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Carter turns back to the mirror as Vucelich turns to walk away. He examines the hickey on his neck in the mirror for a moment, sighing as he prepares to cover it and thinking about how embarrassing it’s been having both Benton and Vucelich comment on it— when he realises Vucelich hasn’t actually left the otherwise empty men’s room.
Vucelich is looking at him as though he’s debating something. Carter stares back, a little nervous, wondering if something is wrong.
“You know, I have noticed that you’re a rather enthusiastic student, always eager to jump in and prove yourself,” Vucelich says, stepping back towards Carter.
“Oh, um, well, I- I do try, you know, Doctor Benton has uh, very high standards, so I just… try to keep up,” Carter responds, unsure of where this is going. Is Vucelich reconsidering? Did the hickey on his neck make him seem somehow unprofessional? Had he said the wrong thing, or—
“Hm,” Vucelich says, looking Carter over, taking another step closer, making Carter feel somewhat enclosed, “perhaps it might be beneficial if you could demonstrate some of that enthusiasm for me,” he says, voice casual and light.
Carter steps back a little, almost instinctively. His brain hasn’t fully caught up with the words yet, but he feels a sudden urge to move further away nonetheless.
“Uh, um… I’m, uh, I’m sorry, what do you…?” Carter stammers, not quite getting it. He can feel it though, somehow, like something on the tip of his tongue. He feels as though he understands where this is going even before his mind consciously recognises it.
“Well, if I’m going to be doing you a favour, it seems only fair of you to do one for me first, and if I do end up working closely with your Doctor Benton, it would be good to have a… grasp on exactly what to expect from his student, don’t you think?” Vucelich looks up at Carter as he speaks, eyes boring into Carter’s own.
Carter feels like the air has been sucked out of the room.
“… I’m sorry, are you… uh, you wouldn’t be asking me to, um…?” Carter’s voice shakes a little. He’s not stupid. He knows exactly what Vucelich has just suggested, and if he’d had any doubt, the expression on Vucelich’s face right now is so grotesquely familiar that Carter feels nausea rising in him at the sight.
Carter shakes his head, opens his mouth, ready to say no, absolutely not, there’s no way in hell— when Vucelich holds a hand up to stop him.
“It’d be a shame if I had to inform Doctor Benton that his student had cornered me in the men's room, asking for special treatment like this, wouldn’t it?” Vucelich sounds so calm, and it almost makes Carter angry, but… more than anything, it makes Carter feel frozen.
He thinks about it, trying to picture Benton’s face, his reaction if Vucelich really did go to him, accuse Carter of trying to sleep his way ahead.
He doesn’t think Benton would believe it. … Would he? No, there’s no way, Benton wouldn’t…
Carter is struck by the uncomfortable realisation that he’s not actually sure of that. Carter has been known to do reckless, impulsive, stupid things before… and he knows Benton has been pretty frustrated with him lately.
He recalls Benton’s face in their recent surgery with Vucelich, the way he’d looked at Carter with disdain when Carter had revealed he was familiar with Vucelich’s research, the way Benton had reacted similarly a few days later when Vucelich had praised Carter’s extensive testing on a patient— He could almost hear Benton calling him a suck-up then and there.
“… Uh… Yes, I suppose it… would be, um, unfortunate if…” Carter mumbles, looking away. He inches himself a little further back still, the urge to push past Vucelich and run out of here growing in desperation.
As though he can sense the remaining hesitance, Vucelich sighs loudly, disappointed.
“Or worse, perhaps Benton already knows what you’re doing here? Now that, that would be an issue, wouldn’t it? Sending his student in to solicit favours from a superior…” he says.
Carter’s head snaps up, meeting Vucelich’s gaze. He looks expectant, waiting, and almost a little satisfied, like he knows he’s just hit a weak point, something he’ll be able to exploit over and over.
Carter feels like he might vomit. He swallows the feeling down, telling himself he can be sick later.
Vucelich is still staring at him. Waiting. The patience with which he holds Carter’s gaze only makes Carter feel worse. He knows, Carter thinks. Curses himself for giving it away in the immediate reaction, couldn’t have held off for a second, given the impression that maybe threatening Benton would be meaningless— but no, Carter had looked up too fast, too wide-eyed, as soon as Vucelich had sullied Benton’s name like that.
Carter breathes deeply, trying to steady himself.
People like Vucelich weren’t uncommon, especially in the social circles that his parents kept, even within his own family. People with money, influence, connections… People who could spot someone vulnerable a mile away, and know exactly what would make them comply… and know that even if they got caught, it wouldn’t be their heads on the chopping block.
“… I… I would be happy to demonstrate my… enthusiasm, Doctor Vucelich,” the words come out slowly, stilted and forced. Vucelich smiles upon hearing them nonetheless.
“I thought as much. I can see you’re an intelligent boy, Carter. I look forward to seeing what you’re capable of, truly,” he says, motioning his head towards the empty stall furthest from the door.
Carter clenches his jaw, and something familiar washes over him— a sense of resignation, acceptance of his fate. He nods, and moves towards the stall.
Vucelich follows close behind.
Afterwards, Carter stays sitting on the floor of the stall for a while, hunched over the closed toilet lid. He can still taste it in his mouth.
He lifts the lid, and leans over the bowl. He takes a deep breath, and plunges two fingers into his throat, as far back as he can.
He’s done this before. Not always to get something quite so unpleasant out of his mouth, but he’s done it for those reasons too.
He remembers the first time, the vomiting had been a natural occurrence. He hadn’t known the difference between urine and semen back then. They came out of the same appendage. He remembers being called a baby when he’d gotten upset over that, then being told to stop crying before mom heard them.
He retches into the bowl, hearing the splatter of fluids as it’s forced out of him. He coughs violently afterwards, more tears spilling from his eyes.
He knows he’ll have to clean himself up a little before he can leave, and as he stares at the milky white fluids mixed with his own bile and stomach acid sitting there in the porcelain bowl, he takes a strange comfort in knowing that he’s done this before.
He lived through it last time. Surely he can live through it again, he thinks.
Perhaps the most painful part of it all, in the end, is that Carter isn’t actually all that surprised.
He’d thought Benton would be proud of him. Happy with him, at least, for convincing the patient’s wife to agree to surgery. He’s not entirely sure why Benton is looking at him like he’s screwed something up, though.
He suspects it must have something to do with the way Vucelich is impressed with him. Benton seems constantly frustrated whenever Vucelich says anything positive about Carter, and Carter really doesn’t know what to make of that.
Vucelich praises him during the surgery, telling Benton how lucky he is to have a student like Carter. It makes Carter feel slightly ill for a moment, but then Benton agrees, begrudingly, reluctantly— but Benton agrees, and Carter feels a little lightheaded from the sudden euphoria. He bounces, literally bounces on his feet in joy.
It’s a problem, he thinks, how much he wants Benton to praise him. It’s always been sort of a problem, but now it’s worse. Benton’s praise is mixed in with Vucelich praising him now, and Carter feels like his head is going to break in half from that, from the contradictory emotions it evokes, and from the way Benton seems to resent Carter for being complimented by Vucelich at all.
Part of him wonders if Benton knows, if his reaction is just thinly veiled disgust at what Carter is willing to do at Vucelich’s behest.
Vucelich’s praise makes his stomach twist uncomfortably, makes him feel sick and wrong and filthy… but Benton’s praise makes warmth spread through him, in several ways. He tries not to think about it, because it makes it feel worse when Vucelich places a hand on his lower back and holds it there a second too long, telling him he did good work, and Carter knows he’s supposed to wait a moment and then follow somewhere private, secluded.
He’ll be forced onto his knees again, and Vucelich will drive the knife in slowly, asking if Doctor Benton knows just how lucky he is to have Carter for a student—
He doesn’t want to think about Benton during this. He can’t handle that.
He hopes to god that Benton never finds out.
The earrings are too flashy. Well, they’re not flashy, really. They’re understated, tasteful, classy. He’s always had a pretty good eye for jewellery, and he’s sure Harper will like them.
They’re definitely too expensive, though. He knows that.
He feels guilty, almost.
He’d been so upset with Harper for sleeping with Doug Ross, and now… He feels like he might need to make up for it, somehow, the hypocrisy.
He’s cheating on her now. Sort of. Is it cheating if he doesn’t want to do it? If he sticks his fingers down his throat in an empty bathroom to puke up Vucelich’s fluids after every encounter? Is it still cheating if he feels sick the whole time?
He’s not sure, and he can’t help but wonder… did he misread the situation with Harper and Ross? Did she feel this way too, like she needed to scrape her own insides out to feel clean again afterwards? Did she feel compelled to comply with the advances of a superior against her own wishes?
He doesn’t think Ross is like that. He hopes not. He’s a flawed man in many ways, but he doesn’t think he would do… that.
He hadn’t thought Vucelich would do this either, though in hindsight he feels like he should have seen it coming.
He feels like something is festering inside him, rotting. Seeping pus and poison throughout his body.
He speaks to Rubadoux about the surgery, and he feels strange the whole time. More like a used car salesman than a doctor.
Vucelich praises him again, on his ability to “sell the procedure”, his skill at talking people into things—
Carter is fairly certain he’s never been complimented in a way that made him hate himself so much.
As soon as he arrives at the Christmas party, he finds something to drink, half hoping it might make him feel better.
Harper likes the earrings, he thinks, for all that it seems to matter now.
Rubadoux, no, Ruby, is a very earnest man. Carter doesn’t dislike him, but it feels grating nonetheless. His constant praise makes bile rise in Carter’s throat, but Carter adjusts.
He does his job, he does it well, he swallows down his feelings and forces himself to remain chipper and smiling, despite the undercurrent of frustration and misery that keep trying to bubble up and overwhelm him.
He falls into a routine. It’s frightening, in some ways, how easily he adjusts. Vucelich doesn’t ask, but Carter begins skipping meals. He pukes up most of them anyway, and it becomes a benefit when Vucelich escalates. Carter pretends, in a small, pathetic part of his own mind, that he’s doing this because Vucelich wants it. It makes him feel just slightly less weak about it all.
He can feel Harper staring at the marks left behind sometimes. Small bruises where Vucelich gripped too tightly, dug his hands into Carter’s hips, gripped the back of his neck like he were a misbehaving dog. The man isn’t exactly gentle, but then, Carter supposes, he doesn’t need to be.
He avoids Harper’s eyes, brushes off her concerns by telling her he’s clumsy, which he is, always has been. He finds himself staring at Doug Ross more closely, too, watching him with the same scrutinising look Harper has been giving him.
He itches to ask, but he’s pretty sure he’d be giving too much away if he did.
She can tell he’s avoiding something, but he thinks he can get away with it, as long as she never asks directly.
Carter’s heart threatens to beat out of his chest with pure terror when he hears that Benton quit Vucelich’s study.
He initially wonders if Benton knows, or if he was actually fired, if Carter did something, said something, pissed Vucelich off in a way that couldn’t be walked back, and this was Vucelich making good on his promise of dragging Benton down too.
“Look, I didn’t quit the study,” Benton argues, albeit half-heartedly. It makes some kind of irritation spark in Carter’s chest. Benton, of all people, lying to his face, and about this, of all things.
Carter hovers at the door of Benton’s office for a moment too long.
“Carter, what?”
“… Did Vucelich say something to you? About me?” Carter reasons to himself that there’s no sense avoiding it. If Benton is lying to him about quitting the study, then he almost definitely knows already, he must—
“What? What would Vucelich be saying about you?”
Benton looks genuinely confused, and frustrated with Carter for asking, brow furrowed.
Carter flashes to a vivid memory, the door of his bedroom opening in the middle of the night, him looking over, seeing the blurred image of his mother through the mess of tears and snot. She’d closed the door so quietly, and never said a word, that he’d almost thought he’d dreamed it.
Even now, there’s a palpable fear itching at him, that maybe Benton does know, and just doesn’t care. Maybe Benton would close the door on him, too.
Carter hesitates, taking in a sharp breath.
“So… he hasn’t said anything to you, about me?”
Benton looks even more perplexed, and shakes his head.
Carter feels the tension drain from his shoulders immediately, and sighs in relief. He realises the mistake he’s just made from the way Benton’s face knits together even tighter in exasperation.
“Carter, what’s this about?” he asks, scrutinising Carter with an intense gaze.
“Uh, nothing, no, uh, nothing, it’s not— it’s not anything, um,” Carter stumbles a little, hoping he might be so lucky as to get paged then and there, but his easy exit never comes, so he bites his lip and does it himself.
“You know, I’m meant to be grabbing some test results for a patient right now, I should get going,” he says hastily, and turns to leave before Benton can ask any further questions.
When he turns into an empty corridor, out of sight, he wonders how he hasn’t become a better liar after all these years.
Sophie had been a maid working for his family. She’d only been twenty-five, and John had been glad at the time that she lived with them too. She’d been kind and joyful and gentle with her hands. She’d made him feel loved.
She’d abruptly disappeared one day. John had asked, and had simply been told she’d been let go. He’d never gotten any further answers.
Her touch had made him feel sick at times, but it was a warmer and gentler touch than he would get from anyone else. He found himself missing her, even missing the nausea and the fear that came with his bedroom door opening in the middle of the night.
She had not been the first, nor the last person to make him feel that way, even before Vucelich.
There’s a pang of nostalgia for it all, especially now that Vucelich has simply… stopped.
He’d brushed off Carter’s inquiry about studying under Vucelich directly, and when Carter had foolishly decided to wait at Vucelich’s office later to get answers, all he’d been told was that he and Benton were more trouble than they were worth, before being told quite bluntly to leave.
Carter can’t help but feel like the ground is being ripped up underneath him.
He’d spent months on his knees, bent over, doing whatever Vucelich wanted, and then this, some argument with Benton over study inclusions and… nothing.
He’s dizzy. His palms are too hot, his legs feel wrong, like they aren’t really underneath him anymore.
If he’s really honest with himself, he feels more than a little insulted, offended really, that Vucelich could just cut him loose so calmly, that Benton was willing to toss aside every degrading act Carter had forced himself to perform for Benton’s sake—
He shakes his head rapidly, making himself feel even further off kilter. No, no, this wasn’t Benton’s fault. Benton doesn’t even know. Nobody does. Nobody ever will.
“John?”
Harper’s voice snaps him out of the fog.
“Are you okay?” She’s looking at him with eyes full of concern, and he feels heat rise in his cheeks in utter shame that she’d witnessed his little panic attack.
He forces a smile back onto his face, and laughs, a little too loud.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I was just, uh, you know,” Carter scrambles suddenly, trying to work out what to say, how to finish his thought.
Harper waits patiently, her eyes boring into him. He can feel her working something out inside her head, analysing him, making her own diagnosis just from looking—
“I was just… angry, at Benton, you know, he quit the study, and I enjoyed working on it, so…” Carter trails off, hoping she’ll let it go.
Harper stares at him for a long, tense moment.
“Okay,” she says, eventually, still looking sceptical. She changes the subject swiftly, and Carter feels himself sag in relief again.
The bruises will fade. The nightmares will become bearable. The nausea will abate. Vucelich is done with him now, just like Sophie was, just like other people buried so deep that he’ll never unearth his memories of them again.
It’s over, he tells himself, allowing himself to get swept into the more optimistic conversation as Harper tells him about some last-minute tickets to a music club she got her hands on.
“I’m sure we could both use a distraction,” she says, pointedly enough that Carter knows she’ll be asking about what’s been going on again. He knows he’ll have to come up with more deflections, and excuses, and it will only be so long before she gets tired of it all.
He smiles easily back at her, knowing he will take the last few months to his grave, like always.