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There was a crowd of infected Chicagoans shambling down West 26th Street. Likely a hundred strong, they were eerily silent when they were dormant like this, all following one another, like ants trapped in a death spiral. It would take little to trigger them into flight, just a sound out of place, a cough, a gasp. It was a grotesque procession, a many-limbed one, but the tenuous quiet made it impossible not to watch, lest one notice you and their jaundiced eyes light up with hunger. It was likely why neither man was watching where they were going as they rounded the corner of West 28th and Union Ave.
“Woah!” Binky still reared up on her hind legs and squealed, high and frightened, her front hooves thrashing the air. “Woah, girl!” The figure before her went down so fast that Dennis knew his horse had hit him before he heard the muffled thud of a glancing blow. The person’s hands reached out instinctively as he was flung to the ground— his arm bent underneath him at a sickening angle, and there was a distinct, muffled snap! In that split second, though neither knew it, both Dennis and the stranger had the exact same thought at the exact same time: probably a distal radial fracture.
“Motherf—“ The stranger had the good sense to clamp his jaw shut and cut the end of the sentence off. It was still too late. Between Binky’s continuous anxious whinnies and the sound of bone snapping in contact with the pavement, the horde wasn’t walking passively anymore. Yelps of alarm, terrifyingly child-like, ping-ponged through their ranks, and all at once the horde began to run. They began to surge down the street toward Dennis and the stranger, limbs twitching into rapid motion, eyes wide and terrifyingly focused. Dennis didn’t think. He just clicked his tongue loudly, bringing Binky around to the side until the harrowed, deep set eyes of the figure were staring up at Dennis from his horse’s left flank. The garbled human-chimp noises from the crowd were getting louder. Dennis spared them a glance and regretted it instantly— the front runner was an infected teenager, barefoot, her belly undone, blackened organs bouncing with each jerky, frantic step she took toward them. She would reach them in under thirty seconds, and the rest would be soon behind. Forcing his gaze back to the stranger, Dennis spoke with as much authority as he could muster.
“Hi. Okay. I’m— sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Get on the horse.” The front runners were across the street from them now. He thrust his hand out, fingers outstretched. There was half a second’s hesitation. Then the stranger reached up and took it.
Binky happily outpaced the crowd of infected people, her dark eyes flicking nervously as she galloped down the street. Dennis brought her down five city blocks, then hung a right, the stranger’s arms tightening around his waist as they tilted and then righted themselves. He was much taller than Dennis and the heat of his body seemed to engulf him from behind, ragged pained breaths ruffling his uneven mop of hair. Binky slowed to a trot and Dennis tucked her into the nearest alleyway to their right before dismounting and crouching to peer around the corner. It wasn’t long before the sounds of the infected group caught up to them. Then they were rushing past his street, still set in their initial southern direction and unaware that their prey had deviated from it. Dennis watched them slow, watched their eyes dim and their movements lose energy as the chase lulled. Dimly, he was aware that the figure was close behind him again, though he didn’t feel eyes on his back. They both watched the mob of infected people, their former patients, pass them by, until they were gone, and the sound of them faded down the empty street. Only then did the stranger let out a low growl of barely contained agony.
Dennis spun. He’d never gotten the chance to develop his bedside manner— med school was a blur from a million years ago, only a few months in internal medicine before the hospital became overrun and he was on the street again. He cleared his throat. “Hey, I, I think you could have hurt your wrist back there. When you fell.”
“When your horse kicked the shit out of me? Yeah, I’m thinking I might have as well.” It was a deeper voice, gravelly with disuse and tight with pain. The stranger had been wearing a battered respirator— he pulled it down to his chin to reveal a scruffy middle aged face; a long nose, gently receding hairline, unused smile lines, dark, deep set eyes. Another person. A new, alive person, who was not Dennis, not Dennis’s reflection in a window, not infected. He blinked rapidly. It was a bad time to be star struck.
“Yeah,” he said lamely, “when Binky … clipped you.”
“What kind of fuckin’ name is…?” Dennis reached for the stranger’s arm, but he jerked it away. “Don’t touch me.” Dennis spread his hands in a universal “no harm” gesture as the other man stood with the assistance of the building beside them, an old tiki bar whose sign had been knocked off the side of the building and sat smashed beside them. He turned his back on Dennis, cradling the limb to his chest. Feeling a little slighted, Dennis crossed his arms, then stood up, then stood on his toes to try and see what the other man was doing.
“I just want to help. I … I can help. ” Maybe. Probably. Distal radial fractures were common— he’d even treated a few, way back when. The stranger did not reply, only letting out a thin, ragged sound as he shifted his arm. Dennis began slowly circling around him, testing the waters with every step. It earned him a weary glance from the other man but he didn’t turn away again, more focused on his own injury. He’d yanked off his glove and was gingerly feeling around the upper edge of his radius. Dennis watched the man’s shoulders shudder when he palpated the skin just an inch below the edge of the bone, how the structure of his arm was pushed obviously out of place, how the skin around it was swelling. Dennis blinked rapidly. A clean break around the parameter of the radius, about an inch below the wrist. He attempted to summon some authority into his voice. Maybe if this person knew he was trained in medicine, he could get somewhere. “So, uhm, that looks like a—“
“— Colles fracture,” the stranger wheezed out simultaneously with him.
They eyed each other suspiciously. Binky snorted. The street was silent.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere?” Dennis said weakly, jerking his head toward the building to his right.
Binky looked very awkward standing in the corner of the tiki bar, her ivory tail swishing moodily across the dusty bamboo flooring. The stranger stared at her— she stonily met his gaze until he shook his head and turned away. “Where’d you find a horse, anyway?”
“Iowa. I … passed through a few weeks back.” The shelves had been long since picked clean, but the underside of the bar still held an array of detritus from years past: Dennis took a moment to dig around under the bar, and emerged with a handful of clear vinyl food service gloves. He shoved his pockets full before sliding the paper box across the bar’s surface to the stranger. It was modeled to look like a surf board, or perhaps was a real surf board, sealed with shiny resin and stained with years of spilled liquor. The man hoisted himself onto a bar stool with his good arm, and slung his pack onto the counter top. He fixed Dennis with a look that made him want to squirm in place a little.
“You’re a doctor,” he stated flatly.
Dennis shook his head. “No.” His skin prickled, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.
The man squinted. “You’re a nurse, then.”
“I’m … was a med student.” This seemed to satisfy the man; he leaned back a little, face relaxing, and Dennis had to continue talking to fill the silence. “MS4. When the— everything … yeah.” The appraising look from before returned, but the suspicion in it was gone. Now Dennis was just being observed, something he wasn’t used to at all. He shuffled his feet, risked another glance at the man, then returned his gaze to his bedraggled Georgia boots. The other man was handsome, in the way a wolf could be a handsome animal, but more than that, the way he was looking at Dennis made the hairs on his arms stand up. He was looking at him like he was interesting– no. Like he could be useful. It should have been uncomfortable. It wasn’t.
“Got a name?”
He opened his mouth to tell him, to say Dennis, but stopped. It felt too personal, too revealing. He didn’t know this man. Things were different now. It was for all of these reasons that he introduced himself with his last name. “Whitaker.”
The man nodded. “Robinovitch.” Dennis blinked slowly. “Is my name.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated all of a sudden. “Robby. I guess.” For the first time, the older man looked slightly awkward. “People … used to call me Robby.”
Dennis felt like he was being impolite. “Right. It’s nice to meet you.”
He got that same tight smile in return. “Yeah. Help me get my jacket off.”
Hesitantly, Dennis did as he was told, trying to remember the way that the nurses in his clinicals had instructed him— the affected arm was dressed first, then undressed last. He tried not to touch the other man’s, but felt his fingers brush the other man’s hand as he held his sleeve wide. He was very warm. Dennis had not touched another person in a very long time before today, and he felt a little giddy with it, the newness, closeness of it. Robby’s heavy rain coat smelled like camp fire smoke and sweat, the way Dennis was sure he smelled, too. It was not completely unpleasant. He swore loudly as Dennis extracted his broken wrist from the cuff, revealing a patched knitted zip up and …
Robby’s arm looked … weird. His good arm was thin, underfed in the way everyone Dennis had met in the past year had been, his skin slightly loose where muscles and fat had abandoned his frame. The other arm, though … there was the irregular, jutting set of his wrist, but below it, the skin bulged, bright red and shiny, like polished plastic. Dennis’ mind raced. It was normal for there to be some swelling, of course, but not that much swelling, and combined with the increasingly pained way Robby was breathing, the raw shiny look of his skin, the puffy outstretch of his fingers … “Can you move your fingers?” A jerk of the chin to the side; no, he couldn’t. “Can you … feel your fingers?”
The stranger flashed him a tight smile. The crows feet at the corners of his eyes sprang briefly to life. “I cannot.”
There was a moment when the words just hung in the air, and then Dennis felt his nerves crashing him back down to earth, a hot wave of shame and fear that spread from the back of his neck up his cheeks into the corners of his eyes, down across his chest, like a fevered rash. Because he knew what that meant, all the symptoms clicking together into an awful picture. “Okay. Jesus. Man, I … I think—
Robby spoke quietly and confidently. “The broken bone is compressing my radial artery, which is causing the muscle tissue in the dorsal compartment of my forearm to swell, compressing my nerves and causing hypoesthesia.” The man cast a brief glance at him that was so dry, Dennis felt himself wither on the spot. “I know.”
“… fuck.” How unlucky could one person be? Dennis had ridden his horse directly into the only living person he’d found the entire time he’d been in Chicago, knocked that person to the ground, and fractured his arm in such a way that he’d developed a complication that barely one percent of all fractures would experience. “Jesus Christ, that’s really bad.” Compartment syndrome didn’t resolve on its own, and untreated … the technical terms came to mind, but the dominant moment of Dennis’ psyche was an image of Robby’s hand, swollen and blackened, red raised lines of infection tracing their way carelessly up his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
Robby didn’t respond, instead snatching up his pack, a large Osprey bag, and ripping open the top. He yanked out a large plastic liner, and unceremoniously upended it. Out tumbled a half empty bear can, a crumbled pile of clothes, and a large black first aid bag, which he pinned to the bar with an elbow before unzipping it. Dennis watched, unsure of what to do with his hands, guilt away eating at his stomach. “You’re a doctor,” he said, the realization cutting through the shock.
Robby’s hand went still. “No.” The word sounded bitten off, clipped, bitter.
Dennis thought for a moment, then tried again, his voice a little softer. “You used to be a doctor.”
Robby looked up at him, mouth open to say something, eyes flashing. Then he shook his head, a short abortive jerk, and pressed his lips tightly together. Then he sighed. “Do you have any pain killers? I’ve got antibiotics— I’ll trade you for them.”
“Ibuprofen?” Which was a blood thinner, and about as effective as a pack of Skittles. Robby’s face fell back to his pack. “And, like … weed.” Dennis added lamely. Robby paused, considering.
“Yeah. Fine, fuck it.” There was an old red Swiss Army knife in the pack and Robby placed it on the countertop. He began to roll up his sleeve. Dennis stared.
“Just to clarify, what exactly is the plan here?”
Robby’s face was hard to read. He looked very nonplussed for a moment, a smile playing at his mouth, but the quavering line of it dipped quickly into anger, then bemusement, and then the way his expression flickered between the two just made him seem afraid. And then his eyes fell on Dennis again. And then Dennis was afraid, too.
“Acute compartment syndrome is best treated immediately.” There was a new tone to his voice— calm, the uncertainty of the future roiling underneath a glass wall where it could be observed, but not disturb them. “And there’s only one treatment.”
A fasciotomy. Surgery. Dennis opened his mouth, aghast, shaking his head as he tried to find the right words to say. “Wh– you can’t. Seriously?”
This was met with an oh-so nonchalant shrug. “I don’t have a choice. So I can, and I’m going to.” With some struggle, Robby produced a small strip of gauze, and a little bottle of alcohol from his kit, the kind Dennis’ brothers used to buy from the gas station and hide in their bed posts. He wetted the gauze, and then Dennis watched him struggle to open the Swiss Army knife for a full ten seconds before Dennis pulled a new pair of gloves on and held his hand out.
“Let me get that for you.”
Robby sighed wearily, and handed the knife over. Dennis took the rag from him and began to wipe down the largest blade. There was a moment of tense silence as Robby, this stranger he’d just met, watched him meticulously clean something of his in the dim light of the bar. When Dennis looked up, he made himself catch Robby’s eye and hold it.
“You can’t perform a fasciotomy on yourself.” The procedure involved cutting through all the layers of skin to the superficial facia, into the epimycium, until the surgeon hit muscle, releasing the pressure building in the arm compartment.
Robby’s eyes narrowed. “Well, you’re certainly not doing it.”
Dennis was a little indignant at that. “Wh– I mean, I could.” The idea both intrigued and terrified him. The older man shook his head dismissively. “It would be a lot safer than you doing it to yourself.”
“Really.” Dennis shrank a little at the venom in Robby’s voice, and Robby seemed to sense it, his gaze softening a fraction. He sighed through gritted teeth. “Whitaker, you seem … nice, but I’ve actually performed a fasciotomy before. I’m assuming you haven’t.”
“Have you operated on yourself before?” It came out quiet and a little plaintive, but it seemed to hit home– Robby paused, then turned his face away. Dennis had an edge– he pressed it, leaning forward until Robby had to look at him again. “Listen. You can direct me every step of the way. You’d still be doing the surgery. I’d just … be your hands.”
He could feel the other man’s breath on his face this close, feel how warm and trembling and afraid he was. The hollowed out sockets of his eyes made Robby’s irises look black, but this close, Dennis could see that they were actually a pleasant deep brown, like damp soil. The urge to remove himself from this stranger’s personal space was strong, but Dennis resisted it, listened instead to the quiet voice inside him that liked how warm this new other person was, and liked the idea of helping him, even if it meant cutting him open.
“I’ll be awake.” Robby warned him. His voice was very low. “The whole time. I’ll probably scream.”
Dennis considered this. “If I don’t help, you’ll still do those things. You’ll just do them alone instead.”
That hung heavily between them for a long moment. Then Robby laughed, quiet and defeated. “Okay,” he said, still looking at Dennis. Then, unable to find anything else, he said it again, softer. “Okay.”
Robby smoked outside so that Dennis wouldn’t get a contact high while he sanitized everything he could of Robby’s tools, the bar, and himself. When he was finished, he’d completely drained the vodka shooter that he’d been using as disinfectant. It was a rough start. The door creaked as Robby stepped back inside and stared at him for a moment, his shoulders slumped. Dennis had strung a flash light from the ceiling and it shone down on the surf board bar like a spotlight— the phrase surgical theater came to mind in a new and grotesque context, him the actor and Robby his director. Binky snorted softly. She was still watching them from the corner. Robby gave her a long look, then shook his head to clear it. “Whatever,” he mumbled. “Today is already so fuckin’ weird.”
Dennis had exactly one real tourniquet, which he’d taken off the body of a sheriff back in Omaha. Now, he wrapped it around Robby’s bicep and cranked the winch until he could no longer find a pulse at his wrist. Robby pressed his palm down to the table, and with his free hand, drew a shaky line down his forearm with his finger, six inches long from tip to tip. “At least it wasn’t the volar compartment,” he muttered to himself, “then I’d be really screwed.” Dennis nodded in agreement; volar fasciotomies involved an incision twice as long and twice as deep as the one they were about to make. It was good that Robby remembered that, Dennis thought. He was still present, still smart, but the sharpness from before had ebbed into something duller and more accepting of the current circumstances. He looked up at Dennis, eyes bloodshot but alert. “Ready?”
Dennis did not feel ready. He’d donned a surgical mask, one of the few unused ones he had, and had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. He took the Swiss Army knife from its spot on the table and flicked it open to the largest blade, the one Robby had assured him was sharpened to a fine point. The energy in the room spiked. It was their last moment to back out. They both acknowledged it, and then allowed it to pass.
“Start the incision by the elbow.” His hands were weirdly steady as Dennis lowered the tip of the blade to Robby’s skin. It sunk in shockingly easily— Robby’s skin looked tough, all of him did, but under the sharpened Swiss Army knife he parted like butter. Dennis heard Robby suck a shaky breath in, but he didn’t cry out. “It’s funny,” he mumbled, “it’s like I feel it, but it’s far away. I can feel that it hurts, I just don’t care.”
“I’m going to start moving. Am I at the right depth?” Robby nodded slowly, then made a tight wordless humming noise as Dennis began to drag the blade downward. The dermis parted gratefully— A stingy layer of subcutaneous yellow fat burgeoned from the incision, the pressure forcing it up to greet them. He was surprised by how little blood there was, setting the knife back on the table to dab at one of two drips that had run down Robby’s skin. They were both breathing hard. “Okay,” Robby rasped, “same path. Not too much pressure here. You’re cutting through the fat, down to the fascia, but you’re not cutting the fascia just yet.” Dennis nodded. There was a veritable ocean of sweat running down his back. “Little strokes with the blade, like you’re … painting.”
“Like I’m …?” Slowly, Dennis dipped the tip of the blade into the fat and drew it down, then out again— the warm fat parted easily— Robby failed to bite back a yell of pain— and Dennis glimpsed the milky sheet of the fascia beyond it. Underneath the fascia, red muscle seemed to pulse, pressing the thin barrier taught. ”I see it,” he told Robby, who only groaned in response. Sweat was running down his forehead, collecting in the creases around his eyes, or maybe he was crying, Dennis couldn’t tell. “I’m going to keep going,” he said softly. His nerves had spiked hard when Robby yelled, and he felt fragile and trembly, like a newborn deer, or like he’d just vomited. Robby still hadn’t spoken. “Is that … okay?”
“Yes.” Robby was doing a valiant effort to control his breathing. In the light, Dennis could see the subtle contrast between his iris and pupil, and his pupils were blown wide now, locked onto the sight of his own arm being dissected beneath him. “Remember, you’re … creating a path for the muscle to expand through the cut fascia,” that blown out, white hot gaze flickered to Dennis and it was all he could do not to visibly flinch, “so don't be afraid of cutting away the subcutaneous layer. Get it done.” Dennis pursed his lips, but nodded, and began to cut again. Robby sat absolutely still as Dennis drew a deep line through him, though his voice rose into a crescendo of curses with every swipe of the blade. By the time Dennis had fully exposed the fascia, Robby was panting raggedly again, his eyes lulling at half-mass. Without warning, he swayed dangerously in his seat, and Dennis practically fell across the bar to grab him by the shoulders. “Robby. Robby. Stay with me.” He shook him, which only elicited a fluttering of his eyelids.
“‘Mm fine.” He looked extraordinarily pale. Panic swelled in Dennis’ throat. Jesus Christ, what had they been thinking with this? Dennis found that his hands had traveled to either side of Robby’s face so that he could look up into the other man’s half-lidded eyes.
“Hey. Hey. I can’t finish this without your help.” Dennis’ voice had a high, pleading edge to it. “Please. It won’t be much longer, right? But we gotta finish it.” Robby blinked drunkenly. His forehead was clenched in agony, his dark eyes rolling around the bar, trying to find something to latch onto. His skin felt like it was searing through the vinyl of Dennis’ gloves. “Robby?”
“Shhh’s watching me,” Dennis heard him mumble hysterically, “that fuckin’ horse, she’s watching me, I know she is …!” Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. He was too high, and he was going to go into shock, Dennis realized, should have realized before, really, which meant he needed to get this over with so he could bandage Robby back up and get him somewhere warm. He didn’t know how to fix this. He only knew that the only way out was through. Dennis sucked a sharp breath in to steady himself. “Okay. Will it help if I, like, slap you or something?”
This was met with a scowl. “I’d appreciate you … not doing that.” A little clarity had returned to the other man’s gaze, and he swallowed hard, then shot a questioning glance at Dennis’ hands, still steadying his chin. Dennis dropped them to his sides, suddenly self conscious. “Reglove.” Dennis did as he was told, tossing the old pair into the wastebin, his own face burning. Robby’s cheeks were streaked with blood— his blood, streaked in the shape of Dennis’ fingers. He swallowed once, twice, then exhaled. “I’m ok. Just … one more layer to cut through. Make a small incision by the elbow again.”
Following Robby’s instructions, Dennis created a small hole in the milky, paper thin tissue encasing Robby’s forearm muscles. He yelped when Dennis made the initial cut, then as Dennis flipped the blade upside down so that the full edge would slide harmlessly against the muscle and slipped it inside the incision to elongate it, he let out a long, sustained yell through his teeth. Dennis slid the knife through Robby’s flesh, through this second skin of his, and watched the red muscle fiber underneath blossom out from the line he drew. Robby wept with relief when Dennis took the knife back out of him. The shape of his arm was changing. The cut doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled in width, pressure releasing, two red lips parting to show a mouthful of chewed red meat. It would have been nauseating to watch if it hadn’t been so fascinating, and if Robby hadn’t been letting out a long, miserable sigh of relief. “Oh, fuck,” he managed as Dennis watched the wound continue to stretch wide, “Fuck, that’s so much better.” He swayed again, and this time when Dennis caught him, he sagged helplessly into his arms. Dennis took his gloves off this time as Robby’s weight rested in the crook of his neck. They sat for a moment, both trying to catch their breath. “You … did good, Whittaker.” His words slurred together, but his bleary eyes were oh-so grateful. There was a warm, sticky feeling pouring out of Robby's hands and through Dennis’ skin, out of the place his cheek was pressed to Dennis’ neck, filling him up, up, up until he was buzzing with it. The air felt warm and insubstantial in his lungs— Dennis realized with a start that they were breathing in sync.
“We … do we close?” Dennis asked, and realized he sounded a little too hopeful. Did he hope it was over, or that there was more to do still? Robby shook his head, and his hair tickled the crook of Dennis’ neck.
“You don’t close. You gotta … slowly take pressure off the tourniquet, cauterize any blood vessels that start bleeding. Then … sanitize again, bandage up. When the swelling goes down enough, we close. But for now, surgery-wise … that’s it.”
Dennis felt his heart drop. Well. That answered that question.
By the time he’d finished cauterizing Robby’s arm, the room held the distinct smell of a raw burger patty hitting a well oiled black stone— Dennis was both nauseated and hungry. With hands that had just remembered to start shaking, he applied a layer of gauze to the open section of Robby’s arm, then wrapped it.
They’d wandered into the scant open kitchen across the bar, where a disproportionately large oven sat, a metal hood fixed over it. Dennis had slowly built them a fire out of paper scraps laying around the room and a couple of bar stools that he’d smashed apart. It smelled like paint varnish, but as the sky turned dark, they wouldn’t be cold, and the smoke would be shuttled into the night sky without the tell-take light of a campfire. Robby’s face didn’t look quite as drawn and pale as it had before when Dennis turned to him. He turned to him suddenly.
“Discworld?”
Dennis blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“The horse.” Robby turned his injured arm over, inspecting it, tentatively flexing his fingers. “I was trying to place the name. You named her after the horse from Discworld, didn’t you.”
Dennis’ ears went red. “I … yeah. I did.”
Robby eyed him. “Aren’t those a little before your time?”
“I’m twenty—” he was about to say twenty-six, he realized, and caught himself. “Twenty-eight.” It still felt like a pathetically low number to defend. “But … yeah, they were my oldest brother’s books. I just kinda, uh, stole them after he moved out.”
Robby, as he was like to do, Dennis was realizing, was silent. Then, “I read them right as they came out.” A pause. “Guess that makes me sound pretty old.”
“Only as old as my brother,” Dennis countered, though he could see that Robby was probably his brother’s senior by at least a decade. There was a distinct urge in him to minimize the distance between them, though he wasn’t sure exactly why. He was cold, even in front of the fire, and Robby still shivered occasionally despite the shiny emergency blanket draped over his shoulders. The few inches between their bodies felt like an impassable distance. Before he could think better of it, Dennis reached up and draped the closer edge of the emergency blanket over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind,” he said. “It’ll reflect more heat like this.”
“For sure.”
Robby shifted closer then, and Dennis tried not to shiver. He wasn’t used to this, this kind of closeness, not now, not ever. He glanced at Robby and regretted it instantly, because the older man was watching him with open curiosity, and it made him feel … he wasn’t sure. Uncomfortable, maybe. Prickly. Hot. Jealous, a little of that was there too. It was a kind of brazenness he’d never been able to muster up. “Uhm,” he said, looking at the fire and nothing but the fire, “How long do we wait?”
“For what?”
“To close.” The other man blinked, his expression tensing a little. “The—“
“Yeah, I got it.” Robby eyed the bandages in the light of the fire. “Forty-eight hours minimum to let the muscle decompress. We caught it early, so there’s a good chance it could close on its own with stitches.”
Dennis nodded. “So until then …”
“We monitor for signs of infection. We …” His expression soured. “I. You get going wherever it is you’re going. You helped, and you did good, really, but this is my issue to deal with now.”
Dennis took a sharp breath in, and when he let it out, the truth tumbled out with it. “I’m … not really going anywhere. So.” This was met with questioning silence on Robby’s end that Dennis couldn’t help but fill. “I was … when everything …” It was hard to say, yet easy to put into words. “I, I don’t know where my family is. My parents weren’t at home. When I … finally got there.” He paused. It had been an ugly moment. He’s spent so, so long getting from his university back to Broken Bow. When he’d finally reached the long driveway of his parents farmhouse, his ankle had been twisted, his feet riddled with blisters, his throat raw from breathing the cold winter air. He’d sat at his dusty dining table and wept into his hands. And then he’d found the note.
“Turns out, my folks evacuated. Maybe a month into the outbreak.” He shrugged. “They were supposed to be here. But … I mean, I feel like I’ve spent the past week turning Chicago upside down.” He pulled his knees to his chest, and his voice came out small. “You’re the only person I’ve seen. Aside from the … you know. The sick people.”
There was a long pause, and then Robby spoke. “They’re in Pittsburgh.”
Dennis turned to him, frowning. “What?”
Robby shrugged. “From what I heard, Chicago held out through the winter, but they had a small outbreak in the spring. Everyone ended up evacuating to Pittsburgh.”
Dennis blinked once, twice, three times at this. “Pittsburgh.” He hadn't even considered that they’d moved to another evacuation zone. “Who’d you hear that from?”
A small smile had worked its way across Robby’s face while he watched Dennis process; it fled now as quickly as it had come. “I’ve got a friend. She … we used to keep in contact on the radio. But I haven’t heard from her in weeks, and I …” He heaved a long sigh, shook his head, like he was trying to clear a persistent thought. “Let’s just say I ran into my own dead end a couple weeks back. So I’m headed home.”
It took Dennis a moment to understand. “Pittsburgh is home for you.”
“That’s right.” A little smile played at the corner of Robby’s mouth, and then was gone just as quickly. Dennis didn’t want to ask, but he did anyway.
“That was an outbreak center, I remember.” This garnered no response at all, not even a twitch of the face. “You must have seen some of the first infected people in the States.”
Robby turned toward Dennis. The fire lit the side of his face up the orange of an ebbing sunset, and in its flickering shadows Dennis could not for the life of him make out a coherent expression. “Do you actually want to talk about that?” His voice was so low that it was devoid of intonation.
“It … doesn’t seem like you do,” Dennis murmured.
“Good call.” They sat in silence for a while. It was when Dennis felt himself starting to nod off that he realized Robby, still a stranger despite their shared exploits today, inexplicably felt safe to him. He wasn’t afraid of what he’d do when Dennis was asleep. The only thing he was afraid of regarding the man beside him was that when Dennis woke up, he’d be septic, or worse, that he’d be gone, and that Dennis would be alone again. He wanted Robby here. It was a rash conclusion, but he didn’t even feel the need to second guess it. Dennis came to a decision.
“Binky can take two riders.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Robby turn toward him again, but he kept his eyes forward. “Let me help with your arm. I’ll get you back home. Since we’re going the same way.”
Robby, for once, seemed lost for words. “Oh,” he said, then, “Whittaker, I … thank you. I don’t know … how to thank you.”
“I do,” Dennis said before he’d properly thought out what he wanted to propose. Robby raised an eyebrow. Dennis floundered for a second, looking at him, unable to look at him, his face too hot from the fire. “I …” He cleared his throat. “I still want to be a doctor. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. And I’d …”
Robby takes a deep breath in. “Whittaker–”
“I’d be in the first year of my residency by now, if everything hadn’t … if it had gone to plan.” There’s a begging edge to Dennis’ voice that he hates, but he can’t force it out when he turns to look at Robby, imploring him. “But I need–”
Robby held up a hand, and Dennis stopped. “I’m not the person that you want to ask that of,” he said. “I’m not … I haven’t really practiced medicine in two years, and I’m–”
“No one has, though.” Robby shook his head, not meeting Dennis’ gaze. “Listen, I can pull my weight here. I’m a decent shot, I can skin a rabbit, I–”
“Whittaker, I haven’t saved anyone. In two years.” Robby’s voice cracked slightly on the last word, and he sucked in a breath, then let it out. “Sorry. Just … I’m not … who you want.”
Dennis shrugged, helpless. “You’re who I’ve got.” Robby’s face shifted in some subtle yet pervasive way. “It was about a month from here to Pennsylvania on foot last time I walked it. We can make it on horseback in about half that, give or take a few days. If you’ll agree to be my attending physician, I’ll take you. Final offer.”
For a long time, Dennis watched Robby turn the numbers in his head. Whoever was waiting for him in Pittsburgh was lucky, he thought, that Robby cared about her like this, that he’d consider Dennis’ half baked offer this genuinely. His stomach sunk a little at the idea– it was probably a girlfriend, or something like that. That was fine. He didn’t expect– he didn’t even know, really. He was an idiot. Dennis considered these points as Robby let out a long breath, signally the end of his train of thought.
“Okay.”
Dennis tried to school his expression, but felt a giddy grin break across his face despite it. “Really?”
Robby nodded slowly. “Whatever being an attending physician looks like now, I will do it until we part ways.” Dennis was treated to another rare smile, and his stomach did something funny in response. It lingered this time as Robby eyed him. “I think you’ve … well, you did a decent fasciotomy today, Whittaker, in far less than ideal circumstances.” He clapped his good hand onto Dennis’ shoulder, jolting his whole body. “Keep that up, and we’ll see.”
He felt elated. He felt like he was floating off the ground. “I don’t know what to say.” Robby shrugged. “Thank you. Really.”
“Don’t thank me just yet.” He intoned it like a joke, but like much of what he said, there was a fragile underbelly to it. “It’s still a long way home.”
That hung in the air for both of them to consider as the last of the light left the sky. It should have felt heavier to Dennis, more ominous. But he couldn’t feel anything but warm with Robby’s hand lingering on his shoulder.