Work Text:
The on-campus library was a hub of academia and caffeination. The green bean coffee stall just inside was half the draw for the underclassmen. Dennis stared off into the distance, checked out of studying and thinking wistfully instead of the next time he’d get to leave the city and go see Robbie- his platonic co-star.
He had spent the night and morning with Robbie after their last scene, allowing Robbie to drive him all the way to his apartment. Dennis had watched from the window as he dialed the number for only the second time. “Hey, I made it inside.”
He heard Robbie smile into the phone. “Glad to hear it. I hope you have a good day, yeah?”
Dennis nodded. “Yes sir. Thank you again for- everything. Especially last night.”
“Yeah, it was a good time. I was glad to do it.” Robbie assured. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Dennis had slid the phone into his tote bag, sank into his bed and nuzzled his face in the pillow until work that afternoon. The beautiful time was over and he was home alone.
The next day was school, then work and studying in the library. He didn’t know very many people and most of the kids that stayed on campus were well and truly children, barely 18 year olds that had to stay in the dorms. He didn’t blame them but there was truly nothing worse than being 18- he didn’t miss it at all. He kept to himself mostly, but that meant there was little to keep him accountable in regards to studying. He looked down at his notes and was alarmed to see the amount of scratchy hearts he’d drawn in the corner of the page. Thankfully he hadn’t started writing any names down- that would’ve been too far. He glanced at the text book and felt the words swim before his eyes. He shook his head to clear it. Then he remembered he had money- he could get a coffee from the green bean stall and that might help center him. Maybe. It might just make him think of Robbie, brushing their teeth together in the bathroom. Dennis got to his feet, packed his stuff up and slung his bag over his shoulder and walked to the coffee stall.
“Hi, can I please have a caramel latte?” He ordered it, sliding his phone out to get his debit card- but it was already lit up. With a text message from Robbie.
‘Just got off work, hope you had a good day.’
He felt his eyes get big and he slipped his phone back in his pocket. Dennis paid for the coffee, stepped away from the counter and blinked at the floor. An after work text?
Whitaker didn’t know what to think. It was his own delusion that Robbie cared for him any more than a professional amount- it was appropriate and correct for dominants to give submissives aftercare. The video Trinity had sent him (along with unedited and edited candids while they were snuggling and watching The Conjuring) had explained subdrop in a very expansive way, far greater detail than Dennis had previously thought about. He felt assured the more they had explained it- it didn’t indicate anything relationship-wise. And Robbie wasn’t avoiding him. He picked up the coffee and held it in his hands, settling in a cozy reading chair. He pulled the phone back out of his pocket and stared down at it.
Just got off work- it was 9:40 pm when he had sent that, it was 10:35 pm now. And he hadn’t texted him all day- what job did Robbie work? Dennis’ 2-8 shift was usually just long enough to require a break but Robbie had only just texted him now. Maybe he didn’t check his phone on his break, maybe he was a day trader. Dennis wasn’t sure exactly what they did, but maybe it took all day.
‘How was it? I just got a coffee for studying.’
‘Coffee? It’s ten pm, you should be in bed.’
‘My day was good, no major plague incidents or bioweapons. Just humanity.’
That cleared up nothing about his job, but Dennis dropped his phone in his lap. You should be in bed? What was that?
‘Yeah, probably. But I wanted to finish this chapter before tomorrow.’
‘Didn’t you work today too?’
Dennis smiled at his phone. ‘Just a little shift.’
‘You definitely should be in bed. What are you studying?’
‘For school, I’m working on the gilded age, spectrometry and Things Fall Apart. For med school prep I’m still doing the syncope studies to identify the most prominent causes of it.’
Several minutes passed. Dennis drank his coffee, tapped his foot and scanned the library, trying to be regulated. Why did he say so many things? It wasn’t really relevant. Chronic oversharing- that was his modus operandi.
He picked his phone up and navigated to his camera roll. The pictures from Saturday were cute and cozy, they made his belly feel warm. He zoomed in on Robbie, smiling down softly at him. Some of the images were obscured, just the top of Dennis’s head over Robbie’s shoulder. Trinity had also promised to send him stills from the shoot, which made him antsy. He didn’t particularly want to see himself- that way. Dennis liked the after ones though. He set one of him and Robbie snuggling on the couch as his background. He immediately changed it, feeling ashamed and overbearing. He swiped the photo away.
‘You absolutely should be in bed. Big day. Are you almost done studying?’
Dennis held his phone to his mouth to cover his smile. ‘Yeah, I packed up all my things and I’m gonna walk home.’
‘Want to call me? So you make it home safe?’
Dennis giggled and gathered his things. He left the library, always feeling slightly more scrutinized as he walked through the scanners empty handed. He pushed the call button and held the phone to his ear. It only rang for a moment before Robbie answered. “Hi. So how does this make me get home safe?”
“Oh, technically, it makes you more of a target. Technically. But if you swing your arms around wildly, that’ll be frightening for your would-be attackers.” Robbie mused.
“Would be? Not may be? I didn’t know I was so attackable.” Dennis said, walking down the street.
“Oh you are. Very, very attackable. I wouldn’t dream of it, but yeah.” Robbie explained. “Sorry to tell you.”
“This is brand new information for me. I’ll have to be careful.” Dennis said, pausing at a crosswalk.
“You do have to be careful. You’re an excellent co worker and I really don’t want to have to pound the pavement to find you. But I would.” Robbie explained over the phone.
“So kind. I love your work ethic. Anything for the arts.” Dennis mused.
“Oh yeah. I love the arts. And the artists.” Robbie agreed. “How far is your house?”
“Oh, I can actually walk home. There’s emergency lights everywhere, I do it all the time. You can go, if you want to.” Dennis said quickly.
“No, no. Not like that- I just wanted to know how far you had to walk. Don’t be silly, Dennis. I like talking to you. I’d talk to you all night.”
“Stop, ‘cause I won’t hang up. I have unlimited talk and text.” Dennis teased.
“Yeah? That’s fiscally responsible of you.” Robbie said. “I had a phone when nights and weekends were free.”
“What? In like, 2007?” Dennis giggled.
“It started in the 90s. When I was a resident.”
Dennis felt his body go numb. “What? A resident what? Where?”
Robbie laughed. “When I was doing my residency, Dennis.”
“Are you a doctor?” Dennis asked quickly. “Tell me right now.”
“Yeah, baby, I’m a doctor.” Robbie’s laugh was low and deep and it made Dennis feel like floating.
“Oh my god, did I sound so dumb when I was talking about vaso vagal syndrome on Saturday?” Dennis asked.
“No. It sounded very smart. You know what you’re talking about. Why did you think all those medical textbooks were there?”
“I don’t know, I used to buy them from thrift stores and read them for fun. I thought Trinity had brought them as props or something.” Dennis said quickly. “You’re a doctor! Oh my god!”
“Is that cool? Like, good?” Robbie asked.
“Yeah. Yes sir, it’s very good. Very very good.” Dennis nodded, reaching back into his wallet for his key card. He scanned it at the gate and let himself into the apartment building’s front yard. “I’m at my building now, if you want to hang up.”
“I don’t.” Robbie said plainly.
Dennis blushed darkly and waved to the door guy, who opened the door for him. “Okay. Just let me get upstairs and ready for bed and we can talk all night. I’ll just call you when I get back up there so it doesn’t disconnect us. That would be sad.”
“Oh, yes. It would be sad.” He agreed. “Call me right back.”
Dennis nodded again. “Yes sir.” He heard the phone disconnect and got into the elevator, pushing the button with shaking hands. Why was he so nervous? It was just a casual phone call with a casual work compatriot. He held onto the bar as the elevator ascended and exited quickly. Whitaker held up his keycard to open the door, quickly toed his shoes off and hurried through the kitchen. He slipped into his room, stripped off his socks and pants and changed into clean underwear. Then he skipped back across the hall to wash his hands and his face, put conditioner in his hair, brushed his teeth, put Vaseline on his lips and ran back to his room. Dennis pulled on a shirt from the drama club and climbed into his bed with his laptop. Then he pushed Robbie’s picture and the phone dialed. Robbie answered immediately.
“Hey. There you are. Ready for bed? Teeth brushed and everything?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna save my latte for tomorrow- I’ll make it iced and then take it to class.” He said, cradling the phone against his neck as he laid back. “Are you in bed?”
“Yeah baby. I’m exhausted.” Robbie said. “I just wanted to talk to you before I went to sleep.”
“That’s sweet. I like talking to you. I can put a movie on and we can watch it together.” Dennis suggested. “Do you have a laptop?”
“I have an iPad.” Robbie said.
“Why aren’t we FaceTiming?” Dennis asked quickly. “I have an iPhone- we could facetime.”
“I have an iPhone too, that’s why you can do the same ‘back tap’ on my phone.” Robbie explained. We can facetime in the morning, the light in my room is out. S’at okay? But we can watch a movie together. Whatever you want.”
“Can we finish the third conjuring movie? I was so tired. And you were so warm and snuggly.” Dennis remembered fondly. “I remember you said you have all of them- oh, but I don’t.”
“I could add you to my apple account. You’d have my movies and an apple music library. Just an idea.” Robbie said casually. “If you’re interested.”
Dennis his face get hot. “Really? That would be so cool, sir. Really. I’d really appreciate that, I could pay you for half if you want, I’d be happy to.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll send the link to your email and you can join it. Then you should be able to access my movie library and then you can play it, same time as me.” Robbie suggested.
“Yeah. Thank you, sir. It’s [email protected].” He rattled off the address and navigated to the email website. He refreshed the website and giggled when he saw it. “That was so quick.”
“I didn’t want you to have to wait. Now you have all my movies too, and you can add any song to your library.” Robbie explained. “It’s got all my favorites from college. I couldn’t believe it.”
“This is the coolest thing. Thank you so much for sharing it, sir, I’m really grateful.” Dennis said, opening up the tv website to browse the movies. “The third Conjuring movie?”
Robbie hummed into the phone. “Ready when you are.”
“3,2,1.” Dennis announced, stretching out on the bed and laying out on the bed.”This is nice, sir.”
“I like to make you feel nice, baby. Do you like that nickname?” Robbie asked.
“Love it. Love it.” Dennis insisted. “I really love to hear you say it.”
“Good. I like calling you that. You fit that. Very sweet and special to me.” Robbie explained. “I just don’t want to stress you out, you’ve had so much going on.”
“You’re not a stressful part. You’re the best part. I love spending time with you, and so far it hasn’t mattered what we’re doing. You’re really sweet to me. I haven’t had that before, or at least not for a long time. I just- you- you’re very important so far. And I don’t want to wreck it. Like, come across as overbearing or egotistical.” Whitaker paused his laptop. He hadn’t put all those thoughts together in that order before.
“No, never. I don’t think you could, baby. You’re really sweet too. It makes me want to be with you all the time.” Robbie admitted.
“Yeah? Me too. I’m glad I met you.” Dennis said quickly. “Sorry for rambling so much. It felt important to say.”
“I always want you to talk to me. Say whatever’s on your mind, yeah?” Robbie pressed.
“Yes sir. Thank you sir.” Dennis said shyly. “I paused my movie. If you want to go back. It’s 42:47.”
“All right. I’m ready.” Robbie said.
They finished the third Conjuring and Dennis was fighting back a yawn when Robbie’s face crackled through the speaker. “Go to sleep, baby. We can talk all you want tomorrow.”
“I want to hear you fall asleep. Can you?” Dennis asked. “Please?” He folded the laptop and slid it onto the floor.
“Yeah baby. Are you comfortable? Ready to go to sleep?” He asked, voice heavy with sleep.
“Yeah. I put my laptop away. I don’t have any of my stuffed animals but if I did I’d send you a picture of them all tucked in with me.”
“Did you leave them in Nebraska?” Robbie asked.
“Yeah. Unfortunately. I could really only bring one suitcase and a backpack when I moved here. I had to just make one trip.” Dennis explained, turning the volume up on his phone.
“I’m sorry. That’s hard. Moving is hard. Did you do it a lot?”
“Constantly. Every two years for 12 years.” Dennis answered. “I have a lot of practice with it. I just- moving here for college was harder, because my brothers were always where I was. But it’s just me here.”
“Were you close with them?” Robbie asked. Dennis could hear the sleep in his voice and he would’ve loved to be on his chest again, feel the words rumble through his chest.
“No. When I was younger they were going through a lot- JROTC, drill, recruiters, they all had to take the ASVAB and the ACT- it was hard. And I got treated differently than them so, it was kind of annoying to them. I did pageants, so it was tortuous in a different way. I stopped when I was 15 but they were all sick of me by then.” Dennis wrapped his arms around the pillow. “Do you have siblings?”
“No. Just me, and my grandmother. I called her Bubbe.” Robbie answered.
“Are you Jewish?” Dennis asked.
“I am.”
“That’s cool. I like knowing things about you.” Dennis put the phone on his pillow and rubbed his face. “I’m so tired.”
“Go to sleep baby. I’ll be here. Sweet dreams.” Robbie assured.
“Good night, Robbie.” He whispered. “Thank you.”