Chapter Text
Robby hadn't been this flushed with anger, this deeply disappointed in himself, this absolutely wrecked, in months. He thought, prayed, that the stolen benzos would be a one-time incident. That no one else in his ER would be that untrustworthy and desperate as to resort to stealing. He hoped that they would feel like they could come to him when they needed help.
So, to hear that the stocktake had come back with a missing blood bag of all things, caused a heavy weight to settle in the pit of his stomach.
Robby had suspicions. Not regarding who it might be, but more based on what type of person may steal blood bags.
Vampires.
Very desperate and hungry vampires.
The people of the 'supernatural' persuasion have spent the last few thousand years or so integrating into the public eye and coexisting with the regular homosapiens. Most primarily, the likes of Lycanosapiens (colloquially known as werewolves, or just wolves) and Vampyrosapiens (vampires). Robby himself was a born and raised Werewolf. While it wasn't something he particularly liked to share, it was nice to know that if it came out, it wasn't going to be some scandal that cost him his job and livelihood.
It was illegal to ask people to disclose their persuasion, and therefore, he wasn't sure of the exact population consensus of his ER staff. He knew of a couple of vampires within his crew, having been lucky enough to be entrusted with that information, but overall, the vampire populace was scarce to his knowledge.
He knew that tracking down the thief would inevitably out them completely against their will, which was the obvious conclusion given they didn't want to ask for help in the first place.
Robby felt a heavy weight settle on his shoulders as he asked Ahmad to review the security camera that provided 24/7 coverage of the blood bank. He specified that the identity of the culprit was to stay between the two of them, but even then, he knew how gossip could spread. Ahmad was almost as bad as Princess and Perlah.
Turns out, he wouldn't end up needing the footage after all.
Robby had needed some air.
While the ambulance bay was the more commonly visited area to take a breather, it was difficult to truly get a moment with the high traffic of ambulances and new traumas. When Robby really, truly, desperately needed a moment alone, he would visit the roof.
Sometimes he hated the stairs and opted for the elevator, but on days like today, the climb was peaceful; meditative in certain ways.
He had just passed the threshold of the eighth floor when he heard it. He had to strain his ears, his keen sense of hearing being put to work for the first time in a long time, but it was as clear as day — crying.
Robby, ever the public servant, couldn't let this go unattended.
He pushed the door to the eighth floor open and followed his ears. Closing his eyes for a moment and letting his senses hone. He was locked in. It didn't take long for him to track to a room with a small light source coming from underneath the door. The crying had subsided to small sniffles.
Robby carefully opened the door.
Dennis Whitaker stared up at him with big, wet eyes, the missing blood bag in his trembling hands.
Before Robby could even start to comprehend the situation in front of him, Whitaker was scrounging together an excuse, holding up a hand defensively, fearfully.
"I'm sorry! I'm so so sorry-" he rambled through tears, "I- I just, I can't afford food and I haven't- it's been weeks now and I had the dumb thought of 'what's one missing blood bag' but- but I just can't do it- it's wrong- I- I swore an oath and this feel like it's breaking it somehow-"
"Whitaker-"
"Everything hurts, I keep shaking, and sometimes I can't see straight, but- but I thought this would fix it un-until my paycheck at least-"
"Whitaker-!"
"I just- I can't, I can't do it! And we did a stocktake today, so I know they know it's missing and it's probably gone bad now, and I've practically killed a patient because of this, and now I can't even feed from it because it feels so wrong and oh- oh god… I feel like I'm gonna throw up-"
Robby was quick to steer Whitaker towards the bare hospital bed, seating him down and putting a small bin in his lap, gingerly retrieving the offending blood bag and setting it aside. It was growing warm. Whitaker was right; it would have to be disposed of if he didn't feed from it.
"Breathe, kid." Robby rubbed his back, seating himself next to him, trying not to pay attention to the way he could feel the vertebrae of his spine under his palm. "I'm not mad." He cooed and found that he half believed it.
"I fucked up, Doctor Robby…" Whitaker leaned over the bin, letting his head sag through the opening.
"It's alright, just breathe for a minute. Okay?" He knew they weren't going to get anywhere with Whitaker mid-panic attack.
There was a muffled 'mmhmmph' from the younger doctor and Robby took this precious minute to think.
He gathered the facts quickly. Dennis Whitaker was a vampire. He had stolen a blood bag. He hadn't fed from it. The blood bag had gone warm and had to be disposed of. The boy was clinically starving. The boy was scared.
Robby sighed and looked back down at the blood bag.
He once again felt the heavy guilt for what happened to Langdon. A permanent mark on his career. He was getting the help he needed now, thank god, but that theft, that addiction was a scar against him forever. He couldn't ruin Whitaker's medical career when it had barely even started. Not over one singular blood bag.
"I'm not firing you, okay? I need to make that clear." Robby started, feeling through his palm how Whitaker's shoulders relaxed. "I'm not even sure if I'll report you yet." He added on in a mumble, weighing the pros and cons.
Whitaker's big eyes looked back up at him from the bin, which was thankfully still empty.
"What you did was wrong, you know that, I know that. But as a physician, I can see you're starving, malnourished. I'm sorry I hadn't noticed earlier…" Robby had been trying to be diligent with checking on his residents and students since Pittfest, but somehow Whitaker had seemed just fine. Robby had let him slip through the cracks. This was his fault.
"I don't know what to do, Doctor Robby…" Whitaker spoke quietly, tearfully. "This is all so… new, and I just want it to stop and be normal again, I hate this, I hate relying on… on blood!"
"Okay, it's okay. Talk to me, kid. How new? You got turned, I assume?" Robby eyed the boy's neck, trying to spy a bite mark.
He decided to approach this medically and scientifically. All things considered, Whitaker was now a patient.
"It's been a few months… almost six… I think…" Whitaker scratched at the back of his neck.
"Okay, so you're just at the start. What symptoms do you have? Ache in your upper mandible? Paler complexion? Onset of insomnia, drowsy during the day?"
Whitaker nodded, "Yeah, yeah… all of that. Uh, also… the malnourishment… and my uh, stomach hurts a lot, the whole digestive system."
"Mmhmm, your body is rewriting how it functions, slowly but surely. It can be quite painful-"
"But it could go away! There- there was a case study! A vampirism case that went away on its own…"
"That was an incredibly rare case, Whitaker. The only one we've seen in modern medicine. No one knows why it happened or how to replicate it. Vampirism, as we know it, is incurable. I'm sorry, Dennis."
Robby pulled the boy into his side as Whitaker sobbed into the bin, hiding his face from view. He rubbed Whitaker's shoulder and steadied himself with a few deep breaths.
After a long moment of letting the boy cry, Robby squeezed his shoulder, trying to continue assessing him.
"Can you open your mouth for me? I want to look at your teeth." Robby's voice is much softer and gentler than he thought it could be.
Dennis wipes at his eyes quickly and avoids looking directly at Robby as he opens his mouth wide. Robby is gentle, tilting the boy's chin up slightly with a curled forefinger. He peers into Whitaker's mouth.
While his teeth themselves seemed to look normal, specifically his canines — the common set of teeth affected by vampirism — his gums were swollen an angry, inflamed red. Robby pressed gently on the space above Whitaker's lip, right over his gums. The boy hissed in pain and pulled back.
"Sorry." Robby placated briefly, "Inflamed gums around your canines, I'd like to do an oral x-ray to check the growth of the new teeth. At this stage, they should just be decently formed calcium deposits that your body is registering as teeth, which, in another few months, will start descending and push your current canines out of the way until they fall out." He ignored the way Dennis' eyebrows bunched at the centre of his forehead, his sad eyes looking even more miserable. "You should expect some facial swelling and bleeding when they start protruding. Let me know if it hurts too bad, I can prescribe you something for it."
The boy had begun staring off at the ground at some point while Robby was thinking outloud. It was all information that Dennis probably knew. If not from med school — where Vampirism and Lycanthropy classes were now main core classes instead of optional electives — then from his own research.
After a long stretch of silence, Robby —unconsciously brushing his thumb down the side of Dennis' neck — gently prompted him.
"You need to eat, Dennis."
Whitaker shook his head. Robby frowned.
"You have to. We need you at your best out there, Whitaker. We rely on you, y'know?"
The boy looked up at him with glistening eyes. His gaze flicked down to the blood bag on the hospital bed next to Robby before dropping again.
"I can't do it… Not that… Not anything really, but not that. I'm not- I'm not a thief… Take the blood back… please…" Dennis scrubbed at his face roughly with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Okay, yeah…" Robby placed a hand on top of the warm blood, destined for the biohazard bin.
Part of him was ready to turn a blind eye to the theft and let Whitaker feed from it. He needed to eat something.
"Your fangs haven't grown in so you can't feed from someone properly. What about the blood drives? There's a blood allotment for struggling vampires, hell, there's a blood drive in this hospital, I can take you there right now-"
"No! No. No, it's okay. I wouldn't be able to use it anyway." Whitaker set the bin down on the ground, opting to pull his knees up to his chest.
"Why not? It's government funded, it won't cost you anything?" Robby eased, knowing Dennis wasn't very financially well off. Even despite the fact that, if needed, Robby would have paid for it regardless. He's not sure he would have been able to help himself.
"That's the thing," He started with a sad laugh, "It's government funded. You need a government ID stating your persuasion as vampire… I- I haven't had the chance to do that- I don't have the money for an ID renewal, and even if I did I- I just really want this to all go away… It's like a bad dream… it'd feel too real to change it…" he pressed his forehead to his knees for a moment before setting his chin on top of them and looking away.
"Okay, that's okay. I get it. Well- not to your extent, but I get it." And then, in a sighed quiet tone, he mumbled, "I get it more than you think, believe me."
Whitaker turned to him with furrowed brows, "What's that supposed to mean?"
Robby groaned. "You're being honest with me and trusting me with this, so I think it's only right that I return the favour. I have lycanthropy. Both my parents were lycanthropes. Not many people know, so don't go spouting it to the whole ER, okay?"
There was a beat of silence as Robby stared at anywhere but the boy, but his keen senses were painfully aware that eyes were on him.
"You're a werewolf?" Whitaker asked quietly.
Robby nodded, "Yeah, I am."
"Cool…" Dennis breathed out, and Robby's gaze shot to him.
"Cool?"
"Yeah. I've only crossed paths with a few wolves. There was a girl in first year med school who got outed when we were doing blood tests for a pathology class. We were drawing each other's blood, and hers came back with traces of lycanthropy. It became a huge talking point for the class… She didn't stick around for very long after that. I always felt bad for how it all went down…" Whitaker frowned, lost in the memory.
Robby nodded, "I understand how you feel, wanting it all to just go away. I felt a lot like that when I was a teenager. Things started changing and I wasn't like the regular kids anymore. I felt like an outsider. I was an outsider. I hid who I was, I still do. I don't have much of a pack to my name. Jack and Dana, they know; they're my pack. Running the ER is as close to being a proper pack leader as I'll probably ever get, I think. Even if no one gets to know that that's what the ER is to me." Another beat of silence passed before he continued, shaking himself free from his thoughts, "I don't know why I told you all that. I'm just trying to say, you have someone in your corner to help figure all this out."
"Thank you, Doctor Robby… that means a lot." Dennis' voice was meek and wavering.
"When was the last time you ate? How much leniency do we have to figure out a reliable source of food for you?"
'We.' Robby felt something inside him clawing at his ribcage trying to protect this boy, to help him. He was in it now. Whether Whitaker liked it or not.
"Its been a while… a few weeks? I've been uh… sustaining myself on raw meats from the super market… but it's just too expensive… and they don't, uh… really fill me…" he rubbed at his sleeve, picking at some hairs on his forearm.
Robby took a deep breath to quell the frustration rising up inside him. Not directed at Whitaker, but at the situation.
"Okay. Okay, I have kind of a plan. Can I help you? Will you let me help you?" Robby asked gently, rubbing Whitaker's back again.
The boy seemed to slump, tension releasing from his shoulders, a weight off his chest.
"Please… please help me…" his voice was a pained whisper of desperation.
Something settled inside Robby. He was allowed to help. That part of his hindbrain that kept craving a pack to take care of was getting an itch scratched.
"You need to eat, and your body is going to be relying almost solely on the proteins in blood." He paused, taking a beat to really decide if this was the path he wanted to take. Then he continued, "I'm a biological lycanthrope, I have an absurdly high density of proteins in my blood. This would sustain you for a while and I am willing to give you regular feedings until we can find you a proper, reliable source of food."
"Wait, what- what are you saying exactly?" Dennis asked, the malnutrition getting to him.
"I want you to feed from me. I know your fangs haven't come in so we could go to dental and have some temporary ones put in so you can draw blood with a bite, or, if it's easier, I can just draw a pint of my own blood and you can drink it from the bag with a straw like it's a Capri-Sun-"
"I don't know, Doctor Ro-"
"It's a good, easy solution for the time being that won't cost anything and won't be breaking any laws." Robby placated the nervous doctor.
He knew deep down that he would have dropped the money on Whitaker in a heartbeat, but the kid already looked like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. He didn't want to add to the stress.
"We can do it right here, in private, and I'll leave you alone to eat. I'll draw my own blood so you don't even have to be a part of it if you don't want to."
Robby eyed him, his gaze soft and caring. He watched as Dennis took a slow, deep breath.
Then the boy nodded.
He couldn't quite meet Robby's eyes, but he was nodding. That was good enough for Robby.
Robby felt like a wild pacing beast inside him had been soothed. He brushed his hand up Whitaker's back and squeezed gently, reassuringly, at the back of his neck before he even realised what he was doing.
These rooms were fully stocked and ready to go at a moment's notice; they were just unused as the hospital didn't have the budget to staff them. He knew where to find blood bags and needles to draw his own blood. He had gathered the supplies and was setting up when Whitaker finally piped up.
"I want to help-" he snapped his mouth shut before taking a quick, sharp inhale and trying again, "You're helping me, so I want to help you with this… it's difficult on your own…"
Robby took the boy in for a long moment before nodding and relinquishing the supplies, moving to sit on the bed.
Dennis took a moment to steel himself before he let his training and experience take over.
Before long, he was gloved up, needle at the ready, tourniquet around Robby's bicep. He located the vein in the crook of Robby's left arm easily.
"Okay, just a little sting," Dennis warned, incredibly focused on what his hands were doing.
Once the blood was moving through the tube into the blood bag, he released the tourniquet and took what might be his first proper breath since he volunteered.
"Nicely done," Robby murmured, softly as not to startle the boy too much.
Dennis nodded quickly and shakily, staring at the blood bag as it slowly filled.
Robby's eyes stayed on Dennis, who couldn't quite manage to look back at the man. Robby looked, really looked, at the boy.
"D'you want to talk about it?" he asked gently.
Dennis took a moment to breathe deeply before shaking his head.
"It's- um- it was a lot… I'd rather not- y'know-"
"Yeah, yes, of course. You don't have to tell me. I understand."
A dawning sorrow settled onto Robby's shoulders as he read between the lines. He knew that these sorts of things had to be handled with extreme care. Knowing what he knew, this had all taken place six or so months ago, so there would be nearly no hope in catching the person who assaulted Whitaker.
Robby could feel his werewolf hindbrain going feral with the need to protect this kid. Whitaker was part of the ER family, part of Robby's unofficial pack. He felt himself itching to soothe and comfort him. He wanted to bring the pup into his den, where he knew he would be safe under Robby's watchful eye, fed from Robby's own blood.
However, the more reasonable side of him knew that these were several HR red flags.
"This is going to stay between us, right? You won't… report any of this… about my… vampirism…" Whitaker murmured, his eyes jumping anxiously up to Robby's for a second before returning to focus on his hands.
Robby shook his head, "As far as I'm concerned, this isn't something that the hospital or the board needs to be aware of."
He wasn't entirely sure if that was true, but he figured that if they could get a handle on it, and set Whitaker on a path to recovery, doing so in a more private manner would do the boy well in terms of not adding to his anxieties.
"Put pressure on this for me," Dennis mumbled as he pulled the needle out of Robby's vein and pushed a cotton ball against the injection site to stop the bleeding.
Robby watched as Whitaker moved around, securing the blood bag and sealing it before unwrapping a thick square of gauze and pressing it in place once he'd moved the cotton ball. With some medical tape, he wrapped the guaze in place securely around Robby's elbow.
They were done.
"Okay…" Dennis murmured.
"Okay." Robby moved his arm slightly, "Very good job, Whitaker."
"I- uh. I shouldn't have to tell you, but keep your fluids up, eat something when you get home, wash the donation site with a gentle soap when you take the wrapping off." Dennis mumbled the aftercare.
The bag of Robby's blood sat warm and fresh in a metal tray between them.
They both eyed it, a tension thickened between them.
"I should let you…"
"Yeah- I guess if we're done…"
"Can I-" Robby began before pausing for a moment, unsure of himself, "Can I ask… You still live with Santos, yeah? Does she… know…?"
"Yeah… I didn't tell her explicitly, but she's smart. She put me back together after it all happened. I was a wreck for a while. I think, um, I think it's kinda brought us closer together in a sad way." Dennis had his hands half clasped together in front of him.
"I'm glad you have her, she's a good person. And you deserve your own sort of pack." Something inside Robby twinged at the notion that Dennis wasn't part of his pack. He was trying to muzzle the part of his hindbrain that wanted to coddle and protect. The part of his hindbrain that had his hackles bristling with what could only be jealousy. Robby took a deep breath, "I should let you eat. Uh, we'll talk soon, okay? Figure something out."
"Thank you, Doctor Robby. Really, I appreciate it." Dennis' whole demeanour read shy.
Robby stood, scooping up the original blood bag as he moved, trying to not draw attention to it. He looked Dennis over one last time — taking a moment to wrangle his panicking hindbrain — before breathing out slowly through his nose and nodding as he turned to the door.