Chapter Text
It’s been a long, miserable day.
Sometimes the Pitt is kind, when it comes to leaving on time, sometimes they escape its grasp so easy, slipping away on time.
Today wasn’t one of those days.
By the time Robby and Dennis make it home, it’s somehow almost eleven, and neither have it in them to do anything.
Thankfully, Jack’s on a day off, so there’s at least hot food in the oven for them by the time they finally stumble in through the door.
Dennis… really hasn’t eaten much. Today, or yesterday… or really the day before that.
It’s not been intentional, not at all, but they’ve had so many staff off with a nasty flu a patient brought into the department and so everyone’s been pulling their weight as best they can but it’s not been enough, and so there’s been no time for eating.
He’s tried, but he’s found himself resorting to a protein bar whenever he can, and it just… sucks.
Actually it’s been a long string of long, miserable days. More than Dennis can count.
Sometimes, in his head, he realises he has this mindset that because of the fact he’s in a happy relationship, he should be happy all the time, even when things go wrong, and it’s hard, when he feels like shit because he finds himself getting upset, at himself, for the very fact that he’s… experiencing emotions?
Jack and Robby have tried, they’ve gone out of their way to reassure him that he’s allowed to be upset and angry and everything else under the sun, but it’s hard, it’s hard, because he can’t shake the feeling that he’s not allowed.
(Although who it is that isn’t allowing him, he’s uncertain.)
He’s been trying to work on it, but at the end of the day, when he comes home exhausted and grumpy and generally frustrated at the world and his partners' presences don’t immediately perk him back up?
Yeah.
He feels guilty.
It starts on Monday.
Day one of five.
It’s quite nice, when a run of shifts start with an actual working week, because in healthcare time doesn’t work the same as the typical 9-5. Weekends don’t mean anything beyond some specialists just aren’t available, night and day becomes interchangeable, and it’s so easy to lose track of days and weeks and months.
So, it’s nice, pretending to be a normal person like this.
His shift starts okay. It’s a day, so he and Robby leave Jack in bed (after both taking turns to kiss him thoroughly), and drive in together, Dennis half asleep on the front seat.
The Pitt’s not particularly awful when they walk in, and even Ellis seems in a good mood as Shen hands over the cases to them.
So, obviously, it all goes wrong.
It’s not that there’s some crazy influx of patients or anything, the waiting room fills up, but it always does, that’s nothing new.
No, what it is, is that Dennis’ first patient is a domestic abuse case. A little girl, 8 years old, brought in by ambulance after being found unrousable and unresponsive in bed by her mother.
Her observations are unremarkable, but the top to toe assessment reveals the poor woman’s worst fears.
The girl is covered in bruises, all carefully positioned to be completely hidden by her clothes,
Dennis doesn’t doubt the mother didn’t know, that devastation is hard to fake, but the police arrest her anyway, along with her husband. (Presumably, that’s what the officers are saying as they walk out of the ambulance bay, given the man is still at home with their other children). It makes Dennis sick to think about.
And the girl… she’s not fine, not at all.
She stays unrousable, stays completely unresponsive, and after MRI and CT and scan and test after scan and test, it’s pretty obvious what the diagnosis is.
Brain death, from some injury they can’t see. Maybe a hypoxic brain injury, from being strangled, maybe shaken and dropped, maybe kicked or punched or just beaten so hard.
They don’t know.
She gets accepted up into the paediatric ICU, but Dennis knows that they’ll do everything they can and still find the same answer.
He’s just glad it’s not his job, down here, to do so.
The rest of the day leaves him… shaken, out of it, and no matter what he can’t stop his mind from turning back to his childhood, and everything he’s suppressed from growing up.
But…
Well, it’s not like Dennis can call his father’s actions abusive.
They weren’t. Not really. And he can’t say that they were unorthodox either, because the way his father disciplined him and his brothers was just how you disciplined your children.
That’s how farm life worked. No one had heard of gentle parenting, no one cared about shit like that.
You raised your kid how your parents raised you.
(Whether that happened to be a slipper or a belt or a hand… or more.)
Dennis remembers his grandparents. He remembers them well.
They loved him, they loved all of his siblings, but they just didn’t tolerate any messing about. It makes sense, and Dennis finds it hard to be mad about it.
He finds it hard to be mad at his father, even though his punishments were perhaps… a little more extreme.
Except.
Well.
Except when the occasional memory hits him late at night, flashbacks of cowering in the corner of their room while his big brother Daniel hushed him, sobbing hysterically into his brothers arms as they watched one of the other boys getting beaten, or when he’d hide away under his bed, too scared to even cry, rubbing the smarting welts as he prayed again and again, begging for forgiveness, begging God to make his father not angry at more.
So yeah. Except for maybe those bits. Dennis doesn’t think his parents' attitudes affected him at all.
And he really doesn’t like that it’s all he can think about, because he really, really doesn’t want to remember.
The rest of the shift is fine, but that little girl… it sticks with Dennis, longer than he quite realises.
Obviously Jack and Robby check in at home but he doesn’t want to talk about it, and they don’t know anything about his childhood, so why would they get it?
He deals with it though, and when he and Robby head into work the next morning, he’s over it.
Or so he tells himself.
They’re about an hour and a half into their shift, and although it’s manic, somehow Dennis is on top of his tasks enough that he’s actually found time to sit and chart.
Or — he tries to, in the typical fashion of the Pitt, it’s not long before he’s interrupted.
“Hey — um, Doctor Whitaker?”
Dennis looks up.
“Oh hey! What’s up Javadi? You know you can just call me Dennis.”
The girl smiles, and she nods, then offers Dennis a case file.
“Sorry. Um, this patient of yours from a couple of weeks ago has just come back in and asked for you, when I was taking his history I noticed he’s quite medically complex, and I was wondering if I could attend to him with you?”
Dennis has no idea who she’s talking about, but he nods, accepting the file as he flicks through it.
“Oh! Yeah, of course you can. Did they say what he’s in for?”
She shakes her head, and Dennis nods again, pushing up from his chair.
“That’s fine. Is he in a bed yet?”
“Yeah, yes, south 11, thank you.” She’s so eager, Dennis has always thought that about her, and it’s a good thing, it totally is, but he just knows that she’s going to burn herself out if she keeps on like this. It’s too much, especially given the fact she’s fucking twenty one.
“Okay — fine, let’s walk. This guy, he’s quite frustrated with his care teams, always insists they’re neglecting him, and it’s not my place to have an opinion on that, but I can say that his care team is at the VA and from looking at his… mountains of paperwork, at the very least they have absolutely done every test you can imagine on the guy. Still, he says he’s been neglected then we acknowledge that, okay? We don’t know what his care has looked like in person, only what’s been documented on paper.”
Javadi nods, digging her notebook out of her hoodie pocket.
“You ready?”
A nod.
“So — he’s got hepatorenal dysfunction and CKD 3 or 4 from his cirrhosis. For some reason, and I don’t know why, but he’s had a liver transplant which seems to have brought a whole host of further issues. He’s uh… he’s got type 2 diabetes which is very poorly managed, so he’s got some pretty gnarly ulcers which keep getting infected, he’s got heart failure from which he’s had respiratory failure, so… yeah, poor guy’s really fine through some shit. Last time he was here it was for an exacerbation of his respiratory failure which his care team had told him over the phone could be acute respiratory failure, so he came here, but it turned out to be pulmonary oedema which…” Dennis pauses, turning to look at her. “Yeah. Basically, he's a tricky one.”
The poor girl has managed just about to jot it all down, but she looks reasonably alarmed as they approach the curtain of the room the guy is in. It’s not an uncommon list of conditions, a lot of them being very known co-morbidities of one another, but it’s still intimidating to handle, especially when any exacerbation of any one of his conditions has such a high mortality risk.
Dennis knocks on the wall before he pushes open the curtain, pulling up a smile as he walks into the room.
“Good morning Mr Simmons.” He says pleasantly, “I’m Doctor Whitaker and this is Student Doctor Javadi, what seems to be the trouble today?”
The guy opens his mouth to speak, then suddenly makes an awful snorting hacking noise as he clears his throat. He’s all gurgly and wet, and Dennis has to keep careful control of his expression as the guy pulls his BIPAP mask off of his face, and spits a great gob of foamy spittle onto the sheets.
Right. Okay. So that’s how today is going to go then.
The guy sneers at Dennis as he pushes his mask up onto his forehead, “I’ve been waiting here for fucking hours — can’t you see I’m sick?”
His tone is grating, abrasive as he snaps at them, and Dennis feels Victoria deflate a little. He doesn’t need to look at her to know that she’s a little intimidated, staring at the guy with that wide-eyed deer in headlights sort of look she gets. It’s not exactly a pleasant atmosphere, what with the guy’s obviously sour attitude, but also just the general… situation. You get used to a lot of bad and weird smells in healthcare, but it really can be intense sometimes. Ulcers, especially when they’ve become necrotic, have a very distinctive smell. The best way Dennis can describe it, is almost… chocolaty? And not in a good way. It’s just a cloying sweetness, but deeply off putting, something that tells the primal part of his brain to get away, that this is something not safe to be around. It’s the kind of smell that clings to fabric, and what with the almost visible fog of smoke that hangs off of him, despite the fact he insists he doesn’t smoke and he’s wearing portable oxygen with his BIPAP… yeah, it’s not the nicest a room has ever smelt.
Still.
They are doctors, and this is their patient, and he needs them.
“I’m very sorry about the wait Sir,” Dennis ducks his head apologetically, “it’s very busy here today and we’ve had a lot of very unwell people come in that have needed our attention. But — we’re here now, let’s see what we can do for you?”
The guy just scoffs, mumbling something about ‘typical hospital bullshit’, and that about sets the tone for the rest of their assessment.
The guy is snappy every time they ask him a question, huffing frustratedly and rolling his eyes every time Dennis repeats what he’s said back to him.
Dennis does everything in his power to be kind and understanding, but it’s clear the guy has lost his patients. Which Dennis does understand, he really does. He’s stated before that he feels like he’s been neglected in his care, and it’s obvious that he’s struggling with his conditions, and it’s hard to have to keep depending on people to stay alive and healthy — especially when they keep letting you down. (Whether they have or not, Dennis doesn’t know, but if the patient feels that way then clearly something is wrong).
But still, when the guy calls him an idiot for the third time in twenty minutes when all he’s trying to do is assess him, it starts to get frustrating.
Still, he sends off for labs, orders a couple of scans, makes sure to offer the guy a snack and something to drink and some ice water, but it’s all not enough.
He’s angry, no matter what they do.
And unfortunately, things just don’t get any better.
Everything takes too long for the guy’s liking, the CT scanner is ‘too uncomfortable’, the sandwich ‘too dry’, the nurse who changes the dressing on his ulcers smells ‘too much of perfume’, anything there is to complain about, he picks up on it.
And he complains.
To Dennis.
Someone honestly needs to take the guy’s call bell away from him, because every fucking five minutes the little light is flicking on, and Dennis is getting dragged away from whatever task he’s valiantly trying to complete, just to attend to this fucking guy.
He’s sick of it, sick of not being able to do anything, and every time he’s tried to very gently redirect the man towards maybe just save pressing the call bell for if he urgently needs something, but he’s reminded every time of the fact the man ‘knows his rights’ and ‘won’t stand for being ignored’.
So yeah.
That’s great.
He’s trending high all day as well, which is frustrating, and he knows it’s because of stress because he is stressed, but it’s also really just not a nice feeling, and not helping his irritation in the slightest.
Still, he soldiers on, and he barely sees Robby at all which sucks, until finally…
Everything kicks off.
Dennis has just come to give the guy some medications, and he can tell that something is wrong as soon as he walks in.
The guy has gone silent, no longer verbally complaining about everything but sitting in sullen silence, glowering not quite at Dennis but in his general direction.
It’s weird.
He’s also just… shifty, and stiff and Dennis really should have seen it coming but… he doesn’t.
Somehow.
As he bends over the patient, doing — god, he doesn’t even know what, the guy lurches forwards.
He doesn’t get good purchase on Dennis, but he still latches onto him, fisting the fabric of his scrubs as he yanks Dennis forwards.
“No — hey! Stop —!” He manages to cry out, as he falls on top of him, unable to catch himself on the guy’s body. “Help!”
The one thing Dennis has learnt, from working in healthcare, that if someone shouts for help, everyone comes running.
And he means everyone.
Because someone shouting for help could mean that a patient has arrested, or is about to arrest, or is critically unwell or a staff member is in danger or any number of things. So people always come running.
Always.
You’re always on high alert, working in the ED, keeping a close eye on every patient who walks in, whether it’s to see if they’re actually extremely unwell and just compensating with it or whether it’s to see if they’re going to be a threat, everyone’s always switched on to the max.
It’s overstimulating, and overwhelming, but it also means that people are always listening, which Dennis is especially glad for when his voice doesn’t come out anywhere near as loud as he’s like, startled by the celerity of the attack.
There’s a sharp pain, suddenly, from his stomach, as he’s yanked, but it passes so quickly that Dennis doesn’t think about it in much detail. (Not that he’s got the capacity for it right now).
“You fucking doctors,” the guy roars, “all of you, useless cunts, you don’t give a fuck about me, all you care about is getting your paycheque and making sure the sick get sicker.”
Dennis is so close to the guy that he can smell his breath, and it’s unfortunately disgusting, but he can’t pull away, can’t free himself from this position.
“Sir —“
“I should just fucking sue you all,” the guy spits, “then maybe you’d have some fucking compassion.”
The curtain flies open as Langdon and Perlah appear, “Whita— hey, get off of him!”
Frank’s quick to tear Dennis back away from the man. It’s a surprising and also impressive display of strength, the way he manhandles Dennis, and there’s a very fleeting adrenaline fuelled moment where he’s very attracted to the man before him, before he snaps back to reality.
(Although he’s fairly sure he’s going to look at Langdon in a slightly different light… forever, now.)
“Dennis — are you okay?” Perlah asks, face twisted in concern as she looks him up and down, but before Dennis can answer, Robby appears.
“Everything okay? What happened here?”
Dennis loves his boyfriend, he really does, but he also knows Robby very well, which means he knows that the man is going to go absolutely ballistic as soon as he finds out what’s happened.
“I—“
The patient interrupts.
“Your staff are all heartless assholes,” he spits, and Robby’s fierce concern morphs into angry confusion as he turns to look at him.
“Assholes!” The guy repeats. “You don’t care about your patients, do you? Huh? Do you?!” He tries then (and fails), to spit at Dennis, getting stuck at the attempt to snort up a globule of saliva and coughing instead.
Robby ignores him, turning to Dennis, hands finding his forearms as he looks him over, brow furrowed as he searches his expression.
“What did he do to you?”
Dennis shakes his head. “Nothing — he just grabbed me, he didn’t hurt me or anything.” He says honestly, but clearly even the idea of that is too much for Robby.
He releases Dennis (after giving both of his arms a gentle squeeze), turning back to the patient. He draws himself up to his full height, suddenly so much more imposing, voice deep as he growls.
“You do not lay a hand on my staff, okay? I don’t give a fuck how frustrated you are, you do not assault the people here to look after you.”
The guy doesn’t falter, yet, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d all just do your jobs and help me.”
“We are helping you. You see all of this? All of these people here? They are helping you. You do not get to berate or assault my staff when they are putting up with your bad attitude to save your life.”
The guy does falter then, and he looks away, huffing as Robby continues to scold him.
By the time it’s done, and the Pitt finally starts making some noise again after having gone silent to hear Robby yell, the guy mumbles something close to an apology to Dennis, and Robby nods.
”Good. Now touch any of my staff again and I’ll have you arrested, you hear me?”
Ahmad is assigned to the guy’s door, as Robby finally pulls Dennis away, mumbling under his breath about the gall of some patients.
There’s something weird tickling his stomach, Dennis notices, as they walk out of the room, Robby’s grip on the nape of his neck just the wrong side of too tight. He doesn’t say anything though, because he can feel the anger and the tension rolling off of his partner.
The tickle feels… odd, and vaguely alarm bells ring in the back of Dennis’ mind, so as Robby steers them towards the break room, he hoiks up the hem of his scrub top, and swears.
Robby stops immediately, turning to look at him worriedly.
“Are you okay?”
Dennis shakes his head, and he pulls the fabric up a little higher. “My fucking pump came out. It must have gotten torn out when he pulled me.”
Because there, dangling folornly down his waistband, is the strip of tubing and it’s plastic cannula, all very much not inside of his body where it should be.
Robby’s concern only deepens, and Dennis can see the emotions building, before Robby catches himself. He stops, falters, and rolls his shoulders back, and Dennis can see him take a deep breath and ground himself. He’s been picking up tricks from Jack recently, and it’s crazy to see it happen in real life and for a moment Dennis forgets about his situation, so genuinely pleased to see Robby putting in the work to self regulate.
“Okay Mouse, we can fix that.” He says softly, tone carefully controlled so it doesn’t come across like he's upset at him. “There’s spare kit in your locker, isn’t there?”
Dennis nods, and he drops the hem of his top, feeling the way it catches on the sticky tape that had been holding the cannula in.
“Yeah. Do… do you want to change it for me?”
Robby loves his acts of service, thrives on them, really, the act of being in control while also doing something for his partners, and Dennis is fairly sure it’ll help him relax if he goes through the motions of changing his pump for him, and he’s pleased when Robby nods.
“You go to the waiting room and have a drink, Mouse, I’ll get your kit.”
And it does calm him down, and by the time Dennis is all sorted, some of the tension in Robby’s shoulders has eased, and his face has smoothed out.
He checks on Dennis a thousand times, and the last time he does, Dennis catches his face, palms cupping his cheeks as he pulls him in for a kiss.
“Michael. I am fine. Please go back to the Pitt and stop fussing, okay?”
Robby looks like he might try and fight him, but after a moment he nods, and sighs. “Yes okay, fine.”
Dennis smiles, and he kisses him again because he’s weak.
“I’m gonna chill here for a couple of minutes, then I’ll join you?”
That seems to reassure Robby even more, and he nods before he stands, a hand settling on Dennis’ shoulder. He gives it a squeeze before he leaves.
“Love you.”
Dennis gets approximately a minute of time by himself, before the door pushes open again.
At first he thinks it’s Robby, and he’s about to tell his partner to fuck off, when he notices the purple hoodie sleeve.
Oh.
Not Robby them.
“Are you okay?” Javadi asks nervously, taking a seat at the table as she looks worriedly over at him.
Dennis nods, pulling up an easy smile. “I’m fine Vic, thank you.”
“He was… he is…” she hesitates, looking up as she struggles to find the word she’s looking for. “Complex.”
Dennis snorts. “Yeah. Yeah you can say that.”
A pause.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Honestly? I’m fine. He didn’t actually hurt me or anything, just… surprised me.”
“You’re not upset?”
Dennis thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head. “I mean like at him? I dunno — a tiny bit, yeah, because like… I don’t deserve that. But also…” he sighs, rubbing at the site where his pump had been. “But also, I cannot imagine what it’s like being him. Being so medically complex and just… not getting any solutions to his problems. Yeah, okay, he’s got a lot of conditions that won’t get better, but imagine how much it must suck experiencing those symptoms all day every day?” Dennis glances over at Javadi.
It’s very clear that she absolutely does not get it, but he carries on anyway.
“I can’t be angry at him for lashing out when he's scared and he's been let down and he's uncomfortable and in pain and there’s nothing we can do. Obviously we did everything we could, but people come to hospital and treat it as if we can cure every single thing and they’ll go back to being completely fit and healthy immediately and so… when you’re like that guy and you’ve suffered so much and we don’t make it better?” He shrugs again. “I guess I’d be mad too.”
Javadi frowns, turning to look at the wall instead of at Dennis. “That’s… a very noble stance to take.” She says after a moment. “But… I get it. I understand. Just… how are you not angry about your pump ripping out and stuff? I’d be angry at him about that.”
Dennis laughs, just a little, leaning back in his chair.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely fuckibg furious about it. Do you know how expensive insulin is? How expensive these sites and tubing and pump refills are? It’s stupid, and now I’ve wasted all that money on a site change after I just did it all this morning.”
She’s got that worried look again.
“And the cognitive load that went into even just deciding where to put it, the pain of constant site changes and needles going into me all the time… everything about my pump getting ripped out is — sucks, but I can’t really blame that guy. He didn’t know. It’s his fault, sure, but something my endocrinologist told me was just… at the end of the day, blame the disease. It’s easier to blame something that is kind of only conceptual than something physical, because if it’s something or someone physical you’ll grow to resent it… or them.”
She stares at him for a moment, then nods, and the corners of her mouth tick up into a smile.
“That’s… that’s cool, Dennis.”
He smiles too, and of course the moment doesn’t last because they hear the announcement of an incoming trauma over the tannoy.
“Back to it?”
Javadi nods, then looks at him. “Try not to get assaulted this time.”
Dennis laughs outloud, taken aback by her sudden attempt at teasing, but he likes it, likes seeing this side of her.
They’re definitely not as close as they could be, they’ve not really spent any one to one time together. They’ve spent time outside of work as a group, but never one on one and he does like her. She just needs to massively chill out.
But she has. She has been chilling out a lot more as her confidence builds and so do her relationships with everyone, and she’s nothing like the terrified ‘Crash’ from their first day. Even though she’s still a student, Dennis can see the doctor she’s going to become, and he’s proud of her. Just like everyone else in the Pitt is.
After all, she’s kind of like the Pitt baby, everyone wants to protect her and look after her.
The rest of their shift is fine, again, but it’s long and stressful and the stream of patients never seems to end.
Dennis is removed from that guy’s care, although apparently he continues to be a total fucking nightmare, and everyone who treats him walks out of the room rolling their eyes.
Eventually though, his team at the VA agree to take him and admit him, and they all thank their lucky stars when the guy is wheeled off into the ambulance.
The next day sucks too.
It rains, all day, which means the ER floor gets all slippery and muddy, no matter how many times it gets mopped, and everything just gets… damp. The beds are all just a little bit wet from their patients, chairs is a nightmare, and they get car accident patient after car accident patient because everyone and their mother seems to have decided that driving to get fast food or go to the store is worth the risk of hydroplaning down the highway and smashing into one another and risking their lives.
It’s just exhausting and relentless and it’s Trinity’s first shift back after a couple of days off and all Dennis wants to do is chat to and catch up with his best friend and it’s just not happening.
They keep attending patients together, but every patient they see happens to be so unwell that they don’t get the time to actually chat, and it’s really starting to get on Dennis’ nerves.
It’s just been ages since he saw her, ages since he’s been back at the apartment and he misses her, misses her so much.
She’s charting, when he finally manages to catch her, and as he drapes himself tiredly over the edge of the nursing station, she gives him a judgemental look.
“What’s wrong with you, Huckleberry?”
“I haven’t seen you in forever.” He huffs, folding his arms so he can rest his chin on them on the wall he’s leaning against. “Miss you.”
She rolls her eyes at him, but he can see the way she smiles. “Gross.”
“Shut up, I missed you. Feels like we haven’t caught up in forever.”
She sighs. “Huckleberry, can’t you see I’m charting?”
She’s teasing, he knows she is, but he still whines petulantly at her. “Trinnnn — come on.”
“Okay, okay, fine. What’s up?” She turns to him then, spinning around in her chair as she abandons her chart. They both know they won’t get long to chat, but at least it’s something.
Or at least it is, until the ambulance bay doors slide open and in rolls a stretcher. There’s a paramedic ventilating the guy, while another is on his knees straddling the patient doing compressions, and a very confused and slightly worried looking security guards pulling the stretcher for them.
“Can we get some help over here? He rearrested as we got him out of the truck—!”
“Shit.”
By the time the day ends, they haven’t gotten to see one another again, not even for a second, and Dennis feels… frustrated. Trinity’s with Garcia tonight, so it’s not like he could go round to the apartment with her, and even though it’s not either of their faults, he’s just mad about it. Mad about the fact he never sees his best friend, mad about how hectic the ER is, mad about everything, really.
And the final two shifts in his run just fucking suck. It’s hard to even describe in what ways that is, but they just suck. He has to change his scrubs three times after the same patient manages to piss, bleed and vomit on him on three separate occasions. He gets stuck in an elevator for like ten minutes and it’d be fine if he wasn’t trapped with a screaming toddler and her very uninterested mother. He gets his foot run over by a stretcher and he gets screamed at by a patient and it just fucking sucks.
Nothing about them go well, and he’s barely eaten, barely drank anything, barely slept.
So yeah, by the time all of it is over, dinner ends up being a sad affair after a sad week.
Jack clocks Dennis’ exhaustion immediately. He just looks wrung dry, shoulders slumped, eyes glassy.
He barely even picks at his food, just pushes it around the plate before he can muster up the courage to eat what he’s bolused for.
“You sure you’re okay Mouse?” Robby asks gently after Dennis brings his loaded fork up to his mouth and then… doesn’t eat it, for the fourth time in as many minutes.
“Yeah,” Dennis mumbles. “Just… long shift.”
Jack and Robby share a look, but they let it go. Everyone’s tired.
Dennis is clumsy as he pulls off his clothes, so exhausted that his hands won’t quite do what they’re told, and Jack doesn’t comment when they just get tossed haphazardly in the direction of the hamper.
When he collapses into bed, he does so with such a deep, weary sigh, and he’s quickly welcomed into their arms, both Jack and Robby wrapping securely around him.
They’re all asleep in a matter of seconds.
Until…
It’s the movement, that wakes Jack first. Not the sound.
Although — bizarrely, there isn’t the sound he expects.
No, it’s the way the bed is shifting, the mattress bouncing and shuddering beneath him in something rhythmic, and… wrong.
For a split-second, he doesn’t compute, doesn’t catch up, still fogged with sleep, until Robby jerks awake too.
“What the —?”
Jack reaches for the lamp, and light floods the room.
And they see him.