Work Text:
Josh’s pager goes off as he’s finishing up his paperwork for the day.
Halfway through signing one of the post-surgery documents, it beeps, and it’s only years of keeping his cool while holding a scalpel in people’s brains that keep his hand from jerking on instinct.
He checks the pager to see that it’s from one of the neuro interns.
And with Wolf’s neuro department, who knows what they could need him for. In the short time since Oliver Wolf joined the Bronx General staff, Josh’s life has gotten a whole lot wilder. He refuses to think of it as more interesting or exciting.
In the same motion as he stands, he pulls his white coat from the back of his chair and pulls it on, before pushing away from his desk and going for the door.
The distance between his office and Wolf’s is short, and the hospital is quiet enough at this time of night that there’s no one to get in his way or slow him down, so by the time he reaches neuro, it’s only a matter of minutes since he was paged.
Already, he can hear raised voices and clattering, like someone is moving furniture.
Again: not unusual for Wolf’s neuro department.
Josh pushes the door open with one hand, then crosses his arms and stares at the mess before him.
Every piece of paper and scan on Wolf’s desk has been cast onto the floor, but instead of being thrown, they look they’ve been ordered into haphazard lines. Dr Markus is trying to collect said paper up, but he’s twitching and shaking like he’s on something. If he is, Josh will make sure he never works another day in this hospital.
Over by Wolf’s desk, Dr Nash is holding tissues to his bloodied nose. If Josh had to guess from this distance, he’d say broken. The misshapen cartilage looks nasty, though Dr Nash isn’t on the floor screaming from the pain, so it can’t be too bad.
The second that he locks eyes with Josh, Dr. Nash says, “Aaand I’m out,” grabs a bag from Wolf’s chair, slings it across his body, and makes a beeline for the door.
Josh doesn’t bother blocking him – he’s a respected surgeon, not a babysitter – so Dr. Nash slips out with a muttered, “Good luck,” and Josh turns his attention to the final two interns.
Dr. Kinney is crouched on the ground; Dr. Dang is stood, worrying at the strings of her hoodie.
And between them is Dr. Wolf himself, currently writing frantically on the wall of his office in black sharpie while muttering a stream of nonsensical words.
All three remaining interns had looked up when Dr. Nash left, with varying degrees of annoyance, but when Dr. Kinney sees Josh, she bursts to her feet, hurrying over to him. “Dr. Nichols, thank goodness.”
He looks down at her. “You’re the one who paged me?”
“Yes, sir.” Dr. Kinney glances back over her shoulder, to Wolf, who seems to have not at all noticed her absence. She winces. “It’s, um. It’s kind of a long story.”
Dr. Dang and Dr. Markus both start talking at once.
“There was this patient—”
“—he wasn’t well—”
“—high as a kite—”
“—bitten—”
“—then the needles somehow got switched—”
“—and Wolf needs your help,” Dr. Kinney finishes, somehow nodding along like she followed any of that.
“I don’t even want to know what happened,” Josh tells them all, shaking his head. Then, Kinney’s words register. “Hold on.” He puts a hand up. “My help?”
“You drive to work, right?” Dr. Markus says. It’s not a question.
“We’re all poor little interns,” Dr. Dang adds in. “The subway’s our highway.”
Dr. Kinney looks up at him with an earnest expression. “None of us can get him home, but you have a car, so you could drop him off. It’s probably not even that far out of your way.”
“Help us, Nichols-Wan, you’re our only hope.”
Josh grimaces at the butchered reference, then again when Wolf pauses in his scribbling to frown up at Dang.
“Who is Nichols-Wan?” he asks. The words sound strange coming out of his mouth, like they don’t fit right.
Dang pinches the bridge of her nose and says, “Jesus Christ.”
“Oh!” Wolf lights up. “I know who he is.”
Josh eyes the man. This isn’t like the time that Wolf was on MDMA-slash-PCP, which was for the sake of his patient, as he’d later explained. There’s something different about him. Dulled, perhaps, would be a good way to describe it.
Never would Josh admit that Wolf is a genius, but there’s always been a sharp intelligence evident in his every breath. And yet now, in this moment, it’s gone.
“What,” Josh says, “is he on?”
Dr. Markus makes a distraught noise.
Dr. Dang says, “No fucking clue.”
Dr. Kinney says, “It should wear off by the morning. For our patient, he was mostly sober within a few hours.”
Wolf sighs, flopping back against the scribblings on his office wall. The movement is entirely boneless.
Josh goes for his last resort: “And Carol—Dr. Pierce?”
“Not on call,” Dr. Kinney reports.
Josh does not scream. He would be fully entitled to it, though. “I,” he says, picking his words carefully, “am not Wolf’s minder. And I cannot be expected to cart him home when he accidentally gets high at work.” He remembers the MDMA-PCP incident. “Gets high at work again.”
Dr. Kinney’s eyes widen. “We can’t just leave him here, Dr. Nichols.”
When Josh was an intern – hell, when he was a cadet, too – he would have stayed the entire night before bothering his superior with such a request. This world isn’t the one he grew up in, though. Most of the time, he’s glad for it; in this moment, not so much.
“Fine.”
Dr. Dang shouts, “Hallelujah!” with far too much enthusiasm.
Dr. Markus’ entire body sags in relief.
And Dr. Kinney smiles up at him and says, “Thank you, sir.”
The three of them are gone within minutes, hurriedly packing up and clearing out like they expect Josh to change his mind at any moment.
Then, finally, it’s just Josh and Wolf remaining.
Wolf, slumped in a way that Josh would think flirtatious if his pupils weren’t so unfocused, blinks up at Josh through his long eyelashes. “Sir,” he says, echoing his intern.
Sudden heat floods Josh’ bones, and he stiffens. “You’re high again,” he tells Wolf, marching over to him. “No matter how it happened, you continue to set a terrible example to your interns.”
“Mmm,” Wolf says.
Josh stops and drops to a squat in front of Wolf. This close, Wolf’s eyes look very, very brown, and his hair very, very soft. Josh wants to run his fingers through it. Tug, and see how Wolf reacts.
He says, “If word gets out that the head, and only member, of our neurology department regularly consumes illicit substances while on the job, no self-respecting person will ever set foot here again.”
Wolf hums again.
Josh isn’t sure whether to take it as agreement or not; he doesn’t even know if Wolf is listening or understanding a word of what’s being said. Either way, this is a professional environment and professional relationship. One of them (Wolf) has his faculties impaired, so it’s up to the other (Josh) so maintain said professionalism. “Are you able to stand?”
All that question gets him is a full-body shrug.
“Can you feel your legs?” Josh rephrases.
Wolf’s mouth twists as he seems to think about it, and then the man nods decisively.
“Okay.” Josh holds out a hand to him. “You need to let me help you.”
Only—when Wolf clasps his hand, and Josh reaches up to get a better handle on his arms, he finds not soft fleshy skin, but hard muscle. Defined muscle. The kind of muscle someone has to work to get.
Wolf makes a little breathy noise as Josh lifts him to his feet, and once he’s standing, he wobbles for a moment, before leaning back against the wall. He rests his head against, eyes sliding shut, and licks his lips.
Josh absolutely does not follow the motion with his eyes. He does not.
That would be taking advantage of a drugged man. And Josh does not behave like that. This situation is not attractive in any way. It cannot be.
The way that Wolf is studying him – dazed, yet with intent – has Josh’s face heating, so he keeps his head down as he asks, “Where do you want me to take you?”
“Your eyes,” Wolf says. “They’re blue.”
“Your powers of observation astound me,” Josh retorts. “Where do you want me to take you?”
“Blue,” Wolf says again, drawing out the sound of it. “‘Of a color of the spectrum intermediate between green and violet, as of the sky or deep sea on a clear day’.”
Josh is reminded of the time he’d been swept away by a river as a young child. He doesn’t remember much – not like his mother, who’d talked about it for years afterwards – but the feeling of sinking beneath the water, of the instinctual knowledge that he was in too deep, has stuck with him. “…Right.”
He takes Wolf by the shoulders, trying to force the man to look at him.
Wolf is pliable and easy, happily following the motion.
Josh’s throat is very dry. He refuses to swallow; that would be conceding.
“Wolf,” he says. “What’s your address?”
Nothing.
“Where. Do. You. Live.”
Wolf smiles sweetly at him like he doesn’t have a care in the world. This isn’t the brilliant doctor that Josh has been gradually warming to; this is someone else entirely. “Four hundred and forty-five to five hundred nanometers.”
Josh frowns. “What?”
“Hmm?”
“What is that?”
Blinking, Wolf asks, “What is what?”
“Four hundred and forty-five to five hundred nanometers.”
“Ah.” Wolf somehow goes even looser in Josh’s grip; if Josh wasn’t holding onto him, he’s pretty sure that Wolf would be sliding back down to the floor by now. “That’s blue. Like you.” And with that, he starts giggling.
Josh gives up. “Okay. Fine.”
He lets go of Wolf, and sure enough, the man collapses back to the ground.
As Josh moves over to Wolf’s desk, trying to find anything that would give any indication of where he’s actually supposed to take Wolf home to, Wolf starts talking. If it’s to himself or the room at large, Josh has no idea.
“Royal, navy, Prussian, azure, sapphire…”
The top of Wolf’s desk is still bare, presumably from an earlier moment of drug-fueled mania, and there’s no cell visible, but when Josh checks the drawers, he finds what he’s looking for in the second one down: an address book.
“…cornflower, baby, electric, steel, turquoise…”
Flipping through the pages, it’s full of Wolf’s scrawling writing. It must be old, because there’s a dozen different pen colors and types used; half the addresses are crossed out or written over, presumably as people moved. The whole thing is fuller than Josh would have expected of Wolf, every section packed to bursting with names. Only when Josh recognizes one name – Hanna Peters, the mother he sentenced to a life with Capgras – does he realize: these are probably patients. Wolf is just the kind of doctor to keep track of everyone he’s ever helped.
Josh has never done that. When a patient leaves his operating theatre alive and well, his job is finished. From there, their care is up to someone else.
He chances a glance over at Wolf, who is counting out shades of blue on his fingers.
The way that Wolf truly and genuinely cares about every single person he treats is remarkable.
When Wolf catches Josh looking, he brightens, breaking off his recital of colors to ask, brightly and without guile, “Are you taking me home?”
Josh bites out, “No,” reflexively, remembers that that’s not true, says, “Yes, I am,” before grimacing and adding, “Not—not in the way that you think.”
Wolf’s face falls almost comically. “Not like Dustin from abs?”
There is no world in which Josh wants to have that conversation right now. “Go back to waxing poetic about my eyes.” He doesn’t wait for Wolf’s response before turning away and burying his face in the address book.
Finally, he reaches the ‘W’s.
Skimming past obviously unrelated names, Josh finally stops on a ‘Wolf’.
Noah Wolf.
Josh doesn’t know who that is, other than that they’re presumably a relation of Wolf’s. Brother or father, perhaps. Either way, the address is scratched out. Nothing else has been written in its place.
Right below it is a messily written out address for one ‘Oliver Wolf’.
Why Wolf has his own address in his address book, Josh doesn’t know, but in this moment, it works to his advantage.
He pulls out his phone and quickly types it into Google maps. The route comes up, a neat blue line showing the way across the city.
It’s not too far from where Josh lives. Hopefully he’ll get home before eleven; he has an early morning spin class booked for tomorrow.
He chances a second look across the room.
Wolf has found his reading glasses in his pocket, and is experimenting with the magnification, holding them at different distances from his face and laughing to himself at whatever it is that he sees.
Josh mentally revises his plans. Home by midnight sounds like a best-case scenario.
Hauling Wolf to his feet again is an ordeal that ends with Wolf fully slouched against Josh, their bodies pressed together from the shoulder down to the knee. Wolf’s skin burns against Josh’s, and it crashes into and mixes with the heat in his gut, making Josh’s whole body feel like it’s on fire.
Electricity tingles down his spine and through his every nerve ending.
Josh is a professional. An adult. A soldier. Better than this.
He grits his teeth and pushes past it.
He slings one of Wolf’s arms over his shoulders, tucks his own around Wolf’s waist – perhaps a few inches higher than it needs to be – and leverages Wolf into a position to start walking out of this office.
Each step towards the door is a struggle. Wolf is practically dead weight, and the surprising muscle hidden under his clothes only makes him heavier.
They reach the door, and Josh stares down the length of the corridor with a sense of great trepidation.
“How about cobalt?”
At some point, Wolf has leant in very close, pressing his cheek into the crook of Josh’s neck. The exhale of the words whispers along the sensitive skin of Josh’s collarbone.
This time, he can’t hold back the shiver.
The last time someone touched him like this was… Well, it was too long ago. Casual hookups are usually with men who want him to push them around; not the kind interested in anything more than sex. And that works out for Josh, who doesn’t want emotional intimacy with those men anyway.
It just means that he’s not used to the warmth of someone’s breath on the pulse of his carotid artery.
Especially not from a man as infuriating and handsome as Oliver Wolf.
“Cooo-balt,” Wolf says again, stretching it out strangely with his tongue, and Josh is snapped away from his thoughts and back to the reality of the situation.
He clears his throat awkwardly. “What about cobalt?”
“Your eyes,” Wolf says like this is obvious. “Do you think they’re cobalt?”
“They’re blue, Wolf,” Josh says, brittle.
Wolf hums. That, too, kisses Josh’s skin.
Josh starts them down the corridor with a jerky motion, suddenly desperate to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.
The usually short walk to Josh’s parking space takes an age.
By the time they finally make it to his car, Wolf is murmuring something about a shirt he thinks his neighbor’s cat stole from his washing line.
“Here we go.” Josh manages to extract his keys from his pocket, clicks them, and the vehicle mercifully unlocks. He maneuvers around to get the passenger door open, then tries to pour Wolf into the seat.
Except, Wolf has very suddenly learnt how to cling.
“Let go of me,” Josh says.
Wolf does not.
“Wolf…” Josh says, full of warning.
Wolf nuzzles his cheek against Josh’s.
The bristly hair of his beard gently scratches Josh’s face. Experience tells Josh if this keep up, he’ll have bright red beard burn to deal with tomorrow morning, which is the last thing he wants to show up to work with. He’s always so careful to maintain his professional image – and how would he even begin to explain that it wasn’t from sex to the gossiping nurses and interns?
And yet he doesn’t want Wolf to stop.
Josh needs Wolf off him right that second.
Before the man can do anything else, anything to distract him even further, Josh employs a clever move he learnt in his military training that has Wolf’s grip disappearing from his arms and chest and sends him sprawling across the passenger seat.
Josh tucks Wolf’s legs into the car then slams the door shut.
And for a blessed, horrible moment, the world is silent.
The night has fully settled in around them, painting the cityscape in darkness. New York can never be dark, though, and that hasn’t changed now; bright lights shine from windows on every side, including the hospital itself. Some days, Josh considers just driving out of the city and into the great unknown of the wilderness where his dad would take him hunting as a kid.
Josh tips his head back and just breathes in the crisp night air for a second.
Then Wolf starts banging his fist against the car window, and Josh wants to scream.
Instead of doing that, he strides around the hood of his car and yanks the driver door open, shoving his head in and snapping, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Wolf’s eyes are absolutely huge, pupils blown massive, as he stares at Josh. “I have aphasia. I’m aphasic.”
“That,” Josh says, “is not a word.” He slides into his seat, pulling the door shut with too much force, then deposits the keys in the cupholder before pressing the button to start it.
“I can’t lose my brain,” Wolf whispers loudly. “What if I’m losing my brain?”
Josh reverses the car out of his usual parking place, then presses on the accelerator as he makes for the road. “You’re high, Wolf. Not sick.”
Wolf goes quiet.
It gives Josh enough time to place his cell into the holder he has attached to his windshield and make the first left turn that that Google maps suggests.
It’s as he pulls up to a red light that Wolf finally says, with utter confusion, “I’m high?”
Josh doesn’t swear often. It had been something his parents didn’t treat kindly, and so after he’d got through the usual teenage phase of cursing as much as he possibly could, he’d realized it didn’t serve him much purpose. In fact, he prides himself on his rationality in the face of the impossible situations he encounters on a daily basis.
In this moment, he thinks his murmured Jesus fucking Christ is fully and entirely justified.
“You,” he says, gripping the steering wheel very tightly, “are very high.”
Wolf moans piteously.
The light turns green, and Josh presses the accelerator down. The car shoots off.
Google maps’ automated voice tells him to take the next right, so Josh switches lanes and takes the turn a little too fast.
There’s quiet for the next few minutes, broken only by the beeping of other driver’s horns and the usual sound of the city. In fact, Wolf is silent for long enough that Josh begins to worry. Who knows whatever the substance he’s high on is doing to his body?
Josh glances over to the passenger seat.
Wolf is slumped so far down in his seat that the only thing keeping him from sliding into the stairwell is the strap of his seatbelt. His gaze is fixed on something in distance – only, it can’t be outside of the vehicle, because he’s staring at the same spot when Josh looks in his direction again after making a turn. Maybe the windshield?
“Wolf?” Josh says, trying not to let his worry through and into his voice.
Wolf startles at the noise, twisting his neck. When he finds Josh, his focus zeroes in on him. “Me?” He points to himself. “Do you mean me?”
Josh doesn’t deign that with a response. “How does your chest feel?”
After a moment of staring at Josh, seeming to process his question, Wolf lifts his hand to his eyeline, inspects it for a moment, then presses his palm to his chest, feeling across the material of his shirt. Some considering hums later, he decisively says, “Chesty.”
That’s not an I can’t breathe or I think I’m having a heart attack, so Josh accepts the response. “Can you feel your legs?”
Wolf pats one muscular thigh, then the other, with his hand, before nodding. “I can feel them.”
“No, I meant—” Josh cuts himself off with a long exhale. “Never mind.” He checks the rear-view mirror, both wing mirrors, then drives through a green light.
Google maps tells him to continue for the next three hundred feet.
“Are you experiencing any hallucinations?” Josh asks.
Wolf laughs at that, tipping his head back against the material of his seat.
Josh raises an eyebrow. “I’ll take that as a no?”
Wolf says, “It’s too hot in here.”
This time, Josh doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “I’m not turning the heating down.”
“Am I on fire?” Wolf says thoughtfully. “I think I’m on fire.”
A car ahead of them slows to let another vehicle out of a side street, and Josh presses on the brakes too. “You’re not on fire,” he says flatly.
“Maybe the fire’s on the inside,” Wolf says. “Maybe it’s in my chest.”
“There is no—”
The rustle of fabric getting pulled across skin is very loud.
Josh squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his hands around the steering wheel. “—fire.” He hesitates, then dares to say: “Don’t strip in my car.”
Wolf makes an unhappy noise. The sound of his shirt coming off continues. “There’s no glow,” he tells Josh. “If my chest is on fire, shouldn’t it glow?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean—ugh.” Josh does not look over at Wolf. Focuses on the road; counts the number of cars in front of him (three). Checks the number of turns to Wolf’s house showing on Google maps (five). Looks at the time (ten thirty-one).
“Am I…not on fire?” Wolf sounds confused.
Josh doesn’t bother answering that question. “Please don’t strip in my car.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of color being thrown into the footwell that can only be Wolf’s shirt coming off.
Another, “Jesus Christ,” slips out. Then: “Put your shirt back on.”
“I can’t see any fire,” Wolf says.
“That’s because you’re not on—” Josh cuts his outburst off before he can really get going. Takes a deep breath in, lets it out, then tries again. “In all of your experience as a doctor, Wolf, have you ever seen someone on fire from the inside.”
Wolf seems to consider this for a long moment.
“The answer is no,” Josh says, when it’s been too long and he’s struggling to hang onto the last shreds of his patience. How does Wolf manage to do this to him, every single time? “You haven’t seen someone on fire from the inside. Because the human body doesn’t work like that, which you would know, if you weren’t high as a kite right now.”
Wolf says, “I do like kites.”
Josh risks a single glance over at the man and is met by the sight of soft flesh and even softer chest hair. Nipples. Tummy. A happy trail, leading down to—
He looks straight back at the road, already regretting his decision.
Flexing his fingers on the wheel, Josh focuses on the license plate of the red Volvo in front of them as he tries desperately to unsee the image of Oliver Wolf, shirtless.
With every second that passes, the veneer of professionalism he maintains at all times is being worn down.
Then Google maps chirpily says to turn right, drive zero-point-seven miles, and reach his destination, and Josh almost thanks his phone out loud.
“Put your shirt back on,” Josh tells Wolf again. “We’re almost there.”
Wolf hums. “Almost where?”
“Your home.”
Google maps dings to announce their arrival, and Josh has never pulled his car over quicker in his life.
The tires screech on the tarmac, and Josh is out of the driver’s seat in seconds, swiftly moving around to the passenger side and pulling the door open to frown down at Wolf. He isn’t going to try to muster up a glare. “Out.”
Wolf just blinks slowly up at him. The way that he’s gazing at Josh through his thick eyelashes should be made illegal. “Your eyes are very pretty,” he says thoughtfully, as if this a brand-new revelation for him. “Did you know that, that your eyes are pretty?”
“I know that you think they’re pretty,” Josh tells him. He jerks his thumb behind him, to where Wolf’s house is. “Out. Now.”
Slowly, almost sluggishly, Wolf levers himself up in his seat so he’s actually sitting upright again – only, as soon as he is, he wrinkles his nose up.
Josh lifts his eyes skyward. “What is it now?”
“Why are seatbelts so rough? They’ve never been this rough before.” Wolf looks down at himself, pats his chest for a moment, then gasps. “Where’s my shirt?” He aims an accusing glare at Josh, but it has all the venom of a Labrador puppy. “Did you steal my shirt?”
“No,” Josh says shortly. He points to the footwell. “It’s there. Put it on.”
It takes Wolf a moment to follow Josh’s finger, but when he does eventually find his shirt, he gasps again and cries, “There it is!” before diving into the footwell for it.
Josh lunges for Wolf, grabbing his shoulder and wrenching him back in one swift motion before he can actually hurt himself.
Wolf slams back into the seat with a grunt that reverberates through his entire body, and he looks up at Josh with wide eyes as Josh reaches down, grabs his shirt, and hands it to him.
“Put it on,” he says for the tenth or so time.
When Wolf fails to put the shirt on, Josh grimaces again, pries it out of Wolf’s fingers, and holds out a hand for Wolf to put his wrist into. Then, Josh takes one sleeve and begins sliding it up Wolf’s arm – over the thick hair, and the curve of the muscles – until it’s sat on his shoulder; then, he does the same with the other.
“Do you feel like you can handle buttons?” he asks dryly, looking at the way that the shirt hangs open on Wolf’s chest. He already knows the answer.
Wolf fiddles with one of the buttons for a moment. “It seems hard,” he says. Tries to slip it through the hole on the other side, but misses several times before Josh finally reaches to help. “I can do it,” he protests, wiggling out of Josh’s grip. “I can do it!”
Josh holds his hands up in surrender, backing up. “Fine. If you want all your neighbors to see you arrive home shirtless, that’s on you.”
Curling in on himself a little, Wolf pulls his shirt tighter around himself.
Josh refuses to mourn the sight of Wolf’s bare chest. Instead, he clears his throat and purposefully turns away, looking back towards the house that must be Wolf’s.
“Nickel,” Wolf’s voice says, suddenly scratchy. “Nick-els?”
“Are you…” Josh turns back to him, bewildered. “Are you trying to say ‘Nichols’?”
“Aha!” Wolf straightens, beaming up at him. “That’s it. Nichols.”
And—well.
Josh takes hours out of what was supposed to be a nice, calm evening to haul a druggie doctor home because the man’s interns can’t be bothered to stay overnight with him. He deals with Wolf breathing on him and stripping in front of him and everything else that comes with it.
And now Wolf can’t even remember his name?
“You.” Josh jabs a finger at him, pressing the tip of it right to his chest. His stupid, shirtless chest. “You are unbelievable. I cannot—I drove you home. This—” He breaks off with a sharp, frustrated noise.
Wolf just stares up at him with those eyes.
Barely restraining himself from yelling in Wolf’s face, Josh bites out, “I don’t care if it was an accident. I don’t care if you didn’t mean to get high. I will never do this for you again. Do you understand that? Never.”
And still, nothing from Wolf.
“For—fuck’s sake.” Josh throws his hands up in the air. “I give up, okay? I give up. This is me giving up. Get inside the house yourself.”
He goes to step back.
Only—before he can go anywhere, Wolf surges forward.
Warm hands – hot hands, too hot – curl around the junction of Josh’s neck and shoulders, right where his skin is still tingling from the beard burn, and pull him into a deep, wet, sloppy, perfect kiss.
Josh leans into it on instinct, seeking out the warmth of Wolf’s mouth, hands, chest; swallows Wolf’s moan when the man pushes him against him; drags his palms along the roughness of Wolf’s beard.
Then reality crashes down on him like a bathtub of ice water, and Josh pulls back with a gasp.
Wolf stands there, heaving for air, lips red and kiss-swollen, somehow even messier than before.
Josh shouldn’t have done that. Even beyond Wolf’s intoxication and altered mental state that means he can’t reasonably consent to anything, the rules of professionalism – the rules that Josh has lived by since he was a wet-behind-the-ears barely-adult recruit – dictate that nothing can happen between them. No lusting after the man’s hairy arms and toned chest and beard, and definitely no burning kisses on the commute home. The hospital’s HR has a very definitive list of criteria for intimate relationships within the workplace, and this? This breaches just about every single one of them.
Before Wolf can say a word, Josh slams the passenger door shut, retreats to his side of the car, and slides in behind the wheel.
He grips at the worn leather for a moment; takes comfort in its rigidity.
Then he rolls down the passenger window just an inch, just far enough for Wolf to hear him. “Get indoors.” It’s cold out here, especially for pretty, shirtless men.
Wolf blinks at him for a long while, but Josh doesn’t dare move. Doesn’t break eye contact. Doesn’t start the engine. Doesn’t do anything but stare right back.
Eventually, Wolf turns and begins to make his way up the path. His gait is off, his walk winding in a way that would make Josh think him drunk, if he didn’t know better.
Josh tells himself that he’ll wait until Wolf gets to the door, but he stays sat there, completely still, until Wolf finds his spare key and unlocks the door and closes it behind him and the hallway light turns on.
Only when one of the upstairs lights flickers on too does Josh finally press his face to the cool steering wheel and say, “Fuck.”
The next day dawns far too bright and far too early.
If Josh were any weaker of a man, he would skip his spin class and perhaps even call off work sick.
Fortunately, Josh is not a weaker man, so he drags himself out of bed. If he doesn’t do spin to balance out the other exercises, his whole body will feel off for much longer than this morning. And with his rhythm thrown off, he won’t be able to sleep. And he isn’t going to let one kiss from Dr. Oliver Wolf ruin his entire week.
By the time that Josh arrives at Bronx General – at five minutes to nine, as it is every day – he’s dreading the idea of interacting with Wolf. He hopes that the man won’t be in work, given that Wolf actually has a good reason to call off sick. Given everything that he knows about Wolf, though, there’s no chance: neuro has patients that need him, so he will be there, come rain or shine.
However the day’s schedule – two surgeries, and a handful of follow-up appointments that should present no issues – means that Josh has little reason to do anything but ferry between the OR and his office.
That doesn’t mean he’s hiding, and certainly not from Wolf or the neuro interns. He just…has other things to take up his time.
And if Josh takes his lunch in his office with the door locked – well, how will Wolf ever know?
The issue arises in the gap between his two and three o’clock appointments.
As he’s seeing Ms. Munitz to the door, a figure he knows all too well appears in the very edges of his vision.
Josh hurries through his goodbyes, practically shoves the front desk’s business card into Ms. Munitz’s hand with an instruction to contact them with any follow up queries, and is fleeing back into the safety of his office when Wolf says, “Dr. Nichols, do you have a moment?”
They’re doing formal, then. Josh purses his lips and absolutely avoids even a hint of eye contact. “Dr. Wolf, I have another appointment—”
“—in half an hour, I checked with the nurses’ desk.”
Josh needs to tell the nurses’ desk to never, ever give out his personal schedule again. In fact, why haven’t they had that conversation already? Surely it’s basic security. Even if the man asking is another doctor in the same hospital. Even if there’s no sane reason he could possibly give as to why Oliver Wolf should not have access to his diary.
“I…” Wolf sighs like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. It’s a stark contrast from his presence last night, when he’d seemed lighter than Josh had ever seen him. The sharp edge that lives in him, that unflinching intelligence, is back too.
Josh will never speak a word of this to anyone, but he’s glad for it.
“We need to talk about last night. We need to talk about last night – and what I did.”
The only thing worse than having this conversation in Josh’s office is having it in a crowded hospital corridor with half a dozen nurses and interns and doctors listening in. Vultures, the lot of them, hungry for any morsel of gossip that they can sink their teeth into.
He glances one way down the hall, then the other, before backing up into his office.
“Get in, and close the door behind you,” he hisses.
Wolf blinks, clearly taken aback by the sudden shift, but does as he’s told.
By the time that the two of them are in the office together, alone, Josh has drawn back to behind his desk.
Wolf doesn’t take a seat; Josh doesn’t offer him one.
“Well, um.” Wolf clears his throat. He doesn’t sound well at all, his voice uneven. In the brief glimpse of his face that Josh had gotten, there were deep bags under bloodshot eyes. Wolf may be at work, but he’s still recovering from a nasty hangover. “As I said, we need to talk about last night.” He winces. “Well, I need to talk about last night. Specifically, my actions. The…” He shifts uncomfortably. “The kiss.”
Josh hadn’t expected him to come right out and say it.
He should have known better; Wolf never does what any rational person should.
And indeed, even now, Wolf presses on.
“Our kiss—I mean, my kiss. The one that I forced on you, when you’d very kindly taken care of me. For which…” Wolf blows out a long, audible breath. “For which I am truly sorry.”
Josh absolutely refuses to look up from his paperwork. He doesn’t want Wolf to read whatever it is that his face must be doing right now. “You were high, Wolf,” he says shortly, tightly. “Forget about it.”
“Right,” Wolf says. Seems to notice that Josh would rather be anywhere else on the entire planet. Pulls back. “Of course. I—thank you, for helping me get home. And, again…” He gestures towards his mouth. “…my apologies.”
“Again: don’t mention it.”
Wolf makes to leave, and Josh is about to let out a breath of deep relief, only Wolf pauses in the doorway.
Looks back.
“And, um. What if I did want to mention it?”
Josh goes completely and utterly still.
Something must show on his face, though, because the corners of Wolf’s mouth twitch up just a fraction. “What if I want to mention it…” He pretends to think. “…Oh, I don’t know. A few times, perhaps.”
“I’d be amenable to some mentioning,” Josh says slowly.
Wolf’s eyebrows twitch up, and that look on his face shifts to something more self-satisfied. “Mm?”
They never should have kissed; it was entirely unprofessional. But a date? That’s not unreasonable. Doctors in this hospital have done far worse. And Josh…well. Perhaps part of the reason he was so tired this morning was because he was up for hours just thinking about the way Wolf’s lips had felt on his. “How about,” he starts, less sure than he’s felt in an age, “we mention it tonight, at nine?”
“Tonight?” Wolf echoes. “You move fast, Dr. Nichols.”
Josh concedes to that with a shrug.
Wolf smiles, small and private. “Well, fast can be good. I have no complaints about fast.”
“Good,” Josh says.
“In that case, I will see you tonight.” Wolf bows his head slightly in farewell. “Dr. Nichols.”
“Dr. Wolf,” Josh returns.
Wolf turns to leave.
It’s only as Wolf’s hand lands on the doorknob that Josh oh-so-casually throws in, “Oh, and Dr. Wolf? I’ll your previous attempts pass on account of you being high, but you should know that I expect the poetry about my eyes to be of a higher standard this time.”
He enjoys the way that Wolf goes pale.