(no subject)
Title: Emergency
Pairing: Benji/Joel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Challenge Entry for slashypunkboys. AU. Benji is a paramedic, Joel is a doctor in the ER.
A/N: thanks to zyre for beta-carotene :D
Disclaimer: Not mine.
*.
It was the flash of white t-shirt at his neck that first got to Joel. His undershirt, just a regular Fruit-of-the-Loom or Hanes or whatever they sell at Walmart on special, peeking out from under his navy blue uniform. The EMTs were in and out of the emergency room all the time, so Joel didn't know why that one in particular caught his eye, except that you know, he did. One minute Joel was checking a chart on his way through the hallway and the next he was just kind of... standing there, watching the EMT walk past with his partner, throwing a box of bandages back and forth between themselves. He had this easy laugh - it was infectious; Joel caught a snatch of conversation as they passed him,
"--for the road rash Rosa's gonna give you when she kicks--"
and they were gone down the hall.
Joel felt a tingle of desire curl through him, stroke over his skin with the sound of the man's voice. God. He could feel his cheeks burning. He hadn't felt like this since he was a kid - and all he could think of was the little dash of color over the EMT's white t-shirt: three little streaks of orangey-red right on his throat. Joel wanted to trace them with his tongue.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
His beeper went off, breaking through his daze and pushing Joel back into action. He looked back down at the chart, pulling the beeper from its clip on his belt and bringing it up to glance at the number quickly. Dammit. This was no time for fantasizing, he was a doctor.
*.
Benji was walking through the screaming chaos of the triage area of St. Vincent's with Ramon after dropping off their latest when he felt a hand gripping his elbow like an iron vise.
"You! Hold down this leg while I get more tranqs," A male voice barked in his ear. Benji had time to catch a glimpse of white lab coat and black hair before the doctor (he thought it was a doctor?) took off.
"But..."
Benji sighed. He wasn't an orderly. But that's how it went sometimes. He looked down, reaching out to subdue the patient in front of him, who was wiggling and squealing loudly, grunting like a pig, clearly under the influence of some illicit substance. Benji grimaced. Piggy squealed louder and kicked out his leg, catching Benji in the face.
"Fuck!" Benji clapped one hand to his throbbing nose and squeezed the guy's kneecap with the other. "Goddammit." The guy was thrashing and squealing, straining against his hold and Benji soon needed both hands to hold him down, cursing that doctor under his breath.
When they had finally gotten the man subdued and strapped down to a gurney, Benji straightened up, wiping the sweat off his forehead. The doctor turned to him and paused, looking at his navy uniform, "You're not an orderly."
Benji rolled his eyes.
"I'm a paramedic. I think I can handle holding a leg. But if you're done with me, Doc, I'd like to go ice my face."
The doctor looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time, and winced a little. "Here, let me clean that up for you." The doctor's eyes were a mossy hazel brown, thickly fringed with black lashes. Benji felt his mouth going dry and he nodded dumbly.
*.
Benji had a black eye for about a week but it didn't slow him down. He was back on shift three days later and they were back at the Big V around the end of the day, escorting an 86 year-old woman with a broken leg.
"Nana, be calm," Benji said, taking her information in the back of the ambulance. "The doctors at St. Vincent's are gonna fix you up right, ok?" He took her vitals and got her past medical history as Ramon drove, writing down all the information on his clipboard and radioing ahead to the hospital.
She was a tough old bird, and he smiled at her as she fussed with the sheet they had drawn over her. She'd probably fractured her leg in two or three places and she was worried about how the sheet was draping.
When they got to the hospital, Benji and Ramon pulled her out and brought her into processing; Benji started her paperwork and talked to the nurse.
Benji was on his way out when one of the white coats rushing by stopped short next to him.
"How's your nose?" Benji looked over. It was the doctor from last week, with the gorgeous eyes. He grinned.
"Not bad, Doc. Do you have such a good memory for all your patients, or is it special for me?"
The doctor, Benji noted his name tag, "Dr. Madden," blushed faintly. Benji leaned one hand up against the wall, cocking his hip to the side, and smiled winningly at him.
Dr. Madden shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down a little, "Well, one does one's best," he said.
Benji grinned, "I bet your best is pretty good."
The doctor's eyes flew up to meet Benji's and he looked startled. Benji winked at him and turned to leave, "Nice seeing ya, Doc."
Joel watched the paramedic's ass as he walked down the hall. Nice seeing you too.
*.
Ramon knew right away that something was happening in Benji's life. You don't work 24 hour shifts with a guy and not notice when shit goes on. But part of working with a partner is knowing when not to hassle him, and when to sit him down and have a serious talk about what the shit he thinks he's doing. Now was not one of those times. Benji would talk about it eventually, or he wouldn't, and maybe it wasn't Ramon's business, but as long as it didn't have a negative impact on the job, he wasn't going to get all crazy about it.
Benji was a good paramedic, but he was an excellent partner; when you worked with someone day in and day out in life-or-death situations, it was more like a marriage than a business relationship. Ramon knew Benji probably as well as he knew his wife. In some ways better, since he could tell you what Benji ate for lunch every Wednesday (Crazy Ming's green beans in spicy garlic sauce) and Rosa's diet was a continual source of mystery to him. Especially the soy non-fat artificially sweetened yogurt.
So when Benji made time to slip away every time they were at St. Vincent's, Ramon knew he was probably banging someone who worked in the ER. Or trying to, which was the same thing, really. Sometimes it was for five minutes, sometimes it was for half an hour, but since April, Benji had pulled a disappearing act every time they ended up at the big V.
It wasn't a huge deal, since of course, Ramon had to check the ambulance and clean up and/or restock every time they dropped off a patient anyway, but technically they were supposed to trade off that duty, occasionally. One guy does paperwork and interacts with the hospital staff, the other guy checks the unit. Benji didn't seem to mind checking the unit when they had to go to County where they always had to deal with that one nurse who acted like all paramedics were Neanderthals. Nooooooo, he didn't mind letting Ramon do the paperwork then.
*.
Joel loved the cross that Benji wore around his neck and the way it slipped out of his shirt when he leaned down to kiss him goodbye, the faint tap of the thin metal under his chin as Benji leaned over him and sucked slowly on his bottom lip. It was warm from Benji's skin, from the furnace of him, the way he seemed to run a few degrees hotter than everyone else. Joel wanted to suck the silver chain into his mouth, roll it under his tongue as he licked his way across Benji's neck and bit down. He wanted to slide his hands down into Benji's pants and push them down and off, loosen every button on his shirt and peel it back, but he settled for one last kiss, because they both had to go.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
His beeper was going off. Benji cupped the back of Joel's head in his palm, lingering on his lips for another minute before pulling himself away slowly. He smiled a little and tugged his shirt down one last time.
"Talk to you soon, ok?"
Joel nodded.
*.
Benji came out of Emergency looking kind of flushed and irritated. Ramon looked him over critically, without saying anything. Benji had been gone for about 45 minutes, and his shirt looked wrinkled and like it had been hastily retucked into his pants. Ramon thought about keeping his mouth shut, but his lips started moving before he could stop them.
"What, Alice went down the rabbit hole?"
Benji blinked, looking confused.
"Huh?"
"Uh, never mind," Ramon said hastily, "We're ready to go, if you're done here."
Benji looked at him a little suspiciously, but nodded and walked around to the other side of the truck, getting in to the passenger side.
Aside from that one slip, Ramon managed to keep his mouth shut, because really, it wasn't a big deal. Everyone dealt with the job his own way and if Benji was hooking up with a nurse, well, he was young and single, and there were some fine looking women in the ER at St. Vincent's. Not that Ramon was looking. Certainly not. Well, so maybe he was looking; he was only human. He smiled a little to himself.
"What are you grinning at, asshole?"
"Shut up."
"Shiiiiiiit."
Benji smiled and looked out the window.
*.
There was nothing in the world like the feel of Joel's skin under his fingers. Benji thought his heart might stop sometimes from the feeling of it. It started out as the zing of physical attraction, of course, but Benji had never felt like this before. He never felt breathless when someone walked in the room. Joel was like his oxygen.
He didn't wake up one day with this new knowledge of how important Joel was to him, it kind of crept up on him, snuck in while he wasn't looking, until it felt like his day wasn't complete if he didn't at least talk to Joel on the phone. He missed him when they didn't get to see each other every day, and with their schedules it was hard sometimes. He wanted to spend every night with Joel, and wake up with him every morning, and it scared him, because he'd never felt like this before.
*.
Ramon looked over at Benji, cruising gently through a green light on their way back to dispatch. He was distracted, not that Ramon could blame him, after a slightly hair-raising but ultimately happy and healthy teenage pregnancy extracted from a car crash. She'd made it to the hospital before giving birth and delivered a baby girl in the ER.
Benji rode in the back with her and held her hand while Ramon drove, checking her vitals and reassuring her that she was safe and both she and the baby were going to make it. Her big brown eyes were glazed over with pain and fear and he smoothed back her hair and told her a story about a girl he had in the truck two weeks ago.
"Ana, honey, listen to me, okay? You're gonna be fine. You're in my truck now, and Ramon is the best driver in the city, you got that? We're going to St. Vincent's, and they're going to hook you up, take care of la nina and you, so don't worry, ok?"
He smiled down at her, and squeezed her hand, and radioed in to the hospital with her information so they would be ready when he and Ramon pulled up.
He was still trying to make Ana smile when they pulled up to the emergency entrance at the Big V and Ramon threw open the doors. Benji hopped out and they rushed her into the ER.
Ana's contractions were coming fast as they rolled her in and Benji saw that Joel was the attending doctor. Without thinking, he grabbed Joel's arm.
"Doc," he said, "She's just a kid."
Joel looked over at him and nodded, squeezing Benji's fingers gently. The nurses wheeled her away. Benji let out a breath slowly.
*.
After several months of Benji's Houdini routine, Ramon was a little annoyed. Then they had about six weeks of crazy insane work where they were down one team of EMTs and everyone was working overtime and they barely had enough time to eat, much less make time with nurses in the ER, and Ramon forgot about it for a while. But then Benji was back at it again, and after another month or so, Ramon was annoyed enough to do something about it. So the next time they were at St. Vincent's, he waited until they were done checking the patient in and watched to see where Benji went.
He stopped at the nurses' station for a few minutes and used the phone, and then he made his way down the hallway. Ramon followed him. Benji ducked into an empty exam room and closed the door behind himself. Ramon stood in the hallway, waiting for a few minutes and contemplated his options. He could wait and see them when they came out, or he could go in there and confront Benji now. Embarrassing your partner in flagrante delicto was always preferable, no? Ramon grinned, and opened the door without knocking. Fools, they didn't even lock it.
He could see Benji standing in front of the exam table, between someone's legs, with a pair of arms wrapped around his neck. Ramon coughed loudly to get their attention.
"Benji, muchacho, I realize the nurses here are very fine, but I do not have hours to sit around while you love up on the..."
Benji turned around, revealing a kiss-swollen and slightly red-faced Joel.
"...doctors?"
Ramon looked at Benji incredulously and turned on his heel, walking out of the room.
*.
By the time Benji got out to the truck, he had sweated through his shirt. Ramon. Benji's heart was in his throat. They had been partners for six years. Ramon was the closest thing Benji had to a brother.
Ramon was sitting in the passenger seat, playing with a handheld gameboy. It was a time-honored tradition: when confronted with a nasty emotional conflict, retreat into gadgetry. Ramon ignored him when he opened the door and got in, putting on his seatbelt.
Benji started up the truck, pulling out carefully and cruising onto the street. The gameboy meeped and beeped and clicked softly.
Benji opened his mouth to speak, drawing in a breath, but Ramon cut him off.
"Not a word, cabron."
"Ramon," Benji breathed out, painfully.
He stared straight ahead, his mouth compressed in a tight line.
"You thought what, that I wouldn't understand?"
The hurt in his voice hung between them in the silent ride that lasted the rest of their shift.
*.
Ramon ignored him for almost two weeks, until Benji broke down and went over to his house on one of their days off. He brought a case of Corona and a bouquet of flowers for Rosa.
He rang the doorbell at their little brick house and Rosa answered the door. She looked him over critically, standing on the front porch.
"Benji, come in," she said, kissing his cheek and accepting the flowers. "He's in the back yard."
It took about eight beers before they really started talking, but they patched things up. Lying in the grass and staring up at the sky, Benji confessed that he thought he might be in love. Ramon squeezed his shoulder a little.
"Don't let him go, then."
*.
The problem with Joel was that sometimes Benji felt like he was the only one in the relationship.
After weeks of planning, schedule coordinating, last minute cancels, finagling, shift swapping and some actual serious pouting at Kerry in dispatch, Benji had managed to get Joel out on a real date. Like the kind that actual humans went on. Dinner, maybe even a movie... it was supposed to be Joel's night off. Benji had worked three shifts in a row, pulling two 24s back to back to get a day that coincided at the right place with Joel's schedule and his body was going to kick his ass for it, but it was all worth it.
He wanted to take Joel out, to a place that didn't have anything to do with work. They'd been missing each other a lot lately, and Benji just wanted to do something nice for a change. With Joel's schedule changes, they hadn't been able to see each other as much and it was hard. Benji wanted to talk to him about what he was planning to do in the next couple months, the major changes he was planning in his life, and with their mismatched schedules it seemed like sometimes whole weeks went by without them seeing each other anymore.
Benji smiled, watching as Joel relaxed and leaned back, both of them mellow in the warm afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window into the booth they were sitting in. Benji toyed a little with his water glass, rolling the stem around between his fingers.
"This place was so good, Benj," Joel said. "We have to come here again."
Benji smiled, a warm glow spreading through him. Joel was picky about restaurants sometimes, it was nice to find a place they both really liked.
"Joel, I kind of wanted to talk about something important," he started, looking across the table, staring at their empty plates. He took a deep breath, filling up his lungs with air and courage.
Joel sat up a little straighter, resting his hands on the table.
"OK."
"I've been thinking..."
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
Joel looked down and pulled his beeper from his belt clip. "It's the hospital, baby. I gotta run."
"Joel." Benji gave him a frustrated look. "Are you kidding me?"
"Benji... This is important."
Benji sat up a little straighter and looked up at Joel, who was already slipping out of his seat, pulling on his coat, tucking his beeper back into place. "Important," he said flatly.
"I'll call you, OK? We'll talk soon." He turned and hurried out of the restaurant to his car.
Benji signaled for the check, pulling out his wallet.
"So Joel," he mumbled to himself. "I've been thinking about something important. Like we've been dating for over a year now. Like maybe we could move in together. Like fuck this shit right in the ear."
He slapped the money down on the table and got up, exiting the restaurant; the warm mellow glow that had suffused his afternoon completely gone. Benji flipped open his cell phone and made some calls.
"Hi, JoAnn, I want to get a ticket to San Juan..."
*.
Joel was a little surprised when he didn't hear from Benji that night, but he was on shift at the ER and they had two heart attacks and a gunshot wound come through and he forgot all about everything until it was 4am, way too late to call. Joel napped a little in the lounge, resting his head against the water cooler, the faint hum of its motor lulling him to sleep. Joel knew that Benji was aggravated with him for cutting their date short, but he would just have to understand... Joel was a doctor. An ER doctor and when the hospital called, he really had no choice but to answer it. Joel would call him later, after he'd had some time to cool off.
Two towns over, at his apartment, Benji packed his bags.
It was Wednesday suddenly, before Joel had even noticed the passage of time, and he realized that he hadn't called Benji like he said he would. He had completely forgotten about it. Joel sighed briefly; it all got to be too much sometimes. On his next break, he dialed Benji's number and listened to the phone ring slowly. It clicked over, the automated voice sounding in his ear Nextel is unable to reach the subscriber you are trying to locate. Joel frowned, ending the call before the voicemail message started. Benji never turned his phone off. He tried again, dialing the number carefully, but got the same message. Joel flipped his phone closed. He'd try again later, maybe Benji was in a dead zone or something.
*.
A full week went by and Joel hadn't been able to get in touch with Benji at all. He wasn't answering his phone, he hadn't been in to the hospital, and he didn't answer his door when Joel went over to his place. Joel really didn't think that forgetting to call him warranted this kind of childishness, and in the back of his mind there was a mounting fear, a frantic clamoring about Benji, and about the fact that he couldn't be found at all. Joel was beginning to wonder if he should talk to someone official about Benji's disappearance. Surely if he had really disappeared, someone else would have noticed?
A few more days passed and just when Joel was really starting to freak out, he was on shift in the ER when he heard Benji's voice coming through the triage area. He turned, picking up speed in the hallway and darting into the ward to see Benji's broad back and messy black hair moving through the area next to a gurney, speaking to the charge nurse.
*.
"Where have you been?" Joel asked quietly, stepping up next to Benji while he was taking the patient's blood pressure.
Benji looked over at him, "Oh you mean you noticed I was gone? Congratulations, asshole."
The nurse next to him gasped in shock and turned a megawatt glare on Benji.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Excuse me. Doctor Asshole."
"Well! I never!" she huffed.
"Look, sister, nobody asked you," Ramon cut in, "So why don't you go make a chart or something." She turned her steely glare on him instead and he made a little shooing motion at her with one hand.
Joel was still staring, slightly open-mouthed, at Benji, who was concentrating on the patient in front of him.
Benji and Ramon started pushing the patient over to the registration desk, and Joel trailed after them.
"Excuse me?" he said, voice rising as they crossed the room, "You know Benji, that was some pretty childish behaviour, there, did it ever occur to you that I might have been worried about you?"
Benji whirled on him, frowning as Ramon took over the registration process. "Why the fuck would I think that, Doc? You haven't given me any indication that you even give a rat's ass."
Benji's face was red with frustration and the veins on his neck stood out in stark relief as he bit back his temper to keep from screaming at Joel in the middle of the Emergency Room.
Joel stared at him, dumbfounded.
Benji looked at him, "If you were so worried, why didn't you ask Ramon where I was? He's been here about 15 times in the past two weeks. Did you even notice that, Doc?"
Benji paused, waiting for his answer, but Joel just stared back at him. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said bitterly, his voice low and rough. "You're so goddamn concentrated on being a doctor, I'm surprised you remember how to tie your own shoes, much less that other people in the world even exist."
With that, Benji turned his back and walked out through the sliding doors, into the bright sunshine of the parking lot.
Ramon looked over at him, looking Joel up and down briefly. "You know, Doc, let me explain you a few things," he said. "You need to stop limpdicking around with my friend over there or you're going to lose your chance," he said, pointing after Benji. "And if you're not serious about him, then you need to back off and leave him alone. But most important, you got a guy bleeding in your hallway here, so you gonna have to talk to Benji later."
*.
As far as Joel was concerned, Benji was behaving in a completely irrational manner. Completely irrational. He was at his desk, going over SOAP notes and thinking about what Benji had said. He wasn't really oblivious to other people, was he?
Joel sat in his office, lost in thought, for a very long time.
*.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
It was the flash of white t-shirt at his neck that first got to Joel. It wasn't unusual for two or three patients to get wheeled into the ER at the same time, and at high velocity, but when his beeper went off at the same time they announced a Code Blue in the ER, the adrenaline was pumping through him hard. He could see the swirl of cop car lights in the parking lot as the triage personnel unloaded three gurneys and raced through the doors with them.
But the sight that made his heart stop and stutter was the flash of white t-shirt and the three little streaks of orangey-red above it. The navy uniform covered in blood.
Male... 26... Multiple stab wounds... the words drifted over his ears as if they were passing through water and Joel stood in the triage area with the lights dimming and pulsing in his field of vision as Benji was wheeled past him on a gurney.
Joel tried to breathe and failed, chest constricting.
Ramon came up behind him and clapped one hand to his shoulder, "Doc! He needs you. You're a doctor."
Sound and light came rushing back all at once, slamming into him like a freight train, and Joel felt himself galvanized into motion. He was a doctor. This would be the most important patient of his entire life.
*.
Pairing: Benji/Joel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Challenge Entry for slashypunkboys. AU. Benji is a paramedic, Joel is a doctor in the ER.
A/N: thanks to zyre for beta-carotene :D
Disclaimer: Not mine.
*.
It was the flash of white t-shirt at his neck that first got to Joel. His undershirt, just a regular Fruit-of-the-Loom or Hanes or whatever they sell at Walmart on special, peeking out from under his navy blue uniform. The EMTs were in and out of the emergency room all the time, so Joel didn't know why that one in particular caught his eye, except that you know, he did. One minute Joel was checking a chart on his way through the hallway and the next he was just kind of... standing there, watching the EMT walk past with his partner, throwing a box of bandages back and forth between themselves. He had this easy laugh - it was infectious; Joel caught a snatch of conversation as they passed him,
"--for the road rash Rosa's gonna give you when she kicks--"
and they were gone down the hall.
Joel felt a tingle of desire curl through him, stroke over his skin with the sound of the man's voice. God. He could feel his cheeks burning. He hadn't felt like this since he was a kid - and all he could think of was the little dash of color over the EMT's white t-shirt: three little streaks of orangey-red right on his throat. Joel wanted to trace them with his tongue.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
His beeper went off, breaking through his daze and pushing Joel back into action. He looked back down at the chart, pulling the beeper from its clip on his belt and bringing it up to glance at the number quickly. Dammit. This was no time for fantasizing, he was a doctor.
*.
Benji was walking through the screaming chaos of the triage area of St. Vincent's with Ramon after dropping off their latest when he felt a hand gripping his elbow like an iron vise.
"You! Hold down this leg while I get more tranqs," A male voice barked in his ear. Benji had time to catch a glimpse of white lab coat and black hair before the doctor (he thought it was a doctor?) took off.
"But..."
Benji sighed. He wasn't an orderly. But that's how it went sometimes. He looked down, reaching out to subdue the patient in front of him, who was wiggling and squealing loudly, grunting like a pig, clearly under the influence of some illicit substance. Benji grimaced. Piggy squealed louder and kicked out his leg, catching Benji in the face.
"Fuck!" Benji clapped one hand to his throbbing nose and squeezed the guy's kneecap with the other. "Goddammit." The guy was thrashing and squealing, straining against his hold and Benji soon needed both hands to hold him down, cursing that doctor under his breath.
When they had finally gotten the man subdued and strapped down to a gurney, Benji straightened up, wiping the sweat off his forehead. The doctor turned to him and paused, looking at his navy uniform, "You're not an orderly."
Benji rolled his eyes.
"I'm a paramedic. I think I can handle holding a leg. But if you're done with me, Doc, I'd like to go ice my face."
The doctor looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time, and winced a little. "Here, let me clean that up for you." The doctor's eyes were a mossy hazel brown, thickly fringed with black lashes. Benji felt his mouth going dry and he nodded dumbly.
*.
Benji had a black eye for about a week but it didn't slow him down. He was back on shift three days later and they were back at the Big V around the end of the day, escorting an 86 year-old woman with a broken leg.
"Nana, be calm," Benji said, taking her information in the back of the ambulance. "The doctors at St. Vincent's are gonna fix you up right, ok?" He took her vitals and got her past medical history as Ramon drove, writing down all the information on his clipboard and radioing ahead to the hospital.
She was a tough old bird, and he smiled at her as she fussed with the sheet they had drawn over her. She'd probably fractured her leg in two or three places and she was worried about how the sheet was draping.
When they got to the hospital, Benji and Ramon pulled her out and brought her into processing; Benji started her paperwork and talked to the nurse.
Benji was on his way out when one of the white coats rushing by stopped short next to him.
"How's your nose?" Benji looked over. It was the doctor from last week, with the gorgeous eyes. He grinned.
"Not bad, Doc. Do you have such a good memory for all your patients, or is it special for me?"
The doctor, Benji noted his name tag, "Dr. Madden," blushed faintly. Benji leaned one hand up against the wall, cocking his hip to the side, and smiled winningly at him.
Dr. Madden shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down a little, "Well, one does one's best," he said.
Benji grinned, "I bet your best is pretty good."
The doctor's eyes flew up to meet Benji's and he looked startled. Benji winked at him and turned to leave, "Nice seeing ya, Doc."
Joel watched the paramedic's ass as he walked down the hall. Nice seeing you too.
*.
Ramon knew right away that something was happening in Benji's life. You don't work 24 hour shifts with a guy and not notice when shit goes on. But part of working with a partner is knowing when not to hassle him, and when to sit him down and have a serious talk about what the shit he thinks he's doing. Now was not one of those times. Benji would talk about it eventually, or he wouldn't, and maybe it wasn't Ramon's business, but as long as it didn't have a negative impact on the job, he wasn't going to get all crazy about it.
Benji was a good paramedic, but he was an excellent partner; when you worked with someone day in and day out in life-or-death situations, it was more like a marriage than a business relationship. Ramon knew Benji probably as well as he knew his wife. In some ways better, since he could tell you what Benji ate for lunch every Wednesday (Crazy Ming's green beans in spicy garlic sauce) and Rosa's diet was a continual source of mystery to him. Especially the soy non-fat artificially sweetened yogurt.
So when Benji made time to slip away every time they were at St. Vincent's, Ramon knew he was probably banging someone who worked in the ER. Or trying to, which was the same thing, really. Sometimes it was for five minutes, sometimes it was for half an hour, but since April, Benji had pulled a disappearing act every time they ended up at the big V.
It wasn't a huge deal, since of course, Ramon had to check the ambulance and clean up and/or restock every time they dropped off a patient anyway, but technically they were supposed to trade off that duty, occasionally. One guy does paperwork and interacts with the hospital staff, the other guy checks the unit. Benji didn't seem to mind checking the unit when they had to go to County where they always had to deal with that one nurse who acted like all paramedics were Neanderthals. Nooooooo, he didn't mind letting Ramon do the paperwork then.
*.
Joel loved the cross that Benji wore around his neck and the way it slipped out of his shirt when he leaned down to kiss him goodbye, the faint tap of the thin metal under his chin as Benji leaned over him and sucked slowly on his bottom lip. It was warm from Benji's skin, from the furnace of him, the way he seemed to run a few degrees hotter than everyone else. Joel wanted to suck the silver chain into his mouth, roll it under his tongue as he licked his way across Benji's neck and bit down. He wanted to slide his hands down into Benji's pants and push them down and off, loosen every button on his shirt and peel it back, but he settled for one last kiss, because they both had to go.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
His beeper was going off. Benji cupped the back of Joel's head in his palm, lingering on his lips for another minute before pulling himself away slowly. He smiled a little and tugged his shirt down one last time.
"Talk to you soon, ok?"
Joel nodded.
*.
Benji came out of Emergency looking kind of flushed and irritated. Ramon looked him over critically, without saying anything. Benji had been gone for about 45 minutes, and his shirt looked wrinkled and like it had been hastily retucked into his pants. Ramon thought about keeping his mouth shut, but his lips started moving before he could stop them.
"What, Alice went down the rabbit hole?"
Benji blinked, looking confused.
"Huh?"
"Uh, never mind," Ramon said hastily, "We're ready to go, if you're done here."
Benji looked at him a little suspiciously, but nodded and walked around to the other side of the truck, getting in to the passenger side.
Aside from that one slip, Ramon managed to keep his mouth shut, because really, it wasn't a big deal. Everyone dealt with the job his own way and if Benji was hooking up with a nurse, well, he was young and single, and there were some fine looking women in the ER at St. Vincent's. Not that Ramon was looking. Certainly not. Well, so maybe he was looking; he was only human. He smiled a little to himself.
"What are you grinning at, asshole?"
"Shut up."
"Shiiiiiiit."
Benji smiled and looked out the window.
*.
There was nothing in the world like the feel of Joel's skin under his fingers. Benji thought his heart might stop sometimes from the feeling of it. It started out as the zing of physical attraction, of course, but Benji had never felt like this before. He never felt breathless when someone walked in the room. Joel was like his oxygen.
He didn't wake up one day with this new knowledge of how important Joel was to him, it kind of crept up on him, snuck in while he wasn't looking, until it felt like his day wasn't complete if he didn't at least talk to Joel on the phone. He missed him when they didn't get to see each other every day, and with their schedules it was hard sometimes. He wanted to spend every night with Joel, and wake up with him every morning, and it scared him, because he'd never felt like this before.
*.
Ramon looked over at Benji, cruising gently through a green light on their way back to dispatch. He was distracted, not that Ramon could blame him, after a slightly hair-raising but ultimately happy and healthy teenage pregnancy extracted from a car crash. She'd made it to the hospital before giving birth and delivered a baby girl in the ER.
Benji rode in the back with her and held her hand while Ramon drove, checking her vitals and reassuring her that she was safe and both she and the baby were going to make it. Her big brown eyes were glazed over with pain and fear and he smoothed back her hair and told her a story about a girl he had in the truck two weeks ago.
"Ana, honey, listen to me, okay? You're gonna be fine. You're in my truck now, and Ramon is the best driver in the city, you got that? We're going to St. Vincent's, and they're going to hook you up, take care of la nina and you, so don't worry, ok?"
He smiled down at her, and squeezed her hand, and radioed in to the hospital with her information so they would be ready when he and Ramon pulled up.
He was still trying to make Ana smile when they pulled up to the emergency entrance at the Big V and Ramon threw open the doors. Benji hopped out and they rushed her into the ER.
Ana's contractions were coming fast as they rolled her in and Benji saw that Joel was the attending doctor. Without thinking, he grabbed Joel's arm.
"Doc," he said, "She's just a kid."
Joel looked over at him and nodded, squeezing Benji's fingers gently. The nurses wheeled her away. Benji let out a breath slowly.
*.
After several months of Benji's Houdini routine, Ramon was a little annoyed. Then they had about six weeks of crazy insane work where they were down one team of EMTs and everyone was working overtime and they barely had enough time to eat, much less make time with nurses in the ER, and Ramon forgot about it for a while. But then Benji was back at it again, and after another month or so, Ramon was annoyed enough to do something about it. So the next time they were at St. Vincent's, he waited until they were done checking the patient in and watched to see where Benji went.
He stopped at the nurses' station for a few minutes and used the phone, and then he made his way down the hallway. Ramon followed him. Benji ducked into an empty exam room and closed the door behind himself. Ramon stood in the hallway, waiting for a few minutes and contemplated his options. He could wait and see them when they came out, or he could go in there and confront Benji now. Embarrassing your partner in flagrante delicto was always preferable, no? Ramon grinned, and opened the door without knocking. Fools, they didn't even lock it.
He could see Benji standing in front of the exam table, between someone's legs, with a pair of arms wrapped around his neck. Ramon coughed loudly to get their attention.
"Benji, muchacho, I realize the nurses here are very fine, but I do not have hours to sit around while you love up on the..."
Benji turned around, revealing a kiss-swollen and slightly red-faced Joel.
"...doctors?"
Ramon looked at Benji incredulously and turned on his heel, walking out of the room.
*.
By the time Benji got out to the truck, he had sweated through his shirt. Ramon. Benji's heart was in his throat. They had been partners for six years. Ramon was the closest thing Benji had to a brother.
Ramon was sitting in the passenger seat, playing with a handheld gameboy. It was a time-honored tradition: when confronted with a nasty emotional conflict, retreat into gadgetry. Ramon ignored him when he opened the door and got in, putting on his seatbelt.
Benji started up the truck, pulling out carefully and cruising onto the street. The gameboy meeped and beeped and clicked softly.
Benji opened his mouth to speak, drawing in a breath, but Ramon cut him off.
"Not a word, cabron."
"Ramon," Benji breathed out, painfully.
He stared straight ahead, his mouth compressed in a tight line.
"You thought what, that I wouldn't understand?"
The hurt in his voice hung between them in the silent ride that lasted the rest of their shift.
*.
Ramon ignored him for almost two weeks, until Benji broke down and went over to his house on one of their days off. He brought a case of Corona and a bouquet of flowers for Rosa.
He rang the doorbell at their little brick house and Rosa answered the door. She looked him over critically, standing on the front porch.
"Benji, come in," she said, kissing his cheek and accepting the flowers. "He's in the back yard."
It took about eight beers before they really started talking, but they patched things up. Lying in the grass and staring up at the sky, Benji confessed that he thought he might be in love. Ramon squeezed his shoulder a little.
"Don't let him go, then."
*.
The problem with Joel was that sometimes Benji felt like he was the only one in the relationship.
After weeks of planning, schedule coordinating, last minute cancels, finagling, shift swapping and some actual serious pouting at Kerry in dispatch, Benji had managed to get Joel out on a real date. Like the kind that actual humans went on. Dinner, maybe even a movie... it was supposed to be Joel's night off. Benji had worked three shifts in a row, pulling two 24s back to back to get a day that coincided at the right place with Joel's schedule and his body was going to kick his ass for it, but it was all worth it.
He wanted to take Joel out, to a place that didn't have anything to do with work. They'd been missing each other a lot lately, and Benji just wanted to do something nice for a change. With Joel's schedule changes, they hadn't been able to see each other as much and it was hard. Benji wanted to talk to him about what he was planning to do in the next couple months, the major changes he was planning in his life, and with their mismatched schedules it seemed like sometimes whole weeks went by without them seeing each other anymore.
Benji smiled, watching as Joel relaxed and leaned back, both of them mellow in the warm afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window into the booth they were sitting in. Benji toyed a little with his water glass, rolling the stem around between his fingers.
"This place was so good, Benj," Joel said. "We have to come here again."
Benji smiled, a warm glow spreading through him. Joel was picky about restaurants sometimes, it was nice to find a place they both really liked.
"Joel, I kind of wanted to talk about something important," he started, looking across the table, staring at their empty plates. He took a deep breath, filling up his lungs with air and courage.
Joel sat up a little straighter, resting his hands on the table.
"OK."
"I've been thinking..."
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
Joel looked down and pulled his beeper from his belt clip. "It's the hospital, baby. I gotta run."
"Joel." Benji gave him a frustrated look. "Are you kidding me?"
"Benji... This is important."
Benji sat up a little straighter and looked up at Joel, who was already slipping out of his seat, pulling on his coat, tucking his beeper back into place. "Important," he said flatly.
"I'll call you, OK? We'll talk soon." He turned and hurried out of the restaurant to his car.
Benji signaled for the check, pulling out his wallet.
"So Joel," he mumbled to himself. "I've been thinking about something important. Like we've been dating for over a year now. Like maybe we could move in together. Like fuck this shit right in the ear."
He slapped the money down on the table and got up, exiting the restaurant; the warm mellow glow that had suffused his afternoon completely gone. Benji flipped open his cell phone and made some calls.
"Hi, JoAnn, I want to get a ticket to San Juan..."
*.
Joel was a little surprised when he didn't hear from Benji that night, but he was on shift at the ER and they had two heart attacks and a gunshot wound come through and he forgot all about everything until it was 4am, way too late to call. Joel napped a little in the lounge, resting his head against the water cooler, the faint hum of its motor lulling him to sleep. Joel knew that Benji was aggravated with him for cutting their date short, but he would just have to understand... Joel was a doctor. An ER doctor and when the hospital called, he really had no choice but to answer it. Joel would call him later, after he'd had some time to cool off.
Two towns over, at his apartment, Benji packed his bags.
It was Wednesday suddenly, before Joel had even noticed the passage of time, and he realized that he hadn't called Benji like he said he would. He had completely forgotten about it. Joel sighed briefly; it all got to be too much sometimes. On his next break, he dialed Benji's number and listened to the phone ring slowly. It clicked over, the automated voice sounding in his ear Nextel is unable to reach the subscriber you are trying to locate. Joel frowned, ending the call before the voicemail message started. Benji never turned his phone off. He tried again, dialing the number carefully, but got the same message. Joel flipped his phone closed. He'd try again later, maybe Benji was in a dead zone or something.
*.
A full week went by and Joel hadn't been able to get in touch with Benji at all. He wasn't answering his phone, he hadn't been in to the hospital, and he didn't answer his door when Joel went over to his place. Joel really didn't think that forgetting to call him warranted this kind of childishness, and in the back of his mind there was a mounting fear, a frantic clamoring about Benji, and about the fact that he couldn't be found at all. Joel was beginning to wonder if he should talk to someone official about Benji's disappearance. Surely if he had really disappeared, someone else would have noticed?
A few more days passed and just when Joel was really starting to freak out, he was on shift in the ER when he heard Benji's voice coming through the triage area. He turned, picking up speed in the hallway and darting into the ward to see Benji's broad back and messy black hair moving through the area next to a gurney, speaking to the charge nurse.
*.
"Where have you been?" Joel asked quietly, stepping up next to Benji while he was taking the patient's blood pressure.
Benji looked over at him, "Oh you mean you noticed I was gone? Congratulations, asshole."
The nurse next to him gasped in shock and turned a megawatt glare on Benji.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Excuse me. Doctor Asshole."
"Well! I never!" she huffed.
"Look, sister, nobody asked you," Ramon cut in, "So why don't you go make a chart or something." She turned her steely glare on him instead and he made a little shooing motion at her with one hand.
Joel was still staring, slightly open-mouthed, at Benji, who was concentrating on the patient in front of him.
Benji and Ramon started pushing the patient over to the registration desk, and Joel trailed after them.
"Excuse me?" he said, voice rising as they crossed the room, "You know Benji, that was some pretty childish behaviour, there, did it ever occur to you that I might have been worried about you?"
Benji whirled on him, frowning as Ramon took over the registration process. "Why the fuck would I think that, Doc? You haven't given me any indication that you even give a rat's ass."
Benji's face was red with frustration and the veins on his neck stood out in stark relief as he bit back his temper to keep from screaming at Joel in the middle of the Emergency Room.
Joel stared at him, dumbfounded.
Benji looked at him, "If you were so worried, why didn't you ask Ramon where I was? He's been here about 15 times in the past two weeks. Did you even notice that, Doc?"
Benji paused, waiting for his answer, but Joel just stared back at him. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said bitterly, his voice low and rough. "You're so goddamn concentrated on being a doctor, I'm surprised you remember how to tie your own shoes, much less that other people in the world even exist."
With that, Benji turned his back and walked out through the sliding doors, into the bright sunshine of the parking lot.
Ramon looked over at him, looking Joel up and down briefly. "You know, Doc, let me explain you a few things," he said. "You need to stop limpdicking around with my friend over there or you're going to lose your chance," he said, pointing after Benji. "And if you're not serious about him, then you need to back off and leave him alone. But most important, you got a guy bleeding in your hallway here, so you gonna have to talk to Benji later."
*.
As far as Joel was concerned, Benji was behaving in a completely irrational manner. Completely irrational. He was at his desk, going over SOAP notes and thinking about what Benji had said. He wasn't really oblivious to other people, was he?
Joel sat in his office, lost in thought, for a very long time.
*.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
It was the flash of white t-shirt at his neck that first got to Joel. It wasn't unusual for two or three patients to get wheeled into the ER at the same time, and at high velocity, but when his beeper went off at the same time they announced a Code Blue in the ER, the adrenaline was pumping through him hard. He could see the swirl of cop car lights in the parking lot as the triage personnel unloaded three gurneys and raced through the doors with them.
But the sight that made his heart stop and stutter was the flash of white t-shirt and the three little streaks of orangey-red above it. The navy uniform covered in blood.
Male... 26... Multiple stab wounds... the words drifted over his ears as if they were passing through water and Joel stood in the triage area with the lights dimming and pulsing in his field of vision as Benji was wheeled past him on a gurney.
Joel tried to breathe and failed, chest constricting.
Ramon came up behind him and clapped one hand to his shoulder, "Doc! He needs you. You're a doctor."
Sound and light came rushing back all at once, slamming into him like a freight train, and Joel felt himself galvanized into motion. He was a doctor. This would be the most important patient of his entire life.
*.