Chapter Text
After the Pittfest shooting, Dennis resigned himself to never specializing in emergency medicine if it was the last thing he did. Peds had been fine enough, he concluded. Cardiology wasn’t half bad either. Plastics if he wanted to die alone in a bed of money, he supposed.
He kept that decision in the back of his mind, promising that no matter what happened in the next weeks of his last rotation, he would not break.
And he went into his next day believing just that.
It started slow— stayed slow for so long it was eerie, the team working through chairs more than anything else. Dennis for once found himself bored in a trauma one medical center, and he had the thought that this must be a sign. The ER in some happy agreement over his future absence.
Though he hadn’t even spoken the thought aloud, a multi-car pile up came ramming through the doors right after. Dennis subconsciously apologized to every patient that came through after that.
It was pretty bad, ranging from simple lacerations to a woman being sent up to OR with a likely above knee amputation. The worst, however, came in the form of a mother and her child.
The mother was dead on arrival, and her son didn’t look much better. Dr. Robby, for some godforsaken reason, had taken one look at the case and called his name out like this was something he could do, could handle. And Dennis couldn’t think of a single reason why him, as he crawled halfway atop the moving gurney to take over compressions for the EMT.
“Deeper compressions, Whitaker. He may be a kid but he’s not glass.” Dennis complies and faintly wonders if that’s something Dr. Robby thinks about him. Like Dennis is some kind of kid he can push because he knows he can take it.
Mentally grumbling with that thought, he lets it occupy his mind if only to ignore the stats being yelled out around him. It doesn’t sound good, to say the least.
Though, miraculously, after three more rounds of epi and four more shocks, they find a rhythm. Dennis is sweating by the time he stops compressions, but he doesn’t lift his hands yet. He waits until he feels that steady, soft heartbeat beneath his hands.
A larger, warmer hand clamps down on his shoulder, and Dennis startles. Dr. Robby has a satisfied smile on his face and Dennis realizes he has one too. The nurses flurry around them, handing Mel— when had she gotten here?— equipment for intubation. A simple “Great job Whitaker, I knew you could do it,” is all Dr. Robby says before offering another squeeze of his shoulder, and moving to assist Mel.
Dennis, in a haze, pulls away from the gurney and his space is filled quickly with chattering doctors naming possible next steps of care, but Dennis can hardly hear them. It was as if those three shots of epinephrine had gone to him instead, and he feels on top of the world. God, he prays, will not punish him too harshly for relishing in this self-serving adrenaline spike.
Without realizing, he snaps his eyes up to Dr. Robby, finding the man already looking at him. His stethoscope is lopsided as it lays on his quickly rising and falling chest. His eyes are stark and searching, almost blown out, like he’s feeling exactly what Dennis is, and can see right through him equally. And for whatever reason, Dennis runs from it.
More so, he mumbles an excuse about charting and leaves the room.
He snaps the gloves off his hands and tosses them without a second thought. He hates how much of this place has become second nature. How in only two days, the relentless crashing and pulling of the waves called the ER have become the very thrum beneath his skin.
Dennis crashes down on a free chair in central with a sigh, the adrenaline clearly waning off given his shaking hands and deep sense of guilt, or perhaps foolishness, that washes over him.
The telling squeaking of a chair rumbling closer to him is all the signal he gets before Trinity parks right next his little desk. “Saw you went in with that kid, he alright?” Are you? Is the unspoken part of her question.
Dennis drops his head into his hands, but eventually peaks from behind his fingers. “I saved his life- no, well we all did. Anyways, he’s fine. Or he should be. I think.”
“You think?” Trinity judges. “Did you leave before they-“
“Whitaker!” Dr. Robby’s voice rings out clear even over the bustling noise that comes with an ER.
Dennis shoots up out of his chair on reflex— when had Robby’s voice become a reflex?
He stays stone still as the aforementioned stalks up to him. Trinity had made herself sparse before the first syllable of his name had been out.
Dr. Robby rounds the table and stands close, probably to keep his disciplinary private, Dennis reasons. “I understand that that was a hard case, the near-death of a child is always hard, especially-“
“So he’s alive-“
“I’m not finished.” Dr. Robby raises a hand as if to stop him. He lets that hand fall onto Dennis’ arm, hard and familiar. “Especially after the drowning victim from yesterday.” That shuts him up pretty quick. “But I put you on that case because I knew you could make a big difference there, and you did.” Dennis swears his feels Dr. Robby’s thumb rub a tight, reassuring circle across his acromion before falling back to his side. Dennis can only nod.
Dr. Robby clears his throat and takes a half-step back, eyes already up and scanning the boards nearby. “Just this once I’ll let you off the hook for leaving early, stick you with one of our head lacs from the pile up in South 2. Easy one, seemed like a nice girl, not likely to give you any trouble.”
He moves to leave quickly after that, but Dennis stops him first. “Dr. Robby-“ The man turns. “I’m sorry. For leaving. I don’t really know why I did.”
Dr. Robby gives him a grin, as if he knows exactly why. If he does, he doesn’t say it, just turns and heads off to one of the next hundred patients that could very well die without him.
That feeling, that all these people could die without your intervention, is one Dennis can’t quite grapple with yet. He doesn’t know how Robby handles the pressure.
The head lac girl was indeed quite nice. She was car number four or five, an old car that couldn’t really stop fast enough to miss rear ending another car, but she luckily wasn’t part of the initial collision. It’s relatively surface level and Mohan is probably one of the best Doctors he’s shadowed so far. She keeps the girl busy and calm, getting her evaluated as Dennis works a few sutures into her hairline. And best part is, Dr. Mohan always gives him a nice high five or a nerdy fist bump after easy wins like that. It makes Dennis feel like a kid getting a lollipop after the dentist, unnecessary but feels nice.
After that, he dutifully avoids Dr. Robby if possible. It’s not like the man had anything to do with that post-life-saving adrenaline rush that made him feel like a catholic saint, but he felt better covering all this bases. Because once that mock-sainthood wore off, Dennis felt like an asshole reaping the benefits of a sick person in need of help.
Over the next several days, keeping to charting and easy chairs patients helped, given how little of them truly needed a life saving miracle. But he couldn’t exactly avoid the beck and call of his Chief of Emergency Medicine for long. He hates to compare that call to something vaguely christ-like, but he’d be lying if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind— like he hadn’t tried to shoo it away.
Though Dr. Robby had called on him for several more cases throughout the week, Dennis pretended not to notice that the man hedged him onto easier, high probability cases.
That sense of dutiful grace did not carry onto the next week. It started with an old man from the nursing home, appearing near DOA but given the clear lack of DNR in his chart, they did everything to bring him back. It was shocking, honestly, even to Dr. Robby when he came to. The man had cried and gripped hard onto Dennis, moaning wetly into his scrubs that he “hadn’t gotten the chance to call his daughter that week.”
When the daughter later showed up, she matched her father’s grip strength in the warmest hug Dennis had gotten in a while. Juxtaposed, she gave him the softest “thank you” he’d ever heard.
When Dr. Robby had finished his rounds and found him doing charts a tad slower than usual, Dennis wouldn’t admit to how comforting that hand being back on him was. That grounding look in his eyes.
The next time Dr. Robby pulled him onto some life saving case, the patient actually died. Dennis didn’t know why the finality of his voice, “Stop compression,” surprised him so much. He hadn’t realized how much of a runners high he’d been on since that little boy until now.
Sweating again from the work of CPR, he just felt dirty. It was another geriatric patient without a DNR but a later revealed potassium level that was beyond saving. In theory, Dennis understands there was nothing he could’ve done, and yet he’d hoped otherwise. Worse, he guiltily wished he could’ve saved her if only to avoid feeling like this; to feel like that again.
Dennis finds himself on the rooftop after the shift. He’d heard people went up here after a rough day. And after that older woman, then came a pair of overdoses, a headache turned brain cancer, and a teenager who would be blind for the rest of his life because of one bad hit in a practice football game. In that moment, he couldn’t remember a single person he saved that day.
It’s Dr. Robby who catches him up there. Catches, because Dennis freezes up like a kid caught smoking behind the church— and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Smoking.
Dennis snuffs it out against the railing as quick as he can, but not fast enough it seems. Dr. Robby approaches him with a low, disapproving whistle. “And I’d thought you were smarter than that, Whitaker.” Dennis peers up at him as the man saddles up beside him, leaning his back against the railing. Dr. Robby is wearing a shit eating grin, clearly teasing.
Dennis chokes out a laugh, releasing all the pressure from his shoulders, and runs his hands through his hair. Only a few weeks since he’d gotten here but his hair feels impossibly longer. Maybe he should listen to Trinity and let her cut him a mullet.
“Sorry sir- Dr. Robby-“ Dennis awkwardly breaks off. “Not really sure what to call you off the clock.” He realizes he’s never actually seen the man outside of the ER until now. They’re technically still standing on it, but with the starry black backdrop between them, it feels infinitely different.
Dr. Robby takes it in stride, chuckling softly into the colder night air. Was it getting colder already? Dennis could barely feel the time passing. “Just Robby is fine.” Dennis nods, but doesn’t test the new name on his tongue. Still feels a bit wrong. “Trinity was looking for you.”
“Oh shit!” Dennis scrambles immediately, wrestling with his jacket sleeve to check his watch beneath it. Robby’s hand reaches out and lays over the watch face before he can see it.
“It’s fine. She wanted me to tell you she left already. Oh, and that your left over Chinese is now hers.” Dennis properly groans now, his face in his hands and his elbows on the railing, Robby laughs besides him. He doesn’t see it, but he feels Robby place a hand on his arm and jostle him lightly. “You wanted the Chinese food that badly?”
Dennis turns his head, noting that Robby has fully turned his body to face him now, hip now bearing his weight against the metal. Dennis tries not to linger on the sight.
He shakes his head, “No. Well, I guess so. Just, today was harder than usual is all.”
Robby nods, understanding in a way very few in this world possibly could. “Yeah, I’d hoped for a few more wins for you today to say the least.” They both drearily laugh at that.
Dennis pauses. “Have you been putting me with risky patients?”
Robby pulls his hand back to scratch his beard. Dennis really tries not to look too hard at that either. “Not necessarily.”
“I knew it!” Dennis’ spine shoots straight up, pointing an accusatory finger at the man, to which Robby raises his hands in mock surrender. “I knew I was on some weird win streak since after Pittfest. Well, not win streak- whatever you know what I mean.” He muttered and crumpled back against the railing as if it were weight burying his psyche as well.
Robby shrugged in defeat, albeit a tad guiltily. “After Pittfest, you looked defeated. Or resigned. Like in just one day, you had decided your entire career would have nothing to do with emergency medicine.” Had Dennis been that easy to read? Or was Robby the only one looking. Robby shrugged again. “I couldn’t dare see such a bright doctor slip past us so easily without putting up a fight.” Dennis fights a small, private smile at that. “Plus, after that first save with the kid, I knew.”
Dennis snapped his eyes back to Robby at that. That feeling he couldn’t name, the one he was certain Robby had felt too. “What was that?” He asks quietly, scared he’d be shot down, judged for that inescapable rush he’d felt.
Robby pauses, stares into the black of the sky as if it held the answer there, and he need only retrieve it. Then, he huffs a sardonic laugh. “Narcissism, maybe? The god-complex built into our brains that force each and every one of us to pursue medicine whether we understand it, even agree with it or not?” Dennis hates how much those words describe it. Hates that that’s something he has been unknowingly chasing. “I try not to, use those words, exactly. Tends to scare off our sweet new med students.” Robby crashes his shoulder into his, like a jab and a way of lightening the mood. It sort of works. “We don’t have to- I can stop purposefully putting you on those cases, if that’s what you want. I can’t guarantee anything, but it could help you finish out your rotation easier, get out of here faster. If nothing else, it’s a bad coping mechanism, trust me.” The look they’d shared. Robby knows it, that adrenaline. Maybe craves it too.
Dennis chews the corner of his thumb for a moment, seeks the sky in a similar fashion to his boss beside him. “Yeah. I mean- no. You can keep, putting me on whatever cases you think is good for me. As a doctor.”
“As a doctor.” Robby agrees, smiling, approving in a way that makes Dennis feel like this is all worth it. Whatever that is. Robby’s hand is ruffling his hair before Dennis can process what’s happening. “I knew I saw the ER in you. Don’t write it off so quickly yet. Even after a day like this.” The hand lifts, but returns back to the junction of his neck and shoulder, his thumb pressing down into his scapulae. It’s steadying, yet it makes Dennis feel weak in a way that has him gripping the cold metal harder under his hands. Robby’s eyes flicker there, then back to his face, always noticing. “Come find me next time this job tries to beat you out of staying. Maybe we can find an alternative to those cigarettes for you.”
Dennis flushes with embarrassment at the reminder, but Robby is smiling the whole time. They finally break contact as Robby tucks his hands back in his pockets. Dennis slings his bag back over his shoulder and moves to leave. “Of course, Robby- sir. I don’t know, it feels weird to say it.” That pulls a proper laugh out of the man. Dennis watches it for tad too long.
“Get outta here, Whitaker. Your Chinese food might still be there when you get back, I tried to convince her to leave it alone. Let me know if she actually listens like some of my other students.” Robby gives him a teasing, but pointed look.
Dennis is practically rushing to the door now. Half at the reignited possibility of Chinese food and half from the intensity that is the orbit of Dr. Robby. He just nods profusely. “Got it! Got it. No cigarettes, stay here, yada yada. Bye Dr. Robby! Thanks for saving my food!” He calls out as he finally runs past the door and down the stairs.
Dennis doesn’t see how Robby chuckles to himself after. Or how he lights a cigarette in his absences, and smokes the thing down to the filter.
Dennis hates to admit Robby was right, but God he could not imagine specializing in anything other than this. Two more weeks go by in the Pitt after his and Robby’s rooftop talk, or agreement, whatever that was, and the difference is stark. He’s constantly hopping on riskier and riskier patients. He hates to reduce them to that— like some sort of gambling statistic, but deep down, it’s something he’s aware of. Something he would lie his ass off about if confronted. That’s not to say he’s non-compassionate, or suddenly a bad doctor to his patients. If anything, his ratings have only improved as time has gone by. He’s more confident, smoother in transition times, quicker charting. Whatever, either way, he’s a great doctor. A great doctor that just so happens to enjoy the rush of pushing life back into a patient through meticulous, and miraculous measures.
And it just so happens that so does Robby.
At first, Dennis thought it coincidental that with every new patient he saved or coded, Robby was there. A firm presence behind him, beside him, everywhere, flooding his senses as he rode the high of feeling life beneath his palms. And every time, their eyes would lock. Once the worst was over and they were given a moment to breathe, they stared. Stared at the way they both seemed to glow afterwards. Robby always had his hair mussed, pulling at the collar of his scrubs, hands flexing through the latex.
Dennis had known he was gay since he was young enough to know better. He learned to keep his eyes down in locker rooms and change in the bathroom of his dorm during college. Not because he felt any which way about the men around him, but he never wanted to make them uncomfortable. To give them a reason to sneer, or claim he was something he wasn’t.
So at first, perhaps reflexively, Dennis felt guilty for sparing a glance at Robby in those afterglow-like moments. Dirty, like he was tarnishing the moment. He quickly came to understand that Robby had no such qualms.
Dennis tried his best not to read into it. How they gravitated towards each other afterwards, infinitesimally. He reasoned that Robby was just a great boss, the all-knowing kind that knew exactly how to make him better; knew just what to say and do to improve Dennis as a doctor. The kind that could recognize the signs of the inappropriate crush his star med student was beginning to have on him. Maybe Robby knew all this, and was simply throwing him a bone.
Or, worse, maybe Robby was completely, and equally helpless to the narcissistic complexes that flushed through them, just as Dennis was. To the rush that felt like you missed that last step on your way down the stairs. That immediate fear— then the sheer pleasure that you didn’t die once your feet hit solid ground. Dennis had become addicted to it.
And after the first couple patients, Dennis stopped trying to stray his gaze away from Robby. Because he realized that Robby *liked* it. Dennis had seen the smallest hitch of his breath the first time he hadn’t looked away. Like he was relishing in it, in some perverse, maddening way that had Dennis running away again like the first time.
The second time, he didn’t run. Or the one after.
It reached the point of no return another week after that revelation, now over a month since Pittfest. A month since he’d first saved that kids life and felt like he’d brushed against the sun. Since then, he’d do anything to burn.
With only an hour left of the day shift, the ER did not let up. Patient after patient came like a flood. The halls were nearly filled with beds and upstairs had given no indication on when they’d finally start admitting them. If not only for that, the sheer sound increase of that many people coughing and crying had everyone on edge.
Dennis had a pounding headache deep behind his eyelids for the past three hours and no amount of pinching and prodding at his brow bone seemed to help. Shocker.
Night shift nurses were slowly filing in and completing their hand offs, and the sight of Dr. Shen— who was always early so he could finish his drink in time— brought a smile on his face as it meant his time was almost up.
The familiar sound of a gurney being wheeled in by the EMTs didn’t faze him much, but with the even more familiar sound of Robby calling his name out brought Dennis up and to the bedside in seconds.
A man in his 30’s side swiped while on a motorcycle. The helmet had saved his life but his arm was obviously broken, his skin was torn up, and worst of all, an open pelvic fracture the EMT was trying to keep pressure on. The man was screaming, and to be fair, it looked terrible and twice as painful.
Robby had grabbed Trinity in at some point as well and was quizzing her on what the proper next steps were; what antibiotics to prescribe and what drug would be best to knock the screaming man out. In nicer terms, of course. Dennis had taken over keeping pressure on the man’s open saddle wound, but whatever answers she’d given worked wonders, and before he knew it, the man was out.
Then his stats dropped. His fractured pelvis was hemorrhaging, badly.
“Ever done a REBOA, Whitaker?” Robby asked, already working with the nurses in preparing it.
Dennis sputtered. “What? No- no sir. I saw Collin’s do one?”
Robby appeared unfazed by his answer, only nodding. “Maintain compression until I say so. Not a second earlier.” Dennis could only nod. He could feel the man’s heart beat beneath his hands, bursting more blood into the gauze with every pump. Robby found his spot next to him, equipment ready, and Dennis watched his every move, awaiting instruction. Robby placed his hands over his and motioned for Dennis to pull away. God, he shouldn’t be thinking about how warm his hands are in a moment like this.
A nurse he didn’t recognize, likely night shift, handed him the REBOA, no cut needed in a wound like this. The man’s femoral was practically open in this hands.
Robby spoke firm and slow, guiding Whitaker through every step, right there to take over at a seconds notice. That gave Whitaker a little more faith, but the blood was all over his arms at this point, Robby’s too. The flexible catheter was familiar enough to give him confidence as he guided it up through the artery and into the aorta. “Stop, there you go. Right there. Inflate the balloon- exactly.” The blood stopped gushing into the gauze, and Robby pulled it away to better inspect the work. He had a smile on his face, and the stats were already looking better, though not by much. It was a temporary fix. “Great work, Whitaker.”
And there it was. In those fleeting moments after truly saving another persons life, standing so close their arms brushed, they couldn’t keep their eyes off each other. Dennis drank in as much as he could, the smile on Robby’s face from the blood splattering his arms. God he couldn’t get enough. And if the flickering of Robby’s eyes was any indication, Dennis could almost believe that neither could he.
And then Dr. Walsh came crashing in with her gaggle of surgeons and nurses behind her. They broke apart like nothing happened.
“Dr. Robby, a REBOA to start my shift, seriously?” They were already halfway through preparing the gurney to be wheeled away.
Robby shrugged with a shit eating grin. “Not my problem, I’m going home.”
“Not like that you aren’t.” Walsh gave a pointed look at his arms before following the bed out of the bay and up to surgery.
Robby looked down at the blood on his scrubs and, evidently, on his arms, and sighed. Dennis snickered and Robby shot him a look. “Oh yeah? You didn’t fare much better.” Dennis shut up at that, biting a grin beneath his teeth. “C’mon, I’ll bet you’re familiar with the showers already given how your first day went.”
Robby left with that, and Dennis went to follow, before a hard grip pulled him back. Trinity. He’d completely forgotten she was here. “What the fuck was that?” She whispered, nurses still filing out of the room and janitorial moving in to clean up. Trinity dragged him by the elbow out of the bay and towards the lockers.
Dennis laughed. “What? You don’t remember my first day? All my scrubs-“
“Not that you Huckleberry.” She groaned, stopping them at his locker. They were alone now, but she kept quiet. “All that weird shit with you and Robby, I don’t even know what to call it.”
Dennis feigned ignorance, which was easy to do when he’d been denying any such ‘weirdness’ between him and Robby for the past several weeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Trinity glared. “I don’t! He’s been really helping me out recently, I wanted to leave the program so he’s been, looking out for me. I don’t know.”
He must’ve sold a half-alright performance because Trinity just sighed and pushed her hair behind her ears. “Yeah I remember, fine. Whatever, just looked weird to me. I don’t know.” She was so concerned for him it made Dennis feels bad for lying. But was he really? If he really thinks about it, truly nothing was going on. Maybe he thought his boss was kinda hot and they bonded over enjoying saving lives in a pretty narcissistic way, that’s it! Honest.
“Thanks, though. For looking out for me.” Dennis had his bag over his shoulders, spare clothes— he’d learned his lesson about fluids in the ER— packed inside.
Trinity shrugged and was already backing away to finish her charting for the day. She was always behind. “Whatever, forget about it.”
Dennis smiled. “Consider is forgotten.” Trinity’s face twitched like she was fighting a smile at that.
“See you at home, Huckleberry. Have a nice shower!”
Dennis rolled his eyes at her teasing but smiled the whole time as he made his way to the showers.
Since his first day, Dennis really tried to avoid the showers again. They were nice enough, locker room style with a row of shower stalls along one wall, tall walls for each one and curtains for privacy. He just avoided them because he hated the possibility of running into a coworker— remembering his time of keeping his eyes to the ground throughout all of high school.
And though he knew Robby was maybe a few minutes ahead of him, he’d half expected him to be gone by now. He wasn’t. In fact, he hadn’t even undressed yet.
He wasn’t standing in front of one of the benches, his bag open and his phone in hand. He was in a long sleeve shirt rolled up to his elbows and his scrub top was gone, but he was fully engrossed in his phone, like he’d gotten distracted.
Dennis cleared his throat as he approached, and Robby God honest jumped.
The man slapped a hand over his chest and laughed. “God, Whitaker. Don’t scare an old man like that.” Dennis laughed along too.
“Sorry, I thought you would’ve been be gone by now.” Dennis admits, dropping his bag on the same bench a safe five feet away. He distracted himself with looking through his bag for his items, taking off his scrub top too, a t-shirt on underneath that was luckily untouched from the blood. Throughout, he kept eyes down even though they were both fully dressed. This was why he hated locker rooms.
Robby, however, must’ve read it the wrong way. He felt Robby’s presence beside him before he heard him. “Are you alright?” He spoke softly, just like he had on the roof. Dennis finally looked at him. Still glowing from the teetering adrenaline with his hair ruffled and the Star of David dangling against his chest. Does he wear that everyday? “I know that was a pretty crazy case, but I wouldn’t have put you on it if I hadn’t know you were ready-“
Dennis will return to church on Sunday for the first time in six years to apologize for his actions in that moment. He’ll say he was out of control of his body, swept to the current of epinephrine he’d grown to hunger, because he’d lingered a second too long staring at Robby, and then he’d surged forwards, pressing his lips against his. Dennis nearly lets out a groan just from the initial contact, relief drowning him.
Then suffocating him as he realizes what he’d just done.
Dennis pulls back quick like he’d been burned— the burn he was chasing. That feeling of brushing against the sun. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry Dr. Robby, I don’t know what-“
Then their lips are connected again. And God did it burn. Robby pushes a heavy hand to the back of his head, tangled and gripping his hair, pulling him forward with it. Dennis really does groan this time, wrapping his hands around his neck, gripping the muscles of his upper back like he would drift away if he didn’t hold on tight.
Robby snakes his free arm around Dennis’ waist and suddenly they were moving. His back hits the locker with slam and he hisses as the lock digs into his back. Robby pulls away, only a few inches as if that was as much as he could bear. “Fuck- sorry, are you alright?” Dennis feels drunk on how good Robby sounds; the husk of his voice dripping in concern and want.
Dennis can’t find the words to respond, only nodding frantically and pulling him back onto him. He kisses away the smile on Robby’s face.
Robby squeezes his waist and Dennis gasps, which only seemed to be his intention as Robby takes full advantage, deepening the kiss hard enough to tap Dennis’ head on the locker. Without realizing, Dennis rocks his hips forwards. Robby swallows the sound of his moan, but doesn’t tell him to stop. In fact, the hand on his waist drops to his hip and tightens, rocking Dennis forward again with his grip.
Dennis breaks the kiss, his head falling back with another moan, bitten out like he’d been trying to keep it down. Robby is everywhere, smothering him against the lockers like he could devour him. His mouth now on his neck, sucking at his carotid like he could tap it open and peer into the very essence of his being. His knee moves in between Dennis’ and pushed them apart, grinding his thigh forward once, right where he needs it most.
Dennis has to fully hold onto Robby’s shoulders now as he’s barely strong enough to hold himself up, fully grinding his hips down, back and forth against his boss’s scrubs. When Robby pushes up into him, Dennis chokes on a whimper that had him slapping a hand over his own mouth.
Robby pulls back and stares down at the picture that was Dennis; weak and whimpering while getting off on his leg. That look once reserved only for post-life-saving now graced him, darker, but just as unhinged. “Look at you, Dennis.” Hearing his first name rolling off Robby’s tongue brought on another hand-smothered whimper— another deep grind of his hips. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so hard, so desperate to get off. “So good for me, you deserve this after all you did for me today.” For him. Dennis doesn’t realize he’s nodding in agreement.
Robby drops down close again, mouth at his ear and both hands on Dennis’ hips, gripping hard enough to bruise. He hopes he does. Like a sun burn scorched into his skin. Robby works with him, helping him rut against his thigh. “You saved a man’s life today, didn’t you.” A statement. Dennis nods again, barely enough blood in his brain to form thoughts at this point. “Say it.”
“I- fuck. I saved someone’s life today.” Dennis chokes out, hand still muffling him. Robby pulls it away, replacing it with his mouth.
“Good boy.”
The words are muttered against his lips but Dennis can barely hear them from how hard he comes. His legs are shaking and Robby grinds him through it, kissing and swallowing every noise that Dennis pitches in his floating state of ecstasy. He just came in his pants like a teenager and it’s probably still the best he’s had in months, which isn’t saying much but God does he feel it.
As he finally starts to touch ground again, Robby is still kissing at his neck, albeit more chaste this time, but no less starved. Dennis can still feel him hard against him.
Dennis reaches a hand down between them and cups the front of Robby’s scrubs. The man’s head drops to his shoulder at the touch, a low grown passing his lips. A large hand wraps around Dennis’ wrist, stopping him.
Robby pulls his head back and looks at him, the most serious he’d seen him this whole time. “You don’t have to.”
Dennis almost laughs in his face. “I know that.” And he pushes his palm back down. With Robby right in front of him, he gets to see it this time— gets to watch him bite his lip and fight the noise that tries to slip out.
Dennis wraps one of the scrub laces around his finger. A silent question, one he voices anyways, “Can I?” Robby looks to fight some internal battle on the matter. Maybe that Dennis is his student, that they’re still at the hospital, or maybe that he’s 30 years older than him; pick your poison, he supposes. The greater, harder counter-argument clearly wins out, as he secedes with a nod of his head.
Dennis tries not to relish in the power he feels once he’s pushed his hand properly down his boss’s pants, but it’s hard not to. The way Robby’s breath shudders as he wraps his hand around him— and how with just a squeeze, Robby braces his hand loudly against the locker next to Dennis’ head for support. They’re almost nose to nose at this point, both staring down at how, even with Dennis’ strong, farm working hand, it doesn’t cover him entirely. “Jesus Christ, Robby, what the fuck?” Robby shivers out a laugh, and Dennis strokes right as he does, breaking his laugh with a moan.
Robby is probably the biggest Dennis has been with up until this point of his life. Not comically so, but enough that he’s almost struggling to remember how to jerk him off— or maybe that’s just the way that Robby’s breath is fanning against his face that’s distracting him so much. Definitely both. They find a good rhythm eventually, Dennis having to spit in his hand first, which rewarded him with his favorite sound of Robby’s yet.
Soon, Dennis has Robby rocking into his hand, thrusting up to meet his hand halfway with every down stroke. He squeezes on the way up and twists his hand slightly on the way down; he must be doing something right with the way Robby near falls forward, mouth latching back onto his.
Dennis feels his dick twitch again from the sounds he drinks up from Robby. He’s more subdued than he was, like he’s restraining himself in a way that’s intoxicating. It makes Dennis want to work harder, and he does. The sound of his fist is slick and quickening, filling their little bubble in the locker room. Had either of them locked the door?
Dennis knows he’s close from the way his hips start to lose rhythm, just sporadically chasing his release into the fist he’s offered. God, Dennis almost doesn’t want it to end. He wants to drag it out, hear his boss whine when he pulls away just before he can finish. Watch himself rut into his hand over and over, more frantic each time as he tries to chase that high again. But he doesn’t, because they’re still at work, for one. And, because the thought of pulling away now, with Robby’s eyebrows pinched together and his mouth slightly agape and panting, he wants to see Robby burn too.
And he does. The warm evidence covers his hand and he inadvertently uses it to further slick up his palm while he strokes Robby through it. The way they aren’t even kissing anymore, just breathing heavy into each other’s mouths, Robby’s small noises peaking through as he finishes is enough to get him addicted. Dennis is almost harder now than he was earlier.
Dennis pulls away once Robby starts to hiss at the over stimulation. He tucks him back in and wipes his soiled hand on Robby’s scrub pants. They both chuckle tiredly. “They’ve seen worse.” Robby’s voice is hoarse and gravely, deeper than before— and him making a joke about his pants shouldn’t be so hot right now.
Robby pulls away first, just half a step, his hand still on Dennis’ arm at least. Dennis hates to admit that is pretty awkward. He’d jumped his superior without a second thought, and not expecting it to end the way it has, he’s entirely ill prepared for the aftermath.
Robby appears equally off kilter, but he recovers better, clearing his throat and dropping his hand, finally breaking contact between him. Dennis feels awfully cold, like an astronaut floating in space, as far from the sun now as Pluto.
Maybe Robby sees that, because he places his hand back to Dennis’ face, and tilts him upwards to face him. There’s a soft look there, unguarded in a way Dennis hasn’t seen since his breakdown during Pittfest. He leans down and places a chaste kiss against his lips. Dennis guiltily relishes in it for too long. When they pull away, it’s only millimeters. “You can take the shower, I’ll head out first.” It’s unsaid how they can’t exactly leave at the same time, given how much earlier Robby got here. So Dennis just nods, no matter if he’s a bit disappointed. He’s not sure what else he expected.
Equally unsaid, Dennis thinks once he’s finally standing beneath the cold spray of the shower, is that they can never speak of this again.