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Teachers are supposed to remain impartial, but Peter won’t pretend that there’s anyone at County who thinks that he actually follows that ethical standard.
He is harder on some students. He … favors others more. It’s possible, he will concede to a voice that sounds suspiciously like Mark Greene in his head, that he favors one more than others.
Still, he wants them all to succeed, and no matter what anyone might think, the death of Dennis Gant will never not affect him. So he expects nightmares. He could have handled nightmares.
What he can’t handle is seeing Carter’s broken body in the Gant’s place. He can’t handle night after night of Carter’s voice in his dreams telling him that everything is his fault, right before he jumps in front of a train. He can’t handle his hands inside Carter’s chest, trying to bring him back only for Carter to die again and again. He can’t handle Mark Greene insistently calling time of death just before Peter wakes up, covered in sweat.
On the first night of this, he goes to the hospital the next day, and prying eyes seem to know that he’s half out of his mind. He is jumpy. Well, why shouldn’t he be? One of his students jumped in front of a train, and he has nightmares of another doing the same.
And Carter… Carter who wants to fix everything won’t stop trying to make everything better. He won’t shut up about the memorial service. About what they could have done differently.
Peter isn’t kind to him; it only makes the nightmares worse.
In these nightmares, Carter reaches out for him, begging for Peter to save him, and Peter tries, but it’s not enough. He wakes up, unable to even gasp for breath, uncertain that the reality that he saw in his dreams wasn’t true.
By the time he makes it to the hospital, to say that he is in a foul mood would be an understatement.
And then one of the medical students in the medical services makes everything worse because when Carter - dear, sweet Carter who wants to make everything better - tries to show them how to insert an IV, they end up tripping him.
It’s enough that Carter needs sutures on his forehead.
It is possible that Peter loses temper. It’s possible that he calls into question all of the teaching skills of the Emergency Department. It’s possible that he gets into a shouting match with Kerry Weaver and Mark Greene before grabbing Carter by the arm and hauling him to the suture room.
“Hey!” Carter protests. “What has gotten into you?”
“You have to be more careful!” Peter says as he shuts the door and pulls the curtain shut. “You have to stop being so reckless and careless!”
Carter’s brown eyes flash with barely contained fury. “Oh, really? Since when do you care?”
“Sit down, Carter. Let me take care of your head before you bleed to death.”
“I’m not going to bleed to death,” Carter protests. But he listens and takes his seat so that Peter can take care of the wound.
For several quiet moments, Peter focuses on his sutures. But in truth, it was minor wound, so the process doesn’t take that long. Still, he is reluctant to let Carter go. This version of him, alive, angry at Peter, and flushed cheeks is so much better than the one that haunts Peter’s nightmares every night.
“Are you done now? Can I go?” Carter asks.
And the answer should be yes.
Instead, Peter cups Carter’s face and tilts his chin up so that Carter has to look at him. Surprise and confusion fills those dark eyes, instead of the defiance that had been there moments before.
“What - ”
“You need to be more careful,” Peter repeats. “Promise me.”
“I promise?”
“I don’t want to have to have my hands inside your chest, trying to bring you back to life, Carter. The thought of you lying on a gourney fighting for your life makes me forget how to breathe. Promise me.”
Carter’s gaze softens, and he takes pity on Peter. Now, Peter would like to argue that he doesn’t need pity, but his sleep schedule over the past two nights would argue otherwise.
“Look at Peter Benton, having actual feelings for his intern,” Carter says. The words are sarcastic, but the tone is one of confusion. This man is apparently the only one in the whole hospital who is unaware that Peter is incapable of being impartial when it comes to him.
The man is infuriating. So infuriating, when what Peter is trying to say is so important. He’s stubborn and infuriating and he won’t listen to anything Peter is trying to say, no matter how clearly Peter is saying it.
Which is why Peter leans forward and brushes his lips along Carter’s.
Carter remains perfectly still for only a fraction of second, and then all of the pushy, needy enthusiasm that Carter has always displayed as his student - all of the desire to be wanted - is pushing back against his mouth, and Peter pushes back against those lips with all of the desperation that two nights full of dreams of a dying Carter have given him. It’s not enough for Carter, of course; that neediness makes Carter run his tongue against Peter’s lips hesitantly, as if he is afraid of asking a question that he’s not even sure he has the right to yet. Peter responds by parting his lips, and the moan that Carter makes is loud enough that Peter worries it can be heard at the nurse’s station.
He breaks the kiss, though it seems cruel to them both.
“Promise me,” he repeats.
“I promise,” Carter says, and he runs his tongue over his bottom lip, which looks appropriately bruised in the harsh lights of the suture room.
Peter has spent more than a little time thinking unkind thoughts about Abby Keaton and her extra cirricular activities with Carter; yet, here he is now, looking at that bruised lip and wondering how it would look in the softer lighting of Peter’s bedroom.
There’s a knock at the suture room door.
Peter lets go.
“Peter, there’s a GSW, ten minutes out,” Haleh says.
“Got it,” he says.
And he gets up, and he leaves.
~*~
That night, his nightmares end.
But Carter still haunts his dreams.