“Oh, I used to have a stutter.”
Robby raised an eyebrow in interest, and Trinity grinned, bumping her shoulder against his.
“Oh yeah? How much speech therapy did it take you to get rid of it?” She teased, her eyes glinting with joy as she was blessed with another sliver of information to tease Dennis on.
“Santos,” Robby said in that disapproving tone that let you know he wasn’t actually disappointed; he just didn’t want to get in trouble in case Gloria popped out of nowhere like a chupacabra.
“It’s fine.” Dennis chuckled. “I actually didn’t go to speech therapy.”
“Oh, so you simply grew out of it?” Robby asked, a small smile on his face from imagining little Dennis tripping over his words.
Dennis shook his head, looking down at Robby’s computer and continuing to try to finish the chart he was doing. “Uh, no, my Dad ran me over with the tractor, and then my stutter was just kinda gone. Guess it’s cause my head got knocked around somethin’ serious.”
Dennis heard the drop of something heavy on the floor and turned around to see Trinity and Robby staring at him in shock.
“Are you guys okay? What did you drop?” He asked worriedly.
“Shut the fuck up, whaddya mean your dad ran you over?”
Dennis looks over at her like she’s stupid. “I mean, my Dad ran me over? Duh.” Other nurses and doctors nearby stopped and turned to look at him, but Dennis hadn’t noticed that. “He said he didn’t see me, but I tried running out of the way, and he turned the steering wheel to follow me, ha.”
“Fuck kid!” Dennis jumped when he realized Dana was now standing right next to him. “And? What were the medical procedures?”
“Oh, uh, I didn’t go to the doctor.” Another bomb.
Robot closes his eyes and takes his glasses off.
“It was too far and way too much money, that’s what my parents said.” Dennis looked over at them with apprehension in his eyes. “They just… held a cloth to my head till the bleedin’ stopped and waited for me to wake up.”
“What?” Dennis looked around to see people staring at him pitifully. “Seriously? What?”
“We’re going to talk about this later, Mouse,” Robby says seriously, eyes darting over to the patient just rolled in by serious EMTs, rattling off what they knew of the situation.
“Seriously, Huckleberry, that shit is messed up.” Trinity frowns and looks serious, even if she uses his nickname.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Dennis huffed, somewhat frustrated with all the attention he was getting after telling a normal childhood story. "Whatever, I need to get this stuff done." Dennis turned back to the computer, trying to ignore the stares on his back.
