SNAKEBIT
by ardavenport
- - - Part 1
"Does this hurt at all?" Dr. Brackett's hands pressed firmly down on Johnny's bare abdomen, the hospital gown pulled up, the bed sheet covering the rest of him.
It didn't. "Nope."
He moved his hands to the right, pressing down again.
"Here?"
"Nope."
Moved to the left.
"Here?"
"Nope."
"All right." Brackett straightened and freed the ends of this stethoscope from the collar of his white lab coat. "Sit up."
"Sure." Johnny sat up, pulling the white gown down, scooting forward on the hospital bed and trying to look as healthy as possible. This was it. Roy and Chet were waiting outside while Brackett examined him and if the doc cleared him to be discharged he could probably get a ride home with Roy. His leg still hurt, but it wasn't too bad. Brackett had said it would probably hurt for a few days and didn't recommend anything more than aspirin for it.
He tensed from the round flat end of the stethoscope on his bare back under the opening of the hospital gown. Brackett's hands were cold, too.
"Breath deep."
Big inhale. Brackett moved his stethoscope to the right.
"Again."
Big inhale. The stethoscope and Brackett's cold fingers moved down.
"Again."
He filled his lungs. Brackett laid his hand on his shoulder as he leaned down to listen. His lab coat rustled as he stood again.
"Sounds good. Nurse can you hand me the BP cuff?"
She passed it to him behind Johnny's back.
"So, uh, when can I get out of here, Doc?"
Brackett wrapped the cuff around his upper arm. "Well, you've responded pretty well to the antivenom treatment and your chest sounds clear." He pumped up the BP cuff. Johnny felt the vein in his arm throbbing under the stethoscope as the pressure hissed down.
Brackett took the ear pieces out and looked around him to the nurse. "Ninety over sixty." She wrote it down on the chart she held.
Uh, oh. Bracket was already shaking his head.
"You're blood pressure's not back up again. I can't recommend releasing you just yet."
Johnny's shoulder's dropped, disappointed; he wasn't going to go against Brackett's advice. But . . . . he frowned. "Well, maybe you read it wrong."
Brackett just gave him a look and he hastily back-tracked. "I mean, of course you wouldn't get the BP wrong. I mean, that's really simple." Brackett remained unsmiling and Johnny talked a little faster. "I mean, who can mess up a BP? I just thought maybe . . . it might look a little different if you read it again. Maybe?"
Brackett finally showed him a little mercy smile. "Let's just see how your blood tests looks when we get them back from the lab. We can try it again."
Johnny warily nodded and managed a half-smile. That was fair. Maybe he could still get out in the afternoon.
"Okay."
((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO))
Waiting, Chet hunched his shoulders and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Back to the wall next to Roy, he looked up and down the hospital corridor. Doors and windows at the end of the hall. There were nurses in white, by the nurse's station. He spotted the one with the tray who was in Johnny's room when they first came in. Young and pretty. There were a couple others like that, among the matronly older nurses. Johnny would be angling to get their attention
Chet felt depressed.
He had sworn that this was it. He was giving up on John Gage. They guy just liked girls. He wasn't faking, he wasn't passing, he wasn't bisexual. He only wanted to date girls. He was lousy at it. But all he wanted was girls.
The camping trip was his last shot. He had been surprised to be invited to go with Johnny and Roy; he didn't know anything about fishing (and apparently Johnny didn't either, based on the total lack of fish they caught), but it was his last chance. He never would have considered going if Roy hadn't been there, otherwise he might have been stupid enough to just actually say something.
From the first day they'd started working on the same shift at Station Fifty-One, Chet Kelly thought that John Gage was one of the most beautiful men he'd even seen. Perfectly proportioned, tall and lean, slender body, long legs, thick dark hair and chocolate brown eyes. They seemed to have some interests in common, and Chet couldn't help but hope that might include the same gender preference. Chet went on double dates with girls with Johnny, but he did that anyway, just for cover. You wouldn't last long in a fire house if anyone even suspected that you didn't like girls. Chet had learned from the best about passing when he was in Army.
After a year of dropping subtle hints and pulling gags on him, Chet had to accept that Johnny really did like girls. He wasn't faking. For the next year he held onto the slim hope that he might be bisexual and that he could go either way. But even that possibility faded as well. Johnny only liked girls. On that three day camping trip, with the three of them getting either soaked in the lake or choked by the campfire smoke, Chet hadn't just dropped hints when Roy wasn't around, he'd dropped anvils, but it all went nowhere. Chet had been in a foul mood on the drive back because Johnny was the fish who got away and would forever be unattainable.
He wasn't really surprised; if he were honest with himself, he'd known that John Gage wasn't interested in guys the first week he'd been at the station. But hope had lingered . . . . the end of that hope hurt far worse than accepting that Johnny only liked girls.
And then they got that run, a bunch of teenagers in a car off a dirt road, down a hill into the brush. That part was easy. But afterward, when they were getting ready to go, Johnny got bit by a rattlesnake. And Roy was on the helicopter on the way to the hospital with the teenagers. Johnny had to treat himself, on the back of the engine. Chet stayed with him.
When they finally got down out of the hills, Johnny passed out. Still ten minutes away from Rampart.
"Gage! Gage! Come on, pal, stay with me!" Hands pressed to Johnny's cheeks, he shouted. Johnny eyes opened a crack before he went limp. "He's out, Cap!"
Looking over his shoulder, he saw Captain Stanley relaying the information to the hospital, but Chet couldn't hear anything over the siren and traffic.
He snatched up the IV bag, which was sliding off Gage's chest. Chet left all the first aid stuff to Roy and Johnny, but he knew that the bag had to be held up or the blood could flow out through the tube and he didn't want to see that. Then looking around, he realized he'd lost the suction tube that he'd been using on the snakebite on Johnny's leg. It must have rolled down into the hose bed.
Still holding up the IV, he caught himself as Mike Stoker made a right turn onto a busy street. The motion pushed him forward and he braced himself with his free hand planted over Johnny's shoulder. Practically nose to nose with him, Chet looked for any reaction and saw none. Nobody could hear him. Especially not Johnny.
"Hey, Gage! You better not die, pal! 'Cause I've been pining for you for three years now! And I guess I'll never have you the way I want, but I sure ain't gonna lose you this way!" He cupped Johnny's face. And then felt for the pulse in his neck. It was there, but Chet couldn't tell a good pulse from a bad one.
He thought he saw Johnny move, but it was just the motion of the engine. He sat back. It looked like they were getting close.
Captain Stanley caught his attention. Chet put his hand to his ear.
"Is. He. All. Right?"
"He's got a pulse, Cap! And he's breathing! But he's still out!"
The engine slowed, turned. Chet saw the tall building of Rampart General Hospital up ahead.
"Oh, Roy, Chet."
Chet startled. Doctor Brackett emerged from Johnny's room. The nurse came out behind him and hurried down the hall with a chart clutched to her.
Roy pushed himself off the wall. "Well, what's the verdict, Doc? Can he go home?"
Brackett shook his head. "I'm afraid not. His BP's still low and I haven't seen the last blood work from the lab yet. I can't let him out until I'm sure any venom still in his system is neutralized."
"Oh." Roy glanced toward Chet. "Well, he'll be sorry to hear that."
Brackett slapped Roy's shoulder. "Hey, he looks good otherwise, I'm sure he'll be out of here tomorrow."
"Yeah, thanks, Doc."
Brackett left.
Roy sighed. "Well, that complicates things. I'm going to be out with Joanne all day tomorrow."
"What complication?" Chet shrugged. "I'm not doing anything tomorrow. I can pick him up."
Roy grinned. "Y'know Chet, if you keep acting like this, people are going to start thinking that you actually like Johnny."
Chet scoffed. "You keep talking like that, Roy, people are going to start thinking you're crazy." But Roy kept grinning.
They went back into Johnny's room.
((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO))
"Now, just where do you think you're going?"
Nancy Bloom looked up from the chart she was filling out. Debra Harmin, head nurse on their floor, stood over a patient, her hands on her hips.
"Uuuuuh, I was just going to get some coffee." Looking a little fearful, he backed his wheelchair up a pace.
Nancy mentally identified him. Mr. Gage, 209, rattlesnake bite. Marylou and Katy had complained about him being too friendly and asking to go out with them, but thankfully he wasn't grabby (unlike old Mr. Zambini in 241). Katy already had a boyfriend and Marylou thought he was a jerk. Mrs. Harmin had ordered him to use the wheelchair if he left his room because his blood pressure was low and the rattlesnake had bitten him in the leg.
"No more coffee for you." Harmin stood between him and the coffee behind the counter at the nurse's station. "You got all you're getting at lunch. And patients are not allowed back here. Now move it!"
He looked like he wanted to argue, but he turned the wheelchair away and went back down the hallway. Slowly.
Nancy went back to the chart. She could see it in his eyes; he was going to be back. He was just going to wait until Mrs. Harmin wasn't there.
She finished the chart and started the next for another new patient. She had neat handwriting and was pretty good at deciphering the doctors' notes. Did doctors learn hieroglyphics in medical school?
She was new on this floor, less than two weeks, and a student nurse. Mrs Harmin said she liked her work and would give her more interesting things to do than charts and bed pans and changing sheets. Mary hoped that would be soon. The others moved on to their different tasks on the floor. Nancy finished the charts and started sorting through the stack of test result pages that had come up from downstairs.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy saw Mr. Gage's wheelchair, creeping back, hugging the wall. He was still hoping to raid the coffee pot.
Nancy didn't even drink coffee. It gave people bad breath. And rules were rules; patients didn't belong in the nurses' station. And she was not going to risk a reprimand from Mrs. Harmin; that could hurt a lot on her student record. But she kept sorting the pages, covertly watching him, perversely wondering how far he would go.
When he got to end of the wall and peered around the corner toward his objective, she put the pages down and looked at him.
He startled.
How could he think I didn't see him?
He smiled nervously. "Uuuhhh, hi." He must have had visitors; he wore pale wearing pajamas and a faded blue robe.
"Hi." He did have a nice smile. "Can I help you?" Up close, Nancy could see that he had great hair. Nice and thick, a little long, but not down his neck and so dark brown it was almost black. And he had dark brown eyes. Very nice. And he was about Nancy's age.
"Oh, well, I was just wondering what a guy had to do to get a cup of coffee around here?"
Nancy glanced back toward the coffee on the counter by the far wall, under the calendar and wall clock and she wondered what a cup of coffee was worth. She'd seen his chart; he'd probably be let out the next day.
"Well, I don't know. It might depend on if you want to have dinner with me sometime."
His eyes widened in undisguised horror and Nancy grit her teeth in disgust. Bitter experience had taught her that if she wanted to meet or go out with anyone she had to be forward about it and stomach the risk of rejection. She hated it when it happened, but she hated the guys who did it more. Heaven forbid that any of them could ever go out with a Fat Girl.
Mr. Gage backed up the wheelchair. "Uh, well, I don't really need coffee right now. I'll, just. . . uh, go back to my room." He quickly turned the wheelchair around and pushed himself back down the hall. He practically made skid marks.
Supposing that it was just as well that she wasn't going to be risking getting into trouble with Mrs. Harmin, Nancy went back to the sorted stack of test results.
No coffee for you, Jerk.
- - - END Part 1