expanding on this (@bigbootsmanofwarwrites these brainworms are your fault)
jack who gets married young (there's a girl, and then a baby, and jack was raised a good southern boyâąïž, so of course he asks her to marry him). jack who struggles to be a good husband, who really has no idea what love feels like until his son is born. jack who adores dennis with every fiber of his being, who comes home from his rotations exhausted but always makes sure to spend time with his boy. jack who went to med school on the army's dime, and when dennis is four, the army comes to collect.
dennis's mother can't handle being an army wife and effectively a single mom. she serves jack divorce papers, moves back to nebraska, meets a nice farmer who already has three sons of his own. jack comes home from his first deployment and re-ups his contract.
fast forward a few years. dennis is sixteen. he and his dad aren't particularly close - they talk on birthdays, holidays; he spent a couple of christmases with jack growing up - but he's feeling stifled on the farm, stifled by the church his mother has joined, stifled by the small-mindedness of the people around him. he tells his mom he wants to try living with jack for a while.
and jack? he's just so fucking happy he gets his boy back, that dennis wants to live with him. he's an attending now, he makes good money, he has a good place, he can finally take care of dennis the way he should have been all along.
it's nice, living with dennis, having his son in his home. getting to take him to and pick him up from school, hearing about his classes, if he's making friends here in pittsburgh, if he likes any boys, and that throws jack for a loop, that his little boy likes boys. it makes him feel strange if he thinks about it for too long, but he pushes away the feeling because he's going to support his son no matter what.
then dennis starts actually dating boys, and, well, jack doesn't deal so well with that.
he's not an asshole! it's just that none of these little punks are good enough for dennis, good enough for his boy. he doesn't mean to do it, but, well, he is a soldier. he knows he can be intimidating.
a boy dennis has only been going out with for a few weeks breaks up with him, and when dennis asks why, he says, "i dunno, man, your dad is always around, and it's just. kind of weird. plus he's like, really fucking scary, so..."
it's the first time dennis really throws a tantrum with him in years, when he tells jack to stop scaring away his boyfriends.
and jack does, for the most part. he tries, at least. he stops keeping such a watchful eye on dennis when he brings boys over. stops following in his car when he goes out on dates. but he never really relaxes, because none of these boys know how to treat his boy right. not like he does.
time passes. dennis decides to go to upitt, so he can stay in pittsburgh. jack doesn't gloat when dennis's mom calls to lament the fact that he isn't coming back to nebraska for school, but it's a close thing. and then he applies to med school, and it's the happiest day of jack's life, because dennis wants to be a doctor, just like his dad.
he uses his stepfather's surname for school, not wanting people to hear the name "dennis abbot" and put two and two together. by the time he shows up at ptmc for his emergency rotation as a fourth-year med student, no one knows he is jack's son. most people don't even know jack has a son. robby. dana. they see the name whitaker on dennis's nametag and they assume, correctly, that dennis and jack don't want anyone knowing. that they don't want anyone accusing dennis of getting preferential treatment. it makes things easier when robby decides that dennis is his workplace favorite. it gives jack some breathing room...even if he does get a bit jealous of how much time robby is getting to spend with his son.
so he starts hanging around at shift change, just to say hi to dennis, check in with him, see if his shift went okay. he hardly sees the kid at home now, with them working opposing shifts. dennis walks jack out to his truck, and he knows the kid is clingy with him, that anyone watching who didn't know who they were to each other might get the wrong idea, but it feels too good when dennis leans into him, tired and cuddly, to tell him to stop.
"see you at home, dad," dennis yawns, and raises up to kiss jack on the cheek, waiting for jack to climb up into the truck - gripping the steering wheel with trembling hands as he does - before he goes back inside, where he finds trinity, an odd look on her face.
"do you...know dr. abbot well?" she asks, looking at dennis skeptically.
dennis freezes. "i, uh," he starts, mouth dry. "i mean, i've talked to him a few times. he's...cool."
"uh-huh." trinity doesn't sound convinced. "it's just that you two looked pretty cozy out there, huck."
and, shit. dennis tries to decide which is worse: trinity thinking he's just another nepo baby like javadi, like he didn't earn his place here just because his dad happens to be a senior attending, or trinity thinking he's having some sort of sordid workplace romance with his own father.
"no, it - it's not like that," he stammers, which doesn't help his case any, he can tell by the way trinity's eyebrows shoot up her forehead. "d--jack! i mean, dr. abbot and i..."
it's a lost cause. trinity laughs delightedly, throws her arm around his shoulders.
"oh, huck. seducing one of the attendings your first month here? you're a lot more interesting than i thought."
the little punks arenât good enough for his son because only his old man BFF is. but there is SERIOUS tension when they first start dating because Jack is mad at Robby for being an old man perv to his boy before realizing Dennis REEEEAAALLY wants that old man cookie and theyâre perfect for each other.
(someone who writes- write this down plEASEđȘȘđ„đȘȘđ„)
Robby wearing knee high compression socks at work. When he gets off work he strips down to his underwear and dennis is drooling at the sight of a heavy cock in too tight boxers, hairy belly hanging over the elastic waistband and legs tightly confined in those socks. Robby starts looking into some lingerie after that reaction
Dennis who catches a mention of grindr while rushing past jack and robby and redownloading the app to try and find them, going through an insane amount of profiles a day in his efforts
Trinity takes pity on him and asks the awkward question only to reveal they were never even on grindr in the first place (maybe they were talking about a meat grinder or whatever old people have idk)
Dennis nearly throws his phone across the room when he finds out
hc that dennis started checking up on duke while robby was on his sabbatical, and the two became friendly, to the point that duke offered to teach dennis how to ride
by the time robby gets back, duke is almost done salvaging a motorcycle to offer dennis, and he tells robby as much, says maybe he, robby and dennis can all ride together sometime
dennis is giddy at the prospect while robby, hypocrite that he is, says absolutely not. there is no way his dennis is riding on that DEATH machine
dennis takes it as a rejection- his boss doesnât wanna spend more time with his intern, of course that makes sense -when really robbyâs mind is cycling through all the motorcycle accidents he had to treat in his career while picturing dennis
whitaker had been finding nights alone boring for the last two and a half months. usually heâd spend them with trinity, doing what she wanted. dennis missed his routine of pretending to hate doing face masks and watching the sopranos with her. she must think heâs relieved to get away from it all.
dennis was staring at the ceiling, urging himself to sleep, when his phone began frantically buzzing itself off the dresser. he hesitated to pick it up, but saw robbyâs contact douse the screen. whitaker pressed the phone up to his ear and was met with a quiet sob. âden?â he was fully awake now. âyes? what is it? whatâs wrong? are you okay?â a humourless laugh left robby. âi uh, i totalled my bike.â âare you okay? where are you?â sweat dripped down whitakers forehead. âthat doesnât matter. i got you souvenirs everywhere i went and now theyâre all gone.â robbyâs voice broke. âmike, where are you?â dennis pushed. âiâm just outside of pittsburgh, on the west side of it all. the tow truck will-â âiâm coming to get you.â whitaker grabbed his keys and sprinted to his car, throwing a t shirt over his bare chest.
dennis hung up the phone and did the 25 minute drive in 12. he saw robby speaking to the tow operator and parked his car in the middle of the empty road, his legs moving faster than he ever has, reaching robby as the tow operator walked away. he began patting robbyâs limbs while repeating, âare you alright?â over and over.
after robby had repeated yes to every single repeat from dennis, he pulled him into a tight hug. over robbyâs shoulder, he could see magnets all scattered over the road, most broken.
robby pulled away but held dennisâ hips close. âi missed you.â he said, suddenly close. âi missed you too.â
dennis leaned in for a kiss and their lips met for a brief moment. when they pulled away, whitaker walked behind where robby was stood. âmost of these are still salvageable with hot glue.â he said, picking a singular magnet from the floor.
broken bow, nebraska
âyou went to broken bow?â dennis asked holding up the magnet.
whitsantos platonic soulmate AU; what if they grew up with their animal selves, making them childhood friends of sort? đ„șđ they wouldn't have felt as lonely <3 bebes Trinity and Dennis are everything to me!!
