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“What’s wrong with Whitaker?”
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong with your friend?” Princess whisper-shouts in Tagalog.
A quick look around central bay reveals no Dennis Whitaker in sight, leaving Trinity now thoroughly confused by the impromptu question.
How was she supposed to know what’s wrong with him? She hasn’t seen him since Friday night. It was currently Tuesday.
“I don’t know, haven’t seen him.” Princess is obviously unamused if her scowling was anything to go by. It’s not like Trinity was Dennis’ keeper or anything! And no, the GPS tag and twenty-four seven location sharing don’t count, that’s just for her to know when he would be coming home. And maybe, possibly, she needs to know where he is all the time.
She is just tracking her “sim”. Definitely not stalking her roommate slash best friend because of her controlling and nervous attachment tendencies. Plus, it’s good to know where he is. For safety and stuff.
“What’s going on?”
Great, and now Perlah is joining this random Chismosa circle.
“I was asking this girl what’s wrong with Whitaker.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh my god- I already said I don’t know!”
“Lies. I bet you guys share underwear when you forget to do laundry.” Trinity makes a mental note to check if Princess has any hidden cameras installed in hers and Dennis’ apartment when she gets home.
“How the fu—Okay, not answering that. Girl I'm telling you I haven’t seen him since we got here!”
Naturally, that wasn’t enough to convince Princess to stop.
“Mhmm.” She gives Trinity a once over, the look on her face says ‘I don’t believe a word you say’. “Nevermind her, you know what I saw earlier?”
“What?” Perah sits down now, ready to be invested in the hottest gossip news around the ED, the pile of paper in front of her long forgotten.
Maybe they should really listen to Robby when he would go on about "efficiency” and “productivity” when he catches them chatting for too long. But what does he know, they’re just doing team-building exercises, by being nosy about everyone’s business.
“We were in Trauma one just now, Dennis and Robby glued at the hips as usual.”
No duh, everyone knows Dennis is Robby’s favorite.
Trinity couldn't even pretend to be working at this point, finding her iced coffee (thank you Doctor Shen’s massive Dunkin’s coupon collection) while leaning against the workstation to listen in.
“You know how Robby is always touching and grabbing him? Well, today he hasn’t touched him once, even retracted his hand when he went to do it out of habit.”
Trinity and Perlah chime in at the same time.
“Tsk, girl.”
“That’s it?”
This wasn’t really the “hot goss” they were hoping to hear.
“What do you mean ‘that’s it’? This is serious!” Princess looks at Trinity with wide eyes, really trying to emphasize the assumed gravity of the situation.
“Robby stopped touching Huckleberry. So what? That’s a good thing!” God knows how many times Trinity has tried to convince Dennis to go to HR about it when they first started at PTMC, he always brushed it off with ‘doesn’t bother me’.
In hindsight, his attitude towards the whole situation at the time should’ve clued her in on what was happening behind the scenes.
But now the problem has resolved itself, et voila. Everybody’s happy.
“Aye, you don’t get it, it was really awkward!”
Princess moves to stand next to her, doing a reenactment for both her and Perlah.
“He was all like, ‘Good job, Whitaker’,” Princess goes to grab the back of her neck, the same way everyone’s seen Robby do to Dennis, but retracts her hand right before they make contact and goes to scratch the back of her neck.
“And did that! Do you see how strange that is?”
Perlah lets out an incredulous laugh where she’s sitting.
“Jesse and I saw the whole thing. Ask him, too.” The male nurse nods at them when he hears his name, no doubt already used Princess’ antiques. He likes being nosy just as much as the rest of them, he’s just more quiet about it.
And, okay, Trinity sees why Princess brought it up because it is, well, awkward. But she also hates that this happened and everything it stands for. Because this means Robby knows it’s inappropriate to be touching his subordinates that much.
Subordinate, singular. Dennis being the only one Robby gets his hands on.
But it’s somehow worse that he’s stopped now, especially all of a sudden. It would imply he either, wasn’t aware of how handsy he was with Dennis but is now, or that he knew from the beginning but finally found his conscience and decided to stop. She can’t tell which is worse.
Everyone had teased Dennis about it at this point, both to his face and behind his back, it was mostly lighthearted, just a friendly jab at Robby’s overfamiliarity towards him. He would tell them that it meant nothing, that Robby was mostly just trying to be encouraging or moving him out of the way. People would laugh and move on, and be secretly amused by the touch-adverse, uses-a-gallon-of-hand-sanitizer-a-day chief of ER using Whitaker like a life sized stress toy.
It was funny and refreshing, even though it’s been a few years since it started.
The rest of the department also definitely did not have a shared tally board in Ahmad’s office to keep count of how many times it happens in a day. And there was definitely no money involved, whatsoever.
“Wait, if Robby’s the one being weird,”
Perlah abandons her files again when Trinity starts.
“Why would you ask me what’s wrong with Huckleberry?” Now all eyes are on Princess again, waiting for her elaboration. She smirks at their undivided attention.
“Whiaker looked really sad, like Robby hurt his feelings.” She actually frowns when she says this, as if recounting seeing a kicked puppy. Trinity doesn’t blame her, Dennis does look like an injured animal most of the time.
“Huckleberry always looks sad, please.”
“Do you think it’s true that he has a crush on Robby?” Perlah asks and oh, Trinity knows it’s true. But that’s between her, Dennis, their tub of tequila-spiked chocolate ice cream, and three am movie marathons.
“Ayee, that’s old news. He literally follows Robby around like a puppy.” Princess could probably do a ‘Keeping Up with The PTMC’ show with how perceptive to everyone’s business she was.
Fortunately, Trinity also knows the crush goes both ways.
However, only her, Dennis, her baseball bat, and the emergency dispatcher who picked up her call that one fateful night, know about this.
Thankfully no one was actually dispatched to their apartment that night, though. She was easily bought off with some time off and a month of takeout for dinner. Maybe it was two?
The point being, Trinity Santos can be tight lipped when need be. Especially when it came with benefits.
“Alright,”
She plays with the stethoscope hanging behind her neck, straightening her body as she makes a move to walk away.
“So Whitaker makes googly eyes at Robby, and Robby finally stopped groping him at work. What’s the big deal?”
She looks over her shoulder.
“It’s nothing serious.”
“Dennis, this is serious.”
Sometime ago they found a nice, secluded corner in the ambulance bay for when they wanted to have a quiet lunch with just the two of them, when the weather allowed.
They were scarfing down Pimento’s like they had been denied food for days, half of it caused by the constant ticking clock of having to rush back into work with the ever looming threat of the whatever entity above suddenly ready to take their patients from the mortal realm.
The other reason being the fact that they were two broke med residents doordashing lunch regularly.
Courtesy of Dennis who warms their boss’ bed.
“What?” Dennis’ cheeks are stuffed like a hamster that got into its bag of feed.
“Slow down before I have to perform the heimlich on you, oh my god, Does Robby not—”
“Shhhh! Don’t be so loud—”
“—Feed you?”
“He does feed me, for your information. You are literally eating food bought with his money.” Trinity’s scoff is so strong she almost convinced Dennis she was choking on the slightly overpriced sandwiches they had delivered.
Using Robby’s card, that is.
“That is, sooo not the point right now.” If saying this while sipping on the very overpriced smoothie she got delivered, too, was hypocritical, then call her catholic or something.
“I’m trying to tell you, that Princess and Perlah are catching on to Robby acting weird around you. The whole hospital is going to find out about this soon. You don’t even have thirty minutes, Huckleberry.”
“Please,” Dennis snorts because he gets the meme she was referencing (finally), and also at the absurdity of this conversation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s fine, nothing even happened.” His best friend gives him her most dramatic eyeroll, groaning and rolling her head as well, the full show.
“Ughh, you’re the worst! I can’t get anything out of you when it comes to your geriatric boyfriend!”
“Maybe because he is literally the chief of the whole Emergency Department?” A deft finger and a limp wrist flick back and forth between the two. “That we both work in? Remember?”
“Yes, I fucking remember.” She slaps his hand away, face scrunched up that clearly says she’s irritated with his sassy remarks.
Trinity finds this to be of utmost importance, but Dennis clearly thinks this is some kind of joke to keep them entertained while they have lunch.
“I’m the one who’s been keeping it a secret for almost two years, remember?”
If anyone were to hear the mocking tone they spoke to each other in, they would’ve probably mistaken them for siblings.
“Yeah, yeah whatever. You weren’t even supposed to find out.”
That earned Dennis a full punch to the shoulder.
They weren't allowed to keep secrets from each other anymore, not after the whole “intruder” fiasco. The only leeway either of them had when it came to keeping things to themselves is postponing the reveal, and that doesn’t come without coming clean to one another when they were hiding something they weren’t ready to talk about yet.
“Shut up.” Trinity pretends to blow away a loose strand of hair.
“Heyy-yuh,” Now she has his full attention, turning to face her better, sandwich all but forgotten. “I’m kidding. I am happy that we have you in the loop, at the very least. It was driving me insane not being able to talk to anybody about it.” A smile hid behind Trinity’s small pout, and that was all Dennis needed to know that his best friend wasn’t actually mad at him.
“You’re lucky as hell it’s me, too. The amount of times I’ve covered for the two of you, I’m surprised I’m still the only person who knows about this.”
“We’re not that obvious.” A pointed look was thrown his way.
“Are we?”
She does fully laugh at him this time.
Food starts getting put back into paper bags, being saved for later, whenever later comes.
“I’m serious, though, Huckleberry.” Crumbs fall from Trinity’s scrubs, left for whatever fowl visited the ambulance bay. “Make sure your old man—”
“He is not that old—”
“Old ass man,” She corrects herself at his expense. “—doesn’t blow the cover. I don’t care what made him believe in the employee code of conduct all of a sudden, but tell him not to make a scene every time he remembers he should be keeping his hands to himself.”
She really does wonder what goes on in their attending’s head sometimes, that he would finally find shame and uphold proper workplace behavior.
Even though he’s literally been taking Dennis to bed every night. For the last two years.
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell him.” Dennis hopes he’s giving annoying little brother enough that Trinity relents, and he knows he’s successful when she gives him a low-effort roll of her eyes. Those signal ‘I literally don’t give a fuck anymore’.
“Besides,” He stands into a stretch, warming up his stiff body from the squatting.
“There’s literally nothing going on.”
There was definitely something going on.
He can tell Robby is consciously making the effort to not touch him at work. His hands move out of habit, but then his brain catches on and he has to save himself by scratching the back of his neck, clearly flustered whenever it happens.
Has Robby never noticed just how much he makes contact with him at work?
Everybody knows Dennis is Robby’s favorite, there’s no denying it. He treats everyone fairly, equal learning opportunities handed out to all the students and residents. But those words of encouragement, loving smiles, and physical affection were reserved for Dennis and Dennis alone.
So when Friday rolls around, and Robby hasn’t grabbed Dennis to steer him or to cheer him on since their shift together on Tuesday, he knows something’s up.
He also knows that everyone else has picked up on Robby’s strange behaviour, too. The conversation with Trinity wasn’t where he noticed the change in his boyfriend’s behaviour. It had started the morning that Tuesday, when Robby drove the both of them to work.
“Eugh, why can’t we just call in sick and spend the day in bed?”
The car, a secondhand Camry Robby bought after Dennis begged him to get rid of the bike, rolls to a stop at Robby’s parking spot.
“I miss our bed.” Dennis looks at Robby through his lashes, hoping the whining and the puppy eyes was enough to convince his boyfriend to start the car again and whisk them away from the torture chamber that is the PTMC.
All he got was a pinch to his cheeks.
“Cute, but no.”
If smitten was a person, then it would probably look like Michael Robinavitch whenever it came to Dennis Whitaker.
“We’re already short staffed as it is—”
“When are we not—Ow!”
“Don’t be cheeky,” Robby doesn’t miss the almost-glare Dennis gives him when he pinches his cheeks a few more times. “Jack just had a double, and we really can’t call in sick on the same day again. Think him and Dana are catching on.” Tension already making its way between his brows at the thought of having to evade Abbott and Dana questioning why he’s suddenly taking more time from work in recent years.
He remembers Dana’s ‘You got a life outside work now, Robinavitch?’ when he took a week off to take Dennis down to Florida for a little getaway. He had made up some lie about how he was taking time off work to catch up on work. Dennis’ excuse was a family emergency, something about his grandma’s health taking a dip. Robby is pretty sure he hasn’t had a living grandparent since he graduated high school.
But Robby knows those two have been suspicious of him and Dennis since, and them showing up with a matching tan a week later did nothing to help their case.
“C’mon baby, time to go.” Before he could open his door, he was tugged into a crushing kiss from Dennis. He leans in, melting at the eagerness in the way Dennis moved his lips against him. They don’t break apart until Robby’s six-fifteen alarm goes off. Dennis groans, throwing a little tantrum in the passenger seat.
Cute, Robby thinks. But Dennis could sit there and breathe and Robby would still think he was the most mesmerizing person in the world.
“I don’t know why they schedule a meeting with you so damn early, I bet this could’ve just been an email.” Their bags collected, the car doors open and shut in sync.
“Probably, but you know how admin is.” Robby only ever allows himself to grumble and complain petulantly around Dennis. This version of Robby was only something his boyfriend was privy to.
They get to the elevator, Dennis makes his way to the stairwell exit but Robby pulls him back by the arm, squeezing the air out of him as he pulls him in.
“Someone could see-”
“Nobody’s here.” Arms tightening when he feels Dennis struggling against him, he hears him huffing in defeat when he realizes he can’t break out of the hug. “Plus, we talked about going to HR soon.” The mention of HR is what makes Dennis slump, head resting on his shoulder.
“Yeah, we should probably do that soon.”
Robby can’t help but press his lips against Dennis’ forehead, not wanting to let go of the warmth his boyfriend provided on the early spring morning.
But all good things came to an end when Robby’s six-twenty alarm blared through the quiet air. They both groaned, pulling away with the reluctance of velcro stuck to hair.
“Alright, really gotta go.”
Another kiss to Dennis’ forehead.
“Be a good boy.”
“I wouldn’t dare be anything else, old man.” The stairwell door opens under the weight of his hand, but not without a light tap to his ass that leaves him laughing heartily as he steps in.
Robby looks after him even when the exit door closes, licking his lips and shaking his head, smiling with unconcealed adoration.
If smitten was a person, it wouldn’t even dream of being half the man Michael Robinavitch was when it came to Dennis Whitaker.
So color Dennis surprised when, Michael Smitten Robinavitch, walked into the Pitt five minutes past seven, all tense and wound up.
That was not how he had left him in the employee’s parking lot.
He tried to check in on him during the morning team huddle through eye contact, but Robby barely looked at him and only returned his questioning gaze with a tight smile.
Huh, he thought he already taught Robby his lesson when it came to shutting him out.
It wasn’t pretty then, ending with dramatic apologies in the rain and nonstop grand gestures for three months. To be honest, Dennis isn’t sure if they ever did stop.
But he brushed it off, saving the conversation for later.
The day starts just like how any other shift does, slowly building up momentum until it leaves them with little to no time to stop and take a breather. Nothing out of the ordinary really.
That is until Robby started retracting his hands from when they moved towards Dennis out of habit.
It was exactly as Princess described to Perlah and Trinity, awkward, and everyone in the room had bare witness to Robby’s stilted movements. Not a particularly suave moment of their always-taking-charge chief.
Except Dennis wasn’t sad about it, no, his wide eyes and furrowing brows weren’t trying to communicate the disappointment he felt when the encouraging pats didn’t land.
What the fuck, Robinavitch, was more what Dennis was going for.
Because what the fuck was that even? Why would Robby suddenly feel self-conscious about grabbing Dennis? They’ve gone further than friendly, cordial gestures. Way, way wayyy past that at this point.
Granted, they’re at work, so they try to keep the petting ‘safe for work’. But this was different, this was Robby going out of his way to not touch Dennis at all. It really wouldn’t have bothered Dennis so much if they worked anywhere else, but this was the PTMC, and word gets around faster than he could blink.
And Dennis tries to act like he doesn’t know about the tally, thinking it was funny that everyone paid so much attention to him and Robby, but somehow still haven’t figured out that they have been together since he was an intern. He even marks it up when no one’s looking, adding the few that no one else saw behind closed doors and empty hallways.
It isn’t so funny now, though, with Robby acting like Dennis was a walking E Coli culture, flinching away whenever they got too close. Because now everyone else has noticed this sudden switch up, not exactly hard to pick up on when there’s always a healthy five meter distance between the two of them now.
Robby has also been hitting those hand sanitizer dispensers like his life depended on it. Usually right after his hands swerve from trying to make contact with Dennis.
This all started on Tuesday, and it was now Friday, Dennis not having found time to confront his emotionally stunted boyfriend about his peculiar conduct when their schedules haven’t matched up until today.
He texts Robby when it happens again, him trying to elbow Robby jokingly during a lighthearted chat, but the attending jumps away from the touch.
Okay, so now he’s mad. Maybe even a little offended. Antoine coming to pat his back sympathetically did not help either. Neither did Larry, Donnie, Mateo, and Paolo standing in the back, looking at him with the same pity you would a child who just dropped their ice cream.
It was when Kim gave him a box of chocolate milk (he didn’t even know they had these here), gentle hands squeezing his shoulders to mimic Robby’s own, did his irritation turn into a low simmering anger.
He knows everyone thinks he has unrequited feelings for Robby, and Robby still holds the title of "Non-committal relationship king, since they haven’t been able to come clean about their two year long relationship.
Robby better hope there will be rain sometime this week. Preferably at night, too. And whatever waterproof speaker he can mootch off Jake.
Flowers, chocolate, everything.
Dennis checks his phone, message still left on delivered. A quick look at the board to make sure they can get privacy somewhere, then he’s telling Robby to get his ass to the viewing room.
“Hey, just saw your text.”
The door creaks slightly when pushed open. These hinges really need to be oiled.
“Got me and ‘my ass’ in here. What’s up?” Robby makes sure to close the door and pull the small curtain by the window.
“What’s going on with you?”
Robby slows his previously eager steps, rerouting as he approaches a very quiet Whitaker. He is a little too calm right now, and Roby wasn’t sure tackling his boyfriend with a bear hug and smothering him with kisses was the right call. He tries his luck.
“Nothing…?”
He knows he got the answer wrong when Dennis side-eyes him.
“Not nothing?” His words trailing as he takes a step closer to Whitaker, arms slithering around his waist to pull him into his space. All Robby receives is what he’s come to call the ‘Really, Michael?’ stare.
Okay, so he’s not happy with that answer either.
“I’m gonna be honest with you, no idea what we’re talking about here.” He gets an eyeroll at that. Not a good reaction, but a reaction nonetheless.
“You’re avoiding me.”
“No I’m not.” He kisses the top of Dennis’ head to back up what he said. “I can’t be ‘avoiding’ you if I’m actively trying to force you under my skin.” Robby has to refrain from asking Dennis to be surgically attached by the hips on a good day. He doesn’t have a lot of good days.
“Be serious.” The tablet is set down on the bed behind him, the acting prop having served its purpose. “I’m not talking about right now, Michael.”
“Uh-oh, you only call me that when you’re angry or when I’m—Ow!” That was not a playful slap.
“Baby,” Dennis knows that was the same strength used when he tried to fight off his brothers. “I barely touched you.”
“Yeah, right.” His hand found Dennis’ lower back, fingers dipping into the dimples there. Can’t kill a man for trying to find his way to calm his lover down. “What’s this about, really?”
“Don’t try to distract me, Robinavitch.” Dennis knew using his full last name would make Robby straighten up and actually take what he has to say seriously.
And it did, until his weak attempt at pushing away from Robby ended up with his palms splayed against the broad chest of his boyfriend, back arching into the hands massaging just above his ass.
“I’m not.” Robby can’t help the smirk that finds him when he sees Dennis’ resolve break a little under his touch. He thinks he might be able to get away with whatever it is that was making his Denny so angry.
“If everyone else saw us right now they wouldn’t question why you haven’t been grabbing me these last few days.”
Robby quickly realizes he isn’t getting away with shit.
“Babe—”
“No, don’t you ‘babe’ me right now.” Hands that were previously resting gently on his pecks grabbed him by his collar, pulling him down aggressively to be face to face with Dennis. “What the hell, Michael? Everyone else noticed and now all eyes are on us!”
“I’m sure nobody even car-”
“They literally turned the ‘How many times does Robby touch Dennis’ tally—”
“The what now?”
“—into ‘How many times does Robby try to touch Dennis but flinches away last second’ tally.”
Robby blinks.
“There’s a lot of information being thrown my way right now and I- don’t know what to address first.”
“Michael, I’m serious.”
“So am I! They have a tally for what?” Robby’s attempt at being funny goes unappreciated when Dennis huffs at him and pushes off him entirely. “Dennis wait—”
“Is this about the meeting on Tuesday?”
Robby sighs, heavily, a hand running through his thin hair. Nothing escapes Dennis when it comes to him.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s about the meeting.” Dennis crosses his arms, and if Robby didn’t know any better he would think he was getting defensive. But this was different, there was a slouch in his stance. He was soothing himself and bracing for what’s to come.
“Hey, hey come here.” Dennis lets Robby pull him back into a hug, refusing to meet him in the eye. “It’s not about you, I swear.”
“Then what is it about?” Voice so small, a petulant tone behind it, he almost doesn’t recognize it as his own.
“It’s about me.” Robby rubs circles into Dennis’ back, one hand coming up to lift his chin so they could finally look at each other. “It was an off the record chat, but apparently someone reported me for misconduct and abuse of authoreh—”
“What?!”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Robby can’t help but pinch where he held Dennis by the chin, kissing the tip of his nose to try and ease the scowl on his lover’s face. “Somebody reported that I was ‘touching my subordinates inappropriately’. I told them I didn’t receive any complaints in person, they said the person who reported this was ‘concerned for Doctor Whitaker’.”
Which fucking idiot would do this? Everyone else could see that Dennis was right where he wanted to be, under Michael Robinavitch in every scenario possible.
“Who the fuck—”
“And that’s why I haven’t been, touchy with you, I guess.”
Dennis’ arms let go of each other in favor of holding Robby back. He hates how dejected he sounds.
“I didn’t even notice how much I reached for you until I had to stop, really.”
“Now you know why they keep the scoreboard.” Dennis gets up on his tiptoes to rest his forehead against Robby’s. He loves and hates him for being so much taller sometimes.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know about that.” Robby chuckles at the mention of the tally the rest of the daytime staff kept. It’s ridiculous, really, and quite honestly unprofessional. But who was Robby to judge, he just got reported to HR himself.
Pulling back a little to look at Dennis, he asks,
“Do you think Santos…”
“No, not her. She was the one who told me that people had noticed.”
“People, being Princess and Perlah.”
“Yeah, but they mean no harm. It was kinda funny the first time it happened.” Dennis giggles when he feels his sides being poked.
The door creaked open again, they couldn’t separate before whoever was walking in looked up and saw them.
It was like time stopped, or like they had all been frozen instantly, or—
Robby and Dennis quickly untangle themselves from each other when the other person, the new nurse named Yumi, turns to walk, no, run out and call out to someone.
“Hel—”
“Yumi wait—”
“Stop—”
Yumi’s words died on her tongue when she felt a hand closing around her wrist, turning around to see Whitaker’s wide, scared eyes, pleading with her to stop what she was about to do.
Dennis didn’t know what he’d expected would happen, but nothing could’ve prepared him for Yumi to pull him into her, and shield him behind herself.
“Doctor Whitaker,” Yumi doesn’t look at him when she calls his name, Robby and Dennis share a look over her shoulders, surprised at how serious she sounded.
“You can go get security and call the police, I will hold him back.”
A minute goes by, no one moves or says anything.
Yumi looks back at Dennis, raising her eyebrows at him as if signalling him to get a move on!
“Nurse Yumi—” Robby stops in his tracks when she whips her head around, pinning him with a sharp look.
“Don’t come any closer or I will scream for security.”
Dennis thins his lips, pulling his teeth over them.
Then he laughs. Full on cackles.
He doubles over, crouching down holding his stomach as he fights fits of giggles bubbling over his throat.
Yumi crouches down next to him, checking if he had been hurt, thinking this must’ve been a stress response of some sort.
“Den—” And Robby is holding his hands up in a surrender position again when the nurse glares at him for trying to approach.
“Deh-did,” Dennis fights for air as he tries to speak when the laughing hasn't calmed. “Did, did you report Robby to HR?”
Yumi looks shocked, not expecting Dennis to know about this.
“Yes, I did. I wanted you to feel safe, ‘cus I thought you felt like you couldn’t report—”
“Doctor Robby and I have been dating for two years now, Yumi.”
The number of emotions that ran through Yumi’s face was something Dennis is going to remember for a long, long time.
“I-uh, I didn’t, I didn’t—”
“Nobody knows.” Robby finally felt he could interject, stepping closer slowly now that Yumi wasn’t shooting daggers at him.
“Yeah, nobody but Doctor Santos knew about us.” Dennis holds Yumi’s hands as he stands, pulling her up with him. “It was your first week last week, right?” When she nodded, still shellshocked by everything that had just happened, everything seemed to click.
“Well, you’re new here so you haven’t had a chance to mingle and socialize too much yet.” Yumi nodded, expression clearly confused at why this was being brought up. “So you haven’t had time to get to know everyone, and our uhh, dynamics, I guess.”
Oh.
Oh.
The speed at which Yumi turned red would be concerning to the two physicians if not given the circumstances.
“Newbie, reporting abuse… Ring a bell to you?” Robby nudges Dennis, the two of them now standing side by side, looking at Yumi with amusement. The irony of the situation is not lost on them.
“Oh come on, Trin had a reason,” Dennis shakes his head fondly. “But I guess Yumi did, too, huh?”
“I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to cause trouble, I just- I just saw Doctor Robby basically manhandling you and I-I uh—”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” He smiles, voice soft and easygoing as to reassure her that nothing was wrong. “HR had an off the record chat with Robby, anyway. No harm done.”
“Yeah, except for me having to adjust to not being able to give you a pat on the shoulder.”
“You do way more than just a pat on the shoulder.”
Yumi looks between the two as they bicker, starting to believe that they have been together for some time with how familiar they were with each other.
“Code STEMI, Code STEMI. Padging Doctor Robby to Trauma one.”
Dana’s voice blares through the speakers, jolting all three of them to attention.
“That’s our cue.” Robby squeezes Dennis’ elbow and makes way out of the viewing room, Dennis following close behind. Before they fully step out the door in and into the hallway, Dennis turns to face Yumi once more.
“I know this is a lot to ask, but if you could keep this a secret. Between us?”
She nods eagerly, willing to do anything to make up for the trouble she unknowingly caused.
“And uh, maybe tell HR you talked to me and cleared everything up?”
“Uh, yessir-uh, doctor. Doctor Whitaker.”
“Thanks!” The smile Dennis flashed her so bright and blinding, then he was gone. Running behind Doctor Robby who, now, has his hand back on Whitaker’s shoulder again.
She’s gonna have to find a way to convince Tristin from HR that this was all just a big misunderstanding. Coffee and donuts will do for now.
Thank god he was just an intern, she thought.
“Thank god it’s the weekend.” Trinity plops down on the nearest swivel chair her dead feet could carry her to. She was done with the ER today.
“You don’t even believe in god.” The agitating voice could only belong to one Dennis Whitaker, who was walking up to the North nurse’s station.
“I don’t even have energy to argue with you right now, that’s how tired I am, Huckleberry.” She looks up when she hears a loud slurping sound, eyes finding the source to be Dennis sipping the last of his drink. It was the same overpriced smoothie place she got on Tuesday.
“Hey! You couldn’t have told me you were getting a drink?”
“Spur of a moment thing,” He waves her off absentmindedly, setting down his papers on the work station. “Sorry.”
Trinity knows that look on Dennis’ face, one that said ‘Sorry you don’t have a rich boyfriend who lets you use his card to buy expensive fruit mush’.
“Cunt.”
“That’s a bad word.”
“You’re a bad word.”
They make faces at each other, tongues sticking out and teeth sneering.
“Santos, Whitaker.”
They look up.
“Stop acting like three year olds and start wrapping up.” Dana slides her glasses down her nose, looking at them raised eyebrows. “Upstairs been giving me shit about hours and punctuality."
“Yes ma’am!”
“Aye-aye, cap!”
She laughs when the two half salutes her, walking away, head shaking with a wide smile.
They settle back to charting, getting ready for handoffs. Dennis is quietly humming to himself.
“What’s up with you?” Trinity knows Dennis, and he wasn’t usually this happy at the end of their shift. Twelve hours on his feet was not usually a good look on him.
“Hm? What do you mean?” Trinity kissed her teeth at him, having the audacity to look at her like she was the strange one.
“You’re not usually this, cheery, after around three.”
Dennis points to himself, eyes wide. He was pretending to be clueless, definitely had something to hide.
“And you got yourself a sweet treat,” She stands up now, circling him like a shark would its prey. “I have to fight tooth and nail to get you to order something for lunch with his card—”
“Keep it down.” Dennis hisses, looking around frantically, making sure no one was around to overhear their conversation.
“So, tell me. What’s got you so chipper, tweety?” Trinity crosses her arm at her chest, head tilted, looking down at Dennis expectantly.
If there was anything that could describe Dennis fittingly at this exact moment, it would be “a wet rat”.
“Nothing, nothing!” He shrugs all the way up to his ears, trying to act casual and failing miserably. He knows she knows it’s not nothing.
“Sure, Huckleberry.” Trinity goes back to the chair. She’s going to let him off the hook, for now. He’ll have to tell her eventually, when she holds his clothes hostage next time they do laundry.
If Dennis felt his heart settle back in his chest from where it was lurched at his throat, he doesn’t tell anyone.
They worked in silence for a few minutes, before being interrupted again.
“Whitaker.”
Both look up to find Robby walking towards them.
Trinity would say he was practically skipping.
Before Dennis could reply, large, familiar hands found their way to his shoulder again.
“Everything good here?” Dennis feels a light squeeze where Robby’s hands rests.
“Yes, bossman.” Trinity replies in a teasing tone, she sees Robby’s eyes roll, along with a lopsided smile at his lips.
“Yup, just finishing up so we can do rounds and punch out.” Dennis tilts the screen tablet towards Robby, who puts on his reading glasses. He takes a glance at the screen while Dennis peers up at him through his lashes.
They ignore Trinity’s fake gag in the background.
“Looks good,” Robby smiles at Dennis, putting away his glasses. Trinity isn’t even sure he was actually reading anything.
“Good job today, Whitaker.”
And there it was, the famous praise and pat on the shoulder.
Surely everyone else was picking this up, judging by the way the ER quieted down and people moving especially slowly when they passed by.
She can’t blame them, watching these two more exhilarating than anything on TV these days. She swears if it weren’t for the wildly unprofessional dynamic, people at work would do everything in their power to set them up.
Thank god they figured that out by themselves.
Before leaving the work station, Robby looks around for a bit, and spots Yumi rounding the corner behind him and Dennis. He gets an idea.
His hand moves a little lower.
And squeezes.
It takes everything in Dennis, to not squeak like a rat that got its tail stepped on.
Robby just groped his ass. At work.
Dennis looks around frantically, making sure no one saw what just happened, finding Yumi walking, no, skittering. She was staring holes into the floor, the tips of her ears matching the color of his neck and face.
“We’re gonna do a quick huddle,” Robby pushes off the counter with ease, straightening his posture before walking off. “See you later.”
Trinity does a halfassed, two-finger salute in his general direction.
Her eyes had been glued to the monitor in front of her since Robby said his favorite catchphrase. Blissfully oblivious to what transpired immediately after.
When she finally looks up, Dennis is frozen in place, hands gripping on to his tablet white knuckled.
“Whuhht—is wrong with you now?” Her eyebrows pulled together when she saw how red her friend had turned. He can’t be this flustered just from Robby patting his shoulders at work again. She’s literally walked in on him doing worse things to Dennis, for crying out loud.
“I need to use the bathroom.” He manages to squeak out, scurrying off with the tablet in hand, before she could even call out to him.
Trinity reminds herself to never hold in her pee for too long in the future, if that's what she looked like when she needed to go.
Reaching up for a big stretch, Trinity doesn’t notice when someone walks from across the hall to where she sat.
“Hey,”
“Jesus Fucking Christ.”
“Not him, just me.” Jesse casually teases Trinity, walking around to the back of the station to grab something.
“Well you scared the shit outta me,” Her hand rests on her sternum, doing its best to calm her breathing. “Don’t sneak up on me like that again.”
Jesse just nods, offering a small smile in apology.
Once her breathing slowed, Trinity checked the time, deciding that it was time for her to get up and go do the last of her tasks.
Then out of nowhere,
“Seems like your friend is doing better.”
Trinity stops mid stride.
Did Nurse Jesse just speak Tagalog?
To her?
Almost stumbling, she whips back around to look at Jesse, who already had his back turned and was waving behind him.
“See you at the huddle.”
Before she can chase after him to ask what he meant, someone else comes up to her, arms linking with one another.
“I heard Robby is back to being handsy with Whitaker?” It was Princess, and she was already dragging Trinity to god knows where.
“Yeah,” Perlah pops up as well. “I caught a glimpse of it. They looked so cute. If only they could get together.”
“True, they would be good together. But did you hear, the new girl Yumi? She’s dating someone from HR?”
“No way, she doesn’t look like the type.”
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” Both women stop to look at Trinity, who hasn’t said anything since they crowded her.
“Honestly,”
A laugh comes from her out of nowhere.
“I think I need a drink.”