Chapter Text
A few hours into the shift, the ER had settled into a strange kind of quiet. Not empty, because The Pitt was never empty, but quiet enough that the usual chaos felt almost gone. The waiting room still had people in it, stretchers still rolled through the halls, monitors still beeped and pagers still chirped, but none of it carried the urgency that normally defined the place. Most of the cases had been straightforward: ankle sprains from weekend sports, a couple of fractured wrists, a kid who had swallowed something he absolutely should not have swallowed but was thankfully fine. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that required the whole team rushing in at once.
Dennis didn’t mind it. After the first few weeks working at The Pitt, he had learned that quiet shifts were a gift, even if they felt oddly boring in the moment. He stood at one of the workstations updating a chart, leaning slightly against the counter while typing in the last notes about a patient who had come in with what turned out to be a very uncomplicated broken finger. Around him, the ER hummed softly with background noise, phones ringing, nurses chatting at the desk, someone laughing somewhere down the hall.
Garcia’s voice suddenly cut through it all. “If I have to treat one more ankle sprain today,” she declared loudly while passing the workstation, “I swear I’m quitting and becoming a barista.”
Dennis glanced up from the chart, one eyebrow lifting slightly. “You complain about coffee way too much for that.”
Garcia rolled her eyes so dramatically he was surprised she didn’t loose her balance. “That’s because the hospital coffee sucks,” she shot back immediately. “As a barista I would never sell such an abomination to my customers.”
Dennis couldn’t help the smile that slipped onto his face as he finished typing and saved the chart. Interactions like that had become surprisingly common over the past weeks. When he had first started working at The Pitt, everything had felt a little distant, like he was orbiting the team rather than actually being part of it. That had changed over time, especially after the night he had accidentally walked in on Trinity and Yolanda together in the living room of the apartment he shared with Trinity. After that incident, awkward as it had been, something had changed. They had been extra friendly ever since.
Not that Dennis was complaining. If anything, he liked it. It made the long shifts easier when people actually talked to each other instead of just barking orders across rooms. The only downside was the way Trinity and Garcia behaved when they were around each other. Dennis tried very hard not to notice, but sometimes it felt like they forgot anyone else existed. Watching them flirt their way through a shift could occasionally make him want to throw up. He had also learned that the walls of their apartment weren’t exactly soundproof. He was thankful for his headphones.
The moment of silence didn’t last and Dennis never expected it to, because that just doesn’t happen in an ER. The loud wail of an ambulance siren grew louder outside, cutting through the calm. Several heads turned automatically toward the entrance as the sound stopped abruptly in front of the building. A few seconds later the doors burst open and paramedics rolled a stretcher inside.
“Seventeen-year-old male,” one of them reported quickly while pushing the stretcher down the hallway. “Single vehicle crash. No seatbelt. Large laceration on the forehead but vitals are stable. Patient’s conscious.”
Dennis and Trinity were already moving by the time the stretcher reached the trauma room. The teenager looked pale but awake, one hand loosely gripping the side rail while blood trickled down from a deep cut across his forehead and into his eyebrow. His hair was matted with it, though the bleeding wasn’t nearly as catastrophic as it looked at first glance.
They transferred him to the hospital bed with practiced efficiency. Dennis stepped in first, leaning slightly over the patient as he quickly assessed the basics. The boy was breathing normally, chest rising and falling without strain. His pulse was fast but strong when Dennis checked his wrist.
“Alright,” Dennis said calmly. “Can you tell me your name?”
The teen blinked up at him, eyes slightly unfocused. “…Tyler.”
“Good, Tyler,” Dennis replied. “Do you know what day it is?”
The boy frowned faintly, thinking much harder about the question than someone his age probably should have needed to.
“Uh… Saturday?” It was Wednesday.
Dennis exchanged a brief glance with Trinity as she stepped beside the bed and began preparing an IV line.
“Okay,” Dennis said gently, keeping his tone steady. “That’s alright. Do you know where you are?”
“…hospital?”
“That’s right.”
While Trinity inserted the IV with quick, confident movements, Dennis carefully lifted the boy’s eyelids one after the other and shone a small penlight into each eye. The pupils reacted normally, contracting against the light, but the sluggish confusion still suggested a concussion.
“Probably a mild head injury,” Dennis murmured mostly to Trinity as he straightened. “Let’s order a CT scan just to be safe.”
Trinity nodded while reaching for sterile gauze. She began cleaning the blood from the teenager’s forehead, carefully pressing against the cut to slow the bleeding.
The boy winced but didn’t pull away.
“Am I gonna die?” he asked suddenly.
Dennis huffed out a quiet breath that was almost a laugh. “No. Definitely not.”
Tyler seemed to consider that for a second before another concern took ist place.
“…my mom’s gonna kill me though.”
“I promise you,” Dennis said while adjusting the light above the bed to get a better look at the wound, “your mom will be much more interested in the fact that you’re alive than in the fact that you wrecked the car.”
The teenager relaxed a little at that, shoulders dropping slightly against the mattress.
Across the bed, Trinity paused briefly in her work. It wasn’t that Dennis was saying anything particularly unusual. Doctors reassured patients all the time. But something about the way he spoke to the kid stood out. His voice had softened just enough to get through the panic, and the boy clearly responded to it. Within a minute the tight anxiety in Tyler’s face had eased, replaced by tired relief.
Trinity finished cleaning the cut and applied fresh gauze.
“See?” Dennis added lightly. “Worst case scenario you get grounded. Which, trust me, is still a pretty good outcome here.” The boy let out a weak laugh.
By the time Dennis and Trinity were finished with Tyler, the worst of the mess had already been taken care of. The cut on the teenager’s forehead had turned out to be deep but straightforward, and after cleaning the wound properly Dennis had put in a handful of careful stitches while Trinity kept the gauze steady and the kid distracted with light conversation. Tyler had tolerated it surprisingly well for someone who had crashed a car not even an hour earlier. Once the bleeding had stopped and the bandage was in place, they sent him off for a CT scan just to rule out anything more serious than a concussion.
With the patient on his way to imaging and the trauma room reset for the next case, Dennis peeled off his latex gloves and tossed them into the bin. Trinity did the same, both of them stepping out into the hallway that smelled of disinfectant and hospital soap. The adrenaline of the ambulance arrival had already faded again, leaving that familiar in-between lull where everyone moved a little slower for a moment.
“Come on,” Trinity said, jerking her head toward the break room. “If I don’t get sugar or protein or something soon I’m going to start eating the gauze.”
Dennis followed without protest. The vending machine in the break room had become something of a lifesaver, especially in long shifts, even if half the time it refused to cooperate.
As they walked, Trinity leaned her shoulder against the wall briefly and snorted to herself. “That kid reminded me of the first time I drove alone,” she said. “Except I didn’t hit a tree. I backed my parents’ car straight into a mailbox.”
Dennis glanced over. He was gonna comment on how from now on he’d never drive with Trinity again, but refrained, because in the end she’d actually never drive him anywhere again just to piss him off.
“Oh yeah,” she continued, clearly amused by the memory. “Took the entire side mirror off. My dad made me pay them back for it. Every single dollar.”
Dennis grinned but didn’t say much, already stepping up to the vending machine, dropping some coins in and pressing the button for a protein bar. The machine hummed for a long second, gears clicking somewhere inside like it was debating whether or not it felt like doing ist job today. It didn’t, Dennis stared at it. The bar stayed exactly where it was.
He kicked the panel on the side of the vending machine, hoping there wasn’t a surveillance camera somewhere in here that would end up getting him in trouble. But it worked as the spiral inside finally shifted and the protein bar dropped with a dull thud into the tray.
Trinity watched the entire interaction with quiet approval. “Effective technique,” she said, she was convinced that Dennis didn’t get into enough trouble just for the fun of it.
Dennis crouched to grab the bar, brushing a bit of dust off the wrapper before standing again. Trinity tilted her head slightly. “Speaking of driving… I’ve never actually seen you drive anywhere. Do you even have a license?”
Dennis paused halfway through opening the wrapper, considering the question for a moment, then he shrugged.
“I can drive basically anything.”
“Anything.”
“Yeah,” Dennis said casually. “Growing up on a farm has ist perks.” He finally tore the wrapper open and took a bite of the protein bar while Trinity continued staring at him.
“Tractors,” he added between chews. “Pickup trucks. Combines. Pretty sure I could figure out most heavy machinery if you gave me ten minutes.”
“And yet,” Trinity said slowly, “you haven’t answered my question. Do you have a license or not?”
Dennis shrugged again. “Out there no one really cared if I had one or not, your feet reached the pedals? You were good to go,” he said.
Trinity snorted. “Stop flexing.”
Dennis stuck his tongue out at her. Before Trinity could respond, the break room door opened again and Robby stepped inside.
“I hate to interrupt what seems like a very entertaining conversation,” he said evenly, “but Garcia needs help with a patient. Trauma three, Whitaker.” He definitely had seen them interacting like a bunch of kids and wasn’t pleased.
Dennis swallowed the bite of protein bar still in his mouth. “What happened?”
“Apparently he tried climbing over a fence,” Robby replied. “Didn’t go well.”
Then Robby glanced at Trinity. “You too, Trauma two.”
Trinity sighed dramatically and pushed herself off the wall. “Duty calls.” She gave Dennis an exaggerated pout as she headed toward the door. “Try not to miss me.”
Dennis waved vaguely in her direction while stuffing the rest of the protein bar into his mouth and made his way down the hall. By the time he reached the trauma room Garcia was in, the smell hit him immediately.
Cheap alcohol. Strong enough that it practically hung in the air. Dennis cursed under his breath but forced himself to ignore it as he stepped inside.
Garcia was already standing beside the patient, scissors in hand as she cut open the man’s pant leg to expose the injury. The fabric fell away to reveal a deep puncture wound in the man’s thigh, the skin around it dark with dried blood.
“Seriously,” Garcia was saying as Dennis walked in. “What is it with people getting drunk and then deciding fences are to be climbed?”
The patient, a middle-aged man who looked far more relaxed than someone with a that kind of leg injury probably should, leaned back against the bed with an almost lazy expression.
“I told you,” he insisted, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “The gnomes were chasing me.”
Dennis paused and Garcia looked up at him with a tired expression. “See what I’m dealing with?”
Dennis pressed his lips together to keep from laughing as he stepped closer to the bed. “So the gnomes made you climb the fence,” he said carefully.
“Yes!” the man said, clearly pleased someone was finally understanding the situation. “I don’t wanna know what would’ve happened if they actually got to me.”
Dennis exchanged a glance with Garcia. The smell of alcohol explained part of it, but probably not all of it. Garcia leaned slightly toward Dennis while preparing gauze and muttered under her breath, “We’re definitely running a drug test. I don’t trust a man who says he only drank cheap vodka and then starts talking about gnomes.”
Dennis nodded and turned his attention back to the wound. The impalement had been deep but luckily seemed to have missed anything critical. He carefully examined the area while Garcia controlled the bleeding, both of them checking for signs that any major artery or muscle had been damaged.
“Alright,” Dennis said after a moment. “You got very lucky.”
The man grinned. “I usually do.”
Dennis prepared a syringe with local anesthetic and injected it around the wound while explaining what he was doing. The patient barely reacted, likely too full of alcohol and adrenaline to feel much of anything.
While Garcia began stitching the wound closed with quick and practiced movements, Dennis continued explaining the basics of recovery, keeping the area clean, avoiding too much movement for a few days, coming back if swelling or pain got worse.
He had a strong suspicion the man would remember none of this once he sobered up. Garcia tied off another stitch and muttered under her breath, “Honestly, I’d rather be checking a sprained ankle.”
After Dennis had finished giving the order for a drug test, mostly because the man on the bed had now begun specifying that the gnomes chasing him were red garden gnomes, his attention was pulled away by a commotion near the nurses’ station.
Two nurses were trying to steady a young woman who looked like she might collapse any second. Her entire body was shaking, hands gripping the sleeves of one of the nurses like she was trying to anchor herself to something that seemed real enough. Her breathing was fast and shallow, almost frantic, and her eyes darted around the room as if she couldn’t focus on anything for more than a moment.
One of the nurses spotted Dennis immediately. “Doctor!” she called, relief obvious in her voice.
Dennis didn’t hesitate. He jogged the few steps over, slowing down only when he reached them so he wouldn’t crowd the woman further. Up close he could see how flushed her face was, her chest rising and falling far too quickly.
“She says she’s having a heart attack,” the nurse explained quickly. Dennis nodded once, already assessing the situation. The symptoms didn’t line up with what he’d expect from a heart attack. Her skin was red and overheated rather than pale or gray, her breathing rapid but unrestricted, and despite the panic she was standing without the kind of weakness that usually came with cardiac distress.
Still, the fear on her face was real. He softened his voice immediately. “Hey,” Dennis said calmly. “If you sit down and tell me your name, we’ll figure out what’s going on. Okay?”
The woman’s eyes flicked toward him, still wide.
“I-… I can’t breathe,” she managed between quick breaths.
“You can,” Dennis said gently. “Your body just thinks it’s in danger right now. Everything’s alright.”
He didn’t try to pull her away from the nurses too quickly. Instead he waited until she loosened her grip on them slightly, then carefully guided her toward one of the chairs near the wall in a quieter corner of the ER, away from the busiest stretchers and noise.
Once she was seated, Dennis crouched beside her and took her wrist lightly, checking her pulse. It was fast but steady. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“…Marie.”
“Alright, Marie,” Dennis said. “Can you tell me where the pain is?”
She pressed a shaky hand against the center of her chest. “It-… it hurts here and my arms feel weird and I thought I was going to pass out.”
Dennis nodded while listening carefully. The description matched what he suspected, panic attack symptoms that felt terrifying in the moment but weren’t physically dangerous.
He moved to sit in the chair next to her so he was at eye level. “You’re not having a heart attack,” he told her.
Marie blinked at him, still breathing too fast. “I’m not?”
“No,” Dennis said. “You’re having a panic attack. Can you try something with me?”
She nodded and closely watched Dennis, not shaking as much anymore.
“Breathe in through your nose,” Dennis said, demonstrating slowly. “Like this.” He inhaled deeply. “Now out through your mouth.” He exaggerated the motion slightly so she could follow it easily.
At first Marie‘s attempts were uneven, her chest still jerking with quick breaths. Dennis didn’t rush her. He kept the rhythm steady, speaking in the same calm tone.
“In through your nose… and out through your mouth.”
Around them, the ER continued moving,.stretchers rolling by, voices calling vitals, phones ringing, but Dennis stayed completely focused on her.
After a few cycles, her breathing began to slow. Her shoulders dropped slightly, the tight panic in her eyes softened into confusion.
Dennis kept talking while they continued the breathing. “You’re safe right now,” he said quietly. “Your body just got overwhelmed. That happens sometimes.”
Marie wiped at her face, realizing at some point she had started crying.
“How are you so good at this?” she asked hoarsely.
Someone else might’ve said they were a doctor and just trained for this, but Dennis decided to be honest. “I had to learn how to deal with my own panic attacks,” he admitted.
Marie blinked at him again, clearly not expecting that answer. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Dennis said with a small shrug. “Turns out doctors aren’t immune to those.”
By now her breathing had slowed enough that she could take a steady inhale without it hitching halfway through. The color in her face had evened out as well. Neither of them noticed that a few meters away, Robby had paused in the hallway. At first he had started moving toward them the moment he heard the words heart attack. Those weren’t things you ignored in an ER.
But he had stopped after a few seconds of watching. Dennis had already taken control of the situation, calmly and efficiently in a way that Robby hadn’t necessarily expected. The panic attack diagnosis had become clear quickly, and the way Dennis guided the woman through the breathing exercise was… surprisingly gentle. Robby stayed where he was, arms loosely crossed, observing quietly.
After another minute, Dennis stood and offered Marie his hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s grab some water.”
She accepted it, letting him help her up. They walked a few steps over to the small counter where Dennis filled a paper cup and handed it to her.
“You can sit here for a bit longer if you want,” Dennis told her, nodding toward the chair again. “There’s no rush. If staying here a little while makes you feel safer, that’s completely fine.” Marie nodded gratefully and sat back down, the worst of the panic clearly gone.
Behind them, Robby nodded approvingly and finally turned and continued down the hallway.
Having a moment where the ER slowed down again, and being able to help someone the way Dennis had just helped Marie, left him feeling lighter than he had a few minutes before. He stayed nearby for a little while, keeping an eye on her from the nurses’ station as she sipped her water and slowly returned to normal. The shaking in her hands had stopped, and she even manageda small, embarrassed smile when one of the nurses checked on her. Seeing that was enough to settle the last of the tension in Dennis’ shoulders. Helping someone through something like that always gave him a strange feeling, he wished someone had helped him like that a while ago, too.
He was about to head back toward the charting stations when he caught the sound of raised voices nearby.
Trinity and Victoria were standing near one of the desks, leaning over Victoria’s phone like they were examining evidence in a crime scene. Trinity had one eyebrow raised in deep skepticism while Victoria looked entirely convinced she was right about something.
“I’m telling you,” Victoria insisted, holding the phone out again, “that man is objectively attractive.”
Trinity snorted. “Men like that are exactly why I’m a lesbian.”
Dennis had every intention of simply walking past them. He had learned long ago that inserting himself into Trinity’s debates rarely ended peacefully. Unfortunately, Victoria spotted him at exactly the wrong moment.
“Dennis!” she called, waving him over before he could escape. He slowed down with visible hesitation.
“Come settle this,” Victoria said, already shoving the phone toward him. “Is he hot or not?”
Dennis barely had time to react before the screen was practically in his face. The Instagram post showed a man standing somewhere on a beach or poolside, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a confident expression. The guy was toned in that very curated social-media way, the kind of picture clearly meant to show off as much as possible.
Dennis blinked once, the guy didn’t look bad. Not at all, actually. It was the kind of impossibly perfect model you saw in advertisements, but still… definitely attractive.
The realization hit him a second too late that he was standing in the middle of the ER, looking at a nearly naked stranger on someone’s phone while two coworkers waited for his opinion. Heat rushed to his face immediately. Trinity noticed, of course she did.
Her entire expression changed in an instant. “Oh my god,” she said, suddenly far more interested in the situation than she had been a second ago.
Victoria leaned forward slightly. “See?” Trinity pointed at her. “Stop before Dennis ends up with a boner on the clock.”
Dennis’ blush deepened so quickly it was almost impressive. “Can you not-” he started, already turning away. He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead he just walked off as fast as he could without technically running, leaving the two women behind him.
Their laughter followed him down the hallway, Trinity’s was easily the loudest.
The sharp squeak of stretcher wheels suddenly echoed from the entrance as the doors burst open again. Two paramedics rushed in, pushing a stretcher between them. Small droplets of blood fell to the floor behind it as they moved.
Dennis turned before anyone even called for him.
“Male, mid-twenties,” one of the paramedics reported quickly while they rolled the stretcher toward a trauma room. “Unconscious after a robbery. Single gunshot wound to the abdomen.”
Robby was already there, guiding the stretcher through the doors. Dennis followed without hesitation.
The patient’s shirt had been cut open during transport, the fabric soaked dark with blood around the entry wound. The sight made something in Dennis’ chest tighten in a way he didn’t like. For a brief moment his heart seemed to stutter painfully against his ribs.
He pushed the feeling down immediately. There was no time to think about that now.
Dennis grabbed a stack of gauze and pressed it firmly against the wound to slow the bleeding while Robby began calling for additional staff. The trauma room filled quickly with movement, equipment being pulled closer, monitors attached, voices exchanging quick updates.
King entered first, followed closely by Trinity. Robby worked efficiently at the head of the bed, directing the flow of the room, but his attention flicked toward Dennis more than once.
Something felt… off. Dennis was doing the right things, holding pressure, responding when spoken to, but there was a slight delay in his reactions that hadn’t been there earlier. His movements were just a little less precise than usual. Robby noticed, after a moment he spoke.
“Whitaker,” he said evenly, not harsh but firm enough to cut through the noise. “Step back. Let them take over.” Dennis looked up like the words had taken a second to register.
Dennis hesitated, then nodded once and moved aside so King could take over applying pressure. He stayed close enough to still help where needed, grabbing fresh gauze and wiping blood away so the wound could be assessed properly.
Robby watched him briefly, eyes narrowing slightly. Dennis looked… distracted. Not panicked, exactly, but somewhere else in his head for a moment. The observation stayed with Robby even as he turned his attention back to the patient. Somehow, it annoyed him. He was used to Dennis being accurate and efficient, but there was no time to scold.
Within minutes it was clear the man would need surgery to remove the bullet. “Get the OR ready,” Robby instructed.
Dennis moved automatically, stepping toward the phone to alert the operating room that they had a gunshot victim on the way. By the time he hung up, the patient was already being prepared for transport.
Once the patient had been rushed toward the operating room and the trauma room slowly emptied again, the noise of the ER seemed to return all at once. Monitors were reset, used supplies were thrown away, and someone was already preparing the room for the next patient. Dennis lingered for only a moment before turning away.
He didn’t exactly run, but he was definitely moving faster than usual as he headed down the hallway toward the break room.
The moment he stepped inside, he went straight for the cupboard and grabbed the first glass he saw. It had probably been sitting there untouched for weeks, maybe longer, but Dennis didn’t bother checking if there was dust in it. He filled it with water from the sink and drank it in one go, the cool liquid hitting his stomach almost painfully fast.
He lowered the glass and leaned his hands against the counter for a second. “Stop it,” he muttered quietly to himself. His mind kept circling back to the blood-soaked shirt from the trauma room. The way the wound had looked. The smell. He clenched his jaw.
That wasn’t important right now.
There were patients waiting, people who actually needed him to focus. Thinking about old memories wasn’t going to help anyone. Dennis set the empty glass down beside the sink just as the break room door opened again. A few people from the shift walked in, already starting a conversation about something he didn’t catch.
He wasn’t in the mood for small talk, so without saying anything, Dennis slipped past them and headed back into the hallway.
His luck held, almost immediately he spotted a new patient near the entrance. A woman stood there looking completely panicked while holding onto a girl who couldn’t have been older than ten or eleven. Victoria stood beside them, clearly trying to help but also glancing around the room for someone available.
Dennis stepped over before she could even call for him. “This way,” he said quickly, guiding them toward one of the open trauma rooms. The mother followed close behind, one hand still gripping her daughter’s shoulder.
“She’s allergic,” the woman said breathlessly the moment they were inside. “Peanuts. Severe allergy. The restaurant said they cleaned everything but they didn’t and she-”
Her voice broke off as the girl struggled to breathe, Dennis didn’t waste time.
“Victoria, epinephrine,” he said immediately. Victoria was already moving, grabbing the injector from the tray. The girl’s breathing had turned harsh and wheezy, and her lips were starting to swell slightly.
“Alright,” Dennis said calmly, kneeling in front of her. “We’re going to help you breathe again. We got you.” Victoria administered the injection into the girl’s thigh with quick movements. At the same time Dennis placed an oxygen mask over her face, holding it gently in place.
“Slow breaths,” he told her. The next minute felt longer than it actually was, the girl’s breathing remained tight at first, her small hands gripping the hospital blanket while the medication started working ist way through her system. The mother hovered anxiously beside the bed, eyes darting between Dennis and her daughter.
Then gradually the wheezing eased, the girl took a deeper breath and then another.
Dennis felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. “There we go,” he said quietly. Within a few minutes the swelling had started going down and the girl was able to breathe normally again. The panic in the room slowly dissolved into exhausted relief.
Dennis explained the basics once things had stabilized, speaking mostly to the mother while the girl recovered.
“You should always carry an EpiPen,” he said gently. “Even if restaurants say they’ve cleaned everything properly. Cross contamination happens more often than people think.” The woman nodded quickly, still shaken but clearly grateful.
“Thank you,” she said. Dennis gave her a small reassuring smile before stepping away. Once it was clear the girl would be fine, he left them alone so they could rest for a bit before being discharged. Out in the hallway again, he and Victoria soon ran into Trinity.
She looked about as exhausted as everyone else felt. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she leaned against the counter, rubbing her forehead.
“Today has been even more ass than usual,” she muttered.
Dennis huffed a quiet breath in agreement. “I’d rather be drunk right now,” he said under his breath.
The comment seemed to trigger something. Garcia, who had been sitting at one of the computers nearby, suddenly shot up from her chair like she had just been personally invited to the idea.
“That,” she announced immediately, pointing at Dennis, “is the best idea anyone has had all day.” She was already grabbing her bag. “Our shift is basically over. We should go right now.”
Trinity didn’t hesitate. “I’m in.”
Dennis sighed but didn’t argue. Trinity would absolutely drag him along if he tried to refuse anyway. Victoria looked uncertain for a moment, glancing between the three of them.
Eventually she shrugged. “Fine.”
The plan somehow grew from there. By the time they finished washing up and changing out of their scrubs, Garcia had managed to recruit a few more people from the hospital. Dennis recognized almost none of them. One guy looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place where he had seen him before.
Trinity had strong opinions about where they should go. “Bars suck,” she declared as they walked. “I am not about to spend my evening patching up drunk idiots who start punching each other.”
Instead they stopped by a small store, bought several bottles of cheap alcohol and some snacks, and headed toward the nearby park. When they arrived, Garcia had somehow produced a blanket from her bag and spread it out across the grass.
Once they had settled on the blanket in the grass, the evening quickly turned loud and chaotic in the way only slightly exhausted hospital staff with cheap alcohol could manage. Everyone seemed to be talking to someone at once. Conversations overlapped, someone always laughed a little too loudly at something half the group hadn’t even heard, and the plastic cups kept being refilled as the bottles passed around.
Garcia had apparently planned ahead more than anyone expected. At some point she produced a stack of tiny plastic shot cups they had picked up at a gas station, pouring drinks with the seriousness of someone who had temporarily appointed herself the bartender of the evening. Trinity leaned comfortably against her shoulder while Victoria sat on the other side of the blanket, still a little quieter than the rest but visibly loosening up the longer the night went on. Trinity had even stopped teasing her for the moment, pulling her into jokes and bumping her elbow whenever something funny happened.
Before long someone suggested truth or dare. It started relatively harmless. A few mild dares, a couple of questions that made people laugh but didn’t cross any lines. But by the second round things escalated quickly. The dares became increasingly ridiculous and the truths started sounding more like attempts to get embarrassing confessions out of people.
By the time someone dared a guy to run across the path and yell something at a random stranger walking their dog, even Trinity threw her hands up.
“Okay, no,” she said, shaking her head while laughing. “You people are insane.”
The alcohol was definitely starting to take effect by then. The conversations became louder, the jokes dumber, and everyone’s coordination noticeably worse. At some point Dennis had ended up lying flat on his back on the grass, staring up at the sky above the park. The city lights dulled the stars a little, but there were still enough visible for him to start counting them lazily. The ground felt pleasantly cool beneath him, and the gentle spin in his head made it difficult to focus on anything for too long.
Somewhere to his left Trinity had started telling Garcia about something. Dennis didn’t pay attention at first, until he heard his own name.
“-and then he just stood there staring at the picture like this,” Trinity was saying loudly, clearly not trying to keep her voice down.
Dennis groaned and lifted one arm to cover his eyes. “Oh my god,” he muttered. “Fuck off.”
Garcia laughed immediately. Victoria leaned forward slightly, clearly entertained by the story. Even though she had only taken a single shot all evening, she seemed to have gained just enough confidence to join in.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “you never actually answered the question.”
Dennis dragged his hand down his face. “Seriously?”
“You didn’t,” Victoria insisted.
Dennis pushed himself up onto one elbow and squinted at them. “If I didn’t feel like I’d fall over the second I stood up,” he said slowly, “I would absolutely wrestle both of you on this grass right now.”
Victoria and Trinity both dissolved into giggles, the kind that kept building the more they tried to stop, but eventually the laughter died down again.
Then, one of the other people sitting on the blanket, Dennis vaguely remembered the guy introducing himself earlier, maybe Mike or something like that, looked around the group curiously.
“So,” he said, leaning back on his hands, “why did everyone end up doing this job anyway?”
The question floated there for a moment. Garcia answered first, launching into a story about growing up watching medical shows with her grandmother and deciding she wanted to be the one actually fixing people instead of just watching actors pretend to. Someone else talked about a family member who had inspired them. Victoria mentioned something about always liking science and wanting to do something that mattered.
Each answer had it’s own, good story behind it. Eventually the attention shifted toward Dennis.
He had gone quiet during the conversation, eyes drifting back toward the sky while the others talked. He knew why he had chosen this job. He just… never really said it out loud.
Trinity nudged him lightly with her elbow. “What about you?” she asked.
Dennis hesitated for half a second, the alcohol had softened a lot of the usual barriers in his head. Everything felt slightly distant, like he was floating somewhere behind his own thoughts and like it wouldn’t matter if he said something now.
So when he spoke, the words came out without much resistance. “My dad shot my boyfriend when I was sixteen.”
The change in the mood of the group happened right away. The small conversations happening across the blanket died almost instantly, several people turned toward him at once.
For a moment no one said anything, then the guy who had originally asked the question gave a small, awkward laugh like he expected Dennis to follow it up with a joke.
But Dennis kept talking. “I couldn’t stop the bleeding,” he added casually, staring up at the sky again like he was still counting stars.
That was when everyone realized he wasn’t joking. Victoria’s reaction was immediate. She scooted a little closer to Dennis without even seeming to realize she had done it, her expression somewhere between shocked and deeply worried.
Across from them Garcia and Trinity exchanged a look. Dennis, meanwhile, seemed completely unaware of the shift in the atmosphere, he was still lying there, blinking slowly up at the sky like nothing had happened.
Garcia cleared her throat after a moment and sat up straighter. “Alright,” she said decisively. “That’s it. Outing’s over.”
There was a brief round of confused protests from some of the others, but Garcia had already started gathering things. Within a few minutes she had made sure everyone had called an Uber or found a ride home.
Dennis frowned when Trinity gently pulled him up from the grass. “Why are we leaving?” he complained vaguely. “It was just getting fun.”
Neither Trinity nor Garcia answered that, they simply steered him toward the street and waited for the car that would take them home.