Work Text:
There is a speck of dried blood on Jack’s right inner wrist.
Jack stares hard at it while he listens to rhythmic beats of the ECG monitor, the sounds that are informing him that the patient’s condition is stable.
It is Robby’s.
Robby’s heartbeat. Robby’s bed in the ICU. Robby’s blood on his wrist.
His blood—there was so much blood. Jack’s hands were already covered in it when he managed to pry Robby off of Donnie’s back, after the nurse practitioner had all but ran in through the ambulance bay yelling for a gurney. Two stab wounds to his lower back, most certainly trauma to his internal organs because nothing else could explain this amount of blood loss. So much Jack could barely think, nothing running through his head other than not today, not today Michael you are not fucking dying on me today—
He must have said it aloud at one point, because Robby had turned to him, eyes glossy and face so, so pale, and his skin getting colder by the second but his lips turned upwards into a smile that made Jack feel viscerally sick and there—there was his voice, soft and strained but Jack would be damned if he couldn’t recognise it even a mile away—
And he was telling him, “It’s okay, Jack.”
It’s okay.
Funnily enough, Jack had wanted to yell at him. Wanted to shout ‘it’s not fucking okay!’ at the top of his lungs, as though that had ever worked on the bastard in the past. But he never had a chance to, because Ellis was yelling ‘BP’s tanking!’ instead, and Robby had gone straight into tachycardia.
Time blurred for Jack after that.
He could vaguely recall inserting the Foley balloon tamponade into the wound tract to manage the hemorrhage, which worked to stabilise Robby’s blood pressure. He remembered the way Ellis told him to calm the fuck down when he had lashed out on the phone with surgery after they had the audacity to tell them that it might take at least another 15 minutes before they could have an OR available for Robby.
He also knew Whitaker had come into the room at some point, around the time he was working on the tamponade. The kid was probably with his patient in another room when Donnie carried Robby to them. In retrospect, Jack is surprised it took that long for word to reach him.
“What—what happened to him?” the R2 had asked, softly at first, barely audible over the chaos inside the trauma bay.
No one had answered him, of course. No one had the time, not when Robby was about to go into shock. It was no surprise then, that Whitaker’s tone was bordering on hysterical when he yelled just a moment later, “Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Jack spared one look at the kid—just a glance, taking in his wide eyes that he had no doubt Robby loved and his face stricken with fear—before he trained his focus back on the patient (he’s just another patient you have to save, don’t think about Robby—but it is Robby it is Robby Robby is bleeding out in front of you and there is nothing nothing you can do—).
“Someone get Dr. Whitaker out, please,” Jack had said. Unfeeling. Cold.
(Just like Robby’s body—shut up!)
“What—? No! I can help, let me help—”
“Dennis. Hey. We’ve got this in here, okay? They need you back out there,” Mateo stepped forward, blocking Whitaker’s line of sight to Robby as he gently pushed him towards the door. But the kid was fast, already twisting away from Mateo’s grip on his shoulder and attempting to get to the gurney and god as if Jack didn’t already have enough to deal with—
“Whitaker, get the fuck out. Right. Now. We do not need you in here! Not like this.”
His hands gripping the catheter were steady under the bloodied gloves, his attention fixed on getting the tube down into the wound tract. But his subconscious still registered the shift in energy in the room. He could sense how everyone else had stopped moving for just an instant. Could feel Whitaker’s eyes on him, now.
Jack didn’t even need to look up to see the betrayal and hurt on the kid’s face.
He could picture it in his head just fine.
“Come on, man. Robby’s in good hands, you know that,” he heard Mateo telling Whitaker, then the door was opening to the sounds of the everlasting chaos in the ER outside. It swung shut just as the ultrasound showed them that the catheter was in position.
He turned towards Ellis expectantly, only to find her levelling him with a look.
“That wasn’t cool, boss,” she told him in that point-blank, no-nonsense way of hers, before getting straight back to business and handing him the saline-filled inflation syringe.
I don’t give a fuck, Jack had thought back then, even as he had to swallow down the guilt bubbling up. That was a problem for future Jack, he decided.
And, god willing, that Jack would still have Robby by his side.
Jack does.
He probably has surgery to thank, for how they managed to have an OR ready for Robby ten minutes earlier than their estimates, more so than a god whom Robby himself didn’t even believe in any longer, but Jack isn’t about to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.
One of the stabs had hit Robby’s kidney. The surgeons did their best but—as was the case with most traumatic injuries to the internal organs—Robby could be looking at kidney problems for the rest of his life.
Jack isn’t looking forward to breaking that news to him.
But as it stands, Robby is still unconscious and waning off the anaesthetic from the four hour long surgery, so Jack has some time still. Time to deal with the previous items on the ‘future Jack’s problem’ list, for example. One of them being across from him right this instant.
Whitaker is sitting with his legs up on the chair, knees pulled tight against his chest. He’s got a purple hoodie pulled over his scrubs, and his eye bags looked darker than he’d ever seen. Not surprising, considering how he must have been awake for at least 18 hours now.
At least the shift last night wasn’t too wild, once they dealt with the MVA handovers that day shift had left them with. Jack doesn't know how he got through the shift himself, but he does know that he owed John and Parker big time for how they had taken on most of the presentations and questions of the students and residents for the night. He’d probably have to put in a word with Lena to have them off-schedule during Thanksgiving.
The kid hasn't looked away from Robby since they first entered the room. Hasn't said a single word to him either, aside from the curt ‘yeah, thanks’ after Jack had updated him that Robby’s surgery had gone smoothly and ‘wanna head up to see him after handover?’.
He doesn’t blame the kid. He would be pissed too, if their roles were reversed. The guilt he swallowed down earlier is threatening to make an appearance now, words floating up his throat but never making it out of his mouth.
He drags a finger over the speck of blood on his wrist and rubs at it gently.
“So,” he starts. Conjures up an olive branch. A rotten, decaying one, probably, but the only one he has within reach at the moment.
The dried blood refuses to come off.
“Dana just told me that the police have charged the guy who did this after Jesse and Donnie gave their statements.”
“... Who was it?”
Whitaker’s voice is hoarse. Jack wonders if he’d even spoken to Dana at all, when she had dropped by earlier before the start of the day shift.
“The husband of one of the patients from the multi MVA yesterday afternoon. She had pneumothorax and severe blood loss from multiple lacerations in the neck. Hadn’t even been five minutes before Robby had to call it, apparently. The husband was right there, couldn’t take it. Think he’d just been hanging outside, waiting for his shot.”
“... Jesus,” the kid breathes out, his hands coming up to frame the sides of his head.
Jack nods grimly. “Came straight up to Robby in the park, yelled some things and stabbed him in the back. Acted so fast Jesse and Donnie didn’t even know what had happened until Robby went down.”
“Donnie got Robby to us?”
“Yeah, and Jesse had the guy pinned down and called for backup. Stayed with him till the police arrived.”
“... Good.”
Jack blinks. Lifts his head up and turns to Whitaker. The kid’s eyes are still trained on Robby’s face, but his gaze is harder than it was before and his jaw is locked tight and—oh.
Jack thinks he gets it. A part of him—that part of him that is forever on the battlefield and has probably killed as many people as he had saved—wants the same too, to pin that bastard to the ground and give him a taste of his own medicine. Over and over and over again till he can no longer remember the words to the Hippocratic Oath.
But another part of his mind just keeps drifting back to that damned smile Robby gave him before he went tachy. The relief on his face as he sighed it’s okay to him. Like he had already given up and—!
“Apparently he didn’t even fight back.”
He doesn’t know why he said that. It doesn’t change anything, wouldn’t achieve anything except worry Whitaker more, probably. But he can’t get it out of his head, what Dana had told him earlier when he met her in the waiting room. The distraught look she had and the tears streaming down her face as she whispered to him, I think Robby believed that he deserved it.
Whitaker is staring at him now.
“... What?”
“The guy was just laying into him, accusing him of being a killer, and—”
(It’s okay, Jack.)
“—and Robby just stood there, taking it all in without a word.”
“... Jack.”
“Dana was right; the idiot probably thought he deserved it, and he was going to die thinking that he deserved it and he thought that was okay! He told me it’s okay and I couldn’t—”
“Jack.”
Whitaker has gotten out of his seat. His hand is over Jack’s own, and he is reaching across the bed in a position that seems extremely uncomfortable. But his eyes are gentle, and they are focused on Jack.
“Robby is safe,” the kid is telling him.
Something is trickling down Jack’s cheeks. His fingertips turn up wet when he brushes them over his face.
He hasn’t realised that he has started crying.
“You saved him, Jack. You did. You stopped him from losing too much blood before surgery could take him.”
There is a whimpering noise reverberating throughout the room. It might be coming from Jack. Whitaker’s grip over his hand tightens minutely.
“And, yeah, Robby’s probably going to freak out when he wakes up. He’s probably going to hate how he’s still alive. But he’s safe right now, Jack. He’s got us. And we’re going to take care of him, aren’t we?”
Dennis’s hand is warm. Just like his voice. Jack is sobbing now, trying to be quiet because he doesn’t want to risk Robby hearing this, but his breaths are shallow and the doctor in him is warning that he might be on the verge of hyperventilating. He can’t remember the last time he had cried like this—was it in the months after Lisa died? When Robby had crashed over at Jack’s place every other week to make sure that he was okay? When Robby had, more than once, held Jack in his bed as he fell apart and then wordlessly put him back together before morning came?
“I was so scared,” Jack confesses at last, in between hitched breaths.
He was. God knows he has talked Robby off the edge of the PTMC roof enough times for it to lose meaning, to feel almost mundane. God knows how restless he was when Robby went on that damned sabbatical, how poorly he slept for two whole months before Robby finally had enough and dragged his ass back home, sunburned but safe.
None of that has ever felt as real as last night.
He has never come so close to losing Robby for good, and Jack is terrified.
“Okay, hang on, let me just—”
The kid is pulling back, and for a moment Jack panics at the loss of contact until he realises that Dennis is dragging his chair over to Jack’s side so that he can be closer. He grabs onto Dennis’s arm the second the kid settles himself next to him. Holds onto him like he’s his fucking lifeline, and Dennis doesn’t falter at all, just slides his hand right back over Jack’s own as he did before.
“Hey. Jack. Look at me.”
It takes Jack a second, but he does. Watches Dennis through tear-clouded eyes, and feels him squeeze his hand. Grounding him.
“Listen. We didn’t lose Robby tonight. You saved him, and we’re gonna get through this, alright? You and me, we’ve got him.”
Dennis’s voice is stable. Calm. Not a single hint of uncertainty. The kid genuinely believes in what he is saying. Jack doesn’t know how he is managing that.
“And you’ve got me. Okay?”
Jack’s breath catches at that. He stares at Dennis wordlessly. Looks into those earnest blue eyes and wonders, how? How are you doing this?
He’s ballsy. Tougher than he looks. You’re gonna like him.
That’s what Robby had told him, back when Dennis was still an MS4 and was about to start his first night shift more than two years ago. Jack had been skeptical, as he usually was when Robby started to sing high praises about a resident or student. He likes to make his own judgement, likes to give the new ones a little challenge on their first few shifts, not enough to break them but enough to gauge how they’d fare in the ER, especially in the night shift.
Dennis had risen up to each and every one of them, back then.
He has never admitted it to Robby, but it’s been two years since—one year after Robby’s two-month absence had inadvertently pulled the resident closer into Jack’s orbit—and it’s high time that he did.
Robby was right.
The kid is tougher than he looks.
He does like the kid.
“Okay?” Dennis presses, his palm digging just slightly into Jack’s hand, pressure that brings him back to the present.
“... Okay.”
Dennis holds his gaze on him for a moment longer, like he’s looking for something. And Jack lets him, doesn’t look away, doesn’t even flinch. Just stays put, watching Dennis watch him, listening to Robby’s heartbeat and Dennis’s breathing. Matches his own breaths to the kid’s until his chest no longer feels like it’s too small to contain the mess within.
(Robby is safe.)
He isn’t sure how long they stayed in this position. It still feels too soon when Dennis is pulling away with a nod. Jack’s hands slip down from Dennis’s arms with the sudden distance, but Dennis is reaching back for him before Jack could even mourn the loss of his warmth.
He holds Jack’s hand in his own and brings it down to Jack’s thigh. Gentle. Soft.
“... You’re not doing this to make me feel guilty for earlier, are you?”
Jack can’t help it. He doesn’t remember the last time someone’s treated him this way, and it makes him skeptical.
The kid huffs a laugh. “‘Course not.”
Jack quirks an eyebrow at him.
“... Maybe just a little,” Dennis admits, rolling his eyes despite the hint of a smile on his lips.
“But seriously, I get it. I would’ve done the same.”
Jack looks away.
“I’m glad it was you in there.”
He closes his eyes, feels a rogue tear slip free. It’s more grace than he expected, more than he deserved. He knows that. He wonders if this is how Robby felt, each time he thought he had let the kid down. It is rather ironic to be in his position now, considering how often he had told the man to stop feeling sorry for himself, to learn to accept the care Dennis was offering without feeling guilty.
Robby’s going to have a field day when he eventually hears about this.
“For what it’s worth,” Jack says when he feels more in control of his own voice. “I am sorry for being a douchebag earlier.”
Dennis nods, unfazed. “Apology accepted.”
It’s easy. It shouldn’t be so easy. Something deep inside Jack itches. Makes him want to argue and fight. But the crying just now seems to have done quite a number on him, because he can’t find it in himself to take the bait.
Next to him, Dennis shifts back into his chair and pulls the hood of his sweater up and over his head. He looks like he’s ready to pass out any time.
“... You should get some sleep, I’ll wake you up when Robby does,” Jack offers.
“Thanks, maybe in a bit.”
They are seated in a rather awkward position, their hands joined over misaligned chairs. Dennis must have realised that, because he is moving his chair once again, bringing it forward so that they are now parallel, his hand never leaving Jack’s. He sits back down and huddles close to Jack, close enough for their arms and thighs to brush against each other, before pausing.
“... Is this okay?”
Jack wants to laugh, a little helplessly.
“Yeah, kid, you’re good.”
The kid doesn’t need to know how stupidly soothed he feels by the additional contact, but he could probably guess from the soft sigh Jack releases when he presses closer, his arm a grounding pressure against Jack’s own.
Jack pulls their intertwined hands closer, trying to find a more comfortable position for them both, and that’s when he notices it.
His wrist is clean.
The blood that Robby left on him is gone.
“... I’m glad you’re here, Dennis," he says after a quiet moment.
I’m glad Robby is loved by someone like you, he didn’t say. Couldn’t bring himself to. Not yet.
“Yeah?”
But he thinks Dennis knows what he means, anyway.
“Yeah.”
Dennis smiles, tired but sincere.
“I’m glad you’re here too, Jack.”
He smiles back, and they return to their silent vigil over Robby.
His palm is sweating against Dennis’s.
Neither of them lets go.