Chapter Text
The Pitt has always been described as the most tense, chaotic place in Pittsburgh, and just about anyone that has stepped foot in the emergency room can confirm those claims.
Becoming someone who works in the ER isn't the exact ideal job line for anyone new to medicine, but with Pittsburgh Medical Hospital, it was where many student doctors went, including ones who never would've seen themselves standing one foot inside of the chaotic hospital. Even with these, ideas, it was where several started their lives as student doctors, and grew, because the place was a teaching hospital after all.
Dennis's first shift there had been one that was going to stay in everyone minds for many upcoming years, all because of a shooting incident that brought about full on hell in the Pitt. It was so many of their first times on the doctoring floor, yet hell awaited them nonetheless, and it left a deep mark in Dennis, one that he still hasn't shaken off several months later, even as he's became an official doctor. many of the doctors had connections to some of the victims, including their attending Dr. Robby. The day wouldn't go forgotten.
But mere hospital work wasn't what made the Pitt all so different.
It was their world.
Secondary genders didn't mix well in such a cramped space, making the Pitt even more dangerous than it already was. Patients would come in with scents spilling from them like they could hardly control it, making the whole place reek of pheromones, rendering it nearly impossible to work in. The doctors had to make sure they could have way more of an inch of control on their instincts to be ale to work in the Pitt, and sometimes the pheromones stinking the place up went undetected when things were crazy, but sometimes they were too much to bear. Especially for the omegas that came in unprepared.
Dennis didn't have to worry too much about that. Even though his secondary gender was one that rendered him a weakling as an omega, the "worst of the worst", he had came ready for this job, knowing what came with working in the place known as the Pitt.
The price to pay for being an omega was a hefty one. Dennis had to be careful every single step of the day, making sure he was up to date with taking suppressants… but the most important of all: make sure no one found out what he was.
Most omegas in this age lived in hiding, even if the days of forced marriages and breeding had come to and end millennia ago, many people still rendered them unable to do many things other than stay at home and do whatever their superior wanted.
A handful fought against these weak ideologies. Dennis found himself to shy away from them, yet he somewhat fought against them in his own mind. Publicly was an entirely different ordeal. It would lead to such scrutinizing behavior from others, even some omegas who thought that if they played into their historical role, then no one would pay them any mind.
They were the ones who got eyed the most.
Dennis would never allow himself to be seen as such a small creature.
That was why, to him, the Pitt was one of the most dangerous spots for him to be working. Though he wouldn't be quitting just because of some stuffy building.
Though sometimes, he wondered if he should change that thought.
Sitting on a awfully uncomfortable chair, nurses and doctors rushing by him, Dennis stared at the chart on the computer screen like it was a staring contest, his finger idly tapping against the recorder in his hand. It wasn't that today was a slow day, in fact, it was the complete opposite of slow, and this was his one moment he had to sit down and chart his several patients he's already taken on a few hours into the shift.
After several moments, someone ran behind him and the gust of air snapped him out of his daze, forcing him to sit up and rub his face, sighing into the palm of his hand. Normally he was rearing to go every day, but today was different. He was up to date with his meds, so he wasn't concerned in that department, but his mentality wasn't where it should've been.
Maybe he needed to pick up more patients.
Dennis lifted the recorder to his lips, "Vitals continue to stay stable, although mild tachycardia. No immediate concerns… Monitor."
The brunette sighed, moving the mouse over to another patient he hadn't had the chance to get to yet, but just as he clicked on it the familiar voice of his roommate sounded in his ear.
"Glad that isn't me for once." Trinity mocked, grinning as she folded her arms and stared up at the TV screen stating all of the patients in the ER as of current.
Dennis rolled his eyes, setting down the recorder and spinning around the chair to face his cocky roommate. "Seriously? I can genuinely count the amount of times I've had to remind you to do charting, and the amount of times you've stayed after your shift to do them on my hands and toes." Dennis smirked. This was completely normal behavior between the two od them. Honestly, Dennis was sure that she was grateful to have him be her roommate, but getting her to admit something like that without insulting him was like trying to lift Thor's hammer.
They knew everything about each other, mostly. You can't really live with someone and not tell each other things. That meant Trinity knew he was an omega.
She had no reasoning to hide. She was an alpha. The best of the best. But so was her "girlfriend-fling-thing" that Dennis was still trying to figure out. Every time they were together in Trinity's apartment, he either stayed in his room or ran errands so he didn't have to smell their reeking pheromones. They were both too arrogant to care, and it was also to keep his identity safe from Dr. Garcia. If Trinity felt bad for basically throwing him out every time, Dennis couldn't tell. She was good at keeping things hidden.
Trinity immediately looked displeased with his joke, scoffing and looking towards the smirking brunette. "That was extremely uncalled for."
Dennis laughed and stood from his chair, taking a spot beside her and following her gaze to the TV mounted on the wall. "It's as hectic as ever and I feel like I'm moving a mile per hour. I'm exhausted." Dennis lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his neck, fingers brushing against the curl of his mullet against his neck. Trinity had been the one to style his hair a few months back, keen on making him "look better." In all honesty, whatever she did to his flat hair worked.
Trinity nodded with a sigh, "I think everyone's like that today. Or, well, ever since Robinavitch up and disappeared then popped back in like nothing happened."
The mention of that made Dennis frown. No one talked about that situation a few weeks back. A shift during the summer holiday of July when Robby, their attending and one of the few alphas in the workplace, had blown up on just about everyone, sparing few.
Dennis had been one of the few spared.
Instead of broken by Robby's insults and reprimands, he had been spoken to like he was still Robby's underling learning under him, and even given the man's keys to his house to house sit. Dennis was honestly still baffled to this day with the events that conspired those several weeks after. Robby's self-destruction, his disappearance, and then his silent return one shift.
Everyone knew why he had done all of that, but no one but Dana said anything about it to him. And it wasn't a leave for a rut. It was something else entirely.
Dr Robinavitch was suicidal.
"Don't bring that up…" Dennis looked at her, brows furrowed.
Trinity shrugged, "It's just the truth!" she began to step away, backwards, her gaze still on Dennis. "Everyone's walking on thin ice with him and you know it."
Dennis sighed, no words forming in his mouth to reply to her. He waved her off and held his arms, down turned eyes swimming in this emotion of unknown pain as he stared off.
He didn't understand what Robby thought of him. His boss giving him his house to stay, to get away from his unlikely roommate Trinity, and treating him differently than anyone else in the ER. Trinity had pointed it out months ago, and it's never left Dennis's mind since.
The omega shook his head, finally snapping out of it as the ruckus of the ER invaded his senses once again. Pheromones, yelling, and machines beeping.
This was his peace, alright.
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5:00 pm slipped around, and Robby was ready to go home.
Although it was hard to call that house home anymore, when it reeked of an omega's pheromones even weeks later after he had Whitaker watch over it.
It left the attending dumbfounded, because all through the time, since Whitaker was just a mere student doctor, the boy had been labeled as a beta in every document allowing him to wear the badge clipped to his scrubs as a student doctor and so on. Robby had even double checked.
The mystery of his home smelling of warm tea and soft amber drove him insane, because he couldn't step one foot into his own room without his body lighting in flames and his senses going haywire.
Whitaker was a beta, so why was that scent plastered in his bed? He didn't take Whitaker to be one to bring a partner to a bed that doesn't belong to him, but it is a crime to lie about secondary genders on ones portfolio,especially within an emergency room, so none of Robby's theories made sense.
Though, maybe he was just wrong about Whitaker as a person, after all. He didn't want to be. He felt pulled towards the beta, as if he needed to make sure he thrived in this ER. Where this sense of eagerness to provide came from, Robby had no clue.
It was one hour until the day shift could get out of here, and Robby had just finished up a short debrief with Mel, who's patient had a tough time coming in through the heavily crowded lobby with blocked lungs, and was now making his way to where he saw Dana at her regular perch at the main control center, as he likes to call it.
That was when Robby realized someone was being hauled into the ER on a stretcher, Dana hardly able to turn and get his attention as he was already running towards the medics who had brought the fully conscious, groaning man in. "What's going on?" He immediately asked, walking side by side with the stretcher into the trauma room Dana yelled out for them.
"Fell from a ladder, fell in shrubs which helped the fall but didn't stop the rose thorns from worsening it." the medic cringed, continuing to list off what they had given the man who had seemingly been doing something for his roof when he fell into his garden right into a rosebush. He had landed on his arm, to make matters even worse.
They transferred onto the trauma room bed, and suddenly a familiar body rushed into the room, along with the student doctor Joy.
"Woah," Whitaker rushed over to Robby's side next to the bed. "Broken arm and minor stabbing. Isn't that a combo?"
"I'd say. It's a new sight for me." Joy replied, in her normal monotone voice.
Robby chuckled, though his eyes lingers way too long on Whitaker as the brunette worked with the nurses to get to work on getting this man stable and calmed down.
He was an attending. He didn't have to do anything but watch, if he so pleased. But normally, everyone knew Robby to be a hands on man, working to make sure every patient's treament weng the right away.
Currently, that didn't seem to be the case.
He cursed himself subconsciously as his eyes lingered on Whitaker's back, his bare neck, and that curl of his hair while the doctor worked, occasionally asking Joy simple questions to get her brain jogging in the room of an emergency.
Robby crossed his arms over his chest, and stepped closer, his body close behind Whitaker as he leaned and watched.
The arm was bent in a horrific way, but it was clean, and could be fixed with surgery, but the thorns imbedded into the male's skin was a problem that Joy could handle herself, wih Whitaker's guidance.
"It may seem a small task, but we don't know the extremeties of all these thorns, so make sure you pull with ease, or we may cause more discomfort than this arm is already in." the brunette spoke, and Joy hummed in her normal, carefree way. She knew what she was doing, she was a smart girl.
Robby was proud of the way Whitaker had taken his first day and made it into something that was worth the struggle. He'd grown in the exact way Robby had desired for him, and despite all of the struggles Robby was going through, he found himself wondering about the doctor's wellbeing.
His eyes lowered from the patient to Whitaker, half lidded and sly, as his gaze found that skin on his neck.
Robby was leaned over enough that as he inhaled, he could smell nothing coming from Whitaker. And nothing from Joy, either.
He stood up straight and shook his head head, "Everything's under control here." Robby announced, then forced himself out of the trauma room and down the hall with an awkward speed of someone who neeeded to run away from their own mind. It was something Robby did an awful lot of nowadays.
The mystery of his home's aroma remained as it was, all because Whitaker had grown into such a difficul man to read. Such self improvement was something Robby would normally applaud, but not when his own fucking sanity relied on it.
Robby rubbed his face, growning a curse into the palm of his hand before slipping into the break room. He pressed his back to the door.
And pulled a scrap of fabric out from his pocket.
Being an alpha came with it's downsides, just like being an omega did. Although omegas faced the oppression of older ages, alphas faced an always underlying thirst of need, of want, and with Robby working in an ER, pheromones mingling all over every turn, he found himself a hot mess after every shift. As did every other alpha.
But Robby was sensitive. Pheromones attacked his senses.
The war that these aromas waged on him made working difficult, and living in his home after Whitaker even worse.
Robby lifted the fabric to his face, inhaling the aroma that seeped faintly from it.
Warm tea and amber.
Whoever had left those imprints all around his place should be proud to know they had Michael Robinavitch wrapped around their finger.