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“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Ellis asks him.
John, elbow deep in someone’s guts says, with as much brightness as he can muster– which is not a lot, given his usual baseline lies somewhere around apathetic to bored, the severity of his mood further compounded by lethargy since it’s hour five of the Shift From Hell, though there is something to be said about desensitization or the lack thereof because Shifts From Hell are biweekly occasions at the ER department– “Messing up this guy’s insides. Why? You want in? I’ll trade you, but you have to pay me five bucks.”
To her credit, Ellis doesn’t even bat an eye, she’s too used to his idiocy. God, John loves working the night shift. He knows if he tried any of this under Dr Robby’s watchful eye he’d get his shit rocked
“Jesus fuck,” Ellis mutters, trying not to look at the blood. “I’m locked in here with a bunch of crazies.” And then she, sensibly, leaves, probably trying to flag down any other case that doesn’t involve quite so much blood. John wishes he had been that sensible when he had the fun idea of going into Emergency Medicine, he would’ve turned tail and run after his first shift. He sighs wistfully, staring down at the patient’s pearly bones. Now that he’s an attending he’s just about fucked, he can’t even quit.
“Shen, where’s your coffee?” Abbot sidles up to him, staring him down. He’s doing that geriatric neck raise-squint thing that gets all the boys and girls going, and makes the R1’s and the med students piss themselves in senior citizen induced fear. Unfortunately for him, John saw him demolish a whole pizza in one sitting in the break room during John’s R2 year and hasn’t been afraid of him since. Cheese is the great equalizer, said Marcus Aurelius. Probably.
“Forgot it in my car,” John sighs. “And then I didn’t want to go back and get it because I was basically half asleep still, so I just came in without it and now I hate everyone.”
Abbot claps him on the shoulder, and John kind of wobbles back and forth like a ragdoll. He really is tired. “Fix it. It’s freaking our regulars out. Myrna just asked me if you got a husband recently that she needed to kill.”
“You act like we’re running a restaurant,” John says tonelessly.
“If we were running a restaurant, you’d have a coffee and we wouldn’t be having this problem at all,” Abbot snorts. “We’d get you coffee, and you’d stop trying to turn our patients inside out.”
John frowns. “I wouldn’t drink restaurant coffee, I only drink Dunkin’”
A beat. Abbot looks like he wants to say something, possibly about how this is the most emotion John has shown all night, which, yeah, coffee is serious business, of course he needs to draw upon his dried up puddle of fucks to give when discussing it. “Good talk, kid,” Abbot finally says, and walks away very quickly, making a beeline for Lena.
Huh. John makes a face. Maybe he should reevaluate his attitude. There’s a lot of people running away from him tonight.
“I didn’t get married,” John tells Myrna later. “But I appreciate your concern.”
She smiles, and doesn’t even struggle against her cuffs a little. He’s totally her favorite. “The offer still stands, if you ever need it. I know fifteen ways to kill men.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” John pokes distractedly at the tablet resting on his arm. The crook of his elbow feels horribly empty without his coffee. He squints. The test results for his newest patient don’t look amazing, but they don’t look horrible either; he thinks they’ll be able to discharge him without keeping him overnight. Raising his head, he starts scanning for the med student that’s been attached to him like a twenty-something year old barnacle all shift, Hay-something. Hayden? Haylie? Hay bale? He’ll hand the enjoyable task of explaining the test results to the patient to her. The joys of being an attending.
“Did you know I killed my last husband?” Myrna asks. John startles a little, he’d forgotten that she was even there.
“I did, yes,” John steps closer, drops his voice down into a low whisper. “How much do you charge for your services? If I ever need them. Hypothetically.” Across the Pitt, he sees Lena giving him a flat look. He shrugs and mouths patient satisfaction scores.
Myrna cackles. “For you, honey? Free.”
Ellis catches him in the breakroom, staring morosely at the awful battery acid that the hospital insists on calling coffee.
“John,” she says, a low note of warning in her voice.
“Parker,” he mumbles back, and pokes at the coffee pot. The cloudy glass surface is lukewarm, verging on cold.
“You’re an attending, you need to get your shit together,” Parker says, leaning back against the counter next to him. “The med students are getting freaked out.”
“Just send them to Dr Abbot,” John says, rubbing his face. He really doesn’t want to drink the hospital coffee, but god, it’s almost 5 AM and he’s ready to drop dead. “I’m sure he’d be delighted to deal with them.”
“Dr Abbot is tied up with a trauma. Thirty year old dude with a faulty heart,” Parker nudges him. “Seriously, man. You’re starting to freak me out. What the hell happened to you? You’re usually dead, but not like dead-dead.”
“Shift from Hell,” John tells her, like it’ll explain everything. Maybe there’s nothing to be said about desensitization, because he sure as hell is feeling it full force, like it’s his first day all over again.
Parker nods like it does. “I get it. But you really gotta pull yourself together.”
“Give me a minute,” he says. “I’m grieving the love of my life.”
“Dunkin’ coffee,” Parker grins.
“Dunkin’ coffee,” John sighs.
Like always, the day shift starts trickling in around seven. Abbot disappears off to god knows where with Dr Robby– there’s a betting pool, John has thirty on them fucking on the roof– leaving him with the responsibility of dismissing the night shift staff since apparently he’s an attending now. Which, what the hell, who thought that was a good idea?
“Good job everyone,” John says. “Go home, rest, sleep. Come in for your next shift, unless you’re working a double– which. Well. Tough luck.” He sees a couple of the day shifters stifling laughs. Thankfully, the night shift staff is too tired to give a fuck about what he’s saying, which is good for him since he has barely any control over what’s coming out of his mouth. “Anyway. Bye. Also, don’t forget your coffee. Terrible mistake.” He waves them off. “Get out of here.”
His med student, whose name turned out to be Hannah, of all things, tells him, “thanks for being so patient, Dr Shen. This was– um. It was hard, but I think I learned a lot.” She smiles shyly.
“Yeah, of course.” For the first time all day, John feels a dim glow of warmth flickering deep in his dead heart. “Go home, rest. You’ll have plenty of time to learn more next shift.”
He catches Abbot smiling at him, so John makes a face and leaves, telling himself no, he’s not running away, he’s not.
Parker corners him outside of the hospital. “Wanna get coffee?” she dangles her keys in front of his face, jangling them back and forth. “I’ll drive.”
John bats her hand away, pushing past her. “Worried I’ll crash your asshole car?”
“You’re not getting your sticky hands anywhere near my baby, that’s for sure.”
“Fuck you too, Ellis.”