Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting, aka Doctor!fic

By Ellyrianna & Camelhaircoat

Summary: Heart surgeon by day, heartbreaking stud by night (and sometimes, when the shift calls for it, vice
versa) Brian Kinney hates spending even the most minimal amount of time in the emergancy room. Trauma
nurse Justin Taylor might give him a reason to rethink this.

The reason that Brian never transferred patients from the ER to surgery was because every single time, without fail,
something shitty happened to him down there. In the ER, he generally wound up in one of two situations: getting
roped into a massive trauma that he hadn't dealt with since his med school rotations, or dealing with deranged
patients who more often than not wielded some kind of sharp object. On Christmas Eve (a holiday he didn't
particularly give a fuck about) this year he was elected to retrieve a gunshot victim from the first floor because he'd
been in a consistently bad mood for the whole week and his coworkers decided he deserved retribution.

He wound up getting tangled up in a fight that broke out between two patients from opposite gangs and was
stitching himself up in an exam room next to an unconscious old lady who had, judging from her chart, slipped on
black ice and hit her head. Brian twisted around on the stool he sat on, his fingers shaking with the need for a
cigarette, and tried unsuccessfully to reach the spot on his lower back that had gotten swiped with a switchblade.

"Fucking ER," he muttered, gritting his teeth. "Fucking gang wars on holidays in this fucking ludicrous ER."

Some kid in blue scrubs pushed open the door with his elbow and started checking the vitals on the old lady,
although his eyes were fixed tightly on Brian. "Problems?" he asked lightly.

"No business of yours," Brian sharply said, not at all in the mood. He had been planning on wrapping up shortly
after midnight and getting downtown in time to grab a drink with Michael before skipping straight to the Baths in
order to avoid the Christmas theme at Babylon, but since it looked like that wasn't going to happen, he figured he
wouldn't go out of his way to not be a dick to anyone that pissed him off.

"Aw, come on, Doctor," the kid simpered with a smirk. He marked something down on the chart he held and then
stuck it under his arm. "Show me where it hurts."

Brian only resisted giving him the finger because, underneath the broad smile and the amusement, he seemed
serious.

He settled for returning back to probing the gash and asking, "Who the fuck are you, anyway?" The surgical thread
slid neatly through his skin, but his hands were sweaty around the instrument he held, and the tool kept slipping in
his unsteady grip. The kid seemed to register his problem and snagged a pair of disposable latex gloves out of a
dispenser on the wall.

Crossing the room to Brian, he tossed the chart he held on a counter and offered the gloves with one hand while
reaching out to lightly grasp the tool with the other. Brian looked up at him with the steadily disapproving
expression that sent most medical students heading for Dermatology, but when he refused to be dissuaded and
merely stared coolly back at him, Brian surrendered and let go. He brushed his palms off on his lab coat and
snatched the gloves.

"Justin Taylor," the kid said, giving it back when Brian was ready. "Nursing."

"That's cute," Brian drawled. "I'm sure you get along great with the rest of the girls."

"Better than being around the asshole doctors all the time," Justin replied easily. He walked over to where he'd
thrown the chart and slipped it under his arm again. "Good job, by the way. You're setting a fine example for the rest
of them."

As Justin shouldered open the door of the exam room, Brian called after him, "Be sure to buy some shirts with
cartoons printed on them the next time you're in Life Uniform. They add a little personality to the workplace, don't
you think?"

Justin leaned against the door, frowning in mocked consideration. He touched his chin lightly with the fingers of his
left hand. "I don't know. If you give some thought to taking that stick out of your ass, then yeah, maybe." His eyes
brightened and he nodded before turning on his heel and letting the door close behind him. Brian barely had time to
look back at his interrupted sutures before Justin poked his head back in the exam room.

"What now?" Brian asked exasperatedly, and decided that the smile on Justin's face wasn't at all unbecoming. Then
he decided that he fucking hated the ER and needed to get out of it as quickly as possible before the fumes of chaos
and discord permanently affected his brain.

"Just some parting advice. In case you ever find yourself in a spot," he added, gesturing to Brian's shirt folded on top
of the hazardous waste bin, his white coat across his lap, and the dried blood on his skin.

Brian licked his lips, tilted his head, and waited.

"Be nicer to the nurses, because you're totally fucked without us," Justin assured him.

"Are you done wasting my time?" Brian wanted to know.

"Definitely. Just remember to come back in a week to ten days to get those stitches removed."

He left after flipping his blond hair out of his eyes with an expert twist of his head that only models and a select few
teenagers could manage. And as Brian watched him walk away through the glass of the door, he thought that if he
weren't still intent on making some kind of deadline and in the middle of sewing a hole in his side shut, he would
have fucked Justin Taylor in the closest utility closet (or, closet space not permitting, on the floor by the unconscious
old bag). That was because Justin was moderately attractive and most definitely gay, and Brian fucked most men
that were attractive and gay. That was just the natural course of things -- rain fell, plants grew, eggs hatched, and
Brian Kinney fucked. It didn't matter that Justin was an annoying little shit; that wasn't the point.

That wasn't even close.

But the sad fact was that it was Christmas Eve and Mikey wanted drinks and Brian had a triple bypass to perform if
he felt like saving the life of the guy he'd been sent down over half an hour ago to retrieve, so fucking Justin Taylor
was out of the question.

At least until tomorrow.

--

Michael brought Ben, his boyfriend, along for the drinking session, which immediately put Brian in a bad mood. It
was very easy to convince Michael to do any number of stupid things on his own, but with prim and proper Ben in
tow, the night always ended at twelve with Ben quietly saying, "You have to be at the shop in the morning,
remember?" That was especially annoying, since Brian hadn't managed to get out of the hospital until 10:45.

Brian wound up drinking enough for both of them in between a half-hearted game of pool. Michael regaled him with
the boring details of his day and Brian grunted in response, throwing back a shot every time he sunk a ball. He got
drunk a lot quicker than he usually did using that method, and before he knew it Michael was folding him into the
passenger seat of his Jeep and Ben was climbing in the back.

"I just got here," Brian protested, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the bar.

"Now you're just going home," Michael replied easily. He started the car as he leaned over to yank Brian's seatbelt
into the buckle. "Do you have work tomorrow?"

"What do you think?" he snapped. Ben hummed in the back and tapped his foot against Brian's seat so that he could
pretend he wasn't part of a ritual that had been going on before he showed up and would continue going on long
after he was gone.

"On Christmas Day, though, Brian?" Michael asked, wrinkling his nose. It wasn't in distaste; more like disbelief.
"Jesus, I know you hate the holiday, but still."

"Well, you'll just have to eat figgy pudding without me." Brian squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his forehead
with his hand, already feeling tomorrow's hangover. Hopefully it would be a dead day at the hospital and he'd just be
able to hide out in the doctor's lounge for a while with some coffee.

"Ma's doing her usual Eat Until You Puke Christmas dinner, just so you know. In case your shift ends early or
something." Michael glanced over at him and stopped the car outside Brian's building. "You'll make sure and come
if that happens, right?"

Brian's unsteady fingers hit his seatbelt and he managed to get out of the car without falling over. Michael was still
looking at him with the expression of a mother letting her teenage son drive without supervision for the first time, so
Brian leaned up and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Ben's humming faltered briefly.

"If hell freezes over, I'll be sure to drop by," he promised. Michael nodded, somewhat dubiously, and turned off the
car. He and Ben got out before he locked it, and then he tossed the keys to Brian. They started walking in the
direction of their apartment, arms around each other, somehow managing to ignore the freezing night.

Brian stood a few more minutes out in the cold so that his head would clear some before pulling out his keys and
stuffing them in the lock of the front door. As he turned them, he heard shouting coming from across the street, and

glanced over to see if it was Ben and Michael in yet another of their "I'm positive, you're not, I'm so misunderstood"
fights.

It wasn't. Two men who had been walking had suddenly stopped and were screaming at each other in the middle of
the sidewalk, complete with big hand motions and dramatic foot-stomping. They were both pretty short, in black
wool coats (different cuts). One had dark, springy curls and the other longish blond hair.

Brian watched them for a minute, his hazy mind intrigued by the theatrics.

"One fucking night we couldn't do things my way!" one of them was shouting.

"That's because your way is cheap. God, Ethan! It was my fucking family, we couldn't show up looking like
paupers!" the other one screamed back.

"Oh, right, I forgot -- Mr. Country Club can't go anywhere without his matching sweater sets and a bottle of Pinot!"

"Like I would have bought that fucking cheap shit Merlot you wanted! It's my salary that paid for it, anyway, so I
don't see what your problem is."

"My problem is you're embarassed of me!"

"When you act like a piece of gutter trash in front of my mother, of course I am! 'Oh, I play on the streets! Oh, it's so
hard to earn a living! Oh, I'm a starving artist!' Give me a break, Ethan. I work my ass off to keep you in violin
wands --"

"They're called bows, for Chrissake, Justin!"

Justin. That sounded familiar. Brian knew a Justin -- a blond Justin. He was pretty sure that even through all of the
shots he'd had, he could remember meeting a blond Justin. When? Today, at the hospital, in the ER. He was a
smartass. Yeah, that was right. He'd wanted to fuck him on principle.

And now he was across the street screaming at -- who? His boyfriend? Brian smirked; this was more entertaining
than Woody's had been, especially since everyone in there he'd had before. Fucking lousy night, that's what it had
been.

Justin crossed his arms and took several steps back from Ethan. "You know what? This is done. I'm staying with
Daphne tonight. Your stuff better be out of my place by the time I'm done with work tomorrow or I'll -- fuck, I'll do
something."

He stomped off then, leaving Ethan standing completely still for a few seconds. Finally, he called, "I love you!
Come on, Justin, you know I do! More than anything!"

Justin shouted over his shoulder, "And spray some Febreeze around before you go. Your cat gave me the worst
allergies in my whole fucking life."

Brian knew it was definitely the alcohol in him that made him start laughing so hard right then, and he was bent
nearly double without even a clue as to why he found the situation funny. Ethan fixed him with a dark glare from
across the street. "Drunk asshole," he bellowed, and stormed away in the opposite direction of Justin. That only
made Brian laugh harder.

By the time he got himself together enough to open the door and get up to his loft (top floor, naturally -- only the
best), it was nearly one in the morning and he felt like a reanimated corpse. He set his alarm, killed the lights, and
threw all of his clothes into a pile on the floor, knowing that his Armani pants would require a trip to the dry cleaner
after lying in a heap all night but at the moment not really caring.

All he wanted to do was sleep like the dead until he had to go into work, though, so he collapsed into bed completely
naked and did exactly that.

--

Justin woke up in Daphne's apartment for the second time in two months and briefly wondered what he'd fought
with Ethan about this time. Then he realized that he'd dumped Ethan and had spent half the night with Daphne on
the sofa inhaling all of her Hagen Daz (as per her strict 'always eat ice cream after breaking up' regulations) without
remembering that he had work in the morning.

That was the type of thing that happened often when he and Daphne had been at Pitt and he'd gone through his
Boyfriend of the Week phase during sophomore and junior year. However, since getting together with Ethan shortly
after graduating from the nursing school the tradition had not continued. Interestingly, though, last night was more
of a celebration than a drown-your-sorrows type of thing.

Daphne had always hated Ethan.

To be honest, Justin had never really liked him all that much, either.

The spare room at the apartment had been turned into Daphne's "exercise room," although all she really did was
throw down a yoga mat and do some Pilates once in a while. Mostly it just had a lot of boxes and a broken stationary
bike inside, but that was still enough to have him crash on the sofa and wake up with a crick in his back and
Daphne's musty comforter. He was definitely going to sleep in his apartment tonight, with his things -- more
importantly, without Ethan's things.

That would be nice.

Justin allowed himself five minutes of fantasy time, in which he envisioned his little studio completely empty of
amateur CD cases and smelly cheeses and fingerless gloves. It was a nice thought, and he would have liked to
pursue it, but he had to be at work in forty-five minutes and the Pittsburgh buses were always slow as hell.

He grabbed a warp-speed shower, an apple out of the fridge, and his coat before going out of the door and hitting the
ground running. He managed to catch the bus just as it was leaving the closest stop and got into Allegheny General
not two minutes before he would have been late.

The other nurses burst into a round of applause for him as he skidded in the door. He raised his arms triumphantly
and bowed a few times in appreciation. One of them whistled while another called, "Speech! Speech!"

Justin opened his mouth to say something witty and engaging, but he was cut off by a patient suddenly vomiting
blood all over the floor two feet away from him.

His smile vanished and he heaved a sigh as he undid the buttons on his coat. Christmas or not, it was shaping up to
be just another day in the life.

The place Brian hated in the hospital almost as much as the ER was the cafeteria. It was true that there were no
hallucinating homeless people equipped with rusty metal pipes in the cafeteria, and ambulances didn't pull up and
dump you with their loads before rushing off again without even the thought that maybe you were involved in
another case, but the food was shit and the coffee was worse. There were unidentified stains on the linoleum that the
janitors pretended not to see, and the silverware was wrapped in plastic. Frankly, in Brian's opinion, that alone said
it all.

Unfortunately, on Christmas Day the Starbucks across the street decided it would be closed and forced Brian to skip
his triple nonfat latte in favor of whatever concoction the dietary staff whipped up and stuck in the coffee pot. That
was on top of his bitch of a hangover and the fact that Cynthia had gotten the surgery he'd wanted. As far as women
went, Cynthia wasn't half bad, but when she tricked him into going in the coffee-less lounge only to scrub in on the
one thing he'd been looking forward to all day, she ranked low in his book.

Brian pushed open the cafeteria door with his shoulder so that he wouldn't have to touch it with his bare hands (for a
hospital, germs didn't seem to be that big of an issue) and walked inside, against his better judgement. A few visitors
were poking half-heartedly at the limp salads offered or the dishwater soup, and there seemed to be a nurse
convention in one corner, but it was otherwise empty. Figures; the place was absolutely pathetic.

He went to where the coffee pots sat on hotplates and grabbed a Styrofoam cup from a stack to his right.
Scrutinizing the coffee seemed useless, so he grabbed the caffeinated one and hoped for the best.

"Problems?"

Brian closed his eyes and bit on his lips to keep from smirking. That kid thought that he was just so cute.

When he looked at Justin a second later, he had the most shit-eating grin on his face that Brian had ever seen. He
was leaning his elbows on the counter, his chin resting in his palms, and his ass thrust out in the perfect "fuck me"
position. Even his baggy scrubs couldn't hide how prominent a feature it was.

"What are you now, my stalker?" Brian wanted to know, grabbing four packets of Sweet N' Low and ripping them
open. Powder flew up between them, and Justin lazily reached out and fanned it away. He straightened his back and
snatched a couple of rolls from a basket on a shelf over the coffee.

"Just freshening the supply," he replied, glancing over his shoulder and then meeting Brian's eyes pointedly. Brian
sighed dramatically and turned his head so that he could see the nurses gathered around one chipped table and a
plastic bowl where they had obviously been hoarding bread.

"See, that's the beauty of children: they always do whatever you tell them. Those old hags must love having a
gopher." Brian sniffed the cream that was on display experimentally before adding it to his cup.

"You know all this about kids because you have a few, right? I dunno, you seem like the right age." Justin shrugged
and bit into one of the rolls.

"Speaking of kids," Brian shot back, "who got the little tykes in the divorce?" When Justin could only come up with
a confused look in response, Brian elaborated by saying, "It's so undignified, breaking up right on the street, where
everyone can hear. So, tell me -- did Ian scrub the place down, top to bottom, as an apology for all that pet dander?
Or did he just take his stuff and run?"

Justin's glare slowly increased through Brian's rehashing, and when it finally wrapped up, he stretched up on his toes
to get the remainder of the rolls in the basket and stormed off back to the nurses' table.

Brian's head still hurt like a motherfucker, but his day had just gotten marginally better.

--

Daphne called around noon to ask if Justin wouldn't prefer going with her to her parents' house for Christmas instead
of back to his family and enduring his father making snide remarks about his profession. He promptly agreed, and
said he'd meet her outside her apartment when he got off his shift so that they could walk there together.

He was putting off going back to his place for as long as he could, and he wasn't sure why. Was he afraid that Ethan
would still be there? Or was it that he didn't want to go back to an empty apartment after two years of coming home
to someone who was usually happy to see him? Even if their relationship had been far from perfect, living alone had
never been something Justin had done for long periods of time, and now he was wondering if he would be too afraid
to do it at all.

He had lived with his parents through high school, and Daphne through all of college and nursing school (even
though she was in the med program). He'd gotten his own place just as he graduated, but then he'd felt bad about
Ethan's financial troubles and invited him to move in despite the fact that they hadn't been dating for very long.

Justin exchanged the customary merry Christmas wishes with everyone in the ER before he left. He wasn't looking
forward to the eventuality of going back to his empty apartment, and it always pissed him off that he had to avoid
family events because he'd just "make a scene" in front of the aunts, uncles and cousins if he didn't, but being
hugged and kissed good-bye by the women he worked with always raised his flagging spirits. There was something
about cleaning up bodily fluids that really helped people bond.

As he wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck and tucked it into his coat against the cold, he saw the bright flare of
a lighter at one of the emergancy exit doors that led out from a hallway on the first floor. It touched the end of a
cigarette and then disappeared. Justin craved a cigarette right then, but he'd smoked the last one in his pack
yesterday and still had to buy a new one.

The smoker leaned leisurely back against the door and took a drag. It was dark out, so Justin could only see his
silhouette, but he didn't appear to be in a hurry. Justin figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, and a smoke would probably
calm his nerves anyway. He stuck his gloved hands in his pockets and walked over.

"Mind if I bum a smoke?" Justin asked, plastering on his most endearing smile.

The smoker raised his head to scrutinize him, although he couldn't have have seen very well in the darkness. He
pulled the pack out of his coat and held it out. Justin took one and started fishing around in his pocket for a lighter,
but the smoker held out his own. Justin shrugged and grasped the cigarette between his fingers. The lighter flicked
on, and Justin put the cigarette to his lips as he bent over to reach the flame.

The smoker snapped it off before he could. "What's your problem?" Justin asked, annoyed at being played with.

"The ubiquitous Justin Taylor," the smoker snarked, and Justin rolled his eyes.

"Dr. Kinney. Always a pleasure," he replied. Brian laughed, and smoke from both the cigarette and the cold
surrounded his face.

"I don't recall us ever being properly introduced," Brian said, cocking his head.

"Please. Anyone who doesn't know who you are and works here should be fined." Justin gestured to the lighter Brian
still held up. "Are you going to give me a light or what?"

Brian obliged, waggling the flame back and forth until it caught on the cigarette, then stowing the lighter in his
pocket. "You haven't been working here that long. How did you know about my reputation?"

"I transferred from St. Mary's last year, and when I told the nurses I work with that I'm gay, they said, 'So you've
done it with Brian Kinney, right?' The way they went on about you, I kept looking over my shoulder those first few
days, sure that you were gonna come down here and just haul me off to some storage closet to fuck," Justin
explained, taking a deep drag and holding it in. A day of nicotine withdrawal was enough; it felt great, and went a
long way in soothing him.

"Christ. Storage closet? That was the best you could come up with?" Brian chuckled, but privately he was trying to
map out the closest one to their current location and wondering if he had enough time to fuck Justin in what was left
of his fifteen minute dinner break.

"I'm actually surprised it took us this long to run into one another," Justin remarked. "Not that it would have done
you any good before, since I was still in a relationship up until twenty-four hours ago."

Brian snorted. "Yeah. Right. That would really have factored into my plans."

Justin looked him up and down briefly and then shook his head. "All the other fags in this hospital might be willing
to just throw aside their commitments for a chance at your dick like some daytime soap opera, but I'm not like
them."

He inhaled too deeply on his cigarette and started to cough, so when Brian muttered, "We'll see about that," he didn't
hear. Louder, Brian asked with fake innocence, "And why's that?"

Justin dropped the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it with his sneaker. When he looked back up at Brian, he
had that know-it-all expression on his face that Brian could make out even in the dark. He flipped his hair out of his
eyes and said, "Because I can have anyone I want. And I don't want you."

He left Brian standing where he was and walked quickly away from him, his heart thudding painfully in his chest.
Why had he said that? Dr. Kinney was pretty fucking gorgeous, even in the darkness of the ambulance bay, and even
if he was a prick, Justin would bet money that he was a great fuck. He'd just wanted Brian to know that he wasn't
going to be throwing himself at him, that he wasn't God's gift to queers and to wound his obviously huge ego.

Justin would have loved to fuck him.

Too bad that it was never going to happen, now.

--

Brian wasn't really sure why he fucked so many men. The obvious answer for this rather muddled question was
because he could, but that was a cop-out, and Brian didn't really do cop-outs. He was honest and straightforward and
a cop-out was bullshit, which Brian didn't deal in.

There was that other lame excuse about his sad and sorry childhood and how he fucked around to make up for the
lack of affection he'd gotten from dear old drunk Daddy and unfeeling Mommy, but that explanation was for
Lifetime movies. A thousand other people had fucked-up pasts and turned out to be normal, functioning human
beings. Brian didn't count himself among them, but he also didn't rule himself out. He figured that he lived in kind of
a limbo, in-between the two.

When Justin told Brian that he didn't want him, it was like flipping some switch off that had been turned on for so
long he'd forgotten about it. The last time someone had rejected him -- could he even remember such an ancient
event? Justin had started walking towards the street, and Brian had forgotten that he was due back inside in ten
minutes and that he really didn't have time for even the quickest fuck. He'd grabbed Justin's arm the way muggers do
and spun him around, his body rigid with shock.

"What do you want?" Justin had asked, his voice slightly shaky from the lingering feeling of being apprehended.

Brian just laughed at him.

--

Justin moaned loud enough to wake the comatose kid down the hall as Brian pushed in, and Brian's hand in his hair
crushed his cheek against the closet door. He didn't seem to care that his face was squashed and all of his pretty
blond hair was about to be yanked out; one of his hands was reached around, tightly grasping Brian's ass, in a silent
invitation for more.

Brian wrapped his arm around Justin's chest and braced his free hand against the door, making it easier for the short,
sharp thrusts he was in the mood for. Justin seemed like he was just along for the ride, taking whatever Brian offered
as easily as some inexperienced virgin. Brian figured it had been a long time since he'd gotten laid well to make him
so compliant, but he wasn't complaining.

Justin's head fell back against Brian's shoulder, and even in the watery light from the single bulb in the closet Brian
could see the dark red smudge where his cheek had been jammed up against the door. Brian wasn't the type that
fucked a million and "never kissed on the mouth," like a Julia Roberts movie, so he felt absolutely guiltless kissing
Justin for the second time that night. And then the third, and the fourth, and Justin's body going along smoothly with
the pattern set by his own and the tell-tale spasming of him jerking himself.

Brian caught a glimpse of his watch right as Justin came (rather vocally, Brian noted with some interest) and was
pleased to see that he was only ten minutes late for the consult he was supposed to be doing. Riding out his own
orgasm a few seconds later, Brian decided that it was a very merry Christmas indeed.

Brian refocused on the woman's face and leaned back a little on the bed he was sitting on. She was saying something
that he didn't quite understand, but he wasn't sure why. Tilting his head to one side, a sharp pain exploded just over
his right eye, and he squeezed his eyes tightly closed, raising a hand to hover over the area that hurt.

"Fuck," he muttered.

"Dr. Kinney," the nurse repeated, and, with his eyes closed, Brian was able to make out what she was saying
perfectly. "Dr. Kinney, if you move your hand, I'll wash out that gash and a doctor will come over and suture it."

Reopening his eyes, he looked past the woman and her exasperation and saw that he was in the ER, which was
suitably crowded for a -- what? Friday night? Saturday? No, he was pretty sure it was Saturday; he remembered

going with Mikey to 80s Night at Babylon, and then some guy was harassing him in the parking lot, another poor
unfortunate soul the lighting in the back room had masked enough for Brian to fuck him. Then he'd gotten in his
Jeep and was messing around with the radio when --

That was the last thing he remembered.

Not a good sign.

"What the hell happened to me?" he asked the nurse, the searing pain in his head contorting his expression into one
of ultimate fury. Her eyes widened and she backed away from him slightly, fearing bodily harm.

"You were rear-ended at a red light," Justin Taylor said, passing by nonchalantly on his way to a storage closet. He
punched in the code and shouldered the door open, disappeared for a minute, and then popped back out with a suture
kit and a pack of gauze. He tossed the kit on the bed next to Brian and then took the gauze with him back into an
exam room a few feet away.

Brian barely had time to comprehend that he'd spoken before he vanished, and he opened his mouth to say
something both witty and offensive, but by then Justin was gone and he was left staring at the original nurse he was
saddled with.

Her nametag said Callie.

"I'm gonna go get the doctor now," Callie said hurriedly, and dashed out of sight.

Brian rolled his eyes carefully, reached up a finger to brush away the blood dripping from the laceration over his
eye, and watched the usual annoying procedures he avoided so strictly in the ER: incoming traumas with not enough
doctors to intercept them, patients suddenly gushing blood for no apparent reason other than breathing, small
children wailing in the way that reminded him of his son, fluttering parents, amnestic geriatrics and moaning, fat,
middle-aged men...

And then there was Justin, who, Brian could see through the partly-closed blinds of the exam room, was peeling
back the blood-soaked banadage on a woman's abdomen and keeping a smile on his face the entire time. The woman
was pale and shaking, but it was obvious that Justin was talking to her and keeping her mind off of the big mess on
her stomach, keeping her as rational and calm as possible.

He pulled the gauze completely free of the leaking stitches and took it across the room, presumably where he threw
it away. Brian watched with piquing interest as he kept up the dialogue with her the entire time, even as he stopped
to gather supplies at a cabinet. He would turn and look at her, making eye contact, laughing, his hands easily finding
the things he needed.

Brian was so absorbed in watching Justin pull up a stool beside the woman's bed and begin the process of cleaning
the wound and reapplying the dressing that he didn't notice Callie coming back and cleaning out the injury that a few
moments before was driving him up a wall. He was too busy concentrating on the way the woman relaxed under
Justin's touch to feel the doctor that eventually appeared at his side anesthetize the area as more than an irritating
mosquito bite.

Then Justin pulled abruptly away from her, turning his back and drawing his right hand close to his chest, where he
pulled and rubbed it for several long minutes that he talked off to her with a grimace that she couldn't see, and Brian
was too busy trying to think of why that would happen to someone (neurological, he decided, but that wasn't his
area, so all he could make about that was a generalization) to register the doctor giving him sixteen slow, tight
stitches.

"Brian!"

Brian tore himself away from watching Justin to see Michael jogging through the emergancy room doors, his brown
eyes wide with fear and relief. The doctor (Brian had fucked him, but he didn't remember his name) motioned for
Michael to come over, which Michael would have done anyway.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his breathing ragged from presumably racing over to the hospital. Brian distractedly
turned to look back at the exam room, but the quick motion jarred his head and made his vision brighten painfully.
He covered his eyes with his hand and gritted his teeth against the pain in his head.

"He has a minor head wound and a concussion," the doctor dutifully informed Michael, and Brian heard rustling
pages from a chart. Christ, a chart. He remembered suddenly, clearly, why he loved being the doctor and not the
patient --

It obviously was your fault even though you don't beat yourself up, you don't choose to get your ribs smashed in,
you can't help what he does to you and he blames it on you anyway because he has to pay the bill, he has to pay so
much fucking money because you were too fragile to do more than break under his fists.

The doctor says to your mother that he wants to keep you overnight for observation, opening up the plastic cover,
riffling through pages, hands it over for a signature. Here, Mrs. Kinney, sign here -- and here --

"--Just stay with him for the next 48 hours or so, and wake him up every few hours if he's sleeping. Make sure that
he drinks plenty of fluids, don't let him lift anything heavy, and don't let him come into work for a few days. Don't
let him take any ibuprofen for a week or two, as it has the potential to cause internal bleeding..." The doctor trailed
off, making a tutting sound as he went over Brian's chart. "Oh, and no drinking."

Brian slowly dropped his hand from its protective shield over his eyes and squinted up at Michael under the bright
fluorescents, who was nodding vigorously, accepting his charge with all the firmness of a mother whose son went
out past curfew and got caught.

"Well, we're just going to run a CAT scan, and if that turns out fine, I'll release Brian to your care."

Brian took time turning to look at the exam room again, but the blinds had been drawn.

"Brian?" Michael pressed, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. Brian forced a bright smile up at him. "How are you
feeling?"

"Fabulous," Brian replied.

--

Justin woke up at six in the morning to a heavy knocking on his apartment door and facing the sad fact that his
landlord had turned off his heat because he was behind on the rent. He shivered as he stepped out of bed, wondering
what had possessed him to go to sleep naked, and pulled on the closest articles of clothing he could find. Then he
grabbed a heavy black sweater and yanked it over his matted bed head for good measure.

Shuffling to the door, Justin yanked it open only to find himself face-to-face with Ethan Gold for the third time in
the three weeks they'd been broken up.

"Ethan," he mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. "You can't keep coming around here. Especially not this early
in the morning."

"Your work hours are so erratic, when am I ever supposed to track you down?" Ethan asked. "Look at you, running
yourself ragged. You look dead on your feet." He reached out a hand to caress Justin's cheek, but Justin stepped
away from his touch.

"That's because you woke me up at the ass crack of dawn," he snapped. "Now will you please leave so that I can get
four more hours of sleep before my shift starts?"

"We need to have a talk," Ethan insisted. "What happened between us, it was never really finalized. Jus, I know we
can work it out --"

"No, we can't," Justin replied firmly. "Good-bye, Ethan."

He shut the door, locked it, and crawled back into his bed.

--

"Someone had a late night," Brian drawled as he joined Justin in the ambulance bay for a smoke. Justin spared him a
cross glance before returning his attention to the street.

"More like an early morning," he corrected. "And since when do you give a shit? You fucked me -- game over."

Brian flicked his lighter and caught the end of his cigarette. "It was just an observation."

"Fuck all you know about observation," Justin muttered.

"What's the story with your hand?" Brian casually asked, scissoring the cigarette between his gloved fingers. Justin
sharply turned to him.

"What?"

"Your hand," Brian repeated. "When I was in the ER two weeks ago after that asshole rammed my Jeep. I saw it
shake."

"So? What about it?" Justin retorted defensively, dropping his smoke to the asphalt and crushing it out with his foot.
He crossed his arms tightly over his zipped coat and refused to meet Brian's eyes.

"I was trying to figure it out. Brain injury, maybe?" he suggested.

"You're a heart surgeon, not a neurosurgeon," Justin bit out. "What do you know about brain injuries?"

"I did a rotation in neuro before I decided I liked fixing broken hearts better," Brian replied, tongue in cheek. Justin
rolled his eyes and refrained from falling into the obvious trap. "Am I right?"

"Are you used to it?" Justin asked after a moment's hesitation.

"Used to what." Brian stubbed out his own cigarette against the wall and lit a fresh one. He took a deep, scorching
drag that made Justin's own lungs burn appreciatively.

"Being right?"

Brian smirked at him. "Take a wild guess."

Justin shook his head and started to walk back inside.

"Hey."

He stopped and pivoted so that he could see Brian raising his eyebrows suggestively at him.

"I'm right about most things regarding heart surgery, and I'm right about most things relating to sex, because, let's
face it, I'm the foremost authority in Pittsburgh, if not the entire east coast," he started, gesturing vaguely with his
cigarette. "I'm also right about a lot of other things, because I have common sense."

"Oh yeah?" Justin asked, nonplussed.

"You want me to fuck you again," Brian said blandly. Justin coughed, partially from the cold and partially to keep
himself from thinking about the first time and about how Brian had lived to up to every rumor, every story, every
piece of gossip. "I can tell you really want it, and since you just broke up with that guy --"

Fucking Ethan, Justin thought, the incident from that morning coming back to him with piercing clarity.

"--I'd do you again. Because I'm usually always right," Brian finished.

Justin watched the expression on Brian's face for a long time. He knew every story about Brian, since the nurses
loved to gossip about him, and he knew that Brian never did anyone more than once. He wondered why Brian would
offer to fuck him again when his reputation blatantly stated that he would only do it once, and Justin knew it wasn't
because Brian felt sorry for him. He figured that Brian Kinney, despite the reuptation, despite the gossip, must have
seen something in Justin that he wanted again, and this was his way of getting it while saving face. In a way, Justin
kind of respected that.

However, he also knew that Brian was a selfish prick and that he shouldn't have fucked him in the first place, but his
ugly break-up with Ethan and subsequently terrible Christmas had skewed his judgement, and he'd needed a good
fuck.

He didn't now, though.

"I already had you," Justin said, and went back into the ER.

--

The cigarette burned in Brian's hand, unsmoked, until twenty minutes later, when his pager went off and he forced
himself to go back up to the OR.

--

Brian was pulling out his car keys when he saw a familiar streak of blond rushing up the opposite sidewalk towards
the bus station on the corner. The bus had just left a minute ago (Brian had heard it clanking up the street and cursed
it out appropriately), though, and Justin already looked frustrated as all hell.

"Hey, Sunshine," Brian called loudly.

Justin stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Brian confusedly. Then he seemed to take inventory of where he was,
remembering the night he'd broken up with his boyfriend and Brian had watched, completely smashed, from the
front stoop.

"Would you mind coming on to me at the hospital? I've got a bus to catch," Justin shouted.

"Bus just left," Brian said casually, unlocking his car and going around to the driver's side door. "I don't operate the
Kinney Car Pool on principle, but..." He trailed off, sliding behind the wheel and slamming the door shut behind
him. Sticking the keys in the ignition, he waited for the car to warm up and for Justin to cross the street.

He wasn't sure why he was waiting for Justin to cross the street. Maybe it was because that black coat he wore made
his hair stand out more, a bright shock on yet another drab, sub-zero day. Maybe it was because deep down, he
didn't want the kid to be late for his shift.

But it was probably because he'd been a better-than-average fuck and Brian had been willing -- no, wanted to fuck
him again -- and Justin had turned him down.

The passenger door opened and Justin climbed up into the Jeep, dragging the seatbelt across himself and sitting
stiffly, eyes straight ahead.

"Looks pretty good for a car that got smashed," Justin offered after Brian had put it in gear and started driving.

"Intersection security cameras caught the license plate of the asshole that rammed me and I threatened to sue him
within an inch of his life, so he settled with me and, in the process, paid for the newer model," Brian explained.

"Oh." Justin shifted uncomfortably in the seat.

They sat in silence for several minutes until Brian pulled into a spot in front of the Liberty Diner. Justin immediately
held up a hand in protest.

"Are you kidding? I'm going to be late for my shift if you stop for a fucking three-course breakfast," he said.

"Don't be a princess." Brian unbuckled his seatbelt and turned off the car. "I need coffee this early in the morning."

"I don't have time for this," Justin complained, although he got out as well.

As usual for that time of the morning, the diner was filled to capacity. Michael and Ben were in a booth with
Melanie, Lindsay, and Gus; Debbie was rushing around and trying to keep up her endless repartee of jokes while
delivering breakfasts. She glanced up when Brian and Justin came in, pausing to give Justin a cursory glance before
dashing back to the window and the chiming bell.

"Brian!" Lindsay exclaimed from where they all sat, sitting up straighter and abandoning her eggs. Michael, with his
back to the door, squished around in his seat so that he could smile brightly at Brian -- and then frown at his
companion.

"Who's he?" Michael asked. Justin rolled his eyes.

"Two coffees, Deb," Brian said loudly, and she nodded distractedly, motioning for one of the waitresses behind the
counter to fill the order. He spared a glance at Justin, who was digging in his wallet for cash to pay for the drink he
hadn't ordered and glaring darkly. Brian put a hand on the wallet, and Justin looked up at him quizzically. "I've got
it," he assured Justin.

Justin shook his head. "I can afford a stupid cup of coffee," he said defensively.

"And I can afford a smart one. Just...put it away." Brian went across the room to the booth, reaching out to take Gus
out of Melanie's lap.

"Watch it, asshole," she snapped. Brian ignored her and tickled Gus, who squirmed and giggled. Justin had
reluctantly followed him, although he stood back, looking around awkwardly.

"Look at your moms, feeding you carbs and cholesterol first thing in the morning. When they have to roll you to
school, you're going to come to your old man, begging him to teach you to eat right," Brian said, waving an
admonishing finger in Gus's face.

Melanie snatched the boy back and passed him to Lindsay, looking like she wanted to stab him with her butter knife.

"Your coffee's ready, Brian," the waitress behind the counter called. "That's $4.25."

Justin grabbed the cups, happy to get out from under the stares of Brian's friends, while Brian paid the bill.
"Regretfully, we must be leaving. If Justin's a minute late, he'll nail my ass to my Jeep."

"Now I know why you don't run a carpool," Justin said. "You don't care at all about the needs of your passengers."

"I care about their needs," Brian countered, motioning Justin out of the door. "Other kinds of needs."

"Who was that?" Debbie asked Michael as she came over to their booth with the check. Ben took it from her,
smiling and examining the total.

"Hell if I know," Michael replied, watching through the window as Brian and Justin got into the Jeep and drove off
in the direction of the hospital.

--

Justin missed his bus again two days later. Brian's shift didn't start until 8 pm, as opposed to Justin's 8 am, but he'd
gotten up to plug in his dead and annoyingly beeping cell phone and had seen Justin racing down the sidewalk out
his window. The thought crossed his mind then that he wanted some Starbucks -- particularly the Starbucks across
the street from the hospital.

Justin was already sitting on the bench at the bus stop when Brian got in his car, and the bus arrived as Brian pulled
up across the street from it, the window down and his sunglasses pushed up into his hair. He'd held Justin's eyes for
a minute before slipping the glasses in place and putting up his window.

The bus pulled away, and Justin jogged across the street and got into the Jeep.

It started getting to be more involved without Brian even realizing.

After another week of Justin missing his bus and getting a lift with Brian to the hospital (except for when Brian was
already there and Justin actually had to make the bus), he stopped pretending that it was because he was getting up
late and started showing up on the stoop of Brian's apartment building with a sketchpad and a couple of pencils
every morning. Brian would come down, they would silently walk together to the Jeep, and then they would drive to
the Liberty Diner, a place Justin had never been before but on whose clientele - as well as on Michael's mother - he
was quickly making an impression.

"You're just adorable," she said one morning about three weeks into the institution of the two-person Kinney Car
Pool.

Justin smiled and accepted the tug she gave on his cheek without comment, and then waited for her to rush away to
fill an order before turning to Brian and asking, "She does this with everyone?"

"Get used to it," Brian had said, and threw down the money for their coffee.

They then proceeded to the hospital, where they would part ways -- but only after exchanging their time schedules
for that night and the next morning.

A month later, Brian decided that it was stupid for Justin to wake up ten minutes early to walk over to his building,
since he was the one with the car.

"What's your address again?" he asked nonchalantly one morning, making a one-handed left turn at a yellow light.

"Why?" Justin sounded rightfully suspicious.

"Debbie wants to know where to forward lemon bars to the poor, starving nurse," he said.

"I eat plenty," Justin muttered, but consented to scribbling down something on a gas receipt in the glove department.

The next day, Brian honked the horn loudly and annoyingly for a good five minutes before a window rolled up and
Justin stuck his sleep-tousled head out, squinting in the semi-darkness of early evening.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he shouted.

"I thought you said you had a 5:00 to 6:00 shift," Brian returned, opening the car door so that he could be heard at
maximum volume.

"I do," Justin answered, not seeming to get it. Brian sighed dramatically.

He made a show of looking at his wristwatch. "Well, it's 4:25 now, and it's a fifteen minute drive to the hospital,
which leaves ten minutes for you to stuff your face with fries from the diner and five minutes to find a parking spot,"
he explained loudly.

Justin considered the explanation for a minute, and then his upper body disappeared from the window.

Brian slammed the car door shut again when Justin tumbled out of his apartment building yanking on a long-sleeve
shirt, his scrub top between his teeth. Brian didn't fail to notice the stripe of pale stomach exposed as Justin wrestled
into his clothing.

"Don't even start on some dumb blond bullshit, will you?" Justin asked sourly as he climbed into the passenger seat.
"You've never shown up here before."

"You didn't bring a coat," Brian said after a minute.

"I was in a little bit of a rush," Justin snapped.

"Don't take your aggressions out on me, Sunshine," Brian returned just as forcefully. "Toss your tricks earlier and
get a good morning's sleep for a change."

"It wasn't a trick," Justin mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face. "It was my stupid fucking ex, who won't leave
me alone."

Brian looked at Justin quickly before refocusing on the road. "He showed up again?"

"No, he kept calling on a loop all afternoon. Finally I just unplugged the stupid phone and threw it out in the hall."
Justin leaned his forehead against the cool window and closed his eyes. "Like you care," he added for good measure.

"You should get a fucking restraining order already," Brian suggested, pulling up in front of the diner and killing the
engine.

"Because between the job that consumes my life and the chores that I have to do when I'd rather sleep or have sex, I
totally have the spare time to go down to the homophobic police station and get a document that most stalkers
completely disregard in the end anyway. Right." Justin rolled his eyes and unbuckled his seatbelt.

He threw all of his body weight into opening the door, which, he and Brian had discovered early on (to Brian's
amusement), stuck in the cold weather.

"The mother of my kid --" Brian started.

"Lindsay," Justin interjected. "I've spoken to her several times, you know."

"--Has a bulldyke lawyer husband that could probably do something about it," he finished, as if Justin hadn't spoken.

"Melanie doesn't practice that branch of the law," Justin reminded him. Brian pushed open the door for the diner and
slid into a booth close to the door. Justin sat down across from him and opened up a menu.

"Do you really have to look?" Brian asked as Debbie came over. She smiled brightly at the two of them and then
produced her pad and a fuzzy pink pen. "He'll have the bacon cheeseburger with extra fries, and I'll have a salad
with no-fat dressing on the side and romaine lettuce. None of that iceberg shit."

"You can't just order for me, Brian," Justin complained.

"Just did," he replied, snatching the menu out of his hand and dumping it behind the salt shaker. "And make it quick,
Deb, would you?"

"You got it," she said, the grin threatening to slip her face, and went off to stick the order.

"I'm not a child," Justin reminded Brian.

"You eat like one," Brian retorted.

"You act like one."

"I'm not the one whining about getting taken out to dinner."

"I can pay for my own food, asshole."

"That's right -- because it's great waking up at 2:00 in the morning to take a piss and discovering that you're frozen
solid to your mattress."

"He turned the heat back on two weeks ago, I told you that."

"And you'd like to keep it that way, wouldn't you?"

"You're the one whose neighbors called the fire department when they smelled smoke coming from your apartment."

"I fell asleep with a lit joint on a magazine. Big fucking deal."

"You're lucky they didn't call the cops because of the marijuana. Do you know that's illegal in Pennsylvania?"

"Thanks for the update, CNN."

"Brian?"

Both of them looked up, annoyed at being interrupted, to see Debbie holding two plates of food in her hands and an
expression of complete bewilderment on her face.

They realized simultaneously that they had been leaning across the table and sat back sharply in their seats. Warily,
Deb deposited their dinners and went back behind the counter to get a new customer's order.

Justin swiped some fries moodily through the ketchup on his plate, and Brian pushed around his sad-looking salad.

"Ian is fucking trouble," he put in.

"Shut up, I know. I just haven't figured out a way of getting rid of him yet." Justin took a bite of the burger (which
was exactly what he had been in the mood for, not that Brian would have been able to know that).

"You dumped him four months ago," Brian said. "Figure it out already."

"What are you, my boyfriend?" Justin asked.

The question came out of nowhere, and he didn't know why, but for some obscene, ridiculous, unexplainable reason,
he really, really wanted Brian to say yes.

He didn't know why, since they hadn't fucked since that night in the closet, and Brian hadn't made a move since the
morning Justin turned him down in the ambulance bay. They had just been...friends.

Did Brian Kinney even do friends?

Well, there was Michael, that black-haired guy with the comic book fetish that was nearly always in the diner and
who attached himself to Brian's hip the moment he entered. Justin had also seen him there the night Brian had
wound up in the ER with a concussion.

There were also those two other guys that hung around with Michael -- the really dorky one and the really flaming
one. Not to mention The Lesbians, whom Brian always referred to as such, unless he was saying 'the mother of my
kid' when he knew very well that Lindsay and Justin had spoken several times, mostly about his thwarted dream to
become an artist.

What are you, my boyfriend?

Brian met Justin's eyes and then looked at his watch.

"Finish that up, it's time to go," he said, pulling out his wallet.

"Can't I take it with me?" Justin asked, his eyebrows knitting.

"And get burger juice in my car? Not on your pathetic life." Brian threw down some money and tucked it under his
plate while Justin tried to wolf down his food as fast as possible. "And I'm not your boyfriend," he muttered.

The complete lack of anger or force behind Brian's rebuttal shocked Justin enough that he gave up on the food and
kept himself several paces away from Brian at all times, afraid of possible following consequences.

The fact that nothing happened at all scared him even more than if something had.

--

Brian had just gotten rid of Trick #4093 and was coming out of the backroom at Babylon a week later when Michael
cornered him.

"My mom says you're...seeing someone," he shouted over the thumping bass.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Brian asked tiredly, not in the mood to jump through any hoops.

This was the first time he'd gotten to go out all week, and the sex hadn't been nearly as satisfactory as he'd wanted it
to be. He refused to believe that it was because he was too busy thinking about someone else -- someone whose ex-
boyfriend was harassing him and whose landlord started shutting off utilities when the rent wasn't paid -- to really
enjoy it.

"That blond kid you keep bringing into the diner," Michael insisted, following Brian over to the bar. "Ma says she
served you guys the other night and you were, like, talking."

"What else were we supposed to do while we ate? Stare at each other?" Brian ordered a glass of JB and downed it in
one burning swallow, then pushed it across the counter with a nod to the bartender for another.

"She said you were talking about real things." Michael looked concerned about this, as if he was worrying about
Brian's health. Maybe he's overworking himself to the point of being cordial in public. Brian smirked at the thought
and polished off the second glass. "And that you paid for him."

"What is this, the fucking Spanish Inquisition? He's a nurse at the hospital, and he's on my way, so I drive him when
I'm going in. Occasionally we stop at the diner on the way and get coffee, or -- I know this is hard to believe -- we
sit down and order food. I pay for him because I can afford it and he can't. It doesn't mean that we're married, or
partners, or boyfriends. He's convenient for me, and I'm convenient for him. That's all it is," Brian said, his tone
mocking and condescending enough for Michael to step back reproachfully.

"So you fuck, too? Is that it? In return for all the java and the grub, he blows you in the doctor's lounge?" Michael
asked, his eyebrows climbing.

"That's none of your business, Mikey," Brian grunted, pushing past him on the way to the coat check.

Dull rage seeped through the protective shell the alcohol had made around him -- rage at Michael for being a nosey
parker like his mother, rage at Debbie for shooting her trap off to her gossip-mill son, and rage at Justin for turning
him down that day and then worming his way into Brian's life anyway.

Mostly, Brian was pissed at Justin for making him care about the stupid shit they talked about during the car rides
and the coffee-trips and dinners, things like Ethan hanging around, and Justin's monetary problems, and how he had
been all set to go to the Pittsburgh Institute of Fine Arts until some homophobic jock at his high school bashed his
head in on prom night and left him almost completely incapable of drawing the way he had before.

Why was Brian ready to track down the cheap little shit and tell him to stop calling Justin already, it was hard
enough sleeping during the day without your phone ringing constantly with someone you shouldn't have to talk to
anymore?

Why did he pay for stupid things like coffee and crap diner food when they were hardly the sorts of things that
would have kept Justin from being able to pay his rent and keep his heat on?

Why did it bother him so much that Justin was reduced to sketching with his shaky right hand on his lunch breaks
instead of doing it for a living?

More importantly, why didn't it bother Brian more that they weren't fucking?

--

Three months later, Brian got called down to the ER to evaluate a stab victim with a hemothorax, who it turned out
had suffered an aortic dissection, requiring immediate valvuloplasty. He grabbed the phone at the nurses' station to
call up to surgery to prep an OR, and while he was running through the bare bones of the case with Cynthia, he
watched as Justin worked on the guy who'd stabbed his patient.

Justin was cleaning out a nasty scratch on the attacker's leg where Brian's patient had attempted to fight back with
her sharp salon nails. As usual, Brian noticed, he was completely absorbed in his work, although he was attempting
unsuccessfully to make small talk with the guy, who looked less than chatty.

He was handcuffed by one wrist to the rail of the bed, but his other wrist was also scratched and next on Justin's list,
so it was lying limply on the bed. The police officer in charge of looking after the guy had his back to him and was
chatting up Callie and another younger nurse.

Brian watched with mounting interest as the attacker's free hand crept up to where Justin had absently tossed a
bedpan he'd been bringing to another patient before he got caught up. He knew what was going to happen in the
back of his mind, instinctively, like the very first time time he'd known Justin wanted to fuck him even when he said
no.

Still, he didn't say anything -- until the guy was gripping it hard and bringing it down with surprising force in the
direction of Justin's head, his eyes lit with a manic glow and his tongue poking out from between his twisted yellow
teeth.

The phone slipped from where it was lodged between his ear and his shoulder and hit the desk he was leaning on
with a resounding smack.

"Justin!" he shouted, somehow loud enough to be heard over the ruckus of the entire Thursday evening emergancy
room.

Justin sat up distractedly from where he'd been hunched over the guy's leg, his eyes searching out Brian, and the
bedpan came down on his left shoulder instead.

Then a few things happened at once.

"Motherfucker --" Justin blurted out, dropping the kidney bowl he'd been holding to collect the blood and debris he'd
been cleaning out of the guy's leg and clutching his shoulder.

The police officer whirled around, his face a brief mask of panic before he controlled himself and quickly
handcuffed the guy's other wrist to the bed, apologies spewing out of his mouth faster than Sherman burned through
Georgia.

And Brian completely forgot about the aortic dissection waiting for him in a trauma room down the hall as he
dodged the desk and skidded over to where Justin had staggered away from his patient, his hand gripping his
shoulder tight enough for his nails to leave permanent marks in his scrub top.

"Are you hurt?" Brian asked, his voice strangely high. He didn't even realize that he'd laid one hand against Justin's
cheek, gently forcing their eyes to meet.

"Just a scratch," Justin said, smiling weakly, the shock still rocking him.

Everything in the ER was quiet -- even the patients who'd been coughing up blood and writhing in agony moments
before seemed to still for a moment, soaking in what had almost happened.

Brian knew what had almost happened -- knew it in his head from what Justin had vaguely sketched in about the
night of his senior prom: a crack, a smack, and a lot of blood in blond hair.

He didn't know why that image shook him as much as it did.

"Let me look at that," he said gruffly, taking a step back from Justin and gesturing to his shoulder.

"Don't tell me you did a rotation in orthopedics, too," Justin laughed softly.

Brian opened his mouth to retort with something both cutting and loaded with innuendo, but that was when Justin
kissed him.

--

Brian went up to surgery and came out five hours later. He scrubbed down and got changed in the locker room
before he went back to the first floor.

Justin was checking a kid's vitals and somehow managing to keep them from bursting out into tears, which they
clearly wanted to. He glanced up when Brian came over, and his expression immediately changed from one of
concerned caring to full-out happiness.

"When do you get off?" Brian asked.

"Ten more minutes," Justin said. The kid -- whose gender, as far as Brian was concerned, was ambiguous -- started
to sniffle now that they weren't getting all of Justin's attention.

"I'm going out for a smoke." Meet me out there when you're done went unsaid. Justin nodded, smiled, and turned
back to what he was doing. Brian pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his coat pocket and went out into the ambulance
bay.

Justin joined him, as expected. He had changed into a ratty T-shirt and jeans with a light grey sweater over his arm.
He was holding a plastic bag stuffed with his scrubs.

"How's your shoulder?" Brian asked, and started walking towards where he'd parked the Jeep earlier that day. Justin
easily fell into step beside him with a rhythm that had started months ago.

"Nothing an Icy-Hot Patch won't cure."

"That's why I hate the ER -- always being attacked," Brian spat, pulling out his keys and unlocking the car.

"You just have to know how to handle it," Justin replied. "You surgeons are spoiled, because when you work on
your patients, they're not conscious and cursing at you. Doctors in general have the easiest job in the world because
they just leave all the shit work to the nurses."

"I didn't spend eight fucking years in medical school to wipe up vomit," Brian countered.

"And I don't work just as many hours as you with two times the work to get treated like a servant," Justin snapped.

They had had similar arguments a few times before, always ending in a stalemate when they reached the hospital
and resolved by storming off in opposite directions.

Now, Justin just yanked hard on the passenger door to open it and Brian climbed up behind the wheel. He started the
car in silence and started driving.

He pulled up outside of Justin's apartment ten minutes later, and instead of Justin getting out and thanking him the
way he usually did, they sat and looked at each other for a long moment.

Brian grabbed the back of Justin's neck and yanked him across the gearshift for a deep, hard kiss that Justin didn't
even attempt to resist. Justin wriggled out of his seatbelt while still managing to keep the kiss going, a feat Brian
was impressed by, but they quickly discovered that as spacious as the Jeep was, there was not enough room to do
anything more than that.

They were staggering up the narrow flight of stairs to Justin's apartment hardly a minute later, occasionally pausing
to slam against the wall and resume what they'd started in the car but managing to get to the third floor relatively
quickly.

"Your place is shit," Brian announced as Justin fumbled his door open and promptly tripped over a shoe. That didn't
stop him from tossing his coat over Justin's ratty sofa, though.

"Deal with it," Justin said, shuddering as Brian started sucking under his jaw.

The bed was covered in clothes and the blanket was in a big tangled knot dangling off the edge, but they fucked on it
anyway -- first hard and fast, with the desperation and excitement from the car and the stairs, and then, after they
recovered while Justin blew Brian, they did it again, only long and slow, languorous, amazing.

Justin fell asleep before Brian had pulled out of him, and he found himself unbelievably thankful that his shift
tomorrow didn't start until 5:00 pm.

--

The incessant ringing of the telephone cut through Brian's sleep, and he squinted in the bright sunlight coming
through the uncovered window next to the bed. He bit his lips and frowned at the wall with the window, because he
knew that his loft was partitioned, and the window was a lot farther from the bed than this, with a wall in between.

Then he looked down at Justin's head on his chest and the condom wrappers scattered on the floor by his pants and
remembered the night before.

Justin's phone was going to ring itself into a coma, he thought, and snatched it up.

"What?" he barked into the receiver.

"Justin?" a confused voice asked.

"Who is this?" Brian demanded, although he had a pretty good idea.

"Ethan," his pretty good idea answered decisively, almost angrily.

"I figured," Brian said. He glanced down at Justin, who was still asleep, and then he began, "Stop calling. Stop
coming around. Stop believing that, in some twisted new dimension, you and Justin are ever going to pick up with
your little romance, because as far as he's concerned, you've been broken up for the past six months."

"Who are you?" Ethan asked, sounding more confused than before.

"Brian Kinney. And you can write that down and show it to the police when I rip off your fucking balls the next time
you show up around here or pick up the goddamn phone and press number one on your pathetic little speed dial. Got
that?"

The answering click in Brian's ear was very satisfying.

Justin shifted a little but otherwise seemed undisturbed by Brian's tirade. Brian threw the phone across the room into
a pile of laundry and went back to sleep.

--

"Ethan's stopped calling," Justin said around a coughing fit a month later. He sat down on one of the bar stools at the
island in Brian's kitchen and grabbed the coffee pot.

"Imagine that," Brian replied noncommitally, flipping a page in the newspaper.

"I wonder if something happened to him?"

"Just leave it alone. You're better off this way," Brian assured him. Justin shrugged.

"Yeah, you're right. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?" He poured coffee into a mug and added a tablespoon of
sugar.

The door to the loft slid open, and they both looked up to see Michael standing with a tupperware container of what
was most likely chicken soup. He looked back and forth from Brian to Justin for a minute before he opened his
mouth to say something.

Nothing came out.

"Oh, yeah," Brian said, returning his attention to the paper. "Deb said she was going to send you over here with her
fucking chicken soup for Justin."

"When?" Justin asked, and then sneezed into the sleeve of the T-shirt he was wearing.

"Put that one in the hazardous waste bin, would you?"

Justin made a face at Brian's snide smirk and went into the bedroom to change.

Michael's gaze honed in on Brian. "He's living here?" he hissed. "What happened to 'we're not married or partners or
boyfriends'?"

"Calm down, he's not living here," Brian said, flipping a page. "I just thought that, while he's sick, he should be
looked after by a professional."

"Unless he sneezes himself into cardiac arrest, you're not going to be much help to him," Michael retorted. "And I
thought you were working today."

"I took the day off so that I could devote all of my attention and skill to making a house call. I already examined his
tonsils, and I thought I'd check his prostate after breakfast."

"Oh, God," Michael exclaimed, depositing the soup on the counter and backing away. "I don't want to know this."

Justin shuffled back into the kitchen in a different shirt. "What's going on?"

"I'm wowing Mikey with my mastery of the human anatomy," Brian said casually, tongue in cheek.

"I'm leaving," Michael insisted. "I'm not even gonna ask how this happened."

He left then, slamming the door shut behind him. Justin peeled the top off of the soup and peered at it closely before
sticking it in the microwave.

"You're not seriously going to eat that shit," Brian wanted to know.

"Why not? Unlike your scorn for my condition, it might make me feel better," Justin replied loftily, and coughed
pitifully into his fist, a bright smile on his face.

Brian didn't bother with a snappy comeback. He simply pulled Justin into the bedroom and let his expertise speak
for him.

Brian announced that he had been offered the position by Columbia right as Justin was waking up from an
antibiotic-induced hangover and stumbling blearily through the loft in search of something he wasn’t sure of.

Justin paused in his Robutussin-fogged wanderings and fixed Brian with as pointed a glare as he could manage.
“Don’t think that because I’m currently incapacitated I won’t make a big deal about this later.”

Of course, he said that right as he neared the kitchen sink, which was at least strategic because he was able to throw
up in it two minutes later. Brian watched him with a mixture of amusement and apprehension. He hadn’t wanted to
tell Justin about the job offer in the first place because he knew it would wind up screwing things up, but since Justin
was very nearly indisposed and incapable of putting up one of his patented fights, Brian had considered himself
fortuitous and dropped the news.

Justin rinsed out his mouth with the faucet and then sank down onto the floor, his back against the cabinet. His
sweaty hair flopped in his eyes and he couldn’t even muster up the energy to look at Brian, so he settled for staring
miserably at the floor.

After a long, drawn-out moment, Brian sighed dramatically and crossed from the bedroom steps to where Justin
was. He reached down a hand and then yanked Justin to his feet when it was taken. “It’s why I don’t do ER work”
was all he said, with that smug, superior smirk that silently said because I’m smart and you’re not.

“Surgeons can catch a cold,” Justin shot at him, although his usual fervor was dampened by fit of coughing. “It’s not
exclusively an ER thing.”

“Ten years at that hospital and I have never once caught the flu. Tell me it doesn’t have something to do with
staying out of that deathtrap,” Brian challenged.

“Obviously it’s just your godlike immune system. No one goes ten years without getting the flu.”

Brian shoved Justin with a hand on his back towards the bedroom and got a bottle of water out of the fridge before
heading that way himself. Justin collapsed into the messy, unmade bed and burrowed into the tangled duvet.

“No one but me.”

Brian tossed the bottle into Justin’s chest and was rewarded with a half-hearted grunt of pain. “Drink up, Typhoid
Mary.”

Justin threw the bottle onto the floor out of spite and rolled over onto his stomach. “Leave me alone and go to the
hospital already. I’ll try to work up the energy to bitch at you about Columbia when you get back.”

Brian eyed him disapprovingly but then stood and went to the closet. “I suppose you’re intelligent enough to call me
if you feel yourself about to die,” he remarked off-handedly.

“Your trust and faith in me is overwhelming,” Justin dryly replied. “Not only am I highly functioning enough to be
fully aware of my body and state of being, but I’m also a health care professional who knows –“

“—That he has to take two aspirin every four hours to get his fever down,” Brian finished. He reached over the bed
to pinch Justin’s cheek hard. Justin slapped his hand away and pulled a pillow over his head. “Actually, I should
probably disinfect before I leave. You’ve been breathing your disgusting ER germs all over me for hours now.”

“How about you’ve been sucking them down your throat?” Justin’s voice was muffled by the pillow, but his voice
was still tart. “Take a shower there and fuck off already.”

“I’m astounded that they let you talk to the patients at all with that tone. Such a nasty boy.” Brian slapped his ass on
the way out and slammed the loft door behind him.

“Love you too,” Justin grunted to the empty loft.

“So let me get this straight,” Ben began, gesturing slowly with his fork. “Your clinical trial was a success, you
published in Nature, and now, after bringing world-renowned fame down on our humble little hospital – which, by
the way, allowed you to conduct this trial and earn the results you needed – you want to ship off to New York the
first chance a position is waved in your face.”

“Precisely,” Brian said.

Ben was a physical therapist with whom Brian somehow got along. Ben was pretty mellow. Brian didn’t remember
how they’d met, only that they’d fucked in the surgeon’s shower and that he’d introduced Ben to Michael at some
point. They ate lunch occasionally in the noxious cafeteria when Brian didn’t feel like going across the street to
Starbucks for a latte.

“How does Justin feel about all of this?” Ben asked.

Brian rolled his eyes. “And therein lies the problem.”

“He doesn’t want to go?”

"He's a sentimental queen who doesn’t want to leave his hag and his mommy behind.”

“Is that all?” Ben seemed doubtful. “There’s a huge demand for nurses right now. He’s sure to find a job. Is that one
of his fears?”

“Hell if I know what his fears are, and hell if I care. If he wants to come, that’s fine, he can come. But if he’s going
to be weepy and dramatic about it, I don’t want him.” Brian stood abruptly from the table, taking his uneaten,
probably poisonous lunch with him. Ben followed.

“You’ve been together for five years, Brian,” Ben reminded him gently. “You can’t just toss that aside.”

“You think I can’t?” Brian barked. “I never asked for a relationship. It just happened. If it just went away one day, I
wouldn’t care.”

Brian dumped his lunch in the trashcan and dropped his tray on the conveyor belt into the kitchen. He slammed out
of the cafeteria so loudly that the nurses crowded around a nearby table flinched. Ben watched Brian retreat down
the hall through the window in the door and smiled slightly.

“I highly doubt that, Brian.”

Brian threw a bottle of water in Justin’s lap and then ripped the cell phone he was holding out of his hand. He tossed
it casually across the room, where it hit a wall and dropped to the floor with a sad-sounding crash. Justin stared at
him, open-mouthed, for a good minute before he launched into a rage.

“Where do you get off –“

Brian put his tongue in his cheek. Justin, infuriated at being further infantilized, threw the water back at him. “Fuck
you! Fuck you, Brian, you don’t know what that call was about! I was doing something important.”

“What was it, exactly?” Brian examined his nails with little apparent interest in Justin’s tantrum.

“I was calling to make a doctor’s appointment,” he returned hotly.

Brian took a second to register what Justin had said, and then threw back his head and laughed. Justin’s eyes
widened. “What?”

“Doctor’s appointment?” Brian barked. “You live with a fucking doctor! What the fuck do you need a doctor’s
appointment for?”

Justin sighed exasperatedly. “Brian, the last time you prescribed cold medicine, you were twenty-nine on a med
school rotation in the ER. Give me a break. You’re a little over-qualified for what I need.”

“Fuck you. I know enough to take care of you,” he muttered, and then glanced quickly over at Justin, realizing what
he’d said too late. Justin smirked, satisfied, and reached across the bed to get the cordless. As he started punching in
the number for the GP again, Brian opened the closet to put away his work shoes. Justin caught sight of the suitcase
on the shelf overhead and remembered his promise from the morning. In an instant, all his anger rushed back, minus
the nausea.

Terminating the call-in-progress, he demanded, “Don’t go to New York.”

Brian turned to him with a sugary-sweet smile. “Okay, honey. I’ll do whatever you ask, my own opinion be damned.
Let’s have meatloaf for dinner.”

Justin scowled. “You can’t leave me alone here.”

“What do you mean, alone? There’s Mother and your little wifey–“

“Brian, stop being a dick,” Justin snapped. “Since when do you give any kind of shit about New York?”

“I give a very big shit about the pay raise I’ll be getting,” Brian mused thoughtfully, “and also about the thousands
of hot, untouched guys that are just waiting for me to come along and give them the fucking of their lives.”

“Of course,” Justin snarled. “It’s all about the hot guys.” He threw back the duvet and stormed into the kitchen,
where he began slamming cabinets and pots and pans in an effort to distract himself from the real situation at hand.

“I’ll be the head of the entire fucking cardiovascular department at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center!
What don’t you understand about how fucking amazing that is?” Brian roared.

Justin finally settled on a saucepan and dropped it onto the stove. Cranking the burner up to high, he mumbled,
“Forget it.”

“What was that?” Brian shouted, coming up close behind him. “What’s with the little voice?”

“I said to fucking forget it, I’ll stay here in Pittsburgh by myself, I’ll rent a new apartment and I’ll start taking the
bus again. Riding in a car is a hard habit to break after five years, but, shit, I should be able to manage it, right?” he
asked sarcastically.

“So fucking come with me! Get the fuck over yourself and come with me!”

“It’s always so black and white with you,” Justin said, shaking his head. “You never realize that there are gradients
in between.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Brian asked, leaning back against the island and folding his arms. “You don’t want to be
without me, but you also don’t want to be without them. Doesn’t make a lot of fucking sense.”

“What about your son?” Justin shot back. “You just going to leave him here right when he’s gonna start needing you
the most?”

Brian gritted his teeth. “My son,” he said, his voice deathly low, “can come visit me in New York. My son is going
to be old enough to come and visit me in New York. Apparently, though, you’re not old enough to move a couple of
hours away from your mommy to be with your partner.”

Justin blinked, and all the anger and resentment seemed to wash out of him. “Partner?” he feebly asked.

“Your point?” Brian’s voice was cold.

“For five years you’ve refused to admit that we were even in a relationship,” Justin tried to point out, although he
was feeling distinctly lightheaded. He absently turned the stove off and meandered over to the couch, sure that it was
a returning symptom of his fever and not some form of shock at hearing that word pass Brian’s lips. “It took three
years for you to ask me to move in with you.” He sat down hard on the sofa and put both of his hands to his head.

Brian followed him after a minute and stood behind the couch. Justin turned to him, squinting through his fingers
and looking excessively pale.

“That’s because we’re not fucking married,” Brian spat. Justin cringed and laid down, covering his eyes with his
arm, sure he felt a headache coming on. Brian leaned over the couch and spoke even louder, determined that Justin
hear him out. “But if I’m asking you to move to New York with me, then I suppose that’s grounds for some kind of
acknowledgement of commitment. Not that it’s strong commitment,” he hastily added.

Justin laughed unexpectedly and eased his arm away from his eyes. Smiling up at Brian, he couldn’t even think of
the appropriate words to say, or even any at all.

Finally he said, “Of course not,” and sat up, got up on his knees, and grabbed Brian’s neck, pulling him down for a
kiss. Brian pushed him away and rubbed his mouth fiercely with his arm.

“Don’t you dare infect me, you fucking little virus,” he exclaimed, aghast. Justin rolled his eyes and snatched the
collar of Brian’s shirt.

“Get over yourself already,” he murmured, and kissed him again. Brian gave up without much resistance and kissed
him back, his tongue swiping into Justin’s mouth and his fingers digging into Justin’s scalp. Justin slowly pulled
him down onto the couch, forcing Brian to swing his legs up over the back to get onto it.

He broke the kiss to push a finger firmly into Justin’s sternum. “And there’s a Z-pack for you in my coat pocket, so
don’t fucking tell me I don’t know how to prescribe cold medicine.”

“I won’t dare affront your ability to deal with intern-level cases ever again,” Justin solemnly promised.

Brian smirked victoriously and yanked down Justin’s sweatpants in celebration.

Justin stood in the middle of their huge, empty Chelsea apartment and took in the bare walls, the smooth, polished
wood floors, and the soaring skyscrapers out of their floor-to-ceiling windows. It reminded him strongly of a certain

place he had once lived, and suddenly it began to make sense why Brian didn’t let him help in the real estate part of
their venture.

Brian strolled in wearing his black wife beater and a pair of soft, torn jeans with his arms crossed proudly over his
chest. “They’re putting in the stainless steel appliances tomorrow,” he said off-handedly.

“I could have figured that one out myself,” Justin said under his breath. Then, louder, “You know we’re pretty much
on the other end of the island from Columbia, right?”

Brian shrugged nonchalantly and walked up behind him. Draping one arm over Justin’s chest, he pulled him close
and whispered in his ear, “That’s what cabs are for.”

END