Chapter Text
Dennis Whitaker didn’t even understand how on earth he had managed to ruin his third set of scrubs. Everything from blood to urine had landed all over his work clothes today, and it took everything inside the med student not to have a full breakdown on his way to the scrub dispenser in just his boxers and a hospital gown. By now, he and that machine were mortal enemies, because every single time, Dennis needed to give the dirty scrubs back before receiving a fresh set. And just his luck; they were out of his size this time around.
“Looking fly, Huckleberry,” Trinity grinned at him, passing by and ,unironically, slapping his ass.
Dennis just rolled his eyes with a hint of a grin; she was too smug, but then again, he considered her his best friend. The machine rattled as he returned the soiled clothes and dispensed scrubs two sizes too big. He just took them with a sigh and wandered off to his locker and opened it with lightly shaking hands; the ER was freezing at any and all times of the year, whether it was mid summer or deep winter. Dennis rummaged through the contents and, to his dismay, he had no more undershirts left to change into, meaning he would be cold for the rest of his shift.
The scrubs looked ridiculous, hanging off his body like a potato sack. Walking back into the ER nearly knocked him off his feet. The air was teeth chatteringly cold, making room for the question: How did the patients not all become hypothermic the second they walked in here? Some of the doctors, residents, and med students ran hot because all they did was walk around all day, but Dennis sure wasn’t one of them.
He treated two more patients: easy wound dressings, one with a mild burn and one from a little girl who took a nasty fall off her bike. Simple saline dressings did the job. Only the commotion of a code blue ripped him out of his steady rhythm. He rushed over, doing exactly as Dr. McKay told him to: chest compressions, letting the AED analyze for a shockable rhythm. There wasn’t one, so he kept doing compressions, his cold hands almost hurting from the pressure of repeatedly pressing ribs and sternum down. He could feel the ribs cracking, so he knew he was doing good. It wasn‘t enough in the end.
“Time of death 16:03” Dr. McKay announced after what felt like hours. It was only twenty two minutes.
“You did good” She said before leaving to write her report.
Dennis felt numb, not only from the failed resuscitation as made his way back to the workstation, looking if anyone had a case for him. Distraction helped often, failing to save someone but helping the next. A never ending cycle that was not gonna end with Dennis himself.
“You good?” A voice came from behind.
Dennis turned around. Trinity was leaning on his chair, watching him.
“Patient didn’t make it, scrubs don’t fit and I’m freezing here so, yeah, I’m good” he answered dryly, goosebumps visible on his bare arms.
“You got no more undershirts? No jacket?” She asked, a grin on her face.
“They all have blood or urine or whatever on them. And the only jacket I have is my winter coat, and that isn’t good here, can’t ruin that too” he chuckled to himself, another shiver ran down his spine.
“You are so unlucky, dude. I can go look if we have any zip-ups lying around” Trinity chuckled before walking off.
“Thanks”
They did not, in fact, have any lying around; most unclaimed had already been snatched by either nurses or other doctors. He’d live, Dennis thought, finishing up his reports.
“Whitaker, with me, acute Pneumothorax” Robby called out from one of the rooms.
Dennis dropped everything, rushing over. Robby guided him through an emergency decompression with an ultrasound guide. It worked even with Dennis’s shaky hands and the perfect inexperience of a medical student. The patient was moved to ICU, and Robby called Radiology for a follow-up chest x-ray.
“You alright there? You’re shivering?” Robby asked, watching the patient being hauled away.
“Uhh, yeah. I’m just cold, I ruined all my undershirts with bodily fluids. Not my own! Patients bodily fluids…” Dennis chuckled.
“Is that why your scrubs-?”
“Look like I’m wearing a sack? Yes, they were out of my size and the next one up too. Not my day today. I look like a toddler playing doctor” Dennis laughed with frustration.
“Okay, look, I’m already overheating. Just take my jacket,” Robby said, unzipping his sweatshirt.
“Dr. Robby, I’ll be fine, I promise-” Dennis started.
“None of that, can’t have you be the next one on my table with hypothermia” Robby cut him off.
The attending wrapped the jacket around his shoulders, still warm from body heat. Dennis knew arguing with Dr. Robby was more than pointless, so he just accepted it, putting the jacket on fully. The smell of cologne mixed with something faintly sweaty was so comforting to him as he zipped it up. The soft cotton and body heat made his muscles relax, pulling a smile from his lips.
“Thank you” Dennis said, voice smaller than intended.
“No worries. I take care of my students, it’s what we do here” Dr. Robby said, placing a warm hand on Dennis’s shoulder. Warmth seeped through the cotton and right into the remainder of his tensed muscles.
“I’ll make sure to give it back by the end of the shift,” he added quickly.
“Just give it back when you get to it. Just try not to get vomit on this one, the list of bodily fluids on you doesn’t need to extend any more today”
“Yes, I’ll try, Sir” Dennis said, playing with the draw strings of the hood.
Dr. Robby tensed for a second at that, then caught himself. He squeezed Dennis’s shoulder with a smile before walking off. The rest of the day, Dennis wasn’t cold anymore, in fact, he almost felt like he was overheating now. Running around in Dr. Robby's jacket lingered in his brain like a full dose of happy pills, not that it was better than the scrubs in terms of size though. A few coworkers looked at him with a side eye, but Dennis was a little too happy to care about that.
“Who did you have to kill for that jacket? Kind of a rarity you got there Whitaker” Dr. Mohan came up behind him.
Dennis turned around to face her and she looked, really looked at the jacket. Then she chuckled lightly, trying to keep her face straight and professional.
“I sure hope you didn’t kill our senior attending for that” She mused.
“No. Dr. Robby gave it to me because I was close to freezing to death in his ER. He couldn‘t have that” Dennis told her, a shy smile on his face, playing with the hems of the jackets sleeves.
“Oh, wow, I see some favoritism here” she joked, grabbing her chart and walking off.
“No, that’s not-” He started, but she was gone. “Why is no one letting me finish my sentences today?” he mumbled to himself.
Dennis, fortunatly, managed to finish that shift without ruining the attending's jacket. But unfortunately, he was not able to give it back to Dr. Robby that day. He asked Dr. Abbot, who was just coming in for the night shift, who told him that Dr. Robby had already headed home. So Dennis took the jacket home- home as in the spare room that Trinity had offered him when she found him sleeping in the unoccupied rooms up on the eighth floor of the hospital.
The silence of his own room felt strange now in comparison to sleeping at his workplace, but sitting down on the bed with the jacket still in hand felt even weirder. Dennis let himself flop down fully onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling, the zip-up jacket in a tight grip. He didn’t want to give it back; he wanted to keep it, keep the feeling of someone caring about his well being, keeping that feeling of lingering warmth that wasn‘t just from body heat. Bringing the soft fabric up to his face, Dennis inhaled slowly. It felt like a hug, a warm and all-enveloping hug from his attending. His incredibly kind and good looking attending he had come to realise. The beard, those crows eyes from smiling and age, the biceps. Those god damn biceps.
Taking another breath was too easy, it still smells like Dr. Robby, now mixed with his own unique scent. It felt electric, that mingling of both their smells, like the past twelve hours in the ER draining his energy didn't even happen. Burying his face deeper in the fabric, he kept thinking about Robby. His hands on Dennis, that man just couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of his med student. Another deep breath and fuck, it worked him up, blood rushing. He could almost feel the adrenaline and dopamine hitting all his neurons at the same time. He groaned low, the warmth spreading throughout his body making him feel sort of high. He was hard, straining against his underwear, trying his best to stay quiet. Getting absolutely turned on by the smell and thoughts about his boss were definitely not on his bingo card for today, but here he was.
With a mixture of embarrassment and desperation, Dennis let his hand slide past his waistband and into his pants. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this- it was inappropriate- but god damn, he couldn't stop himself from letting fingers glide over the outline of his already half-hard cock. No means of trying to calm himself down worked, nor did distraction by naming all the bones in the human body do anything against the now raging erection.
‘Femur, tibia, fibula…’
But with Robby's scent in his nose, all he could think about was his attending’s voice in his ear, erotically murmuring Latin terms into his ear. Only that doctor could make a dead language sound more sexy than dirty talk. Dennis could feel the wetness of precum through the thin cotton of his boxers, slowly but surely leaking, just like the endorphins in his lust-clouded brain. All he wanted was Robby- Dr. Robby- he corrected himself mentally. Finally, he let his hand slip past his boxers too, a firm yet gentle grip on his hardness, slowly pumping up and down. What would Dr. Robby’s hands feel like instead? Would he be rougher? Demanding? Or gentle and slow, dragging Dennis’s orgasm out into eternity? His own hand, jerking off, became frantic, his mind creating scenarios that he could never, in a million years, tell anyone.
It was too late to conjure up some other fantasy now; no porn website could finish the job anymore. Nothing could make him twitch in his own hand than the mental image of his own hands in Robby’s beard, in his hair, digging his nails into that broad back. The thought of Robby’s hands, on Dennis’s thighs, his chest, wrapped around a leaking cock that was practically begging for release was so all-consuming it almost hurt. Dennis took another breath, the jacket in his hand was a little damp from the sweat on his forehead, but that smell of him and Robby, mashed together, was all it took for him to finish. Moaning into the jacket to keep quiet, feeling that heat in his core and that sweet, sweet high of fantasizing about your fifty-year-old boss. With a ragged breath, he managed to look down at humself, a dizzying feeling behind his eyes.
White knuckles still gripping the navy blue fabric, a small off-white stain on the sleeve right by Dennis’s crotch made him groan in frustration. No way he had jizzed all over his boss‘s jacket… It had slipped into his pants alongside his hand. Fucking hell. He had to wash Dr. Robby’s jacket immediately and explain why he couldn’t exactly give it back right away the next day. Dennis was so fucked, in more than one way.