#orlovbats writing

[orlovbats]

Robby knows that Dennis is regressed because, upon answering his call, all he hears is muffled, breathy laughter and the jostling of the phone before he whispers, “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, sweetpea. To what do I owe the pleasure?” He croons in response. 

“Um. I. Daddy says—Daddy says to get ice cream. To ask you for you to get ice cream.”

Robby smirks. “Really? Daddy is asking me to pick up ice cream.”

“Yeah.”

“And what were the exact words that Daddy used?”

“He. Uh.” Muted behind his hand or perhaps his sleeve, Robby hears a beautiful, mischievous giggle. A few moments later, after he has gained control of his laughter, he coos, “Ice cream.”

7:00PM can’t come any sooner. “Alright, Denny. If Daddy is asking me to pick up ice cream, then I guess I’ll go swing by Millie’s after work. Will you give me a kiss before I go?” Dennis just barely breaks from his senseless giggling to send a loud kissing sound into the receiver. 

At 7:35PM, Robby and Jack put on the performance of a lifetime for their baby. Jack’s jaw falls open when he is presented with the pint of ice cream, while Robby makes his confusion into a grand show. “What! But, Jack, I thought you wanted ice cream!”

“I never told you to get ice cream.”

“Yes, you did. Dennis told me so.” In perfect synchronisation, they turn their heads to gape at their little mastermind. They glimpse his wide grin for only a moment before he is off, speedily toddling away, the spoils of his trickery clutched joyously in his arms.

[orlovbats]

Dennis always keeps a stuffed animal in his locker at work. He changes them day-to-day, depositing a new toy there in the morning—visiting them throughout the day, usually for comforting hugs—then takes it home at night. On arriving home, he deposits his toy with its friends on the bed, and he likes to think they gossip about the things to hear about in the Pitt.

One night, Dennis forgets to bring his toy home. He's inconsolable. "My pubby, my pubby," he wails into his daddy's shoulder. "My pubby—In my—At—She's gonna be so scared."

Robby rubs Dennis' back and soothes him. It takes some time, but he eventually cries himself to sleep on his lap. Robby tucks him into bed, surrounded by his other stuffed animals, then reaches for his phone.

Dennis wakes a few hours later. His heart leaps when he sees his toys around him, and for a moment he wonders if he'd only had a nightmare. Kitty is here, BaaBaa is here, MooMoo and Mr. Sauce... everyone but his Beanie Baby puppy-dog.

"Hey, hey, hey," Robby whispers, seeing his eyes begin to well with tears. "Look what Dada sent over." He passes Dennis his phone, then watches as the smile on his face starts and soon stretches.

At Robby's request, Jack had broken into Dennis locker. Robby asked for a photo of the toy there, hoping it would convince Dennis that it really wasn't so lonely—but Jack took it a step forward. In a series of photographs, he documented Dennis' puppy-dog being given a tour of the ED. There were pictures of it being held by Shen and Ellis, posed as if preparing a cup of coffee in the break room, placed on a portable workstation as if charting. Dennis was giggling madly by the time he reached the last photo: A selfie of Jack, quite typical in that he was wearing his same, downward-turned, no-nosense smile... except he had Dennis' puppy-dog tucked into the front pocket of his scrub top. "Don't worry, baby boy," his message said. "Dada will take good care of your doggy tonight. In the morning she'll tell you all about her adventure."

Robby is there to hear how Dennis squeals in delight; To Jack, however, his joy is communicated in a long string of multicoloured hearts and dog emojis, which Robby imagines he will gather to mean the same thing.

[orlovbats]

Dennis has a favourite YouTube channel when he's regressed. A channel called Robby posts ASMR-style audio recordings of himself reading books. Dennis cares less about the meaning of Robby's words and more about his voice: his voice, though rough in texture, always retains a most pleasantly soft tone, slightly lilting and melodic, and it perfectly lulls Dennis to sleep.

He communicates his thanks to Robby through long, grateful comments left beneath each of his videos. He explains that though he can't currently afford to send a Ko-fi tip ("im a student 😖"), he is besotted by his storytelling abilities. "i dont want to overshare and make you uncomfortable so i wont say too much but your vids rlly make me feel comfortable and safe when im feeling little! its like i have someone here reading me a bedtime story. thank you sm robby 💕"

Dennis doesn't want to delude himself into thinking that Robby even reads his comments—never mind decides to cater to them—but he almost shrieks with surprise one night when Robby uploads an hour-long audio recording of a reading of stories from Winnie-the-Pooh. He begins the recording by whispering, "It's bedtime, little one. Let me tuck you in and I'll read you a story while you fall asleep." Dennis is so thrilled that he is physically unable to fall asleep. Instead of relaxing him, the video turns him almost hyperactive, and, immediately after it ends, he expresses his delight in the comments with a long, colourful string of emojis—which receives an immediate like from Robby.

[orlovbats]

The first time Robby touches Dennis (just a gentle palm to the bulge in his pants), he jolts so hard that it looks physically painful. The awkward aftermath stretches into a long silence, during which Robby stares as Dennis' body twitches in a violent shiver while his eyes blink rapidly.

"Sorry," he breathes raggedly. "Sorry, I just—I've never been touched there before. I never—I was never allowed to touch myself there."

"What do you mean, you weren't allowed?"

Dennis can't meet Robby's eye. He wrings his hands in front of his lap, and—for the first time—Robby notices the thin, wavering, white lines that encircle his wrists. Suddenly, Dennis jolts again, and he hides his hands behind his back guiltily.

"Dennis," Robby says. "What do you mean, you weren't allowed?"

(A second part has been posted here)

[orlovbats]

A second part to this post because Arabella was kind in requesting it. 

Robby’s perseverance with Dennis is motivated mostly by a feeling of friendly duty towards him, though he would be unable to deny that there isn’t a slightest smidge of curiosity present in it too. He’s never known someone to be so sensitive to touch. He wants to understand why. 

It’s a major milestone when Dennis feels confident enough to take off his underwear in front of him. Robby does it too so that he does not feel alone, and, using his own penis as a model, he gives a lecture on its erogenous anatomy. He hopes that demystifying it might put Dennis at ease but he’s still trembling at the lecture’s end. 

"We don’t have to," Robby murmurs to him. "There’s other nice places I can touch you."

Dennis shakes his head. "I want to. I’ve always—I want it, I promise." He’s hard and leaking, smearing a small glittering trail across his belly. There’s no doubt that his body is eager, but there’s no telling what thoughts are swirling through his mind. When Robby gently helps Dennis to climb onto his lap, he can’t stop himself from pressing a wishful kiss to his temple.  

It’s all over disappointingly but unsurprisingly fast: just one brush to the tip of Dennis’ cock turns him rigid. His legs stretch out as straight as an arrow while he leaps from his touch. While the lower half of his body jumps away from Robby’s, the upper half comes closer as his arm draped around his neck constricts. The noise he produces is not human. His strange squirm—like a snake electrocuted—lasts only a moment, but it produces an insurmountable silence that spans several long, weighty seconds. 

"Sorry," Dennis eventually squeaks. "Sorry, I—" He slithers off of Robby’s lap and scoops up his discarded underwear and jeans. Shakily, stumbling over himself, he tugs them on.

Robby doesn’t try to stop him. He sits back on his hands, still naked, and wonders by what means a person can be prevented from touching themselves for their entire life. When Dennis bends over to pick up his socks, he watches and waits for the light to reveal scars on his back, maybe burns, some relic of childhood punishments from long ago, but there’s nothing, just the remnants of juvenile acne and a few brown moles. There is no mark on Dennis—no mark except the rings around his wrists. 

"Dennis," he protests, chasing him as he darts towards the door. "Dennis, wait a second. What happened to you?"

When he catches him by the wrists, tugging them upwards to look at them, Dennis spins to look at him with a miserably ashamed stare. "Why do you have to ask me that? Isn’t it bad enough that it happened at all? Please don’t ask me that, Robby."

Robby lets his wrists fall, and he leaves in silence.

[orlovbats]

"Daddy?"

Robby cracks an eye open. He'd thought Dennis had been sleeping by now. It's late after all, and his boy usually falls asleep fast.

"Uh huh?"

"Do you ever feel little the way like I feel little?" Dennis wriggles slightly in his arms so that he is looking up at Robby. His eyes are bright and very awake. This question is clearly not something that has only impulsively appeared in his mind.

Robby wets his lips slightly as he thinks. "I don't think I do, sweet pea," he eventually responds, voice cracking a little with tiredness. "I don't miss being a little boy. I wasn't very happy back then."

"Oh," Dennis whispers. "I'm sorry, Daddy."

"It's okay. It's not your fault."

"If I was—If I was your daddy when you were a little boy, I would have helped you be happy. You deserve to be happy." Dennis changes his position again, this time so that Robby's head is cradled against his chest. Very gently, he kisses his crown.

Robby is surprisingly touched by this sentiment, though he's too tired to think about it deeply and investigate why. That's what he tells himself. Instead, he murmurs, "That's very kind. Thank you."

He falls asleep, cradled and loved by his baby.

[orlovbats]

"Sorry I'm not more, like, fun when I regress," Dennis says to Robby one day, utterly perplexing him.

When Dennis regresses, he goes so small that he mostly spends his time in a state of half-sleep, struggling to keep his eyes open. It's safest for him to stay in bed, wrapped up in blankets, his head cushioned on a soft pillow, where Robby can supervise him. Oh how sweet he is when he's so small. He can hardly make a sound. His needs are communicated in different tones and lengths of whines, and Robby has learned what each one signifies. He knows when his baby needs a bottle, a change or a bath, and Dennis doesn't have to lift a finger for these things.

Maybe Dennis isn't fun in the traditional sense of being entertaining, but there's a tender and sweet joy that comes from caring for such an innocent thing. Robby wouldn't change a thing about him.

[orlovbats]

Robby is distracted throughout Abbot's hand-off until he introduces his final patient. "Lastly we have twenty-eight-year-old Dennis Whitaker. Bacterial pneumonia; responding well to treatment so far, but we're keeping him here until social work comes down. He was brought in off the street by a good samaritan. Unhoused, we think. He hasn't said enough to get confirmation but it looks like he's a little."

Robby blinks out of his daydream when Abbot says that name. Dennis Whitaker—could it really be? The patient in the bed looks thinner and weaker than the boy Robby had known, but he hadn't been unhoused then. Or had pneumonia.

"Dennis? Dennis, do you remember me?" He gently asks.

The boy in the bed cracks an eye open, then smiles behind the clear oxygen mask. "Wobby," he croaks.

Jack shifts in the doorway. "One of yours?" He asks Robby.

"Yeah. Yeah, from down at the rec centre. Hey, I missed you, bear cub. I always wondered what happened to you."

A few years ago, after COVID-19 lockdown measures eased, Robby began spending his free time as a volunteer caregiver to lonely littles in his local area. Some of them had lost their support systems as a result of the pandemic, others were simply new to the city and hadn't yet placed roots. Back then, Dennis hadn't talked about why he sought out the services of a volunteer caregiver, and Robby hadn't pushed him to. He washed Dennis, read to him, took him to the nearby park and pushed him on the swings, really truly built a bond with the boy—and then he'd vanished. Robby still occasionally goes to the rec centre on his days off. He likes to look after the littles. But he's never experienced a bond like the one he'd had with Dennis, and he'd always hoped that they'd someday be reunited.

Not like this, though.

At Abbot and their combined pack of students and interns, he barks, "Has a detailed history been taken? Has he had a HRCT? I want to rule out any chronic conditions. Send for a full panel, actually."

"Whoa. Brother. Cool it," Abbot responds. "Everything is fine. He's already been checked. Pneumonia aside, he's only a little malnourished and he's missing some vaccinations—but we're on top of that already. You can read his chart yourself. All that's left is social work, like I said. Take it down a notch." He shoos away the surrounding crowd, then comes close to say, "You can sit with him for a while if you want. I'll stay for an extra hour. Not like I've got anywhere else to be."

Robby scrubs his hand over his face. Dennis is—Dennis isn't his. Not really. He's just someone he helped during a period of apparent need. Right now, though, it seems he needs him again. On the bed, he shifts and coughs hoarsely. The great force of it twists his face in pain. Instinctually, he shushes him, murmurs, "It's okay. It's okay." Then he turns to Abbot and says, "I'll stay for a while, but come by if you need me."

Abbot claps his shoulder. "I won't," he responds honesty. "Take your time."