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The first petal came on a Tuesday in July, ten months after Dennis Whitaker had watched Robby fall apart in a makeshift morgue and somehow found the words to put him back together.
He was alone in the on-call room, three hours into a sixteen-hour shift, when his chest seized without warning. Not the familiar ache of exhaustion or the sharp stab of caffeine on an empty stomach – this was different, like something had taken root between his ribs and decided to unfurl without permission.
He coughed into his palm. Came away with a single petal, pale blue and delicate, veined with something that might have been blood if he squinted.
Dennis stared at it for a full thirty seconds. Turned it over in his fingers. It was real – soft and slightly damp, with that particular fragility of something that had no business existing inside a human body.
What the fuck.
He shoved it into his pocket. Washed his hands. Went back to work.
It was probably nothing. Stress did weird things to people. He'd once seen a man come in convinced his intestines were turning into snakes. This was just – flowers. Petals. Small ones.
By the end of his shift, he'd coughed up four more.
Dennis knew what it was, of course. He'd gone to medical school. He'd read the literature, sparse as it was – the case studies, the epidemiological surveys, the heated debates about whether it was a psychiatric condition with physical manifestations or a physical condition triggered by psychological distress. He'd rotated through a Hanahaki clinic during his third year, watched patients cough up everything from cherry blossoms to roses to, in one memorable case, an entire sunflower that had to be surgically removed from a woman's bronchial tube.
He'd thought it was tragic, then. Romantic, in a terrible way. The idea that love could literally kill you.
He hadn't thought it would ever apply to him.
Dennis Whitaker was not the type of person who died of unrequited love. He was the type of person who got covered in bodily fluids on his first day and kept showing up. The type of person who slept in abandoned hospital rooms because he couldn't afford rent and told himself it was fine, really, lots of people had it worse. The type of person who'd grown up on a Nebraska farm with four siblings and learned early that feelings were private things you kept to yourself because nobody had time for them anyway.
His family loved him. He knew that. They just weren't demonstrative. You didn't sit around talking about your emotions when there were cows to milk and hay to bale and eight million other things that actually mattered. You got on with it. You didn't complain. You certainly didn't go around developing fatal diseases because you'd developed feelings for your fifty-something attending who probably didn't even know your first name half the time.
Except Robby did know his first name. Robby knew a lot of things about him, actually – more than anyone had ever bothered to learn. Robby knew he'd been a theology major before medicine. Knew he'd played peewee football as a kid and done "fairly well as a kicker," which Dennis had mentioned exactly once, in passing, ten months ago. Knew he was from Broken Bow, knew his parents had sacrificed everything to put him through college, knew he was still paying off loans that would take decades to clear.
Robby remembered. That was the thing. In the chaos of the ER, with a million things demanding his attention and patients stacked in the hallways and administrators breathing down his neck about satisfaction scores, Robby still remembered. He'd ask about Dennis's brothers by name. He'd notice when Dennis hadn't eaten. He'd catch his eye across a crowded trauma bay and give him that tiny nod that meant you're doing okay, keep going.
And Dennis, stupid, hopeless Dennis, had built an entire world around those small attentions.
It wasn't – he wasn't in love with Robby. That would be insane. Robby was his boss. His mentor. The man who'd held him together when Mr. Milton died and Dennis had been ready to walk out of medicine forever. The man whose panic attack Dennis had stumbled upon and somehow, miraculously, talked through, saying things he didn't even know he believed until they came out of his mouth. Learn to live with loss. Find balance. You told me that.
They had a connection. A weird trauma bond, as Santos would say. That was all.
The fact that Dennis's chest tightened every time Robby walked into a room was irrelevant. The fact that he'd started timing his coffee breaks to coincide with Robby's, not because he wanted to see him but because – no, that was exactly why. The fact that he'd memorised the way Robby's voice dropped when he was tired, the way he ran his hand through his hair when he was frustrated, the way he smiled at patients with this particular warmth that made Dennis's stomach flip even though the smile wasn't for him.
None of that was love. Love was something else. Love was big and dramatic and requited. Love was something other people got to have.
Dennis was from Nebraska. He knew how to keep things buried.
By August, he'd developed a system.
The petals came most often when he was alone – in the shower, in the on-call room, in the small hours of the night when he couldn't sleep and his mind kept drifting to places it shouldn't go. He'd cough, and there they'd be: small and blue and increasingly accompanied by a thin film of blood that he told himself was just irritation from all the coughing.
He'd flush them down the toilet. Wash his mouth out. Go back to whatever he'd been doing.
The flowers themselves – he'd looked them up eventually, because he was a doctor and that's what doctors did when faced with unexplained symptoms. Forget-me-nots. Myosotis scorpioides. Perennial flowers that bloomed in delicate clusters of blue, symbolising true love, remembrance, and – ironically – actual fidelity.
Of course it was forget-me-nots. Of course his body had chosen the one flower that meant I can't stop thinking about you.
The irony would have been funny if it weren't slowly killing him.
He started researching treatments in his spare time, approaching it the way he (attempted) to approach everything. Clinically, systematically, with appropriate detachment. Surgical removal was the standard intervention – a procedure that extracted the floral growth from the lungs and, as a side effect, removed all romantic feelings for the person who'd caused it. Patients woke up with no memory of ever loving anyone, which was supposedly a good thing, a clean break, a chance to start over.
Dennis read the post-op testimonials and felt something cold settle in his stomach. I don't remember why I was so upset, one patient wrote. It's like looking at a photograph of someone you used to know. There's nothing there.
Nothing there. The thought of looking at Robby and feeling nothing – of losing every moment they'd shared, every conversation, every tiny scrap of connection he'd hoarded like gold – was somehow worse than dying.
The other option was confession. Tell the person you loved, have them return your feelings, and the disease would resolve on its own. The flowers would stop growing. The petals would stop coming. Everything would be fine.
Dennis laughed out loud the first time he read that, alone in the hospital library at 2am, and had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stop himself from waking the security guard.
Tell Robby. Right. Tell his fifty-something attending, his mentor, the man who'd seen him at his absolute worst and somehow still trusted him with patients, that Dennis – Dennis, the Nebraska farm boy, the one who got puked on and slept in abandoned hospital rooms and still couldn't quite believe he deserved to be here – was in love with him.
What was Robby supposed to do with that information? Laugh? Gently let him down? Transfer him to a different service and pretend it never happened?
No. No, the surgery was the better option. Or maybe the disease would just – go away on its own. People recovered from things all the time without intervention. His body would figure it out. It had to.
Dennis was very good at lying to himself. He'd had a lot of practice.
In the ER, though, there's never time for doctors to be sick.
But Dennis showed up for his shifts. Treated his patients. Mentored the new med students, Joy and Ogilvie, even when Ogilvie's attitude made him want to scream and Joy's apparent disinterest in everything made him wonder why she'd bothered with medicine at all. He covered for Santos when she needed a break. Helped Mel when she got overwhelmed. Stood in the corner during codes and ran lines and did everything he was supposed to do.
And every few hours, when he could duck into a bathroom or an empty supply closet, he coughed up petals and flushed them away.
The frequency was increasing. So was the pain. What had started as a vague tightness in his chest had evolved into a persistent ache, sharp and specific, like something was slowly winding through his lungs and settling in for the long haul. Sometimes he felt it move – a shifting sensation deep in his thoracic cavity that made him gasp and grab the nearest surface for support.
He started carrying a water bottle everywhere, using it to wash down the taste of blood and flowers. Started avoiding coffee because caffeine made the coughing worse. Started sleeping even less than usual because lying down triggered the feeling of pressure, of roots pushing, and he'd rather be exhausted than face what was happening inside his chest.
Nobody noticed. Why would they? The ER was chaos. People were too busy to pay attention to one resident's slightly hoarse voice, one resident's occasional trips to the bathroom, one resident's tendency to decline lunch with the excuse that he'd eaten earlier.
Except Robby noticed.
Of course Robby noticed.
"You're pale," Robby said one afternoon in late August, appearing at Dennis's elbow while he was charting. "Have you eaten today?"
Dennis's heart did the thing it always did when Robby got close – that stupid, traitorous flutter that made him want to both lean in and run away. "I'm fine. Ate earlier."
"Liar." Robby's voice was mild, but his eyes were sharp. "You've been off all week. Don't think I haven't noticed."
Off. Dennis wanted to laugh. If Robby only knew how off he really was. "Just tired. Santos's spare room isn't exactly soundproof, and she's been – "
"Don't deflect." Robby moved closer, and Dennis had to fight the urge to step back, to put distance between them before he did something stupid like cough up a petal right in Robby's face. "If something's wrong, you tell me. That's not a request."
"I know." Dennis swallowed. The pressure in his chest was building, a familiar warning sign. "I will. If something's wrong. But right now I'm just – I have to finish these charts before – "
Robby studied him for a long moment. Dennis held his breath, quite literally, willing his body to cooperate, to not betray him in the worst possible way.
Finally, Robby nodded. "Alright. But we're talking about this later. You're not carrying whatever this is by yourself."
He walked away. Dennis watched him go, chest aching, and wondered how someone could be so perceptive and so completely oblivious at the same time.
In the bathroom, three minutes later, he coughed up an entire cluster of forget-me-nots, fully formed and dripping blood, and had to sit on the floor for ten minutes before he could stand again.
September brought a new med student orientation, a minor disaster involving a stolen ambulance, and a significant uptick in Dennis's symptoms.
He'd started coughing up whole flowers now, not just petals. They came out in clumps, stems and all, leaving his throat raw and his mouth tasting of copper. The pain was constant – a dull background ache that spiked whenever he saw Robby, or thought about Robby, or accidentally caught a whiff of his cologne in the hallway.
He'd lost weight. His scrubs hung looser on his frame, and Santos had started giving him weird looks when she thought he wasn't paying attention. He made excuses – stress, irregular hours, the terrible hospital cafeteria food – and hoped she'd buy them.
She didn't. Santos was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them.
"You're dying," she said flatly one evening in late September, cornering him in the break room. "I don't know what from, but you're definitely dying. You look like shit. You sound like shit. You've lost at least ten pounds and you keep disappearing every few hours to – what? Throw up? Cry? Both?"
"Neither." Dennis grabbed a granola bar from the communal basket, mostly to have something to do with his hands. "I'm fine, Santos. Really."
"You're a terrible liar." She crossed her arms. "Is it Hanahaki?"
The question hit him like a physical blow. He must have reacted, because her eyes widened.
"Oh my god. It is. Holy shit, Whitaker. Who? Is it someone here? Is it – "
"Don't." His voice came out sharper than intended. "Please. Just – don't."
Santos studied him for a long moment, her expression shifting from shock to something softer. Concern, maybe. Or pity. Dennis wasn't sure which was worse.
"You know you can't just ignore it, right?" she said quietly. "It doesn't go away on its own. You either tell them or you – " She stopped. Swallowed. "Or you don't."
"I know." Dennis set down the granola bar, uneaten. "I'm working on it."
"Are you?"
He didn't answer. After a moment, Santos sighed and moved past him, pausing at the door.
"For what it's worth – whoever it is – they'd be lucky. You're not as annoying as you look."
It was probably the nicest thing she'd ever said to him. Dennis waited until she was gone, then doubled over the sink as another wave of petals forced their way up his throat.
Forget-me-nots. Always forget-me-nots. As if his body knew exactly what it was doing and wanted to make sure he understood the message.
The thing Dennis didn't tell Santos – couldn't tell anyone – was that he'd already tried to stop loving Robby.
He'd tried everything. He'd made lists of reasons it would never work – the age gap, the power dynamic, Robby's clearly stated lack of interest in dating anyone, let alone his male resident from Nebraska. He'd reminded himself of all the ways he wasn't good enough, wasn't experienced enough, wasn't enough in any measurable way. He'd attempted to focus on other people – there were attractive residents, attractive nurses, attractive random strangers he passed on the street – but none of them made his chest flutter the way Robby did with a single glance.
He'd even considered the surgery. Made appointments. Cancelled them. Made new appointments. Cancelled those too.
Because the thought of waking up and not remembering – not remembering the way Robby's voice softened when he talked to scared patients, not remembering the panic attack they'd shared, not remembering the thousand small kindnesses that had accumulated over months into something Dennis couldn't name – was unbearable. He'd rather die with those memories than live without them.
Which was dramatic. And stupid. And exactly the kind of romantic bullshit Dennis had never thought he'd be capable of.
But here he was. Dying by inches. Coughing up flowers and hiding it from everyone, including the person he was dying for.
October arrived with cooler weather and a department-wide memo about flu season. Dennis read it in the break room, absently pressing a hand to his chest where the pain had settled into a permanent ache, and wondered if he'd still be alive when flu season ended.
The prognosis for untreated Hanahaki was variable. Some patients lasted years, the disease progressing slowly as their love persisted unrequited. Others deteriorated rapidly, the flowers spreading through their lungs in a matter of months until there was no room left for air.
Dennis suspected he was in the second category. Every breath was an effort now. Every shift left him gasping. He'd started carrying a small notebook in his pocket, not for patient information but for the moments when he had to cough – he'd write in it, pretend he was charting, and surreptitiously deposit petals between the pages.
He was up to four flowers a day, fully formed. Sometimes more.
Robby was still watching him. Still asking if he was okay. Still hovering at the edges of Dennis's consciousness like a warmth he couldn't quite reach.
"You need to see someone," Robby told him one afternoon, pulling him aside after a particularly difficult code. "I don't know what's going on with you, but it's getting worse. You're a doctor. You know better than to ignore your own health."
Dennis wanted to laugh. Wanted to cry. Wanted to grab Robby by the shoulders and say, you're what's wrong with me, you're what's killing me, don't you see that?
Instead, he nodded. "I know. I'm – I have an appointment. Next week."
"Good." Robby's hand landed on his shoulder, warm and solid and utterly devastating. "I need you at your best, Whitaker. You're one of the best residents I've ever worked with. Don't throw that away."
One of the best residents. The praise should have meant something. Instead, it felt like confirmation of everything Dennis already knew – that in Robby's eyes, he was exactly what he appeared to be.
A competent doctor, a capable resident, a good student.
Not someone worth loving. Not someone worth dying for.
But he was dying anyway.
The thing broke, as things always do, on a night when neither of them was supposed to be there.
Dennis had stayed late to finish charts – a lie, really, because he'd finished his charts hours ago but couldn't face going back to Santos's apartment, couldn't face lying in the dark with nothing to distract him from the growing pressure in his chest. Robby was there because Robby was always there, working himself to exhaustion because he didn't know how to stop.
It was 1am. The ER was quiet for once, just a few stable patients and the soft hum of machines. Dennis was in the on-call room, supposedly resting, actually curled on his side with a towel pressed to his mouth as he coughed up what felt like an entire garden.
When it was over, he lay there shaking, staring at the mess of blue petals and blood in his hands. More than he'd ever coughed up before. More than he thought was possible.
This is it, he thought distantly. This is how it ends.
The door opened.
Dennis looked up. Robby stood in the doorway, his expression shifting from surprise to confusion to something Dennis couldn't read.
"Whitaker? I was just – " He stopped. Looked at Dennis's hands. Looked at the floor, where petals had scattered despite Dennis's best efforts. Looked back at Dennis's face.
"Oh," Robby said quietly. "Oh, Dennis."
Dennis couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could only sit there, covered in flowers and blood, as Robby crossed the room in three steps and knelt in front of him.
"How long?" Robby's voice was steady, but his hands – reaching out, gently taking Dennis's wrists – were not.
"Months." Dennis's voice came out as a croak. "Since – since July. Maybe longer."
"Months." Robby's jaw tightened. "And you didn't tell anyone? Didn't – " He stopped. Took a breath. "Who?"
Dennis closed his eyes. This was it. The moment he'd been dreading and hoping for in equal measure. The moment that would either save him or destroy him.
"You," he whispered. "It's you. It's always been you."
Silence. Dennis forced himself to look, to see whatever was coming – rejection, pity, horror, disgust.
Robby was staring at him. Not with disgust, though. Not with pity. Something else. Something Dennis couldn't name.
"You've been dying," Robby said slowly. "For months. Because of me."
"It's not – it's not your fault. It's mine. I should have – I tried to stop. I tried everything. But I couldn't – " A cough built in his chest, unstoppable. Dennis turned away, but Robby's hands held him in place, and when the petals came – more forget-me-nots, always forget-me-nots – Robby caught them.
Caught them. Looked at them. Turned them over in his palm like they were precious instead of grotesque.
"Forget-me-nots," Robby murmured. "Do you know what these mean?"
Dennis nodded, miserably. "True love. Remembrance. I looked it up."
"True love." Robby's voice was strange. "You've been coughing up true love for months, and you didn't think to tell me?"
"What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, Robby, by the way, I'm dying because I'm in love with you, hope that's not awkward'?" Dennis laughed, and it turned into another cough, more petals, more blood. "You're my attending. You're – you're you. And I'm just – "
"You're just the most competent resident I've ever worked with." Robby's voice was firm. "You're the person who found me in the morgue and talked me down when I was falling apart. You're the person who cares about patients so deeply it hurts you when you can't save them. You're the person who's been hiding a fatal illness for months because you were too scared to tell me how you felt." He paused. "Dennis. Look at me."
Dennis looked. Robby's eyes were bright, wet, utterly focused on him.
"I'm not going to reject you," Robby said quietly. "I'm not going to send you away or pretend this didn't happen. I'm not – " He stopped. Swallowed. "I'm not good at this. At feelings. At letting people in. You know that better than anyone."
Dennis nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"But I'm not going to let you die because you were too scared to tell me the truth." Robby's hand came up, cupped Dennis's cheek. His palm was warm, calloused, steady. "I don't know what this is. I don't know what I feel. But I know that the thought of losing you – of you dying alone in an on-call room because of me – is unbearable. Do you understand?"
Dennis understood. Understood that Robby wasn't saying he loved him back. Understood that this wasn't a confession, wasn't a happy ending, wasn't anything except Robby being Robby – kind, responsible, unable to let anyone suffer alone.
But the pressure in his chest had eased. Just slightly. Just enough to breathe.
"Tell me," Robby said softly. "Tell me everything. No more hiding."
And Dennis, stupid, hopeless Dennis, did.
He told Robby about the first petal. About the months of hiding, the secret coughing fits, the research he'd done on surgical removal. He told him about the forget-me-nots, about looking up their meaning and crying in the hospital library at 3am. He told him about Santos figuring it out, about lying to everyone, about the growing certainty that he was going to die and no one would ever know why.
Robby listened. Didn't interrupt. Didn't offer solutions or platitudes or easy answers. Just listened, his hand still warm on Dennis's cheek, his eyes never leaving Dennis's face.
When Dennis finally trailed off, exhausted and empty and strangely light, Robby was quiet for a long moment.
"You're an idiot," he said finally. "A complete and utter idiot."
Dennis laughed, surprised. "I know."
"No, you don't." Robby's thumb traced his cheekbone, feather-light. "You're an idiot because you've been dying for months and it never occurred to you that I might – that you might be worth – " He stopped. Shook his head. "I'm not good at this."
"You said that."
"Because it's true." Robby's hand dropped, but only to catch Dennis's, hold it between both of his. "I don't know what I feel. I need you to understand that. I've spent years – decades – not feeling things. Pushing them down. Locking them away where they can't hurt me. You've seen it. You're probably the only person who has."
Dennis nodded. He had seen it. The panic attack in the morgue, the way Robby deflected every question about his mental health, the careful distance he maintained even with people he clearly cared about.
"But I know that I can't – " Robby paused, searching for words. "I can't lose you. Not like this. Not because you were too scared to tell me something I should have seen months ago."
"How could you have seen it? I hid it."
"You hid the disease. You didn't hide – " Robby gestured vaguely. "The way you look at me. The way you follow me with your eyes. The way you remember everything I say. I thought – I told myself it was hero worship. A resident idealising his attending. It happens."
"It's not hero worship."
"I know that now." Robby's grip tightened on his hand. "I'm not – I'm not promising anything, Dennis. I can't. I don't know if I'm capable of – of what you need. What you deserve. But I'm not going to let you die. And I'm not going to let you have surgery and forget – forget everything. Forget me."
Dennis's chest throbbed. Not with pain this time, but with something else. Something that felt terrifyingly like hope.
"What are you saying?"
Robby looked at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, carefully, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Dennis's.
"I'm saying I don't know what this is," he murmured. "But I'm willing to find out. If you are."
Dennis closed his eyes. The pressure in his lungs was still there, still sharp, still dangerous. But beneath it, something was shifting. Something was easing.
"I'm willing," he whispered. "God, Robby, I've been willing for months."
Robby's laugh was soft, warm, right there against his skin. "Yeah. I'm starting to figure that out."
They stayed in the on-call room until dawn.
Not doing anything, really – just sitting together on the narrow bed, Dennis leaning against Robby's shoulder, Robby's arm around his waist. They talked, sometimes. Were quiet, sometimes. Once, Dennis coughed, and more petals came up – fewer this time, less bloody – and Robby held him through it without flinching, without pulling away.
"The disease requires requited love to cure," Dennis said eventually, his voice rough. "It's not enough that you're – that you're willing to try. It has to be mutual. Real."
Robby was quiet for a moment. "How do you know it's not?"
"Because you said you don't know what you feel."
"I don't. But I know I don't want you to die. I know I don't want you to forget me. I know that when I saw you sitting there, covered in flowers and blood, something in me – " He stopped. Took a breath. "Something in me broke. Or maybe something in me woke up. I don't know which."
Dennis turned to look at him. In the dim light of the on-call room, Robby looked older, tireder, more human than he ever did in the ER. He looked like someone who'd spent years running from himself and had finally stopped.
"I'm not asking for guarantees," Dennis said quietly. "I'm not asking for – for declarations. I just need to know that this is real. That you're not just – not just doing this because you feel responsible."
"I do feel responsible." Robby met his eyes. "But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because – because you matter to me. Because you've mattered to me for a long time, and I was too busy pretending feelings didn't exist to notice."
"You're not pretending now."
"No." Robby's hand found his again. "No, I'm not."
The weeks that followed were strange.
Dennis still coughed up petals, but fewer now, and with less blood. The pain in his chest hadn't disappeared, but it had retreated – a dull ache instead of a sharp stab, a background hum instead of a constant scream. He was sleeping better, eating more, losing the hollow look that had worried Santos enough to confront him.
Santos, for her part, had figured out exactly what had changed and was insufferably smug about it.
"Told you," she said one afternoon, appearing at his elbow while he was charting. "They'd be lucky. And look – they are."
"Shut up, Santos."
"Make me, Huckleberry." But she was smiling, and so was he, and when Robby walked past and their eyes met across the chaos of the ER, something passed between them that hadn't been there before.
They hadn't told anyone. Were they dating? Dennis didn't know. They hadn't defined it, hadn't labelled it, hadn't done anything except spend more time together – coffee breaks that stretched into conversations, shifts that ended with both of them lingering, text messages that started as work-related and somehow became something else.
Robby was careful with him. Tender. Like Dennis was something precious instead of just – Dennis. It made his chest ache, but it was a good ache now. The kind that came from being seen instead of hiding.
And slowly, gradually, the petals kept coming. Fewer and fewer, until some days he didn't cough at all. Until the pressure in his lungs became a memory instead of a constant presence.
"I think it's working," he told Robby one night, curled up on Robby's couch – the same couch Robby had asked him to housesit on, months ago, passing the torch in a way neither of them had understood at the time. "The disease. I think it's – receding."
Robby looked at him from across the couch, his expression soft. "Good."
"You know what that means, right? It means – it means this is real. The love. It has to be real for the disease to cure."
"I know." Robby reached out, pulled Dennis closer until he was tucked against his side. "I've known for a while."
"Known what?"
Robby was quiet for a moment. Then: "That I love you. That I've been falling for you for months and didn't let myself see it because – because that's what I do. I don't see things. I push them away. But you – " He pressed a kiss to Dennis's hair. "You got through anyway."
Dennis closed his eyes. The words settled in his chest like flowers finally allowed to bloom – not choking him, not suffocating him, just – there. Beautiful. Real.
"I love you too," he whispered. "I've loved you since – since the morgue, I think. Since you trusted me enough to fall apart."
"That's a weird thing to fall in love over."
"Probably." Dennis smiled against his shoulder. "But it's true."
By December, the coughing had stopped completely.
Dennis went for a follow-up at the hanahaki clinic, submitted to scans and breathing tests and a lengthy questionnaire about his emotional state. The results came back clear: no floral growth, no residual damage, no sign that there had ever been anything wrong.
"Congratulations," the specialist said, smiling. "Fully recovered. Must have been quite the confession."
Dennis thought about Robby's forehead against his in the on-call room. Thought about months of hiding, of fear, of slowly dying for love he hadn't believed could be returned. Thought about the way Robby looked at him now – open, warm, his in a way Dennis still couldn't quite believe.
"Something like that," he said.
They still haven't told anyone at work.
It's not a secret, exactly – Santos knows, and by extension probably half the department, because Santos has never kept a secret in her life. But they don't advertise it. Don't hold hands in the hallway or steal kisses in the break room or do any of the things Dennis sometimes wants to do when he sees Robby across a crowded trauma bay.
Robby is still his attending. Still his mentor. Still the person Dennis learns from every day, watches with admiration and respect and something deeper now, something that doesn't need to hide.
And at night, after shifts that run long and exhausting, Dennis goes home to Robby's apartment – their apartment, now, because Santos had kicked him out with a smug smile and instructions to "stop moping around my spare room, you have a boyfriend" – and curls up on the couch with the man who almost killed him.
Almost killed him. Saved him, really. By being willing to try.
"Hey," Robby says one night, looking up from a medical journal as Dennis settles beside him. "You okay?"
Dennis considers the question. Considers the ache in his chest – not disease, never disease again, just the ordinary ache of being human, of loving someone so much it sometimes hurts. Considers the man beside him, the life they're building, the future that stretches out ahead.
"Yeah," he says. "I'm okay. I'm more than okay."
Robby smiles – that particular smile he only gives Dennis, soft and private and real – and pulls him closer.
"Good," he says. "Me too."