cw: unhealthy eating habits, mentions of eds
dennis was the youngest of his brothers. by that point his parents have not only given up on raising another child, but also refused to even pay him much mind. some nights they’d only give him the bare minimum of food, like the smallest pieces of meats and whatever left they could scrape off the pan. other nights they would only hand him whatever scraps they didn’t want. and on the worst nights, he didn’t get fed at all. there were some meals where they didn’t bother calling him to the table. there was a clear hierarchy in the house, a natural food chain, and dennis was permanently stuck at the bottom.
being homeless didn’t help. he scraped by during his med school years but his homelessness only fueled the fire, the one that reminded him to take what you need, don’t get too attached, don’t let anyone know, don’t let anyone go through this too.
when he started his rotations at ptmc he was able to snag a few sandwiches here and there, but he never took more than necessary for the fear of leaving patients without any or even his colleagues.
dennis never passes up on free food, not when someone gets motivated to bring something to the people on shift, but he always makes sure to be the last to take any. he doesn’t want to leave anyone without. he can’t be greedy.
“denny, your brothers are older. you understand that right? they need this more than you do. stop crying.”
“maybe you should’ve gotten here faster.”
“i didn’t think you’d want this.”
and oh, that one was the worst one. when he was bad it was used a punishment. there wasn’t much else they could take from him. and sure, he got the occasional beating with whatever his family could find, but when they wanted to be particularly cruel they would withhold his food. dennis didn’t have much too him at all, everything was a hand-me-down. there was nothing of value they could take or destroy, but this. this they could control.
it left him off kilter. he doesn’t know how to really act around food. it’s complicated. being full feels like he’s done something he shouldn’t have. like a child being caught with their hand halfway down the cookie jar. he feels the eyes staring through him whenever his stomach his full. the food weighs heavily in him. it’ll feel more like guilt.
it also left him with a complicated relationship with his body and his weight. in his eyes gaining weight means he’s failed. because it meant he indulged, it meant took what wasn’t his to take, it meant he was losing that control.
dennis couldn’t have control over many things in his life. not his familial situation, his economics, his housing…and he was so desperate to find it wherever he could. he wanted to be good, he wanted to prove he could be good.
so it became easy, the game of how long without. and he’s rationalized as you can’t miss what you didn’t have.
(some nights he dreams of stuffing his face with everything he’s wanted, but that feeling he’s searching for never comes.)
secretly, dennis loves the feeling. he loves the empty growling his stomach produces like an old theater echoing roaring laughter. like heavy thunder booming across time and space. he knows it’s bad, he knows he’s playing a risky game. but he can’t help it. it’s the only thing in his life he can take by the reigns and steer.
moving in with trinity doesn’t exactly help, it only makes it harder to hide. she rarely comments on his odd eating habits, not that he lets her see him in such a vulnerable state that often. but when she does,
“dennis are you gonna eat?”
“dude that’s not enough for dinner?”
“why are you scarfing it down? it’s not gonna grow legs and walk off.”
it leaves him in this odd limbo where he doesn’t know what to do. doesn’t know where to plant his feet like when you miss the last step while taking the stairs and your heart plummets right through the floor. so he doesn’t say anything at all, and tries not to stay long enough for her to notice.
and it’s not a problem. until it is.
until one moment he’s trying to get to his next patient and the next he opens his eyes to bright fluorescent lights, a cold linoleum floor to his back, and what feels like thousand eyes boring holes through him.
“stay down, whitaker.” a deep voice says as he feels a hand press down on his chest. instincts fighting over reason.
he shakes his head, less like a no and more so trying to get his bearings. “no i’m-i’m fine. i’m sorry. i’m sorry, im okay. got up too fast, i think.” he pushes back against the hand but he’s too shaky to do much damage at all.
“nope. not playing this game. you’re lucky i caught your head before you cracked it open on the floor, kid. would’ve made for a gnarly sight right? but im not in the mood for stitches right now so it’s your lucky day.” the deep voice adds and dennis is finally able to get a good look and put a face the voice (though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t recognize it. he could find the older man blind, with sound alone).
the words should be funny, but they land a little flat against the situation. “you’re getting checked, and you’re not gonna fight it capiche?
the fight in him simmers down, dennis truly is tired and out of it. but he just wants to close his eyes and wake up from this nightmare, from the terrifying ordeal of having passed out in front of his coworkers and bosses. how humiliating. would they find out? would the fire him because he can’t take care of himself? because he’s sick?
the tests don’t lie. he’s dehydrated and malnourished. he’s slightly underweight for his height and right now too shaky to properly hold the cup of juice in his hands.
they stare at him all alien. because why would he be going through this?
it’s not entirely a kept secret that he was once living in the hospital, much to his dismay. so he’s supposed to be better now that he’s living with trinity, and not…not this.
“i’m not dumb, you know.” trinity mumbles, leaning back into the hospital chair next to dennis’ bed. “i know you don’t eat.”
dennis opens his mouth to refute but his efforts are futile.
“shut up and let me finish.” she holds up her hand. “i didn’t know to go about it. i mean you’re skittish around food on a good day but on bad ones you outright vanish. you stare at your plate like it grew eyes. or you stuff your face like if you don’t it’ll be taken away from you.” she sighs out.
“i’m sorry.” dennis says around the knots in his stomach.
trinity pinches the bridge of her nose. “what the hell are you even sorry for?”
“alright alright let the poor boy relax.” a new voice chimes in and dennis whips his head to the other side of him.
trinity huffs. “i’m mad, and upset. But i care about you okay? I’m gonna go talk a walk…blow off some steam.” she gets up and leaves the room.
dennis looks down and clasps his hands together, not knowing what to do with them. “i didn’t mean to make her mad.”
“she’s not mad at you. nobody is.” robby says gently. “we’re just…worried. you’re one of us now, we care for our own.” the older man reaches out to lay his hand over dennis’.
“and she’s right you know. don’t think we haven’t noticed. we is maybe…a lot of people. but me and santos definitely have, dana too probably since she knows everything.” and the last bit finally gets a little smile from the young man in the hospital bed. “oh, and-”
a knock resounds off the door before it opens, allowing abbot to come in. “i came as quick as i could. well–as quick as stopping for some food allows me to be.” jack shuffles in bearing bags of take out from a local burger joint.
both him and robby start opening the bags and taking the food and plates out, making sure the three of them have nice portions. jack chatters lightly about the traffic and his day, not wanting the silence to win.
when they set the food in front of dennis, his world stops spinning. he can’t eat, doesn’t feel like he should. he’s made a fool of himself and lost control, he just needs to grasp onto something. dennis needs to plant his feet somewhere so he doesn’t spin out. so he can let gravity win this time around.
jack and robby have started digging in and are playing this game of trying not to look at him which is somehow worse than if they just looked.
“talk to us. walk us through your brain. what’s it telling you?” jack asks, finally daring to break the silence. robby gives him a look but the other man just shrugs.
dennis thinks for a second. “i don’t…know where to start.”
jack looks at him, “does it matter? start where you want. we can always circle back one hundred times if that’s what it takes.” he says, voice softer than before.
dennis sighs, gesturing around with his hands. “this. this is.” he brings his hands up to his face and rubs. “i just can’t. i shouldn’t. so i cant.” tears start pooling in his eyes.
“eat? you think you shouldn’t eat?” robby asks gently.
dennis nods, looking away. “if it’s…about the way you look. dennis you’ve always been perfect if that’s what this is about. there’s nothing you need to change. you know we’d always take you in any form you take. you’re much more than what you look like.”
the younger man appreciates the words but, “it’s not about that. i mean–not entirely. kinda? but not really.”
“alright.” robby nods, “then what’s going on?”
dennis opens his mouth and the floodgates open. he pours out about his childhood. the neglect, the punishments, his father. he talks about his relationship with food, how it’s a reward he has to work for and not just a given. through tears he recounts his time being homeless. he hasn’t really touched on that since he started seeing both jack and robby, but it comes out of him all the same. dennis talks about the fears, about the uncertainty of when he could eat next. he tells them how sometimes it’s about punishment, how sometimes it’s much more than that.
he tells them that gaining weight is a bad thing. not for vanity reasons, but because it’s a physical manifestation of control slipping from him. how he has to be good, and not spiral out. dennis recounts the shame he’s been carrying all these years for not fitting in around food like others do. how he feels like an outlier in group settings, how he avoids gatherings with food yet can’t help himself but to take at least something because you just never know when’s the next time.
but worse of all, he admits how he’s so fucking hungry all the time. how it takes over and grows roots inside him. some days it’s all he thinks about. the absolute gnawing desperation inside of him. he tells them that some nights he desperately wants to cave in but he simply doesn’t know how. even if he deserved it, where would he begin?
they listen to him through it all, holding him gently and not speaking, not wanting him to shut it off. when dennis finishes, he’s a mess of snot and tears.
“i wish you could know how taking care of yourself isn’t a bad thing. there’s nothing to make up for, no mistake to agonize over. you don’t owe anything to anyone. you don’t have to play this part dennis. you don’t have to do this to yourself just because no one else will.” robby’s eyes shine with tears. “and no one else ever will get that chance again. not for as long as me and jack are alive.”
that gets a wet chuckle out of dennis, but it doesn’t last long before he quiets back down.
jack shifts, “i can’t lie and say i’ve never seen the appeal. the idea of hurting yourself? we all have had our ways. always trying to reach a goal, always ending up moving the goalpost. but right now, here with us, there’s no need to punish yourself. there’s no reward for it, at the end what do you have to show for it? there’s nothing.” he reaches over to grip dennis small soft hands in his calloused ones. “that should’ve never happened to you at all. you were a child, you were hurt. the weaponized whatever they could against you, just for leverage. but it’s over now, we promise you.”
“and no one’s mad at me?” dennis bravely asks through the lump in his throat.
robby brushes a stray curl out of dennis forehead. “never baby, never.” he presses a kiss to the blonds temple. “we wish we could’ve helped you sooner. but we have all the time in the world to convince you you’re someone worth being taken care of.”
and the older pair wants to tell him more. how sometimes bad, angry, people do bad things to be able to take control. to fall back on those shitty actions just because they’re spiraling out everywhere else. to tell him that what they did to him had nothing to do with him. that he’s perfect as is. doesn’t matter what standard he holds himself to, doesn’t matter how he looks like. he’s perfect as is. it’s not about the body he wears. not about how he looks. and though he’s beautiful, it’s about the fact that it’s the body that keeps him here with him. the same body they hold each night. it kills them to see how dennis is treating the only part of him they can touch.
but they won’t say this, not yet. robby and jack hold him through this night, and in the next and the next and the next they’ll say all of this however much it’ll take to take flight until it lands.
just for now they can hold him and pretend that’s enough. (it won’t be, but they’ve got all the time in the world to get him back)
