Work Text:
“You two are close, huh?” Robby asks once Dennis is off the phone with Trinity.
The back of his neck is sweating and he’s unspeakably glad his instincts are already finely honed to keep an eye out for unexpected video calls from her, making sure he never just accepts them automatically when she calls – and obviously, when she keeps trying to add video to a voice call, he always declines it. He doesn’t think Trinity would be able to tell whose place he was at just from the décor or the books, but she was already pretty filthy last night just when he said he wouldn’t be coming back (“Oh my God, are those dudes spitroasting you again? You told the one who lost a piercing and an inch of dick skin it’s against medical advice, right?”), and he’d texted her begging her to back up his pulled-a-muscle story literally as he was calling in sick.
“Uh, yeah,” Dennis says. “I guess we are.”
They are – they’re friends. Javadi doesn’t think so, he doesn’t think, but his friendship with hers is different to the one he has with Trinity – Javadi’s sweet, but she is still really young, and Dennis has talked to her mom a decent amount at work. She’s, uh, acerbic, and he gets how you could go from her and her vibe and how she talks, and to think that Trinity is the same, but she’s not.
Trinity Santos is, you know, an asshole – she’s not nice, she’s pretty fucking brutal, but she’s not actually cruel.
Living with her is not that different to living at home, except that he isn’t getting tackled and thrown around as much – she tosses shit at him, but he’s normally quick enough to catch it or sometimes just duck his head. She’s strong enough to lift him, he’s pretty sure, and if they started wrestling he’s pretty sure she’d be able to pin him down fairly quick, but she doesn’t really go beyond punching him on the arm.
She gets nervous sometimes if they end up unexpectedly in the corridor at the same time and the two of them are too close together, if she comes out of her bedroom or the bathroom or vice versa and they’re suddenly touching, but that’s not about him.
Dennis is honestly kind of glad that Javadi doesn’t have the experience to really, um… Well. To see why Trinity is jagged that way, sometimes. She’ll learn in time.
Dennis can’t really move – he’s sprawled out on his belly in Robby’s bed, face and chest propped up by a pillow, so exhausted he can’t really push himself up.
This morning, Robby had eased Dennis down onto his prick and just held him there, let Dennis basically fall back asleep against his chest before setting off a vibrator against his dick; when they’d napped this afternoon, Robby had worked inside him and then just collapsed on top of Dennis’ body, snoring softly against Dennis’ neck.
That was— it had been really fucking hot, falling asleep on top of Robby earlier with Robby’s fat cock keeping him plugged up, but it had been even hotter, a few hours back, how Robby had pressed deep into him and then just fucking collapsed on top of him like a fucking actual sleeping bear. Dennis had been weighed down by his body even though he’s not actually the bulkiest guy in the world, because Robby is heavy, solid, muscular.
He’d still been able to breathe, and it had felt secure, and warm, and just really good – he’d fallen asleep too and come groggily awake to Robby mercilessly fucking him into the bed, and Dennis doesn’t even know how long it took him to come, but Robby had fucked him for a long, long time. His body had gone from relaxed and easy to pinned down to make him easy to fuck, and it’s—
Robby is really good at sex, at fucking. It’s not just that he’s horny, it’s not just that he has a sexy body, that he’s strong and domineering and commanding in the way, that he manhandles Dennis the way that he likes, more so than he does at work, that his voice goes husky and gruff in the right ways, that he says stuff that ticks off a lot of Dennis’ kinks.
He watches Dennis’ body for his reactions and he fucking studies him sometimes – all that manhandling at work is to get him in the right positions for other staff or Robby to work around him, or sometimes fixing his posture so he won’t crick his neck during a longer procedure or something. It had never occurred to Dennis before now that Robby moved his body or moved anybody else’s body on the floor for any reason other than speeding his own ease of access and it being faster than communicating verbally when every nanosecond matters.
He knows that Robby manhandles him less at work now than during his rotation or even at the start of his residency, but he hadn’t connected the dots and realised why: he has better instincts now on where to stand and how to move, how to flank other doctors and nurses or make sure he’s at the right angle to let them reach or lean past him as needed. He’s learned the choreography of the emergency room now, has it learned pat, and it’s not just the stuff that gets him out of other people’s way, it’s stuff like bending his knees to preserve his lower back or making sure his seat is at the right height when he’s doing a procedure or anything else, the little things you don’t learn in class and that you don’t learn just by copying – Robby manhandles him less now because he doesn’t need to do it as much, only needs to shove him around now on an incidental basis.
The manhandling in bed is partly for Robby’s ease of access, to let him get deeper, to let him thrust at the right angle, to let him bite Dennis’ neck or his thighs, to let him grip at his waist or his chest or his hair, but it’s not just that: he twists Dennis’ body so that he can touch the bits at the sides of his neck or behind his ears, so that he can massage the most tender and sensitive parts of his thighs or his ass, so that he can hit Dennis’ prostate at just the right angle to make his fucking eyes water and his dick leak a little bit.
The experience in bed is pretty similar to his experience at work – he’s had a lot of sex, knows what to look for and knows how to respond, and he does it.
Dennis is no bad lay himself, he knows that – he’s good at sucking dick and he’s good at eating pussy, and while he’s a better bottom than he is a top, he’s pretty good at both, he thinks, he’s had good reviews. Robby, though? Dennis isn’t on his level.
Being able to see how good something feels, to know how pleasurable it is, just by tiny little shifts in Dennis’ face or in his body, it’s like he’s fucking psychic, and Dennis knows that from now on, even if they never fuck again after this week, he’s gonna fucking jack off to that, the same as how he does sometimes thinking about how fucking fast Robby is, how good he is at medicine, how fast he moves.
“We’re out of eggs,” Robby says, and Dennis looks blearily up from where he’s sprawled naked on his front, feeling the warm air of the room just inside his fucked-open ass, so much jizz stuffed in him that he’s surprised it’s not coming out of his mouth at this point. “I’m gonna go for my run then pick some up from across the street, okay? You want anything, sweetheart?”
“Sweetheart?” Dennis repeats under his breath, feeling himself smile – he feels warm and happy and kind of gooey inside, and that’s before Robby’s hand slides against the side of his jaw and his thumb touches against Dennis’ lower lip. He has such nice eyes, so big and brown and so fucking deep, and when he smiles his eyes are crinkling at their edges.
He looks… He looks really nice, like this, in grey sweats and a faded blue and yellow hooded sweatshirt with PITT written across the chest. Dennis stares at it, at how worn and comfortable it looks, is horribly overwhelmed in the moment at the fantastical idea of cosying down in it, thinking about how fucking loose it will be on him – he’d be able to get his knees up under it without even stretching it.
How the fuck does this old bastard, who has been fucking him brutally and unendingly for the better part of eighteen hours, go from that much easy fucking sadism and effortless overuse of Dennis’ body to giving him the warm milk and honey routine?
“Anything to drink, eat, anything you need?” Robby asks.
“What, you want me to pout my lips out and ask you to pretty please get me some candy?” Dennis asks, maybe sounding kind of grumpy and moody more than attractively bratty, and Robby grins down at him.
“I don’t know if you’ve earned candy,” he says.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dennis asks. “I haven’t earned it? Robby, you could fit a fist in me with what you’ve done to my ass.”
“You think so?” Robby asks, raising his eyebrows and looking appraisingly up toward Dennis’ ass, and Dennis hurriedly grabs the sheet and hides it, making Robby laugh again, low and full of rich amusement and satisfaction. “You could earn it by coming for a run with me.”
“It’s like you’re not even human,” Dennis mumbles. “Where the fuck do you get off, fucking me like that and then going for a jog around the block?”
“It’s just a quick 3k.”
“3k,” Dennis groans, uncomprehendingly. “Are you like, from Krypton? Is your real name My-Kel?”
Robby’s lips twitch, and he’s looking down at Dennis with a grin on his face. “Aw, Dennis, you’re a nerd. You want a comic book instead of a candy bar?”
“I’m at exactly the right height to hit you in the dick right now, boss.”
“That would ruin your day more than mine, kid,” Robby says smugly, and when Dennis opens his mouth to retort, although he doesn’t even know what he’s gonna say, Robby doesn’t wait for him – he slides his thumb forward and slides it over Dennis’ tongue, pressing down on it and making him groan quietly at the pressure. “When I get back, after lunch and a shower, what do you say to sucking me off?”
Dennis closes his mouth around Robby’s thumb, feeling the slight weight of it in his mouth and thinking about having Robby’s dick in his mouth instead, fucking stretching out his lips – giving his ass a break, and at the same time probably making him fucking crave something new in his ass again.
He nods, and Robby smiles wider, then asks in a teasing tone, “So, Marvel, DC… You want the new Spiderman?”
Dennis makes as if he really is gonna hit him in the crotch, and Robby grabs him by the wrist before he can make contact and pulls upward – in a second, Dennis is whining, “Robby, Robby, fuck, uncle, let me go!” – and Robby lets him go from where he’s just fucking twisted him into a goddamn knot.
“Bastard,” he says, and Robby is laughing as he heads out of the door, and Dennis slowly walks over to the bathroom on shaky legs and washes his face and takes a piss before he goes into the kitchen.
He never had a dishwasher back home – it would be nice, he thinks, if his mom would ever let herself have one, let herself spare the money – and never when he was at college, either. He’s been fucking spoiled, living with Trinity, ‘cause she owns her place, and she has the dishwasher, she has a separate washer and dryer, she even has a heated rack for towels in the bathroom.
Robby had kind of waved him off and said it wasn’t working when Dennis had opened it last night, and it takes his mind off the way his body is aching all over in the best of fucking ways to kneel down and pull out Tupperware Robby stores messily in here and try turning it on.
The power starts to the machine, but the cycle won’t start even after he shuts the door. It’s clicking open and closed, and after he checks that the latch is hooking into place and that there’s no safety lock or something stopping it, he pulls out both drawers and makes sure they’re sliding all the way home, which they are.
The power cord is in the back of the floor cabinet next to it, and he unplugs it for thirty seconds, then plugs it back in, but restarting it doesn’t make the cycle restart either. He’s glad it’s an older model of machine – Trinity’s appliances are mostly secondhand, ‘cause she was able to buy her place but couldn’t afford to furnish it new – ‘cause it means there’s no fucking fancy software or little screen or some shit.
He can feel for the problems, and it’s all about engineering, and not fucking—
Fucking programming, or computer stuff. It’s not like he can’t use a computer, he can do the basic fixes, even, but he’s not comfortable with it like he is with appliances or equipment, even helping fix the car or a tractor. He remembers how fucking surprised his family had been, when he’d taken an interest in medicine – they’d figured he’d go to college, but they’d thought he’d go into ag engineering, not medicine.
Pulling open the cabinet under the sink, he makes sure the water supply is on, then checks the inlet for the dishwasher – it’s not kinked or anything and there aren’t any holes, but when he opens it up he finds it’s blocked with gross dry gunk. The sink cabinet has a bunch of dusty tools in an open painter’s tray, and he reaches behind the dishwasher to unscrew the hose on that end as well, then brings it up to the sink to clear it out.
It’s gross, a little, but it’s weirdly dry – God knows how long Robby’s just let it sit without working, and once he’s happy with the current of water running all the way through the hose, he leans back under the sink, hooks it back up, checks it’s not leaking, and tests the cycle.
The dishwasher gives a clunk inside, and then he hears it start to whir as it pulls in water, and he grins to himself, satisfied, before cracking the door and loading it up before he lets it cycle for real.
He washes his hands in the bathroom, where he suspects the washer-dryer isn’t working ‘cause he’d noticed it was unplugged and the console had a bit of dust on it, and he finds when he tests the cycle that this, too, is a pretty easy fix – the washing machine door isn’t closing all the way ‘cause there’s a curled ball of hair stuck just inside the hinge, but he still clears out the filters and washes off the control panel with a damp cloth, tests the spin of the drum, before tossing on a load of Robby’s laundry and, for good measure, his own clothes from last night.
There are some light bulbs under the sink, so he replaces the dead bulb in the hallway by the door, and ‘cause he noticed that the coffee table was wobbly, he gets a piece of foam off a piece of packing sitting by the recycling bin and cuts it to size, tacking the wedge under the worn table leg to take the place of the missing floor-protector, which wouldn’t be hard to replace.
When Robby comes back, he’s put the showerhead in vinegar to descale and has cleared out the hose, and is straddling the closed toilet seat, which needs replacing because the right hinge is loose, and watching with satisfaction as the cistern fills up – all the way up, not just a third of the way.
Really, the rubber seal on the valve needs replacing, but it should be good for at least a while now.
He turns around, and he blinks at Robby, who he hadn’t heard come in – he’s standing there, a little bit sweaty in his joggers and Pitt jersey, with his reading glasses on, and he’s watching Dennis. Trinity says he does that, not just with Dennis, but that she does it with her too, and Mel, and a lot of people he’s trained, that sometimes he leans in to see if they need help, pops his head around the door or leans over the wall, and if they don’t need help, he just watches for a second, enjoys a junior’s expertise.
“Yeah, he’d love a fish tank, if he could only teach ‘em his tricks,” Dana had said, laughing with the affection that she does about Robby or Abbot or Doctor Collins, all fond and dry and husky, although she’s less husky now, Dennis thinks, ‘cause she’s trying not to smoke.
“What’cha doing?” Robby asks softly.
“Well, um, your toilet wasn’t flushing, uh, like it should, like after you flush it the cistern wasn’t filling up, and that’s just ‘cause there wasn’t enough water in it – the float was stuck ‘cause the valve is a little bent on the edge, so the seal is broken. It’s not anything to worry about right now, just wear and tear, but I can pick up another valve and replace it.”
Robby watches as Dennis washes his hands, nodding toward the shower. “Took the showerhead off?”
“It might still need replacing, but there’s a lot of limescale, so it’s just in vinegar for now,” Dennis says. “The hose is clear.”
“The…” Robby falters, because he’d been raising his hand and pointing toward the kitchen, but now his hand sort of falters in the air as he looks distractedly at the washing machine, which is spinning. “You… you fixed the washer?”
“The door wasn’t locking, it was just some hair in the hinge.”
“And the dishwasher?”
“The inlet hose was clogged.”
“You changed the lightbulb in the hall.”
“Yeah.”
“… Dennis, I wasn’t gone forty fucking minutes. I was only gone as long as I was ‘cause I got talking to Mrs Shapiro in the corner store, she was trying to set me up with her daughter.” He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “You, uh, you fix anything else?”
“The coffee table was wobbling, one of the floor caps has come off, that’s all. I tacked a little packing foam there for now, so it won’t wobble or scratch the floor.”
“Right,” Robby says. “Right, uh, I…” He clears his throat, stepping back, and he laughs, shaking his head. “If I’d left for an hour, would you have found something else to keep you busy? Built me a new end table?”
“You need one?” Dennis asks, and Robby laughs again, covering his mouth with his hand, and Dennis laughs as well, drying off his hands. “Sorry, um. I should have asked. I’m used to living with Trinity, I, um, I don’t pay rent, just toward bills, so my job is to fix everything – she got it cheap and had it fixed up, it’s not that bad, just kinda old, so the plumbing and electrics are a little worn and fucked-up. She was good about what appliances she wanted to buy, um, they were basically all second-hand but in good condition, they just need a little extra TLC. Especially ‘cause when she gets pissed off she likes to kick the nearest machine.”
He’s babbling, he thinks, talking too much, and when he steps forward, Robby reaches out and pats the side of his face. Dennis looks up at him, struggling to know what exactly to make of his expression – he’s smiling, a little, but he looks sad, for some reason, maybe trying to hide it, maybe not, Dennis doesn’t know.
He thinks about helping Robby, shaking and crying and stammering through the Shema, off the paeds wing floor, thinks about how Robby had clutched at him, leaned his weight into Dennis’ body, all warm and a little wet, before he’d shoved Dennis back from him. He hadn’t pushed him that hard, hadn’t hurt him or anything, but it had taken him by surprise at the time. It was the same flip-flop as Robby’s guilt versus his desire, Dennis thinks.
Robby didn’t take the trauma counselling after the MCI, Dennis knows – he’d heard one of the psychs make a comment about him, once, one of the senior staff that never comes down to the ER. Robby had gotten out of the elevator and Dennis had kept riding, going upstairs to meet Ibsen for coffee, and he’d said, “That’s Robinavitch, the one I told you about.”
“You’re really betting on if he’ll jump off the hospital roof?”
“Not exactly,” he’d said. “It’s a pool about which employee’ll do it next – most of the money is on him, or Jack Abbot.”
Robby’s thumb slides over Dennis’ cheek, where there’s the tiniest bit of stubble, but you can’t even see it, and it’s patchy as Hell, he can’t grow a beard, couldn’t grow a beard like Robby can. He probably still won’t be able to when he’s his age – it’s not just him, at least, Coop can’t grow one either, and his dad can only grow a moustache, ‘cause if he tries to grow the whole thing his beard has loads of weird patches where it’s almost bald, or noticeably thin.
“Let’s have some lunch,” Robby murmurs, and squeezes the back of Dennis’ neck before tugging him with him into the kitchen.
Dennis doesn’t ask what he’s thinking, exactly, what he’s feeling, even when Robby goes quiet and kind of zones out for a few minutes while the eggs are cooking, staring at the dishwasher as it quietly rumbles through its cycle.
Trinity sends him a text, and Dennis laughs, shaking his head.
“What?”
Dennis shows him the screen.
T, 14:09: If I can’t see his face, will you at least send me a picture of his dick?
Robby laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Isn’t she a lesbian?”
“She’d probably get her Filipino Bureau of Investigation on it, cross-match through all her acquaintances and see if she can get you identified by dick pic alone,” Dennis says, texting back a laugh react followed by a firm no. “Can you hold your hands out of the way so I can take a picture of the eggs?”
Robby does as he says, and says, “It’s not like she’ll know who I am based off my hands.”
Dennis gives him a wry look, knowing exactly how fucking wrong he is, and snaps the picture. “Which burner did you say was broken?”
“Take a load off, Whitaker,” Robby orders, but as he says it he squeezes the back of Dennis’ neck, then pulls him closer, kisses the side of his temple. It feels nice, Robby’s beard brushing against his skin, the warmth of his mouth. “Go sit down at the table, I’ll bring these over.”
“Then I suck you off?”
Through half a laugh, Robby says, “Then we shower… And then you suck me off.”
Dennis lingers right in Robby’s space, inhaling the smell of him after his run, all salt and sweat and strong, but not in a bad way, not much different to the way he smells after a long shift, to be honest. He wonders, hands twitching at his sides, if Robby will kiss him again, kiss his temple like that, kiss his cheek, but he doesn’t – he pats Dennis firmly on the ass and says, “Go,” and Dennis does.
“And I got you a new Harley Quinn, they were out of Spiderman,” Robby says, and Dennis looks back at him, perplexed, then sees the bag on the table and picks out the comic and laughs.
“Harley Quinn?” he repeats.
“I only buy the Jewish heroes,” Robby says idly, not turning back to look at him, and Dennis laughs and walks over to the table with it, and he feels stupid, and not really in a kinky way, but in a maybe romantic way, intimate way, nice way, he doesn’t know, he feels kind of stupid-giddy that Robby actually bought him a fucking comic book at the store because he made a Superman joke, and he pages through it.
“Thanks,” he says, leaning his chin on his hand – he doesn’t even mean to start reading, really, let alone kind of get into it. He doesn’t think he’s read an actual comic book since he was a kid, but he doesn’t look up again until Robby is sitting down next to him.
He starts to close it, but Robby waves him off.
“No, you go ahead,” he says, reading glasses on, and he scrolls through his phone.
Dennis eats his eggs and tries not to smile too hard around them as he reads, and is very careful not to get grease on the pages.