I would love to see your take on Robby finding Dennis in the abandoned 8th floor is you haven’t already!! <3
Im not sure what’s going on with this post particularly but none of my notes pre/post content are showing.. hopefully this goes through. Sorry if this is a bit too heavy! When I write from Robby’s pov it always gets dark.. lol. Do let me know if it’s too much. I can totally write something a little more fluffy! I just got so carried away I worked on this for days.. may upload to ao3.
Tw: suicidal tendencies/ideations. Canon typical Tw’s. Robby’s really mentally ill (again, canon typical.)
Robby had seen, mostly, everything by this point.
Having worked in emergency
medicine since this morning's fresh batch of med students were still toddling around in pull-ups, Robby's had one hell of a life. Kickstarted by a mother who committed before he even had the time to meaningfully memorize the sound of her voice, and a father who had never even been in the picture to begin.
Robby worked. Robby studied. Robby kissed his grandmother good morning and dispensed her meds every day until she passed, too. And once she was gone, he really didn't have anything left to live for.
So he waited tables briefly before he found his footing as an EMT in undergrad to really solidify his fucked up need to fix things. Fix people. Fix issues within his control the way he never could with the things he wanted most. If Robby could distract himself from the numbing emptiness within him with busywork disguised as purpose he’d damn well do it.
Sure, maybe he should've realized much sooner that his infatuation with playing god — his complex for being the hero — would bite him in the ass one day. But Robby prefers to think of the here and now, not the future. Always has, always will. Particularly because imagining a world in where he purposely carves out a permanent life that can be stripped away against his will makes him queasy. He prefers to sabotage himself first, because then he has no one else to blame. He has no reason to hate anyone more than he already hates himself.
And yes, he thought of it, sure.
On lonely nights where he failed to charm a partner into bed, with the TV droning in the silence to trick his brain into not being terrifyingly lonely, he thought of it.
The issue. The elephant in the ER that he'd have to address eventually.
One day, without knowing how, or why, or even realizing when: Robby would let it catch up to him. He'd end up just like his poor, sweet mother. He’s sickeningly sure she too felt this overwhelming fatigue for life. And Robby is only a man.
He can, after all, fix a broken bone. He can hold a heart in his hands and coax it back to life. He can stuff a gaping wound with gauze and send the problem up the chain without having to seriously consider the aftermath once the brief moment of stability he could offer was history. But he can't reach behind his frail ribs and suture the festering wound woven deep within the fabric of his soul. And something about today really did bring that back into focus.
Blood, and senseless violence. A group of people who’d spent their whole lives working up till this point just to be chipped away at under fluorescent lighting and beaten into submission by the unforgivable sin of being human. You can try. You can grapple. You can struggle against the spray of blood, and sputtering of hearts, and sobbing of innocent people to aid the victims of an act of violence so horrible it’s hard to imagine the perpetrator shares the same DNA. But you can’t save everybody. Not even the people you want to help the most. Robby couldn’t save Leah, Robby couldn’t save Jake that familiar heartache of loss, Robby couldn’t save himself from the shame.
And then, of course. There was.. him.
Dennis Whitaker, MS4. The kind of kid with a nervous tongue and the eye bags of a med student who's down on their luck. Robby's fairly sure he was just as emaciated in his final year of med school, and he'd teased the poor guy for crumbing all over his workstation, but a part of him felt genuine relief at the fact that he was eating something. He looks much too frail.
Then again, he really isn't. Considering he had enough strength in those arms to haul Robby's sorry ass off the floor and hold him up when he couldn't do that for himself.
Truthfully, he doesn't remember much of it. The innocent flash of confusion, the shape of a star squished between useless lumps of flesh attached to his trembling form. A memory of his former mentor cold and lifeless, lying in that very room. The steady firmness of Whitaker's sternum under his fingertips as he pushed the boy away
And gasped for air. And then Whitaker spoke, and his voice soothed the electric rhythm in Robby's chest back to normal, It seeped into his clothes like holy water, it made him want to tear his own ears off and scream. Robby recalls, even despite his haze, that Whitaker has a small gap between his front teeth.
It was cute. For a guy so naive to believe he could really help Robby.
It wasn't cute when he opened his fucking mouth and said the one thing Robby never expected to hear. The worst part is that it meant the world, it always will. He’ll carry it with him to the grave.
"Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. But those who hold hope in the Lord will renew their strength and soar on wings like eagles."
Robby would have been content to let Whitaker stab him then and there.
He'd be happy to bleed out and stare at the jolly cartoon fox on that wall with those words ringing through his skull. Instead, he'd said nothing. Or maybe he had, he wouldn't remember anyway.
When he pulled himself together and finished the night out right, he'd found himself at a familiar ledge.
Robby wrapped his stethoscope gingerly around the railing and teased the edge of the concrete with his foot for however long it took Jack to find him. He thought of the view from halfway down, thought of the time early in his career when he'd been assigned to a man who tried to kill himself in this exact way.
Robby doesn’t remember his name. But he does remember the glaze over his eyes. At the time, the guy had rambled on and on about how once he was almost there — when his brain caught up to the reality of it all — he prayed that god wouldn't let it work. There was an indescribable panic that took over while the wind assaulted his face. And then he lay there and suffered on the concrete till they peeled him up and brought him into the ED.
He died an hour later. Robby threw up when he got home that night. The next morning when he arrived for his shift, he'd willed himself to forget all about it.
So Robby let Jack walk him back to the elevator, let Jack stand there silently while Robby grabbed his bag,
and let Jack pretend he hadn't been there this morning begging for a taste of what if, too.
and that’s when he saw it.
A flash of dirty blonde through the plastic window at the front desk. Bobbing, and weaving, and checking over his shoulder as he made his way through the crowd in the waiting room. He'd delivered some halfhearted excuse and pushed Jack gently through the door, promising to call before he doubled back and followed the path up a staircase which even he had never taken.
The floor is unkempt at best, hazardous at worst. The kind that no one cares about, too busy on the populated floors where things really matter. Saving lives, breaking down, showing up to do it all over again the
next morning. There are floorboards peeling up, and ceiling tiles cracking above him. The lights even flicker a couple of times.
Robby frowns, following the distorted echo of a voice down the hall until he meets an open room with dim yellow lighting and a homely feeling inside.
There are textbooks piled on a filing cabinet and a hospital bed with dollar store sheets. A giant blue water bottle, a bag, someone's college dorm wrapped up with a bow and packaged to the doorstep of Pittsburgh's finest.
Robby had been yanked from his observation when he heard shuffling in the small, connected bathroom. So be peers inside that too. Frowning at the sight of bony shoulders swaying and dipping to the sound of music that Robby can't hear.
When he steps back just a little more, it registers that this is indeed Dennis
Whitaker. And that he is, for some reason, very shirtless. And living on the abandoned floor of the hospital where they both work.
Robby frowns, clenching the strap on his bag as Dennis makes a sharp twirl and dances happily. Without a care in the world, despite his current living arrangements, the things he's seen today, and the fact that Michael Robinavitch, his boss for the next few weeks, broke down right in front of him and needed coaching off the cold floor only hours ago.
It makes Robby's chest tighten. Though, strangely, it's an enjoyable feeling. And he watches the man's movements with full amusement. His sore frown begrudgingly turned
upward into the suggestion of a grin.
That's when Whitaker's eyes climb higher, and he notices with horror that he is not alone, and who exactly has just caught him.
He yelps, ripping the earbuds from his ears and stumbling backward into the cold metal bars surrounding the bed behind him.
Robby's brows climb his forehead and he jumps too, caught off guard at the sudden movement.
“What the hell are you doin' up here?!" He squeals, pointing at Robby almost accusatorily, as if he’s the one doing something unprecedented here.
Robby's face drops, and he shakes his head in disbelief. Gesturing to Dennis's general state of being before he speaks.
"Mother- fuck, I could ask you the exact same question!" He scoffs,
blinking at Whitaker rapidly. The younger man flushes, feeling around behind him.
"Ooooookay, hold on- just," he huffs, wrangling a shirt off the bed and worming it on before he stands up straight. He swallows, thickly. Robby just stands there.
“This, this is not what it looks like." He whispers, smoothing out the wrinkles in the bottom of his shirt and frowning deeply (in a manner that could almost be considered cute,) at Robby, who drops his jaw and furrows his brows before speaking. Head bobbing with his dialogue.
"Isn't it?" He asks, settling in with his arms crossed. There’s a slight condensation in his tone. A dry chuckle that he just can’t help, it seems. Even now, even here, he demands space. And respect. And exudes blind authority even when it's not needed, even when it's wrong.
Maybe after earlier he feels the need to humiliate Whitaker. To bring him
down to his own level. Like maybe, now, they're even. Having seen each other at their very worst.
"No! No, it's just," Dennis thins his lips, rolling his open hands in tandem around each other as he thinks.
"Sometimes, after a very long day at work IIII— like to stay up here! When I-don't feel like making the walk home." There’s a nervous laugh tacked on the end of his sentence as he pulls at the bottom seam on his oversized shirt.
"This," Robby sighs, massaging his temples. "was your first day.” In response, Whitaker shrivels.
"No!” He yelps, “Not technically. I mean, I - I did my internal medicine rotation here." He whispers, meekly. Like all the fight drains out of him in the presence of Robby’s authority. And Robby just frowns, taking in the sight. It makes something in his stomach settle like a stone. So, yes, Robby hasn’t seen nearly everything. Because he had never even imagined this would happen in his wildest dreams. So he just sort of looks
around, takes it all in. God forbid the poor guy have to go through the rest of his rotations like this, god forbid he be stuck up here for another second, actually.
"Dr. Robby, I'm so sorry. I know this is, horrible. And I really, like," he sighs, panic heavy in his tone before he finally speaks again. A breathless, humorless chuckle of a sentence. "I mean, I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be."
Robby frowns, groaning loudly the way he does when he has to haul himself off the couch in his old age as he massages the nape of his neck with a hand and pinches his eyes shut. But Whitaker just keeps fucking going.
"Please, sir, I need this job. I need to finish my rotations. I need- I need you not to report me because this is all I have." He whispers, breathlessly.
Stepping up closer and looking up into Robby's eyes with his teary ones.
He's wringing his hands together in front of himself pathetically; Robby watches him blankly.
"I'm not going to report you, Whitaker.
Just- shut up." He sighs, working his jaw in thought as the other man melts into his obvious relief. It softens him at the edges, just a tad. Robby has never been a good man. He's been okay with that for a long time now. If you were to ask anyone who knows him, even vaguely, he's sure that the word “saint” wouldn't even cross
their mind. He tries, sometimes. And other times he really can't be bothered. After all, he knows he's broken. He knows there's something fundamentally wrong about him.
Where's the sense in pretending?
So Robby isn't sure if it's the moral sense of obligation creeping in; Dennis Whitaker is a good, god fearing man. One down on his luck, trying his best with the shitty hand he was dealt just like every other MS4 that crosses PTMC's doors…Except he isn't just like every other MS4, not really. Theres something different about him. Robby isn't sure what it could be. But Whitaker didn't rat him out the way anyone else probably would. Whitaker was happy and go-lucky despite the horrible day he’s just had. Whitaker is a mystery and a half that Robby would be lying if he said he didn’t want to at least try and solve. And now here he stands, basically begging Robby not to blow his life up. Though in all honesty Robby just feels horrible that this is where his life lies. All the time, 24/7.
Working in the hospital has slowly killed Robby over the years, among other things. While it may have given him a reason to keep going, it also supplied him with an excuse to fuck himself up even worse. An excuse to throw out any good relationship he had in the works. “Long hours,” and “you wouldn’t understand the things I see,” which snowball into other issues that have less to do with his schedule and more to do with his avoidant tendency. A life revolving solely around medicine “forcing” him not to find any friends he doesn’t work with.
Maybe Whitaker is better than him, he won’t use his good deeds as an excuse to be a horrible person in every other regard. But the truth is that not being able to clock out and go home at the end of a shift may actually kill Whitaker one day. A career in Medicine, ironically, is a silent killer. So Robby does something he genuinely never should have.
"Jesus Christ,” Robby sighs, sucking his teeth. Whitaker winces at his words, it makes Robby want to tug at the golden chain around his neck and see if there’s a cross connected to the end. He straightens his posture and frowns. "You're really homeless?" Robby asks, defeatedly.
"Well, yeah. I'm.. I'm in between houses.” He swallows, whispering. “Unhoused, sir.”
“And you don't have— a car?"
"I'm also between.." Dennis swallows.
"Fuck me," Robby whispers,
smoothing both hands over each side of his head before looking back up at Dennis.
Maybe it's Robby's need to fix everything, to fix people. Maybe it's the fact that he feels like he owes it to this kid. Maybe Robby just can't stand the thought of going home alone tonight. Whatever it may be, he speaks.
"Listen, I have a guest room. It's got a bed, and a dresser and” he flails his hand “whatever else. And I'll buy a-" he frowns, shrugging. "A lamp too. Bathrooms right across the hall. House is pretty close to the hospital too. You could walk on nice days, if you want.”
Dennis squints at him. "Oh, uh. Okay, cool.” He looks confused. “Good… for you?" He says, Robby deadpans.
"Fuck, pack up your shit before I change my mind," Robby says, picking up the backpack leaning against the wall next to his feet and thrusting it towards Whitaker. Understanding seems to click on the man’s face as he grabs the bag and shakes his head rapidly.
"Oh! Oh, no. Sir, I couldn't-"
"Whitaker. I'm not asking." He laughs, dryly. Flattening his hands in the air and raising his brows at the blonde. "I can't have you falling asleep with your hands inside someone's chest because you can't get rest up," he twirls his finger, sighing. "Here."
Dennis clams up, staring up at Robby through his abnormally long lashes and Robby feels like a piece of shit for being rude. And the guy looks so distraught he just can’t help himself.
He runs a hand over Whitaker's head, gently over his hair and back onto his nape where he squeezes. He offers the man a smile. As reassuring as he can muster. “I’m a good roommate, I swear.” He shrugs, “I don’t bite.”
Whitaker's face heats up, and he fears he’s made an error. But the man simply nods, a couple of nervous bobs before he shimmies in his spot and steps away slowly to start packing. There’s an extra pep in his step. And Robby’s chest feels ever so slightly lighter.
