Chapter Text
No.
The name hits him like a blow to the chest.
Not here. Not now.
Not after all these years.
Vlad keeps his expression carefully blank, though every instinct in him is screaming to run.
He should have left the second he saw him.
Should have turned around the moment he recognised the man standing at the nurses’ station, older now, broader through the shoulders, beard touched with silver, lines carved deep around tired eyes.
But still Robby.
Still unmistakably him.
And now Robby is staring at him like the floor has dropped out from under him.
“…Vlad?”
The name is soft. Barely spoken.
Still devastating.
For one terrible second, Vlad almost answers to it.
Then he remembers who he is.
Not Vladimir.
Not anymore.
Dennis Whitaker.
A medical student from Broken Bow, Nebraska.
No past. No history. No promises left broken behind him.
He forces air into his lungs.
“Huh?”
Robby doesn’t move.
The entire room feels strangely distant now, voices dulled beneath the pounding in Vlad’s ears.
“I’m sorry,” he says evenly, each word chosen with care. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else, Dr. Robby.”
A beat.
“My name is Dennis. Dennis Whitaker.”
Robby says nothing.
Just stares.
And Vlad hates himself for how much that hurts.
***
Thirty years earlier.
Vladimir’s first day of med school begins with disaster.
He wakes to a thin sliver of light slipping through the gap in his curtains, striking him directly in the eye.
For one blissful second, he thinks it’s still early morning—that he can stay in bed for just a few more minutes.
Then he sees the clock.
7:38.
AM.
His alarm had been set for seven o’clock.
The wrong seven o’clock.
“Oh, you absolute idiot.” He bolts upright so fast he nearly falls out of bed.
What follows is less a morning routine and more a public safety hazard.
He brushes his teeth while hopping into trousers. Pulls a shirt over his head with toothpaste foam still in his mouth. Searches for lecture notes, socks, and dignity all at once.
By the time he tears out of the flat, one shoe half untied and bag hanging open, he is already catastrophically late.
He sprints for the bus stop just in time to watch his bus pull away.
“No— no, no, no!”
The driver does not even glance at him.
Vladimir bends over, hands on knees, trying not to die before his first homeostasis lecture.
“This is a sign,” he mutters to the pavement. “I should become a florist.”
By some miracle involving a second bus, aggressive speed-walking, and what may have been illegal jaywalking, he makes it to campus only minutes late.
Sweaty. Breathless. Spiritually broken.
Then he receives his timetable.
Classes from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon.
Thirty minutes for lunch.
He stares at the paper.
“They’re allowed to do this?”
Apparently they are.
***
Three hours later, Professor Shepherd finally grants them a lunch break.
Vladimir all but stumbles into the corridor, dizzy with hunger and relief.
Fresh air.
Freedom.
Food.
He reaches into his bag for the lunch he packed the night before.
Nothing.
He freezes.
Then remembers leaving it on the kitchen counter.
“No problem,” he tells himself weakly. “Canteen.”
He heads there immediately.
Makes it all the way through the line.
Then realises he has also forgotten his wallet.
And spent his last cash on the bus.
Vladimir slowly steps aside before someone behind him murders him.
Outside, he drops onto a bench and stares into the middle distance.
“This is how I perish,” he says aloud. “Starvation. Surrounded by food.”
“Want some?”
He startles.
A tall, dark-haired man stands beside the bench, holding out half a sandwich.
Vladimir blinks at him.
The stranger shrugs. “I noticed you went in there and came back out empty-handed. I’m assuming you didn’t get anything.”
He extends the sandwich farther.
“Am I correct, or am I correct?”
Vladimir takes it reverently.
“Huh. Bingo, I guess. Left my wallet at home.”
“Rookie mistake.”
“It’s my first day.”
“That explains the look of despair.”
The stranger drops onto the bench beside him and starts on his own half.
“I’m Michael, by the way. Michael Robinavitch. But you can call me Robby.”
Vladimir chews thoughtfully.
“Son of the rabbi? Wow. That’s a pretentious name.”
Robby turns to stare at him.
“You’re eating my sandwich.”
“Still pretentious.”
“Yeah? What’s your name, then? Since I apparently shared lunch with a critic.”
“Vladimir. Most people call me Vlad.”
Robby raises one eyebrow.
“And you say I’ve got a pretentious name? Seriously? Ruler of the world?”
Vladimir squints.
“Touché.”
Robby laughs.
It is, Vladimir notices, a very nice laugh.
Then Robby pauses.
“Wait. Aren’t you in my class?”
Vladimir points accusingly with the sandwich.
“Professor Shepherd’s roll call. You’re the one who answered like you were doing everyone a favour.”
“That was confidence.”
“That was arrogance.”
“That was confidence,” Robby repeats.
Vladimir snorts.
“Huh. Guess we’re going to be seeing each other a lot then.”
Robby grins.
“Yeah. Guess we will.”
***
Weeks become months.
Then mountains of coursework.
Every day brings more information than Vladimir thinks any human brain should be forced to hold.
By the end of term, their first exam looms over his head like an execution date.
He sits in the library surrounded by anatomy textbooks, notes, diagrams, and despair.
His forehead thunks softly onto the table.
“I’ll never pass,” he groans. “It’s only the first exam. I might as well drop out now.”
“Having some trouble?”
He lifts his head.
Robby drops into the chair beside him and promptly rests his own head on Vladimir’s shoulder.
Like this is normal.
Like Vladimir’s pulse hasn’t just gone berserk.
“Hey, Robby,” he says faintly. “Yeah. I’m deciding whether to fail this test then kill myself, or drop out and then kill myself.”
Robby hums thoughtfully.
“Well. Before either of those dramatic options, I could tutor you.”
Vladimir straightens.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Helps me revise too.”
“You,” Vladimir says, grabbing him in an impulsive hug, “are my saviour.”
“Oof—”
Robby laughs into his shoulder.
Then everything goes still.
In Robby’s mind, everything else seemed to fall away until there was only one thing left to notice: Vlad’s raven-dark hair. It looked impossibly soft, all thick waves and loose strands, slightly mussed from hours bent over textbooks.
Before he could think better of it—before he could think at all—his hand lifted of its own accord and slipped into it, fingers brushing gently through the dark silk. Warm fingers brushing through the strands.
Soft.
Careful.
That was all Robby could think of in that moment.
Vlad froze in Robby’s arms. Partly because he had only just realised he was still hugging him, and partly because Robby was, somehow, absently playing with his hair.
Robby froze too. Almost like his brain had finally caught up with what he was doing to his friend and immediately retracted his hand back.
They separate so quickly the chair legs screech against the floor.
Neither of them looks at the other.
Vlad was trying his damn hardest to not show it, but the sudden loss of contact left a small, unexpected ache behind. The warmth of Robby’s hand in his hair, the steady press of his body against him—gone all at once. He was surprised by how quickly he missed it.
“Right,” Robby says hoarsely, trying to ease the awkward atmosphere that’s just floating around. “So. Cranial nerves.”
“Yes,” Vladimir says, face burning. “Very normal topic.”
***
For the next two years, they are rarely apart.
If one of them is seen on campus, the other is never far behind. They claim it’s practical—same classes, same workload, same impossible schedule—but even their professors stop pretending not to notice.
Library tables disappear beneath towers of textbooks, scribbled notes, highlighters with no ink left, and half-finished cups of coffee gone cold hours ago. They quiz each other until their voices go hoarse, argue over diagnoses neither of them is qualified to make yet, and turn mock patient scenarios into full debates that earn them dirty looks from everyone trying to study nearby.
Empty Red Bull cans pile up between them like monuments to bad decisions and worse sleep habits. Some nights they stay until security has to remind them the library is closing. Other nights they simply move to an all-night diner and keep going there.
The week before finals, Vladimir arrives at the library half-dead and ready to collapse, only to find Robby already waiting at their usual table with two coffees and a bagel he insists he “accidentally bought extra.” Vlad says nothing, just takes the coffee and sits down beside him. Robby pretends not to notice how quickly he drinks it.
When exhaustion finally wins, it always comes quietly. Vlad dozing off mid-sentence with his head in Robby’s lap while Robby keeps reading one-handed, absentmindedly turning pages with one hand and carding the other through Vlad’s hair. Robby slumped beside him on worse nights, cheek pressed against Vlad’s shoulder, one hand still resting on an open textbook. Neither of them ever comments on it in the morning.
By second year, most people assume they’re dating.
They deny it with suspicious speed.
“Absolutely not,” Robby says.
“We’re just friends,” Vlad adds too quickly.
No one believes them.
Neither of them says what matters.
***
The ER is too bright.
Too loud.
Too full of fluorescent lights, ringing phones, hurried footsteps, and the steady pulse of monitors somewhere down the hall. Too full of movement and voices and strangers pretending nothing in the room has just shifted.
Too full of Robby standing ten feet away looking like someone has reached into his chest and torn something loose.
Vlad— ‘Dennis’ keeps his face smooth.
Keeps his breathing slow and even.
Keeps every wall he has spent thirty years building locked firmly into place.
Because if even one of them cracks, everything behind it might come pouring out. Every lie. Every mile run. Every year spent pretending he had not left half of himself behind.
Robby finally swallows. Hard enough that Vlad sees it from where he stands.
“…Dennis.”
The name sounds wrong in his mouth. Foreign. Forced there.
Vlad forces himself not to react. Not to flinch at the way Robby says it like it hurts.
“Yes, Dr. Robby?”
Something flickers across Robby’s face so quickly most people would miss it.
Pain. Recognition. Hope.
Thirty years of questions packed into a single glance.
Vlad tries not to notice any of it. Tries even harder not to answer it.
Then, just as quickly, Robby shutters it all away. His shoulders straighten. His expression settles into something professional, controlled, unreadable.
“Welcome to the Pitt.”
Vlad inclines his head, because Dennis Whitaker would know exactly how to respond.
“Thank you.”
But beneath the calm mask, his thoughts are spiralling fast enough to make him dizzy.
Oh shit.
What the fuck did I do?
What am I doing?
And the million dollar question—
what the fuck am I going to do now?