Work Text:
He got the letter two days ago.
It had been five days since he got the call.
One week into his first rotation.
One week until he couldn’t make rent.
And all he could do was stare at the letter.
It dated back 3 weeks ago, overseas shipping taking a toll on connection.
They had spoken on the phone a few days before it had been sent. There wasn’t service for facetime, just audio only. One end hushed and filled with the background noise of movement and activity. The other on speaker as he cooked, with just car horns filling the space between such mundane words that were filled with so much promise.
He wishes they could have facetimed. He wishes he could have seen his face, seen what the desert heat and hard labour had etched into it, seen the growing lines of age and time. If he had seen him, if he could picture him as he was when it happened, rather than what he was before, maybe it would hurt less. Maybe it would hurt more, make it more real. Instead, he’s left with just his voice, which he’s already struggling to remember the timbre of, and a face which certainly didn’t match the man he was becoming.
The letter still sits in his hands.
It was shorter than normal, though no less personal and precious.
It started, as they always did with ‘For my beloved Dee, separated from me by the sea,’.
He can’t quite remember why he started the letters like that, something to do with an old song one of his barrack buddies used to play, or something. It was cute and corny in the way he always was- saccharine to make him laugh.
They used to laugh about being two rough and tumble farm boys writing letters to each other like 18th century maidens.
The greeting always made him think of him of a ship exploring distant lands instead of the harsh reality of bloody warzones. He always loved that.
He folds it carefully; aware this is his last tether to the man he loved so dearly.
He can’t get past the greeting, not when it’s the last one he’ll ever receive.
He’s not lost at sea, not off exploring far away lands.
He’s in a box, in the ground, back in godforsaken Nebraska.
And Dennis is left here, in a crummy one bed apartment he won’t be able to afford anymore, truly alone for the first time in his life, untethered and he thinks he’s the one who’s been taken by the waves.
He starts his Internal Medicine rotation two months later.
He finds the abandoned eighth floor by accident, one week in.
He was trying to get to the seventh floor but so sleep deprived as he was, he hits the wrong button, steps out into a wasteland of broken gurneys and silence and for a moment thinks the elevator must have crashed and this is purgatory.
They used to hear about hell all the time, the fire and the heat and more than once they’d joke, they were already there- on their backs in the blazing sun of Broken Bow, staring at a blank sky as their hands brush together in the grass.
Hell, Dennis knows now, is a desert- a wasteland of gunfire.
It’s a night on a bench clutching the last letter from his love while the world moves around him.
This isn’t an in-between stage; this is just life now- empty and broken, full of noise and bustle and nothing.
He’s disappointed more than anything when he realises what has happened.
He steps back into the elevator and goes back to work.
Two days later he’s in the cot in the farthest room from that elevator, staring up at the blank ceiling, his hand twitching next to him in the hopes it brushes another expectant hand- it doesn’t.
He likes the work he does.
He used to tell him about it often. While he received stories, of the troops and the carnage and the joy and the suspense of war, all Dennis had to talk about was the work.
He’d write with joy about the little kid with a broken nose that only cared about the goal it scored.
Or the thrill of putting an IV in correct first time.
It seems trivial now.
But he had loved it, and he had seemed to love listening to it.
He was so unbearably proud of him.
He tries to hold on to the work for him. He sacrificed too much to quit now, gave his life for Dennis to be here in the city, becoming a doctor, for a life he now has to build alone, instead of with his love by his side.
And Dennis will build that life, will build it for him, shape it around the hole that he left.
He was doing it for the three years he was on deployment.
He’d buy the coffee he liked on instinct, buys a cushion he knows he’ll like, was saving for his wedding band and only sleeping on the left side of the bed, saving space for a man who was supposed to fill that gap in a year. Was meant to come home to him and drink the coffee and sit with the cushion and wear his band and pull Dennis onto the right side of the bed and cling to him.
They were meant to be building the life together, and now Dennis will build it alone and try and live in it.
But right now, all he can do is keep his head above water at work and not think about the gaping ache where his heart used to sit.
Starting his ER rotation wasn’t supposed to be easy, but it also wasn’t supposed to be this hard.
It moves like molasses and then like quicksand.
He yearns to write to him about all of it.
About Milton slipping through his fingers. About how his face morphed into his loves face as he did the rounds of compressions, breaking bones with sick satisfaction. About how he felt like he was losing him all over again. Like three years ago when he first left, and 97 days ago when he lost him over the phone not even hearing him, and how 94 days ago he lost him when he got the letter.
How after that every injury, every body started to feel like the body he once knew so well. Once traced with calloused fingertips in dusty barns under the hush of a clear night.
How then carnage had broken loose and how all the blood and fear and chaos had melded with the picture of the desert his love was destroyed in.
How, in-between, he’d met a woman with the same snark and tenderness that had once belonged to his love’s lips, and a doctor with the same smile that once graced his face, a patient with the same laugh.
How his new boss reminded him of the boss he used to get letters about, about how he seemed to be drowning like Dennis was drowning.
And most of all he longed to write about the pain of it all, so that he might receive one a letter in return.
He moves in with Doctor Santos.
He is so grateful he feels like he should cry, but he hasn’t done that in 97 days and he won’t start now. If he does, he won’t stop.
She’s funny and so very kind in an aggressive sort of way. In a way that sings of understanding looks shared across corn fields and laughing contained between cigarettes and gentle touches of hands brushing his curls.
She makes him eat, by aggressively eating around him.
Makes him wash by leaving body wash in his room for him.
Makes him breathe, by nudging his shoulder in the supermarket as he stares too long at cereal that was once his favourite.
They get on, in a quiet way.
And he adores her for it.
He thinks they would have got on a worrying amount, which makes his heart shaped hole tender in a way that only the silence of a night clutching a letter can sooth.
Life has become just that little bit easier, and honestly, Dennis hates her for doing that, just a bit.
They work together well, slotting around each other in a way that was once reserved for hard labour on a farm with a boy he’d share secret glances with.
Dennis likes the ED for the constant movement. There is no space to breathe and that’s exactly how he likes it.
He thinks Doctor Robby likes that about it too.
He is a man so clearly adrift and yet so held together that Dennis can do nothing but admire him.
He has kind eyes, brown and deep and familiar in their depth.
He touches Dennis’s back and neck and steers him like he’s guiding a mare and Dennis is so thankful for this he hates him too.
No one should touch him, he’s buried in Nebraska, that’s where he is- and yet Doctor Robby grabs his neck and wrangles him back to the ED away from his love and he’s so ashamedly grateful for it, it tears at his insides at night.
Trinity, because she’s become that now, thinks he’s got a crush. Which made him laugh so hard the first time she said it he cried.
He must be doing a pretty good job, he guesses, for people to think he has a heart, has space enough for something as silly as a crush.
What it is, he knows in some distant part of him, is a will to keep this man going, because if Doctor Robby, with his eyes full of hopelessness can keep pushing up against every tide, then so can Dennis.
He will do anything to keep that happening.
He gets switched to nights during his R1 rotation, something to do with a pregnancy and staffing shortages.
He doesn’t complain- day and night are the same to him, now he doesn’t have to find time for calls or letters. They are the same nothing.
The issue is the Attending. Doctor Abbot.
Army man.
An army man who returned from war with a leg missing who stepped into the role a month ago. Apparently, he used to work in the ED with Doctor Robby before you got redrafted two years ago.
He makes Dennis so seethingly angry; it scares him.
Why does he get to come back? Why does Doctor Abbot get to return from hell and fit back into a life in Pittsburgh when he didn’t?
Dennis finds he can’t even look at him.
The posture and the jokes and the attitude make him sick.
How dare he be here when his love isn’t.
Dennis throws up after the first time they talk, he’s so mad with rage.
So, Dennis does everything in his power to avoid him. He works under Doctor Shen. Spends most of his days in triage. Takes breaks away from Abbot and functions.
A week into his time on night shift Doctor Abbot pulls him aside.
“Hey kid.”
Even that annoys Dennis. Kid? Who does he think he is?
“Yes, Doctor Abbot, you need something sir?”
Abbot huffs- his posture is rigid and stance wide like he’s screaming military as loud as he can- it makes Dennis want to roll his eyes.
“Yeah Kid. It’d like to know what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand.”
He’s always been good at politeness to cover lies. He used to have to use it all the time back in Broken Bow. People don’t suspect the nice polite church boy always willing to lend a hand to be fucking the farm hand, do they.
Politeness escapes punishment- it’s the lesson his father beat into him.
“See I think you do Whitaker. You are avoiding me and I’d like the curtesy of knowing why.”
Fuck.
“I didn’t realise I was doing that, sir.”
Abbot hums. “Enough with the sir stuff Whitaker, I’m not in the army anymore.”
Dennis can’t escape the sneer that produces on his face, and Abbot catches it.
“Ah.” He says quietly, staring at Dennis like he can take him apart with his eyes. He can’t. Dennis has been playing this game a long time.
“Your dad army, Whitaker?”
“No, Doctor Abbot.” He thinks about calling him sir again- because maybe he has a death wish.
Abbot squints at him, seems to think, then sighs.
“If you have a problem with the army, fine, so do I, but it cannot affect your work, it can not affect your relationship to me. You quit avoiding me and we are fine, got it.”
Dennis wants to scream.
“Yes Sir.”
Abbot smiles, all teeth, and yet there seems to twitch his lip in almost amusement.
“Just for that you get the foreign object in trauma 3, with me.”
Dennis nods, and smiles his politeness smile, stepping out the way for Abbot to lead.
He knows, without a doubt, he is fucked.
Working with Abbot was in many ways harder because of how easy it was.
He worked at a relentless pace, giving orders, corrections, and insight in the same breath and smiling at a patient.
He was professional, and yet jovial and buoyant in a way that contradicted the heaviness of his presence.
He's chaos in a way that makes Dennis thrive.
He moved with an efficiency that was hampered only by his seeming need to quip.
And god was it infuriating.
Where Doctor Robby had been a presence of steady hands, constant contact drawing Dennis around the ED like a leashed dog. Doctor Abbot was a hum of energy, a word for every movement, a tide of unrelenting attitude that seemed to hammer at Dennis's head, till his skull rattled.
And yet they worked well together.
Maybe it was because he reminded Dennis so much of Jack, a man whose presence had started to shape the man he loved.
He was a near fixtures in the letter Dennis received, often a quip about what stupid thing he had done to make the troops laugh, or what procedure he completed that blew his mind.
He played the guitar. He never lost at arm wrestling. He was shit at cards. He hated whiskey, loved coffee. He called him Loverboy. He was relentless in his ability to stay alert. He stroked his hair when he cried. He shot a dying dog. He, he, he...
That was what the letters often were. They were about the troops but really, they were about him- the weight of this Spector touching every word.
Dennis thought he should have been jealous; he might have been at first.
But really, they were both two men that knew what isolation cost, and he would never begrudge him a friend in such desolation.
Dennis was glad, more than anything, when he would hear quiet whispers over the phone, on the rare times they called, about how this Jack had held his hand when a friend had been shot. He hadn't quipped, hadn't even spoke, had just sat with him and held his hand.
As much as Dennis longed to be the one he could grasp, just like they used to back in Bow, he felt himself fall a little bit in love with that Jack for his tenderness towards the man that held his heart.
And then there was Abbot. A man seemingly cut from the same cloth. Maybe that's just what older army men become, Dennis thought, maybe he would have become like this- he already was in a way, he just didn't have the chance to flourish. He was cut down so that older army men, like this, like Abbot, could return home.
Dennis finds himself wondering, sometimes, if there is the same tender underbelly to Abbot that there was to his lover's Jack.
He doubts it.
This man is present, and yet disconnected, sharp and cutting and always fucking speaking.
His posture won't ever soften, Dennis knows.
He's army, and it sings through him.
It was a slow night, one where the small hours had found people clustered at the hub, just waiting for something to go wrong, talking to distract from the growing trepidation of the quiet, when an intern had asked Abbot why he had joined the army.
Dennis had tensed, but Abbot had just shaken his head and given a wry smile.
Dennis had heard him answer as he pushed himself away to take a smoke, the urge suddenly overpowering as he felt his fists clench at his sides, "not all of us can afford university."
He pushed through the crowd and felt his first breath through the cigarette. Slow and measured, just like his daddy taught him. He started out at the dead ambulance bay.
He didn’t turn when he felt that familiar presence next to him, rigid and contained.
"You’re not army Whitaker."
Breathe, inhale, exhale: "No sir."
"Wasn't a question."
Inhale: "No, sir."
Abbot huffed, "You act like you are."
Dennis tensed, "You don’t move on from the army, sir."
He let out a long puff of smoke and turned.
Abbot was staring at him with a look like he could see through him, see something in him. It was a look his lover used to wear often, in the fields, in the barns, in the pubs, in the long nights.
"Asthma sir, couldn't enlist." he said at last.
That seemed to jolt Abbot who in one movement grabbed Dennis's cigarette and stubbed it out.
Dennis sighed.
There was a pause as Dennis looked forlornly at the stubbed butt.
"No, you don't, move on that is. The question is, Whitaker, what are you trying to move on from?"
His now unoccupied hands began to clench at his sides, he smiled his most sweet smile, "Oh me, sir? Absolutely nothing."
Abbot hummed, and started to move inside, calling back over his shoulder, "Back straight cadet, we have work to do."
And didn’t they always.
The problem was that at some point after that interaction Dennis could no longer keep a tight lid on himself, whenever Abbot was near he found himself bubbling up, spilling over in a lack of control he hadn't experienced in around 522 days.
The quiet self-affecting persona he had so expertly crafted all those years ago in the back of a church, was slowly slipping from his grasp. His sharpness was seeping through, blending with his work front and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He found himself unable to tamp down a, "well if you order it, Captain" when asked to take bloods for a patient.
The words, "Oh is that so Doctor Abbot", slipping free when he was chatting to a patient about work life balance.
Even a, "We didn’t all have the pleasure of going to school with Darwin." got past his pressed together lips after Abbot dared to comment of the fact Whitaker didn’t know an old school procedure.
It was all, of course, made worse by Abbot himself, who seemed to not only tolerate this behaviour from his subordinate but revel in it.
He caught him chatting to Doctor Robby about it as he was doing handovers.
"You could have warned me the little kitty had claws."
"What?"
"Your golden boy. He’s feisty."
Doctor Robby seemed to be staring at Abbot like he just told him a MS3 had just done an unaided caesarean. "Whitaker?"
"Yup."
"Dennis Whitaker?"
"Cadet sarcasm himself."
"Dennis Whitaker?"
"Are you having a stoke?"
"What, no, just, he's so...meek."
"Not with me brother."
It was then that Dennis decided enough was enough.
He strode over giving a small wave and smile to Doctor Robby before letting it slip from his face as he turned to Abbot.
"The labs you wanted, sir."
Abbot turned to him grinning, "Why thank you Cadet, you are always so obedient and helpful."
Dennis smiled with as much teeth as he could muster, "Whatever you say captain, I defer to your superior judgement as always, Sir." Before he swiftly turned on his heals and stalked away, hearing a muffled cough from Doctor Robby ringing in his ears.
"What did you do to him Jack?" he asked incredulously.
"It would appear I simply served in the army." he responded, smiling.
And if that wasn't the crux of it. he hadn’t just served, he’d returned. and his loved hadn’t.
The rest of the pittlings noticed too. After a few drinks at the bar Javadi had just come out with it, "Why do you hate Abbot?"
Dennis stiffened, "I don’t hate him. I don’t even dislike him" he grumbled into his pint.
Beside him Trinity let out a loud laugh, "Huck be serious!?"
He just stared at her, "You complain about him all the time at home!" she straightened up and started doing a piss poor deep voice: "He just never stops talking, oh he’s so annoying always ordering me around like he’s my boss, god I hate him, make him stop."
The other girls were giggling.
Dennis sighed, "Fine, I don’t love him, is that what you want."
Javadi stared at him, "But why?"
Dennis looked at her, "He’s just...he’s just so..." he looked down at his pint, "military," he grumbled.
They all looked at him, before Mel spoke: "Well, he was in the army..." she offered shyly.
Dennis was starting to feel something burning in his chest, his eyes, "Well he doesn’t have to make it my problem." He snapped.
Again, they stared at him, a little shocked, well except for Trinity.
Mel dared speak again, "I... I don’t think he does that Dennis."
"No?" Dennis could feel his hands curled around his pint tightening, "you don’t think he does. He’s constantly snapping to attention, walking around like he’s in a fucking formation, fingers always twitching to his belt, he’s barking orders all while he self pityingly hobbles around on the fucking war wound-"
"Woah Huckleberry," Trinity cut in, "not cool."
He let out a slow breath, desperately trying to curl his hands, he looked down, "No...no you’re right sorry, I just...I hate the military."
There was a huff from the end of the table, "Yeah we gathered." scoffed Javadi.
Dennis sighed, he could feel the drinks in him and the heaviness setting into his limbs, "it’s just...why does he get to come back." he muttered, just to himself.
Trinity seemed to hear and nudge his shoulder gently, "Not all of him came back." she muttered to him.
Dennis scoffed, "Better that then none at all."
The group seemed to sense whatever this conversation was had gotten too far and Mel coughed before asking something about some podcast she liked. They moved on.
Dennis didn’t pretend to listen, just stared at his pint, trying desperately to breath.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he stood up and went for a smoke, desperate for the burn that accompanied it.
Dennis hates the 4th of July. He hates the fucking country and everything it stands for and everything people die for.
It surprises him that Abbot seems to agree.
Someone had hung an American flag in the Pitt and Abbot had all but torn it down, dragging it through drying blood, so it was rendered a biohazard and had to be burned.
Dennis made eye contact with him as he did it and gave a slow nod, Abbot winked, ruining the moment all together.
Dennis rolled his eyes.
Back home they'd have a huge potluck, all the neighbours would gather together in the church yard, drinking and chatting in the midday sun. It had been almost quaint.
Except for the MAGA hats and the loaded shotguns.
They used to sit on a haybale together sharing warm beer staring at the crowd, guessing the gossip and making fun of the outfits.
Later when the fireworks would start, Dennis was always in charge of calming the cows, so they'd bundle up between flanks making soothing noises as their hands brushed over the same backs.
When he’d gone, the 4th of July was nothing but a reminder of what separated them.
Now it was just a reminder of what can never be.
It wasn't that different from any other night, in all honesty, all the same brigade of injuries came prancing in, expect this time they were drenched in red, white and blue- it seemed fitting to Dennis that this was what America was, drenched in blood and shit.
They were waiting for a stab wound out in the ambulance bay, him and Abbot, mercifully not talking, when a teen had set a fire work off a few meters from them.
Expect Dennis didn’t know that. All he knew was that one moment he was standing, the next there was a bang and he was on the ground a with a body covering him, frantically muttering over and over "Stay down private stay down".
Dennis stayed, he could hear Abbot’s harsh breath against his ear, feel the whole weight of him crushing his windpipe, the panic in his eyes as they blankly stared around the area.
He breathed low in his chest.
"It’s" he gasped, stuttering, "it’s clear Doctor Abbot, everything's clear, we are safe," he paused trying to gauge Abbot's reaction, "you saved me, you did it, we are safe, it is 2026, we are in Pittsburgh, in the god forsaken ER bay, we are fine, we are safe." it didn’t appear to be working.
Fuck it, treat him like a spooked horse.
He very gentle touched abbot's curls, he twitched but didn’t move, so he started to stoke.
"Can you feel that Doctor Abbot, can you feel you subordinate inappropriately touching your hair? yeah? Come on old man can you feel that?"
Abbot blinked, nodded lightly.
Dennis exhaled sharply, "Good, good, well done old man, basic skills there. Okay you need to just focus on that and when you are ready, get off me, because fuck me I can’t breathe."
Abbot once again nodded slightly and swayed where he was still pressed chest to chest.
Distantly, Dennis realised this is the closest he’s been to another person in over 5 years, he let a wet breath.
He pulled his hand slowly away from Abbot’s head and gently cupped his sides, giving a small but firm push, forcing Abbot to roll slightly until he was on his back in the bay.
Dennis lay still and kept talking "Great job. Well done sweets. Okay I can breathe, you can breathe. Everything is fine, erm, can you" he paused, "can you see the stars? That one there the brightest one, can you see it?"
Abbot nodded.
"Good. Good okay that’s the North Star. We used to call it Big Bettie after a cow we had that for whatever reason wouldn’t move from the middle of the field, day and night... and that one, connected to it, the one that looks like a saucepan, that’s the Little Dipper. He used to call it Mama, because it was small but could really pack a punch. "
Dennis started to talk, words that slipped so easily out from him despite how neglected they were, he named the constellations, told the stories of who was who and why until he felt Abbot brush his hand, ever so gently before moving away and the words just stopped suddenly thick in his throat.
"We need to get up." He whispered to the shape next to him.
Abbot nodded.
Very slowly Dennis stood, he stood over abbot, extending a hand "Back straight Captain."
Abbot nodded grasp the hand and was pulled up.
For a moment they stayed staring at each other, clutching hands, before Dennis pulled away chest aching.
He took a breath, "Okay, we are going inside, you are taking 5, and Shen is going to cover the stabbing with me."
Abbot looked like he wanted to fight.
"That is an order, sir" Dennis smiled.
Abbot nodded.
And that’s what happened.
Dennis caught a glimpse of Abbot as he and Shen were wheeling in the stab victim, he was already doing compressions. Abbot was standing, back straight, smile on, dealing with a burn victim, he looked to all intense and purposes fine. He raised his head at Dennis and nodded.
Dennis winked.
And Abbot smirked.
The rest of the shift passed in a haze, Dennis treated patients relentlessly, and yet his mind kept wandering over to Abbot, to the distant faraway look in his eyes, the panic in his breath, the tremor of his body pressed to Dennis, the warmth of him lingering once he moved.
He clocked out still far away and stood in the same ambulance bay staring at the same cold stars, cigarette in his hand.
He started to pull it to his lips before it was wrenched from his hands and trodden on.
Dennis stared down at it mournfully.
“You save me, I save you.” Abbot said already walking away giving him a stupid little finger salute, Doctor Robby at his side.
Dennis flipped him off and heard a laugh.
He looked down at he smashed cigarette.
He was smiling.
It’s October now.
The weather is colder and Dennis finds he is wearing more layers than is ever necessary. But cold has been in his bones for years now.
He’s being moved back to days.
He isn’t sad, he isn’t disappointed, he isn’t anything.
Days and nights are still the same.
His last night on shift with Abbot, he is grabbed by his neck.
Abbot stands next to him and leans over, “Grab breakfast with me after shift, okay Cadet?”
Dennis squints at him.
Abbot huffs; “I’m not letting you go without at least some send off, I know you won’t come to a bar with us.”
Dennis relaxes, just a bit. “Well Sir, I do value my dignity.”
Abbot’s smiling: “Is that so?”
“I don’t expect you to understand, Captain.”
Abbot pushes the back of his head slightly, like brotherly affection. It burns.
“See you after hell then, Whit.”
“Whatever you say, Sir.”
And then they are back to it, treating sprains, and concussions and deflated lungs.
It’s 9am by the time he actual clocks out, legs heavy and bag slung over his should, standing in the Ambulance Bay, leaning against a wall, twirling an unlit cigarette. Abbot sees him as he exits himself. He gives him a once over and walks over, smiling as he nudges Dennis’s shoulder.
“You’re learning.” He murmurs, head nodding toward the cigarette.
“Learning not to light them around you, sure. I’m not about to waste my money like that.”
Abbot grins: “Good.”
They stay like that for a minute, before Abbot speaks, clapping his hands together, “Right! Grub!”
They end up at a diner down the road from the hospital, its bright and filled with yellow plastic. They sit opposite each other, Abbot with a coffee and a plate of eggs in front of him, Dennis with a malt shake.
He always orders it. It’s not even his favourite, but it was once someone else’s.
“We’re going to miss you on nights.”
Dennis looks at Abbot, who appears for once to be serious.
“Careful, Sir, you almost sound sincere.”
“I am.” Dennis looks at his shake. “You know, I think you can quit it with the Sir now I’m not even you’re attending anymore.”
Dennis smirks, “As you wish,” Abbot smiles, “Sir.” Abbot grins.
Dennis takes a sip. The cool and thick liquid spills into his mouth, coating his tongue- It’s sweet, too sweet, and just the right side of sickly. It burns in his stomach.
Abbot nudges his foot against his.
“I wanted to thank you, Dennis.”
That has Dennis looking up. In all his time with Abbot, he’s always been Whitaker, Whit, Cadet, even Mouse Boy- never Dennis.
He’s not really Dennis anymore to anyone these days, not even Trinity.
He cocks his head in question.
“For the 4th of July, for what you did, for what you do.”
Dennis shakes his head.
“No, I’m serious, I really appreciate it. You shouldn’t of have to, but you stepped up, keep stepping up.”
Dennis shrugs.
The ice-cream in his shake is melting.
“You know…I used to know someone, like you that is, back in the Army.”
Dennis stiffens, going for a disinterested tone and failing, “That so?”
“Yeah, strong lad, young, bit rough… quiet. He used to have a mouth on him too, sarcastic, even brutal at times, but strong.”
Dennis doesn’t look at his face.
“Once, when we were at camp, after a raid,” Abbot’s voice softens, it feels unnatural in this cheery diner, the voice he seems to only reserve for children, scared and small. “We’d lost someone, a good man, a friend.” He sounds far away. “He’d been shot, right in front of us, clean through the head, nothing I could have done. My buddy, this young private, I think it was his first death, at least first brutal one, right in front of him.”
Abbot pauses, taking a sip of coffee.
Dennis steals a glance at him and finds Abbot already looking at him. His gaze is soft, alien in his stiff posture.
“We sat together, until it went dark, not talking… and then the stars came out.”
Dennis can’t look away from those eyes.
“He spoke for the first time in hours. I remember he looked a million miles away, calm even. You know what he said?”
Dennis shakes his head.
“He said, ‘Back home, we used to name the stars, and you see that one, the bright one, that’s the North Star, always in the middle, that’s why we called it Big Bettie,” Dennis feels his breathe hitch. “She was a cow we had that would always just stand in the middle of the field, we never knew why,” Abbot holds Dennis’s trembling gaze, “but now I know, she was the herd’s anchor. Old and wise and they always knew where to find her when things got confusing for them. That’s what that star is to the sky. That’s what Dee is to me.’”
Dennis could feel something wet on his cheeks, something cold in his hands, but all he could see were Abbot’s eyes staring at him.
“I think you know this,” Abbot’s voice got impossibly soft, “but about 6 months later, that young lad died, blown up in the same trap that got my leg. He didn’t suffer, was at the centre of the blast you see, got the worst of it and died on impact. Safed my life. I remember coming too, after seeing him blown. Waking up with the worst pain in my life, on my back, staring at the sky and seeing that same star overhead. It’s funny, but I felt safe.”
Dennis holds Abbot’s gaze, his face so unbelievably tender.
“I’m sorry, Dennis, for your loss. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him.”
Abbot’s hand reaches across, fingers gently brushing around Dennis’s own that have gone white with how hard they are gripping his glass.
“I’m sorry he couldn’t come home to you.”
He feels the shudder first in his shoulders, then his chest. His throat working up and down, his heart clenching.
He feels numb.
They sit like that for anywhere between 5 minutes to 5 hours, Abbot’s hand gently cupped around Dennis’s.
Eventual, when Dennis can breathe again, he dares to speak.
“He-” he takes a long breath out, “what’s your first name?”
This seems to genuinely take Abbot by surprise.
“It’s Jack, kid.” He murmurs.
“Jack.” Dennis echoes back softly, tasting the words around his mouth. “Jack”, he repeats, small and shy, “… thank you.”
Abbot, cocks his head, trying to meet Dennis’s eyes, “for what?”
Dennis feels the familiar burn behind his eyes, “For, for being there for him when I couldn’t be. I- he, he wrote about you, a lot. I- Thank you, for looking after my love.”
Abbot suddenly looks like he’s about to cry, it doesn’t suit him, “Of course, Dennis, of course. I-“ He looks down, as if he himself is suddenly shy, “I loved him, in my own way, he was special, to you, to me. He was…good.”
Dennis coughs wetly, “He was.”
When they leave the diner, they don’t hug, they don’t even shake hands, but Abbot does clap him on the shoulder, firm grip, nodding his head: “See you around, Cadet?”
It’s firm but holds a tone that’s almost a question.
Dennis nods, not ready to smile yet, “Of course,” He makes eye contact with Abbot that seems to stretch across an ocean, “Sir.”
Abbot laughs, deep and full.
Then he turns, giving Dennis that stupid finger gun salute.
Then he’s gone.
Dennis gets back to the apartment somehow. He unlocks the door soundlessly. Steps into the mess of two med students, moving over clothes and pizza boxes. He pushes open his bedroom door, takes in the bare walls and spares dresser. He moves over to his bedside table, opens his worn bible and tenderly removes a letter.
He sits down.
And opens it.
‘For my beloved Dee, separated from me by the sea,’
He smiles.
‘As always, the important questions come first: have you broken the record on how many things you have found up a kid’s nose? How many scrubs did you change today? Did you finally tell that nurse to fuck off and leave my man alone, he’s my bit of strange not hers?!’
Dennis laughs.
‘I know we spoke about this on the phone but I gotta say it, you know I do, I’m sorry about Mrs Kelley, it wasn’t your fault no matter what your brain is telling you- you can’t save them all. Life’s just like that sometimes, we all gotta go to that be cloud in the sky eventually. You are good Doctor, I know I know you are only a med student, but you were a good Doctor when we were little kids and you gave me your last spiderman Band-Aid when I got caught on that fucking barbed wire fence, and you are a good doctor now.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that time, in between thinking about that lil piece of ass of yours (god who’d have thought I’d still be horny in a war zone- maybe its all the buff men around me, you’d be in heaven. This might he hell, but god the men Dee! I know you’d be creaming in your pants at Jack, I know I am) but seriously, now adays I think a lot about when we were dumb little shits in the fields, always spooking the cows with how much we’d laugh. It’s nice yk, it kinda feels like I’m back there with these guys, stupid little shits again dealing with shit far too big for us. If only we had my Mamma here now to whip our butts into shape, she’d have a field day smacking Jack for his mouth, no doubt she’d get her trusty soap out again.
It’s all the same as it was last time, dust and ruin, but they make is bearably, well he does. He reminds me of you a lot, his smart mouth and stupid attitude. Never leaves well enough alone either, yk he still calls me LoverBoy because he says I never shut up about my Dee- does this dumb ass impression of me, all high and prancy like im some mary, going ‘oh my dee does this and oh my dee does that and did you know dee used to…’ with these nancy little hand gestures. He’s not far off though Dee, I see you everywhere here, can't stop seeing you. Maybe it’s just cause I know it’s only 7 more months before I’m back with ya, but by god I still can’t wait.
I’ve been thinking yk, we should get a cat. Adopt a real piece of shit and call it Jack, that’d kill him. We could send him photos of it, he’d hate it but I know he’d get a real kick outta it- he’s a proper sweetie. Wants to meet you too, talks about how we can’t get married til we have his dumbass blessing, like that’s gonna stop me. Soon as im back im marching your ass to the court room and making it official.
Idk when I’ll be able to write next, we got a big mission coming up, something boring, but everyone’s hyped to do something other than fiddle about with our dicks. I know I am, sooner the missions over the sooner I can call and see your sweet face.
I gotta go now, though, promised Jack I’d teach him cards before new recruits arrive, so he doesn’t make a total ass outta himself, again. Don’t tell him but imma teach him wrong so they got something to laugh at when they get here.
Not long now baby. No sea between our heart soon!
I’m so proud of you, forever and always, yours <3’