Work Text:
"C'mon, babe," Robby barely registers Dana murmur right in his ear, after the three year-old crash victim dies on the table, too small and too cold, too many broken bones - too much blood -
He's not the only one; everyone who worked on the little boy stands still for a minute or two after before slowly starting to strip off gowns and gloves. It's just one of those -
"Thank you all," he makes himself say, after having to clear his throat, forcing himself to interrupt his own thoughts.
His hands feel bloodless, despite everything. Dana pulls his gown off for him. He'd be a worse doctor if he didn't feel it sometimes, but it's always a struggle when he does; he hates not putting on the brave face for everyone else.
Their shift is over not long after; Robby hands the mess of the emergency department over to Patel and gets his backpack from his locker, numb, wanting nothing more than a drink or two, maybe an Ambien so he can black out the whole day.
"No, hey," Dana says in his ear. Her hand curls gently around his elbow. "Just - come on, honey, Benji's outside."
The backseat of the Subaru is familiar. Benji looks at him in the rear view mirror and nods, drives them back to his and Dana's townhouse, parks in the underground garage while Robby can't do anything but listen to the high-pitched ringing in his ears and hate every second of it.
Hands reach into the back seat to pull him out, gently - Dana's hands - and Robby sighs, every cell in his body exhausted. "Inside, Robby, come on," she says, and Robby's maneuvered into the stairwell, and somehow he makes it up. It's not the physical he's at a loss for right now; it's everything else.
Dana and Benji are talking. Robby's vaguely aware. It's not like this most days - he can deal with things, most days. There are only a few sorts of patients where when it's over, his whole system refuses to engage again.
It happens to everyone, he knows. They're all only human.
"Robby," Dana's saying now, running her hands over his head, over his face, taking his hands away where they're pressed over his eyes. One of her hands holds his, the other returns to his face, pressing over his eyes, his cheeks, his mouth. He can feel the touch lingering even after it's moved. "You want something to eat?"
He shakes his head. He doesn't think he could keep anything down if he tried.
"Okay. Come on, you can stretch out in Alicia's room. I'm going to get some dinner, then Benji and I are going to clean up the kitchen, and then I'll be up, okay?"
"Dana, you don't -"
Dana's hands tighten on his face. It feels good. "Robby."
He doesn't argue with that tone of voice. "Okay," he breathes.
"Go on upstairs," she says, and Robby opens his eyes to see Dana's living room as she pulls him up from the sofa. Television, coffee table, family pictures everywhere, the piano no one plays but Carrie when she's home from college. The scent of vanilla candles layered over the faint odor of menthol cigarettes, because while Robby knows Dana and Benji both try to take it out to the back stoop, life gets in the way sometimes.
"I'm sorry," he breathes out. His thoughts are still jumbled. "You don't need -"
Dana scoffs, slaps him so lightly he's loathe to call it a slap and not a caress, then leans in. Her kiss is gentle. Robby sighs into it, kisses back. Dana leans back after a few seconds and says in a sharper tone, "Upstairs. March."
Robby goes. The banister is familiar under his palm. He feels himself starting to relax, finally. In Alicia's room - also familiar, also covered in pictures - he takes a deep breath. The pajamas he usually wears are already laid out on the bed; Dana must have given Benji the heads up. His whole chest throbs at that.
Voices murmur downstairs, but they're too far away for him to make out, so he sits down on the bed and closes his eyes. His head is still pounding, but it's not as bad as before.
He's not asleep, but he's also not awake, when the door opens again. "You're still dressed," he hears Dana say.
Robby shakes his head, wanting to say he's sorry again, knowing Dana doesn't want to hear it. She sits down on the edge of the bed. The "Robby" is softer, and the "It's okay, just let me take care of you," is even softer after that.
"You've been taking care of people all day," he replies, because he's an idiot.
"Yeah, and now I want to do nice things for you - suck it up and let me."
He sighs. "Dana?"
"Yeah, babe?"
"Why are you so nice to me?"
A soft hand on his face, again. A gentle thumb stroking over his lower lip. Robby opens his eyes to see Dana close, smiling at him. "If I needed it, you'd do the same for me," she replies. He would. "Now come on, get with the program - arms up."
They've had this same conversation before. The first time Robby let Dana bring him home, he'd slept on the couch in the living room, in his work clothes. The second time, she put her arms around him and said, "Honey, everyone needs a little comfort sometimes. It's all right. You're not doing anything I don't want, and Benji's right upstairs," which Robby took to mean Dana had asked Benji if she could undress Robby and if it was okay that she kiss Robby until he felt more like a human being again.
Dana tasted like the cup of decaf coffee she had after dinner, while Robby had barely choked down some toast. The kisses were almost chaste - almost platonic, he thought later, except for how they were definitely kisses, and Dana's hand on his jaw kept him where she wanted him the whole time. How that was definitely Dana's tongue in his mouth, coaxing him back out of numbness and into something that felt like being a real person again.
The third time Dana took him home, Benji wasn't there, and Robby was immediately installed in Alicia's old room with a bourbon, a plate of leftovers - Benji's oven-roasted turkey tenderloin and mashed potatoes, delicious - and Dana next to him in her pajamas. "It's been a long day," she said, tucking into her own plate.
When the food was gone, she took their plates and disappeared for ten minutes, only to return with more bourbon and a pair of Benji's pajamas. "I can't wear -" Robby tried to argue.
Dana only shook her head and yanked his scrub top up over his head, then the t-shirt he was wearing underneath. "It's all right," she said, leaning in and pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and Robby went boneless at that. "You'd do the same for me."
He would, if she didn't have Benji. He said as much and Dana cocked an eyebrow at him, then pushed down his scrub pants. Robby sat down on the bed and let her take off the rest of his clothes, let her help him into the borrowed pajama shorts and t-shirt. Then she pushed him back on the bed by his shoulders and straddled his lap. "You're here because I want you to be here, and you need it, and I want to," she said. "Okay?"
Robby couldn't argue.
He lets Dana undress him now without complaint. "Thank you," he thinks he says, as he's pushed nearly naked into the bed.
"Robby, we all have bad days," Dana replies. Hands press to his face, his neck, grounding him, leaving echoes of her touch once they're gone. Then she's making him look straight at her, her thumb pressed hard to the center of his bottom lip. "I need you to help me keep that place in line, all right? I can't run that fucker without you."
The casual profanity makes him smile. "All right."
"All right what?" She gives him a look, one eyebrow raised, her lips parted.
"Yes, ma'am," Robby breathes out.
"That's right." Dana leans down, kisses him hard, and her mouth on his leaves an echo of the press once it's gone. "Don't tell anyone."
"'course not." Robby tilts this chin, brings his mouth into contact with hers once more. "Besides, who would I tell?"
Dana laughs at that, bright and beautiful and also exhausted. Robby curls a hand around her wrist, the only part of her he'd dare touch without her explicit permission, and adds, "Nobody'd believe me anyway."
The eyebrow quirk once more. "Baby, that's for sure."
His own laugh escapes. Dana cups his cheek and Robby forces his eyes open to meet her gaze again. It's steady. She asks, "You feel better?"
"Yeah, a little."
"Good."
Robby half expects her to leave then, leave him to get some sleep in this bed he's been installed in enough times now that his body recognizes it as someplace he can fall asleep easily. It was a skill he learned in med school - but then, the longer he'd spent in the same workplace that let him go home at the end of a shift, he'd lost it. Now a place needs to be something his body recognizes as right, or maybe safe, or even correct, before he can relax into it.
Dana's body against his is right and safe. "You want to have sex?" she asks, a hand on his hip, her thumb centimeters from his dick, moving in circles.
"If you do," Robby allows.
Dana makes an impatient noise - Robby, you're a fucking moron - and rolls them over, onto her back, and Robby pushes up her nightgown without further hesitation. She's not wearing anything underneath and he slides down the bed, kissing the smooth insides of her thighs, breathing her in. Dana puts her hand on his head, directing him where to go, and Robby feels his cock starting to fill as he licks into her.
Dana only lets him go down on her for a minute and then she's yanking him up again. It takes only a second for him to push down his briefs, and Dana kisses him - sloppy, wet, and breathless - as he slides into her waiting body. "Robby," she groans, and Robby feels alive again all of a sudden, hot and as though all his nerves are alight.
It's quick yet slow, trading kisses, Dana telling him he can leave whatever marks he wants, Robby feeling hotter with every permission Dana gives. "Just fuck me, Robby, come on," she groans, her hands on his face again - her face, flushed pink, tipped back on the pillow. "Play with my tits."
He does, skimming fingertips over soft skin, rolling her nipples between his fingers until they're hard, then dragging his thumbs over the sensitive points until she sighs and pushes his hands away. "More?" he asks.
"No, it's all right - fuck me deeper, come on."
Robby can feel how wet she is. He moves his knees, pushes Dana's hips higher up, grinds into her heat until he's breathless and she cries out, and her whole body goes taut like a pulled clothesline and her cunt clenches around his cock. Robby feels his eyes roll back in his head.
The release of it is the complete blanking of his thoughts that he's wanted all night. A smooth closing of the window behind his eyes. He feels Dana's fingers press hard into his hip and back, so deep there's a vague undercurrent of pain to his orgasm, which only makes him collapse, shaking, against her. "Dana, please."
Dana's hand slides up his back to squeeze the back of his neck. "C'mon, babe - just like - yes, that…"
Everything's too slick, too wet. Robby rocks shallowly for a moment, letting them both chase the dizzy aftershocks, then stills. "Yes," Dana says, her hands turning his face, then kissing him deeply. A moment later, she says, "That was perfect, Robby."
He shudders, understanding. He murmurs, "You feel so good, thank you," and gets a soft, pleased hum in response. Neither of them move for a moment. He waits until Dana indicates he should, then slides back by millimeters before rolling to the side, pressing his back against the wall.
Dana kisses his neck, then asks, "Think you can sleep?"
"I think so."
"I'll stay with you, just give me a second." She drops her knees and gets up carefully, but leans over him for a kiss once she's on her feet. Robby slides a hand over her hip and kisses back. "In a sec, babe," she says over her shoulder, heading out of the room.
Robby rests his arm over his eyes, breathing deeply. The physical stress has dissipated, and his muscles feel loose; the orgasm was enough to knock his running train of thoughts back to something that's a normal speed, instead of everything coming so fast he can't keep up.
Better than having to take something to sleep, alone in his apartment.
"You want me to smoke in here, so you can breathe it in but pretend you're still quitting?" Dana asks when she comes back, and wags her pack of cigarettes in the air. She drops some damp paper towels on his stomach.
"Yes, please, you goddess," Robby groans, and Dana laughs at him. She grabs the ashtray from the dresser and sits down on the edge of the bed, lighting up as he wipes himself down. Robby tries to pretend he's not breathing deeply, but Dana's on to him, and laughs some more as she exhales smoke. "I guess you're not any closer to quitting, either," he says.
"I'm down to three or four a day - one before work, one on break, and one after work. Sometimes one after dinner, or sex." Dana smirks at him. "Better than I used to be. Shotgun?"
"I shouldn't." But Dana leans over, sealing their mouths together, and he does. Breathing the smoke from Dana's lungs is almost as relaxing as the orgasm.
The cigarette is quickly finished, and Dana cracks the window to the crisp spring air for a minute as Robby finds his briefs and Benji's pajama bottoms again. "Feel better?" she asks.
"I do. You?"
"Yeah."
"You don't need to stay," he says.
Dana only gives him a look and waves a hand towards the door. "Go brush your teeth, and I'll think about whether we can have another smoke. What's five once in a while, right?"
Robby's already on his feet. He takes the few steps leans down to kiss her, cool air washing over them both, Dana's mouth warm, letting his body rest against hers for a moment until she nudges him away. "Yes, ma'am," he says, going.