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There was no need to still be here. This wasn’t even close to the highest number of times he’d been stabbed. And, this time wasn’t even with a real knife—it was with two-thirds of an inch, if that, of box cutter. No major organ involvement, he didn’t need any surgery, he should just be allowed to go home.
Oh but you’re on too much medication to drive yourself, Detective Reed, someone needs to come get you. You’ve lost too much blood to stand upright, Detective Reed. You need to be observed for at least six hours, Detective Reed.
Well, fuck all of that, all of it , he could take a cab. Emergency rooms were the worst places on the fucking planet. Nothing good ever happened in an ER. People died in the ER, and he wasn’t goddamn dying, not today. He needed to leave before—
Across the room, at the nurse’s station, a commotion. Gavin leaned to the left— listed to the left, more like—to peek around the edge of the curtain.
Before that. Connor was here, speaking to the charge nurse. Even at this distance, too far to actually hear over the din of the ER, Gavin could still imagine what the android sounded like. Polite but firm, intense and commanding and probably, like, super sexy if he wasn’t about to go off on Gavin for being an idiot.
Please don’t send him over here, Gavin silently begged. But also, please send him over here, he’s so hot when he’s kind of pissed—
Jesus, they really did have him on a shitload of drugs, didn’t they?
Sure enough the nurse turned and pointed straight at Gavin’s curtain. He immediately listed in the other direction, which pulled uncomfortably at the stitches in his side when he was unable to stop himself from slumping against the railing. Quickly—slowly—he balanced his chin in his hand and smiled casually. Drunkenly.
The curtain swept open with a hiss. Connor stood there, tall and angry and just, so ungodly attractive with the way his brows drew down over his flinty dark eyes, and the way that one lock of hair flopped over his forehead, and the way he squared his lithe shoulders. He was so—angular.
“What’s a hospital like you doing....in an android like this?” Gavin said, around what felt like a mouthful of cotton.
“Who did this to you?” Connor demanded, whipping the curtain shut behind him and striding to the bed. He sat gently at the edge of the bed, obviously scanning Gavin’s vitals.
“Iforn..” Gavin said, and frowned. “Infroma... snitch. My contact in the ah... the thing, the fuckin’—“
Gavin snapped his fingers, and waved his hand in a little circle. “You know, where I had a contact, in uh...”
Connor’s eyes flicked to Gavin’s hand, then back to his face. “...The red ice dealer? Your informant in the trafficking case?”
“Yeah!” Gavin said brightly, patting a hand on Connor’s arm. “That guy! He fuckin’ stabbed the shit out of me. What a dick, right?”
“Right,” Connor said, slowly. “I told you not to go alone.”
“It was just a quick information call, no big deal, man,” Gavin said, shaking his head. “I do this all the time. What was the worst that could happen?”
“You got stabbed!”
“Barely,” Gavin scoffed. “Like two and a half times.”
“Two and a—What was the half? How do you get half stabbed, Gavin?”
The detective pushed down the thin hospital blanket, and tugged up the edge of the even thinner hospital gown. Blood was just beginning to seep through the white gauze taped along his ribs. “Two in the chest, dodged the third like a fuckin’ pro.”
“That’s not a half-stab, that’s just a slash.”
“You say tomato, I say half-stab,” Gavin giggled. And continued to giggle, which made Connor scowl more, which made Gavin giggle harder.
“I’m glad you can find the humor in all this,” Connor said tightly. “You could have died.”
“You’re so—god you’re real cute when you’re mad, you know?” Gavin said dreamily, leaning forward, continuing to lean forward, unable to stop himself from falling face-first into Connor’s chest.
“Well, I hope you’re prepared to see me at my most attractive yet,” Connor said, gently taking Gavin by the shoulders and settling him back in the bed. “Because I am—I’m so—I’m fucking livid, you absolute fucking dumbass!”
Gavin’s giggle fit abruptly stopped. “Uh oh,” he said, and then pitched his voice to a whisper, “ you said the f word.”
“You never go on these things alone,” Connor continued, ignoring Gavin’s interjection. “How long have you been a detective? You know this, why didn’t you let me come with you?”
Walking his fingers up Connor’s arm, Gavin tapped the android’s LED and murmured, boop. “Android would have spooked him.”
“Apparently so did a human. But why not take Tina then? Or Chris? Or Hank, even. Someone!” Exasperated, Connor caught Gavin’s wrist and carefully pulled it away from his face. It was dawning on him that now, under the influence of some dramatic amount of drugs, was not the time to attempt this conversation. “What do they have you on, anyway?”
“I don’t know, but it’s phckin’ great,” Gavin said, sighing contentedly. His eyelids were beginning to feel extremely heavy.
Leaning backwards, Connor plucked the chart from the end of the bed. Flipping through it, he found the information he wanted. “Demerol,” he murmured, half to himself. “A lot of it, wow.”
“Yeah, it takes a lot to slow down this slab of all-American beef,” Gavin said, flexing his not-insubstantial pectoral muscles through the flimsy gown. Despite the copious amount of narcotics in his system, pain still lanced through his chest with the motion. “Ow.”
“I can’t believe you continue to be this stupid.”
“Aw, babe,” Gavin said, shrugging. “You married me, so who’s really the stupid one?”
“It’s still you,” Connor replied flatly. “You’re the idiot.”
Gavin clumsily, after two attempts, laced his fingers through Connor’s. “Your idiot, though.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Connor said softly, bringing his husband’s fingers to his lips and pressing a little kiss there. He smiled against Gavin’s knuckles. “You’re my idiot.”