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"-So hungry, thirsty, I'm tired, I'm cold, my arm just fell asleep."
“Carter. Stop being a baby.” Benton could tell that Carter was on edge and anxious. He rambled when he was getting anxious. And if he was getting anxious that meant Carter was scared.
"Plus, I feel like I'm hanging out of this thing. Could someone cover up my crotch, please?"
Benton was about to say Carter's name again like an exhausted parent, but he spotted Dr Kurtag through the glass door. "He's here."
Kurtag stopped and stared at him. "We have a visitor," He said as if Benton was gum stuck to his shoe. "I don't remember being asked if Dr Benton could scrub in for this."
"I'm a friend of the patient. He asked if I would observe."
"Uh-huh. Put him under. Let's do this."
"Whoa, whoa. What about the checklist?" Benton didn't like this man, and he liked his attitude even less.
"Excuse me?"
"Safe surgery checklist?" Benton pulled the little booklet out of his pocket.
"I've had ten cases today, Doctor."
"All the more reason to take the necessary precautions." In all actuality, it would be most likely fine to forgo the checklist. It didn't mean that they shouldn't. Also, he hoped that Carter would get a kick out of him annoying Kurtag.
Also, he hoped he could make Carter feel more at ease than any of the so called doctors on the transplant team had done.
"It'll only take a minute."
"One minute."
Alright.
“John Carter here for a right cadaveric renal allograft.”
“Correct,” Carter winked at him.
“Does the patient have a known allergy?”
“No,” Carter was starting to smile now.
“Does anaesthesia anticipate a difficult airway?”
“No,” A nurse replied.
“Is the risk of bleeding greater than five hundred CCs?”
“I sure as hell hope not, let’s go, put him under,” Kurtag was eager to get on with it. Too eager for Benton’s taste. And too eager to get it over and done with as quickly as possible because he’s ‘had a long day’.
“Oh, whoa whoa whoa, everybody down. Now let’s just take that time and introduce the room.”
“What’s next? We all hold hands and sing Kumbaya?”
Benton watched as Carter’s head dozed to the side, trying to hide his smile as he faded out of consciousness.
“Shelia Lane: scrub nurse.” One of the women answered.
“Paula Cheney: circulating nurse.” Another one.
And they kept going. Introducing themselves as Kurtag looked on annoyed and surprised. It wasn’t surprising to Benton that the nurses cared more about doing this right and carefully than Kurtag did.
Alright so maybe also the asking them to introducing themselves was also because he was still angry that not a single doctor or surgeon had introduced themselves to Carter yet. Every single one had been so goddamn rude.
-----
He had to be there when Carter woke up. He had to be there because someone had to. Carter didn’t deserve to have no one by his side.
And he wanted too.
He was buried in a book when he heard the spluttering and saw Carter’s head move out of the corner of his eye.
Immediately he was jumping to lean forward and pass Carter the button that allowed him to increase his fentanyl. He knew Carter was worried about taking it, he knew Carter didn’t want to risk getting addicted again. But he was going to push the damn button himself if Carter didn’t because there was no way he was letting Carter not have any pain relief right now.
But… Carter didn’t. He didn’t push it. And he clasped it in both hands, hiding it away from Benton’s view.
He knew he looked puzzled, but Carter just smiled at him.
“You’re still here?"
He said it with such awe in his voice that it made Benton's chest tight. But also he heard in those words a small hint of knowing, as if Carter had known he would be here, that he would stay.
When did Carter get to clever?
Not that he wasn't always clever. If he hadn't had been then Benton would have kicked him out of the hospital the first day he'd met him. But he'd seen the potential now.
No, what Carter now was, was wise.
It was a strange look on him, but Benton supposed that Carter had lived another good chunk of his life while they'd been apart. Despite that baby face that showed no sign of aging, Carter had clearly gone through even more troubles than the last time they'd seen other.
It had been two years since then, and god if Benton didn't think about him all the damn time. That infuriating insolence and that infuriating smile.
"I didn't want to miss all the fun," He felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He wanted to hide it. If he were two years younger he would have hidden it. Apparently two years away from so many things and watching Reese grow, had made it easier for him to show emotions. Reese often teased him about that.
Two years had felt like such a long time, and all it had done was made his regrets sink in deeper. He thought about Lucy, he thought about Gant...
He thought about Carter all the time.
He watched as Carter furrowed his brows and his forehead wrinkled up in little lines. "What about Reese?"
Of course, even when he just wakes up from surgery, Carter can't let him enjoy something. Instead he has to worry that Benton has better things to do with his time.
"He's staying with Roger."
"Oh, you two haven't killed each other yet?" The smiled Carter cracked was see-through.
"Not yet, no."
Carter rolled his head back across the pillow and stared at the ceiling. It didn't feel right for it to be so quiet.
"So," Carter's voice was quiet. "How did it go?"
Benton put on a fake sigh as he reached down for the bag attached to Carter's catheter. "Well..."
"Oh, that is a beautiful sight."
"Eight hundred CCs of liquid gold."
Carter smiled and shook his head against the pillow. He looked as though he wanted to say something, something that had been on his mind or was important, or both.
"Did you...? I uh... You know there was this one person that I liked, that I still like... Nothing ever happened, I didn't even ever tell them I liked them that way, and I was pretty definitely sure they wouldn't like me that way..."
Benton didn't know where this was going. He didn't want to think about where this could be going because he wasn't sure he was ready for it. He didn't miss how Carter wasn't describing this person as 'she'. He couldn't think of a reason why Carter would use 'they' unless he was talking about a man. And why would he be telling Benton this anyway? Unless... unless either he was going to tell him that he'd actually gotten with someone, or... or Benton knew who Carter was talking about.
"And it's been like, a while since I've even... I wasn't even sure if he'd- they'd remember me, or care, and I... I'm sorry I'm rambling... But..." Carter finally turned his head and looked at him again and there were too many emotions swirling around in his eyes.
"You know... You have to know... Oh god I might be more embarrassed if you didn't notice."
"I think at one point Jerry had bets on whether you would 'confess your feelings' at me. I... I didn't know how seriously to take it, but you had a crush on me. That's... alright."
"It's 'alright'?" Carter blinked at him.
What else was he supposed to say? Carter wore his heart on his sleeve so yes Benton had been aware of Carter's crush on him, but Carter was his student at the time. He wasn't going to cross that line. And then... life just kept happening.
That sounded like a pathetic excuse. He supposed it was.
But life was still happening now, wasn't it? And yet here he was. He'd seen Carter's name and he'd come up and he'd stayed. No hesitation. No questions asked. He'd just everything to be there for Carter... How many people did he have left in his life that he'd do the same for? The number wouldn't even fill one hand.
"I suppose our timing just never aligned."
"Well, and I don't know a time where you were single for more than two seconds."
"And did you ever wonder why I got in so many relationships? Didn't think maybe I was waiting for someone else to make a move? And I wasn't the only one in relationships..." Carter's voice trailed off as he sluggishly moved his arm out of the bed, draped it across the railing, and reached out to him.
"Carter..." Benton's voice was warning in tone. How many times had he said Carter's voice that way over the years? He'd long since lost count. "Carter..." He said again, with no plans of what to say next.
"You know, this is extremely unfair. I totally wanted to pull the whole kissing you instead of having to actually say my feelings out loud to you so I don't die of embarrassment but I can't actually sit up so..."
It took Benton a few seconds to fully process everything that was happening and everything that Carter had been saying. Sure he'd been talking back, but talking back to Carter was just an instinct.
"Are you... Are you asking me to kiss you?"
Carter flushed instantly, pale face finally gaining some colour. "That, I, well... I mean... Yeah? Yeah. If you wanted to... Because I... If it wasn't clear from me still liking you, it was more than just me having a crush on you because you were essentially my teacher in a way and I wanted your approval, not that I still don't want you're approval, god I really wish I hadn't said that bit out loud and I really wish you would decide to either kiss me or leave because this is getting really embarrassing now-"
Benton hadn't even realised he was moving, that he had moved. He only realised something must have happened because Carter was no longer talking.
And then his brain started to catch up with his body and register that he was stood and bent over Carter's bed. That he had his hands pressed down against the pillow. That he had his lips against Carter's.
Perhaps he was too old now to go on pretending as though he hadn't been flattered by Carter's crush, but he'd assumed that was all it was. He'd seen how Carter breezed through relationships, though not without being heartbroken each time. Carter seemed to have the knack for getting people interested, but they never seemed to stay.
He'd always stayed hadn't he?
He'd gone and called Roger and asked him if he could take Reese for a few days hadn't he?
And 'a few days' at that. As though he knew he would be coming back to see Carter.
Carter let out a noise, some soft little noise and Benton felt himself press down a little harder and Carter's lips parted and they were soft and-
And Benton pulled back.
Carter's face was even more flushed now and his pupils were completely blown, black eclipsing brown.
"Was placing my bets on you heading out the door." Carter spoke, voice almost a whisper as if he was worried this moment, this closeness could blow away with the wind. "Are you... That wasn't out of pity, was it?"
"Oh god, Carter." Benton sunk back into the chair. "I... I didn't know I was going to do that. No, don't turn away." Carter was already pulling back and shutting down and he could feel his surgery voice coming out. "It wasn't out of pity, let me make that very clear."
"What was it out of then?" Carter's eyes darted around the room.
"I don't know, John, why do people normally kiss each other?"
That got Carter's eyes right on him. He didn't even know why he'd said Carter's first name. It had just felt... right. Was that the first time he'd ever called Carter by his first name?
He wasn't caught up in that thought for long, as the smile on Carter's face had him looking the healthiest he'd seen him.
"So what do we...? I mean... I want to... I don't want to waste any more time not being with you. Is that like... stupidly cheesy to say?"
"Yes. It is," Benton could feel himself smiling and he didn't care because Carter was smiling too. "But I get it. Reese is staying with Roger for a few days so I can..."
"You wanna come visit tomorrow?"
"I was going to say that I can stay here as long as you want, but sure. That too."
"Oh," Carter blinked, as if his brain couldn't compute what Benton had said. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yeah," Carter laughed and tried not to cough. "Yeah, that would be... That would be a hell of a lot more than okay."