Chapter Text
It’s Mini who’s responsible for Dennis being nicknamed “Snow White” from the age of fourteen all the way up until he left home for medical school.
Mini was a stray barn cat that one day had wandered onto the family farm. There were plenty of barn cats that would come and go, but it was that summer, after Dennis finished mucking the stalls and was stalling behind the barn doors for a little longer to avoid going back out under the sun, that Mini stalked up to Dennis and dropped a particularly large rat at his feet. They stared at each other—Dennis slowly blinked at her, trying to communicate his gratitude for her rat-killing endeavor, and she offered him a head tilt in response. When Dennis walked away, Mini trailed closely behind for the rest of the day as he finished his farm chores.
That same day, she snuck into the house during dinner and glued herself to Dennis’ legs, screaming at anyone who tried to pull her away. Aaron, the oldest brother, called her Dennis’ “mini-me”—The name stuck, as did Mini.
Whatever fascination she had with Dennis couldn’t really be deciphered. She stuck around Dennis even in the winter when the rest of the barn critters made shelter in the rafters. He was usually safe from her at the end of the day, when he finished up his work and went into the house for the night.
That is, he was, until one night there was a sharp scratching at his window. Dennis wouldn’t have given it a second thought if his room wasn’t actually a drafty attic on the third floor of the house and far away from any trees with loose branches that would tap at the window. He knew who it was before he fully turned around—Mini, crouched right outside on the sliver of roof that hugged the window.
Dennis let her in, and Mini became something of a pet. She didn’t like to be touched unless she shoved her face into Dennis’ palm first, and she only slept at the very bottom corner of his bed in the winter, but he thought of her as much of a companion as any other pet anyways.
After that first night, Dennis slunk downstairs to get breakfast with Mini closely in tow, much to Aaron’s amusement; Thus, Dennis graduated to “Snow White”, and he still hasn’t lived it down.
When he made the decision to go to medical school, leaving Mini behind was the first item on the cons side of his pro/con list. He knew she couldn’t go to Pittsburgh with him—Maybe she knew it too, because on his last night sleeping in that chilly, uninsulated attic, Mini slunk out his window with a long look behind her instead of sleeping in her corner that night, and Dennis never saw her again.
—
“Seems like you’ve got a shadow, Whitaker.”
Trinity declares it a few months into their rotation at the PTMC, and Dennis has no idea what she was talking about—Mostly because he’s only half-listening while charting and is more focused on remembering how to spell arrhythmia.
“Mhmm,” he hums, and Trinity scoffs at how obviously he’s tuning her out.
She says, “Hey, Dr. Robby, what’s up?”
Dennis’ head shoots up at that, but Robby’s nowhere to be seen and he glares at Trinity as she laughs at him. “That’s not fair,” Dennis gristles.
“Actually, I think I saw Dr. Robby by pedes earlier if you want me to grab him,” Mel pipes up from somewhere behind them and it makes Dennis jump.
His face gets warm at the possibility of someone overhearing Trinity’s comment and ascertaining something about Dennis’ feelings towards a certain senior attending, but he knows that out of anyone, Mel would not give it a second thought.
Instead he coughs out, “No, it’s fine, but thanks.”
Trinity’s still staring at him, eyes widening when she points to the side with her chin. It’s directed towards Mel, who doesn’t completely walk away but meanders to the other side of the PTMC Hub to sit at an unoccupied computer.
“What?” Dennis whispers, fearing that he missed out on something important.
“Shadow,” Trinity ominously stage-whispers before stalking off, leaving Dennis to glance between her and Mel with confusion.
For the rest of the shift, Dennis is slightly more aware of just how many cases he and Mel seem to be put on. They’re always in the same place when a new patient is wheeled in and it’s the most convenient that they work on them together.
Shadow. By the end of the shift Dennis is too exhausted to give it any more thought, but the word echoes around his head the next time he enters the Pitt for a shift with Mel.
—
“You remind me of my cat.”
Dennis has to shout it over the roar of the crowded bar. Maybe it wasn’t even the bar that was loud, but rather the company that’s all squished into a single booth. Dennis is plastered against the wall and Mel might as well be too despite them only sitting next to one another. Trinity insisted they all sit together for the sake of unity, but Dennis thinks that it was the third shot of tequila that came up with that idea. The fourth would have to try to convince her it was a good one.
Dennis isn’t too far behind though. He’s already had two beers, and his own third shot of tequila is glaring at him from the sticky wooden table.
“You have a cat?” Mel says, and it snaps Dennis’ attention back to where he is. Between a Mel and a hard place.
It takes him a moment to rewire the conversation in his head and remember what Mel is even responding to. All he had eaten on shift was a few protein bars and alcohol was very happy to take up the rest of the space in his stomach.
“Used to,” he tries not to mumble, but his lips feel numb like they usually do when he’s drunk and he has to resist the urge to chew on them. He’s never actually described Mini as his cat. “On the farm. She was a barn cat, a stray I got really attached to. She was blonde, like you.”
Mel absentmindedly plays with a loose strand of hair when she tilts her head at him. Dennis’ heart lurches for a second, because even the head tilt is so much like Mini’s that it reminds him of how long it’s been since he’s thought of her.
Mel repeats, “We’re both blonde,” and leaves it at that.
Dennis wants to apologize for comparing her to a cat, but a longer look at her tells him that she may be just as far gone as he currently feels. She’s smushed so close to him he can see how her eyes are glazed over.
Her fingers continue to occupy themselves with the ends of her hair, which is out of its usual braid and hanging loosely around her face. She’s turned towards him but her eyes are out of focus and directed towards the wall behind Dennis, giving him the opportunity to stare at her in some sort of drunken haze.
He can’t help the impulse to access and diagnose, but quickly he becomes distracted by comparing the darkness of Mel’s brows to the Mini-colored blonde of her hair. An insane urge washes over him, willing him to reach out and pet her hair just to see what it would feel like.
“Whitaker?”
“Hm?”
“Are you okay?”
God, Dennis’ stomach growls and he’s reminded of just how little time he had to sneak a sandwich on that day’s shift. Samira ordered a basket of fries for the table that they’re still waiting on, but Dennis tries to think if he has any loose bills shoved in his wallet to place an order for something else, maybe some tater tots. He hasn’t had tater tots in what feels like years.
“Dennis.”
That makes Dennis blink his eyes hard, and he feels like he’s reborn into exactly where he was a few minutes ago. Squished and drunker than he thought. He feels more comfortable now though, readjusted so he could unpin his arm from where it was smushed onto his side and raised so that it rests around the back of the booth seat.
He pauses what he’s doing. Which, now he realizes, is stroking the back of Mel’s head with his free hand.
“Fuck,” is all that he has to offer, but his hand remains glued where it is as he blinks a few more times to reorient himself. Just as quickly the realization of what he’s been doing and the humiliation of it wash over him so quickly he thinks it might make him sick, and his body tries to respond just as strongly when he jerks backwards.
Dennis only succeeds in jamming his shoulder and knocking his head against the wood panelled walls, which he doesn’t feel as much as he probably should. He’s too occupied with the embarrassment for acting so stupid, with a colleague no less, in front of a bunch of other colleagues who are probably all staring at this mess right now.
He finally looks up to examine the rest of the table only to find everyone as occupied in their own conversations as they were before, but now Mel juts into his vision and her brows are knit impossibly tight.
“Are you okay? Did you hit your head?” she asks earnestly, and her hand comes up to steady the side of Dennis’ head and access him for injury.
“Yes, yeah, I’m so fine,” he quickly answers, but he can’t help but watch her eyes dart around his face.
They land back on his, and Dennis is still at a loss for words. The part of his head telling him to stop acting stupid is losing against the other very drunk part of him—It’s strong and lords over all of his faculties, especially in the hand still hovering by the back of Mel’s head.
Mel’s expression doesn’t budge, though. If anything, she looks more concerned and Dennis has the intense urge to be the one that relieves her of that worry.
“I’m okay, really,” he doubles down, and the slight, slight slur in his words does not at all help his case. “I’m drunk. Definitely drunk. More drunk than I thought. Didn’t eat so much. But I’m fine.”
It works to soften Mel’s face a bit, and as Dennis stares he sees how flushed her cheeks are. If the warmth of his face is any indication, he probably has a similar flush of his own.
“Do you wanna step outside for a second, get some fresh air?”
As much as Dennis thinks that it won’t be a good idea to move around too much in the current moment, the thought of cool air on his face makes him nod his head. They have to do the song and dance of asking everyone else to leave the booth so they can get out, and Dennis wills himself not to stumble when it’s his turn to shimmy out.
“Where are you guys going!” Victoria asks, who may be the only person that’s more drunk than what Dennis is feeling right now.
After all, the only reason they’re all out after work is because Samira found out it was Victoria’s twenty-first birthday last week and she insisted that they celebrate together. It was supposed to be a regular evening out for a round of trivia and a couple of drinks, but somehow they had won all five rounds of trivia and the tray of shots that they received from the bar as a reward had significantly kickstarted the night.
“Bathroom,” Dennis says at the same time that Mel says, “Outside.”
Dennis doesn’t know what made him say it, but it earns them a moment of silence from the group as they glance between the two of them.
“And outside, I meant. I just remembered I have to—But we talked about going out–” he tries to remedy the situation by doubling-down, which is a bad idea. It only earns them more looks. After he cuts off his sentence in shame he all but scurries out the rest of the booth and tries not to look guilty while he does it. Guilty of what, he isn’t sure, but shame rises in his throat anyway.
Mel tells the table they’ll be right back and Dennis has to concentrate very, very hard to walk as normally as possible when he trails right behind her.
The dive is packed with residual trivia players and newcomers, so Mel reaches her hand backward in invitation for him to take it as they approach the crowd. There’s some dancers that jab a few elbows in their path, so Dennis loosely grabs Mel’s hand and lets her guide them through the throng of people.
As expected, the relief of the night air helps refocus Dennis’ eyes. It was easy to let himself get dragged around, but Mel’s hand drops his as soon as they step out onto the sidewalk and he’s able to return to reality—For the most part.
“Shit,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes hard so the feeling zaps some semblance of thought in his head. Now that it feels like his brain is being washed under cold water, he replays the memory of his caressing Mel’s hair and he feels hot all over again. “Fuck, I was petting you.”
They’ve found a place to lean their backs against the bar’s exterior brick walls and Dennis turns to face Mel, who looks far less bothered than she has any right to be.
“I’m so sorry, Mel,” Dennis says in genuine horror, mortification whisking together with all the tequila he’s had. “I really didn’t mean to, I was just…”
Thinking about the stray cat that was probably my only best friend.
Even Dennis knows not to say that out loud, so he shuts his mouth. He stares at the sidewalk to avoid the annoyed, angry, anxious face that Mel was definitely concentrating on him right now. Dennis hears it now, Mel telling him that they may be colleagues, they may have hung out several times outside of work, but they still work together and it’s unprofessional to touch her, especially in such an affectionate manner.
Dennis is ready to fire off ten more apologies and promise it’ll never happen again, that he’ll vow to never drink again if he has to, but Mel doesn’t give him the chance.
“Oh, it’s okay,” she says evenly, maybe with something of a smile ringing in her voice.
He risks a look at her to find that she looks as pleasant as she sounds, no outward anger directed towards him. Still, she doesn’t make eye contact.
“It’s…okay.” He says it in something like wonderment, mind too addled to effectively protest further.
“Yeah,” Mel answers just as sunnily. “I’m drunk. It felt really nice.”
Dennis completely forgot that Mel was keeping up in terms of drinks consumed, at least in comparison to Dennis. It helped that she had bought a couple of rounds for the table to be nice and was roped into taking more shots than she probably would have otherwise. Still, she seems to be doing considerably better than Dennis and he’s not sure how to feel about that.
“Still, I shouldn’t…” Dennis trails off when the guilt returns. “Being drunk isn’t an excuse.”
“Dennis,” Mel remarks, and she turns so she can place a reassuring hand on the side of Dennis’ bicep and give him a serious look. “I liked it. I would like it sober. I haven’t been touched by a non-patient in so long, so it was…it was nice.”
The lingering eye contact is what finally helps Dennis relax, and he slumps back against the wall when Mel finally looks away.
“Me too. Last week a patient tried to choke me and I almost leaned in because I thought he was giving me a hug.”
Mel hums, partly understanding and partly amused. “I’d take my chances too.”
It makes Dennis sad to think about Mel feeling as touch-starved as him, reminds him of the one winter that was so frigid Mini had actually gotten under his blanket at night. His body acts before his mind can catch up and convince him otherwise—He half raises the arm closest to Mel and tilts his head at her.
“You wanna?” he asks, lifting his brows in question.
Mel’s own expression brightens, but it becomes strained, like she’s trying to tone down the size of her smile.
“Really?”
“Yeah, of course.” Dennis nods at Mel’s worried expression and it melts into relief.
Easily, Mel tucks herself into Dennis’ side. It helps that they’re closer in height so she can fully relax and fit her head comfortably on top of his shoulder. She lets out something like a sigh of relaxation as she does and in turn Dennis wants to melt.
The nights aren’t too cold yet, but the new pool of heat at his side makes Dennis sigh too. Mel’s body is warm against him, slots against him so closely that he can feel the side of her stomach move against his when she breathes.
This type of contact—so warm, easy, light—he hasn’t felt in a long while. He had grown completely numb to the physical contact he makes with patients, so feeling the warmth of another so closely without the background noise of a heart rate monitor was a soothing respite.
“I like this too,” he murmurs, mostly an afterthought to himself.
The breathiness of Mel’s voice matches his when she quietly replies, “Yeah.”
Dennis keeps his shoulder around Mel’s but bends his forearm so he can pat a hand to the crown of her head. Her next breath is heavier when he does and she leans her head back into it, which Dennis takes as a good sign to continue petting her hair.
There’s a muffled cheer that comes from the bar that’s loud enough to make it obvious to Dennis that it’s coming from their table of coworkers… Well, friends.
He doesn’t worry himself about it just yet, and Mel doesn’t make any move to go back inside either.
—
Dennis becomes more aware of his shadow in the next few weeks—Maybe casts his own light to keep it around. He and Mel make a good team when they’re on cases, they find an easy rhythm working around each other where they don’t talk and just hand over what’s needed with a look or a nod.
It’s not that Dennis never thought that Mel was nice, but they’re more similar than he could have ever expected. He likes that he can be straightforward with her, prefers it on days where his brain is too frazzled from work and he can’t bother second guessing someone’s intentions.
He stands at the Hub, looking up at the screen for what case is up next. He already checked that no one was around to scold him for cherry-picking, especially since Age 5, nasal blockage, and lego? written in the notes section was not his idea of a good time.
Thankfully, Mel sidles up next to him before he makes a decision. He nods at her in acknowledgement, but her eyes are squarely concentrated on the screen, not paying him any mind.
“You okay?” he asks, even if it seems like Mel is ignoring him.
The question snaps her out of it. “What?”
She finally looks at him and Dennis can see how her lips are pressed together thinly, brows a little furrowed.
“You okay?” he tries again.
Her shoulders seem to drop a little at the question, but her eyes continue to dash around the room, looking at anywhere but Dennis.
“I’m fine. It was just… Brother and sister. Brother might not make it.”
Before another second of Mel looking so distressed passes, Dennis casts a long glance around the Pitt and lightly grabs her arm to lead her out of there. They’re able to use an incoming gurney as cover to sneak out through the ambulance bay and then outside, where the fall chill slaps him in the face and on his bare arms.
When they’re off to the side, away from EMTs driving their rigs away from the bay, Dennis can take another good look at Mel. He still has a loose grip on one wrist, but her other arm is crossed over herself like a shield.
Dennis has never been good at this, the whole comforting thing. He’s probably recounted his interaction with Dr. Robby after his first shift at the PTMC a million times in his head, going over what he could have done differently, if he made Robby feel worse or better. The look Robby gave him, after Dennis repeated his own advice back to him—It made Dennis feel young and naive, but also like they were sharing an illicit secret, something that made Dennis warm under the collar when he remembered the secrecy of it all.
But, Dennis knows that all he can do is make himself available, someone safe and on the same level.
“Would a hug help?” he asks, making sure they’re alone before outstretching his arms in invitation.
Mel nods and doesn’t say a word as she settles into that warm spot against his chest, letting her arms loosely wind around Dennis’ waist but not doing much of the heavy lifting of hugging otherwise. She lets Dennis cocoon her in his arms, coming up against her back and using his splayed hands to cover her shoulder blades.
He feels the long exhale of her breath against his neck and he knows it’s relief, the same feeling now coursing through him too.
Dennis isn’t sure what this dynamic that they have is, but since that night of Victoria’s birthday celebration at the bar, they’ve begun to come together like this on harder shifts. The briefest of touches, physical check-ins that aren’t just the thrown punches from irate patients they sometimes get. They can read each other a little better, so when one is feeling overwhelmed, the other knows to bring them back to reality with a brief hand on the back or a soft hip check. It’s weird, and probably veering on the edge of very unprofessional, but Dennis enjoys how easy it is with no expectation for anything more.
Mel mumbles something against his collar bone that he can’t hear.
“Hm?”
She adjusts her head down so her forehead rests on the crook of Dennis’ shoulder. She sounds less muffled, but Dennis has to strain himself to hear her when she says, “I miss Langdon.”
He hopes that she can’t feel how hard he fights not to tense up at Langdon’s name. His mind flips through a million slides, trying to remember everything that Trinity had told him about the doctor since his untimely departure and the role she played in it. It was hard to level what he was told against the onslaught of rumors that tore their way through the entire department after that first shift, rumors that were less interesting to talk about now but were still brought up on occasion.
Mel must sense his hesitation to respond, because she adds on, “I know. I know what he did, I heard it from everyone. B-But, it’s a disease, you know, just like anything else we treat, and he’s… away so he can work on it and get better.”
Her arms tighten around Dennis’ waist and he knows now that what she needs is comfort, not a barrage of questions about why Langdon, of all people?
It’s difficult for him to remember all the details of their first shift at the PTMC outside of the MCI and his first dead patient and trying to block out the memory of those two things as much as possible. But, Dennis always had the impression that Mel has always floated around the Pitt, never like she had as much of a guide as Dennis has in Robby.
Maybe Langdon was her lighthouse for that day and it was hard to transition, after all this time, to someone else.
“I’m sorry,” Dennis eventually replies, “He was a good doctor. Maybe he’ll be back.”
Mel doesn’t feel the need to further defend Langdon at that, instead relaxes back in Dennis’ hold.
They’re quickly interrupted, though. There’s a shuffle at the door and the sound of the automatic doors opening when they hear, “Hey, we need you two back in here.”
They rip themselves away from each other as soon as they hear the voice. It’s Perlah, and when Dennis sees her eyes jump between him and Mel with more interest in their touching than is passive. He can see something like glee join her expression, but she’s already running back into the building before he can stutter out something embarrassing like It’s not what it looks like and make the situation look more suggestive. But, Mel begins to run back inside before Dennis can think about it any further and he’s quickly swept back into work-mode.
In fact, he almost forgets about their foray outside entirely. It’s not until the end of the shift when he’s charting his final patient of the day that Mel idles by the desk, leaning against the counter.
They chat about their highlights of the day, and during a lull in conversation Mel, suddenly quiet, mutters, “Thanks for before, by the way. I shouldn’t… I need to get better at managing my emotions in certain cases.”
“It’s okay,” Dennis quickly replies. “You care about your patients, that’s not a crime. It would be worse if you didn’t care at all.”
Mel offers him a small smile at that but it’s clear that there’s still a lot weighing on her mind.
Dennis hates seeing her mind so occupied. From what little she’s told him about her sister it seems like the weight on her shoulders is never lighter than several tons. He wishes he could take some of it for himself—He imagines Atlas would have had an easier time if there was even just one person beside him helping him hold the weight of the world.
He offers, “Besides, you have me, right? We can take breaks whenever we need.”
Whenever we need, he says, because he thinks he needs the little touches, the brief moments of human connection just as much. And, he knows Mel would feel guilty if she thought all the burden fell onto him to look after her.
Mel’s smile looks more genuine now and Dennis relaxes enough to look around. The stragglers of the day shift stick around to update the incoming night shift on various patients and cases, but the others have already left.
Dennis spots Princess and Perlah on the other side of the Hub, wrapping up their work while rapidly whispering to each other in Tagalog. He watches them glance at Mel before they make eye contact with him, and then their whispers grow even faster when they pointedly avert their eyes.
It makes Dennis feel indisposed, knowing that they’re probably gossiping about him and Mel and there will almost certainly be some rumors flying around the PTMC in the next couple of weeks about them. He tries not to panic too badly—It can’t be that bad, he thinks, it’s not like he and Mel were caught doing anything more than sharing a friendly, coworker-ly hug.
He only worries about—
“Are you finishing up at my station, Whitaker?”
Dr. Robby, who surprises Dennis with a heavy hand on the shoulder that prevents him from jumping two feet into the air.
“Y-yeah, finishing up this chart,” Dennis breathes and immediately wants to kick himself for sounding so affected.
Robby’s hand stays on Dennis’ shoulder as he looks between him and Mel, and now Dennis’ heart drops into his ass for real. Does everyone already know? Has a coworker-ly hug been molded into something more by these gossip-obsessed doctors and nurses? How did any one of them even have the time for that?
Robby doesn’t give any further indication of knowing anything. He says, “That’s good. Go home and get some rest, you two, great work today.”
Even Mel bristles at Robby’s praise. When he walks away, Dennis misses the weight of the huge hand on his shoulder. He snaps back to reality and quickly finishes up the last detail of his chart before logging off.
Mel waits for him, and when Dennis finally stands he catches her staring at him with a thoughtful look, like she’s mulling something over in her mind and not actually seeing him.
“You ready to go?” Dennis asks. Exhaustion is quickly settling into his bones and all he can think about is a shower.
Mel’s attention snaps back to him. “Yeah, definitely.”
She casts a long look in the direction behind Dennis where Robby walked away. Dennis follows her line of sight but lands back on Princess and Perlah, who are still furiously whispering to each other.
It’s as clear of a sign as any to get out of there.