who: cyrus and dinah | @pinkauras
when + where: august 3rd, dinah's home
on days like this, she's the first thing on his mind when he leaves the hospital. they had been on the same team, both running around the er like crazy people -- but he hadn't been able to actually check in with dinah after everything went to shit. cyrus can't help but kick himself for not expecting this to happen; there's always an outlier in situations like this, a patient who seems stable, but once the dust settles from the chaos, the blind spot appears and something goes wrong. it's something he'd learned from cole -- the constant need to always double, triple, quadruple check. there's always something, always someone who reminds them that this job is never simple. tonight, that had been elias ward.
for all intents and purposes, the patient should have made it through the night with ease -- dr. walker was a good surgeon, dinah never missed a step. yet once they finally had control over the mci, elias coded and bled out. cyrus had been there when the man died, scrubs covered in blood and voice hoarse from all the yelling he'd done over the last eight hours. he should have lived, and by 10:42 PM they were calling his time of death. the people they lost -- elias and hana -- make cyrus' chest ache more than he cares to admit, the voice in the back of his head reminding him that they failed. that he failed. he was running the er -- he shouldn't have let anything slip through the cracks. cyrus swallows down the feeling, though he's unable to shake the thought or the way his shoulders feel heavier.
never has he been more grateful that his coworkers know better than to ask stupid questions about stupid feelings to him; where most were comforting one another after they left the operating room or changed out of their scrubs, he was left to his own devices. it's easier -- he didn't want to sit around and cry with the residents or other attendings. he wanted to get the fuck out of there, and drink until he passed out on the couch. he wanted to check on dinah.
they weren't exactly on right now -- aside from a couple of hook ups, mostly promoted by his jealousy. but she's the first and only person he wants to see after a day like this; she'd been there with him, standing on the other side of elias' bed as his heart rate flatlined. he'd lost track of her soon after the time of death was called. both were needed elsewhere, and by the time he'd been able to stop by the nurses station, she was gone. rather than do the rational thing -- call her, text her, something of the like. instead, he finds himself picking up food from the chinese place around the corner from her house (one that confusingly open until two in the morning), before standing on her doorstep with a plastic bag of take out in hand.
he almost chickens out -- standing on her porch for a few minutes, before he starts to feel like a fucking creep and forces himself to actually knock on the door. cyrus isn't sure what he's going to say, or if dinah would even want to see him at all; at least the chinese food would get him through the door. jiggling his leg as he waits for her to answer, he silently prays one of her younger siblings doesn't answer the door. thankfully, when the door opens it's the one person he wants to see standing in front of him -- clearly feeling the weight of this day, just as he did. "hey," he starts, scratching at the back of his neck, suddenly feeling too exposed. "figured you haven't had anything to eat yet." cyrus explains, holding the bag up, hoping she won't point out that it's after midnight.
