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His reputation preceded his physicality.
She knew his type. Too much skill to throw away when his arrogance landed him in trouble with the board, too stubborn to take the desk job and shut the fuck up, too much for any one woman to handle, so he’d be working with a bitterly kept ring or the tan line of a long lost one.
She created a fantasy of him. Napoleon complex. Five foot six. Nicotine addiction, shitty diet making his body a wreck that he didn’t care to fix. She pictured a scrubby blonde, shuffling in with a teetering cup of something, scruff of shadow around a soft jaw and a jutting bottom lip that would scowl at her. He would dislike her, barely respect her, and the transfer would take a week to be approved.
An endless cycle, the fix-it girl that no hospital could place.
Some were handsome, most had lost that long ago. Some were kind, but all of them despised her.
So would he, in the end.
She saw him across the room, a grizzly bear dogging Dana’s footsteps.
He saw her, and there was no running.
The closer he came, the more it was clear. They were incompatible. Ill matched. She could take Napoleon. She couldn’t take William the Conqueror.
He was fucking medieval.
“Baran.” He said her name with a soft pitch, but his hand was strong, almost painful. Rough calluses, rough strength. Up close, he looked haggard. Haunted. Dark eyes, dark circles, cut harsher by his looks. He might have been handsome, younger, her age. Now? He looked indifferent to it.
“Michael.”
He exhaled, almost a laugh, “No one calls me Michael, not even my own mother.”
She corrected herself, “Dr. Robinavitch.”
“S’fine,” he dropped her hand, running his own over his hair, “Call me Michael, call it a…fellow attending thing.”
She hesitated, “What’s our itinerary?”
“Walk through for students, distribute to residents, then…” he shrugged, “Into the meat grinder.”
“Do you want me to attend?”
“To what?”
She raised her eyebrows, “To you. Your work.”
“My work is butchery, Baran,” he said, and even with the rest of his words cutting, he kept her name softer than his own skin, “Believe me, I’ll end up attending you.”
He didn’t mean it as a compliment.
“Sorry,” he pinched the bridge of his crooked nose, “I haven’t had…breakfast. I’ll need that. Five minutes. Okay? Okay.”
He left and she felt a sudden need to sit down.
“Oh, hon,” Dana patted her arm, “He’s a big old bear, he softens up with some honey. Don’t you worry.”
“That’s funny,” she rubbed her eyebrows, “I thought just as he walked in—bear.”
“Big and fuzzy?”
“Territorial.”
“Aw, he’s just being shy,” Dana smiled, “You young girls, you make him nervous.”
…
The inevitable.
He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes.
Fucking inevitable.
He’d been fucking up for months. They had to send a babysitter. Babysitter? She was a child compared to him. Fucking fresh faced and chipper and sly, oh yes she was sly.
Attend you. Your work.
He couldn’t even picture her with blood on her hands. He put his hands over his head, trying to calm himself down. He was sick of mess. Sick of the looks. Sick of the rumors.
It was inevitable.
Inevitable that the hospital would find him an observer, someone to watch him, examine him, diagnose him. She looked clean, benevolent, pure. He looked dirty. To everyone. To her as well.
He’d have to get clean.
He took a long breath. She’d be transferred before the end of the week.
And exhaled.
…
She watched him split up the residents, and she watched the residents sideways glance at his every word.
There was a healthy fear there, earned by his brute force. Robinavitch was a force of wild nature, unprofessional, loyal, but inflexible. They bent to his will and his wide gesturing hand sent them their separate ways.
One of the resident glanced over her shoulder. She smiled at her. Baran smiled back, tightly.
“Getting acquainted?” He stood next to her, looking at the board.
“Who’s the resident with the pretty smile?”
“Samira,” he said without taking his eyes away, “She’s nice. Too nice.”
“Is that a fault?”
“It is when it makes her slow,” his eyes flicked down to her, “Any tips, doctor?”
She folded her arms, “I wouldn’t scold her. She seems very…raw. She wants to be the prize pony.”
“Yeah, well—“ he rubbed the back of his neck, “She’s Abbot’s prize pony, not mine.”
“The night attending?”
“Yeah, why?”
She shook her head, “I wouldn’t think they would mingle too much.”
“I loan her out sometimes,” he said casually and she winced at his choice of words, “And abbot—,” he added as he walked towards one of the bays, “he performs better.”
She walked faster to keep up with him, “With a twenty-something resident?”
“So?”
“So, isn’t he fifty?”
“Jesus,” he laughed, pushing the doors open, “An HR report in your first hour? That’s a record.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows, snapping on gloves, “Dr. Mohan, how are you?”
She whipped her head up, staring at him, “Uhhhhh…good. This is Mr. Lewiston.”
“Lewiston, that is quite a sweat you’re working on,” he said, “Care to explain?”
The older man grimaced at him, “Possum bite.”
“Possum bite, that’s unfortunate,” he squinted at the screens, “With that fever, you’re looking at day three of that bite, I’m guessing.”
“I didn’t want to bother a doctor. Then there’s the bill.”
“Bother doctors when you’re dealing with animal bites, sir,” Baran said, “You’re lucky, possums rarely carry rabies.”
“I knew that,” the patient said suspiciously, his breathing getting harsher as he struggled to sit up, “If I could get some pills and a bandage—“
He stood unsteadily for a moment and sat down hard, eyes rolling back. The nurses who had already been pulling him back managed to get him on his back.
Baran immediately bent over him, examining his pupils.
“Is it a cardio event?” One of the students asked excitedly.
“Obviously not,” Mohan said reassuringly, “he has an infection, and the fever made him faint. He’ll be fine.”
“He’ll be fine if we find the bite,” Robinavitch said, “Which you neglected to document before he fainted.”
“It’s an infected bite!” She said, “It’ll be massive!”
“Ten to one that possum barely broke the skin,” Baran said, “If he didn’t come to the hospital for days, it was probably minimal.”
“Check extremities and work inwards,” he said, “Could you—“
“I’m checking,” she said, fingers probing up his foot and ankle.
“Right, but if you let me—“
“I said I’ve got it.”
“Dr. Al-Hashimi—“ he gritted his teeth, “For fucks sake—“
He grabbed her by the hips, physically lifting her off the ground and dropping her to his right, stepping in without a moment's thought.
Half the nurses barely noticed as they continued on the patient with Robinavitch. But the residents seemed to pause and stare at him, then at her. She saw Mohan nudge Whitaker. Santos was smirking at her.
Her face flushed.
She caught his arm, hard enough to make him look at her. “A word?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Let Mohan stand in,” she said sharply, “I need a conversation with you.”
He exhaled harshly through his nose, but stood and followed her into the hall.
She turned to him, staring wordlessly.
“Sorry,” he muttered, “Heat of the moment.”
“I don’t appreciate you subverting my authority in front of the residents,” she said.
“I would have done it to anyone,” he folded his arms, “I had to get by.”
“Even an attending?” She pressed, “A female attending?”
The look he gave her was deadly. He said slowly, “You being a woman has nothing to do with it.”
“By all means, demonstrate how you would remove Dr. Langdon.”
“Langdon is a gym rat nearly as big as I am,” he said, “You are half my size and I was as respectful as I could be considering.”
“You could have been more.”
“My apologies,” his tone was dry, “I’ll remember that for next time.”
She clenched her jaw, “Would you appreciate it if I put my hands on you?”
“I wouldn’t care,” he said, “Neither should you.”
“It’s different.”
“I’m egalitarian,” he washed his hands from the hand sanitizer dispenser, “I’d like to think it isn’t.”
“That’s an optimistic belief.”
“I’m an optimistic man.”
“I haven’t found that to be true.”
“Look—“ he turned, crouching down to get to her height, “You’re an attending. I’m an attending. We’re paid the same, we’ve got the same authority, maybe the patients treat you differently, but I won’t. You put your hands on me when you want, I’ll do the same. Okay?”
There were people staring. He knew that.
She bit her tongue, “Fine.”
“Good,” he rose to his full height, “Let’s get back to it.”
She walked past him, through the swinging doors to see Mohan and the others bent over his cut open clothes.
“Anything?”
“Nothing,” she said, “I don’t get it. A possum would bite a hand, or an ankle. It wouldn’t go for center mass.”
“Yeah,” Langdon said, “Unless he was cuddling with it.”
Baran had a thought. She fished his phone out of his pocket.
“Of course,” she said, “It’s a pet.”
His lockscreen was the damn thing in a sweater.
Langdon groaned, “Gross.”
“Which means—“ she looked over his torso, eyes scanning quickly. There. Half-hidden in his armpit, red and yellow, weeping fluid, small but there.
“Dr. Robinavitch,” she pushed gently against his shoulder. He didn’t move.
“Doctor.”
“In a minute.”
“Now.”
“Or a minute,” he said, “You decide.”
She saw Santos grin again, and mutter something to Mohan. Mohan fought a smile.
She shrugged, “Okay.”
It wasn’t hard to slip under his arm and stand underneath him, her back flush against his chest. He inhaled sharply, “The fuck are you—“
“There,” she pointed, “The red spots.”
His hand crossed over hers, “Right.”
He was hot, blazing hot. It was like being swallowed by a furnace. She squirmed under him again and backed off. She wiped the hair from her face, “There. Happy?”
“As agreed," he said, his eyes meeting hers, “Fair enough.”
…
Robby wasn’t having a good day.
His cleaner was texting him about a stain on the hardwood, his ex left a voicemail at two in the morning, and his lunch sucked.
Salad.
Salad was his way of taking a little control of himself. He’d always been a big kid, chubby until puberty, then he shot up. His hard earned muscle was there, but it didn’t look like the movies. His diet was shitty for a guy with his money, too much meat and not enough…salad.
He grimaced at it.
She’d probably be eating something healthy.
He looked up, tipping down his glasses to see her better.
Yup, thin and trim in dove gray scrubs, brown curls piled high and cat eye glasses on her computer. Holding a wrap, in a coy way as if to say, better than you, still.
He shouldn’t have grabbed her.
It was chauvinistic and disrespectful. Throwing his weight around because she was too small to stand up to him. Five foot fuckin nothing and getting on his case. It was bold, from an evolutionary standpoint. Then again, when he wanted to make a point, he could…
He suspected that he’d have to make a lot of points.
She was stubborn. He could appreciate that, but she had a vendetta.
He’d been staring too long.
She walked up to his desk, where he leaned against a pillar, eating his lunch and praying she’d leave.
“Can it wait?”
“It can’t.”
“Then spit it out,” he said, raising his mug to his lips, “Or swallow it.”
Here we go.
“I find your behavior to be aggressive,” she said, hands gripping the desk as she sat on it.
“Aggressive,” he rubbed his jaw, laughing, “You haven’t met my aggression, believe me.”
“I don’t mean violence.”
“Neither did I.”
“I meant your territorialism. Your dominance.”
His eyes met hers. He spoke slowly.
“I wouldn’t throw that term around. I’m authoritative.”
“So am I,” she fought to raise her voice, lift her chin, “But I’m not letting it into my work.”
“I get results.”
“Through dominance.”
“I gave you a lot of links off the chain,” he said, “If I was dominant, you think I’d ever let you fuck up?”
“I think that’s an excuse for a chain,” she said.
He groaned, rubbing his eyes, “Another HR complaint.”
She raised her eyebrows, “You think I’m dramatic.”
He folded his arms, “Am I going to see this in a complaint?”
“No.”
“Fine,” he walked towards her, closing the space, “I think you’re trigger happy against guys like me because you’re a pacifier from upper management. You think I’m controlling. Believe me, if I could control you, I’d be pacified right now. But you question me, like most of my staff. I can take it from Mohan, I can take it from Langdon, I cannot take it from you.”
She stared at him, with a look he knew he’d be familiar with.
“Want to know what I’d appreciate?” His hands gestured in the inches between them, “Honesty. You don’t like me, I don’t care. I like you. You could be very good for me. But these sparring matches—“ he leaned down, “we’re not children. Not in front of the residents, okay?”
He looked at her expectantly.
“So that’s what it was,” she said slowly, “Mommy and Daddy can’t fight in front of the children.”
“Yeah,” he straightened, “That’s my rule.”
“How caring.”
“I am,” he said and she smiled, even if it was grudgingly, “Besides—“
“What?”
He sat across from her place at the table, “The divorce is going to kill them.”