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The night is cold and sparse, filled with whispers that spill from the undersides of doors and cracked open windows. Nothing is here. There is nothing, here.
Dennis is here. The lack remains.
The rooftop is quiet, which is nice. Quiet in a way which allows silence to embody itself, settle and breathe like it's own harming person. There is nothing to fill, or observe, quiet lives in this space like it was born here. To exchange words would be to crowd the clearing.
Dennis is hunched over himself, cowering like a child in the openness. He feels like he's performing his grief for the blinking brief starlight, choking breathy huffing sobs to emphasize the intensity of his burden. He could stop, and still himself, wipe his eyes and return to the chaos below. But he won't. He wants to see how long he can stretch it, pull his wound out through his mouth like a choked ribbon and see how long the fabric extends. How much is he keeping bundled up within himself. Maybe if he sees it, he can believe in it. Maybe if he sees it, someone else finally will too.
He hadn't anticipated the tears at all. They had come fast, the moment he'd lifted his hands off of a patient, watched them breathe without the heel of his palms guiding them, felt that swoop of rushing relief. Alive, for now. Alive. He'd smiled, a true thing and felt his face suddenly melt under it, tears blossoming and choking him, where he had to step out of the room, disappear through the curtains and up the stairwell until he had nowhere to go but over the edge. He still might. The night is as young as he.
The door creaks, and the rooftop suddenly feels terribly small, exposed and stifling. Footsteps echo off the few walls and a presence appears before him, an achingly familiar boot nudging his own as it slides to sit beside him, worn soles scraping against the concrete.
Dennis doesn't look up. Maybe if he stays here, in the empty corner of the universe that exists between his chest and his knees, the presence will eventually disappear and leave him here to wallow. There's no point in saying anything anyway. He can't deny his sorrow. His grief is so vast, so palpable, that he's sure one could smell it, taste it in the stale stairway air that he left trailing behind him.
Robby clears his throat, and he can hear a hand come to scratch at his beard.
"I'm sorry." He sighs, in the voice of a man who blames himself for everything and is aware but unwilling to change that fact.
Dennis isn't quite sure what to respond. How do you describe a lifetime of aching. How do you say it professionally, in a way that won't get you fired tomorrow or make your boss check you in for a psychiatric evaluation. Or maybe worse, think of you as woefully dramatic, unfit for the reality of the devastation beneath them. Tell him if this is what sends you spiraling, maybe you're not cut out for this after all. And Dennis would say I'm cut out for nothing else. I have nothing else waiting for me, I've only ever chased this.
And then Robby would say I'm sorry that you made that mistake, but I can't afford to make this one.
And then he would be on the roof, alone. And then nobody would be on the roof, at all. And he would be on the ground, or a landing, or skewered up on one of the hospital's wrought fences, bleeding and choking on his own regret.
It would be an awfully dramatic way to go. He's a doctor. He could manufacture a kinder way for himself. But he won't. There's a certain horrible finality to much other ways. A softer, doomed finality. At least, here, there's a chance, a small, glimpse of a chance, that someone finds him, or he misses the fence, or the ground, or someone grabs him before he even leaps in the first place. Then maybe they would see it, and shake him by the shoulders and tell him I see it, I see you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And it would mean something.
If he died, it would mean nothing, and nothing would change. But at least he wouldn't be around to know that.
The tears have stopped, so Dennis lifts his head. His face is sticky, and he wipes the residue away.
"I'm sorry." He tries, a repetition, like he's trying to learn from the best. This is how you talk to damaged people, follow my lead, say exactly what I say.
"It happens to people." Robby is staring at the meagre scattering of stars, a softness in his gaze.
Dennis half wants to play dumb, bat his wet eyelashes and ask in his best innocent falsetto "What happens?", as if Robby's going to say something casual and kindly presumptuous like "needing to take a breather." or "caring too much and working too hard.". As if he wouldn't rip into the ugly truth of him, staring at the edge of the rooftop too long, looking thoughtfully up at it's height from the ground below, calculating, always calculating.
"Yeah." He says. A deniable confession.
"Yeah."
They're swapping the same limited vocabulary between them, rationing words like they're scared to reach for anything new, like one wrong choice could reveal their scarred truth to eachother, take off the blinkers they're been putting on so that they don't have to know more of what they already do, see the similarities they already know are there.
"It shouldn't happen to you."
This is probably something meant to be kind. Seeing something beautiful rot and gnarl in a grossly uncanny way. It's probably meant to be affirming. You do not deserve this. Sorrow does not belong to you.
But it misses the mark, hits Dennis like a bullet, burying itself in the bullseye of a shrouded insecurity. It shouldn't happen to him. You have no right to cry. You have no reason for sorrow. Your crocodile tears only betray your sheltered youth, wipe them away and don't embarrass yourself further. Do not compare your ache with mine, for I did not put mine there.
Do not cosplay pain in a building made for suffering.
He flinches, minutely, squeezing his eyes shut so tears don't spring out again. "Yeah." He repeats again, voice choked and obvious.
Robby shuffles a little, sighing in a way that means he's frustrated, misinterpreted, a hard huff through his nose "It shouldn't happen to you. But it is. It does."
Dennis can only nod mutely "But it does."
The tears come then, embarrassingly, cooing and warm, invited by Robby's gentle acknowledgement. He can't stem their flow, not entirely, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes and feeling the tears trickle down his wrist. His back shudders under stifled sobs.
He thinks he's halfway to getting it somewhat together when Robby lays one large hand on his shoulder and squeezes, gentle, kind.
That's all it takes for his composure to completely shatter.
He sobs, keening as he hunches into himself, hands gripping at the sides of his head, as if he can hold himself together like this. His whole body is shaking, falling apart.
Robby reacts in an instant, hand moving from his back to wrap around his opposite shoulder, tugging him in and swallowing him in a crushing embrace. Dennis can't think about anything other than how much everything hurts, can't spare even a moment to worry on embarrassment, or boundaries, or how he's going to face him at work tomorrow, if he even still has a job by then.
A hand, smoothing down his hair as he sobs into Robby's shoulder . A voice, shaking, pained "I'm sorry. I'm sorry Whitaker."
God, his last name. They're not even on first name basis, they're not friends, not connected by anything other than this godforsaken job that Dennis can't even manage to get through one day of without fucking up. His last name, the name of his family, far away even when he was living with them, people who loved him but did not like him and so he has never learned to love himself because nobody could ever provide a halfway decent example. People who moved effortlessly around their little town like they were born to be Nebraskan farmers, and spend every day here, living and loving within the confines of the state, within the confines of the town lines. And Dennis was born there too, of course, but he was wasted there, lost and confused and wrong wrong wrong. A boy whose mind was somewhere different, came from somewhere different, and if it had been a different time would've probably been burned, turned out as a changeling, or violent imposter, appearing in the night and swapping with the real Dennis Whitaker, stealing away someone who was right and belonging and waking up in his bed as someone wholly out-of-place.
He had left Nebraska, and chased medicine's promises all the way to the wholly unglamorous Pittsburgh, where things were bigger, but people were still the same, and belonged, in this tiny weird way that Dennis never did. Yet it was okay, because cities were full of people who didn't belong there, so he could fit in as someone who didn't fit in, and that would probably be okay too. Medicine could heal him, in ways. You cannot hate someone who has saved your life. You cannot but respect a healer. You must have some like for them, even a little. An admiration for the hands that hold life within them. A marvel at a brain that knows the secrets of our working.
But whatever his brain had, it also had him, an inescapable truth. And that seemed to negate everything anyway. So what was the point.
"I don't—" He whispers, a tear soaked sound. His forehead is pressed against Robby's shoulder "I don't know what to do."
Robby's hand rests on his nape, warm "You don't have to."
"But I can't—"
"You can. I know you can."
Dennis wants to look at him, ask how, how do you know that? How do you know? But he won't. The answer is the question. He knows it because he chooses it, to believe it, believe in it, in Dennis.
"Why?"
"Because, I just do. I can't…" the hand around his neck tightens almost imperceptibly "I can't explain it. I can't…. lose you."
Yes, you can, he wants to say.
Instead, he says "There are plenty of med student's dying to be here."
"But there's only one you." And you're dying in here.
"Right." And that's the problem. Seven billion people, only one Dennis Whitaker. In every city, there is seemingly no soul to reflect his own, nobody that can know him because he doesn't even know himself, not really.
Not until now, not until Robby.
It's a half-truth. There's something in Robby's eyes that he's seen in his own, staring into grubby gas station mirrors. An ache, twinned with his own. But Robby comes by it honestly, at least. Can point to a thousand factors that have damaged his soul like this. Dennis can only point to himself. The beginning and end of his troubles, the abuser and victim. A circle of damage and be damaged. It all comes back to him. Robby cannot save him, just as he cannot save Robby. A drowning person will only pull you in with them. It's better to cut your losses.
He extracts himself from Robby's hold, shaking off the weight of his compassion, sugar sweet and heady. Too nice, too good for him, for someone who drank from the endless love in Broken Bow and spat it all back out anyway. He doesn't deserve it, this, Robby.
"You should go, they need you." His voice is hoarse, from all the crying. It probably doesn't give off the fine and stable vibe he's going for. It's almost like before, in Pedes, except it's Dennis this time, and he's lost nothing except everything he never had in the first place. Failed nobody except himself, because you can't let people down if they never expected anything from you anyway.
Robby looks at him in this horribly sad way. It's the face he uses when he's looking at something spectacularly devastating. Like a dying child, or desperately hopeful relatives. It should not be directed towards Dennis.
"Dennis—"
The use of his first name puts him on edge, like how you'd talk to a wounded animal, soft and slow.
"Someone will come looking for you." He doesn't look at him when he says it, eyes back at the rooftop, mind already off the edge. "You should leave me here, I'm fine."
Robby doesn't say anything for a minute, choosing his words carefully. His voice is soft when he speaks
"If I leave you here, alone, will I have to go looking for you in the morning?"
"I—" Dennis wants to say no. That he'll leave here through the door, and will never dare to return. Will never want this again, will never ache for it again. Will spend his forevers on the firm ground, and never taste what it means to soar.
But he can't. He can't say no. He can't lie, even now, as a grown man. He was never good at it as a child and he never learned how to be better. He never had anything worth hiding anyway, in his pokey life half-lived.
"Right."
Robby levels him with a look. It's not pitying, or scared, or frightened. It's just knowing. Knowing in an awful way. Knowing that says, I couldn't say no, either. Knowing that says we want the same thing.
Dennis blows out a breath. The night stills, and is quiet again.
"What do we do now?" He whispers. He feels raw, peeled away and young.
Robby tips his head, Dennis hears it thunk against the wall.
"We go back to work. We… keep going."
He meets his eyes again, "Is that it?"
"That's it." Robby seems unphased "That's all we've got, right now."
"Will…" Dennis turns the words over in his mouth, lips twisting "Will we ever have… more?"
Robby frowns a little "I… don't… know. Maybe. Maybe one day. I suppose… that's up to you."
"Yeah. I know."
"Alright."
Robby stands then, knees audibly popping. He extends a hand. "C'mon kid. Back at it."
Dennis takes it, swaying as he stands, and Robby reaches to steady him. "Alright kid?"
"Alright cap'n."
Robby laughs, a barking sound, and his hand stays there, wrapped around his shoulder, steady and sure and impossibly grounding.
They get to the door, and Dennis knows that when they step through it, whatever spell they're under will be broken, things will go back to the way they were, and they will never speak of this again.
He stops suddenly, turning to look up at him.
"Thank you" He says, while it still means something.
"Don't worry about it." Robby gives him a gentle smile, one that says we're even, now. But just as Dennis moves to go, Robby pulls him back, chewing on his lip.
"Also I just— it's important to know— Ach. Okay. Look. Dennis. Whitaker." He scrubs his free hand over his face, looking anywhere but him "You have more than yourself, okay? You have me. I'm here. And I know I'm not exactly the pinnacle of having my shit together, but I'm here, It's important to me that you know that. You have me, okay? Don't— don't deal with it alone. I know what that's like."
"I— thank you, Robby. And uh, you have me, too. I guess. Only if you want to, I mean I know you have Abbot and Dana and I'm probably last on your list of people but uh, yeah. You have me. I'm here."
"I know, kid. Thanks."
"Okay then. Uh, attendings first." He gestures at the door, and Robby snorts, knocking him with his shoulder before he steps down the stairs, waiting at the bottom.
Dennis turns and takes a last look at the rooftop. The edge glimmers at him like a mirage, inviting and perfect.
He turns to the stairwell. Robby is leaning against the wall, waiting. Always so patient. Always so kind.
Always so imperfectly perfect. Always so much of everything Dennis feels and cannot name. Always everything, all the time.