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Dennis Whitaker has always been weird. It was a fact he had been sickeningly, painfully aware of for as far back as he can remember.
He remembers being young, trying to play with his brothers and being brushed away, laughed at. Being yelled at by his father for being too sensitive, too picky. His teacher snapping at him for not sitting still, for tapping, for fidgeting.
It was simply a fact of his life. The grass was green, the sky was blue, God was real, and there was something irrevocably wrong with him.
Sometimes he wonders if everybody else was given a rule book when they were born. A neat little guide with bullet points on how to act, what to say, how long to hold eye contact, how to endure rough textures and loud sounds without wanting to crawl out of your own skin. Maybe there was a day in elementary school where it was all explained, and he’d just been out sick.
Though he doubts that. His father did not believe in sick days.
But if there was one thing Dennis has always been, it’s observant. He watches. He Copies. As embarrassing as it is, he takes notes mental at first, then literal when he’s old enough to get away with it. He learns when to smile, how wide, how long. He learns how to sit on his hands to still them, how to press his tongue to the roof of his mouth so he won’t make noises he doesn’t mean to make. He learns how to hide his grimace when something feels wrong even when he wants to cry.
He is not perfect. He is still awkward and a little off-putting, still the kid would rather play in the grass than play football with other boys in his class. But by the time high school rolls around really, what more can he ask for then to blend in?
Undergrad luckily comes easy.
He can choose what he eats, when he eats. He has a routine he follows every day wakes at the same time, prays, studies in the same places, walks the same paths. By the grace of god his roommate keeps to himself, and everyone else is too busy to notice him. He memorizes scripture like breathing, and for a while his parents are proud. For a while, everything almost feels… okay. Maybe he can be preacher and marry a nice Christian girl and finally be normal.
Until spring break of his final year. Until his father finds him with one of his old high school friends kissing and groping. Sinning.
Things are not as easy after that.
Dennis goes to medical school in the farthest town he can manage. He had always wanted to be a doctor but his parents had refused to support him unless he studied something “proper,” meaning something religious. Not that it matters now that they don’t speak to him anymore.
Now more than ever, Dennis does not have time to indulge any of his… quirks. When you don’t know where you’re going to sleep tomorrow, it is not the time to worry about fabric textures—no matter how much they itch, and burn, and scrape across your skin.
His life is so busy he hardly has time to think. Between the ER, classes, going out with Trinity, and holy shit, hooking up with both (both!!) of his bosses.
So yes. Dennis was a deeply weird kid. And yes, sometimes after a hard day he has to curl up in bed in the silent dark and cry for hours until it leaves his system but who doesn’t?
he doesn’t have time to think about that.
~
Robby and Jack loved Dennis exactly how he was.
In all of his awkwardness, his ramblings, and his occasional streak of brattiness. they were, quite helplessly, in love.
The first time the three of them ended up in bed together, it was a mess of sweat and spit and other fluids that will remain unnamed. But afterward, with Dennis asleep between them, curled in on himself drooling over fresh sheets, Robby and Jack lay awake and meet each other’s eyes over his headSmiled. This wouldn’t be a one-time thing.
~
One day, the three of them sit around the coffee table, giggling as they scroll through old pictures. Robby nudges Dennis with his knee. “How come you aren’t smiling in any of these, brat?”
Dennis hums, not looking up at first. “I was a weird kid. I didn’t really smile a lot. I was sensitive.” He shrugs noncommittally. “I didn’t even talk until I was four.”
The room goes just a little too quiet. Dennis finally looks up, blinking at them. “What? My mom took me to a doctor there was nothing wrong with me was just weird.”
Jack clears his throat, sharing a look with Robby. “Nothing, pup. Show us more pictures. You were a cute kid.”
Dennis, always willing, eager even, to take things at face value, grins and goes back to scrolling.
“This is when I delivered my first calf!”
~
The more time Robby and Jack spend with Dennis, the more they notice his… quirks. And they love him. God, they love him. That is never the question. But sometimes he is a little… different.
Dennis tries, bless his heart, very obviously attempts to hide it. But when he’s stressed or tired, it slips through the cracks.
He gets blunt. Too loud. His voice sharpens in a way that doesn’t match his words. He prays at the same time every day, and if something interrupts it, he gets a sort of restless, and irritable that can’t be spanked out.
One time, Jack swears he saw Dennis’s eyes go glassy and wet when someone handed him a plate with his food touching when they were out on a date.
If you asked Dennis, he’d just say he’s a little weird sometimes. That he’s always been that way. That his parents tried their hardest to fix him, but it’s yet just another unfortunate fact of life.
But Robby and Jack are not stupid. They have over fifty years of ER experience between them. Jack has a cousin who’s autistic, they see the signs clear as day. They just… don’t know what to do.
If they bring it up too directly, Dennis will shut down. They’ve seen it before that polite smile he gives with empty nods.
And God they see it he’s so masked. tightly wound, and carefully constructed, sometimes it’s hard to tell where Dennis ends and the performance begins.
They want to shake him, sometimes. Want to hold his baby face in their hands and just yell “It’s okay. You’re allowed to be comfortable.!”
~
They start small. Like approaching a frightened animal.
One night, it’s been a long shift. Dennis is restless, shoulders tight. They can tell he’s trying too hard to hold everything in.
Jack sits down on the bed pulls his leg off and tugs him close, guiding him until Dennis is perched in his lap. Robby disappears for a moment, then comes back with something new?a weighted blanket he thinks, it’s soft and heavy as he drapes it over Dennis’s shoulders.
Dennis immediately huffs, squirming. “It’s- Robby, it’s too-”
“Shh,” Jack murmurs sternly, already starting to rock them gently back and forth. It’s subtle at first. Barely movement at all. It makes Dennis stiffen then still. slowly, almost imperceptibly he leans onto his boyfriend’s hard chest just a little.
Robby watched enraptured as Dennis’s fingers, usually so controlled, curl into the fabric of Jack’s shirt. The room is quiet and dim.
A few minutes pass before Dennis’s breathing evens out. His weight settles fully against Jack, His face presses into the curve of Jack’s shoulder, and there’s something almost painfully young about the way he melts there. Well it’s a start at least.
~
After that, they begin to build a language around him. With choices.
Robby starts separating Dennis’s food without making a big deal of it, nudging things apart on his plate before handing it over. Jack starts dimming the lights earlier in the evening, turning down the noise when he sees Dennis’s eyes look far off
They attempt to introduce things slowly.
“Do you like this?” Robby asks one afternoon, pressing a soft fabric between Dennis’s fingers when couch shopping.
Dennis shrugs. “It’s fine, not my couch.” But he doesn’t let go of it.
Jack starts noticing the stims Dennis tries to hide subtle rocking when he thinks no one is looking. He even catches him flapping his hand’s once in an abundance of excitement.
“Hey,” Jack flicks Dennis’s forehead one night when he halts his sudden hand movements “You don’t have to stop that around us mouse.”
Dennis freezes. “What?”
“That thing you do,” Robby adds not looking up from his book “With your hands.”
Dennis immediately stills them, tucking them under his thighs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And that was it. They don’t push tonight.
~
It happens sluggishly over months. So slowly Dennis almost doesn’t notice it. Ever observant however, one day, he does.
He’s sitting on the couch between them, knees pulled up, absently rubbing his thumb against the seam of a new throw pillow. He’s halfway through a rant something about a terrible patient with a head lac, his words are spilling faster than he can filter them. And then He stops.
He looks up and back and forth neither of them looks uncomfortable, amused at most. Neither of them is staring at him like he’s an alien, or an ill adjusted young adult man. Jack is nodding for him to continue and Robby is smiling.
Dennis’s voice falters. “I’m rambling sorry.”
Robby frowns. “You’re talking.”
“No, I” Dennis swallows. “I get like this and people usually” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “It’s annoying.”
“It’s not,” Jack states, he says it like he believes it, scripture from a profit. Dennis looks between them with narrowing blue eyes.
“You don’t have to… perform for us,” Robby adds. “We’re your boyfriend’s remember mouse we love you, which means loving your rambling.”
Something in Dennis’s chest twists painfully. “I- er don’t know how not to,” he admits, voice small.
And that more than anything is the moment it starts to crack open.
~
Unmasking, it turns out, is two steps forward, one step back.
It is Dennis letting himself rock just a little longer before stopping and then, the next day, not rocking at all. And then rocking without stopping the next.
One day he comes to jack embarrassed, “Can we… not have the TV on while we eat?”
Jack says, “Of course,” not looking up from messing with the broken radio he’s trying to fix
A few days later Robby places a divided plate in front of him, Dennis stares at it then them.
“My cousin left it here all the other plates are dirty, Is that ok?” Jack asks, white lie so What.
Dennis’s throat tightens but he nods. “No problem.” He lifts his fork
~
It’s a quiet night when it finally happens.
The tv humms with a 80s movie as Dennis shifts between them, half-curled into the corner. He’s tired from a double. Maybe it’s the wrong time but Dennis is pliable like this. Robby traces slow circles against Dennis’s ankle eyeing jack.
Jack exhales softly apparently he’s doing this. “Hey, sweetheart?”
Dennis hums.
“You remember what you said the other day?” Jack asks. “About not knowing how to… not perform?”
Dennis stiffens just slightly. “ uhm Yeah.”
“There’s something we’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Robby says gently deciding to join in.
That does it. Dennis goes still in a way that is not relaxed at all. Every muscle locks, like he’s bracing for impact. Jesus they are definitely tired of his weirdness, they’re leaving! “I’m not in trouble, am I?” he asks, too quick, too quiet.
Jack’s chest aches. “No,” he says immediately. “God, no. Never that.”
Dennis nods, but he doesn’t relax.
“You know we love you,” Robby says.
Dennis huffs softly. “That’s usually a bad start to a sentence.”
That made Jack smile.
“Not this time,” he promises. Then, gently “Have you ever heard much about autism?”
Dennis blinks. “I mean uh… yeah?” he says slowly. “A little. Not… a lot. Mel has it and I learned about it in my psychology, class” His brows knit together. “Why?”
Robby and Jack exchange a glance. And then Jack says it always the blunt one. “We think you might be autistic, honey.”
Silence. Dennis doesn’t move or blink. For a moment, Robby thinks maybe he didn’t hear.
And then “Oh.” It comes out flat. Dennis stares at a spot on the carpet like it might just swallow him.“I’m not” he starts, then stops.
Tries again. “I mean, I can’t be, right? I’m in med school. I” He lets out a small, breathless laugh. “I’m fine.” It comes out defensive. Jack rush doesn’t interrupt.
Robby humms “Mel went through medical school”
“That’s-“
The older man cuts him off. “Different? How?”
Dennis’s hands start moving subtle at first, fingers rubbing together, faster, faster, until he seems to notice and abruptly presses them flat against his thighs.
“Mouse You don’t have to-” Robby starts gently.
“I’m not doing anything,” Dennis snaps but he flinches almost immediately. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Jack says softly.
Dennis shakes his head, breathing uneven now. “No, I do. I’m being- this is-” He gestures vaguely, helpless. “This is what I mean. I’m just… like this.”
“Exactly,” Robby says, voice quiet but steady. “You’ve always been like this.”
“You think something’s wrong with me?” he asks. But It’s not defensive
Jack leans forward slightly, careful, like approaching something fragile. “No,” he says. “We think there’s a reason you struggle with some things . And that it might be good to get some help.”
Dennis’s eyes start to shine . “That’s not what my parents thought.”
Robby swallows. “Well you know how we feel about your parents angel”
Dennis looks back down at his hands. This time, when they start moving again, no one stops him.
“What would that even… mean?” he asks quietly. “If I was?”
“It would mean,” Jack says slowly, choosing every word, “that your brain just works differently. That all those things you’ve been fighting your whole life there’s a reason for them. And we can learn how to make you comfortable”
Robby adds, softer, “It would mean you’re not failing at being normal. You were just never meant to be what other people say are normal .”
Dennis sighs. “Ok”
He reads. Late at night, curled under the weighted blanket, phone brightness turned all the way down. Article after article, forum posts, diagnostic criteria. Lists. Always lists. And the more he reads, the quieter he gets.
“I think I want to know.” He says a couple of days later at dinner during a lull in conversation. They don’t make a big deal of it.
“Okay,” Jack says.
“Okay,” Robby echoes.
~
The waiting room is too bright. Fluorescent lights too sharp, and too loud. The chairs are slightly uneven, the fabric scratchy under his palms. Someone across the room is tapping their foot in an inconsistent rhythm and It’s a lot. You would think an autism clinic be more sensory friendly.
He sits stiffly between Robby and Jack, hands clenched together, trying very hard not to… be obvious maybe?
Jack leans in slightly. “You okay?” Dennis nods but he thinks for a bit and decides against it
“…No,” he admits. Dennis exhales, shaky. His hands start moving again, small repetitive motions. He lets them.
~
The assessment is long and boring.
Did you struggle socially as a child?
Do you find sensory input overwhelming?
Do you rely on routines?
Do you feel like you have to consciously learn how to interact with others?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
God yes.
He hears himself answering more than anything, voice distant, like it’s coming from someone else.
At one point, he laughs.
“I thought everyone was doing this,” he says. “Like actively thinking about how to be a person.”
The clinician seems to have an awful sense of humor.
~
His appointment for his diagnosis is on Wednesday. He has to call in sick.
The office is the same. The lights are still too bright. Seriously do they have any idea who their clients are?
Dennis sits in the same chair, hands twisting together in his lap, Robby and Jack on either side of him again.
The clinician speaks calmly. Clearly. “…you meet the criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder.”
He just nods, as he’s been given instructions and information to file away. He thanks the clinician.
His voice is too steady.
~
He holds it together until they get to the car and the door slams shuts.—
“I’m not broken.”
Jack turns in his seat immediately. “No you aren’t, you are autistic” he says, firm.
He presses his palms into his eyes, shoulders shaking. “There’s a reason,” he says, voice breaking. “There’s actually a reason.” Dennis laughs through it. Cracked. Wet. “I spent my whole life thinking I was just… bad at being a person.”
Jack leans over, pulling him into a careful, grounding hug. “You’re not bad at anything,” he murmurs. “You were just never given the chance angel but now you do.”
when he cries It’s from relief.
~
Unmasking gets easier after that now that he has the name. It helps when his boyfriends give him more fun rewards
Dennis try’s to start asking for what he needs without apologizing.
He rocks openly sometimes, especially when he’s tired. He wears softer clothes, and makes Robby cut the tags off. He even corrects people when they interrupt his routines.
He didn’t know it was possible to feel this way complete and comfortable. he didn’t have to think so hard all the time.
for the first time in his life, Dennis Whitaker is not trying to be normal. He’s just trying to be Dennis.
Dennis who has two boyfriends who love him. a job that fulfills, him friends that support him and, a brain he finally understands.