The Gay Agenda -> read on ao3
Dennis Whitaker puts all his cards on the table and tells his best friend that he’s gay. Trinity makes sure he gets comfortable saying it out loud. (Or: Trinity accidentally conditions Dennis into blurting “I’m gay” whenever the right song plays.)
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Growing up in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, Dennis Whitaker learned early how to hide an important part of himself.
It wasn’t something he arrived at slowly, not something he got to question or explore. It was told to him plainly, settled into him before he was old enough to push back against it. Being the way he was was a sin. The church ruled Broken Bow, and his ma and pa raised him to honor the word of the Lord, to follow the path that had already been laid out for him. There wasn’t space in that path for deviation, for uncertainty, for something that didn’t fit neatly into what was expected.
His brothers never had that problem.
They moved through everything like it was already decided. A few years ahead, always just out of reach, but close enough that Dennis could watch and understand what he was supposed to become. They talked about girls like it was the most natural thing in the world. They brought them home, introduced them at the dinner table, folded them into the family without hesitation. It was easy. It made sense.
It never felt like that for Dennis.
His mama always smiled at him across the table, soft and certain, and told him that he would find the right girl one day. Dennis would smile back, shrug like it didn’t matter, like he wasn’t already aware of the gap between what she expected and what he could give. He learned quickly how to make it look right. Where to look, how long to hold it, how to nod at the right moments when his brothers talked.
His eyes never stayed.
They drifted, quiet and automatic, catching on things they weren’t supposed to catch on. The farm hand in the early mornings, moving through the work like his body belonged exactly where it was, shirt abandoned somewhere in the heat without a second thought. Dennis would notice before he could stop himself, the shape of it, the movement, the way something in his chest tightened sharp and sudden.
And then he would look away.
That part came just as fast.
No. Don’t look. Don’t–
He fixed his gaze somewhere else. The fence. The ground. His own hands. It became instinct, that sharp correction, that immediate redirect like he could undo it if he moved quickly enough. It was easier that way. Easier than letting it linger, easier than naming it, easier than sitting with the weight of something he already knew didn’t belong.
“You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
The words had been said enough times that they stopped sounding like something external. They settled into him, threaded through everything else until they felt like part of his own thinking.
That instinct didn’t disappear just because the setting changed.
It followed him all the way to Pittsburgh, into the hospital, into the narrow in-between spaces where he had slept because there hadn’t been anywhere else to go for a while. An abandoned floor didn’t ask questions. A hospital bed didn’t care who you were as long as you were quiet about it. Dennis made it work the same way he always did, careful and unobtrusive, always on time, always useful enough that no one looked too closely.
He had gone from the scared farm boy who thought the only way forward was theology, something structured and safe and approved, to someone who had stepped sideways out of that path and into medicine instead. It hadn’t been clean. It hadn’t been easy. But he had done it anyway.
Now he was an MS4, on his last rotations, and somehow he had ended up in the emergency department.
He hadn’t expected to fit there.
His first shift had been the worst shift he could have had. It started with him getting covered in more bodily fluids than he had ever encountered in his life, none of which he had been properly prepared for, and it only got worse from there. A mass casualty shooting had come in halfway through the shift, the department turning into something loud and fast and overwhelming in a way that left no room to think, only to move.
Dennis had moved.
He had followed instructions, adjusted on instinct, stepped in where he was needed without waiting to be told twice. There hadn’t been time to hesitate, no space for second-guessing, just one thing after the other until the hours blurred together and his hands stopped feeling like they belonged to him.
Somewhere in the middle of it, he had started tracking one voice over all the others. Not consciously at first, not in a way he could have pointed to if someone had asked him about it, but his attention kept snapping in the same direction, orienting around something steady in the middle of all that chaos.
Robby.
Dr. Robinavitch moved through the department like he belonged in it in a way Dennis couldn’t quite put into words, like everything around him rearranged itself without him needing to force it. His instructions cut clean through the noise, precise and immediate, and Dennis found himself responding to them faster than anything else, his body already moving before his brain had fully caught up.
He didn’t question it.
Didn’t hesitate.
He just followed.
It should have felt strange, how easily it happened, how quickly he adjusted to that pull, but there hadn’t been time to examine it, not with everything else demanding his attention. He stepped where Robby directed him, reached when he was told, shifted position mid-motion without thinking twice about it, like the commands bypassed whatever part of him usually paused to check, to make sure he was doing things right.
And then there were the moments in between.
Brief. Almost nothing.
A hand at his shoulder to redirect him, firm and steady, guiding him a fraction to the side so he wouldn’t collide with someone rushing past. The pressure lasted barely a second, but Dennis felt it linger longer than it should have, something grounding and disorienting all at once, enough to make his chest tighten before he forced himself to focus again.
His attention kept drifting back anyway.
Not in a way that got in the way of his work, not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough that he was aware of it, aware of how often his gaze found Robby again in the middle of everything else. The way he moved. The way he spoke. The way people listened.
His eyes lingered longer than they should have.
Just a second too long, just enough to take in the details he had no reason to focus on in the middle of everything else. The way Robby’s sleeves were pushed up, the sharp lines of movement, the way his hands worked without hesitation, steady and certain even when everything else wasn’t.
Dennis caught himself doing it and looked away immediately, the correction sharp and familiar, something he had practiced long before this, long before Pittsburgh, long before any of this had felt possible.
Don’t.
He didn’t have time for that. There wasn’t space for it here, not in the middle of a shift that demanded everything he had, not when there were people bleeding out in front of him and decisions being made faster than he could fully process.
It didn’t stop the awareness from settling in anyway.
Didn’t stop the way something in him seemed to orient around that presence, like gravity had shifted slightly and he hadn’t quite caught up to it yet.
By the time the shift started to slow, by the time the chaos settled into something more manageable, Dennis didn’t have a name for it, not one he was willing to say even in his own head.
But he knew it wasn’t nothing.
And he knew, with a quiet certainty that sat somewhere uncomfortable under his ribs, that it wasn’t going away.
When his first shift ended, he had been so exhausted he had barely made it out of the department, vision blurring at the edges, body running on something that wasn’t quite adrenaline anymore.
He had almost dropped where he stood.
And he had loved it.
Not the chaos itself, not the blood or the noise or the way everything had felt like it was constantly on the edge of slipping out of control, but the way he had fit into it. The way his brain had quieted down instead of spiraling, the way his body had just known what to do, the way he hadn’t had to think about anything beyond the next step, the next task, the next person who needed something from him.
For the first time in a long time, Dennis hadn’t felt like he was trying to catch up to something.
He had just… been there.
And after that shift, Dennis had only wanted one thing.
To disappear for a few hours, to slip out of the department without anyone stopping him, and make his way back to the abandoned floor he had started calling home. The word didn’t quite fit, but it was close enough for something that didn’t ask questions and didn’t expect anything from him.
He moved through the hospital on autopilot, exhaustion sitting heavy in his bones, in the slow drag of his steps, in the way his thoughts refused to settle into anything coherent. The noise of the ER faded the further he got from it, turning into something distant and manageable, until the fourth floor swallowed it completely.
Usually, he paid attention.
He kept track of who was where, of whether anyone was looking, of how to move through the building without being noticed.
That night, he didn’t.
By the time he reached the room, the last of his focus had already burned out. He let the door fall shut behind him and stood there for a second, breathing, letting the quiet settle around him. The air felt colder up here, still and untouched, the kind of silence that didn’t belong to a place that was supposed to be alive at all hours.
Dennis dropped his bag near the wall without looking at it, fingers already tugging at his scrub top like he needed it off immediately. The fabric caught for a moment before he pulled it free, tossing it aside with more force than necessary. The cool air hit his skin, grounding in a way that made him exhale slowly, his shoulders finally starting to loosen.
He should have gone straight to bed.
Instead, he stayed where he was.
There was too much left in him, too much leftover energy from the shift that hadn’t burned off properly. It lingered under his skin, restless and unfocused, with nowhere to go now that everything had stopped. The ER had demanded constant movement, constant attention, and his body hadn’t quite caught up to the fact that it was over.
So he moved.
It wasn’t something he thought about, just an instinct to shake the tension out of his limbs, to let the restlessness bleed out in whatever way it could. His bare feet slid against the floor, steps uneven at first before settling into something looser, less controlled. His shoulders dropped, his breathing evened out, and for a few minutes, his mind went quiet in a way it rarely did.
He didn’t notice the door open.
Didn’t register the shift in the room, the presence that hadn’t been there a second ago, until a voice cut cleanly through everything else.
“Nice moves, Raygun.”
The voice cut straight through the moment, clean and unmistakable.
Dennis froze mid-step, one foot still sliding against the floor, his brain taking a second too long to catch up with what he had just heard. His heart kicked hard against his ribs, sharp and sudden, and he turned too quickly, nearly losing his balance as he pivoted toward the door.
Trinity Santos stood there, one shoulder braced against the frame, arms loosely crossed, like she had been there long enough to get comfortable. One brow was raised, her mouth tilted just enough to make it clear she was enjoying this.
“Holy shit,” Dennis breathed, one hand coming up instinctively, fingers pressing flat against his chest like he could steady the sudden spike in his pulse. He took a step back on reflex, bumping lightly into the edge of the bed. “What the hell are you doing up here?”
Santos’s gaze moved over him again, slower this time, deliberate, lingering just long enough to make him aware of every inch of exposed skin, every second he had been caught off guard.
“What the hell are you doing up here?”
Dennis blinked at her, then at the room behind him, like the answer might be written somewhere obvious if he just looked hard enough. It wasn’t. His fingers twitched uselessly at his sides before he forced them into motion.
“Just– one second,” he said, already stepping back, his other hand reaching blindly for his shirt where he had thrown it. “Okay. Okay. Uh–”
His fingers caught the fabric, tugging it up, and it snagged for a second at his shoulder before he forced it over his head, movements rushed and uncoordinated. The cotton stuck briefly against his skin before settling, and he dragged it down properly, smoothing it out, pressing the hem flat like that would somehow make this situation less real.
“I will, on occasion,” he started, the words coming out a little too fast, like if he said them quickly enough they would sound more reasonable, “after a long shift… crash here?”
“This was your first day here.”
Dennis winced, shoulders hitching slightly. “Well, it’s my first day– uh, it’s my first day of emergency rotation,” he said, already adjusting, already trying to patch the hole in the explanation. “I did… internal medicine… last month…” His gaze flicked past her briefly, like he was already looking for an exit that didn’t exist.
She pushed off the doorframe, stepping into the room fully, and something in Dennis’s shoulders tightened without him meaning it to. Her gaze moved once, slow and thorough, taking in the bed, the bag, the corners where things had been pushed just out of sight.
“Do you actually have a place to live?”
The question landed heavier than the others.
Dennis shifted his weight, heel catching slightly against the floor. His hand found the hem of his scrub top again, thumb pressing into the fabric before he forced himself to let go. “Uh,” he said, buying time he didn’t really have, “I’m currently between places.”
Santos tilted her head, unimpressed in a way that made it clear she wasn’t buying any of it. “Do you own a car?”
“Uh, not at the moment, no, I–” He faltered, one hand lifting, hovering in the air before dropping again. “I’m actually–”
“Between cars.”
Dennis let out a quiet breath through his nose, something halfway between a huff and a defeated laugh. His shoulders lifted in a small shrug that didn’t quite reach his face. “Yeah. Something like that.”
There was a pause.
Dennis felt it settle into his chest, into the space behind his ribs where everything uncomfortable liked to sit. He resisted the urge to fill it, to talk his way out of it, to make it sound better than it was. His fingers curled slightly against his palms. He kept his gaze somewhere just past her shoulder, like if he didn’t meet her eyes directly, this might pass faster.
Santos didn’t seem interested in letting him.
“Okay,” she said, like she had already made up her mind about something he hadn’t been included in yet. “So I have a spare room with its own bathroom.”
Dennis blinked.
The words took a second to settle, his eyes snapping back to her face, searching for the angle, the catch, the part he was missing.
“Sweet,” he said anyway, because it was the first thing that came to mind.
Santos stared at him.
“Oh, for God’s sakes,” she said, dragging a hand down her face, but the corner of her mouth twitched like she was fighting a smile. “Do you want the room or not?”
Dennis’s mouth opened, then closed again. His weight shifted again, back and forth, like he couldn’t quite settle. “I– uh–”
Pull back. Don’t take it. Don’t assume it’s yours. Don’t make it something you’ll have to lose later.
His shoulders pulled back, spine straightening like he was bracing for something. “Okay, that is extremely generous,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “but no, I can’t afford to pay you rent right now.”
Santos didn’t look impressed. “How are you at cleaning and fixing things?”
Dennis frowned slightly, thrown by the turn. “I– grew up on a farm,” he said, the answer coming easier. His hands moved as he spoke, small, uncertain gestures. “I guess I’m pretty handy. Cleaning, I know how to muck out a stall.” He pressed his lips together immediately after, like maybe that wasn’t the best thing to lead with.
Santos huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking her head once.
“Just keep to yourself, don’t annoy me, and you can move in.”
Dennis stared at her.
His fingers flexed once at his sides, then curled inward. “Wow,” he said, the word slipping out before he could filter it. His hand came up to the back of his neck, rubbing at it, grounding himself in the movement. “Wow. I– I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
Santos shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Well, you can move in tonight if you want.”
Dennis blinked again. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said, already stepping toward his bag, bending to grab it before he could react. “But quick, before I change my mind.”
Dennis’s hand shot out, catching the strap before she could fully lift it. His fingers wrapped around it, holding on a second longer than necessary before pulling it back toward himself.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said quickly, stepping forward, clutching the bag closer to his side. “No, I mean, this is– this is all I really have, so…” His voice dipped at the end, quieter.
Santos straightened, her gaze flicking over him again, lingering this time.
“Oh, God, you’re not some, like, nudist or religious freak, are you?”
Dennis blinked, hands lifting slightly in defense. “No. No, I like to remain fully dressed at all times, except bathing. I’m just–” He stopped, lips pressing together, realizing that wasn’t helping.
“I know Krav Maga.”
Dennis nodded automatically, one hand adjusting the strap of his bag again even though it didn’t need it. “Cool. I don’t know who that is, but he sounds very protective of you.”
Santos stared at him.
Dennis shifted under the look, shoulders pulling in just a fraction, his grip tightening slightly on the bag strap.
“The chances of this working are diminishing by the second.”
Dennis’s mouth opened slightly, like he was about to apologize.
Then she snorted. “I’m just fucking with you, Whitaker. You’re such a Huckleberry.”
The tension in his shoulders loosened, just a little. He let out a quiet breath, something almost sheepish flickering across his face. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Uh– hold on.”
He bent to grab the rest of his things, movements more deliberate now, like he needed something to focus on. He checked the room once, then again, even though there wasn’t much to check.
The bag felt light in his hands.
Too light.
He adjusted the strap on his shoulder, hesitating for just a second before stepping after her.
Santos had already turned, but she slowed just enough at the doorway, glancing back to make sure he was following.
He was.
And that was how he ended up where he was now, in a room that had stopped feeling temporary at some point without him noticing exactly when that shift had happened.
His things had spread out slowly, carefully at first and then with a little less hesitation each week, until there was nothing left of the version of him that had kept everything packed and ready to leave. A charger that stayed plugged in because he didn’t have to pack it away anymore. Clothes were folded into the dresser instead of stacked in his bag, a toothbrush sat next to hers in the bathroom like it had always belonged there, and his shoes stayed by the door because he knew he would need them again in the morning.
The walls had changed too, and that had been Trinity’s doing.
She had come home one night after a late shift, dropped her bag somewhere near the couch, and then, without explanation, started taping movie posters to his walls like she had decided the room needed fixing. Dennis had watched her from the doorway, arms crossed, too tired to stop her and too confused to fully protest, his gaze following the quick, decisive way she moved as she smoothed down the corners and stepped back to judge her work.
“What are you doing,” he had asked eventually, because it felt like something he was supposed to say.
“Improving your life,” she had shot back, not even looking at him. “You need movie education. This is step one.”
“Inspiration for what?”
She had shrugged, stepping back again, head tilting slightly as she considered the wall like it mattered. “Existin, I guess.”
Dennis had stared at the posters, then at her, then back at the posters again, like there was a version of this that would start making sense if he gave it enough time. It never really did, but he hadn’t taken them down either, and now they stayed where she had put them, bright and slightly crooked and impossible to ignore, filling the empty space in a way that made the room feel more lived-in than it had any right to.
He wasn’t sure when Santos had turned into Trinity.
At work, the name stayed the same, automatic and distant, something that belonged to the structure of the hospital and the roles they played in it, but outside of that, in the apartment, in the quiet hours between shifts and late nights and takeout containers piling up on the counter, the name had shifted without discussion. Trinity fit differently, softer around the edges, less like something that needed distance.
She moved through the apartment like she belonged there and expected him to belong there too, knocking on his door without waiting for an answer, stealing his food without asking, complaining about his habits like they affected her personally, and calling him “Huckleberry” more often than his actual name. “Whitaker” only came out when she was annoyed, sharp and precise, while “Huckleberry” filled everything else, drawn out and amused, something that stuck no matter how many times he had tried to correct her in the beginning.
He had rolled his eyes at it, argued about it, ignored it, and none of it had made a difference. At some point he had stopped correcting her, and now he answered to it without thinking, the reaction automatic in a way that should have bothered him more than it did.
She teased him constantly, like it was a default setting, like she didn’t know how to interact any other way, and it had taken him longer than he liked to admit to figure out where the line was, to realize that she never crossed it, that the edge of it always landed exactly where it needed to be.
Sometimes, he caught himself thinking that this was what it was supposed to look like, that this was how siblings acted, and the thought always came with a slight pause, something in his chest tightening before he could settle it properly, because he didn’t have anything to compare it to anymore. Whatever that had been back home had shifted too far, warped into something that didn’t fit into the same shape, something careful and distant where it used to be easy.
Trinity didn’t ask for explanations, didn’t ask where he had been before, or why certain things made him hesitate, or why he sometimes hovered in doorways like he was waiting to be told he could come in. She noticed, he knew she did, because nothing slipped past her for long, but she didn’t press.
She just… made space.
Once, she caught him staring at her nail polish, his gaze lingering just a second too long before he could look away, and instead of making fun of him, she rolled her eyes and grabbed his wrist, dragging him toward the couch before he could even think of an excuse. He stumbled after her, half-protesting already, but she ignored it completely, announcing it was “girl night” like that settled the matter.
Dennis tried to argue, mostly out of reflex, but he still ended up sitting where she pushed him, hands hovering awkwardly in his lap while she threw on some stupid romance movie and proceeded to roast it the entire time, talking over half the dialogue like it personally offended her. He didn’t even realize when she took his hand until she was already painting his nails, quick and focused, switching colors without asking, turning each finger into something different until the pattern settled into a messy, bright rainbow.
He should have pulled his hand back.
“Abstain from all appearance of evil.” The verse came uninvited, as familiar as the brush against his skin, but he didn’t move.
He had stared at his hands afterward longer than he meant to, turning them slightly in the light, unsure what to do with the feeling that came with it, something unfamiliar and oddly steady at the same time.
It felt like giving in.
It felt like something he should repent for later.
Trinity had noticed, of course, just snorted and told him to stop overthinking it before going back to insulting the movie.
Somehow, that had become his normal.
And the worst part was that he didn’t want to give it up.
Which meant he couldn’t keep doing what he had always done.
The thought had been sitting somewhere in the back of his mind for days, maybe longer, pressing forward at odd moments when the apartment was quiet, when Trinity was talking without thinking about how much space she took up, when he caught himself relaxing in a way that still felt unfamiliar. It lingered when she knocked on his door without waiting, when she said his name like it belonged to him, when she existed so openly in a way he had spent years learning not to.
He had built this on something unspoken.
And he knew how that ended.
Dennis lingered in the doorway of the living room longer than necessary, watching her where she sat on the couch, one leg tucked under her, phone in hand as she scrolled with the same casual focus she gave everything else. She looked comfortable. Like she wasn’t waiting for anything to change.
His fingers curled slightly against his palm. He shifted his weight, then shifted it again, the words catching somewhere behind his teeth, familiar and unwelcome at the same time. He had rehearsed them, in pieces, never out loud, never fully, always stopping before he got to the part that mattered.
He probably should have been honest from the start.
Instead, he had spent weeks making himself smaller in all the ways that felt safe, staying on her good side, keeping things easy, juggling his shifts and exams and everything else that gave him a reason not to say anything at all.
Now there wasn’t anything left to hide behind.
“I’m gay,” he said.
The words came out too quickly, too flat, like he had pushed them out before he could lose his nerve. He swallowed, his throat dry, forcing himself to stay where he was instead of stepping back, instead of taking it back, instead of pretending it hadn’t just happened.
“Just… wanted you to know that.”
All cards on the table.
Trinity didn’t even look up at first.
“Okay,” she said, like he had told her something entirely unremarkable, her thumb still moving across her screen.
Dennis blinked.
She glanced up then, catching his expression, and grinned, easy and unbothered, like nothing about this had changed anything at all. Then she shifted slightly on the couch, tapping her screen once more before angling it toward him.
“Anyway,” she added, already moving on, “your horoscope says you’re making impulsive decisions today, which, honestly, checks out.”
Dennis stood there for a second longer than necessary, something in his chest loosening in a way that felt almost disorienting, like he had been bracing for impact and nothing had come.
“…okay,” he said.
And Trinity, being Trinity, was so accepting of it that she immediately turned it into a bit.
Dennis probably should have expected that. She had a habit of taking anything he gave her and twisting it just enough to make it hers, something she could poke at, something she could turn into a running joke that never quite went away. He had just hoped – briefly, and very stupidly – that this might be the one thing she left alone. He should have known better. This was how she worked, how she took the things that mattered and sanded the sharp edges off them by refusing to treat them like something fragile.
It wasn’t.
He woke up to music blasting through the walls, loud enough that it dragged him out of sleep before he was ready, the beat carrying through the apartment in a way that made it impossible to ignore. Dennis groaned, dragging a hand over his face as he pushed himself upright, the disorientation of it lingering for a second before the sound properly registered.
Voices. Singing.
He sat there for a moment, listening, trying to place it, before giving up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold under his feet as he shuffled toward the door, still half-asleep, his brain lagging behind the situation in a way that made everything feel slightly unreal.
The kitchen was worse.
Trinity stood by the stove, already fully awake, moving around like she had been up for hours, music playing from her phone on the counter. Something was sizzling in the pan, a questionable combination of leftovers that somehow smelled… fine. Edible, at least. She had a spatula in one hand, using it with full commitment like a microphone as she moved along to the music.
Dennis stopped in the doorway, blinking at her.
“What the hell are you doing,” he yawned, voice rough as he stepped into the kitchen, dragging a hand through his hair.
Trinity turned toward him immediately, like she had been waiting for exactly that moment, her grin sharp and far too pleased for this early in the morning. She pointed the spatula at him, timing it perfectly with the chorus as she sang, loud and unapologetic–
“They want you, they want you, they want you as a new recruit–”
Dennis frowned, still trying to catch up. “Huh?”
He stood there for a second, watching her, the scene not quite settling into anything that made sense, even though some part of him already knew exactly what she was doing with it, how she was going to keep circling back to it until it stopped feeling like something heavy sitting in his chest.
“What are you doing?”
Trinity didn’t miss a beat. She took a step closer, still holding the spatula out like it mattered, like this was a fully committed performance.
“I’m trying to recruit you,” she said.
Dennis blinked at her.
“To the gay agenda.”
He stared.
“Trinity–”
She held up a hand immediately, cutting him off, her expression shifting into something mock-serious as she leaned in just slightly.
“Shh,” she said. “I’m trying to recruit you.”
Dennis just stood there, caught somewhere between confused and already regretting every decision that had led to this, while Trinity turned back toward the stove like nothing about this was unusual, still humming along to the music like she hadn’t just decided this was going to be his life now.
He knew what she was doing, even if she wrapped it up in something ridiculous. She never said it outright, never made it into a conversation he had to sit through, but she had a way of pushing him toward things anyway, making them loud and impossible to ignore until he stopped flinching at them. If she could get him to say it without thinking, if she could turn it into something casual, something that belonged in the middle of a kitchen at five in the morning, then maybe it would stop feeling like something that could get him thrown out.
So it didn’t stay a one-time thing.
Of course it didn’t.
Dennis should have known that the second she said it, the way her grin had sharpened just slightly, like she had already filed the moment away for later use. He had seen that look before, usually right before she did something that would make his life significantly more difficult for her own entertainment, and still, part of him had hoped that this might be one of the rare things she let go.
It wasn’t.
The song showed up again a few days later, cutting through the apartment without warning, loud enough that it reached him even through the half-closed door of his room. Dennis paused mid-motion, his hand still tangled in the hem of his shirt, the first few notes settling into something familiar in a way that made his stomach drop a fraction.
He went very still.
No.
He listened for a second longer than he should have, like there might be a chance he was wrong, like it might be something else if he gave it another beat, but the rhythm picked up and the chorus built exactly the way he remembered. He could already picture it without seeing it, Trinity in the kitchen, already moving, already committing to it fully.
He squeezed his eyes shut briefly, exhaling through his nose.
Maybe if he didn’t react.
Maybe if he stayed here.
“They want you–”
“We have work in an hour, Santos,” he called through the door, louder than necessary, the words coming out quickly, like he could get ahead of it if he moved fast enough.
There was a beat of silence.
Then, “Denial is the first stage,” Trinity shot back immediately, her voice bright and entirely too pleased.
Dennis dropped his head forward for a second, his forehead brushing against the door before he straightened again, dragging a hand over his face. He pushed himself upright and stepped out into the hallway anyway, because ignoring her had never actually worked before.
She was in the kitchen, exactly where he had pictured her, one hand holding the spatula again, the other already pointing at him the second he appeared. Her grin widened like she had been waiting for him to show up.
“There he is,” she said, turning toward him like he had just stepped into a spotlight. “Right on cue.”
Dennis stopped in the doorway, staring at her, still half caught between sleep and the slow realization that this was going to keep happening.
“You need to stop doing this,” he said, voice rough, more tired than annoyed.
“Stop what?” she asked, like she didn’t know, already turning back toward the stove, still moving in time with the music.
“This,” he gestured vaguely, like that explained anything. “All of… this.”
“This is important work,” she said, completely serious in a way that made it worse. “Community outreach.”
“I’m already gay…”
“Can’t hear you,” Trinity shot back immediately, not even missing a beat as she pointed at him again.
Dennis let out a slow breath, stepping into the kitchen anyway, because of course he did.
It kept happening.
Not every day, not enough that he could predict it with any real certainty, but often enough that the sound of that song started settling somewhere in the back of his head, familiar in a way that made his shoulders tense before he even consciously registered it. He didn’t need her to explain it to know what she was aiming for. She wanted it to stop catching in his throat, wanted the words to come easier, to lose that edge that still lingered under them, and if the way she got there was by driving him up the wall first, then that was just how she did things.
Once, it caught him in the middle of fixing the toaster, tools spread out across the counter, his focus narrowed down to something manageable and precise. The music cut through it without warning, sharp and sudden, and before he could fully process it, before he could decide how to react–
“Oh, come on,” he said, the words slipping out under his breath, sharper than he intended, his grip tightening slightly on the screwdriver before he forced himself to relax it. “I’m gay, Trinity, stop it!”
The sentence hung there for a second, louder than the quiet concentration he had been wrapped in before, and he went still right after, staring down at the exposed wiring like he could just step back into what he had been doing. His fingers shifted against the handle of the screwdriver, adjusting his grip even though there was nothing to fix yet.
Behind him, Trinity laughed, loud and unrestrained, the sound filling the kitchen in a way that made it impossible to pretend it hadn’t happened.
“You’re getting into it!”
“I’m not getting into it,” Dennis shot back, straightening too quickly, setting the tool down with a quiet clink. “I’m trying to fix your toaster.”
“And I’m trying to recruit you.”
He dragged a hand over his face again, slower this time, grounding himself in the motion, trying to hold onto whatever focus he had left.
It should have annoyed him more than it did.
It had, at first. The predictability of it, the way she kept pushing the same button over and over again just to see how he would react, the way she seemed to enjoy it a little too much.
Now it just… fit.
The song would start, and something in him would respond before he could think about it, a reflex that came out of his mouth in different shapes depending on what he was doing, where he was standing, how tired he was.
At first, it stayed quieter, more controlled, like he could still pretend he had a handle on it.
“Oh my God, no,” he muttered, dragging a hand over his face as he tried to focus on literally anything else. “Trinity, I swear– you’re unbelievable. Can you not do this right now?”
She never stopped, not even a little, and if anything the resistance seemed to encourage her, her grin widening every time he reacted like she was collecting those reactions, turning them over, figuring out which ones worked best. She leaned into it harder with every attempt he made to shut it down, pointing at him like she was making a case that required his participation.
“Join us,” she would say, voice dropping into something dramatic, one hand pressed to her chest like she was performing for an audience that didn’t exist.
“I’m already–” Dennis would start, and then stop himself, because that was exactly what she wanted.
“Shh,” she would cut in easily, waving him off like that settled it. “I’m recruiting.”
The next few times, the reactions came out sharper, slipping past whatever control he was trying to hold onto.
“Okay, I get it,” he snapped once, already turning away from her. “You can stop now.”
She didn’t.
The chorus looped again, she pointed again, and something in him gave way just enough for the words to come out easier than they should have.
“Okay, fine. I’m gay. You can stop.”
That one made her light up immediately, her grin breaking wide as she pointed at him like he had just confirmed something she had been waiting for.
“See?” she said, already laughing. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Dennis let his hands drop to his sides and stared at her for a second, the words still sitting in the air between them, lighter than they had any right to be, before he shook his head.
“You’re insufferable.”
It should have ended there, but once she had that reaction, once she had figured out exactly where to push, she kept going, circling back to it whenever she could, never letting it settle into something quiet.
And the next time, it came out louder, pulled out of him with even less effort.
“Okay, I’m gay, Trinity, congratulations, you did it.”
She laughed harder at that, actually clapping once like he had performed for her, like he had delivered exactly what she wanted.
“Growth,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “We love to see it.”
Dennis turned away, grabbing onto whatever he could justify focusing on just so he didn’t have to look at her, but there was already something shifting in the way the words landed, in the way they didn’t stick the way they used to.
“This is harassment,” he muttered.
“Community outreach,” she corrected easily.
It kept building from there, not in sharp jumps but in small, almost unnoticeable shifts, each repetition coming a little faster, a little louder, a little less caught on whatever hesitation had been there before. The song would start, and his response followed without much delay, shaped by the moment, by how quickly she got to him, by how tired he was.
“Trinity, I swear to God, if you don’t–”
“Stop playing that song.”
“Please, for the love of–”
And then, inevitably, when she didn’t stop, when she just kept pointing at him like this was a completely reasonable thing to be doing in the middle of the kitchen or while he was halfway through fixing something that required his full attention, the words would come out all at once, louder than he meant them to be.
“Oh my God, okay, I’m gay, happy now?”
That one was her favorite.
Her entire face lit up every single time, her grin wide and unapologetic as she pointed at him like he had just proven her point beyond any doubt.
“See?” she said, delighted. “You said it without prompting.”
“I was prompted,” Dennis shot back immediately, heat creeping up the back of his neck as he dragged a hand over his face. “Extensively.”
“Doesn’t count.”
He shook his head and turned away again, but there was no real weight behind it anymore, no sharp edge that lingered after the words left his mouth. They didn’t sit heavy in the room or twist something tight in his chest. They just existed there, said and heard and then folded into everything else, another part of the rhythm they had built without ever talking about it.
It bled into everything else, too, in ways he tried not to look at too closely.
Into the hospital, into long shifts that left him running on caffeine and muscle memory, into the way his attention snapped toward a voice before he could stop it, toward a presence that had settled somewhere under his ribs without permission.
Dr. Robinavitch.
Dennis didn’t say the name like that out loud, didn’t even think it fully most of the time, but it was there anyway, attached to the way his shoulders straightened the second Robby stepped into the room, to the way he found himself watching without meaning to. Robby moved through the ER like everything belonged to him, like the chaos bent around him instead of the other way around, and Dennis followed that movement more often than he wanted to admit.
It was worse when he got close.
A hand on his shoulder, firm and steady, stopping him mid-step before he could walk straight into someone, turning him just enough to redirect him without breaking stride. Dennis went with it every time, his body adjusting before his brain caught up, feet shifting, direction changing like the touch alone was enough to guide him.
“This way,” Robby would say, already looking past him, already focused on something else.
Dennis would nod anyway, even if Robby didn’t see it, even if the moment had already moved on, something tightening in his chest that had nothing to do with the near miss.
And the praise stayed longer than it should have.
“Good catch, Whitaker.”
“Nice work.”
Simple, offhand, said in passing like it didn’t mean anything.
Dennis carried it with him for the rest of the shift anyway, the words settling somewhere warm and steady, something that made him stand a little straighter, move a little faster, pay a little more attention.
It made him want more, and that was the problem.
That had always been the problem.
The wanting came easy. Too easy. It slipped in under everything else, quiet and persistent, threading itself through moments he should have been able to ignore, moments he knew better than to hold onto.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God.”
The words still surfaced sometimes, uninvited and automatic, brushing up against thoughts he didn’t let himself finish. He didn’t say them out loud anymore, didn’t kneel beside a bed and try to pray it away, but the shape of them stayed, the weight of them settling in the same places the wanting did.
And it twisted into something sharper when it overlapped with this, with Trinity’s laughter in the kitchen, with the ease of saying it out loud here, with the way it didn’t feel dangerous in the same way.
Because here, it was a joke.
At work, it wasn’t.
At work, it looked like the way he folded the second Robby touched him, the way he let himself be guided without thinking, the way he held onto praise longer than he should have, the way his attention kept drifting back when it shouldn’t.
Dennis swallowed, dragging a hand over his face again, grounding himself in the motion as the echo of Trinity’s voice and that stupid song lingered somewhere in the back of his head. The song would start, and he would answer, the response slipping out of him before he could catch it, automatic and easy in a way that still felt unfamiliar.
And somewhere under all of that, under Trinity’s laughter and the routine they had built, something else sat with it now, quieter and a lot harder to ignore.
Something he was starting to expect.
Something that was going to come back to bite him later.
They were almost at the end of their shift, and for once everything had gone according to plan in a way that felt almost suspicious, like the universe was letting them breathe before it pulled something else out from under them.
Dennis hadn’t had to change his scrubs once, which honestly should have been marked down somewhere as a new personal record, and he was fairly certain he had seen Olsen pocket money at least twice after glancing in his direction, which meant there had definitely been bets placed on how long it would take before he got drenched in something unidentifiable.
He had gotten to work with Robby on more cases than usual, actual hands-on work instead of hovering at the edges, and it settled into him in a way that made it hard not to feel a little too proud of himself. They hadn’t lost anyone. Not on his watch, not today, and the quiet satisfaction of that sat warm under his ribs, steady and dangerous in the way it nudged at his ego just enough to make him think maybe he was actually getting this right.
He wasn’t the useless MS4 trailing behind anymore, wasn’t the kid trying to keep up and hoping no one noticed when he hesitated. He had a new badge now, his title printed on it in a way that felt heavier than it should have, proof that he had earned his place here, that he had stayed.
That he belonged.
Trinity was leaning against the counter a few feet away, talking fast in Tagalog with Perlah and Princess, her hands moving as she spoke, the rhythm of it quick and familiar even if Dennis couldn’t follow the words. He had learned to recognize the tone though, the cadence of gossip, the way her voice shifted when she was saying something she absolutely should not be saying in the middle of a shift.
He didn’t need to understand it to know he was probably involved.
He glanced over just in time to catch her looking at him, her grin already forming before she even turned fully in his direction, and then she winked, quick and deliberate, like she had caught him doing something.
Dennis frowned slightly, his attention already slipping back to what he had been doing, trying to piece together what he had missed, what exactly she had just told them–
A hand landed on his shoulder.
Firm. Warm. Grounding.
It stopped him mid-step before he could walk straight into the nurses’ station, the momentum of it catching in his chest as Robby shifted him a fraction to the side, guiding him out of the way with an ease that made it feel like second nature.
“Careful,” Robby said, already looking past him, already focused on something else.
Dennis went with it without thinking, his body adjusting automatically under the pressure, feet shifting, direction changing like the touch alone was enough to redirect him. The movement was smooth, practiced, like this had happened before, like it would happen again.
It took him a second to catch up.
By then, Robby had already moved on.
Dennis stood there for half a beat too long, the ghost of the touch still sitting on his shoulder, something warm and steady that didn’t fade as quickly as it should have. His pulse had jumped somewhere along the way, quick and sharp before settling again, and he swallowed, forcing himself to move, to keep going, to not just stand there like an idiot in the middle of the floor.
Behind him, Trinity made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a stifled laugh.
Dennis didn’t turn around.
He didn’t need to.
He could feel her looking at him, could practically hear the way she was about to bring this up later, could already picture the expression on her face when she decided to be insufferable about it.
He dragged a hand over his face again, quick and grounding, like he could smooth the reaction away before it showed anywhere it shouldn’t. The ER didn’t leave much room to dwell anyway, and Dennis let himself get pulled back into the usual rhythm of it before he could think too hard about what had just happened.
Someone had a phone out, the sound bleeding into the ER at full volume because apparently headphones were optional, and Dennis only registered it at first as part of the usual background noise. Voices overlapped, a monitor beeped steadily somewhere down the hall, someone called out for labs, and he was halfway through reviewing a chart when the music shifted.
That song.
It cut through everything else instantly, sharp and unmistakable, the opening notes slotting into place before he could even consciously register why it mattered. For a fraction of a second, his brain placed it somewhere else entirely, somewhere domestic and familiar, tied to early mornings and Trinity’s voice and a spatula pointed at his face.
“They want you–”
“I’M GAY.”
It came out loud. Not just loud, but clear in a way that carried, cutting straight through the noise that had filled the room seconds before.
The silence that followed wasn’t gradual. It dropped all at once.
Conversation stalled mid-sentence. Someone across the room paused with a pen still hovering over paper. The only thing that kept going was the steady beeping of a monitor, suddenly too sharp in the absence of everything else.
Dennis didn’t move at first.
His brain caught up in pieces, each one landing harder than the last. The ER. The people. The fact that Trinity was not the one playing the song.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh no.
Heat rushed up his neck so quickly it made his vision blur at the edges for a second, his hand coming up automatically to drag over his face like he could physically push the moment back, like that might undo it if he acted fast enough. It didn’t help. Nothing about this was fixable.
“Oh my God,” he muttered, the words slipping out before he could stop them, quieter this time but no less desperate.
Behind him, Trinity broke.
It started as a strangled sound and then tipped over into full laughter, loud and completely unrestrained, the kind that made it impossible to pretend any of this hadn’t just happened. Dennis didn’t need to turn around to know what she looked like, could practically picture her doubled over, one hand braced against the counter, the other clutching at her stomach as she tried and failed to get herself under control.
“Dennis–” she tried, and then had to stop again, laughter cutting straight through whatever she had been about to say. “Are you– are you okay?”
That made it worse. Somehow, impossibly, it made it worse.
Dennis let out a sound that didn’t quite qualify as a word and then dropped into a crouch like his body had made the decision for him, folding in on itself in a way that felt like the only available option. His elbows braced against his knees, his hands coming up to press against his face, shoulders curling inward as if that might make him less visible.
He could still feel it. Every single person in the room who had just turned to look at him. The weight of it sat heavy and immediate, pressing in from all sides.
This was it. This was how he died.
Not from a bad call or a mistake that actually mattered, but from this, from something stupid and automatic and completely avoidable if his brain had just cooperated for one second.
The laughter behind him didn’t stop. If anything, it picked up again, another wave hitting as Trinity tried and failed to pull herself together, and somewhere off to the side someone made a small, startled noise like they weren’t sure whether they were allowed to react.
Dennis stayed exactly where he was, very seriously considering never getting up again.
A pair of shoes came into view at the edge of his vision.
He froze, the recognition hitting before he even looked up.
Of course.
Of course it would be him.
Dennis didn’t lift his head right away. He didn’t think he could survive that. The awareness settled in anyway, sharp and immediate, the same one that always came with Robby’s presence, like everything else faded just enough to make space for it.
“Whitaker.”
Robby’s voice was even, steady, like nothing about this was unusual, like they were having a normal conversation in the middle of a normal shift.
Dennis forced himself to look up, just enough to acknowledge him, his face still burning, his brain still struggling to piece together a coherent response.
Robby was watching him, completely composed.
“Well,” he said, after a brief pause that felt entirely too deliberate, “thank you for that, Dennis.”
Dennis stared at him, his mind going completely blank for a second.
“Would you like to grab coffee later?”
For a moment, Dennis was convinced he had misheard him.
There was no way that was the response to this. There was no version of reality where that sentence made sense in the current context, where it belonged in the aftermath of… whatever this was.
Behind him, Trinity made a sound that bordered on hysterical.
Dennis opened his mouth, then closed it again, his thoughts stuttering, trying to catch up. Heat climbed even higher, sharp and immediate, spreading from his neck up into his face until it felt like his skin couldn’t possibly get any warmer, like everyone in the room had to be able to see it.
“I–” he started, and then stopped, because that wasn’t a sentence, that wasn’t anything.
He swallowed, his throat suddenly too dry, his brain still lagging behind everything that had just happened, behind the silence that had settled, behind the fact that Robby was still standing there like he had all the time in the world.
“Uh,” he managed finally, because apparently that was the best he could do.
His head moved before he could stop it, a small, jerky nod that felt completely disconnected from the rest of him, like his body had made the decision without waiting for permission.
Trinity’s laughter spiked again behind him, louder this time, like she had fully given up on pretending to hold it together.
Dennis squeezed his eyes shut for a second, his hand coming back up to his face.
He was never going to recover from this.
For just a second, something shifted in Robby’s expression. It wasn’t big, nothing anyone else in the room would have picked apart if they weren’t looking for it, but the corner of his mouth pulled into something warmer, something that tipped into a brief, almost boyish grin before it settled again.
“Good,” he said, easy, like that answered everything.
Then he clapped his hands once, sharp and decisive, the sound cutting clean through the lingering silence.
“Alright,” he called, already turning away, voice carrying with practiced ease. “Show’s over. Back to work.”
The room moved again. Conversations picked back up, a few people ducked their heads with poorly hidden smiles, someone muttered something under their breath that Dennis absolutely did not want to hear, and the steady noise of the ER rushed back in like nothing had happened at all.
Dennis stayed exactly where he was for half a second too long, still crouched, still burning, very seriously considering whether it would be possible to just stay there until the end of his shift and avoid eye contact with every single person in the department for the rest of his life.
Behind him, Trinity had not recovered.
If anything, she had gotten worse.
He didn’t have to look to know what she was doing, but he did anyway, because apparently he had not learned anything from the last five minutes.
She was leaning against the counter, still laughing, one hand braced against the surface while the other was extended expectantly toward Olsen, who looked deeply put upon as he dug into his pocket. A couple of crumpled bills changed hands, Trinity’s grin sharpening immediately as she took them, entirely unapologetic.
“Worth it,” she said, not even trying to keep her voice down.
Dennis closed his eyes again, his hand coming back up to cover his face.
He wished, briefly and with genuine conviction, that the floor would just open up and swallow him whole.
It didn’t.
Of course it didn’t.
He was going to have to live through this.
