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By the time Whitaker and Santos finally escaped the Pitt, both of them felt like they’d been medically exfoliated. Or dipped in one of those chemical peels Santos had seen on Tiktok.
The day shift had been relentless from start to finish. Too many patients. Not enough beds. Several bodily fluids nobody wanted to discuss. Three traumas before noon. One aggressive raccoon bite. A psych hold that ended with a member of security losing a tooth. Santos had been yelled at by a patient, a surgical attending, and a ventilator all within the same hour.
Whitaker’s scrubs were wrinkled and stained beyond repair. Santos had consumed enough caffeine to qualify as a controlled substance, in fact it was honestly quite concerning.
The drive back to the Abbot-Robinavitch house happened mostly in silence.
Now, stepping out into the warm evening air, both of them moved with the slow heavy exhaustion of people running entirely on fumes.
Santos groaned quietly as she climbed out of the car. “Please tell me there’s leftovers.”
“There’s always leftovers,” Whitaker said automatically.
The porch lights were already on. Whitaker found himself relaxing slightly at the sight of them. The front door was unlocked, which wasn’t unusual anymore.
Santos pushed it open first. “Dr Robby?” she called tiredly into the house.
No answer.
Whitaker dropped his bag beside the stairs. The house smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and dinner leftovers, cooler inside than the heavy July air outside. Music drifted faintly through the open back door somewhere beyond the kitchen.
Then laughter. Actual laughter.
Santos frowned slightly. “…are they drunk or something?”
Whitaker blinked tiredly toward the garden. “Maybe?”
They wandered through the kitchen together and stopped dead at the back door.
Jack Abbot was sprawled sideways across one of the old garden loungers wearing a faded army t-shirt and athletic shorts, one leg bent comfortably beneath him while the other ended at the rolled fabric above his residual limb. A pair of his forearm crutches tipped carelessly against the table. A joint burned lazily between his fingers.
Jack looked extremely high.
Robby, meanwhile, sat beside him on the outdoor loveseat looking considerably more composed, though not entirely sober either. Reading glasses rested low on his nose while he squinted suspiciously at a gardening catalogue in his lap like it was actually the Times crossword.
String lights glowed warmly around the backyard fence. Somewhere nearby cicadas buzzed lazily in the dusk.
Jack looked up first.
His entire face lit up immediately.
“Oh no,” he wheezed, nudging Robby hard enough to nearly knock the catalogue out of his hands. “Honey. Look at them. They look like shit.”
Robby glanced up and after consideration he replied, “…you do look awful.”
“Thank you, Dr Robby,” Santos said flatly.
“You’re welcome.”
Jack dissolved into helpless laughter beside him. Whitaker stared between them carefully. This was… different.
At work, Dr Abbott was warm but sharp underneath it. Controlled. Precise. A trauma doctor first and foremost. This version looked soft around the edges. Relaxed.
Dangerously amused by absolutely everything.
Santos eyed the joint openly. “You two are high.”
Jack pointed at her immediately.
“What do you think, doll?”
Robby sighed.
Whitaker’s eyes flicked toward the crutches before he could stop himself.
Robby noticed immediately. “Bad pain day,” he explained simply.
Jack leaned his head back dramatically against the chair. “We were supposed to go hiking,” he informed them mournfully. “There was meant to be sandwiches involved.”
“There are still sandwiches involved,” Robby said. “You just ate them on the patio instead.”
“It lacked the excitement of sandwiches in the wild.”
Whitaker smiled despite himself.
Robby gestured vaguely toward the crutches. “Leg’s been bad all day. Phantom pain, nerve pain, regular pain. Pick a category.”
Jack lifted the joint slightly in demonstration. “So the weed.”
Santos blinked. “Huh.”
“It’s legal,” Jack added immediately.
“Dr Abbot, nobody thought you were committing crimes.”
Jack narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “You’d be surprised.”
“Yankl,” Robby warned automatically. Jack grinned lazily.
Whitaker found himself staring slightly at the easy domesticity of it all.
The fairy lights. The warm summer air. Jack barefoot and boneless with his crutches abandoned beside him. Robby sitting nearby with one hand resting absently against Jack’s knee like contact was a given.
Robby pointed vaguely toward the kitchen with all the gravity of a prophet bestowing wisdom. “There’s pasta salad in the fridge. And garlic bread. Yankl made too much again.”
Jack looked offended. “There is no such thing as too much garlic bread.”
“You made four loaves for two people.”
“I believe in abundance.”
Santos had collapsed into the remaining garden chair by now, still in her dirty scrubs, staring at them openly. “I don’t know what I’d do without your cooking, Dr Abbot.”
Whitaker sat more cautiously on the edge of the porch step.
Jack looked at him for a long moment. Then frowned slightly. “Why are you still calling us doctor?”
Whitaker blinked. “What?”
“At home,” Jack clarified. “You guys still do the whole Dr Robby, Dr Abbot thing.”
Santos looked immediately defensive. “That’s because you are doctors.”
“Yes but I’m currently barefoot and stoned in my own garden,” Jack pointed out reasonably. “Feels overly formal.”
Robby snorted softly beside him.
Jack waved vaguely between them all. “This isn’t the hospital.”
Robby closed the gardening catalogue and looked over at them both. “He’s right,” he admitted. “At work, fine. Different environment. But here?” He shrugged lightly. “You live here half the week already.”
“We do not,” Santos said automatically.
“You left three different shampoos in the upstairs bathroom.”
“That proves nothing.”
Whitaker looked deeply at the ground.
Jack pointed at him. “And Mikey’s been ironing your scrubs for a few weeks now.”
Whitaker’s head snapped up instantly. “…what?”
“You really need to learn to fold your clothes,” Jack informed him. “It’s like you just screw them up into a ball and hope for the best.”
Robby looked entirely unsurprised by the direction this conversation had gone in. “You can call us Jack and Robby here,” he said simply.
Whitaker stared slightly. It felt weirdly intimate somehow. Too personal. Too familiar.
Like stepping over some invisible line.
Apparently Santos felt the same because she asked cautiously “Seriously?”
Jack looked delighted. “Yes please. Every time somebody says Dr Abbot in my backyard I age at least five years.”
Santos grinned slowly. “…okay. Jack.”
Jack pointed finger guns at her immediately. “See? Better already.”
Whitaker still looked uncertain.
Robby noticed. “It’s not disrespectful, Dennis.” Whitaker blinked. Robby blinked back. Then frowned slightly. “…you do prefer Dennis, right?”
Whitaker felt oddly caught out. “Uh. Yeah.”
Robby leaned back into the loveseat slightly, looking unbearably pleased with himself for reasons Whitaker couldn’t understand. “Alright,” he said. “New house rule.”
“Oh no,” Santos muttered.
“No doctor names at home.”
Jack raised his hand lazily like a student in class. “Can I still call you Michael when I’m being annoying?”
“You exclusively call me Michael when you’re being annoying.”
“Good. Just checking.”
Santos snorted loudly.
“Dennis and Trinity,” Robby concluded. “You sound like detectives in a crime drama.”
“We sound hot,” Santos corrected.
“That too.” Jack agreed.
Robby rubbed at his eyes tiredly. “I have regrets.”
“No you don’t,” Jack said immediately, reaching out to hook two fingers lazily through Robby’s sleeve.
Robby looked over at him automatically. The expression on his face softened all at once.
Warm. Fond. Entirely gone.
Whitaker looked away instinctively, feeling suddenly like he’d wandered into something private and gentle.
Then Jack ruined the moment immediately. “Oh my God,” he whispered loudly.
“What?”
“We forgot the ice cream.”
Robby stared at him. “We have ice cream?”
“We do if you love me.”
A long suffering pause. Then Robby sighed and pushed himself upright. “You’re impossible.”
Jack grinned up at him lazily from the garden chair, crutches abandoned beside him, fairy lights glowing softly overhead.
And for the first time all day, Dennis realised he wasn’t thinking about the hospital anymore at all.
—
Ice cream somehow turned into an entire migration indoors.
Robby disappeared into the kitchen muttering about “enabling bad behaviour” while Jack hauled himself upright with the exaggerated suffering of someone caught in a bear trap.
“My leg is sooo annoying,” he informed everyone in earshot as he reached for his crutches.
“You said thirty minutes ago you were ‘basically cured,’” Robby called from inside.
“I was younger then.”
Dennis watched Jack settle the forearm crutches beneath his arms with easy familiarity before swinging forward across the patio. There was nothing awkward about it. No embarrassment. Just adaptation worn smooth through repetition.
Still, Robby hovered automatically nearby anyway. Not obvious enough to annoy Jack. Just present.
Trinity noticed too, judging by the tiny look she shot Dennis over Jack’s shoulder.
Inside, the house felt cool and soft after the thick summer air outside. Jack abandoned one crutch beside the couch immediately upon reaching it before collapsing dramatically into the corner cushions with a relieved groan. “Oh that’s better.”
“You say that every single time you sit down,” Robby informed him, carrying bowls of ice cream in from the kitchen.
“Because sitting is one of humanity’s greatest inventions.”
Dennis took the bowl Robby handed him carefully. “…thank you. Robby.”
It still felt strange in his mouth. Too casual somehow.
Robby glanced at him briefly before smiling faintly. “See? Nobody exploded.”
Jack pointed his spoon toward Dennis proudly. “He’s adapting.”
Trinity curled into the opposite end of the couch while Robby settled into the armchair nearby, socked feet tucked beneath him.
For a few quiet minutes the only sounds were spoons against bowls and Jack making deeply emotional noises about chocolate sauce.
Then Trinity looked at Robby thoughtfully. “So,” she said. “What was he like as a resident?”
Robby immediately narrowed his eyes.
Jack lit up like Christmas. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, delighted. “You’ve asked the right questions.”
“Yankl.”
“No no, this is educational.”
Dennis looked between them cautiously. “Were you awful?”
Robby looked deeply offended. “I was excellent.”
Jack barked out a laugh so sudden he nearly dropped his bowl. “Oh my God.”
“I was!”
“You once fell asleep standing up in an elevator.”
“That happened one time.”
“You slept through two floors.”
Dennis immediately looked interested.
Trinity gasped. “Dr Robby- sorry, Robby, you?”
Robby pointed accusingly at Jack. “You stabbed yourself with a chest tube during residency.”
Jack looked thoughtful. “…in my defense, it was stressful.”
“You cannot say ‘in my defense’ before admitting to workplace self-stabbing.”
Dennis was trying very hard not to laugh.
Unfortunately Jack noticed. “Oh, he was terrible,” Jack informed him gleefully. “Sweet, but terrible.”
“I hate this conversation.”
“You cried over a pigeon once.”
Robby looked absolutely scandalised. “That is not what happened.”
“It absolutely is.”
Trinity had physically leaned forward now. “There was a pigeon?”
Jack pointed enthusiastically with his spoon. “Baby resident Michael found an injured pigeon outside the hospital.”
Dennis lost the battle not to laugh. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
Robby covered his face with one hand. “It had a broken wing.”
“And this man,” Jack continued, nearly breathless with laughter now, “missed half a lunch break trying to feed it crackers.”
“It was concussed!”
“You wrapped it in one of your scrub jackets.”
Dennis was openly laughing now.
Trinity looked close to tears herself. “You’re lying.”
“I swear to God I’m not.”
Robby pointed at Jack without removing his hand from his face. “You got arrested for stealing a traffic cone.”
“That’s unrelated.”
“That’s more related than the pigeon!”
Jack grinned lazily from the couch cushions. “It was a nice cone.”
“Yankl.”
“It had reflective tape.”
Dennis had never seen Robby like this before.
At work Robby was composed almost to the point of intimidation sometimes. Calm under pressure. Sharp. Controlled.
Here, dressed in old sweatpants with melting ice cream in one hand while his husband exposed him publicly over an injured bird, he looked younger somehow. Lighter.
Jack nudged Trinity lightly with his foot. “You know what his real problem was as a resident?”
Robby sighed deeply. “I’m about to hear something defamatory.”
“He cared about everybody immediately,” Jack said simply.
The room softened slightly around the edges after that. Not sad. Just honest.
Jack shrugged one shoulder. “Still does.”
Robby looked down at his bowl instead of at any of them.
Dennis watched him quietly for a second before Trinity abruptly pointed at Jack. “No deflecting. Your turn.”
Jack blinked. “My turn?”
“You absolutely got up to bullshit as a resident.” She declared.
“Oh significantly more than him.”
Robby snorted into his ice cream. “Understatement.”
Jack looked genuinely pleased by this. “I was very charming, I'll have you know.”
“You were banned from two whole departments if I remember correctly.”
“That was political.”
Dennis laughed helplessly. “How do you get banned from an entire department?”
Jack looked thoughtful. “…technically there were candles involved.”
Trinity nearly choked. “Candles?”
Robby looked exhausted already. “He kept trying to make the other residents ‘bond’.”
“The morale was low!”
“You started a rooftop barbecue during a night shift.”
“In fairness,” Jack said, “people loved the rooftop barbecue.”
“They loved not dying in trauma bay.”
Jack waved one hand dismissively. “Balance.”
Dennis leaned back into the couch cushions, exhausted laughter settling warm and heavy in his chest.
In the middle of the living room sat two attendings arguing lovingly over who had been the worse resident while Trinity stole bites of Jack’s ice cream and Robby threatened to order pizza despite nobody being hungry because there was no way Jack was going to be cooking anything.
It felt impossibly domestic. Safe in a way Dennis still didn’t entirely know what to do with.
Jack caught him smiling and pointed immediately. “You look happy.”
Dennis rolled his eyes automatically. “You’re very high.”
“Correct.”
Robby reached over absently to squeeze Jack’s knee once. “Bed soon, honey.”
Jack looked personally betrayed. “But I’m entertaining the youth.”
“You’re slowly being absorbed into the couch.”
“I love the couch.”
Trinity snorted into her ice cream. “You’ve said that about three separate pieces of furniture in this house just this evening.”
“And I meant it every time.”
Robby shook his head fondly before standing, collecting empty bowls as he went. Jack watched him walk toward the kitchen with the soft, sleepy focus of someone who’d been in love for a very long time.
Dennis sank a little deeper into the couch cushions, listening to the quiet hum of the house around them. The clink of dishes from the kitchen. Trinity arguing with Jack about movie choices. Warm light spilling across old floorboards.
Outside, the city kept moving.
Inside, for one strange, gentle evening, none of them had to.