A Way Around Indecision (An ER Fic)

Healed

"You know, Doctor Romano stopped me when I came in," Dennis told John. "He offered to let me back into the program."

At first, an infinitesimal crinkling of his eyelids was John's only response, such as it was. "Not much scarring," he eventually said, flatly. "They did a good job."

Dennis twisted around to look at him in his blank face. "Did you hear me?"

John grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him back in the other direction so he could finish up as quickly as possible. "I heard you. What do you want me to say?"

"I thought you'd be happy. We'll be working together again."

"You'll be upstairs."

"We'll still see each other."

He couldn't help but laugh in his head at that point. Even then, a small scoff escaped his lips as he shook his head. "It's been six weeks, I seen you maybe two out of those–"

Growing annoyed, Dennis interrupted, "Only because you had to. You're the one avoiding me."

"And now you want to see more of me?" John continued on his rant without a hitch. Dennis' statement didn't go unheard; it just made him even more irked. Sharply, he asked, "You didn't stop to think why?"

"Would you stop acting like a goddamned victim already? It's not a good look on you."

Briefly, a few seconds of dead silence fell between them, slicing through the thick air like butter.

John clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. A tiny twitch of his upper lip told Dennis he hit a nerve.

Deciding to break that silence, Dennis added, "You're not the only one who was left behind. But you wouldn't know anything about that, though, would you?"

Eyeing the single stitch that remained, knot against Dennis' dark-chocolate skin, he had a good mind to rip it out, tearing through healed flesh. Except he was better than that, somewhat, and he still stupidly cared about him, also somewhat, in that moment. Instead, he clipped it off, pulled it out with tweezers, which he slammed down hard on the tray and strode to the door. "We're done here," he grumbled as he yanked off his latex gloves one by one, even ripping one of them. "You can go."

Those six words had a double meaning. It was the last straw.

John knew he wasn't the only one, but he didn't need it shoved in his face again. He lived it and regretted it for over two years.

After waiting a brief moment, with a heavy sigh, Dennis hastened after him. What he did next astonished even himself. "You know I'm right, you just don't want to admit it!" The words came out before his brain could control his filter, and unfortunately, it didn't occur to him until after the fact.

"I don't believe this," John mumbled, sucking back the taste of past arguments. As he and Dennis strode side by side, he kept his voice as low as possible, making sure not to draw too much attention to them. "You're really gonna go there now, here? I've apologised for that. I've apologised then and I've been apologising since you came back. Or was your ego so inflated it lifted you so high off the ground that you couldn't hear me?"

He was going to say he was sorry, but that? That pissed him off all over again. "You're going to talk to me about being egotistical?"

"Oh, sure, Dennis. I'm very egotistical," John retorted caustically. "That's why I switched from surgery to become an ER doc. Just to feel a little more important."

"I think you did! The entire time I knew you back then, all you cared about was getting ahead, impressing Anspaugh or Hicks or Benton. You did all but go down on them. Hell, one of 'em you did go down on!"

Though he knew full well of the innuendo in his statement, John ignored it and groused, "Oh, that is a low blow."

"It's true, though. You and Keaton–"

"Are long over. She left," he said, remorse and disappointment clear in his tone. "I moved on. You should too. It's a nice feeling."

He felt terrible; like he could crawl into a hole and not come out just for bringing it up. As upset as Dennis was with him, he didn't want to make him feel ashamed or break his heart. "John, listen, whatever the issue is, you and I need to figure it out. We can't keep doing this," In Dennis' explaining and looking ahead, he missed the fact that John had separated from him and headed down towards the men's room. He went on, "Maybe we should take some time after your– John?"

He caught the back of John in the corner of his eyes, just before he entered the restroom. For all but a second, he debated going after him. But who was he kidding? Of course he'd go in.

The sound of the door opening behind him snared John's attention. He glanced over his shoulder, then returned his focus to the urinal, scoffing again. "You're worse than Lucy."

"Somehow I doubt she's followed you to the men's room."

"Not yet," He zipped up, flushed and side-stepped to the sinks to wash his hands. "What do you want?" John asked as he scrubbed, soap suds covering his palms and digits.

"I want to talk. We can do that without fighting like children, can't we?" Dennis stared hard at his feet, swaying on them. "I really don't want us to split over something stupid."

While ripping off sheets of paper towels, John enunciated every word sharply. "Well, maybe if you stopped pushing me, we wouldn't split!" Said paper towels were balled up and thrown into the bin.

"You're the one acting defensive about Lord knows what!"

Lord knows what? John asked himself. You knocked me up and I feel like shit. That's what!

Obviously, for Dennis to know this, he would have to actually tell him, but it wasn't that simple. Or maybe it was, and he made it immensely more complicated than it needed to be. Either way, it filled him with indescribable emotion, which he couldn't handle.

"If it'll get your panties out of a bunch, I'll tell Romano I don't want it."

"Oh, please. Don't do me any favours," he rasped out in a rush and immediately left.

Ordinarily, this was when Dennis would go after him and try to smooth things over, but these days, it didn't seem possible. It drove him crazy. It worried him. This truly was not the John Carter he knew from two years ago. He knew some things had changed since then — it normally did with time — but he couldn't help but wonder what those things were. Considering how the new John was, he figured he would never know, and that drained him, mentally and emotionally.

With a purposeful stride, Dennis left the bathroom and headed upstairs to the surgical ward to give Robert his answer; yes.

Once there, the room deadened. He passed others, faces both familiar and not; knowing those familiar held a stunned expression, some surprised to see him alive and well, others just seeing him for the first time, realising the rumours were true.

The silence was broken by Robert, all but shouting at Anspaugh, "If you don't like how I run things, you should have thought twice about giving me the position of Acting Chief!"

"Well, had I known you were going to do something as idiotic as–!" Anspaugh stopped there when he saw Dennis standing in front of them.

Dennis looked at them a second each, blankly, before ironically asking, "This a bad time?"