Chapter Text
Morning with Santos was never quiet.
Dennis woke to the sound of drawers slamming and Santos muttering under her breath like the entire apartment had betrayed her personally. Pale morning light spilled through the blinds in thin, dusty stripes, cutting across the room and warming the edge of his blanket. He stayed where he was for a few extra seconds, eyes still closed, clinging to the last scraps of sleep as if he could steal another five minutes by sheer stubbornness alone.
“You’re going to be late,” Santos called.
“I’m literally getting up,” Dennis mumbled into the pillow.
“You say that every morning.”
By the time he finally dragged himself into the bathroom, still half asleep and blinking against the light, Santos was already dressed for the shift. She stood by the sink with a pair of scissors in her hand and a look on her face that made him stop in the doorway at once.
“No.”
She grinned at him in the mirror. “Yes.”
“I did not agree to this.”
Santos tilted her head, studying him with theatrical seriousness. “I’m getting rid of the Amish haircut. You agreed to let it grow out so I could cut it, remember, Huckleberry?”
Dennis let out a tired groan. “That was not consent.”
“That was your rent payment,” she said sweetly, already stepping toward him. “And before you start, yes, I can absolutely cut hair. Have you forgotten I’m gay?”
“This is extortion.”
“You live here.”
He sighed, but he let her steer him closer to the sink. Santos reached for his curls, fingers slipping through the thick mess of them with unexpected care. She was always like this in strange, fleeting moments. Loud and impossible one second, then gentle in a way that caught him off guard the next. Hair began to fall into the sink in soft dark curls as the scissors worked, the sharp snipping sound strangely soothing in the cramped little bathroom.
Santos started singing under her breath. “It’s going to be a mullet.”
Dennis stared at himself in horror. “I hate you.”
“You’ll look hot,” she said. “In a deeply upsetting way.”
She twisted one of his curls on purpose.
“Oi, that hurt.”
“You baby.”
He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling despite himself. Then, as Santos kept cutting, his gaze drifted to his own reflection and then past it, somewhere else entirely. It happened so easily now. His thoughts slipping toward Robby whether he wanted them to or not.
To the way Robby stood too close during procedures, steady hands at Dennis’s waist when a patient was crashing and everything was moving too fast. To the brush of his fingers against Dennis’s wrist when he passed him an instrument. To the way Robby noticed everything. Every detail. Every hesitation. Every mistake before Dennis even realised he was making one.
Just never the things Dennis actually wanted him to notice.
He still did not know what to do with the feelings. Robby was older; his attending, completely impossible in every way that mattered. And yet everything about him seemed to pull Dennis in harder. The looks that lingered a second too long. The warmth in his voice when he said his name. The easy physical closeness that felt natural to Robby and devastating to Dennis.
“If this looks bad,” Dennis muttered, watching another curl fall into the sink, “Robby’s going to notice.”
Santos smirked without missing a beat. “He notices everything.”
That was the problem.
It had hit Dennis two months into the job, sudden and humiliating in its clarity. He had always known Robby was attractive. Anyone with functioning eyesight knew that. But attraction had not been the issue. The problem was the shift when Robby had barely touched him at all.
No hand at his waist.
No quiet correction with his body angled close.
No fingers brushing his when Dennis passed him a chart or an instrument.
Nothing.
By the end of the shift Dennis had been so tightly wound he could barely think straight. He had spent twelve hours feeling off balance without understanding why, irritated by everything and everyone, especially himself. Then Robby had found him near the lockers, stepped in close the way he always did, and reached up to rest his hand lightly on the back of Dennis’s neck.
“Didn’t see you all shift, Whittaker,” he had said, voice low and warm, thumb brushing against Dennis’s skin. “Missed you.”
That had been it. That had been the moment it stopped being something Dennis could explain away. After that, lying to himself had become impossible.
It had taken him another two weeks to tell Santos.
Two weeks of snapping at stupid things, falling silent in the middle of conversations, and lying awake at night with guilt curling under his ribs like something alive. Where he came from, wanting had never been allowed to exist on its own. It had always come tied to punishment. To shame. To hellfire and trembling prayers and the certainty that something inside him was wrong.
Santos had noticed, because Santos noticed everything even when she pretended not to. One night, after he had paced the apartment so long she finally threatened to shove him through a wall, she had asked what was wrong.
He had told her.
Not gracefully. Not all at once. He had stumbled through it in fragments, tense and embarrassed and braced for the moment her face changed.
It never did.
Instead, she told him about Garcia. About the flirting that had never really stopped. About all the almost moments between them that still hummed unfinished in the air. Then she had looked at him and asked, quietly and without judgment, “Do you really think that’s so wrong? That I’m going to hell for it? That I’m going to be punished forever just because I want someone?”
He had not known how to answer.
“We’re human, Dennis.”
It had been the first time she had called him by his real name.
That alone had nearly broken him open.
So they had sat down properly after that. Really sat down. Dennis had told her about the farm, about parents who answered every question with scripture and every fear with more fear. About how love and guilt and God had all been knotted together so tightly in his childhood that he still could not separate one from the other without effort.
It had not fixed anything. It had not erased the fear.
But it had eased something inside him.
Just enough to let him breathe.
Just enough to wonder if maybe the problem had never been who he was, only the things he had been taught to believe about himself.
Deep in his thoughts, he barely noticed Santos stepping back until she brushed the loose hair from his shoulders and said, “All right. What do you think, Huckleberry?”
Dennis blinked and looked up properly.
Then he stared.
“Oh my God.”
Santos folded her arms, trying and failing to look casual.
He turned his head slightly, then the other way, taking in the shape of it. It was a mullet, undeniably, but somehow it worked. His curls had not disappeared. They had just been given shape, texture, movement. The shorter cut sharpened his face, brought out his cheekbones, made his eyes look bigger somehow. He looked less like a tired student hiding inside oversized scrubs and more like someone who actually belonged in his own skin.
“Santos,” he said, almost reverently, “I look completely different.”
“I know.”
“This is insane. Look at my hair. I didn’t even know I could look good as a student doctor.”
Her mouth twitched.
“You witch.”
He turned to face her fully then, warmth rushing unexpectedly into his chest. “Thank you. I needed this.”
Santos immediately recoiled from sincerity on principle. “We’re going to be late, Huckleberry. Stop gawking at yourself and get your shoes on.”
But her eyes were bright, almost twinkling, and he could tell she was pleased with herself.
They left the apartment a few minutes later, Santos admiring her own handiwork every time Dennis passed a reflective surface. The city was still only half awake, washed in cool blue light, the morning air crisp against his skin as they walked toward the bus stop.
Santos broke the silence first, casual in the way she only ever pretended to be. “So. I might ask Garcia out.”
Dennis glanced sideways at her. “You’ve been obsessed with Garcia for months. What’s different? You finally becoming domestic, Trin?”
“I am not obsessed,” she said, carefully ignoring the rest.
“You literally made a pros and cons list about kissing her.”
“That was hypothetical.”
He laughed, ducking his chin against the cold. “Sure.”
“It’s just dinner,” she said quickly. “Casual. No big deal.”
“Right. Totally nonchalant.”
“I am being nonchalant,” Santos insisted. Then, after half a beat, “Even though I obviously want to make out with her.”
Dennis laughed again, and she bumped her shoulder against his.
The bus pulled up in a hiss of brakes and they climbed on, taking their usual seats side by side. Dennis settled by the window, watching the city slide past in a blur of pale streets and shuttered shopfronts. His reflection looked back at him in the glass. New haircut. Tired eyes. A version of himself he was not used to yet.
At least Santos and Garcia had something that could become something more.
He and Robby could never happen.
Robby probably thought of him as a kid. A first year. Someone to guide and correct, and occasionally steady with a hand at the waist if the department got chaotic. Nothing more.
Santos nudged his knee lightly with hers. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he lied, easy and automatic. “Just tired.”
She let it go because Santos always knew when to push and when to leave him alone inside his own thoughts.
By the time the bus pulled up near the hospital, Dennis had already started bracing himself for the shift.
Robby rode in without a helmet, the cold morning air sharp against his face and clean in his lungs. The city was quiet at this hour, not silent exactly, but softened, as if the day had not fully decided to begin yet. He let himself enjoy it while it lasted. The hum of the bike beneath him. The steady rhythm of breathing. The brief, rare stretch of solitude before the emergency department swallowed him whole.
No monitors.
No pages.
No alarms.
Just motion.
He parked, killed the engine, and headed inside.
The Pitt was already alive in that familiar way, never fully calm, only shifting from one kind of noise to another. Phones rang at the desk. Monitors beeped in uneven chorus. Nurses crossed the floor with the purposeful speed of people who had already been solving problems for hours.
Dana sat at her usual station, coffee beside her untouched.
“Morning, Robby,” she said, not looking up.
“Morning, Dana. Anything on fire yet?”
“Give it five minutes.”
He huffed a laugh and ran a hand back through his hair.
Night shift was filtering out in fragments, everyone looking drawn and worn around the edges. Jack Abbott caught sight of him near the board, tablet tucked beneath one arm.
“Thank God,” Jack said. “She’s all yours.”
They moved into handoff together, Jack running through patients with the clipped efficiency of pure exhaustion.
“Bed three. Sixty eight year old male, chest pain. Troponins negative, but he’s got a history, and I don’t trust him yet.”
Robby nodded.
“Bed seven. Teenager, MVA. Concussion protocol. Neuro’s stable, but he’s nauseous and pissed off, so enjoy that.”
“Sounds charming.”
“Hallway two. Unhoused male, hypothermia, mild frostbite to the toes. Social work’s already involved.”
Robby absorbed it all automatically, each case sliding into place in his mind as Jack kept going. Then Jack peeled away toward the exit, and Robby stepped fully into the shape of the day.
Ten minutes later, Dr Whittaker and Dr Santos walked in.
At first he only registered movement and the sound of laughter carrying over the din. Then he looked properly.
Dennis was laughing at something Shen had said, head tipped slightly back, and for one disorienting second Robby almost did not recognise him. The curls were different. Shorter. Shaped. The whole line of his face looked sharper somehow, younger and older at the same time, and something in Robby’s chest gave a strange, abrupt lurch.
He looked good.
Too good.
The thought hit so fast Robby barely had time to be annoyed with himself for having it.
The ambulance doors burst open before he could dwell on it.
“Ambulance incoming!”
Robby was already moving. “Whittaker. Santos. With me.”
The gurney came in fast, paramedics pushing hard, the patient strapped down and frighteningly still. His skin had that grey, waxy cast that always made time feel thinner. One of the medics was bagging him on the move, shoulders tense with effort.
“Mid thirties,” the paramedic said quickly. “Found unresponsive in a bathroom. Needle nearby. Shallow respirations, pinpoint pupils. Narcan once on scene. Came around briefly, then dropped again.”
Robby’s focus narrowed at once.
“Airway. Oxygen. Dr Whittaker, mask. Dr Santos monitors and IV access.”
Dennis moved without hesitation, all trace of morning softness gone now, jaw tight with concentration as he sealed the mask over the patient’s face. Santos was already applying leads, voice clipped and calm as the monitor numbers came alive.
“Heart rate bradying down. O2’s awful. BP dropping.”
“Prepare Narcan again,” Robby said.
The second dose went in. The patient jerked, coughed, dragged in a ragged breath, eyes fluttering beneath heavy lids.
“Stay with us,” Robby said, voice low but firm.
For a tense few seconds, the whole bay seemed to hold its breath with him. Then the numbers began to climb. Oxygen improved. Colour crept slowly back into the patient’s face.
Robby stepped back at last, exhaling through his nose. “Good work.”
His eyes flicked briefly to Dennis, whose shoulders had only just started to loosen, and then to Santos, already checking the line.
The moment passed. The department moved on.
A little while later, the attendings and residents gathered for handoff. Mohan, Javadi, McKay, Mel, nurses filtering around them, everyone half listening and half already thinking three steps ahead.
“Bed three,” Robby began, “sixty eight year old male with chest pain. Troponins negative, EKG stable, remaining under observation.”
Mohan nodded, scanning her notes. Then her gaze lifted past him and landed on Dennis.
She blinked. “Whoa. Nice haircut on Whittaker.”
Mel glanced over, too, and smirked. “Amazing what hair can do. It changes half a person.”
Santos shot her a look, but there was pride underneath it. “It looks good, Dr Whittaker, considering I did it.”
Javadi looked up from her tablet and gave Dennis an amused once-over. “Didn’t recognise him at first. That’s different.”
There were a few quiet chuckles.
Robby kept his expression neutral, but something oddly tight shifted in his chest. It was ridiculous. Of course, people were noticing. The haircut was different. That was all. There was nothing strange about the fact that he had noticed too.
He dragged his attention back where it belonged.
“Bed seven. Teenager, MVA. CT clean, vitals stable. Monitor for post concussion nausea.”
“Any confusion on arrival?” Javadi asked.
“Briefly, resolved.”
He moved on. “Hallway two, hypothermia. Frostbite improving. Social work already involved. The overdose patient responded to repeat Narcan; vitals are now stable. ICU consult if he deteriorates. Repeat dosing only if respiratory depression recurs.”
“Did we get a tox screen?” McKay asked.
“Pending. Airway equipment is at the bedside.”
Mel gave a tired laugh. “Classic weekend start. Overdose, MVA, frostbite. Charming.”
Robby allowed himself the faintest smirk. “Hydrate, caffeinate, and keep moving.”
The team broke apart again, everyone peeling back toward their tasks.
Charts shifted hands. Monitors sounded. The Pitt resumed its restless rhythm around them.
And still, against his better judgment, Robby’s gaze drifted back toward Dennis.
He was standing at the counter with Jesse now, looking down at his iPad, the new cut catching the fluorescent light. It changed the whole shape of him. The line of his neck. The angle of his jaw. The stubborn softness was still left in his curls.
For the briefest moment, Robby forgot what he had been about to say.
Then he cleared his throat, forced himself to look away, and turned back to Mohan. “Double check vitals on the hypothermia patient before rotation. Morning meds at seven. Labs are still pending, so call me with any changes.”
The ER carried on around them, loud and relentless and alive.
The shift had started.