Chapter Text
The night wind hit Gyro—it was a cold wind, in contrast to the heat of the day in San Diego. He hadn’t managed to sleep at all during the day, with the summer sun pouring through the windows of his apartment. He hated night shifts, but he hated being awake in thirty-five-degree heat even more, so things balanced out. He parked his car in his usual spot—89—the spot he hoped to have for at least the whole year he’d be at the hospital. It was far from the entrance. He sighed. It wasn’t something that surprised him. After all, he was just starting his residency; he was probably at the very bottom of the food chain, right along with the nursing interns. But hey, at least the emergency room wasn’t too far from the parking lot.
He grabbed his bag from the car and sighed again. At least there was some nature near the hospital, his car faced the retaining wall of a slope covered in vegetation. For a moment, he thought he was really grateful to have been accepted at a place like this. He was tired of the concrete jungle near his apartment, it was a good change. He closed the car door and walked slowly through the parking lot. He still had fifteen minutes before his shift started. He even had time to smoke a cigarette if he wanted to, but he had promised himself not to until his break.
He surveyed the parking lot. Today it was emptier than usual, probably because it was summer, and some doctors were already off on vacation. Better for him—he didn’t like feeling someone breathing down his neck all the time. He looked at the numbers marking the empty spots, 46. He was nearly at the staff entrance when he saw something that caught his attention: someone near the slope and a car—a kid in a wheelchair.
Gyro raised an eyebrow. What’s a kid doing here? he thought. After all, this was the staff parking lot, nobody was supposed to be there except for them. As he walked closer, he studied the kid. He could only see his back from where he was, but he could make out some blond hair peeking out from under a powder blue beanie. He looked again at how the figure seemed to be contemplating the slope, as if he were watching some kind of wild animal on it. Maybe a lost kid. Gyro walked over to where the kid was, and when he was about two meters away, he spoke.
“Are you lost?” he asked, his voice neutral, though somehow he felt like he was getting involved in something he shouldn’t.
Then the kid turned his face and he could see him. He wasn’t a kid. He was a teenager, maybe a young man. That took Gyro by surprise. The stranger then turned the wheelchair toward Gyro, and finally he could see more of him, a young man dressed in dark jeans and a pale blue hoodie, the same color as his hat. Even if he wasn’t a child, there was no way he worked at the hospital, at least not dressed like that and without any ID.
“What?” the man asked bluntly, as if Gyro’s question had annoyed him.
Gyro was surprised by that kind of response, but he didn’t stay quiet. “Are you okay?”
A few seconds passed before the man answered again, a nonchalant look on his face. “Do I look okay?”
Gyro snorted. He was getting annoyed—he only wanted to help. “You can’t be here. This area is for employees only,” he said, this time with a dry tone, imitating the other guy.
The man in the wheelchair smirked mockingly and replied, “I’m not here. You’re hallucinating me.”
Gyro couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at that response. “If I’m really hallucinating, I’ll tell my supervisor I need a day off.”
“Make it two.” The Italian couldn’t help but smile again, but this time he didn’t say anything back, curious about why someone would be there. It wasn’t like the hospital was known for great security, but surely someone would notice if a guy in a wheelchair dressed like that came through the staff entrance.
“What, are you security or something? You don’t look like it,” the man said, pointing at Gyro’s scrubs and ID badge.
“Nah, but I think you should leave. You’ll get in trouble if security finds you,” he warned, his voice now neutral.
“What are they gonna do? Kick me out?” he asked mockingly, though Gyro wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that.
“Whatever, I have to go. Hope things go well with whatever it is you were doing, stranger,” he said, and started walking toward the hospital entrance.
“Same to you, weird-accent guy,” the man shot back mockingly.
Gyro narrowed his eyes in irritation. This is what happens when I get involved in things that aren’t my business, he thought to himself, and walked through the door into the hospital. It wasn’t like he cared what that man was doing—he wasn’t a vagrant, and it’s not like it was easy to steal anything in a wheelchair. It wasn’t his job to monitor who came and went from the parking lot, just another odd thing on shift, like a thousand before.
As he started his shift, he greeted his fellow night resident, Diego, a blond man, about 165 cm tall. He didn’t hate him, but somehow he felt like there was something off about him. Maybe it was just a first impression, after all, it had only been a week.
“Any news?” Gyro asked, stepping behind the desk and checking the new patient intake, to see if they’d had to perform any last-minute surgeries during the day.
“While you were gone, we separated a pair of conjoined twins, and Dr. Steel let me stitch them up,” Diego said, no trace of a joke in his voice. Somehow, when he made jokes in that deadpan tone, they were even funnier—but Gyro had never managed to be that kind of person.
“Damn it, always when I’m not here,” Gyro said, chuckling a little.
“And I’ve got” Diego checked the watch on his wrist “four hours left on my shift.”
“At least it’s not ten.”
“I’d say I feel sorry for you, but I don’t.”
Gyro sighed and began tying up his long hair with a band, he never really did it right, always leaving some strands loose. It wasn’t exactly practical for a hospital, but it’s not like he couldn’t do it properly when it mattered. Besides, it saved him from a headache at the end of his shift.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” Gyro said, and started looking through the paperwork left over from his last shift. Nothing really important.
“Tonight’s gonna be a long one,” he said, more to himself than to Diego.
But for some reason, his mind wouldn’t stop thinking about the man in the wheelchair he’d seen in the parking lot and whether he might still be there.