Chapter Text
He doesn’t mean to do it…honest.
It just…happens.
Adamsen sends him on a PTMC road trip to promote the values of trauma and emergency room medicine, a certain punishment for Robby gently advising (read yelling) a homophobic father on the best way to speak to his son. Said father had tried to punch him, had caught Jack instead which had led to Jack pushing him back through an open door and Dana had gone on a rant about the Republicans and their shit show polices and how she was fully prepared to throw down hands, the kid crying on Lena’s shoulder about how unnatural he was and that Langdon kid confirming that this place was utterly batshit and when he could he match?
His mentor had put his head down on the desk. Robby thought that he would never get like that.
He hoped anyway.
So he was sent away rightly or wrongly for two weeks to educate the masses.
Why they thought sending him was a good idea was beyond him but Jack refused to go on the grounds he had one leg (though why that would matter is beyond him) and HR had caved like ice cream in the sun.
Jack the smug bastard had, had the gall to wave him off.
And look…it’s…well he supposes it’s not terrible. He gets to sleep in until nine am which is nothing short of a miracle in his job. He gets to have an actual shower for more than thirty seconds he gets to eat actual food that does not consist of ramen and the occasional egg. And he gets to meet people. Most pre-med students don’t give Emergency Room the time of day, most of them want surgery because they think it’s cool or they want paediatrics because they think babies are cute or they want cardio because they think holding human hearts in their hands are the pinnacle of medical care. What he does, what Jack and Adamson do, it’s usually just there, always there but never fully explained and he is not going to sugar coat the shit show that is medical care in this country. Robby can only hope that it gets better. That one day the politicians might realise that they need to invest in medical care, they need to do something about insurance, they need to pay medical staff a decent wage because otherwise they are utterly fucking screwed.
It’s not love at first sight. Not really. Someone shifts in the front row and he looks up to see those big blue eyes on him. His first thought of the kid sat there taking notes so furiously is that he is like a Victorian child. Should he turn up in the ER, Dana would have CPS on the phone while Lena would be force feeding him several sandwiches. Even Michael who is not what one would call the most paternal of people feels the urge to go home and make soup for him.
The boy…man…whatever looks at him with those cherub eyes and he carries on speaking only just about avoiding the stumbling that comes with his moment but low and behold every five seconds his eyes drift back to the boy who now has his tongue poking out the side of his mouth—that shouldn’t be a turn on the man is young enough to be your son—bad Michael Bad!—desperate to get his attention.
Michael would chalk it down to a bad day and not getting laid in a while but at the end of the speech the kid comes over, introduces himself as Dennis Whitaker and then asks if he can ask him some more questions about emergency medicine because—that was the best lecture I have had yet—
Somehow that leads to dinner, somehow that leads to a friendship with numbers and what not being exchanged and then somehow in ways even looking back years later he does not know that leads them to sharing secrets with each other. He doesn’t know how in a shitty hotel room with them not having sex he ends up telling Dennis how his mother abandoned him, he doesn’t know how in a shitty hotel room three days after that as they are again NOT having sex Dennis tells him how his parents threw him out for being gay.
He doesn’t know how at dinner on his last night of this little speech thing Dennis comes to him and tells him eyes shadowed and heavily purple that he might not even be an ER doctor after all or any kind of doctor because he just got a look at student finance and he is not sure how even with his loans he is going to be able to live.
He flushes the second he says that and Robby has a moment where he apricates how pretty that flush is before Dennis is staggering over himself in the moment, begging him to forget what he said, apologizing like he is expecting to be yelled at because this is the closest thing to a friendship that he has here and—
He doesn’t know why he does it. He honestly doesn’t know why he does it. Even now looking back he has no idea why he does it. Only that he is so thankful that he does.
Dennis sticks a straw in his diet coke and Robby goes.
“Marry me”
(It’s worth pointing out that his second proposal is better than his first—but more on that later)
“This is insane” Jack comments. He’s here remarkably early considering Robby rang him at eight last night and told him and Jack who has been eying night shift for a while simply phones a strategic sicky in and comes at once. “This is…this is the most fucking insane thing you have ever done, and I watched you once drill a hole into someone’s knee without an attending present”
“Says the man who preformed a lumbar puncture on a kid while his Mom was out of the room?”
Jack inhales another mouthful of coffee. “Fucking Anti-Vaxers” he says viciously. “I was on chairs for a month after that little stunt”
Robby carefully points out that Jack was lucky to have a licence after that little stunt but that’s by the by. Jack’s seen shit and he’s done shit and he’s walked the walk and talked the talk and for Robby that is good enough. Besides…he’s not going to judge anyone for lowballing an abortion estimate so a teenager can get the healthcare she deserves and neither does most doctors.
Jack takes another swig of coffee and—
“What does the kid think of this?”
Robby winces.
It had taken a good three hours for Dennis to stop panicking, another hour to get him to explain the plan and the reasoning behind it and another hour after that to get him to say yes. By that point he had made the phone call and the arrangements and Dennis had stopped looking at him like he was a creepy old pervert in his early forties marrying a just turned legal teenager so he could be his medical sugar daddy and more like he was his saviour.
And really…Robby knew he had a complex he just…didn’t know how bad until he saw those big baby blues look at him like that.
“This is just…my way of helping out a friend”
Jack stares at him with a look deep annoyance.
“I did not drive all the way here with one leg for you to bullshit me about” he says flatly. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I have no fucking idea okay?! I just…he’s going to be a good Doctor, a great Doctor, and I want to help and—”
“Langdon will make a great doctor, Mohan will make a great doctor, Collins will make a great doctor, I don’t see you offering to marry any of them?”
“Firstly Langdon is married already, secondly I am not the one who wants to fuck Mohan—”
“I DO NOT WANT TO FUCK SAMIRA!”
“You know her name” Robby deadpans “By your standards that’s marriage. And besides are you honestly telling me that if she was telling you that she would have to quit and you could do something about it you wouldn’t?”
It’s a bit of a dick move bringing up Samira and this bizzarro flirtation that Jack has with her especially the wife bit. Jack is dipping his toenail back in the lake of dating and that’s a big deal considering he’s a functional adrenaline addict chasing down a rush he’s not experienced since he came out of the Army. Samira Mohan just bounces into the emergency room with a big heartbreaker smile on her face and big wide eyes and sometimes the highlight of a really shitty day will be seeing the way Jack relaxes when he sees her. She’s only a MS3 she’s a baby Doctor only just in the department and has only been here for six months but Robby can see the way Jack tracks her and woe betide the patient that so much as grabs her hand in a passive aggressive way.
“What does the kid say?” Jack asks again mouth pressed against his coffee cup.
“He…I laid it out real simple for him, this is a clandestine marriage. He can take up residence in my spare room and I will pay for medical school, heath benefits, his residency all of it”
“Yeah and if you’re not having sex with him then what are you getting out of it?”
To be fair Dennis asked him the same question and Michael couldn’t answer. He had tried, really he had tried to answer it but he was unable to. He didn’t know why this man was making him feel this way, why the thought of not seeing Dennis Whitaker become a Doctor made something in his chest yank as if he had been having his insides hooked out. That the thought of not seeing him again made something in him break a little. He was not a believer in love at first sight and this was most assuredly not what this was but at the same time he could not help but feel…attached.
“This is the best way” he argued. “I told him were living together that’s it, I will pay for med school don’t look at me like that what else am I gonna spend the money on? And he makes it up to me by matching with PTMC. Hey even Adamson can’t be mad at me this is what he sent me out to do, drum up business for the department”
There is a pause where Jack conveys as much violence with one look as most nations can do with their armies on full deployment.
“I will ignore that last bit” he says with a dignity that seems a bit forced. “But I will again ask—what conditions have you the older man in the relationship put in place to protect the impressionable med student because I swear Michael if you are turning the kid into a hooker then I will beat you with a tire iron, and I will go for all of the places that don’t kill you instantly”
Oh.
“Oh it’s not like that, its…he can stay in my spare bedroom, he’s got my medical insurance and my money and he can have a safe space to learn I don’t plan to sleep with him, I’ve told him that, this is not quid pro quo this isn’t tawdry, this is…this is someone being there for him. He can barely function now and his…his parents threw him out for being gay Jack—”
“Fuckers” Jack says on default. “But that still doesn’t mean—”
“I am not going to sleep with him, I am not going to…it’s a companion thing you know? I just…I can’t fully explain it, but I am not going to use him as a hooker. He gets to live rent free and debt free and I get some companionship in my house, it’s not that fucking hard. He can go out and date and fuck his way through med school—” here something twists in his gut that he doesn’t fully understand at the thought of the lithe little body (he has eyes okay!) wrapped around someone else in the room opposite his.
“For all I care I just…I can’t explain it but I…the kid…Dennis needs someone he needs someone the way…” he bites his lip. He does not want to get into it with Jack but Dennis needs someone the way he needed someone. He had his grandmother, after that, after she died there was nobody for a very, very long time. At least not until Jack Abbott crashed into his life and adore Jack as he does that’s not been a total picnic in the park on a summers day.
Jack swears under his breath.
“The boss is gonna have a fit when he hears about this”
“I don’t plan on telling him”
Jack raises one eyebrow but then—
“What if he takes advantage of you?”
“Jack look at him? Do you think honestly that he is the kind to plan a long con?”
Jack looks at where Dennis with a slightly shellshocked expression is still waiting by the car. Dennis gives a little wave and Jack sighs.
“Jesus…why I am here again?”
“Best man”
The look Jack gives him is almost laughable. It rivals Dennis’s it really does.
Robby might be going clinically insane.
It shouldn’t work…look…Robby knows that. This is the real world and if there is one thing that being an ER Doctor in this country gives you it’s a real sense of reality. Grim reality.
But somehow it does.
He marries the kid, takes him home, gets him settled in his spare room and gets him into medical school in Pittsburgh and then orders Thai. He talks him through his first fall semester. Jack comes along for that and sits there snaffling dumplings and offering his advice. Robby gives it a week and a half and then Jack and Dennis are the best of friends. Dennis doesn’t so much as flinch when the leg comes off.
He’s right.
It works. It works even though on paper it shouldn’t, it works even though it is insane. It works because there are clear rules that are never broken. They share dinner sometimes, he helps Dennis with his studies (man if he never looks at a textbook again it will be too soon) and he makes it work.
There is a bit of lingering regret sometimes but Michael makes it work. Last thing Dennis wants is a broken old wreck like him.
And yet…though he dreads it, the kid doesn’t go on dates, doesn’t go to parties, doesn’t bring anyone home. He just cooks him dinner and then listens to him bitch about work. Then Robby helps him sometimes with his studies. It’s…nice
It’s the nicest thing he’s ever had in his life.
He never wants it to change.
He’s comfortable, him, the husband he doesn’t touch and the life he leads.
Nothing needs to change.
Nothing.