Same Words, Different Situation (part 2)
Title: Same Words, Different Situation (part 2)
Fandom: Petshop of Horrors
Rating: PG-13 (This part)
Archive: Ask and ye shall be as gods receive
Warning: Lots of profanity, flashbacks, reincarnation, possible errors about certain medical professions
Spoilers: Volume 10 of the Petshop of Horrors manga is mentioned, and will likely continue to be so. The Papa D/Vesca side story from Shin Petshop of Horrors might also be referenced.
Vincent knelt in the confessional, still not believing he was doing this. He didn't know why he thought that going to confession would help matters. It wouldn't make the Count magically go away. It wouldn't keep Goodman from retiring. And it wouldn't change the fact that, despite his best efforts to the contrary, the little boy that had been brought in from a crime scene with rather large glass shards sticking into vital parts of his anatomy had died on the table while Vincent had been operating on him. The fact that multiple people had assured him that the boy had limited time to live in the first place definitely didn't change things.
Nor did it keep him from checking a wince when the wooden panel slid open.
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It's been," a pause as he tried to remember, "too damn long since my last confession."
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" the priest asked.
Vincent snorted. "My mother died having me, and my father never let me forget it."
The priest was quiet for a few moments, not quite sure how to respond. Vincent was about to light a cigarette, before the priest responded.
"What brings you to me?"
Ah, finally we're getting somewhere, Vincent thought, before sighing softly.
"See, that's the thing. This isn't really something I can talk to anyone about. It's a lot of shit coming to a head. But I figure, the Lord's supposed to forgive anything, right? Even crimes you haven't committed."
"I will not have you blaspheming in my church, young man," the priest said, sounding affronted.
Vincent snorted. "Figures. First time I go to confession in years, and I get the most holier than thou priest in the fucking city. You know what? I don't need your approval. I just need to vent and then I'll get the hell out of here."
The priest was silent at that, waiting for Vincent to do as he said he would. Vincent's hand wandered up to the St. Christopher's medal around his neck, and he toyed with it as he thought. "I'm a surgeon, father. My job is to save people. To help them. To cure them. Yesterday... yesterday a little boy was brought in. Glass all over him. All through him. They brought him to the hospital. They brought him to me."
"That's hardly a crime," the priest offered.
"You don't get it. He died on the table. He slipped away. He died and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. People say that it wasn't my fault, that he was pretty far gone from the start. But I know that he had a pulse when they brought him in. And he didn't when they took him out of the OR," Vincent said, really wishing he had a cigarette now. "The bible says 'thou shall not kill', right? I was... preoccupied, yesterday. If I hadn't been, if I'd been more focused, then maybe..."
He shook his head, sighing softly. "I should have been able to save him," Vincent finished.
"Surely you must know, doctor, that everyone loses patients. Such a thing is unfortunate, but it's the Lord's way. The Lord--"
Vincent snorted, before getting to his feet. "The Lord had nothing to do with this! What kind of God gives people life, only to take it away in a senseless accident? Fuck this. I knew it was a bad idea in the first place."
And with that, Vincent stalked out of the confessional and out of the church. Why he had thought that going to confession when he hadn't been to church in over ten years would help, he didn't know. But then, he probably wasn't thinking very well at the moment. He leaned against his motorcycle when he got to it, before lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag, exhaling the smoke slowly. Savoring it, almost.
He should go home. Back to his apartment. Or even back to the hospital. But after just getting off of a 20 hour shift, he didn't think they'd let him set foot back in there unless he got some sleep. God knew, he didn't want to end up killing another patient with his negligence.
It isn't negligence. You did everything you could.
That's what Madeline had told him when he said something like that to her after the operation. It's also something like what Goodman told him. However, the most surprising input had come from the Count of all people. Surprising in the fact that it, for once, didn't seem to be a gesture of comfort which was in reality a thinly veiled attempt to cause him pain.
We can't save everyone, Dr. Harris. No matter what you do, and how hard you try, people will still die. That is one of the most important lessons you're going to have to learn about this business.
He thought he'd known that. He thought he'd learned that after his first year of residency, when he was the primary surgeon for Emma Jean. Emma Jean had been 10 years old, and she had cancer. In multiple sites. He'd performed so many surgeries on Emma Jean. And every time, they thought they got rid of the cancer. And every time it metastasized and another tumor would pop up somewhere else. Emma Jean had finally died after almost an entire year of operations, and that wasn't even counting how long she'd been in and out of the hospital before Vincent had taken over her case.
Perhaps the biggest difference was that Vincent felt like he'd poured his soul into saving Emma Jean. Sure, it hadn't done any good in the end, but at least no one could accuse him of not giving it his everything. With the little boy who died yesterday, Tommy, his name had been, with Tommy, Vincent had been preoccupied with the situation. He couldn't help like feeling that there was more that he could have done. That he could have worked just a little harder, or done a touch more to save Tommy. And now? Now he would never be sure.
Vincent sighed, dropping the cigarette to the ground and crushing it out beneath his foot. He needed sleep. He didn't relish the dreams he was going to have, but he needed to get home and sleep. Maybe everything would look fresher in the morning.
*~*~*
In retrospect, going to the bar on roughly three hours of sleep and after coming off of a 20 hour shift had been a really bad idea. Because he was sleep deprived when he got there, and by the time the Count of all people came in several hours after Vincent had gotten there, he was drunk and sleep deprived. Which made what happened next very interesting, in the Chinese curse sense of the word.
"Dr. Harris? I should think you would be sleeping, all things considered," the Count said, arching the ever-eloquent eyebrow once he saw Vincent.
"Mmm... I'm not scheduled to go in until the day after tomorrow. Why does it matter anyway?"
The Count snorted softly. "What good will you be to anyone if you get called in early? You could kill someone if you tried to operate on them while drunk."
"What kind of a moron do you think I am?" Vincent countered, before finishing the rest of his drink. "I wouldn't try to operate on someone like this. No use killing another patient."
"You mean you've done so before?"
Vincent gave the Count a look which clearly said 'are you some sort of idiot?' before ordering another drink. "Yesterday. Tommy. The boy with the glass all through him."
"That was hardly your fault."
"So everyone keeps telling me. Now are you going to lecture me, or are you going to have a drink?"
For a second, just a second, the Count seemed to hesitate. Then, he sat down at the bar next to Vincent. He didn't think that this was the best of ideas, yet he was going through with it anyway. But then, things had never been easy when he was dealing with situations like this.
"Order whatever you want. It's on me," Vincent said.
"Really, that's not necessary," the Count said, shaking his head.
"I insist."
The Count sighed, before ordering a rather strong drink. He had the feeling that he would need it before this night was out.
"Dare I ask why you feel the need to get yourself and those around you intoxicated tonight?" the Count asked Vincent after the drink was about half gone.
"Misery loves company?" Vincent offered, shrugging slightly. "I figured I'd share the wealth."
"Do you always get this melancholy when you lose a patient?"
"This isn't about the fucking patient, D! If that's all it was, I could deal with it! But it's not about the patient at all! It's about you!"
The Count blinked, rather taken aback by that outburst. And he finished his drink, before figuring out how to process what Vincent had said. He finally schooled his face into a calm mask, before ordering another drink.
"Look, Mister--"
"Doctor," Vincent corrected. "It's Doctor. I did not work three jobs to pay for med school to be called Mister anything. Not Harris, not Howell, none of that."
The Count blinked, and drank the second drink perhaps a bit more quickly than he should have, putting it down only when the glass was emptied.
"You are far more drunk than is probably healthy for you. We should get you home," the Count said.
"You know, if you keep drinking like that, I'm not going to be the only one who's too drunk for his own good," Vincent said, smirking a little.
"Well, with you making ridiculous claims such as this entire thing being my fault, you could very well drive a person to drink," the Count replied.
"It is your fault though. If I hadn't been so damn shell-shocked by finally meeting you, I might have been able to do my job better," Vincent growled, before lighting a cigarette.
"I've no clue what you're talking about," the Count said, looking at Vincent the way that an etymologist would look at a particularly interesting bug.
"You're lying. I can see it in your eyes," Vincent said, snorting softly, before knocking back another drink.
"Dr. Harris, this is completely and utterly ridiculous. I will not listen to the ramblings of a drunken lunatic. Clearly, I'm going to have to escort you to a--"
The Count's words stopped as if they were cut off with a knife, though that probably had everything to do with Vincent wrapping his hand around the Count's wrist. The Count had reached out to help him up, or something. He'd put his hand on his shoulder at any rate. And Vincent had taken hold of his wrist.
"Come back with me," Vincent said, looking down into the liquor of his recently-refilled glass. He could see a hazy reflection of the count's face swimming on the surface of the drink. And the Count, or doctor, or whatever, did not look amused by the entire situation.
"I will not," the Count said, his voice making it clear that such a thing wouldn't happen in no uncertain terms.
"You can't tell me I don't look familiar to you. You can't tell me that you don't know, or at least think that there's something else going on," Vincent pressed.
"I told you before, I don't know what you're talking about," the Count said, trying to pull his hand back, looking surprised when Vincent tightened his grip.
"Just come back with me. I'll explain. I think I'm drunk enough to do that," Vincent said, watching the Count's reflection dip and bob in the liquor. "I can tell you about the dreams, the flashbacks, about... hell everything. You probably know it all better than me."
The Count pulled his hand away after a few more attempts. And he rubbed at his wrist, which was surprisingly sore. Vincent had a rather strong grip.
"I am not going anywhere with you, except out to the curb to get you into a taxi cab so that you can be taken home. And then I am going to chalk this entire evening up to your drunken idiocy and forget about it entirely," the Count said, looking rather nonplussed by the entire thing.
"Christ," Vincent muttered, before half-stumbling to his feet. "Some things don't change."
The Count, perhaps against his better judgment, moved forward to help steady Vincent. Vincent held a hand out. "I'm fine!" he growled. And he was. Before he overbalanced, and fell over, hitting his head on the bar when he went down. He ended up on his ass, with stars spinning in his vision.
"Shit," Vincent growled, shaking his head to try and dispel the dizziness. Which, of course, only made it worse. "Head trauma. I always fucking get head trauma when I have to deal with you. Which sucks. I need what I learned in med school this time, after all. I have no fucking desire to go out and play Secret Agent Man or whatever."
The Count blinked, before kneeling down next to Vincent, wrinkling his nose slightly in distaste at the idea of having to get anywhere near the floor where god-knew-what else had laid for who knew how long.
"Vesca," the Count murmured, not even really aware he'd said the name out loud.
Vincent looked up anyway. "That's not my name. Not anymore."
The Count looked surprised, perhaps at the realization that yes, he had spoken aloud. "We really should get you home," he said, before offering Vincent a hand up.
"I don't need your help. I'll be fine," Vincent muttered, eyeing D's hand like it would bite him.
"I doubt that you'll be able to get up under your own power," the Count said, sounding amused now.
Vincent scowled, and tried to get up anyway. He almost made it, before he lost his balance, and fell on his ass. Shit. He eyed the Count's hand, before finally taking it after a few more moments.
"Still getting into trouble, even after all this time, aren't you," the Count said vaguely, before shaking his head. "We need to get you home."
Vincent would have asked what the Count was talking about, but it was about that time that the head trauma, the alcohol, and the sleep deprivation all caught up with him, and he just passed out.
*~*~*
Vincent woke alone, in his apartment, with a screaming hangover. He groaned, closing his eyes at the light that assaulted him. That hurt far more than it should. How much had he drank last night? He'd lost track. But even so, he didn't think he'd drank that much. This was, arguably, the worst hangover he'd ever had the misfortune of having. Of course, it could also be the hitting his head against the bar that was causing the hangover to be worse than normal. He did remember bits and pieces of the night before.
"Shit," he muttered, fragments of his drunken confrontation with the Count floating to the surface of his mind. "That was the last fucking thing that I needed."
"Perhaps you should have thought of that before the beautiful god brought you home smelling like a liquor store," Charon said archly from where she was perched on the corner of his bed, looking at him reproachfully.
"What are you talking about, Charon?" Vincent asked, not bothering to open his eyes and look at her. He could guess where she was. And he was just grateful that she wasn't trying to eat his toes at the moment.
"You were brought home last night by a beautiful god. He made sure you were at least on the bed, before leaving. I'm not sure how he got in. He might have gotten your keys out of your pocket or something. He seemed distracted. He didn't even say hello to me. Some people have no manners, I swear," Charon complained.
"Fuck," Vincent groaned. This was just getting better and better. "What day is it?"
"Thursday. You don't have to go to work until tomorrow," Charon informed him. "Perhaps by then you'll stop reeking of liquor. I don't know why humans like the stuff so much. It smells awful and tastes even worse."
"Whatever," he muttered, not really paying attention to Charon's griping. But he did relax marginally at the fact that he didn't have to be at work any time in the immediate future.
"Hmph. Why do I bother with you? I mean really?" Charon griped, poking at him, her nails feeling suspiciously like claws against his leg.
"I don't know. You're the one that followed me home, remember?" he countered. Then he groaned as the phone started ringing. "Charon, can you get that?"
"And say what? You forget, Vincent, you're the only one who can hear me most days," Charon said, flicking her tail before sauntering out to the kitchen to go look for food.
Vincent swore softly as he groped about blindly on the night table, his hand finally closing around the receiver.
"Harris," he said, when he answered.
"Good morning, Vince! How are you feeling?" Madeline bubbled from the other end.
"Christ, Maddy. Tone the cheeriness down several orders of measurement, okay? I have a really bad fucking hangover. Why are you calling anyway?"
"Sorry," Madeline said, and her voice at least was quieter this time. "Why do you have a hangover anyway?"
"Well, generally, when a person goes out and drinks a lot--"
"That's not what I meant," Madeline said, cutting him off. "I mean, it's the middle of the week, Vince. Usually, you save your benders for the weekend."
"Usually I don't have a patient die on me in the OR," he countered sourly.
"Vincent... it isn't your fault," Madeline said, sounding worried now. "Do you want me to come over?"
"And do what? Last I checked, you were on the schedule for today. The only reason I have off is they're shifting me to nights. Again," Vincent said, making a face. He hated the night shift. He was sleep deprived when he had to do it, mostly because he had a lot of trouble sleeping during the day.
"Yeah, about that... um... that might change," Madeline said.
"What?" Vincent asked, sitting up at that news, and then hissing at the way the world spun around at the shift in movement.
"Dr. D and Dr. Goodman got into a fight about it, actually. Dr. Goodman wants you on the night shift, since he says that they could use another good surgeon on the emergency cases. Dr. D said that he'd prefer you on days, especially considering how you reacted to losing a patient from an emergency situation already. It turned into a rather big argument, and I was sent on rounds then, so I didn't hear how it ended," Madeline said, apologetically.
"Fuck," Vincent swore. "Well they're going to have to let me know sooner rather than later. After all, I'm supposed to start night shift tomorrow."
He had a sinking feeling that his encounter in the bar with the Count was what was causing the argument. This really was the last thing that he needed. He knew that the Count walking back into his life would cause trouble, but he hadn't quite figured it would start so soon.
"...and are you even listening to me?"
That was from his assistant who, he realized, was still on the phone. But now she sounded rather annoyed.
"What? Sorry, Maddy. I spaced out for a second."
"I said that I'll try to find out what's going on. And I'll come over and make you dinner," she said with a sigh.
"That would be great but... don't you have to work tonight?" Vincent asked, sounding confused.
"No. I had morning shift today. I'm going to have night shift with you starting tomorrow if you're on the night shift. So I'll find out what's going on and let you know. Go back to sleep, Vince. I'll be there around 6, all right?" And before he had a chance to answer, Madeline had hung up.
Vincent stared bemusedly at the receiver before hanging it up, sighing softly. Obviously he was getting no say in this matter. "Sure, Maddy, see you then."
He laid back down on the bed then. He should probably try to kill the hangover before she showed up. If only because, in his experience, Madeline had two settings: perky and double perky. Hell, even when she was sad about something, she was exuberantly sad about it. Vincent groaned, closing his eyes. In a few minutes. He'd take something in a few more minutes. He'd deal with both the literal and the figurative headache that this whole mess was causing him in just a few more minutes. For now he was going to take a few moments, stop, and do the immature thing and just will the Count, and all the other problems he was having to go away. He could deal with everything in a few minutes.
But a few minutes later found Vincent having fallen back into a light, uneasy sleep. With any luck he'd wake up before Madeline arrived. But seeing the state of his luck as of late, that might be too much to hope for.
Part 1
Fandom: Petshop of Horrors
Rating: PG-13 (This part)
Archive: Ask and ye shall be as gods receive
Warning: Lots of profanity, flashbacks, reincarnation, possible errors about certain medical professions
Spoilers: Volume 10 of the Petshop of Horrors manga is mentioned, and will likely continue to be so. The Papa D/Vesca side story from Shin Petshop of Horrors might also be referenced.
Vincent knelt in the confessional, still not believing he was doing this. He didn't know why he thought that going to confession would help matters. It wouldn't make the Count magically go away. It wouldn't keep Goodman from retiring. And it wouldn't change the fact that, despite his best efforts to the contrary, the little boy that had been brought in from a crime scene with rather large glass shards sticking into vital parts of his anatomy had died on the table while Vincent had been operating on him. The fact that multiple people had assured him that the boy had limited time to live in the first place definitely didn't change things.
Nor did it keep him from checking a wince when the wooden panel slid open.
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It's been," a pause as he tried to remember, "too damn long since my last confession."
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" the priest asked.
Vincent snorted. "My mother died having me, and my father never let me forget it."
The priest was quiet for a few moments, not quite sure how to respond. Vincent was about to light a cigarette, before the priest responded.
"What brings you to me?"
Ah, finally we're getting somewhere, Vincent thought, before sighing softly.
"See, that's the thing. This isn't really something I can talk to anyone about. It's a lot of shit coming to a head. But I figure, the Lord's supposed to forgive anything, right? Even crimes you haven't committed."
"I will not have you blaspheming in my church, young man," the priest said, sounding affronted.
Vincent snorted. "Figures. First time I go to confession in years, and I get the most holier than thou priest in the fucking city. You know what? I don't need your approval. I just need to vent and then I'll get the hell out of here."
The priest was silent at that, waiting for Vincent to do as he said he would. Vincent's hand wandered up to the St. Christopher's medal around his neck, and he toyed with it as he thought. "I'm a surgeon, father. My job is to save people. To help them. To cure them. Yesterday... yesterday a little boy was brought in. Glass all over him. All through him. They brought him to the hospital. They brought him to me."
"That's hardly a crime," the priest offered.
"You don't get it. He died on the table. He slipped away. He died and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. People say that it wasn't my fault, that he was pretty far gone from the start. But I know that he had a pulse when they brought him in. And he didn't when they took him out of the OR," Vincent said, really wishing he had a cigarette now. "The bible says 'thou shall not kill', right? I was... preoccupied, yesterday. If I hadn't been, if I'd been more focused, then maybe..."
He shook his head, sighing softly. "I should have been able to save him," Vincent finished.
"Surely you must know, doctor, that everyone loses patients. Such a thing is unfortunate, but it's the Lord's way. The Lord--"
Vincent snorted, before getting to his feet. "The Lord had nothing to do with this! What kind of God gives people life, only to take it away in a senseless accident? Fuck this. I knew it was a bad idea in the first place."
And with that, Vincent stalked out of the confessional and out of the church. Why he had thought that going to confession when he hadn't been to church in over ten years would help, he didn't know. But then, he probably wasn't thinking very well at the moment. He leaned against his motorcycle when he got to it, before lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag, exhaling the smoke slowly. Savoring it, almost.
He should go home. Back to his apartment. Or even back to the hospital. But after just getting off of a 20 hour shift, he didn't think they'd let him set foot back in there unless he got some sleep. God knew, he didn't want to end up killing another patient with his negligence.
It isn't negligence. You did everything you could.
That's what Madeline had told him when he said something like that to her after the operation. It's also something like what Goodman told him. However, the most surprising input had come from the Count of all people. Surprising in the fact that it, for once, didn't seem to be a gesture of comfort which was in reality a thinly veiled attempt to cause him pain.
We can't save everyone, Dr. Harris. No matter what you do, and how hard you try, people will still die. That is one of the most important lessons you're going to have to learn about this business.
He thought he'd known that. He thought he'd learned that after his first year of residency, when he was the primary surgeon for Emma Jean. Emma Jean had been 10 years old, and she had cancer. In multiple sites. He'd performed so many surgeries on Emma Jean. And every time, they thought they got rid of the cancer. And every time it metastasized and another tumor would pop up somewhere else. Emma Jean had finally died after almost an entire year of operations, and that wasn't even counting how long she'd been in and out of the hospital before Vincent had taken over her case.
Perhaps the biggest difference was that Vincent felt like he'd poured his soul into saving Emma Jean. Sure, it hadn't done any good in the end, but at least no one could accuse him of not giving it his everything. With the little boy who died yesterday, Tommy, his name had been, with Tommy, Vincent had been preoccupied with the situation. He couldn't help like feeling that there was more that he could have done. That he could have worked just a little harder, or done a touch more to save Tommy. And now? Now he would never be sure.
Vincent sighed, dropping the cigarette to the ground and crushing it out beneath his foot. He needed sleep. He didn't relish the dreams he was going to have, but he needed to get home and sleep. Maybe everything would look fresher in the morning.
*~*~*
In retrospect, going to the bar on roughly three hours of sleep and after coming off of a 20 hour shift had been a really bad idea. Because he was sleep deprived when he got there, and by the time the Count of all people came in several hours after Vincent had gotten there, he was drunk and sleep deprived. Which made what happened next very interesting, in the Chinese curse sense of the word.
"Dr. Harris? I should think you would be sleeping, all things considered," the Count said, arching the ever-eloquent eyebrow once he saw Vincent.
"Mmm... I'm not scheduled to go in until the day after tomorrow. Why does it matter anyway?"
The Count snorted softly. "What good will you be to anyone if you get called in early? You could kill someone if you tried to operate on them while drunk."
"What kind of a moron do you think I am?" Vincent countered, before finishing the rest of his drink. "I wouldn't try to operate on someone like this. No use killing another patient."
"You mean you've done so before?"
Vincent gave the Count a look which clearly said 'are you some sort of idiot?' before ordering another drink. "Yesterday. Tommy. The boy with the glass all through him."
"That was hardly your fault."
"So everyone keeps telling me. Now are you going to lecture me, or are you going to have a drink?"
For a second, just a second, the Count seemed to hesitate. Then, he sat down at the bar next to Vincent. He didn't think that this was the best of ideas, yet he was going through with it anyway. But then, things had never been easy when he was dealing with situations like this.
"Order whatever you want. It's on me," Vincent said.
"Really, that's not necessary," the Count said, shaking his head.
"I insist."
The Count sighed, before ordering a rather strong drink. He had the feeling that he would need it before this night was out.
"Dare I ask why you feel the need to get yourself and those around you intoxicated tonight?" the Count asked Vincent after the drink was about half gone.
"Misery loves company?" Vincent offered, shrugging slightly. "I figured I'd share the wealth."
"Do you always get this melancholy when you lose a patient?"
"This isn't about the fucking patient, D! If that's all it was, I could deal with it! But it's not about the patient at all! It's about you!"
The Count blinked, rather taken aback by that outburst. And he finished his drink, before figuring out how to process what Vincent had said. He finally schooled his face into a calm mask, before ordering another drink.
"Look, Mister--"
"Doctor," Vincent corrected. "It's Doctor. I did not work three jobs to pay for med school to be called Mister anything. Not Harris, not Howell, none of that."
The Count blinked, and drank the second drink perhaps a bit more quickly than he should have, putting it down only when the glass was emptied.
"You are far more drunk than is probably healthy for you. We should get you home," the Count said.
"You know, if you keep drinking like that, I'm not going to be the only one who's too drunk for his own good," Vincent said, smirking a little.
"Well, with you making ridiculous claims such as this entire thing being my fault, you could very well drive a person to drink," the Count replied.
"It is your fault though. If I hadn't been so damn shell-shocked by finally meeting you, I might have been able to do my job better," Vincent growled, before lighting a cigarette.
"I've no clue what you're talking about," the Count said, looking at Vincent the way that an etymologist would look at a particularly interesting bug.
"You're lying. I can see it in your eyes," Vincent said, snorting softly, before knocking back another drink.
"Dr. Harris, this is completely and utterly ridiculous. I will not listen to the ramblings of a drunken lunatic. Clearly, I'm going to have to escort you to a--"
The Count's words stopped as if they were cut off with a knife, though that probably had everything to do with Vincent wrapping his hand around the Count's wrist. The Count had reached out to help him up, or something. He'd put his hand on his shoulder at any rate. And Vincent had taken hold of his wrist.
"Come back with me," Vincent said, looking down into the liquor of his recently-refilled glass. He could see a hazy reflection of the count's face swimming on the surface of the drink. And the Count, or doctor, or whatever, did not look amused by the entire situation.
"I will not," the Count said, his voice making it clear that such a thing wouldn't happen in no uncertain terms.
"You can't tell me I don't look familiar to you. You can't tell me that you don't know, or at least think that there's something else going on," Vincent pressed.
"I told you before, I don't know what you're talking about," the Count said, trying to pull his hand back, looking surprised when Vincent tightened his grip.
"Just come back with me. I'll explain. I think I'm drunk enough to do that," Vincent said, watching the Count's reflection dip and bob in the liquor. "I can tell you about the dreams, the flashbacks, about... hell everything. You probably know it all better than me."
The Count pulled his hand away after a few more attempts. And he rubbed at his wrist, which was surprisingly sore. Vincent had a rather strong grip.
"I am not going anywhere with you, except out to the curb to get you into a taxi cab so that you can be taken home. And then I am going to chalk this entire evening up to your drunken idiocy and forget about it entirely," the Count said, looking rather nonplussed by the entire thing.
"Christ," Vincent muttered, before half-stumbling to his feet. "Some things don't change."
The Count, perhaps against his better judgment, moved forward to help steady Vincent. Vincent held a hand out. "I'm fine!" he growled. And he was. Before he overbalanced, and fell over, hitting his head on the bar when he went down. He ended up on his ass, with stars spinning in his vision.
"Shit," Vincent growled, shaking his head to try and dispel the dizziness. Which, of course, only made it worse. "Head trauma. I always fucking get head trauma when I have to deal with you. Which sucks. I need what I learned in med school this time, after all. I have no fucking desire to go out and play Secret Agent Man or whatever."
The Count blinked, before kneeling down next to Vincent, wrinkling his nose slightly in distaste at the idea of having to get anywhere near the floor where god-knew-what else had laid for who knew how long.
"Vesca," the Count murmured, not even really aware he'd said the name out loud.
Vincent looked up anyway. "That's not my name. Not anymore."
The Count looked surprised, perhaps at the realization that yes, he had spoken aloud. "We really should get you home," he said, before offering Vincent a hand up.
"I don't need your help. I'll be fine," Vincent muttered, eyeing D's hand like it would bite him.
"I doubt that you'll be able to get up under your own power," the Count said, sounding amused now.
Vincent scowled, and tried to get up anyway. He almost made it, before he lost his balance, and fell on his ass. Shit. He eyed the Count's hand, before finally taking it after a few more moments.
"Still getting into trouble, even after all this time, aren't you," the Count said vaguely, before shaking his head. "We need to get you home."
Vincent would have asked what the Count was talking about, but it was about that time that the head trauma, the alcohol, and the sleep deprivation all caught up with him, and he just passed out.
*~*~*
Vincent woke alone, in his apartment, with a screaming hangover. He groaned, closing his eyes at the light that assaulted him. That hurt far more than it should. How much had he drank last night? He'd lost track. But even so, he didn't think he'd drank that much. This was, arguably, the worst hangover he'd ever had the misfortune of having. Of course, it could also be the hitting his head against the bar that was causing the hangover to be worse than normal. He did remember bits and pieces of the night before.
"Shit," he muttered, fragments of his drunken confrontation with the Count floating to the surface of his mind. "That was the last fucking thing that I needed."
"Perhaps you should have thought of that before the beautiful god brought you home smelling like a liquor store," Charon said archly from where she was perched on the corner of his bed, looking at him reproachfully.
"What are you talking about, Charon?" Vincent asked, not bothering to open his eyes and look at her. He could guess where she was. And he was just grateful that she wasn't trying to eat his toes at the moment.
"You were brought home last night by a beautiful god. He made sure you were at least on the bed, before leaving. I'm not sure how he got in. He might have gotten your keys out of your pocket or something. He seemed distracted. He didn't even say hello to me. Some people have no manners, I swear," Charon complained.
"Fuck," Vincent groaned. This was just getting better and better. "What day is it?"
"Thursday. You don't have to go to work until tomorrow," Charon informed him. "Perhaps by then you'll stop reeking of liquor. I don't know why humans like the stuff so much. It smells awful and tastes even worse."
"Whatever," he muttered, not really paying attention to Charon's griping. But he did relax marginally at the fact that he didn't have to be at work any time in the immediate future.
"Hmph. Why do I bother with you? I mean really?" Charon griped, poking at him, her nails feeling suspiciously like claws against his leg.
"I don't know. You're the one that followed me home, remember?" he countered. Then he groaned as the phone started ringing. "Charon, can you get that?"
"And say what? You forget, Vincent, you're the only one who can hear me most days," Charon said, flicking her tail before sauntering out to the kitchen to go look for food.
Vincent swore softly as he groped about blindly on the night table, his hand finally closing around the receiver.
"Harris," he said, when he answered.
"Good morning, Vince! How are you feeling?" Madeline bubbled from the other end.
"Christ, Maddy. Tone the cheeriness down several orders of measurement, okay? I have a really bad fucking hangover. Why are you calling anyway?"
"Sorry," Madeline said, and her voice at least was quieter this time. "Why do you have a hangover anyway?"
"Well, generally, when a person goes out and drinks a lot--"
"That's not what I meant," Madeline said, cutting him off. "I mean, it's the middle of the week, Vince. Usually, you save your benders for the weekend."
"Usually I don't have a patient die on me in the OR," he countered sourly.
"Vincent... it isn't your fault," Madeline said, sounding worried now. "Do you want me to come over?"
"And do what? Last I checked, you were on the schedule for today. The only reason I have off is they're shifting me to nights. Again," Vincent said, making a face. He hated the night shift. He was sleep deprived when he had to do it, mostly because he had a lot of trouble sleeping during the day.
"Yeah, about that... um... that might change," Madeline said.
"What?" Vincent asked, sitting up at that news, and then hissing at the way the world spun around at the shift in movement.
"Dr. D and Dr. Goodman got into a fight about it, actually. Dr. Goodman wants you on the night shift, since he says that they could use another good surgeon on the emergency cases. Dr. D said that he'd prefer you on days, especially considering how you reacted to losing a patient from an emergency situation already. It turned into a rather big argument, and I was sent on rounds then, so I didn't hear how it ended," Madeline said, apologetically.
"Fuck," Vincent swore. "Well they're going to have to let me know sooner rather than later. After all, I'm supposed to start night shift tomorrow."
He had a sinking feeling that his encounter in the bar with the Count was what was causing the argument. This really was the last thing that he needed. He knew that the Count walking back into his life would cause trouble, but he hadn't quite figured it would start so soon.
"...and are you even listening to me?"
That was from his assistant who, he realized, was still on the phone. But now she sounded rather annoyed.
"What? Sorry, Maddy. I spaced out for a second."
"I said that I'll try to find out what's going on. And I'll come over and make you dinner," she said with a sigh.
"That would be great but... don't you have to work tonight?" Vincent asked, sounding confused.
"No. I had morning shift today. I'm going to have night shift with you starting tomorrow if you're on the night shift. So I'll find out what's going on and let you know. Go back to sleep, Vince. I'll be there around 6, all right?" And before he had a chance to answer, Madeline had hung up.
Vincent stared bemusedly at the receiver before hanging it up, sighing softly. Obviously he was getting no say in this matter. "Sure, Maddy, see you then."
He laid back down on the bed then. He should probably try to kill the hangover before she showed up. If only because, in his experience, Madeline had two settings: perky and double perky. Hell, even when she was sad about something, she was exuberantly sad about it. Vincent groaned, closing his eyes. In a few minutes. He'd take something in a few more minutes. He'd deal with both the literal and the figurative headache that this whole mess was causing him in just a few more minutes. For now he was going to take a few moments, stop, and do the immature thing and just will the Count, and all the other problems he was having to go away. He could deal with everything in a few minutes.
But a few minutes later found Vincent having fallen back into a light, uneasy sleep. With any luck he'd wake up before Madeline arrived. But seeing the state of his luck as of late, that might be too much to hope for.
Part 1