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It wasn’t quite shift-change time, but Dennis knew that if Abbot saw him outside in the bay smoking before his shift, he wouldn’t have a cigarette to puff at all. So, he decides that heading up to the roof for a 6am smoke is a lovely idea.
He’s done it before.
Used to do it regularly when he lived in the hospital.
There was always something about the wind, and the cold, no matter what time of day it was. The city always seemed desolate, just blocks and blobs. He could squint, fill the warmth of the cigarette burn in his throat, the wind hit his face, see the building merge to a grey field and imagine himself sitting not against a railing, but the flat of a barn. He could paint the wind on his cheeks as the breath of a lover. The warmth in his hand as the warmth of a hand beside him.
It was always early and if he let his mind wonder he was no longer taking a moment before work but breathing in the country air before heading out to the fields for milking, for manual labour that left his shoulders aching and limbs heavy but mind blissfully clear.
He could imagine him standing at the far edge, already tending to the horses. Could see him in the haze of grey stand out and smiling.
He needed this ritual. He needs to feel just that bit of himself, before he was encased in fluorescent lighting and there would be no more room for Dennis, just action and speed.
He never used to need these moments.
If anything, they were almost a punishment, a test even, dangling temptation right in front of him.
He could walk out to meet his lover over the field, could let it all slip away for a chance to touch him again, hear his voice murmur in his ear, feel his hands brush his curls, graze his cheek.
It would be easy to just keep walking.
But they learned long ago that no heaven would await them, and what was heaven for Dennis if not him.
Now, though, as he opens the door, cigarette already in his mouth, he doesn’t see Doctor Robby. He’s too intent on looking down trying to light the thing. Instinctually his dips under the railing, letting himself slump down to lean against it, the tips of his toes brushing the edge of the building.
He feels his chest deflate with the exhale, lets his arms hang loose and heavy at his side.
It’s only then that he sees him, in line with Dennis, less than a meter away.
He’s looking at him, expression clouded.
Dennis blinks.
They have both been caught, and they both know it.
Dennis closes his eyes as Doctor Robby stares.
He reaches into his hoody and fishes out his packet and extends it up towards him, offering a slice of quiet to the man.
Doctor Robby blinks, he seems so lost in this moment and Dennis can help feel his heart start to ache.
Then he takes the packet, opening it before holding out his palm for the lighter. Dennis obliges. Doctor Robby lights the cigarette with ease, before tossing the stuff back to Dennis without even looking his way, exhaling and breathing out a soft, “fuck.”
Dennis hums.
They smoke in silence.
When Dennis snubs his butt out on the ground and goes to light another, he catches Doctor Robby staring at him. He raises an eyebrow.
“Don’t you have asthma, kid.”
Dennis feels his jaw clench.
“Don’t you have an example to set.” He responds, nodding his head towards Doctor Robby, and the ledge they were both politely ignoring, cocking an eyebrow again. He doesn’t feel like Whitaker in this moment, can’t bring himself to be stuffed back into his box.
Doctor Robby huffs; “Something tells me you’d find your way up here with or without my lead.”
Dennis rolls his eyes, “well the world doesn’t actual revolve around you, despite what the Pitt might make you believe.”
Doctor Robby turns his head then, no longer content with sideways glances at Dennis’s slumped form. Dennis wonders what he sees: a meek med student tired and needing guidance? Someone naïve and struggling to cope? A man like himself maybe? Dennis doubts it.
He won’t back down now though, he maintains eye contact with Robby, letting no emotion onto his face- which isn’t difficult, he’s not feeling much of anything any ways.
Doctor Robby breaks first, shifting his gaze back to the horizon.
“Okay then, so why are you here?”
“For a smoke, Abbot steals mine if he sees me.”
Doctor Robby shakes his head.
“You could just smoke on the park bench for that. Why here?”
Dennis sighs, already feeling his fingers twitching to move.
“Same as you, sir,” Doctor Robby turns to him, brows pinches together, “to torture myself.”
That seems to startle the man, who jerks his head slightly, suddenly looking down.
“Is that so.” He says to the view.
“Yes, sir.”
He pauses, cataloguing Doctor Robby’s posture- the tightness in his shoulders, the fists balled up in his pockets, the clench in his jaw, eyes fixed, unmoving on the distance.
“I reckon, you’d be surprised how similar we are Doctor Robinavitch.”
“How do you reckon Whitaker?”
“Well, from where I’m sat, we both seem to be people pretending we don’t want to jump.”
Doctor Robby closes his eyes.
“Jack was right about you, kid.” Dennis hums, “You’re trouble.”
Dennis laughs, “You don’t know the fucking half of it.”
Robby’s shoulders loosen and he takes a breath before slowly moving over to Dennis and sitting now next to him, groaning as his bends.
Dennis holds out his half-smoked cigarette as an offering. Robby stares at it for a moment before shrugging and taking a puff.
He goes to hand it back to Dennis’s waiting hands but on the way quickly aborts the motion and stubs it.
“Oh, you dick.” Dennis says before he can stop himself.
Doctor Robby laughs.
“You really aren’t who you pretend to be, are you Whitaker.”
Dennis shrugs.
“I’m not anything.”
“Oh, you are kid, you’re something alright. Question is why hide it.”
Dennis’s fists curl, “Ain’t hiding nothing, Doctor Robinavitch, just a sweet ol’ farm boy me.” He turns baring his teeth in a sickly smile.
Robby squints at him.
“I find that hard to believe, a few months ago, sure. Now though,” his eyes rake over Dennis’s body, “now I don’t know.”
“Well, I ain’t a complex guy, Sir.”, Dennis briefly thinks about winking at him and then thinks that he has spent far too much time with Abbot and wants to suddenly hit something. Abbot mainly.
Robby shakes his head.
Dennis reckons now’s a good a time as any to ask, “Why are you up here, Doctor Robby?”
He sighs, “I thought we’d established we had the same reasonings.”
Dennis hums again, “Well, I was expecting a denial, so good for you sir, exceeding my expectations.”
Robby looks faintly amused.
For a brief moment, in the curve of his lip, Dennis sees a familiar face. He shakes his head quickly looking away.
Robby frowns, “You alright, kid?”
Dennis can feel his teeth ache, hand tighten on his lighter, the grove of the metal wheel digging into his palm. “Why wouldn’t I be.” He spits out.
He doesn’t look at Robby, doesn’t care for his reaction.
“Well for one you look like you are going to crush your lighter.”
Dennis jaw aches, his head staring to buzz.
He takes a deep breath, forcing air down into his lungs, imagines it pushing out of him in a violent stream. He can’t uncurl his fingers. In fact, he feels them grip harder, his other hand starting to clench, his back locking up.
“Are you,” he spits, “alright, kid?” He drawls out his accent, turning sharply to stare down Robby.
The gaze he is met with is shockingly soft.
“Not really.” Robby says, tender gaze still looking at Dennis.
Dennis’s hands go slack.
His shoulders drop.
He’s not supposed to be looked at like that. Not anymore. Only Dee got that look, only Dee got that kindness. And he isn’t Dee; he’s not even Dennis. He’s Whitaker. Kid.
“I’m” Robby breathes out a long trembling breath, “I’m not okay Whitaker, I’m” he moves to look out at the skyline again, “sad.” He finishes, tone flat.
Dennis’s breath catches.
He looks down at his hands, paler than they have been in years, cracked from antiseptic and raw around his cuticles.
“Yeah,” He breathes.
He doesn’t dare look at Robby.
That hangs between them for a moment, Dennis is suddenly scared to even breathe, worried it’ll extinguish whatever is happening.
“I,” he’s speaking, he’s not even aware he’s doing it, his mind suddenly adrift, off to the fields, the barns, to the warmth, “lost someone, lost…everything and…” he takes a breath, “I’m just so angry, all the time, and all I want to do is scream and instead all I can do is sit here and smoke and work and try to fucking pretend he never existed because if I think about him I would never fucking breath again. I’d be on the pavement right now and I wouldn’t fucking care.”
He’s saying too much, talking too much, he can’t stop it.
“I see him everywhere, in everything and I thought, I thought,” he laughs, “I thought it was getting better, I thought I could keep him locked with me forever, just move on day to day waiting for him and now I’m fucking stuck here surrounded by things and people that I care about, I get to care when all he gets to be is in a box, ten feet fucking deep in Nebraska!”
He feels his voice softening, whispering out into the early day, “I get to care, I get to smile and like my job and have people care about me when all he gets to be is dead.”
He can’t take his eyes off his hands.
The hands that are meant to be grasping his but are instead cold and ugly and alone.
He feels Robby exhale and very slowly move his own hand to cover Dennis’s.
He wants to pull away, to flinch, but he can’t find the strength in himself anymore.
When Robby finally speaks its rough, like something is torn out of him: “You were right, Dennis, we… I understand, I hate that I do, I hate that I don’t have comfort to offer because really, I’m just as fucked…I’m… fucked up.”
It feels, strangely, like he’s not even talking to Dennis. Like for a brief moment he’s suddenly forgotten he’s there, that it’s his hand he’s holding.
They sit like that for a few minutes before Dennis takes his hand back, shaking his head and shoving his smokes back into his pockets. Doctor Robby takes a deep breath and pushes himself up, looking out on last time at the waking city before climbing over the rail.
His posture shifts, and Dennis sees Abbot in him; shoulders pushed out, back straight, head high, controlled.
Dennis follows suit.
As they are walking down the stairs to the Pitt Dennis trails his fingers over the walls, feeling the groves and nicks in the paint.
They reach the bottom and Doctor Robby looks at Dennis, eyes focused, sharp, “Ready kid?” He asks. His tone is light, but something in his face bleeds.
Dennis feels his shoulders square, “Yes, boss.”
Robby opens the door.
--
Abbot sees them coming in together, not from the entrance but from the stairs, he squints at Whitaker before loudly groaning.
He points a finger at Dennis, “You. Have been smoking.”
He turns his gaze and accusatory finger at Robby, “and you enabled it- you participated!”
Robby looks affronted, “I did no such thing! The kid has asthma!”
Abbot turns to Dennis, who pulls on an annoyed face, muttering, “bastard snubbed it out, tossed my packet off the roof when I offered him one.”
Abbot grins at Robby, clapping him on the shoulder, “Good man!”
Abbot walks away, sending Dennis a look as if to say, ‘see I told you so, bad for you’.
Robby is staring a Dennis, who smiles cheekily up at him before putting a finger to his lips and miming locking them with a key, winking.
Robby laughs.