This is the third chapter of Pulse Point, my AU in which Brian is a trauma surgeon and Justin is a paramedic - or as I will always think of it, mug!fic. Chapter One is
here. Chapter Two is
here.
In addition to being the only fic ever inspired by a mug, it is also, as far as I know, the only fic whose updating has ever been held up by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
Beta'd by
testdog65 Banner by
roc_abs Inspired by the mug of
happier_bunny Mug icon by
silent_seas Commas by
vlredreign Pulse Point, Chapter Three
By Xie
Justin’s POV
There’d been a flash of surprise in Lindsay’s eyes when she answered the door and saw me with Brian, but she smiled and brought us into the living room. “Gus, look who your daddy brought to visit you.”
Gus’ face lit up, and he laughed when Brian swooped down on him and gently tickled him. Brian slipped down behind Gus and pulled him into his lap, while Lindsay yanked some of the pillows out to make room for him.
I crouched down next to Gus, and grinned at him. “Hey, Gus, how’re you doing?”
He smiled happily at me. “They put a new cast on me, see, Justin? Can you draw on it?”
I looked down at the fiberglass cast, and nodded. “Sure, do you have markers?”
Melanie laughed, and got up and went into another room. She came back a few minutes later with a box of marking pens, and I sat down on the sofa with Gus’ leg across my lap. “Okay, what do you want, your name?”
He nodded, and I looked at the cast. I glanced up, and Brian was watching me, his lips quirking into something that almost looked like a smile. I grinned back at him, then looked down at the cast. “Here, Gus?”
Gus agreed, and I started to outline the letters of his name. “I love this name, don’t tell anyone, but my teddy bear when I was little was named ‘Gus’.”
Gus giggled. “You just told everyone.”
I smiled over at him, and then went back to my drawing. “Ooops.”
Melanie snorted a laugh, and I tossed the black marker back in the box, and picked up a green one. “Here we go, you ready?”
I colored in his name with different color inks, and then drew a border of things I thought he’d like, his dad’s car, his moms, Brian, the ambulance, balloons, a lion, and a tiger. He was holding his leg perfectly still and watching, his tongue caught between his teeth. Brian was watching, too; every time I glanced at him, his eyes were on my hands.
“You should put your picture in there.” It was Lindsay’s voice, warm and friendly. I smiled without looking up, and drew a blond haired man in a paramedic jacket, standing near the ambulance, holding a balloon in his hand. Then I signed the drawing, “JT.”
Everyone gathered around and took the pens and signed their names, except Brian. “I can’t get up, this kid weighs a ton.” But he was smiling.
Gus giggled again, and everyone sat down. I moved over to a chair, and Lindsay brought out coffee, cookies, and ice cream for everyone. Gus had turned pale and quiet. Brian teased him into eating some ice cream, but he licked his lips after like it made him queasy. I saw Brian’s jaw get tight when Lindsay took the ice cream bowl from him.
We sat and talked a while longer. Brian was still holding Gus, whose eyes kept sliding closed, then flying open again. Finally, they stayed shut, and after a few minutes, Brian slid carefully out from under him and stood up.
Lindsay walked him to the door, and I hung back, taking my time getting my coat from the dining room. Melanie was leaning in the doorway, a cup of coffee in her hand, dark circles under her eyes. I smiled tentatively at her, and she raised an eyebrow. “Gus was glad to see you.”
I just smiled a little more. “He’s a great kid.”
Her eyes crinkled up for a second, and I thought she was about to ask me something, when she made a tiny little motion with her head, and shrugged. Just then, Brian called from the hallway. “Justin? Are you coming?”
I pulled my jacket on, told Lindsay and Melanie goodnight, and followed him out into the cold. He was standing in the archway at the end of their path in the last of the evening light, not even wearing his jacket. I put my hand on his back, and I felt his muscles twitch under his skin. He turned and looked at me, and I could feel the tension radiating off him.
He was looking at me intently, and I saw something kind of wild in his eyes. I just stared for a second, then gave him a slow blink, and felt my mouth softening into the smallest beginnings of a smile.
He took a long breath, grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into him. He still felt tense, but it wasn’t the crackling energy I’d felt a minute before, like a landmine I had to get across somehow. When his mouth crushed into mine, it was just simple need.
I put my arms around his neck, and let him pull me in even tighter, until the stubble on his face was rasping against my skin, until I thought he was bruising my arms even through my jacket. And then he let me go. I smiled at him again, and blinked again, and he almost laughed, then touched his forehead to mine.
“Do you have to work tonight?” His voice was rough.
I shook my head. “Tomorrow afternoon at 4.”
He nuzzled into my hair, and I kissed his throat. “I need a shower.”
I smiled, but didn’t look at him. “Yeah? Me too.”
He nodded. “I need to make the water as hot as we can stand it, so the bathroom’s all full of steam. And then I’m going to slowly…” and then he pulled my face up, and kissed me. “Slowly strip off your clothes, and pull you into the shower.” He kissed me again.
I broke the kiss. “What about your clothes?”
“They magically disappeared.”
I nodded. “Of course.” I kissed Brian’s jaw. “Go on.”
“Then I’m going to kiss you, and lick you, and I might even bite you.” And he nipped at my lower lip. “Then I’m going to take the soap, and make you all slippery with it, and slide my hands down through the soap, and grab your ass.” And Brian cupped my ass through my jeans, and pulled me tighter against him.
“Then I’m going to pull your ass cheeks apart…”
I shut Brian up with a kiss, my hands coming up and wrapping around the back of his neck. “We’re not fucking in Lindsay and Melanie’s front yard. Let’s go.”
We never made it to the shower when we got back to the loft. I was on my knees rubbing my face into Brian’s crotch in the elevator, and he had me naked, ass up on the bed, almost before I realized we’d gotten inside.
I was on the bed, my face buried in my arms, while Brian licked and sucked at my hole. He moved his mouth away from my ass, and a second later I felt his finger, cold and wet, curling inside me. I pushed back against it, and moaned, and then felt his hands on my hips, turning me.
I let him move me onto my back, and I put my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. He never took his eyes away from mine, and didn't close them even when he was buried inside me as far as I could pull him, not even when I clenched down on his cock and drove my heels into his back, and choked out his name. He just watched my face and thrust slowly inside me.
That night when we were fucking, I felt something between us, a sense of all the things he wouldn't say, the things I was afraid even to think. He'd look me in the eye and I'd feel it, a shock of something, a feeling, connection, desire, possession, I don't know. Something I wanted and resisted at the same time.
I tipped my head back and felt his mouth on my throat, sucking at my skin. He sucked the blood up to the surface, and then gently worried the skin with his teeth, and then let it go. He moved his mouth across my neck and down my shoulder, leaving a trail of marks.
His cock was moving across my prostate, and my cock was rubbing erratically against his stomach. I could feel the ridges of his muscles when he thrust into me, and I started trying to arch up and get more contact. He pressed deeper, pushing his stomach against me, and I moaned at the combined stroking of my cock and my prostate.
I curved my neck forward, and he kissed me, then pulled back and looked into my eyes again. I felt my edges starting to dissolve, the tingling and burning start inside my balls, and I started rocking up to meet his thrusts.
He bit off a cry and buried his face in my neck, and I felt him start jerking against me. I pushed up hard against his stomach, and just as his fists closed hard on my hair, I started to come. It was a long spiraling wave of pleasure, starting at the base of my spine and spilling out in a warm pool between us.
He finally stopped shuddering, and so did I, and he fell down heavily on me. He just lay there for a few minutes, and I felt the blood pounding in my ears. He hadn’t let go of my hair.
After a while, Brian pulled gently out of me, tied off the condom, and tossed it aimlessly off the side of the bed. He rolled onto his back and pulled me with him. I lay across his chest, boneless and sleepy, but not tired enough to fall asleep. It was probably only around 9, and I had just missed a whole day in the studio. I didn’t care.
“So, what made you decide to become a surgeon?” I was tracing my finger up and down the curves and lines of his chest muscles. His hand was resting on the back of my neck, and his other arm was folded back behind his head.
“Money. Surgeons make lots and lots of money.”
I considered that. “Lots of specialties make more money than trauma surgery.”
“I didn’t want patients and handholding. I don’t like long, slow, detailed surgeries. I like to get my hands in and find what’s making them bleed and keeping them from breathing, or their heart from beating, and pull all the broken parts together so they can get worked on by the other guys. It’s what I do.”
I lifted up my head, then put it down again. My hand went back to its aimless tracing.
“Why did you become a paramedic?” His voice was quiet.
“Money.” He laughed. “No, really. I needed money for school. I was busing tables, and it doesn’t pay very well. Daphne was working for a paramedic company out where we grew up, to pay for medical school, and she was making ten times what I was, working only three 24-hour shifts a week.”
“Daphne’s in medical school?” He sounded surprised.
I shook my head. “She had to take a leave. None of the companies around here do the 24-hour shifts anymore, and she tried for a semester, but it was impossible. The hours in medical school, they’re killer. So she’s trying to save up enough so she won’t have to work more than two or three shifts a week during the school year.”
“You grew up with her?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to talk about growing up, so I scooted up his body, and kissed him. “What happened to our shower?”
Brian’s POV
I knew Justin didn’t want to talk about something, and I was surprised at myself for being as curious as I was. So I let him kiss me and tease me into the shower, and then distract me with a blowjob. I had my hands tangled in his wet hair, while he licked at the head of my dick and jerked me with his hand. I was panting and bucking into his mouth when he finally relented and swallowed me all the way down. I hit the back of his throat, and he pulled his head back and took me down again. I looked down at my cock disappearing into his mouth, his lips locked around the base, my pubic hair pressing into his face. I had to turn my eyes away, but couldn’t keep from looking back when he pulled off again.
He smiled up at me, then wrapped his lips around the head of my cock. He slid down slowly, hollowing his cheeks and sucking on me, and then slid one finger along the underside of my cock, right in front of the path his lips were following. Then he pressed on the smooth spot behind my balls, and swallowed around my cock.
My orgasm surprised me, but he let it flood down his throat, like he’d known it was coming. I sagged against the tile wall, and realized the steam was clearing as the water cooled. Justin stood up, turned the water off, and leaned into me, kissing my shoulder. We got out of the shower. I dried us both off, and we went back into the bedroom.
I laughed. “Fuck. The bed.”
Justin smiled, and leaned down and tugged at the pile of sheets and blankets on the floor. “I wonder how that happened?”
I snorted, and we pulled everything back in place. I ignored the come stains on the dark sheets. I glanced at the clock. It was only 9:30, but I suddenly wanted nothing more than to crawl under the duvet, pull Justin up against me, and sleep for a month. I glanced at him, and he did that slow blink thing again. I pulled back the covers and got in. He laughed and crawled under the covers on the far side of the bed, and curled against my side.
I fell asleep, and didn’t even dream.
I woke up to the insistent sound of my pager. It took me a while to surface enough to find it. The clock said 2 AM, and Justin was blinking next to me, his blond hair in his eyes. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand while I read the pager, and swore. “I have to go.”
He started to get up, and I leaned over and brushed a kiss across his lips. “You can stay.”
Justin hesitated. “You sure?”
I nodded, and kissed him again. “Go back to sleep. I’ll leave a key on the counter, so you can lock the door.”
I saw that hesitation again, but he nodded, and lay back down.
I stood in the kitchen, swallowing down cold coffee and digging up a spare key. Just then I heard an unfamiliar phone ringing. It was coming from the pocket of Justin’s jacket. I glanced at the caller ID, and it said “Daph,” so I answered. “Hi, Daphne.”
There was silence for a second. “Brian?”
“Yeah. Justin’s asleep, did you need him?” I really had to go. Then I looked towards the bedroom, and Justin was standing at the top of the stairs, shoving his hair back with his hand. I started walking towards him with the phone.
“Yeah, I do. There’ve been more shootings and they need us to come in.”
“Fuck. They paged me too, but didn’t say why. I’ll bring him in.” I snapped his phone shut. “More shootings. We both have to go in.”
He was already pulling his clothes back on, and I put his phone back in his jacket pocket.
When we pulled up in front of the EMT dispatch center on the far side of the hospital parking lot, I saw Daphne standing on the stairs. I pulled him close, took one last breath of his warm skin, and kissed him. I kept him from pulling away for just a second, then he opened the car door, and I felt a blast of icy air. “Later.”
He smiled at me. “Later.”
When I got to the hospital, it was chaos. I remembered myself telling Justin I liked to put my hands in the blood and find the broken parts and put them back together. I decided I must have been crazy when I said that.
Six hours later, I looked up, and realized one of the EMTs sliding a patient on a back board carefully onto the exam table was Justin. I didn’t say anything to him, and he didn’t do more than glance at me. Daphne was rattling off the guy’s information: Lung cancer patient, shot where he sat in his daughter’s car while she was in the supermarket, bad blood pressure, bad respiratory rate, bad heartbeat. He was cyanotic and on the edge of crashing.
When Daphne finished, she and Justin shoved the gurney out of the room, and we went to work.
The bullets had torn up his chest and belly, and I knew after one minute this wouldn’t be one I pulled out. I glanced at Cynthia, my gloved hands covered in blood. “Where’s his daughter?”
“In the hall.” Her eyes were dark. I just shook my head, and she stepped back from the patient, and went to get the daughter. A woman in her forties, her face streaked with tears, came in the room, her arms tight around her chest.
I did my best to hold him together until the rest of his family could get there, but there was no point. There wasn’t enough left to keep him alive, not even for five more minutes. His daughter held his hand, and I heard her telling him she loved him, and had thought they’d have a little more time. I felt Cynthia at my side, and I lifted my hands and let him go.
Cynthia followed me out of the trauma room, and we stripped off our gloves and bloody scrubs. She glanced at me appraisingly. “You holding up okay?”
I just gave her a look, and she sighed. “I know Gus’s surgery is in a couple of days. And you weren’t supposed to be on tonight.”
I shrugged. “Someone should have told the shooters. Or maybe told the CNN crews to get out of town, since no doubt their new-found infamy is spurring them on to greater heights of mayhem and destruction.”
Cynthia nodded, frowning, and I took advantage of a momentary lull to dictate the chart notes on my last three patients. All of whom had died. I hated losing even one patient, but three in a row particularly sucked.
A little while later, I was sitting on a bench outside, thinking that the blood on my scrubs was probably going to freeze over. I didn’t know why I didn’t feel the cold. The sky was light. I looked up, and Ted was standing next to me, two Starbucks cups in his hand.
I looked at him. “Tell me that’s a triple shot latte.”
“It is.” He handed it to me, and then ruined the gesture by sitting next to me on the bench. He had a knit cap on, and a scarf, gloves, and wool jacket, and the tip of his nose was red with the cold. I wondered if mine was, too, and I touched a finger to it out of curiosity. It felt warm.
Ted shifted a little next to me. “So, rough night.”
I snorted. “So rough they had to call in the emergency accounting team?”
“I always get in this early, I get my best work done before the rest of the office gets here.”
I nodded, and sipped my coffee. “I wish I could figure out a way to get my work done without other people, too.”
Ted drank his coffee in silence, but then he drew in a breath and I knew he was going to say something I’d regret. “How’s Gus?”
“He’s just peachy, Theodore. He’s got a shattered leg with a tumor in it, lost all his hair, is going in for a bone graft in two days, and oh, by the way, the next day starts chemo all over again. Couldn’t be better.” I stood up and threw my empty coffee cup in the trash. “Three generations of cancer in one family. Clearly, emotional damage isn’t the only reason Jack Kinney should never have been allowed to reproduce.”
I heard Ted sigh, and get up. My back was to him. I was shocked when he let his hand rest on my back for a minute, but I didn’t say anything, or move, and after a minute he walked inside. I waited a couple of minutes, then pushed my hand through my hair, took in a long, cold breath, and went back inside, pulling my filthy scrubs off and shouting for a clean set.
I stopped at the diner after I finally got out of there. Deb wasn’t on, and I ate a turkey sandwich and drank coffee in peace and quiet, then went home. When I got back to the loft, the first thing I noticed was the key, still sitting on the counter. I felt a stab of some feeling, maybe irritation, or impatience, or even anger. I didn’t really put a name on it, just threw the key back in the drawer.
The bathroom was a mess, wet towels dropped on the floor, the shower door standing open. I threw the towels in the laundry hamper, and shut the shower door. When I got back into the bedroom, I started to get into the bed, and stopped. There were come stains all over the sheets, and the duvet was half off the bed. There were even blond hairs on the pillow. I swore and stripped the sheets, and put new ones, dark gray, on the bed, then climbed in.
The pillows didn’t smell of anything, and I fell asleep.
Justin’s POV
I opened the door to the apartment, dumped my portfolio and bag on the floor, and hung my wet jacket and scarf on the hooks on the wall. Daphne’s jacket and boots were there, and I followed the sound of the music to the kitchen.
She was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the paper. Her hoodie clashed in a scary way with her pajama bottoms.
I poured a cup and sat down with her. She looked at me, and sighed. “I should have joined the army.”
I sipped my coffee and nodded. “That would be good, then you could be getting shot at in Iraq.”
“We’re getting shot at here.” She got up and refilled her cup, then sat down, tucking one bare foot under her. “Have you watched CNN lately? Since that last shooting spree, it’s become the all-Pittsburgh-crime-all-the-time channel.”
I looked at her. “You’d have to kill people. I thought you were against that.”
She sighed again. “Yeah, that’s the problem. But then the army would be paying for me to go to medical school, instead of me having to save up for it myself.”
I nodded. “In exchange for the next ten years of your life and your first born child.”
She nodded glumly, then looked at me. “So, were you at Brian’s?”
I shrugged. “No, I was at the studio. Why?”
“You have that puffy-lipped, freshly-fucked look.”
I laughed. “I may have stopped somewhere on my way home. And I only get that from Brian?”
“Lately.” She smiled. She liked Brian.
But I shook my head. “Sorry to disappoint you and your dreams of romantic bliss, but it wasn’t Brian.”
She tipped her head to the side. “Who was it?”
I looked at her, trying to remember the guy’s name. “Matthew? Mark?”
“Luke? John?” She’d wrinkled up her nose.
“I’d have remembered if it was a Luke.”
Daphne sighed. “Do you suppose Brian’s fucking other guys?”
I finished my coffee. “By the dozens. The term ‘recreational sex’ was invented for Brian Kinney.” I put the cup in the sink, and went to my bedroom, feeling Daphne staring after me.
I hadn’t heard from Brian since the night of the last shootings. I’d left him two messages on his voice mail, but he hadn’t called me back, and I’d stopped calling him. I thought at first he was hung up at the hospital, but by the end of the second day, I’d pretty much figured out he really wasn’t calling me back.
I knew Gus’ surgery was the next morning, and I wished I could have seen him again, but I didn’t have Lindsay’s phone number. I didn’t even know her last name. I decided I’d probably be better off waiting until Gus was out of surgery and back in a regular room, and try to visit him there. With Daphne. When Brian wasn’t around.
I pulled my shirt off over my head, and smelled sweat and sex and spilled beer. I threw it in the hamper, and went and took a shower. I couldn’t remember the name of the guy I’d fucked; for all I knew it really was Luke. Or Jesus Christ. I had no idea. I just knew that when I’d walked into Woody’s that afternoon, Brian was at the bar, his arm around the neck of a guy who had his hand down the front of Brian’s jeans. He didn’t see me, and I left, and went to Pistol.
I shook the water out of my eyes, and washed my hair, letting the hot water rinse the shampoo away. I tried not to think about Brian’s shower, or his hands in my hair while I swallowed his cock. I didn’t give a fuck who jerked him off at a bar, or who he screwed. But I wasn’t going to sit around, like some teenager with a crush, and cry because he didn’t call. Brian had promised not to be an asshole. As far as I was concerned, not calling me back for two days was being an asshole.
“Fuck him,” I told my reflection in the mirror, and rubbed my hair with a towel.
When I got back out to the kitchen, Daphne had changed into her uniform, and was eating a bagel at the counter. She looked at me thoughtfully. “You know what this is about?”
I looked at her, confused. “What what is about?”
“The thing with Brian.” She swallowed. “It’s about Ethan.”
I poured another cup of coffee, and tried hard to make sense of that. I gave up. “I give up. Ethan was four years ago. I don’t even remember him. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Justin, even if Ethan wasn’t a lying, cheating asshole - and I do want to point out that I never liked him - that shouldn’t turn you against having a relationship with Brian. Who I want to point out, I’ve always liked.”
“You only like Brian,” I said, “because he’s totally hot and sucks up to you constantly.”
She sighed happily. “Yeah, he’s wonderful.”
I shook my head. “This has nothing to do with that. I’m starving.”
“I’m shocked.”
I pulled the dishtowel off the refrigerator door handle, and threw it at her. “Shut up. Let’s go eat before our shift.”
We went for pizza, and then picked up the rig. Bill and Mark were hanging out in the break room. I was getting my bulletproof vest out of my locker when I overheard one of them say something about the shootings.
I looked over at them. “Did they catch the guys?”
Bill shook his head. “No, and they still have no leads. The city brought in the FBI and ATF.”
Daphne was fastening her vest. “How can they not have caught them? A bunch of wasted teenagers driving stolen cars, shooting up the city four times now?”
I got into my vest, and just as I was putting my jacket back on, my cell rang. I looked at the number, and it was Brian. I didn’t answer it right away, but just before it rolled to voice mail, I flipped it open. I didn’t say anything, though.
Brian was quiet for a minute, and then he just said, “Hey.”
I took a breath. “Hey.”
I heard him take a breath, too. “You working?”
“We’re just going out.” I turned my back to everyone, and put my hand on the locker door.
“I just wanted you to know they’re admitting Gus tonight, if you get by the hospital.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute.
“He was asking about you.”
The fucker. “You’re making that up.”
“I’m not. He did. He asked if you’d be coming to see him. I told him you would.”
“Of course I was going to come and see him. You don’t have to ask. I’m not an asshole.” I knew my voice sounded angry.
“Unlike me, you mean.”
I lowered my voice, because, knowing Daphne, she was two inches away, listening. “I would never let any feelings I had for or about you change anything about Gus. That has nothing to do with you.”
Brian gave a short laugh. “Okay. Good.” Another beat of silence. “So you’ll come see him.”
“Yes. I said I would.”
“Even though his father is an asshole.”
“Exactly.” And I hung up the phone.
I didn’t turn around to look at Daphne, just grabbed my stuff and walked outside to the rig. I climbed in, and when she got behind the wheel and turned to look at me, I held up my hand. “Just don’t. I don’t want to talk about it.”
She nodded, and started the truck. I kicked at the floorboard, and she glanced at me, but she still didn’t say anything. I looked around. “Where the fuck are we going? Did we get a call?”
She shook her head. “I thought we could just drive around a little. You seemed like you wanted to go.”
I sighed, and watched the lights outside for a while. Daphne usually knew when to push and when to shut up. I was glad she wasn’t asking me a lot of questions, because “he didn’t call me back for two days” just didn’t sound like that big of a deal when I said it out loud, but somehow it was.
Her voice broke into my thoughts with something even less welcome than reflecting on Brian’s assholeness. “My mom said your mom called today.”
“Jesus, when is she going to give up?”
Daphne pulled up in front of Starbucks. “My prediction is, never.”
I nodded glumly.
“Are you really never going to talk to her again?”
I shrugged, got out, and went and got in line. Daphne stood behind me, and didn’t say anything else until we were back in the rig.
“Okay, so what happened with Brian?” She blew on her coffee, then took a sip.
I shrugged. “If I say it, I’ll sound like a pathetic high school girl in love with the captain of the football team.”
She laughed. “Say it anyway. I already know you’re not a girl.”
I had to smile at her. “I don’t know, Daph. We were together all night, we went and saw Gus together, it was… it was really good. It felt… close. Good. He dropped me off here, you saw him. He kissed me, and he seemed totally fine, and then he didn’t return two of my calls, and I didn’t hear from him until just now.” I glanced at her, and she was frowning. “I know it’s idiotic. I should just give up.”
“Maybe he was with Gus, or did a double at work, or something. Did you ask him why he didn’t call?”
I stared at her. “Are you crazy? Does he seem like the kind of guy you’d ask why he didn’t call?”
She nodded. “I told you this was about Ethan.”
“What the fuck?”
“You have trust issues. You don’t care what people say, you only want to know what they do.”
I made a gesture. “Why does that mean I have trust issues? Don’t actions speak louder than words? Isn’t that a universal truth?”
She drank some more coffee. “Because you do have trust issues.” She took another sip. “Maybe he does too. Or intimacy issues, or something.”
“He’s hard to read.”
“Why read him at all? Ask him. Maybe he’ll just tell you.”
I snorted.
A burst of static interrupted our psychotherapy session, and we responded to a call about a grocery store clerk who’d had a heart attack at a local market. I felt uneasy when a car drove by slowly while we were sprinting for the store from the parking lot, but it was just someone rubbernecking.
After we brought him to the hospital, we got called out again, this time to a multi-car accident downtown. It had started to snow, and the roads were a mess. I figured it wouldn’t be the last one of the night. And I was right.
Three hours later, we were bringing in a teenager who’d spun out and flipped his parents’ car. He was unconscious, and I had a bad feeling about him. I saw Brian at the end of the hall while we were leaving, and he looked at me before I turned and walked out.
We slid the gurney back into the back of the rig, and Daphne slammed the door. The snow had turned into rain, and left a blackened icy crust on the curb. I leaned against the side of the ambulance, and shifted uncomfortably in my bulletproof vest. I wanted to take it off, but I didn’t feel like hearing a lecture from Daphne, so I just stood up straight again, and sighed.
“Go talk to him.” Daphne tugged the scrunchy out of her hair, and shook it out. It sprung out in curls around her head.
I shrugged. “He saw me. If he wants to talk to me, he can come out.”
She rolled her eyes. “God, how did the two of you ever get together in the first place? You’re both totally bizarre.”
“We’re not together.” I pulled my jacket off, and shrugged out of my vest. It wasn’t as cold as it had been earlier, and I wanted to take my sweater off.
“Hey.” It was Brian’s voice.
I turned around. And then I wondered if he’d heard what I said to Daphne. And if he’d care, one way or the other.
“Hey.” I tugged my sweater over my head, and threw it on the floor of the rig.
Brian was wearing his scrubs, and nothing over them. It might have gotten warmer, but it was still cold. I put my vest and my jacket back on. “Aren’t you freezing?”
He shrugged.
“How’s Gus?”
I saw Brian’s jaw tighten, but his tone was light. “He’s floating on a cloud of morphine right now. Mostly just sleeping.”
“Do you think he’ll be able to have visitors tomorrow night?”
“Probably.” Just then his pager went off. He glanced at it. “I have to go back, meet me at the loft after you get off?”
I told him okay, and he didn’t say anything, just turned and headed back towards the building. I heard Daphne clear her throat, and looked at her. The throat-clearing turned into laughter.
I got in the rig, and slammed the door after me. Daphne was still laughing when she got in the driver’s seat.
Brian’s POV
I buzzed Justin into the loft. He came up the stairs, and I was standing at the open door, waiting for him. He walked past me, dropped his bag on the floor, and pulled off his jacket. I took it from him, and threw it over one of the kitchen stools. “Do you want a beer?”
He shook his head. “Why didn’t you call?”
His voice was calm, mildly curious. He didn’t sound wounded, although he was maybe a little angry. But mostly curious.
I thought for a minute. “I guess I needed a little time.”
“For what?”
I laughed. “I’m not exactly sure.”
He just looked at me, and then nodded. “Okay. Don’t do it again. If you need time, tell me. Don’t just fuck me, and kiss me, and take me to see your kid, then sleep with me and fuck me again, and then disappear.”
More rules. This kid was full of them.
“Speaking of going to see your kid, when is his surgery?”
I walked over to the refrigerator, and pulled out a beer. I really wanted a scotch, but I had to be sober when I went to the hospital, and I didn’t want one scotch, I wanted half the bottle. I held up a bottle of beer and raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook his head. I tried a different bottle. “Water?”
He nodded, and I tossed him the Evian. “His surgery’s at 10 am, but I have to be there by around 8.”
Justin glanced at his watch. “We have an hour and a half, tops.”
I smiled. “That seems to be enough time to accomplish something, if we set our minds to it.”
Justin laughed, and walked up to me. “I’m not sure it has anything to do with our minds.”
I couldn’t have agreed more, so I kissed him. He pulled back from me a little, and then brushed his soft mouth across my lips. He gently bit my jaw, then kissed me again. I hardly stopped kissing and stripping him all the way to the bedroom, and we stood at the bottom of the stairs and pulled the last of our clothes off.
Justin sat on the edge of the bed, and I knelt on the platform between his legs. He took my nipple in his mouth and swirled his tongue over it, then sucked on it. I let my head fall back, and he wrapped his hands around my waist, and dragged his tongue down my stomach muscles.
I sighed, and gently pushed him backwards, and he moved back on the bed. I crawled with him, still between his legs, and when he dropped back onto the pillows, I leaned down and licked and sucked at his nipples, too.
He sighed and arched into my mouth. I smiled against his skin, and kept kissing down his body. I avoided his straining cock, and he gave a half-murmur of protest. I dropped one kiss on his shaft, and felt the blood pounding in it, then kissed down to his thighs.
Justin lifted his legs up over my shoulders, and I reached around and pulled his thighs against the sides of my head. I licked at the spot behind his balls, and when I felt him start to rock towards my mouth, I sat back on my heels. His legs fell down on my arms, and I smiled at him.
I reached across him and got lube and condoms, and Justin curved up and wrapped his arm around my neck. He held out his hand for the lube, and I poured it into his palm. I rolled the condom onto my dick, and he followed it down with his lubed hand, jerking me slowly through the latex. Then he leaned back, still hanging onto my neck, and lifted his ass up off the bed. He locked his eyes on mine, and started to slowly fuck his hole with his lubed finger.
I knew his grip was biting into my neck, but I didn’t feel it. I kept shifting my gaze between his eyes and his ass, and lifted his legs higher, tugging his ass a little closer to me.
He put a second finger inside himself, and I stopped watching his face, just watched his hole stretching and pulsing around his fingers as they moved in and out. When he started to put a third one in, I growled and yanked him into me, hard. His arm fell off my shoulders and he landed back on the mattress, his blond hair splaying out on the dark cover.
He’d pulled his fingers away when he fell back, and I pressed my cock against his hole. I could feel the heat and slipperiness through the condom, and I pressed the head through his opening, and felt him bear down against me.
I eased in with one long, slow thrust, and deliberately stroked across his prostate. He bit his lip, and I leaned down and kissed him, then buried my face in his neck and fucked him.
I felt him tighten on me, and his cock jerked between us, the head wet and leaking. I slowed down and changed my angle so my stomach wasn’t stroking his cock, and my cock wasn’t stroking his prostate. He moaned, but I kept gently fucking him, and he slowly relaxed and let me fuck him deep.
I had to take a breath myself, and force my orgasm back, but I brought him to the edge and backed off it two more times. He had his arms thrown back over his head, and was tossing his head back and forth. He started to curse me and beg me, but when he finally couldn’t even get any words out, I shifted my hips again and fucked him to make him come.
He crossed his arms cross his face, and I could see his teeth biting into his lip, but then I couldn’t see anything but the red and black inside my eyelids. I’d been keeping him from coming, and myself, too, but I couldn’t stop it anymore for either of us. I let the burn spill up and out of me, and his ass clamped on my cock, and his cock went rigid against my stomach, and flooded out between us.
I panted on top of him for a minute, then cleaned us both up a little and lay back down. We were tangled up in the sheets, and I kissed his shoulder. “You looked prettier on the blue ones. I have to plan better in the future.”
He smiled. I tried to straighten out the duvet, and he helped me tug it free of our legs and get it more or less covering us. I rolled onto my side, and he rolled onto his, and we lay facing each other. I brushed his hair back out of his eyes.
He moved his head a little. “I need a haircut.”
“It’s hot.”
“It’s in my eyes.”
“That’s hot.” I touched my nose to his. He ran a hand down my side, and scooted closer. His fingers trailed over my ass, then lightly brushed my crack. I didn’t move, just looked at him.
He smiled at me, just a little. “Do you ever get fucked?” He had that curious note in his voice again.
“Sometimes. Why, do you want to fuck me?”
He grinned. “Sometimes.”
I laughed, and rolled over on top of him. We both just lay there for a while, not talking. Then he kissed me. “You have to go.”
I nodded. “You can stay.”
He shook his head. “I’m going home. But thanks.”
I dropped him at his place, then went to the hospital. Gus was still in his room, and Lindsay was sitting on the bed holding him. Melanie was sitting on a chair next to him on the other side, holding his hand. I smiled at Gus, and stood at the foot of the bed. “Hey, little guy. How you holding up?”
“Hi, daddy. I’m okay.” He looked like he’d been crying, and Lindsay looked like she had been, too.
I made my voice as soft as I could. “It’s going to be okay, Gus. Dr. Marianne is a very, very good bone doctor. The best.”
He sounded cranky. “Why can’t you do it, daddy?”
I closed my eyes for a second, thinking about the night they brought him in. I shoved the thought out of my head. “Because this is a special bone surgery, so they have special doctors who only do bone surgeries.”
He’d heard this all before, and just nodded. I wondered if he understood at all. And it was bullshit anyway, because even if I were the greatest orthopedic surgeon on earth, I could never operate on my own kid.
They finally came for him, and we stayed with him long past the point they normally sent parents away, and then I went and watched, just like before. This time Lindsay didn’t even try to watch, just went to the waiting room with Mel.
MacDonald was as good as I’d told Gus she was, and she removed the bad bone and grafted in the good in less than three hours. I stopped and told Lindsay and Mel it went well, then went into recovery to see him. He was still unconscious, and everything looked good. I stared at his face for a few minutes, and one of the nurses looked at me with sympathy. I ignored him, and turned and went back to the waiting room. I saw MacDonald going in just as I got there, and I went in behind her.
Lindsay had her head on Mel’s shoulder, but they got up as soon as we came in. Marianne smiled at her. “He’s fine, as I’m sure Brian told you.”
They both nodded.
“He’ll probably be asleep for another five or six hours, maybe more, if you want to take the chance to get some rest, or at least, something to eat. It went very well, and there were no complications or problems. I know his oncologist wants to talk to you when he’s awake, but until then, I strongly urge you to get some sleep if you can.” She hesitated. “The next few days are going to be rough.”
I gritted my teeth, and watched Lindsay’s face, but it didn’t change. She just nodded. “We know.” I felt my lips turning in.
Gus didn’t wake up for seven hours. They’d let us wait in his room, and she and Melanie were sleeping there, while I sat next to Gus’ bed in recovery and ignored the nurses glaring at me. There wasn’t anything wrong; kids often didn’t wake up from anesthesia for hours, and all things considered, the longer he was unconscious, the better. But being there with the beeping monitors soothed me, so I stayed.
I’d actually fallen asleep with my head on his mattress when I jerked awake. He was moving a little, and when I looked at him, his eyes were open. He looked scared.
I smiled at him, and touched his cheek, and the frightened look disappeared. He blinked, and went back to sleep, but it was the normal sleep of a sick kid, and not the anesthetized blankness from before.
The nurses bustled me out of the way while they unhooked him from some of his monitoring equipment, and I went down and got Mel and Lindsay. I got some coffee downstairs, and even ate an apple, and then went back to recovery.
Gus was finally back in his room around midnight. There was a note on the bedside table from Justin and Daphne, and a big bunch of balloons. The surgical team had cut Gus’ cast off, and he’d have a new one, but for now it was a splint and bandages. The old cast was sitting against the wall, Justin’s drawings and Gus’ name still intact.
I went out in the hall, and leaned against the wall. Melanie followed me out.
“You really should go home and get some sleep.”
I nodded. “What time is the oncologist coming by in the morning?”
She shrugged. “You know how it is. Sometime between 6 AM and two minutes before they start the chemo.”
I sighed. “I’ll leave her a message. And I’ll come back at 6.”
Mel nodded, and I stopped at oncology on my way out.
When I got to my car, I felt restless and wide awake. I went home, but when I got there, I showered and changed, and then grabbed my keys and went to the baths. Even Babylon felt too real, too personal. I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. I just wanted to forget everything and everyone for a while.
The next morning, after three hours of sleep, I walked into Gus’ room with three lattes from Starbucks and a bag of muffins. Melanie reached out for the coffee, drank it down, then looked at me. “Thanks. You look like hell.”
I nodded. “You too.”
She snorted, took another coffee, and carried it over to Lindsay, who was sitting on the cot near the window. Her hair was strained back in a ponytail, and she had pillow creases on her cheek.
I tossed her the bag of muffins, and she peeked inside, and half-smiled. “Chocolate chip muffins. I knew I loved you for a reason.”
I smiled a little then, too, and nodded. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I’m a doctor. I know these things.”
She broke a muffin in half, and took a bite.
“Mama?” It was Gus’ voice from the bed.
Melanie sat on the edge of his bed, and put her hand on his head. “I’m right here, baby. And here’s mommy and daddy, too.”
Gus licked his lips, and Mel picked up a plastic cup with a straw in it from the bedside table. Gus drank some water, than lay his head back down.
None of us said anything. The oncologist stopping in was just a formality. We all knew why we had to start the chemo right away. We all knew it was going to happen. But here we all were.
I stared at my son, thinking about tiny little microscopic cancer cells, sprayed out from his shattered bone, spreading through his body. I tried to imagine the drugs chasing the cells down and destroying them, like some kind of biochemical attack dogs, even though I knew that wasn’t how it worked.
Dr. Bordner came into the room. “Hey there, Gus. I heard you came through your surgery just fine.” She smiled at him brightly.
He looked at her steadily for a minute, then hesitatingly smiled back. “I feel okay. Kind of sick to my stomach.”
Bordner touched her hand to Gus’ head for a second, and nodded. “I know, kiddo. You’re going to feel pretty sick to your stomach for a few days, but we’ll try to give you some better medicine than last time.”
I didn’t go out into the hall with the three of them. I sat with Gus and regaled him with the facts about tigers I’d gleaned from half an hour on the Discovery Channel website. He was enthralled, so much so that I started making things up when I ran out of actual facts. Hopefully someone would set him straight if he decided on a career in zoology. Currently he was still planning on being a paramedic, despite Justin’s counseling to the contrary.
Gus started chattering away about wildebeest, a subject I had neglected to research online. I was beginning to think he was making stuff up, too, when an oncology nurse came in with a wheelchair to take Gus down. I promised I’d see him when he was done.
I was standing outside the OR, reading the notes on a case I was about to take in, when my pager went off. I called down for the message, and they said it was from Lindsay, wanting me to come to Gus’ room as soon as I could. I hadn’t scrubbed in yet, and I had a few minutes, so I took the stairs and went up.
Gus was curled up with Mel on the cot, and had obviously been throwing up. It had been around four hours since his chemo started, so we were right on schedule. Lindsay was white-lipped, and walked outside the room with me.
“Do you know anything about this new anti-nausea drug they want to try?”
I shook my head. “It’s something Bordner found out about from a pediatric pharmacist she consulted with. Did they try it?”
She snorted. “No, they just gave him the same useless crap as last time. I paged Dr. Bordner but she hasn’t answered yet. I want him to get the new drug, and no one’s listening to me.”
I went back into the room, and called Bordner’s office. “Elise? This is Brian Kinney. Is Dusty around?”
They couldn’t find Bordner, so I took a breath and made myself smile. I’d read once it changed the tone of your voice over the phone, even if they couldn’t see you. “Well, Dusty prescribed a new anti-emetic for my son, Gus, and they gave him something else. Could you correct the order so we can get this vomiting under control?” I let my voice break a little. “He’s been throwing up for three hours now.”
Elise swore she’d have the new meds up within fifteen minutes. I turned towards Lindsay. “I have to go to surgery. If those meds aren’t here by then, call Elise, and insist.” I hesitated. “Page me if they don’t come in half an hour.”
She nodded, even though I had no idea what I’d do about it in the middle of surgery. Probably send an intern to drag Dusty Bordner to Gus’ room by her hair.
The stabbing victim I was sewing back together was stable. The paramedics had gotten the bleeding under control at the scene, which always helped, and he was young and healthy. Unfortunately he was also a gang member, so I was probably just stitching him up so he could go out and get killed later on.
I hadn’t heard from Lindsay, so I took a chance everything was okay, and showered before I went upstairs. The room looked exactly the same when I got there, and so did Gus. I stopped in the doorway. “Why didn’t you page me?”
Lindsay barely glanced at me, just rubbing Gus’ back while he retched unproductively into a basin. “They gave him the new drug. It didn’t help.”
“Mother fuck.” For once, neither Melanie nor Lindsay said anything about language.
Justin’s POV
I had stopped off to see Gus three times since his surgery, but he was always either asleep, or too sick to do more than give me a weak smile. Daphne and I were standing out in the hall the third time, listening to him vomiting. I looked at Daph, and she was crying. I wrapped my arms around her.
“Hey.” It was Brian, sounding tired.
Daphne looked up, and scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand. “Sorry, Brian. It’s just sad.” Then she snapped her mouth shut.
I hesitated, then let go of her and put my arms around Brian’s waist, lightly. He stiffened for a second, and I thought maybe I’d made a mistake, but he sighed and leaned into me.
None of us said anything, and after a while, he pulled away and went in to see Gus. Daphne and I went back to the rig.
We were just going out on a call when my cell phone rang. It was Brian.
“When do you get off?”
“Couple of hours. Are you home?”
“On my way. Come over.”
“Okay. Want me to bring anything, Thai food, a pizza?”
I could almost hear him smile, even though he still sounded tired. “Just your ass.”
I laughed. “It goes where I go.”
Daphne glanced at me when I hung up, but we pulled up at the address so she didn’t say anything.
After our shift, I used the locker room shower and then had Daphne drop me at Brian’s. He was standing in the loft door when I came up the stairs. He had a bottle of scotch in one fist, and he was wearing half-buttoned jeans and a white undershirt. He needed a shave and his hair was a mess.
He stepped back with exaggerated care when I walked past him, and then leaned across the space between us and kissed me. I turned my face away at the last minute. The smell of alcohol made my eyes burn. “Jesus, Brian, what are you doing?”
He laughed and walked slowly over to the sofa, his bare feet padding on the hardwood floor. He threw himself down on the cushions, and tipped the bottle back, draining it dry. He let it fall to the floor, and smiled at me. “I’m getting completely shit-faced. What does it look like I’m doing?”
I sighed, and walked over to him, and stood looking down at him for a minute. I kept my voice gentle. “You need to take a shower and go to bed.”
I held my hand out, but instead of me pulling him up, he pulled me down on top of him. I resisted for a second, but he spread his legs, and I let myself relax into him. He sighed, and put his hands in my hair.
I thought he was falling asleep, or passing out, but when I tried to get up, he stopped me. “Don’t go.”
I huffed. “Brian, come on, at least let’s go to bed. This can’t be comfortable.”
He followed me docilely this time, but that was because he had another bottle of scotch on the bedside table. He picked it up and took another swallow, and then offered it to me. I took it, took a sip, and then carried it out into the kitchen. When I came back, he was looking at me with a confused expression. “Why did you put it all the way out there?”
I walked over to him, and put my hands on the side of his face. “So you’d stop drinking it and go to sleep.”
He stared at me, then nodded, and I started to undo his jeans the rest of the way. He apparently thought that was a good idea and tried to help, but despite that, I got him out of his pants. I pulled his t-shirt over his head, and pulled back the duvet.
Brian lay down and watched me get undressed. I lay down next to him, and let him nestle against my back. I thought he’d fall asleep, but he sighed against my hair, and started talking.
“Do you know how many drugs they put into Gus today?”
I shook my head. “A lot, I’d guess. Pain meds, and chemo, and stuff for nausea. Antibiotics, because of the graft.”
He nodded. I could feel it against the back of my head. Brian had his right arm across my chest, and his left was under me, and he wrapped them around me and pulled me in closer. I let my ass fit into his groin.
“He puked for three hours without stopping before we got it under control.”
My voice was really soft. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry’s bullshit.”
I didn’t say anything.
Brian’s voice was so quiet I could hardly hear him. “He’s just a little kid.”
I turned around inside Brian’s arms, and touched his face. “He has parents who love him. That’s what matters.”
He snorted. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
I looked at him for a minute. “Me, neither. But you love your son.”
He didn’t say anything at first. “It’s funny. When Lindsay first asked me to donate sperm, I didn’t think I would.”
“Didn’t think you’d love him?”
“No.”
“But you do.”
He pulled me in closer. “Yeah. For some reason. Somehow. I do.”
I kissed the side of his face. “Then that’s all that matters. That’s all you can do. Just love him and make sure he knows it.”
There were tears in Brian’s eyes, but he didn’t blink and so I pretended not to see them. I tucked my head under his chin. “Go to sleep, Brian.”
I felt his arms get even tighter around me, and he worked his left arm up so his hand was in my hair. I let him pet me until he finally stopped, and I could tell by his breathing he’d fallen asleep. I lay awake, though, for a long time.
Continued
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