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Robby had never been religious, he’d been raised in a Jewish household by his Jewish grandmother, where they’d vaguely practiced, though really only sticking to the holidays and big events. His dealings in medicine have done nothing but alienate him from his faith. Drive him from believing in any higher power.
Each hard shift has chipped a little more at that belief. He’s not jaded by it, just reluctant to name or acknowledge what was once a little part of him that might’ve believed. He doesn’t believe in God anymore. Not at all. There are no miracles or prophets, there are just people trying to get by in the everyday.
It remains like this until he meets Dennis Whitaker. Dennis Whitaker, whom he is just about sure is the second coming of Christ. That he is the son of the catholic God. There’s just no other explanation for all the things that this student doctor makes him feel.
It starts when the man quotes the scripture back to him, at the tail end of his first shift. Of a reassurance that he wasn’t going to tell anyone about what happened, that he wouldn’t use it for anything, and instead provides a comforting shoulder.
He watches him in the shifts after this, he’s a tough kid, but the unkind years show themselves on him. He learns that the man is from the middle of nowhere Nebraska, that he was raised in a religious household. He learns that he has no emergency contact and no next of kin listed, though this is updated after his first week.
Robby notes that the man though beautiful is thin, all harsh bones, angles and exhaustion. He also notes that his hunger doesn’t seem to just lie with food, but in proving himself, in being a good doctor.
He is also, thankfully, a good doctor. That much is evident, he has mishaps like all students do, but he is often a good and comforting presence for people. He words hard, learns from his mistakes, tries to balance efficiency with appropriate care. He has compassion abound, something that can be lacking in other doctors, and Robby can’t help but fixate on him.
He finds himself reaching out to him, touching his shoulder or seeking him out whenever he can.
But the belief in him being the second coming of Christ doesn’t happen immediately.
A few weeks after the Pittfest shift, they get another shooting victim, another girl who looked just like Jake’s girlfriend, whose heart hasn’t been blown out, but by centimetres. The trauma room is washed with activity. He’s more involved than he would normally be, but with both Langdon and Collins taking career breaks, for different reasons, they’re already stretched thin.
He can feel those memories of that shift clawing back to the forefront of his mind. Especially as the woman crashes, and blood pours out of her and covers his gloved hands. The monotonous beep of the machine is stark and piercing.
He cannot fail Jake again.
Robby moves into position, moving to start compressions. His hands are shaking, the memory of this girl and the girl from pittfest blend into one underneath him. He can’t do this. He can’t do this again. He can’t face Jake again. He can’t shake the memory of her.
He’s about to get someone else to do, when a set of hands touch his. He glances up at their owner, and meets Whitaker’s steely, determined gaze. He holds it for a moment, sees Whitaker nod and feels a sense of calm, clawed back from the edges of panic in a simple gesture.
Robby looks back down, his hands have stopped shaking.
He starts compressions.
They save her.
No one notices the moment when it happens, in the blip of an eye, as everything else had been happening. It was nothing more than a millisecond of time for them.
Robby tries to catch Whitaker after they’ve passed the patient on to the surgical team, but he’s pulled away before he can grab him. He’s always pulled away.
A few shifts later a young woman, no older than eighteen, comes in. She’s a mess, crying and sobbing, injured in too many places. Beaten by people whom she did not know. She seems scared of all of them.
He notes to himself to grab Santos or McKay to be the ones to sit with her. They don’t know the full story of what happened to her, and he doesn’t want to make her more uncomfortable.
But when he goes to give the chart to either of them, he spots Whitaker already in the room, the door mostly closed over, but ajar.
She’s calmer as he talks to her. He watches as Whitaker guides Santos in, and Santos does the exam as Whitaker sits at the other side, speaking with the patient gently. The patient takes his hand, which he gives freely. He places his other hand on top of hers, and keeps her focused away from what’s happening.
Whenever the pain reaches a maximum and the patient winces, she squeezes his hand, and he spots him reassuring her.
He nods a little, leaving them to it. Whitaker and Santos are an odd pair, but they also work well, like old souls finding each other in this life. If he hadn’t heard about Santos and Garcia, he might’ve called them soulmates.
Towards the end of that shift, he’s approached by the woman, she’s cleaned up and looking better, still rough but better.
“You doing okay?” he asks her with a smile.
“Good, yeah. I was hoping to find Dr. Whitaker, to thank him,” she says, and he glances around, spotting Whitaker in the middle of something else.
“I’ll be sure to pass it on,” he tells her sincerely.
“Please, he was so nice and helped keep my mind off everything. I must’ve really hurt his hand, squeezing it so hard,” The woman continues.
“But it was just…it made the pain easier. Just, tell him thanks,” she finishes before leaving.
Robby glances round to him, and his gaze is stopped short by the new charge nurse who gives him a skeptical look, he knows Dana is coming back soon and really can’t wait for her to be back.
After it happens once, it seems to happen every few days. A person will come to thank Whitaker for helping ease their pain.
Being thanked by patients happens for all of them, there isn’t a day without it, but it’s the specific nature of the thanks which Whitaker receives.
Robby knows that it’s just good bedside manner, that people in pain being comforted will feel their pain ease, but it’s just so specific.
The weeks pass, and he gets to know Whitaker better. Gets to chat with him on a slightly more informal level.
He learns in that time that Whitaker is the youngest of four, that he has three brothers all of whom are older than him by a few years, that he was by his mother’s admission a miracle birth, that his parents had believed they would never have another child despite wanting one, until he’d popped along.
Robby tries to not think too much about it.
He learns with a dying patient that Whitaker studied theology as an undergrad, not a particularly common path into medicine, but he can see it, see its influence and help.
The patient was old with a terminal diagnoses. He was in some amount of pain, and they had called for the hospital Christian chaplain as per the patient's request.
“Would you like to pray with me until he gets here?” Whitaker asks with a little smile.
“I almost went to seminary school, was an altar boy for a long while, I know my way around a few prayers,” he adds to get the man to agree.
“You sure, doc?” the patient asks, clearly not wanting to impose on him.
“I asked you,” Whitaker replies simply.
The patient nods, and Whitaker shifts his chair forward a little closer to the bed, he bows his head, clasps his hands in front of him and closes his eyes. The patient does the same. They both speak softly, Whitaker is clearly leading the prayer, but both are speaking.
Robby steps away from the room, and no more than five minutes later the chaplain arrives in the ER. He greets the man.
“Whitaker is with him currently,” Robby says, and then watches the man step into the room with them. He leaves them to it, and gives Whitaker a little bother for falling a bit behind on his patients for the rest of the day.
It’s after, when the shift has ended, and they’re outside in the darkness of the evening, that he runs into him.
“I didn’t realise you were still religious, Whitaker,” he says, and Whitaker shakes his head.
“I’m not really. But he needed that, and I do know my way around a prayer,” He says it so easily, despite there being so much in between those words.
“It’s no skin off my back to pray with him even when I lack the belief he has,” Whitaker says simply, and then smiles at Robby.
Whitaker heads off with a little nod.
He doesn’t see him again for a few days, but Robby does speak to the chaplain, who sings his praises. Robby would’ve figured the man might’ve lamented over Whitaker not choosing that path, but he doesn’t. He in fact says that he feels Whitaker is exactly where he needs to be.
He hands over to Abbot and the man is looking at him with an odd expression.
“Your boy, Whitaker,” Abbot starts.
“Not my boy,” Robby cuts in.
“He’s joined the street team, he’s a good addition. Really good with the unhoused, has a good knowledge about shelters, really helps calm people down, good at getting them to accept a little help. Have you asked him where he’s doing his R1?” Abbot asks.
“I haven’t, but I will. You think he’d be a good fit here?” Robby asks. He already thinks that, but he can’t be the one to say it. Can’t be the one to suggest it, since everyone already thinks he’s fixated on him.
“We both know he would be,” Abbot replies simply.
The shifts pass in a blur, one into another, the seasons are changing, the autumn is giving way to the winter, the days are shorter and darker. He comes to the conclusion he needs the time, time away.
He notices Whitaker more and more. Notices how he’s no longer just skin and bones, still looks exhausted, but no longer as if a light wind could knock him back. His hair grows, curls form at the end. By the end of every shift, they’ll be mused and messy. Part of Robby wants to run his fingers through them. He watches him step out after a shift, and the golden light of the low winter sunset illuminates his face like a halo.
They get a small young family, a single mother and her two sons, all of whom are clearly unhoused. The ER is busy, and it takes so long for people to get seen to.
“Excuse me, doc, can my boys get something to eat?” the woman asks, and Robby nods at her. He heads to the nurse's station, only to find out that the last of the sandwiches had been given out, and they were waiting for some more to get brought.
Robby goes to seek out what he brought for lunch, something quick and hastily packed that he knew he wouldn’t have time to eat. But when he ventures back, he spots that Whitaker has sat with them. He’s speaking to the mother, and she’s looking at him with a friendly and slightly fond expression, as if they knew each other.
Robby goes to the room.
“Hi, sorry–,” he goes to apologize for the lack of food, that some is coming, or they can have his, but he doesn’t need to, because Whitaker is handing each of the boys half of a sandwich and the mother a protein bar.
The woman hands it back to Whitaker.
“You need it too,” She speaks gently, and Whitaker just picks up the protein bar and carefully breaks it in half, handing half to her and keeping half for himself.
“We’ll pack you up a couple of sandwiches for you to take with you, and I’ll write down the number and address of a soup kitchen a few blocks from here. They’re open every Saturday and Sunday,” he tells her between bites of food.
“Since Whitaker's got you, I will let you be,” Robby says and Whitaker looks at him with a bashful smile.
After the shift ends, he finds Whitaker on a bench just outside of the hospital in the park where they usually have drinks after a bad shift.
Robby hesitates before walking over to where he is.
“Mind if I join you?” Robby asks before sitting down. Whitaker seems tired, his eyes bleary even in the low artificial light.
“Giving yourself a minute before you head home?” He asks and Whitaker shakes his head.
“Santos needed to speak to Garcia about something and my car’s out of commission, so I’m waiting,” Whitaker replies.
“I can give you a ride,” Robby offers, and Whitaker scoffs.
“On that death trap? No thanks. I think Dana would kill me,” Whitaker says fondly.
“That’s fair,” Robby says with a little laugh.
“Santos and I live together,” he tells him, and Robby hadn’t known that.
“Oh yeah? I didn’t realise you two knew each other before starting here,” Robby says.
Whitaker shakes his head and then opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it again. He goes pink when the noise which does follow is his stomach grumbling.
Robby reaches into his bag as Whitaker whispers quick apologies, stuttering over his words, but Robby just pulls out his uneaten lunch and offers it to Whitaker.
Whitaker takes half and passes it back to him.
“Thanks,” the man says, and Robby shrugs in response.
“It was a nice thing you did for that family,” Robby adds after a moment of eating.
There’s a small moment of silence between them. Comfortable, but where Roby can tell Whitaker is considering something.
“I know what it’s like,” he says.
“My family…I don’t really talk to them any more, and everything is so expensive. And they don’t provide student housing for post-grads,”
Robby stops short, the wheels in his brain turn rapidly. He calculates the words, the parts which are left unsaid.
“How long?” He finds himself asking.
“It’s complicated, there are shelters and the university library, friends who’d let me crash a few days here and there. Last summer it was the longest period without anything, just poor timing with the placement I was on, it was 40 days give or take,” Whitaker says, his words are carefully chosen, telling him plenty without saying everything.
His mind fixates of the 40 days. A forty-day stint in the desert. He almost asks then, asks him whether he is the second coming, but the words are so ridiculous.
“You didn’t have a place when you started in the Pitt?” Robby does say.
Whitaker shakes his head.
“No, but Santos took me home that first night,” Whitaker says.
Robby’s mind reels, Whitaker's first shift had been awful, and it had been September, it had been warm enough, but they were near December now, it was colder and darker, the weather far more volatile. Had it not been for Santos, Whitaker wouldn’t have had a place to go.
“Good, good, I’m glad she did,” he says because there is nothing more to say, what has happened, has happened.
“You have my number, right? In case anything ever happens with Santos, and you need a place to stay?” He then adds, he tries to phrase like it would be for both, but it’s mostly for him. He knows Santos would be more okay than Whitaker.
“I do, yeah,” Whitaker says.
He spots Santos and heads off after a quick goodbye. Robby is left eating a stale sandwich on a cold bench.
“Have a good night, Dr Robby,” Whitaker says.
“It’s just Robby out here, Whitaker,” Robby replies.
“Well, then it’s also just Dennis. Good night Robby,”
“Goodnight Dennis,”
The part of his brain which was illogical and unbalanced couldn’t help but think his theory was right. After all, he’d watched Whitaker break bread (protein bar) and had spent days in the desert (on the streets of Pittsburgh).
But the logical and balance part of his mind was desperately trying to win over. He needed a break, to step away from this place. Time to recuperate, time to settle.
The festive period passes quietly, he’s unsurprised by those most willing to work over the period, but everyone pulls their weight.
It snows on Christmas morning, a day just as busy for them as most others. The forecast had said it would, but Robby never believes it until he sees it.
It falls heavily at first, and then lighter but steady all the same.
“Anyone seen Whitaker, I have his results here for the patient in room 8,” One of the nurses says. Robby glances around and watches people shake their heads.
“He had a phone call, stepped away to take it, he hasn’t been back,” Santos says, and she meets Robby’s gaze.
He gives a little nod.
“I’ll find him,” Robby says.
He steps away, heads out to the ambulance bay area, to the smoking area. He goes to the chapel in the hospital, the prayer room and last he checks the roof.
Unlike both himself and Abbot, Whitaker stands behind the barrier. The man is shaking, snow wets his scrubs. He’s looking up at the grey sky. His phone is in his hand.
“Whitaker, you okay?” Robby asks as he approaches, careful steps to not spook him, but noise enough for him to also not get spooked by his quietness.
“Not really, but I just need a minute,” Whitaker replies honestly.
Robby sheds his jumper and places it over Whitaker’s shaking shoulders.
“It’s cold out here, Dennis,” Robby says.
“I know. I just..I needed to feel it,” Whitaker says. “Needed to be grounded by it,”
He lets the peace and quiet of the snow wash over him. He hates to admit to himself that he really likes the way Whitaker looks in his jumper. It’s big for him, but it looks good. He feels like he should always be wearing it.
“My mom called, she wanted to wish me a merry Christmas, wanted to ask if I’d seen the errors of my ways, if I was no longer living in sin,” he says and sighs.
“I didn’t even get to come out to them, my brother found out from a friend of a friend that I’d been kissing boys at a college party in my sophomore year,” he says.
“Things had already been difficult, but it…they don’t get it,” he finishes with a heavy sigh.
He files away the information of Whitaker liking boys, about that being one of the reasons he is so far from home.
“My grandmother passed before I could tell her, I was so busy with college, med school, with everything that I didn’t even think about dating until later, and by the time I did, it was too late for that,” he tells him. Tells him something that only Abbot had ever known before.
“I like both,” he further clarifies.
“Thanks for tell me,” Whitaker says after a moment.
“Let’s go back inside, we’ll get some hot tea and some dry scrubs on you,”
In the conversation they have, with Robby watching ever so subtly the way in which Whitaker's hands flex as he holds the warm cup, or the way colour returns to his lips.
He doesn’t take the jumper back, but finds it neatly folded by the lockers at the end of the shift with a little note on top, a Christmas card with a thanks written inside. He doesn’t know why it leaves him both disappointed and warmed.
When he puts in his official career break notice, to be able to spend three months on a journey that he knows he needs to take, he makes sure to tell Whitaker to apply for his residence at The Pitt and tells his own superiors to make sure it happens.
His shifts begin to decrease in number, a countdown towards his freedom, and yet an ache in his heart forms.
Whitaker gets the residency at The Pitt, and excitedly tells him, thanks him and Robby swears down he had no part in it.
They have a brutal shift, one which starts in the worst possible ways and by midday already people are worn out, are frustrated. They can’t stop, though. But a patient violently pushes Whitaker, and he goes down hard, worn out already by the day.
Robby wasn’t in the room when it happened, but he makes a beeline to the room they moved Whitaker to when he finds out. His scrubs are dirty, he looks a little dazed, but he’s already trying to get up and away from every.
“Sit, let them look at you, I’ll grab you some new scrubs,” Robby tells him and does grab him new ones.
He comes back and Whitaker is fine, some rough bruising, but nothing more. The other doctors and nurses have left, and it’s just him and Dennis.
He holds out the scrubs and then smiles at him.
“Been a while since you needed an emergency pair,” Robby jokes as he turns to give him some privacy.
There’s a scoff and then a slight moan of pain.
“Can you help me?” Whitaker says softly, embarrassed that he needs help. Robby turns, and he can see the man’s managed to mostly change, his bottom scrubs are fresh, but that’s all. He stands beside the bed in old faded socks, with a few holes in them.
“I’m fine, but it does hurt to move,” Whitaker says, clarifies to stem off any worry. Robby nods.
“You don’t…Dana or Santos can help me,” Whitaker then quickly adds, as if remembering that it’s never really an attendings job to change patients.
Robby just rolls his eyes and then moves forward, moves into Whitaker’s space.
It feels wrong to be so close to him, but he needs this.
Robby reaches forward and gently helps ease the dirtied scrubs and under shirt off, going slowly to help not make any of the bruising worse. Robby tries to not let his hands touch Whitaker properly, only feather-light brushes.
Whitaker is pale under the scrubs, still all too thin, but there’s a strength in the muscles too. He can see it, almost feel the firmness in his feather-light touches. He wants to touch more, but he can't, it’s not appropriate. There's a little trail of hair under his navel that Robby tries to not fixate on.
Robby can feel Whitaker’s breath against his neck. Light and calm breaths, a hiss of pain at particular moments. Robby got the dirtied scrubs over his head and then after a beat began to lean out. He can smell Whitaker’s deodorant, the soap he uses, it something fruity.
He glances up and Whitaker's face was inches from his, his gaze fixed on him. He could see the freckles and moles on his face, the length of his eyelashes, the pinkness of his lips. He was angelic. Prettier than any man he’d ever seen, pretty than any girl he’d ever seen. Prettier than any person he’d ever seen.
Robby holds his gaze, Whitaker’s eyes moved to his lips for the briefest of seconds before Robby was pulling away again, a blush reddening his cheeks. As he pulled away he noticed at Whitaker’s side, a scar.
“How’d you get that?” he asked, using the words to break the moment and to clear his throat.
Whitaker’s hand went to the scar and then gave a little frown.
“It was so long ago now, my dad used to sometimes take my brother’s hunting with him and my uncle. I was much younger than the rest of them, and I was always….weak, and I really hated going, the animals just…I didn’t like it.” Whitaker says.
“Did anyone put some cream on these bruises?” Robby asks and Whitaker shakes his head. He grabs the cream, and puts on a pair of gloves, using his hands to apply it very gently to Whitaker’s side.
“Sorry, continue,” Robby prompts.
“I used to fake sneeze whenever anyone was going to shoot something, but there’s only so many times you can do that before someone gets mad, and my eldest brother, he got so annoyed, he smacked the butt of the rifle into my face, and told me to fuck off,” Whitaker continues, with only little breaks, small hisses of pain from what Robby was doing.
For Robby’s part he tries to be as gentle and as slow as possible, wanting to prolong this between them without asking for that. He’d never been good at asking for that. But he liked the way it felt to touch him and feel his breaths, or feel the vibrations of his voice against his fingers.
“He walked off, the rest of the family had been heading in a different direction, I tried to move forward, but blood was gushing out of my nose, and I slipped, fell backwards, rolled down a hill, and got really cut up in the process, when I landed there was a really sharp branch of a fallen tree, and it went through my shirt and in,” He says. He holds up his hands to show the smaller scars, little mostly faded almost stigmatas on his hands.
“Oh christ, that must’ve hurt,” Robby replies, his gloves fingers find the scar of Whitaker's side once more.
“So much, though it wasn’t really that bad, mostly superficial. But, I was in the forest for three days before I made it back to the house. The police just assumed I’d fallen and died somewhere, so when I got back, everyone thought I was a ghost.”
Robby finishes what he’d done, and leans back.
“Three days, huh?” Robby says.
“Yeah, unsurprisingly my parents thought it was a message from God, I didn’t go on the hunting trips any more, I went to church instead,” He says and there’s almost a faint bitterness to the words.
Robby leans back, tossing out the gloves, and then grabbing the new scrubs. He helps him get dressed, and once again pauses inches from Whitaker’s face, his own gaze moving to Whitaker’s lips.
He leans in ever so slightly, sees the way in which Dennis nods, and goes to be closer, to let himself finally feel Whitaker's lips on his own, when the curtain is drawn open and both jump back.
Robby doesn’t mention it. Doesn’t bring it up. He lets himself just think that maybe Whitaker’s parents were right, that his own feelings on him being the second coming were right.
It was good that they’d been interrupted, Whitaker was so much younger than him, and it wasn’t right for him to take advantage of that. It was in fact deeply wrong of him. It didn’t matter that Whitaker had nodded, had seemingly wanted it too. He would ruin Whitaker anyway, take all of what was good amount him and ruin him with all that was bad about him.
Robby tries to ignore him, tries to just be professional. To keep it professional, and above board. He’s leaving anyway, it would be ridiculous to even pursue it. They keep it professional, he happily orients him as he moves to his residency.
He ignores all the ways in which he wants to be closer to him.
All too soon, his last shift arrives, a fourth of July. A shift which turns out to be hellish. In it, he learns about Amy and tries to not feel bitter about it. He tells himself it’s for the best, even when Whitaker swears down that it’s nothing.
By the time it’s over, he’s still keen to go, and tries to not let himself get caught by Whitaker as he leaves.
“Wait!” He hears an all too familiar voice call to him.
He turns and spots Whitaker quickly approaching.
“You didn’t say goodbye,” Whitaker says, and Robby shakes his head lightly.
“We can’t…,” he says, and he doesn’t know what he’s saying they can’t to. Since right now and for the next three months he’s away, he’s gone, not his attending, not anything.
“But…,” Whitaker starts.
“I want you,” Whitaker says, speaking plainly, and Robby turns away.
“Okay fine, Robby, but…I’ll still be here, in three months if you want it,” Robby hears him say it, but he doesn’t look back. Instead, he drives away and heads into the open air.
The only people with his phone number are Jake and Abbot. He hadn’t handed out the number he was using for his trip. Abbot doesn’t get in contact often, his contact is brief, enough to keep Robby satiated but never too much.
‘Hey brother, hope all is going okay, things are fine. Be safe. Whitaker’s been a mopey mess, but no one knows why. Santos delivered a baby.’
The open air is helpful, it centres his mind in a way few other therapies has, but whenever he gets on the road, he sees the signs for the direction home and thinks about Whitaker. He thinks about sitting on the sofa with him, of making dinner together, of talking cases when they should be thinking about anything other than work.
It had been so long since he’d had anything like that, so long since he had wanted anything like that. For years, he’d kept himself to himself. Never encountering people who made him want more. He’d seen plenty of residents, interns and whatever else during that time, and known had awoken anything in him like Whitaker had.
He hits just shy of forty days on the road when another message comes in.
‘Hey brother, he’s fine, mostly, but thought you should know, Whitaker got a pretty bad case of the flu. He’s doing okay, but his fever spiked pretty high, so Santos brought him in. he’s got a room, he’s being taken care of. A cold has been doing the rounds, and it just hit him hardest given his bouts of malnutrition over the years. When he’s lucid he’s adamant that you shouldn’t know, but when he isn’t lucid, he’s asking for you. You don’t need to come back, I just figured you should know. At the very least in case he gets worse.’
Memories of losing his mentor wash over him, of everything that they experienced over COVID. He tries to not assume the worst. Whitaker wasn’t Adamson, and his relationship to Whitaker is nothing like that of Adamson.
His heart hammers in his chest. He needs to be there for him. Needs to go back, but he’s just over a third into this. He imagines that Whitaker would come back, if there roles were reversed, that he’s been left and tossed out by so many people that he cannot help but stick around.
Decision made, he gets back on the bike and turns back to head home.
It takes a little longer than he expects, but the daily messages from Abbot ease his journey. It seems the closer Robby gets to Pittsburgh, the better Whitaker gets. He gets to the hospital after three days of travel, when Whitaker’s fever has broken, and he’s well enough to at least not be at the hospital.
Robby arrives after three days of travelling. He gets into the parking of the hospital, right at the front, and then spots Whitaker and Santos coming out of the hospital. Whitaker hasn’t changed much, it’s not been much time, but even in the midst of his now healing illness, in the glow of the mid-August sun, he looks beautiful.
Lightly tanned from the summer, though not too much given how much he’d likely been working. He looks exhausted, hunching a little into himself, but clearly trying to hide it more than a little. Robby takes his helmet off and walks over.
“I heard you were feeling better,” Robby says with a warm tone, and Whitaker’s whole face breaks into a smile.
“You’re here? I told them not to bother you,” he says, glancing at Santos who is slowly slinking away.
Robby completes the few strides over to Whitaker. He takes the man’s face in his hands, tilting it up to hold his gaze. He’s lucid, and looking tired, but he is there. There’s no peds room, no discussion of ECMO, there’s no shrill noise of any medical machine, just Whitaker looking back at him.
“I’m going to kiss you, then I am taking you home until you get better, and then, Dennis, I am taking you on a date,” Robby says.
“Only if we take a car, and you come back for the motorbike another day,” Whitaker replies.
Robby’s barely finished his nod when Whitaker’s lips are suddenly on his, but it’s the greatest feeling in the world. Like things just snapped into focus. His lips are soft, tasting of cola chapstick. It starts as a chaste kiss, but Robby deepens it, and feels Whitaker tongue push into his mouth.
He stops it only because Whitaker needs to breathe. He stays in close, his hands remaining on Whitaker’s face, unwilling to let go just yet.
“I’ve had a crush on you since you first started,” Robby admits.
“Me too,” Whitaker replies.
“Though admittedly it’s been so long since I had feelings for anyone, I just thought you were the second coming of Jesus Christ,” Robby says and Whitaker laughs.
Robby knows he’ll do anything to keep hearing that laugh. He reaches down to take Dennis’ hand so they can find a place to get a car to take them home, he laces his fingers with him, and he tells him all about all the signs which he had noticed over the last eleven months.
“Well, one thing is for sure, one of these days very soon, I’ll have you calling me Jesus Christ,” Whitaker says finally after all of it, with a little raise of his eyebrows, that has Robby adjusting his trousers.
Whitaker, with a smile on his face that Robby wants to commit to memory, leans into Robby's ear and whispers softly.
“I’ll show you the light of god, just you wait,”