Chapter Text
It starts on a Thursday.
Trinity has the day off, and Dennis wakes early. He makes coffee and oatmeal, leaving extras of both for Trinity. Then he decides to walk to work.
The city’s waking up around him, cars idling in the still-chilly morning air, shopkeepers rolling up their storefront gates, people propping themselves against light posts as they wait for buses. Dennis has been in the city for more than a year now, but he still gets a cinematic thrill from being amidst the life and noise. He told himself one day he’d make it out of Broken Bow, and he fucking did it.
He’s a few blocks from PTMC, and something’s tickling the back of his brain. He pauses to wait for a walk sign and it clicks into place: a hollowed-out humming. It’s been behind him for several blocks now.
Carefully, he looks around, trying to appear casual. Two cars back, he sees it: a dark blue Tesla, emitting that electric-motor-hum. The driver looks perfectly non-descript: probably middle-aged, sunglasses, a baseball cap, white, bored on his way to work.
Dennis lets out a breath and makes himself lower his shoulders. It’s nothing. You’re safe.
He’s relaxed a lot in Pittsburgh, both because he finally passes, and because it’s a generally queer-friendly city. Before Dennis transitioned, when people still read him as a girl, his heart rate would pick up and skin would prickle when a car slowed next to him, or he heard footsteps too close behind. Most of that fear has melted away. When you present as a man, people stop yelling shit at you from pick-up trucks and trying to strike up conversations on the street.
That wariness is a first language, though. Maybe not used as frequently, but not forgotten.
It’s just a fucking car driving to work. He shrugs it off.
***
A few days later, he’s badging through the door in Chairs. Lupe waves to him. “Hey, Dennis!”
“Hi, Lupe.”
“You have a friend visiting you today?”
“Huh?” Dennis walks around the counter so he can hear her better.
Lupe leans back in her desk chair. “You got a friend coming in? Someone was asking for you.”
Dennis swallows. “I don’t think so. What did they look like?”
Lupe shrugs. “White. Medium height. You know I can’t tell white men apart.”
“Yeah,” Dennis says, though he’s not really paying attention. “What’d you tell him?”
“That you weren’t in, but I could take a message.”
“Did he give you a message?” He sticks his hands into his scrub pockets, because suddenly his body feels tense, jittery. He flexes his toes in his shoes.
“Nope.” Lupe looks at him, inspects his face. “I’m sure it was nothing, hon. Probably just a patient you’ve seen before.”
“Yeah.” Dennis nods, trying to convince himself of this. He’s treated countless patients, plenty of them medium height white men. “Okay.”
He can feel the fear starting to take root, and he does his best to excavate, till the soil, eliminate the seed before it can gain traction. He heads to the locker room to deposit his bag. It’s an old fear, and not applicable anymore.
***
It’s a week later when he sees the car again. Trinity’s driving them home. They’re crossing the parking lot, and something makes Dennis look over his shoulder. On the opposite end of the lot from Trinity’s beat-up Subaru is a dark-colored Tesla. Hard to tell the color for sure, but it could definitely be blue.
“What?” Trinity says, when he misses a step.
Dennis corrects and catches up to her. “Nothing.”
Their shift was tough, and she doesn’t question him about it.
Dennis is glad they live on the second floor, because it means he’s less likely to get murdered in his sleep. He tries to keep the thoughts out, the ones that tell him to check the lock on the door 500 times a night (in reality it’s more like 12, but it’s exhausting). The thoughts tell him to check to make sure the stove is off, and then asks him if he really looked at each of the knobs before he went to bed. Are all the windows locked? It doesn’t make sense to worry about the windows, he tells himself. They’re on the second floor. But he’s sure his downstairs neighbors have a ladder somewhere in the clutter of the small backyard, or maybe in the basement. If someone put their mind to it, they could get in.
But that’s the whole point, he tells himself. Most burglaries are committed because they’re convenient--a car door is unlocked, or a window is open. People who want to steal generally don’t want to work for it. And serial killers? Well, they don’t really exist anymore. And even they tended to focus on places that had easy access.
Trinity is just down the hall from him at night, and that brings him a lot of comfort. But not quite enough. He knows he’s being paranoid, but part of being paranoid is believing that the paranoia itself is what will save you. Trinity is sloppy about the things he obsesses over: she has left the stove on and gone to bed. She has left the door unlocked. She sometimes sleeps over at Garcia’s, and then Dennis is alone all night. On those nights he sleeps with the lights on, or sometimes doesn’t sleep until he hears the birds chirping, heralding the sunrise.
Robby asks if he’s okay, and Dennis lies, because he’s not going to tell his attending that he’s slowly losing his mind. That might mean he can’t come to work, and Dennis needs to go to work. He feels safe, and sane, in the Pitt. He’s capable. He’s surrounded by people. The fears of the night ebb and feel silly in the singing glow of the fluorescents.
There are real things to worry about in this life: car accidents, sepsis, preeclampsia, pulmonary embolisms. He does treat stab wounds and gunshot wounds, but the overwhelming majority are committed by someone the patient knows. And Dennis knows these stats. He’s read them all at 2am in an attempt to quell his racing thoughts.
“Whitaker.” Robby corners him in the staff room one day.
Dennis was just getting his fourth cup of coffee. “Yeah?”
Robby leans against the door to keep anyone from interrupting. “You look tired.”
“So do you,” Dennis deflects. Then adds, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Robby studies him for a moment. “How are things at home?”
“Home?” Dennis fumbles. “Uh, fine. Good.”
He can tell Robby doesn’t believe him. A small part of him wishes Robby would give him a hug, but that’s some misplaced daddy-issue bullshit probably. Don’t be stupid, he tells himself. “Just haven’t been sleeping well.”
Robby nods. Dennis knows he understands that. “It’s not too crazy today. You want to head out early?”
“No,” Dennis says, maybe too quickly. “I mean, no thanks. I’m good.”
Robby sequesters him in triage anyway. “It’s not a punishment,” he says in his typical Robby way, eye contact so intense Dennis thinks he can actually feel beams of heat coming from his irises. “Just take it slow.”
Dennis is sent to Chairs to take temperatures and read over paperwork that Lupe and the other administrators collect.
“What’s his deal?” Dennis asks Lupe, tilting his chin at a man sitting in a corner with sunglasses and a baseball cap.
“Not sure. He hasn’t even come over, I assumed he just needed the AC.”
It’s a hot day, not heat-stroke weather, but not pleasant. A lot of times they get unhoused folks who just need to cool off for a bit. The man doesn’t look unhoused, though, and Dennis has gotten good at noticing the signs: usually a backpack or some kind of bag, often over-dressed for the weather because wearing layers means less to carry. The man doesn’t fit those characteristics. Dennis takes a lap, passing by him. The man keeps his head down, on his phone. His phone is too new and nice, Dennis thinks.
They take back a colicky baby and a man with chest pain.
Dennis goes for another lap to check on the sunglasses man, but he’s not there. He looks around, scanning the crowd. No sign of him. Maybe he went to use the bathroom? But when he knocks on the doors, they’re both empty.
“That guy’s gone,” Dennis tells Lupe.
“Oh yeah?”
He can tell she’s not really listening. He knows that from her perspective it’s completely uninteresting--someone came into the waiting room, sat down, and left a little while later. “He just didn’t seem unhoused.”
“Can be hard to tell,” Lupe says.
Dennis knows that, but he’s not going to argue the point, because what’s he even trying to prove? “Yeah,” he says instead. He gets back to work.
***
“Huckleberry, do you have a bladder problem?” Trinity asks him the next morning as they’re both charting.
Dennis’s head snaps up. “What? No. Also why do you have to ask so loudly?” He glances at Dana who appears to be buried in her own work, but Dennis suspects she’d cultivated that front over years.
“It’s okay to have bladder trouble,” Trinity says. “No need to be embarrassed.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you getting up at night to pee like every five minutes?”
Dennis feels his face warm. He wasn’t peeing, he was checking the lock on the door. Not that he’s going to tell her that, because he knows it sounds insane. “I just…I made tea before bed.”
“I don’t know, Huck. Doesn’t seem normal.”
“I’m also a doctor.”
“Then what’s your diagnosis?”
“Nosey roommate.” He swears he catches Dana’s lips twitching in a smile.
He thinks he’s in the clear until Robby corners him again, this time at the scrubs exchange (Dennis was thrown up on by a baby).
“How’s the day going, Whitaker?”
“Fine. Except for, you know, vomiting babies.”
Robby smiles, the polite kind that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sleeping any better?”
“A little,” Dennis lies.
“There can be lots of reasons for increased urgency,” Robby says, pretending to look at someone on the med dispense.
Dennis freezes. That can’t be what Robby just said. “What?” he manages, feeling the color drain from his face.
Robby’s still not looking at him. “UTIs, OAB, other complications.”
Dennis tries to swallow. His throat has gone completely dry. He’s going to die. Not by the hand of a serial killer or in a robbery-gone-wrong, but right here, in front of the scrub exchange, because Robby is talking about his pee habits.
“I--” he stutters, “can’t believe Trinity told you.” If you want to go ahead and die, he tells his body, this would be an okay time.
Robby finally looks at him. “We both know doctors make the worst patients. I just wanted to check in.”
“It’s not that,” Dennis says. He closes his eyes for a moment and takes a breath. “I mean. I was just getting up a lot cause I couldn’t sleep.” Not exactly a lie, though in reality he couldn’t sleep because he had to keep getting up to check the door, the windows, the stove, and recently electrical sockets made the list, making sure everything is firmly plugged in.
“So your sleep hasn’t improved,” Robby says.
“It--” Dennis blinks a few times. “It’s not much better.”
The way Robby looks at him makes his chest tighten. Robby’s eyes say everything: the care, the concern, the honest seeing that makes Dennis so uneasy.
Luckily, Dana calls for Robby then. They both startle. Dennis races behind to the ambulance bay to meet the incoming trauma.
***
It’s a Friday when Trinity says she’s sleeping over at Garcia’s. They’re loitering at the hub, scanning the board for new cases.
“Again?” Dennis asks, trying to keep his tone neutral, but failing. They both have the day off tomorrow; he thought maybe they’d get a pizza and watch a movie tonight.
“Aw Huck, you miss me?” Trinity reaches out in an attempt to give him a noogie, but Dennis artfully ducks. He has three older brothers, what does she take him for?
“I thought maybe we’d hang out,” he says lamely.
“Awwww.”
“Okay, okay.” He sidesteps before she can launch another physical attack.
That night, at shift change, Trinity drives Garcia home and Dennis heads for the bus stop. He scans the parking lot as he crosses, but there are no Teslas in sight.
The bus is running late, as usual. He’d gotten to the stop about five minutes early, but the purported two minute delay keeps expanding. Ten minutes pass, and still there’s a two minute delay. The bus must be stuck somewhere. Another five minutes pass. He could be halfway home if he’d started walking. The bus ticks up to a three minute delay, still seven minutes away total. Fuck it. Dennis starts walking.
He enjoys the walk in the daylight, but night is different. It’s pretty much fully dark, the last threads of sun fading out blue and green in the west. Logically, Dennis isn’t too worried about walking home alone. Since he’s on the street team, he knows a lot of the local unhoused folks. He knows these streets are generally safe, and if he keeps his wits about him, he’ll be fine.
But the problem is he doesn’t have his wits about him. They vacated somewhere around the time the door-checking and daylight sleeping started.
He’s five minutes into the walk, heartbeat thudding, eyes ahead but glancing side to side. He hears a hollow hum somewhere behind him, and he can’t look. He can’t look. He knows that if someone’s following you you’re supposed to turn and look them in the eye. He just wants to be home.
He walks faster. He’s imagining it. Or he’s not, because there are probably hundreds of electric cars in Pittsburgh. You’re safe. You’re safe. He looks like a man; he passes.
He’d come out to his coworkers, not in a declarative way, but over time, when it was applicable. He’d been most afraid to tell Robby. Not because he thought Robby would be transphobic necessarily, but because he worried it would change things. Since day one, he and Robby have shared some kind of understanding. Dennis doesn’t know why. It’s just like that sometimes. Sometimes someone sees you, gets you, and it’s reciprocal, and it’s safe.
It was some side comment Robby made after a patient begged him to not do a prostate exam. Robby told the patient he and Dennis would give him a minute to collect himself. Robby had turned to Dennis in the hall, saying, “Can’t really blame him, you know?” as he chucked his gloves into a trash can and swiped at the nearest hand sanitizer. “Uh, I actually don’t,” Dennis had said. He knew he didn’t have to tell the truth, knew Robby’s remark was probably rhetorical, but he didn’t want to lie. Not to Robby. “I’m, uh, trans.” Something shifted in Robby’s expression, but it wasn’t confusion or disgust or any of the other things Dennis had feared. He’d softened, just a tick, and nodded. “Nice.” It was probably the best coming-out reception he’d ever received.
The car doesn’t pass. Dennis can still hear the engine. He ducks onto a side street, and squats behind a city mailbox. He feels ridiculous but he does it anyway. Then he waits, breathing hard, one eye on the road. Nothing happens and nothing happens, and then a dark-colored Tesla cruises by. Fuck.
Dennis presses his back to the cold metal of the mailbox. He feels exposed, like the camera is zooming out, the street, the city, the state, the country, and there he is, alone, pressed against a mailbox. He could splurge for an Uber, but he doesn’t want to get in a car with a stranger. He’s never liked taking Ubers alone, and he’s definitely not feeling good about it right now. He could find the next bus stop and wait. But he can’t stand to be a sitting duck. Before he really thinks about it, he starts running.
Immediately, his legs and his lungs hurt. His body is strong, but not exactly in the cardiovascular department. His shins burn, and his heart hammers. He can’t catch his breath. He doesn’t stop running. Sweat trickles down his forehead. His backpack thumps against him rhythmically, and he grabs the straps, pulling it tighter against him. He thinks he hears another electric motor--he probably doesn’t, but he runs faster anyway.
His brain is divided, as it always has been, half terrified and half judgmental. He can hear his parents telling him he’s over-reacting, that there’s nothing to worry about, that he needs to get a grip. His brothers rolling their eyes saying, “Mom, she’s being weird again.”
He makes it home. Pounds up the stairs, locks the door. He thinks about barricading the door with the coffee table, but then he thinks what if I need to escape quickly? And there’s also Trinity, who said she would be home tomorrow.
Dennis can’t bear to sleep in his room. Being tucked in with his door closed should make him feel better, but the apartment feels too empty, and he feels trapped, worried he’d sleep through the initial noises that would warn him something is wrong.
He drags his pillows and blankets out to the couch, turns on the TV. Trinity has cable because the person who lived here before them never canceled it, and there’s something about live TV that’s soothing to Dennis. He feels less alone knowing the same images are being broadcast all across the city.
There’s a Friends marathon on, and the theme song reminds him of the nights his parents would be out at some church function, and leave Dennis and his brothers home. His brothers wanted nothing to do with him, so Dennis would sneak down to the basement and watch secular TV. Friends was on reruns even then, and was always playing on Friday night. He knows it’s sad that one of his happiest childhood memories is being alone in a basement watching TV, but it is.
He’s here, out of Broken Bow, out of the basement, living with someone he thinks is actually a friend. With all the lights on, in his nest of blankets, he settles in for the night.