thinking about robby coming home from a long shift exhausted and emotionally drained, and all he wants is to climb into bed and be held until it all melts away but the thing about abbot is he works most nights, and nights is when robby needs him, needs the distraction and care and warmth that comes from someone pulling him close and running their fingers through his hair and humming quietly to him, and abbot isn't usually one for doing those things anyway. so, in a moment of weakness (one of many at this point), he texts whitaker. whitaker makes the fifteen minute trip in ten minutes, and robby swears he doesn't mean to keep pulling whitaker into this, swears this is the last time and he's sorry but it's just so hard to sleep alone after everything the day insists on throwing at him, and whitaker just shushes him softly, reassures him that he doesn't mind, really, he wants to be here for him. robby feels terrible every time, knows he's using whitaker in a way he shouldn't be as his boss, but he can't bring himself to stop, not when whitaker cares for him so well, so sweetly, somehow exactly the way robby wants yet has always been too scared to ask for. right on cue, whitaker draws him into bed, settles robby's head on his chest, and threads his fingers through robby's hair. it's so warm and maddening and comfortable and addictive and fuck if robby isn't beginning to crave whitaker in a way that's dangerous, consequences be damned. just for tonight, robby thinks, just this one last time. he knows it's a lie. he knows he'll keep asking for more, more, and whitaker will let him take because that's what he does. that's what he always does.
