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Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch was never one for casual touch or overly deep emotions. Yet somehow, he felt the need for both when faced with his previous Med Student, now Resident, that works in his charge. It was unprofessional, veering towards inappropriate considering how he treated all the others who worked under him. This wasn’t like him, Robby knew that but he couldn’t seem to stop.
There was an undeniable feeling and tension under the surface between them that neither ever spoke of. It was a pull to one another that led Robby to always keep him close, and thus seemingly under his hands as well.
In his fifty-two years of life, Robby found that he most often provided comfort using his hands rather than his words. This realization began in high school while dating his second girlfriend, Amanda, who was blonde and liked listening to the same music as him. One night, Robby sat surrounded by their friends around a record player while they all drank from a pack of beers he snuck from his dad. With the small size of Robby’s room, his friends sat on the floor or strewn across his twin bed like sardines.
Amanda was one of those to sit on the floor while Robby sat in his desk chair. With her back pressed to the side of his legs and the chair, she and one of the new girls to school that she invited over talked about who all was carpooling for the local band performing that week. Robby, frankly uninterested and feeling the effects of the overly bitter beer, lazily listened into the conversations around him as he laid his head back against the chair.
Unnoticed and happy that way, he listened on. Until, in a lull of conversation, Amanda’s tone imperceptibly shifted towards discomfort as they talked about changing the plans for her mom to pick and drop them all off. Her mom had already taken time off work to take them. Robby knew this was stressful since her family wasn’t the most well off like his own.
This was enough for a buzzed teenage Robby to notice enough for him to raise his head but not enough to comment on it. So, in a moment fueled by some pure unconscious need to comfort her, Robby placed a hand on her head and began to pet her hair. Not strictly like a lover would but like how one would calm a person struggling after a nightmare or to comfort an ailing family member. The pressure against his hand and the softness of her hair helped him begin to release a deep breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Suddenly though, a small hand softly reached up and curled around his wrist. Robby’s eyes suddenly opened to look at whose and it’s, of course, Amanda’s hand stopping him as the other girls giggled.
Amanda laughs nervously as she darts her eyes to look at the girls, her brows are furrowed with tension as she asks, “Um, what are you doing?”
In a moment that would begin a decades long series of repression, Robby did what he does best and deflected the conversation. Quickly, he leaned down and kissed the hand that held his wrist with a sly smile as he glanced up at the other girls. It was the smile his grandmother described as ‘complete and utter trouble’ and he saw the tension quickly leave her face as his lips touched her warm skin. The girls’ giggles raised and one even shrieked.
He just blinks down at her, crossing his arms and raises his head to smile at the other girls sitting there. Fueled by self-preservation, he inquires, “So, what is this I hear about needing a ride? I’m down.”
With the group of girls excitedly launching into the plans for that week, Robby nods along but his chest aches with mortification and his hidden fists clench painfully tight as his nails bite into his palms. Jaw tight, he feels a tightness and burning in his throat as his mind races. While the girls were distracted talking about what they would wear, Amanda turned and their eyes locked in a secret conversation.
In that moment, Amanda leaned more of her weight back onto Robby’s leg as they continued to maintain eye contact. Her dark blue eyes were so round and soft in a way that expressed a small appreciation for his comfort.
He had begun to relax, his fists and jaw unclenching, and just barely pressed his leg into her as he nodded. She lightly smiled and turned back to chat with the excitable group of girls. Still, while more relaxed, his mind has only minutely slowed as he focused on the weight against his leg. It proved to be a recurring weakness of his – such pressure and eyes like that.
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He had thought it innocent at first, his desire to give comfort through touch and to feel the press of hand on another. It was always only brief moments with partners and with his friends that his hands would just unconsciously reach out to squeeze a hand or a shoulder.
For so long, Robby thought this desperation came from wanting to provide comfort for others. This was until he found that any sex he had felt so… unfulfilling. He would ensure his partner found release but found that he often kept his hands impossibly clenched in the sheets or his body poised away just enough to not overwhelm them.
With men and women, the act of sex was the same for him. Give release and give as much of himself to them as he could. It was probably why all his relationships ended just as quickly as they began. It wasn’t that Robby wasn’t attracted or even in love with them, it just meant that there was this unsatiated feeling with each relationship that he couldn’t quite identify. This was until his senior year of college, when his study group invited him out to celebrate them all passing Ochem 2 and the end of a grueling semester.
In the darkened and packed club that laid a good half-hour drive away from their college, the air was stifling Coupled with that, the copious amounts of alcohol in his system found him nearly delirious while on the dance floor. Dancing with anyone that had a pulse, hands racked down almost every part of his body as his own met backs and waists.
That was until one nameless man who wore glitter around his light eyes. Wordlessly, the other man's hands reached down and grabbed Robby’s wrists so that they would wrap around him.
With the man wearing a backless shirt, Robby’s hands completely splayed across the shorter man's warm back. Robby had felt himself being pulled in with a force that caught him off-guard but not unpleasantly so.
As the stranger ground against him, Robby’s eyes closed and his head lulled forward to nudge against the other man’s as he felt the muscles shift under his hands and he held the man tighter. This was no hug, it was all pressure and unadulterated heat. Robby’s entire body was completely tensed against the man, applying a pressure that he would believe was crushing but the other man just continued his movements as he himself pressed forward as well.
It was a wordless understanding between them, they were the same but altogether different. One craved touch, while the other sought something similar but altogether different. It wasn’t quite right for each of them but it was enough.
They continued that way, heads moving together and bodies held together with almost painful pressure until the other man was interrupted by a girl who appeared to be his friend. She was panicked and as he was led away, Robby followed him with his eyes through the dancing crowd.
Suddenly, the other man turned and their eyes met. The other man just intently smiled and mouthed, “Thank you”.
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As the stranger had turned away, Robby had a realization that would alter the way he saw the feelings he buried deep inside of himself.
That was it, standing in a stifling club at twenty-three, he had realized. It was never truly about just touching, he desires the pressure under his hands and how it could soothe others. This wasn’t about some desire to hold someone down or leave marks, it was about the reciprocal exchange of pressure as they each bore the weight of how they feel for the other.
Robby wants someone to need all of him, someone who wants to give and take the weight of all their shared affections. It was a physical form of love, as much as it was emotional, that had the ability to crush them both but would instead empower them both.
Robby accepted for years that finding a relationship, or rather a person he could share that with, was not possible for him. It was a certain look, a mutual understanding, a need. It was about someone who would want to need him as much as he wanted to be needed by them.
Robby had felt that God was not so giving as to create such a person for him, it wasn’t possible for a man like him… So skewed in his affections and need.
With his last two partners, Heather and Janey, he wasn’t fair. It was always good at first, with dripping flirtation and always being there in any way he could. He loved them and was devoted but they seemed to each know that Robby held himself a certain distance away. Eventually, whether through the weight of the Pitt or loss, those relationships came to an amicable end as himself and each woman knew the dynamic wasn’t sustainable for either of them. There was never any deep and everpresent need but it was substantially comfortable.
It was all different with him. Dennis Whitaker was an anomaly to the decades he spent minimizing and pushing down his need to reach out and simply hold on. He hadn’t noticed at first how his hands would fortuitously search for him. His hand – whether on his back, shoulder, or even nape – always seemed to be pressing into Whitaker. Every touch was a balm on a wound left to fester under his skin.
When he began to realize, he hesitated once when placing a hand on Whitaker’s shoulder and the younger man’s eyes locked on Robby’s stilled hand.
Robby’s mind raced with every awkward or horrible possibility that this moment could lead to but before he could draw away, Whitaker’s gaze averted to him. It was a wide eyed look that reflected a sort of trepidation and he slightly shook his head in a way that pleaded for Robby to say nothing. Thus, whatever deeper aspects of the dynamic they had remained unspoken between them. It seemed neither of them was willing to truly acknowledge it without fear of losing that contact all together.
It wasn’t until after a particularly hard morning shift and then the loss of a sixteen-year-old drowning victim that he acknowledged it but was met with it. Robby, along with Whitaker and Javadi, worked to resuscitate the young girl brought in by ambulance with her older sister but it was too late. It wasn’t the youngest loss faced today but the agonized cries of the sister filled the Pitt in a rare moment of silence as she left the room and Javadi moved to comfort her.
While Robby called time of death, Whitaker just stood still and looked down at the girl with a complex yet ever so numb expression as the others moved around him. One Robby knew intimately and was not too uncommon in the Pitt after the number of emergencies like they’ve had. Unusually uncomfortable at the sight of Whitaker's expression and the girl on the table, Robby turned away and walked toward the glass of the room.
Robby felt helpless, like he often did when he lost one too many patients. He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck and beard as he focused on assessing the Pitt. Everyone outside moved about as normal except for the occasional nurse peeking in as they passed with a chart or cart in their hands. After all his time in emergency medicine, it still amazed him how the world just kept moving after something like this. Like it did with Dr. Adamson and Pittfest, the fucking world just kept spinning.
Looking back, Whitaker now stood a respectable distance behind him but their eyes met with a distinct heaviness. There was a look in the younger man’s eyes that reminded him of his own when he looked in the mirror each night. It was a need for something even Robby couldn’t place within himself.
So, where he couldn’t help the girl, he could help Whitaker. His recognition of that look they shared proved this to be almost certain. So, even as a small voice in his head told him that there was still much work to be done, everything else would need to wait.
“Whitaker,” Robby called out and the younger man’s head snapped up to meet his eyes with an acute awareness only achievable through their type of work.
Eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide, accentuating the dark circles under his eyes, Whitaker looked at Robby as he waited for his next words. “You’re with me. I think you need to step away for a moment.”
After removing his gloves and tossing them in the trash, Robby turned away and began down the hall. Whitaker followed close behind him as Robby led him to one of the empty patient rooms and closed the curtain.
“Dr. Robby, this isn’t necessary. I’m fine, it’s… I just had a moment but I’m okay.” The younger man was exasperated and pulled his lips tightly together as he looked away from Robby.
“This isn’t about you not being okay, it’s about you needing a minute. You don’t want to be like me, pushing people away.” Robby pauses. It’s a vulnerable confession, albeit a small one, but it reminds him of that time he had moved Whitaker away from him even after taking his hand. That one push is a fleeting pressure he has come to regret even after his conversation and thanks to Whitaker.
Whitaker seems to notice this, almost like he can see the regret on his face but Robby pushes on, “Just- I just want you to know that it’s okay to take a minute.” Robby places a hand on Whitaker’s shoulder, he gives it a comforting squeeze that slightly unbalances the younger man.
Whitaker looks up at him and says nothing as he seems to search Robby’s expression for something that Robby can’t quite place. He can’t help but stare back as his hand faintly tenses on Whitaker’s shoulder. Those eyes peer into him, big and suddenly filled to the brim with resolute understanding, and Whitaker’s hand suddenly reaches to firmly clasp his forearm.
Robby’s breath halts at the contact of Whitaker’s cool hand on his forearm and he looks down at where he holds him. It is unyielding pressure but not enough to cause pain.
With a soft whisper and contemplative regard, Whitaker asks, “Are you sure this isn’t you needing a minute too?”
In what was just a mere few moments, Whitaker and Robby just stand there as the touch between them goes far beyond what is professional or proper between an Attending and their Resident. As time passes, Whitaker’s hand tightens around his forearm and Robby’s hand tightens on his shoulder.
Looking down at Whitaker, he feels a myriad of need and shame swell in his stomach as his breath begins to quicken. Steady but wholly unsure of what to do, Whitaker just continues to stand there like he had that night in the peds suite. Except, for Robby, this isn’t one of his nervous breakdowns… This is a veritable moment of need for contact between the two of them.
Robby’s hand begins to move from atop Whitaker’s matching black scrubs and his fingers drag to touch the cool skin of the younger man’s bare neck. Whitaker’s breath just barely hitches as Robby’s fingers rake through the lightly curled hairs at the back of his neck.
Whitaker leans into his touch and uses the hand on Robby’s forearm to coax him to hold him closer. Robby’s hand encapsulates the side and back of Whitaker’s head as the younger man presses into it. Nothing is said in that moment, it is all being communicated through the touch and pressure of each other’s skin.
Robby’s gaze is one of uninhibited rapture as Whitaker leans ever closer into his hand. A thought flashes behind Whitaker’s eyes and Robby’s eyebrows twitch inward with unconscious concern.
Whitaker shifts his head down and grabs a hold of Robby’s customary jacket with his other hand and his gaze seems to dart around before he whispers, “Can we just- I know this is completely inappropriate but.. I just need one thing.”
With no hesitation, Robby moves his head down to meet Whitaker’s gaze and as their heads raise together, he says, “Anything.”
In a moment of bravery, using the hand on Robby’s forearm and the one fisted into his jacket, Whitaker leads Robby closer until their lips are almost touching, “Just this once, I want you to hold me. This isn’t about sex or anything, I just- need to feel you.”
They both knew they had a latent desire for one another but it wasn’t what they felt in that moment. The intimacy of flesh on flesh, the feel of Whitaker under his hands and needing him, broke down decades of hiding his crushing need for something like this. Well, rather, not a need for something but for someone that he could express this with.
Whitaker needed to feel him and Robby needed to give that to him. An equal exchange.
In an entanglement of limbs, Robby’s hand took the back of Whitaker’s head as his other arm moved up to pull across the younger man’s back. Slightly lifted, Whitaker’s arms and hands bear down into Robby's broad and warm back while their faces press into each others’ necks.
Their hands begin to firmly roam one another’s bodies, feeling each other in a way that could in no way be seen as anything but brutality. It is rough, uncoordinated, and implausibly sweet in its savagery. They pant quietly into each other’s necks as their hands apply more and more pressure.
If in one spot, they would no doubt be leaving bruises upon each other’s skin. Leaning ever closer, the points from their biceps to even their ankles pressing together as they make room for each other.
There is no kissing or the press of their groins, just tantalizing pressure and desire for the feel of each other’s bodies in that way. Pressing impossibly closer into each other, Robby feels an overwhelmingly wave of relief that he had never experienced in his life.
He bares his weight downward, no longer supporting Whitaker’s upward. With the strength of a Doctor that hauls and moves about patients all day, Whitaker easily bears the weight as he bends slightly back.
As Whitaker reaches a hand to grip the back of Robby’s head, he murmurs, “That’s it.”
It was simple. Robby wanted to surrender every crushing need to him, and Whitaker wanted to take that need from him. To give every crushing fiber of himself over to Whitaker is a release that soothes him to the very depths of his being.
It is beyond anything he has ever felt, his body practically encasing Whitaker’s as they touch sends his mind into a place that it had seemingly never been before.
Neither was exclusively dominating or submitting as they each took in each other through the pressure of their bodies. It was raw, just what each of them was willing to give and take from each other. An exchange so intimate that neither one wished to let go but seemingly understood at once that they must.
Loosening their pressure on each other and raising their heads from each other’s shoulders, their foreheads came to press together one last time before separating.
Robby was the first to open his eyes. It was then that he was met with the disheveled and what others would see as the debauched appearance of one, Dennis Whitaker. Upon this realization, Whitaker’s gaze was also taking in Robby’s not too dissimilar appearance. It took but a moment for them to make eye contact and let out a huff of amusement.
“It looks like we went through a wind tunnel,” Whitaker timidly joked and he held out his arms. It was in the press of his lips that the overwhelmed younger man seemed at a loss of what to do now.
“H’yeah, you could say that again but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. Here, let me just-” Robby cuts himself off as he reaches to run a hand through Whitaker’s unruly brown curls until they matched his usual style. During this, Whitaker wordlessly straightens his scrubs and then moves his own hand to sooth down then lightly flick up the front of Robby’s hair.
His intent perfectionism doesn’t go unnoticed by Robby and he looks upon Whitaker with a glint in his eyes and a most sincere smile. Seeing that expression, Whitaker seems to take in that rare smile and tentatively rests his hand on Robby’s cheek for the first time.
Robby feels the tickle of Whitaker’s fingers as they meet parts of his neck and ear. Whitaker smiles back, his expression speaking a thousand words as he gives Robby a nod that shows both understanding and adoration.
With a deep inhale, Robby places a hand on Whitaker’s chest and presses. This time though, it is not to push Whitaker away like he did in the peds suite. This time, that press is met with equal pressure. Their gazes linger and Robby’s eyes instinctively glance at Whitaker’s mouth.
Noticing this, Whitaker’s lips part and Robby’s eyes snap up to meet Whitaker’s own. He is not met with shock or apprehension when he sees Whitaker’s expression. Instead, the younger man just stares back at him and something in his eyes – the trust in them – draws Robby closer.
Guiding him with the hand still on his face, Robby continues to lean in towards Whitaker. The pressure of Whitaker’s body never left his hand. Remaining steady, Whitaker led him in without moving himself closer. Their heads naturally tilt and each of their eyes close, drawing ever closer to each other.
Just before their lips could meet, the hand against his cheek lightly stops his movement as it moves into his hair. Whitaker’s other hand, that had previously hung loosely at his own side, moved to splay across the one Robby has on his chest.
Robby could feel the most subtle hesitation in Whitaker. It was almost like the younger man realized that this could be taking it too far… That to touch each other’s lips would be where the line was drawn, even after all they had done. It would make this go from an exchange of needs to an exchange of feelings.
To Robby, and what he expected Whitaker felt as well, these two exchanges were one and the same though. Pressing forward again, Robby feels whatever hesitation Whitaker had quickly melt away as the younger man draws in a breath.
Whitaker kisses him. It is one short kiss and the press of their lips is gentle and chaste. Their faces part infinitesimally as the kiss ends. It’s not enough for either of them though. Knowing this, Robby moves to kiss Whitaker. This time though, it is still gentle but deeper. It is not frantic or desperate as their lips meet again in an intense open mouthed kiss. With soft pressure, each of their tongues sweep together as they taste each other.
Whitaker tastes vaguely of mint and the honey granola bar Robby saw him not-so-secretly eating at his work station earlier. Robby vaguely thought that his own likely tasted of toothpaste and the coffee he had sipped throughout the day. Focusing on the kiss and the feel of Whitaker, Robby knew that this was unlike any kiss he had ever had.
It was not meant as a precursor to desire, it was an expression of trust and their unmitigated need for each other. The kiss slowed, shifting from deep to the continuous pause and press of their lips as they felt themselves not wanting the moment to end.
With one final kiss, they separate and look at each other as their touches linger. Robby, overwhelmed but feeling effervescently light, silently chuckles.
Whitaker just looks up at him with one of his usual earnest but still uncertain expressions as he just smiles back warmly. Between them, there is nothing to say as they both already understand what this is. Even more so, they understand what they must do as the increasing sounds of the Pitt fill into the space between them.
Knowing that they were needed out there, they each separate themselves and stand away from the other. Unlike the other ‘first kisses’ in his life, there was no awkward tension between Robby and Whitaker as they faced each other. They simply stood and caught their breaths as they each slipped back into their respective roles – Resident and Attending.
Whitaker nodded, gently signaling that it was okay, sensing this shift as well. Robby returned it in kind. A profound understanding laid between them now, although unsaid, that this would not be the last time. To others and their work, nothing between them would change. For now, this relationship between them wasn’t as simple as sexual or romantic intimacy. Through touch and pressure, they were choosing to hold each other up and that is all that truly mattered for now.
Turning away, much like he did earlier, Robby walked from behind the curtain and stood in front of the transparent door. Here, anyone could see him, but it didn’t really matter. Hand clasping the handle, Robby turned back and took in the look of Whitaker’s open but earnestly attentive expression.
“You ready to head back out there?” Robby asks, his eyes never leaving Whitaker’s, already knowing the answer.
“Yes, Captain.” Whitaker ducked his head, an affirmation of his readiness, as he quickly follows Robby out of the door.
Just as they walked out, in usual Pitt fashion, paramedics rushed in from the ambulance bay as Dana and Langdon moved to usher them in from where they stood at the nurses station.
Ziggler, the Paramedic whose ambulance got stolen by those couple of frat kids months ago, called out, “Marie Joyce. Forty-seven years old, reported to have type 2 diabetes and suffering from a UTI. Mom found her unconscious in the kitchen when she dropped by to check on her. We don’t know how long she’d been there. Sugar is 602. BP is 79 over 43. ECG shows tachycardia and low potassium. She’s also got a scalp laceration with significant bleeding. All signs point to a hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state and possible TBI.”
Dana and Langdon follow closely behind and start asking about patient treatment on the way.
Robby and Whitaker share a quick glance and then launch forward to provide care to the incoming patient. Their dynamic, this is what it was about at its roots… caring for others. Whether a hand on the other's shoulder or a prolonged glance over a patient, they would support each other in a way that felt so natural that it almost felt like breathing.