give Dennis a connective tissue disorder. he dislocates his shoulder doing a patient transfer during a trauma and everyone is horrified. and he just. pops it right back in before anyone else can do or say anything.
he’s just used to it because it happens to him all the time and farm work can’t stop just because his joints dislocate a lot. verbalizing this to his very upset coworkers/friends/boyfriends does not help how upset they all are.
i have a thing where i give dennis POTS, i'm about to give him hEDS. should i go for the trifecta and give him MCAS? also im low key deciding to not reread the things i post on here as much and just write because im suffering.
"ah, shit," dennis's pulled back from the transfer and held his right shoulder.
robby, still looking at the patient, asked, "you good, whitaker?"
dennis nodded while massaging his arm. "yeah, think it just sort of fell out of place there."
"what?" a couple people around the room asked urgently.
robby cut through the chaos. "whitaker, go find dana. everyone else, focus. perlah, push midazolam. ABC people."
dennis backed away, but didn't leave the room. as they examined the patient and determined his injuries to be non-life threatening, dennis massaged his shoulder until an audible snap cut through the noise. "ok, sorry. i'm good."
"did you just...fix your own dislocated shoulder?" donnie asked incredulously.
dennis looked around, not expecting to see most of the room focused on him. "uh...it was a subluxation. not quite a full dislocation."
"and you know that how?" donnie questioned with a tilt of his head, completely ignoring robby’s direction to focus.
dennis waved his hand dismissively. he pointedly began to poke at a scrape on the patients lower leg with his non-dominant hand. "it happens sometimes. it's fine." no one responded. "this has some gravel in it. want me to pick it out while he's sedated?"
"no." robby pursed his lips. "well, yes. someone should do that. you go sit. i will look at your shoulder in a second.
"just..." robby adjusted his volume. he lowered his voice. "just listen to me." it was sort of pleading, vulnerable in a way no one had heard from their attending. dennis folded. he walked out with his tingling fingers and slumped into a patient bay.
dennis didn’t know why robby was talking about this right in front of the totally not sound proof curtain.
“no, i know. i think you should just pick him up.” robby paused, presumably listening. “jack, i heard our boyfriend set his own shoulder in a trauma, of course i’m overreacting!” he said hysterically before pausing one more time. robby sighed, “ok, thank you. i’ll see you when you get here.”
robby moved into the room, pulled over a stool, and began palpating dennis’s hand and arm. he looked surprised when dennis said, “you don’t have to send me home.” dennis winced when robby got to the part on his shoulder that still felt too-loose and achey.
“i thought you were doing your exercises, den,” robby chastised. “the strengthening, the isometrics,” robby pushed dennis’s chin back so his head sat on top of his neck instead of pulling forward, “the posture corrections.”
dennis angrily replied, “i am! i’m doing the exercises, as much as i can as a fucking intern, but they don’t do anything. it’s not fair!”
robby rubbed his hands softly up and down the outside of dennis’s arms, shushing him. “i know, i know. i’m sorry. you’re right.”
“i hurt all the time! and i’m tired. and i always have bruises from combative patients,” dennis tearfully complained. “it’s not fair.”
“i know…” robby just held him. dennis was tired, and he had the unfortunate luck of being someone who actually needed eight hours of sleep to be functional, and robby felt guilty because he knew for a fact why dennis was tired today.
they stayed like that for a couple minutes before jack discreetly slipped through the curtain. “i felt a disturbance in the force.”
“you’re such a fucking nerd,” dennis mumbled into robby’s scrub top.
jack huffed. “and you’re so full of shit. who tries to keep working after their shoulder pops out of place?”
dennis pulled away to look at jack incredulously. “who tries to work with an open, weeping wound on their residual limb?”
jack had the decency to flash a conceding shrug. “and then my wonderful partners put me on bed rest for a week and a half.”
“that was a fun week.” robby smirked.
dennis looked between them. their worried expressions, their messy hair, their weirdly wide stances that make dennis wanna get between their legs. dennis wanted to stay at work, but he wasn’t going to win that battle. he could at least negotiate some better terms.
“i will go home on one condition…”
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