Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Whitaker, do you have those O-neg packs ready yet?" Doctor Robinavitch urged. The trauma bay was a chaotic blur of alarms and frantic movement, but the attending's voice easily cut through the noise. His eyes shifted from the patient's crashing vitals on the monitor to the blond resident, his tone biting across the room like a whip, leaving absolutely no room for hesitation.

"Coming!" Dennis grunted. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, but his gaze remained stubbornly glued to his hands. The heavy, chilled plastic of the blood bag was slippery with condensation. He gripped it like a lifeline, hyper-focused on not dropping it—a humiliating, rookie mistake he'd made one too many times during his intern year.

However, his tunnel vision meant he did not account for the structural betrayals of the aging ED. Specifically, he didn't notice the loose linoleum tile jutting up just inches near the gurney's locked wheel—a subtle hazard that most of the exhausted staff, like him, had consistently walked right over and missed.

What didn't miss it, as luck would invariably have it, was the toe of his shoe. Dennis felt the terrifying, frictionless glide of the slip a fraction of a second before his brain could process the danger. Gravity violently seized control. Panic flared, and not knowing what else to do, his body overcorrected. He thrashed his arms around in a desperate, uncoordinated attempt to catch his balance, inadvertently hurling the precious O-neg bag away from his chest.

It struck the floor with a heavy, wet smack, the plastic bursting on impact. Dark red blood splashed outward in a wide halo, slicking the linoleum beneath him just as his footing finally gave way completely. Dennis went down hard. He couldn't even get his hands out to brace himself before the back of his skull rebounded off the unyielding floor with a sickening, bone-rattling thud.

The world instantly tilted on its axis. A violent wave of dizziness washed over him, completely scrambling his vestibular system. The harsh fluorescent lights above smeared into blinding, white streaks as he lay there in the spreading pool of cold blood, fighting a sudden, rising wave of nausea. He tried to mentally map his limbs, to force himself to sit up and reorient himself, but the signals from his brain felt sluggish and disconnected.

"Whitaker."

The name wasn't a sharp command anymore. It was a muffled, watery sound, like he was hearing it from the bottom of a deep swimming pool. A high-pitched ringing pierced his eardrums as his vision narrowed, vignetting rapidly into absolute, crushing blackness for a single, suspended moment.

He barely blinked once. It felt like just a mere, heavy drop of the eyelids. But when they fluttered back open, the chaotic energy of the trauma bay was gone, and Doctor Robinavitch's voice had turned entirely, impossibly strange.

"Man. Hey, man. Are you okay? Looks like you took a pretty bad hit. Don't worry, I've got you." 

Pain shot through the back of Dennis's neck immediately, but it felt different now. It was no longer the throbbing, nauseating spike it had been at first. Instead, in those few short seconds, the ache had faded into something dull, almost nonexistent. To Dennis, it felt as though his body retained the memory of the trauma, while his nerve endings had decided to forget it entirely—as if the pain were suddenly the least of his worries.

"Man. Hey, man!" A pair of fingers snapped in front of his face, violently pulling his focus toward a blinding light that immediately assaulted his senses, dragging him out of his disoriented fog.

It was a terrible idea. His eyes stung instantly, a harsh white halo searing into his retinas that lingered even after he squeezed them shut.

The sun? Was that the sun? Dennis couldn't have been more bewildered. He swore he had only blinked once, blacking out for no more than three seconds, and suddenly he was outside? Had he lost consciousness, and someone dragged him out here as some kind of sick joke? Impossible. Doctor Robinavitch had been right there a second ago, he was certain of it. He had been shouting for Dennis, for the patient, right up until—

"You're not concussed, are you?"

Dennis decided right then and there that he absolutely hated this voice. Whoever kept calling him, asking these ridiculous questions, was undeniably obnoxious. Couldn't the guy see he was trying to get his bearings? He had just taken a nasty fall and cracked his head open; it was perfectly normal to need a second to recover. Why was this idiot struggling to grasp that?

And again, where was Doctor Robinavitch? He had been there a second ago.

Sure, Dennis understood they were in the middle of a critical trauma procedure, and he had definitely made a scene by slipping on the blood pack and busting his head. But the attending wouldn't just leave him lying there on the floor, and he certainly wouldn't have dragged him outside the hospital. It made zero sense. One of his fellow residents—Trinity, or maybe even Victoria—should be the one checking him for injuries. An actual doctor, not this clown who—

"Fuck!" Dennis groaned, his fist instinctively swinging out to punch the closest solid object when the idiot decided the best way to check his responsiveness was to grind his knuckles directly into Dennis's sternum. He was absolutely sure that archaic practice had been phased out of most modern hospitals, specifically because it hurt like a bitch. He deserved that punch, maybe worse.

"Whoa, hey, wait." The guy threw his hands up in surrender, a faint, cheeky smirk playing on his lips. "I just needed to make sure you were conscious. I guess that means you get a two for your stimuli response..."

"Four," Dennis snapped, finally deigning to look the guy in the eye. There was something irritatingly familiar about his face, but Dennis was so annoyed he shoved the thought aside, vastly preferring to prove that this guy was just an idiot.

"What?" the guy asked, looking genuinely confused. Of course he didn't get it. It was glaringly obvious this guy sucked at evaluating the Glasgow Coma Scale. He definitely needed to hit the books.

Squinting against the light, Dennis studied the guy more closely. He looked terribly familiar, but he wasn't someone Dennis recognized from any of the specialty consults that frequented the ED, nor was he part of the night shift crew, which was incredibly weird.

"I'm opening my eyes spontaneously," Dennis explained slowly, as if talking to a toddler. Though, honestly, a part of him was convinced this guy actually was one. A kid in a grown man's body, playing doctor. "That's not a two. That's a four. You suck at Glasgows. What are you, a student?"

He didn't expect the guy to simply nod, practically puffing his chest out with pride. Given the tailored white coat and the formal wear underneath, Dennis figured this guy would claim to be from another department, just playing doctor. He would have even accepted it if the guy said he was from a specialty completely unrelated to the ER. Despite his baby face, Dennis believed it was possible. There was Victoria, after all. Almost graduated at twenty-one—Dennis had learned not to focus too much on his colleagues' ages.

"Third year, actually. Almost fourth," the guy replied in an irritating, almost smug tone. Once again, that smile settled on his face, as if he loved talking about his career just for the sake of showing off. "You must be one of the new interns, right?" the guy continued, glancing at the ID badge hanging from Dennis's scrubs. Dennis had just gotten his doctor badge today and felt proud of it; plus, it meant this guy could stop showing off.

At that, Dennis finally decided to sit up, grimacing as the warm rush of blood pooled in his head drained away, leaving a lukewarm sensation across his shoulders. And, even though he might have felt a little dizzy, he would never let the student know.

"Something like that. Doctor Dennis Whitaker. Second-year resident," he replied, trying to end the conversation. Dennis cared little for small talk. Instead, he wanted to know where his friends and his boss were. He didn't understand what he was doing out in the ambulance bay, who had dragged him out there, or why. Part of him hoped it was just a dumb prank his friends hadn't managed to pull off properly.

The other part hoped this idiot would give him his name, just so he could report him to Doctor Robinavitch for the sheer fact of being a jerk. It wasn't something he'd do often, but Dennis thought this guy deserved it, simply for sticking his nose where it didn't belong and leaving his chest still aching.

"Michael Robinavitch. A pleasure to meet you, Doctor Whitaker."

There it was. Dennis just had to get up and go complain about this—

Oh. No, no, no.

Dennis laughed, purely on instinct. Any lingering doubt he had about this being a joke was instantly squashed. Of course, Trinity probably came up with this prank: get someone who looked slightly like Doctor Robinavitch, drag Dennis out of the hospital, and mess with his head. It was almost brilliant, he had to admit.

”Yeah, right.”

But when this 'Michael' didn't laugh, and actually seemed offended by his laughter, Dennis didn't quite know what to do.

"What's so funny about that? It's just my name," the guy complained, looking a bit self-conscious as he held out his hand for Dennis to shake.

Dennis took it, mostly just to get a closer look at him. His hair was short, neatly styled—nothing like the hair of the doctor this idiot was supposed to be impersonating. He definitely had a baby face, and although the nose was strikingly similar, Dennis convinced himself there was nothing more to it.

Even if that nagging sense of familiarity refused to fade.

Which, if he was being honest with himself, shouldn't be happening.

Doctor Robinavitch wasn't a twenty-something year old guy, let alone a student who struggled with something as simple as a neurological evaluation. That familiarity just shouldn't exist. He'd bet anything that Trinity had set this up on purpose to pull his leg, just to make Dennis feel like a total idiot once the punchline dropped. For a moment, he even wondered what on earth they had told Doctor Robinavitch to get him to agree to such nonsense.

The next sound, which Dennis was incredibly grateful for, didn't come from the clown who never seemed to shut up. Seriously, it felt like the guy just loved the sound of his own voice—nothing like the good doctor he was trying to imitate.

The device beeped again, and the student pulled a pager from his pocket. It was small, exactly like the ones Dennis usually used.

This, Dennis decided, had to be the moment. Surely, his friends would realize the prank had gone far enough—that he probably had a concussion, and it wasn't funny to mess with him in this state. They needed to get him checked out and probably just let him rest for a while.

"Damn it," the idiot-who-was-not-Robinavitch spoke up again, reading the tiny screen. "Doctor Adamson is looking for me," the kid grumbled like a brat, acting as if merely doing his job was some kind of martyrdom.

Dennis, however, zeroed in on the name. For a prank, using the name of Doctor Robinavitch's dead mentor didn't seem funny at all. He had seen how much that loss had affected the attending, so it felt incredibly tasteless for this impersonator to drop his name—especially just to complain about the man.

"I was supposed to assist Doctor Shamsi, you know? She's one of the best surgical residents here."

Yet another thing that struck Dennis as totally idiotic. Of course he knew Victoria's mom, but she wasn't a resident. She was already the Head of General Surgery, and Doctor Robinavitch didn't even like her that much because of how she pressured and treated Victoria. He definitely wouldn't be eagerly waiting to assist her in the OR. The whole premise was stupid.

Worse than stupid, it felt like a cheap trick just to get a reaction out of him, to see if he would complain about the prank or break character. For all the effort his friends had put into setting this up, they had clearly left a lot of glaring plot holes.

"What specialty are you in, anyway?" Michael-who-never-shuts-up asked, acting as if he actually cared about the life of the poor bastard he was currently mocking.

"Emergency Medicine," Dennis replied dryly. He decided to play along with the question, if only to see what the guy would say next. At the very least, he could test this idiot's improvisational skills.

He wasn't about to offer up any more information, though. This impostor didn't need to know that Dennis ultimately wanted to go into rural medicine. If this was his friends' prank, the guy should already know that anyway.

"Ah, so you're working under Doctor Adamson, right?" Michael-who-was-not-his-Robinavitch replied, wincing slightly, as if just thinking about the doctor caused him physical discomfort. Dennis almost slapped him right then and there. He was half-tempted to scream that he was an idiot, and that he actually worked for the man this guy was currently impersonating.

"I mean," the student quickly backpedaled, looking suddenly sheepish of his own reaction. It was about time he showed some remorse for acting like a total asshole. "I'm sure it's great, obviously... uh, anyway, if Adamson is looking for me, he probably wants you there, too, right?"

"Sure, I guess so," Dennis replied, deciding once again to play along. If they were heading inside the building, that meant the prank would finally be over, right?

He tried to stand up, but ended up feeling humiliated when he was forced to accept Michael-the-impersonator's help to get off the ground; his head still throbbed whenever he moved too fast.

The guy's hand was smaller than Dennis's, and it was obvious he had a slighter build, even if he was a bit taller. It was just one more petty thing Dennis felt proud to beat him at.

As they approached the building, Dennis noticed something felt off. Just like with this guy, there was something different—a strange vibe he couldn't quite analyze or pinpoint. It was as if everything had changed, even though the layout was exactly the same.

The moment they stepped inside, however, Dennis absolutely noticed a difference.

As part of her elaborate prank, Trinity must have had the flat-screen monitors that displayed patient assignments taken down. To Dennis, that was overkill. It was even more absurd considering that the people "working" inside were complete strangers to him—and they were using prehistoric computers. He almost scoffed at those noisy, bulky boxes the "nurses" were pretending to type on.

Dennis chuckled, playing the part of someone in on the joke, taking in how drastically the place had been altered.

He was thoroughly convinced now that Trinity was a secret millionaire to be able to afford such a bizarre, elaborate set piece. She was probably just making him pay for all the extra food he stole from her as a form of petty punishment.

Still, part of him wondered where his actual colleagues were. So far, he hadn't seen Trinity, Mel, Victoria, or even Langdon. He just needed one of them to pop out and prove what absolute idiots they were at pulling pranks.

"Where are you going? We need to be over here," Michael-the-liar said, tugging at the sleeve of Dennis's scrubs and guiding him toward one of the private bays. Trauma 3.

As they walked, Dennis couldn't stop thinking about how ridiculous everyone looked, as if they were extras pulled straight out of a 90s sitcom like FRIENDS. Did they really think this aesthetic would seal the deal? It was insulting to think he'd be dumb enough to fall for it.

The moment they stepped into the room, however, Dennis felt all the color drain from his face.

It was a terrifying sensation. His entire body turned ice-cold and unbearably heavy—as if molten lead had suddenly replaced his warm blood, leaving his reality hanging by a thread.

Because, seriously, who was this guy in front of him? Something had to be horribly, deeply wrong.

How else could he explain why his boss's mentor—the man from the faded portrait in the Heroes of PTMC Hallway, Doctor Adamson—was currently standing right in front of him, actively treating a patient?

Dennis was well and truly fucked. There was no other explanation.