Chapter Text
The pale blue invitation has been stuck on the screen of Dennis Whitaker’s phone for at least the past minute.
He can’t seem to take his eyes away from it, for some reason. There’s a picture at the center, his brother and a woman he doesn’t quite recognize sharing a kiss, the words “The wedding of Jackson Whitaker and Leah Anderson” in a faux cursive font underneath it. It’s a decently aesthetically pleasing design, Dennis has to admit, which tells him that his brother most definitely did not have any input on it.
His brother getting married did not particularly shock Dennis all that much, even if he was sure that the happy couple had only met within the year. It was a family tradition, or curse, better yet, to jump into the deep end of a relationship and get engaged too quickly. The part that stood out the most to him was that it was addressed to Dennis Whitaker and his plus one.
And his plus one.
It wasn’t a question. Not Dennis Whitaker and his plus one if he has one, it was definitive. He’s not exactly sure what reason his brother had to mistakenly believe that he would be bringing a date, considering he purposefully never even breached the topic of romance during his bimonthly phone calls home. He hadn’t even so much as hooked up with anyone since his senior year of high school, not that he was ever lucky in the dating field anyway.
In all of his twenty-three years of life, Dennis had only managed to have a singular fling. It was a girl named Amanda, and the whole ordeal lasted for a brief five minutes in the back of her dad’s car during prom, much to his dismay. She was pretty, which is why Dennis was so surprised when she asked if he wanted to go to the dance with her, and he told himself that the reason he didn’t like her was that she was simply out of his league. He avoided her like a plague for the rest of the school year, absolutely terrified to possibly have to tell her that he just never quite felt romantically for her.
It took him until the second year of medical school when he started crushing on his male anatomy professor for him to realize that his disdain surrounding his senior prom night had absolutely nothing to do with Amanda. Well, besides the simple fact of her being a girl.
He told himself now that he was just too busy to date, despite the multiple dating apps that had been installed on his cell phone for a while now, and that he was choosing to remain single.
Choosing to be single. Definitely.
"Whatcha looking at?" Trinity's voice comes suddenly from over Dennis's shoulder, looking at his phone screen like the word 'privacy' just didn't exist to her.
Dennis quickly looks over to her, clicking off his phone screen and slipping the device back into his pocket. "A wedding invite-my brother is getting married next weekend." He turns to face the woman, an incredulous look on her face as he vaguely explains himself.
"Next weekend." She repeats.
"Yeah."
"Like, 10 days from now next weekend."
"Yes," he says again, a small sigh escaping his lips. "It's nothing too fancy, it'll just be at my family's farm. I'm the only one that doesn't live there anymore, so it's not like they need to give people time to plan for traveling or anything."
Dennis knows exactly what this wedding is going to be like. Every Whitaker wedding ever has taken place in the back lawn of his parents' farm, with a small ceremony inside where everybody gets absolutely wasted on the whiskey and moonshine that his grandfather makes. It wasn't something he was necessarily excited to take part in, but he would never hear the end of it if he didn't show up.
"That's so...country," Trinity comments helpfully, her face scrunched with a look of displeasure at the thought of a farm wedding. Not a cute vineyard-type farm, but a farm. With animals, and fields of corn, and a large family of people who all choose to never leave home.
"It's Nebraska, Trinity," Dennis says rather blankly, like he knew that would be her reaction to it. He barely gives it another second before he attempts to make himself scarce, walking away from the charting station he had been planted at. He needs to check on his patients, ask one of the attendings if they need help, anything to get far from Trinity. He loves his friend, their friendship becoming much more than he could have ever imagined after they became impromptu roommates, but he knows exactly how this conversation is going to go.
As Trinity finds his side to begin walking with him, however, he cannot even say he's surprised.
"You don't seem excited."
"I am excited."
"Are you going to go?"
"I have to. I already have the weekend off, so there's no reason why I wouldn't."
Dennis peeks his head into South 20, drawing back the thin curtain to see that his patient is sleeping. He finds the side of the bed, fixing the blanket over the woman and checking her vitals to at least act like he is doing something useful. He pretends not to see Trinity standing on the other side of the bed, still determined to pester him about this damn wedding.
"Well, that's good. I've been meaning to have Garcia over for the weekend, and she gets kind of pissy at the idea of you hearing us through the wall," she states nonchalantly, as if that was a normal and totally professional thing to say in their workplace.
"Trinity!" Dennis whips his head up to her, a warm flush finding his skin at her words. "That's- I don't-" he stutters out awkwardly, trying to find his words to tell her that no, he did not need to know anything about her sex life. "You shouldn't talk like that in front of a patient."
The two residents look down towards said patient, the woman passed out cold. Trinity rolls her eyes before looking back up towards the other, her eyes roaming over him for a moment as she inspects him.
"You're being weird about this." Her arms cross over her chest, brows furrowing at him. Something was up with her friend, she knew. She had gotten damn good at reading him since they started living together, which honestly scared Dennis most of the time.
He looks back up to her like she's insane, his blue eyes widening at her. "Why wouldn't I be weird about you talking about having sex?" He asks, dumbfounded, his voice dropping to a whisper as if there were anyone actually listening to them.
"No, idiot," Trinity scoffs, like the answer was obvious. "I mean about this stupid wedding. You're being all huckleberry about it."
Now it was Dennis's turn to roll his eyes.
He hated that nickname, that of which Trinity gave him on his very first day of interning that managed to stick around somehow. He hated when she called him that, when she used it as a noun when referring to him, and he especially hated when other people in the hospital started picking up on it.
"I'm not being anything about it," he lies straight through his teeth, trying to use a tone of annoyance to cover it up. "You're the weird one who keeps asking me questions about it."
She stares at him blankly, not falling for a single word. She doesn't say anything else, however, not because she's given up but because she knows how easily he folds under pressure.
He only lasts a couple of seconds of the intense eye contact Trinity is forcing onto him before he speaks again. "I'm not being weird about the wedding," he repeats, "but since you're so pushy about it, I may be slightly nervous. They're expecting me to bring a plus one, which is totally fine, I just...don't have anyone to bring. Which is less fine."
"Is that really what this is about?" She questions him, shaking her head. "That's so lame. I thought you were about to delve into some crazy family drama."
Dennis doesn't respond. Instead, he finally moves away from the bedside of his patient, Trinity following after him once more. "Just find someone to take, Whitaker, it's not that big of an issue."
She says it like it really is that simple. Like he could just take any random person and let them see the part of his life that he ran away from as soon as he graduated. Dennis couldn't even fit in there, he can't expect anyone else to.
"It's not that easy," he mutters, and this is exactly why he didn't want to talk to Trinity about this. She pushes too hard, makes fun of things that Dennis really wishes she didn't. "I don't know anybody outside of work."
Dennis was never exactly the type of person to make friends in school. In college, he stuck to himself and rarely ever participated in class lectures outside of whatever was necessary. Even now, between working at the PTMC, still having classwork to do, and trying to get any sort of sleep at all, he hasn't found the time to go out and meet people. The only friend he has here is Trinity, and they only got close because they live in the same apartment.
"Will you go with me?" He asks pleadingly. He doesn't exactly want to mix his home life with Trinity, at all actually, but if that was the only choice he had then he might as well ask.
"I thought I made it clear that I have plans. Unless you have a hot cousin, because then I would consider it."
"Ew, nevermind."
He finds his way back to the charting station where he was previously, entering the words "Vitals remain stable" into his patient's chart.
It had been surprisingly slow at the hospital so far today. Usually, the word "slow" didn't exist at the Pitt, considering how people were quite literally always getting hurt, but there was definitely a dip in patient numbers compared to the rest of the week. It was nice not to have to rush around saving people, but wow, was it boring. It was already 10 A.M., and Dennis had only seen two patients, both of whom had uninteresting cases.
Trinity leans on the countertop next to where Dennis was standing, looking around the central hub. About half of the staff was standing in the nearby area, all of which doing various small tasks to keep themselves any sort of busy. Her eyes find charge nurse Dana, the older woman sitting at her computer with a game of solitaire pulled up.
"Hey, Dana."
"What's up, hun?" Dana asks, closing out her current tab and switching it to something more work-related, a random file now pulled up on her desktop. Looks like everyone has to pretend to be doing real work today. Trinity can't help the grin that pulls to her lips at the sight.
"What are you doing next weekend?"
"Working, why?"
For a moment, Dennis has convinced himself that Trinity has finally dropped the topic of his brother's wedding. He lets out a small breath of relief, continuing to busy himself with patient charts.
"Huckleberry needs a date to a wedding," she explains, pretending not to notice as the man in question snaps his head over to her.
"I don't want you asking people to go with me," Dennis half-heartedly scolds, though it was truly his fault for thinking that Trinity would ever drop something before getting her fill of amusement from it.
Dana turns her chair to face the two residents, looking between them over the top of her glasses, her arms crossed. "You don't have anyone to go with, Dennis?"
"I haven't gotten around to meeting people in Pittsburgh yet," he answers awkwardly, avoiding the nurse's gaze.
'Well, how long have you lived here?"
"Five years."
"Oh."
"See?" Trinity speaks, feigning a frown as she looks towards Dana. "The poor kid is a charity case. We have to do something to help him get a date." She throws an arm around Dennis's shoulder, dragging him into her side and patting his chest twice with much more force than needed.
Dennis feels his skin flush a warm pink, bringing his hands up in a desperate attempt to cover the blush and avoid this whole situation. How embarrassing. He was well aware that he didn't have any friends outside of work. He had even started to be able to tell himself that he didn't care. What he did care about, however, was Trinity going around trying to recruit their coworkers to go with him and exposing just how shitty his social life is.
Dana sighs, though turning back towards her computer and pulling up the sheet that had the schedule for the next two weeks. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, scanning the document until finding what she wanted. "It's looking like Victoria, Mel, and Robby all have next weekend off," she tells the two, looking towards Dennis as if he were actually going to take his pick from the bunch.
Admittedly, he didn't know either of the other two young adults all that well. Victoria Javadi worked with Dr. McKay most of the time, and Mel King was allowed her own cases a majority of the time. Their workload rarely intersected with Dennis's, and even though the group had been at the Pitt for almost eight months now, he just hadn't gotten ample opportunities to chat with either of the young women.
There was also Dr. Robby, of course, who was Dennis's boss and the older man that Dennis may have a not-so-secret crush on. Just the thought of spending time with Dr. Robby alone, outside of work, had the blush on Dennis's face growing.
Trinity grins at Dana, pulling mostly off of Dennis before grabbing ahold of his arm. "Thanks, Dana. We're off to find Huckleberry's potential suitors."
The young woman drags Dennis away from where he was standing, not relenting even as Dennis trips over his own feet and almost faceplants. "Trinity!" he yelps, scrambling along beside her as she pulls on him.
Mel and Victoria stand nearby with Samira Mohan, the three chatting God knows what. Trinity and Dennis come barreling into their conversation like a freight train, Trinity with a grin on her face and Dennis refusing to look anybody in the eye.
"Crash, what are you doing next weekend?" Trinity asks Victoria first, raising an eyebrow at the younger woman.
She looks almost nervously between Trinity and Dennis, having to think about it for a moment in utter surprise as the answer slowly comes to her. "I'm babysitting Harrison," she says.
Ever since Javadi's very first day of interning, when she mistakenly volunteered herself to watch Dr. McKay's son on the weekend, she had pretty consistently been babysitting the young boy. It was nothing if not a bit inconvenient at first, but after a while she had enjoyed getting to spend time with the rather ecstatic child and get closer to both Cassie and Mateo in the process.
She would come in on Mondays with a smile on her face, talk about Harrison and her activities with them to anyone that cared to listen.
"Yeah, of course," Trinity scoffs, rolling her eyes because duh, she really should have expected that. She knew that Victoria had been watching McKay's son over these past months. Her gaze then shifts to Mel. "What about you, Mel? What are you doing?"
Dennis has been silent the whole time, staring at the floor and hoping that maybe it will open up and swallow him whole. He knows that Trinity has good intentions, probably, and if she does actually find him a plus one miraculously then he would truly be grateful, but being dragged along for the ride really wasn't quite his idea of fun.
"Uh, well, my sister and I are going to spend some time together."
"Damn." Trinity, still with her grip on her friend's arm, goes to lead him away again, but not before Samira can interject.
"Wait, what? Why didn't you ask what I'm doing?" Mohan questions, clearly expecting the next question to have been directed towards her.
Trinity shrugs. "I already know what you're doing next weekend," she says, as if that isn't super creepy without a shred of context. "You will be working, which means that you cannot accompany Whitaker to his wedding."
"His wedding?" Mel asks, furrowing her eyebrows.
"His brother's wedding," Trinity repeats, with a correction to her logistical error this time. "He needs a plus one but has no friends."
"That's really mean, Trinity," Victoria says. "You can't just say someone has no friends."
The group of women look towards Dennis at Victoria's proclamation, only to see him with his lips pulled into a tight line as he softly shakes his head.
"Oh."
Lord, Dennis really wishes people would stop reacting like that. It's making him feel less like an antisocial loser and more like one of those dogs on the commercials that have sad music and beg the viewer for money.
"Okay," Samira draws out the word, shifting the attention off of poor Dennis and onto her. Her focus is on Trinity, who is clearly the leader of this little mission. "Who else is on the list of possibilities?"
"It's just Robby left."
A collection of pitiful groans and hisses that come from the group.
The idea that anyone would ever have to resort to asking their boss of all people to be their date to a wedding was utterly absurd. It wasn't that Michael Robinavitch was particularly a hardass most of the time, though the group's first day truly showed how bad it could be. It was simply that Robby is Dennis's boss, and Dennis could barely even have a normal conversation with the older man in regards to work topics on a normal day.
The idea of Dennis not being awkward around the man was generally inconceivable. There was no way Dennis would be able to handle making enough small talk to last a whole weekend in a different state. Not even to mention the fact that Dennis was crushing hard on the other.
There was little difference between Dennis's normal awkwardness to his nervousness around Dr. Robby to the untrained eye. He was simply a very unsure person when it came to anything besides his medical knowledge.
It was subtle, the way he would pick at his lip instead of wringing his hand together in Robby's presence. How he would keep his hands shoved into his scrubs pocket rather than closing himself off by crossing his arms. How he wouldn't stumble over his words as much but stutter more.
It was little things, but Dennis pretended that it was simply because Robby was his boss. He knew better in his heart, though.
He was afraid that Robby knew better as well.
"What about me?" Comes a voice behind Trinity, just the person that Dennis absolutely did not want as a part of this conversation.
Robby had just been stepping out of a patient's room, still snapping off his set of gloves when he apparently caught the tail end of the group's conversation. He had clearly heard his name, and now his curiosity is peaked.
Dennis starts quickly with his "nothing" but not before Trinity can also start speaking.
"Whitaker needs a plus one for a wedding and Dana told us that you have the weekend of it off," she explains to the older man, raising an eyebrow at him. "Do you want to go with him?"
A small puff of air leaves Robby, looking between Trinity and Dennis both. His eyes eventually land on Dennis, his gaze flickering over the resident like he was trying to read him. "Do you want me to go with you?"
That is...certainly not the response Dennis was expecting.
He thought that Robby would shut it down immediately, like everyone else had done, but it seemed that the man was at least entertaining the idea. To be honest, as much as it absolutely terrified to think about socializing his boss with his family, Dennis had to admit that it would be nice to spend time with Robby outside of the ED.
"Well, I mean," Dennis mutters with a shrug of his shoulders, his eyes cast towards the ground. "I would be very thankful if you did come," he tells Robby honestly, trying to pretend as though a group of his coworkers weren't all watching this interaction play out.
"Hm," Robby hums, narrowing his eyes slightly as he watches Dennis. Before he can give any sort of actual answer, however, Robby's name is called from across the hall, which throws everyone back to the fact that they need to get back to work. "We can talk about this after work, Whitaker," Robby tells him before turning on his heel and swiftly moving away from the group.
Dennis is left stunned for a second, a stunned, almost confused look passing between Mel, Samira, and Victoria who all got to watch that rather baffling conversation. Trinity seems to be the only one with anything to say, a laugh pulling from her lips.
"Well look at that, Huckleberry. It looks like you just got yourself a date."