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Dennis Whitaker - Blog Posts
wet dog. sad farm boy. huckleberry. first in his family to go to college. has to change scrubs multiple times over just a few hours. a hint of religious angst. recites scripture from memory. i need to know more.
whitaker eating ube baked goods w santos. that's it.
need more fics that capitalize off of whitaker being from nebraska. like, him explaining what the fuck runza is to santos. wearing old koolaid days shirts under his scrubs. him and langdon arguing over college football and how the huskers are definitely making a come back this year.
it’s incredibly likely whitaker used to party in cornfields in high school. someone please write him telling javadi how to shotgun a beer or something.
Absolutely obsessed with your santos and Whitaker headcanons please keep them coming! I’ve gone through all the fics on ao3 already lol
thank you! it's nearing the end of the school year for me, so unfortunately i'm too busy to make much fanfiction/art for them even though i dabble in both.
here's more headcanons, because i can't stop thinking about them:
santos has a major sweet tooth. once or twice a week, she buys herself an iced mocha and a slice of strawberry cake from this cafe that's en route to the hospital.
whitaker's bible has a small lamb embroidered onto the front. it's one of the two belongings he still has from nebraska. the other is a sweatshirt from the university he did his undergrad at.
she has to keep an eye on whitaker at all times when they visit the local asian market because he's too busy staring in awe to notice what's going on around him.
whitaker is very obsessed with banana sauce. he puts it on everything once he's tried it.
santos gave him buldak ramen without telling him how spicy it was once. it was funny for about a minute until she realized that this white boy really can't handle spicy food. he tries eating the whole thing because wasting food makes him feel guilty. santos stops him after 3-4 bites because this looks like actual, physical torture for the guy. she still makes fun of him after, of course. while handing him the whole milk jug.
santos gets way too into his stories about animal slaughter. one time he had to leave in the middle of talking about how he dissected a rat when he was first curious about studying medicine and the first thing she did when she saw him again was demand to hear the rest.
santos texting her landlord
i feel like whitaker just… doesn’t yell. like he can obviously yell when he’s scared or it’s like necessary but he just doesn’t really raise his voice. if he’s frustrated he just grits his teeth, sighs through his nose, and carries on.
santos — because she is the way she is (and i love her for it) — keeps trying to get him to break. it unnerves her how he just doesn’t seem to get mad at her. oh he definitely gets annoyed and exhausted, but he doesn’t raise his voice. when she won’t stop kicking him in the ass when he’s fixing the clogged sink drain he just… lets her do it. if she’s being lazy and wants some ice cream from the freezer but doesn’t want to get up she only has to whine for a few minutes before he groans and gets it for her.
she’s trying to see his boundaries. to see how far she can push until he proves that he’s just like every other man she’s met and the fact that he won’t fold irks the shit out of her. idk i don’t think they’d ever really talk about it, but whitaker is a smart cookie and would probably figure out what she’s trying to do a few months in. he’d probably casually drop that his older brothers yelled at him all the time and then his poor mom would yell herself hoarse trying to get them to quit and oh here comes his dad yelling for everyone to shut the hell up. so he’s just always been quiet. quiet little dennis who once walked on a broken ankle for a few days because he didn’t wanna bother anyone.
and santos learns to live with that. to live comfortably with a guy who won’t scream at her or hurt her even when he gets mad at her. she learns to relax. to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"i was an undergrad theology major."
yeah, i can see it.
we do not talk enough about Whitaker snapping back "day's only half over" when Santos says "at least I haven't killed anyone"
he may be an innocent, wet kitten farm boy half the time but this boy has SASS and ATTITUDE from being tortured by three older siblings as a kid and I love to see it. I cannot wait to see the Whitaker/Santos relationship develop into them being ride-or-dies who insult and bitch at each other all day long
(potential) ways people find out santos and whitaker are close/living together:
whitaker calling santos "trin" in front of their coworkers, santos not batting an eye and answering to it, and both of them pausing suddenly when they realize what happened.
santos putting an arm around whitaker's shoulders and ruffling his hair at random intervals throughout the day.
one of them instinctively stepping in front of the other when a fight breaks out in the hospital.
accidentally falling asleep while leaning on each other in the break room after a long shift.
santos handing whitaker a shopping list while passing him in the hallway.
one getting injured/passing out and immediately asking for the other when they wake up, still half-asleep.
^ alternate scenario: getting put on meds and saying something disgustingly sentimental. if it's whitaker, santos would get a bit emotional in the moment but will definitely make fun of him when he's sober. if it's santos, she'll be stuck wondering why whitaker looks so pleased with himself until someone tells her what happened.
discussing what they're going to eat for dinner while everyone is clocking out.
Whitaker, undergrad theology major, seeing someone crying and praying at the same time: finally something I have been extensively trained to deal with
santos' drunkenly revealing to (equally drunk) whitaker those parts of her past. and for a moment, she just studies him. expecting him to get a little sad, maybe. unintentionally pitying. tell her he's sorry that happened. but he's just sitting there, staring at the wall. and when he opens his mouth, it's this pure, raw anger that she wasn't even sure he was capable of. it's low and shaky and she can't find herself a voice to interrupt him because what the fuck was even happening right now? the morning after, he's making breakfast and two prairie oysters before santos even wakes. they don't mention it again.
still can’t believe santos and whitaker are roommates, like it’s a thing that’s actually going to happen and there will definitely be a scene where they call each other trinity and dennis. it feels like something a writer on ao3 would come up with but its actually a bunch of writers maximizing their joint tv vet realness.
thinking about santaker and sharing things again. i have more thoughts.
santos and whitaker are around the same height. so, theoretically, their clothes decently fit each other.
i have a feeling they won't tell anyone they're roommates straight up. this leads to interesting scenarios.
javadi about to point out santos is wearing whitaker's hoodie and she just starts threatening her like she does to whitaker when she was mad about the chest-tube thing.
whitaker getting a bodily fluid on him again because it's his personal curse now and straight up wearing definitely santos' shirt when he clocks out.
sharing whitaker's airpods while they fight over the music.
sharing food!
frank "santos is trouble" langdon fresh out of rehab wondering why whitaker has gotten so close with her and then he's sitting there in shock as she willingly gives him half a kitkat bar (she's only doing this because he hasn't eaten anything all day).
king pointing out that she saw them leave in the same car yesterday and everyone's like what. when did that happen.
and:
tags from @doughnuts-5ever
trinity santos + dennis whitaker: roommates || post-canon headcanons
whitaker wakes up around an hour before santos does. it's an old habit from when he used to work on the farm. he makes breakfast for the both of them, usually.
after a month of living together, santos started stealing whitaker's hoodies. they're around the same size and she tells him that it's part of his rent. javadi is the first one to notice.
santos practices martial arts after a long shift. when she's back home, she can hear whitaker reciting scripture in his room.
they watch a movie together once a week. sometimes it's horror, which santos is pleasantly surprised to know does not affect whitaker—despite his "really needs a xanax and a weighted blanket" aura.
all of santos' sincere compliments are in filipino. she knows he doesn't understand shit.
since all of whitaker's friends/family are in nebraska, santos is his emergency contact.
idk if anyone has corn plated this but i love santos getting handed the coffee & immediately handing it to whitaker so much. such an unimportant detail to the script but sooo key to their early characterization. they’re so cute 2 me
throwing this into the ring like a beyblade
"It's almost like a sibling thing with Santos. It's been really fascinating to watch people's reactions to Santos, and she can rub a lot of people up the wrong way. But I think with Whitaker, I think he almost sees through her quite a lot. He grew up with five brothers, he's a sibling, so I think he really just sees someone who is coping in their own way by deflecting with jokes and jabs. So I don't think it actually bothers him that much, and I think Santos sort of knows that as well. I'm an easy target, but she knows she's not really gonna affect me." — Gerran Howell (x)
ISA BRIONES & GERRAN HOWELL as TRINITY SANTOS & DENNIS WHITAKER in THE PITT: Season One
THE PITT (2025-)
@tinkerbelldetective requested Dennis Whitaker
their vibe (to me)
what if you were a MED STUDENT and it was you FIRST SHIFT in emergency medicine and then you spilled MYLANTA on yourself and you had to CHANGE YOUR SCRUBS and then a patient BLED all over you and you had to CHANGE YOUR SCRUBS and RIGHT AFTER THAT a boy BARFED BLOOD all over you and you had to CHANGE YOUR SCRUBS and then a some guy PEED on you and you had to CHANGE YOUR SCRUBS and you looked like a BABY OWL
THE PITT 1.15 “9:00 P.M.”
I love how The Pitt's use of the small time scale shows how quickly trauma (or just collaboration in any high pressure environment) can create bonds. Specifically I'm talking about Whittaker and Santos. I'm rewatching from the beginning after watching the finale, and in s1e1 when Whittaker complains about money problems, Santos just smirks and is like "sell a kidney." By the end of the season, she offers for him to move in with her.
This is like a season's worth of relationship development and character development for Santos especially. But like. Over the time span of one day. Less than 24 hours. That is just insane to think about. And yet. It makes sense. Because they endured insane trauma together and even before that, they were comrades in arms facing a constant onslaught of patients and expectations. It is just such good writing and something I've never seen before. I'm sure this has been said a million times but like. A full season of character development. One day. Both make sense. Wow.
dennis whitaker is such a wet cat he canonically kills rats. let that sink in.
watched the pitt. god, they fucking got me. they got me with a platonic pairing. this always happens. dennis and trinity i love you.