madasmyth

A passing comment by McKay about how you and Victoria were leaned against the nurses station, elbow propped hands holding your tilted heads up as you both were staring off in the distance that it may not be in the direction of some of your male co-workers.

“Oh, hush. You have a life, we don’t.” You said, waving her off as you continued staring. Where, someone might ask? At Dennis Whitaker, MS3, who was standing over by a computer in one of the bays, talking with Mateo, a fellow nurse of yours.

“God, he’s doing nothing and still hot. That’s not fair.” You whispered to no one in particular.

“I know, right. It seems rude at this point.” Victoria whispered back.

Your eyebrows pinched together as you turned to her, “Wait, who are you talking about?”

She looked to you with a matching expression, “Mateo…who are you talking about?”

“Dennis.”

A moment of contemplation passed before you shook hands, “Fair play.” “Fair play.”

You startled as Dana yelled your name from across the ED, “South 15, V-fib, get over here and grab a crash cart!”

“Coming!”

You had first met Dennis six months ago, during his first shift here, after he lost his first patient. You had ducked into the supply closet to grab a bed pan and a nasal irrigation system, a kid came in with a marble stuck up his nose, when you heard a small sniffle from its dark corner.

Holding up the dustpan, cause you can never be too careful, you called out, “Hello? Someone in here?”

Just as you turned the shelf, you heard a small voice say, “Yeah, sorry. Sorry.”

It was a man, or boy you couldn’t really tell by his very young facial features, quickly wiping his tears away. Short, blond cropped hair with the biggest and sadness blue eyes to match. He looked like a Victorian ghost school boy haunting the supply closet, but why would a Victorian ghost be in Pittsburg in the first place?

“Are you alright?”

He shakily nodded while trying to straight out his scrubs, “Yeah-yeah, just…having a rough first day.”

“Oh. I’m sorry about that.” You remembered your first shift, losing a baby due to Shaken Baby Syndrome, having to call CPS and the police at 8am is a real bummer. Definitely did not instill your confidence for the rest of your time here.

“Thanks.”

“…if its any consolation, crying is a lot better than what I had thought you were doing in here.” You said awkwardly, trying to lift the mood a little.

He gave you a small confused look, “What did you think I was doing?”

Your mouth pulled in on itself like you were a grandma without your teeth in and raised your eyebrows as far as they would go. “Don’t make me say it during our first conversation.”

It took him an extra moment to put those pieces together but when he did, his face flushed and he seemed to choke on his own saliva.

“What?! No, no, no, I definitely was not doing that, oh my- do people really do that in here?” You couldn’t help but laugh, trying to dampen it with the back of your hand, the last part being a genuine question.

“Unfortunately, that and more.”

“Wow…that’s crazy to me.”

“Yeah, I’ve accidentally walked in on people a few times. I’ve almost built the habit of knocking before coming in.”

“Yeah! I mean, at that point, I would too.”

He was being expressive now, not as much as a normal person as it still seemed like he was tempering himself to appear more palatable to others. But he had a little half smile now as he chuckled a little at the ridiculousness of sex in the workplace.

The man noticed you just looked at him, ann absentminded smile on your lips, causing him to ask, “What?”

“You’re not crying anymore. That’s good.”

He faltered a bit, “Yeah…I guess not,” He gave a sigh before continuing, like he hated to but needed to explain away his actions, “I lost my first patient today. His name was Bennet.”

“Is. His name is Bennet, just because he can’t say it himself, doesn’t make it any less his.” You realized show brazen your words were and followed up with, “Something my mother used to say. She worked in the morgue downstairs.”

“Oh. That’s a really nice way to think about it. Thank you.” You liked the way he said things, the slight midwestern accent with a softness to it that you couldn’t quite place.

“Of course. Nobody should cry in a closet on their first day.”

You paused for a moment, collecting some thoughts of what you were doing after this, before asking, “Are you feeling better?”

“Um, yeah. Surprisingly, I am.”

“Would you like a hug?”

Surprised over took him at the odd, but nice, request. Nobody here in Pittsburg would even acknowledge a random person on the street without a reason, let alone offer to hug them just because they were sad. That’s something that would only happen to him back home, where everyone knew everyone or someone who knew them.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

You speedily put down your things on the shelves next to you two before holding out your arms to him, letting him decide when to come into them. You were a good hugger, everyone told you so, including your patients very often. His arms wrapped around your waist gently in the hug as yours went around his neck. You both stayed there for a moment because you gave him a small squeeze and let go.

“There you go.” You pulled away and grabbed your stuff off of the shelf.

“Th-thank you. I needed that.”

You smiled, “You’re welcome.”

As you started walking away, he called after you, “I’m Dennis, by the way! Dennis Whitaker, MS3.”

You told him your name, turning partially to call over your shoulder, “Rotation nurse, I fluctuate between ED and the peds wing on three. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”

After that, the two of you would hang out often, him walking you home after your shifts, meeting up on your shared days off to do something fun or just relaxing at your place with a movie. Sometimes he would swing by and drop off a little treat for you at the nurses station. Despite denying it for as long as you could, you had fallen for all of Dennis’ awkward, midwestern charm. The more you got to know him, the more his layers peeled back. He could be bold when he wanted to, most of the time he would blush afterwards but he no longer would stutter out an apology on the off chance it was ‘too much’ or made you ‘uncomfortable’. He joked more, laughed more and the more time you spent with him, the more you fell for him. It was a terrible cycle, considering the fact that you two worked together most of the time.

The major of your time on shift was spent helping each other, both with patients and when some of them pass.

The day you realized you were in love with one of your close friends was when you had lost one of your ICU kids. Paloma Davies had just turned six years old, having to have her birthday party in the ICU with you and the other peds nurses on the floor decorating her room for her and having a ‘sleepover’ with a showing of COCO in her room. She’d been diagnosed with sepsis when she was five after being in and out of the hospital since she was three. You had had to call it at 6:43pm. This case gutted you more than normal because of the simple fact that she had been getting better. She was bright, and happy. Her status were rising like you all had hoped. There had even been talks about taking her off of a few assistant medical devices. And then she crashed.

Your shift ended twenty minutes ago but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave, needing to check on all your kids first. OCD or anxiety? Pick one.

The steel door to the private room you were in opened, you didn’t turn though. You figured he would be looking for you, you had hoped though that Naomi would tell him to go on without you, that you would be here a while. There was no doubt that she had, but he just cared that much.

“Hey.” He said quietly, closing the door silently behind him. You didn’t respond, just continuing to gently bounce the baby in your arms.

“Naomi told me where I could find you.”

“I figured.”

You weren’t facing him but you could tell that he was awkwardly standing there, almost rocking back and forth on his heels with his hands shoved in his pockets because he didn’t know what else to do with them. You couldn’t tell if the amount of detail you knew about him with because of your crush or because you sucked in information about the people around you and he is around you the most.

“Who’s this?” Dennis asked gently, coming closer and changing the topic.

“This is Delia,” You brighten a little, turning so he could see the little baby in your arms more clearly, “She’s waiting for her cleft palate surgery tomorrow and she’s so excited that she can’t seem to sleep.”

You turned so her little face was toward Dennis, letting him see the wide smile across her face and the little notch in her upper lip to her left nostril.

“Aw, hi Delia!” He whispered to her, wiggling a finger at her. You were both arm to arm, both surrounding that little girl as you coo’d at her.

“You wanna hold her?”

He looked at you with surprise before nodding gently and holding out his arms.

“Here you go…” Despite how nervous he was, Dennis’ arms didn’t shake as you passed the baby over. His body immediately meddled to fit hers and make sure she was comfortable lying on his chest. You couldn’t help stop yourself from smiling, it definitely wasn’t his first time holding a baby. His body was lightly bouncing at his knees, smiling down at Delia and acting surprised every time she made a noise or a cute face at him. You wanted to enjoy it for as long as you could but your mind wondered before you could stop it to Mr. Davies and how he would never be able to hold his little girl like that again. Not so silent sniffles filled the room as you tried to stifle them. Dennis, saying nothing, shifted Delia over to his left side and gently pulled you closer to him until he was holding both you and the little girl in his arms. The moment your head hit his shoulder, sobs spilled from your mouth.

“She was so little..”

“I know.” Your face was tucked into his shoulder.

“I should have-“

He pulled you closer, his head next to yours while his hand rubbing up and down your arm, “There was nothing you could have done.”

This was what the two of you did, you were the shoulders each other would cry on when it came to shifts like this. You two stayed there, gently swaying in the peds wing until you stopped crying and Delia fell asleep. Then Dennis walked you home, like always.

~

“Hey, what’s the status on the labs I sent for the kid in South 8?” Dr. Robbby asked as he walked up to the nurses station in the middle of the ED.

You didn’t even glance up from the computer as you nodded and said, “Yeah, they are finishing up soon. They should pop up in a few minutes.” He said his thanks and slapped the countertop but you stopped him before he walked too far away, “Oh, hey, can I run something by you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So, Dennis…what do you think is up with him?”

He leaned in closer, confused by your vague words, “What do you mean?”

“Like, do you think he’s..single? Or maybe seeing someone outside the hospital? Or in the hospital? I haven’t noticed anything but, I thought I should ask since you kind of…watch us all.”

Robby sighed, the way your dad would sigh when you would ask him to do something embarrassing for an old man but give in immediately, “First of all, if I suspected there was a relationship between two of my subordinates, I would have to report it to HR to make sure everything is documented,”

You scoffed and rolled your eyes, “Yeah, I’m sure that you ran right to Gloria and told her the minute you and Collins hooked up.”

“That’s not up for debate. Anyway! I had thought that he and Santos were together.”

That gave you pause. What?! “Wait…what?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they live together now.”

WHAT?!

“At the start of his shifts, he forgot to add an address for his mail and in case of emergencies but when he did eventually turn it in, it had the same address as Santos.”

How did you miss this? Why the fuck hadn’t he told you that he was dating someone? Especially if that person was Trinity! Despite how baffled you were about this new piece of information, as well as heartbroken as your plans of asking him out and being with him were thrown out the window, some pieces did click into place. You’d never been over to his place, which you hadn’t really found odd because some people are subconscious about where they live or the state their place is in. But if Trinity was there, it made sense, not wanting you to become a third wheel to them. You didn’t know, not really. You had thought that you and Dennis were close enough for him to tell you about something like this. You don’t really remember how your conversation with Dr. Robby ended, just remembering that numb feeling that causes you and your brain to become floaty, like your body was doing all the moving without the thought behind them. It felt like mourning, mourning someone you couldn’t have.

The rest of your shift, you kept hearing other people confirm what Robby had said. That Dennis and Trinity were together.

Mohan had asked if you were going to Dennis and Trinity’s place Thanksgiving weekend for their ‘Friendsgiving’. You told her you hadn’t even known about it.

You saw the two of them in the break room together, laughing and sitting close to each other, which gutted you more than you wanted to admit because you finally saw it with your own eyes. How didn’t you see it before? Maybe you just didn’t want to.

Garcia and Santos were talking over an easy suture case as the older observing the procedure. You had quietly popped in to adjust the kid’s medicine and update his chart when you couldn’t help but overhear the conversation.

“So, you and Whitaker doing okay? Haven’t kill him yet?”

Trinity scoffed, “Not yet. But, yeah no, he’s good. Cleans up after himself, does the laundry.”

“Aww, your own little housewife.”

They both chuckled while you were almost frozen, just staring at the white computer screen in front of you.

“Yeah, he’s good though. I’ve got him hooked on a few shows at the moment so he’ll be caught up to modern speed in no time.”

“You two Netflix and chill? Naughty girl.”

You quickly made your way out, not wanting to hear about their sex life, at all. If you had stayed though, you might have heard Trinity’s response of, “As if, you know who I’ve got my eyes on.”

“You and Parker, right?”

~

“Hey.” Dennis slid up next to you, leaning against the locker bedside yours, already changed into his hoodie and loose jeans with his backpack slung over his shoulder, “You ready to go?”

Santos. Santos. He’s with Santos. You shouldn’t be doing this. He’s dating Trinity. That’s his girlfriend. Not you. He should do this with her.

“Uh, I actually have plans with a friend. He sent a Uber for me.” You quickly said, barely even acknowledging him as you stuffed your own crossbody bag with your notes and laundry.

“Oh, really?” God, you could only see him out of your peripheral but his entire face had fallen and he now resembled a kicked puppy.

“Yeah. Sorry,” You quickly pulled away and started to walk away, calling over your shoulder as if to soften your harshness, “Maybe you can walk Trinity home.”

“Oh…okay. See you tomorrow!” He yelled, you could only wave your hand at him while mentally hitting yourself over the fact that you had just shoved him towards Trinity. Of course, that’s what you are supposed to do. That’s his girlfriend. They are dating. For how long? You had no idea but he never told you and they were living together already.

Fuck.

You were in love with your friend and he is already dating someone else.

Fucckkkkk.

~

It wasn’t like you were purposely avoiding Dennis…okay, maybe you were, but for good reason. Over a long mental conversation (breakdown) with yourself one night, you had come to the conclusion that you were a wedge in Dennis’ life and the other relationships he had, like the one he had with Trinity. That’s why he hadn’t told you or why you hadn’t noticed until now. He had carved out space in his life for you and only you to exist in. And that wasn’t fair to his girlfriend, he shouldn’t prioritize you when he had a partner.

So, most nights when he tried to walk you home, you either left early so that he couldn’t ask you in the first place or you’d make up an excuse of having plans or a ride already at the hospital. Sometimes though, you would ‘throw him a bone’ like Dana said to and let him walk you home. The entire twelve minute walk with filled with awkward silences and odd small talk. It made you feel as though you were being stuck by a teacher to shoulder share with the person next to you and neither of you really knew what to say. It couldn’t be just you feeling this lingering uneasiness between you two, right? He had to feel it too. You didn’t really have a definitive answer to that, as much as you wanted one. Dennis always kind of had this nervousness to him when in public, a trait you figured came from the culture shock from tiny farm town to big loud city. But he still asked about your day, your patients, how you were feeling, like nothing had changed. Because for him, it hadn’t. You had though.

Thankfully, after eight days on, you got your four days off all at once so at least you wouldn’t randomly turn a corner and see Dennis there, most likely sweaty or ending up covered in some kind of…suggestive liquid. You could lay on your couch with a heating pad and a glass of wine while you cried over some 90s romcom.

Currently, you were crying over ‘While You Were Sleeping’ with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman while on your second glass of white wine.

“He just loves her anyway! Why can’t she accept that?!”

And then your phone rang.

“Noooooo.” You whined before you even saw who it was. Fuck, it was Dennis. Quickly, you sat up and rubbed your skin until it was dry and somewhat normal looking. There was nothing you could do about the redness in your eyes so you would just have to hope that the camera wouldn’t pick up on it.

“Hey. What’s up?” You said, trying to sound as normal and chill as you could.

“Hey. I just wanted to see if everything was okay?” Dennis asked through the phone, holding his phone up so you could see most of his face, his jostled, messy hair that was growing out now and getting curlier, his pinkish cheeks that he normally has in the mornings or when he was sleepy- Jesus Christ, pull yourself together, it’s a video call!

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, I was just watching a sad movie, that’s why I’m a little…bleh.” Great, now you have associated yourself with a vomiting sound. That’s awesome.

“Oh, that sounds nice. I just meant like, in general, if you were okay?”

Your eyebrows pulled together as you adjusted your blanket and sat up a little more.

“Yeah, Dennis. I’m fine, why are you asking?” You tried to add a small laugh at the end of your question like it was a ridiculous question when it really wasn’t a ridiculous question and you had been hoping that he wouldn’t ask you this ridiculous question.

“It’s just, you know, we haven’t hung out as much lately and I know that you are super busy with peds and you have other friends, obviously, but I just wanted to make sure it…wasn’t me? Like, I didn’t do something to make you upset?”

God, fuck him and his stupid, sad eyes. Now you just wanted to wrap him up in your blanket and kiss the shit out of him until he stopped looking so sad. Most of the time, he had that look on his face. You had a resting bitch face, he had a resting sad face. But now, this one was being caused by you, all because you had been too much of a pussy to confess before Trinity did. That was no surprise in your mind, Trinity was confident and outgoing, not in a super outwardly nice way but she got what she wanted and she had gotten what you wanted. You didn’t feel any distaste or dislike towards her, it wasn’t her fault that she had fallen for Dennis the way you had, all of that was directed at you, for not taking your chance when you had it. Not that he liked you like that anyway. God, this is fucked-

You were pulled back out of your own self loathing thoughts to Dennis saying, “If I have, please tell me. I’m so sorry if I have, I obviously never mean to-“

“No, Dennis, I know,” You sighed, closing your eyes for a moment before smiling a little at him, “I’m fine. I’ve just been very tired, I think I’m developing a cold. It’s a whole thing but I promise, it’s not your fault.”

He looked at you through the phone for a moment, studying your face, almost as if he was looked for the lie, but you were too good.

“Okay. I’m sorry you’ve been tired, if you want to take a couple days, I can cover for you.” God, why does he have to be so nice and caring?

“That’d be nice. Thank you, Dennis.”

He finally smiled, the sadness lifting from his face slowly.

“Yeah, of course. I’m always here for you,” Yeah, that’s the problem! Even when trying to slowly but surely detach yourself from him, he kept coming back, “Hey, I don’t know if I asked you yet but everyone’s doing a little Friendsgiving here. You wanna come?”

Hmm, did you want to dress up, make actual food and get wine drunk at a party at your crushes place with his girlfriend and all your co-workers/friends while trying to not obsess over what you couldn’t have?

“Yeah, sure. That’d be great!”

“Great! I can’t wait,” Then he looked over his shoulder out of frame and called, “She’s coming!”

“That’s great!” You heard Trinity’s voice call in the background and your stomach pitted.

“Oh. Trinity’s there?” You tried to keep any sort of tone out of your face as you said that, despite feeling sour at the moment.

“Yeah, yeah. We were just watching that law show you had showed me.” Salt in the opening, gapping wound.

“Good..that’s good. Sorry, I have to go. Incoming call,” It was a bad excuse, not convincing but you were two glasses in and just really focused on getting out of this conversation to let your body relax again, “Talk to you later.”

“Oh, okay. By-“

You ended the call, cutting him off by accident and your body fell back against the couch cushions, going completely lax. Rubbing your hands harshly over your face, you let out a loud sigh for no one to hear. This is what you wanted. Right? You had wanted him to hang out with his girlfriend instead of you, so why did this hurt so much? You didn’t want to hear about it though.

Fuck. Maybe you should get a cat.

~

Today fucking sucked. One of your kids, Celia’s, surgery went bad and she was now in a medically induced coma until her body could heal from the mistakes the surgeons made. Another one, Malik’s, mom decided to almost start a physical fight with you over the fact that you had suggested that you do more tests before removing another one of his organs. Plus the regular bullshit that you were dealing with led you to the nurses station, heading straight for Dana.

“Hey, I’m gonna take five. You have a cigarette I could borrow?”

“You gonna give it back?” She asked with a teasing smile.

“Probably not.”

“Yeah, you’re good, kid.” She wrote something down and slid the little piece of paper over to you, “In my locker, outside pocket of my purse. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.”

As you walked off, Dana watched you for a moment before waving Dennis over, who was stood over to the side with a patients charts. He did that little thing where he perked his head up and pointed to himself, just to check before he embarrassed himself by being wrong.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Go out and check on her if she isn’t back in ten minutes. She’s got a lot on her mind.” She winked at him then walked away when Dr. Robby yelled for her across the pitt.

~

You promised yourself that you were going to stop crying at work.

Your five minute break was up a while ago but someone would have paged you if you were really needed. Tears rolled down your cheeks on their own, you were too mentally exhausted to even cry properly. Halfway through the cigarette you had taken from Dana, dragging it out for as long as you could since you regretfully only grabbed one.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

You’d know Dennis’s voice miles away, the little twinge in his midwestern accent, the lightness in his tone like he was approaching a scared animal and not his friend. You don’t make a move to wipe the wet trails down your face, he’d seen you worse.

“I don’t.”

He sat down next to you, you didn’t move, just taking another drag, watching the smoke drift away.

“You wanna talk?” He asked, looking at your side profile as you refused to look at him because, like always, the minute you saw that look on his face, you’d break down.

“Not especially.”

“I heard about that patients mom.”

You rolled your eyes with a sarcastic smile and scoff, “Fucking Princess and Perlah.”

“Yeah, of course, who else would spread that stuff?”

The cigarette was getting shorter and shorter as the two of you sat in silence, not uncomfortable or peaceful, but just there, together. Once it got to your fingertips, you threw it on the ground and stubbed it out with your heel. Your whole body tense when his arms wrapped around your shoulders, as they as always did when you were like this. You really wanted to sink into him, let him wrap you up in his arms and take you home so you didn’t have to be here anymore, stop thinking for a bit. But you couldn’t. Not here, not now in the middle of your shift.

“Hey,” When he shifted, your bodies became closer with his arm wrapped around your shoulder before dropping down to your back. “Let it out before you explode later on.”

Part of you hated when he said things like that, partly because he was right and partly because you didn’t want to fall back into that hole you had been climbing out of the past month and a bit.

Your face became hot with your nose scrunching up like an angry child, fighting tears, your breathing becoming harder while you tried to keep your voice steady, “I love my kids. They are my little babies and I hate that all I can do is all I can do and that I can’t wave my hand and make them better. But some days everything piles up with shitty parents and grown adult patients or the fucking lab has lost my samples, plus I have my own shit outside of this hospital that are constantly on my mind- Fuck! I just…I just want a moment to breathe and stop thinking so much.” The words were spilling out of your mouth before you could stop them. The speed of your thoughts were getting caught in your throat and you were starting to choke on your saliva while tears were pouring from your eyes with no end in sight. This is exactly what you had wanted to avoid, there was no way you could go back to your shift looking like this. There’s no crying in pediatrics, unless you are a child.

“Okay, okay.” Dennis immediately jumped into action it seemed and pulled you closer, turning his body on the ledge of concrete half wall the two of you were sat on so that you were more face to face. Your head was tucked into the space between his shoulder and neck by his hand, cupping the back of your skull while petting your hair. Your hands found their way around his waist as you hugged him back, the first time you had touched him since you went cold turkey from Dennis Whitaker. So it was hard to stop yourself from sinking into his soft, pale skin. With one hand rubbing up and down across your back and the other petting your hair the way you enjoyed, the two of you stayed there until your breathing returned to normal and your body relaxed completely. Which you weren’t sure you had ever done. How did he do this to you? Why did your body listen to him? Why did you want to stay here, in his arms forever? Fuck. The rhythmic touching he was doing across your spine had completely melted you into him, your nose nuzzled into his jugular in a completely line crossing way as you soaked up every bit of him that you could. He smelled warm, something you didn’t realize before you met him that someone could smell like a temperature, the same way water can taste lukewarm.

“I miss you.” He whispered into your hair, “You’re right here and I miss you.”

“I’m sorry.” It was barely a murmur, exhausted now from crying.

“What happened with us?” His head turned until your foreheads met and a shaky sigh let out from your mouth, trying not to gasp at the touch.

“Nothing-“

“Don’t give me that. Something happened? What?” Your voices were so low that it would look to anyone else as though you two were just mouthing at each other.

“You happened.” You whispered, as your eyes involuntarily lifted from whatever spot you were blanking out on to his lips, “Why did you have to be with…”

Despite his confusion at your trailed off sentence, he still dipped forward and went for your lips. They never met though as you jumped back at the sound of an incoming ambulance a black away. It was like cold water had been splashed over your head with the sirens call to attention. You jumped up and took a few steps back as you rubbed your hands over your face harshly and into your hair.

“Fuck, we can’t..” You shook your head as Dennis stood up as well with a confused puppy face.

“What? I’m sorry, I should have asked but I thought-“

“I have to go. I have to go.”

“What?” He laughed in disbelief, forced out of him, “Okay, let’s punch out, I’ll walk you home, it’s getting dark.”

“No, no,” You mind was spinning. What the fuck had you almost done? What had he almost done? He’s in a relationship! With your guys co-worker! And you had been losing your mind the past two months trying to not do what you had almost just done. Fuck!

Just as the ambulance was pulling into the port, you ran. You hadn’t run like this ever, not even in school. Sprinting across the port, right in front of the ambulance and down the overhanging hall towards the street, a very last minute plan to make sure Dennis couldn’t run after you.

Note to self, having a panic attack while running is not ideal or easy.

~

In the two weeks leading up to today, Dennis had been avoiding you at work. Which was great because that meant you didn’t have to answer his questions about why you literally ran away from him but also sucked because it meant Dennis was avoiding you, like the plague. It wasn’t subtle either, how he would purposefully turn away and go the other way when he saw you, skipping out of certain patients if you were assisting. It felt gross, like you were diseased, but maybe this was a good thing. Now you didn’t have to worry about avoiding him because he was doing all the work. Unfortunately, he was still all you could think about.

You hadn’t planned on coming to the Friendsgiving, hosted at Trinity and Dennis’ place, you wanted to avoid the place like all hell, but Samira and Mel are a deadly combination. Once Samira puts her mind to something, it’s going to happen, plus Mel’s ability to persuade anyone by just talking them in circles.

So you did what they asked, demanded, put on a dress and let them drag you to the dreaded apartment. Paper chain garlands were hung from the ceiling, tall candles shoved into empty wine bottles with wax already dripping down the necks. You were surprised by the amount of color in here, knowing Trinity had a slight aversion to mixing bright colors. It warmed your chest a little at the thought of Dennis being able to freely enjoy things with his parents or his brothers labeling them as ‘too girly’ or that he needed to stop being ‘such a fruit’.

“Glad you guys could make it.” Trinity said, coming forward to welcome you guys at the front door. She was beautiful. Part of you hated that. Dressed for the weather, she was wearing a long black velvet skirt with burgundy insulated tights and a matching sleeveless turtleneck. Her dark bob was half up-half down with a light sprinkle of silver eyeshadow across her lids, making her icy eyes pop even more. You could completely understand why Dennis had fallen for her.

“Thanks for the invite.” Mel said, looking around for a moment while stepping out of the door frame and holding a small gift bag out to her, “I brought an apartment warming gift.”

“Thanks, Mel. You are aware that we’ve been living here a while, right?” Trinity asked, taking the gift anyway.

“Yeah, but this is my first time here so.”

She moved around her into the apartment, Samira following toe and affectively leaving you behind with Trinity.

“Nice place.” It was lame, but it’s all you could muster at the moment. You stepped forward so she could close the door behind you, sealing your fate of being at this party.

“Thanks. The utilities are shit but the interior is cute so it gets a pass. Plus, Dennis is pretty good at fixing all our broken stuff, worth keeping him around it seems.”

You gave her a stiff smile before going to turn but her hand caught your arm.

“Hey, I don’t want to get into your business or anything but did something happen between you and Dennis? He looks more like a spooked ghost than usual.” Her voice was lowered at least to keep this from becoming the parties main topic of conversation.

Your eyebrows furrowed, “Dennis didn’t tell you?” Maybe it was your fault for assuming that Dennis would come clean and tell his girlfriend about how he almost kissed you.

“No. Should he have?”

You should probably tell her. “No, I guess not.”

You finally scooted past her and made your way into the actual party. It wasn’t a super full of people, which was nice, made it so you could move around a bit in such a small place. All the younger day shift workers were there along with a few from night shift, like Parker and Shen, which was a nice surprise. It was rare to see all of you together since you obviously traded off shifts, thankfully there was a cover shift of people that worked some holidays for occasions like this.

You couldn’t help but stand in a corner and try not to draw attention to yourself. Your brain was telling you over and over that everyone here knew what you were thinking, pitying you for being in love with someone you can’t have. You made sure to pour a glass of whatever was alcoholic in that pitcher and stuck to Mel’s side as she didn’t normally talk at these types of functions, preferring to listen to the conversations instead of join in. She wouldn’t try to pry into your love life like the rest of these animals.

It took about fifteen minutes for Dennis and you to get pulled to each other, like the gravity between two objects who have only been orbiting each other up until this point. He was wearing the sweater you had gotten him. Charcoal grey with darker vertical stripes, slightly cropped at the bottom and no elastic band at the waist paired with a pair of matching dark jeans. It was a little oversized on him as you had worried it was shrink in the wash but it ended up not doing such, he had told you not to worry about it and that he liked it even better now since he didn’t really like tight sweaters. Your eyes met and he looked almost surprised to see you here. You were surprised you were here to so it seemed that feeling was going around.

He walked away though once he was able to pull his eyes away, turning the corner to disappear into the kitchen, leaving you to sit on the couch, surrounded by all your friends and feeling like shit.

“You ever planning on telling him how you feel?” Samira leaned over and asked, her lips stained with pomegranate juice from the Shirely Temple-like drink being served.

“Nope. Especially not now.” You said, taking another long drink from your own glass.

“Why? What happened?”

You scoffed with a roll of your eyes, “I doubt it’s a secret.”

“Wait, what? I’m so lost.”

“Dennis and-“

“Oh shit!” A crash was heard in the other room causing your conversation, and all the conversations at the party, to a stop as everyone turned to see Trinity and Parker in the living room, who had stumbled into each other and into the dining table from how tipsy they were. Their laughter echoed as people went to check on them, including Dennis.

“Shit! Are you okay?” He asked, helping Trinity up, grabbing her arms and supporting her body weight by holding her close.

Her drunken giggles had barely subsided as she said, “Yeah, I’m good, Huckleberry. Thank you for recusing me from the floor, just like your mama raised you.”

They were so close, her fake midwestern accent towards the end when talking about his mother, which he smiled at, which she was laughing at as she stood up completely on her own but his hands still lingered. God, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why is this the only thing that you could think about, obsess about? This wasn’t fair, not for yourself and not for them. You needed to remove yourself for the equation, the way you always did, to protect yourself and anyone else who may get caught in your emotional crosshairs.

With the chaos of making sure Trinity and Parker were okay, along with picking up whatever had been knocked over, you took that opportunity to initiate your escape plan. Completely normally walking towards the kitchen, behind the crowd of people around the dining table, pretending as though you were grabbing one of those little appetizers from the countertop before slyly opening the front door and Irish-goodbying.

It was cold outside now, your fur lined coat now becoming the best idea you’d had all night. You had forced your mind to go blank once you had left the building, numbing all other voices that were screaming at you for many different reasons. Now though as you reached the corner of the block, waiting for the light to flash the little white man telling you to cross, you were planning a vacation, get out of town and go wallow in a cabin somewhere before reinventing yourself to forget about Dennis.

The light clicked to the little man and the auditory aid started to beep at you to cross, but your name being yelled from behind you stopped you, despite your better judgement.

“What do you want, Dennis?” You asked, tiredly as you turned to him down the street, he was still quite a ways away from you.

“You left without saying anything! I just wanted to check on you.”

You shook your head, “I’m fine, Dennis. Just go back to your party..and your girlfriend.” The last part was said quietly with a slight sneer.

You started making your way across the crosswalk while he continued running after you.

“Why are you avoiding me?!” He called after you, entering the crosswalk as you were exiting it, looking both always before jogging across.

“Leave me alone, Dennis..” Your head hung down as your hand ran through your hair, an anxious habit you’d had since childhood. You walked a little faster, a short jog, as you hoped he would lose him and he would just go back to the party.

“Will you stop running away from me?!”

“Why?!” You stopped and whipped around on, causing him to stop two arms lengths from you, “So I can go back to that party and watch you and your girlfriend and feel shitty about myself, angry at myself for not doing anything about this sooner? No, I can do that from home well enough. Just go back to your party, enjoy it. You deserve it, Dennis, you truly do.”

You were caught up in your own emotions to notice the array of flashing ones across his face, barely able to keep up with everything that was confusing him about your words.

“Wait, what? I’m so confused. What are you talking about? What didn’t you do and what’s the ‘this’ in this conversation? I don’t understand why you’ve been so upset.” He couldn’t even keep up, his questions becoming jumbled while trying to make sense of this.

You scoffed and stood idle for a moment as you tried to buck up the courage to say what you should have a long time ago, “I didn’t tell you about the massive fucking crush I have had on you from the first time I met you. How I fell in love with you after that night in the peds wing after Paloma. That’s the ‘this’.”

Time froze as he did and you forced yourself to watch his face blank and then contort in pity, but the latter never came.

“You..love me?”

“Yes, it is unfortunate for the both of us.”

“Wait, what? Why is this a bad thing? I’ve been in love with you too, I’m surprised you didn’t know. I didn’t think I was hiding it well.”

As he stepped forward with his hand outstretched to you, you took a big step back with your finger pointed at him.

“No, none of that. We can’t do that.”

“Why? You don’t want to be with me?” His face fell in that way you loved and hated at the same time because pretty boys shouldn’t be sad. Stupid big eyes that made you want to wrap him up in a blanket and hide him from the world.

“Dennis, you have a girlfriend.” You said, eyes wide as you told him, angry that you had to remind him of this. You didn’t think he was like that.

But the look he gave you was pure and utter shock, which caused you to falter a bit as he exclaimed, “What?!”

“I’m not stupid.”

He took another few steps towards you, “Believe me, you aren’t. But I have no idea what you are talking about because I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m painfully single.”

Now it was your turn to be incredibly confused. “What do you mean?” You just saw them together at the party! They are living together, for Christ sake!

“You’re dating Trinity.”

The blank look from utter shock made you want the earth to open up and swallow you whole.

“I am not dating Trinity.”

“What?” Your voice was so small you barely recognized it.

“I’m not dating Trinity. She’s dating Parker.”

It was comical how you heard the sound of glass shattering in your head at his words.

“She’s gay?”

The look on your face seemed to make him smile a little but in fact, it was actually the fact that he had finally found out why you had been avoiding him these past few months and why you had been so depressed, for lack of a better word.

“You couldn’t tell?”

Your mouth open as every thought you had had and thing you had done in the name of jealously, self preservation and depression ran through your mind as if it was the 7 minutes at the end of your life.

Mortified, you covered your mouth with your hand and slowly sank to the concrete, “Oh my god, what have I done? She’s so gay, how did I not-fucking shit…I’m so fucking stupid.” Your legs were spread out in front of you in a V shape like a Barbie doll, just sat there in disbelief. Probably not a great idea to sit on the sidewalk in a populated city but you weren’t thinking about that right now.

“No you’re not.” He said with a warm smile and a slight chuckle as he watched you, stepping forward towards you.

You whipped your head and glared venomlessly at him. “Dennis, I have spent the last two months convinced that you and Trinity were dating and in love and so committed that you were already living together. I’ve done so much wallowing, so much crying, so many wine drunk nights. All for you to actually be completely fucking single the whole time!”

“Where did you hear that me and Trinity were dating? I’d like to have some words with them.”

You chuckled a little at his incredibly nonthreating threat, “Robby did. I was asking him about you and he mentioned that the two of you were dating.”

“And you believed him? The man that has so many unread texts that it makes Mel nauseous when she sees it? Who can’t open an email from someone without accidentally sending a blank reply?”

“I know! It was so dumb.”

“Great doctor, great man, bad at societal information.”

“I’m gonna cross stitch that on a pillow for his Christmas present.”

The two of you laughed as the brisk air nipped at your cheeks. The few moments of silence that followed caused you to review this insane conversation, all the way back to your accidental confession, followed by his own confession.

You’re sure you looked like an owl as you snapped your head towards Dennis with a barely contained look of hidden glee.

“You love me?”

“Hmm?” He feigned ignorance, not very well, as he gave you a hand off the ground.

“You love me.”

“I don’t know when I said such a thing.”

“When I said I love you, you said the same thing. I heard you say it with your face.”

You two were stood very closely to each other, Dennis had pulled you up and much closer than was necessary so that you were almost chest to chest. You smiled a little victoriously at him as he just looked back at you softly.

“I may have said that.”

“Good to know I wasn’t imagining things.”

There was a comfortable silence between the two of you as you both waited for the other one to make a move. Your eyes trailed over his face unabashedly now, only ever admiring like this when his attention was elsewhere, but now it seemed he was doing the same thing.

When too much time with nothing happening besides staring, he turned back towards his apartment and said, “You wanna head back to the party?”

You tugged him back by his hand and with your other, pulled him down in one quick motion to kiss him. Surprise caused him to stumble forward a few steps which you followed with your steps back to keep the two of you upright. His hands immediately found your ribcage before slowly moving towards your back. You could practically feel him smiling into the kiss for a moment, before you licked at his lip and slipping your tongue into his mouth. His arms, stronger than you had thought when first meeting him, pulled you ever closer so you two were flush to each others bodies. The cold was fighting against the amount of body heat the two of you were producing. You only pulled away when your lungs started to struggle, the flustered look on his face and the blooming bruising on his lips.

Gently, you took his hand and started leading him back in the direction you had been heading before.

It took him a few moments to realize before asking, “Wait, where are we going?”

“Back to mine.”

“Oh, okay.” There was no fight, no battle about all the people he had left back at his place with an increasingly drunk Trinity, which meant without a sober host. Very out of character thing for Dennis to do, ever the responsible one, raised to organize a party, even if it’s not his party.

“You really didn’t know she was gay?”

“I did, in my mind! I just- I thought I was wrong when I heard the fake news about you guys.”

“Yeah, let’s not go to Robby for relationship information.”