⁰⁰ ▇ ¨. ༢ ͎۪۫ 𝒐𝒏𝒆 ... ❜
━━ ❛ a hard day's night. ❜
❪ book 01. location: seattle. ©glorifiedwriter, all rights reserved ❫.

❛ and i've been working like a dog. ❜
july, 2004.

     Dylan Verre was violently hungover.

A headache pulsed near his forehead, his throat was unusually dry, and the sun peaked through his bedroom curtains and directly into his eyes. He rolled over in his bed, the gingham bed spread strewn about his room, two of his pillows missing. 

His eyes scanned over his bedroom, a few unpacked boxes lying in the corner, until eventually they settled on the alarm clock sitting on his nightstand.

"Fuck," he sighed out, quickly rolling out of bed. He looked around the room in attempt to find his clothes from last night, until eventually he focused on the navy blue sweater he wore next to a man he didn't recognize.

He picked up his boxers laid next to the sweater, quickly putting them on before leaning down and shoving the unknown man's shoulder.

He groaned, lifting his face from Dylan's two missing pillows, before smiling lightly. "Good morning."

"N—No, actually," Dylan started, taking two steps back as mystery man stood up━━ completely naked. "Not a good morning, because I have no idea who you are and I'm late for work."

"Derek." He smiled, again, pulling up his own boxers.

"Dylan," he replied, "And, you, Derek, have to go." He started pacing around looking for clothes, picking up a white shirt he found lying on the floor.

"That's mine," Derek pointed to the shirt Dylan had started to pull over his head.

"What?" He paused his movements, and Derek chuckled.

"That's my shirt you're wearing."

"I━━ I know that," he replied, quickly scrambling to take it back off.

"No, keep it, I don't mind." Derek still had a light smirk on his face, like he found amusement picking apart Dylan's little movements, the way he hesitated to leave the white shirt on. "You don't do this often," Derek decided.

"Do what?" Dylan stood now only in his boxers and Derek's white shirt, suddenly very interested in what the man across the room had to say. He had pretty eyes.

"Wake up to naked men sleeping on your floor." He put on a red pullover he must have been wearing the previous night before stumbling into his jeans.

"Y━ yeah, I don't do this often. And I'd kind of like to forget about it..." Dylan trailed off, trying to act like he didn't catch the man's name.

"━━Derek."

He knew that. "...Derek. I need to get going."

It was sickening, almost, the perpetual white-toothed smile engraved on his face. The corner of Dylan's mouth twitched upward before he rolled his eyes and gestured toward his closed bedroom door and, by proxy, the front door to his apartment.

Derek stumbled closer to Dylan, leaning forward so he was mere inches from his face. "I guess I should get going." His eyes traveled Dylan up-and-down before he left through the bedroom door.

Dylan let out a sigh of relief hearing the front door quietly close, before he ran through his room in search of pants.

     Dylan didn't know what to expect from Seattle Grace Hospital.

For one, he didn't expect to be bombarded by a first-year intern on the way to Richard Webber's office.

"Doctor Verre?" The intern in front of him seemed to scramble with the air, taking a few steps toward him and a few steps back. "I'm Cristina Yang, first-year, and I'd just like to say it is an honor to meet you." She moved her hands around awkwardly as she spoke, her hand reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear every few seconds. "I mean, when you repaired a damaged mitral valve using the da Vinci, it━━ it was revolutionary!" She let out a light chuckle before narrowing her eyes.

"What are━━ what are you doing here?" She laughed nervously before letting a pregnant pause sour into uncomfortable silence.

Dylan cleared his throat awkwardly. "I, uh, I work here?" He chuckled at the end of the sentence, not meaning for it to come off so unsurely, and then he figured this must be the most awkward conversation he's had in his life.

Cristina's eyes widened. "You're━━ you work here? I'm, uh━━" Tuck, awkward look around the room, tuck, hand gesture. "━━it would be an honor to work alongside you, Doctor Verre."

Dylan looked around the catwalk in hopes of finding an escape from Yang's bombardment of praise. His eyes trailed over the intern in front of him, before hesitantly holding out his right hand. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Yang."

Cristina took his hand, vigorously shaking it before walking off without another word, a freakishly bright smile wide on her face.

Dylan's eyes trailed after the intern for a moment, watching as she slowly made her way into a run. He continued down the catwalk, admiring the size and layout of Seattle Grace, making note of the onslaught of interns━━ an epidemic of light blue scrubs and next-to-nothing knowledge of healthcare. Today must be Day 1 for them, too.

He knocked on the door of Richard Webber's office, before pushing it open to reveal the Chief of Surgery sitting at his desk, a doctor sat across from him. Dylan shook the nerves out of his right hand, a smile forming on his face at the thought of his future at Seattle Grace, a future unstained by his past.

"Oh! Doctor Verre, I wasn't expecting you so soon." Richard Webber took the glasses off of his face before standing up from his desk. "Doctor Shepherd, I'd like to introduce you to Doctor Dylan Verre, our new cardiothoracic attending. Someone to cause a little trouble for Burke." Webber practically whispered the last sentence into Dr. Shepherd's ear, leaning across his desk slightly, his eyes slightly widening at his own mention of Burke.

Dr. Shepherd had yet to turn around, his focus entirely on the man standing before him, not giving a second thought to Dylan's newfound presence. Likewise, Dylan didn't think much of Dr. Shepherd, more worried about the impression he was making with his new boss. Though, throughout Webber's side conversation, Dylan couldn't help but stare intently at Dr. Shepherd's hair.

Finally, when Dylan couldn't take anymore staring at the back of pretty boy's head, he shut the door to Richard Webber's office, walked slowly toward his desk, and held his right hand out to Dr. Shepherd: Head of Neurosurgery at Seattle Grace Hospital, Colleague, Pretty Boy, The Man Preventing Him From A Mandatory Meeting With His New Boss, and the man who snuck out of Dylan's apartment that same morning. 

He held back the urge to roll his eyes at the sight of Derek Shepherd's smirk slowly forming into a smile. Derek's eyes widened, his hand quickly grabbing Dylan's.

"Doctor Shepherd, it's an honor to meet you," he managed to say, though his voice sounded more strained than he would have liked.

Derek shook his hand firmly, his eyes seeming to size Dylan up in an instant, a smile glued onto his face. "Likewise, Doctor Verre. I've heard great things about your work."

Dylan's mind raced, trying to find a way to rationalize the situation, but, Derek's hair was incredibly distracting.

Before he could say anything, Doctor Webber intervened, oblivious to the tension in the room. "Glad you two could meet." He smiled, gesturing lightly toward Dylan. "Doctor Verre will be a valuable asset to our team here. I'm sure you'll both do great things together."

Dylan forced a smile, nodding along with Richard's words, though internally he continued to search for a way to escape the embarrassment of the moment. As the conversation continued, he realized that navigating the intricacies of Seattle Grace Hospital would be far more challenging than avoiding interns like Cristina Yang.

     After his brief meeting with the Chief of Surgery, where he found himself mostly avoiding eye contact with Derek, Dylan felt a mix of apprehension and nervousness as he hurried to change into his navy blue scrubs. His first day at Seattle Grace was clearly turning out to be more eventful than he had anticipated. As he adjusted his scrubs in front of the mirror, he couldn't help but feel a surge of grief. He hadn't realized his life in Seattle would already be so difficult. He'd barely lived in the city a month and, already, he had managed to melt his life into a boundary-less puddle of despair.

Just as he finished tying the drawstring of his pants, his pager buzzed urgently, breaking the brief moment of recollection and disappointment. Dylan glanced at the display, his heart rate quickening as he read the message: "Emergency— ER."

Without hesitation, Dylan rushed out of the locker room, his mind already racing with possibilities. He navigated the maze-like corridors of the hospital with ease, the layout of the hospital fresh on his mind from memorization, his footsteps echoing against the polished floors.

As he entered the bustling emergency room, Dylan was met with a whirlwind of activity. Doctors and nurses rushed back and forth, attending to patients in various states of distress. Amidst the chaos, Dylan spotted the familiar figure of Nurse Jankovic, who had previously directed him to the Chief's office. She clearly spotted him as well, gesturing for him to follow her.

"Doctor Verre, we've got a car crash victim in trauma bay two. Multiple injuries, including severe trauma to the chest and skeletal injuries." Nurse Jankovic, Olivia, handed him the chart before heading into the room.

Dylan's eyes scanned the chart, pausing a moment, before rushing after Olivia. Nurses and surgeons towered over the patient, but only one other attending was in the room, an orthopedic attending, he assumed due to her careful work on the exposed bone from the victims leg. He rushed over to the patient, standing across from the other attending, a brunette with green eyes. "What do we got?"

The other attending looked him over, her lips pursed in thought before she spoke. "Middle-aged car crash victim, Joseph Lark, we've got a shattered femur, a fractured pelvis, broken ribs━━"

"━━Okay, we need to get a chest x-ray, I'm hearing decreased breath sounds in the right lung," Dylan interrupted, his stethoscope against the patient's chest, listening intently to the breathless sounds coming from his right chest. He looked up momentarily, his world seeming to slow as a stag made way through the emergency room. The deer ignored bustling bodies, leaving a trail of black smoke in its wake.

Dylan blinked, the stag was gone, and his eyes refocused on the orthopedic attending across from him.

"If you hadn't interrupted me I would have gone on to explain that we already got a chest x-ray, and his right lung has collapsed. They're prepping OR 3 now."

An awkward scoff escaped Dylan's throat. "We should, uh, get Mr. Lark to OR 3, then." He shook his mind from the stag, attempting to narrow in on his work.

As Dylan and the attending prepared to move the patient to the operating room, there was an undeniable tension between them. His mind focused on the gentle rise and fall of the patient's chest, mentally preparing to save his life. The orthopedic attending across from him breathed loudly through her nose, her foot tapping against the bloody floor impatiently. Her earlier remark still hung in the air, and Dylan thought over his mistakes from the last twenty-four hours, tapping his pointer finger against his thumb every time Joseph Lark took a breath.

"Alright, let's move," Dylan said, trying to keep his voice steady despite the awkwardness between them.

The attending nodded curtly, her expression tight as they began to wheel the stretcher down the bustling corridor. The silence between them was heavy, filled with unspoken frustration.

As they approached OR 3, the doors swung open to reveal a team of nurses and surgical assistants waiting to assist them. Dylan and the attending exchanged a fleeting glance, their discomfort palpable as they worked together to transfer the patient onto the operating table.

Once the patient was settled, Dylan attempted to break the tension with a forced smile, but his co-surgeon remained distant, her focus solely on the task at hand. As the anesthesia began to take effect and the surgical team prepared to start the procedure, Dylan couldn't shake the feeling of unease that snuck into his body.

"Alright, let's begin," He said, his voice calm but authoritative as he addressed the team. Dylan's co-surgeon nodded in agreement, her focus unwavering as she prepared to assist him in the intricate procedure ahead.

The surgery commenced with the two working in surprisingly perfect synchrony, each executing their respective tasks with precision and expertise. Dylan focused on repairing the damage to John's heart and lungs, meticulously suturing torn tissue and addressing any internal bleeding, while his co-surgeon attended to his fractured bones and damaged joints, carefully realigning and stabilizing them with plates and screws.

Dylan's mind quieted as the procedure went on, the stag fading away into a distant memory, Derek slipping his mind completely.

Under the bright lights of the operating room, time seemed to blur as the two attending's worked tirelessly to save Joseph's life. Every movement was deliberate, every decision carefully calculated as they navigated the complexities of Joseph's injuries.

Hours passed in a blur of intense concentration and controlled chaos, but finally, their efforts began to pay off. Joseph's vital signs stabilized, and the once chaotic operating room fell into a hushed silence as Dylan and his co-surgeon completed the final stages of the procedure.

With the surgery successfully completed, the two stepped back from the operating table, their exhaustion tempered by a sense of accomplishment. Dylan let out a breath of relief, his shoulders relaxing from their routinely tense position. "Nice work, everyone." He spoke, a soft smile forming underneath his mask, his eyes trailing across the table toward his co-surgeon. Her eyes crinkled into a smile.

Shortly after, Dylan made his way to the scrub room, his co-surgeon following quickly in suit. The loud hiss of the room's mechanical doors signaled for him to roll up his sleeves, making way to the sink when suddenly he was stopped.

"You haven't asked me my name."

Dylan paused, turning around from where he stood, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "I, uh...." His voice trailed off thinking of their earlier interaction, the stag startlingly present in his memory. "No, I didn't."

"You're Dylan Verre, the new cardiothoracic surgeon everyone's been talking about." She pointed her finger at his chest, her eyes rolling when he made eye contact with herZ "You," She emphasized, "Doctor Verre, barged in here like you owned the place, didn't bother to ask my name or find out who was in charge, and started barking orders like you were running the show," She snapped, her green eyes piercing into his.

Dylan's expression softened and his face slowly reddened, internally cringing at how quickly his first day at work went south.

Should I quit?, he quickly thought, before clearing his throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overstep. I just saw a patient in need and wanted to help. My mind was focused on something else and I didn't bother to show you respect on your turf. I get that."

The woman across him gave a soft grin, and Dylan released a stressed breath. "Just remember," her grin formed into a smirk, "I'm the one who's been working in this ER for years. The nurses love me and I can make your life a living hell."

He nodded, a chuckle escaping the back of his throat. "You got it....." His voice trailed off his eyebrows tying together in thought while he slowly raised his pointer finger in her direction.

She took that as her signal. "Doctor Elizabeth Campbell."

Dylan's hand jolted in her direction, his pointer finger shifting up and down as he spoke. "You see, I knew that."

"No you didn't." She shut him down, her hand reaching up in a gesture to cut him off. "My, uh, friends call me Beth, though." She outstretched her left hand unsurely. "I'm an outstanding orthopedic surgeon, graduated from the Baylor College of Medicine, I'm single, and I've got a cat named Abe that lives off of an automated feeding machine and two hours of companionship that I offer every other day."

Dylan hesitantly took her hand, thinking back to fifth grade homeroom introductions━━ three fun facts. "I just moved here from Virginia, I have two dogs, and I'm pretty sure I slept with the Head of Neurosurgery last night."

Dylan let go of Beth's hand at the sound of immediate laughter. He rolled his eyes as she coughed semi-violently and wiped a tear from the corner of her right eye. "Um," she took a breath, "how sure?"

"I'm wearing Derek Shepherd's shirt under these scrubs."

⁰⁰ ❛ 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆 . . .☄︎ ⋆࿐໋ ˖

first chapter! i hope everyone enjoyed getting to know dylan & beth. can't wait to get more into the stag motif with dylan and i also can't wait to delve more into beth's backstory! additionally, i wanted to mention that i will soon be publishing another grey's anatomy ff soon & it will actually tie into this story as well. it will be apart of an ongoing series "je me crois en enfer."          i hope that those of you reading will take the time to check out that story as well. dylan & beth will be featured in hiraeth, while my hiraeth oc will soon be featured here! disclaimer: if you don't read the other book in this series, that's okay! it'll just give you more insight into my characters.

i can't believe it, but this chapter is near 3,000 words. this may not seem like a lot but i haven't written long chapters like these for my fics in a while! this chapter went through a lot of edits, but, please, if you see anything that doesn't make sense... point it out! i want to be made aware so i can fix it.

thank you to those reading, i'll try and have the next chapter out soon.
━━━━ c 𐙚

❛ 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒈𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔. ❜
☄︎ ⋆࿐໋ ˖ ❪ grey's anatomy, book 𝒐𝒏𝒆. ❫ ©glorifiedwriter, all rights reserved. ━━━━━━━━━━━━