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John recognized a coldness in Kovač that he had been taught over years of stilted conversations in family gatherings. Of course, he knew that Kovač's coldness came from his history. A dead family, fleeing the only place he had ever known. His walls were the same as John's, but built of a different material.
John hadn't always been this way, but when push came to shove, he leaned on the Carter training and closed off. How could he trust anyone after the accusations? The forced time at the rehab center? The fake care that was said but not meant?
Maybe that wasn't fair. Benton obviously, actually cared about him, even if he hadn't personally shown up at the hospital. He hadn't left John there alone, despite what he wanted to believe. Instead, Benton had asked a med student to pick him up; someone who was far too chatty, but probably reminded Benton of the kid Carter had been.
He probably wasn't being fair to any of them, really. He was angry because he was caught. And embarrassed because he was caught. And terrified because he had been caught. He used to think he was better than that, but maybe there was something to addiction in his blood.
John sighed as he settled outside, cigarette between two loose fingers. He was still feeling cowed by his grandmother after writing a check for violating a federal crime. The cigarette wasn't yet lit, but it still felt like it was burning his fingers.
“Those things will kill you, you know,” Kovač offered as he settled down beside John.
John chuckled dryly and tossed the cigarette away from himself. “Maybe if everything else doesn't get to me first.”
Kovač was quiet beside him, a veritable wall of lukewarm ice. He glanced at John and the side of John's face felt hot.
“They changed the admit desk.”
“Open-concept, Kerry said,” Kovač replied. “More opportunity for her to spy on us.”
John snorted despite himself and pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. “Is that because of me?”
“No.” Kovač's voice was firm. “It's the new design, all the modern rage.”
John nodded, taking a deep breath while he felt like throwing up.
“You can talk to me, John.”
John knew that. It was all anyone had been saying to him for months. Letters, his allotted phone calls, mentioned in passing in the hallway. Said too close to the drug lockup.
Kovač made a sound and shifted in his seat on the bench. “I knew many men like you. Many more that were too afraid to get help.”
John wanted to rage, destroy a room, scream, and flail. He wanted to sob. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and when they opened, it would be different.
“I wasn't brave, I was terrified of losing my job,” John argued.
A warm hand on the back of his neck. John shuddered and tried not to pitch forward onto the warm concrete. He swallowed thickly and did not move Kovač's hand.
“You should come back inside,” Kovač murmured, suddenly closer. “So I can keep an eye on you.”
“I'm not shooting up anymore,” John snapped as he lifted his head.
“Maybe I like watching you for other reasons.” Luka's face was impassive and his voice was even, but John heard it.
A thousand terrible mistakes and this could just be another one.
“You should come back inside. Get your mind off things,” Luka offered, as if every moment of being in the hospital didn’t remind John of things.
He got up anyway, trailing after Luka as the sounds of the city faded and the sounds of the ER awoke. John nodded at the new desk clerk and waited patiently for Luka to select another patient for him.
“Rule out appy, Benton’s covering the ER, yes?” Luka said as he handed it over. “Not terribly exciting, I know.”
John nodded as he took the file. “Thank you.”
The problem was not the appy, John could tell it was getting hot and needed to go up. The problem was that he was going to have to provide his findings to Benton. He would have to look him in the eye and not tell him how sorry he was and keep it all to himself. That, he was not sure he could do.
“Lydia, could you get Kovač for me?” he requested, taking a deep breath.
Lydia looked surprised and opened her mouth, but a stricken look from John had her scurrying out. John took another deep breath and picked up the chart again, reading it over.
“John, do you need a second opinion?” Luka asked as he stepped into the room.
John looked at him and shook his head. “I-” he stepped away from the patient, to the door. “I can’t do it. Just- I need you to take it.”
Luka stared at him for a moment, gaze dropping to the chart John pressed into his chest. He nodded and turned to the patient. “Of course, there are some stitches needed in the suture room.”
John did not tuck tail and run, though it was a near thing. He was practically panting as he leaned against the smaller admit desk, looking to Randi.
“Suture- suture room, please,” he requested, looking at the files that Weaver still forbade him from touching.
Randi nodded, pulling two out and handing them. John took them with a shaking hand, thanking her quietly and heading off.
Sutures were easy. He could clear his mind as he thought of each stitch, bringing skin back to skin. Talking patients through treatment plans, when to come back, asking about their day. It was monotonous, but not so empty that his mind could wander.
Though it did make him consider being a surgeon again. How would things have turned out differently, no medical student in the ER to worry about, no misdiagnosis of a patient due to arrogance. Lucy Knight might still be alive.
As John wrapped up the last patient and shook their hand, showing them to the desk, he felt a little lighter. Gamma had suggested he was moving too quickly, but he had hoped that throwing himself into it would solve things, keep his mind blank.
He headed back to the suture room, waving away the nurse that was clearing up his station. “Thank you,” he said quietly as they left the room.
John noticed how they left the door open, directives from Weaver he was sure. Maybe she would be on him soon, to see him take his pills. He licked his lips and dropped gauze into the waste basket.
“John,” Luka said as he darkened the doorway.
John turned, peeling his gloves off his hands. “Doctor Kovač.”
Luka stepped further into the room and shut the door behind him. “Are you okay?”
John shrugged and waffled, head swinging from side to side as he considered it. “I am…functional.”
“You are not a machine, John.”
John laughed a little desperately and lifted a tray, setting it with the others to be sterilized. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t seem okay. You can go home if you need to, I can cover.”
John shook his head, once, twice, a million times over until he was nearly dizzy. “I can do this. I have to do this.”
“I see.” Luka sat on the edge of the surgical bed, the same one Lucy had spread her notes out on as she dictated to herself. “Perhaps your mind is overwhelmed?”
“My mind is overwhelmed?” John replied and laughed again, too loud, like a bark. “I’ll say!”
Luka tilted his head to the side, impassive. “I could help with that.”
John stared at him, a tremor in his hands that had nothing to do with drugs. “You could help? How?”
Kovač shifted on the surgical bed, closer to the edge so his feet touched the floor. He was so tall, taller than John, he could loom over someone. Or make them feel safe.
“Come here.” Luka gestured to himself, spread his legs, made a spot for John.
John stepped over to him, swallowing thickly. He understood this, what picture he was painting, but he could not stop himself. He stepped into the vee of Kovač’s legs and stared into his eyes.
“Get down,” he coaxed, putting his hands on John’s shoulders.
John complied, staring up at him. He licked his lips again and reached out, curling his hands around Kovač’s calves.
“You’ll tell me if you need to stop, yes?”
“Yes,” John replied, voice soft. The screaming in his mind began to dull.
Luka nodded, shifting his hips up a little. He unzipped his pants and let them fall open, exposing his underwear.
John was drawn to it, stretched over what was a rapidly hardening cock. He licked his lips again and looked back to Luka.
“Okay, easy now. Have you done this before?” Luka asked, easing himself out of his underwear. He held his cock for a moment, just watching John as it thickened in his hand.
“In col-college,” John replied, leaning forward on instinct.
“Take it slow.” Luka stroked himself twice, angling himself down towards John’s mouth.
John closed his eyes as he opened his mouth and leaned forward. The first brush of it against his lips, along the roof of his mouth. He shuddered a little and squeezed Luka’s calves.
“That’s it,” Luka whispered, his voice just a touch wrecked. If John was more aware, he might have been able to wonder what that voice would sound like in a bed, maybe hours into a marathon.
As it was, he just kept going, relaxing the back of his throat as Luka’s dick tapped the roof of his mouth. John knew he wouldn’t be able to take him all the way, but he gave it a good effort.
When he opened his eyes, they were full of tears and his head was swimming with lust, and not much else. His fingers flexed on Luka’s legs and he swallowed around the dick in his mouth.
“Good boy,” Luka praised, dropping his free hand into John’s hair. He stroked it, then trailed his hand down to stroke over his cheek. He pressed in a little, feeling himself curved into the left side of John’s mouth. “Just stay like this.”
John couldn’t nod, but he blinked twice, tears streaming down his cheeks on the second one. He swallowed again and held on tight to Luka’s legs. His own dick was getting interested, but it was an afterthought, something he could deal with later or never.
Luka kept stroking his face, his hips moving in aborted thrusts against John’s mouth. Never enough to make him choke, but enough to keep himself hard.
“This is what you needed, yes? Someone else to make decisions for you?”
John could have sobbed at that, wanted to beg Luka to keep doing it. Tell him what to do and call him a brat when he argued. Keep him safe from the decisions he would make about himself.
“So pretty, John, yes you are.” Luka wiped a tear away from his cheek with his thumb and lifted it to his mouth, licking the digit clean.
John felt more tears leak out and he pressed his shoulders to Luka’s shins. He shifted his tongue a little, which earned him a soft moan from above. He closed his eyes and swallowed again.
“Squeeze my calf if you want me to fuck your mouth.” Luka’s voice a hundred years later, while John floated somewhere between nirvana and heaven.
He took a minute to get his hand to cooperate, squeezing both calves as hard as he could. They were nice calves, firm, strong, a good base to lift him against a wall one day.
Luka’s hand came to the back of his head and held on tight. John kept his eyes closed and his jaw as loose as he could make it.
With the first thrust, he coughed and Luka gave him a moment to catch his breath. He nodded when he was ready, opening his mouth obediently as saliva dripped down his chin to mix with the tears on his neck.
The second split his mind wide open, and by the third, John was little more than an orifice for Luka to use. He dropped his own hands to his lap, but made no move to touch himself. His blinks came slowly and his breathing was hard when Luka pulled out to push back in.
“Close, John,” Luka warned as he dragged a sheen of salt over John’s tongue.
John held his hands up, palms out and vision heavenward. When the first spurt hit his face, he felt he was baptized. He caught what he could in his mouth, swallowing it down to show Luka what a good boy he could be.
When his brain finally got back together, stitched up in loose threads that might dissolve at the slightest provocation, he was still on the floor. He was leaning against something warm though and there was a warm cloth being dragged across his face.
“Better, John?” Luka whispered, lips kissing the shell of his ear.
John nodded, clearing his throat. He caught Luka’s wrist and dragged his hand close to his mouth. He kissed in once and nodded again. “Better.”
“Good. Don’t be afraid to tell me when you need help. I’m always here for you, John,” Luka promised. He set the wet cloth to the side. “Can you stand?”
John shifted one foot under himself and then the other. He held tight to Luka’s hands as he got to his feet, shaking, but upright.
“I should leave first,” he mumbled, wiping a hand over his face.
“No.” Luka stood up too, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Wait here, I’ll get you some juice.”
John settled onto the gurney instead, flopping back. He closed his eyes again, letting himself float. When he next came to, it was to a soft press of lips on his forehead and a cold juicebox in his hand.