Chapter Text
Dennis knew he was fucked from the day he was born. Being born into a catholic household in the bumass of nowhere, Nebraska almost sealed his fate of being a failure for his family. He was good, or atleast tried to be good. He was the golden boy, the baby boy of his family. He prayed everyday, went to Sunday mass, dealt with the bruises that came his way from his father’s hands when he became too drunk. His brothers were rough aswell, mostly seeing him as a target as they were all older. Way older. Which apparently was a good thing, but Dennis’ hands would shake when he saw the looming shadows behind him.
His mother showed sympathy atleast, sneaking him leftovers from their pie that he wasn’t allowed to eat, giving him soft smiles even though her own expression wavered. The final crack was when one of his brothers found him with another boy behind the barn. He begged, pleaded to not say anything, but for the first time, seeing disgust in Tommy’s eyes, he felt hope slip from his fingers. His father’s hands hit harder that day.
It was at midnight when he was pulled out of bed. Dennis’ eyes flew open, yelping and hands automatically going to the wrists of who held him before his eyes locked with his fathers. Pure fury, nothing his in a drunkenness rage would look like. “What’s going on, Pa?” Dennis said with a nervous chuckle, still slurred with sleep, before he felt the window to his bedroom open, the wind thrashing around his body, eyes widening as he squirmed. Dennis felt his body dangle out of the window, yelling, feeling his impending doom as he gripped onto his father for dear life. His mother watched from behind. She clutched her robe, knuckles white but her eyes hidden by her long blonde hair as she turned her head away.
“You’re nothing but a failure, Dennis.” His father spoke, before letting go of him.
Those were the words Dennis remembered, echoing in his bones before he fell, with a sharp crack.
He heard a scream, but he didn’t know if it was his own. Recovery was a bitch. When he’d awoke, the doctor stood over him with a shake of his head and a disappointed look, like he was the one who jumped off of the balcony willingly. Everyone knew each other in Broken Bow, and even if you did try to defend yourself, being labelled as queer in these parts would automatically make you the predator. The doctor told him he had a broken rib, severe concussion, bruising to his legs. The only harsh part of the list? He got caught on a wire half-way down his fall, the wire tight around his thigh until his mother called the nearby doctor when he wouldn’t wake up roughly two hours later. It caused a loss of circulation, and the doctor suggested amputating it.
Amputating his leg. But he had no choice, the inexperienced doctor already slapping on loose gloves, grabbing a syringe.
Dennis shot up with a gasp, sweat beading at his face, sighing and scrubbing his face. Shit, he was just at Trinity’s. Not there, not ever. Dennis looked at the time, 4:30AM. He cursed, fishing the covers away from his body. He sat on the edge of his bed, pushing on his prosthetic, lightly massaging the stub of nerves he still had left on his thigh as he strapped it on before standing up, wobbling to the small pile of clothes he had to grab his scrubs. Even after all these years, Dennis wasn’t used to it. He wasn’t used to the nightmares, or having to put on a fake leg. He still believed he had a leg sometimes, but looking down always made him slump, reality hitting harder.
Trinity had let him stay in her apartment after she found him in the abandoned wing of PTMC. Only on the demands to get out of her apartment when she had her secret girlfriend over, quickly learning that it was Garcia, unfortunately, when he saw her walk out of Trinity’s room with only her bra on, both of them yelling, not expecting each other, which was when Trinity had set boundaries.
It wasn’t like Dennis minded, but there wasn’t much for him to do when he was out of the apartment. He didn’t have enough money for a daily walk to the cafe nearby, too many people sleeping on benches in the park for him to quite literally sleep on the bench in the park himself. So, he would take up night shifts if possible, when Trinity would give him a heads up of when her ‘baby mama’ (whatever Trinity called Garcia, he didn’t want to know about her sex life. Gross.) would come over.
The night shift was better than the day shift, if he was honest. It was slower, more severe patients, but less running around and enough time to do charting, to Dennis’ surprise. The people were nice too. Abbot would guide Dennis, like Robby did with the trauma patients’ analysises. Abbot was a lot older, but they had a lot in common, surprisingly, as was one of the closest people he knew in the night shifts.
Dennis’ rotation was coming to a close, but he was secretly planning to get a recommendation letter from Dr.Robby or Dana to be able to go back into the ED. By far, Pittsburgh medical was his favourite rotation, and he could see himself working here. He was just dreading his peds rotation next.
“Don’t cherrypick, Dr. Whitaker.” Dennis heard behind him, turning around slightly to see Abbot, sighing and shaking his head as he looked up at the board. “I’m not. Nothing just peaks my interest, that’s all.” Dennis spoke, voice monotone before he glanced next to him, seeing Abbot giving him a raised eyebrow, handing him a file and walking off, most likely to help with a trauma patient that was rolled in ten minutes ago.
They managed to stabilise her, but her wavering blood pressure kept everyone on their heels. It was good, to always be on the edge of their toes. It kept them alert, no time for relaxing and kept them awake. The night shift was exhausting if you let it, but gods the sleep you get after it is worth it.
With a sigh, Dennis moved to room 8, a woman with a fake eyelash stuck to her face. “Hello, I’m Dr. Whitaker. What’s happened here?” Dennis spoke, almost automatic as he grabbed gloves from the holder, putting them on and pushing a stool down, moving to inspect the fake eyelash on the woman’s cheek. Dennis didn’t comment on why she was exactly in the ER at… Dennis looked down at his arm, lightly hitting his worn out watch with a knuckle, the hands tickling sluggishly. Almost 4AM. That was enough to get him out of his trance.
“Okay. We’ll see if we can get a spray to loosen it, or we’ll trim the eyelash.” Dennis spoke, moving to stand up, pulling off his gloves as the woman gave him a watery “thank you”, walking out of the room just in time for Shen to scoot past him, yelping slightly as he lost his balance, wincing at the pain that went through what he had left of his right thigh before balancing himself with a huff, muttering to himself as he shoved his hands into his pockets after scrubbing them raw with hand sanitizer.
The emergency bay doors slammed opened, a seizing patient coming through the doors with medics swarming around the patient. Too loud for this time of night. Dennis sighed, straightening up. This was going to be a long night. The words were silent in his mind, but as he met Handzo’s gaze across the room, she gave him a small smile of sympathy.
Overhead, the telecom blared, calling for a doctor in chairs.
.
“Hey Whitaker! You still going out for Langdon’s welcome back?”
Fuck off. Of course he forgot about that. Dennis groaned, giving Shen a thumbs up before gowning up to deal with the new patient, blabbering about symptoms that went through his mind like clockwork. Maybe he did need the booze to relax. “Thanks, Langdon. For your shitty day back beers.” Dennis grumbled to himself, eyes narrowing before Abbot put a hand on his shoulder. “Tighter sutures, Whitaker.” Abbot spoke, voice surprisingly calm despite the blaring alarms and practiced prepping for surgery. Dennis’ eyes went up to his, before nodding and blurting out an apology, clearing his throat as his mind went back to reality. He had a patient to save.
Dennis was dead on his feet when he did handover, Trinity passing him the keys to the apartment with a harsh pat on his back which made him flinch instinctively, Trinity frowning but drawing her hand back and walking side to side with Garcia. His leg hurt. Robby’s gruff voice snapped him out of thought, and suddenly he was aware of everything. The way the chatter was loud, but calm enough to not freak anyone out, to Mel’s delight. The way the monitors slowly beeped but tracking every rhythm. “I heard from Jack you did good today. Great work, kid. You do need to focus when stitching up patients.” Robby’s voice trailed off, Dennis looking away and feeling the warm hand cup his neck made him jump. Fuck, he was so jumpy today.
Dennis nodded hurriedly, waving off Robby with reassurance and thanks, before half-jogging to exit the Medical centre, the cold breeze making him take a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding. He didn’t know when he went home. The lines blurred between exhaustion, and the only thing he remembered was sighing in content as he felt the shitty mattress below him. He owned Trinity money for the rent. She was kind to him, offering a place to stay but when a day quickly became almost two months, she awkwardly asked for money when she realised the rent had doubled since he’d arrived. Dennis secretly knew she just wanted the privacy. Wanted everything to go back to normal so her and Garcia could have their alone time without Dennis around. But Dennis just didn’t have the money. He’d managed to scrounge up 40 dollars, only a quarter of what he needed. With a sigh, he let exhaustion take him, even as thoughts swirled around his head. About Trinity. About the girl they couldn’t save, about everything he did wrong in his life. His father.
He woke up to Trinity shaking him, groaning into the pillow before lifting his head loopily, waving her off though she stood stubborn. “Get up, huckleberry. We have to leave soon. To yknow, get drinks at the local pub for Langdon? I hate that man, I don’t even know why he’s back. I’m only going because he’s paying for drinks.” Trinity spoke, hands on her hips before she shook her head, voice slowly fading as she went down the hallway in the apartment.
Dennis sat up with a sigh, before sliding on his prosthetic leg. The only thing he hated about Trinity’s apartment was that it was so fucking quiet. He was used to noise, yells, atleast beeping from the monitors in the ED. But the only thing he heard was an eerie clock chiming every hour. Dennis tried to look fashionable. In which he meant wearing the only good sweater that he owned which didn’t have holes in, and baggy jeans, (a habit, buying bigger jeans so it wasn’t obvious he didn’t have a fake leg.) better than nothing. Trinity snorted whilst seeing him go past, yelling at him to get his shoes on before making her way out herself. Dennis cursed, shrugging on his old trainers, quite literally ripping at the seams and the shiny white leather was now a sad yellow.
Everyone was there by the time they arrived, the bar bustling despite the time. It was only 8PM, but it felt later. Javadi waved them down with a beaming grin, making room for them to sit down. “How was the trip here? First rounds on Langdon.” Mateo spoke as they sat down, Santos sending Dennis pleading looks to sit down opposite Robby and Abbot so she could sit next to Garcia. Dennis sighed, slipping into the seat. “Trip here was good. Huckleberry wouldn’t hurry up.” Trinity spoke with sarcasm dripping from her tone. Dennis mostly toned everything out after that. Normally, he’d be the life of the party, chugging down shots till he was on the floor, but with the tension so thick in the air with a few others clearly not happy with Langdon’s return, he felt more sick when he looked down at his beer.
He glanced down infront of him, seeing Abbot’s thumb gently caressing Robby’s hand underneath the table. Dennis looked away.
The tension slowly filled out, chatter coming easy for everyone, and Dana couldn’t look prouder next to Langdon. The music and the chatter slowly slurred together, and Dennis didn’t know how many drinks he had. Everyone was a little tipsy, some lighter than others which were clearly nominated to be the drivers home, but Santos was pissed, giggling and flirting with Garcia like she was a high school girl. Dennis’ gaze fell on Langdon, noticing his ringless finger. Their gazes met, and Dennis looked away.
“So, Whitaker. Haven’t heard anything from you all night. Anything interesting happen?” Robby’s voice spoke out, gruff, and still commanding like in the ED, but soothing enough that it blended in with the chatter. Dennis looked up, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, playing with his empty glass. “A lot on my mind. No- no. Nothing happened, Dr. Robby.” Dennis spoke out, eyes flickering anywhere towards him. He hadn’t actually seen Robby, or well, anyone except Santos (a rare occasion of Garcia) outside of work, and Dennis dreaded small talk. It was clear the man was doing it, out of clear pity clearly. He didn’t need pity. Pity made a man weak. It’s what his father brought him up and raised him on. And unfortunately, even if the memories gave him shivers and jabbed him in the bones, he’d always remember it.
Robby’s face flashed with something unreadable before Abbot nudged him, making Robby snap out of it and clear his throat. “It’s just Robby out of work, kid.” Robby spoke, flashing small smile that crinkled his tired eyes.
“You and Santos live together?” Abbot spoke out as he lent in slightly, hands clasped against the table. With two pairs of eyes on him, Dennis really hoped the ground would swallow him up. He thanked the server when he got given yet another beer, setting it down infront of him.
“That’s something you don’t really need to know, Abbot. Not being, rude or anything. Not at all. It’s just.. I’m in a rough patch right now and Santos is helping me out.” Dennis spoke with an awkward edge to his tone, words coming out rushed before gulping down half of his beer. Living up in Nebraska really did build up your tolerance for alcohol.
Dennis excused himself, moving to the bathroom, shoulders tensed and jaw tightened. Him and Trinity could agree on one thing for once. Neither of them wanted to be here.