’ breath is stuck in his lungs; distantly, he feels Robby’s thumb swiping at the inside of his wrist. “And you? Do you really want me to stop?”

Dennis tries swallowing the lump in his throat. “I don’t want to be selfish.”

Robby’s eyes furrow. Dennis pushes on. 

“I don’t want to monopolize you.” 

He thinks of Ethan’s accusation; of Benjamin’s attempts at being impartial only to choose his brothers over Dennis. He thinks of Jeremiah’s angry affections; of his father’s curt fondness for him. 

He thinks of Trinity’s hungered curiosity; of Samira’s bubbling excitement. He thinks of Victoria’s shy admission of how she wants to be a better doctor than her mother; Mel’s warm confession about how Robby’s the best mentors she’s ever worked with. 

He thinks of how he would hate to lose another home. Another family. 

“I don’t want you to give me special treatment when I haven’t earned it.”

Robby blinks, breathing deep. “But you’ve earned it, kid,” he says, and he says it so easily like there’s never been a doubt that Dennis did.

Dennis’ lips wobble. Jesus, he’s about to cry again. 

Robby’s face crumples, like he’s understanding something that evades Dennis. Dennis tries to look away, to hide from Robby’s all-knowing eyes, but Robby cups his other hand on his jaw and tilts his head up until there’s nowhere else for Dennis to hide. 

“Whitaker, you’re a damn good med-student—I know you’ll be an even better doctor. You have the passion for this job, you’re smart and you learn fast, and you have a good bedside manner. Even though you’re busy with school and your rotation, you still joined the street team and even then, I’ve heard nothing but good remarks, kid, and that’s coming from Jack.”

Dennis’ eyes prickle. Robby tracks the budding tears, anyway.

Silence follows after Robby’s words, the weight of his comforting presence filling him up. Dennis really, really, wants to kiss him. 

Robby lets out a startled laugh, and only then does Dennis realize that he’s said that out loud. He screws his eyes shut, cringing at what he’d just done, but a thumb swipes over his lips and he has never ripped his eyes open to meet someone’s gaze that fast until now. 

Robby’s head is tilted to the side, asking. Dennis is already nodding before he could even fully grasp Robby’s question. 

The kiss is soft. Tender. It is so quiet, so intimate. It’s just two lips meeting each other—smooshed, touching—and Dennis thinks about how he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

To: T. Santos (20:18)

I’m not coming home tonight 

From: T. Santos (20:21)

no way

cannot believe ur ditching me for some old dick

holy shit ur ditching me for our BOSS

Dennis whines, his patience splintering at every one of Robby's caresses. 

“Hurry,” he rasps out after pulling away from the kiss. His lips are bruised, wet, and Dennis’ cock jumps at the sight that Robby’s own lips make, all flushed and spit-sheened. Robby kisses so deeply, it’s dizzying. He’s so possessive, clingy, and Dennis thinks that he shouldn’t have been surprised but Robby has a way to drive Dennis mad. 

Pawing hands have been petting him since a while ago, slipping warm palms underneath his sweats to cup Dennis’ ass, before coming back up to trail them along the plane of his back. If it wasn’t for the way Dennis has been humping Robby’s chub, Dennis would have thought that Robby had no plans fucking him tonight. 

“Shh,” Robby says like the tease that he is. “Just wanna take care of you.”

Dennis blinks. Oh, he thinks. Robby’d thought that he was a virgin. 

“This isn’t my first time,” he says, rutting back down on Robby’s tent. “Not a virgin so can we hurry now, please.”

He’s whining, he knows, but Robby feels so big underneath him and Dennis has wanted that dick inside him since yesterday. He’s so distracted from the yowling need burning from within him that he almost missed Robby’s startled inhale if it wasn’t for the sudden grip Robby has on his hips.

“Ow—”

“Fuck,” Robby rasps out, looking so winded already. He’s looking at Dennis with those big pretty eyes of his, his lips parted as he breathes through his mouth. “You’ll be the death of me at this point, baby.”

The term of endearment makes Dennis jump and he keens, dropping his full weight back on Robby to kiss him again. The kiss is needier this time. Rougher. He nips Robby’s lips before swiping his tongue inside to lick into his mouth. Robby holds him throughout, half-mindedly guiding his hips when Dennis begins to rub himself on Robby’s lap again. 

With how needy he is, Dennis knows that he can cum just like this, but he wants Robby to fuck him, holy shit. He wants Robby to fill him up; to press everything in until Dennis will come out of this hollowed out because Robby has etched his shape so intimately within him. He wants to feel Robby—in him, on him, with him. 

“I know, sweetheart. I know,” Robby murmurs, his breaths hot against Dennis’ cheek. “It’s just that it’s my first time with a man so I want to take it slow and—”

“What.” 

Dennis blinks, his heart hammering in his ears. Robby flushes, shy, and Dennis croons.

“Okay,” he says. “I can take over for us, Robby.” Dennis never wants to stop calling his name. 

“Oh, no, baby,” Robby murmurs, his words pressed on Dennis’ shoulder. He flicks his eyes up at him, his hunger loud. “I want to make you feel good; want to spoil you. Let daddy do the job, huh?”

Dennis gasps at Robby’s words, the name settling deep in his gut. He trembles at what it means; at what Robby thinks of himself for Dennis. 

“You wanna be my ‘daddy’?” He asks and Dennis knows how it must sound like; how debauched and filthy and sinful it is. But Robby only looks at him with such bright eyes, his lips tugged up in such a beautiful smile like he wouldn’t want it any other way. Like he wouldn’t want Dennis to be any less. 

“If you’d let me,” Robby replies, and Dennis is nodding so fast, so eagerly, before the two of them kiss again. 

Robby fingers him, slow and careful. He’s crooning murmured praises throughout, petting Dennis’ head when broken whimpers spilled from his lips. He’d brought Dennis close to his orgasm like this—dragging him to the edge, crooking his fingers until all Dennis could do is bite down on the bedsheets—only to pull out with a tut. 

Not yet, he’d said like Dennis was being difficult on purpose as he sobbed, circling his trembling hand around Robby’s wrist to stop him from pulling his fingers out. Daddy’s not done yet, sweetheart. 

Dennis is so desperate to cum, he feels like he is on fire. His body is a dizzying pull between the feeling of overstimulation and the not-enough sensation. He didn’t even know that he could hold onto his cum for this long just out of desperation to prove Robby right; to show to him that Dennis is a good boy. 

It’s like a metaphor, almost, the way his body is putty underneath Robby. It’s obedient to the point of dependency; going beyond its limits because Robby had asked—Dennis’ love is an overwhelming force. 

He is shaking, breathing through his mouth as he comes down from another abruptly cut high when something hotter presses on his hole. It’s bigger, with a weight that is vastly different from Robby’s thick fingers.

He gasps. Robby chuckles from behind him, his voice sticky with the weight of his affections. 

“You ready for daddy, love?” Robby asks. He taps his cock over Dennis’ hole and Dennis wishes that they didn’t have any stupid condoms so he could feel Robby swiping the beads of his pre- all over Dennis’ skin, like he’s marking him for himself. And it’ll be messy and Dennis’ stomach would hurt, but he so desperately wants Robby to pump him full. 

“Come back to me, baby,” Robby coos. “Don’t tell me you’re already done for the night?”

“No!” Dennis cries out. “In me, please, daddy? Want it in, please, please, please.” His voice sounds foreign even to himself, all needy and hungry and broken. 

He begs so prettily, deliriously sticking his ass out like he could entice Robby even more, and Robby laughs again and he sounds so fond and so proud, and Dennis’ cock leaks, so wet and messy, and he really wants him in already. 

The first push was slow, careful. He hears Robby growl out something, but Dennis is deaf to everything but the sensation of being filled. 

Robby is thick. He is big and wide and long, and Dennis feels so full. He doesn’t even realize how loud he’s being until Robby hooks a finger on his mouth, pulling at his cheek with a hum. 

“Jesus, baby,” Robby grunts to Dennis’ ear. “Such a tight squeeze around daddy.”

Dennis warbles out a reply. He doesn’t even know what it is that he really wanted to say. 

“And to think you didn’t want daddy to open you up for him, huh? Aren’t you happy that daddy loves you?” Robby’s still fucking in. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck—

Dennis’ body spasms when he finally feels Robby’s pelvis pressed flushed to his ass, every inch bullied in his hole. And just like that, he can’t breathe anymore. 

He’s caught in the sudden ripping of his ecstasy. It razes him, the pleasure engulfing him from the pads of his feet up to where Robby’s cupping his maw. White noise fills his ears, tingles sparking across his synapses uncontrollably. He feels like he’s on fire—caught in a cataclysmic wave, suspending him in limbo, struck by the magnitude of his pleasure—before it all sputters away, leaving him as a husk of who he once was. 

His next breath is ragged. Painful. 

“Look at you,” Robby breathes out, and he sounds awed. Love-struck. Addicted. “Didn’t even need to touch you for you to cum so beautifully.”

Dennis blinks, sniffing, and—

“Oh.”

Robby unhooks his hand from Dennis’ mouth to bring it to his chin. With a steady hold, he tips Dennis’ head back until Dennis’ world shifts upside-down. Like this, though, he meets Robby’s eyes. 

“So beautiful f’me, baby. The most beautiful.”

Dennis’ eyes flutter close as Robby kisses him and he feels it now—the beginnings of his exhaustion—but his daddy hasn’t cum yet and Dennis is a good boy so he stays put, soft and pliant for Robby. 

Dennis is on his knees, with his head tilted up, eyes closed, as Robby sprays his cum on his face. He feels like a believer like this—on the ground, at Robby’s mercy, waiting for his reward. 

When he’s done, Robby taps the head of his cock on his mouth. “Lemme see those pretty eyes, Dennis.”

He meets his gaze. Robby’s so flushed, he almost looks feverish. And, God, his name has never sounded more beautiful from someone’s mouth until Robby. 

“Open your mouth open- even wider, baby- such a good boy.”

Dennis swallows down Robby’s cock, nose flaring at the taste. 

So good. 

“Go on,” Robby says. “Wanna see you touch yourself.”

Dennis wraps his hand around his cock and it’s so sensitive and he’s so overstimulated, but Robby’s watching him with such eagerness that Dennis braves through the ache to rub himself until he’s sputtering out a pathetic dribble. 

“Shh, shh,” Robby says, petting him again. “You did so well for me, love, so good—”

Dennis is pulled from his knees and into Robby’s lap. They kiss for a long time, sharing their breaths together as they both come down from their high. 

The bed’s all clean when Dennis steps out of the shower. Robby’s even dressed up already in his pajamas, lounging on his bed with a book in hand. He looks up when he hears Dennis walk in. 

His face brightens up with another of his easy smiles, before he drops his book to the nightstand and pats at his lap. Dennis wonders if he’ll ever get used to this. 

“C’mere,” Robby says and Dennis can never say no to him. Not like he would ever want to. 

Trinity stares at his neck. Dennis can’t blame her—Robby’s gnawed on him all night, licking the salt off his skin, before digging his teeth close to his jugular. Dennis is shocked that there aren’t more bruises, if he’s being honest. 

“So,” she says. 

“So,” he parrots. 

She finally meets his gaze. “You okay with the whole favouritism thing now, then?”

It isn’t what Dennis was expecting and it punches a laugh out of him. He feels lighter now, too. Happier. It seems like he never realized how much he needed Robby to outright love him back until he was shaking in the older man’s embrace. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” he tells her, the remnants of his joy still sticking to him. “You’re not mad with that, or something?"

“What. Of course not. What’d you think this was, Huckleberry? Elementary?”

“No,” Dennis replies, shaking his head. “Of course not.”

Trinity stares at him for another while like she doesn’t know if she should keep poking or not anymore. Dennis sits there, watching her and waiting for whatever it is she wants to say or do. He’s betting that she’ll ask him for details. 

Of course not, she’d said when Dennis asked, in lesser words than he could cough out, if she’d hate him for his selfishness. 

Dennis wonders if she’ll ever know how much she means to him.