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“Good morning, Doctor Anderson,” Connor says sweetly, leaning against the counter as Hank flips through some of the charts on his schedule today. “I see you came in looking chipper,”
Hank shoots him a look of disdain, and Connor grins, because he loves getting on the doctor’s nerves. It’s his only reprieve in a long day of work, sewing up people who are dressed in nothing but racy thongs and nipple clamps and trying to get his nurses in check lest they all devolve into whimpering messes at the third group of young men who come in claiming they all got busted up because of fighting when they all know that the nurses know that they did some kind of stupid bullshit like they put TNT inside a fridge just because.
Chloe hates those kids the most; he doesn’t blame her. He’s used to seeing fingers half-way off a person’s hand but on kids? It makes his stomach churn something unpleasant. As much as these kids only seem to have fool heads on their shoulders, Connor’s bound to heal them. Nightingale Pledge and all that.
“D’you check on fourteen for me?” Hank sniffs, rubbing one hand over his well-kept beard. That’s definitely new; Hank never was one for personal hygiene, but he figures since Fowler put him in with more patients, saying he doesn’t exactly trust Reed with the majority of patients. Connor would have to agree; if the man was a nurse, he wouldn’t even make it a day before he’s crying and running away with his bitch ass.
He nods and moves to the coffee pot to make Hank a cup of coffee. He smiles, the smile he always gives Connor when he’s exasperatedly fond, and walks off to do his work. Fowler’s put Connor on Hank’s case; something about not letting the man either work himself to death or drink himself to death.
Connor agreed, of course. It’s not like he’s doing anything outside of work.
Chloe comes in looking effortlessly put together, her blond hair already pinned back neatly. She smiles at him and reaches out to tuck his hair back over an ear, “Good morning, bunny,” she greets, and Connor kisses her on the cheek, as they always do whenever they see each other. It’s stemmed from working so long in this hospital with each other.
“There’s two dumbasses up in the pit,” Chloe says nonchalantly, tossing back Connor’s too-bitter coffee, with barely a frown, “Kara’s on it, but the other one’s really cute.”
Connor hums, picking up his stethoscope, “What’d they do?” He fixes it around his neck and makes for the ER, Chloe trailing after him. It’s an odd morning whenever the ER’s not packed to the brim by crying children or weepy, grown men.
Chloe shrugs, “Protesters,”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Chloe fixes her hair and falls into step with him as he takes the short trek from the reception to the ER, “JERICHO, I think. Detroit chapter.”
Connor knows of them; a band of misfits with a noble, just goal. He never was one for activism, but he’s seen so much bloodshed from protesters that his heart clenches whenever a protester comes into his ER with so much as a bruise. Goddamned bigots; years pass and they never change. But that’s just oppression; it’s as much stagnant as anything, yet constant and systematic.
He walks into the ER and spots Kara immediately, flushed pink as a woman about her height looms over her, and Connor narrows his eyes. No one fucks with his nurses. Chloe huffs out a small laugh as he power walks on over to Kara, putting on a smile and asking Kara what the situation is.
The woman looming over Kara leers at him, looking immediately closed off as he makes eye contact with her. She motions to the man sitting on the bed, who is swaying a bit, the skin on his forehead split, a bruise forming around his eye and along his nose. He’s betting this one is a concussion; he’s seen enough men get beaned by bricks to know what exactly happened, but he wouldn’t be as good a nurse if he left everything to guesses.
Kara looks thankful, but still blushing prettily as the woman stands close to her, not enough to crowd, but enough to make it known to Kara that she’s there. Connor fights off a smile; Kara did like the ones who could make her feel some type of invincible. Figures it would be an activist with enough muscles to bench press two Hank Andersons.
“Whoa,” Kara’s patient says, “Whoa, North do you see him?”
The man on the bed’s eyes widen, “North,” he calls again, to the amber-haired woman who snorts and hides her grin behind her hand. “There’s a fucking angel in here. Miss Nurse, do you see him?” He increasingly sounds frustrated, because no one is answering him.
Pushing away Kara’s healing hands, he stumbles on his feet, “Hello, angel—” and then promptly starts falling forwards. All three of them make noises of surprise, but Connor manages to wedge himself between the heavy, well built man and the floor, both of them grunting—Connor from the weight, and the man just from his own sheer stupidity, Connor surmises.
“Oh, wow,” The very concussed man says, looking up at Connor, who doesn’t even grace that with an answer before he starts pushing himself up, Kara biting her lip to keep from laughing as she helps him. “Oh, wow, you’re real.”
Kara, unable to stop herself anymore, quips, “He’s very real.”
“And very soft.” The patient reaches out to grip at Connor’s hip, squeezing once. Connor is reminded that it’s been so long since he actually got held by someone other than his very touchy cousin, Elijah Kamski. And thinking about Elijah Kamski touching him sends him to places that would land him in the can, serving sixty years to life.
North, the amber haired woman, shakes her head and takes the man from Kara and Connor’s grip to deposit him effortlessly onto the bed. Connor chances a look at one of his best nurses, and sure enough, the woman is positively red , blinking before returning back to her work.
The man on the bed sighs when Kara gets to fully diagnosing him. “...hurts,” he murmurs, and Connor has to admit, he has a sort-of charm about him, even now when he’s concussed and seemingly out-of sorts.
Before he could further delve into the thought, Chloe and Echo call for him to help out on the floor with the new patients coming in. Connor nods at Kara and takes his leave. The man on the bed has quieted down, eyes on the ceiling as Kara tends to him.
The next time they meet, Connor is walking Hank’s dog for him, out on his very, very rare day off, and smoking a cigarette. Chloe keeps telling him it’s bad for him, and Connor agrees, but he’s got to have some semblance of otherness than his life in the hospital.
He hums, deep in thought. Sumo barks and tugs at him to move a little bit quicker.
Suddenly, not quite out of nowhere, a shout stops him and spurs on Sumo’s sense of adventure, pulling Connor after him, making him drop his cigarette just to keep some kind of dignity as the dog positively drags him halfway across the park and across the street to bark loudly at some protestors, all of them shooting him looks when he finally snaps at Sumo to stop.
He wheezes out a breath as he leans forward, wondering when he last worked out.
Only then does he notice the redhead from less than a month ago, gripping at the front of a man’s shirt, the man easily taller and bigger than her. One of her eyes are closed, swollen shut, actually, and Connor brings one hand up over his mouth at the sight of her, looking sorry and enraged. She doesn’t seem to be alone, though, she has a few men and women behind her, as if she was keeping them safe by using her own body as a shield.
It clicks into place when the man in North’s grip spits at her and calls her a whore, before pointing to the black woman standing a few feet away, and saying the same things, grinning sadistically when he says the word he has no business to be saying.
North growls like a great animal that’s been shot, “You motherfuckers just won’t quit it, huh?”
Before she could lay into the man, Sumo barks and growls loudly, and Connor almost laughs at the comical look at the man’s face, scared of a dog and not the fucking racism he’s nurtured in himself.
Connor interjects quickly when Sumo looks at him and lets out a small but urgent boof . “I called the cops,” he says for the lack of knowledge on what to really do, and the man, decidedly not on the side of the cops either, gathers up his posse and flips the bird at him, then at North, who is being tended to by the woman who the bigot spat venom at. Then the man calls Connor a faggot just because he can.
He sighs and orders Sumo to stay put, walking over to North and shaking his head. She looks at him with weariness and suspicion in his eyes. It seems like they were holding a protest in the middle of the square, which isn’t new, but what is new is that Connor’s managed to see them in action.
“Hi,” He greets, and North grunts, looking at him expectantly.
“You just gonna look at me, Nightingale?” She hisses, and Connor furrows his eyebrows. She frowns deeply, “Don’t you have a bag of peas or some fucking morphine up your ass?”
“I think you misunderstand my line of work,” Connor is trying his hardest not to be mean, really, but she’s just got this way of speaking that really riles him up. Maybe it’s her charm; he doesn’t know, he hasn’t hung around her. He lets out a sigh of exasperation. “Sit down. I’ll see what I can do.”
North nods tightly, but doesn’t sit down right away. Instead, she looks at the people behind her and says something about going back to a man named Markus. When they’re gone, Connor flags down an ice cream vendor and buys two popsicles, unwrapping one for himself and tossing the other one to North, who immediately presses it to her bruising eye.
She doesn’t seem to have a broken nose or anything, so Connor’s work is done, if it ever was needed. But she stays, and so he does, waiting awkwardly for her go ahead so he could leave. Connor checks his watch. Ten to five. Plenty of time to get Sumo back to Hank’s and cook dinner for the man, but not nearly enough if he was going to the liquor store to buy a bottle or two of vodka for his night in, because with his experience, after a day off, Hell can and will rain down on him when he returns back to the pit.
“You don’t have to stay,” North says, and Connor quickly becomes flustered. He doesn’t have to, but something’s keeping him here, maybe the worry he has for her and her… profession, maybe because he feels like he’s doing nothing in the face of oppression.
He shuts his own thoughts up before it festers inside him.
“Yeah,” He agrees, scratching behind Sumo’s ear the way he likes, “But who’d keep you company as you ice your busted eye with an ice cream?”
She snorts, and it sounds ragged, like she’s too tired. “Was that a pun?” She asks.
Connor looks at her. She’s grinning, and there’s blood on her teeth, just a little, but enough for Connor’s trained eye to see it. His stomach clenches a little bit more and he wishes he could have done something more. Not just bluff at some hillbillies about him calling the cops on them.
“So…” He begins. He doesn’t really know what to say to a woman with twice the muscles that he does on his body. Twice the muscles and twice the courage, it seems. “Is this, like, your job?”
“You’re a real awkward guy, aren’t you?” She quits using the ice cream as something for her eye and peels it open, taking a bite at the mushy treat. “But no, this isn’t my job. I’m a journalist, along with Markus and Josh.”
He doesn’t know who those people are, but he nods nevertheless.
She eyes him. “But you understand, don’t you? I mean,” She waves a free hand, “This. How bad it is.”
“Yeah,” Connor crumples up his ice cream wrapper. Of course he knows how bad it is. The men and women he pours tears and sweat for, the racists and bigots coming into his ER, the people he’s sworn to care for. He knows. His problem is that this is all he’s doing. But he’s going to keep that to himself.
North smiles. “Good.” She looks at him, softer now. “I thought I was gonna have to give you a piece of my mind, too.”
He grins at her. “Is that what that,” he motions to her face, “is?”
“Yeah.” She snorts, rubbing at her nose, and Connor makes a hissing noise when she exclaims in pain, clicking her tongue as she tries to soothe herself. She laughs and stares at the people giving them a wide berth. “Some people just won’t listen to reason.”
Connor knows. His mother was—is—one of those people, so he knows.
They settle in a far more comfortable silence after that, Sumo finally warming up to North when she makes cooing noises at him, showing that she’s not just the mean-looking and aggressive woman from earlier.
She perks up after a little bit, raising her hand to wave at someone out of Connor’s line of vision, and he turns around, finally seeing who exactly she’s waving at. It’s that dude, the concussed dude from Connor’s ER, running towards North with a thunderous expression.
Connor steps back and pats Sumo when he begins to growl anew, holding tight on his leash.
“North,” He says like there’s nothing but anger underneath his tongue, “Lucy said you stayed behind and I was fucking out of my mind —” Mismatched eyes settle on Connor. “Oh.”
North chuffs like a happy cat, “This is our Nightingale.”
Connor flushes when the man—Markus, apparently—looks at him like he’s never seen him before. Maybe this is a whole new experience for him.
“My name is Connor,” Connor remedies. “The nurse—”
“—at Detroit Medical, yeah,” Markus smiles at him, his shoulders dropping from their tense line. He sticks out his hand like this is a professional meeting and not him picking up his girlfriend. Like it’s not two sorry bastards, one sporting a shiner and one looking like he’d rather be anywhere than here. “Markus. Nice to meet you. And thank you for patching up my partner.”
Connor curls his fingers around Markus’ broad palm and subtly feels the ridges of calluses and small scars there, before letting go. “It’s my job.” He replies.
“Good job, then.” He says sincerely. Connor is reminded of the children he sometimes attends to, the ones who looks up at him and tells him thank you, nurse! with wide eyes and pink cheeks, unafraid and grateful. It’s… it feels nice .
North stands up and hooks her arm around Markus’ shoulder, grinning brightly at Connor and mock-saluting him with a see you later, Nightingale.
Sumo whines as they go.
Connor shakes his head and runs back to Hank’s home with Sumo trotting happily beside him. Connor doesn’t notice the small smile on own his face.
Chloe’s face is somewhat bloody and so are her scrubs. Connor stands beside her in the small room where the cots are, and they stare at each other, blue and brown.
It’s been a hard day. A bus crashed.
They didn’t save as much as they wanted to.
The rest of the nurses know to give them a wide berth, even for a short while, especially when it was the two of them mostly handling the patients in various states of death. Kara told them that she’d put on a new pot of coffee for them.
“Jesus,” Chloe says. Connor swallows audibly. His fingers feel sticky, although he knows that there isn’t much blood there. Just sweat from wearing surgical gloves too long.
“You wanna take the first shower?” Connor asks. They’re used to this by now, him and her. They always work in tandem, even when they don’t mean to. Chloe sheds her top and Connor watches blankly as her pale skin underneath is slowly bared to his eyes. There’s blood on her still.
She enters the small shower area and Connor slumps down on the floor, unwilling to get the cots dirty. He had to tell a couple that their daughter didn’t make it while wearing the young girl’s blood.
His phone chirps just as Chloe turns on the shower.
[UNKNOWN] you okay?
Connor furrows his brows and doesn’t reply.
[UNKNOWN] this is markus, by the way. north gave me your number
He frowns. When did he give his number to North?
Still, he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t want to think about Markus right now. He doesn’t belong in the fresh, raw memories of men and women bleeding, losing their lives, lives that both they and he were clinging to. He doesn’t want to think about it.
[UNKNOWN] i saw. take care of yourself, please.
That prompts a reply out of Connor.
Him? That’s funny. Connor is as careful as careful can be. But he’s tired of seeing the split skin on Markus’ forehead, the bruise North wore like a gilded mask. Noble goals shouldn’t bring so much pain. Lives shouldn’t be taken so easily.
[ME] you too. please.
His phone immediately chimes with a reply.
[UNKNOWN] alright.
Connor still doesn’t breathe easily, but that’s one less life he has to worry about.
There are flowers on the reception are for him the following week. And a bouquet of roses for the rest of the nurses. Connor smiles at the sight of them, walking over as he fixes his cardigan over his shoulders. Kara is surveying them with a wary eye, but she takes one rose to smell, deeply. The flowers named for him are sunflowers, carnations, and hydrangeas.
He smiles. He’s not one for flowers, but he does know flower meanings. His mother used to care for a whole garden of roses interspersed with different seasonal blooms.
Adoration. Gratitude. Loyalty.
Signed, M.
How sweet.
Chloe picks one of the hydrangeas and works it into her hair, which stays there until it wilts. Connor gives her another one, and she grins, before tucking a red carnation into his hair. They spend the rest of their—surprisingly slow—day being smiled at by the children in their pediatrics ward. The adults see them and sneer.
Hank laughs when he sees him, but tells him that he looks good.
Connor, for once, doesn’t care. The flowers are his, so he chooses to wear someone else’s admiration proudly.
This time around, Markus is with a tall man, helping him hobble into the ER. The man obviously has a sprained foot, and Markus tells them that Josh tripped while playing basketball. Connor laughs and reassures them that there won’t be any lasting damage.
Josh watches him with a keen eye as Connor administers a splint around his ankle perfunctorily. He tells him to get some pain killers and to elevate the sprain.
“Okay.” Josh says, pursing his lips. “You’re Nightingale, right?”
Connor flushes heatedly, opening his mouth to say that his name isn’t actually Nightingale, but a blushing Markus cuts him to the chase.
“His name is Connor,” Markus all but shouts, “Not—” his voice drops dramatically, suddenly shy of his outburst. Connor hides his smile behind his clipboard. “Not Nightingale.”
Josh smiles. Connor decides he doesn’t like that smile.
“Okay.” He says, simply.
Kara, Chloe and Connor have a tradition. It’s not a tradition like Christmas is, but it’s a tradition like eating pancakes on a Sunday morning is. Which is to say, far more relaxing and self-indulgent, and less taxing and expensive.
The tradition goes a little bit like this: Connor’s apartment. Chloe’s booze. Kara’s snacks. Sometimes, Alice comes along and they dote on her, but alcohol is excluded. Sometimes, Kara drags her ex-fiancé turned best friend forever, Luther, and Connor gets drunk and tries to flirt with the man. Who wouldn’t? Have you seen his gentlemanly disposition? The man is chivalry personified.
Tonight, though, it’s just the three of them, Connor’s vodka sitting between his legs, Chloe tossing back a shot of tequila as Kara sips Rosé in a sort of delicate desperation that only she seems to possess.
Kara is the one who breaks first. She fills her glass up halfway and bites her lip, flushing pink like her drink.
“I’m going on a date!” She exclaims, like it’s her calling stat! in the pit rather than her just telling them she’s got some poor girl or guy to hook up with. Kara’s got bad taste in partners; save for Luther, who they all love and adore. Sometimes, Connor mourns that she let him go, but ultimately, Kara seems happier with Luther as her best friend, rather than her lover.
Chloe high fives her, pressing a shot of tequila into her palm. She says no, at first, but then contemplates her position on not drinking tequila. It doesn’t agree with her, but it does loosen her up a bit so these things become easier. She tosses back the shot and then sips at her wine again.
Connor rolls the bottle between his legs side to side. He regards Kara’s pink cheeks, her genuine excitement about this whole dating debacle. “Who is it?”
Kara flushes red , “Um,” she stutters, “Well, she’s a she,”
He perks up at that, and so does Chloe, who’s nursed the world’s longest crush on Kara. Seriously, she should be given some sort of Guinness World Record or something.
The ebony-haired woman quickly adds, “And I’m really unsure and this is new to me so I’d rather… keep it to myself.”
Chloe puts a gentle hand on top of Kara’s head. “Okay.”
Connor slowly concedes. “But if you do figure it out, let us be the first to know.” He commands in only a way that a person with a bond that’s all but blood can. Kara dimples at him cutely, and he wonders, that in some universe where he isn’t as gay as he is, would he try to get with Kara? She’s the type of girl you take home to meet the parents, and Connor’s just… not.
Nor is Chloe, for that matter. Underneath all that demure beauty is a mouth dirtier than a sailor’s, and a temper that’s quick to fire, like a gun. She acts as if she’s always got a gun trained to her head, quick and jagged most of the times, but sometimes, slow and unsure.
So they live vicariously through Kara, the least fucked up out of the three of them.
“About those flowers,” Chloe chirps after a few minutes of bickering has passed, “You ever find out who sent them?”
Connor shakes his head. The flowers come every Thursday morning, now, and it seems like it’s not going to stop any time soon. The other nurses always get roses or red carnations, admiration for their work. Everyone in his roster wants to know the latest gossip.
Connor’s ‘secret admirer’, as his nurses have creatively dubbed them.
Pot’s on, or so he’s heard. There’s money on Hank—which, he can understand. He practically lives in the man’s house, cooks for him, walks his dog for him. It’s a natural conclusion that many people get to. But no, he’s just a very good friend and a glorified babysitter.
What absolutely baffles him is the money on Gavin Reed. One of the most crass surgeons he’s ever had the displeasure of meeting, shit at bedside manners, too. Whoever thought that that man had the appropriate knowledge to create a bouquet with such intricate meanings must have something wrong with them.
Sure, maybe there was a time when he’d consider Gavin Reed to be a secret admirer, but after knowing how absolutely bad the man is in the sack? No, he doesn’t think so.
Kara sighs, “They’re always so beautiful, too. I wonder where he gets them.”
Connor is inclined to agree. Some of the blooms sit on his living room vase, and many in his bedroom, just outside the balcony so they get enough sunlight.
Chloe says, “Shot!” And hands him a small glass of tequila. He swaps it with his bottle of vodka, to which Chloe mutters spasibo. The three of them have a toast, and Connor’s secret admirer is forgotten.
The night quickly falls into its usual rhythm then. The three of them, drunk off their asses, Connor shouting expletives in his mother tongue, Chloe dancing topless on his bed, and Kara trying to braid the short, uneven lengths of her pixie cut in front of his bedroom mirror.
Chloe hangs off of him, her breasts pressing against his back. He doesn’t quite care, running around his small bedroom with the woman on her back, “You know,” she says into his ear, giggling incessantly before continuing. Kara trails after them, hooking her fingers into the belt loops on Chloe’s jeans, “I think your admirer is that Markus guy!”
“You should ask him!” Kara says excitedly. “We should ask him, right Chlo?”
“Great idea,” The blonde slurs. “Smart !”
“Bine, bine,” Connor says, then, “Where’s my… call box… telefon…”
He finds it on the nightstand, where it usually is, hits Markus’ contact, puts it on speakerphone, and waits. Kara and Chloe shut their mouths, covering it with their hands as they giggle.
Three rings.
“Hello? Connor? It’s eleven P.M., are you okay? Why are you calling m—”
“Bună ziua,” Connor greets warmly, “Am să întreb—”
Chloe cuffs him on the back of the head, “English, you fucking Russian,”
“He’s Romanian,” Kara says, rightfully offended in behalf of one of her closest friends.
“Connor—?”
“We want to know…” Chloe drawls boredly, “If you like our boy here!”
“Where are you guys?”
Kara stands suddenly, tipping over Connor’s second bottle of vodka and cursing a streak so blue that Chloe snorts and falls on her back, Kara shouting at her to stop, because the glass shattered. Connor tries to stand but only trips and barely manages to catch himself from falling on the shards, though some makes its way into his palm.
He hisses and picks at it. Some kind of nurse he is, he thinks drunkenly.
“Connor,” Markus’ voice brooks no argument, only complete authority that makes Connor squirm where he sits, “Give me your address.”
The command snaps him into some sort of sobriety and he prattles off his address, staring at the phone blankly when Markus hangs up.
Chloe groans on the floor, lifting her tequila bottle.
“Shot!” She exclaims.
Connor pulls her up and takes the bottle from her, the three of them sitting uselessly on his bed. Might as well, he grouses.
“Markus! Bun venit, bun venit,”
“What language is that?” A voice says, feminine, loud and a little harsh to Connor’s ears, “Romanian?”
Connor puts a finger on his nose.
“Is she shirtless—?”
A low, appreciative whistle. Connor hums as he opens the door, and Chloe murmurs shots under her breath, even though the tequila’s long gone. Kara is draped across her, using her arm to cover what little she can.
Markus stares at him. “You’re bleeding.”
Connor puts his finger on his nose again.
“Sit down.”
“Yessir.”
“You’re going to regret this in the morning.”
In the morning, there’s a hot pot of coffee for the three of them, Chloe is in a sweater that’s very much not hers and nor is it Connor’s, and Kara is sluggishly moving around the surprisingly clean and shardless floor.
They move slowly, wondering what made them drink so much.
Then they remember their jobs.
“Kara,” Connor whines from the bed, “Coffee…”
“Get it yourself,” Comes the croaky reply, “I’m dying.”
“Low-tol,” Chloe says snidely, but still, she’s got one hand over her eyes, on her head a nest of straw coloured hair. They have to get to work in less than an hour. Connor doesn’t know what he’ll do when the kids in pedia start to scream at him.
The blonde picks up something on the kitchen island, squinting at it with reddened eyes. Slowly, a smile etches itself on her face. Kara sidles up next to her, peering down at the little yellow post-it.
Connor pours himself a huge mug of coffee, uncaring of the two’s shenanigans, especially so early in the morning.
“Spit it out,” He says, drinking from the mug like someone who just went on a day-long bender. Wait.
“Connor,” Chloe reads, “ you’re cute when you’re drunk. But please don’t drink so much anymore. Though, North tells me it’s in your DNA, being Slavic and all. She says noroc.”
Connor raises his mug. “Noroc, North.”
“He totally has a crush on you,” Chloe gushes, not unlike the young woman he knew back in college, “I told you, he’s your secret admirer!”
He glares at her. That’s a stupid conclusion. Just because a virtual stranger helps you out when you’re black-out drunk doesn’t mean anything. So what if Markus called Connor an angel? He was concussed for Christ’s sake.
He reaches underneath the kitchen island and gets out his ratty pack of Reds, lighting one and taking a long, well needed drag. Chloe raises an eyebrow and cracks open a window. Kara rolls her eyes and ambles off to take the first shower.
“Connor,” North’s voice is squeaky and frantic on the other line, “Connor, there’s something wrong with Markus.”
Connor pinches the bridge of his nose and tucks his phone between his cheek and shoulder, smiling at one of his nurse as he passes the charts to her. “Hi, North. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Markus,” She says again, but with more worry this time. Someone howls out a cough in the background, and Connor assumes it’s Markus. What surprises him is the two other coughs that join in like a chorus, and North groans, her complaints becoming muffled as she most likely has her hand over the receiver.
Connor waves at Kara, who is running around the ER with a medical brace in her arms. Chloe’s off assisting a surgery today, so they won’t see her until well into the night.
“North, are you in a room with three sick people?”
North stutters, for once unsure, “I don’t get sick easy,” she says, after a minute of trying to come up with a reason.
Connor sighs. “I’ll be there after my shift. In the meanwhile, make them some soup or something.”
“Soup?” North asks, as if the suggestion was scandalous, “Shouldn’t I take them to the hospital?”
“It’s probably just the flu,”
“Are you sure—?” As if to make a point, someone coughs and wheezes again, and then groan in pain. Connor rolls his eyes only because North can’t see him. Of course he’s sure it’s the flu.
The thought of healthier men coming down with coughs only for it to be some sort of disease comes to mind. Connor bites his lower lip as he takes a chart from one of the passing nurses, who tells him he’s back on exam room one.
The memory of a man with the deep southern drawl who’d come in his ER holding a dark haired man’s—his ol’ ball and chain, Connor fondly remembers the man muttering—hand, coughing and looking like Hell warmed over. Connor was quick to assume it was just some sort of flu, but when it turned out to be TB, it shut him up quickly. Granted, he was young, but that kind of thinking kills people.
“I’ll be there the moment I get off work, okay? Tell me if it gets worse.”
North makes a worried noise, and somehow, Connor wonders if this is how it feels like for parents who gets called on by their children when they’re at work. The thought is hilarious as it is thought-provoking and kinda disturbing, really.
Connor couldn’t help but laugh when he sees three grown men huddled on the couch, blankets over their shoulders and North hovering as if she thought that they’d just up and die should she look away even for a second.
“Hey, guys,” He greets, and North smiles at him, before looking back down at her charges. Their shared flat is unkempt and Connor frowns at the boxes of Chinese take-out on the floor, and the chill in the room. His first business after greeting them is cranking up the heat and opening a window.
Markus is staring at him, wide-eyes and all. “Hi, Connor.”
Josh groans from where he’s half on top of a blond man, whose eyes are closed and nose redder than Rudolph’s.
“Connor,” Josh whines. “Connor…”
“North is trying to kill us,” Markus wheezes, and Connor reaches out to feel for his temperature, blushing when Markus wraps his long, thick fingers around his wrist and keeps it there.
He sighs and uses his other hand to press against Josh and the blond man’s foreheads. They’re burning up.
Connor looks at North.
“I made them soup, like you said,” She fidgets.
Josh pipes up, “Poison,”
“Shut up,” North hisses, “I tried my best.” She tips her head up haughtily, and Connor tugs himself away from Markus, before making his own way into their kitchen.
After half an hour, the sharp smell of soup permeates the air, and Josh begins sniffling, trying to get as much of the smell into his body. North moves from hovering around them to hovering around Connor, a spoon in her hand. She stares at it, furrowing her eyebrows.
“It has meatballs in it,” she observes, “pesioare?”
“Yeah,”
She grins, “Ah, taste of home?”
Connor smiles, pouring portions into three clean bowls, wondering if it’d be too forward if he washed their dishes for them. North helps him serve up the soup, and Josh makes a face at it, but the blond just tugs him upward and forces him to eat. Connor learns that his name is Simon and he’s Josh’s boyfriend of four years.
They’re an adorable couple, and Connor feels an ache in his heart whenever Simon pushes himself further into the curve of Josh’s body, humming contentedly.
But all good things come to an end; Connor stands to leave, telling them to take some of the medicine he’s brought over and to rest.
Markus smiles at him, bright and beautiful.
“Alright, Nightingale,” he says, an assent to his promise. Connor blushes and North teases him about it, laughing as he steadily grows the colour of a strawberry.
Hank tells him he looks happy when Connor comes over to cook for him.
The flowers are now signed Markus, and his nurses squeal in delight.
Connor tucks the card away, a smile on his face.
Markus sure is a grateful guy.
“Hey, Con,”
“Markus, hi, I’m a little busy—?” Busy is an understatement. Markus manages to show up in the middle of fucking flu season.
“Delivery?” He smiles, a bouquet of flowers in his hands.
Connor shakes his head, already jogging towards the throng of mothers trying to get their kids cured. Fucking flu season. “Throw that out, please! I’ll call you later, and thank you!”
Connor sees the news, sees Markus, and before he can text Markus, the man, eyes blazing as he confronts the ugliness of the unrelentless world, looks straight into the reporter’s camera.
His stomach drops.
It’s not like his word will matter; he’s nothing in Markus’ life.
Instead, he texts Josh.
Take care.
[MARKUS] Dinner?
[ME] sorry, i’m assisting a surgery. Tell the guys i can’t make it !
[MARKUS] no I mean just you and me.
[MARKUS] connor?
Chloe hands him a coffee just as he gets out of the OR, Gavin Reed already tailing him like a puppy. Connor doesn’t have the energy to tell him that just because he said his name once or twice in the operating room doesn’t mean he wants to fuck the man. It’s unprofessional, and quite frankly, not Connor’s style.
Gavin Reed isn’t Connor’s style.
His best friend glares at Reed, her blue eyes dark and icy. If they were still in high school, Chloe would probably tell Gavin Reed to get lost, but they’re not, so Chloe settles on glaring at the man as if she wants to melt the man by the sheer hate in her eyes. Connor puts his arm around her shoulders, bids Gavin Reed a polite goodbye and good work, and walks off.
They walk in companionable silence until they make it to the break room, where the rest of the nurses are either sprawled on a chair or standing on two weary feet, the smell of coffee almost overbearing as he and Chloe enter.
Connor passes a look at all of them, and isn’t surprised when he doesn’t see her.
“One of your boyfriend’s BFFs are here,” Chloe tells him by way of explaining Kara’s absence. Connor flushes red, about to tell her that no, Markus is not my boyfriend—
“Which one?”
“Amber haired lady,” A pause. “With all the muscles.”
“North?”
“Yes,” Chloe blushes red. Oh, Connor thinks.
“Let’s go check up on her.”
Kara is entertaining a gentlelady caller when he and Chloe make it to the lobby, her cheeks red and her eyes wide when she spots Connor and Chloe coming up to them. Connor’s smile is wide, and his exhaustion has surprisingly gone away.
North beams at Connor when she sees him. “Hey!” She greets, coming up to pat Connor’s head. “Markus is worried about you, you didn’t reply to his texts,”
“He texted me?” Connor frowns. His phone isn’t on him, and he only got out of surgery.
The amber haired woman rolls her eyes, “Just… say yes when he asks, okay? I’m tired. I am.”
Kara, thankful that the attention isn’t on her, is quick to jump on North’s agenda, and they spend the rest of their break there, North harping on about how Markus is practically a sad, emo teenage boy playing My Chemical Romance even when he’s working.
Connor smiles. He likes My Chemical Romance.
The next time Markus does text, Connor replies.
Well.
He would, but.
Markus… doesn’t really want to take him out to dinner, right?
And Connor, being Connor, takes a raincheck.
Markus, being Markus, replies: alright.
What?
Then, [MARKUS] i’m around. Want me to pick you up?
Connor blinks and looks at the time. He isn’t out until… until later this evening. So he tells Markus that it’s okay, but the man insists. Connor insists, too, but Markus must be the person who just might come toe to toe with him when it comes to insisting.
About seven hours later and one almost shouting fest with Gavin Reed, Connor is shoving on his jacket and walking out of the hospital, hoping to God that they don’t call him in for at least six hours. He needs to sleep. He needs to eat.
And most importantly, he needs to—
“Connor,” Markus says, leaning on the side of his car, a cigarette tucked behind his ear, and somehow, Connor feels like he’s being picked up by his college boyfriend, leather jacket and bad boy attitude and all.
“Markus,” Connor tugs his jacket tighter around himself, “It’s midnight, what the hell are you doing here?”
The man shrugs, “I said I’d pick you up.”
“Oh.”
Markus grins and pushes himself off the side of the car, “What, has no one ever given you a ride home?”
Sure there has. There’s Hank, who sometimes drives him home, but Hank isn’t Markus. Hank isn’t someone Connor wants to fuck, Hank isn’t someone who Connor wants to hold hands with and adopt puppies with.
Hank isn’t Markus .
Markus, who apparently sends him flowers, Markus, who cares for him, Markus, who takes care of himself just to make Connor a little bit better, Markus, who looks so warm and broad in the sharp light of the street lights.
“So?” Markus grins, beautiful and reassuring.
Connor finds himself grinning back, because… what else can he do?
Well, he can—
He wraps his arms around Markus’ neck and pulls him down for a kiss, the kind of kiss that makes you forget that there might be consequences later, the kind of kiss that makes you feel young and alive.
Markus responds by tilting his head and opening his mouth to Connor’s intrusion, and Connor’s never had this kind of a kiss, underneath the streetlight like some Nicholas Sparks book. His big hands settle on Connor’s hips, and then moves to curl around him just to keep him close.
He laughs as Markus turns them around and presses him against the car, hands moving, moving until they settle on his ass and grabs what little is there, and Connor heats up in shame. Reed definitely always made it known that Connor had a flat ass. Even Chloe teases him about it.
When Markus uses his grip to push Connor up like he weighs nothing, Connor blinks, because he knows he’s a heavy guy. But Markus, slinging him around like he’s a wet towel does things to Connor, things that make him feel kinda better about himself.
“Okay,” He breathes and pulls away, “I don’t do public sex until two months in,”
That’s a lie. He’s never done public sex.
Markus laughs, “We can have sex in the car?”
“Semi-public at one month,”
“Okay, I’ll take you home, then.”
Connor finds that he likes it when Markus calls him ‘baby’.
He pushes down Connor’s scrubs and licks at every bit of it, making him pant and buck wildly as Markus wraps his lips around his cock, two fingers already coated with lube and slowly pushing into him.
This kind of sex, he’s used to. Quick, wild. But the way Markus licks and drags his tongue up and around Connor’s cock can almost be called romantic, if not for the obscenities coming out of Markus’ mouth each time he pulls off.
“God, you were so dense,” Markus pants hotly, looking down at Connor, one of his hands on the plane of Connor’s stomach to stop him from squirming around. “Does this make it clear, baby boy?” He asks, thrusting his fingers deep into Connor and curling.
Connor yelps. “Make wh-what… clear?”
The other man huffs out a sigh and covers Connor’s body with his own, meeting his eyes as he makes his way up, pressing languid, open kisses on his body. They’ve got the light on, and Connor can see everything, the marks Markus is leaving, Markus’ mismatched eyes blown with lust.
“You’re so fucking dense,” He repeats, laughing in disbelief, “I’m gonna fuck you so goddamn hard,”
Connor nods enthusiastically. That’s what he’s been trying to get Markus to do—
His thought gets cut off when Markus bites at his nipple, sucking at it harshly.
Jesus Christ.
“Okay,” Connor replies to Markus’ earlier announcement, pushing up into Markus’ mouth, hands curling at the back of Markus’ head, “Please fuck me now,”
And just like that, Markus presses the head of his cock against Connor’s entrance and pushes , the burn sharp and pleasurable. Something in Connor wishes Markus hadn’t worn a rubber, but the nurse part in Connor screams at how dangerous that is.
Markus pulls away from sucking at his nipple to grip his hips, pulling Connor half-way into his lap, legs useless as they flop behind Markus. “Look at you,” he says fervently, as if he was talking to himself, “you’re taking my cock so fucking well, baby,”
And Connor does. Markus fits so well inside him that Connor could barely form coherent thoughts, his body wired and his cock harder than a fucking rock.
“Harder,” He whines, and then, “Touch me,”
“Can do both,” Markus grunts, wrapping his hand around Connor’s cock.
Connor groans, his orgasm building up too quickly for his liking. He’s never been filled up this well, never been fucked so good. Markus is so goddamned big; Connor wonders if that’s where he partly gets all his confidence.
The man pulls him up for a kiss, thumb pressing against the slit of Connor’s prick, his thick cock pistoning into him at an unrelenting pace. Any harder and Connor’s going to fucking lose all feeling in his legs.
“Oh, God,” Connor whimpers against Markus’ mouth, wrapping his legs tightly to keep Markus inside him, urging him to fuck , because Connor wants him to, “C’mon,”
“Fuck,” Markus grunts, face scrunching up in pleasure as Connor tightens around him, letting him come inside without so much as a complaint. Connor wonders if someday, he can convince Markus to just fill him and plug him up.
His cock twitches in Markus’ hand.
Markus smiles, dopey and lovely, “Alright,” he says, pulling out and swallowing Connor’s prick back down into his mouth. Connor whines at the sudden loss inside him, to which his lover quickly remedies by shoving three fingers in, curling and fucking incessantly.
He comes like that, into Markus’ mouth, and Markus swallows, eyes closing as if he was savoring the taste. Connor bites his lip hard enough until it bleeds.
His cock twitches, comes some more, and Markus gobbles it all up, only pulling off of him when his cock has softened.
Markus flops down on Connor, and Connor’s hands, shaking from his orgasm, trail against Markus’ spine.
He smiles when Markus lets out a content little hum.
“Okay,” he says, eyes drifting closed, “So maybe you do like me.”