Chapter Text
It was a sorry sight, really. The paintings on the walls, the fresh smell of blood rising from the improvised shrouds, the sobbing that completed the room’s miserable scene. Outside, the bustle of the overcrowded emergency room, nurses barking orders, an occasional cry of pain. But the painted animals on the walls paid all their foolish attention to the man curled on the floor. They watched him with a cruel, almost cheerful curiosity. Hey, weren’t you here that one time?
“Dr. Robby?”
No answer. Dennis felt those vacant stares shift towards him. This one's new.
“Dr. Robby, you okay?” Dennis repeated, his voice thinning.
His attending was reciting the Shema in fits and starts, right hand clutching the star of David.
There was something horrifying about the scene. Something dreamlike and disturbing. Was his superior's composure that fragile? Dennis wanted to fold in on himself, but it was precisely that fragility which allowed him to remain standing a little longer, waiting for Robby's breathing to find a steadier rhythm.
The young man sat down beside him. He kept a respectful distance, enough to let him breathe, close enough to be company.
Robby turned towards him. Dennis looked at him stupidly, his eyes big and helpless as those of the deer and squirrels, hands braced on his knees to stop them from trembling.
“You have to go. They need you out there.”
“We need you out there.”
Robby shook his head. Dennis ignored him and stood up.
“Hey, c’mon. Give me your hand.”
“I can’t,” Robby confessed, his breath ragged.
“You have to,” Dennis replied, “because if you don’t, we’re fucked.”
His gloved hand hovered in the air for a few moments. Dennis saw the smear of three bloody fingers on the shoulder of Robby’s gown. He wondered who had stained him. The student remembered a grasp on his own shoulders, the shadow of an unexpected and firm grip which seemed to envelop his entire body. It always descended further than expected, slipping inadvertently into the space between flesh and bone, lingering in sensitive regions that tingled in its wake. Robby had been on him all day. Robby had manhandled the boy as he steered him from place to place with an anesthetizing certainty.
Dennis had wanted to be led.
At last, Robby reached out, though reluctantly.
There was a lingering bashfulness in his eyes, but as soon as their hands touched something inside the doctor seemed to snap. He stood up, his grip tightening around Dennis's fingers until they felt on the verge of splintering. The young man stifled a whimper.
“Dr. Robby, I— I see your energy’s back.”
The friendly smile he was trying to offer was wiped from his face the moment he looked at his attending. Robby was staring at him as if seeing him for the first time in his life. It wasn’t the fleeting, amused look with which his eyes had rested on the young man earlier during the day, but something fixed, almost voracious.
“Whitaker,” Robby growled, “you have to go.”
Dennis refused to give in to the terror that was beginning to seize him, to the red lights flashing in unison that urged him to heed the man’s advice. Driven by adrenaline and sleep deprivation, and by the faint, musky aroma that radiated from his attending, he set a hand on the man’s forearm.
“Let’s go together,” he invited. “Come on, Doctor Langdon is asking for you.”
The mention of that name sent a flash of anger through Robby’s eyes. He shoved Dennis with one hand, pushing him aside.
“Whitaker, I’m serious,” he urged, voice strained. “I think I’m going into a… Something triggered…”
He cut himself off, struck by what appeared to be an intense migraine that forced him to bury his face in his hands and groan again. Dennis stepped back and wrinkled his nose. That intense smell he had perceived earlier burst through layers of antiseptic and blood and invaded him with full force. It was a deep, woody scent, like fossilized resin, a kind of rare amber. Dennis had never smelled a scent like that in his life. It allured and terrified him in equal measure. He remained still, hands raised, caught once again in one of those stupid postures he had found himself in throughout the day.
The realization of what was happening struck him suddenly. He took a step back, but as he tried to reach the door, and then his foot slid on a puddle of blood.
Good Lord, I am pathetic. Dennis struggled to get up. He made it to his knees, but then something strange happened. A hand clamped his ankle and dragged him backwards. The student went down chest-first into the floor, making a wet squelch against the puddle of blood. Robby was grabbing him by the leg and pulling him away from the door.
Well, this was turning out to be one hell of a day.
By then, Dennis had already realized his kind, fatherly attending was going into a rut. He wasn’t that stupid. At the very least he had his medical diagnostic intuition. Dennis tried to keep studying the situation through a scientific lens, the fact that Robby was dragging him across the floor like a snared rabbit and that his scent was beginning to overwhelm him. Alongside the recognition of Robby’s obvious loss of judgment caused by his rut, Dennis suddenly remembered he was an omega. Sometimes he forgot.
Maybe that was why his attending had pinned him to the ground.
Dennis thought he could have avoided that situation if he had shown a little more respect for himself and his condition. After all, Robby had warned him. He had just walked straight into those jaws. Now he couldn’t stop imagining the guilt the man would feel once he realized what he had done, all added to the horror of the Pittfest and the anxiety attack he’d just been through. Well, he still seemed anxious, but in a different way.
The young man didn’t even try to scream —something that seemed futile with the deafening noise outside. Besides, if anyone found them like that, he knew they’d both end up fired. He still bit the hand that was trying to cover his mouth. Robby pulled it away from his face with a groan. He seized the moment and tried to flee.
It was no use. Robby grabbed his ankle again, as if trying to restrain a wild animal unwilling to be muzzled, and hauled him down until he was pinned beneath him.
Dennis had been drawn to his superior’s scent. He had noticed it, though much fainter, throughout the day. Robby didn’t seem to bother with scent patches. Even so, it had been mild, fresh. Very pleasant. Dennis didn’t know whether anyone else found it as distracting. He hadn’t noticed if anyone else got as nervous as he did when Robby spoke. Now the scent was invasive and overpowering. It flooded him. It was as intoxicating as those hands had been, leading Dennis wherever his attending wanted. He felt pliant beneath him.
He should have listened to him. He should have left, because now he was comfortable, and his superior’s hands on his body —just like earlier that day— were starting to feel bearable.
Robby was panting, radiating heat like a stove against his body, though he seemed unsure where to place his hands. He would touch Dennis and then freeze, as if momentarily regaining clarity, only to continue probing him with renewed greed. It wasn't inherently sexual, more like a hunter inspecting its kill, pawing at the meat before taking the first bite. Dennis didn’t even register it as sexual when the doctor made an invasive move beneath his clothing.
Robby halted suddenly, as if surprised.
“Whitaker, you’re wet,” he said, incredulous.
Dennis didn't even have time to blush. With a final grunt, Robby released him, stood up, and bolted out of the room. He almost slipped on the pool of blood on his way out. The door slammed shut with a heavy bang.
Dennis lay there for a long moment, cringing at the slick seeping into his pants.