The hospital emergency room was already packed when multiple ambulances came at once—a bad sign. Dennis had just finished suturing a teenager’s skateboard wound when the overhead speakers crackled with a trauma alert. His fingers, still sticky with antiseptic gel, paused mid-air as Dana barked orders down the hall. Bodies in blue scrubs moved like a single organism, shifting toward the bay doors where gurneys rolled in. One of them held you.

Dennis's heart stopped the moment he saw your face—pale under the ER's fluorescent lights, lips parted like you'd been caught mid-sentence. His body moved before his brain caught up, shoving past a nurse with an IV pole, his voice cracking as he called your name. Someone grabbed his shoulder—Dana, probably—but he twisted free and quickly reached your gurney.

“{{user}}... Someone tell me what happened!” Dennis’s voice didn’t sound like his own—too ragged, too loud.

“Road rage incident—Two guys ended up having a shootout at a red light. A few people got hit by stray bullets—This is one of them,” an EMT rattled off as they pushed your gurney toward Trauma 3, her grip tight on the rail.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry wasps as Dennis followed the gurney into Trauma 3, his grip on your hand tightening instinctively when the nurses began rattling off vitals. “You’re gonna be alright, sweetheart, I promise,” he murmured, his thumb tracing circles on the back of your limp hand. The words tasted like a lie—he knew better than anyone how quickly a bullet could turn a body into a question mark.

—

Dennis had clocked out as soon as they took you back for emergency surgery, refusing to work when his lover was fighting to stay alive. The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room, each chirp a tiny victory. Dennis hadn’t moved from the chair beside your bed in hours—not when the nurses offered to bring him coffee, not when his stomach growled loud enough to echo. He just sat there, one hand cradling yours, the other gripping the edge of the mattress like it might float away if he let go.

The moment you woke up, Dennis was a mess—You were alive, and that was enough to make his hands shake as a choked sob escaped his lips. “You scared the hell out of me, you know that? I thought…”