Chapter Text
Duke had a grape-sized mass pressing up against his vocal cords.
Not one of those shriveled, days-old grapes that came in the ‘fresh produce’ boxes from the soup kitchen, no. A healthy one, big and lush and round, the kind that Trinity splurged on at the farmer’s market, its flesh snapping cleanly between Dennis’s teeth when he bit down.
Dennis’s incisors closed around a hangnail on his thumb and tore it off.
He’d marked Duke as a VIP on the board, for what very fucking little that was worth on a holiday weekend while they were operating analog. Dr. Robby’s laryngoscopy had come back with nothing, so Dennis had ordered a CT to get a better look, hoping the VIP status would help it come back before shift change. That part had worked out, at least. He had expected, perhaps naively, to see some polyps, or some run-of-the-mill nodules, or even a lesion.
But Duke was a two-pack-a-day smoker. And that really, really looked like a tumor.
Whether it was malignant or not was a different question entirely.
He needed to show Dr. Robby.
He didn’t want to show Dr. Robby.
Their chief was in a mood, they’d all clocked it at this point. Even Ogilvie, insolent and ever eager to prove himself, was giving their attending a wide berth, still sticking as close to Dennis as he had since the start of shift (that was to say, practically stepping on the backs of Dennis’s heels), but breaking away like a bat out of hell whenever the man called out for his resident.
Dennis had overheard snatches of gossip about Dr. Robby blowing up at Samira for needing a work-up for a suspected cardiac event after having a panic attack in chairs. He’s real eager to get out of here, and I’m real eager to see him off, Princess had muttered, lip curled.
Dennis had shrugged in response, offering her some throwaway comment about how long all of their days had been, how it must be weighing on Dr. Robby to have to endure such a difficult shift right before he left for his trip. A flimsy excuse. Inadequate. An empty attempt to rationalize objectively poor conduct on his mentor’s part. Princess knew it, too.
Privately, though, his thoughts lingered on the tile flooring in pedes. On the nature of being a fucking hypocrite.
On ‘if I don’t come back’.
On how even another motorcycle-minded nutjob thought Dr. Robby’s plans to leave after dark, after working a twelve-hour high-stress shift, were strange (read: stupid) enough to comment on.
It wasn’t Dennis’s business. Like, fundamentally. As fond as they’d become of each other during his rotation, and as thrilled as Dr. Robby had claimed to be when Dennis matched with the PTMC, there were people in their department who had worked closely with the man for coming up on thirty years, who knew him inside and out, eyewitnesses to every quirk. None of them seemed particularly concerned by his ever-shifting mood and apathetic, borderline erratic behavior – or at least not concerned enough to actually do anything to address it. They just seemed annoyed that he was too stubborn to go out on a high note.
It was not Dennis’s place to question his attending, especially in matters concerning the man’s personal life and the decisions he made outside of the hospital. His place was at his right hand, loyal and compliant. No more, no less. He’d only been back at the Pitt for a couple of days. He refused to rock the boat with his concern over the behavior of a man whom he barely knew the behavioral patterns of to start with.
Prying, especially when Dr. Robby was in such a piss-poor mood, was a guaranteed one-way ticket to a mandated retake of his training courses on professionalism in the workplace.
And this was selfish, beyond selfish, but – Dr. Robby wasn’t treating him poorly. The man was more generous with his attention than ever before, actually, eager to teach and to guide him, purposefully seeking him out to loop him in on cases, laughing at his shitty jokes and murmuring endless praise. They were mutually savoring their time together as teacher and student before Dr. Robby left and Dennis worked his first shift in the Pitt without him, the first of dozens, and it felt good. Beyond good.
(One of our most trusted physicians, Dr. Robby had said. It absolutely wasn’t true, and had almost certainly just been a play to appease a medically hesitant Duke, but it made Dennis preen a little all the same.)
He just didn’t want to risk their bond, carefully cultivated and sacred, by overstepping. He didn’t feel the need to.
It was not his place.
Anyway. The CT. The mass-that-was-probably-a-tumor. That was currently festering in Dr. Robby’s close friend’s esophagus. The fact that he needed to show it to Dr. Robby immediately despite absolutely not wanting to. The fact that he would need to inform Duke of the mass-that-was-probably-a-tumor despite absolutely not wanting to.
Oh, Duke.
It would probably be fine. Trinity had always called him their attending’s best boy, and as crude as that was, to deny that he was Dr. Robby’s current favorite resident would be leagues more obnoxious than just accepting what was quickly becoming a well-known fact of their department’s hierarchy.
Despite his foul mood, Dr. Robby continued to treat Dennis with a disproportionate amount of benevolence at every turn.
The odds that he’d face a blowup similar to the one poor Samira had to endure were incredibly slim.
Forty-five minutes left until handoff. He and Dr. Robby could do this.
“Sir, do you have a minute?”
Dr. Robby looked at him from over the top of his glasses, crows' feet crinkling. He had been staring vacantly down at a blank chart, head pillowed on his palm. “For you, kid, I’ve got several.”
“Great,” Dennis smiled, breathless. “Duke’s CT is back.”
The older man rose from his seat, falling into step with him. “Perfect. Didn’t wanna have to stay past shift change to wait on that. Duke’ll be beside himself if we get him out of here in sub-four. What have we got?”
Dennis swallowed, the smile slipping from his face. Duke would be staying overnight at minimum, actually. “Can you – let’s go somewhere else, sir?”
A shadow passed over Dr. Robby’s face, gone again in an instant. Dennis wasn’t subtle, and his attending wasn’t stupid. “Alright. Lead the way, doctor.”
Dennis bit his lips to stop himself from smiling again, shy. He particularly enjoyed hearing his shiny new title when it fell from his attending’s mouth. They weren’t equals now, definitely not, but it made him feel much closer to his mentor, both emotionally and in status. Truly a part of his orbit, a properly named planet circling his chosen sun. He wasn’t just a med student anymore, he was Dr. Robby’s R1.
They took a hard left into room fourteen in perfect tandem. They had to be quick; it had just been vacated and sanitized, and they’d be lucky if it was left unoccupied for even five minutes longer. Dennis shut the door behind them with a snap, flicking the lights on. He shoved the scans (which he’d kept pressed close to his chest) into his attending’s expectant hands, not wanting to waste a second.
Dr. Robby’s breathing hitched. He very much did not need Dennis to give him the rundown, he knew what he was looking at. Dennis gave him the rundown anyway.
He spoke softly, the same voice he’d use while admitting a child. “Irregular soft-tissue mass centered on the right true vocal cord, measuring 2.3 centimeters. Heterogeneous enhancement and mild extension into the adjacent supraglottic region. Suspicious for malignancy, considering the placement and patient history.”
Dr. Robby swallowed. Hard.
“He needs a biopsy at the very least, I think. You should be the one to tell him.”
His attending shook his head faintly.
Dennis gulped. “It shouldn’t be me, sir. I know he’s my patient, but he’s your friend. I can go in there with you, deliver the news with you, but you know it shouldn’t be just me. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I can’t take this burden away from you. If I could shoulder all of it myself, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Dennis tilted his head, trying to catch Dr. Robby’s feverish gaze as it flicked across the scan, as if searching for a ‘HA JUST KIDDING’ written somewhere in the radiology department’s bright red Sharpie. “You know I would. But it wouldn’t be fair to Duke.”
His attending’s next inhale sounded like a sob. Dennis’s heart cracked open and bled.
“I’m sorry, Robby. I know, I’m sorry.”
They hadn’t physically touched since Dr. Robby had clasped his hand and pulled him in for a Man Hug on the last day of his rotation. Without thinking, spurned by familiarity and the confidence and comfort their bond provided him, Dennis laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“Don’t fucking touch me, Whitaker.” Dr. Robby shoved him, open palm to his chest.
He hit the far wall with a punched-out, pathetic little noise, his shoulder blade cracking against the drywall. A supply cart skidded and tipped, landing on its side with a crash that echoed against the walls and projected out into the hub.
Dennis scrambled to right himself, slipping on a collection tube that had rolled under his foot, his chest heaving with the shock. His ass hit the tile so hard it punched another noise from his throat. His wet gasps for air, for dignity, were humiliatingly loud in the chasm Dr. Robby had pried open between them.
What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?
Silence. The metal of the supply cart sang faintly. It harmonized with the ringing in Dennis’s ears.
Dr. Robby made no effort to amend any of it, seemingly transfixed by the imaging in his hands, staring at them without blinking.
It was almost like his brain hadn’t even registered what he’d just done.
Or maybe he was just that determined not to acknowledge it.
It didn’t matter which was the truth, really. Dennis’s heart shattered into a million tiny pieces just the same.
His Dr. Robby (it was naive and self-centered, perhaps, to have considered himself someone worthy of any exclusive version of the chief attending and chair of his department) would have groveled immediately, all long-winded, breathless apologies, ‘I don’t know what the fuck just got into me’, furtive talks of getting him the paperwork he would need to make a proper conduct report to HR.
This man was not his Dr. Robby. This man wouldn’t even look at him. He kept his eyes trained on the scans in his trembling hands and his back turned to the mess he’d just made.
This man would be Dennis’s attending for the next four years.
Bouncing footsteps, and then the door cracked open, and there stood Dr. Langdon, of all fucking people, balancing on one foot to lean his upper half into the room, his smile amused, lips parted around the beginnings of what was undoubtedly some incredulous question about the origins of all that noise.
Dennis stared up at him soundlessly, shell-shocked.
Don’t you fucking dare cry in front of Langdon, a voice that sounded a lot like Trinity’s hissed.
Two tears streaked hotly down his cheeks, one after the other.
Oh, Huckleberry, the voice sighed, mournful.
Langdon put the pieces of the scene in front of him together himself, not that it was all that hard of a puzzle. Langdon was sharp as a tack, but it wasn’t exactly nuclear fusion.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Robby,” He snarled, sidestepping him deftly, fearlessly, and reaching out for Dennis, grabbing his elbow and tugging him unceremoniously to his feet. Then, hushed and coaxing, like he was talking to a puppy Robby had kicked on the street, “Come on, Whitaker.”
Dennis was still gasping for air, but he wasn’t actively crying. He thanked every single celestial being he could think of off the top of his clouded head for that infinitesimal shred of mercy. Langdon ushered him out of the room with a firm, protective arm around his shoulders. Neither of them spared a single glance for their attending. Dennis doubted their attending spared a single glance for them.
Langdon reached over and turned the lights off, plunging Dr. Robby into sudden darkness and slamming the door behind them. Were it not for literally everything, Dennis would have laughed at the startling display of pettiness.
The Pitt sprang back to life, the usual loud, authoritative voices and monotone beeps and pained shouts. It all hit Dennis in a sudden, overwhelming rush. Another sob climbed up his throat.
Langdon made a beeline for the central hub. For Dana.
Oh, God no.
His bond with Dr. Robby had always operated on a steady, undisturbed foundation of discretion, particularly concerning their attending’s more vulnerable moments. This was the opposite of discretion.
The heels of Dennis’s cheap work shoes squeaked against the tile in protest, his body reacting as if the older man was trying to pitch him off the side of a cliff. Through trembling lips, high and reedy, “Dr. Langdon–”
The man in question just shook his head and pushed him along, shielded under his wing. “You have to tell Dana. You know you have to, I’m sorry.”
Dana looked up from the disgustingly scribbled-over chart she was poring over with Samira as they approached, glasses sliding down her nose. “What was that all about, huh? You two roughhousing or somethin’?”
The two women looked at Langdon, expectant. Langdon looked down at Dennis, arm sliding away from his shoulders.
He straightened his spine, clearing his throat uselessly. He opened his mouth.
“Dana.” He warbled.
Langdon swore, a hissed fuck between his teeth.
Their charge nurse’s stern face fell, slackening into something soft and alarmed. She grabbed his arm, steering him into the nearest empty chair – Robby’s chair, at Robby’s workstation, with Robby’s jacket draped along the back. Fuck. “Hey, honey, hey, none of that. Oh, Jesus, what happened?”
The two R4s and their charge nurse crowded around him, shielding him from the rest of the department’s prying eyes. Dennis’s breathing shuddered, useless.
Softly, a gentle effort to get the ball rolling, Langdon said, “I found him with Robby in fourteen. I think he pushed him.”
Dana’s eyebrows shot up her forehead instantly.
Samira blinked, agog. “Like, physically?”
Langdon nodded emphatically. “Like, knocked a bunch of shit over, sprawled out on the floor, physically pushed him.”
“I, um,” Dennis pulled himself together quite impressively, if he did say so himself, “I got Dr. Robby’s friend Duke’s CT back. There’s a mass pressing into his vocal cords, which is what’s causing the on-and-off rasp in his voice. I took Dr. Robby somewhere private to review the scans, and he was upset, of course he was upset. So I touched his arm, I was trying to comfort him, and he–”
He trailed off.
Langdon squinted in that funny way of his, with just his lower eyelids. “Threw you across the room like the Incredible Hulk?”
Dennis nodded, solemn. “Like the Incredible Hulk.”
The R4’s mouth was a thin, tense line, his eyes shining with sympathy for his fellow scorned protegé and a slowly dawning, frigid dread. Samira’s face looked just the same.
“Look at me, kid.” Dana touched his cheek until he turned his chin towards her again, gentle but coaxing.
“Sweetheart. You being serious? Robby put his hands on you?” She said it like she already knew the answer, like it pained her to speak the words aloud, like merely saying them would make them true.
Dennis hesitated, and that alone was damning enough.
Dana spoke over her shoulder quickly, quietly. “Samira, I need you to get Dr. Abbot for me. He’s napping in one of the rooms off the cafeteria. Come back fast and be discreet. Tell Jack to do the same. When you’re out of sight of the ED, start running for me.”
Samira nodded, breaking off into a not-run towards the side stairs with the deceptively bouncy stride of a doctor eager to deliver happy news to her patient. Discreet indeed.
“Frank, get back to it. I’ve got the kid, put all this out of your head for now. Do a round, check on Dr. Mohan’s and Dr. Whitaker’s patients for them real quick, then back to Miss King.”
“Got it.” A clarifying shake of his head and a parting brush of his hand on Dennis’s forearm, just a gentle, hesitant little patpat, and then the man merged back into the turbulent thrum of the Pitt, focused and effortless.
Dana smoothed Dennis’s wrinkled scrubs down with her palms, her voice low and serene despite the distress on her face. “I’m gonna go get Dr. Al-Hashimi and tell her to meet us in the family room when she’s got a minute. You wanna come with me?”
Dennis nodded dumbly. The further he got away from the controlled chaos of Dr. Robby’s workstation and his cologne-soaked jacket, the better.
“Alright, sweetheart. Up and at ‘em, let’s go.”
Dennis winced as he stumbled to his feet. His shoulder fucking hurt. His ass fucking hurt.
Everything just sort of fucking hurt.
They were all standing in the family room with the door closed and the overhead lights off like fools, but Dr. Robby was unlikely to stumble upon or overhear their traitorous little meeting if it was held in here, Dana seemed sure of it.
“I need you both to tell Jack and Dr. Al-Hashimi how Robby’s treated you today. What he said and what he did. Every detail.”
Dr. Al-Hashimi nodded, wordlessly encouraging, expression open and gaze attentive.
Dr. Abbot’s brows knitted, his shadowed face carved in harsh lines by the light coming in from under the door and the flimsy lamp on the side table. He’d have cut quite the intimidating figure, were it not for the gently concerned, bemused tilt of his mouth. “What happened, kiddos?”
Dennis and Samira glanced at each other, furtive.
Dana prompted, “Dr. Mohan, you first.”
“Okay, well,” Samira swallowed. “I had what I thought at the time was a cardiac episode. Dr. Langdon had it handled, but everyone wanted Robby to examine me. So he came in, and he was visibly worried, giving me the full workup, but as soon as he read the EKG and Langdon told him it was probably a panic attack, he… I don’t even know. It was like a switch flipped. He asked if I was ‘seriously having a panic attack over my mommy issues’, and then if I needed to go home. Then he told me I should. It doesn’t sound that bad, but it was the manner in which he said it, you know? It was hurtful, it was condescending. Mocking. He came back later and apologized, but told me I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back out there already. Something along those lines.”
“Which is not an apology,” Dennis mumbled. Samira hummed shortly in acknowledgement.
“There was more, but I honestly don’t remember any of it. Langdon or Perlah could probably tell you.”
“I’ll corner them later,” Dr. Abbot’s face was ashen, his lips set in a thin, angry line. “Unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable behavior. I am so sorry, Dr. Mohan. I’ll get you your proper apology.”
Dana dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I could fucking kill ‘im.”
“He’s always been hard on me, you all know that. He calls it tough love–”
Dr. Abbot laughed, a sharp, monotone bark. “Samira, that was not ‘tough love’–”
She snapped, “I know that, Jack. I know it’s unacceptable. I agree, and I want a genuine apology from him – even more than that, really. But it’s a little easier to explain away what he did to me, considering our professional history,” Okay, Dennis had several objections to that method of rationalization, and the looks on the faces of their charge nurse, temp attending, and night attending betrayed their own, but Samira barrelled on, “But what he did to Whitaker, it’s – we all know he’s Robby’s favorite. So it’s…”
She trailed off, lost.
“It’s different.”
“What happened to me is not worse than what happened to you, Dr. Mohan.” It was the opposite, in Dennis’s opinion. Samira was Dr. Robby’s female subordinate, who, by the sounds of it, he had purposefully gone out of his way to degrade and humiliate–
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“It’s not different. Not in that way, at least.”
Samira’s temper flared. “It fundamentally is. He mistreated us both, it’s all bad, but this is apples to oranges. They are different, and he put his hands on you, Dennis.”
Dr. Al-Hashimi’s gaze snapped back to Dennis so fast that her neck audibly cracked, sharp and alarmed.
“What did he do to you, Whit?” Dr. Abbot said each word as if it were its own sentence, forcing them out through a clenched jaw. It was clear he was going to excruciating lengths to keep his voice calm and his tone level. For Dennis’s sake or his own, Dennis couldn’t be sure. Both, probably. Dr. Abbot was nice like that. The sweet to Dr. Robby’s sour, damn near unfailingly.
“Um, I got Robby’s motorcycle friend Duke’s esophageal CT back. Duke is here for an exam before Dr. Robby leaves town. I fast-tracked it on VIP so I could see it before handover. There’s a mass pressing into his vocal cords, which is what’s causing the on-and-off rasp in his voice that had Dr. Robby so concerned in the first place. I took him to fourteen to review the scans in private so we could figure out what to tell Duke, and he was really upset. Because, y’know, it could be cancer. Obviously. So I touched his arm, trying to, like, comfort him, and he threw me across the room like the Incredible Hulk.”
“Are we seriously running with that?” Dana muttered, gaze fixed on some faraway point.
Dr. Al-Hashimi mouthed ‘the Incredible Hulk’ to herself, the pinch of her brows incredulous, but otherwise stayed silent.
“He pushed you, didn’t he?” Samira prompted, trying to get him to use more report-appropriate language.
Dennis nodded shakily. “Open-palm to the chest. I, um, I fell pretty hard against a supply cart. Fourteen’s a mess again.”
Dr. Abbot was shaking his head, like he was trying to convince himself that none of this was actually happening. “Dr. Whitaker, I am so very sorry. You’ll get the apology you’re owed from him, I’ll make sure of it. I will back you up one-thousand percent if you decide that this is an issue for human resources. I’m sure Frank would be happy to do the same.”
Yeah, Dr. Langdon probably would.
“This is an issue for human resources. Both of you are well within your rights to file a conduct report.” Dr. Al-Hashimi replied, hushed, like she was trying not to upset them.
“I’m not going to HR.” Dennis snapped. He hadn’t meant to.
“Okay, Dr. Whitaker.” She soothed, and that was that. Her gaze held sympathy, but no pity. Thank God.
Samira stayed silent.
Dennis swallowed. He made a decision, right then and there. “But there’s more.”
He felt like he was in a fucking infomercial.
“More?” Dana scoffed, but it was breathless, not derisive.
Dr. Abbot tilted his head sharply, gesturing for Dennis to continue.
Dennis ripped off another hangnail, this time with his fingers. Skim right on over the Amy thing. “Earlier, he – he made me an offer. He wants me to house sit for him while he’s gone. I could stay at his place for free, look after everything until he gets back. I’m happy to do it, of course, but after I said that I would, and we went over some rules, he said, ‘and if I don’t come back, you get a swinging bachelor pad’.”
Silence.
“I thought it was just, like, a really off-color joke? But now, with everything put together, I just – I’m really worried about him, Dr. Abbot. I don’t think it was a joke. I think he – I think he–”
He cut himself off abruptly.
Dr. Abbot looked crushed. Samira’s eyes shone with unshed tears, her expression a step beyond horrified. Dana had a shaking hand pressed to her heart, the other one tangled in her own hair.
Dr. Al-Hashimi broke the silence, the smile on her face tense, her voice soft and sure despite the slight tremor in it. “Thank you for taking note of that comment and bringing it to our attention, Dr. Whitaker. Your instincts served you well. That is a deeply concerning thing for Dr. Robinavitch to have said, especially to one of his residents.”
“He’s fucking bridge-burning, he has a fucking plan,” Dr. Abbot scrubbed both hands down his face. “God damn it, Mike. Fuck. Fuck. Right. Right. Okay. Fuck. Dana, redistribute Robby’s caseload and call Caleb. Tell him I need him now.”
Dr. Caleb Jefferson? The psych attending?
Ohhhhhhhhh my God.
Their charge nurse shook herself out of her daze, pulling out her phone. “You got it.”
Okay. They aren’t even paging the man. They’re not even requesting a consult.
Did they think that would take too much time? Did Dr. Abbot think they were running out of it?
“I’ll take on his patients,” Dr. Al-Hashimi nodded, heading for the door. “You’re all far better equipped to handle Dr. Robinavitch than I am. I defer to Dr. Abbot’s expertise.”
Good instincts from our new attending, Dennis thought faintly. Dr. Abbot’s the Robby Whisperer.
“Dr. Whitaker, Dr. Mohan, back to work. I’ll come talk to you both some more later,” They both opened their mouths to protest. Dr. Abbot held up a hand. Their mouths closed. “Hang tight and do what you do best. Thirty more minutes on the clock. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got more information, okay?”
“Where are you going?” Dennis asked, probably dumbly.
Their night attending’s answering smile was tight and sad and a little bit (a lot) angry. “Robby and I are gonna step out with Dr. Jefferson for a bit.”
He slipped out with an absentminded wave, and Dennis and Samira were left to stew together in shocked, troubled silence.
Samira hesitated for only a moment before she reached for him, tucking him into her side in a loose little hug. “You did the right thing, Dennis. Thank you for telling them.”
Josiah had always called him a snitchy little bitch growing up. At twenty-seven, tucked under a second R4’s arm in the family room of their emergency department and trembling like a newborn calf, it was suddenly all Dennis could think about.
He’d just ratted Dr. Robby out, completely and utterly. Ran squealing and crying to mom and dad.
Snitchy little bitch.
Samira was rubbing absentminded circles into his arm as she thought aloud. It sounded like she was underwater. He felt like he was underwater. “He hasn’t been acting right for months. This puts so much into perspective, it’s so upsetting. I just can’t believe–”
His vision tilted sideways, his stomach lurching towards the ceiling.
He croaked, “Samira, I’m gonna throw up.”
And he did.
Dr. Robby was avoiding him like the fucking plague, and that suited Dennis just fine.
Neither of them acknowledged what had happened. Neither of them went to see Duke.
Dennis wouldn’t tell Duke about his CT without Dr. Robby, and Dr. Robby did not seem to want to tell Duke about his CT.
Dennis didn’t know what to do.
So he did what doctors were trained for years not to do, the ‘freeze’ in ‘fight, flight, freeze or fawn’ systematically beaten out of them.
He did nothing.
Trinity caught his wrist as they passed each other outside trauma one, Emma nearly running into her from following so closely. She hissed, “I need to talk to you.”
Dennis nodded fervently. “I need to talk to you.”
Trinity nodded and sauntered off, Emma and Joy hot on her heels, the new nurse and MS4 shooting him intrigued looks as they went.
Dr. Jefferson arrived from upstairs not even ten minutes after being summoned, not bothering to greet anyone as he wheeled into the family room at Mach Seven. Dennis supposed discretion was the name of the whole game.
After a couple minutes, Dana joined Dr. Jefferson.
When Dr. Abbot reappeared at Dr. Robby’s side across the hub with a quiet ‘I need to talk to you for a second, brother’, and the pair walked past Dennis, he pretended to be a tree.
After that, it was quiet, for a while.
“How dare you, how fucking dare you–”
“Michael, lower your voice right now.”
Princess muttered something about wishing she could put her ear to the door. Gossip about ‘whatever was going on in the family room’ spread like an airborne disease.
Dennis got up and speed-walked to the bathroom, bracing himself over the sink until one of the nurses came in and gave him a look.
He told Dr. Al-Hashimi he was going to check on his patients on the other side of the department and didn’t come back to the hub until handoff. His new attending didn’t have a single word to say about it.
The last thirty minutes of his shift felt like a distant dream, even as it was happening.
Dr. Abbot found him again, as he promised he would.
“So, Robby is with Caleb.”
Dennis hummed, typing a bunch of 1s on the keyboard in front of him and then backspacing hard. Paper charting fucking sucked. “And…?”
“It’s, uh, it’s going.”
“That bad, huh?”
Dr. Abbot laughed, short and loud. “You got no idea, kid, and I pray to God you never do.”
A few beats of strained silence. Dr. Abbot exhaled loudly through his nose, a long, slow breath.
“I’ll tell Duke about the scans, okay?”
Dennis’s head shot up. “Dr. Abbot–”
“Call me Jack, please,” The older man’s tongue clicked. “Handoff was half an hour ago, kiddo. It’s on me now, and it would’ve been regardless.”
“Jack,” Dennis amended, “Dr. Robby trusted me specifically with his friend’s care. I have to see it through. It’s my responsibility–”
“And now it’s mine. You were too slow,” Jack finished, stern. “Argue with me about it some more and you’re in chairs for your first three shifts without Robby. Wanna go?”
Dennis’s posture slumped, defeated.
Jack crouched down next to his chair, hand on the back of it for balance, boxing him in. It felt safe and familiar, the way their night attending’s presence always did. He spoke softly. “Mike put too much on your shoulders and set his expectations for you too high because he’s feuding with both of his senior residents. He did something similar to Dr. Santos, he blew off Dr. Al-Hashimi’s efforts to successfully integrate, and he neglected the experiences of his students to play favorites, to your detriment. You were overworked and stretched thin because he refused to communicate with the people who are supposed to provide structural support, shoulder the burden, and allow him to lead effectively. The way he chose to run his ER today was abhorrent from start to finish. Whether the consequences of his behavior were intentional or not doesn’t really matter anymore. It is far, far below his usual standards as an attending and what you should expect from him as his resident going forward. He failed you guys today, and I say that with all the love I have in my heart for him, which is a hell of a lot. The mental health emergency he’s experiencing is a reason for that failure, not an excuse. I need you to know that.”
“I do know that.” And objectively, Dennis did.
Jack’s eyebrows quirked. “I know you think he treated you very well today, up until – well, y’know. But I think you’ll find that being a target of his favoritism was a net negative for you. It hurt you just as much as his pissiness hurt everyone else.”
Dennis swallowed so hard his throat clicked. “Yeah, I… I think I’m starting to get that.”
“Good. He was asking for you and Samira earlier.” Jack winced a little, a minuscule twitch of his eyes, like he immediately regretted divulging that information.
Oh, was what he’d done finally setting in for him? Did he want to apologize? Unless the first and last words out of the man’s mouth were a sincere (and groveling) ‘I’m very sorry for throwing you, my subordinate and alleged favorite resident, around fourteen like a ragdoll’, Dennis wasn’t particularly interested in even being in the same room as his attending. He didn’t know when, or if, that feeling would subside. “Does he know I snitched?”
Jack snorted. “You did not snitch, first of all. You had a professional and personal concern regarding a physician’s behavior and went to your attendings with that concern, which is A-1 residenting. Second of all, no, he is not presently aware that you told us about his funny little joke, which is what I’m assuming you’re worried about. He thinks I’m the only one who made a final-straw report to Caleb after I was made aware of misconduct between him and two of our residents. Which is, like, technically true, so we’re not even really lying.”
Dennis wasn’t sure how sound that logic was, especially when it came to Dr. Robby, who was notorious for his bone-deep, festering workplace grudges, but whatever. “Mm. He pissed?”
Jack smiled grimly, a little mischievous, despite everything. “Oh, he is so fucking pissed.”
Dennis side-eyed him. “Only at you?”
He snickered. “Only at me. And Caleb, of course, for doing his job. And Dana, a little bit, for not defending him from all scorn and looking the other way like she usually does.”
“What’s the plan? Can I ask that?”
Jack sucked his teeth, head on a swivel to make sure no nosy nurses or meddling doctors were listening in. He shifted closer. “If he doesn’t agree to outpatient treatment independently, we’re 5150’ing him. Caleb’s recommending the psych hold, and I’m the physician's signature. This ends the same way no matter what. It’s just a matter of whether Mike wants to be a hardass about it.”
They both knew he would.
Dennis’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “You’d seriously put him on a psych hold?”
“Oh, stop. I got enough of that from him. I’m a traitorous bastard who has dedicated half his life to deceiving him so that I could stab him in the back at this specific moment, this is a betrayal from which our brotherhood shall never recover, fuck me, go fuck myself, et cetera et cetera. He’ll get over it eventually.”
Dennis frowned, dubious. “...If you say so.”
“I know that man, kiddo. If he cooperates with treatment and puts in the work to become a better version of himself, all will be well in the end. Trust me, okay?”
“Okay. I trust you, Jack.”
Jack stared at him for a moment, gaze warm and assessing. “I’d ask you to trust him, but that’s kinda off the table right now, yeah?”
The mere thought of speaking to his attending again made gooseflesh ripple down Dennis’s arms. “Unfortunately.”
“Not unfortunate, no. Just the sort of natural consequence that Robby needs to face.”
Dennis looked down at his hands, knotted in his lap. “Yeah.”
Jack hummed, knocking his fist against the desk. “Head home for me, kiddo. Grab Santos on your way out, get that poor woman the hell out of here. This place is done with you for tonight. Finish your charting later.”
Dennis didn’t realize he had been waiting to be granted permission to leave from Jack specifically. “You’re the boss.”
Jack straightened back up with a grunt. “Sure am. Oh, wanna do me a favor?”
Hey, you wanna do me a favor?
Jack was digging in his pockets, oblivious to Dennis’s heartbeat pounding in his throat.
He swallowed his pulse back down. “Depends on the favor.”
“Ha! Good man,” He tossed Dennis a shiny silver key, which he then had to scramble to catch. “Check up on Robby’s house for me tonight.”
Dennis blanched. “...Huh?”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’d do it myself, but I’m stuck here juggling my holiday shift and Mr. Sunshine. Swing by for five minutes before you head home for the night and make sure everything’s in order, that’s all I ask.”
Seriously? No, seriously?
“Fine.” Dennis stood up abruptly, signing out of the station and shoving the key into the chest pocket of his scrubs, trying very desperately not to think about how recently it’d been between Dr. Robby’s fingers.
The same fingers that had pressed into Dennis’s chest and shoved.
Jack tsked, realizing his lapse in judgement several seconds too late. “You don’t have to, Whit. He asked me to offer again, and I just figured I’d try to partially honor at least one of his hopes for how he wanted the night to go. I’m sorry.”
“You know, I am really fucking sick of people doing shit to me that they then have to immediately apologize for today,” Dennis snapped. “I’ll do it. It’s fine. It’s five minutes, like you said. Good night, Dr. Abbot.”
“Kiddo. Dr. Whitaker–”
“Good night, Dr. Abbot. Give Dr. Robinavitch my well-wishes.” He slipped away, turning the nearest corner he could and making a beeline for the lockers. Jesus fucking Christ.
He found Trinity in a conspiratorial huddle with Victoria, Emma, Perlah, Princess, and Joy just outside the staff bathrooms, Ogilvie flitting around the perimeter of the coven like a gossip-attracted moth. Save for Trinity, they’d all changed back into their clean, cool civvies already, or at least stripped off their scrub tops in favor of their sweaty undershirts.
Trin’s head whipped towards him as he approached. Her ponytail smacked Ogilvie in the face. The MS4 had been so violently humbled by their shift that he barely reacted. “Huck. Did you hear about Dr. Robby?”
He joined the huddle of sweaty and exhausted healthcare professionals, blinking a couple of times too many. “Huh? No. What?”
Trinity’s eyes narrowed, but Perlah butted in before she could call him on his shitty, shitty acting. “He’s with Dr. Jefferson from psych. Dana called him.”
Ogilvie frowned. “Is it disciplinary?”
Joy’s nose wrinkled with abject disgust. “Why would psychiatry’s attending come down here to handle an HR complaint?”
“It has to be an intervention,” Trinity stage-whispered. “He was acting fuckin’ nuts today.”
“Oh, I agree,” said Princess, “Dr. Robby and Dr. Jefferson have been going back and forth for months.”
“He seemed pretty okay to me? Just eager for his trip and impatient about wanting to leave,” Emma shook her head, her eyes wide and earnest (she was pink-cheeked and bushy-tailed despite having been effectively strangled several hours ago. She was a nurse tailor-made for the ER if Dennis had ever seen one). “But I guess I wouldn’t know. I just got here.”
“Oh, you weren’t in the room when he yelled at Dr. Mohan, were you?” Joy said, knocking their shoulders together. “Insanity. He was trying to humiliate her.”
Perlah leaned in. “He asked her if she was seriously having a panic attack because of her mommy issues.”
Emma gasped.
“Jesus.” If Ogilvie was perturbed by their attending’s audacity, they were all fucked.
Princess shook her head. “It was misconduct, plain and simple, but I doubt Samira will file. Her and Robby have some weird soulbond going on.”
“The most contentious father/daughter workplace relationship this side of the Mississippi.” Trinity snorted.
Victoria frowned. “Well, if she didn’t report him, then who did?”
Trinity leaned in. “It had to be Dr. Abbot. He was back on the floor way before handoff, and he’s crazy about Samira. Dana probably told him.”
Ogilvie’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Crazy in what way?”
“At this point? Your guess is as good as any of ours, dude.”
Perlah tilted her head. “You want in on the betting pool?”
“Absolutely, yes.”
From behind them, “What are we all still doin’ here, buckaroos?”
Dennis screamed, but only a little. He was really fucking wound up, okay?
Dana blinked at him, unperturbed by the fact that he had just shrieked in her face, then sighed. “Get out, all of you. You’re clogging up the hallway. This is an ER, not a nightclub, go home. Happy Fourth of fuckin’ July.”
They dispersed slowly, sharing furtive glances amongst themselves.
Trinity sidled up next to him as he made his way to the lockers, their shoulders jostling together, Victoria glued to his other side. “You were so quiet, Dr. Berry. You know something.”
Dennis kept his face carefully blank. “I do not.”
Victoria giggled. “Oh, he totally knows something.”
“I do not,” Dennis repeated, opening his locker with more force than necessary. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you guys out in the open in front of God and everyone.”
Trinity clicked her tongue as Dennis swung his backpack over his shoulders. “Such bullshit. You’re swerving.”
As they turned to leave, Javadi and Santos needling him for information with every step, he spotted–
“Dr. Langdon!” He called out, far too loudly for how small the locker room was. He split off from the girls without warning. Trinity stared incredulous daggers into the side of his head.
The older man stopped in his tracks and turned, his expression open and kind, albeit slightly confused. “Whitaker. How’re you holding up? You okay?”
What a loaded question. Langdon seemed to know it, too.
“I’m managing,” Dennis swallowed, “Listen, I just wanted to thank you for, uh, taking charge and being so nice earlier. It means a lot to me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t stepped in. I’d probably still be on the floor in fourteen.”
Langdon’s smile widened and softened into something warm and pleased. “Hey, no problem. I’m your senior resident. It’s my job to look out for you, yeah?”
“Sure. It’s just, I know you and I are kind of at odds–”
Langdon shook his head, wry. “We’re not at odds at all, okay? We play for the same team, always. Listen, I know what it’s like, being Robby’s golden boy, and I have firsthand experience with the lengths you feel like you have to go to continue being Robby’s golden boy. It makes you feel like you have to take sides in everything, like you can’t talk to your coworkers like they’re your coworkers. I just don’t want you to get burned like I did.”
Dennis shrugged. “I think you just watched me get burned.”
Langdon’s smile slid right off his face. He conceded the point with a nod. “I’m really sorry, Whitaker. Seriously. I wouldn’t wish Robby’s wrath on my worst enemy. Which you are definitely not, just so we’re clear.”
“It’s seriously okay. I will rebuild, or whatever.”
“Or whatever.” Langdon was smiling again, amused.
Dennis was desperate to change the subject before he spilled his guts all over another R4’s shoes – metaphorically this time – simply because they showed him an ounce of kindness after Dr. Robby crushed his confidence under his heel. “You going up to the roof for the fireworks?”
“Nah. I’m gonna give Mel and Becca a ride home and get them both inside before things get too crazy. It’s all a bit much for both of them, y’know?” He leaned in closer, like he was divulging some grand secret. “And between you and me, Whitaker, this has been one of the longest, most insufferable days of my goddamn life and I need it to end.”
Dennis chuckled, breathy and weak, “Yeah, I feel that.”
Langdon dropped his voice to a whisper, glancing around like one of their attendings was going to descend from the ceiling on a harness. “Hell of a first day back. Hey, uh, do you happen to know what’s going on with Robby? I haven’t seen him since I turned off the lights on him. Al-Hashimi completely took over everything, and, like, the yelling? From the family room?”
“He’s, um, he’s with Dr. Jefferson.”
Langdon’s eyebrows shot up into his messy fringe. “The psychiatric attending?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit.”
Dennis shuffled his feet. “Yeah. It’s, like, really not my place to give you the details, but it would take an act of God to get him out of the spot he’s in right now. We’ll leave it at that.”
Langdon blinked for the first time in twenty seconds. “Oh, wow. Jesus. So… no crazy motorcycle trip?”
Dana was probably putting nails in that thing’s tires as they spoke. “No crazy motorcycle trip, I don't think.”
Across the room, Trinity laughed at something Victoria said, sharp and pointed.
Langdon’s lips thinned. “I’ll, uh, take the hint. You should, too. Have a good night, Dr. Whitaker.”
“You too, Dr. Langdon. Um, please call me Dennis.”
The R4’s face simultaneously lit up and softened. “That’s Frank to you. Deuces.”
He turned on his heel and sauntered towards where Mel and Becca were lingering near the exit to the parking garage, both sisters waving goodbye to Dennis in the exact same way.
Trinity was at his side before he could even put his hand back down, Victoria trailing behind her. “What the fuck was that?”
Dennis sighed, put-upon. “I’m sorry, Trin. He really helped me out earlier, okay? I just wanted to thank him before he left.”
“You’re conspiring with the enemy, roomie.”
Victoria steadfastly ignored her. Dennis would do well to take a page out of Dr. J’s book every once in a while. “How did Dr. Langdon help you out?”
Dennis glanced around. “Get me somewhere with just the three of us and I’ll tell you guys everything.”
“I fucking told you he knew what was wrong with Robby.” Trinity slapped Victoria’s shoulder, Dr. Langdon forgotten – for now.
“Ow, Trinity,” She snapped, then gave Dennis the evil eye. “...Do you know what’s wrong with Dr. Robby?”
“I do,” Both women stood at immediate alert, ears perked. “Now, do you wanna keep standing out in the open where I can’t say a thing, or do you want me to tell you?”
“The second one, absolutely the second one. Ambulance bay, let’s fuckin’ go.”
Dennis’s phone buzzed on their way out. From ‘samira mohan’: ‘Call me tomorrow before noon if you can! Not urgent, just wanted to check in with you 🩷’
They tucked themselves into a corner away from the street, the sun just starting to sink over the horizon. It was rare that Dennis actually got to clock out in time to watch the sun set; he was as chronically behind on his charting as everyone else was.
Trinity passed him a cigarette. Victoria curled up close between them, chin on her knees. She didn’t smoke, but she’d quickly gotten used to the smell.
Trinity lit her own while it dangled from her lips, then leaned over the med student swaddled between them to offer him the cherry to light his. Speaking around it, she said, “Spill, Huck, ‘cause I’ve got some shit to tell you too. This better be good.”
Dennis took his cigarette out of his mouth. “It’s not good. It’s horrible and it’s upsetting and I probably shouldn’t tell you any of it at all.”
Trinity settled back against the wall. “Oh, even better. Spill.”
“You two cannot tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. I mean it.”
“We won’t, Dennis.”
He took a deep breath and started from the beginning.
He knew, objectively, that the man who had terrorized their department today wasn’t Dr. Robby. Not really. Dennis had excelled in his psychiatry rotation. It was easy to recognize his attending’s behavior as a last-ditch effort to push them all away, because his clouded judgment had him believing that if his team ended the day utterly disenchanted with him, losing him would hurt less. It was easy for Dennis to acknowledge that. As he recounted his side of the story, though, it was proving much harder for him to truly believe that this wasn’t all deeply personal.
By the time he’d finished the part with Jack and the house key and finally got to stop talking, Victoria had slumped over to lean bodily against his side, and Trinity was staring at him, open-mouthed and horrified.
Oh, and he was crying. That too.
“...I am so sorry, Dennis,” Victoria whispered, her voice thick with her own unshed tears. “That is all so awful.”
“I mean, what more is there to say than that? What am I supposed to add?” Trinity muttered.
Dennis knuckled the tears off his face. “And I’m trying so, so hard not to take any of it personally–”
“Oh, fuck that,” Trinity snorted. “You feel whatever way you want to about it. He didn’t intend to hurt you, sure. But he did. It's okay to sit with that."
Dennis shook his head furiously. “I’m selfish. I’m so, so fucking selfish.”
Trinity’s head tilted. She clearly already disagreed with him. “How so, Huck?”
“I only decided to say something after I got pushed, and Dr. Langdon had to force me. I ignored that Dr. Robby was obviously hurting until it affected me directly. I didn’t care when it was Dr. Langdon, I didn’t care when it was Samira. If he hadn’t done what he did to me, I wouldn’t have said anything to anyone, and he, he–”
“Dennis, I really don’t think it was like that,” Victoria picked her head up from his shoulder to look at him properly, “It’s very common not to notice the severity of something until it directly impacts you. That’s not an individual character deficit, it’s human nature. It’s not all on you.”
“It is on me, I’m supposed to be there for him, he trusted me–”
“And in breaking his trust, you probably saved his life,” Trinity snapped, but there was no venom in her voice. “Huckleberry, he was going to kill himself, probably only a couple of hours after our shift ended. This would’ve been the last time any of us saw him alive. Do you get that? I don’t think you get that. I don’t think that part’s registering.”
“Trinity.” Victoria admonished softly, bottom lip between her teeth.
She pressed further. “If he never speaks to you again, it’ll still have been worth it, because you protected him when he couldn’t protect himself. Don’t you ever say you don’t care. You care so much you’re sitting on the ground outside the ambulance bay crying like a bitch about it.”
Dennis sniffled.
Victoria added, “Dr. Robby is scary, Dennis. He was especially scary today. Nobody here’s gonna fault you for not cornering the chief attending of our department in the middle of a holiday shift to tell him he’s acting like a freak. Whether you’re his favorite or not is kind of immaterial.”
Trinity hummed. “And, like, I don’t know that Dr. Robby was as obvious as you think he was. In retrospect, with all necessary context, sure, but a reasonable person would’ve chalked a lot of it up to him just being frustrated that his last shift before his sabbatical sucked so bad. Hell, that was my conclusion before we came out here, and I’m way more than reasonable. I thought he was being ‘I really wish I weren’t here right now’ weird, not ‘I'm killing myself later’ weird.”
“Same,” Victoria agreed. Then, much more quietly, “I don’t think any of us have ever gotten to meet a version of Dr. Robby who was fully in his right mind.”
“Jack and Dana may be the only exceptions,” Dennis dug his fingertips into the pavement just to feel the dull sting. “I think he’s been sick for a very long time."
A lengthy, contemplative silence.
Dennis squinted, disturbing the quickly drying film of tears on his cheeks. “Trinity. What did you need to talk to me about?”
“Wow, way to change the subject,” Trinity blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth. Silence stretched between the three of them again for almost a full thirty seconds. “I think Garcia and I are done.”
Victoria sat up straight. “Hello?”
Dennis gasped despite himself. He didn’t realize how desperate he was for hospital gossip that didn’t involve someone almost killing themselves. “Trin, I thought she was the one?”
Trinity squinted at the skyline. “It is becoming rather apparent that I am the only one of the two of us who thinks that.”
Dennis and Victoria waited patiently for her to continue. She didn’t need, nor would she appreciate, fawning or prompting.
“She is just… she’s such a boymom for Langdon, I can’t fucking take it. You're still not off the hook for talking to him all friendly-like, Dennis. But Yola, she's unsupportive of my – my strife, and she wants to keep it casual, she said that, and she thinks I should unpack what happened with Langdon in therapy instead of with her–” At this, Dennis and Victoria shared a significant sidelong glance but said nothing, “–and she cancelled on me tonight right as she was stepping into an elevator so I couldn’t argue with her about it.”
Trinity’s chest was heaving. “But whatever, I don’t fucking care. Get me drunk this weekend and I’ll have way more to say about it. Huckleberry totally one-upped me and now the wind’s out of my sails. I should’ve gone first. Who the fuck cares if my not-girlfriend from upstairs is kind of being a bitch? Our boss is actively suicidal in the workplace. He was mean to our Huckleberry.”
Silence. Again.
Dennis sighed. “Happy birthday weekend, Victoria.”
Near-hysterical laughter burst from Trinity’s mouth. “Oh, holy shit. I forgot. Happy fuckin’ birthday weekend, Crash.”
“Thanks, guys,” Victoria giggled, too tired to object to the nickname. “I almost don’t even want to celebrate anymore.”
Trinity slapped her palm down on the pavement. “No, no. That’s unacceptable. It’s the big two-one! You need a drink, Vic. I need a drink.”
“Oh, how very selfless of you, Dr. Santos.” Victoria droned, but her tired eyes were shining with laughter.
“Here’s what we’ll do. Game plan,” Trinity popped back onto her feet, pacing in front of them. “We do Kilroy’s. It’s like a five-minute walk from here. We get Vic her birthday shot. We’ll sneak it outside for her. Huck and I also buy ourselves a shot, one, because we earned that shit. I will drive, because I’m a heavyweight and noble like that. We swing by Robby’s like Dr. Abbot wants, whatever. We do some light to medium snooping. We drop the birthday girl off at her apartment after presumably singing happy birthday to her in the car. Then we go home, and this day finally fucking ends. Questions, comments, concerns?”
Victoria raised her hand. “Concern. Snooping?”
Trinity’s arms flopped back down to her sides. “At Dr. Robby’s house, duh.”
“Absolutely not,” Dennis droned. “Trin, he’s on a fucking psych hold.”
“You two are the least fun people I’ve ever met in my whole entire life and I mean that. Fine. We will enter and exit normally through the front door and not look at or touch anything in our boss’s physician’s-salary-level expensive, probably really fucking cool house.”
“You two will stay in the car,” Dennis corrected flatly.
“Jesus fuck. Fine.”
Victoria tipped her head back against the wall, gaze tilted up to the heavens. “Best birthday gift a girl could ask for.”