Work Text:
Dennis clocks in at 6:42 AM with the particular kind of exhaustion that lives behind his eyes like something permanent.
The locker room hums loudly around him. The stale scent of hospital detergent and burnt coffee drifting through the vents as he shrugs out of his hoodie, rubs at the ache needling behind his left eye, then fishes two small orange tablets from the crumpled foil packet in his scrub pocket.
Ondansetron again. Problem solved, or, at least, aggressively postponed. He dry swallows them while staring into his locker mirror. His reflection looks vaguely assembled, pupils a little too blown in the white light, hair curling damply at his temples despite the cool morning air outside.
“Jesus,” he mutters to himself. “You look like shit.”
“Please don’t talk to my boyfriend like that.”
Dennis startles so hard his whole body jerks, shoulder hitching as he slams his elbow straight into the locker door with a metallic clang that ricochets through the room. Pain sparks bright and immediate up his arm and he hisses through his teeth, clutching at his elbow as if offended by the betrayal. Across from him, Robby is halfway through tying his scrub pants, expression flat with sleep deprivation and long practiced fondness.
Robby’s gaze flicks immediately downward. “To what do we owe this pharmaceutical breakfast?”
Dennis shoves the packet away too fast. “Just nausea meds.”
Robby pauses. “Again? You still feeling sick from the dosage increase?”
“Mmhm.”
“How long now?”
“Like…” Dennis squints vaguely. “Four days? Five? Whatever. It’s fine.”
It isn’t fine. The increase of his antidepressant had started out manageable; a little nausea, some sweating overnight; annoying but survivable. Then yesterday he’d nearly thrown up into a trauma bay sink halfway through suturing someone’s forehead. He leans down to tug his shoes tighter, swallowing against another hot wave crawling up his throat.
“You should probably call your psych if it’s still hitting you this hard,” Robby says carefully.
Dennis snorts. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that between the thirty seven patients we’re inevitably gonna board today.”
Robby watches him for one beat too long. That look always makes Dennis itchy, it’s entirely too perceptive, like Robby can hold symptoms up to the light and see through them.
So Dennis grins instead. “You gonna stare at me all morning or are we repressing ourselves and getting to work?”
Robby exhales through his nose and Dennis beams at him, then immediately regrets it when the motion sends a pulse of dizziness through his skull. He grabs his coffee from the bench and heads out before Robby can keep looking at him like that.
***
By 8:17 AM, Dennis has already had two patients vomit on him, one psych hold threaten to bite him, and one nurse physically confiscate the energy drink he tried to shotgun on an empty stomach. He’s also sweating through his scrub top, enough that the fabric sticks unpleasantly to the back of his neck.
“You look gross,” Trinity tells him while scanning meds at the Pyxis.
Dennis presses a hand dramatically to his chest. “Vicious.”
“You’re shiny.” Trinity narrows her eyes at him. “You good?”
“Perfect.”
He bends to grab a chart and the entire room tilts unpleasantly sideways for half a second, braces himself against the counter until the dizziness settles. His heartbeat feels too fast, like his pulse is trying to punch its way out of his throat. He spins on his heel and heads for trauma intake before Trinity can ask anything else. He’s certain he can outrun this feeling if he just keeps moving.
By 2:30 PM, the strange restless energy under Dennis’s skin has become impossible to ignore.
He keeps catching himself moving, his body simply refuses stillness every time it’s offered to him. One foot bouncing against the tile while he reviews labs at the workstation. Fingers drumming rapid uneven rhythms against the keyboard. Constant shifts of weight from heel to heel like there’s electricity building in his joints and nowhere for it to go.
The ER churns around him in its usual controlled disaster, normally the noise settles into him naturally. Today it scrapes. Every sound feels sharpened somehow, like his nervous system has been stripped raw and left exposed beneath artificial lighting.
He stares at the chart in front of him and realises he’s read the same line four separate times without processing a single word. His pulse throbs hard against the underside of his jaw. Too fast, too heavy. He can feel it everywhere now, in his throat, behind his eyes, deep in his wrists. Maybe he’s getting sick. Maybe he needs actual food instead of caffeine and antiemetics and whatever stale crackers he inhaled at seven in the morning while standing over a trauma chart, but the thought of food makes nausea immediately roll through him again.
Dennis glances up to find Dana leaning against the counter watching him over her glasses with narrowed eyes. She reaches over before he can react and smoothly plucks the coffee cup out of his hand.
“Hey,” Dennis protests weakly.
“You’re vibrating, kid,” she says, replacing it with a plastic cup of water instead.
Dennis laughs, but the sound bursts out too loud and too sudden, sharp enough that two people nearby glance over.
Dana’s expression shifts. “You doin’ okay, sunshine?”
“Peachy.”
He reaches for the water mostly to prove his hand is steady but there’s a faint tremor, more fine motor than dramatic shaking, but noticeable now that he’s looking for it. The water ripples lightly against the sides of the cup.
He immediately curls his fingers tighter around it but Dana notices anyway, her mouth pressing into a line. “Whitaker.”
“Dana, I’m fine.”
Something hot prickles unpleasantly under his skin and agitation blooming quick and irrational. He suddenly hates the way everyone keeps looking at him today, hates the concern in their faces, hates the hovering questions.
Across the department, movement catches his eye. Robby has just stepped out of Trauma Two, tugging off gloves as a nurse talks quietly at his shoulder. He’s halfway through answering when his attention flicks instinctively toward the nurses’ station.
Dennis watches it happen in real time: The automatic clinical scan, the tiny narrowing of Robby’s eyes as he takes in details one after another with terrifying efficiency. As their eyes meet across the crowded department Dennis smiles automatically because that’s what he does. Weaponised charm deployed on reflex, bright and cocky and carefully constructed to say ‘see? perfectly fine.’
Robby doesn’t smile back, instead, something in his expression sharpens with concern.
The collar of Dennis’s scrub top presses against his throat like a restraint and the noise around him swells louder and louder until every monitor alarm seems to hit the inside of his skull individually. Move. He needs to move.
He looks away first, grabbing a chart off the counter with abrupt jerky movements before heading toward the next patient room almost fast enough to qualify as fleeing. Because for reasons he cannot explain, standing still under Robby’s gaze feels unbearable. Like if he lets Robby look at him for one second longer, he’ll somehow see every wrong thing happening underneath Dennis’s skin.
***
The patient in front of him is explaining his abdominal pain for the third time when Dennis realises he hasn’t absorbed a single sentence.
The man is still talking. Something about worsening cramps after eating takeout two nights ago, but the words seem to drift strangely in the air between them, disconnected and slippery, like Dennis’s brain has lost the ability to properly catch hold of language.
He nods anyway. “Mhm.”
The patient squints at him. “You good, doc?”
“I’m fine, keep going?”
Dennis drags a hand through his hair and immediately regrets it because his skin feels burning hot. His palms are damp and sweat slides unpleasantly down the back of his neck beneath his collar. Meanwhile, his body can’t seem to decide whether it’s freezing or overheating, every few seconds a violent chill ripples through him hard enough to tighten his shoulders.
The patient has stopped talking entirely now and Dennis realises he’s pacing. Back and forth across the tiny exam room in short jerky lines, chart clutched in one hand while the other taps relentlessly against his thigh. He plants himself still through sheer force of will.
“Sorry, Mr. Driscoll,” he mutters. “Long shift.”
The patient gives him the deeply unconvinced look as Dennis pushes through the exam. He listens to bowel sounds twice because he forgets he already did it the first time. His reflex hammer slips from his fingers halfway through checking neuro responses because his hands are trembling badly enough now that functioning fine motor control feels out of reach.
By the time he leaves the room, irritation is buzzing beneath his skin like hornets. Someone keeps tapping a pen nearby and the repetitive clicking is suddenly so unbearable Dennis wants to physically snap it in half.
He sits in front of a computer next to Trinity and notices his heart pounding unevenly in his chest, a strange skipping stutter every few beats that makes something cold briefly uncurl low in his stomach. Trinity watches him for a second before reaching out and touching the back of her hand lightly against his forehead.
Dennis jerks back instantly. “What the fuck? Hands off.”
Dennis sees the flicker of surprise cross Trinity’s face and instantly hates himself for it, but the apology catches somewhere behind the awful crawling agitation under his skin.
“You’re burning up, Huckleberry,” she says carefully.
“I’m fine.”
“Dude, you’re sweating through your scrubs.”
Dennis shoves himself abruptly back to his feet before she can keep going. The movement sends dizziness crashing into him so hard the hallway tilts sideways for a moment until he catches himself against the counter hard enough to make a stack of charts slide sideways.
“I’m good,” he snaps before anyone can ask. “Can everybody just stop hovering?”
Dennis scrubs both palms over his face. His skin feels feverishly hot now, flushed deep across his cheeks. Beneath it, his muscles ache with a strange simmering tension he can’t stretch out no matter how much he keeps moving. And he cannot stop moving. The energy inside him has curdled into something frantic, his body feeling wound too tight, every nerve firing too fast. Even standing still long enough to review labs feels unbearable.
He turns too quickly again and nearly collides straight into Robby, large hands catch automatically at Dennis’s elbows before impact can happen.
Dennis can see the exact moment Robby registers the heat coming off him.
“Jesus,” Robby says quietly.
Dennis pulls away immediately. “I’m working.”
“You have a fever.”
“No I don’t.”
Robby ignores him completely, eyes scanning him with growing concern. Dennis knows what he looks like right now. Flushed. Pupils blown wide. Hands visibly trembling at his sides. And restless. God, the fucking restlessness. Even standing here he keeps shifting his weight every few seconds like he physically can’t settle inside his own body.
Robby lowers his voice. “When did this start?”
Dennis laughs once, brittle and humourless. “Everybody needs to calm down.”
“Whitaker.”
“I said I’m fine.” He says too loudly.
Several heads turn, Dennis sees it happen and immediately feels fury spark hot and irrational through his chest, embarrassment following right behind it. The entire department suddenly feels too bright, too crowded, too close.
Robby’s face softens slightly in that dangerous way that always makes Dennis feel seen straight through. “Maybe we should continue this conversation in the break room,” he says gently.
And for one second Dennis almost agrees. Because beneath the agitation and heat and pounding pulse, something else is creeping in now too. Fear, a vague animal understanding that something is going very, very wrong inside him.
The moment snaps apart instantly as a monitor alarm starts shrieking somewhere down the hall. Dennis jerks his attention toward the sound hard enough to make his neck ache, relief crashing through him at the interruption. “Duty calls.”
Before Robby can stop him, Dennis twists away and strides toward the trauma bays with quick uneven movements that border on frantic.
“Whitaker,” Robby calls after him.
“Working!”
The words echo sharper than intended across the department and people glance up again. Dennis can feel it happening now everywhere he goes, the subtle tracking looks. Nurses pausing conversations when he walks past, residents watching him too carefully. The atmosphere around him has shifted from casual concern into something more alert. He fucking hates it.
***
By early evening, the fever has sunk its claws fully into him. Heat radiates through his body in brutal waves that leave sweat gathering damply at his hairline and soaking through the fabric beneath his arms. Then, seconds later, violent chills rake through him hard enough to chatter his teeth. His muscles hurt, there’s a tightness winding through his calves and forearms until his limbs feel overstretched and wrong. Every reflex in his body feels too active somehow, his nervous system firing at maximum volume.
He continues to tear through patient rooms at unsustainable speed, talking too fast, interrupting people mid sentence, abandoning half finished notes to start new tasks before circling back again. His thoughts skid ahead of themselves like tires on black ice.
McKay corners him briefly near the medication room. “You need to sit down.”
“I need everyone to leave me alone.”
“You almost ran into a stretcher back there, Whitaker.”
“I missed it though, didn’t I?”
“You’re not making a lot of sense.”
Dennis laughs again, abrupt and jagged. “You’re being a bit dramatic, McKay.”
Cassie stares at him. “Whitaker, your pupils are huge. Are you on something?”
He pushes past her. The hallway stretches strangely around him as he walks, vision occasionally shimmering at the edges like heat haze rising off pavement. His heartbeat keeps tripping over itself in his chest now. Fast, fast, fast then one awful skipping thud that leaves his stomach dropping out beneath him.
Something is wrong, but the realisation keeps surfacing and submerging again before he can properly grab hold of it.
By the time Robby finds him again, Dennis is alone in the break room staring at the coffee machine as it gurgles and sputters obnoxiously on the counter. One foot bouncing hard against the tile. Fingers drumming rapid uneven rhythms against his crossed arms, then uncrossing, then rubbing both palms hard down the front of his scrub pants because his skin feels unbearably wrong.
He keeps swallowing around nausea that never fully leaves. Sweat cools unpleasantly along the back of his neck before another wave of fever heat rolls through him hard enough to make him shiver. He dry swallows another anti-nausea pill.
“Den.”
Robby’s voice is immediate and sharp enough that Dennis knows, instantly, this is no longer casual concern.
Dennis closes his eyes briefly. “Does nobody in this building have anything better to do?”
The moment the door shuts behind Robby, something in his posture changes. Less attending physician, less carefully detached professionalism. The concern on his face stops hiding behind clinical distance and becomes frighteningly personal instead.
Dennis hates it on sight.
Robby’s gaze drops immediately to the pill packet still loose in Dennis’s hand. Then to Dennis himself, sweating through his scrub collar, tremor visible now even in the hand hanging at his side.
“Tell me that wasn’t more ondansetron.”
Dennis shoves the packet into his pocket too fast. “It’s anti-nausea meds, Robby, not crystal meth.”
“How much have you taken today?”
“Enough to not puke on a patient.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I?”
The coffee machine beeps loudly behind him and Dennis flinches at the sound like it physically hurt.
“Jesus Christ, Den,” he says quietly. “You’re obviously burning up. This isn't sustainable anymore, I think you need to finish up early.”
Dennis laughs once, abrupt and humourless. “Why is everyone so fucking dramatic today?”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m overworked, Robby.”
“You’re sweating through your scrubs, your pupils are blown, and you almost passed out outside Trauma Two.”
Dennis grabs the coffee cup the second it finishes brewing mostly because he needs something to do with his hands. The cup rattles faintly against the counter from the tremor he can’t fully control anymore.
Robby reaches out automatically, catching the cup before it spills and the touch sends irritation flashing hot and vicious through Dennis’s chest. “Don’t.”
Robby stills. “Den.”
“I said don’t.”
Robby steps closer carefully, voice gentler now. “Hey, talk to me.”
Something inside Dennis snaps violently at the softness in that tone. “I am talking to you,” he bites out. “You just don’t like the answers.”
“I don’t care about the answers right now, I care that you’re clearly not okay.”
“I’m fine.”
Robby reaches for him, probably intending to check his temperature or pulse or something equally reasonable, but Dennis jerks back instantly like the touch burns. “Jesus Robby, stop looking at me like that.”
Dennis starts pacing again because standing still feels impossible. His muscles are tight with frantic energy, every nerve ending misfiring beneath fever hot skin. “You’re fucking hovering.”
“I’m worried.”
“Well don’t be.”
“Dennis.”
“Oh my god, can everybody please just stop?”
“Hey,” Robby says carefully now. “What else did you take today?”
“Nothing.” Dennis laughs harshly. “You wanna drug test me now? Is that where we’re at? Langdon 2.0 huh?”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I’m making perfect sense.”
“You’re agitated, you’re febrile, tachycardic, and your tremor is getting worse by the minute.”
“Wow,” Dennis snaps, “it’s almost like I’m stressed and working in a fucking emergency department.”
Robby steps closer again. “Den, listen to me.”
“No, you listen to me.”
The words crack out too loud. Dennis can hear his own breathing now, fast and uneven. His heart is hammering so violently it hurts, and Robby just keeps looking at him with that awful terrifying concern.
“Sit down,” Robby says quietly.
“No.”
“I’ll take you off this shift right now if I need to, Den.”
The phrase detonates instantly inside Dennis’s overheated brain.
“Oh, fuck off.”
Silence slams into the room. Dennis sees the hurt land before Robby manages to hide it, and some small lucid part of him recoils immediately in horror. But the agitation is stronger, meaner.
“I said I’m fine,” Dennis says again, voice shaking now from more than anger. “So either treat me like a functioning adult or leave me the hell alone.”
Robby takes one careful step closer and Dennis immediately takes one back, the movement fast enough that he bumps hard into the counter edge behind him. Pain sparks through his hip but barely registers beneath the static overload screaming through his nervous system.
“Den,” he says quietly, “you’re starting to scare me.”
The words hit like a fist directly to the sternum and for one awful heartbeat, Dennis almost folds. Because Robby never says things like that. Not at work, not like this. Fear crawls cold beneath the fever heat, which immediately mutates into anger again because anger is easier.
“Well maybe stop making everything so dramatic,” he bites out.
Robby’s jaw tightens. “You think this is dramatic? You’re running a fever, you can barely coordinate, and you’re acting completely unlike yourself.”
“Oh come on Robby, I’m acting exactly like myself.”
“No,” Robby says softly. “You’re not.”
The room suddenly feels unbearably small. The lights too bright, the hum of the refrigerator too loud and his scrub collar is sticking to the back of his neck and his pulse is hammering so hard it makes him feel nauseous. He can’t stay in here another second.
“Jesus Christ,” Dennis mutters, grabbing his coffee with jerky movements. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Dennis. I seriously can’t let you-”
Dennis turns and storms out of the break room before Robby can say another word.
The hallway crashes into him in a flood of noise and sickening light. A monitor alarm chirps somewhere to his left, somebody laughs near triage, a stretcher wheel squeals against tile. Every sound hits him like broken glass. Dennis moves fast anyway, almost shoving past a nurse rounding the corner.
“Sorry,” he snaps automatically without slowing.
His pulse feels dangerously irregular now, galloping hard enough to make his vision pulse faintly at the edges. He needs distance, needs just for one moment for everybody to stop looking at him like he’s seconds away from collapse.
Behind him, the break room door opens again.
“Whitaker!” Robby’s voice cuts cleanly across the department.
Dennis keeps walking.
Or at least he tries to.
Three steps down the hallway, something abruptly shifts beneath him in a way he can’t immediately explain. The floor doesn’t feel slippery or uneven so much as strangely unreal, as though his body and the world around it have slipped fractionally out of alignment. His feet still hit the tile, but the sensation reaches him delayed and distorted, like signals travelling through damaged wiring.
Heat surges violently through him first, flushing up the back of his neck and across his face, immediately chased by a freezing shudder so intense his teeth click together hard enough to hurt. His pulse stumbles once in his chest with a sickening heavy thud before accelerating again into chaotic, pounding bursts that make nausea rise sharp and acidic into his throat.
For the first time all day, the thought arrives with genuine clarity.
Something is seriously wrong.
Dennis reaches automatically for the wall beside him, but even that simple movement feels bizarrely difficult to coordinate. His fingers skid awkwardly across the tile instead of catching properly, clumsy and delayed, like his arm belongs to somebody else and he’s trying to operate it remotely through static.
Around him, the ER keeps moving at full volume. Normally Dennis can filter it all effortlessly, the noise of the department settles naturally into the background after enough years working inside it.
Now every sound arrives separately, sharp and overlapping and wrong. The hallway seems to swell around him with unbearable sensory weight until it feels like every voice, every fluorescent light, every squeaking wheel is striking directly against the inside of his skull. The hallway tilts abruptly sideways as Dennis blinks hard to clear his vision, and adrenaline slams through him so hard his stomach drops.
No.
No no no.
He pushes himself upright too fast, trying to force his legs back into motion because some frantic animal part of his brain has decided that stopping is dangerous. If he keeps moving, he can stay ahead of whatever this is. If he stops, it catches him.
Someone says his name behind him. Or nearby. Or maybe far away. The sound stretches strangely, warped at the edges. Dennis turns instinctively toward it, and the motion sends the entire corridor pitching sideways again so violently he almost loses his footing outright.
Panic detonates fully in his chest. Because suddenly he understands, with terrifying certainty, that he’s about to go down.
“Dennis!”
His vision narrows abruptly, the edges darkening as the floor lurches upward unexpectedly beneath him and Dennis realises, with sudden surreal confusion, that he’s falling. He tries to catch himself but his hand misses the wall entirely. His shoulder clips something metal hard enough to explode pain down his arm before momentum carries him sideways and the world drops out from under him.
There’s no graceful collapse, just the horrifying abrupt loss of control as his knees give way completely and his body slams hard into the tile, the impact knocking the air from his lungs.
Everything goes dark.
Robby is already moving before his brain fully catches up.
“Whitaker!”
Dennis reaches blindly for the wall, misses completely, and Robby sees panic flash naked and startled across his face for the first time all day. Then the hallway tilts sideways beneath Dennis hard enough that even Robby can see it happen in the jerky disoriented correction of his balance.
Robby breaks into a run.
“Dennis!”
He lunges the last few feet, catching only empty air and the edge of Dennis’s scrub sleeve as Dennis hits the ground hard, the crack of skull against tile echoes sickeningly through the hallway. Dennis’s body lies twisted awkwardly on the floor, one arm trapped beneath him, eyes closed, unnaturally still after hours of relentless motion.
Dana is already running for supplies before he even asks. Robby’s hands are on Dennis immediately, turning him carefully onto his back. The heat coming off him is shocking. Fever hot skin slick with sweat and his pulse leaps frantically against Robby’s fingers the second he checks carotid.
“Whitaker.” Robby taps sharply at his cheek. “Dennis, open your eyes.”
Fear claws once, hard and vicious, behind Robby’s ribs before years of emergency medicine crush it back down where it belongs. He curls his hand into a loose fist and presses his knuckles hard into the centre of Dennis’s sternum and Dennis moans weakly beneath him, face twisting sharply in pain. One arm tries weakly to shove Robby away before collapsing again almost instantly.
“Get me a monitor and a crash cart now.”
“On it.”
Robby slides one hand against Dennis’s neck, stabilising automatically while quickly assessing for head injury. No obvious deformity. Pupils huge when he forces one eyelid open. Even unconscious, Dennis’s muscles are twitching intermittently beneath his hands, fine tremors jumping through his arms and jaw.
“What the hell happened?” Dana asks.
“He collapsed,” Robby says shortly. “Possible OD, arrhythmia, I don’t know yet.”
Dennis makes a small strangled sound suddenly, somewhere between a gasp and a groan, body jerking weakly against the tile.
“Easy,” Robby says immediately, voice dropping despite himself. One hand presses instinctively against Dennis’s sternum, grounding him. “Stay still.”
Dennis’s eyes flutter halfway open for a second. He looks straight through Robby without recognition before his gaze rolls away again. The muscles beneath Robby’s hand tighten abruptly, not the restless trembling from before but something harder, more violent. Dennis’s entire body goes rigid in strange uneven waves, tension locking through his shoulders and neck so fast it looks painful.
“Dennis, open your eyes for us.”
Dennis’s jaw clenches sharply, another broken choking sound tears out of him as his back arches hard off the tile.
“Seizing!” Robby yells.
Dennis convulses violently beneath Robby’s hands, limbs jerking with terrifying force against the floor. One arm slams hard into the tile beside him while his legs kick erratically, muscles completely out of his control now.
“Clear him back,” Robby barks instantly.
The hallway erupts into motion. People move away. Someone grabs the crash cart closer. Monitor leads pull taut as Dennis’s body bucks hard enough to nearly tear them free.
“Protect his head.” A folded blanket appears beneath Dennis’s skull seconds later.
Robby is already crouched close beside him, one hand braced carefully near Dennis’s shoulder to keep him from striking the floor without trying to restrain the convulsions outright. Dennis makes another awful choking noise, foam and saliva collecting at the corner of his mouth as his teeth clamp together hard enough that the muscles in his jaw visibly jump.
“Time it,” Robby snaps.
“Seizure started at eighteen twenty-six.”
Dennis convulses again violently, body twisting sideways with enough force that Robby has to brace harder to stop him slamming into the nearby cart. His face is flushed deep red now beneath a sheen of sweat, pupils enormous whenever his eyes flicker briefly open between jerking muscle contractions.
“Airway kit here.”
“Get suction.”
“IV’s in.”
The department narrows into pure emergency rhythm around Robby, staff moving automatically under pressure, but all Robby can see is Dennis. The monitor shrieks beside them, heart rate dangerously high and climbing, temperature still rising. Dennis jerks again, a harsh involuntary cry catching in his throat as the seizure rolls through him.
Robby immediately leans closer. “You’re okay,” he says firmly, even though Dennis can’t hear him. “I’ve got you.”
Dana appears beside him with meds ready. “Benzos?”
“Yes,” Robby says instantly. “Push it.”
Dennis’s body convulses hard again before the medication has time to hit, one hand clawing weakly against the tile in a movement so instinctively frightened it makes something crack painfully inside Robby’s chest.
Robby stays exactly where he is through all of it, one steady hand against Dennis’s shoulder while the chaos of the ER swirls violently around them like a storm breaking open.
Dennis’s entire body remains locked in relentless convulsions, muscles jerking so violently the stretcher they finally manage to slide beneath him rattles against the floor. His teeth grind together audibly between choking gasps of breath. Sweat drenches his hairline and scrub collar completely now, fever heat pouring off him in suffocating waves.
“Time?” Robby snaps without looking up.
“Three minutes, fifteen seconds.”
Way too fucking long.
Dennis jerks again violently, one arm slamming hard against the stretcher rail with enough force that a nurse has to catch it before he injures himself.
“Second dose of benzos,” Robby orders immediately. “Now. Push as soon as it’s ready,” he says sharply.
Another violent jerk rolls through Dennis before the medication even reaches the line, his entire body tightening so hard it visibly lifts from the stretcher again. For half a second, Robby thinks maybe it’s helping. The jerking weakens slightly, Dennis’s limbs twitching instead of violently striking the rails. Then the seizure surges right back again.
“Fuck.” Robby scrubs one hand briefly across his mouth before immediately refocusing.
Around him, the department has shifted fully into crisis mode now. The nearby hallway cleared, staff moving fast and sharp, somebody already on the phone with toxicology. Respiratory arriving with airway equipment.
Dennis makes another horrible strangled sound as his muscles lock hard again. His head twists sharply sideways against the stretcher mattress while tremors ripple visibly through every limb. Tears have gathered involuntarily at the corners of his eyes from the sheer violence of the convulsions.
Robby reaches automatically to steady his shoulder again as Dennis’s legs twitch rhythmically even between larger convulsions, nervous system firing completely out of control.
“Temp?”
“103.7.”
“Fuck! Okay, cooling measures,” Robby snaps. “Ice packs, cooling blanket, whatever we have.”
Someone cuts open Dennis’s scrub top. Ice appears against his neck and underarms, another nurse hangs fluids while respiratory positions oxygen closer to his face between jerking breaths.
“Four minutes forty-five.”
Dennis’s movements are beginning to change now, not weakening exactly but growing more chaotic, less coordinated. Violent full body spasms crashing unpredictably through exhausted muscles, his lips are starting to turn faintly blue around the edges.
“Den, c’mon.” The name slips out quietly this time. Personal. Raw enough that he’s grateful nobody’s paying attention to him closely right now.
“Five minutes,” somebody says aloud.
The sentence hits Robby like a gunshot. Status epilepticus.
Robby’s voice hardens instantly. “We’re moving to Trauma One. Now.”
The stretcher surges into motion beneath Dennis as staff mobilise around them in practiced synchronisation. The hallway blurs into motion around Robby as he walks fast beside the stretcher, one hand still braced against Dennis’s shoulder to stop him slamming sideways during the convulsions. Dennis makes another strangled choking sound.
“Airway cart ahead of us,” respiratory calls.
“Trauma One clear?”
“It’s ready.”
The doors burst open seconds later and suddenly the chaos condenses into the bright enclosed intensity of the trauma bay. The team floods around Dennis immediately, transferring him onto the trauma bed while the seizure finally begins to break apart into weaker intermittent jerks and tremors. Robby stays at the bedside through all of it.
“Temp again.”
“103.2.”
Still dangerously high.
“Pressure’s climbing.”
“Heart rate 168.”
“Get another line.”
“On it.”
Dana appears at Robby’s shoulder, already gloved, eyes moving rapidly over Dennis’s condition before landing on Robby himself.
“What the hell is causing this?”
Robby exhales sharply through his nose, dragging his forearm briefly across his forehead before refocusing on the monitor. “I don’t know yet.”
Dennis’s body twitches weakly against the mattress again, smaller residual tremors running through his arms and legs while oxygen hisses beside his face.
Dana watches him carefully. “This looks toxicological.”
“I know Dana.”
“What’d he take?”
Robby shakes his head once, frustrated enough that it comes out harsher than intended. “I don’t know.”
All signs are pointing one direction. Agitation, tachycardia, seizure. Possible overdose. Possible drug interaction. Possible substance abuse. The words stack uglier and uglier in his head the longer he looks at Dennis lying unconscious in the trauma bed.
“I asked him earlier,” Robby says tightly, eyes still fixed on the monitor tracing Dennis’s racing heart rhythm across the screen. “He said all he’s taken is antiemetics. But he’s been…” He stops himself briefly, jaw tightening. “Off all day.”
Dana glances toward Dennis. “Off how? He was definitely buzzing earlier.”
“Agitated. Restless. Forgetful. Snapping at people.” Robby swallows hard once. “Not himself.”
Dana folds her arms. “You thinkin’ recreational?”
“Shit Dana, I don’t know what to think.”
And that’s the worst part, because Dennis tells him things. Enough that the idea of him secretly spiralling into something like this feels impossible and horrifying all at once. As if his Dennis has somehow been drowning right in front of him while Robby completely failed to notice.
Robby stares down at Dennis’s flushed face, at the sweat soaked curls stuck against his forehead, at the occasional lingering twitch still pulling through exhausted muscles.
“I want a full tox screen,” he orders sharply. “Bloods, CMP, CK, lactate, ABG, acetaminophen, salicylates, ethanol, all of it.”
A nurse nods immediately. “Urine tox too?”
“Yes. Everything.”
Dana watches him for another beat. “You thinking accidental OD?”
“I think,” Robby says carefully, forcing his voice level while alarms continue chirping around them, “that something is very wrong, and I don’t know if he did this to himself on purpose, accidentally, or if there’s something else going on.”
The trauma bay door slams open hard enough to rattle the glass. Jack Abbot strides in already gloving up, his eyes moving fast over the room in practiced sequence.
He stops dead for half a second, shock flashes openly across his face before years of emergency medicine lock it back down again.
“What’ve we got?”
“Status seizure,” Dana answers immediately. “Unknown cause.”
“Possible OD,” somebody else adds.
Jack’s attention snaps toward Robby instantly at that. Robby is standing too close to the bed, his eyes haven’t left Dennis once since Jack entered the room. There’s visible tension pulled so violently tight through his shoulders it looks painful.
Robby looks back at him briefly, and something naked and terrified flashes across his expression so fast nobody else would catch it. Jack moves immediately into the space beside Robby and looks down at Dennis like he’s taking over assessment.
“What’s been done?”
“Benzos, fluids, cooling measures,” Dana says. “Full tox workup pending.”
“Okay.” Jack nods once, then lowers his voice just enough that only Robby catches the edge underneath it. “Walk with me.”
Robby doesn’t move, only tears his gaze away from Dennis long enough to glare at him. “I’m not leaving.”
“I didn’t say leave. I said walk.”
Dana glances between them briefly, already distracted again by the monitor alarms.
Jack steps closer to Robby under the guise of checking the chart, voice dropping even lower. “You are way too fucking close to this right now, brother. You’re probably missing things.”
“Don't start that shit with me Jack, I’m not.”
Jack keeps his tone calm. “Your judgment’s compromised.”
Across the bed, Dennis twitches weakly again against the restraints, unconscious face pinched faintly with residual distress and Robby’s attention jerks back to him instantly.
“You need somebody objective in here,” Jack says quietly.
“I am, I can do it.”
“No,” Jack replies, very gently now. “You’re scared out of your goddamn mind.”
For one dangerous second, Robby’s expression almost fully breaks apart. Jack immediately shifts closer, blocking the line of sight from the rest of the room under the excuse of reviewing the monitor.
“Hey,” he says under his breath. “C’mon, keep it together brother.”
Robby inhales sharply through his nose. Jack knows exactly what’s happening inside his head because he’s watched this relationship unfold in secret for months now. The careful distance at work. The stolen exhaustion soft moments after shifts.
But this is different. This is Robby standing at the bedside while the person he loves lies unconscious after a prolonged seizure and possible overdose. That kind of fear destroys clinical judgment.
Jack lowers his voice even further. “If you stay in this room like this, you’re going to miss something important or make a call you shouldn’t.”
The monitor alarms shriek again as Dennis’s heart rate spikes higher briefly before settling back into dangerous tachycardia and Robby flinches almost imperceptibly at the sound.
Jack immediately puts a hand on the back of his neck, brief and grounding, disguised easily as a passing professional gesture.
“Go wash your face,” he murmurs. “Get yourself under control before somebody in this room figures out why you look like your entire fucking world is ending.”
***
By the time Robby sees Jack again, it’s nearly three in the morning.
The ICU room is dark except for the low blue glow of monitors and the muted city light leaking through half closed blinds. Machines breathe and pulse steadily in the silence, filling the room with mechanical rhythm.
Dennis lies motionless in the bed. A ventilator breathes for him in slow measured cycles, the sound so unnatural in contrast to Dennis’s usual restless constant motion that Robby still hasn’t adjusted to it hours later. Nothing about him looks right when he’s this still. The fever has finally broken enough that the violent flushing across his skin faded hours ago, but he still looks wrong somehow. Too pale now beneath the bruising blooming darkly along his temple from where he hit the floor. Electrodes disappear beneath hospital blankets, IV lines run everywhere.
And Robby sits beside the bed with both forearms braced against his knees, staring at the ventilator tubing like if he stops watching it Dennis’s lungs might forget what to do entirely. He hasn’t moved much, he’s been rude and demanding and unkind. The ICU nurses figured that out quickly. Which is probably why they called Jack.
Robby doesn’t look up immediately as the door opens softly behind him. “You’re late.”
“You’re a nightmare to track down, brother.”
Jack closes the door quietly behind himself and pauses for a second after that, taking in the scene. “You eaten anything?”
“No.”
“Thought so.”
Robby finally looks up.
And Jesus Christ, Jack has known him for years. Through disasters, through trauma activations. Through shootings and mass casualties and impossible shifts that left everybody hollowed out for days afterward.
He has never seen Robby look like this.
Finally Robby says, very flatly, “Did tox come back?”
Jack exhales slowly through his nose. “Yeah.”
Robby’s grip tightens fractionally around Dennis’s wrist. “And?”
Jack studies him for a second first. Trying to figure out how to say it, how to explain that this entire nightmare somehow turned out both better and worse than they feared.
“No illicit substances,” he says finally. “No opioids. No stimulants. No recreational drugs.”
Robby goes completely still, his eyes closing briefly. “Then what the hell happened?”
Jack leans back slightly in the chair. “Tox thinks it’s severe serotonin syndrome.”
Robby stares at him. “...What?”
“He increased his SSRI recently?”
Robby nods once slowly.
“Apparently he was also taking a ton of ondansetron trying to manage the nausea.” Jack rubs tiredly at his forehead. “Combination probably tipped him over the edge. Tox said the presentation fits almost perfectly. Hyperthermia, clonus, agitation, seizures.”
Robby looks instinctively back toward Dennis. “Oh,” he says softly.
Not drug abuse, not addiction, not some secret spiral hidden from him for months. Just Dennis trying to medicate side effects without realising he was accidentally poisoning himself.
Jack watches the realisation move across his face and immediately understands exactly where Robby’s mind went. “Hey,” he says quietly. “You didn’t know.”
“I should’ve.”
“You’re not psychic.”
“I’m a doctor.”
Jack snorts tiredly. “Yeah? And unfortunately for everybody involved, you’re also in love with him.”
Robby flinches slightly at hearing it spoken aloud in the room. Even now. Even here.
Jack continues before he can spiral further. “You know what everybody else saw today? Agitation, confusion, overheating, possible overdose symptoms. Nobody clocked serotonin syndrome immediately.”
“He’s gonna wake up?” Robby asks finally, voice quieter now.
Jack’s expression softens. “Yeah,” he says. “It’ll take time, but yeah. They got the seizure activity under control. His temp’s down, labs are stabilising.”
Robby bows his head for a second. When he finally speaks again, his voice sounds wrecked raw around the edges. “He told me to fuck off in the break room.”
Jack blinks once. Then, despite everything, a startled laugh escapes him. “Well,” he says carefully, glancing toward the heavily sedated Dennis, “in fairness, that does sound more like him than a secret meth addiction.”
Something is lodged deep in his throat. His body reacts before his mind does, adrenaline detonating violently through him as he jerks instinctively against the sensation.
Pain flares everywhere immediately. His muscles ache with bone deep brutality, like he’s been beaten from the inside out. Every limb feels heavy and weak and strangely disconnected. Even lifting his head an inch from the pillow feels impossible.
A sharp alarm erupts beside him and hands catch his shoulders almost instantly.
“Whoa, baby, calm down.”
The voice cuts through the panic first, familiar enough that his brain latches onto it automatically.
“Hey. Hey, don’t fight it.”
Robby.
Dennis’s eyes snap open fully. The room swims in and out of focus under dim lighting. Blurred shapes moving at the bedside. Then finally Robby leaning over him, one hand firm against his shoulder while the other reaches carefully toward the ventilator tubing.
Dennis makes a panicked sound around the tube immediately, trying to speak despite the obstruction in his throat.
“Easy, sweetheart,” Robby says quickly. “You’re intubated. Don’t try to talk.”
His hands feel slow and weak as he reaches clumsily toward the tube taped against his mouth but Robby catches his wrist immediately.
“Den, look at me.”
Dennis does and instantly realises something is wrong with Robby too. He looks exhausted in a way Dennis has maybe never seen before. There’s stubble shadowing his jaw, a deep bruised darkness beneath his eyes. His expression pulled so tight with controlled fear that even through the haze of waking sedation Dennis can recognise it instantly.
Something awful has happened.
Panic surges through him again, the monitor beside him speeds up immediately in response.
“Okay, no,” Robby says softly, voice shifting lower. “You’re okay. You’re safe. We’re in ICU. The tube is temporary.”
Dennis stares at him. The letters rearrange themselves slowly into meaning. His thoughts feel thick and sluggish, drifting strangely through leftover sedation. He tries to remember the last clear thing before this and gets only fractured snapshots.
“You had a prolonged seizure,” he says carefully.
Dennis stares at Robby blankly as Robby’s thumb brushes once across the inside of his wrist before he seems to consciously stop himself from doing it again.
“You’re okay now,” he says quietly. “They sedated you and intubated you to protect your airway.”
Dennis’s eyes close briefly and humiliation crashes over him so fast and hard it almost physically hurts. Jesus Christ. He seized in the ER in front of everyone.
As if reading the thought directly off his face, Robby says immediately, “Nobody cares about that.” Robby’s expression softens just slightly. “You got sick. That’s all.”
Dennis tries weakly to glare at him around the tube. The effect is probably ruined by the fact he still feels like roadkill wrapped in hospital blankets. Dennis’s eyes widen slightly.
Robby sees it instantly, “What?”
Dennis makes a frustrated noise around the tube, trying to communicate through sheer facial expression and lewd gestures alone. Robby studies him for a second then understanding flickers across his face. He actually laughs, quiet and wrecked sounding around the edges, but real.
“Yes, you were incredibly mean to me,” he says.
Despite everything, a tiny spark of relief flickers through Dennis’s exhausted brain at the sound of Robby being okay enough to joke. Which means Dennis probably didn’t die.
“You scared the hell out of me,” Robby says.
And because Dennis can’t talk, can’t deflect, can’t joke his way sideways out of emotional sincerity right now, he just squeezes weakly at Robby’s fingers where they’re still wrapped around his wrist.
Sorry.
Robby understands immediately anyway.
***
Dennis drifts in and out for a while after that.
Time moves strangely beneath sedation and exhaustion, stretching and folding in ways that make it impossible to tell whether minutes or hours or days are passing between each brief period of wakefulness. Nurses come and go. Respiratory checks the ventilator. Somebody adjusts his blankets at some point because he keeps shivering despite the warmth crawling unpleasantly beneath his skin.
Through all of it, every single time Dennis wakes enough to orient himself properly, Robby is there.
Sometimes sitting beside the bed reviewing charts he clearly isn’t absorbing. Sometimes half asleep in the chair with one hand still wrapped loosely around Dennis’s wrist like his body forgot how to let go. Once Dennis wakes just enough to find Robby staring openly at the monitor tracing his heartbeat with an expression so exhausted and frightened that Dennis almost starts crying on the spot from guilt alone.
By late afternoon the breathing tube is finally gone. His throat feels scraped raw afterward, every word reduced to a wrecked rasp, but at least he can speak again.
Which unfortunately means Robby can now verbally bully him.
“You nearly died.”
“Okay, but barely.”
Robby gives him a look so profoundly unimpressed that Dennis immediately sinks lower into the pillows.
The ICU room is quieter now. Dim evening light spills gold across the floor through the blinds, softening the harsh hospital edges slightly. Dennis is exhausted down to the molecular level, muscles still aching viciously every time he moves, but the fever haze has finally broken enough that his thoughts feel properly attached to reality again.
Which means he’s now becoming aware of his surroundings.
Specifically:
“Flowers?”
Robby glances up from the chair beside him. The room looks ridiculous, honestly. Someone has apparently informed the entire hospital that Dennis almost died because every available surface is crowded now. Flowers. Cards. Balloons. One aggressively enormous stuffed bear wearing scrubs sits in the corner holding a GET WELL SOON sign.
“You’ve had visitors.”
Dennis slowly scans the room again, increasingly horrified. “So many cards?”
“You’re apparently beloved.”
Dennis narrows his eyes suspiciously. “How bad was it?”
Robby sighs softly, leaning back slightly in the chair. “You seized for over five minutes. You know what that means, what it looks like.”
“Oh.”
“You scared everyone.”
Dennis swallows and Robby reaches automatically for the water again before Dennis even asks. The gesture is so practiced and instinctive it makes something warm and painful twist in Dennis’s chest.
Then Robby suddenly remembers something.
“Oh.” He sits up slightly. “Jack left something.”
Dennis looks immediately alarmed. “If it’s a fruit basket I’m discharging myself.”
“It’s an envelope.” Robby leans over toward the side table, shuffling carefully through the pile of cards and flowers until he finds a thick green envelope wedged beneath a vase.
“He told me not to open it until you were awake,” Robby says.
Dennis opens it carefully with still shaky hands while Robby watches beside him.
Inside is a card.
The front originally said:
CONGRATULATIONS, IT’S A BOY!
Except someone has aggressively scratched over parts of it in thick black marker until it now reads:
CONGRATULATIONS, IT’S A BOY’S!
Dennis stares at it.
Robby stares at it.
There’s a long silence.
“…What,” Dennis says finally.
“I genuinely don’t know.”
Dennis flips the card open cautiously and a thick folded white envelope immediately falls out into his lap with a heavy thunk.
“That,” Dennis says slowly, “is either money or anthrax.”
Robby takes the envelope carefully while Dennis opens the card itself.
Inside, in unmistakably chaotic department handwriting, is written:
The biggest betting pool in the department is finally over!
The subject
When and how will Whitaker and Robby expose the most obvious relationship the pit has ever witnessed?
Winner
Princess.
Winning bet
“One of the idiots gets injured and the other one can’t pretend for shit.”
Frankly, embarrassing for both of you.
Everyone agreed the money should go toward Whitaker’s sick leave and whatever therapy Robby’s gonna need after watching him accidentally medically poison himself.
CONGRATS ON THE WORST KEPT SECRET IN EMERGENCY MEDICINE.
PS: Dana says you owe her forty bucks because she thought she had a sure win with “Robinavitch has a panic attack confession in an ambulance bay”
Dennis slowly lowers the card.
Robby is staring at the opposite wall with the thousand yard stare of a man realising his entire workplace has apparently been watching his secret relationship unfold like live sports commentary for months. Dennis wheezes first, the sound catches painfully in his ruined throat and immediately devolves into coughing.
Robby lunges for the water cup automatically. “Please don’t laugh yourself back onto the ventilator.”
“Oh my god,” Dennis rasps between coughs. “They knew?”
Robby turns slowly toward him. “Apparently everyone knew.”
Dennis loses it completely then, laughing weakly into the blankets despite the ache in his chest. Robby tries very hard to remain offended for approximately six seconds before the absurdity finally cracks through the last few days of terror and exhaustion. He starts laughing too. The sound fills the ICU room strangely warm and disbelieving beneath the soft mechanical beeping of monitors.
Dennis wipes weak tears from his eyes. “Dana losing forty bucks because you had a public emotional collapse is incredible.”
Robby rubs both hands down his face. “Just drink your water, Whitaker.”