Chapter Text
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“Little ghost, little ghost, one I'm scared of the most
Can you scare me up a little bit of love?
I'm the only one that sees you and I can't do much to please you
And it's not yet time to meet the Lord above…”
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The first thing Dennis hears every morning is the sound of the grease trap hissing in the shop below, then feels his four-year-old son wriggling deeper into his ribs, like he wants to crawl back into Dennis’ shriveled old sack of a uterus.
He’s not sure which one wakes him first.
It’s two in the morning, he got off shift at PTMC four hours ago, and his body already aches. The alarm is set for fifteen minutes from now, but his nerves are always early, like they’re afraid of missing something vital. His knees groan when he sits up. His lower back feels like it’s made of rebar and regret. He peels off the too-thin blanket from the shared mattress on the floor of what the Craigslist ad had optimistically called a “micro-apartment,” right above the Shipley’s Donuts where he works the night shift. Shiloh is still curled up under a fleece Spider-Man blanket beside him, breathing in slow, even puffs through his mouth. His lips are parted — just slightly — as they always are, shaped by the work of surgeons before he could even walk. A faint, pink scar curls up the both sides of his upper lip, still shiny in some places. His cleft was bilateral and is now technically “repaired,” but Dennis knows how that word flatters itself. He’s loved every bit of that little smile, even when it was a gaping hole and a fleshy bump under his baby's right nostril.
He reaches down and gently brushes a curl of honey-blond hair off Shiloh’s forehead. His kid doesn’t stir.
In the dim glow from the single busted-out streetlight outside the window, Dennis’ reflection peers back at him from the cracked mirror across the room. Beard’s patchy, chin shadowed but sparse. His binder is on the floor, rumpled from yesterday, and for a brief moment, he imagines not wearing it today, just for one stupid baking shift at the Shipley’s, just to breathe. But then he thinks of the way his donut shop boss still occasionally calls him “Ms. Whitaker,” how the customers side-eye his voice like it's a broken instrument. The way he has to remind every single middle-aged coworker as he hurries upstairs after making donuts all night, every single week: he goes by he.
He pulls on the binder with the kind of muscle memory that comes from years of doing it in the dark, fast, with no mirror.
Thirty minutes later, Dennis is downstairs in the Shipley’s kitchen, hunched over the fryer. The scent of sugar and yeast clings to his skin like punishment. He’s got burns from oil splatter up both forearms, tiny dotted reminders of every overnight shift he’s survived. He flips dough, watches the bubbling edges, and zones out just enough not to think too hard about the hours ahead. He clocks out at five, rushes upstairs, reheats a Ziploc bag of frozen peas and carrots and an Eggo waffle, and manages to get them into a cracked plastic bowl before Shiloh shuffles into the kitchenette, bleary-eyed and clutching his stuffed manatee.
“There’s a lady ghost in the microwave today,” Shiloh announces between chews, matter-of-fact, like he’s talking about the weather.
Dennis nods, rubbing his temples. “Yeah? What’s she want?”
“She’s just watching, she said she used to work in a kitchen. Her name was Alma. She thinks you’re doing it wrong.”
Dennis lets out a bark of dry laughter. “Tell Alma to clock in if she’s got complaints.”
Shiloh shrugs, shovels more peas in with his dry waffle. He never complains about the food they have. Never asks for snacks. He always quietly eats what’s given to him, and that very often breaks Dennis’ heart. His speech is nasal today — worse than usual. His ENT mentioned Shy’d likely need another surgery around age five, maybe earlier if his palatal gap widens. They’re on a waitlist for a speech therapist. Medicaid’s still processing the paperwork, and Dennis doesn’t have the energy to call again.
Some days, he worries Shiloh talks to ghosts because it’s easier than talking to people.
He worries the world is unkind to his baby in the same way it’s been unkind to him.
But Shiloh doesn’t say anything, just kisses him on the cheek on the way to the bus stop. “I love you, Dada.”
“I love you too, Shy-Shy.”
By seven, Dennis is at PTMC, wearing machine-issue scrubs and writing with a ballpoint from a trans-friendly clinic back in Austin when he finally left Nebraska and his ex. He shuffles through patient charts like a zombie, his brain slogging through molasses. He scribbles notes. Checks vitals. Shadows residents who speak like they’ve never had to choose between diapers and gas money. He nods when spoken to, pretends his body doesn’t feel like collapsing from lack of nutrients.
“Whitaker,” Dr. Mohan says without looking up, “Keep up, I shouldn’t be lapping you.”
Dennis smiles too fast. “Sorry.”
He’s always sorry.
Lunch break means nothing. He eats a half-stale cinnamon twist from his coat pocket, drinks cold water from the bathroom sink, and answers texts from Mrs. Ledesma, who’s watching Shiloh this week for free, again.
He’s talking to someone on the porch. No one is there but he's having a full convo, FYI.
Dennis thumbs out a quick reply: Imaginative kid.
He doesn’t mention it to the team. He doesn’t mention Shiloh at all. There’s no space for kids in this world, not unless they’re theoretical or in upstairs in peds, especially not for a single seahorse dad with a kid who speaks fluent otherworld.
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It’s dark by the time he’s back upstairs. Shiloh’s already bathed, teeth brushed, tucked in by himself. He pats the spot next to him, arms open. But Dennis is too full of guilt. He sits on the floor next to the mattress and runs a hand through his kid’s curls. He’s too tired to cry, but he feels the weight of it pressing behind his eyes, like a storm that’s been postponed too long.
“You ate today?” Shiloh warbles, voice thick with sleep.
“Yeah,” Dennis lies. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Mr. Brennen in the closet said you’re dying slowly. He was a doctor.”
Dennis laughs softly. “He’s just dramatic.”
“You should eat something green. Or red. Or not donuts.”
“I’ll try.”
“Promise?”
Dennis leans down and kisses Shiloh’s nose, just above the faded scar that cleaves his upper lip like a memory. “Promise.”
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It’s Thursday morning, which means Dennis is barely standing by the time he gets to morning meeting. His binder’s digging into his ribs, his blood sugar’s bottomed out, and his left foot is going numb. He ate a cruller at four in the morning and hasn't had water since sunrise. His breath tastes like fryer grease and anxiety. Dr. Abbot is already at the board when Dennis walks into the conference room — clipboard in one hand, coffee in the other, wearing a compression sleeve over his prosthetic leg and reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. Jack’s built like a rugby coach — short, broad, legs like tree trunks. His below-the-knee amputation is visible today, the carbon fiber curve of his prosthetic ankle peeking out beneath the sleeve, just above his sneaker. He must’ve been out running. He gestures with his coffee and frowns at the case report.
“No offense,” He sighs, without looking up, “But if you write ‘presents with weakness’ one more time, I will confiscate your pager.”
His husband, Dr. Robby Robinavitch, snorts from the other side of the room. “Yankl, this generation doesn’t know what pagers are.”
Robby’s taller, broader, comfortably chubby in a way that makes his scrubs stretch over his gut. His beard is salt and pepper, the kind that makes people feel like they can trust him with their problems. The Yiddish lilt to his words is always a comfort. Dennis smiles, too fast. He can feel himself grinning like an idiot before he means to. He’s so fucking obvious. They’re married, and they’re brilliant, and they’re kind in this rare, devastating way. Dennis knows their story now that he’s been on rotation for a few weeks after PittFest — how they met as residents, how Robby used to run free HIV clinics in the 2000s, how Jack lost his leg in a motorcycle accident after coming home from Afghanistan, and didn’t slow down for a second. They finish each other’s sentences. They bicker about renal dosing and kiss each other on the cheek during hand-offs like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
Dennis is doomed.
He crushes on them both the way you crush on sunlight through a clean window. Hopeless. Distant. Safe. Because there is no way on this blistered Earth that a pair of middle-aged, married attendings want a broke, scurvy-bound trans guy who smells like old glaze, lives above a donut shop with a haunted microwave and has a kid who talks to ghosts.
After rounds, Trinity corners him by the elevators. She’s five-foot-nine with chopped short black hair, covered in tattoos under her scrubs, and the only other trans person Dennis has met since coming to Pittsburgh. He’s her Huckleberry. She’s also terrifyingly perceptive in all the worst ways. “So,” She says, grinning like a shark. “You gonna make a move or nah?”
Dennis almost chokes on his spit. “Christ, no.”
“What? They’re hot. You’re hot. It’s gay and perfect. Ask them out after you match here.”
“I’m not—” Dennis rubs his face. “I’m not even in their league, Trin.”
Trinity narrows her eyes. “They literally kissed in front of you after arguing about digoxin. That’s queer theater. That’s flirting.”
“They’re married,” Dennis mutters.
Trinity shrugs. “So? You deserve good things, Huck. This could be a good thing.”
Dennis bites the inside of his cheek. Or it could be awful and given his track record, awful seems more appropriate. Trinity doesn’t know, not about the stale donuts, not about the bruises on his body from binding too long after putting on weight while being malnourished anyway, and not about the medical bills from Shiloh’s last cleft repair that he’s still pretending don’t exist. Certainly not about the ghosts and not about how scared he is to buy produce because it might mean overdrafting again.
He just smiles, small and false. “Thanks.”
Trinity claps him on the shoulder, shaking him a little. “Just saying, if I had two hot old guys who cared if I was drinking enough water, I’d never be sad again.”
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That night, the microwave ghost says nothing.
Shiloh’s quiet at dinner, which is just: thawed peas again, carrots, little rolls of ham and cheese, and two pieces of toast. Dennis managed to steal a wilted bunch of kale from the hospital cafeteria trash — he saw it dumped, untouched, from a tray — and sautés it with olive oil from a sample bottle he got at a food bank pop-up. That’s his dinner. Shy gets food and Dennis gets a veg, that’s a win. But Shiloh eyes Dennis’ dinner like it might be poison.
“Green,” Dennis says. “Like you asked for.”
“Mr. Brennen said you’re still dying,” Shiloh replies, scooping up a ham and cheese roll and handing it out. “But slower now.”
Dennis wipes his face on his sleeve. “No, baby, eat your dinner. I have mine.”
His son’s tiny hand retreats.
Dennis thinks about Robby’s hands. The soft way he gestures when talking. How he held an old man’s hand yesterday for twenty minutes while the man’s wife wailed into his shirt. He thinks about Jack’s honesty, how he sat on a stool next to a new amputee and said, with Dennis right there watching the interaction and taking notes, “I know what it’s like to wake up in a different body. You’re not done.”
Dennis wonders what it would be like to be held by someone who knew how to love things still healing. Still changing. But people like that don’t want people like him. Not with Shiloh’s ghost reports and existence, if those men wanted kids they would already have them. The closest Robby’s ever gotten was Jake and he’s pretty sure they still aren’t speaking. They certainly don’t want someone with his own history — his abusive ex, the semi-expired hormone stash hidden in a shoebox, the ER visits when he was getting beaten on the reg that he’s still paying for, the time he bled through a rotation from his endo and passed out on the bathroom floor and told no one.
They definitely don’t want a guy donuting himself into scurvy. So he eats his stolen kale, chews until it hurts, and says nothing. He tucks Shiloh in and brushes his teeth.
Then, he lies down on the mattress next to his living-breathing entire world and whispers into the dark: “I’m trying.”
He’s not Shiloh though, so no one answers.
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