Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dennis’ knee vibrates his backpack that rests against his shins in the dirty pick-up truck, Michael's warm and large hand covers his thigh. His thumb rubs soft circles on the inside, silently trying to comfort the younger man. It's too early in the morning to make conversation, and Dennis' anxieties are much higher than normal.

This isn’t like his normal rotations. This is the rotation that has been his biggest fear. Not only is everything so stressful but it is the rotation where he and Michael have to pretend to not know each other, and more.

His ring burns on his neck, the first time in so many months of wearing it nonstop.

Dennis moves his hand to be placed on Michael's, his hand looks so much smaller on top of his husband's. His naked ring finger glares up at him.

Michael's deep voice cuts the silence of the early morning drive, “Baby what’s on your mind.”

The blonde glances up at Michael. He realizes that he’s been chewing on the sleeve of the elder man’s jacket, a small imprint of his teeth and slightly wet spot on the left sleeve stares back at him.

I didn’t realize how stressed I was…

“Do you promise it won’t make things harder for you I know that today is also the anniversary of-”

Michael interrupts him before he can complete his thought. “Denny I told you, whatever makes you most comfortable today. I know you don’t want to make it more complicated than it needs to be.”

Dennis nods, still worrying his lip between his teeth. “And I'm sorry about your jacket.”

Michael barks a laugh, his eyes wrinkle as he tries to not squint his eyes.

“In my mind you just made it even better to wear it today.”

The blonde boy smiles, his cheeks grow hot. He’s thinking about his Michael thumbing this very spot with his own thumb while watching Dennis work a case. Or maybe he feels the cool spot glide up his arm while pushing his sleeves up to work. A reminder warmer than the matching ring on Michael's own silver chain around his neck. The only thing that sticks out of both of their scrubs. A silver chain that won't be visible if Michael wears this hoodie.

The truck rolls to a stop in the ER parking lot - they are in the patient lot. Least likely for someone to be aware of the vehicle that a new intern steps out of, especially so early in the morning. The sun is coming up, making the lot bathed in a light orange. Dennis glances at clock in the truck.

6:38

A lot earlier than Dennis is supposed to be here, but Michael needed time to park the car and walk in.

“I love you baby.” Michael tells him. “Today is going to be as normal of a day that there can be in the Pitt.”

Dennis leans over the center console to give the older man a light kiss, his stubble tickles Dennis cheeks and he smiles. His words calm his anxieties, just a little, enough for him to take a deep breath and unzip the hoodie as he sits up from the kiss. He shrugs out of the sleeves just revealing his bare arms, goosebumps pimple over his skin.

Michael's just continues to smile at him the way he always does, his eyes warm.

The blonde boy leans over and grabs his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He goes to open the door but it clicks locked before he can jiggle the handle.

“Michael!” Dennis huffs in faux annoyance.

The older man clears his throat, “I said - I love you baby.” Dennis can hear the taunt on his words.

“Oh honey,” Dennis twists in the passenger chair quickly and gives him another brief smooch. “I love you too.”

And then he dashes out of the car, too anxious to sit still. He needs to rip the bandaid off.

As Dennis quickly walks his way out of the parking lot - parked a bit away from any of the entrances. Not a very romantic drop off but Dennis asked for it. He didn't want to risk one of the night nurses leaving Michaels- no Robby's car, he needs to remember to call him Robby today.

Deep breath in Dennis, this is easy. Just another rotation.

---

Once Dennis heard that they’re going to ‘round his hands started to sweat again. He has to act normal. Can’t be awkward and can’t call him Michael.

They walk to the center of the ER like a good little row of ducklings following Doctor Mckay.

“As you can see, we have some new faces with us this morning.” The all too familiar gravelly voice calls out. “Good morning, good morning. Come on over.”

They circle around Michae-Robby, as he introduces the blonde next to him - Dr. Melissa King, or as she adds “Everyone calls me Mel. So happy to be here.”

“Trinity Santos, intern.” The woman to the far left of Dennis calls out after.

“Victoria Javadi, MS3.” Ah Dennis thought he recognized her, she's the young med student a year under him that he’s heard a lot about. And she’s not looking at Dennis.

Oh shit I have to introduce myself as well.

“Dennis Whitaker, MS4.” Sometimes he wishes he could say Whitaker-Robinavitch but they’ve talked about it. The blonde can’t help how he stares at Robby in their hoodie, the one they share.

Robby keeps introducing everyone, and Dennis pays half attention. He knows what he’s saying, he’s heard it a million times in different contexts. He knows his husband's new students/interns speech.

--

“Dr. Robby, she uh, took a fall.” Dennis says as he escorts Victoria to their attending - not husband.

“No, I--” the girl stutters, “I tripped on the gurney. I’m fine.”

Michael glances at Dennis, watching him shake his head in disagreement. Dennis tells him as much as he can wordlessly that ‘No, she’s not okay. It was gross.’

He nods back to Dennis, telling him he understands as he looks back at this kid in front of him. “Why don’t you go get a cold drink in the staff lounge.” The take care of yourself is silent but his intentions are clear.

At least to Dennis, but the girl defends herself and Robby bites back at her with a simple sarcastic comment to brush her off and she walks away frustrated. He can’t imagine the ruthless eye roll she gave the older man.

Dennis fidgets for a few seconds, not sure if he wants to say anything but he gets pulled away by a nurse.

Chapter Text

Fuck.

Dennis yelps out in pain.

They just dropped the elderly patient in V Fib on his hand.

Robby turns to him out of instinct as he cries out in pain, and Dennis can see how bad Michael is wanting to stop everything and make sure that the younger man is okay. How badly his attentive and sweet husband is wanting to make sure that nothing serious happened. Yet instead Robby the attending has to turn away from the other man as he routes the wires around the patient and tells Dennis to ‘Take and break and ice the finger’.

Dennis watches as they discuss what to do and Robby moves to leave as they make a game plan. He steps around Dennis and he feels the stress radiating off of his husband.

Michael came back at the same time Dana announced that the patient has a DNR. Langdon complains and Mohan turns off the LUCAS.

Michael- Fuck Robby- stops the high strung senior resident. Dennis has heard a lot about him, how much he craves the rush of multiple cases, how Robby sees a lot of himself in the other man. How he thinks him and Dennis will get along after they’re properly introduced.

“One of the things we do here is to take a moment of silence when we lose a patient, to respect their humanity and also remember that this was somebody’s child, or sibling,” Robby finally looks into Dennis eyes and he can tell how hard today is on the other man. He so badly wants to pull them aside and stop time just for a second to make sure they are both okay but they can’t, it’s the ER, this is what they signed up for.

Dennis bows his head and sends a prayer off to a God he still isn’t sure about where he stands with them, and he prays for this soul's swift and safe passage on wards.

“I like the sound of funky music-”

Fuck my alarm. His morning alarm. That he forgot to turn off. Because usually he doesn’t have a rotation this early in the morning.

He fumbles his phone out and his finger pulses in pain as he stumbles and silences it while apologizing.

Michael smirks at Dennis, his look is slightly irritated but still fond of the other man as he tells him to leave it on vibrate while he’s working.

Dennis draws in on himself for a moment of embarrassment while everyone else leaves.

--

The first time he and Robby get a chance to chat is in the enclosed but fully windowed room of a patient bay. Everyone sees them and yet the older man can’t help himself but redirect the blonde into standing in front of him. The warm touch on his shoulder is the most comforting thing he's felt in the past hour.

“Got something?” He gestures down to the notepad. His eyebrow raised.

Dennis smiles and tries to avoid eye contact. He’s worried that he’ll mess something up by looking Robby in the eyes.

Like giving him the hug they both need.

“Oh, I had a case for Dr. Collins.”

“May I see it?” his husband asks in a much softer tone than he’s used in the ER so far, and of course without hesitation Dennis agrees and hands over his little notepad. He starts listing off the patient's symptoms and tests done or scheduled. Michael nods along, the scenario is much too similar to all the times Michael has helped him with studying or patient exam quizzes.

Michael questions the EKG and the blond informs that it was the nurse's idea.

Michael- Fuck! Robby!- smiles at him. “Doing as I told you to do, always listen to the nurse's baby.”

Dennis looks around, worried someone may have heard Robby call him baby. But no one is here and no one is paying attention. Dennis gives Michael a soft smile as he turns to run to another patient, he doesn’t want to stay still yet, he can't.

He hears Robby ask him about his finger but gets stopped by Perlah, his questioning of his husband has been delayed just a bit more.

Dennis finally manages to scamper away, much too nervous to be around his husband in the ER - for now.

--

“I need a little help here!” Dennis cries out as he moves Mr. Milton's bed into the laying down position. “Help!”

He starts compression as one of the nurses rounds the corner - he isn’t sure who it is. Not one of the ones he’s a bit more familiar with. He’s asking Dennis questions and he’s answering them as well as he can but he’s panicking.

He just checked on Mr. Milton. Why isn’t he fine?

His saving grace comes around. Michael will fix this.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s-” Dennis is already out of breath doing compressions, he’s just started. “It’s my gallstone guy. You saw his EKGs.”

Michael nods, orders a crash cart and they move over to a room with a monitor. The nurses are setting up Mr. Milton and all Dennis can do is do more compression. Up and down. Put pressure. Make sure the timing is correct.

They do the first shock and no heart beat picks up.

Dennis jumps back to compression. They’re too fast but he can’t tell, not with how hard his heart is beating.

“Slower, slower tempo, slower tempo.” Michael. Thank you. Dennis' tempo slows down. He has control of his speed again. Michael is taking care of this.

They are all talking, Michael and the nurses. Checking his pupils and discussing how long he’s been down.

Oh god, Dennis thinks, I should have checked on him sooner. This is my fault. He’s been out for too long. I have to fix this.

“We switch out every few minutes. You can take a break” The same nurse that first came to help him says. Dennis knows he should let him take over. But he has to do this. If he isn’t doing compressions that means he’s given up. And he can’t give up. Not when Michael is there. Not when they’ve both put in so much effort for Dennis to be where he is.

“Hold compressions,” What Michael says Dennis does. He holds. The flat line drones, Mel mentions that he’s still in asystole. “Resume compressions.”

Dennis looks around, everyone has the same dejected look on their faces. They just don’t have hope.

“Should we shock him?” He questions, every compression causes his arms to ache.

“You don’t shock asystole"

“It could be v-fib.”

“Not a chance.” Michael, why would you say that. You are supposed to be on my side.

Dennis keeps trying to think of ways that they could keep this up. When was his last epi? Only three minutes ago? Give him another, it's only the first round.

Doctor Robby - his Michael - gives the okay to keep trying so he does. Michael gave him a long as he says- “Three rounds of epi and then call it.”

His lack of faith in me is depressing.

He isn’t sure how long he’s been, they’ve done two of the three rounds of epi. He knows there hasn’t been any progress. He’s throwing out ideas of calcium, could be hyperkalemia.

“Ready to call this?” It’s Langdon.

“No! Doctor Robby said to do three rounds of epi. It’s time for the third.” God Dennis is sweaty. And he hurts.

They push the third round. It's the last round.

He does the compressions even harder. Oh god.

“Oh shit, I think I just broke some ribs.”

Someone mentions that means he’s doing it right. Okay, good. Does that mean he was doing it wrong for the past however long?

Langdon leaves.

He keeps up with compression.

Michael comes back, Dennis is so pulled into his compression he can barely register what his husband is saying. He needs to pay attention to him.

Dennis is back, he hears Trinity mention it could be tamponade.

“None seen on ultrasound.” He bites back at her.

“This is a teaching hospital.”

Michael bites back. “Not a cadaver lab.”

Trinity scoffs, “What do you call this?”

Mel asks him if he needs a break, he tells her he’s fine.

Michael finally gives more directions, “Hold compressions.”

Flat lines again. Mr. Milton. You were supposed to fight with me.

“Okay Whitaker.” Dennis can hear the disappointment and concern in Dr. Robby's voice. “I think that’s enough.”

He begs for one more minute and Michael lets him have it. He glances at his watch and lets him have his minute.

Up and down.

Up and down.

Up and down.

God Dennis is sweaty. What if Michael thinks this is unattractive? You fucking idiot, who cares about that. You killed a man. You should have checked on him sooner. Should have done compressions better. Should have, should have, should have.

“Ok, that’s it. Hold Compressions.” Dennis stops, and Mr. Milton's heart monitor stops for the last time.

Dennis is shaking. He is wound up and emotional. The nurse -he really needs to learn his name- covers Mr. Milton with a sheet.

Michael tells the others to go check on their other patients, that they will meet back up in a minute and debrief with Kiara. The rest leave. Dennis stays, and so does Michael.

The older man looks around for a second and then slides the curtain closed. He steps closer to the sweaty and tired boy that is Dennis Whitaker-Robinavitch.

“I- he was my first patient to die Michael.” Michael, with how high strung he undoubtedly is, still comes to his husband's rescue. He strides forward into his space, all he can see is their hoodie, and the chain around his neck and he can see his breath. His chest moves up and down.

Up and down.

Up and down.

Up and down.

Dennis doesn’t know when he collapsed into Michael but he knows that his large and warm arms are wrapped around him. He’s rubbing his back and rocking him back and forth. Whispering into his ear that he did the best he could. This is his husband now. Not the colder attending Dr. Robby. This is his Michael who has held him on some of his worst nights.

“Fuck I’m sorry baby, go to the bathroom. Splash some water on your face. Then be back here in five for a debrief, okay?” Michael holds his face while he lays out what he suggests - but it's not really a suggestion. Dennis would do anything that Michael asks of him. He is pretty sweaty. He can feel it cooling on his skin and he is already overwhelmed.

He nods his head.

That sounds like a good idea. Just a quick break. Wash off some of the sweat and nonliteral blood of Mr. Milton.

Chapter Text

Dennis is still shaky, but at least he’s no longer as sweaty, nor as stuck in his mind. Michael was right to tell him to take a breather and recalibrate.

“We checked for reversible causes of cardiac arrest on ultrasound.” Dr. King rattles about the positives of the case, but all Dennis can do is stare at Mr. Milton's body and think about the life that he is leaving behind. Think about the wife and family, thinks that-

“Does anybody have anything that they wish had gone differently?” Robby asks.

Fucking of course I do, I wish my patient didn’t die on me.

But instead Dennis gives a responsible answer, the correct answer.

“In the hall, he should have been on a cardiac monitor.” That at least would have screamed when he went down. Would have alerted the Pitt that they all had to do their jobs and save a life. “We would have caught the arrested right away.”

Robby - or is it Michael, with the way he is gazing at Dennis- refutes the younger man's take immediately. Tell him there was no indication or reason for them to monitor him when he only complained about abdominal pain, there was no reason to assume he was having heart issues.

“And we now know that his abdominal pain was not from his gallstones but from unstable angina due to coronary artery disease.”

Dennis grimaces, another example where he failed as a Doctor. “Then I should have admitted him to cardiology.”

He stares up at Robby, he dares the attending to admit Dennis’ fault here. Craves for him to indeed tell him he failed. Because he did.

Instead, he gets a rebuttal. “We did an EKG. We did a troponin. He had a heartscore of three.” The older man shrugs, as if it that is irrefutable evidence that Dennis didn’t fuck this up. “Who can tell me what that means?”

Dennis knows that Michael wants his husband to respond, for Dennis to agree with Robby that this is not his own fault. Instead it's Dr. Langdon, Robby's closest resident who is soon applying to be a senior resident.

“Means 1% chance of an adverse cardiac event in the next 30 days.”

“Standard of care is to discharge with outpatient follow-up.”

“He was your patient, Dr. Whitaker” The way Michael says ‘Whitaker’ grinds Dennis’ gears at the moment. It doesn’t fall out of his mouth the same way all his other names have. It feels wrong and he doesn't like it. “Would you like to say something before we all take a brief moment of silent reflection?”

Dennis stumbles over his words for a second, taken off guard by what Robby is offering him. “He liked Kentucky bourbon, uh.”

Michael chuckles, “Good, good, me too. Anything else?”

Dennis panics, is he supposed to know more? “I- I don’t know. I just met him. He seemed nice, uh- he was married…” His fingers rub the naked spot on his ring finger. What would he do if Michael had a heart attack, if Michael randomly died in a hallway. He feels unmoored and back into the anxiety ball pit that he was just a few minutes ago. “Um, that’s it. That’s all I got. I--”

Mel. Wonderful delightful Melissa King claps, her face looks immediately shameful the second her palms meet each other but she doesn’t say anything. Only cradles her hands towards her face.

“I spoke with his wife. She’s on her way here.” Kiara interrupts this depression fest. “If anyone needs to talk about this some more, I’m available.”

Michael draws them in, tells him to collect good thoughts for Mr. Milton and take a moment of silence to reflect.

Dennis prays.

This is the second time he’s bowed his head and prayed today, more times than he has in the past few years, especially since he and Michael have been married.

A few seconds pass and they sit in remembrance before Robby speaks up, tells them to go save some lives and everyone quickly fly out of the room, all having more important things to do than stand and dwell over one lost life in the ER.

It’s an eerily similar experience to right after Mr. Milton died just a few minutes ago when everyone left the bay for a few moments. When Michael pulled the curtain closed on both of them and embraced Dennis. Held him together when he was about to fall apart. Kept his pieces together.

“Hey, Whitaker.” Dennis quickly tries to check around them. Make sure everyone is leaving, make sure there is nothing super urgent either of them need to get to. He glances back up at Michael and he’s scratching his beard, the same way he normally does before he reaches out to touch his hair, or hold his neck, or grab his hand, but he keeps his hands to himself. “How are you feeling about this?”

Is he referring to Mr. Milton? Is he talking about them having to pretend to not know each other? Is it about both of their dwindling psyches taking punch after punch today, even with the amount of preplanning for what was in store for today.

“I don’t know Michael,” Dennis says quietly, or enough that he doesn’t worry about others overhearing. “About Milton, horrible. I was talking to him in the hall and now he's dead. It’s…”

Dennis is at a loss of words of how complicated that makes him feel, but Michael has known how to read his own emotions, sometimes even better than Dennis knows his own mind. “It's the hardest way to lose a patient. It always hurts.”

“Esspecially when it’s your fault.” He can’t help but say what has been plaguing his mind since the moment they called it. Since the moment in the debrief when Robby acknowledges what could have gone better. Hell, maybe even since the moment he found Mr. Milton in the hallway unresponsive.

Michael shakes his head quickly in response. “No. This is not your fault. This is nobody’s fault. Get that out of your head. No doctor on the planet could have caught this, I-” he stresses the ‘I’- “could not have caught this. It sucks Denny, but today was Milton's day to leave this mortal coil.”

“150,000 people die everyday in the world, and you got one of them. But you learn to live with it, you learn to accept as much as you would your own mortality in it and find balance where you can.”

Dennis can’t help but roll his eyes, he knows that Michael hasn’t found that balance. Knows how hard losing patients is on him. Knows how much he has heard this conversation before.

“Cut the crap Michael, I know you don’t have that balance.” He can’t help but be short with him.

The eyebrow raise that the older man gives him sends chills down his spine. He sees the decision making that Michael makes as he raises his hand, sees the glances around who is looking and then the blatant disregard for caring. He lays his hand on Dennis’ shoulder and he can feel his whole body relax under his touch.

“You didn’t do anything wrong Denny,” His palm rubs up and down his arm, gently calming him down. “Just hang in there okay?”

Dennis nods, verbally agrees and starts to lean in for a brief kiss before Mich-Robby steps back.

Right. The Pitt. Full of coworkers. Yup.

Fuck.

Dennis tries to step away from Robby. Get away from what his body is screaming for.

But instead all he does is step even more into the other man's space.

They bumble around each other, trying to avoid touching the other man the way both of their flesh screams for each other's embrace. A simple hand on the shoulder or back is not enough for either of them.

Instead they walk away from each other, their short moment together at Milton's deathbed over with.

--

Dennis is staring at Robby- or he is staring at the board- it depends on who is asking.

Michael is across the Pitt from him, he chats to Dana quietly, he sees them glance back at him and he knows that Michael is asking Dana to keep an eye on him. She’s the only who here -well, aside from Myrna, which she has an inkling of the knowledge that Dana has- who knows how important Dennis is to Robby. The only one who is aware of how the past few years have been for Dennis leading up to this moment. Dana was their witness for a reason.

She nods and cracks a joke, the only reason he can tell it's a well placed joke is by the wrinkle that appears in the corner of Michael's eye. He’s become intimately familiar with those wrinkles.

“Hey Fruitcake.” And there's Myrna. Always on her best behavior around them. Dennis ducks to avoid eye contact with her while she’s with Michael. He can only hope that she doesn’t call out to him with ‘Mrs. Fruitcake’ while right next to who she deems Mr. Fruitcake. That is a little too much on the dot for the first day.

He zones out while staring at the google spreadsheet that is their board. He’s nervous, on edge and scared. He’s already fucked up so much of this first day. There is no way that Michael forgives him for this all. No way he’s making a good impression on PTMC.

“Best is to grab one and jump back in.”

He looks up and there's his attending Robby, or his husband Michael. Dennis still doesn’t understand the fine line that Michael has drawn between being his attending and his husband. He isn’t sure on where to draw the line between Denny and Whitaker. But this is Michael looking at him, he can tell by how soft his voice is and how kind his eyes are.

They each walk towards each other, like magnets on the other end of a string till they meet in the middle of the nurses station.

“Mr. Fulton in central 14 just needs a shot of Mylanta for his GERD,” he looks at Dennis with a smirk on his face, aware of the boy's tendency for just the same snack that probably put Mr. Fulton here. “And to avoid eating foods with the words ‘flaming hot’ in their title for at least a few days.”

Dennis nods. This is his attending. He says thanks and tries to slink away, but not before Robby can drop a warm hand on his shoulder, giving him a quick squeeze of reassurance as he walks away.

Chapter Text

Dennis sees Michael run from the pediatrics room, he looks like he would have had his tail tucked between his legs - if he had one. Dennis quickly clears up his chart that he’s working on and closes it before trying to nonchalantly follow the attending to the bathroom. He knows that overworked and stressed out look that his husband is wearing. He has to do something to help, now that he can.

He follows quickly behind him, so quickly that he catches the older man still collapsed against the wall, his head in his hands as he breathes unevenly. In and out in short pants.

Dennis latches the bathroom door locked, just for safety before he speaks up.

“Darlin’” Michaels head wipes out of his hands and his face screams relief at seeing the younger man. “Wanna chat?”

They tried to be prepared for today, the anniversary of Dr. Adamson’s death and the anniversary of their first meeting. Today has always had a weird host of emotions - for both of them. But Michael has always had today off, has always been able to replace the emotion of Dr. Adamson died with the delight of their own anniversary. And now instead they are working, not only that but pretending they don’t know each other for Dennis' benefit. It is always Dennis’ fault.

“No,” Michael, always his caveman. “I just gotta piss.”

Dennis can’t help but chuckle at that. “Well if that’s it then I guess I’ll head back to the floor… Dr. Robby.”

His old man moves much quicker than others would think possible of him. Dennis, in the blink of an eye, finds himself pushed against the tile and with Michael's lips pressed against his in a rough kiss. Dennis can’t help but moan, the relief of Michael on top of him, and the attention his large hands give him. The security of him being boxed against the wall causes him to grow hard in his borrowed scrubs.

Michael leans away from Dennis’ face with a smirk, before he fully steps away and disengages from his husband. “I’m sorry for snapping at you baby. Today is just hard.” He reaches back out to Dennis and tugs him into his chest for a hug, the sensual energy from just a few seconds ago has died and now they are just raw with their hearts out in the open.

“I’m proud of you Michael.” Dennis whispers into his shoulder.

“And I you, Denny.”

—

Across the pit, Dennis see’s Michael take over taking care of the newborn from Dr. Collins and something in Dennis’ chest grows tight.

They haven’t ever talked about kids before… Michael would be such a good father. He would be sweet and attentive. Always on the child's side without being too easy on them. Dennis feels a pang of guilt at the fact that they can’t have their own kids but that’s okay. They’re both Doctors -or soon he will be a Doctor- and it’s hard to start a family with schedules like they have.

He’s pulled from his thoughts from a code happening in another room, he quickly jogs over to the code. Trying to find where he is needed next.

—

“Robby! Can you help us with Mr. Krakozhia?”

“Nope.”

“Coward!” Dana yells back at the ED attending before swinging her head around onto the meek-looking medical student and she smirks. “Hey Whitaker! Just the man we need.”

Dennis makes eye contact with her, nervous about what she may be asking of him. Especially with how quickly Michael turned her down. He questions her on if she's really who he wants, he awkwardly points to himself with confusion and when she nods and gestures to him to come into the group of herself, nurses, and Kiara, he sighs knowing he can’t really say no and that he will probably regret helping afterwards.

He walks into the circle and Dana gives him the lay down of what's going to happen. ‘The Kraken’, or more accurately Mr. Krakazhia, is the psych patient that has been sitting in wait in their psych room for apparently a week. He’s an unhoused man who has been waiting on a bed in the psych ward. What they are preparing to do is hold him down and give him an injection of midazolam.

Dennis nods along with understanding of what he’s needing to do, the others will secure Mr. Krakozhia while he comes in behind for the injection. Or like Donnie said, “Come in right behind us, when we split and go for his legs. You go up right in the middle, endzone baby.”

Donnie held his hand out for a fist bump, and with the nerves of what they’re about to do (and the fact an attractive man that is not his husband called him baby), Dennis awkwardly high-fived his fist.

They all line up at the door, Dennis in the back. He preps the needle, spinning it in his hand so it is positioned correctly behind him.

Dennis takes a deep breath in and nods when Dana asks if they’re all ready.

“One, Two, three!”

They burst into the room, it's a cacophony of sounds and movements. Dana announces their entrance, which does nothing to quell the screams of protest that the Kraken yells out. Each of the nurses got to their spots to hold the man down, but he had other plans. One of his hands was holding his penis and he started urininating on them all, but mainly the one man who was ‘right up in the middle’, covering Dennis with piss.

“What do I do?” Dennis yelps out, trying to keep his head down so he doesn’t get the onslaught of urine from the unhoused man. None of the nurses respond, all too preoccupied with trying to not release the man nor get more of his bodily fluids on them than necessary.

What would Michael do?

Dennis throws himself forward with the needle and injects the Kraken right near his pelvis.

The man immediately calms down, either because he was done urinating or because of the drugs who is to say. But things calm down, Dennis feels disgusting.

“Congrats kid, you just earned your yellow wings.” One of the nurses said to him, Dana chats about the meds kicking in and the fact that we will have to monitor him for 20 minutes.

“Do I really need to be here for 20 minutes?” He asks as Dana takes the empty needle from his raised piss-stained hands.

She turns to him, “Why, got a hot date?”

Dennis’ body goes red - he hopes that the other nurses in the room just assume it's from well… from getting urinated on - not the fact that he does basically have a hot date with the attending every time they meet up.

“I’m kidding, thanks for your help. Now go get cleaned up.”

Dennis breathes a sigh of relief before he realizes he’ll have to go get another set of scrubs.

Dammit. At least I can rinse off real quick in the staff showers.

—

Dennis is trying to take the quickest shower of his life, he and Michael joke about quick showers and how there really is no such thing because if you don’t take time to clean yourself then what’s the point of a shower. But he’s covered in sweat and blood, and worst of all urine, and expected back onto the floor probably a few minutes ago.

He doesn’t waste time queuing up music or making sure the water is a good temperature. All he does is grab more scrubs from the machine, a ratty and horribly rough towel from the rack. He strips off the hospital gown he borrowed and quickly kicks off his boxers and undershirt. His ring that has been resting snugly against his chest between the undershirt now flings free, the golden metal of the ring shines against his pale skin.

Dennis takes a second to roll the ring on his fingers, missing the feeling of it on his hand before he unlatches the necklace (he doesn’t want the chain to tarnish) and lays it delicately on his undershirt. Right next to his notepad and student doctor badge (his badge says Dennis Robinavitch-Whitaker, but no one seems to notice the first part of his name).

The water has been running for a few seconds, hopefully long enough for it to slightly warm up. Dennis steps in and the water is much cooler than he would prefer, but again this is a shower to mainly rinse off bodily fluids.

He takes a second under the spray of the water, just breathing and centering himself. The day has already been insane and it isn’t even noon yet - isn’t even 11 o’clock. He dreads how the rest of the day may go.

Dennis is so enraptured with getting soap all over himself, he didn’t hear the door to the locker room open, nor did he hear the flimsy curtain draw back.

“You know baby, you really need to be more aware of your surroundings.”

“Holy Fuck!” Dennis yelps, his hands flail around as he drops the bar of soap and starts to try and cover himself.

Michael laughs, his crow’s feet crinkle around his eyes with his joy and all of Dennis’ anger at his husband scaring him disappears. He’s so relieved to see him unburdened with the stress of the morning at the moment.

“Fuck Michael, you can’t scare me like that.”

Michael smiles, staring unabashedly up and down Dennis’ naked and wet body. He wets his lips with his tongue and suddenly all Dennis is wanting to do is drag his man into the water and kiss him against the old and grimy tile. He needs to feel his husband's stubble rub against his cheeks as they make out. Needs to feel his large hands running up and down his slick body, he needs to feel his want and desire.

Michael chuckles, “Baby, you better not take care of that.” Dennis is back, he’s no longer fantasizing and is now locked in. He glances down and sees that -Yup- fully hard just thinking about Michael.

“I uh-” Dennis stutters, this is much more than he was anticipating when he decided to rinse off. He really didn’t think that Robby would have the time to follow him here, didn’t even think that Robby would be aware of the whole kraken incident until much later.

“You can’t look at me like that without expecting me to pop one. You know how I am Michael.” Dennis turns around, his back (and ass) now facing the older man as he quickly finishes up his shower, pointedly ignoring his boner. He quickly turns the water to the coldest setting and stands in it for a few seconds. Trying to let the water do the work for him.

“You’re just too pretty, baby and I really want to touch you right now..” Michael trails off, most likely ogling the younger man's ass while he has the chance.

Dennis gives him a little show, he shakes his behind as he leans forward to turn the water completely off.

“Since you’re here, could you hand me my towel?”

“Already got it for you Denny.” The blonde turns back around and indeed Michael did have that ratty towel in his hands, holding it out to him like it's a prized fish. He has a small smile on his face, something that Dennis returns back to him tenfold.

Michael deftly wraps Dennis up in the small and rough towel, but it’s really the thought that counts at the moment, the older man pulls Dennis into his chest and he settles against him with ease. Michael buries his face into Dennis’ damp blonde hair, he breathes in the still sweaty smelling hair on top of his head.Their movements are natural, this is a position they’ve taken plenty of times post shower.

“Aren’t you worried about someone coming in here?”

“Asked Dana to play interception,” Michael speaks into his head, his voice muffled. “She mentioned that she owed it to you for the Kraken.”

“Mhmm.. Dana, always coming to our rescue.” Dennis brings his bare left hand up to Michael's arm that is wrapped around his stomach and rubs circles into his hairy arm. The skin against skin contact is refreshing. Needed.

They rock back and forth for what they both undoubtedly wish is longer than what their jobs provide them. They’re brought out of their bubble by the ancient pager on Michael's hip (something that he usually doesn’t wear, Dennis is assuming that he put it on so he could come in without worrying about missing something out in the Pitt) blaring to life, signaling that the Pitt is needing their attending.

Michael sighs before manhandling Dennis around to face him, Dennis still stands in the locker room butt naked with nothing but the worst possible towel covering his important bits. They smile at each other before Michael steals a kiss from the shorter man, his lips warm on Dennis’ and his beard rubs at his cheeks in a way that Dennis constantly craves.

“I love you baby.” He grabs Dennis’ face and starts to give him feather lite kisses all over his face. “I’m proud of you.” Another kiss. “Keep up the good work okay? Don’t let this day get to you. You are tougher than you know. Just look how far you’ve come.”

“I love you too Michael,” He returns with his own sloppy kiss on the man's beard. He’s too short to reach his cheeks without straining.

He buries his head into Michael’s damp chest and mumbles out his biggest insecurity of the day. “I just want to make you proud.”

“I am already proud of you, Dennis Robinavitch-Whitaker.”

Chapter Text

His face is sticky with blood, he’s trying to not think about the fact that he cut into this patient and his welt essentially exploded on him. Spraying him and the wall in his blood. It is not hygienic at all. Dennis is really trying hard not to think about if any of it touched his eyes, or went into his mouth. Nope. Not thinking about that. Nor the fact that he just showered and won't be able to again, all he can do is wipe off the blood once everything is said and done.

All he needs to do is focus on suturing the incision, pulling the thread tight, nothing complicated here. Just follow Dr. Mohan's directions, she’s a good teacher. She’s a real natural at all of this and Dennis isn’t sure what all of Michael’s complaints of the woman stand on. She’s very steadfast and in her element.

“What did I miss in here,” Robby’s voice is laced with amusement. Walking into the enclosed room with Dennis covered in blood and one of his most talented students instructing his husband.

“Oh I am so sorry- I” Dennis starts to apologize but Dr. Mohan beats him to it.

“Made a good catch and saved Mr. Chazan’s life.” Samira Mohan chimes in.

All three of the men in the room reply with, “Really?”

Michael is in a pleased surprised tone, ready to hear more.

Mr. Chazan looks on in disbelief and surprise.

And Dennis of course with confusion and astonishment at the praise.

Samaria nods and continues explaining, “There was a cut arteriole under-“

Dennis listens to her reasoning, it makes sense sure, and makes sense for why it erupted the way his wound did, but still he feels like he went about it all wrong. He focuses on finishing up the Figure-of-Eight suture, getting it wrapped up and cleaned so Mr. Chazan can be discharged.

“Nice work,” Robby compliments Dennis, his compliment is like honey to Dennis’ ears. “Jackson Polluck here might want to go hit the scrub exchange.” The ‘again’ is silent.

Dennis' face flushes red and he risks a glance at Michael and he sees the other man smirking down at him. He knows what number of scrubs exchange he is on. He already saw him once with his ass out on the floor and then again in the shower. He wouldn’t put it past him from trying to get another glance.

If Dennis didn’t know any better - or that all of these scrub exchanges had been because of his own idiocy - he would be questioning Michael if he has any input on how many times liquids have landed on him today. But he also knows that all Michael would do with that information would be give him another reason to change out of his current scrubs.

—

By the third time that Dennis has to change out of his scrubs he's a pro at it, standing in a hospital gown trying to shy away from the rest of the hospital.

He closes the door on his soiled scrubs, scanning his badge and selecting the options he needs. The machine processes and then dispenses them, he opens the machine and there's blue morgue scrubs.

Fuck.

And he drops the bottoms on the floor.

Double Fuck.

He bends down to grab it, his knees protesting at the action just a bit (Michael would give him grief about his knees hurting at such a young age).

As if the older man doesn’t put me on my knees enough to make up for this groaning.

“I like big butts and I cannot lie-” Is the unfortunately familiar voice of Myrna. One of the few Pitt regulars who knows Dennis. She wheels herself closer to the boy using her legs.

The look on her face is mischievous.

“Myrna, you scared me there.” He stumbles out.

“Need a pony ride Mrs. Fruitcake?”

His face flushes red, as he stutters out in disbelief. “Wh-what?”

Before he or she can say anything, Dana comes to his rescue with a knowing smile on her lips. She deftly and expertly wheels the older lady away from them.

“Don’t mind Myrna, she’s harmless.” The charge nurse says, “You good Dennis?”

“We both know she’s not harmless, and yeah just on my third set of scrubs.” He says, gesturing to the unfortunately blue morgue scrubs in his hands.

Dana chuckles and pats his shoulder before calling out as she walks away, “Go change kid.”

—

After getting changed into the blue morgue scrubs, and getting sufficiently hazed for it by Santos. Dennis notices that Jake is standing in the nurses station chatting to a few of the full time nurses who’ve been here a while. They all know who Jake is and Jake knows who he is.

Of course Jake is here, if Dennis remembers a few phone calls ago that he overheard correctly, Jake and his girlfriend Leah are going to Pittfest instead of himself and Robby (as that was their original plan for this double anniversary day, but his Emergency Medicine rotation started sooner than either of them would have liked). Jake also mentioned that he was wanting to swing by and thank Robby for the passes in person. Both Michael and himself were hoping that Jake would come by with Leah, as they still have not met her, but it doesn’t look like she is here. Unless she’s hiding but Dennis highly doubts that.

He glances around quickly, trying to get a gauge on what the goings on is before he gets to another patient but Jake catches sight of him first.

“Dennis!” The blonde student-doctor in question freezes, like a deer caught in headlights. He’s somewhat frantic to get away so people don’t ask questions but it’s already too late. Jake is waving him down already. Glee in his eyes at seeing his step-step-dad/friend.

The complexities of their relationship is not something Dennis wants to think too hard about. They’re friendly, Dennis genuinely cares about this kid and said kid knows a lot about Dennis’ life. It is what it is.

Dennis takes a deep breath then heads over to the nurses station, putting on as much faux confidence as he can handle in the moment. “Hey Jake, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doin-” He pauses for a second, his teenager brain catching up with the facts that he does know. “Oh yeah, it’s your first ER rotation.”

Dennis nods, willing with his eyes and thoughts that is all the boy says. “Yeah, I uh, you’re looking for Robby right?”

Jake tilts his head a bit, confused at Dennis calling Robby by, well, Robby. He thankfully does not say anything however and just nods.

“Perfect, I’ll uh go find him for you.”

“Wait Dennis!-“ Jake tries to ask the other man a question but he is always very quickly walking away, looking for Robby to tell him about Jake being here now.

As he briskly walks away, he misses the eyebrow raise that Purlah gives him. The older nurse was confused about the familiarity between Robby’s kid and the new MS4, she thinks to herself about how she needs to mention this to Princess.

—

Robby was chatting with Jake before the emergency tonsillectomy assist came in. Both were all smiles while they hugged, Dennis felt a bit like a creeper just watching from around a corner but he couldn’t help himself. He likes watching Michael from afar. Likes watching him interact with his pseudo-step kid.

But when Robby quickly got pulled away by a paramedic yelling for an assist, Dennis straightened up and headed on his way towards them. Robby unnecessarily called for assistance, as he was already just a few steps behind the other man.

Robby and himself walk step by step on the way to Trauma 2 -which is where Robby directs the staff to take the kid- their hands gently graze each other for just a brief second, hopefully unnoticed by the staff surrounding them.

“So, this can go south pretty quickly, you up for it?” Dennis tries to get a protest or a disagreement out but before he really says anything Michaels places both hands on his shoulders. His thumb rubbing circles into his neck and Dennis cannot help himself but lean into it. “Of course you are, Denny”

He whispered the last word into his ear, much quieter than anything that the rest of the emergency department should have been able to hear. And the scene wasn’t suspicious either. It was just an attending comforting a new student who had a patient die on them earlier in the day. Nothing suspicious going on here.

Michael’s large palms stayed on Dennis’ shoulders for way longer than was professional or common courtesy. But neither of them shrank away until they arrived at Trauma 2.

There is a scramble with the Nurses, Robby, and himself to get the kid set up and hooked up. Robby asks Dennis for what tests he thinks they should run and Dennis rattles off what he can think of, Robby only suggests adding one additional test for labs.

Dennis gets up to the kid and can start asking him questions, and asks him about if he’s got any abdominal pain or other common symptoms to keep an eye out for. Robby gets confirmation on the BP and heart rate and then passes a tongue depressor to Dennis, allowing him to make the initial assessment of the boy's tonsils.

“What do you see?” Michael is leaned over Dennis, his lips grazing his hair, much closer than an attending should be.

“No active bleeding, but there’s some white and dark brown stuff where the tonsils used to be.”

Robby says it's good, means it's clotted and that the tranexamic acid is doing what it should be. They both remove their instruments from Tanner’s mouth. Robby questions the kid on where his parents are - a wedding in Baltimore, the kid didn't want to bother them.

Robby shakes his head, “Trust me.” Robby reaches across Tanner and grabs the notepad and pen that Dennis already pulled out when they mentioned parents. “They’re your parents and you are in an emergency room.”

He hands Tanner the notepad and pen and instructs him to write down their numbers and that they will contact them. Michael finally looks at Dennis and gives him his set of instructions.

“Call head and neck, and stay with him until they get here okay?” Dennis nods and then Robby is on his way, always moving in his department. An unstoppable storm.

“No. No, no, no. He - he had the surgery at St. Michael’s, but he’s here now.” Dennis argues on the phone, he is annoyed at Doctor Flores - Head and neck surgeon on call - who’[s on the other line. “No, he doesn’t have a car. His- uh his parents are out of town.”

‘Doesn’t matter. Not our problem to fix, send him back.’

“Okay, okay..well” These people are insane, this kid needs help now and they’re thinking about who’s responsible? “How am I supposed to send him back to St. Michael’s, call him an Uber?”

Dennis keeps asking questions that they don’t answer until the line clicks, and uselessly he still asks if they are still there.

“What’s wrong?” Tanner asks, his poor face is bloody, he looks guilty and scared.

“Um…” Dennis puts the phone back on the receiver and walks back over to him, he’s wringing his hands a bit nervously. “They said it is not their job to fix another hospital’s problem. Don’t worry about it though. I’ll go talk to my husband and.”

Dennis doesn’t have time to catch his slip up in verbage, doesn’t have time to correct himself to ‘Attending’. Doesn’t have time to take note of Nurse Jesse who is in the room who for sure heard that slip up.

Tanner upchucks a good couple milliliters of blood all over Dennis’ blue morgue scrubs. It gets on his chin and all down the front before it starts to spill down the kids own chin.

“Oh shit!” Oh fuck.

He jumps into action, racing to the door quickly yelling for help before rushing back to the kid who is currently projectile spewing blood from his throat. Eyes wide and scared.

Langdon and a few other nurses rushed in quickly, “He was stable, then it just opened I don-” They are suctioning the blood out of the boy's throat and he is thrashing a bit, he’s scared and in pain.

Landgon starts barking out commands. They need to call the blood bank, get more fluids into the kid.

“Head and neck wouldn’t come down to see him!” Dennis explains.

Langdon is barking orders and Dennis is doing what he can and as fast as he can but he just doesn’t feel like he can catch up. Langdon moves fast and Dennis feels like he is just mainly observing and holding suction while Langdon works.

Dennis hates to admit this to himself but Langdon is talented. He sees it and he seethes a bit at it. He wants to be this talented but he needs to remind himself that Langdon is just further. He’s no longer a student, he’s on his way to becoming a senior resident. Langdon yells out the decision that if Head and Neck still won’t come down that they should call Garcia.

Tanner looks up at Dennis, he’s so scared and Dennis. His heart hurts for him - he didn’t think that his parents would want to see him. What does that say about how he feels? He can’t help but think about Jake. Or even himself with his own parents, and how he would have felt in this position.

“You’re good” Dennis looks him in the eyes, trying to send the best form of reassurance he can to the kid with a look. “You’re good.”

A few more tense seconds pass of suction and fear and deepings of monitors before Robby bursts into the Trauma 2 deck, “What happened?”

Dennis looks back at him relieved. “Bleeder opened up.”

Robby nods and steps in, already gloved up. Langdon mentioned that the kid is out - Ketamine having kicked in - and that he is ready to intubate. They lay him down on the insistence of Langdon, now both Robby is keeping suction on the bleeder and Dennis keeping as much pressure as they can.

“Nothing but blood. Can’t see the cords..”

“Not sure we have room for the tube with the sponge stick.” Langdon goes on. Dennis refutes. His heart is beating incredibly fast. “If I pull out, there’s gonna be even more blood.”

Garcia comes in, scrubbed up and glasses on. “Doesn’t look like you secured that airway.” Robby argues that the other doctor is working on it, and Garcia barks the order to prepare a crike tray.

“Hold on! I’m going in blind with the bougie.” Now that is a bit too arrogant. “I might be able to feel the tracheal rings.”

Garcia scoffs at that and gives a sarcastic response back, Dennis isn’t sure how they can be so snappy when someone is on the table needing help. But it seems like Michael feels the pressure because he offers a different solution.

Always his brilliant man, especially with medicine.

“Okay, okay. Hold on, hold on. We can try a retrograde intubation.”

“A what?” Dennis remembers Robby telling him about this, said it was in a medicine journal he read years back.

“There's no obstruction. We just can't see what we're doing. So we take a needle,” Robby explains to them, “and we put it in the cricothyroid. We run a guide wire up and out the mouth, and we slide the ET tube up over the wire.”

Garcia tells him he has one chance and then she goes in with the crike.

Tanner’s stats are down to 89 and these two idiots aren’t letting Garcia step in. They’re too confident. Dennis is going to lose another patient. He can feel it. Apparently he voiced it as well because Michael snapped at him.

“Shut up Whitaker”

His stats are still falling. Dennis hates that Robby snapped at him but he can’t do anything. He can’t storm out or gauff at it because there are much more important things than that.

And maybe it was hot.

Oh god.

Garcia mentions his stats are too low. They’re calling it and they’re going to crike. She starts to prep for it and Robby apologizes to Langdon but the other doctor is still going. He’s committed to finding the wire and Dennis is pissed he’s going to say somethin-

Langdon finds the wire.

Of course he does.

Robby and Langdon work together seamlessly to get the tube down the kids throat. Robby talks the younger doctor through the whole thing and they do it perfectly. They get the bag on him and his stats rise. Langdon says something cocking to Doctor Garcia and she gives it back to them that they got lucky.

Dennis agrees with that statement.

From what Michael says, Flores shows up finally, apparently he got stuck in a ‘nasty radical neck dissection’.

“We got the airway. You get the bleeder.”

Flores says that the OR is standing by. Ready for the kid. Dennis can’t help himself, he looks at Dr. Flores and by extension Michael, and sarcastically says, “So I can cancel the uber?” his eyebrow raised.

Dr. Flores just tells them to get Tanner upstairs, but when Dennis looks over his shoulder he sees that he got the chuckle he wanted out of his husband. He’s shaking his head with a small smile that Michael just can’t help but try and fail at hiding.

“Fresh sponge stick for you, Whitaker.” The way Nurse Jesse rolled over Dennis' last name stalls him for a second but he doesn’t think too much of it at the moment. Too wrapped up in Michael looking proud of him and Tanner needing constant pressure at the moment.

He swaps out the sponge and misses the look that Langdon throws at Dennis when he sees how Robby is looking at him.

“You need me to stay with the-” Dennis starts to question Michael, not paying any attention to the other two medical professionals in the room.

“Your patient. You did a good job” He’s nodding at him, his eyes shine with pride and it's a look that always makes Dennis squirm just a bit at. “It’s only till the anesthesiologist takes over, You got it?”

Dennis runs his tongue over his front teeth and nods, “Yeah I got it.”

“Get yourself a fresh pair of scrubs on the way down,” The implied ‘on another floor is there’”On your way back down.”

Michael and Langdon leave and Dennis can’t help but let loose a small giddy smile, he feels a little guilty about doing it over Tanner's bleeding out body, but apparently that's his life.

Chapter Text

Dennis is heading back down to the emergency department from Head and Throat, it took a little while for the anesthesiologist to show up but finally they did and finally he could go get new scrubs and cleaned up. He’s staring at himself in the mirror for a second. Taking a well deserved breather, he goes over Tanner and the whole tail end of the case pops into place.

Oh fuck. Oh shit. I said husband. I referred to Michael as my husband in front of Jesse.

His blunt nails tap quickly at the sink, his teeth start to worry, pulling his lip into his mouth until it burns. He’s nervous. He needs to tell Michael about this slip up. And then Michael will be nervous.

Maybe Jesse didn’t notice.. No shit. He said Whitaker weirdly earlier. He knows.

Fuck.

Okay Whitaker-Robinavitch. You can deal with this. Easy-Peasy. Maybe don’t freak out and bring more attention to this. The more attention the worse it will become, could even be that Jesse is suspicious and isn’t sure what he meant. Yeah could be that.

But the context in which he said it, ‘I will tell my Husband,’ as if just any med-student’s husband could make an entire department in a hospital do anything. Plus it doesn't take much digging to look at his not well hidden name tag. The ‘-Robinavitch’ is as clear as day to read if you squint and care to look at a MS4 on rotation.

Dennis turns on the tap.

The sound of the water eases his anxieties. It’s something that their therapist has encouraged them to do. Find something that centers them. Not each other, but something externally. Something that is not reliant on a person, no matter how reliable that person may be.

He runs his fingers under the same spray, it brings him down even more. He feels his heart rate soften, didn’t even realize how thunderous it had become earlier. Didn’t realize how much he was shaking. The water is cool, and the bathroom is empty which is strange for the Emergency Department.

Oh that’s right.

He’s still on the second floor, he just changed into new scrubs after being released from Head and Neck. His scrubs are a bit tight, this floors’ scrub machine is not only newer but out of his size, so he got a smaller one in the right style. It’s a win in his book at least. He looks normal.

Okay, time to face the fire.

He turns and heads towards the ED, ready for the storm that comes.

—

“How's, uh, Travis, our tonsillectomy patient?”

Dennis tells him he dropped the kid off, he’s doing good. Or at least Dennis thinks that he’s doing good. He tries to avoid eye contact with the older doctor, embarrassed with his performance in the trauma room. Doubting both him and Robby.

“Good work.” Dennis looks up and sees Langdon looking him up and down, almost like he’s investigating him. “You kept him from bleeding out.”

Dennis scoffs. He didn’t even do anything there other than retain pressure. All he did was place doubt and get in the way.

“Oh, no, come on. That was all you and Dr. Robby. I mean, I could never have done what you guys did with that airway.”

“Not yet. That's why you're here. But you stayed with him the whole time. He would have died at most other hospitals.” Langdon is comforting with how he said that morbid fact, it's sad to think but yeah. Some places people wouldn’t stay with patients for so long. Wouldn’t catch things so quickly.

Yeah. That is true. Dennis thinks - and replied - he is here to learn, and no matter how much Michael tells him about emergency medicine, or how many other rotations he’s had in other departments. There is nothing like the broad amount of skills and the willingness to learn like an emergency department.

Still not sure about his ego issues though.. Or the favoritism that Michael has for him.

—

He hasn’t heard anything around the floor about him and Robby, or anything about him and a mystery guy, but he is still trying to keep an ear out. He also has not been able to catch Michael and tell him about the slip up.

They are in another ‘round discussion. It’s nearly noon and Dennis can’t help himself but ask Victoria if she thinks they’re going to get lunch soon. Dr. McKay, bless her heart, hands him a protein bar, explains that they usually don’t have time to get lunch and that he should keep a stock of protein bars or little snacks.

He mentally adds that to his next grocery list, then he thinks about the lack of snacks that Michael takes to work, and the lack of breaks that said man has not taken. Dennis scowls a bit, frustrated at how wrapped up with works Michael seems to be.

Victoria points out his ill-fitting scrubs, he’s on his fourth set of new scrubs (fifth pair of the day if you are keeping count) and these are much too small for him. The hem of the pants creeps up his ankles and his ass is squeezed into the tight fabric. Luckily - or unluckily - Michael hasn’t seen him in it just yet.

They chat about the gusher case that ruined his scrubs, and about Victoria being in triage. They’re friendly with each other. It’s nice to chat with another student in this mess of an ER rotation.

“So you’re feeling ok?” He’s asking for both himself and Robby, he knows to report back to the attending if Victoria is feeling off or not. But the girl deflects, saying it happened hours ago and that she’s ready to go, so he shrugs and takes her on her word.

He feels a hand land on his shoulder, and sees the second land on Victorias. Trinity.

“Let me guess, you got these ones from the lost and found?” Dennis wants so badly to roll his eyes at her antics. She is a whole heap of a character but he likes her. He could see them becoming friends.

“The scrub dispenser was out of my size.” Dennis answers.

He thought about actually taking Michaels extra scrubs from his locker but decided against it. Wasn’t sure how the other man would feel about it - plus they would have been much-much larger on Dennis’ wiry body. (And added much more fuel to any rumors going around).

The imagery isn’t anything to scoff at.

“Well, it’s a good look, Huckleberry.” And there's that dreaded nickname of hers. The second Dennis revealed he was from Nebraska and that nickname was not going to leave Trinity’s lexicon.

Michael - Robby - makes his way into the middle of the group, explaining that these are not board rounds (those are at two) and that he is just wanting to remind everyone of a few things.

(He means the new students/interns mostly, his long term residents are always pretty on top of things.)

He starts to explain bedside manners, and areas for improvement (most likely things that Gloria has harped on him about, Dennis has heard him complain about these things at home plenty of times) and the blonde nods along, until he sees Victoria opening her notebook to take notes.

That's a good idea.. Fuck wheres my notepad.

He starts to pat around his pockets, not finding it at all. Oh shit. Robby took it while they were treating that one kid. Dennis glances up at the other man and yup-

Michael, without breaking in his speech pulls out Dennis’ notepad - briefly checking that it is Dennis’ and not his own before tossing it over to the younger man.

Dennis breathes a sigh of relief before his brain realizes that people might question why Robby had his notepad.

No, don't worry about that. Just write down what Michael is saying.

He flips to a clear page, but not before seeing that Michael left him a note. He mentally reminds himself to read it when he has the time.

—

Denny -

Baby you have been my rock in this rough morning of an ED shift and you are handling your cases so well. I’m proud of you.

PS it’s been hard for me to keep my hands off of you.

—

“Are you a med student?” Dennis was really trying hard to ignore Victoria and her mom, Doctor Shamsi, but when a Senior Attending asks you something you have to respond. So, he spins around and responds to her in the positive.

Shamsi nods, “This is a great case for the students. Can they come with? I'd be happy to do a little bedside teaching.” She’s asking Doctor McKay, but by her tone it is easily implied to not be a question and more of a demand. However, Doctor McKay is captivated by Doctor Shamsi, as she asks if she can follow along as well. Dennis takes a brief notice of how uncomfortable Victoria is about following her mom, he can’t imagine how embarrassing it must be to be taught by your own Mother.

They make their way into the room with the patient with acute appendicitis and Dr. Shamsi asks the patient -more of a boy really- if he is okay with student doctors observing. The kid, Tim, looks up from his tablet and shrugs telling her to “Go for it.”

Shamsi goes on about McBurney’s point, in which Dennis has just recently refreshed his studies on it a few months ago with Michael in preparation for an exam about appendicitis. Shamsi requests for Tim to lift his leg and the boy winces in pain.

Ouch.

“Psoas sign. Causing friction of the psoas muscle over the inflamed appendix.” Dennis answers Shamsi’s previous question of the symptom name. His pride of getting the answer right straightened his spine just a bit. He doesn't catch the slight deflation of Victoria, or the grimace of disappointment in Shamsis’ glance towards her daughter.

“Excellent. Now, back in the day, appendicitis meant you went straight to the OR. Who can tell me about the CODA study?” Shamsi questions. Dennis feels like he’s in class again!

“Uh, well, it's from a 2020 ‘New England Journal’ trial comparing surgery to antibiotics, you know?” He finally looks up from his notepad and sees the tension in the room. Shamsi is staring down Victoria and said girl is shuffling from foot to foot, not making eye contact. Dr. McKay is glancing nervously at Victoria as well. The poor kid Tim just looks around confused, but Dennis continues, once he starts he can’t really stop himself (Michael calls him a truck with no brakes). “It, um... it showed that without an appendicolith, there was a 75% success rate in the antibiotic-only group.”

“Exactly,” Shamsi confirms that Dennis was correct, but that affirmation does not feel good with what comes next. “Honey, we discussed the study at home, right?”

Oh god, that’s horrible. Dennis keeps the cringe off of his face and fakes the surprise in his voice when he says “Honey? Wait.. is she your mom?”

He wants to make Shamsi feel maybe a bit of guilt for embarrassing Victoria like that. He couldn’t imagine how he would feel if Michael did something similar to him. Obviously it would be a little bit different husband versus mother and all that. Either way, it's a superior having a relationship with a student and that is always a precarious tightrope to walk. It’s why they are doing what they are doing. Keeping things on the down low. Trying to be chill.

Victoria stutters out a correction to her mother about calling her Victoria or Javadi and then Dr. McKay gets a phone call about a patient having chest pain (Dennis is almost certain that they do not have a patient on the floor named Mrs. Grant, so way to go McKay). The two of them leave and then it is just Dennis and Shamsi, and Tim.

—

“Okay- up next, nausea and vomiting in North 4.” Dennis says to himself as he stares up at the board. He taps at the nurses station idly with his fingertips as if the entire time he was standing there he wasn’t trying to listen in on conversation to hear if anyone was gossiping about what he said in Trauma 2. He hasn’t heard anything yet but that doesn’t mean much, because he has seen Princess and Perlah whispering back and forth and looking at him, he shivers to think about what they may know, or what they think they know.

Dennis turns around to walk towards North 4, but he gets stopped by a very familiar firm hand on his shoulder. Followed by a very familiar firm voice.

“Ah ah ah.” Dennis turns around so they are shoulder to shoulder and sadly Michael drops his arm, no longer holding onto Dennis. Probably for the best for rumors and their reputation, and their secret. Dr. Robby continues, pointing at the board “Forearm X-Rays are back on Mr. Ofori in the south corridor. You can discharge with a volar splint. Notify ortho. ADF.”

Dennis nods, “Yeah, always discharge first, yes thank you Michael.” He turns and rushes away. Barely brushing shoulders with the other man.

Fuck I called him Michael. And forgot to tell him about Jesse. Double shit.

—

The infamous Trinity Santos walks up to the nurses station where he and just slightly behind him, Victoria is standing at a computer. Santos has the same amount of anger in her body as she normally does and Dennis still cringes and feels guilty (even though nothing was his fault) about what happened with Doctor Garcia and the chest tube patient. Dennis sets his hands down and looks over at Santos and starts to ask her how she’s doing but she very quickly interrupts him.

“If you ask me how I’m doing, I swear I’ll punch you.” She doesn’t even look at him while she says it.

Okay… will not ask how she is doing. Check.

Victoria from behind them asks if she missed something, which yeah. She did. Something pretty big if you ask Dennis. They both look back at her.

“I just didn’t get to do my chest tube. He did” The ‘he did’ is said with so much venom you would think that it was Dennis’ fault that she didn’t get to do it, as if he held the trauma room at scalpel point to let him do it.

Dennis just scrunches his nose, "There's uh, a little more to it than that…”

“Not another word, unless you want your tongue stapled.” Dennis is obliged to leave it be and drops his head, but not even two seconds later Santos swirls around with her hands up and faces Javadi. “All right, fuck it. I dropped a scalpel, and it stuck into Garcia’s foot.”

“Oh that's.. That's bad.” Victoria really looks like she wants to laugh, or cry. Sometimes it's hard to tell with that girl.

“It might actually be worse than fainting, so…” Dennis snarkily says to Victoria, he can’t help but match Trinity's bite, if she can dish it she should be able to take it.

“Well, at least I didn’t kill anyone!” Well that’s a low blow.

Javadi looks over at Dennis, eyes wide in her young and innocent way. “You killed a patient?”

Dennis cringes and looks away, even after the talk with Michael he’s having a hard time with it all, but he now knows that it really isn’t his fault. “No, not really..”

Santos is on a roll though, so she keeps going. “Yeah well, you kind of did. I’m sorry. You did.” Dennis looks down, god it is hard to not let her words get to him. Sometimes she just knows where to hit and he’s only known her for a few hours. “It… it wasn’t fully Huckleberry’s fault. It was a fluke. He caught some gomer with a sneaky bad ticker.”

She really needs to work on her bedside manner, and her nurse-station side manner, and all of her manners if Dennis is going to be honest. It is a bit endearing though, and she could grow onto him.

“His name was Bennet.” Dennis says instead of what he wants to bark back with, he knows with people like Santos. Sometimes you can’t fight them with fire (but sometimes you have to fight them with fire).

“Oh great!” She yells out in exacerbation, her hands flying wildly, her energy is akin to a dog off leash at the moment. “You can get his name tattooed on your chest. At least I’m not the only fuck-up here.” She gestures to all of them with her finger, and yeah, they are all kind of fuck ups but they are also all students.

“I got a nosebleed. So long,” She steps away and salutes them with two fingers. “Fellow losers.” And then she goes into a shallow bow before walking away.

Victoria and him look at each other and just laugh. Trinity Santos has a lot more in common with them lowly med-school students than she would like to admit. She really is a fellow loser.

—

Dennis is already eating one of the sandwiches that was delivered. As soon as Dana showed up with the bags she handed him his favorite - Turkey and Provalone. Princess and McKay are digging for their own prized favorites from Primanti's when Michael walks in.

“Oh, what’s all this?”

“Lunch.” Dana replies, she turns to Robby to speak to him. “Primanti's. It appears that we have at least one grateful patient.”

Robby walks towards the food and clasps his hands together in front of his mouth, “Hope is alive,” he starts to reach into the bags “who do we have to thank?”

“I don't know. I think there's a card... bottom of the bag.” Michael finds said card and starts to read it, and based on his microexpression Dennis has only a few guesses of what could make him go from so excited for free lunch to so crushed by a simple note. He tosses the note back down and makes a swift retreat, he doesn’t even glance at Dennis.

“What was that?” Dennis can’t help but ask, hoping Dana will read the note and give them -give him - some more clarity of why his husband just ran away so quickly.

She replies that she doesn’t know, then picks up the dropped note and reads. “Aww..”

Mckay asks ‘What?’ and Dennis voices the same question. Dana looks at Dennis and he can read on her face what she’s going to say. “It’s from Shelby Adamson, Dr. Adamson’s sister. She sends something every year.”

Shit. I need to get to Michael. Dennis looks panicked at Dana, begging her to help him with getting him out of the break room, Dana nods at him before grabbing a box and handing it to Dennis.

“Here kid, can you go take this to Robby. He needs to eat just as much as us.” Dana offers, and Dennis really tries to be sly about grabbing the box, but he just yanks it out of her hand and is out of the room before McKay or Princess can say much of anything else. He doesn’t catch the odd look that Princess shoots Dana, nor the head shake that Dana sends back.

He rounds the corner and see’s Michael round another, Dennis ducks his head and tries to avoid anyone's attention. He can’t risk anyone stopping him; he has to find Michael. He is hot on his tail for a minute until they come to the stairs and Dennis has to skid to a stop when he finds Michael just sitting there. Not doing anything. Just sitting with his head in his hands.

“You didn’t have to follow me Denny.” Michael says without looking up, his face angled down so all Dennis can see is the growing bald spot on his scalp.

Dennis hums, “Yeah, I kinda did. It’s in the vows.” He holds out the box that is undoubtedly shaken. “Plus, you need to eat babe.”

At that Michael looks up and sees the Primanti’s box in his husband's hands. The older man shakes his head and is about to say something in retort but Dennis interrupts him. “I abandoned my own sandwich for you, so at least let's share this okay?”

Michael closes his mouth, opens it again, and then closes. “Yeah.. alright.” He pats the spot on the stairs next to him and Dennis quickly sits down next to him. His smaller but muscular body fit nicely next to his husband's. Their bodies mold together like glue. “Do you know if that has mustard on it?”

“Nope, Dana just handed this to me and I ran after you. Here, I’ll taste test it and let you know.”

Dennis sets the box on his knees. There is a sticker on declaring it a Turkey sandwich meal. Dennis opens the box and inside is a wrapped sandwich along with a packet of mayo and mustard, a bag of chips and a small container of fruit. It’s not as jumbled as he thought he would have been with his quick sprint over.

How balanced.

He unwrapped the sandwich and takes a big bite out of it. He screws up his face then he says with his mouth full “Oh no babe, it's just a mustard sandwich. All bread, only mustard.”

Michael glares at him and Dennis can’t help but laugh, but his mouth is still full of food so he ends up inhaling some of the sandwich and choking a bit. Which in turns makes Michael bark out a laugh. Thankfully his husband slaps his back a few times to dislodge the food - no reason to get to the point where one has to perform the heimlich.

They’re now both laughing in the stairwell, sandwich, fruit, and chips passed back and forth as they unwind for the few minutes that they can have to themselves. Just like at home, laughing over mustard sandwich jokes and poking at each other's sides. Dennis lets Michael eat his fair share of the food, knowing that he as a student-doctor will have a better chance to get more food than the attending will.

After a few minutes they fall into a lull and Dennis can tell that Michael wants to talk about Dr. Adamson. Wants to talk about the hard cases he’s had today and Dennis, he wants to let him talk about it. Needs to talk to the man about Jesse, about his slip up. About what he may be spreading. He wants to let the other man lay his head on his lap like he does at home, let Michael unwind while Dennis twirls his fingers in his hair and traces his beard. Wants to let Michael just put everything down in front of him and allow him to take the burden but they can’t, not right now, not in the ER.

Instead of either thing, they get interrupted and hear a commotion not far away from the stairwell. It sounds like Collins and the teenagers mom and aunt are getting into it.

Michael jumps to his feet the second the commotion starts, his emergency department instincts never turned off (they aren’t even at home).

“Thank you for coming after me Denny.” Michael says as he bends down and gives him the briefest of kisses on his lips. His grey stubble rubs against his cheeks and Dennis smiles into it.

“Go do your job, Dr. Robby. I’ll be right behind you.” Michael smiles one last time before rushing off to assist Collins and be the attentive attending that he is.

Dennis stays sitting in the stairwell for a few more minutes, no reason to make their return to the floor even more suspicious. He fiddles with his way too small set of scrubs for a few minutes before standing up and dusting off his pants. He grabs the trash of their shared lunch and heads back to the floor, ready to grab his own lunch (Michael does tend to call him a blackhole in terms of food).

Chapter Text

God Primanti’s is so good. Dennis isn’t sure if it is because the sandwiches actually are good or if it is because he was so hungry after the morning and most of the sandwich he had earlier went to Michael. He’s leaned over Michael's desk, making quite a mess - which he does plan on cleaning up - and watching a youtube video. His charts are complete for now and he can take a short break while he eats.

“Hey Mrs. Fruitcake.” Myrna. Fuck.

Dennis turns around, half a bite of sandwich still in his mouth. “Uh, it’s Whittaker here. Myrna.”

Myrna nods, “Sure, listen Mrs. Fruitcake, I need to use the bathroom. Can you get the key for this?”

Dennis smiles, he knows Myrna and her reasons for being detained. She’s in and out of the Emergency Department so much she should have a punch card, or she should just work here. “Yeah, I’m not doing that for you.”

“Don’t be a Pussy.-” She goes on about how the only reason she is handcuffed is so no one steals her wheelchair - likely story…

Dennis stands up, his sandwich still in his hand while he looks around for, ah perfect. Dana to the rescue (again).

“You need a bedpan, Myrna?” Dana directs the Nurse Lassy to take the elderly woman away. She complains and pokes fun at Dennis while slowly leaving his eyesight. Dana briskly ignores him and moves onto something else, she undoubtedly has much more important things to work on.

Dennis turns back around and jumps at how close Michael is to him, he didn’t even notice the other man enter the center of the ED. The older man smiles at Dennis.

“Good sandwich?” Michael looks Dennis up and down, he sees the smirk of adoration for Dennis, and the flare of annoyance at the mess he just made of his desk.

Dennis smiles, giving into the bit as he takes another bite of the sandwich and then responds with his mouth full. Something that his husband has complained about multiple times.

“Yeah, pretty good actually.” He munches some more on the bite, really savoring the roast beef and mustard sandwich.

“Uh huh, I can tell from all the crumbs you’re getting on my workstation.” His annoyance is underplayed by how his mouth is slightly pulled up into a smile, and how his eyes crinkle just a little bit. It's small and mostly unnoticeable but Dennis always is aware of what Robby is doing. He continues on about how they eat in the lounge- something Dennis is aware of but he really was just wanting to sit in Michaels space, feel the warmth from his chair and maybe see him while Dennis himself had some down time. He can tell that Robby is putting

Dennis plays up his apologies, “I am so sorry, Dr. Robby.”

Michael leans towards Dennis, as if he’s about to wipe the crumbs off of his face but he corrects himself, looking around at the busy ED that they are standing in. His restraint seems to be on the edge of tipping over. On the edge of saying ‘fuck it’ and kissing his husband in front of the whole department.

“I'm uh, I’m going to go grab a patient.” Michael nods and directs him to wash his hands first. His tone is rough and kind of mean, but Dennis is just a bit into it and he ducks his head with a blush making its way up his face as he runs away, missing the teasing conversation that the attending and charge nurse have at his expense.

—

The young girl -an influencer from what her roommate has just said- keeps questioning them at what they are doing and shying away from their questions and touches. Her hair is dirty and curly and she looks like she’s in the middle of an episode. Dennis that you really shouldn’t make preliminary guesses like that so fast without evidence but either way she’s acting out of the norm from what the roommate, Charis, is saying.

Robby asks Victoria and himself to try and conduct the exam.

Javadi, always eager to please, surges forward first with her light and Dennis preps his stethoscope. “Can you look at the light?” She asks.

Nandi - the influencer girl - hides away from the light and them. Her arms coming up and over her face to hide her. She asks what the light was. Confused.

“Ok. Open your mouth?” Javadi tries to push the girl for the exam.

Dennis instead turns around to Michael and asks. “How do you even do an exam with a patient like this?”

Doctor Mohan is the one to answer, and to say both Michael and Dennis jump a bit in surprise. “Observe her. Wait for her to look at you or open her mouth and get a quick look. Make sure she moves her arms and legs equally.”

That is all good advice, it makes sense. Meet your patient where they can. Don’t try to push them to a point they can’t get to. Might even be a good thing to apply to life.

Donnie fails at trying to attach a heart monitor on her and that’s finally when Michael cuts in. “All right, we might need to wait until after the meds kick in.” He waves everyone out of the patients rooms and into the hallway for a ‘differential diagnosis’.

Again, always eager to please Victoria Javadi with the first diagnosis, “Schizophrenia, first psychotic break. She's in the right age range.”

“Yeah, what else.” He wants to hear more ideas. Schizophrenia would have more lead up signs. The roommate would probably know more.

Dennis chimes in, “Drugs, also common for this age group.”

“Common in all age groups, what else?” Well rude, they both know that young adults are in the higher range for drug abuse.

Victoria's guess about the toxicity of medications seems to be too vague because Samira suggests to not jump to conclusions, think ‘Big categories and then specifics’.

Okay, big categories are how the body works. Think about what causes bizarre body and mind reactions. Think big.

“Metabolic, hyper- or hyponatremia, calcium, hepatic encephalopathy.” He rattles off unsure. Victoria takes off right after him.

“Endocrine, hyperthyroid, infectious encephalitis.” Her list is delivered with more energy.

Robby nods, glancing at Dennis before looking away. Gritting his jaw tight. “These are all possibilities. OK, let's work her up medically and see if we can clear her.”

Samira and Robby have a tense wrap up conversation about clearing her and sending her to psych. Dennis can tell that Dr. Mohan is not for that idea, but Robby seems set on the point of sending her to Psych.

Dennis thinks about Mr. Krakozhia and how long he has been waiting for a psych evaluation and he cannot help but agree with Doctor Mohan. There might be something more they can do for this girl other than try to hand her off to another department.

—

Dennis is on the phone with Tanner’s mom. Updating her on his progress. He heard from Head and Neck that the surgery was a success and he just wanted to call her and let her know. She sounds so thankful that it was him who called her, that he gave her some insider information about what happened and how her son was doing. It also relieved some of the worries he had about the kid being unloved, maybe he just didn’t want to bother his parents on their fun weekend.

A code STEMI calls out over the speakers and Dennis gently hangs up the phone just in time for Doctor Langdon to call him over.

“Whitaker, you’re with me.” Dennis looks over at Trinity as he puts the Emergency Department phone down and she looks disheartened and annoyed at being brushed aside like an old chew toy.

The patient is an elderly Chinese man, having a heart attack but he’s very lucid. He’s talking to them and having a conversation. Robby comes up behind him and Langdon introduces the attending to the patient before handing over his paperwork. They briskly make their way into Trauma 2 before Dennis finally asks a question.

“Are you taking any medications?”

“Metformin-” a drug to treat diabetes “and rosuvastatin.” A drug to lower cholesterol and lower high blood pressure. Should also prevent some heart attacks - in theory.

Things move fast again and Dennis feels like he drifts to the background like last time. Langdon and Mateo move in sync. Bouncing the patients -Harvey- stats and telling the man that if they get him up to cardiology soon enough they can stop the heart attack.

He asks if anyone has a score for the Pirates game and Dennis stifles a giggle. Imagine having a heart attack and asking about a game.

“Is there anybody we can call?” Michael asks as he lifts Harvey up to get the monitors placed correctly on his chest.

“No. My wife died a year ago. I guess today is the day I'll be joining her.” Oh. That's so sad. Dennis looks at Michael and can’t help but think about what he will do when he dies. It’s a known fact that his husband is much older than him and will in fact pass before him. He bites his lip, he can’t be thinking about this.

“I appreciate that sentiment, but that is not part of our plan.”

“No-” Dennis’ voice is shacky, still thinking about Michael dying before him. “No Murmurs. Radio pulses are symmetric.”

Harvey falls and his heart rate starts to go into arrhythmia. Langdon, always ready to jump into the action direction Dennis to start chest compressions.

Dennis tries hard to not give Langdon a look, nor look at Michael with disdain as he climbs up onto the gurney to begin chest compression. He’s never been more grateful for the days in the gyms he’s put in since getting with Michael. He never realized how many chest compressions the emergency department did until he was smack dab in the middle of it.

The defibrillator is charged, and Dennis steps back to clear the space for the electrical pulse.

No luck, he resumes compressions.

This is starting to feel familiar.

Oh god.

He looks over at Michael and he can’t read his face, why can’t he read his face?

They set up the LUCAS and Dennis is off of chest compression and he feels useless, if he isn’t pumping life back into someone's body then what is the point?

“Whitaker, on LifePak. You need to learn this.” Langdon snaps.

Dennis nods and walks over to the life pack, missing the side glance that Michael gives him.

Perlah quickly explains, “Set 200 joules asynchronous. Press charge.”

“Pause compressions.” The LUCAS stops, and Robby announces that Harvey is still V-Fib and has no pulse.

“Clear,” says Langdon, and Mateo.

“Clear,” so does Dennis.

Perlah looks at him, “That's your cue, Whitaker.”

“Oh shit.” He shocks him. No change is announced by Langdon, he requests to push more Epi and amio while restarting the LUCAS.

“He’s not coming back is he?” Dennis asks, he’s really only asking Michael but it is more so to the whole room in the type of environment they are in. He doesn’t like this, this stress of losing patient after patient, of heart attack after heart attack. It’s nerve wracking and he doesn’t feel like he has it in him to keep it up.

“We still got a way to go.” Michael comforts him in the only way he can in the moment, his words. He then suggests a ‘Double Sequential defibrillation’ next.

Perlah hands the pads to Dennis to attach to Harvey's chest, instructing him where they go (right sternal border and apex) while Michael explains the theory of what they are trying next. “The theory is that the first shock lowers the defib threshold so that the second shock has a better chance of converting any fibrillating myocytes.”

Yeah that does make sense, I remember going over some studies with him a bit ago about this. Didn’t think we would apply so soon though.

“All right, Whitaker, if he's pulseless, we clear it and then shock-shock.” Shock-shock, very professional terms. Dennis nods. “I go first. You hit it as fast as you can.”

They charge both defibrillators to 200. The charging sound fills the Trauma 2 bay.

“Charged” Perlah calls when both machines beep that they’re complete.

They pause the compressions on Langdon's command. Still no pulse on A-line so they are Clear for the ‘Shock-Shock’.

Everyone announces ‘clear’ and then they hit Harvey’s body on one side, and then the other. No change.

“Resuming compressions. That was our Hail Mary.”

Fuck. Dennis knows he looks like a kicked puppy right now but he really hates losing another patient.

Michael, as calm as he can be, “We got one more. Activate ECMO.”

More time passes while they wait for the ECMO team to arrive. Dennis tries to not fidget and he knows he fails every time Michael passes him the look. The look to calm down, the look to rub his fingers instead of his hands. The look that he is being too fidgety and needs to get a hold of himself. Keep his hands down and away from his mouth, keep himself busy and active.

Langdon is scrubbed up and they are all in sterile equipment. Hairnets and masks, gloves as well. As the ECMO team arrives and then quickly files into place, Dennis retreats behind Michael. He doesn’t want to get in the way of everyone else and he knows that if Michael does need to move him he has no issue doing so.

“So Whitaker,” The way Michael turns his head to speak to him is always so meaningful, and not to mention how half of his last name rolls off of his tongue. “We treat this like a sterile surgical procedure. We can’t introduce bacteria into the circuit.”

Langdon finally joins them at the foot of the surgical gurney. “He'll get a garden hose coming out of the vein at the right leg. That flows into the ECMO machine for oxygen and gets pumped back through a second hose into the left femoral artery.”

Wow. And the ECMO team moves with such precision. They aren’t even saying anything to each other. They are communicating without words. Flowing like water, moving swiftly without mistake. Or maybe they have just done this so many times that there is no hesitation on what they are doing.

“These guys are impressive.” Dennis can’t help but say. Langdon replies and Michael says something about enough warm bodies before he leaves. Dennis stays at the foot while they wrap up the ECMO procedure and Langdon continues explaining what they are doing.

Chapter Text

Dennis is standing out in the emergency bay, a few feet away from the doors and leaning his back fully against the cool bricks, the early September air is still warm but the shade remains chilly. With all the things that are going crazy inside of the building, it remains calm outside. The clouds are moving and the sky is blue, no storms or sirens take over the outside world no matter what madness that takes over the department.

Langdon told him to take a break after their ECMO patient, the senior resident noticed how rattled the student doctor was after the talk they had about why Milton wouldn’t have been able to have an ECMO. Langdon, as a Senior Resident, used his authority to instruct the younger to step away and take a break, told him that if he smoked to go smoke, and if not then to just go take some time for himself. To unwind and reset, said it was a good thing for a doctor to be able to do.

Yeah, Dennis is a smoker. He’s trying to stop, or at least slow it down. He always has been since he was 15 in the midwest. It was normal, and it’s a habit that both him and Michael are trying to rid him of, especially with going into medical practice. Ideally if you preach clean lungs you should practice clean lungs. He promised both himself and Michael that he wouldn’t smoke today, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt the other man, and frankly, Dennis just needs both the nicotine and something in his mouth.

He used to be worse, used to have a vape always attached to his hand. Always puffing on the plastic geek bar. Never far away from a little bit of nicotine. Never far away from having something warm in his mouth. Michael always lectured him about the dangers of the plastic vapes, and to be fair they are very bad. Full of chemicals and lead, badly concentrated, full of flavors to overwrite the nicotine. Really just a bad combination to hook kids on nicotine.

After a lot of back and forth between them, before they were married, and even before they were official, Michael was on his ass about how much he used plastic carts. Eventually they did realize it was somewhat connected to Dennis needing, well, needing something in his mouth.

Dennis has his eyes closed as he inhales the smoke, his lungs fill and his mouth is warm. He holds for a few seconds, his free hand gently rubs circles on his thigh to comfort himself, his thumb moving over a small scar on the upper thigh, a matching one on the other thigh. Memories of a night years ago flutters around in his mind of him and Michael smoking something much different. There's an emergency vehicle that enters the med bay but it doesn’t sound like something he can jump on at the moment. His lips remain sealed around the filter, before he huffs the smoke out his nose.

It burns even more on the way out. He does nothing to stop the cough that stifles out.

I need to stop. Put it down. Stomp it out. Go inside.

At this point he isn’t even smoking, he’s more breathing in the smoke while chewing down on the filter. It would have been better for him to have stolen some of Michaels gum, but for some reason Dennis was more worried about digging in his husband's locker than grabbing something from Dana’s desk.

He shakes his head, as if grabbing from Dana’s desk is much less obvious, at least they can just say that they know each other from somewhere. That is if anyone asks.

Who is he kidding, it's the emergency department, someone is probably already asking Dana why Whitaker grabbed a cigarette from her desk. They owe her so much for today.

Dennis shrugs to himself before inhaling one more puff, the burn is familiar and he wishes he could get away with smoking more but he already knows that Michael is going to be able to smell this on him the second he steps into the ED. Luckily he won’t be able to do much to tell him off about it - yet at least. Plus, he should give the younger man some slack, it's his first emergency rotation so much has already happened. He deserved this.

It’s burnt down to the filter now, his lips are even warmer now and he sighs. It went by quickly. He tosses the butt into the ashtray and takes a deep breath of the fresh outside air before turning around and subjecting himself to the hell that is the Emergency Department.

At least he’s doing it with his favorite person.

—

Mel, Mateo, himself, and a few other nurses rush into the trauma bay from the other side entrance for the drowning victim. Amber, he thinks her name is. The EMT’s and nurses transfer her deftly over to the trauma table before Robby takes over compressions and Mel has already jumped in to take over the AMBU bag already, she always knows where she is needed. Dennis feels like he is just taking up space. He doesn't know what to do.

“Whitaker, take over compressions” Oh. Dennis knows that Michael trusts him to do compression correctly, but trusting him to do them correctly on a six year old is terrifying. He is going to kill this child and it will be his fault. The younger moves in to take over compressions.

“Any family coming in?” Robby asks.

One of the paramedics answers that a Grandma and Little sister are coming in, it makes Dennis' heart twist even more. Dr. Collins tells the student-doctor ‘Fast and deep’ for the compression. Not really inspiring his confidence here.

Robby looks at Dennis with such confidence in his look when he asks him “Ready?” that Dennis with no hesitation responds with ‘Yeah’.

They swap. He keeps her heart pumping while the other doctors make their assessments. Mel mentions how cold she is, and Dennis noticed that as he is doing his compressions. God, he feels like he is breaking her chest with how hard he is having to push down. Up and down.

Up and down.

Up and down.

He doesn’t even realize when he asks if they can or should use the LUCAS, all he knows is that Collins shuts it down. Says she is way too small for that. Yeah that makes sense, I already feel like I am breaking her with just my hands. God forbid a machine.

Mateo reports her temp is only 85 -which is way too low, especially for a child this young.

Up and down.

Up and down.

“What do you think, Mel?” Michael asks the blonde Doctor. She lists the obvious, the kid is cold. Moderate Hypothermia. “We need to get her up to 90 if we have any chance of restarting her heart.”

Collins starts to bark out orders for heated saline, and setting up the Arctic Sun and continuous core temp monitoring but all Dennis is aware of is Up and Down.

Up and Down.

Up and Down.

Mel has taken over compressions by the time Michael got stolen away by Kiara, from the glance Dennis stole from outside the Trauma bay it's the family with the organ donor son. He hasn’t had the chance to really talk to his husband about this family but he knows that they have been troubling him all day. They aren't bad people. They are just mourning the loss of their child way too young, Dennis looks over at the little girl that Mel is beating her heart for and he can’t help but wonder how hard this family might take it if things go wrong. Losing a child way too young.

Dennis is doing the compressions again by the time Michael comes back, this time he lets the girl's parents in. In the back of his mind, Dennis doesn’t really think that this is the brightest idea, letting the parents of the dying child into the room, but he isn’t the Whitaker-Robinavitch that is attending the Emergency Department so really he has no say here. He continues with his compressions.

Up and Down.

Up and Down.

Up and Down.

Amber's mom is crying and kissing her forehead. Telling her that she is going to be okay. Of all times, Collins calls for a rhythms check and to hold compressions and Dennis has to keep his emotions in check when he stops, knowing what is about to happen when the girl's heartbeat flatlines with her mother right by her head.

Surprising the mom doesn’t cry out or demand they do their job better. Instead all he gets is directions from Collins to resume compressions. Dennis does.

Up and Down. The same rhythms as Milton and Harvey, slightly different, on a smaller body, but over all to the same effect. Beating for someone else's heart.

The mom asks if they’ve shocked her heart, and then why they haven’t. Robby, ever the compassionate soul, gently explains to her why they can’t. Why they couldn’t. How they are trying to warm her up the best they can, with warm water and warm saline.

Mateo is on the phone with labs, getting reports back about Amber’s levels when Collins reports that her core temp is up to 91.

They have swapped compressions a few more times before now, but Dennis is the one beating for her heart at the moment. The same Up and Down rhythm as always. Her mother -Gina- mentions how much warmer she is and Dennis agrees, he can feel some of that warmth radiating off of the girl and he’s hopeful. He’s so sure that this is going to work. They’ve gotten her temperature up and now all they need to do is restart her heart.

Robby mentions that 91 is warm enough for her heart to respond to the shock, and Collins tells him to hold compressions and he does.

“Asystole.”

Fuck. “Resuming compressions.” At this point in the day, Dennis does not need to be told to resume them, he knows that Asystole means to keep going.

“Got the potassium level back.” Mateo says and Dennis may not have known this guy for a while, but he knows the tone of a man who has just received bad news. “12.2”

12.2, I swear I remember going over potassium levels with Michael a little while back.

Michael walks away from where he was behind Dennis, his comforting presence behind him is missed only slightly. He walks with the air of a soldier about to go off to war and Dennis wishes he could walk side-by-side with him. He gets to be side-by-side with Gina and Ryan, mom and dad of Amber as he tells them.

“No one has ever survived a cardiac arrest with a potassium over 11.” Oh. That’s what it was. Dennis keeps his Up and Down rhythm but he braces for what’s to come. “There is absolutely no chance of recovery. I am so sorry. Amber has died.”

The reaction is as he would have expected, Gina cries out, she denies and claims it's impossible. She cradles her baby in her arms and wails her apologies into her daughter's falsely beating body.

Dennis doesn’t know what to do, he wants to stop this Up and Down. These false heart beats.

“Before we stop, do you think her sister would like a chance to say goodbye?” Dennis wonders what he would have wanted as a younger sibling. It’s hard to think of something like that while he beats for this child's undead heart.

Ryan answers that the younger girl shouldn’t see her elder sister like this. Dennis has to agree. Connected to wires, a stranger beating her heart for her, a strange device wrapped around her chest to keep her warm. It's all too strange for a child so young.

Robby reassures the parents that they can stay in the room for as long as they need to, but that they are going to stop now and Dennis’ muscles cry in relief. Dennis stops and the machine flat lines, then goes for a few seconds and the sounds combined with the sobs of Gina and Ryan almost set Dennis off as well. Mateo shuts the machine off.

They just lost a child. Her last heart beat, even artificial, was under his palms. He feels weak, he’s shaking and feels cold. He can’t even imagine what her parents are feeling.

Dennis feels unmoored. He looks over at Michael and the other man fails to make eye contact with him. Dennis feels even more shaken, as if his one anchor has been shaken and released, dropped into loose silt with nothing of substance to latch onto, drifting into the abyss of guilt and death.

—

They’re lining up for the organ donor kids walk of honor, Dennis feels just too stressed even though he just smoked at the beginning of this hour he feels like he’s going to need it again soon. He slides up next to Dana, thankful that he could at least be next to someone he knows, that him standing next to won’t cause rumors.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Dana clips back, but she turns her whole body towards him. Showing him that she’s fully paying attention to him. Something he’s become familiar with since Michael has introduced her to him at their courthouse wedding, and the many times they’ve been around each other afterwards.

“How do you think Michael is holding up today?” He asks, his question is asked under his breath, his words only sent to her ears. The charge nurse hums, as if turning the question over in her head.

“It’s a tough day today, I think you know that.” Dennis nods, he does indeed. Today being his first Emergency Medicine day is only a cherry on top really. “I think all things said and done, it’s good that you’re here.”

Dennis can’t help but blush, he feels like if anything he’s more of a hindrance to his husband's Attending duties, more of a burden than anything else. Dana draws him into a side hug, her lithe arm coming around his shoulder and pulling him in and hugging him tight just for a second.

“Oh Dana, have you heard anything from Jesse abou-” Dana hits him on the arm to shut him up as Nick’s parents step out of the room with Robby. About to start the Honor parade. Everyone quiets as the parents as the kid makes their way down and to the elevator, on their way to the helipad.

Chapter Text

Most of them that worked with the kid are collected in an extra side room, some are missing, notably Cassie Mckay, and some are added who didn’t work on Amber. But mostly everyone is gathered around. Dennis himself is standing in the front, needing to be as close to Michael as he can be without it being out of the ordinary. His arms are crossed over themselves, he’s trying to hold himself together and from the looks of it so is Michael.

“That’s as hard as it gets. We do these debriefs to try to give a sense of closure, a meaning to difficult cases so that they won’t linger, won’t hurt, won’t infect other cases. But trust me, the kids you’ll lose will linger.” Michael is rubbing his hands together now, Dennis knows that if he was wearing his ring he would be spinning it. A common fidget that the older man has picked up since wearing the accessory.

“So what do you do?” He scoffs, Dennis can tell his voice is already getting watery. Michael has always been an easier crier. “I did my residency at Big Charity in New Orleans. And day one, I got a kid, five-year-old boy, accidentally shot by his brother playing with Dad’s gun, worried he was gonna get in trouble up until he coded and died-.”

His husband does let out a sniffle, and Dennis has to firmly plant his feet into the ground and dig his nails into his forearms to prevent himself from striding up to the other man and rubbing his arms, or holding him tight, or telling him reassurances. Instead he stays put. He’s already heard this story before, he knows where it goes, about burying your feelings and knows that they both know that isn’t the correct way to go about this. Dennis isn’t sure why this is what Robby is deciding to tell at the moment but it isn’t like he can speak up. Isn’t like he can correct him or comfort him, he’s just an MS4 to everyone else.

Before Robby can get to the big meaningful reveal of the story, of burying your emotions in a crypt, the security guard bursts in and announces a fight in the waiting room. Dennis’ nails unclench from his forearms, leaving crescent moon marks in his exposed skin as everyone rushes into the action. Dennis tries to wait behind and talk to his husband but he avoids him, Michael instead moves forwards and tries to talk to Collins.

—

Dennis is walking past the nurses bay, trying to avoid making eye contact as he makes some notes on his patients in his notepad. He still hasn’t heard any rumors about him or Michael but that doesn’t really mean anything in the Emergency department, just means that the rumors are avoiding him.

“Hey!” Nurse Kim jogs around the station, a pile of black scrubs in her hands and a kind smile on her face. “I found you scrubs that should fit!”

Dennis chuckles awkwardly as he thanks her and reaches for them, but before he can take them she tells him that they come with a catch. Things never come easy to me do they?

“Mr. Krakozhia is asking to see you.”

“The guy who peed on me? Why me?” Dennis almost whines out, if Michael heard that and they were alone, he would have gotten a swat on his butt for that type of whining.

Kim shakes her head, “I didn’t ask. But maybe you should wait to put these scrubs on until after you ‘ve…”

She trails off and yeah, that probably is a good idea. He voices his agreement as well. But she stares off behind him before running off. Dennis looks behind him and it's just a rat. A small one at that.

Dennis turns to face down the rat, he doesn’t have anything on him to catch it at the moment but he sees it. And his eyes narrow.

“Yeah, I see you. Your days are numbered, buddy.”

—

He’s geared up and ready to face down the Kraken. He kinda feels a little over prepared but he really, really, does not want to get peed on again. He’s ducking his head trying to not attract more attention as he makes his way to the psyche-hold room where Kim is undoubtedly waiting for him.

Langdon shoulder checks him the older Doctor is speed walking away, Dennis turns and gives him a look before moving on. He has things he needs to do. But he takes note of the strung up energy the Senior Resident has. He should talk to Michael about that soon probably, see what is going on.

“Wow! You came prepared.” Kim says, she’s standing in front of the window for the psyche room. Behind her, Dennis can see that Mr. Krakozhia is standing now, he’s hunched over himself.

Dennis tells her he’d rather be safe than sorry, and she then apologizes for running off about the rat, mentions she’s got a thing about rats, and that cows also ‘totally freak her out’.

He can’t help but tell her that he had plenty of them from where he came from, and that “They’re.. You know. They’re pretty harmless.”

Kim smiles and says, “Let’s hope Mr. Krakozhia is now too.”

Dennis agrees and they go in, he puts on a face shield first. Gotta stay protected.

Mr. Krakozhia is up and walking around in the room when they enter, and it almost sounds like he is sniffling as well. He asks Nurse Kim if Dennis is the guy and she confirms it kindly.

“Hey man.”

“It’s uh, Dennis Whitaker” He almost adds in the ‘Robinavitch’ but he keeps it to himself. Just barely. Mr. Krakozhia’s hands are in his pockets, he looks pretty lucid and aware, and he looks remorseful.

“I just wanted to say sorry for earlier. Hear I got you pretty good.” Dennis agrees, “I kinda go out of my head when I’m off my meds. Then I guess I piss on people.”

Mr. Krakozhia breaks a bit at the end of his sentence, he’s embarrassed and Dennis can tell but, “I’m pretty sure the meth doesn’t help.”

“I’m not using it anymore. I take antipsychotics for the schizophrenia I got from doing meth.” Dennis can tell that Mr. Krakozia is proud from the next thing he says. “But I’ve been clean a year.”

“Why aren’t you taking your meds?” Dennis asks. The second the question falls out of his mouth Dennis feels like an idiot, he should be wearing a dunce cap on his head.

“Why don’t I take my meds?” Mr. Krakozia scoffs and gives Dennis a dry look. “Well, Doc, I'm kind of in between-houses right now living in an encampment up on Liberty Avenue. Meds cost money. I don't have insurance. Should I go on?”

Fuck I feel bad. I come in here dressed up in this shit and then grill him about meth usage and why he isn't taking his meds. And he’s just off his meds and between houses. I could have been like this, in another life.

Dennis starts to strip off the protective face shield, “No, no. That's fine. I'm sorry. Life isn't always easy, I can’t imagine what else has led to here. Have you talked to our social worker yet?” Dennis is thinking of his own life, pre-Michael. Or even during Michael and before they figured their shit out.

Mr. Krakozhia says no, and Dennis looks over at Kim and asks her to go grab Kiara. She leaves the room and Mr. Krakozhia apologizes again and Dennis smiles at him while he rips off the hair net and tells him "It's OK, honestly. Really, it's OK. I appreciate the apology.”

Dennis and Mr. Krakozhia keep chatting a bit, Dennis learns that his name is Michael and when Mr. Krakozhia mentioned that Dennis couldn’t help but chuckle. The other man gave him a quizzical look and the student doctor just shakes his head and says he knows someone else named Michael with a complicated Russian last name.

When Kiara finally makes it down to the Emergency department and they get the chance to all chat with Mr. Krakozhia, Dennis is out of the stupid get up that he was in earlier. The unhoused man is sitting on the bed across from him and Dennis is sitting in a chair in front of him, Kiara is next to them both, simply observing for the time being.

“Mr. Krakozhia, here’s my obvious concern. I write you a script for 30 days’ worth of pills. Then what?”

The other man is confused. “What do you mean? I’ll take them.”

“Well, you come back for 30 more, right? I mean that’s the question.” Dennis looks at Kiara for help. “Even if I could give you your dose in a once-a-month shot, you still have to come back once the month is over.”

“What if he didn’t have to?”

Dennis is confused, “He has to. If he doesn’t, he… well, he pees.”

Kiara gives him a look and Mr. Krakozhia looks ashamed and Dennis gets hit by guilt for bringing it up again. Kiara mentions a street team and asks him if he stays in one spot pretty much, and Mr. Krakozhia says ‘yes’, that it’s over on Liberty near the Benedum.

“So we could bring the meds to him?” Dennis wasn’t aware that was a thing that a local hospital did, especially for a homeless population. He’s suddenly even more proud of the hospital that his husband works for. He knows that Michael complains endlessly about Gloria and the overhead but if that overhead allows for programs like this then it must be for something.

“Absolutely.The once-a-month injection sounds like the easier option.” Mr. Krakochia nods, “We could just put you on our schedule.”

Before Dennis really thinks about the implications about volunteering himself, he offers himself up to the street team. He doesn’t think about scheduling around him and Michael’s schedules or keeping their marriage a secret. He wants to help his community, he wants to help this hospital, he wants to be useful in a way he knows he can be.

—

There is a noisy commotion going on around the corner, what sounds like very very familiar sounds of a dog and a rat squealing. A sound he grew somewhat familiar with from back at home with the barn cats and all the rodents that ran around.

Dennis sprints around the corner and sees a small terrier shaking a rat. The farm boy quickly puts his stethoscope down and grabs an extra blanket off of a patient's bed and flaps it out. He stalks towards the scene, his tongue sticking out as he gets closer to the dog and rat.

He quickly throws the blankets over them both, “Gotchya.” He gently pushes the dog out of the way so he is only holding the rat and the dog -Crosby from what sounds like a Patient is calling for him- quickly runs away.

The rat is still squealing in the blanket so Dennis does what he has done a few times before, with rats, mice and mainly chickens and he snaps the neck. Clean and painless. A very quick death for the rodent.

He hears everyone in the Emergency department ‘Ohh’ and is a bit grossed out at what he’s done. Some are gasping. But then Langdon starts to clap, and then soon everyone joins in. The claps are slow and awkward but it’s there. Dennis does a small little bow, the dead rat still in his left hand.

Dennis can’t help but catch Robby’s eyes as he walks past him and his husband is beaming at him. His eyes are wrinkled and his nodding his approval. Dennis is their house (apartment but either or) vermin and bug catcher so Michael is very used to this type of behavior from Dennis. However watching him kill a rat is a bit abnormal.

Dennis runs outside quickly, wanting to dispose of this dead rat in his hand.

—

He steps outside with the fabric wrapped rat and finds Dana smoking, she offers him one and even though he just smoked and can’t really say no, not with the type of day he’s had today.

He disposed of the rat, tossed it into the trash along with the blanket, told Dana what happened and she just barked out a laugh. They’re content to stand in the silence for a few more moments. Inhaling the warm and addictive smoke as if it will cure all of their collective anxieties.

“So kid,” Dana starts. “How’s the Pitt treating you?”

Dennis rolls his eyes, he knows what she is actually wanting to ask.

“It’s weird.” He pauses between his admittance, taking another drag of the cigarette. “Calling him Robby, being responsible for all these lives, having to know so much and yet have such little time to recall it.”

Dana nods, her blonde bangs falling in front of her face. She looks aged, much older looking than how Dennis is used to seeing her. Is this what working in emergency medicine is like? Being aged and feeling it too?

“You’re doing good kid, haven’t messed up calling him the wrong thing,”Yes I have, I wonder if she just hasn’t heard about it. Or maybe she had and doesn’t want to make me feel worse. “and haven’t messed up with patients. You’re doing your job and you’re a quick learner. Don’t sweat the hard stuff alright?”

Always to the point, that’s what makes her such a good charge nurse. What makes her such a good friend to someone like Michael. To someone like me.

Dennis glances back into the ER, his anxieties of being away for too long making him jittery.

“Feel free to get back in there Dennis, I’m gonna stay out here for a bit longer alright?”

Dennis nods before taking one more drag of his quickly burning out cigarette. He took a much larger pull than normal, causing him to cough a bit as the smoke got stuck in his lungs for a second.

“You know-“ he coughs again, “These things will kill ya?”

Dana laughs as Dennis stubs his filter and remaining tobacco into the ashtray on the trash can near the entrance, and he gives Dana one last smile before turning around and heading back into the ED.

He doesn’t see the large man stalking his way to the emergency vehicle bay, with papers in his hands and a vendetta.