Work Text:
What started out as friendly professionalism eventually slipped into comfortable friendship.
Once Brackett had figured out how vehemently Roy avoided anything to do with the army or the Veterans Administration, he pulled out his credentials and years of volunteer work over at the VA and freshened up on new and updated regulations and guidelines.
He'd basically turned Roy into his pet project because, while he'd never served in the military himself, he'd had too many friends affected by or lost to it. And advocating for veterans and their medical needs after the government was through with them was something he could do.
And Roy let him go at it.
Sometimes with frustration as Brackett pointed out service-connected injuries and ailments that Roy had been perfectly fine working around, adapting to, or just plain ignoring.
And sometimes with great amusement as almost every minor injury on the job ended up with an overprotective and mildly paranoid Brackett checking over every limb and appendage on Roy's body.
It was an easy relationship. Comfortable, familiar, and Kel Brackett was the only person who knew all of Roy's darkest hurts, and he didn't judge him for it or treat him like glass. It was nice to have that in his life.
"What's got you all dreamy-eyed?" Johnny asked, walking up to the bay station at Rampart and swinging the handie talkie over his shoulder. Roy stood up from where he was leaning.
"Nothing, just waiting on you." Roy smiled lightly and gathered up the box of supplies he'd acquired while waiting on Johnny and the squad, then started for the emergency room doors.
"Uh huh," Johnny followed with a grin and a swagger that said he knew something was up.
They'd almost reached the corner when Dr. Brackett stepped out of treatment two, chart in hand and chewing on the inside of his cheek the way he did when he found a puzzle he hadn't figured out yet. He glanced up and saw Roy and Johnny, and his expression changed, eyes lighting slightly.
"I was actually hoping to see you today."
Johnny stepped into the middle of them. "Me?"
Brackett faltered for a fraction of a second before recovering. "Ah, no. Sorry, Johnny."
He reached into one of the pockets of his white coat and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, handing it to Roy. "I got the number from Neurology. The guy at the Veterans Administration clinic is there on Thursdays. He'll know who to talk to about the nerve conduction study authorization."
Roy took the paper because Bracket was already holding it out, but he certainly didn't look happy about it.
"I didn't say I was doing that."
"No," Brackett tilted his head in a half nod. "You said you'd think about doing it, and I'm helping you think efficiently."
Johnny snorted and turned his head away before Roy could smack him for it.
"It's just occasional numbness," Roy sighed.
"It's persistent enough that you mentioned it twice."
"Alright," Roy said. "I'll call when I get the chance."
"No. You'll call today."
"Kel."
The name came out before Roy had decided to use it, and he felt a flush creep up onto his ears. Unlike his friendship with Johnny, which stayed the same whether they were on the clock or not, it just seemed easier to keep Kel and Dr. Brackett separate from each other.
It was cleaner that way. Especially since he'd been having softer thoughts about the good doctor than he meant to be having lately.
Brackett's face didn't betray his own surprise, just a flick of his eyes to Johnny and back.
"Today," Brackett repeated, quieter but no less firm.
Roy pursed his lips and nodded, obediently. "Okay. Today."
"Good," Brackett tapped the chart he was holding lightly against his other palm, voice back to business again. "And if they give you any trouble, you call me."
And after a moment of quiet, he made a shooing motion. "Alright then, back to work. Nothing getting done, loitering in my hallway."
Roy and Johnny both laughed and scurried their way back to the squad.
They got back to the station just in time for another run.
And then Roy made the call after lunch. He didn't want to, and the number didn't look any less irritating the fifth time he'd unfolded the paper to look at it. But Brackett had said today. And Roy, god help him, couldn't refuse when he got that soft tone in his voice. The one that didn't bother hiding how much he actually cared.
He stood in the corner of the day room, arms folded over the payphone on the wall. The woman at the VA clinic had transferred him twice, put him on hold once, and finally connected him with a man who seemed to understand exactly what authorization Roy had needed before he even finished explaining it.
Which was its own kind of annoying. Because it meant there were no excuses to keep avoiding this particular testing that Kel Brackett was insistent on.
He hung up six minutes later with an appointment, a name, and a list of records he was supposed to bring.
Thursday afternoon found Roy in Brackett's office after the appointment at the VA because Kel had asked him to stop by. A visit, maybe follow-up coded if it made either of them feel better. A few minutes for Roy to tell him the first round of testing was less annoying than he thought it would be, a few minutes to tell him that there was another one scheduled.
And then Kel asked other questions. More probing questions. The ones that nobody else ever thought to ask. Because nobody else knew how much Roy hated being at the VA. Nobody else knew that seeing other military members all together in one space set him on edge. Nobody else knew that remembering he was a part of that machine brought back too many other memories.
Roy hadn't meant to tell him everything. He never did.
But Kel always spotted the tells. The way Roy wiped his sweaty hands on his pants leg, or how his knee jiggles when he talked about the giant picture at the front entrance that looked too much like a place he wanted to forget.
That was Kel at his most dangerous. Not when he was barking orders in the emergency room. Not when he was cutting through nonsense with one sharp look.
When he was quiet. When he let Roy get through a sentence without saving him from it.
Roy stopped talking all at once and looked down at his hands.
"I don’t know why I'm telling you this."
Brackett’s voice was low. "Because somebody ought to know."
Roy let out a breath that almost became a laugh. "Somebody probably already does. It’s all in a file somewhere."
"That's not the same, and you know it."
He did know.
His right hand had gone half-numb again. Or maybe he was holding it too tight. He loosened his fingers, flexed them once, then stopped when Brackett noticed.
Of course Brackett noticed.
Kel pushed away from the desk. "Let me see."
"It's fine."
"Roy."
Roy gave him his hand.
Brackett took it carefully, like he had done a dozen times before. He checked Roy’s grip, the warmth of his fingers, the response when he pressed along the wrist and palm.
Roy watched Kel’s hands instead of his face. Broad hands. Capable hands. A doctor’s hands, but not soft ones that had never seen hard work. Hands that had hauled men back from death and signed forms and fought hospital committees and, lately, held too much of Roy’s history without flinching from the weight.
Brackett's thumb brushed the inside of Roy’s wrist.
Roy sucked in a breath.
It should have been nothing. A pause. A moment. Two tired men in a hospital office after a long day.
Then Brackett’s hand tightened, barely.
Roy didn't know which of them leaned first. He only knew that the kiss happened.
One second there was the small, electrically charged space between them, and the next Kel’s mouth was on his, warm and sudden and far less careful than Roy would have expected from a man who lived so controlled. Roy made a sound he did not recognize, involuntary and honest. His numb fingers curled into Brackett’s sleeve. Kel’s other hand came up to his shoulder, not pushing, not holding him there, just touching him as if he had forgotten all the rules at once.
It lasted only a few seconds.
Then Brackett pulled back like he had burned himself.
"Oh, God."
Roy sat frozen, hand still half-raised, mouth tingling.
Brackett stepped away. Then another step. "Roy, I'm sorry."
Roy blinked at him.
"I shouldn't have done that." Brackett dragged a hand over his mouth, the first truly unsettled gesture Roy had seen from him in any of their time spent alone. "That was— That was out of line."
Roy's thoughts had not caught up yet. They were still somewhere in the heat of Kel's mouth, the softness of his lips, the impossible fact of being wanted and touched by the man standing in front of him now looking like he'd made the biggest mistake.
"Kel—"
"No." Brackett shook his head once, sharp and final. "No, that can't happen again."
Roy lowered his hand.
Brackett was still talking, too quickly now. "You came here because I asked you to. You trusted me with something difficult, and I— I took advantage of that. I apologize. It won't happen again."
Roy stared at him. Everything inside his mind had gone very still.
It won’t happen again.
Roy nodded once.
Brackett stopped. For the first time, he seemed to actually see Roy’s face.
"Roy—"
"If that's what you want," Roy said.
Brackett’s expression shifted. "That isn't what I meant."
"It's what you said."
Kel opened his mouth, then shut it again.
Roy stood. His knees felt steady, which surprised him. He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a shaking breath.
"Thank you for your help with the phone number and the… everything," he said.
Brackett looked stricken.
"Roy."
"I should get back home. I need—I promised an update to Johnny and… should probably get some groceries." Roy was rambling. He knew he was, but his mouth had a mind of its own, and so he left before Kel could say his name again.
For the next week, Roy did exactly what he was supposed to do.
He answered questions on runs. He brought patients to Rampart. He gave vitals cleanly, signed what needed signing, and didn't give anyone a reason to look at him twice.
He wasn't rude to Brackett, he wasn't even cold. He was professional. Painfully and perfectly professional.
The first time they crossed paths after the office incident, Brackett looked at him for half a second too long. Roy helped transfer a patient from the ambulance gurney to the hospital exam table and then stepped back, asking if he was still needed before leaving the treatment room.
The second time, Brackett had asked, "How was the follow-up testing?"
"It was fine."
Brackett's jaw tightened, the little muscle in the corner twitching. "Any pain afterward?"
"No."
"Any increase in numbness?"
"No."
Johnny, standing beside him with the handie talkie, glanced between the two of them with a puzzled frown. Roy ignored his confusion.
The third time, Roy managed to get outside the doors before Brackett caught up with him.
"Roy."
And Roy stopped in his tracks because this was Brackett's emergency department. And because a part of him had been waiting to hear Kel say his name like that.
"Doctor?" he asked, congenially.
Brackett winced. Just slightly. Nobody else was close enough to hear or see them just yet. Johnny was still inside with Dixie, trying to get information about a new nurse. The ambulance had already left. And two nurses just finished their break and left them alone.
Brackett stepped in closer. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Call me 'doctor' in a way that sounds like you're trying to put me back on the other side of a wall."
Roy breathed through his nose and worried his bottom lip with his teeth. "I thought that's what you wanted."
"No." Kel's answer came too fast to be anything but true, and something in Roy's chest hitched. "No, it isn't."
Roy looked away, to the side. He had to. "Then I don't understand."
"I know."
"That day, you said—"
"I know what I said."
Roy gave a short laugh, dry and humorless. "Then you can see where I'm getting confused."
Kel was silent for a moment, choosing words. "It can't happen like that."
"I know, Kel. That's what—"
"No. I… it shouldn't happen again. It's not supposed to." Kel looked up, and Roy was struck with the height difference that he constantly forgot about. Kel Brackett had such a huge presence, it stood over his physical form at all times. Except now, when he was looking up at Roy with just his own feelings.
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean I want you," Kel said.
Roy's breath caught.
Kel didn't look away. "And I also mean there are reasons I shouldn't."
"Why?" Roy swallowed.
Kel gave a straight little laugh and looked back at the emergency room doors, like watching for an audience before he continued. "Professionalism, for one."
Roy almost smiled. Almost. "That's a weak argument at best. We can be professional at work."
Kel clenched his jaw once. "Can we?"
"We already are. We already have been."
"That was before."
"And it's been since."
Kel exhaled slowly. "There is also a power dynamic at play."
Roy tipped his head, and his mouth twitched into a tiny smile. "I'm not going to pretend that isn't part of the attraction."
For one second, Kel looked like he might actually laugh. But then the restraint and control came back, slightly thinner, less certain, than before.
"There's also the doctor-patient relationship."
"You treated your own father."
"Roy."
"Kel." Roy stepped in closer now. "You're not my family doctor. You're the doctor who yells at me when I'm bleeding on your floor and the man who knows which office at the VA might actually answer the phone. It's not that disruptive."
"Roy, this isn't simple."
"No," Roy admitted. "But it's not impossible either."
Kel's eyes searched his face, and Roy let him. He was used to being examined by this man in every way that mattered. This was just another one.
"Can't we just… try?" Roy asked. It was a quiet question, pleading and uncertain.
And Kel's expression changed, broken by Roy's voice. And Roy could see it written plain as day. The want, naked enough to hurt. Not just desire or lust or leftover heat from one kiss that never should have happened. Something steadier than that. Something solid and shared and intimate. Something that had taken the time to grow between them.
"What if it doesn't work?" Kel asked.
Roy shrugged and stepped closer again. They were almost touching, just far enough for plausible deniability. "What if it does?"
Kel closed his eyes for a second. And when he opened them, there was a decision. Not made lightly.
"Okay."
"Okay?" Roy felt his heart jump. He couldn't stop the smile that took over his face.
"We try," Kel acquiesced. "But not here."
"Professionalism," Roy bounced on the balls of his feet.
"Yes, I'm trying to salvage some. Now get out of here, hose jockey." And then Kel paused before adding. "And come back when your shift ends tomorrow morning."