Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Four Residents were sitting in the cafeteria. Levi Schmitt was zoned out, instead of eating he had taken to scribbling frantically on sticky notes. His handwriting unreadable to almost everyone but him.

Taryn Helm wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings either, she hadn't even looked up from the chart she had somewhat stolen from the nurses station since sitting down.

Dahlia Qadri was the only one out of the four that was actually eating the food she had bought, thought she did look half asleep as she ate her salad, her eyes occasionally shutting momentarily.

Casey Parker was half asleep with his head against the table. His tray of food untouched. He had been on-call for the past twenty-four hours, and the people in Seattle had decided to be particularly stupid apparently.

“I'm so gay,” Levi whispered suddenly to nobody in particular. His gaze landing on Nico.

“We know,” Taryn replied, not looking up from her file. She didn't need to see who he was looking at to know.

Silence once again fell over the four, until a loud beep started coming from Casey’s pager. Said man groaned and wearily move his head up to.

“Why do I have to work trauma? I'm not even going in to trauma,” Casey complained, slowly getting up.

“Because you're on trauma service,” Dahlia responded flatly.

“But I'm tired,” Casey whined, “And not all of us crave trauma, Dahlia.”

“You're just salty because I'm on cardio,” She said, not looking up from her salad.

“You stole Pierce from me!”

“At least you get to work with people who like you,” Levi interrupted. “I'm pretty sure Shepherd wants to strangle me.”

“Nah,” Casey reassured, “She's just big on tough love.”

“I'm mean, completely false, but okay I guess.”

“You would rather trust your anxiety then your best friend, who is dating her ex-husband?” Casey asked. His pager was still beeping loudly, it had gotten more than a few looks.

“Dahlia is my best friend,” Levi said casually. Staring straight into Casey’s eyes, ignoring Taryn’s face of betrayal.

“Hell yeah I am.” Dahlia put her hand out for a high five, which Levi happily reciprocated.

“Alright I get it!” Casey shouted at his pager, causing half of the people in the cafeteria to throw him a look. “This better be an actual thing and not just wanting to see me, Owen Hunt, because I am to tired for that.”

“Twenty bucks says it's a hook up page,” Taryn whispered to the others at the table once Casey had left, still muttering under his breath.

“Do you really have that little faith in this hospital?” Dahlia asked.

Levi and Taryn shared a look. “Yes,” the two of them replied in unison.

Dahlia didn't respond, she just let out a sigh and made a motion that portrayed the complete amount of giving up that she felt.

“Speaking of hooking up in an on-call room,” Taryn said, louder the needed, ignoring Levi’s protests, “How is Nico doing, Levi?”

The man in question seemed to have heard her, as did the several other people he was sitting with. Once Levi saw that Nico had heard, he shot Taryn a betrayed look before muttering, “He's good, thanks for asking.”

Taryn gave an angelic smile before going back to focusing on her chart. Levi rolled his eyes and went back to scribbling on the post it notes. The three fell into a comfortable silence, one that wasn't unknown to them.

The silence was killed off when footstep were heard approaching the table, they were accompanied by angry muttering.

“Hookup page?” Levi asked, as Casey sat down and let his head fall onto the table.

“No,” Casey muttered. He looked up upon hearing the rustling of money being handed over, only to see both Taryn and Levi handing Dahlia twenty dollars.

“Seriously guys! Stop betting on my relationship.”

“We do it with Levi too,” Taryn defended, ignoring Levi’s shocked look. The group got into a very lighthearted argument, no heat was behind any of the insults. At the end, all of them were laughing.

Chapter Text

“I have a date tonight,” Levi announced, sitting down at the cafeteria table.

“I know,” Casey said nonchalantly. “Owen told me.”

“What!” Levi shouted. Taryn made an show of looking around the cafeteria. Several people had turned their hands to see the source of the shouting. But most had gone back to eating.

After all, it's not like shouting wasn't a semi-normal happening in the hospital.

“Owen told me Nico Kim asked him if there were any rules about dating Interns,” Casey explained.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't calm Levi down. “He could have asked me. Why didn't he ask me?” And here the anxiety began kicking in.

“Look.” Taryn interrupted.“You, Levi Schmitt, have a date with a hot guy tonight. Calm down and eat your fucking pizza.”

She had a point. But calm wasn't a full entry in Levi’s dictionary of emotions. It was more like one that had been started, but no one ever went and finished it fully.

“What if-” Levi started.

“Pizza!” Taryn exclaimed before he could get out all of his concerns. It was a losing battle to try and argue back at the moment, and Levi knew it. Giving into defeat, he took a bite of his pizza.

At some point, Taryn's pager had gone off, she gave some half explanation as she ran off.

“Hey Casey?” Levi said not long after Taryn had left.

“Yeah?”

“Is it ever, like, weird? Dating your boss?” Levi asked. It wasn’t that Casey was a scary person, he just didn’t like to talk about his relationship in excruciating detail. Levi was pretty sure that fact came from some vague attempts to be more professional. It didn’t really help that much, but none of them said anything.

“Honestly?” Casey said. “Sometimes, it’s really weird.”

“Oh.”

Casey continued. “But, it’s also nice. I think mostly because he gets it? I mean he gets that sometimes I won’t show up for dates, or that I’m too tired to deal with other people.”

“Hey Casey?” Levi said, after a few moments of silence passed between them. “I’m really glad we’re friends.”

Casey smiled. “So am I, Levi.”