Chapter Text
“Here, take this.” Trinity looked at Dennis expectantly. She was holding out her coat from last winter.
“I’m good! I promise. We’re going to be late, and I’m not an R2 like you.”
Dennis and Trinity had an oddly domestic relationship after living together for a year. Dennis cooked. Dennis also did most of the cleaning, but Trinity did the laundry and bought groceries, so he figured it was pretty even. He even had her location when she went off to her hookups.
And Trinity actually worried for Dennis. She tried not to, but the moment she saw that twink dancing to Chaka Khan, she was in it. She wanted him the way a little girl wanted a pony. An impractically dependent friend she knew nothing about taking care of. He was too precious to be alone and she cursed herself for always needing to be there for the lost. She kinda loved it too.
But that also meant that every time Dennis walked out without a coat in the Pittsburgh November, she felt…maternal or something.
“Just put it on, giblet.” Never refer to human organs as giblets in front of doctors. They’ll think you’re weird, apparently.
Dennis walked out the door without grabbing it. He’d gotten sassy over the year. His roommate brought it out of him.
“I’m leaving,” he said in a sing-song voice. “I’ll buy your Dunkin if you drop it.”
“Fine, but come December, you’ll need it. And I won’t let you borrow it, either.”
“Sure, Trin, whatever you say.” He laughed, knowing the threat was empty. Santos was a big softie underneath all the irony.
Trinity kept the car running while Dennis went inside and picked up their mobile order. He got the points today. Dennis ordered an iced coffee. “That’s so gay of you.” She said.
Trinity got a black drip with 2 sugars. “What? Is it lesbian of you to like bitter shit?”
“I think women find black coffee attractive, yes.” Dennis wouldn’t know.
She turned back onto the street. “I can’t believe you won’t wear a coat. It’s, like, 35 degrees and you’re in a scrub top.” She kept her eyes on the road, seeing the results of too many car accidents to get distracted.
Dennis took a long sip of his cold beverage. Light and sweet. He didn’t want to hear the jokes about it.
“You know I don’t feel cold.”
“But you can still get frostbite!” He sighed; they’d had this conversation many times before. “I know you don’t feel pain and all that macho shit, but you’re not invincible. You take damage like the rest of us normies.”
Dennis didn’t feel pain. More like couldn’t. He had a rare condition called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. It was so rare, it didn’t even have a cool name. His brain was wired weird, the channels that were supposed to communicate tissue damage didn’t fire right. He had never felt the sensation of physical pain in his life. Discomfort, stretching, bloating, exertion. Sure. But never pain.
Everyone back home treated it like it was a superpower. They made him feed the cattle on frigid mornings. Had him face off with the combative bulls they needed to tag. Let him be their dad’s punching bag.
And Dennis could take it, really, he could. It was better him than anyone else who would actually feel it. Trinity was the first person he’d met who thought differently.
She had this novel idea that it made him more in need of care. His lack of a warning system made him more fragile. “Let the people with fair notice take on the tasks that could get you gravely injured.” Is what she would say to him anytime she climbed up on a ladder to change their bulbs or peeled potatoes for him.
It made him feel warm. Nobody had ever cared like that. Not about him. Pain wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to someone. Dennis was probably a bad person to ask, though.
They walked in together, like they had for any shared shift for the past year. Dana tried to schedule them the same, knowing they drove in together. It was so fun to explain to Robby that they were, in fact, not dating. Super gay and just platonically partnered for now, thank you! Dennis didn’t mention that his fingers were going a little numb from his drink. He’d be in the heat soon, and Trinity would just worry.
When they got inside and split for the locker rooms, Dennis noticed almost everyone was wearing long sleeves under their scrubs. He owned a couple but didn’t wear them until it was objectively weird not to. Robby had on that Carhartt jacket that all of Dennis’s inappropriate crushes back home had.
“Hey, kid! Where’s your jacket?” Robby cared about him, too. In that overly concerned, ‘I’m not sure you can take care of yourself,’ way. Dennis loved it because of his daddy issues. He’d never say that out loud, though.
Dennis put his code in. “I forgot it.”
“Again? I don’t know how you don’t run back in the house when you feel the air outside.” Robby opened his locker again. “I think I have an extra in here somewhere.”
Dennis was horrified. He couldn’t wear his boss's jacket like a teenage girl at a high school football game. “No! You don’t have to do that! I’m fine, really.”
Robby did have an extra. He was always freezing, even in the summer. “No, I can’t have my residents catching colds.” That wasn’t even medically sound. When Dennis didn’t take the jacket, Robby stepped closer and pushed it forward into his chest. “Come on, it’ll make me feel better.”
“O-Ok.” Dennis may not feel pain but he sure felt pressure. He folded under Robby’s.
He put it on, and obviously, it was too big. Dennis was much shorter and not as broad. He heard Trinity’s voice calling him Twinkie.
The older man laughed at his predicament. Then he did something terrible. He rolled up his sleeves for him. Dennis was damn near breathless when he got to the left hand. Jesus Christ, this will be a long day if Robby is already hovering and touching like this. He gets in moods where he likes to control what everyone does. Dennis is the one who bends to it the easiest, though, so he often bears the brunt. He didn’t even mind, which was probably the worst part.
When they walked out for the morning huddle, Trinity took one look at him and cackled. “My coat not good enough for ya? Or did you just wanna smell like daddy?” At least she had the decency to whisper it.
“Shut up. I should’ve never told you that.”
Robby announced that they had a couple of student doctors starting their rotations with them today. He called over his residents and assigned them to supervise a student. Dennis and Trinity were in charge of a meek girl named Layla.
“She's going to be eaten alive.”
Dennis looked positively scandalized. “Trinity, that’s so mean. Also, she can hear you.”
Layla, blushing a little, stammered out, “It’s ok. She’s right. I want to go into family medicine. This is a little intense for me.” She was looking around like there was a bomb hidden. Well, there was certainly enough beeping for it.
Dennis, taking pity, said, “You’ll do great! I didn’t think I would like it much either when I got here.”
They went to the board to get their first patient of the day. The next up was a pilonidal cyst that needed draining and packing. Dennis took the reins in interacting with the student. Trinity wasn’t exactly warm to many people. “Alright, central 7 needs draining and packing. You can assist me with the procedure, and then you can give the wound care instructions afterwards.” Layla looked a little queasy at the idea of draining someone’s butt crack cyst but she would get over it. “Ok? Let’s do this.”
“And while you two take a crack at the crack, I’ll take head lac for 300, Alex.”
“Isn’t it Ken Jennings now?”
“Don’t talk about that, I don’t like him.”
They separated to go to their respective assignments.
Their patient was standing beside the bed, looking anywhere except for them. “Hello, Johnathon. I’m Dr. Whitaker. This is student doctor Flores. She’s going to assist in today’s procedure if that’s Ok.” Dennis triple checked the chart while he sat down on his rolling stool. “You have a cyst that is causing you some discomfort?”
“Yeah, I can’t even sit down without it hurting. My wife made me come in finally.” He was bashful.
Dennis tried to ease his discomfort, understanding this seemed embarrassing to someone who didn’t deal with much worse on a daily basis. “I’m glad you did. These are very painful and can become infected, so it’s good you got it checked out. Would you mind pulling down your pants and underwear and turning around so we could have a look?”
“Buy me dinner first?” They both laughed while Layla still looked bewildered. When the man turned around, Dennis gave her a look. Nonverbally telling her to act like she’s been somewhere before.
Dennis examined the area. “Oh yeah, that needs to be drained, alright. The nurse explained the procedure to you, correct?”
“Yeah, you numb me, make a little cut, pack it, I change the gauze at home, and get it checked out by someone in a couple weeks.”
“Perfect! Flores, could you hand me the general aesthetic?” He injected it into the area and tapped around, asking the patient if he could feel anything. When he was properly numbed, he asked for the scalpel to puncture it. He heard Layla gasp. It broke his concentration. He was going to tell her to get a stronger stomach until he saw there were tears in her eyes. Did this girl never watch the videos of surgery they had to take notes on? She wasn’t even looking at the cyst.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Whitaker. Oh my God!”
The patient was now nervous. “What’s going on back there?”
“Everything is alright!” The resident insisted. “Flores, go get some air.”
“What? You need to go get help!” She gasped out between heavy breaths. She was pointing at his foot until Dennis looked down. Oh shit, there’s a scalpel in there.
Dennis took a deep breath to collect himself. It was more annoying than anything. “Sir, we are going to step out for a moment and someone else will come in to drain you in a moment.” Dennis didn’t make a habit of leaving men bent over tables but he didn’t know the protocol for this.
They stepped back out onto the floor and Layla was practically hyperventilating at this point. It was happenstance that Trinity was walking out at the same time.
“Fuckleberry, what happened? Did she crash?” Dennis lifted his foot to pull the scalpel out. He could dress it himself and move on. It was more of an inconvenience to have to get new shoes. “Whoa, what the hell, Dennis? You can’t just rip that out! You’re a doctor, you know that.”
Trinity didn’t like being this concerned in public. Her unusual tone brought attention to them. Also, Layla's blubbering, probably.
With Dennis’s luck (and pet status), their attending came over instantly. “What’s the commotion?” Layla and Trinity pointed at Dennis’s foot. Robby paled. “Oh shit. Let’s get you in a room.” He took in the younger man’s neutral expression; he almost looked more embarrassed than anything. “Are you going into shock?” He asked while grabbing a wheelchair close to them.
“Is he? I’m so sorry, Dr. Whitaker!”
“No, you’re fine, Flores. It doesn’t even hurt.” He said it like some kind of inside joke. Maybe it was because Trinity did a strangled laugh.
Robby brought the wheelchair to the back of his thighs and pulled him down by the hood of his own hoodie until he was sitting. “Let’s get you checked out.”
“We can just yank it out and slap some glue on it. I swear I’m fine.”
Robby was incredulous. “What the fuck, Whitaker? You’re getting this checked out.”
“It’s just the meat, I can still wiggle my toes even!” This kid was going to kill him.
Trinity felt those weird maternal instincts again, even though the man was only a year younger. “He needs imaging. He wouldn’t be able to tell if there was any real damage.”
“Trin.” He sighed out. Dennis didn’t like people knowing about his condition. It made them weird.
“Obviously, he’s getting imaging. Flores, go tell Dana to assign McKay to your patients.” He looked at her tearful eyes and wringing hands. “And go take a break after.” He sounded angrier than he meant to but this student and her butterfingers just hurt Whitaker.
Robby moved faster than he would for other patients, didn’t even tell Dana which room he was taking up. She would understand. She had a similar soft spot for the kid… Maybe not in the exact same way. He let Santos follow along. He didn’t understand their relationship but she would insist on staying. He could use the assist anyway, make this go faster. His boy shouldn’t be in pain for a minute longer than he had to be. Whoa, crazy thought there, Robinavitch.
Dennis stood up and put himself on the table before Dr. Robby could tell him not to. “Grab me a suture kit and some numbing spray, please.” He asked Santos.
“I don’t need any anesthetic.”
He couldn’t believe this. “I don’t know how they did it on the farm, but here, you get numbed for stitches. Besides, I think your adrenaline is going to catch up to you. You’re not understanding how much this hurts yet.”
That’s when Trinity chimed in. “Tell him, Dennis.” Secrets between residents made Robby uncomfortable. He’d felt hyper-vigilant since Langdon.
Dennis put his head back and let out an immature groan. “Fine! I have Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. I literally feel nothing from this except for some immobility because the scalpel is sticking my foot to my shoe. Just rip it out and glue it. It’s not a big deal.”
Santos and Robby both said “No!” At the same time, in the same exasperated way.
“You’re going to make this a thing, aren’t you? There are people in real pain waiting. I don’t need this.”
Robby couldn’t believe any of it. Dennis was practically a case study, but also the most self-sacrificing person he’s ever met. “It’s even more of a thing now. You need to get an ortho consult if you can’t tell us about any pain. This is a big deal, Whitaker. Why didn’t you tell me?” The last part sounded scornful and personal. He looked away from his resident, noticing Santos was still there, and barked, “Santos! Go get the kit! And page imaging and ortho while you’re out.”
Before she left the room, she turned around and wiggled her eyebrows behind the attendings back. She was so going to make fun of Robby getting all protective over him. Dennis would have to pretend he wasn’t stupidly flattered by it.
Robby carefully removed the scalpel at a perpendicular angle. Taking care to do it in the direction it entered. He slipped off Dennis's cheap non-slip shoe. Size eight. He’d get him some nice ones for his trouble. Just put them in his locker so he couldn’t turn them down. It’s not like he would even notice if his shoes were bad, but the long-term effects could catch up. This was crazy.
His sock had blood on it and it made Robby feel pain for him. “So, if I remember correctly, people with your condition don’t feel temperature extremes either.
Dennis looked away from his foot and into his lap. “Yeah, I can give you back your hoodie. I didn’t want to take it for no reason but I also didn’t want to explain…all of this.”
“That’s not what I was implying.” He sounded so frustrated in a way Dennis wasn’t used to. It was true that he took a softer tone with Dennis. The young man had figured their trauma bond from Pittfest made him a little softer toward him. Indebted in a way Dennis would never actually enforce. “I was getting at the fact that you think your lack of sensation means you aren’t putting yourself in danger. You’re going to hurt yourself one day, and you may not notice until it’s too late.”
“I’m made of strong stuff. I’ll be fine.”
“And how will you know when you aren’t?”
Dennis had no answer besides, “I’ve always been fine."
Robby glared at him. “You haven’t been if you think it’s Ok to neglect yourself like this just because you experience it less obviously.”
Santos came back in. The two were tense and Dennis was getting dressed down by Dr. Robby in the way he wouldn’t like.
“Thank you, Santos. You may resume your duties. Please tell Dana that Dr. Whitaker will not be returning until he has a full workup.” He ordered without taking his eyes off Dennis’s face. He put a new pair of gloves on like he wasn’t benching a resident for hours. Trinity, for once in her life, followed without complaint. She had been wanting Dennis to get bloodwork since she first found out about this when he bled all over the carrots he was cutting before he noticed anything was wrong.
“A full workup? Come on!” His brows were furrowed.
“You’re lucky that’s all it is. I oughta…” Robby trailed off.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll send Princess in to take your blood and they’ll test it for everything you could possibly have this side of the Mississippi. Hope you use condoms, cause if you don’t, we’ll know.”
Dennis let out an indignant noise. “Princess will tell everyone!”
“Good. That’s your punishment for keeping secrets from me.” His sutures were fast and efficient. Beautiful work. Then the older man left like he hadn’t just carpet bombed Dennis’s brain.
All his tests came back normal. Radiology signed off on the foreign object missing anything important. Ortho agreed. The dissolvable sutures would dissolve on their own within a couple of weeks. It would all just be another scar on Dennis’s body. Except for the fact that Robby brought up punishing him was replaying in his head.
Dennis knew he didn’t mean it like that, but, well, Dennis was a bit of a freak.
He’d grown up too repressed and isolated to have developed a healthy sexual appetite. He pushed it down further and further until it all popped out in the most twisted, debaucherous ways possible. In one year, he’d gone from blushing virgin theology undergrad to getting pounded by strangers and calling them sir. He used to be scared to jerk off because God was watching, and now he liked getting hands shoved down his pants in front of God and everybody at the club.
He’d been so slutty that he didn’t feel worthy of being a man of the cloth anymore. God couldn’t even forgive the amount of dick he’d taken and words he’d spewed out at the height of pleasure. If Jesus wept, Dennis would probably be into it.
That’s all to say that after he’d filled out the workers comp form and been sent home, he’d replayed that moment with his attending a million times. He’d put that gruff voice to a different slide show of pictures in his head saved from past moments, and gotten off to the meandering stories twice before Santos had gotten home around eight.
It was inappropriate and probably a violation of Dr. Robby. A man who was happily married to someone Dennis really respected. A real man. A veteran who had felt real pain. Is he disrespecting his country with these fantasies? Whatever.
Robby was thankful Abbot had the night off. It was a week where he was three days on, so they could see a lot of each other. The bastard can’t cook for shit. Something about never learning because the military has chefs and being too old to learn now. So they ordered Thai.
They had been married a while. Long enough for them both to acknowledge that you can develop silly crushes on people and it did not diminish your love for someone. They personally felt like being open about it was a safeguard against fucking everything up. They were no good if they got all dark and twisty inside and hid it from the other.
Robby was eating drunken noodles on the couch and not watching a World War 2 documentary on the History Channel. When did they get so old? It made what he was about to say feel even more wrong.
“I accidentally told Whitaker I wanted to punish him.”
Jack nearly choked on his curry and rice. “Jesus, Mike, warn a guy before you bring up BDSM over dinner.”
“I didn’t even mean to do it! He just pissed me off and wasn’t taking it seriously, and it activated something in me.”
Recovered, Jack was back to full form. He smirked at his husband. “He activated something in you the minute you saw those big eyes. Don’t act like it was something you discovered today.”
Robby glared a little at his husband. “I don’t want to talk about my inappropriate attraction to my first-year resident.”
“I think you do. Why else bring it up?”
Robby would never tell him that was a good point. He swallowed nothing, his food less important now. “I don’t know. It just felt…wrong to not tell you. I think I crossed a line.”
“What happened? I’m sure it’s ok.” His face was sincere now. No teasing in sight.
Robby told him everything. About Dennis getting hurt and not feeling it at all. How he doesn’t seem to care about taking care of himself. It was definitely a HIPAA violation, but Jack wouldn’t tell anyone. “Yeah, I’m completely fine with that. It’s kinda hot, honestly.”
“Don’t make fun of this, please. I’m in serious emotional and professional turmoil.” Robby could be so dramatic sometimes.
“No, I’m not making fun.” He kissed his teeth a little. A habit he’d picked up from a man long dead. “What if I gave you permission?”
“Permission to do what?”
“Feel him out. Or up. Whichever.”
Robby scoffed a little like it was ridiculous. “We’ve never done that before. I’m sure this little thing will pass. I’ve probably just conflated some protective instincts with attraction, and his obvious respect for me has muddied some lines.” Neither of them would point out that Robby had felt this way since the kid’s rotation. That it had been over half a year of increasing feelings. Jack would say it’s close to pining if Robby wouldn’t shut down at the implication.
Jack put his dinner on the coffee table, feeling like it was getting too serious to be casually leaning back. “Listen, I know you have these feelings and I don’t let you express them as often as you need. I have the same feelings too. We are compatible in every way. The sex is awesome. Mind-blowing that two old men can have sex that good, honestly.” He paused to keep Robby’s eye contact. “But maybe you need someone who will help you let off steam that way. Maybe I could use it too, provided he’s up for it.”
“Are you seriously suggesting we invite our subordinate into our bed as our submissive because we’re both too alpha for the other one to put up with?”
“I guess I am, yeah.” He raised his eyebrows to challenge Robby. Say you don’t want it. Say you think it’s gross. Say you don’t think it’s the best goddamn idea I’ve ever had, is what it said.
Robby let out an aroused little sigh that sounded a little too stressed for Jack's liking. Fuck his food getting cold, he needed to pounce on this while the iron was hot.
Jack put his hand on Robby’s thigh. Pretending to just caress but they both knew what it was. Robby was maintaining his composure. He would not sound breathy as he said, “You know it’s a bad idea.”
“What, giving us someone who likes being pinned down. Who will let you smack him around a little? Maybe we buy him a phone from this decade. His still has a home button.” He moved his hand up to the crotch of Robby’s pants and went for the jugular. “Bring someone in who will actually call you Daddy.”
“Oh fuck.” Robby sighed. “That’s not fair.”
Jack got closer to say it in Robby’s ear. In that quiet, sexy voice. “It's not fair that our sex is so good when we’re both doms. I think it would be more than fair to Whitaker to show him how good we could treat him.” Jack started kissing his neck when Robby’s head tilted back to rest on the couch cushion.
Robby pushed his own pants and boxers down, wanting to move this along. Reduce the amount of time Jack had to implant ideas in his head about this actually happening. Jack spat in his hand and gave his husband what he wanted. He’s always had a smart mouth, and Robby could pretend to hate it, but he loved the dirty talk.
Jack continued, “Just imagine, his big eyes watching us, he could sit in that chair and would have to ask to touch himself. I’d say no, of course, until you gave in. You’re much softer than me, you know.” Robby groaned at the image. “How long do you think he would last? Maybe five minutes? It wouldn’t matter at that age. He could come on his hands that first time and our little show would get him all riled up again in no time.”
“Jesus, Jack.” His hand kept a steady pace. One he knew from experience could wring an intense orgasm out of you but took a while to build. They were silent for a little except for the lewd sounds of Jack stroking him and Robby’s little huffs. On a rougher stroke, Robby’s hand scrambled for purchase. It ended up on Jack’s shoulders. Like they often did with Whitaker.
“No touching.” Robby begrudgingly complied, knowing Jack could stop it all. “See, your boy would let you touch him, though. He’d never imagine telling you not to touch him. He’d let you pin him on the bed and push your fingers so deep into him he saw stars. I bet he’s vocal, too. I hear him singing under his breath sometimes, like he can’t help but be loud as fuck all the time. I bet you push him around and pretend you don’t hear him puff all the air he has out of his lungs. I see you two in the locker room, don’t forget.”
“Sorry,” Robby says in that guilty, strangled way. He wasn’t guilty enough to not feel his orgasm coming on strong, though.
“Don’t be sorry. I want to fuck him too. I want you to lure that kid into our bed, and I want you to get him on all fours. I want you to be fucking his ass while I’m fucking his mouth and I want him to be so fucked out he’s moaning around my cock loud enough for the neighbors to hear.”
“Shut the fuck up.” He was feeling urgent. He needed Jack to stop saying these things. He cannot come to these thoughts and legitimize them.
“He would shut the fuck up when you told him to. It may be hard because I bet he’s a screamer, but I’ve seen how eager the kid is to please you. He just wants you to tell him what to do so you can call him a good boy, huh?” He asks it like a question but knew there would be no answer. Robby was coming, quicker than he usually did, too aroused by the idea of Whitaker and his husband’s storytelling ability. He was taught and then he was boneless and panting on the couch.
“We’re going to hell for that.”
“No, you’re going to find a way to get with Whitaker first ‘cause that was hot as fuck.”
Robby made a noise that sounded like agreement. “Promise you’ll take it slow. Let’s see how receptive he seems before we go off the deep end.”
"You know me, I’m Mr. Subtle.” Yeah, Robby didn’t know about that. But he also didn’t know how fair it was to ask the man who kissed him first in an on-call room at their job to be subtle. “Now suck me off, will ya?” Not one to disappoint his husband, Robby dropped from the couch and onto his knees.