jack, like every other long time colleagues of robby, gives the man so much shit about whitaker following him around ‘like a sad, wet, lost, little puppy’. except jack, because he’s jack and he doesn’t do things by halves, took it so far that at some point, he just started referring to dennis as ‘the puppy’ to robby.
‘hey man, good shift? puppy saved the day again?’
‘brother, i’m starting to think you need to bring some spare clothes to the pitt, just for the puppy. does he really spill things on himself that often?’
as much as robby doesn’t hates it, he knows it’s pointless to tell jack to stop. if anything, telling the other man to quit it would give him an incentive to become even worse.
so robby just takes it, until one day it just slips. in front of the kid.
jack finally gets to see the dennis whitaker in action, and holy fuck if he’s not impressed. it’s been a pretty rough shift so far, and whitaker has been handling it way better than he would have at his age. now, he’s in the break room, resting his leg and talking with the kid when robby enters.
‘you were right, brother,’ he says in lieu of a greeting. ‘kid is good’. robby can see the kid’s ears going a little pink, but doesn’t call him out.
‘yeah ?’, he asks sitting on the empty sit next to whitaker. the kid sandwiched between them now, with jack to his left, and robby to his right.
‘yeah. might trynna convince him to permanently switch to nights’ jack’s laughing, but robby knows better. because whitaker is that good, and he’s not about to let jack steal his favourite MS4, no way. he needs dennis with him - for very professional reasons, of course.
‘you trynna steal the puppy from me, jack ?’
any other day, it would’ve gotten a hearty laugh from jack as he mocks robby for the slip up. but not today.
because today, dennis is here, between the two attendings. and if the kid was a little pink before, he’s as red as a tomato now. robby resolutely does not picture how far down the blush must go under the scrubs.
he’s about to apologise to whitaker for making him uncomfortable, but well, the way the kid’s firmly looking at the ground and pressing his legs together right now ? yeah, robby can tell it’s the good kind of uncomfortable.
something hot stirs in robby’s stomach, and he finally stops trying to reign these feelings in after all these months, finally indulges himself fully.
he and jack share a look. the other man’s pupils are so dilated, robby has never seen his best friend’s pretty blue eyes look so dark.
when jack’s tongue comes out to wet his lips, robby’s eyes track the movement. jack looks up and down dennis whitaker’s body, taking in the flustered, the nervous swallowing, and god, is the kid shaking ? after a bit, he finally speaks.
‘well, you don’t mind sharing, do you brother ?’
