He fumbles for the handle with a shaky hand; corrects it instantly, shoving it open with his whole shoulder. Max isn’t even looking at George, let alone at his crotch. The observation seems objectively humiliating. 

“You don’t even need me here,” Max says, apropos of nothing, staring at what George assumes is the MRI. “Didn’t we agree on a craniotomy?”

“That’s—“ George grits out, still feeling hot all over. Probably from embarrassment. He turns his body slightly to fix his trousers, mouth unfathomably dry. The clink of his belt buckle is singularly loud in the droning silence of the Neurosurgery ward. A beep from a pulse ox machine breaks it, too. George can’t breathe. Max is looking at him now; waiting for George to finish his sentence. He looks deceptively bored. “That’s what—“ 

George doesn’t know how to form a sentence that doesn’t throw Toto under the bus. His mind is still stuck in the world he was in fifteen minutes and forty seconds ago, pressed uncomfortably against a wall, a bright yellow mop stick shoving into his back, hot fingers crawling down his torso in the darkness.  

“Are you good?” Max asks. He stops looking at George to check his pager. George breathes in, and out. It’s difficult not to tell Max to fuck off. 

“Doctor Wolff thought it would be appropriate to have a final confirmation of treatment from Oncology.” George says finally, clasping his hands together, still damp with hand sanitiser. 

“Should have just called,” Max yawns, standing up from the desk, typing on his pager. “Horner’s gonna be pissed.” 

George doesn’t care. If it was Dr Horner here, it would be much harder for George not to tell him to fuck off. He doesn’t say goodbye. Max doesn’t seem like he’s expecting it, turning around to head for the double doors and the stairwell. It takes him very little effort to open the door. As soon as he’s gone, George closes both of his eyes and stands still. He has stopped trembling. It’s easy to switch off, usually. Feeling. Disconnect the breakaway cable that links his brain to his body. 

George’s phone vibrates inside the pocket of his coat, jolting him alive.  

“Neurosurgery,” George says into the receiver automatically. It can’t be Alex calling for a consult, because Alex should be on his way home, he shouldn’t be thinking of Alex anymore, because Alex has gone home and he’s still at work. “This is Dr Russell. Go—“

“Dr Russell,” Alex drawls through the line. He’s laughing. “Are you into that, George? Should I call you Dr next time—”

Hearing Alex’s voice like this is almost as good as being touched by Alex. 200 joules straight to his chest. He wonders if a patient knows they are Vfib before they collapse. He’s not sure he would; Sometimes he thinks he might be dying when they touch. The first time—It’s almost difficult for George to think about, that first time. The EM Christmas party, the one they’d had in January—After the new year—because they’d all worked on call through Christmas. He’d spent the final minutes of the year with Alex, a stolen moment in the stairwell; handing Alex a protein bar, making sure he was eating. He looked happy, happy enough. Carmen was out, she’d wanted George to call at midnight, but he’d said he might be busy and that he was sorry. He wasn’t thinking about her at all when Alex said happy new year to George, before he’d said it to anyone else. Alex’s pager had beeped, then he’d been gone and George had made sure it was Carmen calling, not the ICU or something like that, before he ignored it. 

“Are you still here?” George asks, shoving the memories down. He swallows, trying to remember what he’d meant to be doing, where he was meant to go. He brings up a hand to run through his hair. It smells like alcohol, no trace of Alex. 

“Nah,” Alex replies. George can hear the smile in his voice. It makes all of him warm, sick with it. He wishes he could be happy like Alex, uncomplicatedly happy. “I’m walking. Just missed you.”

The last time they had seen each other was seventeen minutes and forty two seconds ago now. He can’t think about it, he doesn’t have the capacity. He’s never been very good at understanding sex to begin with. He’s not even sure that’s what it is, only, they’re not fucking, but it’s certainly more than kissing. It’s nothing like he’s ever known sex to be. Perhaps it’s something new entirely; a new discovery. 

George’s heart twinges painfully inside of his chest. It doesn’t make any sense; He doesn’t know why. He’s not a cardiologist. He should say something sweet, in response, find a way to condense all of what he feels into a few words. Alex seems to have no problem with it, asking George if he’d be turned on by something through a phone that he knows George is answering at work. He feels so thoroughly out of his depth he’s beginning to wonder if he’ll float back up to the surface of it at all. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” George’s brain supplies instead, logical. They’ll catch one another just before it’s George’s day off. Alex will be in the ambulance bay, having a cigarette, and George will have been thinking about him for hours, unable to sleep in the on-call room. 

“That’s right Georgie,” Alex says, like it’s a reward. It shakes through him like warm saline in an IV. “Tomorrow.” 

“Okay,” George says. All of him shudders. Eighteen minutes ago he’d sobbed into Alex’s shoulder and writhed, Alex’s hand in his trousers, his mouth next to George’s head, soothing, making silly noises. Alex is walking to the Tube, to his flat he shares with Lily and George is on call until tomorrow. 

“I should go,” George says. Toto will be back from the OR any minute. The teaching case he’d taken Kimi on should have been done by now. 

“See you Georgie,” Alex says. He sounds like he’s still smiling. Alex hangs up and George stands in front of the monitor with the patient’s MRI, useless. Lost. The phone rings again and his heart kicks back up. 

“Neurosurgery,” George says, in case it isn’t Alex.