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When Dennis Whitaker implanted himself smack bang into the middle of the Pitt one fine-turned-shit afternoon, no one was there to witness it.
Obviously, Trinity Santos was there when he snuck up the hospital stairs on the worst first day ever. She was there when he whistled a stupid tune to himself as he danced out of the barely working adjoined bathroom. She was there when he hesitated accepting her offer of a spare room. She was there when her eyes boggled out of her head when he gestured underneath the hospital bed.
She was also there when timid, little, rat-neck-snapping Huckleberry showed her the largest slab of fur she had ever seen, who panted back at her as though grinning. Dennis only said one word.
Whistle.
Technically, she didn’t mind. Technically, the landlord didn’t care. Technically, she liked having the dog’s went nose bump her hand on the way home, plodding in between the both of them when the trekked up the stairs to her apartment as the blonde student blurted out the whole of the happy canine’s life to her. She listened.
Whistle was born to an old breeding dog back when Dennis was applying to colleges and thinking about his graduation. He was seventeen when the puppy, so small and innocent self, arrived on their property, his father saying that he was a working dog now. He wasn’t for petting or cuddling or kissing. For working.
He still let Dennis name him.
So he was know as Whistle. He responded to it well. He obeyed the patriarch of the family, but he only really loved Dennis. He hung around the younger boy when the family was working together. He was always guarding the boy when out on his own. Dennis’ brothers teased that he was a dog mom (they were less kind about it, but Trinity didn’t need to know that).
For months, the boy and canine grew up together. Dennis would work outside and Whistle was work right beside him.
Then Dennis was kicked out.
Freshly eighteen, trembling, sobbing, heaving as his father hurled insults and half packed suitcases, Dennis was forced to leave his home behind when his eldest brother saw him kissing the boy from the farm down the road. He had only managed to save his clothes before his father spat on them and ran them over in his truck. He had to scurry away, the pleas for his photos and letters landing on deaf ears as they set fire to the papers in front of him. He could barely carry what he had, and he had to leave nearly all of it behind. He wouldn’t be surprised if his father had set fire to those, too.
Dennis was halfway down the main dirt road before a familiar barking caught his ears. Turning with a sob, he was quick to drop his knees as Whistle merely bounded up behind him, digging his face into the canine’s neck with his arms around his body. Then, they disappeared. Boarded the next bus that accepted well-mannered dogs and left Broken Bow, Nebraska behind. Whistle licked every tear from Dennis’ face. He was already one year old. A working dog, for sure. But Dennis’.
Showing up in a new state for a new degree to get a new job whilst unhoused was hard enough on its own. Doing with a dog was… enough.
Whistle was a Godsend, in the blonde’s own opinion. He guarded the only things Dennis couldn’t afford to lose, he found his own food in mice and alleyway filth (Dennis will never forgive himself for that), and he always returned to the spot where he was left in the morning when the man went to his classes. This routine followed to his rotations.
When Dennis stumbled across the abandoned floor during med-surg, he was delighted. He managed to sneak Whistle inside, and so long as he was fed, he was happy. He learned how to slip out of the hospital to wander and keep the room clean, he learned how to slip back in.
It was a miracle no one noticed.
So, no. Trinity didn’t mind the dog in her apartment.
And when two married attendings entered Dennis’ life for the better, neither did they.
————
Jack Abbot and Michael Robinavitch had been comfortably and morally dating Dennis Whitaker for around eight months, starting from the tipsy cheek kisses the blonde had pressed to both men after a celebratory night out following… something they couldn’t remember. They could, however, remember the young man ending up in their bed later that evening. They could remember the morning talk they had about how serious they were - dead serious. Dennis then blurted out that he had a dog.
Both moved in five months later.
Jack and Michael were not ecstatic about a large dog in their now shared home, but they'd never say no to Dennis' baby blues that sparkled in sunlight. They knew Whistle was important to him, so the dog was important to them. He was obedient, non-invasive, and he often helped Jack around as a crutch, unbothered whenever the veteran would lean on him for extra support after a bad pain day.
Life was dandy. Whistle was having a good day, Jack was going shopping for groceries on his day off, Robby and Dennis were at work, and all seemed right with the world.
But it’s the Pitt. And Dennis. Something was bound to go wrong.
Multiple somethings did. At first, the food cart tipped over and spilled the lunch that Dennis was taking for his patient all over the floor. Then, the same patient died. Rude. Then, Dennis himself tripped over a rogue hockey stick from the team that clamoured in, boasting injuries as they grumbled about the opposing team.
Safe to say that when he was released back home in the evening, he’d already had a long day. On top of that, Jack was now at the gym and Robby was staying overtime for some meeting with Gloria. His only solace was Trinity, who he spoke loudly to on loudspeaker as he unlocked the door to the mens’ shared house, ranting about the hockey player whose stick he tripped on.
“Yeah, and he didn’t even care, Trin!” Dennis huffed, shutting the door and toeing off his shoes. He was about an inconvenience away from breaking down, so he was ready to jump in the shower.
“I know, Huckleberry,” the girl laughed on the other side. “But it was hilarious! Your yelp was so cartoonish, you could give Tom the cat a run for his money.”
Th blonde scoffed, manoeuvring his way out of his coat. “Thanks, Santos, you’re so kind to me. Whistle!” Dennis clicked his tongue. “Hey, I’ve got you some deli meat cuts!”
”I know, I’m such a nice person.”
The man laughed, a short lived chuckle as his ears never caught the familiar heavy footfalls of his first best friend. He clicked his tongue again.
“Hey, Whistle!”
”He okay?” Trinity would never admit it, but she missed that dog.
“I don’t know. He might be napping.”
”Oh yeah, that dog could sleep through a hurricane.”
Dennis’ brow furrowed. It was too quiet. Even when he was sleeping, Whistle’s breathing echoed through the brownstone. The blonde set his bag and the meat on the counter, phone still in hand as he walked to their shared bedroom, where the light didn’t get too bright since Jack had blackout curtains.
That meant that Dennis couldn’t see a thing when he got there, though.
“Jack never opens up the curtains when he leaves, like, let some light in,” he grumbled, and Trinity tittered.
“The man’s on night shift, Huckleberry. He’s gotta sleep during the day.”
The blonde threw open the heavy fabric. “Yeah, but he could at least let some sun in for my plants, Trinity.” He turned back to circle the bed and get the other curtain. “They need sunlight as well, and just because Jack’s decided to leave the room in the dark—”
He cut himself off, frozen when his eyes caught on it. He vaguely heard Trinity saying his name and asking if he was dead with a teasing lilt, but his eyes just filled with tears. His hand tightened around the phone as he shuffled, almost stumbling numbly, towards the corner of the room where the dog toys and worn out bed lay.
On top lay Whistle. Unmoving, unbreathing, dead Whistle.
Dennis knew he was dead. The dog was bordering on ten years old, completely blind in one eye, cataracts in the other. His hearing was shot, and he relied more on the vibrations of the world than its sound. He had a bad hip that nearly cost Dennis a kidney. Decaying teeth, joint problems, decreased stamina, loss of appetite. All signs of Whistle’s steady aging.
Didn’t mean it hurt less.
Trinity was sounding frantic now, but the blonde man could only drop heavily to his knees with a thud as the first of the tears fell. The girl on the line sounded like she was underwater, or maybe Dennis was. Either way, he felt like he was drowning.
There was a tightness in his chest he couldn’t grip with his own two hands. A flash of electricity behind his eyes, and a drop of his stomach made him keel over. He sucked in a breath, the effort feeling like sandpaper was grinding his larynx against itself.
He sobbed.
Big, fat, ugly sobs that ricocheted through the room, through the house, through his chest, oh, fuck, his chest hurt. Dennis couldn’t heave in air quick enough before the force of the weight on his diaphragm forced it out again in cries that already stated to make his head ache. He couldn’t hear anything but a ringing in his ears.
Shaking hands landed heavily on the canine’s coat, and Dennis almost howled when he didn’t immediately jump up and lick away the salt on the boy’s cheeks. Leaning forward as though in prayer, Dennis hid his face in the neck of his best friend, wailing into the fur that always was so soft.
He wasn’t sure how long he was hunched there. Long enough for him to get pins and needles in his leg, long enough for a splitting headache and spinning vision to kick in, long enough for Jack to slam the front door open. Was he calling out Dennis’ name? He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t care.
But Jack had a unique ability shared with Robby. Their voices could snap Dennis out of anything.
The man’s quiet whisper cut through the tinnitus, which only made Dennis sob harder.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Jack crossed the room in quick moves, kneeling beside the boy with a grunt. His prosthetic be damned, he pressed all of his weight into the arms that cradled his young boyfriend close, pressing the angel’s weeping form to his chest.
“Oh, Dennis, I’m so sorry.”
”Jack, he’s dead!” Dennis only wailed, his hands hovering in air for a moment. One came to clutch at the scruff of Whistle’s neck as the other gripped Jack’s muscle tee sleeve in a desperation. “He’s dead!”
”I know, baby, I know.” The blonde hears the crack in the older man’s voice on the pet name, his hands tightening around as chapped lips pressed kiss after kiss to his hair. “I’m so sorry, Dennis. I’m so sorry.”
”I want him back! Please bring him back to me, Jack! I need him!”
The veteran couldn’t stop the tears from dotting the blonde curls he’d wrap around his finger in silent, early mornings or late nights.
“I can’t, baby. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
”Oh, shit.”
Jack turned his head to see Robby standing in the threshold of the bedroom, seemingly in shock at the scene in front of him.
His eyes caught on their young boyfriend’s trembling, sobbing, grieving form, and he immediately dropped his bags down with a thud. Wordlessly, he slowly sat beside his partners, his hand coming to Dennis’ cheek as his forehead seemed magnetised to the blonde’s own.
“Robby…” he whimpered, his baby blue’s swimming in tears and bolted with shot vessels. “Whistle—”
The attending shushed him, stroking his cheek. “I know. I see him. I’m sorry. But he was old, Den. It was time.”
Dennis shook his head against Robby’s forehead. “No, no, but I still need him!”
”Dennis,” Robby cut off gently. “Dennis, baby, you don’t.”
”I do!”
”No. You don’t. You haven’t for a while. You needed him when you were alone. You needed him when you were a child. You needed him when you were unsafe. You are neither of those things anymore. And he knew that.” The attending pulled away, kissing the younger man’s cheek and making his eyes. “He took such good care of you for such a long time, and you took such good care of him. You kept him fed, and loved, and safe. Just as he did for you. And I know he loved you for it. Loved you so much, he felt safe enough falling asleep in his bed surrounded with the scent of you, baby. He lived safe and loved, and he died safe and loved.”
What a beautiful way to go.
Collapsing forward, Dennis let out a quieter, more exhausted string of sobs as he collapsed onto Robby’s shoulder, still halfway in Jack’s lap and gripping his sleeve. It was an awkward position, but no one minded at all.
Eventually, they’d have to leave the room. They’d have to call the vet, wrap him up and take him to the car. They’d have to donate the bed, most of the toys, the bowls and food dispensers. They’d have to wash the blankets, or throw them out if they couldn’t be saved. They’d have to wash the carpets, the floors, the bathroom tiles where they’d wrestled him into bath time. Trinity would arrive, eyes red rimmed and wet, and she’d crawl under the covers with her Huckleberry as the attendings tried to feed them both. They’d struggle, too. Eventually, a decorative urn with an engraving and a collar latched around it would sit on the hallway table, passed everyday as though he was still lounging underneath it as he often did before.
But for now, they’d just kneel here. Together. With Whistle. Scruff still clutched in Dennis’ quaking fingers. Surrounding on both ends with head kisses and whispered words and love overflowing from fingertips.
But there’d always be an emery space in the corner of the bedroom.