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It was rare that the three of them all shared the same day off. They try to make sure to sync a day off at least once every two weeks, but between call-ins and extended shifts, even that was a gamble. So when Dennis knew they had the same Sunday free to spend blissfully away from the chaos of the emergency department, he wasted no time in rushing Robby out the double doors the second their day shift ended that Saturday. He had plans, dammit! And those plans involved staying over at his boyfriends’ house and being fucked and fucking in at least six different positions until he passed out from exhaustion or one of his boyfriends’ hips gave out, whichever happened first. And maybe dinner. Maybe.
When Dennis wakes up in the morning sandwiched between the two older men, arms wrapped around Jack’s waist, using his chest as a pillow with Robby’s hand resting heavy against his hip, it’s with sore muscles and a smile on his face. Unfortunately, lying under a thick duvet crammed between two men, post-intense extracurricular activities, means that he also wakes up sweaty and sticky, despite their best efforts to clean up before bed.
He sighs quietly, trying to carefully extract himself from the tangle of limbs and sheets without disturbing the other men. The crisp morning air on his naked body makes him shiver as his feet hit the carpeted floor. His efforts to not wake Jack and Robby are only moderately successful. Jack cracks an eye open, fixing Dennis with an incredibly annoyed glare before immediately rolling over to close the newfound Dennis-sized gap between him and his husband, pushing his face into the curve of Robby’s neck. A few months ago, the glare would have made Dennis anxious, nervous that he’d done something wrong, but he’s spent enough nights (and morning afters) with the man now to know that the older man just always looked vaguely like a pissed off cat when he woke up.
Dennis forgoes underwear and instead elects to grab the first pair of sweatpants he could find on the floor, too cold to care whose they were. Luckily they fit him pretty well length-wise, must be Jack’s, he thinks as he pulls the drawstring at the waist tight enough that he doesn’t have to worry about them slipping down. He spots his next victim: an oversized t-shirt draped over the post at the end of the bedframe. Slobs. It has a corny charity slogan written across the chest of it and the PTMD logo on the back; some free thing Robby must have got at a mandatory event. He shrugs, pulling the shirt on, wandering down the hallway to the kitchen like he lives here.
On the way, he passes by the living room, hesitating when he sees an unfamiliar box on the coffee table. He pads over, curiosity piqued, to find that it’s full of old photos.
He vaguely remembers a box like this one, tucked away in a closet at his parents house. Full of photos of him and his brothers’ childhoods. Landmark events like birthdays and anniversaries captured on his parents' old camera. Back when his parents would give them disposable film cameras every once in a blue moon to entertain themselves, having to get them developed at the 1 Hour Photo a town over, back before they all begged for the new generation of iPods (with cameras!) in middle school.
The photos in this box have the same familiar grain, that specific quality that is so hard to replicate with an iPhone camera, regardless of how hard Dennis’s college friends would try for their artsy Instagram posts. But these aren’t childhood photos. Jack and Robby look like they’re at least college-aged in these, maybe older. Jack must have been feeling sentimental yesterday when Dennis and Robby were at work.
Dennis giggles. Grins like he just stumbled across a goldmine and picks the box up, carrying it with him to the kitchen to place it down on the table in front of the seat he always sits in (because of course he has His Seat here at this point). That’ll give him something to look at while he eats.
Leaving that for later, he shuffles back to the kitchen area and opens a cabinet, pulling out a box of cereal. Lucky Charms, to be more specific. That was a non-negotiable that he demanded stay stocked if he was going to be sleeping over more frequently. So Robby and Jack found that Lucky Charms had made a permanent addition to the grocery list stuck to their fridge, even if just the thought of the sugar bomb that Dennis called cereal made their teeth hurt.
He grabs a clean bowl and spoon out of the unloaded dishwasher, pulling the carton of soy milk out of the fridge to assemble his bowl of cereal. Back when Dennis first learned that Jack had a preference for soy milk, he made fun of the man incessantly for it. Because seriously, how old of him. Doesn’t he know that oat milk is the dairy alternative that all the cool, young gay people are drinking these days? Soy milk is like, so 2000s hipster of him.
With his delicious breakfast of champions prepared, Dennis sits down at the table and gets to snooping. There were some photos of them separately, awkward high school portraits, the odd really old polaroid of a childhood Halloween costume, what Dennis could only assume was Robby’s undergraduate graduation: a dorky ear-to-ear grin on his face as he stood in between his parents, diploma proudly displayed at his chest. The more recent photos were of them together. and by more recent, Dennis meant from the early 2000s.
Dennis jumped, inhaling sharply, as he felt the warm presence of a body press against his back.
“Jesus fuck!” he exclaims, feeling hot breath against his ear when the man behind him leans down.
Jack chuckles, “Good morning to you too, baby,” he grumbles out, voice still thick and raspy with sleep. He brushes his lips against Dennis’s temple, a whisper of a kiss, slinging his arms around the younger man’s neck, peering over his shoulder to look at the old photos that found themselves spread across the table. “Find something there?”
“Mhm,” Dennis sighs, leaning back into the heat radiating off his boyfriend, “I can’t believe you guys were young once,” he says around a spoonful of cereal.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Jack snarks, moving away to busy himself with making his morning coffee, a soy latte with no sugar. Dennis mourns the loss of the heat behind him, but quickly recovers, refocusing his attention back to digging through the photo box. The espresso machine hums to life in the background.
Dennis stifles a laugh when Jack lets out a long groan as he slowly lowers himself in the chair next to his, steaming mug of coffee placed far enough away that there was no risk of spilling it on the memories. The silver haired man lightly smacks the back of Dennis’s head when he’s settled in.
“I don’t want to hear anything out of you when you’re the reason my entire body hurts, kid. I’m not thirty anymore, not even forty. Hell, Robby isn’t even fifty, no wonder he’s still asleep,” Jack complains, but there’s a soft smile on his face. Dating Dennis kept them young, they liked to say, but Jesus was his libido hard to keep up with, even between the two of them.
The two of them sit at the table, eating cereal and drinking coffee, respectively, as they look through the box. Jack shares stories that Dennis had never heard that go with some of the photos. Drunken nights out. Jack’s med school graduation party. Anniversaries. Robby visiting Jack’s hospital bedside after his amputation. Private moments in their home.
They had been together so long, Dennis realized. Of course, he had always known that, but here it was all laid out. Years, decades, together as friends, lovers, husbands, and everything in between. All documented. Tangible.
Robby gets up eventually, maybe twenty minutes later. Dennis is already on his second bowl of cereal when the older man trudges sleepily down the hallway in black sweatpants and his signature hoodie.
He sits down across from the pair at the table, stealing a bite of Dennis’s cereal before he notices what the two are looking at. His grumbly morning demeanor quickly dissipates, replaced by a soft smile that's reserved only for his husband and, in more recent months, their boyfriend.
Robby chuckles, picking a photo up out of the box to show Dennis. In it, Robby looks equal parts awkward, exhausted, and happy, wearing a white doctor coat. He doesn’t have any facial hair yet. “Look at this one, kiddo,” he says, “My second year of residency, I think I was around your age here. God, must’ve been what?” he scratches at his sleep-rumpled beard as he thinks, “Almost thirty years ago now?” he asks, looking up to Jack for confirmation. A nod. “Same year Jack and I met for the first time.”
The silence is deafening.
Dennis’s eyes are nearly bulging out of his head thinking about that. Your age. Thirty years ago. Kiddo. He almost chokes on a mouthful of Lucky Charms, struggling to swallow them down. Can feel the flush working its way up his neck to his face, to the tips of his ears. Acutely aware of the dull, throbbing feeling in his dick as it starts to fill up again.
Jack notices his face, notices the way Dennis’s eyes keep darting between the Robby sitting across from him and young-Robby in the photograph. How he's gnawing at his bottom lip. Jack sighs, resting his forehead against his hand as he rubs at his eyes tiredly. He knows that look. That’s Dennis’s I could go three rounds right now and still not be satisfied please please let me climb you like a tree look. He glares at Robby.
“No.”
“What!” Robby laughs at Jack, finally noticing the way Dennis is staring him down like a lion stalking his prey, “What’d I do?”
“No, you know what you did, Mr. I must have been your age there, gosh, it’s been so long. I'm not dealing with this,” Jack says, gesturing at Dennis, “This is your fault. I'm tired. You handle it.”
The younger man next to him pouts, turning to Jack with wide, wet doe eyes. Pleading. Jack is a weak man. Dennis runs a soft hand up Jack’s thigh, teasing the bare skin that lies just under the hem of his loose boxers. The kid’s too smart. Knows exactly how to get what he wants.
“You're the one that took the photos out, Jack,” Dennis points out.
“I'm surprised that I'm even conscious right now after last night. One more round too soon and my dick might fall off.”
Robby sighs dramatically, pushing his chair away from the table to stand up. “Alright kid,” he directs to Dennis, “C’mon, I guess you’re my problem now.” The words seem harsh, but both Dennis and Jack can see the twinkle in his eye, the way the corners of his mouth twitch upwards, the outline of his hardening cock where it lays against his thigh under his loose sweats. He heads back to the bedroom he just came from minutes ago, not even sparing a glance back to make sure Dennis was following. He knew he was.
Dennis leaps up, eager and grinning, ready to practically sprint back to the bedroom. He loves when their days off match up. Before he gets too far, there's a tug on the back of his shirt. He turns around, confused.
Jack raises an eyebrow at his boyfriend, glancing back to where the dirty bowl sat on the table before making eye contact again.
“Don't forget to clean up before you go off and have more fun, sweetheart,” he says pointedly. Dennis nods, rinses the dishes off in record time, cleaning Jack’s mug up as well before rushing to catch up to Robby.
Such a good boy, Jack thinks. He’ll join the two in a few minutes, he knows he will. No matter how tired he is, nothing could keep him away from his boys. His eyes fall back on the photos scattered about the table. He just needs a minute to himself for a bit.
Jack’s mind wanders as he comes across one he’d taken of Robby twenty years ago. It was clearly taken after sex. The man is in bed, shirtless with a blanket pulled down to his waist, hand put up to try and block Jack from trying to take a photo, but there’s a fond grin on his red face. Jack smiles at the memory.
He’s sure they have a polaroid camera around here somewhere, some modern thing that Jake had given them for Robby’s birthday a year or two ago. He should find it. Add some new pictures to the box. Some that were featuring Dennis Whitaker.