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Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap . Jeremy drums his fingers on the arm of the chair, tries to focus on the rhythm. The noise is almost deafening in the silence of the corridor. Tap-tap-tap . If he concentrates he can hear the thump of his own pulse, still charged with adrenalin. He matches it. Ta-tap-ta-tap .
“Oh my god, Jeremy,” Geoff groans. “Go take a walk or something, jesus.” He’s sprawled out as best he can in the cheap plastic chair, a flask dangling loosely from his fingers. There are dark bags under his eyes. Jeremy’s seen him like this before, every time one of them ends up here in the back-alley hospital that caters to guys like them. It was Michael last time -- it’s usually Michael, riddled with bullet holes, spitting blood, cursing out anyone in earshot. The time before that, Ryan caught a knife to the arm that cut to the bone. They weren’t strangers to injury, and Jeremy had seen the surgeons here save more than one friend from the jaws of death.
Ta-tap-ta-tap .
Everything was going to be just fine. It always was. Geoff made it a point of pride that he’d yet to lose a crew member (“except fuckface,” he would add fondly, and mime pouring out his drink.)
Ta-tap-ta-tap.
But Michael was tough, Ryan was tough, they were on the front line for a reason. None of their jobs were safe, exactly, but sniping tended to be fairly low-risk. Unless your enemy gets a tip-off and surrounds your sniper while the rest of the crew is distracted. He can still hear the panic in Matt’s voice, and the burst of static that had followed it.
---
Jack had found him bleeding out on the rooftop, had apparently shredded Matt’s attackers with her tail-rotors before carrying him to safety. Jeremy doesn’t remember much of what followed. He’d collapsed in the back of the getaway car, listening for the screaming sirens to fade. Michael had dropped him and Geoff at the hospital, where Jack had met them, her face drawn.
“What happened?” Jeremy had demanded, voice shaking, then “How could this’ve happened? Goddammit, how did they find him?”
“That’s what Michael and Gavin are off to find out,” Geoff had said grimly. He and Jack began sharing information but Jeremy was already pushing past them. By now the nurses didn’t bother to stop any of Geoff’s crew, just rolled their eyes and trailed after him.
He stopped short at the ward door. Beside him, a nurse placed her hand on the door and gave him a steady look. “It’s not pretty,” she said flatly.
Jeremy swallowed hard. “But he’ll be okay?”
She held his gaze, then opened the door.
---
A hand closes over Jeremy’s wrist, making him jump and breaking his train of thought. He hadn’t realised, but his hands have tensed into fists. Geoff gives his hand a squeeze and looks meaningfully at him, then draws back. Jeremy inhales, and tries not to think about how much blood there’d been. Because he’s seen blood, he’s seen people cut down, hell, he’s seen other friends in the exact same bed. But this is Matt.
“They’ve gotta be done soon, right?” he says, mostly to himself, but Geoff grunts in agreement anyway.
“Surgeon said it could be an all nighter.” His mouth twists into a wry smile, which softens as he looks over at Jeremy. “You don’t gotta stay, dude. I can hold down the fort here.”
“Yeah, I do.” Geoff snorts at that. Well, it’s true, Jeremy thinks. He’s not going home while Matt’s here. Something in his gut says you need to be here . Besides, it’s not like he’d be getting any sleep.
“You stay here all night every time this happens?” he asks Geoff, trying to fill up the empty air.
“Pretty much. Figure I owe it to you fuckers.” He’s staring intently at his flask as he answers. “Lindsay usually stays if it’s Michael. Think the nurses invited her out for drinks last time.” They share a chuckle at that.
---
Three hours in, Geoff falls asleep. Jeremy’s not sure how, exactly, but then he supposes Geoff’s been here so many times the uncomfortable chairs don’t even bother him any more. Unfortunately, this means Jeremy is once again alone with his thoughts. Matt lying on the concrete in a pool of his own blood. Matt covered in haphazard gauze while the anaesthetist fiddles with his arm. Matt lying on a surgeon’s table while they desperately try to keep him alive.
He runs his hand through his hair, and tries to think positive. He’s pretty sure the others have pulled through worse. Even so there’s that tiny voice saying, what if he doesn’t come back?
A cold chill sweeps down his spine. He wonders if the nurses would bring him booze if he said he was Lindsay’s friend. Actually, calling Lindsay seems like a pretty good idea right now. There are two warring thoughts in his mind --
What if you lose him?
Why do you care so much?
To the last one Jeremy thinks, stubbornly, because he’s my best friend . Because being Jeremy, without Matt, is unthinkable.
Fuck this, he thinks, and picks up his phone.
---
Three and a half hours, and Lindsay rolls up with a six-pack under one arm and a box of donuts in the other. The latter she chucks at a passing nurse, then sets the beer down at Jeremy’s feet and plops down next to him. “Goes a lot faster if the nurses like you,” she says to Jeremy’s blank look, then, softer: “You holding up okay?”
He considers snarking at her, but he’s tired and she’s looking at him with rare sincerity. They’re so rough with each other that it’s weird seeing her and Geoff being so tender. So he says, “Yeah, sorta.”
“He’ll be alright.”
“I know that.” His fingers tap a familiar beat on his knees.
“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t make it easier.” Her smile is wan. When he looks up, questioningly, she just shrugs and offers him a beer.
---
Five hours. Geoff’s awake again, and between him and Lindsay the pit in Jeremy’s stomach has almost settled. Truth be told he’s barely keeping his eyes open, but if he told either of them that they’d send him home, and that’s not happening. He’s gonna be there when Matt wakes up.
If he wakes up.
God damn it. Jeremy’s starting to feel like punching something. There’s a dent in the drywall opposite him that he’s pretty sure is Michael’s handiwork. He reckons he can probably make a larger one.
There’s a commotion down the hall and Jeremy launches out of his chair immediately. He can’t see much past the group of nurses, but he hears the squeak of trolley wheels, the scrape of the ward doors opening.
Geoff’s on to his feet too. He raises one hand to signal the surgeon, who comes striding over. “Ramsey,” he says, pulling his mask down, “you are a lucky motherfucker. And I’m gonna start charging by the bullet.”
“Whatever you say, doc,” Geoff says, grinning lopsidedly. “Now if you don’t mind, Jeremy here’s on watch --” his hand comes to rest on Jeremy’s shoulder “-- and I am going the fuck home. You know where to charge it to.”
The surgeon heaves a long-suffering sigh and waves Geoff away. “He’s still unconscious,” he tells Jeremy, “but you can sit beside him.” He starts talking to Lindsay, and Jeremy takes his as his cue to follow the nurses into the ward.
Ta-tap-ta-tap . For a moment his pulse roars in his ears. There’s still gauze everywhere, and Matt still looks stupidly frail, but his chest is rising and falling. Jeremy collapses in the chair beside his bed, part exhaustion, part relief.
“Don’t scare me like that, asshole,” he mutters. There’s a machine hooked up to him, softly beeping, measuring his heartrate. Even so, Jeremy leans forward and wraps his fingers around Matt’s wrist. He has to feel it for himself.
---
Jeremy wakes with his forehead pressed against cool metal. Sitting up -- and ow, his back is strained spectacularly -- he realises he’d fallen asleep leaning over Matt’s bed, holding onto his wrist. Still holding onto it, actually.
“Mornin’.”
Ah. Jeremy winces, then forces himself to lift his head. Matt’s got that smile, the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes, the one that’s reserved just for Jeremy.
“Hey,” he says, trying to hide the shakiness in his voice. “Uh, have you been awake long?”
“Nah.” Matt gives a one-shouldered shrug. “Doc hasn’t come in yet. I figure the fact I’m not dead is a pretty good sign, though.”
“Yeah, man, you kinda had me worried there.” Jeremy laughs awkwardly.
“Mm. Would, uh, that be why you’re holding my hand?” Matt looks pointedly at where Jeremy still hasn’t let go of his wrist.
“I’m not holding your hand, I was checking your pulse,” he says defensively, to which Matt looks at the machine that’s still dutifully measuring his vitals. “Look, it was important at the time.”
Matt laughs and it’s like the last five hours never happened. “And now?”
Jeremy pauses. He stares at their hands, absently rubbing his thumb over the bone of Matt’s wrist. He hears Matt say his name, a question in his voice.
“I can’t lose you,” he says, because it’s true. He wants to say I don’t know if I can live without you , but that seems melodramatic. There’s something else, stuck at the back of his throat, but he’s not ready for it. Not yet. So instead he loosens his grip and lets his fingers trace down Matt’s palm. Their fingers interlace and it’s ridiculous how such a small gesture makes Jeremy’s pulse quicken.
When he looks up again, Matt’s eyes are crinkled at the corners. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says quietly, warmly. A weight lifts from Jeremy’s chest.
“Good.”