Chapter Text
The first December snow in Pittsburgh fell dirty, mixing with the soot on the sidewalks and the hopelessness that seeped from the bricks of the industrial buildings. Inside his small apartment, Michael Robinavitch — Robby to the few who dared to approach him — watched the flakes crash against the window. An ice pack slowly melted over his cracked knuckle, the aching echo of a fight in the hallways of "The Pitt," as he liked to call the emergency room.
The silence in the room was almost absolute, broken only by the faint hum of the fridge.
It's just you and your anger.
You know this moment, don't you? In the corner, a small Christmas tree, bought on an impulse of nostalgia he now regretted, blinked with multi-colored lights that seemed to mock him.
“Merry Christmas,” he murmured to no one, savoring the bitterness of the words.
It was then that the phone vibrated on the coffee table, illuminating the darkness with a screen showing a name that twisted his gut: Dennis.
Oh, golden boy, don't act like you were kind.
Robby closed his eyes. It wasn't the first time. Ever since everything had gone to hell, ever since loyalty had shattered like a poorly set bone, Dennis called on the worst nights. The nights when whiskey wasn't enough to drown the ghosts, or when the city became too big and empty.
The song played once, twice, three times. A part of him, the part that still remembered the warmth of a hand on his shoulder in the middle of chaos, wanted to answer. He wanted to hear that husky voice, but more than that, he wanted to tell him the truth of everything and apologize to him.
You were mine but you were awful every time.
He wanted to scream at him, curse him, ask him why. Why did he make it so hard? Why did he always hug him as if he truly knew him? Why did it have to be him, Dennis, his anchor and his torment?
But another part, stronger, more tired, just let the phone keep vibrating until it finally went silent.
The screen darkened. The room returned to the intermittent gloom of the tree lights.
A minute later, the phone lit up again. This time, a message.
Dennis: Robby. I know you're there. I just... wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.
But you should know that I died slow.
Robby pressed the ice pack against his knuckles, feeling a sharp, clear pain, preferable to the dull, persistent ache that Dennis caused him. He took a deep breath, the cold apartment air burning his lungs. His fingers, clumsy and sore, hovered over the screen.
He didn't write an answer immediately. He couldn't... he couldn't when they were so present in his thoughts.
(...)
And the toughest part is that we both know…
It was always Dennis who woke up first. His residency, exhausting and with inhuman hours, had accustomed him to getting up early, even on Saturdays. As an attending physician, he could afford to sleep a little longer, but by 8 AM he had to be moderately awake. The routine was sacred: Dennis prepared two cups of coffee. Robby's, with an exact spoonful of sugar and a splash of soy milk. At first, his guy used to mock him for buying the flavored milk, but after a week, he got used to it. He would leave the coffee on the nightstand and sit on the edge of the bed to watch him sleep, his dark, graying hair ruffled on the pillow, until the aroma woke him up. Robby would open his eyes, narrowed, and the first smile of the day, slow, genuine, only for Dennis, would appear before he took the first sip.
(...)
What happened to you…
After a doubly exhausting shift for both of them—Robby dealing with hospital bureaucracy and Dennis running after the residents—many nights they ended up eating something simple, sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, watching a football game, the news, or some reality show without really paying attention. There was no need to talk. Sometimes, Dennis, with a sore back, would lean against Robby's legs, and Robby would automatically start expertly massaging his shoulders, finding the knots of tension without being asked. It was a tactile language of mutual understanding.
(...)
Why you're out on your own…
Dennis had a habit of leaving little notes in the most absurd places. An "I love you" scrawled on the bathroom mirror after showering. A "your coffee tastes like crap, but I adore you" stuck on the coffee maker. A "marry me" written in the kitchen steam while Robby was frying eggs, which disappeared seconds later but remained engraved in his memory, as he knew he wasn't joking. Robby never commented on them out loud, but Dennis would find his answers: a note that said "idiot" on the lunch box Dennis took to work, or a "yes" written in perfect, clinical handwriting on the shopping list. (...)
Sunday mornings, when both were lucky enough to have time off together, were the only time they allowed themselves the luxury of absolute laziness. Robby, who was always on guard, would collapse. He would fall asleep on the sofa with his head in Dennis’s lap, who would slowly stroke his hair while watching TV at a low volume. Feeling the older man’s weight, trusting and peaceful on him, was the greatest possible victory. It was proof that, despite everything the world demanded them to be, on that worn couch they could simply be Dennis and Robby, nothing more. And that was more than enough—until it simply stopped being enough.
(...)
He opened his conversation with Dennis, that digital chronicle of their ruin, and started typing. The words came out like gasps, sharp and precise.
Robby: Merry Christmas. Please don't call.
(...)
The board of directors had found out about their relationship—they had been discreet, or so he thought. They were clear: relationships at work were not allowed, especially not with a resident. With the passing days, he started treating his boyfriend coldly, trying to push him away.
Holding all your baggage.
He had no other option; Dennis's career was just beginning, and what happened on Monday, December 15th, simply made things easier.
(...)
December 15, 2025.
The rain lashed against the apartment windows like liquid shrapnel, a monotonous, gray rhythm that perfectly matched the tense silence filling the room. Dennis stood, still wearing his soaked hospital jacket. Robby, next to the dining table, rested his hands on the wood, his knuckles white from the force he was exerting.
“What were you thinking, Dennis?” His voice was low, dangerously controlled, the tone he used with residents who had made a near-fatal mistake.
“What did you want me to think?” He felt broken and exhausted. “The guy had a tension pneumothorax. He was going to die in the hallway if I didn't do something. I wasn't going to wait fifteen minutes for surgery to come down or for you to be free to ask for permission, Doctor.”
“It’s not about permission!” He slammed the table with his palm, the noise making Dennis flinch. “It's about protocol. It's about you being a resident. A resident who performed a needle thoracostomy without supervision in a common area. Do you know what they’ll say about me? The attending who can’t control his… his resident?”
The pause was infinitesimal, but they both felt it like a punch. His resident. Not his partner. There was the crack through which all the venom was seeping.
“Oh, right.” He let out a bitter laugh, wiping the rain from his face with the back of his hand. “In the end, it’s all about your career. Your reputation.”
“No, Dennis, it’s about our safety!” He pushed away from the table, running a hand through his hair. “Do you think I haven't seen how Garcia was looking at you today? He suspects! And if he sees how you looked at me in the operating room last week, when you thought no one was watching…”
“And what did you want me to do? I can't pretend we're nothing.” Dennis’s voice rose, charged with an anguish he could no longer contain.
“I can’t be taking care of you all the time, I’m not your father!”
You know I'm not your father.
“I'm not asking you to take care of me, you do that because you want to, and I know you're not my father. I'm sick of it, Robby! Sick of having to treat you like a boss I detest. Sick of hiding a note in your locker like a scared teenager. This isn’t a relationship, it's a failed espionage operation.”
“And what do you propose?” He turned around, and for the first time that night, Dennis saw the fear in his eyes. A deep fear, of a practical man watching what he worked so hard to build crumble. “That we come out in the middle of the emergency room? That we announce the news in the hospital bulletin? They'd crucify us! You’d be fired first. I’d become the laughingstock of all Pittsburgh. Our careers would be over.”
“Maybe there are things more important than a career, Michael!” he shouted, using his first name, something he only did in the most intimate moments or the most brutal arguments.
“Tell me one! Tell me one thing more important than being able to keep doing our job, than saving lives, than having a damn livelihood!” he snapped, moving closer.
But don't tell ‘em what you told me.
“This! Us!” he shouted, pointing to the space between them. “The morning coffee, and the notes on the mirror, and… and your hand on my back when you think I’m asleep. That! That is real!”
Don't even tell ‘em that you know me.
Robby looked at him, and for an instant, Dennis thought he had won. He saw the wall of ice crack, the doctor giving way to the man.
But then, Robby took a deep breath and lowered his gaze.
“It’s not enough, Whitaker.”
The words fell like a slab. The air left the room.
“What?” Dennis whispered.
“It’s not enough.” He looked up, and his eyes were now dry, cold. It was the look of Doctor Robinavitch. “I can’t… I can't carry this. Every day is a lie, a calculation, a risk. And today you crossed the line. You put everything I’ve worked for at risk. I can’t be with someone who doesn't understand that some lines can’t be crossed.”
Dennis stood still, looking at him as if he didn't recognize him. The rain kept falling, the only sound in a world that had just fallen apart.
“So… that’s it? Six months… and it ends because I followed a medical protocol to save a life?”
Why you're out on your on. Merry Christmas, please don't call.
“It ends because I can’t trust you to put a wall between the personal and the professional.”
Dennis quickly moved to the room, grabbing a suitcase. Inside were a few things: a change of clothes, his toothbrush, the book he was reading on the nightstand.
“What are you doing?” Robby asked, panic finally taking hold of him.
“I’m going to stay in a hotel for a couple of days. Then I’ll look for another place.”
One ticket out of your heavy gaze.
Robby wouldn't look him in the eye. So, he adjusted the backpack on his shoulder and headed for the door.
I want one ticket off your carousel.
The plea in Dennis's look was raw, desperate. It was a "Don't do it. Wait. Let's talk."
But you should know that I died slow.
Dennis's hand stopped on the doorknob. For an eternal second, Robby thought he would turn around. That the battle wouldn't be lost.
But then, he opened the door. The sound of the rain and the city crept into the apartment like an intruder.
“Goodbye, Doctor Robby. Merry Christmas, I’m not yours at all.”
And he left. The door closed with a soft, final click.
Robby was left alone in the middle of the room, with the sound of the rain as his only comfort, looking at the door through which not only his boyfriend but the entire life he had naïvely believed they could build together had vanished.
(...)
Currently, December 24, 2025.
Robby: Every time you do this, it’s like reopening the same wound. And I’m tired of bandaging it. Robby: I'm alone, yes. But it's a kind of loneliness I can live with. It’s better than the noise you left behind.
He sent the messages one after the other, without giving time for a response. Then, he slid his finger over the name "Dennis" in his contacts. The "Block Contact" option appeared in red, a small reminder of danger, of a clean cut.
His thumb hovered over the screen. He remembered Dennis’s laugh in the locker rooms, the way their backs bumped after a particularly brutal shift, he could still feel their lips brushing, the sleepless nights they spent together, the way he let himself be cared for like a small child. He remembered the unspoken promise to always have each other's back. And then, he remembered the emptiness. Leaving him was not what he wanted. He was just stupid, too idiotic to ask his guy to stay by his side. He took a deep breath.
And he pressed "Block."
Dennis's name disappeared from his active screen, turning into a specter of the past.
He got up, leaving the ice pack on the table, and walked over to the window. Pittsburgh stretched out before him, a tapestry of cold, distant lights under a blanket of dirty snow. The city was hard, just like him, but it was also warm, just like Dennis.
The Christmas tree continued to blink in its corner, but the light no longer seemed mocking. It was just a light, weak and persistent, like the one he was trying to keep lit within himself.
Outside, the snow continued to fall, cleansing—or at least concealing—the dirt of the streets. Inside, Michael Robinavitch turned on the television, letting the murmur of some random show fill the emptiness he had chosen for himself. It was a painful loneliness, yes, but at least it was his. And on that Christmas Eve, that was the only gift he could allow himself to accept.
And the toughest part is that we both know, what happened to you, why you're out on your own. Merry Christmas, please don't call.