Medical Attention

Chapter seven. Remission.

Dr John Carter is a new man. He has resolve now. Resolve not to give in to his addiction. And he’s succeeding. For two weeks now, he has not seen Luka outside of work. He has not gone into that closet with Luka. Not once. Hasn’t even thought about it. Not seriously anyway. He can’t help thinking about going in there but thinking and doing are two different things. It’s just like thinking about going to the pills cupboard in the hospital and stealing some painkillers. He can think it, but he won’t do it. And with time, he’ll stop thinking about it. That’s when he’ll know that he has beaten his drug. He’s very proud of the fact that he’s reached the two week milestone without any relapses. Though he can’t avoid Luka completely, working in the same hospital and all, he CAN keep their relationship on a strictly professional level. He only speaks to Luka if he has to, to ask about a patient or to give orders when he and Luka are frenetically trying to save someone’s life in the operating room. They work together just fine. But work is all there is between them now. John is pleased to see that Luka has listened to what he requested and has stopped chasing after him. Luka still gives John longing looks with those long-lashed greenish eyes but that’s as far as he goes. He has not asked John out on a date, or attempted to spirit him away in his car, or tried to lure him into the closet. He’s being surprisingly co-operative about the whole thing. This makes John want to admire the guy, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to admire the guy. He’s not supposed to have any feelings whatsoever for the other MD. At this crucial point in his twelve step plan, John can’t even really be friends with Kovac. Just like you can’t be friends with painkillers. All he can be is neutral. Kovac is there, yes, but he’s just another doctor in the E.R. That’s all.

Of course, that’s not the way Dr Luka Kovac sees it.

Luka is doing what John asked him to, wait – TOLD him to, but that doesn’t mean he likes it or agrees with it. He’s backing off because that’s what John wanted him to do and he’s doing it purely because he cares about John. If the boy needs time to figure out stuff, then Luka will give it to him. Besides, he’s pretty sure John will come back to him eventually. He always does. Even if he needs a little coercing. However, Kovac is not doing any coercing. Not yet. He’ll give John a couple more weeks to miss him, and then resume his great plan of seduction. He’s not giving up on that plan. C’mon, he’s this close to crossing number one off the list! It’d be crazy to give up now after coming so far. And after coming in John’s mouth. He can’t stop thinking about that. That was just awesome. If he can get John to suck his dick, Luka can get to fuck him. He’s as sure of that as he is sure that blood is red. And once he’s done it, once he’s taken Carter’s cherry, the kid will be his forever.

In the meantime though, Luka has to find a distraction. He’s got to find something to take his mind off the chocolate-eyed doctor with his skin like warm satin and smooth, small hands like a woman’s. He’s got to find something to distract himself from reaching over and tousling short brown locks that slip through his fingers like silk. He’s got to find something to distract himself from wanting to sample those wide, firm lips, lips that he secretly knows are softer than they look and are capable of parting sensuously in a moan or sliding along Luka’s flesh, giving much pleasure. Oh yeah, he needs some major distracting. Was it not John who told him to, quote, “find someone else to occupy your time with,”? Well, if that’s what the doctor ordered…

“Time of death – 12.05 pm,” Luka announces with a glance at the clock, ceasing CPR and wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. He’d been working on this obese guy for forty minutes, trying to get his ticker ticking again, but he knew it was a waste of time. The guy had killed himself with too many burgers and fries and strawberry shakes. He’d been told by doctors at this very hospital to eat healthily and take up exercise but obviously the guy hadn’t been listening as he was just as fat as the last time Luka saw him. Luka could have cracked his chest open to directly shock his heart but he’d have to carve through layers of marble-like lard just to get to it and he didn’t think it would be worth the effort. This was the guy’s third heart attack in eight months.

“Some people just never learn,” Sam mutters, unbagging the dead man. Luka switches off the electric paddles and watches as Sam cleans up, getting the corpse ready for when his wife has to come in and say goodbye. Luka hates losing patients but in cases like this, he doesn’t let it worry him much because it’s not his fault the dude died. His heart was a time bomb, waiting to explode. It was only a matter of when. The nurse with the long blonde ringlets covers the dead man’s exposed chest with a sheet. She looks up, wondering why Luka is still here. He has other patients to visit, other lives to save. Luka did his part; she can take care of the rest. Before she can ask why Luka is stalling, he clears his throat and asks a question.

“Are you seeing anyone, Sam?”

Sam halts, gazing into Kovac’s eyes guardedly. She had been dating Luka not long ago and it had been great, well, the sex had been great, but for some reason he hadn’t called her lately. Probably just the tiring life of a doctor; no time for dating. In all truthfulness, she’d love to start seeing him again, and her son Alex would love it too, but she doesn’t want Luka to know how eager she is so she keeps her face expressionless.

“No. Why?”

Kovac grins rakishly, knowing how hot she is for him. He strolls up to her, coils a ringlet around his finger and whispers in her ear. She turns pink and her jaw drops.

“Luka!” she exclaims. “We can’t!”

“Oh, I assure you. We can,” he says confidently. Then he feigns indifference, a trick that he knows will guarantee the woman’s sudden interest. “But if you don’t want to, that’s okay. If you don’t want to see me again…”

“I didn’t say that,” Sam quickly replies. She pretends to be busy wiping spittle off the deceased man’s chin. She gazes back up at Luka, who is waiting for an answer, looking like she is thinking about it, when in reality, she has already made her mind up.

“Okay,” she finally says. Grinning, Luka smacks her on the ass, making her gasp, and then exits the room, leaving Sam shocked for a moment. Then she continues her job, slowly smiling to herself.

John Carter is leaving the lunchroom when he sees Kovac headed his way. Kovac glances at John, a challenge in his intense blue irises. The younger male falters in his tracks, hastily thinking of a way to get out of having to confront the guy he’s been able to evade so far, when Kovac makes a detour. He wasn’t intending to talk to John at all. He opens a door and goes straight into the supply closet. John’s brain is racing at the unexpected manoeuvre. Why would he go in there? What, does he expect John to go in there too? After all this time? After what John had told him? Carter had, in no uncertain terms, told Luka to leave him alone and stop pursuing him. The older medical practitioner hadn’t been paying attention to his words at all, the bastard, Carter fumes. He’d been an idiot to think that Luka would stop behaving like a dog in heat. That was a direct attempt at persuasion. No mistaking. Kovac had looked right at John, as if demanding him to follow and then gone right in. Well, if Mr. Manwhore thinks John is just going to slip back in the closet when he’s worked so hard to stay out of it, Kovac has got another thing coming. Carter clenches his jaw with barely held in fury. He is NOT Luka’s little bitch. His mouth set in that determined, no-nonsense manner he has a habit of adopting, he flicks his eyes up and down the hallway, seeing no witnesses, and makes his way to the closet door. It’s shut but he doesn’t bother knocking. He knows that prick is in there waiting for him. Carter may be going into the closet, but not for the purposes that Luka is anticipating. He’s not going to fall to his knees and give Kovac a blow job or a hand job. The only job that Croatian asshole is going to get is a fist to the jaw. Carter is not tolerating this shit. He grabs the brass knob and turns it, yanking the door open.

What assaults his sight is enough to cause all the colour to leech from Carter’s tanned face. Luka is in there all right, but so is someone else. Sam. The nurse. She is sitting on a shelf, legs apart, skirt hitched up. And Luka is standing between her thighs. He has one hand inside her open blouse, fondling her breasts which are clearly visible to John’s round, stunned eyes. Her nipples are hard and flushed to a dark rose hue, the surrounding skin white as Carter’s coat. Luka’s other hand is between Sam’s splayed legs, fingers on her pussy. No, not just on it, IN it. He is finger-fucking her. Carter can see the slick moistness gleaming on Luka’s index and middle digits as he penetrates her and withdraws. The blonde is clutching Luka and moaning, her face buried in Luka’s shoulder, apparently not aware that Carter has entered the room. The older doctor’s eyes slide to Carter, not surprised to see the kid. He smiles cruelly, fingers still moving in and out of Sam’s wet slit. The tight bush of curls between her legs are dark, not blonde. Carter realises dumbly that she must dye her hair. As he manually screws the woman on the shelf in front of him, Kovac’s thumb is circling Sam’s clit and with his second hand, he is rolling and twisting her nipples expertly, as if he’s had a lot of practice doing this. Which he has. Sam moans Luka’s name and pushes closer into him. Kovac, not appearing guilty at all for his betrayal, winks at John and then turns his concentration back to the attractive nurse he is just about to make orgasm.

Snapping out of the coma of horror he had fallen into, John rapidly retreats, quietly closing the door on the two people he did not want to watch getting intimate. Sam didn’t see him and he is thankful, because he knows how it feels to be caught committing sexual acts by a third party and he doesn’t want her to feel that same terrible embarrassment and shame. It’s not her fault; she’s not a slut, she just got seduced by the resident playboy. She definitely isn’t the first. But Luka saw John; indeed he seemed to be expecting him. Is that why he looked at Carter, to get him to follow, knowing full well what he’d see when he opened the door? Is this Kovac’s way of getting even with John for breaking it off with him? The answer to that is a resounding yes, Carter concludes. He should have known Luka would do something like this. The guy is not used to being rejected. It seems he’s gotten over it fast, though. Carter didn’t need to see physical proof that Luka had moved on but he DID tell Kovac to find someone else, didn’t he? And the guy has. Carter should be happy about it.

But he’s not. It’s not that Luka has found someone else. John knows the surgeon and Sam have been dating off and on and it doesn’t really bother him. What bothers him is that Luka took her into the closet. THEIR closet. Luka and Carter’s closet. Not Luka and Sam’s closet. She shouldn’t be there. It’s not her place. It’s wrong. When he sees his pale face in the mirror above the sink, Carter realises he has blindly walked into the men’s room. For good reason. He calmly goes into an empty stall, locks the door, lifts up the toilet seat, kneels down on the tiles and pukes up the lunch he just ate.

Carter spends the rest of his day in a kind of daze. It feels like he’s not all there. His body is, and his brain, but the real him, the essence of Carter, is just floating about the corridors of the hospital, letting the breeze take him where it will. He can hear himself talking to patients and ordering tests to be done but it’s mechanical. He’s just reading from a script. He knows so much about illnesses and medicine that he doesn’t really have to think about what treatment to prescribe. It’s an automatic match-up that happens in his cerebral cortex. Illness 265 equals treatment 265. All those years of drumming medical knowledge into his head means that it will always be there, stored away in a big filing cabinet in his skull. By the end of his shift, a few people - Neela, Dr Corday, that big guy in reception - had asked if he was okay but Carter murmured that he was fine and kept floating in his shell-shock. He is still floating as he meanders towards the station to catch the subway home.

Luka also notices that something is wrong with John and he has a feeling it has to do with himself. All right, he KNOWS it has to do with him. He is having regrets about letting John see him and Sam together but it seemed like a good idea at the time. He just wanted to show John that he could find someone else and that he was leaving John alone. It was probably unnecessary and vindictive to deliberately bait John into that closet only to slap him in the face with another woman but goddammit, the kid deserved it. How many times had Carter given himself over to Kovac, making him think that their relationship was actually going somewhere, and then promptly dropped him like a hot potato? Too many times. And so he wanted a little payback. He wasn’t absolutely certain that John would follow him into the closet but his instincts told him that the boy would. His instincts were right. That little closeted porn show was mostly for vengeance purposes but Luka also wanted to see how Carter reacted to it. If the younger man carried on as normal and seemed unaffected after viewing him and Sam, then Luka would know that it was over. For sure this time. Yet, he knew all along that it would affect Carter, even as he winked at him. He knew it would hurt the guy. He just wanted to see evidence that he can still get to Carter, that he still holds power over the other doctor. He knew it wasn’t over then and he is positive now that it isn’t over. Not by a long shot. They still have unfinished business to deal with.

Rushing out of the hospital, Luka catches up to John on the sidewalk, calling, “Hey! Hey, wait.”

Momentarily pausing, John stares at Luka as if wondering who he is. Carter’s face is absent, his brown eyes slightly glazed, as if he is half-dreaming. His breath is frosting in the chilly night air.

“John, are you all right?” Kovac queries, experiencing a pang of remorse in his chest. The kid does not look all right. He hopes he has not mentally scarred the poor boy for life. Carter stares at him some more and then his eyes freeze over, cold as a glacier, and he turns away from the Croatian man, walking towards the subway as if nobody is even there. Luka races after him.

“John! Just talk to me, please,” he begs, his voice heavily accented. He touches Carter’s arm to get his attention. Stopping once more, Carter faces him and shrugs Luka’s hand away in revulsion as if it’s a big, hairy tarantula. That’s the same hand that was in Sam’s crotch. He probably still has her scent on his fingers.

“Don’t call me John,” he growls. “Only people I LIKE can call me that.”

Taken aback by the viciousness in the younger doctor’s tone, Luka blinks. “I…uh…I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

Carter makes a derisive noise and crosses his arms. “Humph. Really. Anyone who didn’t know better would say you actually seem concerned about me.”

“But I am-”

“No!” Carter’s shout cuts Kovac off. “You’re not. You just want to gloat over the disgusting charade you made me watch, you sadistic son of a bitch. How could you do that to me?”

Stung by Carter’s accusations, Luka bristles. “Hey, you were the one who told me to find someone else. Or don’t you remember saying it?”

Carter’s face is contorted with rage, his eyes flashing sparks. “You didn’t have to fucking make me watch it! God, what kind of a man are you? I thought you had some decency in you but I guess I was deluding myself. You have no more decency than a whore. In fact, that’s what you are. You’re a fucking whore, Luka!”

And with that slur, normally passive John Carter pulls back his arm and punches Luka as hard as he can, the loud crack of his fist connecting with Luka’s jaw like a dull gunshot. Knocked down with the force of the blow, Luka scrambles to a sitting position on the pavement, head spinning, and cradles his bruised jawbone. He peers up at Carter in astonishment, his hair hanging in his eyes. Carter shakes his sore hand.

“You can go fuck yourself, Kovac,” he curses, his handsome boyish face more like a mask of wrath. “Actually, you can fuck anyone you want, I couldn’t give a shit, but you will never, ever, get to fuck ME.”

John spits on the ground near Luka’s feet. “Ever,” he snarls.

And with that, John stalks off, leaving an astonished Luka seeing shooting stars on the sidewalk.

On the subway ride home, slumped in a window seat, John thinks about what he saw that day. He’s not angry anymore. He got that out of his system when he hit Luka. It felt wonderful when he did it but now his hand is throbbing and aching and he’ll have to ice it when he gets back to his apartment. The anger is gone. Now he just feels tired. Exhausted. That is not unusual for him. He’s exhausted most nights. He wearily wonders why Luka went back to Sam. She’s nothing special. Just a single mom, trying to make ends meet. Perhaps Luka wants the whole family thing, seeing as his own children were killed in Croatia along with his wife. Getting together with Sam meant that he would have a ready-made family. Luka and Sam and Alex makes three. Never mind that Alex is a whiny little brat who needs some discipline smacked into him. Any kid is better than no kid, John supposes. Perhaps if Carter had a kid, Luka would have stuck around. But his kid is somewhere in Africa, still inside Kem’s belly and seeing as Kem isn’t in a hurry to come back, there doesn’t seem to be much of a chance of John getting to be the father that he rightfully deserves to be. And everyone knows that men can’t carry babies. If they could, John would have his own kid. A kid that nobody could take away from him. Preferably a son. A little John Carter. If, by some radical medical breakthrough, men could somehow get pregnant, using their own DNA, cloned eggs and artificial insemination, and Carter carried and delivered a baby, then he would technically be the mother. If Carter’s own sperm was used to fertilize the egg, then he would also be the father. But what if technology was so advanced that two sets of same-sex DNA could be combined, such as in the case of gay couples? Then the child could have characteristics of both parents, whether they were both males or both females. Just like in hetero couples, the child would develop recognizable physical aspects and talents, a little from parent A and a little from parent B. What if Carter could have a baby with oh, say, for instance, someone like Luka? In that case, the child could have Luka’s pretty blue-green eyes and Carter’s slender yet athletic build. Luka’s thick dark hair and Carter’s aquiline nose. Luka’s winning smile and Carter’s soft skin. Yeah, the boy would be good-looking, that’s for sure. He’d probably also inherit Luka’s charming ways. He’d have to beat the girls off with a stick. If he liked girls, that is. Which wouldn’t bother Carter either way. He’d love his kid to death no matter if he was gay or not. It would be a tad hypocritical of him to not accept his own son if he was gay when he himself has sucked dick. Only two weeks ago, in fact. Moving on from physiology and sexuality, what about the child’s mental capacity? Man, with two doctors for fathers, that kid would be guaranteed to turn out a total brainiac. A Nobel Prize winner, even. Who liked coffee. And expensive cars. And possibly playing polo.

But here he is, getting carried away and day dreaming of something that’s not likely to ever happen. At least, not anytime soon. By the time men can have babies, John will probably be 85 and shooting blanks. Either that or he’ll be dead in his grave right next to Gamma. Dumbass, he chides himself, feeling like a moron for his fanciful thinking. Who says Luka would even want to have a kid with him anyway? Who says Luka even still LIKES him? Doesn’t appear that way, not with one of Kovac’s hands shoved into Sam’s blouse, groping her ample tits, and the other shoved between her thighs. That image just won’t leave his mind. Dumb-fucking-ass, he chastises himself again. Now that he has hit Luka, that doubles the likelihood of Luka not liking him anymore. And lest he forgets, John was the one who broke it off with Luka. He is the one who doesn’t want to see Luka anymore. Right? A niggling voice in a corner of his brain tells him this is not entirely accurate or why else would he be having flights of fancy about bearing Luka’s offspring, but John is purposefully not listening to that voice. That voice can shut the fuck up. If you listen to that voice, you get in trouble. He does NOT want to see Luka anymore, okay? John is glad he dumped the older doctor before Luka dumped him. He is glad he didn’t actually let Luka take his virginity. That’s one thing he still has even if he has lost nearly everything else including faith and trust in his fellow man. In spite of all the guy’s candy-sweet words and declarations of affection and commitment, Luka is nothing but a goddamn player who wants to get his dick into as many holes as possible. Look, all the proof John needed of that was right there in the supply closet. He was one moment away from seeing one of Sam’s holes get plugged. He is grateful he didn’t stick around for that. It was bad enough watching Luka’s fingers get wet, let alone his cock. As much as he is loath to admit it, Abby was right. Kovac was only using him. Sooner or later Luka would have fucked someone else. Once he conquered his latest challenge, that challenge being named Dr John Carter, he would have gotten bored and moved on. John just sped the process up a bit, forcing Luka to move on before Luka decided to move on all on his own. Judging by the way Kovac was handling that blonde nurse’s undeniably female parts, the other male has already moved on and so should he. Yes. Moving on. Cure for all diseases and addictions. Moving on is good. Dr John Carter shall now move on. Starting this minute. So…

Wonder what Abby is doing tonight?

***