86: “Perhaps you’ll take me out one day — or do I have to make an appointment?” (I combined this with a prompt from foxpaws10 from ages ago based on this post, and I kind of warped both of your prompts i hope this is still okaaay basically it’s doctor andrew and that’s all u need to know)
His morning is a string of disasters that begins with covering the ER in the Sunday rush of hypochondriac elderly and fussy children. It’s one long stretch of kicked over paint buckets, a mess you can’t ignore, splattering the walls and getting on his shoes.
Andrew chose surgery almost entirely for the distance of it, the sterility of a room with a slab of meat, a tray of knives, and a sickness he can actually cut out.
He’s a doctor because he can be, and patients sometimes like that he doesn’t speak a word to them, like silence equals genius.
He likes that there are some patients that come into the ER unconscious and leave the OR unconscious, and all he has is a problem and a ticking clock. He always solves the problem. He thinks maybe it’s because he is one.
The sinking ship of his Sunday in the emergency room goes from slippery to debilitating with one patient.
Two showy ER doctors with their lab coats off and their sleeves rolled up go into the private room they’ve cordoned off, and they both come out looking pinched in the face with their stethoscopes clenched in their fists.
“He’s a fucking disaster,” one of them says, leaning up against the information desk with his eyes still pulling back to the closed door of the room.
“I know. I thought, I dunno. That the news was exaggerating.”
Andrew tilts his head and listens without making any move to leave his post, filling out inane charts as illegibly as he can.
One of the residents chances a look at him and Andrew makes a point of catching him. The guy startles, then juts his chin.
“Maybe you’ll get along with him, Minyard. He’s as crazy as you.”
“You’ve mistaken the hospital for a playground,” Andrew says mildly. “Give me his chart.”
He looks at his friend, mouth slack, and then the one holding the chart holds it out like a dirty rag.
“He’s Boston’s starting striker,” he stage whispers. Andrew takes the clipboard and ignores him, scanning the details. “We’re not supposed to let any patients know.”
“That Neil Josten is causing a scene ten feet away from them?” he says, and the men titter uncomfortably. “Why should he get the luxury of privacy?”
“The news is available to everyone, Bryant, you fuck.” He rounds the desk and makes for the closed and shuttered room, dropping the chart in the receptacle outside.
“He shouldn’t be allowed to practice,” someone says behind him, and then someone else, softer, scornful: “surgeons”.
Andrew wrings the door knob and finds himself abruptly face to face with the singular most swollen person he’s ever seen. He’s obviously bolting for it, his gown gaping at the neck and someone’s stolen shoes jammed on. Andrew scans the defiant face, the shock of red hair, the near invisible trail of blood from an incorrectly removed IV.
Andrew watches Neil Josten— and it is him, one of the handful of strikers on Boston’s team and certainly the most newsworthy — size him up. His eyes run the same circuit Andrew’s would if he were looking to fight his way out: door, threat, surreptitiously behind him for a weapon, back again.
“I’ll drug you,” Andrew says simply. Neil’s good eye, the one that isn’t purpling, goes narrow.
“Are you allowed to say that?”
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