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He realized that he never even had to tell Trinity. She just knew. She just accepted him and this was his normal. He didn't ever worry, didn't have to stress, they were watching their episode of Drag Race and eating ice cream and doing face masks after eating takeout and having wine. Dennis smiled and looked over at his best friend, her own outfit nearly mirroring his own but she preferred pajama shorts.

"How did you know?" Dennis asked as he looked at her. Trinity turned, spoon popping out of her mouth.

"Know what?" Trinity asked, looking at how stupidly glowy Dennis's arms were. She did not tan like that.

"How did you know I was a girl? I never even told you." Dennis said with a smile and watched as Trinity blinked and swallowed her ice cream.

"What are you talking about?" Trinity asked confused. Dennis giggled and motioned with his spoon to his body, his outfit, everything about himself.

"I know I never told anyone or anything, or really changed anything, but how did you just know I was a girl. You give me your hand-me-downs and treat me, ya know, like one of the girls. I just want you to know I really appreciate it." Dennis said sincerely and went back to looking at the TV. Trinity paused it and turned to really look at her roommate.

"Den, I treat you like a friend. I- Are you coming out to me right now?" Trinity questioned incredulously. Dennis was shocked and turned to really look at her, waving his hand out.

"What do you mean? I thought you knew!" Dennis said and froze, both of them staring at each other in confusion before Trinity leaned in, hand grabbing one of Dennis's.

"Are you really like... a girl? I'm being so serious right now, Den. Are you..." Trinity cocked her head, not wanting to offer the wrong word. Dennis blinked at her, looking between their hands and her face. Her mask was purple which made her eyes really sparkle.

"I... I thought you knew. I dunno intuition or something since you just... you always treated me like a girl so I thought you knew. I just... I dunno I'm just a girl. Like right now and when I'm at work and when I'm at the store. I just... feel like one." Dennis tried to explain. He couldn't try and get the words out, wearing Trinity's sweatpants, buying women's scrubs, his socks, the products in his hair, he couldn't start to explain the thousands of choices he's made that make him a girl.

"Shit... Do you wanna go by something else? Want me to use different pronouns?" Trinity asked and sat back in her own couch spot. Dennis shook his head and drew his knees up, poking at his ice cream.

"Not really. Names, words, none of that ever made me feel like a man so I doubt they'd make me feel like more of a girl. I just... I don't wanna get on hormones or anything. I'm just a girl." Dennis said quietly and glanced at Trinity to see how she'd react.

"Alright well... I guess we're just two butch bitches in an apartment." Trinity said and Dennis cracked up laughing, throwing them both into a fit of laughter because God... they were a wreck.

Trinity starts teaching Dennis how to actually understand women's cloth sizes and takes him to the mall with her to window shop and buy "fancy" underwear. Dennis turns cherry red when Trinity brings him into Victoria secret to look at "slutty bras to wear to the bar".

But then Dennis doesn't get all squishy and chunky.

No?

- emma nolan and dennis whitaker interactions

- emma nolan and victoria javadi interactions

- emma nolan and parker ellis interactions

- emma nolan who has more interactions with the nurses, kim, jesse, donnie, princess, perlah, especially dana

- emma nolan and michael robinavitch interactions

- emma nolan and cassie mckay interactions

- emma nolan and baran al-hashimi interactions

- emma nolan lore

the first time he was a little nervous, turning to trinity and asking, “hey, is it cool if i like… lay on the floor?”

“umm, sure? i don’t care, man.”

it becomes one of those behaviors of his that trinity deems slightly weird. eventually she gets used to it, and doesn’t even bat an eye when she has to step over him, sprawled across the kitchen floor, to get to the fridge. sometimes he falls asleep, most times it’s just for the comforting familiarity.

baran, however, does not have the same knowledge, and one afternoon, about 2 months into dating trinity, she opens the apartment door with trinity in tow carrying groceries. that’s when she finds dennis inexplicably laying loose-limbed along the living room floor.

immediately considering the worst, a habit she’s picked up since working at the pitt, she braces herself to face whatever may be wrong with him. looking back at trinity, she whispers, “don’t go in there… let me take care of this.” locking the door behind her, baran anxiously creeps towards dennis’s slack body.

confounded and worried, trinity sets down the bags and searches for the spare key under the mat. then, she cracks the door open to peek inside and sees the scene playing out. silently laughing to herself, she sneaks up behind baran, who’s about to check for a pulse, and gently tosses a loaf of bread at dennis. it lands right on his sternum, and he’s suddenly resurrected.

simultaneously, baran and dennis sigh out the words, “what the fuck.” baran out of confusion, dennis out of annoyance.

unable to hold her laughter back anymore, trinity starts heading to the hallway to get the rest of groceries, “we got white bread for the white boy!”

This was something his mother taught him to take advantage of and use whenever he had to, whether it was because Daniel and David got into a fight over a girl they both liked, or his oldest brother Dominic and their father going at because of their different ideas on how to run the farm. "Stay quiet and keep your wits about you.", "Wait until they finished tearin' into each other 'fore you rip'em a new one."

Essentially it was to say that his mother was a very respected person in their household and trained him up to be the only other person who could tear into his brothers and father with the same sternness ands frigidness of a southern woman keeping her composure.

Which is how Dennis ended up here, in their living room, watching the Jack and Robby snark at one another after Jack got home with an injured shoulder after a bullet grazed him.

"You have a death wish!" Michael snarls as he tries to reach over and look over Jack's wound while said man backs away. "It's fuckin' fine." Jack slaps Robby's hands away while pulling the sleeves of his shirt and hisses when the sweat and blood soaked shirt sticks to the wound and pulls.

Michael scoffs, spinning around and going to the bathroom where the first aid kit is put away. "Yeah, because the sound you made was so reassuring." Jack shot him a dirty look before rounding on Dennis and giving him a slightly guilty and playful look when he saw Dennis standing on the other side of the couch, lips pressed thinly.

"I said I'm fine." Jack waves off Robby's second attempt at grabbing him to check him over before the annoyance spready across Jack's face again. "And I don't want to hear anything about death wishes considering your mid-life crisis is currently sitting in the garage, no fucking helmet in sight."

"And there it is." Dennis rolled his eyes subtly as Robby reared back and immediate frustration crossed his face and he started arguing back. "Let them fight it out." He watched as their argument escalated and they started calling each other selfish and suicidal for indulging in their interests. "What about Dennis, huh? How do you think he'd feel if you splattered yourself on the highway all because you didn't wanna wear a fucking helmet." This time it was Jack who threw his name out first and effectively brought him into the conversation, both their gazes snapping to him.

He had held back since the start of their relationship out of fear of overstepping because it was all so new and he worried he would be thrown out of the years long partnership the other two had developed. Now though, after they've continuously brought him into the argument and used the other persons love and affection for him as a dangling carrot and their constant reassurances that Dennis mattered in the relationship and that he was equally as valued, Dennis was done holding it in.

Dennis sighed, the other two had turned back to each other and it was clear that Robby was probably going to throw Dennis' reaction towards something to Jack because of his SWAT activities, but before he could even say a single word the calm and false sweet voice of their boy cut in.

"Jack?" The man in question turned to Dennis his mouth open to accept whatever agreement their boy was no doubt going to say to help him in his crusade against Robby's death machine. Only to freeze when he saw a completely false and tight smile was spread across Dennis' face. "Yeah, Angel?"

"Sit your ass down." Jack gulped as he tracked Dennis' quiet and measured steps towards he and Robby, and he dropped to the coach when Dennis reached them and snatched the first aid box out of Robby's hands. "Good boy. Michael?"

Robby jumped his eyes wide and cautious as he took in this complete shift in dynamic, usually he and Jack were in control with Dennis being a very willing submissive force in the room, now he couldn't help but shake a bit when he watched this new side of pretty boy. "Yeah, baby?"

Dennis slipped on some of the gloves, latex snapping loudly in the quiet room. "Sit down next to Jack an' keep yur mouth shut." The slightest slip of Dennis' accent was both the hottest thing Robby has ever heard and the most terrifying which made it very easy to comply as he threw himself beside Jack and watch Dennis take out the supplies he would need for disinfecting and stitching up the wound on Jack's shoulder.

Dennis was quiet for a moment as he unpackaged the tools he was going to use before cleaning the wound do he could examine it better, turning Jack to face Robby so that he had full visualization of said wound. "Y'all are both suicidal idiots." He disinfected the wound and surrounding area non-to-gently which earned him a hiss of pain from Jack and a wince of sympathy from Robby. And he shot both men a stern and cold glare when they opened their mouths to argue. "It's not a question. The two of you snap and snark at each other as if either one of you has the upper hand, which you don't because you're both doin' dumbass things tryn' to get killed."

His movements were precise and quick as he started suturing the skin together and he kept his gaze steadily on the wound he was patching up. "And while I can say that it kills me everytime you," his gaze flickers to Robby, "get on your damned bike with no helmet on. Or when you," he gaze snaps to Jacks face, "shoot up and start getting dressed the moment you hear your phone ring and hope it's SWAT. I won't, even if it does, because if it hasn't been enough to change your mind when you point this out to each other then I doubt me mentioning it will change that fact. Instead I will just say.."

The snapping of a glove makes both men jump as Dennis pulls them off and throws them aside. "Leave me out of your fuckin' argument 'cause it's clear that I don't matter enough to either of you to wanna stick around and live out the rest of your natural lives with me.' His voice goes quiet as he packs up the supplies and avoids their eyes. "I love you both but I fuckin refuse to be used in the argument against each other like a constellation prize if you stop doing dumb shit. Y'all wanna die or do you actually love me enough to wanna live and stay with me?" Dennis moves to the bathroom and put the medical supplies away before heading to his own room without a single glance back at a still frozen Jack and Robby. "Figure your shit out or don't fuckin talk to me again." The door slamming shocked both men out of their stupor.

"Are you hard as fuck right now too?" Robby asks with wide eyes and a gapping mouth, which makes Jack swat him on the back of the head. "Obviously. Not the point though. Pretty boy has a point, we've been doing this shit to each other longer than he's been alive and look at what that turned us into. We can't do that to him."

Robby nods, chastised and resolute. "We have to make it up to him." They nod in agreement. Jack's lips twitch and his expression turns a little dirty. "We're gonna get him mad with less dumb shit and then we're gonna fuck rough and dirty." Robby snorts and rolls his eyes. "Obviously.

I like it when he’s a lil whimsy

(Warmup sketch of Noah from a bts pic I saw)

he liked to think he was pretty good at it. no one could ever tell, or at least no one had ever called him out on it. he made the right noises, tensed the right body parts, held his mouth open in a particular way.

it was fine. it really didn’t bother him. it wasn’t anyone’s fault that he just never got there. he couldn’t even make himself finish, how was he supposed to expect other people to?

robby knew immediately.

it just felt…wrong. it wasn’t genuine. it was too conveniently timed and at a much too showy volume. robby let him get away with it a couple times, hoping as they became more familiar with each other, dennis would either start enjoying himself more or trust that he could be honest.

that didn’t happen.

after about two months of this, in the afterglow (well, robby’s afterglow), robby suggested, “you don’t have to fake it with me. you know that, right?”

Trinity, Lena and Dennis are sitting at the dinner table and Andrew comes over to them and is like "what are you guys up to?" And Trin says proudly "I am showing Lena how to make lizards with pony beads aka core summer camp memory!" And Lena just looks up at Andrew with the biggest grin on her face having the time of her life making jewellery. "We will make friendship bracelets next!" Andrew just smiles and strokes Lena's head but before he can slink off again Dennis grabs his hand and goes "Do you want to join us?" - "Yes Uncle Pope please! Please join!!" And How is he supposed to say no to that?!

So he joins but... He quickly finds out that these are medium to high fine motors kills activities he really doesn't possess. The beads are flimsy, keep slipping and sliding off the string and its frustrating him more than he can enjoy it. So he ends up just watching them. It's nice that way too, simply being in their presence.

Until Lena throws over the tray of sorted beads in a laughing fit. The round little colorful beads go flying everywhere and most importantly all colors mixing into one. Lena is profusely apologising to Trinity with tears in her cute little eyes and while Trin comforts her, saying its okay accidents happen, Andrew and Dennis are on the floor picking up all the beads. They throw them all in a bowl just so they are all in one place again but they were neatly colour sorted beforehand. Now they are just a pile of rainbow colored mess. Trin just sighs, she really doesn't mind that much but it's still annoying.

"I'll sort them for you." Andrew quickly says. "No Andrew, you don't have to do that." Trin waves him off but he persist. "No I'll do it." Not because he wants to make up for Lena messing them up but because he wants to. He doesn't say that of course, but once he starts sorting the little beads in rainbow order Dennis sees it. Dennis sees the focused but peaceful calm wash over Andrew's face. His anxious ticks and stims non existent as he carefully picks out the right color that he is currently working on.