Chapter Text
Robby had always wanted to be a father.
Whether it was actually a result of his own choice, or it was just a culmination of 12 years at Hebrew school, he was almost desperate for a child of his own. It didn’t matter the gender, whatever they liked, whatever they wanted to do, wanted to call him. He didn’t care, he just longed for someone to take care of, someone to love. Maybe even someone to go to temple with.
Impress them on your children. He wasn’t even all that religious, and he often found himself taking longer and longer breaks from service, from temple, and from his community as a whole It got harder and harder to face those patients, those faces that only reflected his, the ones who knew how to pronounce his name, so he just didn’t. Only introduced himself as Dr Robby, or Micheal. Never giving himself away. That principle somehow stayed.
He met jewish patients, not often, but enough for it to be a recurring part of his identity, to be put on show, to another person who was, for many purposes, exactly like him. The teens who reminded him of himself, whether secular or still religious, or those who were older, reminding him of his parents, his grandmother especially. The way they’d ask, what they’d ask, it all. He often lied about what temple he went to, or what holidays he was preparing for, because he simply wasn’t.
The holidays were gone, he barely lit a candle, or baked, or did anything that his grandma was so fond of when he was younger- when he was so excited, to be allowed to do the prayers, to help in the kitchen- but the child aspect was the one thing he couldn’t shake. He’d done his best, dating men, who more often than not, hated the idea of children, did everything in his power to agree with them, and believe it, rejecting any relationship with a woman.
And when he did date a woman, who, for the record he was still certain he was attracted to, he just couldn’t seem to get what he wanted. Probably past the age, not just himself, but the women he was with (not that there was anything necessarily wrong with that) were often of a similar age to him, and if they’d had children, rarely, they’d always be grown, graduating high school or even in college. Working. Completely separate from their parents.
It sounds hypocritical slipping from his mouth, with Robby knowing that he too did the same thing, from his parents at a young age, and even from his grandmother, letting himself hide away at college, and later med school, finding any excuse to refuse the offer of dinner on Friday nights on the phone the night prior, knowing the meal would somehow end in a trip to temple in the morning.
His grandmother wasn’t even particularly Orthodox, sure she had ideas about practice that didn’t exactly align with the idea of Reformation, but she was half-there most days, and yet Micheal still felt guilty. He was always Micheal at home, the Micheal who couldn’t give his only living grandmother a child, the Micheal who found himself falling further and further from the rituals and liturgy that he used to adore. He never got to give his grandmother a child.
It was his temple that was the killer. They did Hebrew school, naturally, as any good temple should, but the things they preached didn’t exactly align up with the modern(ish) world that Micheal was growing up within. They spoke so cruelly about homosexuality, the idea of divorce, the simple idea of not having children, so awfully, that even now, the thought of not going through with the idea made Micheal a little sick, if he was honest. If he were to stumble and fall on the hurdle of homosexuality, he sure as hell wouldn’t fall a second time. Isn’t that what Jesus did? Irrelevant, but true.
He’d loved the services, the way the prayers, the songs, the language itself played across his mouth, the way it felt along his tongue, how good it felt to worship. But then school would come, and he’d sit in some back room somewhere, probably used for charity cases, or whatever work they were doing that month, helping the needy, but never those with HIV, never those men, boys, dying in droves, they didn’t deserve it- but the room was always cold, both ways. Boys and girls were separated, which was natural, they did, in those days, have very different issues to deal with.
The Lord only knows what the women had to go through, but the boys were subject to weeks upon weeks of what was, looking back in retrospect, a glorified group therapy session. Only with a very, very, unqualified therapist. They’d worship, read scripture for a little while, until the main event arose ever so naturally, the Cantor somehow always finding a way to twist whatever passage they were reading into his ideals. There was one week where a boy admitted to it, to homosexuality.
He didn’t, but he'd brought up being led astray by a male figure in his life, and from the way he’d talked about him, about the way he made him feel, Robby’s skin began to crawl. It was so clearly wrong, so much more than just two men, and all the Cantor could muster up was a prayer, and a condemnation of the act itself. The boy's face was not ashamed, but scared, when he watched the words string together to make the sentence, the sentence that rid all the guilt, and placed it on to his shoulder.
Micheal would love to say that he stopped going after that, or even just said something in protest against it, but he didn’t. Kept his head low, made up some bullshit response when asked, kissed boys in the school bathroom. Lived in silence. He still pretended to his grandmother, right to the end, that he was going to give her something she so desperately wanted, something she’d wanted so much since she was a little girl. He felt like a liar. He was.
He’d taken an almost fatherly role onto his younger colleagues, predominantly the med students, as an almost reparation to what he could not provide, to his grandmother, to the Lord, and it was just about enough. He could see his impact on his students, especially Mohan, the way he held his scalpel, the face she’d make to patients, the care she’d take, That was, well what he hoped, from him. Every new batch, every new cohort was essentially another group of children that he would impress his ideals onto, not just because it was his job, but because he wanted to. But because he needed to.
Not only did he enjoy the experience itself, but beginning to see them flourish in their own skills, especially with the skills he’d taught, was another perfect experience on its own. The pride, not exactly correctly named, something like the feeling, a kind of detached sense of misplaced hubris, because he knows deep down, he can’t exactly have had that much of an impact on each and every single one, with how fast they seem to come and go.
Even the ones who even impacted him in return always seemed to fade, sure there’d be an email or two, or a message via another doctor on rotation, but they’d always find a way to stop emailing, stop passing on messages until it just stopped completely. Robby still had the new wave of students, so it never seemed to bother him all that much, as there were always more people to fill the gap, more of what were essentially children for him.
That's where he found Dennis Whitaker in a grey area. Half his age, probably even younger than that, a R1. Basically an infant. But he couldn’t find any reason to see him that way, not physically, not emotionally. He was as grown, as mature as Robby could be, probably even more than that- from the way he so carefully handled what had happened in pedes- and Robby certainly saw him that way. He was sweet to the boy to say the least.
This issue was how pretty he was, something unlike Robby had ever seen before. Sure, plenty of men were pretty, he could name enough to use both hands, but this was different. He was different. It’s the way he was almost desperate, the way he so clearly clung onto Robby’s praise, the way his eyes would crinkle, or he’d do his best attempt at subtly when adjusting himself after a compliment, it made Robby’s heart rate rise every time.
He knew where it came from, he wasn’t naive to dating, or rather flirting with another man, it was completely different from flirting with women however, but this was, new to say the least. He’d almost exclusively dated men his age whenever he’d be willing to date anyone, a few older boyfriends in his college years, letting himself get treated right when he was living off minimum wage.
He’d let himself imagine, stemming from the way he carried himself, the way he was so graceful during his breakdown, not letting any emotion show on his face, sitting with Robby until he’d managed to pull himself together. Helping him up. That’s what made him break, the touch, one he hadn’t initiated, one he had to find himself pushing the kid away from him afterwards.
Dennis had looked so needy for his approval, even just for his attention, and Robby, despite still feeling awful about it both emotionally and physically, condemning himself for not letting him touch him longer, kiss him, had only wished to look into those eyes longer. Those hurt eyes, ones who so clearly longed for him in the way his longed for the kid. That’s where it came from, and that’s where it stayed.
There was something so pathetic about him, the way he carried himself, the words he said, even what he wore, what he carried- that just turned on Robby far too much for workplace conditions. He brought a lunch box to work with him, despite him being told off but pretty much every single one of his superiors for eating like he does during his shift, including Robby, a black fabric bag, with those plastic lunch boxes inside. Always a sandwich, or a wrap, or something to get crumbs everywhere, and the rest of his diet consisted of food not too dissimilar to the diet of a mouse.
Crackers, slabs of cheese, grapes and fruit. Robby still kept fruit in his bag for him, just in case. He might need it. And he liked fruit.
He did get teased an awful lot at work, not that it bothered Robby all that much, or at least he pretended it didn’t, because if someone saw an attending getting involved in the petty squabbles of his med students, not only would people think of him as incredibly unprofessional, but also just strange. No good attending would ever imagine to delve that deeply into a student’s background, or even become friends with them on that level. Not to the extent where they were fighting the other’s battle for them.
That’s where Robby found himself stumbling again, like he did with homosexuality, like he did with the child- he found himself unable to keep himself away from Dennis. He had to, at work, doing his best to stay solely cordial, nothing more, nothing that hints at anything other than a professional relationship between the two. It differed at home. With the discovery of his Instagram, Robby was free to do what he wanted, literally anything he wanted.
He was even hotter there, but with it all being curated, it made sense. And Christ it was curated to death, every photo almost meticulous in its beauty, the crinkle of his eyes when he smiles, the curve of his smile, the curve of his muscles. Micheal is too old to lie to himself, too old to pretend as if it didn’t do things to him, encourage a hand to his pants. He was just so perfect, so pliable, so breakable. Robby wouldn’t dare to do something like that, but he could definitely think about it.
Robby hadn’t let himself actually touch himself to the photos. He’d find himself turning his phone off, relying on memory. He felt wrong doing so, sure, but on the nights where he got drunk- after a particularly bad shift, or the nights he covers for Abott, or when he loses a patient, or when he thinks about Adamson too much- he’d entertain the idea, but he’d never do it, preferring to stick to the old fashioned method of picturing the younger of the two naked. That always worked well enough, he never needed more.
At least that’s what he told himself, yet as he let himself indulge more, as he let himself image, picture to way the skin flowed, their skin flowed together, the texture from his shins to his neck, something only restricted to his imagination, something he was so desperate to see in person, he found himself more and more desperate for the idea of Dennis, for the feeling of his body against his. The touches that had legitimately begun as brotherly, began to shift, with their intentions, never fully venturing to become tangible.
It was embarrassing to admit, but anything more had made him flustered, and if he was totally honest, a little hard. A hand on the shoulder was fine, just about do-able, not blush inducing, but anything else, when Dennis would brush up against him by accident, or smile at him a little too happily, he’d have to withdraw, pretend he was somewhere else, with someone else, or sometimes literally, if it ever got too bad. There was a staff bathroom on the 3rd floor that no one used. For if he was desperate.
Touches at work were somehow so much more exciting than his own hand, even if one was much more innocent than the other, and it made him positively ill. Awful, dangerous, needy. He was a fifty year old man, and he was needy. Like a dog, sniffing out for a mate. He hated it, he hated himself for it, and most of all, he hated Abott for making it so obvious, making it obvious that other people knew how he felt, better than he did.
On one of their bi-weekly out of work interactions, working on yet another motorbike that, while Jack made completely clear he wasn’t a fan of Micheal driving, they both worked on together, he’d let it slip. It was their thing, it had been for a while. Like Robby calling him brother, like Jack being allowed to call him Micheal. Abbot had briefly mentioned how he needs to stop playing favourites, and Robby must have turned some awful color of crimson because the response that followed was awful.
“Brother, he’s- he’s basically a child!” It comes out with a laugh, but it makes something grow within Robby, something more than embarrassment.
“I know. I can’t help it, but I mean I’m not gonna do anything about-”
“Anything more you mean? Because you’ve fucking glommed onto him like a jellyfish man. You can’t touch him like that, people talk. Especially not when he spends half his shift giving you fuck-me eyes.”
“How do you know what that word means?”
“Don’t deflect.” He could feel his ears burn as he said that.
They worked in silence for what felt like hours, but in reality it was probably a minute at most, before Robby decided to break the silence. “Do you think he does? Fuck-me eyes?”
Abbot didn’t reply, just nodded his head and went into the other room to wash the grease from his hands. It was the first time someone had validated how he felt, validated that there was something there. He wasn’t too fond of thinking about coworkers outside of work hours, hell outside of the PMTC building in general, but this was different. Nights he couldn’t sleep, he’d think about the way he looked at him, the way he referred to him. Sir. Fuck this.
It was another one of these sleepless nights, one where every position Robby tried, everything he did somehow kept him awake, however desperately he wanted to just sleep, knowing better than to trust that his day off would actually mean he’d feel better the day after. His hands seemed to move on their own, well at least one of them did, as he rolled over onto his back, taking his phone from the nightstand, a hand slipping under the waistband of his boxers.
He knew where he was going this time, and he didn’t intend to turn the phone off, clicking the icon, looking, not having to scroll far into his search history to find the profile. He had yet to follow Dennis, thinking it might seem weird, especially since he only made an account for the purpose of easier viewing, with a follower-less profile seeming a little too ominous to get away with it. What gnawed at him was the fact he knew Dennis had another profile, a private one, one where he could only imagine what was on it. One he was desperate to see.
Robby had intended to scroll to his favourite photo, and while it sounded ridiculous, that he had a favourite, not when he sounded so insane, not when Dennis was constantly so beautiful, but there was a new post. He could only tell due to the substantial color difference between the covers of the photos, a soft yellow compared to the darker blue of the previous post. He couldn’t lie to himself, he knew the contents of the latter of the two, a photo of Dennis at a bar.
Him and Santos, his arm around her, her arm around Garcia (something that, while not what he was interested in at the moment, had already been mentally noted), all grinning at the camera, Dennis looking almost behind the screen, to the person taking the photo. Sometimes he’d liked to pretend it was him, taking the photo, and then he’d been allowed to take Dennis home, and fuck him into the mattress.
Dennis had glitter across his face, smudges against his nose, and where his jaw had met his neck, softly noticeable under the dim lighting, leading to the shirt. He’d clearly done something to the neckline of it, clearly ripped, purposefully, cut or torn, because it rested, one end flush against his neck, the other barely above his shoulder bone, showing off not only his collarbone, but half of his flushed skin. The bottom half was less interesting, more covered, a scarf wrapped across his waist, with jeans and a belt. Much less attractive.
This photo was new, a stark contrast to the photo before it, a still of Dennis, from what he could make out, urging him to reach across again to his nightstand, grabbing his glasses, just in case. The photo doesn’t disappoint him, on both levels, because holy shit is he beautiful. He isn’t all dressed up, not like he usually is, but that somehow makes him more attractive, the curls swept across his face, resting half against his forehead, the other strands flat against his face. His body faces away from the camera, but he’s turned his head to face forward, eyes crinkled, nose tilted down slightly.
In his arms he held a toddler. Holy shit.