Chapter Text
It’s been a month since Robby left, and about a week since he’s sent an update to anyone in the ED. The most concerning silence echoes from Dennis’s phone, resting in his pocket, with silent mode off just in case he happens to get a text or call. Each unopened message and unanswered call making his heart crack just a little further.
The pit in his stomach growing deeper and deeper, until this morning when the 15th phone call went unanswered. Now it feels like there’s a small black hole that’s opened inside him, and with each step he takes to help another patient, to save another life, it feels like another piece of him drifts towards it. The emptiness grasping at every fiber of his being like today is the day it might finally swallow him whole.
This has never happened before.
Robby has never ignored a phone call from him in the entire time they’ve been together. If he has the right to say they’re together.
What started as a quick drink after a shift, quickly morphed into dinner once a week after their shift. Then, dinner at Robby’s or Abbot’s place as often as possible. Sure, the two of them have a relationship that runs much deeper. It’s had time to grow from a seed into something with roots that reach further and further to make sure it stays planted exactly where it needs to be. Until it finds something to wrap around.
That’s when the roots seem to either swallow it whole or find a way to avoid it entirely. Dennis had been that something, tossed into the soil that is the pitt, where Robby and Abbot’s roots wrapped him up and made him a part of the structure holding them together. Sure, if they wanted to hack him out and toss him back out into the open, they could. Their roots would continue to grow, but then where would he be?
There’s nowhere for him to go.
He’s never experienced anything like this. Nothing in his wildest dreams would have convinced him when starting this job he would find something that felt so natural and real and amazing that he couldn’t imagine going one day without it. Without them.
It all started a month ago when Robby brought up taking a sabbatical.
***
“I think I want to take some time off,” Robby casually mentions. Carefully twisting his fork in the spaghetti covering the plate sat before him. Twisting a few extra turns before finally picking it up and putting it in his mouth.
Abbot stops chewing as soon as ‘time off’ leaves Robby’s mouth. His eyes moving from his plate to his left, where Robby sits beside him at the dinner table. Setting his fork down and letting his forearms rest against the table for a moment before bringing his hands up and together in front of him. Like a man ready to say a prayer over a meal before taking the first bite.
Dennis continues chewing his food, but his eyes travel down to avoid the suddenly tense conversation he knows is about to happen in front of him. Part of him still feels so out of place here, no matter how hard they try to make him feel like he’s a part of this. A part of them and this relationship, but the little voice in the back of his head reels as soon as there’s a bump in the road.
Whether it’s a grain of sand or a boulder in the way, they all feel the same to him. Immovable, and ready to send the ride of his life into a one vehicle collision that he might never recover from.
Dennis can hear Abbot swallow his partially chewed food harshly so he can respond. “Time off?”
Robby hums in approval as he chews, already twisting his fork to prepare his next bite. Dennis nudges at his own noodles, though what’s left barely covers half of the plate. Can feel his shoulder dip as he slowly shrinks in on himself to seem smaller. So small that he isn’t even there, just like he used to when his parents argued at the dinner table.
“What are we gonna do then?” Abbot tries, but Dennis can hear the cadence of Robby’s chewing slow. The soft breath out of his nose at the implication that they would both take time off. Together.
As if a pin drops into the center of the table, all sound fades away aside from the prongs of Dennis’s fork lightly scratching at the glass plate. Embarrassed, Dennis quickly halts the movement and softly sets his fork on his plate. Hand retreating to his lap, where the other rests. Somehow already damp, thanks to his nerves.
Dennis hasn’t heard the sound of Robby’s fork against his plate just yet, and with a quick glance across the table, he can see it. Resting in Robby’s hand almost perpendicular with the plate, spaghetti half way wound around the prongs.
“I didn’t say you should take time off. Either of you.”
Fuck. Now he’s involved in the conversation he very much wanted to stay out of.
“Then what would you like to do with this time off? Mr. ‘hasn’t taken a day off that didn’t have some significance since the day I met him’?” Abbot teases him.
It makes Dennis’s hands clench tighter. The palms of his hands so tight he would swear that even air couldn’t pass through them. Aching with the force of his grip on himself to keep himself calm. To stay centered and in control of his thoughts so that he won’t clam up when he finally has to answer to one of them.
“I think…” Robby takes a deep breath. “It would do me some good to get away for a while. Maybe travel, do some sightseeing. Hell, maybe I even wanna go off grid for a bit just to forget about everything.”
“Everything?” Abbot challenges. “Even us?” Dennis can see Abbot’s hands shift as one gesture between the two of them before resting on the tabletop. Elbow seated at the edge, with his hand resting exactly where Dennis’s would be if his arm were in the same position. It’s calm, and dry, and resting in just the right way that Dennis could easily wipe his hand on his pants and grasp it with his own.
But he doesn’t.
He can’t.
Can’t take the opportunity to move his body in any way, just in case he still has a chance to stay the hell out of this conversation. He doesn’t think he can take another second of this without his forehead starting to sweat just as much as his hands when Abbot finally, finally, moves again. Scooting his chair away from the table so he can stand and grab his plate. Retreating to the kitchen.
The muffled sound of the trash can opening and the ignored food being scrapped into it makes Dennis cringe, just a little. It’s so loud compared to the tense silence he and Robby now sit in. A silent challenge to see who will be the next one to move. Dennis still can’t move his head to look up from his plate.
“What do you think?”
His eyes flit to look across the table, up at Robby’s face, but even his eyes are staring down at his plate. Like moving a muscle might dig the hole he’s put himself in with Abbot a little deeper.
Dennis’ voice comes out slightly scratchy. “About?”
“Me taking time off.” Robby finally spins his fork again, but much slower than before. It’s unnerving. More so than the entire exchange that just happened with him as a bystander.
“Well… I think you should, uh, do what’s best for you. You’re still your own person, right? So if you think it’ll help, then go for it.” It’s nonchalant, and his shoulders give a small shrug as he finishes his thought.
Dammit, that’s not what he wants to say. Not even close to how he really feels. What he wants to do is stand up, plant both of his hands against the table, and tell Robby that if he wants to take time off, then at least Abbot should go with him.
If he doesn’t want Dennis there, then fine. He can deal with being left out. Left behind to fend for himself the same way he always has, but that doesn’t mean he can shove them both away just so he can go out and do whatever the hell he wants. It’s not right. It’s not fair.
But life isn’t fair.
He knows that. He’s seen it, almost every day, since his first memory. Instead, life chews you up and spits you back out, over and over again, until all you can do is lie there and take it, because every ounce of fight is gone. To have every morsel of hope stripped from your being, because why the hell would anything work out for a guy like Dennis?
“Thank you.”
Fuck he was stuck in his own head again.
Dennis shifts in his seat, his hands relaxing so that he can set them on his thighs and rub his palms against the fabric. The ache in his knuckles suddenly too much for him to bear any longer. “For what?” He asks, confused as to why Robby would thank him for such a simple statement.
“For letting me decide.”
***
As the 8th day of no word from Robby drags on, Dennis can’t help but find himself checking his phone more frequently. His hand weaseling its way into his pocket to press the ‘volume up’ button at least once, to make sure that he won’t miss a thing. He’s stopped notifications to every unimportant app on his phone, which is most of them.
All he can think about is what will happen if his phone dies while he’s at work, even though when he left the house today, it was at 100%. Curling up in bed with it plugged in, unlocked, with nobody else to stop him from answering feels like the one thing that might bring him a pinch of calm.
As much as Dennis wants to break down and stay home, he knows it won’t do him any good. Not home at Robby’s—where he’s been staying since he left—or home at Abbot’s place, but in the shitty little room he’d been staying in at Santos’ place before he practically started splitting his nights between the two homes. Splitting his life up into tiny chunks designated to everyone but him.
It’s exhausting. Being raised on a farm meant that there were no sick days. No time to stop and rest to think about his mental or physical wellbeing. It’s one of the many reasons he went into medicine. He can’t have any problems if there’s no time to stop and think about them.
At least, that’s what he thought, until Robby and Abbot told him otherwise. They showed him that the two could coexist. How work and home life are two separate states, and no matter how much you might want to bring one into the other, it doesn’t do any good to worry about it when you can’t control it. All he can do is live. Do his best to make himself, and those he cares about, happy.
It’s something he struggles with daily, because nobody ever taught him how to find that happiness. Instead, he’s stuck learning it one step at a time at the ripe age of 26 years old. Even with how much he feels like he’s learned in his time in the pitt. In his time with Robby and Abbot, it doesn’t feel like anything sticks.
It’s like a wave rushing in towards the shore, only to be pulled back out to sea. Coming and going as it pleases as Dennis stands on the beach. Letting it wash over his feet, but never fully standing in it. Unable to submerge himself—to commit to taking a step towards what he so desperately wants to have.
Even when he does finally reach out and take it in his hands, it seems to slip away. Turning from something tangible that he can hold and cherish and protect into the very air around him that feels like it’s weighing him down. Pressing him further and further into the sand so that he might never take another step again. Until the sand either swallows him whole or the tide comes in to drown him.
At the end of his shift, once he’s finally caught up with charting and passed his patients off to the doctor taking over for the night shift, Dennis can’t just take himself to his locker to pick up his things and head back to Robby’s house. Instead, he makes his way into the small staff lounge in the pitt. Takes a seat at the table so he can gingerly fold his arms together and lean on it, resting his forehead against his forearms so he can let himself spiral for just a minute.
To let go of everything happening just outside that door he has been dealing with for the last 14 hours, and just pretend he doesn’t exist anywhere but this tiny room. Until he hears the door open and the sound of tennis shoes squeaking against the smooth floor.
***
Jack can’t take it anymore. He can put up with Robby’s silence with him, but seeing Whitaker like this makes him feel physically sick. Makes him want to wrap him up in his arms and shove him in the car so they can drive to wherever the hell Robby might be so they can drag his sorry ass home because this is bullshit.
It must be some kind of midlife crisis or something that has him tucking his tail and running away from them, right? Robby and his ability to ignore his emotions to the point he’ll take any chance he can to shove himself into a corner and out of whatever spotlight someone puts on him. Taking his own health—mental and physical—with a grain of salt because he sees an entire ocean of hurt on the regular, and his isn’t that bad.
Most days, Jack can’t fault him. Can’t take the opportunities dangling in front of his own face to say something because he also struggles, but he’s been trying. It wouldn’t kill Robby to do the same.
One of the few reasons he’s able to hold it together is Dennis.
A first year resident who weaseled his way into Jack and Robby’s lives at a moment’s notice because of how goddamn likeable he was. Robby said there was no getting out of it after watching Whitaker change his scrubs for the second time. That look on his face was too damn sad, and the quiver of his lip was too much for his heart to take.
Since then, Robby either grew accustomed to it, or Dennis got better at hiding it, because that same face was present when Robby left. As soon as he walks in, Dana is there, waiting. Like he already has a patient to be seen. Leaning against her station like a woman ready to throw him to the wolves.
“Where am I needed first?” He claps his hands together, just loud enough for a small shoosh of air to pass between them.
Her head tilts towards the small lounge they have. “In there. I think you’re the only one who can actually help that one.”
“Yeah? What makes you think that?”
“You’re the only one who can imagine what he’s goin’ through. Get him out of here before someone else finds him.”
Dammit.
Jack gives a quick nod, his lips pressed in a thin line as he turns toward his not so chosen destination. Though he’s glad he doesn’t have to deal with an actual patient yet, this might be his toughest case for the night.
He enters the room, quickly making his way to the small table and grabbing the chair closest to Whitaker. Pulling it a little close before he takes a seat beside him. Making himself comfortable for the conversation they’re about to have.
“How ya holdin’ up?” Jack tries. His elbows rest on his knees as he leans his body towards Whitaker. His toes pointing towards him and his stance open as he takes in the devastation seated at the table with him.
Jack can’t bring it upon himself to reach out and touch him. Not yet. He knows that it would only make it worse.
Whitaker takes a deep breath and just shakes his head against his arms and the table. The slight unevenness of the legs causes a dull thud to echo through the room.
“That bad, huh?”
Jack can’t help the slight smile that forms on his face as Whitaker scoffs a laugh at his question. He shakes his head in disbelief of himself and to get rid of his crooked grin, before Whitaker notices. One arm moving as he leans back against the chair to run his hand through his hair. Snagging on a few unruly curls.
“I don’t want to leave,” Whitaker mumbles, picking up his head so he can gaze up at Jack with his eyes glistening. The bags beneath them are more prominent than the days before. A shade darker, and the crease a little deeper.
“You have to go home, Dennis. It’s gotta be better than sitting in here, surrounded by this.” Jack nods his head back towards the door.
He can see the slow, deliberate movement of Whitaker’s teeth chewing at the inside of his bottom lip. Holding himself back.
“Go home,” Jack reaffirms, before shifting his weight to stand from his chair. Before he can get more than an inch off the seat, he hears a sniffle from in front of him. Causing him to fall right back down.
“I can’t.” His voice cracks.
Jack’s eyebrows furrow, and he scoots to the edge of his chair, so one foot now touches Whitakers. His knee so close he could shift himself and bump his thigh. Finally, Jack reaches out so one hand rests on his shoulder, and he can feel the tension that keeps Whitaker so stiff in his chair.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not home, Abbot. I’m staying there as a favor, and he doesn’t even have the decency to let u- you know where he is.”
His hand flexes against the scrub fabric, and Jack can’t help the flex of his jaw as he catches Dennis trying to omit himself from this situation again. Always so unwilling to let himself be seen, to be known, by those who desperately want him in their lives. In his life. In Robby’s life.
At least, he hopes Robby still wants him—them—in his life.
“It is-”
“It’s not home without him.” Whitaker protests.
A moment passes. Then another. Until Jack can hear his own heartbeat pick up in his ears. His hand retreats back to his lap.
“I can’t go back there and pretend that it’s home, my home, when the only thing that made it feel that way is gone.”
Jack swallows. He blinks. Once, twice, before looking at the floor. Not because he’s ashamed or upset, but because the longer he looks at Whitaker the more he feels like he could cry.
His lips twitch and he takes a deep breath through his nose, but that scratch in his throat is already there. His nose already feels like it’s about to drip and the floor becomes blurry. This is not how this was meant to go.
“Dennis.” It comes out in a choked whisper.
He can hear the scratch of the metal chair leg against the floor, and the shuffle of the scrub fabric against itself as Dennis sits up quickly. Preparing himself to take it back, to take it all back, but it’s too late, and it’s not even his fault. This dam was meant to break, and now he gets to deal with the flood.
The first tear slips down Jack’s cheek as he takes a shaky breath and shoves his face into his hands.
“I-I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean it like that, y’know? It’s just that-”
“It’s not your fault,” he rushes and his eyes sting. Pressing the pads of his fingers against his eyelids so that it might stop the flow of tears. “He chose to do this. It had nothing to do with us.”
Jack can’t discern if his words are meant to soothe Whitaker or himself. To convince one, or both, of them they couldn’t have done anything else to stop him from going. From leaving them here.
Then, he feels a hand on his shoulder now, gentle and small. Then another on his leg. Thumb rubbing small circles against his thigh.
Jack peeks through his fingers to see Whitaker, now fully facing him, brows knit together with concern and eyes glassy.
“I know.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Of course. Of fucking course he forgot to turn his notifications off before walking into the pitt, and into the staff lounge, so he could have a goddamn moment with his struggling boyfriend over their disappearing act of a partner.
Jack can’t help the frustrated huff as he reaches into his pocket for his phone. One hand covering half of his face still. It’s an unknown number, and the area code is one he doesn’t recognize. He debates letting it go to voicemail like usual, but something tells him to answer.
“Hello?”
“Is this Jack Abbot?” Dennis’s head tilts slightly at the question.
“It is. And if this is some kind of scam or something, I’m not interested in-”
“No, sir.” Her tone is serious, and she takes a deep breath before continuing. “This is in regards to Michael Robinavitch.” She butchers his last name as she speaks, but he can’t bring himself to care.
“What about him?” Jack sits a little straighter, as does Dennis.
“There’s been an accident.”