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The thing about Whitaker is that he would never describe himself as “touch starved”.
Tactile without much of an outlet for it, sure. Big hugs weren't really a thing in his house growing up but he knew he was loved, despite no one ever really saying it out loud that he could remember.
Roughhousing with his brothers on the farm usually ended up in laughing and had only turned into what Whitaker would call a real fight a couple of times, but that was their fault for taking his comic books to read down at the lake and getting them wet.
Even at college and after, when something about his body seemed freer and more like it belonged to him, he'd been held, touched, fucked.
But affection? Real affection. With lingering touches. Heat. And warmth.
No, nothing that felt like that.
And then there was Dr Robby. Who laid hands on him the first day they met and lit a fire under his skin. Whose hands seemed to expel the worst parts of a day, at least temporarily, like some kind of preacher casting the bad shit from your soul.
Hands that don't seem to touch anyone else quite the same. Or nearly as much.
Those hands, that have been soaked with the lifeblood of countless patients.Those hands that might have literally been wrapped around a beating heart.
Those hands, those hands, want to touch him. Hold him steady. Anchor him. Revere him. Like he's worth it. Like he matters.
And Whitaker can't quite get his head around that.
But he wants those hands on him. Needs the touches. From the barely there grazes of skin to the firmly planted palms on his shoulders, the ones that say ‘this is hell but I'm walking through it with you’.
"You put your hands on me a lot,” he managed to murmur as Robby held him close, stomach to chest, upright in Robby's bed, Whitaker straddling him.
A moment's hesitation from Robby, the lips skimming across Whitaker's kindled skin paused to speak. “Is it too much at work? Do…you want me to stop?”
“No…God no,” Whitaker held him closer, one hand grasping lightly at the nape of Robby's neck, memorising the hair at the base of his skull with his fingertips.
“Don't stop…please…don't ever stop.”
He felt Robby smile against his skin before resuming kisses, slowly, deliberately, across his stomach.
‘Don't take those hands away…not now, not ever. Still me, make me whole. Keep me with you.’
But those words wouldn't leave his mouth, disappearing somewhere in a sigh instead at the back of his throat.
He smiled as Robby whispered his name like some kind of benediction between kisses to his torso.
Those words, like Robby's strong, pacifying hands, would be there tomorrow.