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It's not that Dennis just … goes right back to being the little boy who was so taken with his two grownup men who loved him so much.
It's different, now. Of course it is. He's an adult, now. So much time has passed. He's grown up, and in a lot of ways, so have they. He's a whole person with wants and desires and dreams and hopes and fears, beyond just - want food, don't want nap, scared of the dark.
So it's not like it was.
It's better.
Dennis suddenly has the warmth and the light that he thought was just a bygone memory. He has it back. He has it back, and more. Because hell, they sure don't make a secret out of how much they want him. If anything, he's the one who has to remind them - maybe we shouldn't be making out at work? Maybe you should take your hand off my ass?
Neither man seems to have any qualms about people knowing they've claimed him as their own. Dennis thought there would be more … caution. After all, he's half their age. Other people don't know that these men raised him for a good few years, but, they can certainly see that he's young.
At first, it's a little embarrassing. He gets comment after comment - sugar baby, unicorn, just something to spice up an old marriage. They're never meant with any real malice, or even seriousness, he thinks, but. It embeds itself in his mind. The idea that he's temporary. That Robby and Jack are their own complete unit, without him, and they don't need him. They might want to fuck him for a while, and then - discard him.
Like last time.
It's not a rational thought, he knows this. But it reoccurs anyway. Over and over.
He's pressed between the two of them, Jack moaning into Robby's mouth over his shoulder, when the thought of it chimes discordant in his chest. He could just as well not be here. One day, he might not be.
He wriggles out of their grip, expects them to keep kissing. Maybe not notice that he's taken himself out of the equation. But they break apart immediately, lips swollen.
"Kid?" Robby asks, frowning. "Where're you going?"
He's sitting, just off to the side, with his knees up to his chest. He feels fucking - small. He hates feeling like this. It's bullshit. It's such bullshit.
"I just - it's fine, you guys keep - "
Jack scowls. Outright scowls, and drags Dennis back by a wrist so that some part of him is touching something of theirs, even in the smallest way.
"Don't make me have to force it out of you, Den," he threatens, voice low and rumbling.
He swallows.
"What happens when you decide you've had enough of me?" he asks finally. He's proud, that his voice comes out strong. Not wobbling. He might feel small, but, damn it, he's an adult, and he can face up to this.
Their faces are like mirrors of one another. Pure shock, and then hurt.
"Why the hell would you think we'll ever have enough of you?" Robby asks, and he seems so genuinely taken aback that Dennis wonders for a second if he's made this all up.
"Because we left him once," Jack answers for him, quiet. Too quiet. "That's right, isn't it, little one? You're scared we're going to just disappear again on you."
He can only nod. It's embarrassing. The fears of a fucking five year old, in his adult body. He thought he was past this. The deep-rooted fear that he's doing something wrong. That he's not good enough. The desperation that - if he's just a good enough boy, obedient and charming, then people will stay.
Robby runs a hand over his face, and makes a small sound that could be either exasperation or sorrow or anything in between.
"Baby," he murmurs, pulling Dennis back between them, into his lap. "We're not going anywhere, okay? We found you again, and fuck, I'm not letting you go this time."
The words are like slipping into a warm bath. Like pure comfort. He winds his arms around Robby's neck, just the way he used to do when he was little, demanding cuddles and comfort.
"I don't wanna be the experiment of your marriage," he mutters.
Jack snorts.
"Oh, kiddo, we've been married twenty years, and never once looked at anyone else. You're not an experiment. You're our boy," he says firmly, and Dennis shudders. He'd gone soft, but now, he can feel arousal between his legs again.
They must get the message, after that, that he needs the reassurance, because there's a lot more claiming. Robby lays him out on the bed and covers his entire body, every inch of creamy white skin, with purpling bruises, sucking and nipping with his teeth.
"My sweet baby boy," he murmurs between hickeys. "Not nearly as ticklish as you used to be."
Dennis is squirming nonetheless.
"F-feels fucking - good," he moans. "Being tickled doesn't."
If Jack were here, he knows the man would scrape featherlight fingernails across his sides just for fun, but Robby sucks a deep mark into his collarbone instead and grinds his hips down to brush their cocks together.
"Language, kid," he laughs softly. "Don't make me tell Daddy you need punishing."
Jack had dug out old faded photos they had somewhere in a shoebox, of the two men, decades younger, with little Dennis. There are dozens of them. Dennis leafs through them like they're precious as gold, his chest tight.
There's him grinning up into the camera, missing a front tooth, and showing the photographer his toy dinosaur.
"You were so obsessed with that thing," Jack says fondly, kissing the back of Dennis' neck. "Slept with it for a week before Caroline said no more."
Dennis laughs.
There's another, of a young Dennis sitting in Robby's lap, playing with his stethoscope. He blushes, deep, but can't stop staring.
"Mm," Jack hums. "You were so fucking cute. Still are."
Dennis isn't looking at himself. (Well, he is, he was cute.) But really, he's looking at young Robby.
"He was so hot," he blurts out. "Oh my god."
Jack bursts out laughing.
"Yeah, he sure fucking was. Sometimes, I'd see him with you, holding your little hand down the street, or going down that fuckass plastic slide that was too small for my ass with you between his legs," Jack reminisces, fond. "And I'd think - if only I could knock that man up."
Dennis chokes.
"S'okay," Jack goes on, purring into his ear. "Ended up having a baby boy with him anyway."
Gradually, Dennis' fear that the two of them could just walk back out of his life subsides. It's never entirely gone, but they move him in after a few months, and then he has them on tap, constant.
They tuck him into bed, usually little spoon to whoever's at home that night. Sometimes, Robby will sing him to sleep, those old melodies that float through his mind. He'll wake up in the middle of the night, and Jack will have a hand around his cock, rutting against his ass.
"D'dy?" he'll murmur, bleary and half-asleep still.
"Go back to sleep, little one," Jack purrs, curled around his body and sending lazy hot pleasure through him. "Just need to feel my baby's cock for a bit."
So it takes him by surprise, a nasty shock, when Robby announces he needs a sabbatical. Three whole fucking months away from them.
"Why?" he cries, unable to hold it back.
Jack doesn't seem any more pleased.
"Come on, man," he tries to reason. "I get you need some time off from work, I'm all for that. But. Don't leave us here."
Robby can't be budged.
"I need some me time," he tells them. Dennis' chest gets so tight he can barely breathe. "I'm not leaving anyone, okay? Kid? Look at me. I am not leaving you."
It sure as hell feels like he is.
He overhears Jack and Robby arguing a few days before Robby is set to leave.
"Fuck's sake, Michael, baby boy needs us both," Jack is snapping. "He'll suffer, you know he will."
He hears Robby sigh, deeply.
"Jack," he says, weary. "I just - the hospital is squeezing the fucking life out of me. And I love you, both, but I need - I need to get away. You'll take care of him. You're so good with him."
Jack mutters something he can't make out, and the argument ends.
The day Robby leaves on the stupid fucking motorcycle, Dennis almost doesn't say goodbye. He sits in the house like a petulant fucking child, refusing to do it.
In the end, it's the sound of the engine rumbling to life that gets him, and the memory of being tiny, and not knowing where his Dads went, and not being able to say goodbye.
He sprints out the door, desperate to make it in time, and throws himself at Robby, who's seated on the bike, about to put on his helmet.
"Please come back," he pleads, face buried in Robby's neck. "Please."
Robby strokes his fingers through Dennis' hair softly. That sensation has never changed. Always the same.
"I promise," he murmurs, pressing a kiss into Dennis' curls. "And we'll text, and call. Be good for your Dad, mm?"
He is. Good, that is. He never lets Jack see him crying into his pillow, feeling the most pathetic excuse for a man there ever was. Not only does he crave, need, rely on two men twice his age to … to take care of him, but he can't handle a few months away from one.
He's increasingly humiliated by it. The empty, hollow feeling in his chest. He stops calling Jack Daddy. He stops seeking out affection, and comfort. They still fuck. He still needs that. But Dennis doesn't cry and whine when Jack calls him little one anymore. He does his best to take some control. That's what adults do. That's what men do.
He rides Jack, and ignores every attempt at daddy's here and baby boy.
Eventually, Jack gets the message. He stops, too.
They're both entirely miserable.
A month and a half into Robby's trip, he calls. It's not nearly the first time - he calls at least once a week. But this time, he calls Jack.
"Not great, brother," Dennis can hear Jack saying. He thinks Dennis is asleep on the sofa. He's not. "He's suffering. Like I told you he would."
Dennis curls a tiny bit closer in on himself.
Jack sighs, and he sounds a little broken.
"I don't know, man. It's like he just - doesn't want it anymore. M'not Daddy anymore. He doesn't want me babying him. Is this what it's like, your kid outgrowing you?" he laughs, mirthless and bitter.
There's a long pause, and Dennis could not feel any more miserable.
"We both miss you, Rob. I hope you're - getting whatever it is you need out there."
Another pause.
"No, I'm not trying to make you feel fucking guilty. I just - "
And then he's moving toward Dennis, with the phone. He squeezes his eyes shut, fast, pretending again to sleep.
Jack must be holding the phone out to view him, camera on, because he's hissing very quietly -
"Look at him. This is me making you feel guilty. You left our boy. You knew when we started this, he'd need us. We talked about this. I know it's not a normal fucking relationship, but we're not fucking normal. Get your ass home and fix our son."
Dennis' heart thumps in his chest. He doesn't dare move a muscle.
Son.
Jack's voice becomes more distant, and he's clearly walked away, leaving Dennis free to breathe again.
"... Yeah, I love you too."
When Dennis wakes from actual sleep the next morning, in their bed, Robby is sitting at the end of it, watching him.
His breath catches in his throat.
"You - "
"Came home, kiddo."
Dennis thinks he might still be dreaming. That would be a cruel dream.
"I don't know why I thought what I needed was out there," Robby says quietly. He's being cautious. Careful. Not coming too close to Dennis. "When I have a husband and a perfect little boy right here."
Dennis feels his eyes prickle, and that's how he knows it's not a dream.
He throws himself at Robby, crawling into his lap desperately and kissing him so hard they both topple.
"Stupid, fucking stupid, don't ever do it again," he demands, pressing up so close against the man that it's like he's trying to fuse them together.
"Promise," Robby murmurs.
When Dennis looks up, Jack is leaning in the doorway, arms crossed. He looks … just like the man Dennis remembers from his childhood.
"Don't worry, baby," he says. "We'll chain him to the bed."