Archive of Our Own

Dennis’ stomach was doing circus tricks as his hands shook trying to unlock his apartment door. Well… Trinity’s apartment door? Their apartment door… He’d think about it later. 

There was still heat radiating off of his body, his cheeks felt like they were melting, and he swore he still smelled like pine, cigarettes, and the woods despite how raw he had rubbed his skin or how long he had shook out his jacket. It’s not like Trinity would care; she wasn’t his babysitter. She was his friend, though, and if he kept going out and staying out late without telling her, something would come up eventually. 

That eventually turned into now as he used his phone screen on the brightest setting to guide his way through the moonlit apartment… only to find Trinity sitting in a chair between their kitchen and living room like a stern mother. 

“Jesus Almighty!" He screeched, flipping his phone out of his hands as she flicked on a lamp to brighten up the place and to showcase even more of the furrowed brow, frowned lip expression she was sporting. 

“Where were you, Whitaker?” 

“Why does it matter to you?” Thankfully his phone wasn’t cracked: it wasn’t like he could really afford to get a new one—and despite how sweet Trinity was for letting him use her spare room, she was not going to buy him a new phone. 

“Because if I get questioned by the police why my roommate was found with a bunch of stab wounds out on hooker corner, I don’t wanna be the primary suspect.” 

Dennis stared at her like she had just purposefully killed a patient and was asking him for a blood oath. “Are you… You need to stop watching so many crime shows.” He walked around the kitchen island to avoid squeezing between her and the couch. All he wanted was to take an extremely cold shower and have beautiful dreams that replayed the night's earlier events over and over again. 

Trinity was not letting up. “But it could happen! I don’t know what you’re doing every night you scurry off, you little bug.” 

His face grew hotter at the nickname. “Well it’s not like you need to know my every move, Trin.” 

The sound of disgust she hacked up behind him let him know she was following him to his room.  “Do not call me that.”

He turned around and began to walk backwards. “Then don’t call me bug.” He shrugged. 

She rolled her eyes with a large and heavy sigh. “Huckleberry, do not make me vulnerable with you right now. I have a reputation to uphold.” 

He stopped in front of his doorway, still facing Trinity as she squeezed her face like she was in pain. There were moments where they confided in one another about things that were really affecting them—Like Whitaker’s homesickness, and Santos’ guilt for getting Langdon on rehab leave. And every blue moon, Trinity would confide in him about her romance troubles (specifically with one Yolanda Garcia).

Her twisted expression and restless legs waved red flags in Dennis’ head that she was being serious. Him leaving for hours at a time after their shifts and his constant disappearance on the weekends was hurting her. 

The tension in his body let up. “What is it?” 

Her stiff tap-dancing stopped, but her head hung to avoid eye contact as she let out another sigh—this one an actual exhale of stress—one that riddled her. “Just… tell me if you’re leaving, and tell me that you’re safe.” She looked up at him with gentle eyes. “You don’t have to tell me what.” She raised her hands, letting him know that she did not want to cross that bridge of closeness yet. “Just… I don’t know… God forbid I care about my roommate.” 

“Or friend?” 

“Pushing it, Huckleberry.” 

A beat of silence left them both with growing smiles on their faces. Small and subtle, but the air in their house no longer felt suffocating and taut. 

“I’m safe." She sighed out of relief. 

There was another beat of silence. 

“I was on a date,” he finally admitted. 

Trinity’s eyes widened and it became very clear very quickly that she was about to cross several lines. 

Just as her mouth opened up, he quickly scrambled behind his door and slammed it with a large bang. His chest felt tight again and his breathing short. He leaned against the wall for support as his body grew red with embarrassment and shame. He knew 100% that he would be bothered by her for weeks on end about this until he finally gave up—and frankly he wasn’t ready for the mental toll. 

The only thing that calmed him down at that moment was that tomorrow was Monday: the start to their second week of doing night shifts. He could ignore Trinity’s endless questions via critically ill patients and his desire to keep the same scrubs on from 7pm to 7am.

Other than what usually came with their morning conversations when the pair woke up for work, Trinity didn’t say anything. She kept her lips sealed on the information he’d dropped last night, and it honestly freaked him out. 

It wasn’t like he wanted her to poke and prod at his personal life, but it was weird that she wasn’t even in the slightest. One thing he did notice was that she kept looking at him. Not in the way where you keep eye contact when you're talking with someone or you look at them when you’re talking to them, no. She was darting her eyes back and forth and up and down him when she thought he wasn’t looking. They were on his face, on his arms, legs, really all over him and it made him incredibly uncomfortable. 

What the hell was she looking for? 

Evidence?

His face grew hot and his hands gravitated to his neck for the entire car ride to the ER. He knew there weren’t any signs of ‘romance’ anywhere on him, but the thought of it made his stomach coil in a million tiny knots, and it forced his vocal cords to cave in on themselves anytime he wanted to talk. His embarrassment was through the roof. 

Eventually the tension melted and they joked around, laughed,  and shimmied their way through the parking lot and then through the waiting room, they gave small smiles to triage, the nurses, and the desk lady, and they did all their normal shit. Normally this would’ve made Whitaker feel more at peace except this time around he couldn’t help but feel like Santos was silently working her way through the secret case that was “Her Roommate's Love Life.”

They shoved their things in their lockers and only got separated when Robby’s eyes caught Whitaker at the center of the ER. The chief physician held up a finger at him, and Dennis felt his limbs freeze on impact. 

Trinity noticed the lack of movement and snapped around to look at him. 

He felt magnetized to the head on direction, but reality was a good thing to pay attention to. “Can… Just give me a second?” He asked, voice wavering ever so slightly. “I’ll be over there for round up, just… Yeah.” 

Her brows furrowed and her lip snarled, but she let it go with a shrug. “If you’re late, I’ll embarrass you.” 

“I know you will.” 

Trinity kept her usual casual stride, feigning lack of care or inquisitiveness until she was far enough away to look behind her at Whitaker. She noticed, excitedly, that he was smiling slightly at someone in her direction. The fear of him catching her staring made her click her head back in place. 

Dr. Robby almost crashed into her as he walked past. 

“Woah!” he simply said, gently using his arms to guide her to the side. “Attention, Santos, focus.” 

She laughed awkwardly. “Yeah I know! Sorry.” She gave a sheepish smile, and he gave one back in return, resuming his head-on path. 

She grimaced, embarrassed with herself as she rushed to the center, ready to hear Dr. Abbot’s ‘let’s go team’ speech and get everything all over with. 

“Hey girlies.” She smiled as Mel, Victoria, and Samira all raised their heads from their closely knit huddle. Samira had somehow convinced the hospital to let her work night shifts for these two weeks, and they don’t know how she did it without telling them upfront she had just wanted to be with her friends. 

They all greeted each other with quick catch ups of their weekends, updates on hang outs, grievances from shows they had watched, and predictions for what was going to happen during their sure to be beautiful night shift. 

“Hey…” Trinity spoke up again after a while of the group twiddling their thumbs waiting for Abbot, who seemed to be over across the ER with Robby and Whitaker. “Who do you think is the most observant out of us?” 

The girls looked at Trinity with questioning glints in their eyes and curiosity written all over their faces. 

“Observant?” Samira asked. 

“Yeah, like…” Trinity pulled herself away from spying on Whitaker to look at her friends. “Who do you think notices the most stuff? A lot of gossip, you could say.” 

“Princess and Perlah.” 

Trinity gave Victoria a look. “Out of us.” She motioned her finger in a circle, making her meaning (the 4 of them) clear. 

“Well, what’s going on?” Mel asked, straightening out her back. “Do you think someone is in trouble?” 

“No,” Trinity reassured. “No, not in trouble, I just… I wanna know what’s going on with Huckleberry.” 

They all turned to look at him and his companions. At this point, Whitaker was making his way back to their little hub, with a new bounce in his step. 

“He seems happy,” Samira commented. 

“He’s dating someone.” 

“So he’s happy from dating,” Mel replied. 

“Yeah, but…who?” 

Victoria stifled a laugh, and Trinity turned back around. “You want us to start a super secret mission on who Whitaker is dating? Like spies?” 

Ellis gasped and the ladies all nearly jumped out of their skin. The 4th year resident didn’t seem to flinch at this. “Do you think he’s dating someone at work?” 

All of the girls looked at each other, a beat of tension-filled silence passing as their blood pumped with the exhilarating possibility that Dennis Whitaker was enacting a HR violation.  

They all scrambled for another huddle. 

Trinity wrote it everyone’s bets down in her phone so they’d remembered once this open case came to a close. 

$5 for Robby from Victoria—they all saw how he was grabbing Whitaker in those first two weeks.

$5 for Langdon from Ellis—“Maybe all those weekends away were him visiting the rehab center.” (Trinity gave her a nasty look… But so did Mel. She’d have to inquire about that later.)

$10 for Garcia from Mel—Trinity gave her a nasty look, too.

$15 for Mckay from Samira, and now Victoria was giving her a dirty look? There was a lot of debriefing that needed to be done during Wine + Whitaker Nights…

And Trinity… She bounced on the balls of her feet as the girls threw out random names of nurses, residents, and doctors for her to bet on. 

“Fuck it,” she spit, typing furiously on her phone. The other girls became interested and wide-eyed owls as they tried to figure out whose name Trinity was typing. 

She laid her phone down on the counter and there was a collective gasp. 

“Abbot!?” 

“What about Abbot?” Dennis appeared behind them. 

“What about me?” Abbot asked, now at the middle of their hub with the night-shift charge nurse. 

The girls scrambled and Trinity snatched her phone and held it tightly behind her back before either of the men could see. 

“Nothing…” Trinity squeaked, breath short and face hot with embarrassment, yet there was adrenaline pumping through her veins. Maybe if Langdon had spent his time betting on who was dating who he wouldn’t have had to steal all those pills. Eh, what can you do?

Abbot gave them a strange but stern glance before starting his big ‘hoorah’ speech. Whitaker was, interestingly enough, avoiding eye contact with Trinity, and everyone else, for that matter. His eyes were shooting every which way, and he fidgeted with his hands nervously. Whatever happiness-high he had been on, it was certainly gone now. 

Throughout the course of the night, all of the girls were up Whitaker’s ass.

Victoria and him were working on a patient—luckily nothing serious, which allowed for a little bit of small talk. 

“How was your weekend?” 

“Hm?” He hummed before registering her question. “Oh! It was good, yeah, I, um… I went to this pretty nice restaurant.” 

“Oh… What was the name?” 

She immediately texted the name to their group chat when she got the chance (which now included Ellis so that she could contribute to the investigation) along with the question: “anyone live near here?” 

Cop (Trin): Now why would we know where people live? 

Ellis: That's honestly a 20 minute drive from me, but I never know who lives where. 

Mel King: That’s a nice place. Expensive. Who has expensive taste? 

Me: Garcia is in Surgery so she makes bank. 

Cop (Trin): Abbot is a physician, he could make bank. 

Slo-Mo: His bank is smaller than Garcia’s though 

Me: Robby would be in the same range as
Abbot so we’re probably looking at Garcia? 

Mel: Poor McKay

Me: Now that’s just messed up

Later in the day Walsh was downstairs helping Samira’s group with a very messed up patient. Blood, gashes: the whole shabang from a goddamned drunk-driver. It made Samira upset every time she saw cases like this, especially when all the drivers got concussions. 

Yet, Samira couldn’t help her head going from patient to right outside their trauma room back to back to look at Whitaker texting someone with the hint of a smile on his face. 

“Mohan,” Walsh snapped and forced her back into reality. “You have an attention problem.” 

“Sorry, Doctor.” 

Once the storm had settled and they were dealing with simple needle and thread, Walsh moved in a little closer than needed to observe Samira’s suturing skills. 

“What were we looking at?” she asked quietly. 

Samira looked at her, confused. “The patient? I mean, I’m almost done with the—” 

“No.” Walsh huffed a laugh. “With Nebraska out there.” 

She had fucked up. She stuttered her way through an excuse before Walsh interrupted her again. 

“What? Resident only business that the big bad surgeon can’t know about?”

If Samira wasn’t trying really hard to save a man’s life she would’ve crumbled to the floor. “No, uhh…” She closed off the knot, a wave of relief washing over her. “We’re trying to figure out who he’s dating.” 

“And that’s got your attention sucked away from our patient?” 

Samira tilted her head from side to side, wondering if she could give up any further information. “From here, that is.” 

This caught the surgeon’s attention. She stood there degloving and moving her mouth side to side in thought. “McKay from Day.” 

Samira’s jaw almost dropped—no way she was joining in on this. “Seriously?” 

Walsh shrugged. “Kid’s a little wet blanket: needs a mother to cradle and comfort.” 

“And spank,” one of the nurses mumbled, which got a hefty laugh out of the surgeon, loud enough to send a ripple through Samira’s lower abdomen. 

Me: Walsh is saying Mckay.

Santos: You’re joking, is she betting? 

Me: No, got too scared to ask lol 

Vicky: Wimp

King: Did you get anything though? 

Me: He was on his phone smiling? Looked like he was texting 

Santos: Wow so insightful Slo

Me: Kys

Ellis: Why don’t we just assume he’s texting someone from here?

Me: Well he could be texting Abbot cuz… he’s awake obvi

King: Couldn’t be Langdon, he’s passed out right now.

Santos: And why do you know that Mellie

Ellis: Mckay’s probably passed tf out too

Me: Anyone know robby’s sleep schedule lol?

Vicky: Pretty sure he doesn’t sleep

The minutes and hours went by, and they had yet to find an answer to their hard-hitting investigation. They were all getting antsy about it, somehow finding Whitaker’s love life to be the most intriguing thing since chest tubes. Ellis had suggested they just corner him and force him to let it up, and the rest of them had half a mind to agree.

At some point towards the last hour they were all having a rare moment of quiet at the central hub. Whitaker was also there. Mel and Ellis took that as their opportunity to try a more direct approach. 

“Hey, farm boy.”

“Jesus.” He sighed, but crossed the short distance to the girls. “Is my name no longer Dennis or Whitaker? When did I lose that privilege?” 

“When you indulged us on your amazing farmboy life over in farm Nebraska,” Mel explained, smiling to herself. 

“With your farm family,” Ellis added. 

“And…farm animals.” 

He glared at them. “What do you want?” 

The two looked at each other before looking back at him with determination. 

“Garcia.” 

“Langdon.” 

“What are you guys doing?” His voice was pitchy as the girls stared dead into his eyes. 

“Walsh.” 

“Mateo.” 

“Mckay.” 

“What is even the point of this—what is happening right now?” He almost seemed to curl up into himself, taking a step back, but the girls just leaned in further. They listed off the names of their colleagues rapid fire, trying to see what reaction each would get out of the MS4. 

The other girls were off to the side, watching quietly as Whitaker and the two residents continued despite his confusion and his questions. 

Victoria gasped and pointed her finger. “He looked at me when you said Dana!” 

The girls were flabbergasted and Ellis turned around the corner to get further into Whitaker’s personal space. 

“Is it Dana?” 

“Please for the love of god do net it let be Dana,” Victoria whined. “I don’t wanna lose, the fuck?” 

“That woman has a husband and kids,” Samira refuted. “It literally can’t be.” 

“Never stopped Mel,” Trinity whispered. 

Samira couldn’t help but snort. 

Mel turned her head ever so slightly, like she was trying to hear better in their direction. 

“Hey!” There was a loud yell from the other end of the ER. The girls snapped their heads in that direction as their general section went quiet.

It was Abbot, a stern look on his face. “You girls harassing Whitaker?” 

Out of their peripheral vision, the girls could see Ellis take a step back from the kid. 

“No,” they said at the same time, most definitely not looking guilty of anything. 

There was a quiet hum from him, yet loud enough that they could hear his skepticism. “Better not. I don’t want the night-shift to continuously have the reputation of making people go crazy.” His volume lowered as he strided towards them. “And also, I will make this last hour a living hell if we don’t all get along.” 

“We always get along, sir.” There was a small smile on Trinity’s lips as she spoke to him, looking over to Whitaker from the corner of her eye, who was not buying it. 

He hummed again. “Better be,” he grumbled. 

There was a heavy hand planted on Whitaker’s shoulder, and he very quickly rubbed it before he walked away. 

The girls stared at Whitaker for what felt like forever, and he started to sweat under their heavy gaze, intense as theater lights. Finally they broke their statue forms to group up again. 

“Abbot was really protective,” Trinity whispered. “Protective over his boyfriend.” There was a teasing tone in her voice, and she was so going to win this. 

Samira tilted her head side to side like a scale. “I don’t know… I think he’s just mean.” She laughed out the last word. “I mean, he actually pushed Shen when he called me Slo-Mo the other day.” 

“Okay, then he’s also dating you, what do you want from me?” Santos hissed. 

“Well, Robby also makes a big thing out of group morale,” Mel added. “He would chastise Langdon and Garcia every time they bickered.” 

“That was because they didn’t pay attention to their patients when they did that,” Victoria refuted.

“I don’t know, other than his start of shift speeches he’s not really a… kumbaya guy,” Ellis said. “I mean… he does sometimes yell at me and Shen when we’re fucking around, I guess.” 

Trinity groaned. “Do you guys want me to lose my $20?” 

“Now!” Samira scolded. “Why the hell would you bet $20!?” 

“I panicked! That’s what I wrote down!” 

The girls began laughing and Victoria patted Trinity on the back as they dispersed. “You’re losing that $20.” 

In the end, they had yet to figure it out. But they had to focus on their actual jobs, which were incredibly boring. They flitted around, checking on and watching over their patients, handing them off to the day-shift, and they felt a large weight lift off of their shoulders. 

They went to the lockers, got their things, and stood around the hub. Their words were quiet and slurred—the end of the night was finally getting to them. 

“Samira!”

The girls looked up in time to see Dr. Walsh jogging their way, with what looked like a waving dollar in her hand. Samira especially perked up and took a step forward to try and meet the doctor in the middle. 

She was a little out of breath, but she was smiling. “$20 on Robby.” 

“What!?” The girls exclaimed, getting some looks from patients in hallways and gossiping nurses. 

Victoria stepped forward. “Do you know something?” 

“Why did you say McKay earlier?” Mel questioned, stepping forward as well. 

Walsh shot a peculiar look at Samira, obviously not knowing she had been snitched on. “I called Garcia.” 

“Holy shit,” Trinity breathed out. “We’re gonna get caught.” 

Walsh gave her an amused look. “She told me about Whitaker’s time in day, and how there was a lot of… touchy-touchy, grabby-feely.” 

“Her words?” Ellis asked. 

“Essentially.” She lightly touched Samira’s arm. “Thanks for telling me by the way. Fun bet.” She winked before turning away and running back to wherever she’d come from. 

They stared as she left before Victoria tickled her friend's back gently. “She’s in love with you, dude.” 

“Do not get my hopes up like that.” Samira turned around, handing the $20 over to Trinity as a red blush spread across her face. 

Trinity pocketed the $20 and quickly wrote it down in her notes app. She whistled softly. “Bets still on until we figure this out,” she said. “So hopefully we figure it out soon. I gotta grab Whitaker, night guys, or…bye.” She laughed with the girls, waving and kissing their goodbyes. 

She strode through the ER, stopping at the male lockers and knocking on the wall. “Whit-t-t-aker! Your uber is here.” 

“You’re funny!” He called back, appearing a second later with tousled hair, a red face, and his bag. 

They began walking together through the ER. It was silent, and the weight of today’s actions were starting to fall on her shoulders. Maybe they shouldn’t have been…so exuberant about figuring out the details of Whitaker's love life that he hadn’t even particularly wanted to share with her in the first place. 

The guilt pulsed through her and she sighed softly before nudging him. “Sorry about today.” She looked over at him, but was too embarrassed to really keep eye contact. “You just told me you were dating someone, and I mean, that’s really cool! And then Ellis suggested that maybe you were dating someone here, and maybe that’s why you were being so secretive—” 

“What?” he asked quietly, brows turned up in a way that suggested she had just stabbed him. 

“I mean! I don’t care if you are! And if you want us to stop we absolutely can! I just, y’know…thought it was funny…” 

There was a beat of silence and then a huffy, quiet laugh came from the man on her side. She wasn’t really sure if he was laughing to make her feel better or if he actually thought the idea was funny. 

“Uhh, no, it’s okay,” he assured her. “I don’t… I don’t care, I swear, and if it makes you feel better I am, uh…” He scratched his neck nervously, and there was a slight pink tint on his cheeks. “I am dating someone from the hospital.” 

Trinity’s eyes widened. “Oh! Okay, that’s good to know.” She laughed. If she didn’t have any decorum she would’ve stopped and started fist pumping out of victory. 

“I am…” His voice got really shaky—they were outside of her car now. The wind was cold and she felt goosebumps litter her skin. “I actually have something to tell you…” 

Abbot opened his locker with a couple beeps—beeps that set off a trigger in his brain and caused his muscles to start relaxing. He felt pliant and incredibly tired. His leg was suddenly killing him, and if he didn’t get it off right that instant, he felt like he might punch a hole in his locker. 

Heavy footsteps and a little chorus of beeps right next to him got his fiery nerves to settle down. He slung his backpack over his shoulders and he shut his locker as gently as he could. The metal clanging and echoing in the locker room pounded against his head. 

He smiled at the figure next to him, but it was blocked by the open locker right in front of his face. 

“Hey, Handsome,” he cooed, leaning close to pinch the upper thigh of his locker neighbor. 

Robby chuckled slowly, closing his locker and leaning his side against it to look over at his husband. His cheeks were a light pink. “Hey back at you.” He closed the space between them with a chaste kiss to the side of Abbot’s mouth. 

“Wanna walk me out?” Jack asked, breathing against his lips.

“And procrastinate seeing Gloria even longer?” Robby smirked. “Anyone ever tell you you're an angel?” 

“I’ve very much been told the opposite.” 

Robby snickered, pushing Abbot ever so gently as the two began walking. 

“How was it?” 

Jack wiggled his head back and forth. “Same old, same old.” The last ‘old’ was met with a yawn that quickly contaminated Robby. 

“Don’t get me started already, I just got here, dammit!” He joked, pushing Abbot again. 

The night shift physician laughed, taking his arm and rubbing the small of his husband’s back ever so gently. He could feel the soft pressure of muscle against his wedding band. 

“How was our lovebug?” 

A smile found its way onto Abbot’s lips; he was absolutely infatuated with how quickly Robby had fallen for the med student—it was a beautiful thing to watch really, all the red cheeks and stuttering and lots of neck grabbing. Robby would probably say the same thing about him, but Abbot never liked to admit his weaknesses.

“He was good, yeah. A little, uh…” A small laugh crept its way up his throat. “A little paranoid, always looking over his shoulder.” 

Robby looked concerned immediately, eyebrows furrowed and a frown deeply set on his lips. “What’s wrong? Patient or something?” 

“No, uh… I think our little girl group.” He twitched his head over to Mel, Samira, Victoria, and Ellis who were all still talking as they walked at an excruciatingly slow pace to the exit. “Had a little bet on him today.” 

“A bet?” 

“They were harassing him all day, and I overheard Walsh calling Garcia for help on who she should bet.” 

Robby raised a brow. 

“Who is dating Huckleberry?” 

Robby stared at his partner for a beat before breaking out into laughter, and Abbot quickly joined him. The pair's joy echoed off of the walls of the hospital; they could barely control themselves when it came to this ridiculous bet. 

Robby wiped a tear from his eyes. “God have mercy—what should we do?” 

Abbot shrugged. “We can shut it down, but I’m sure rumors would still spread like wildfire.” 

“We could make it worse.” 

“Scandalous Michael Robinavitch, we don’t want to scare him off! It’s only been a couple dates.” 

“Don’t want him to see how mean you are yet?” 

This time it was Jack’s turn to push, but he did it with such a fury of revenge that Robby stumbled a bit with a laugh. 

“Do you think he told anyone?” 

“Well, baby, if they’re betting on it, probably not.” 

Abbot shrugged. “I don’t know… I know he’s close with Santos—” 

“They live together, yeah.” 

“—So I just assumed maybe he told her… you don’t think he’s embarrassed of us?” 

“Don’t say that.” Robby put his hand on the nape of Abbot’s neck. “He’s not, he’s just a shy kid, he pops a blood vessel whenever we call him cute.” 

Abbot snorted. The events of today started to replay in his head… especially one in particular right before the shift started. “I think she bet on it being me.” 

“What?” Robby asked, a smile on his lips but brows raised in confusion. 

“Santos bet me to be Whitaker’s little mystery boyfriend.” 

Robby laughed, deep and hard from his chest. “What did Walsh bet?” 

“You.” 

“Looks like they’re splitting.” 

The cold morning air bit both of them in the face. Robby’s hand squeezed harder on the nape of Jack’s neck as a result, and it made the vet shiver—or maybe that was just the temperature drop. 

“I just hope the kid doesn’t get morti…fied…?” Abbot’s attention was drawn elsewhere. 

Robby looked at his abruptly silent husband and slowly followed his line of vision to something that made both their heads tilt in confusion. 

Trinity was punching Whitaker like he was a human sandbag, all while screaming like a little girl. His attempts at dodging, holding her fists back, and pleads for her to stop fell on deaf ears. 

“You’re fucking joking me!” She started jumping up and down, grabbing Whitaker by the shoulders and shaking him at the same time. “You are fucking lying to me!” Her aggressive words were not a match with her beaming face. 

“I’m not! I promise I’m not, Trin!” He was trying to match her excited aggressiveness, but in all honesty he was just scared of her at this moment. 

She squealed again, shaking her hands with excitement. “You’re with both!?” 

“Holy shit, Trin!” He had half a mind to cover her mouth with his hand, but he opted to sternly grab her shoulders instead. “Keep it down please, god damn?” 

“Holy shit, Huckleberry,” she simply said. “And I thought of you as a virgin loser.” 

His face turned red with embarrassment, but a frown quickly popped up on his face. 

Trinity looked at him—stared at him—before gasping. “You’re still a virgin!?" 

He stuttered. “Not—I mean—I’ve been given and have given blowjobs—I don’t need to tell you!” 

“Ohhhh,” she drew out and was now back to holding his shoulders. It looked like they were about to wrestle. “Baby, they’re gonna pop your cherry so hard you get pregnant.” 

“What!?” 

“Woaahh.” Robby’s voice made both of them freeze in fear. “Who’s getting pregnant?” 

Their bodies moved so slow and so in sync that the married pair thought they were watching a lagging movie. Both of their eyes were wide with fear, probably for very different reasons. 

Santos’ quickly went back to normal and was replaced with a fiery look of mischief burning in her pupils. She used her tight grip on Dennis’ shoulders to throw him at the pair and run to the driver's seat of her car, grabbing her bag on the way. 

The trio stumbled as Whitaker was caught in the older men’s arms. 

“Jesus,” Abbot cursed, holding a hand immediately to Whitaker’s forehead. “You are burning.” 

He looked up at them with an insane amount of fear and embarrassment before quickly turning and trying to open the passenger car door. 

“Nuh uh!” The resident yelled through the window and door that separated the roommates. “You can get your boyfriend to drive you home! Bye sugarbaby!” She cackled as she began to pull out of her parking spot, and Robby pulled him back before his foot could be rolled over by any tires. 

There was a slight tremble to Whitaker’s body as he slowly turned around to face his partners. “Um…” It was obvious his embarrassment was impairing his ability to speak. It was cute. “Could you, um…” His big sad eyes looked at Abbot pleadingly. 

He chuckled. “C’mon, kid.” Robby had already picked up the forgotten backpack and given it to Abbot. The vet wrapped his free arm around Whitaker’s shoulders. “What did I hear about popping cherries?” 

“Be nice, Abbot!” Robby called out as he began walking back to the ER. 

“Oh, I’m trying!”