Chapter Text
Dennis and Michael’s relationship, if you could call it that, started as quickly as it had ended. A week after the mass casualty incident, Dennis had asked him why he was always touching him. Robby answered honestly and told him that it was because he was fond of him. Fond of him in a way that definitely was not appropriate.
They went out for coffee, they slept together, and they pretended like their work wasn’t always going to be in the way of anything that could ever be between them. It was a dream, to him at least. Growing up in a conservative, religious household meant that he hadn’t experienced anything before he went to college. Then he was in school, and he was studying Theology, and so was everyone he knew. He took the classes he needed for med school on the down low and applied just as quietly. When he was accepted, his parents…reluctantly let him attend. And then he was thrown into his studies.
Needless to say, when he first came to PTMC, he was a pent-up and exhausted girl. Robby was attractive and interested in him. He clearly cared about not only his education, but his health…and no matter what, that would always mean something to him personally. It changed how he thought about himself, about his profession.
“Dennis.” Trinity waved her hand in front of his face to bring him back to reality. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Uh…” He exhaled. “I was until I wasn’t. What did you ask?” He picked up his coffee cup and held it to his chest to try to calm his racing heart.
“I asked if you’ve talked to Robby.” She hit his leg with her foot. “He looks at you like he’s looking at-“
He interrupted her. “A ghost? Yeah. Well…He probably is.” He mumbled. “Are you and Dr.Garcia still…” He put his cup down so he could make vague hand gestures.
“Nah. We’re friends though, roommates. Roommates with benefits, sometimes.” She shrugged. “It’s always fun to scrub in with her, but I’m pretty sure the nurses hate it.”
“You’re like two peas in a pod…” He laughed. “I…probably should talk to Robby though, shouldn’t I?” He mumbled. “It’s not like he’s still interested though. I just…need to explain to him that I’m a different person now.”
“I think he knows that.” Trinity’s face slumped into a deadpan. “Plus. He’s definitely bi or something. I just know he and Abbot have done something. Or maybe are…I’m not super sure.”
He groaned. “I don’t know about that one.”
“Trust me, my gaydar is on point. I can always tell.”
He pointed at her. “You couldn’t tell that I was a boy. Or a gay boy. You thought I was a straight girl. You said so.”
“You grew up the only daughter of a farm family in buttfuck nowhere Nebraska with an insanely fundamentalist Christian upbringing. I knew you were queer, I just wasn’t about to tell you and have you have a crisis on me. Remember the first time I told you that I was a lesbian? How you reacted?”
He mumbled. “I didn’t react poorly.”
“You were terrified.” She laughed before her phone started to buzz on the table. “Oh shit…I’ve gotta go. I have to be at the hospital early…see you tomorrow?” She got up, slipping her jacket on before squeezing his shoulder and rushing out.
He sat there, thinking for longer than he had intended to. He had missed a lot of things about Pittsburgh, and people watching was one of them. He knew everyone in his small town, and everyone knew him. If he wanted to go experience something different for once, he had to drive an hour to North Platte. All the towns around him were too small, so he had no other choice. The issue is that he never really had the time to drive so far just…to stare at people.
Eventually, the barista was staring at him like he had overstayed his welcome. So he got up to go, politely ignoring the sigh of relief of the baristas as they moved to close up the shop for the night.
He walked back to his apartment in a pseudo-daze. Maybe it was the late-night caffeine, or just the way that being back in a city felt. Either way, he couldn’t remember anything from the time between pressing the button for the crosswalk just past the café he had been at, and unlocking the door to the studio apartment he’d been renting since he was kicked out. He’d let his brain make its own conclusions about trauma and dissociation; in the end, he was functional enough, and that’s all that truly mattered for a doctor.
When he arrived at the hospital the next morning, everything was the same as usual. Boarders clogging up rooms, a full waiting room, an exhausted night shift, and Dr.Robinavitch at the center of it all with Dr.Abbot. He could kind of see what Trinity was on about; they looked at each other with more care and attention than most co-workers did.
“Whitaker!” Abbot called. “Welcome back.” He clapped Dennis on the back, causing the other man to flinch.
“Did you tell everybody?” He mumbled, looking in Robby’s direction.
“I didn’t say a word to him.” He raised his hands in a surrender pose. “He’s just…perceptive.” Robby shoved his hands back in his pockets. “But also, it’s not like Whitaker is a super common last name.”
Abbot grinned. “You look good. Happier. If anyone gives you shit for that let us know. Michael might be old, but he can take a guy down for me if I ask.”
Robby rolled his eyes, and he mumbled quick thanks before walking off. But it’s not like he could get off that easily. Robby gripped his shoulder. “Come see me after our shift, okay?”
“Yep! Sure. Yes. I can do that. Bye!” He shrugged the hand off and quickly walked off towards anywhere else.
The shift ended up being one of the longest he’d ever had. He had plenty of fourteen… sixteen-hour shifts during his training, but in recent years, he’d been able to leave relatively on time. He could tell that the med students were getting tired, and once night shift arrived, he sent them home. But he stayed. He sort of had to.
He didn’t avoid Robby, not as much as he’d like. But the influx of patients they had from a big car accident meant that they were crossing paths a lot. But he was a fellow. An ED fellow. He knew what he was doing, and he didn’t need an attending to supervise him.
After his last patient got sent up to surgery, he slumped into one of the chairs at central and shut his eyes. His head and legs were truly killing him; he hadn’t sat down in at least 8 hours, and that was never a good thing, regardless of how trained you were. It didn’t help that the Pitt had the most intense fluorescent lights he’d ever seen.
“Dennis. You got a second?” He cracked one of his eyes open to see Robby standing there.
“…Sure, Boss.” He mumbled, closing his eyes again. “What’s up.”
“In private?” Robby spoke under his breath.
He sighed and stood up, following the other man out into the ambulance bay.
“Where did you go, after you denied the residency here.” Michael was always straight to the point. Didn’t beat around the bush. The information he wanted, he got. No questions asked.
“Back to Nebraska.” He sighed, leaning his head against the wall. “Our hospital is small, basically two doctors per department and a handful of nurses. Our ER resident left, and so my mentor…” He inhaled. “Ex-mentor, I guess. He needed more help. He goes to my parent’s church and was praying for assistance and it…all lined up. They called me back.” He looked over at Michael. It looked like the cogs were turning in his head.
“If they needed more help…then how did you end up back here?”
“I got kicked out of my parents’ house and fired from the hospital. I had gotten a legal name change. I was just going to silently transition…don’t ask don’t tell situation. But they found out pretty quick.” He sighed. “I didn’t practice medicine for a while. I moved back here and paid rent with my savings and gave myself time while applying for fellowships and transitioning.” He couldn’t hold in his yawn; the shift they’d just had was exhausting. “I didn’t mean to get a job back in the ED, I promise. I had been going for Pediatrics…I didn’t want to have to come back to this.”
Michael was silent. Still thinking. Still ruminating on everything that Dennis had said. “Did you mean to leave without telling me?”
He shrugged. “Yes. No. I knew what we were doing wasn’t sustainable. I knew…I knew I wasn’t someone you’d want once you found out who I really was. I didn’t want to lead you on, or have you feel like you had to wait for me.”
“When you say…who you really are.” He tried to avoid meeting Michael's eyes. “Are you talking about being transgender?”
“Yeah.” He kicked the ground. “It changes a lot of things. It’s probably fucked up that I didn’t come out to you before we started…having a relationship. But I don’t think I could even describe it myself. I knew I was a boy, but I didn’t know how…to be one. If I was ever going to be able to be one.”
“I’m bisexual.” Michael ran a hand through his hair. “It didn’t…doesn’t change anything for me. I’m not going to pretend like I waited for you. But I’m not going to pretend like I forgot you existed.”
“We can go back to being friends?” He offered. He swore there was something sad in Michael's eyes, but he ignored it. There was no point in paying attention to something that could never really be.
The other man shook his hand, “sounds good. Head home, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” He let go before walking towards his bike. “Good work today, Dennis.”
He watched as Robby rode off. It was a newer bike than he had once had, but it was still an old, dangerous hunk of junk. He turned in the other direction to head towards his car.
He didn’t ruminate on anything they had talked about. If he thought any more about anything that had happened that day, he would’ve lost it for good.
Tomorrow would be another day. Another day in the ED. Another day pretending like he didn’t have any regrets about how he had ended things in Pittsburgh. Tomorrow would just be another day.