Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

SHIFT: Sun-Wed, 12:00-00:00

PARAMEDIC: S. Riley (FTO, RSI, TEMS)

EMT: J. MacTavish

[week 1, day 1]

John's day starts inauspiciously with Gaz flinging a set of ambulance keys at his head.

"What the fuck," he yelps, catching them.

On the other side of the dispatch office window, Gaz crosses his arms and leans back in his desk chair. "Good afternoon, Soap. Your shift started two minutes ago. I have twenty units on the road and zero currently available, four people have already no-showed this morning because they forgot about the new schedule, and one of my workstations is down. I need you in service, so please hustle."

John has always considered Gaz his favorite dispatcher (he would not admit this to Gaz on pain of death), but he's starting to question his own taste. "Alright, no problem. What truck are we on?"

"One-four-one. Congratulations."

"Isn't that the one that caught on fire a couple months ago? I thought it was out of service."

"Mechanics said it's probably fine. Just turn off the ignition if you smell burning."

Yeah, Gaz is definitely being moved down the list. "Fantastic, thanks. Have you seen, um, Ghost?"

"You lost him already?"

"I never had him."

"Well, he's kind of hard to miss. Go check the bay." Gaz scoots his chair back to his array of screens in the dispatch office, dismissing him.

"Okay, have a good day, buddy," John calls as he walks away.

"Good luck!" Gaz yells back ominously.

John hasn't officially met Ghost yet. He's only ever spotted the man from a distance before, lurking around base like some gigantic, malevolent ghoul in a black surgical mask.

As of the new schedule today, they're full-time partners.

Price, the mid-shift supervisor, did something funny with his mouth when he gave John the news last week, with the air of a doctor imparting a serious diagnosis. But to John, who, after graduating his training last year, spent several months on a double-EMT truck and then a couple more without an assigned partner, just a revolving door of whoever picked up an extra shift, a permanent spot with a notably competent paramedic sounds fantastic. It doesn’t matter that everyone is terrified of Ghost. A hardass, they call him. A nightmare to work with. Makes you feel like an idiot, they say.

That's fine. John already knows he's an idiot.

He heads over to pick up his truck, feeling vaguely silly as he peers into the murky corners of the cavernous ambulance bay like his new partner might be hiding in one of them. Despite Gaz's assurances, Ghost is living up to his name at the moment.

Several minutes later, John is sitting in the back of 141, inspecting their equipment and worrying that Ghost might have called out sick after learning who his new partner is, when the huge fucker just materializes out of thin air at the open door. He's carrying a drug box, a travel mug, and a profound air of menace.

“MacTavish?” he asks. He has a nice voice. Deep.

“That’s me. Nice to meet you, sir.” John scoots down the bench seat and holds out his hand. “You can call me S—”

From the overhead speaker, Gaz’s voice interrupts: “One-four-one, please call in service as soon as possible. We’re holding calls.”

Gaz is actually his least favorite dispatcher and also a bastard, John decides.

Ghost is motionless, staring down at John's outstretched hand like he's trying to recall on which page of How to Behave Like a Real Human in Polite Society he’s previously seen the gesture.

Before things can get awkward, John turns the aborted handshake into a jovial, manly sort of punch to Ghost’s shoulder. It's rather like how he imagines it would be to hit an adult moose, both in the physical sensation and in the frisson of anticipated danger it elicits. Gamely, he says, “Truck’s just about set, sir. Glad to be working with you.”

Ghost’s eyes flick up to John’s face, and then higher, to his hair. He frowns. Then he nods and disappears around the side of the truck.

Alright, that's fine. They can work up to the talking part.

The overhead speaker clicks on again. “One-four-one, please don't make me beg.”

"Do we have a gurney and a monitor?" Ghost calls from the passenger seat.

John hastily zips the jump bag closed. "Yeah, I'm just checking—"

"Good enough." Ghost keys up on the truck radio. "One-four-one in service. Where do you need us?"

"Thank you, one-four-one. It's going to be a red response—"

Oh, for fuck's sake. John hurtles out of the back of the truck, slams the door shut, and jogs to the driver's seat. "Sorry, I didn't catch the dispatch," he says, flinging himself inside and grabbing for his seat belt. "What's the address?"

"Head north."

John has several clarifying questions he wants to ask, but he refrains. He flicks on the lights and sirens and navigates to the nearest main road that runs north-south, all the while sneaking little glances over at Ghost.

Ghost is huge even sitting down, and his posture reads both alert and perfectly relaxed in the way only apex predators can pull off. The black surgical mask is in place, of course, and he's wearing a black ball cap pulled low over his eyes. The latter definitely isn’t uniform-compliant, since it has a goofy skull where an agency patch should be, but John is already getting the impression that Ghost does whatever he wants and nobody dares tell him otherwise. Price probably has the balls, but he isn’t particular about much apart from good patient care.

Then again, Price also wears a stupid hat.

John clears his throat. "What's the call for?"

"Fall."

"Hm. So probably bullshit, then."

"Take a right at the next light," says Ghost, bending down to grab a handful of nitrile gloves from his backpack. Black, unlike the standard blue ones provided at base. Must buy them specially, the absolute nerd.

Ghost stuffs the gloves into his pocket and sits back. "It's gonna be a code."

John snorts. "Ha ha, yeah."

It's a fucking code.

They step from the mild late-spring weather into the aggressive air conditioning of the auto parts store they were dispatched to (Ding dong! the electronic door chime screams shrilly), and sure enough, there’s a dead guy on the floor in front of the windshield wiper section. An employee in a bright red polo shirt is knelt over him, doing anemic sort of chest compressions, and several customers and fellow employees are watching from a respectful distance, although that might just be because of all the vomit.

Ghost doesn’t gloat about it. “MacTavish, let’s get some real CPR going,” he mutters, grabbing the monitor and drug box off the gurney. 

There's a bit of trouble convincing red polo guy that he's allowed to stop CPR now that the professionals are here, and then quite a lot of confusion getting a story on what happened, because every single bystander tries to shout it at them simultaneously. As John does compressions, Ghost works around him seamlessly, cutting off the guy's shirt and applying defib pads to his chest.

"Alright, let me check this rhythm," says Ghost.

John lifts his hands. Ghost puts two fingers over the man's carotid artery and squints at the monitor for a few seconds before grunting disapprovingly and pulling a BVM out of the jump bag.

“Oh, right, fuck,” John says, resuming compressions. "I can ventilate too, if you need hands for your—paramedic stuff."

“Relax, MacTavish. He's already dead. There's no rush. Fire will be here soon, anyway.”

Their EMS agency is in charge of prehospital care and transport in the area, but the city fire department also shows up to potentially serious medical calls to help out as needed, and they're always extremely eager to do CPR.

John zones out for a little while, mentally pacing his compression rate, before he realizes something else. “Oh shit, we should update dispatch.”

“Already did,” says Ghost.

“When?”

“About thirty seconds ago.”

Frowning, John glances up. Ghost, who is apparently secretly a wizard, has somehow gotten an IV in between ventilations and is currently taping it off. He reaches into his drug box for a syringe of epinephrine, slams it through the IV, and pushes a button on the monitor.

Ding dong! A firefighter pokes his head in the door. "Hey, you guys don't need us, do y—ah, shit."

"Surprise," says Ghost, spiking a liter saline bag.

Ding dong! sings the door chime as the four-man crew piles inside. Ding dong! Ding dong! Ding dong!

John is cheerfully shoved out of the way by Firefighter One, who takes over compressions with a zeal that speaks of long hours at the station gym, quality nap time, and probably excellent work benefits. Firefighter Two grabs the saline bag from Ghost and stands over them, role-playing as an IV pole.

John shuffles up to the head of the patient to focus on ventilations. He usually loves this role—fingers clamped tight under a jaw, head tilted back, squeezing the bag in a steady rhythm, watching a chest rise and fall under his command—but he finds he can’t enjoy it right now. Between the beeping of the monitor, the acrid smell of vomit and new tires, the hum of chatter, and the crowing of the wretched door chime every time someone enters or leaves the store, he’s starting to feel distinctly overstimulated.

Ding dong! Ding dong! Now there's a cop on scene, leaning in the doorway while he chats with an employee. Ding dong!

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," John says under his breath. He turns to Firefighter Three, who's hovering at his shoulder, waiting to be assigned a task. "Hey man, can you go find a way to turn that thing off? I'm about to lose it."

"Sure thing, boss." He jogs away.

Moments later, John hears a dull thunk and a particularly vehement greeting from the door chime. Price bullies his way into the store, carrying a second drug box. “Sorry bud, didn’t see you there,” he says, clapping Firefighter Three on the shoulder. He peers back at the doorway. "What in the ever-loving fuck is that noise?" he asks pleasantly.

"Don't worry boss, I'm taking care of it," says Firefighter Three.

"Good man." Price comes over and crouches next to their little group, snapping on gloves. "Looks like you boys are having fun. What's the story, Ghost?"

Ghost slams another syringe of epinephrine through the IV. “Witnessed arrest, down time”—he checks his watch—“fifteen minutes. Bystanders started CPR, if you want to call it that. Been in PEA since I got him on the monitor. That was the second round of epi—”

DINGDONGDINGDONGDINGDONG!

Their heads all snap up simultaneously.

Firefighter Three gives them a sheepish look from the doorway. "Sorry, got too close. I found the off button, though!" He reaches up and jabs at it.

MEEEEEEP MEEEEEEP! carols the door chime.

Ghost stands up.

Firefighter Three instantly shrinks back against the wall, which is understandable. It's an alarming sight, like an eldritch horror unfolding into its true form.

Ghost stalks to the doorway, but he doesn't throttle the firefighter like John is half-expecting. He calmly wrenches the chime off the door frame, opens the door, and chucks the infernal object clear across the parking lot.

Price doesn't even blink as Ghost stalks back over. "Anyway, did we get a history on this guy?"

"Nobody here knows him," John says. “Sounds like he just came in looking pale, puked and went down." He glances at Firefighter One, who's maroon-faced and dripping sweat onto their patient. "Do you need a break?"

"Good for now," he wheezes.

"Don't be a hero," Price admonishes. He waves imperiously at Firefighter Three, who scurries back to take over compressions. "Your scene," Price says to Ghost. "What now?"

"I was about to get a tube. You wanna handle meds for me?"

"You got it."

John scoots over to make room at the head of the patient. Ghost kneels next him, opens the intubation kit, and quickly attaches a laryngoscope blade to its handle. Their arms brush; Ghost twitches away.

“Sorry,” John mutters, scooting further to the side. His boot clips something, and he turns to see a cardboard display of air fresheners teetering dangerously over his head. Firefighter Four lunges for it and sets it back upright. “Sorry,” John says again.

Fortunately, Ghost is getting into position for intubating and not paying attention to John. He drops down to his stomach, legs sprawled out in the aisle with the toes of his boots braced on the linoleum floor, laryngoscope and tube in hand, in a decidedly cocky manner. “Alright, MacTavish,” he says.

John takes the BVM away and leans back so he’s not blocking the light. Ghost tilts the man’s head back, slips the laryngoscope blade into his mouth, opens up his airway with a clever flick of his wrist, and seats the tube in one smooth slide.

It’s the fastest and cleanest field intubation John’s ever seen. “Fuckin’ beautiful, sir,” he murmurs. 

Ghost grabs the BVM out of his hands without so much as a “please,” attaches it to the end of the tube, and gives a few experimental ventilations. Apparently satisfied, he holds the BVM back out to John, then clambers up to his knees and secures the tube with medical tape.

After a couple minutes and another round of epinephrine, Price says, “Been down a while."

Ghost looks up from the monitor. “Yeah.” 

“One more pulse check before we call med control?”

“Yeah, hold CPR for a second,” says Ghost.

The firefighter lifts his hands, and John presses his fingers over the patient’s carotid artery. He feels around for a couple seconds, absolutely not expecting anything, except there, faintly—

“I’ve got one,” he says.

Price gives him an unbelieving look and checks for himself. “Well, shit,” he says. “I actually wasn’t expecting that.”

“Alright,” says Ghost, “let’s get rolling before we lose it again. I don’t wanna have to call it in a goddamn AutoZone, Christ.”

They pile into the ambulance like a clown car in reverse: Ghost first, taking up the whole damn frame with his bulk; then the patient on the gurney, while a firefighter (it might be Two, but John's lost track at this point) shuffles alongside to keep up ventilations; then an absurd amount of equipment, dumped onto the bench seat by Price. John climbs into the driver’s seat and cranes to look behind him.

“I’ll follow,” says Price from the open rear door. “And I’ll call ahead for you. Pull over if you need me.” He slams the door shut and slaps it. 

John drives to the hospital.

He doesn’t get to do it often, but this is his favorite part of his job—driving lights and sirens with a patient in the back. They’re encouraged to avoid it when possible, since it isn’t particularly safe, and there’s always a hospital fairly close by when you work in the city. But the stress of it, the high stakes, the pressure not to fuck up—because if you do fuck up, you might kill the patient and your partner and yourself, and maybe even some other people on the road as a bonus—has some sort of paradoxical effect on John. It drops his heart rate, clears his mind, makes him perfectly relaxed in a way that probably means he needs to be medicated.

John glances in the rearview mirror as often as he safely can, given he’s weaving around cars and not abiding by a single civilian traffic law. While their borrowed firefighter ventilates from the jump seat, Ghost hangs a norepinephrine drip, does a twelve-lead, and then starts setting up for a second IV, calm as you please.

“Watch the potholes, MacTavish,” calls Ghost.

He is watching the potholes, but the suspension on this truck is god-awful. “Sorry, sir,” he calls back. 

Ghost gets the IV on the first try, in about three seconds. In a moving ambulance, on a recently dead guy. It’s probably a fourteen gauge too. John is at once thrilled and oddly annoyed at his competence.

When they pull into the hospital, it’s business as usual. Another EMS crew, just about to leave, sees him coming in hot and jogs over to help unload the gurney. Inside, Ghost gives a perfect report to the doctor while they transfer the patient to a hospital bed in the critical care bay, nurses and techs swarming around.

Less than a minute after he’s off their gurney, the guy codes again. The ER works him for twenty-five minutes before the doctor calls time of death.

***

“Hey, Price,” calls John, jogging to catch up with his supervisor in the hospital parking lot. “Can we grab some restock from you?”

They load up with fresh supplies at Price’s fly car and head to the ambulance together. Ghost is sitting on the rear step, typing up his chart. He stands up at their approach and silently accepts a handful of meds from Price.

Price drums his fingers on the side of the ambulance. “Hell of a first call together, boys.” 

Ghost makes a snorting noise, possibly in agreement, and bends over his drug box.

“I blame Gaz,” says John, as he haphazardly shoves supplies into cabinets. “I know he did it on purpose somehow.” It wasn’t actually Gaz’s fault, because they were the only crew in service, but it’s an unspoken rule that you’re supposed to blame dispatch for any and all inconveniences, no matter how far-fetched.

“Speaking of Gaz,” says Price, “I think we’re holding calls again, if you gents are all set.”

“Yeah, thanks for the help, boss,” says John. Ghost just nods once, and Price fucks off to drive around in his fly car or whatever it is supervisors do.

Once they’re buckled up in the front of the truck, John says, “Sorry about the potholes.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Ghost, squinting down at the EKG strip he has spread across his knee. “This truck is a piece of shit.”

“Was it okay other than that?”

“What.”

“I mean, did I fuck anything up? I haven’t been on that many codes, and I don't know how you like to work yet, so…”

Ghost raises his head and stares at him for a moment. Or glares, maybe?

“You were fine, MacTavish.”

“Okay. Good.”

“You good?”

“Yep.” John picks up the radio and calls back in service.

“One-four-one, you’re back in service,” echoes Gaz. He manages to make the words sound like an extremely deep sigh. “It’s going to be a red response, seventy-one Almas Avenue, your crosses are Spruce and Chestnut, for the flu-like symptoms, coded as sickness with trouble breathing.”

John thunks his head back against the seat and keys up. “Seventy-one Almas, on the way.”

Chapter Text

[week 3, day 2]

Two weeks later, John still hasn’t seen Ghost without the mask. 

At first, he thought maybe Ghost was a weirdo about airborne pathogens or had a weak immune system or something. Now, he’s come to the conclusion that Ghost is just a weirdo in general, and, for whatever reason, he doesn’t like people seeing his face. Even his eyes (dark, fringed with pale lashes that match what John can see of his short-cropped hair, not that he’s been inspecting closely or anything) are mostly hidden by the brim of his cap.

They spend twelve hours a day together, and the man obviously needs to eat to maintain his frankly absurd muscle mass, but he’s sneaky. After Ghost takes a call, he usually goes out to the truck to write his chart while John cleans the gurney and chats at whoever he finds in the hospital EMS room. If John takes a non-priority call, Ghost vanishes to who knows where at the hospital, then turns up at the truck exactly fifteen minutes later and drops into the driver’s seat to act as chauffeur until their next call.

John doesn’t take it personally. Alone time is hard to come by when your job requires you to spend most of the day sitting in a vehicle next to someone, and Ghost seems to need a lot of it, but John suspects that has more to do with shyness than any antisocial tendencies.

All in all, he's decided, the mythology surrounding Ghost is greatly exaggerated. He is a little bit of a hardass, but that’s reasonable in this line of work. Ghost has only yelled at him once, and it was warranted.

Ghost isn’t yelling at the moment, though. In fact, he seems quite relaxed, following a half-step behind John as they meander down the sidewalk. It’s early evening, quiet and balmy, and they’re out in a rough part of the city that sees a distinct uptick in overdose calls every time a bad batch of heroin goes out. They’re supposed to be on one of those calls right now, but the problem is they can’t find the patient because the 911 caller evidently gave an address that doesn’t exist.

Gaz gave them instructions to “look in the area,” like the area isn’t an entire goddamn residential street, while he tries a call-back. The police and fire department have arrived too, and they’ve all split up to cover more ground as they check every house on the block. 

They walk up the porch steps to the next house and John knocks on the door. Frantic barking erupts inside. Great. He shifts his weight, and the floor shifts with him.

Turning and regarding Ghost nervously, he says, “Watch your step. I don’t think this porch is structurally sound.”

“Calling me fat, MacTavish?”

A man opens the door, blinking in the sunlight. He isn't in peak physical condition, but he also doesn’t look like he’s actively overdosing on heroin. Under his arm is tucked an absolutely vile little creature that might be a dog, or perhaps an opossum. It growls.

“Good evening, sir,” says John. “We received a call for someone possibly overdosed in the area. Would that be here?”

“No idea,” says the guy. “You can look around if you want.”

“Oh. Do you, uh, live here?”

“Nah, not really.”

“...Okay. Thanks, man.”

The house has most of its windows boarded up and apparently not a single working light bulb, so they pull out their flashlights to do a quick tour. All they find is a lot of trash, used needles, and an appalling mattress on the floor in one of the upstairs rooms.

They pass the door guy on the way out, where he's sprawled on a shabby couch with the opossum-dog thing at his feet. It bares its pointy little teeth at John.

“Nobody here,” John says, eyeing the creature as he sidles by. “Thanks for your help, though.”

“No problem.” The guy waves toward his feet. “Hey man, you want a dog?”

“Oh, um, no thanks.”

Once they’re out on the street, Ghost says, “You sure, MacTavish?”

“Yeah, pretty fuckin’ sure.”

“Don't like dogs?”

“Dogs are fine. Not convinced that thing’s domesticated, though.”

Ghost shrugs. “It was kinda cute.”

“Gonna go take it off his hands?”

“Can’t have it in my apartment.”

It’s honestly pathetic, the thrill John feels at learning these tiny scraps of personal information about Ghost. He likes dogs. He lives in an apartment. He’s civilized enough to follow tenancy rules.

“What has two legs and bleeds?” says Ghost as they walk to the next house.

“What?”

“Half a dog.”

“Jesus Christ, man. I’m gonna go back and warn that guy about you.”

“One-four-one?” calls Gaz.

John grabs the portable radio out of his pocket. “One-four-one, still out here looking.”

“Be advised that police have found your patient. Look for the abandoned lot and head to the backyard there.”

Half the street looks abandoned, in John’s opinion, but he guesses the cops probably mean the exceptionally shambolic house two doors down, with an overgrown yard and a chain-link fence that has been snipped with wire cutters and then repaired with plywood.

“Copy, heading over.”

They’re last to arrive. In a patch of tamped-down weeds in the middle of the wild backyard, a man lies supine and apparently unconscious while a firefighter crouches at his head, ventilating him. A second firefighter is connecting the BVM tubing to an oxygen tank, and two cops are milling around, looking supremely unconcerned. The sun is just starting to think about setting; its soft light paints the tall grass and blooming Queen Anne’s lace in molten gold and catches on little particles floating in the still air. A songbird is calling nearby.

John and Ghost leave the gurney at the end of the driveway and trudge over through the weeds. The patient is young, probably in his twenties. He’s dressed in a tattered sweatshirt with one sleeve rolled up above his elbow, and shorts that look oddly bulky, like he might be wearing several additional pairs underneath.

“Looks like his friends dumped him and ran,” says the first firefighter, glancing up at their arrival. “We didn’t give Narcan yet. Got his sat up and his color back just ventilating. Lots of speedballs lately, figured you might wanna titrate.”

Ghost crouches down and feels for a pulse. “Old school. I like it.”

“Watch your step,” calls a cop, in the exact manner of a bored amusement park worker, as he scuffs his boot through the weeds. “Lots of needles back here.”

John also crouches, gingerly, and lifts one of the patient's eyelids. His pupil is a tiny black pinprick.

“Why,” says Ghost, “are his shorts full of ice?”

John looks down. The bulkiness he noted from a distance is, in fact, due to the guy having a substantial quantity of ice cubes stuffed down his shorts for some arcane purpose. “This guy needs to get some new fuckin' friends,” he mutters.

While Ghost sets up for an IV, the second firefighter paws at the patient to remove the mystery ice and John gets him hooked up to the monitor. Then he lubes up an NPA and sticks it in the guy’s nose, ostensibly to manage his airway, but really mostly for something to do with his hands.

John is handed the patient’s wallet, retrieved during the ice removal efforts, and then they hang around and wait while Ghost slowly pushes Narcan and the first firefighter squeezes the BVM. After a minute or so, the guy starts groaning and shuffling his legs. Ghost disconnects the syringe of Narcan from the IV port and the firefighter tosses the BVM aside.

“Hey, uh”—John flips the wallet open—“Steven! Steve? Welcome back, buddy.” He glances at the monitor. Heart rate: 140 beats per minute. “What did you take, bro?”

Steve just grunts.

“MacTavish,” says Ghost as he presses the blood pressure button on the monitor, “think you can handle getting the gurney over here? I doubt our friend is up for walking.”

John narrows his eyes. “Yeah, pretty sure I can manage.”

“Just checking. Wouldn’t want another runaway gur—”

“Alright, alright,” he says loudly, standing up. “We don’t need to keep bringing up The Gurney Incident, you bastard.”

While Ghost packs up their equipment, John wrestles the gurney over through the weeds. They heave Steve up, still mostly dead weight, and pour him onto it. Several more pieces of ice tumble from his person.

John is working on buckling the gurney straps when Steve starts shifting around with purpose. “What—” he croaks, blinking. He reaches up, clumsily grasps the end of the NPA still in his nose, and pulls it out. “Ow.” Then he looks up at John, bleary-eyed. “Who…the fuck are you?”

“I’m an EMT,” John says cheerfully. “We got called here because you overdosed.”

Steve rubs his forehead and stares blankly at him. “No, I didn’t.”

“Sorry to say you did, buddy. We gave you Narcan, and now we’re gonna get you to the hospital.” He reaches for the leg belt buckle.

“Hey, back the fuck up, bro,” says Steve, swatting weakly at him. 

John sidesteps him. “Sorry man, but you’ve gotta wear these.”

“No, I fuckin’ don’t,” Steve mumbles. He sits up and tries to swing his legs off the side of the gurney, but is impeded by the safety rail.

Ghost, who has been watching this transpire from the head of the gurney, now steps into their patient's line of sight. He crosses his arms, glares down at Steve, and says coldly, “You sure fucking do.”

Steve stares up at Ghost and goes completely still, like a prey animal. 

Ghost is quite a sight, John has to admit. Masked, hard-eyed, and blotting out the sun at his back, he looks more like a force of incomprehensible evil than the oversized dork John has determined him to be.

“What the fuck,” Steve whimpers. 

“Put your legs down and sit the fuck back,” says Ghost.

Steve puts his legs down and sits the fuck back.

“You gonna behave now?”

Steve is still staring. In a small voice, he asks, “Did I die?”

“Pretty fuckin’ close,” says John, reaching for the buckle again. He catches Ghost’s eye over Steve’s head and can’t help winking at him. The corners of Ghost’s eyes crinkle minutely; he looks away.

Steve doesn’t say another word as they wheel him down the driveway.

As he loads the gurney into the ambulance, John says, “Man, I’m fuckin’ starving.”

Ghost hops up into the back. “Didn’t bring food?”

“Forgot it at home. I was running late this morning.” Ghost seems like he’s in a good mood, so he decides to capitalize on it. “Hey, you wanna see if Gaz will let us grab something after we drop off Steve here?”

Ghost’s expression is unreadable. After a moment, he just says, “Sure.”

John closes the back door hurriedly so Ghost doesn’t catch the stupid smile on his face.

***

It turns out Gaz is feeling benevolent; he lets them stop for dinner at a burger place on the corner after clearing the hospital. They order at the counter and then sit down in a sticky little booth with a radio between them, volume turned up. 

John accidentally kicks Ghost's leg under the table. Ghost jerks away.

“Oops, sorry,” John says. Then, temporarily seized by insanity, he adds, “Feels like we’re on a date.”

“You must go on shitty dates,” says Ghost.

“Wow, okay, rude.”

Ghost laughs. 

John's never heard him do that before. It’s a brief thing, and it could reasonably be mistaken for a cough, but it nonetheless makes him feel a bit like he’s the one who overdosed on heroin.

“What, you need a fancy restaurant?” he asks. “You high maintenance or something?”

Ghost shrugs. “Dunno. Nobody’s ever told me I am.” 

“You married?”

“No.”

“Seeing anyone?”

“No.”

“Got it.” John jiggles his foot. “Me neither. Guess it's easier, with these hours.” 

Ghost grunts.

The food arrives.

Abruptly, John is confronted with the realization that they’re about to eat across from each other, and he’s going to see Ghost without the mask for the first time. Obviously he’s been curious, but now that the moment has come he’s feeling skittish about it. It seems like a monumental step in their partnership, an affair that warrants rather more gravitas than an unceremonious reveal in a grimy burger joint.

He picks up his burger and stares at it, acutely aware of Ghost unlooping the mask in his peripheral vision.

It’s going to be weirder if he doesn’t look, he decides. He just needs to take it in steps. He takes a fortifying bite and raises his head, but just kind of…gazes in Ghost's vicinity, as one might do with a solar eclipse.

Then he looks.

Ah, fuck.

Of course, he already knew Ghost was attractive in a general sense: the whole looming presence, the arresting eyes, the nice voice, the deft hands, the way he fills out his uniform pants. But he could have been hiding weird teeth or a weak chin or something.

He wasn’t. He has a strong nose, a nice jawline, and a frustratingly perfect mouth, which is maybe an odd thing to think, considering his upper lip is cut through with a deep scar that extends across most of his pale, blond-stubbled cheek. 

He’s so pretty it activates John’s fight-or-flight response. He bounces his leg aggressively under the table.

“You good?” asks Ghost. Devastatingly, his mouth is even hotter when he talks.

“Yep,” John croaks.

Ghost almost certainly suspects that John is losing his shit over this, but he just raises an eyebrow and stuffs several fries into his mouth.

John barely gets his food down. He needs to go do some sprints, or maybe punch a wall.

The radio crackles. “One-four-one?”

For the first and probably last time ever, John mentally thanks Gaz for his timing.

Chapter Text

[week 4, day 4]

Getting to know Ghost is a slow process.

John applies himself to it with a patience that's rather unlike him. He's not sure why he's so invested, except perhaps for the challenge itself (he's always been a contrary little shit, if he's being honest); he can't come at it head-on, he's learned, or Ghost will shy away. He slips in sideways instead, collecting facts through a combination of easy conversation and close observation, and he tucks them away for later perusal like trinkets in a dragon's hoard.

Ghost is thirty-six years old. His travel mug always contains tea, and his drink of choice on evenings off is bourbon. He keeps his controlled meds kit in his left thigh pocket. He has perfectly steady hands. He likes his IV tape in three-inch strips and then torn in half lengthwise. He is terrible at talking to pediatric patients. He trusts John to do all the twelve-leads, and he often studies old EKG printouts while they’re parked on post.

His dust-blond hair is just long enough on top to start curling a bit (John treasures this fact especially, ever since he watched Ghost briefly remove his hat and run his hand through said hair earlier this week). He has an objectively stupid tattoo sleeve down his left arm (John loves it). He tells really, really shitty jokes (John also loves these, which is a secret he's taking to the grave).

The subject of John’s covert anthropological study is currently reclined in the passenger seat with his eyes closed as John pulls the ambulance out of the bay at their start of shift. Instead of calling in service over the radio, he dials the dispatch office number on their assigned truck phone and puts it on speaker.

“Dispatch.”

“Hey, Gaz, buddy. How busy are we?”

“What do you need, Soap?” Gaz is uniquely gifted at infusing the shortest, most monosyllabic sentences with profound exasperation and disdain. John doesn’t know why he’s wasting his talents in EMS dispatch when he could make a killing working a humiliation kink hotline.

“I forgot my phone at home. I live right in the city, though, so is it okay if I go pick it up?”

“You’re fine, bro. Just tell me when you’re back in service.”

“Thanks, bro.”

“Already taking your partner home, huh? You move fast—”

John jabs the End Call button.

Feeling a little warm, he turns to Ghost. “You okay if we stop by my apartment? Sorry, I should have asked.”

Ghost cracks one eye open. “Not a problem.” 

Fifteen minutes later, John parks the ambulance on the street in front of his landlord’s old brick house, which his minuscule second-floor apartment is crammed into the back of. “You can come in if you want,” he tells Ghost awkwardly. “You want something to drink? Need the bathroom?”

“I’m good,” says Ghost, but he gets out of the truck, tucking a portable radio into his pocket.

John leads them to the back door, feeling self-conscious. He was fully expecting his offer to be declined, and he hasn't had time to mentally prepare himself to show Ghost where he lives. He doubts Ghost gives a shit, but still. It’s been a while since he cleaned. 

Maybe he shouldn't be surprised, though. John seems to have passed some sort of test of worthiness he didn't realize he was taking because, as of recently, Ghost no longer flees his presence as soon as they get their patient off the gurney at the hospital. He sometimes sits with John in the EMS room while he writes his charts now, and they occasionally even eat together.

John unlocks the door to his apartment and leads Ghost upstairs, into the combination foyer-living-room-dining-nook. This ambiguous zone melts into the kitchen proper, featuring an undersized four-burner range that only fits a quarter sheet pan in the oven, such a shortage of counter space that John does most of his food prep on the lip of the sink, and the door to the bathroom, which, when opened, clears the fridge on the opposite side by about half an inch. The place just barely avoided the classification of “studio” by virtue of the bedroom being around a corner, through the kitchen. There isn't even a door on it. To the apartment's credit, though, it does have a nice big bay window, hardwood floors, and a tiny back deck that isn’t quite rotted enough to be a safety hazard yet. It suits John perfectly fine.

Ghost lingers just at the top of the stairs and silently inspects his surroundings. John tries to imagine what he might be comparing it to, what Ghost’s apartment looks like, but he can’t get his brain to conjure anything other than a vivid image of Ghost roosting upside down in a damp cave.

In this cramped space, with his head nearly touching the ceiling and his massive arms crossed over his chest, navy uniform shirt straining at the seams, Ghost looks completely out of place. Too big to be allowed. Overwhelming.

John decides he likes that, in a way he isn’t going to examine too closely. He strides through the kitchen to his bedroom. Ghost doesn’t follow. Obviously. 

John is rifling through a pile of journals and sketchbooks and junk mail that has accumulated on the little desk he has squeezed in the corner when Ghost’s voice comes from the other room.

“Did Gaz call you…Soap?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Most people do.”

Ghost lets out a vaguely displeased grunt. "Is that what you want me to call you?"

John moves on to rifling through his bedding. "Well, it's better than MacTavish, but not if you're gonna make that noise every time."

“That's your name, isn't it? Pretty sure it says it on your uniform.”

“Ah, here the fucker is. Yeah, but, I don't know. Kinda makes me feel like a butler. Not something my friends call me."

“Oh, are we friends now?”

That's a good question, actually. It doesn't feel like exactly the right designation, and he suddenly thinks about the flood of dopamine he experienced when he caught Ghost smiling bare-faced a few days ago, and oh boy, he's not going to examine that one either. “Well, geez,” he says, “try not to sound too excited about it.”

“Alright,” says Ghost. “Johnny.”

John comes back around the corner. He has the distinct impression Ghost is smirking under the mask. 

Pull yourself together, he thinks firmly.

“Oh, by the way,” he says. “You wanna exchange numbers? In case one of us needs to call out sick, or whatever. We could give each other a heads up.”

Ghost gives him a weird look, then silently holds out his hand. John opens up the contacts app on his phone and hands it over.

“Great, thanks,” he says, once Ghost gives it back. His heart rate feels abnormally high considering all they’re doing is standing around indoors.

They head back down to the truck, call in service, and are immediately sent to a nearby apartment complex for a trouble breathing call.

On bad respiratory calls, you often hear them before you see them, wheezing all the way around the corner. 

This one isn’t like that. 

It’s purely visual, no sound at all: they pull up to the address and there’s a young woman sitting on the curb out front in the picture-perfect tripod position they warn you about in EMT school, color ghastly, whole body heaving as she struggles to breathe. It doesn’t look like she’s even moving enough air to wheeze.

“Jesus,” says John. “She doesn’t look good.”

Ghost, evidently not requiring John's input to make this assessment for himself, is already halfway out the door when John puts the truck in park. John leaps out too, and jogs to the back of the ambulance to pull the gurney.

“You have asthma, ma’am?” Ghost asks urgently, unlooping the stethoscope from his neck.

The woman nods, eyes panicked. For all the work she’s putting into them, her breaths come only in tiny gasps. She reaches up to clutch at Ghost’s forearm.

John lowers the gurney and pulls it up to the curb as Ghost puts the stethoscope to the woman’s chest. He listens for about a millisecond and then says, “In the truck, now.”

Ghost bodily scoops her onto the gurney, John raises the back so she's sitting straight upright, and they load her into the ambulance in a big fucking hurry. Ghost vaults into the back, and John follows.

“Johnny, I need a—”

John is already pulling a CPAP mask out of the cabinet. He tosses it to Ghost.

“Yeah, that,” says Ghost, catching it. “And a duo-neb.” He rips the mask out of the packaging and flings one end of the tubing at John, who hooks it up to the oxygen tank.

As Ghost fits the mask over the woman’s face, John throws open the drug box and slaps down an ampule each of albuterol and ipratropium onto the bench seat next to Ghost.

“Gonna try for a sixteen?” he asks, reaching for an IV set.

“Won’t need to try, but yeah,” says Ghost as he empties both ampules into the in-line nebulizer. “Gonna give epi first, though.”

Ghost grabs a vial of epinephrine from the drug box and draws it up with quick, steady hands while John sets him up for the IV. It’s mechanical by this point: tourniquet, alcohol wipe, catheter, extension set, flush, gauze, tegaderm, tape. 

“You’re doing great, darling,” Ghost says to the woman, jabbing the epi into her deltoid. “Sorry for all the commotion.” He caps the needle and then, without even looking, picks up the tourniquet from where John has laid out the IV supplies.

John quickly hooks her up to the monitor—pulse oximeter, blood pressure cuff, cardiac monitoring, capnography—and is spiking a saline bag by the time Ghost finishes taping the IV.

“You want dex?” he asks, panting somewhat.

Ghost snags the end of the saline drip from John and whips off his stethoscope again. “Sure do. Leave it on the bench seat and let’s roll.”

It has all taken about three minutes.

“Green to the hospital?”

“For now.”

John doesn’t turn on the lights and sirens, but he does employ a brisk, assertive manner of driving (twenty over, riding the double yellow line). Every time he glances in the rearview mirror, Ghost is moving: he checks lung sounds, pushes dexamethasone through the IV, checks the monitor, refills the nebulizer, hangs a magnesium drip, rechecks lung sounds. 

A few blocks out from the hospital, the monitor starts beeping ominously.

“Ma’am,” says Ghost. A pause. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

Shit.

“Keep breathing for me, darling. You’re doing great.”

They’re hitting all the highlights on the list of things you definitely don't want to hear from the back of the ambulance. John checks the mirror. Ghost is ripping a BVM out of its plastic packaging.

“Ghost?”

“Little busy here.” God, he’s so fucking calm.

“You need more hands back there? Should I pull over?”

“I need you to get us to the hospital, Johnny, or else I’m gonna be tubing back here. Pick it up, but nice and easy, yeah?”

John flicks on the emergency lights. 

They’re sent straight into the critical care bay at the hospital, which is what typically happens when you arrive wild-eyed and steering the gurney with your elbow while you ventilate a patient on the verge of death who you didn’t call ahead about. It’s only then, when they hand her over to a veritable army of medical staff, that John feels like he himself can breathe properly again. 

They walk out of the bay together, dragging the empty gurney. 

“Nice work,” says Ghost, as composed as ever. “I’ll be out in the truck.”

John sags against the wall. 

As he slowly wipes down their equipment, he finally gives himself permission to acknowledge, face-on, what he’s been trying to ignore for the past twenty or so minutes: apparently, watching Ghost run a critical respiratory call is his very niche sort of kink.

***

They don’t talk as John pulls out of the hospital and heads to their assigned post. It isn’t a bad silence, just an intense one. At least, it is for John. Ghost is blissfully unaware that his partner is experiencing a sudden onset of improper thoughts pointed in his direction (or so John fervently hopes), and he’s probably thinking about dinner or something.

This is fine, John assures himself. It’s an occupational hazard of spending so many hours in close proximity to an attractive guy while getting absolutely zero action on his days off, combined with the adrenaline of the call. Anyone would have been affected.

As he drives, he glances at Ghost out of the corner of his eye and briefly indulges in imagining how it might go down if he propositioned him. 

Badly, no doubt. 

Hooking up with a work partner sounds like a terrible idea in general, although the possibility of disaster hasn't always, or even usually, stopped John from pursuing something he wanted in the past. Much more relevantly, there’s no way Ghost would be interested. 

John hasn’t picked up on any vibe whatsoever. In fact, he hasn’t even gotten a hint that Ghost is interested in sex at all, let alone with a man, let alone with John in particular. Ghost mentioned he wasn’t seeing anyone, and that must be per his own decision since he’s hot enough to pull just about anyone, even with the kind of lackluster social skills (John resolutely tells himself he does not find this aspect of Ghost endearing).

Except he can't stop thinking about it. Ghost's cool, tightly coiled confidence, toeing into arrogance. How, given enough time and determination, John might be able to break that composure, get him flustered and begging, hear him say Johnny in an entirely different tone of voice—

Christ. John didn't quite coax a declaration of friendship out of him, but he does think Ghost genuinely likes working with him. He needs to get home and rub one out before he ruins things.

John parks the truck in the shade of an oak tree at the edge of the church parking lot they're posted at, then rolls his shoulders. 

“I’ve gotta be honest,” he says, because he has to say something. “Respiratory calls scare the shit out of me. You were—well. I don’t know that much about being a medic, but it seemed like you had it under control.”

“So did you, Johnny. You were solid.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He glances over, but Ghost is staring out the window.

“You’re too smart to do this job forever,” Ghost adds. 

Well, he’s going to remember that compliment for the rest of his damn life.

“I’ve been applying to school, actually.”

Ghost, ever the conversationalist, says, “Ah.” Then, after a pause: “What for?”

“Nursing.”

“Ah. Good.”

“Should start hearing back pretty soon. Price wrote me a letter of recommendation, though, so I'm probably fucked.”

Ghost snorts.

“It'll be nice to get out of here eventually," John says. "I mean—no offense, obviously I like working with you. But you know how it is.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“You ever thought about becoming a supervisor?”

Ghost barks out a laugh. “Fuck no.”

And that’s that. 

At least, it is until ten minutes later, when John crashes the ambulance. 

Gaz dispatches them to a chest pain in the neighborhood, and John is driving there at a decent clip, lost in a very pleasant daydream, when he comes up on a notoriously sketchy blind intersection with buildings blocking visibility on every corner. The light turns green for him, but he still eases on the brakes and checks that all the traffic has stopped before hitting the accelerator again.

A car materializes out of nowhere and comes speeding down the cross street directly in front of him, blatantly running the red light. John slams on the brakes, but it's too late. He clips the car's rear quarter panel with a loud crunch, and it wobbles dangerously for a few seconds before coming to a hard stop against the curb several yards away.

 “Fuck,” says John, with feeling. He pulls the ambulance over.

Ghost reaches over and shuts off the siren for him. “Are you good?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” He looks back at the intersection; the other driver is climbing out of his car, looking irritable. “That asshole seems fine too. Fuck, that happened fast.”

“Could have been worse. Good reflexes.”

John picks up the radio. “One-four-one to dispatch.”

“One-four-one, go ahead.”

“Involved in an MVC at Park and Broadway. No injuries, but you’ll need to assign another crew to that chest pain.”

“Acknowledged, one-four-one. I’ll send police over to you.”

“Hey, Johnny,” says Ghost.

John looks at him.

“Two goldfish are in a tank.”

 “...What?” Oh fuck, did he give Ghost a head injury?

“One turns to the other and says, ‘You know how to drive this thing?’”

“Ghost, I swear to God, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you—”

“This is all being recorded on the dashcam, you know.”

The police arrive, do some paperwork, and give the other driver a ticket.

Price arrives too, and inspects their ambulance. It’s mostly fine, but one headlight is smashed and dangling out of its socket by a few wires. Price tapes it back in place and slaps it for good measure.

John has to go take a company-mandated drug test before they’ll let him behind the wheel again, so Price drives him in his fly car to a nearby medical office, leaving Ghost to take their wounded ambulance back to base. 

John waits for nearly an hour before they escort him back to piss in a cup. After he’s done, he calls Price to come pick him up, feeling rather like a naughty schoolboy being released from detention. 

Price doesn't even put the fly car in park when he drops John off in front of base. “I have to go deal with a crew who dropped their patient down the stairs,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ask Gaz what he wants to do with you, I guess.”

Price zooms off, and John goes inside. The base is almost completely empty, because it’s mid-afternoon and there aren't any crews scheduled to come on or off shift at this hour. There’s no sign of Ghost. 

He goes to the dispatch window. Gaz rolls over in his desk chair.

“Hey, buddy,” says John.

“Ah, look who it is,” says Gaz. “The Ambulance Crasher himself. I'm guessing Price told you to ask, and no, I don't have a job for you.”

“You’re helpful. Where’s my partner?”

Gaz spins in his chair. “Back on the road.”

This irritates John, for some reason. “Who’d you send him out with?”

Gaz puts his feet down to stop spinning. “He’s in a fly car. There’s no one for you to get jealous of, don’t worry.”

“I’m not fuckin’—fuck off.”

“Yeah, I bet you’re not. You wanna clean the restock room or something?”

“No thanks. Asshole.”

John spends an hour doing some online training that was apparently overdue, and after that he sits in the lobby and fucks around on his phone. Day crews start to stream in for their end of shift, and then the night crews arrive.

Crashing an ambulance was a pretty effective way of at least temporarily dousing John's randy urges, but Ghost keeps popping up in his wandering thoughts anyway. He supposes that makes sense. He should be with Ghost right now—spouting off whatever bullshit comes to mind while Ghost listens, getting some grunts or maybe a stupid joke in return, watching him do IVs, feeling his hulking presence at his shoulder.

He has Ghost’s number now, he remembers. He could text him and ask how the rest of the shift is going, if he’s had any good calls. That seems like a normal and appropriate interaction between work partners. He gets all the way to opening his messages app, and that’s when he notices: Ghost apparently didn’t bother texting himself to get John’s number in return.

His stomach drops. Okay, then, he thinks. Message received, loud and clear. He puts his phone away.

He starts anticipating Ghost’s return forty-five minutes before their end of shift time. Ten minutes pass, then twenty, then thirty, and there’s no sign of him. 

Five minutes before midnight, Gaz comes out of the dispatch office, walks by John, then swivels on his heel to face him.

“Waiting for a good-night kiss from your husband?” he asks.

“Get fucked, Kyle. Go back to your lair.”

Gaz’s expression softens. “I had to send him on a late call,” he says, almost apologetic. “You should go home.” He turns and heads to the bathroom.

John goes home.

***

Later, in bed, he decides he’s overreacting. Ghost probably expected John to text him and was just too awkward to say anything about it. It’s too late to send a message tonight, but that doesn’t stop him from picking up his phone and scrolling through his contacts list. 

He doesn’t find him under G.

If Ghost didn’t even save his fucking number after all, John is going to jump off a cliff so he doesn’t have to show up at work next week.

Then he scrolls down to S. 

It’s a bit of a shock, actually. John has never heard anyone call his partner anything other than Ghost. It’s obvious Ghost likes it that way: he keeps his work badge hidden in his pocket, and his uniform shirts are all missing the first-initial-last-name patch that’s standard for their agency (John suspects he went at them with a seam ripper).

The only reason he even knows Ghost’s legal name is because it’s automatically attached to all their charts, along with his own. He doesn’t really like looking at it; doing so feels impolite and intrusive, like staring at the man naked. 

But here it is, on his phone, put there by Ghost himself.

Simon Riley, he thinks. Simon Riley.

Oh, he’s fucked.

Chapter Text

[week 5, day 1]

It’s the first properly hot day of summer, with dark storm clouds hanging on the horizon and a sticky humidity thickening the air. John is already sweating when he walks into base to find Price and Ghost standing in front of the dispatch window, talking to Gaz. Or rather, Price is talking and Ghost is looming silently. 

The sight of Ghost sends a mortifying thrill of pleasure through John, settling in his navel. Attempting to quash it, he goes over to meet them.

Price slaps him on the back. “The dream team, back in action! The mechanics replaced your headlight and said you’re good to go. Just a couple scratches.”

Gaz slides the keys to 141 through the window. “By the way, Price,” he says. “You should have seen Soap’s face when he got back from his drug test and I had to tell him Ghost was out on the road without him. I thought he was actually going to cry.”

Price chuckles. “Didn’t realize you were that attached.”

John snatches up the keys, face hot. He doesn’t look at Ghost. “I had to spend like eight hours with Gaz; that would make anyone cry. Please don’t separate us again.”

“Hey, have you thought about not crashing your ambulance?” says Gaz.

“It wasn’t even my fault, asshole.”

“Wasn’t the same without you, Johnny,” says Ghost.

“Johnny,” mouths Gaz, looking delighted.

John flips him off.

***

Their first call of the day is for a little old lady who came out on the losing side of a bath-time altercation with her cat. They find the patient, Mary, sitting in a pastel pink armchair in her doily-filled condo, looking perfectly hale, while her anxious middle-aged son presses a paper towel over a long scratch on her cheek. The cat observes them from under the coffee table, damp and baleful.

“My, you boys are big,” says Mary, as John takes her blood pressure and Ghost pokes around at the wound.

“What, both of us?” says Ghost. John elbows him. Ghost steps on his foot.

“Handsome, too,” Mary adds.

“Mom, good lord,” says her son.

Mary is completely fine and doesn't even need stitches, let alone transport via ambulance. The son is worried, though, so John takes the call and Ghost drives them to the hospital.

John loves it when Ghost drives. It’s exhilarating and terrifying when they’re responding red to a call—he whips their shitty old truck around the city streets, pushing the limits of its acceleration and brakes like he doesn’t give a fuck if they both die.

But John likes it best like this, with a patient in the back, when Ghost has to take it easy. He likes the way Ghost holds the radio mic lazily, between his thumb and the side of his middle finger, when he keys up to tell dispatch they’re transporting. His voice is slow and clear and assured; he's not afraid to take up the air time he needs. He takes all the corners smoothly and eases his foot on the brake and checks his mirrors and uses his turn signal. 

It makes John feel safe. Cozy, even. But it makes him feel something else, too, that he can’t quite put a finger on. Powerful, maybe. Like he’s in control from the back of the ambulance, even though he isn’t. Like he could tell Ghost to do anything and he'd comply without question. 

It makes him imagine a strong body pinned under his thighs, hair twisted in a firm grip— 

Nope, stop it.

It’s a long drive to this particular hospital, out in the suburbs, and it’s starting to get fucking sweltering in the back of the ambulance.

“Are you comfortable, ma’am?” he asks.

“Well, it’s a little warm,” says Mary politely.

“Hey Ghost,” John calls, “can you turn on the AC back here?”

“Should be on already,” says Ghost.

“It’s blowing warm air.”

Ghost pokes at a few buttons on the console. “That work?”

John puts his hand over the vent. “Nope.”

“You probably broke it when you crashed the truck last week. Thing needs to be driven into a landfill at this point.”

John turns back to Mary. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Don’t mind my partner. He was born this way, he can't help it.”

“Oh, not at all, dear,” says Mary. “You boys make a lovely couple.”

John coughs and glances up at Ghost. Ghost is watching the road with an intensity that would make their emergency vehicle course instructor weep with joy.

***

They don’t have time to get their AC fixed or swap to a different truck, because of course they’re holding calls again. Gaz sends them straight from the hospital to a syncope call on the opposite end of the city. 

“I’ll send a closer unit if I get one back in service,” he promises, but he doesn't sound hopeful.

Hot days are usually a chaotic mess: dehydration, heat stroke, heart issues, respiratory issues, irritable residents stabbing each other. The city must be especially bad today, though, because when they finally pull up to the tidy little two-story house after a harrowing ten minutes with Ghost behind the wheel, there isn’t even a fire crew on scene.

“Well,” John says as he yanks the gurney out of the truck, “I hope they haven’t been unconscious this whole time.”

Ghost gives him a dark look and throws the intubation kit onto the gurney.

“Seems like bad luck to bring that.”

“You’re the black cloud, Johnny. It’ll be your fault.”

A woman in her sixties or seventies opens the door as they come up to the porch. She eyes Ghost suspiciously, then directs an anxious smile at John. “Oh, thank you for getting here so fast,” she says. “I’ve been so worried.” 

“We were told someone passed out?” says John, kicking the wheel lock on the gurney and heaving the jump bag onto his shoulder.

“It’s my husband, Frank. He’s been feeling sick, and he just, well—he collapsed. He’s in the bathroom upstairs; let me show you in.”

They head inside and tromp up the stairs behind her. Every single step is so piled with clutter—books, pens, stacks of mail, spare light bulbs, a screwdriver, several potted plants—that there’s barely room to navigate up the center.

“Can you tell us exactly what happened?” Ghost asks.

“Well, as I said, he’s been complaining about not feeling well. And he has that nitro for his heart, you know, and I told him, I said, ‘Frank, you’ve gotta take your medicine.’ And he finally did take it, but then he went to get washed up, and I heard a noise, and now—” 

She opens the door to the bathroom.

John analyzes the scene.

The first problem is that their patient is on the floor, naked, and wedged into a tiny gap between the bathtub, toilet, and washing machine in a manner that defies the laws of three-dimensional space.

The second problem is that he’s completely gray. 

John says, “Is he, uh.”

“As I said,” Ghost mutters, "your fault."

“Hey, Frank,” John calls loudly as they cram themselves into the bathroom. “Can you hear me, buddy?”

Frank doesn’t reply.

John crouches down next to the toilet and shoves his hand in the crevice to feel for a pulse on Frank’s wrist, which is half-trapped under his body. He adjusts his fingers, pokes around, but he doesn't find anything. Calmly, he says, “Ghost?”

Ghost drops the drug box, steps directly over John into the tub, and reaches down into the gap to feel for a pulse in Frank’s neck. After a few seconds, he says, “Got one. Barely. His pressure’s probably about sixty on fuckin’ nothing.” He gives Frank a gentle shake.

Frank groans and opens his eyes. He blinks up at the ceiling, unfocused. 

“Hey, Frank,” says John, flooded with relief. “How are you feeling, sir?”

Frank attempts to pick up his head. His eyes immediately roll back and his head thunks onto the tiles. He looks, if possible, even grayer than before, and his whole body is drenched in sweat.

John glances up at Frank’s wife, who’s wringing her hands in the doorway. “Ma’am, when you said he wasn’t feeling well, was he complaining of anything specific?”

“Oh, I think he said he was dizzy.”

“Was he having chest pain at all?” asks Ghost.

Her eyes go wide. “No, I don’t think so. Why, is there something wrong with his heart?”

John works to keep his expression neutral. “Well, ma’am. The, uh—the nitro he’s prescribed is meant for chest pain. Can I ask what made you decide to give him that?” 

“Well, I thought, just in case, you know? It couldn’t hurt, right?”

John and Ghost exchange a Look.

“Alright, ma’am,” says John. “The most helpful thing you can do right now is get everything cleared off those stairs so my partner and I can carry him outside.”

“You don’t think he can walk?”

“I think that would be a bad idea,” says Ghost.

With Mrs. Frank dispatched, John and Ghost apply themselves to the first problem at hand: getting Frank unstuck. They crouch over him, prodding and pulling at his limbs like they’re collaborating on an overlarge puzzle toy.

“Can we just drag him out?” asks John, pushing on Frank’s shoulder and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Glancing over from where he’s trying to shift Frank’s hips, Ghost says, “His legs are basically under the washing machine, so no.”

“Can we move them? Ah, no, knees don’t bend in that direction—”

Ghost is now shoving at the washing machine. He manages to move it about a centimeter before the dryer gets in the way. “There’s no fuckin’ way this bathroom is up to code.”

John sits back, winded. “Pretty sure he’s stuck unless we sit him up.”

“Yeah,” says Ghost, “except if we sit him up he’s gonna fuckin’ di—experience worsening symptoms.”

They look at each other.

“I need to get a line first,” Ghost says decisively. “I’ll get some fluids running, and then we’ll try to move him.”

“How are you gonna get an IV on him down there?”

“No fuckin’ idea.”

John removes several decorative ceramic roosters from the back of the toilet and lays out the IV supplies on it while Ghost attempts to cram his upper body into the crevice. There’s some rustling around, a faint groan from Frank, and a few curses from Ghost.

“Can’t see a fuckin’ thing down here,” Ghost says eventually, muffled. “Johnny, how do his feet look?”

John inspects them. “Gray.”

“I mean for an IV.”

“Oh. Bad, I think.”

“Yeah, figured.” Ghost withdraws from the crevice and frowns down at Frank.

John watches with interest while Ghost repositions himself. He ends up sitting on the edge of the tub with his legs spread wide, one boot jammed behind the toilet near Frank’s head and the other planted against the washing machine. He tugs Frank’s arm out from underneath him and tries to pull it onto his lap, but Frank is a beefy guy and the angle is all wrong; between Ghost’s nitrile gloves and the sweat coating Frank’s skin, the arm immediately slithers out of his grip and flops back down. Ghost readjusts and tries again, with approximately the same degree of success.

“Fuck,” he says. “Didn’t wanna go for an IO, but I might have to.”

“Hold on,” says John, in a stroke of genius. “Stay put, and I’ll get over there and hold his arm for you.”

“How, exactly, are you gonna fit over here?”

How John is going to fit is, it turns out, by standing over Ghost, straddling his leg, with one foot in the tub and one on the toilet lid. He bends down, straining, and grabs for the guy’s arm, but it’s like trying to deadlift a sheet of jello that weighs a hundred pounds. Frank moans weakly as he’s jostled. 

John makes another attempt at the arm, loses his balance, wobbles. Ghost hurriedly grabs his belt loop to stabilize him. 

“Fuck, sorry—why is he so slippery?”

John’s boot slides across the toilet lid with a shrill squeal. Flailing, he grabs for the shower curtain rail and misses; Ghost abandons the belt loop in favor of tightly clutching John’s waist with both hands. John grabs wildly again and gets a hand on the rail this time, but it bends alarmingly under his weight. 

“Just—sit down,” Ghost says, narrowly avoiding an elbow to the head.

John risks a glance down. “...On you?”

“I mean, if you’d rather step on Frank’s fuckin’ face—”

John sits.

It’s more of a collapse, really, right onto Ghost’s thigh, limbs atangle, with one leg tucked under him and the top of his foot resting on the toilet lid. His thigh immediately starts cramping.

Now that he’s stable, he manages to wrestle the unruly arm up between them and pin it against his leg. Ghost rips a bath towel down from its hook, rubs it aggressively over Frank to dry him off, and grabs the IV tourniquet from the back of the toilet.

John tries not to move a muscle while Ghost gets the IV. Unfortunately, the sudden silence and stillness make it impossible to ignore the fact that he is, unambiguously, sitting on Ghost’s lap.

It’s unbearably hot in this tiny bathroom, and Ghost’s body is even hotter underneath him, and the muscles of his thigh are tense with the effort of supporting John's weight, and it’s a little damp between them, and Ghost smells like a delicious combination of clean sweat and laundry detergent, and John is a fucking degenerate because, Christ, they’re on a call with a very sick patient but he can’t help rolling his hips just the tiniest bit, just to feel—

A throat is cleared behind him. 

John looks over his shoulder. Frank’s wife is staring at them from the doorway.

“Goodness,” she says, an understatement. “Is Frank alright?”

“Just getting an IV on him, ma’am,” says John. If he sounds professional enough, maybe she won’t question why John is currently straddling his partner like a gentlemen’s club worker while her half-conscious husband languishes on the floor beneath them. “His blood pressure is very low, and we don’t want to move him until we get some fluids in him.”

“I see,” she says in a tone that indicates otherwise. “Well, I’ll just…” Her voice drifts off as she backs out of the doorway.

Apparently unruffled, Ghost says, “Johnny, can you reach my drug box for a bag?”

John can indeed reach, because this entire godforsaken bathroom is barely wider than his arm span. He spikes a liter saline bag and attaches the line to the IV port while Ghost holds up Frank’s arm.

“Alrighty,” John says once the fluids are running. He tries to stand, but he doesn’t have enough leverage and succeeds only in grinding against Ghost. Ghost slips a hand under his thigh to give him a boost, which is a sensation he could have gone without experiencing because now it’ll be permanently seared into his memory, and he clumsily extricates himself. 

While Ghost squeezes into the crevice again to get Frank hooked up to the monitor, John stands back and holds the saline bag, rather shell-shocked. He keeps his eyes averted from Ghost’s ass, because if he ends up fully erect in front of a naked, sweaty, elderly man lying on the bathroom floor, he might just have to kill himself.

After several minutes, during which Ghost hangs a norepinephrine drip and periodically cycles the blood pressure on the monitor, and John privately wages a battle of wills against his dick, they finally get Frank’s blood pressure up to a non-critical level. They sit him up just long enough to pull him out of the crevice (“I’m so dizzy,” he moans), then lay him down flat in the middle of the bathroom and roll him onto a bedsheet.

“We’re going to carry you downstairs, sir,” John says. “Try to stay still and relax for me.” They each take an end of the bedsheet and, on the count of three, heave Frank up.

To her credit, Mrs. Frank made quick work of the clutter on the stairs. Ghost goes first, carefully stepping backwards. His huge forearms are bunched with the effort of holding up his end of the sheet, and the tendons in his neck stand out as he cranes to look over his shoulder. The hair at the nape of his neck is dark with sweat. 

John grits his teeth and looks away, focusing on each step. He doesn’t want to irritate Price with another dropped-patient incident.

The threatened rain never comes. The humidity grows more and more oppressive as the hours pass, until there's a constant trickle of sweat running down John's spine. Every time he shifts a certain way, he catches the scent of Ghost clinging to his uniform.

***

John doesn’t waste any time when he gets home. He kicks off his boots at the landing, drops his bag on the kitchen table, and immediately undoes his belt. He’s been on edge for hours, and conditions have escalated into a full-blown crisis during his drive home.

Right there in the kitchen with the lights on and the blinds open, where any of his neighbors could easily see, John pulls out his aching cock. He squeezes himself, shivers, then spits in his hand and slicks it over the head.

If he’s being perfectly honest with himself, this isn't his first time thinking about Ghost with his hand wrapped around his cock, but they were nebulous imaginings before; his brain always skittered away from any specifics about physical features or acts. It’s different now.

Poor Frank doesn’t deserve to be part of this any more than John’s neighbors do, but it’s too late. John is back in that bathroom and he can sense everything again: the heat of Ghost’s body, the whisper of his steady breaths, the hot brand of his fingers digging into John’s waist, gripping the back of his thigh.

It would be different, though, if they were alone. If Ghost let him. John would straddle his lap, no question about his intentions, nosing against Ghost's collar and breathing in his heady scent. He'd rock against him until he hears a soft hitch of breath, feels Ghost growing hard under him, and then he'd slip a hand between them to work open their pants.

John gasps open-mouthed at the ceiling, salt on his tongue, burning up. It wouldn’t be enough. He needs Ghost hot-blooded, coming undone. John would get him on his stomach, maybe. Sink two fingers into him while he fucks between those massive thighs, work him until he’s writhing and begging for John to fuck him properly or even just to touch his cock, and only then would he—

Or, if Ghost doesn’t like that, he’d do it the other way around. John’s not picky, really. He’d let Ghost bend him over, push his shoulders into the bed and have his way with him. Ghost has a nice thick layer of belly fat hiding the muscle underneath, and it would press against the base of John's spine as he's split open—

His vision grays out as he comes, breath ragged, clutching the edge of the table for support. Once the dizziness has dissipated, leaving behind only an oily film of shame, he cleans up his mess and goes to take a shower.

He’s pulling on a fresh pair of boxers when his phone buzzes on his desk. He flips it over. 

New message from Simon Riley, the screen reads. 

Oh God, oh fuck. 

He flips the phone back face-down.

John knows for sure he hasn’t texted Ghost before, because he just spent the whole weekend agonizing over it and ultimately chickened out. Which raises the question: how the fuck does Ghost have his number? More to the point, something catastrophic must have happened for Ghost to text him now, and John can certainly think of a recent event that qualifies.

He's about to get yelled at, he's sure of it. God, obviously he made Ghost feel uncomfortable—he should have realized. He should have apologized, too, but instead he just got off on it like a pervert. Maybe Ghost won't even want to be partners anymore.

He might be panicking. He picks up his phone.

Simon: Found a bed bug in my apartment. Wanted to let you know because it's probably from a call we were on together. You should check your place.

Well, now he’s panicking for a different reason.

John: oh shit

John: that sucks man

John: checking my apt now, ty

He spends the next hour crawling around with a flashlight, inspecting every corner of his apartment. Then, just to be safe, he throws his work boots outside and puts all his uniforms in the washer on extra hot.

John: i think im good

John: must have gotten lucky

John: it was def that one house

John: when you had to kneel on that gross couch

John: what are you gonna do now?

Simon: That’s good.

Simon: Hopefully was an isolated issue, but my landlord’s having someone come and see if it needs to be heat treated.

John: you staying there?

Simon: Fuck no. Looking for a hotel now.

A bit lightheaded at what he’s about to do, and also trying to block out the memory of his recent sins in the kitchen in case Ghost can somehow divine it through his phone, he texts back.

John: youre welcome to stay here if you want

John: accommodations arent great but cheaper than a hotel

Simon: Appreciate it, but it sounds like it’s going to be at least a week.

John: thats not a problem

John: even more reason not to get a hotel, that would be expensive af

Ghost doesn’t respond for eight minutes. Then:

Simon: Are you sure?

John: absolutely

John: you know my address?

John: actually, is your car ok?

John: i can pick you up if you need

Simon: Car seems fine, I checked.

Simon: I remember the street. Should be able to find it.

Simon: Thanks.

For the third time tonight, John panics.

He cleans his apartment with a speed and vigor of which he hasn’t previously imagined himself capable, and then he showers again. Then he sits on his bed and sweats through his shirt, rendering both showers pointless, while he waits for a knock on the door.

An hour after Ghost’s last text, John hears not a knock but a muffled thump, like something large colliding with the side of the house, and then a distinct “fuck.”

He shoots to his feet and runs downstairs.

Ghost is outside his apartment with a backpack slung over one shoulder, looking annoyed. He’s wearing an oversized black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and a pair of black gym shorts that would probably be a respectable length on a guy who isn’t six foot four. No mask.

John feels like he’s going to have a heart attack. “Hey,” he pants.

“What the fuck are your boots doing directly in front of your door,” says Ghost, “and why don’t you have a fucking light out here?”

“Shit, sorry. Are you okay?”

“Despite your best efforts, yeah.”

“Yeah, my bad. Anyway, uh, nice to see you. Sorry it’s under these circumstances, ha ha.” He waves Ghost up the stairs. “So, it’s gonna be pretty cramped.”

“I've been to your apartment before, Johnny. I know how big it is.”

At the top of the stairs, they stop and look at the tiny room together.

“So obviously I don’t have a couch, but uh, you can take my bed tonight, and I’ll go buy an air mattress before work tomorrow.”

“Absolutely not. The floor is fine.”

“Sorry. I don't even know why I offered when there’s nowhere for you to sleep.”

“Johnny.” Ghost sighs and drops his bag. “I’d rather sleep on the floor here than stay in a hotel. So—relax, alright?”

“I am relaxed,” John lies.

He’s going to say something else, but he gets distracted by Ghost pulling a Desert Eagle from his waistband.

“What the fuck happened to following tenancy rules?”

“I have a permit, dumbass.”

“You have a holster too?”

“Yeah, tied up in a trash bag back at my apartment.”

It’s doing things to John, seeing Ghost standing there with a gun in his hand, casual, perfect trigger discipline. He blames that for what he says next. “Compensating for something?”

“Nope.”

Oh. He’s definitely reading too much into that tone. Time to change the subject.

“Alright. Great. Fine. I have one of those, uh, camping pad things, I think?”

“That’s fine. Can I put this in your closet?”

That is not a euphemism, Jesus Christ. “Sure. Yep.”

While Ghost takes a shower, John unrolls the camping pad on the foyer-living-room-dining-nook floor, then throws down his single spare pillow and all three of his spare blankets, including an ancient, disintegrating quilt made by his great-grandmother.

Ghost steps out of the bathroom. He's pink-cheeked, tousle-haired, and wearing a ratty black T-shirt with one of those appalling grinning-skull-and-gun designs on it, which, now that John thinks about it, was quite likely a source of inspiration for his tattoo sleeve. Below a pair of black boxers, he's flaunting several acres of pale leg.

John wonders if he’s being punished by God. "Uh, bed's there," he manages, avoiding eye contact.

"Thanks," says Ghost.

John escapes into the bathroom for a third shower, where he comes to terms with the fact that he's devolved into a repressed and horny Victorian lady over a glimpse of Ghost’s kneecaps, and then considers waterboarding himself about it.

When he reemerges, damp but entirely uncleansed of his wicked thoughts, he finds Ghost sitting cross-legged on the ramshackle bed, rooting around in his backpack. There's a little frown between his brows.

The wicked thoughts turn horrifyingly soft and affectionate. “You need anything else?” he asks.

Ghost pulls a charger out of his backpack and glances up (angelically, John’s brain provides, to his dismay). “I’m good."

"Great." John hurries into his bedroom.

Once they’re both tucked in with the lights off, he raises his voice slightly and says, “It’s like a sleepover.”

“Yeah,” Ghost says from the other room. “Cozy.”

“Regret not getting a hotel room yet?”

“Nah, Johnny. I’ve always wanted to sleep with my head under your kitchen table.”

John grins into the darkness. “By the way, how did you have my number?”

“Got it from Price.”

“Why didn’t you just get it when I asked for yours?”

There’s a pause. When Ghost speaks again, he sounds a little muffled, like he’s turned his head into the pillow. “I—had it. Already. Asked him for it when we were first assigned together.”

John is smiling like an idiot now. “He'd lose his mind if he found out you’re staying here.”

“You think so?” 

“I’m pretty sure he was worried you were gonna hate me.”

“Maybe I do.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” says John, but it isn’t true at all.

Chapter Text

[week 5, day 4]

Living with Ghost is easy. It isn't much different from living alone, really, considering they’re working twelve-hour shifts that often go late and therefore spend very little time awake in John’s apartment.

A routine has developed in the last few days, without any conscious effort from either of them. They leave for their separate gyms each morning, and then, because he gets back at least half an hour before Ghost, John packs food for both of them. Ghost protested this the first day; John retaliated by shoving three additional protein bars into his bag while making direct eye contact and he’s since shut up about it. John has relented as far as allowing Ghost to drive them both to work, even though the way he handles his sporty black Civic has already taken years off John's life. At night, they don’t do much more than shower, throw in a load of laundry, and perhaps eat a few pieces of deli meat straight from the fridge before passing out.

It doesn't feel weird. It feels perfectly correct, like the natural extension of their time at work together. Like any prolonged separation would be unthinkable.

It's past 23:30 on their last shift before the weekend, they’ve just called back in service at the hospital, and by rights they should be sent back to base to clean the ambulance and go home.

“One-four-one, you're back in service,” says Gaz. “I apologize, but you're my only unit available.” And then he sends them to a non-priority knee pain. John sighs and mentally adds it to his extensive list of grievances against Gaz.

When they arrive on scene at a row of outdated townhouses, John is vaguely concerned to see a police car pulling up right behind them. The cop steps out of the car and saunters over to meet them in front of the door.

“Why are you here for a knee pain?” John asks, pressing the doorbell.

“Got a premise warning.”

“What for?” asks Ghost.

The cop shrugs. “Apparently the resident's given responders some trouble in the past.”

Ghost hums. “What kind of trouble?”

“Just being an asshole, sounds like.”

Then the door is opened by an actual fucking giant.

John doesn’t take a step back, but it's a near thing. The man towering in the doorway has at least two inches and probably eighty pounds on Ghost, with huge meaty hands, a buzzed head, and a downturned mouth. He’s dressed in a sleeveless shirt that might once have been white and equally unpleasant cargo shorts. He glares at them.

“Good evening, sir,” says John. “Did you call for an ambulance?”

“I need to go to the hospital,” says the giant.

“Okay. Can you tell me what’s bothering you?”

“Knee.”

“Okay. How long has that been going on for?”

“Dunno.”

“Do you mind if I take a look at it?”

“You a fuckin’ doctor?”

In his peripheral vision, he sees Ghost widen his stance.

“No, sir,” John says easily. “No problem. We’ll just get you in the ambulance, alright?”

“You boys have this, right?” asks the cop.

John is not totally confident they have this, but he nods anyway. The officer leaves and John escorts their patient to the back of the ambulance. He heaves himself up into it without any assistance from John, causing the whole vehicle to shake violently, then throws himself down on the gurney and crosses his arms.

John is about to step in after him, but he’s stopped by Ghost’s hand on his shoulder.

“Johnny. I’m gonna take this one.”

“You’re gonna work up a knee pain?” He doesn't add the word “bullshit” to “knee pain” since the giant is in hearing range, but it’s implied.

Ghost glances into the ambulance and then eases the door shut. “No,” he says in an undertone. “But there’s something off about this guy, and he’s out of your weight class.”

“Oh, getting protective, are you? So you do like me.”

Ghost glares at him. “I like you alive.”

Later, John will think Ghost might have jinxed it.

Ghost doesn't even bother asking to take the guy's vitals. He just sits in the jump seat right behind John, out of the patient's line of sight, and grabs the tablet to start his chart.

A couple minutes into the drive, John hears a faint click. He looks in the rearview mirror in time to watch the patient fling the gurney chest straps off his shoulders. 

Ghost is half-hidden by the cab divider panel separating them, but John sees him casually set the tablet down on the floor.

“Long fuckin’ drive,” mutters the giant. He shifts around, crosses his arms, then uncrosses them. There’s another click as he undoes the lap belt.

“Belts have to stay on,” says Ghost.

“They’re fuckin’ annoying.” The giant scratches irritably at the back of his head.

“I didn't make the rule. You need help getting those back on?”

“How about you just get me to the fuckin’ hospital?”

“That's where we're headed.”

“Taking a long-ass time.”

Slowly, Ghost sits forward. “You picked the hospital, boss.”

The man raps his knuckles against the plexiglass door of the cabinet next to him. “Didn’t take this long last time. Does that guy know where he’s fuckin’ going?”

“He sure does.”

The man raps his knuckles against the cabinet again, harder.

Ghost murmurs, “Johnny.”

“On it,” says John, already pulling over.

Louder, to the patient, Ghost says, “Don't fucking hit the cabinets.”

“You know what, man”—a third metallic click—“I don't really like your attitude.” He twists around on the gurney. “Hey, driver! You get fuckin' lost or something?”

Ghost is on his feet in an instant, standing in the gap of the cab divider panel to block John from the guy's line of sight. “Sit the fuck down,” he says coldly.

“Nah, I don't think I'm gonna.”

John puts the truck in park and picks up the radio. “One-four-one to dispatch.”

“Go ahead,” says Gaz. 

“Let the police know we need them after all. We’re pulled over at”—he squints out the window—“the Sunoco on South Anderson.”

“Acknowledged. Are you safe, one-four-one?” 

John glances over his shoulder, but all he can see is Ghost’s broad back. “We’re okay for now, just might need a hand.”

“Acknowledged. I’ll let them know.”

The light from the back of the ambulance filters in as Ghost shifts away from the gap and advances on the patient, who drops back down to the gurney. Sweaty, red-faced, with hands balled into fists, he sneers up at Ghost. “You trying to fuckin' fight me or something?”

John shifts his differential diagnosis from Bullshit Knee Pain to Being a Real Asshole, Possibly Substance-Induced.

“No,” says Ghost. “But I will if you wanna keep being fuckin' stupid.”

There's a sharp crack of plexiglass as the man punches the cabinet.

Ghost looks up and meets John’s eyes. He tilts his head slightly. 

John grabs a portable radio and hops out of the truck into the garish overhead light of the gas station parking lot. There’s no sign of the police yet. He jogs to the back of the ambulance.

The giant is occupied with grabbing handfuls of gauze from the broken cabinet and scattering them on the floor, but at the sound of the door opening, he turns and fixes John with a glassy-eyed stare. “What the fuck are you doing back here?” he slurs.

Behind him, Ghost silently reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a pack of soft restraints.

“I’m back here because you need to chill the fuck out, man,” John says. “You can’t be breaking shit. Look, the door’s open.” He gestures to the parking lot. “If you can’t handle behaving yourself for another five minutes, you’re free to get out and walk.”

Another handful of gauze is hurled to the floor. “I can't walk, dumbass. I called you 'cause of my fuckin' knee.”

John’s patience snaps. “Doesn't seem like it's hurting you that bad, to be honest, so how about you stop being a fuckin' baby about it?”

“How about you go fuck yourself, faggot,” says the giant.

“Get the fuck out of this ambulance,” says Ghost.

The guy stands up from the gurney. He takes two lurching steps forward, but instead of stepping out of the ambulance, he swings his meaty fist right at John's face.

John ducks just in time.

That's when Ghost stops playing nice. “Alright shithead, sedation it is,” he says, grabbing the giant by the collar of his sweat-stained shirt and yanking him backwards. He's already off balance from swinging at John and he falls heavily onto the gurney with a furious growl, arms flailing.

It quickly turns into a full-on brawl. Ghost has one of the giant's arms pinned to the gurney over his head and is working one-handed to get him tied down with a soft restraint while the guy writhes and spits and swings wildly. John jumps in, tries to grab his ankles, and gets kneed in the chest for his troubles. The giant is clumsy, but it's more than made up for by his pure brute strength; John is spending much more effort avoiding getting his teeth kicked in than in making any progress on restraining the guy's legs.

“Do what you can, Johnny,” Ghost pants, pressing an elbow into the side of the guy's head while he works on the restraints. “I'll be able to help in a second.”

“Ghost, he's trying to fuckin' bite you, watch out—”

Ghost swears and yanks his arm away just in time. It's enough reprieve for the giant, though. He wrenches his arm completely free of the restraints and swings up at Ghost's face. Ghost twists away; the guy's fist barely glances off his jaw.

John goes for his radio. “One-four—”

The radio is knocked out of his hand as the giant lunges forward and grabs the collar of his uniform shirt. He twists it in his massive paw and drags John in toward him. The collar tightens around his neck, cutting off his circulation, and his face is being pressed into the guy’s bicep, which smells revoltingly of old sweat and stale beer, and his vision is going spotty—

“You fucking cunt,” growls Ghost.

John can't see much of anything, but from the dull thud of impact and the way the man's head snaps back above him, he's pretty sure Ghost just punched him in the face. The giant howls. The pressure on John’s neck lessens considerably, but he still can’t move away; his hands scrabble uselessly against the man’s inhuman grip. There are more heavy thuds, a violent wrenching motion, and what feels like Ghost’s knee digging into his ribcage. He tries to get his feet underneath him, but his uniform pants are caught on the safety rail of the gurney—

From somewhere nearby, Gaz’s voice emanates from the dropped radio, sharp and concerned: “One-four-one, did you have an update?”

There's another brutal jab above him, followed by another enraged bellow, and then Ghost wrestles the radio out from underneath John’s shoulder. “One-four-one to dispatch,” he barks into it. “Get us help here now.”

Silence, for a drawn-out moment.

“All other units hold traffic,” commands Gaz. “One-four-one, police are coming to you hot, and I’m sending a supervisor.”

It’s probably about thirty seconds later that several police cruisers come screaming in, but considering John is currently the primary target of an active homicide attempt, it feels like an eternity.

Three cops pile into the back with them and immediately dive on the patient. John is hauled free of the man’s grip and ends up shoved back on the bench seat behind Ghost, where he coughs rawly for a bit while everyone else engages in a four-on-one wrestling match. One officer reaches for his handcuffs; the patient gets an arm free and attempts to claw his face before he’s pinned again.

“Christ,” says the cop. “What’s his problem?”

“I’m thinking either he took something he wasn’t supposed to”—Ghost muscles the man’s leg back down to the gurney, breathing hard—“or he didn’t take something he was supposed to.”

They soon get all the giant’s limbs under control, but he’s still straining and thrashing with an unholy might while he howls wetly. Ghost is applying most of his considerable weight into pinning his legs—if the guy didn’t have knee pain before, he’s definitely going to after this.

Ghost looks over his shoulder, sweaty and hard-eyed. “Johnny, think you can draw up some Ketamine for me? I shouldn’t let go.”

“You got it.” 

“In my—” 

“I know,” says John, already reaching into Ghost’s thigh pocket for the controlled meds kit. He opens the kit, attaches a needle to a syringe, and draws up half of the small vial of Ketamine. He holds up both vial and syringe for Ghost to confirm he’s gotten the drug and dose correct. 

“Perfect,” says Ghost. He looks down at the patient, then raises an eyebrow at John. “I won’t tell Price if you won’t.”

“You want me to give it?”

“Only if you’re comfortable.”

John eyes the cops and decides they probably won’t tell. He squeezes his way in to get access, jabs the needle into the guy’s twitching thigh, and watches as he slowly goes limp and quiet.

Finally, he looks up at the giant’s face. He already has the beginnings of two massive black eyes, and his nose is a bloody mess, dripping down both sides of his face.

John realizes his hands are shaking with adrenaline.

Of course, it’s then that Price finally jogs up to the back of the ambulance.

“I was across the city,” he wheezes. “Are you boys alright?” He glances at the patient, does a double take, then quite obviously makes an effort to pretend he didn’t see anything amiss. “Looks like you got him sedated, Ghost. Nice work. Anybody hurt?”

“I’m fine,” John says quickly, holding the empty syringe behind his back. “Are you hurt, Ghost?”

Ghost shoots him an incredibly rude look. “Nope.”

“Yeah, we should be good from here, boss,” says John. “Thanks for responding, though.”

“I’m following you to the hospital,” Price says darkly. “I’m going to need an incident report, anyway.”

***

By the time they clear the hospital, it’s well past their end of shift. John drives them back to base in silence while Ghost works on his chart. 

Ghost is obviously in a bad mood. There are certainly plenty of things to be annoyed about (being attacked by a giant, the massive amount of paperwork required for said giant attack, being held late on their last shift of the week), but John gets the sense there's something else going on, and he has the uncomfortable feeling it might be his fault.

He cleans the ambulance and puts away all the equipment by himself, then goes out to the lobby to find Ghost. He’s hunched over in a chair, elbows on knees, head down. One of his knuckles is split open.

“Ready to go?” John asks tentatively.

“Yup.” 

Well, that was a bit snippy.

He doesn’t put it together until they’re walking up the stairs to his apartment and he notices Ghost wince. It's barely perceptible, but John has spent more time than he cares to admit analyzing the way Ghost moves.

“Did you get hurt?” he asks.

“Nope.” Ghost stops at the landing and crouches to untie his boots. He's unusually stiff.

“You’re lying.”

Ghost stands and rounds on him. “Oh, you wanna play that game? I watched you almost get fucking strangled and then tell Price you were fine.”

“I am fine. Doesn’t seem like you are. And I was just asking, Jesus.”

Ghost crosses his arms. “Got a bad back. Wrestling with that fucker just made it flare up a bit.”

“You’ve got a bad back and you’ve been sleeping on my floor?”

“Oh, do you have a second bed in some pocket dimension I don’t know about?”

“You’re kind of a dick when you’re in pain, you know that?”

“Thought I was always.”

“Yeah, you're right. You’re taking the bed.”

“You're being dramatic.”

“I’m serious.”

Ghost glares at him. John glares back.

“Christ, fine,” says Ghost.

“And take some fuckin’ Advil.”

Ghost’s mouth presses into a thin line. 

John chokes down a sudden, inappropriate bubble of delighted laughter that threatens to erupt from him. Ghost must read something of it in his face, though, because he makes an annoyed little huffing noise and turns away.

As usual, Ghost showers first. John, being a deeply pathetic man, likes it that way. Each time he walks into the bathroom, the heat and humidity left behind feel like a caress, a proxy for Ghost's skin. It's different tonight, though. John's nerves are still jangling, mood uncongealed, and the taste of Ghost in the air transmutes into a sort of formless, shivery anticipation. It's because of the adrenaline, he thinks, or the vivid memory of the guy's ruined face, or maybe the knowledge that Ghost will be sleeping in the same sheets John's been in for several days.

John scowls at his reflection in the foggy mirror and tells himself to get a grip.

When he gets out of the bathroom, Ghost is already in his bed. The sheets are turned down, and he's sprawled out on his back in a T-shirt and boxers, eyes closed, hands tucked behind his head, rendered soft and clean and human in the warm lamplight.

In spite of the pep talk, John isn't mentally prepared for it. The image hits him like a gut punch—like a betrayal—like the grief of a half-remembered dream. He can hardly breathe through it.

Dragging his eyes away from Ghost’s bare, pale thighs before he can get caught looking, he unplugs his phone charger and turns for the doorway.

“Where are you going?”

He turns back around. Ghost is watching him. “To—the other room?” 

“Get in the fuckin’ bed.”

John stares. When it becomes obvious no elaboration is forthcoming, he says, “You’re in the bed.”

“Last I checked, yeah.”

“I’m not—” He isn’t sure how to finish that sentence. “You barely fit in there alone. The floor’s fine.”

“Don’t be stupid, Johnny. You scared to touch me or something?”

Jesus Christ, of all the ways Ghost could have chosen to phrase that. “What, are we playing gay chicken now?”

Ghost narrows his eyes. “You were sitting in my fuckin’ lap on that bathroom call a couple days ago. Pretty sure you can handle sleeping next to me.”

He’s been hoping Ghost wrote off the memory of that incident as some sort of heat-induced hallucination. His face burns.

Deflection, that’s the solution. “I was more concerned about you. Just got the impression you don’t like being close to people if you can help it. Physically, I mean. And emotionally too, but that’s a different conversation.”

Ghost lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re gonna be annoying tomorrow if you sleep on the floor all night. And you’re gonna be annoying tonight if I try to take the floor instead. I don’t wanna deal with it. So.”

Because he’s trying to be the bigger person and definitely not because he’s worried Ghost will change his mind if he keeps arguing, John refrains from pointing out that Ghost is being rather hypocritical. “Jesus, okay,” he says, aiming for a tone of mild vexation to cover the burgeoning elation he actually feels. “You’re gonna need to move over, unless you were expecting me to sleep on your feet.”

The corner of Ghost’s mouth twitches; John’s elation grows. Then Ghost rolls over and promptly whacks his elbow on the wall, leaving a sizable dent in it.

John crosses his arms, fighting down a grin. “Oh yeah, just fuckin’ break down my wall, that’s fine. Landlord’s gonna love me.”

Ghost brushes his fingers over the dent. Plaster crumbles onto the bed. “What the fuck is it so breakable for?”

“Why the fuck did you say that like it’s my fault? Do you think I built this apartment?”

Ghost laughs—a real, full laugh that sends warmth all down John’s spine.

“Fuckin’ dick,” says John, but he's laughing now, too.

Seeing Ghost in his bed was already pushing John to his limit, but now Ghost is smiling, pretty face all on display, cheeks faintly pink, blond curls flattened against the pillow, and John is about to get in bed with him, and holy fuck, he needs to get himself under control.

John turns off the lamp.

Removing the visual stimuli seems like a good idea right up until he’s kneeling on the edge of the bed and he realizes how much it magnifies the rest of his senses. The sheets rustle softly as Ghost shifts around, and the bed is already skin-warmed, and now he can smell Ghost too. 

It’s a softer scent than John might have expected. There’s no manly spiciness, just something warm and fresh and a little sweet, and it’s distinct even after several days of sharing shower products and doing their laundry together. John could identify it anywhere, he thinks. Hide one of Ghost’s shirts under some shrub a few miles away and he’ll sniff it out, no problem.

After Ghost is gone, John’s going to spend a whole afternoon rolling around in his sheets.

He carefully lies down next to Ghost, back to back, not quite touching. The heat radiating off Ghost sends paradoxical goosebumps along his arms and the back of his neck.

Ghost shifts again, and his arm brushes against John’s. They both flinch away, but not before an entirely disproportionate thrill runs through John at the contact.

“Sorry,” he says, like he was the one who moved.

“You’re fine,” says Ghost. “Fuckin’ back.”

“Need me to move over?”

“Not sure where you’d move over to. Is this a twin?”

“It’s a full, asshole. Does everything just look small to you because you’re gigantic?”

“Careful,” says Ghost. “Keep saying that and I might start thinking you like it.”

John is suddenly wide awake. What the fuck, he mouths, staring into the darkness.

John’s never explicitly talked about his sexual predilections with Ghost, but he guesses he hasn’t been that subtle about checking him out. He just never, not in a million years, expected Ghost to actually say anything about it. And it sounded fucking flirty.

To buy himself some time to have a mental crisis over this potential development, John says, “Did you get punched in the head harder than I thought?”

Ghost snorts. 

It’s hard to read the complexities of human emotion in a snort, it turns out. John waits for him to make a vocalization that includes words, but Ghost has nothing to add. He shifts around again, readjusts his pillow, and falls into a steady rhythm of slow, deep breaths.

John commences with the mental crisis.

In his imagination, any direct acknowledgement of his little infatuation would be instigated by him, and it would be a single, meteoric event that might go one of two ways. In his wilder, more indulgent thoughts, it’s the brief preface to a very physical exchange of mutual sentiment. When he’s feeling more grounded, it starts and ends with a firm dismissal. A quick stab, in and out, leaving him free to tend to the bleeding. 

He hasn’t envisioned this third thing: where Ghost gives him a teasing little nod and then just moves on, leaving John horribly off-balance. Rebuffed by Ghost, the one-sided tension seeping out of him loops back to wrap tight around his neck, at once agonizing and anticlimactic.

After several minutes of silence, John scrubs a hand down his face. He’s reading way too far into this, he decides. Most likely it was an offhand comment and Ghost is completely oblivious and John is just losing his grip on reality.

“Is your back okay like this?” he asks quietly.

Ghost sounds like he’s already drifting off when he replies. “Yeah, I’m good.”

***

In the morning, John wakes to the sound of heavy rain and the heat of Ghost’s back pressed against his own.

He revels in this forbidden contact for several minutes, breathing slow and easy to match Ghost, delighting in the gentle friction of their shirts brushing with each inhale. Then his brain wakes up fully and starts pointing out how easy it would be to turn over, push himself against Ghost’s ass, slide a hand around him—

Before his self-control frays through, he silently rolls out of bed and perches himself on the bay window in the foyer-living-room-dining-nook to watch the rain until he hears the faint rustling of sheets in the bedroom. Ghost trudges in a few moments later, rumpled and sleepy-eyed, still in his boxers.

“Morning,” John says.

Ghost grunts at him and leans against the sink.

“You want tea?”

“I can make it.”

“I’ve got it,” John says, standing. “I was gonna make myself coffee, anyway. You look half fuckin’ dead.”

Ghost grunts again. They squeeze past each other in the narrow kitchen, the proximity raising the hair on the back of John’s neck, and Ghost drops heavily into a kitchen chair.

“What do you usually do on your weekends?” John asks as he fills the kettle.

“Why?” 

“Because…it’s the weekend?”

Ghost rubs a hand over his eyes. “Not gonna be doing much with my back fucked up.” 

“Right, that’s fine. What would you normally do?”

Ghost traces a finger along the wood grain of the table. “I can leave if you want time by yourself or whatever.”

“No!” John fairly yells. “I don’t. That’s not what I meant.” 

Ghost gives him a blank look.

“It’s not a police interrogation, Ghost. I was just curious. We can just—hang out, if you want. Get your back rested up.”

“Alright,” says Ghost.

John makes a grocery run, leaving Ghost at home. He also picks up a bottle of bourbon (for no particular reason, really). He honestly intends to buy an air mattress too, but he needs to get the groceries in the fridge first, and by the time he gets back it's nearly lunchtime and the rain has picked up again. He'll do it later. Probably.

The only sound in his apartment is the wet squelching of his shoes as he drags the groceries upstairs. Ghost isn't in the kitchen. He drops the bags, then peeks around the corner into his bedroom.

Ghost is passed out on his stomach on the made bed, one knee tucked up, with his other foot hanging off the end. His shirt is riding up his back, revealing where the waistband of his boxers gently squishes into his hips.

John’s first thought is that, for a man who goes to such lengths to prevent people from seeing his face, he's oddly averse to putting on a pair of fucking pants in John's home.

His second thought is that he’s never seen Ghost so relaxed before.

His third thought is something unbearably tender; he immediately banishes it and ducks back around the corner to put the groceries away as quietly as possible.

***

An hour later, John’s making a stir fry for late lunch when Ghost comes slouching out of the bedroom.

“Sleep any better this time?” John asks as he chops up an onion.

“Kind of,” says Ghost. “You want help?”

“You know how to cook?”

“...Yeah?”

John’s not sure why he’s surprised by this. “Like, competently?”

Ghost gives him the most derisive look John’s ever seen him point in anyone’s direction, which is saying something, then peers over John’s shoulder. He hums rudely. “Your knife skills could use work.”

“Oh okay, asshole. You know what? How about you go sit down before I show you some real fuckin’ knife skills.”

“You could certainly try,” says Ghost.

They eat outside on his tiny back deck, sheltered from the rain by the dense canopy of a maple tree that grows up close to the side of the house. They end up spending most of the afternoon out there, mostly because there aren’t a lot of options for places to hang out in his apartment. They talk a bit—about old calls, new EMS protocols, coworkers. John tries not to steer them into anything too personal, in case Ghost gets flighty. In the long stretches of easy silence, Ghost mostly stares out over the overgrown backyard.

John, in turn, observes Ghost as he might a zoo animal in his care. Is he comfortable? Does he have enough room to stretch out? Is he going to jump the fence and run off?

He never does go to buy an air mattress.

He orders them pizza for dinner, even though he just got groceries. (“Good idea, nothing to chop,” says Ghost. “I fed you all week, asshole!” says John.) They migrate inside at dusk and, after a little cajoling, John gets Ghost settled on his bed with a glass of bourbon. John sits a respectful distance away in his desk chair with his own drink.

He has some weird nature documentary playing on his laptop in the background, but he isn't paying any attention to it. He watches, enamored, as Ghost slowly loosens up with the bourbon: slouching back against the headboard, long legs stretched out, glass resting on his thigh. His hair is curlier than John's ever seen it, probably from sitting outside in the rain, and he occasionally runs a hand through it like he's self-conscious about it.

Most of all, John watches Ghost's face. He's never been allowed this much time with an unmasked Ghost before, and he finds himself trying to memorize it, mapping the movements of his mouth to what he's already familiar with—the cadence of his speech, his short, huffing laugh, the way he says John's name.

Late in the evening, Ghost rolls over to put his empty glass on the floor by the bed, shifts his shoulders, and sighs heavily.

“Your back?” John asks.

“Yeah. Might have to go to bed early.”

“No problem.” John is loose with bourbon too, and he’s afraid he might do something stupid like wait around in bed with his shirt off, so he flees to the deck while Ghost heads to the bathroom. He misses Ghost as soon as he’s out of sight.

John makes it less than an hour before he can’t bear it any longer. He heads inside to the dark, quiet apartment, gets in the shower, and immediately takes himself in hand.

He’s simultaneously ashamed and turned on by doing this in such close proximity to Ghost, given that Ghost has become the exclusive feature of his jerking-off fantasies. He tries to think of anyone, anything else—some faceless guy, a disembodied hand, a glory hole—but it’s impossible. Ghost is right there. He might even be able to hear John if he were to release the whine he's biting back.

He could stop right now, get out of the shower, walk to his bedroom. Ghost would roll over in bed and see him standing there naked, hard and flushed. Pupils dilating, he would throw the covers back in complete silence, and John would climb up to straddle his chest. He’d feed his cock into Ghost's mouth and Ghost would choke him down, moaning around him as he desperately strokes himself.

Except that's not what would happen.

More likely, Ghost would roll over in bed to see John standing there and he’d be horrified. What the fuck is wrong with you, he’d say, turning away in disgust. He’d make John go sleep on the floor, and he would lay there the rest of the night, hard and aching and unsatisfied.

John is seriously fucked up, because that imagined humiliation turns him on more than ever, and that makes him even more ashamed, until he’s burning out on the intoxicating cycle of it and biting the back of his hand to keep quiet as he spends down the drain.

Loose-limbed and contrite, John pads into the dark bedroom and hovers at the edge of the bed until his eyes adjust. 

Ghost is fast asleep, sprawled out on his stomach again, in the exact center of the bed. His face is turned toward John, and the soft cast of the neighbor’s porch light through the window is just enough to make out the delicate brush of his lashes over his cheeks, the dip of the scar through his upper lip.

“Ghost,” he whispers.

Nothing.

“Ghost,” he tries again, louder. “You gotta move over.”

John kneels on the bed, gently lays a hand on Ghost's shoulder, and gives him a little shake. When that doesn't work, he attempts to shove him over.

Ghost makes a snuffling noise, rolls onto his side, and wraps his fingers around John’s wrist.

“Hey,” John whispers, alarmed. “Sorry to wake you up.”

Ghost grunts. His grip tightens.

“Think you can move over a bit?”

“Mmm?” says Ghost. Then, raspy with sleep, “Yeah. Sorry.” He releases John’s wrist and scoots back a few inches. It’s not exactly enough room, and the direction he's facing means John’s practically going to be the little spoon, but it’ll do.

He eases himself into the bed. Ghost is so close John can feel his breaths on the back of his neck. Suddenly, he regrets not staying in the shower long enough to get himself off twice.

Ghost’s leg brushes against his.

“Sorry,” John whispers in a repeat of last night. He tries to shift away, but there’s nowhere to go except onto the floor.

Ghost doesn’t pull away this time. “I don’t mind,” he murmurs.

That sounds decidedly different from the You're fine of last night. “Okay,” John whispers.

Then Ghost goes off script entirely. He pulls his knee up and nestles it right against the back of John’s legs, pressing his warm thigh into John’s ass.

John stops breathing.

Out of sheer willpower and a vested interest in not scaring Ghost away, he just barely represses a full-body shudder. He slowly unclenches his muscles, then forces himself to start manually inhaling at an appropriate rate. Once that’s done, he straight up panics.

John is not exactly an expert on platonic bed sharing, but he’s pretty sure this is not how it goes. Except Ghost—Ghost—he doesn’t know. None of the normal rules seem to apply with Ghost, and not just because John is harboring some extremely embarrassing feelings for him.

If he wasn’t obvious before, he’s pretty sure he did enough eye-fucking today alone to inspire any guy who might be interested to make a move. But before last night (and he doesn’t think last night counts), he’s never gotten the slightest read on Ghost, not even a hint. And now here he is, all but cuddling with John. He’s breathing evenly, already falling back asleep, apparently unaware that his bed partner is going insane.

John’s not only going insane, but he's also already getting hard again. He slowly rolls onto his stomach. Ghost’s leg follows him until it’s hitched up over the backs of his thighs.

John is going to vibrate out of his skin. 

With any other guy, he would have thrown caution to the wind by now and just made a move, consequences be damned. But Ghost is not any other guy, and the risk of misreading this situation—of making Ghost uncomfortable, ruining their partnership, ending what is definitely a friendship at this point, even if Ghost won't admit it—makes John feel physically ill.

That leads him to another dreadful realization: he doesn’t actually want to fuck any other guy.

God, he’s so fucked. He can't go on like this; it’s unbearable. His cock is now excruciatingly hard where it's trapped under him. He squirms, trying to adjust himself, to get some relief.

Ghost puts his hand on John’s lower back.

John freezes.

It's possible he has miscalculated. Maybe this is Ghost making a move, and he's just kind of bad at it. The hot splay of Ghost’s fingers at the base of his spine feels directly connected to his cock, and he’s overheating, limbs tingling with lust and anticipation. He shifts minutely.

Ghost presses down, grinding John’s hips into the bed.

“Ghost?” John whispers. He has no idea what he’s going to say; he just needs to hear the tone of Ghost's voice for some direction on how to proceed.

Ghost’s thumb strokes along his back. Half-conscious, he murmurs, “Stop moving and go to sleep.”

Well, alright then.

***

Some time in the middle of the night, John wakes up sticky and overheated. 

The reason quickly becomes apparent. Ghost is pressed entirely against his back, squishing him into the mattress, hips nestled together. His knee is lodged between John’s thighs and one arm is wrapped tight around him, hand flat against John’s lower stomach, perilously close to his cock. Ghost’s mouth is parted against John’s shoulder, making his shirt a little damp with his slow, hot breaths.

All in all, this feels very much like the beginning of several of John’s recent fantasies, except that, in these imaginings, Ghost is usually both awake and hard, pressing his cock into the cleft of John’s ass. In reality, Ghost is all softness in sleep, wrapped around John like they do this every night.

You high maintenance or something?

Dunno. Nobody’s ever told me I am.

John begins to understand something important now, with the hallucinatory clarity sometimes afforded by an abrupt awakening into darkness. There aren't any words for it, this thing nestled somewhere between grief and nostalgia and devotion. He probably won't remember it in the morning.

He gently pulls the covers down to cool them both off, and he drifts back to sleep in Ghost’s arms.

Chapter Text

[week 6, day 3]

When John arrives at the dispatch window to pick up their keys, Gaz is already waiting for him.

“Oh, hey, Soap,” he says, with a glint in his eye that John doesn’t like the look of. “Funny thing. I was just checking the time punch history. Do you want to share with me why you and Ghost have been clocking in and out within less than a minute of each other for the past several days?” 

“Well, you might not have realized this, Gaz, but we actually work the same shift.”

“I see, I see. So just a coincidence that you both got here four minutes late on Sunday? Interesting. And you’re sure it’s not in any way related to him calling you Johnny when you don’t let anyone else do that?”

“Oh, fuck off. It’s not like that.” 

“Uh huh,” says Gaz. He scoots away to the wall of ambulance keys.

It isn’t like that, unfortunately. 

When John woke up properly on Friday morning, Ghost was no longer tangled up in him. He rolled over to find Ghost huddled against the wall, a solid foot of space between them, and he wondered if maybe he dreamed up the whole thing.

The last four nights, like clockwork, John’s gotten himself off in the shower with a businesslike efficiency, then lain in bed a polite distance away to overanalyze Ghost’s every tiny shift and exhale. There’s been no more cuddling; Ghost seems careful not to touch him at all. He’s not sure if Ghost even remembers it. His back is improved now, and John worries every night that he’s going to offer to go back to the floor.

Then John thinks about this morning, when he woke up an hour before their alarm to the sun streaming through the blinds, and silently turned in bed to watch the slow rise and fall of Ghost’s back as he slept. He thinks of how the thin stripes of yellowy morning light illuminated the fine blond hairs on Ghost’s arm, just peeking out from under the covers.

Gaz gives him a shrewd look, like he’s reading his mind. He slides the keys through the window.

John says, with a painful honesty that Gaz somehow always manages to drag out of him, “Well. It’s like that for me. But not for him. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Gaz yanks the keys back out of his reach before he can grab them. “Wait, hold up,” he says. “What?”

“It’s probably not. I’m just not, uh, one hundred percent sure.”

“...Are you fucking kidding me? Are you for real? I was mostly joking—you mean you guys are—”

“Jesus Christ, can you keep your voice down,” John hisses. “And no. We’re not. He’s just been…staying at my place.”

“Oh my God,” moans Gaz, clapping both hands to his head. “Holy shit, you two are so fucking stupid.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Gaz’s focus snaps to something over John’s shoulder, and his look of exasperation transforms into an evil smile. “Hey, man,” he says. “We were just talking about you.”

John whips around.

“That so?” says Ghost, crossing his arms.

“Nothing bad,” says Gaz. “It was all really, really good, in fact.”

John mentally talks himself down from reaching through the window to throttle Gaz. “Don’t you have work to do?” he snaps.

Gaz’s smile turns even more evil. “Actually no, I don't. Maybe you guys will have a quiet day.”

So, of course, everything goes to shit.

There must be plenty of units available, because Gaz sends them to a rarely-seen post on the outskirts of the city when they call in service, but John barely has time to put the truck in park before the radio clicks on.

“One-four-one.”

They sigh in unison.

“I swear he’s fuckin’ doing it on purpose,” John says before keying up. “One-four-one, just posted.”

“It’s going to be a red response, one hundred thirteen Church Street for the structure fire, possible person trapped.”

It’s one of those dispatches that could be total bullshit—someone tipped over a candle and panicked trying to find a fire extinguisher or whatever—but John instantly has a bad feeling. “Acknowledged,” he says into the radio. “Church Street, on the way.”

Sure enough, a minute later: “One-four-one, be advised, the fire department is upgrading to two alarms.”

They glance at each other. John drives faster.

Gaz dispatches a second ambulance to the fire as a standby crew, and then Price calls en route to the scene. They’re a few blocks away and dark smoke is already visible in the sky when Gaz calls, “One-four-one?”

Ghost picks up the radio. “Go ahead.”

“Fire is confirming one patient in the house; they’re asking you to step it up.”

“Well, fuck,” says John.

Ghost doesn’t say anything. He reaches into his pocket and starts pulling on a pair of gloves.

They arrive on scene to utter mayhem. Any visible flames have been knocked down, but black smoke pours heavily out of the scorched, broken windows and half-collapsed roof of the house. It’s thick and choking, stinging John’s eyes and casting a haze over the crowd of emergency vehicles pulled up outside. Fat fire hoses lie across the street, dirty water streaming down the sidewalk, and firefighters crawl over the whole scene like ants. The air is filled with shouting, the loud crackle of the fire department radios, and a piercing chirp whenever a firefighter stands still for too long, underlain by the deep, growling idle of several huge diesel engines. 

A scream splits the air.

Time slows to an oozing crawl as two firefighters in full kit stagger out of the smoke-filled front doorway, dragging a large, sooty form between them, and drop it onto the lawn.

John can’t tell how old the patient is. He can barely tell it’s a man. The origin of the fire must have been a flare-up right in front of him, because the whole front of his body is horrifically burned; he’s a mess of gray and blackened skin that’s peeling back to expose pink, slimy flesh underneath. 

Impossibly, the man is still conscious. He writhes on the grass, chest heaving, emitting ghastly noises.

It’s mostly a blur after that.

Someone cuts off the guy’s clothes and another few people heave him onto their gurney. John has no idea if he helped. Then he’s opening the back door of their ambulance, and Ghost is leaping inside as the patient is loaded in.

Responders swarm the ambulance. John is handed a BVM, so he starts ventilating, although it’s hard to do so with the way the patient spasms and gasps. He’s crouched on the floor near the head of the patient, jammed up against the legs of someone sitting in the jump seat to his right. The paramedic from the standby crew is squeezed in on his left, trying to get the defib pads to stick to the patient’s ruined chest. Equipment is being handed over John’s head, and everything smells like sweat and smoke and also like barbecued meat, and it takes him a moment to figure it out, and then he feels kind of sick.

“Johnny, I’m gonna try for a tube.”

It’s Ghost he’s pressed up against, he realizes. He’s in the jump seat with the intubation kit on his lap, assembling a laryngoscope. 

The passage of time picks back up to its usual pace; the scene refocuses in front of him. “Got it,” he says, taking the BVM away.

Ghost tries to slip the blade into the patient’s mouth, but he gags and bucks violently against it. Ghost swears, removes the blade, and readjusts.

“Ghost, I’ll get the line,” John hears. He looks up to see Price squeezing into the ambulance, expression unusually grim. While Ghost wrestles with the airway, Price quickly drills an IO into the patient’s shin. Someone has already spiked a saline bag, and the end of the line hits John in the head as it’s passed over.

The man makes a terrible, inhuman noise.

“God fucking damn it,” says Ghost, withdrawing the laryngoscope again. He wipes his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform shirt and stares down at him. John looks down too—really looks at the man’s face, or what’s left of it, for the first time. He immediately regrets it.

“Ghost,” says Price, “we need to get that tube before his airway is swollen shut.”

“I fuckin’ know that,” says Ghost. “We need to RSI him.”

“Agreed,” says Price. He gives Ghost a brief, searching look. “Come over here and do the meds; I’ll get the tube.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t tell me you’re better at tubing,” Price interrupts. “I already know you are. Swap with me anyway.”

Even Ghost won’t argue with that tone. John tries to make himself as small as possible as he resumes ventilating, giving them room to clumsily squeeze past each other. Ghost sits on the bench seat, pulls out his controlled meds kit, and sets up the RSI drugs while Price gets himself situated to intubate.

After what feels simultaneously like eons and also like no time at all, the patient goes limp and silent on the gurney. “Paralytic is in,” says Ghost.

Someone taps on John’s shoulder; he turns around to find a firefighter standing at the side door of the ambulance. He holds out a small, dark vial in a white cardboard box. The vial’s port is already spiked with an infusion set, and the line is filled with a fluid that looks like blood. John takes it from him automatically. The firefighter vanishes back into the crowd.

“What the fuck is this?” John asks, to no one in particular. 

“Cyanokit,” says Ghost. “I’ve got it.” He takes the line from John's hand and attaches it to the IO.

The BVM is pulled from John’s other hand. “Tube’s in,” Price says.

“Alright, let’s get rolling,” calls Ghost.

The various personnel climb out of the truck until only John and Ghost and Price are left in the back. The doors are slammed shut. Just as it dawns on John that he is supposed to be the one driving to the hospital, the ambulance starts moving. He doesn’t recognize the woman driving, but assumes she must be the EMT from the other crew.

John sits on the bench seat and stares at the patient as the siren wails. He has no idea what he should be doing, and nobody has given him a task in a while. Price is ventilating, and Ghost is busy with the monitor.

“Lost pulses,” says Ghost. “Johnny?”

John dutifully starts compressions. Just another code now, he tells himself. Except his hands keep sliding off the man’s slimy chest, and bits of burnt skin are sloughing onto the ambulance floor, and he feels oddly removed from the whole experience, like he’s reading about it in a textbook.

They get pulses back, then lose them again. John rides the gurney all the way into the hospital, doing compressions until an ER tech takes over for him in the critical care bay. He stays long enough to see them get pulses again, then quietly slips out of the crowded room.

***

It takes a while to clean out the ambulance.

Based on the pace of Gaz’s dispatches coming through the radio, they’ve gotten busy again, but for once, no one is rushing them to get back on the road. Ghost is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Price, although his fly car is parked next to their truck. John has no idea who drove it here, but it's unlocked, so he helps himself to some restock supplies.

As he’s wiping down the bench seat, he gets a text on their truck phone. 

Dispatch: Take however long you need. Let me know if you guys want a food pickup or anything.

By the time Ghost and Price emerge from the hospital, John is sitting on the freshly cleaned floor of the ambulance, feet hanging out the open back, head resting against the foot of the gurney, with a bag full of trash next to him that he’s too tired to go find a biohazard receptacle for. He sits up at their approach.

Price puts a foot on the rear step of the truck. “You alright, Soap?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” John says. And it’s mostly true. None of it felt real. “You guys had the hard job, anyway. I should be asking if you’re alright.”

Price chuckles and claps him on the shoulder. “I haven’t been alright in twenty years.”

Ghost is staring out over the parking lot.

“Ghost?”

“I’m fine,” he says. Then he turns and looks right at John.

It knocks the air out of him.

Ghost’s gaze is startlingly dark and intent. He’s silently asking something, and John thinks he might be answering without knowing what the question is.

There’s something else, too—close to gentleness, but not quite. John has seen this particular expression from Ghost before, but never at work, and he hasn’t learned how to interpret it yet. It’s mostly in the fine lines around his eyes, heralding the imminent arrival of middle age, brought on too soon by the stress of this stupid fucking job, just like his messed-up back.

John wishes they were home, so he could see Ghost without the mask. It’s unfair to demand secrets from Ghost when he’s already given John more than he gives nearly anyone else, but he’s insatiable. He needs to see Ghost’s mouth to read his mood in the set of it, needs to feel it pressed against his shoulder in the colorless hours before dawn, and he thinks of home with Ghost there—

John has the sudden sense that he has awoken with his head underwater in an ink-black sea. If he takes one more breath, his lungs will fill and he’ll slowly sink to the bottom, eyes open and tranquil and lifted to the dim light of the sky far above.

This is much, much worse than some libidinal fixation. He’s not going to get over it.

He inhales.

Ghost looks away.

“...Alrighty then,” says Price. John flinches; he forgot they weren’t alone. “I’ll be off. You boys let me know if you need anything.”

They move on with their day. They don’t have time to dwell on it. That’s the strangest thing about this job: you see unimaginable horrors, and then an hour later you’re taking some guy to the hospital for abdominal pain and it’s also the worst day of his life. You wonder if the ambulance actually still smells of burning flesh or if it’s just stuck in your nose, in your hair, in your head.

They don’t make it back to that particular hospital until the last call of the shift. After dropping off their patient, a toddler with a nasty cough, they check in with the hospital staff for a status update on the burns patient. He’s dead.

***

The first indication that something is wrong is the mask.

Ghost always takes it off when they get in the car at the end of shift, in between starting the ignition and putting on his seatbelt. John has been trained to expect it, and his reward is to sneak brief glimpses of Ghost’s striking profile, washed in red by the stoplights before the highway on-ramp, as he drives them home.

Tonight, the mask stays on the whole silent drive.

As soon as they’re inside, Ghost drops his bag on the landing. “You can have the bathroom first,” he says, opening the screen door that leads out to the deck.

“Are you—?” John starts, then thinks better of it. “Okay. No problem.”

Ghost walks out into the night without a backward glance. The door slams behind him.

You lied to me, John thinks, and immediately feels guilty about it. If space is what Ghost needs, he'll give it to him. He gets in the shower and washes his hair three times, just to make absolutely sure the smell is gone. 

He’s been out of the bathroom for half an hour, sitting in bed and starting to get genuinely worried, when he hears Ghost come in from the deck. Moments later, the bathroom door closes—not quite a slam this time, but harder than Ghost usually handles it.

Minutes pass. Ghost has been in there too long, John realizes. Much longer than anyone reasonably needs to take a shower. 

Concern escalating into near-panic at this point, he gets up and tiptoes to the bathroom door. The shower is running, but he can’t hear Ghost moving around at all. He knocks on the door. “Hey, are you okay in there?”

He waits, but no response comes. He knocks again, louder. “Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

Heart in his throat, he says, “If you don’t say something in five seconds, I’m coming in.”

Five seconds go by.

John eases the door open and steps over the pile of Ghost’s uniform on the floor. Behind the blur of the shower curtain, Ghost is sitting in the tub, knees to chest, head bent, as the shower head pours over him.

“Oh, Ghost. Fuck. Hey, man.”

Ghost says, “Sorry.” 

John’s heart breaks. “The water still warm in there?”

“Kind of.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll leave if you want.”

“You’re fine.”

John sits down on the closed toilet lid next to the shower. “I’m guessing it was the call today.”

He’s not really expecting a reply, but after a moment, Ghost says, “Not just the call. But yeah, I guess.”

John searches for something supportive and emotionally intelligent to say, and ultimately lands on, “Yeah.”

The silence stretches before Ghost speaks again, voice tight. “Call sucked. Made me think of other shit.”

“Other calls?”

“No. Not work.”

John considers the mask and the scar and the way Ghost sometimes flinches when he’s touched, and he concludes that “other shit” is probably a big old conversation they should have on a different day when Ghost isn't already flayed raw. “Yeah,” he says, softer this time, and he hopes Ghost understands what he means by it.

Like an afterthought, Ghost says, “Made me think stuff I shouldn’t.”

“Bad stuff?”

There's a pause. 

“Pretty bad, yeah.”

John inhales. “Ghost. Do you need me to get your gun out of here?”

“I’m not that fuckin’ stupid, come on.”

“Okay. Just asking, sorry.” 

Ghost makes a small noise, barely audible over the soft patter of water.

John clenches his fists on his knees. He doesn’t know if he should look over, or avert his eyes, or say something, or leave Ghost alone.

Ghost takes in several deep breaths, clearly composing himself. In a detached voice, he says, “Pretty late, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think it’s past two by now.  You wanna head to bed?”

“Probably should.”

“Have you gotten cleaned up?”

“Nope.”

“You wanna do that first?”

“Guess so.”

“Want me to step out, or can I stay in here?”

“Worried I’m gonna off myself if you let me out of your sight?”

“Well, I wasn’t until you said that, asshole.”

Ghost exhales with a bit of force, almost a laugh. Quietly, he says, “You’re fine.”

John glances over. He can’t see any details through the frosted curtain, but he makes out the outline of Ghost, listing sideways, head dropped to his knees. He's not making even the slightest attempt to get up.

Feeling very brave and also maybe very stupid, John says, “Do you want me to help you?”

A pause. “Are you offering to kill me, Johnny?”

John stifles a snort. “You bastard. I mean with showering.”

“What.”

“Just—washing your hair and such. Doesn’t seem like you’re in much of a state to do it yourself right now.”

“Christ, I’m not an invalid.”

“Sorry. That’s not what I meant. Forget I said anything.”

But Ghost still doesn’t move. And he technically hasn’t said no, either, John thinks. He sits and waits out the oppressive silence, determined not to get up until Ghost does.

When the tension of this strange, intimate impasse has ratcheted up to an uncomfortable degree, John says, “Ghost. I don’t wanna push it, but you’ve been sitting there for a while. And you might feel a bit better if you’re cleaned up. I’m just offering. You seem tired.”

Ghost sighs. “Fucking exhausted.”

“I won’t—look at you, or anything.”

So quiet John barely catches it, Ghost says, “Okay.”

John stands up. Keeping his T-shirt and boxers on and his eyes averted to the ceiling, he draws the shower curtain aside, then considers his options. The shower is just an old clawfoot tub with a curtain hung up around it, and it wasn’t built to accommodate two full-grown men, but he’ll find a way to make it work.

“Uh,” he says. “I lied. I’m probably gonna have to look at you a little bit.”

“It’s fine.”

As if that had been a command instead of permission, John’s eyes are drawn down immediately.

Oh no, he thinks, and quickly looks away. He almost turns around and walks right out of the bathroom, because Ghost has freckles on his shoulders.

God, he hasn’t even touched him yet. He’s not sure he’s going to survive this.

He shifts the shower head to the side so Ghost is no longer being drowned under it, then grabs the shampoo and carefully climbs into the tub behind Ghost to perch himself on the lip of it, knees nearly touching Ghost’s back. Bracing himself, he looks down again. 

Ghost’s head is resting in the cradle of his arms atop his knees, face half-ducked into his shoulder, staring at nothing. The harsh overhead light cuts sharply into the scar across his cheek, and the wet clumps of his pale lashes cast spiky shadows upon the fragile skin under his eyes. 

He looks breakable for the first time, wet and hunched and miserable, as he lets John see him like this. It doesn't feel like a gift, but rather a tired surrender after long resistance, and John wishes he were worthy of it. He wishes he knew how to hold it gently. He clenches his hand against the wild urge to reach out and run his fingers over Ghost’s freckled shoulders. 

If Ghost ever let his face see the sun, he thinks, he might have freckles there, too—cradling his tired eyes, kissing the bridge of his nose.

He shoves down all these dangerous thoughts and squeezes some shampoo into his palm. “Gonna start with your hair, okay?”

Ghost says, “Mm.” At the first brush of John’s fingers in his hair, though, his whole body tenses and he jerks away, dropping his head between his knees.

John whips his hand back. “Sorry, do you not want—?”

Ghost slowly lifts his head. “Sorry. It's okay.”

John reaches for him cautiously this time, like he’s soothing a spooked horse, and starts to work the shampoo in. Ghost holds himself resolutely still.

“Hey, Ghost,” says John. “Why was the strawberry crying?”

Silence.

“Because he was in a jam.”

“Jesus Christ, Johnny.”

“Too on the nose? Thought you liked that sort of thing, doing a little theme.”

“Are you done yet?”

“I’ve barely started! You’ve got a big head. Lots of surface area.”

“Meant done trying to be funny.”

“Oh, you’ve got jokes too, I see. You know, you should be more grateful. This definitely isn’t in our regional protocols. Maybe I should ask Price for a raise.”

Ghost stiffens even further. “Yeah, you probably should,” he says, shifting away.

“Fuck, hey, stop.” He grabs Ghost’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like that. Was trying to be funny again. Doing a shitty job of it.”

Ghost is rigid under his touch. “You don’t have to—I’m fine.”

“Oh yeah, you're the fuckin’ picture of fine right now.”

“Already imposing on you in your apartment and—”

“Ghost. Stop running away.” He squeezes Ghost’s shoulder and pushes him down. “You’re not fuckin’ imposing on me. I like having you here. Can you stop being an idiot and relax?”

Ghost decidedly does not relax, but he does allow himself to be manhandled back into a sitting position at John’s feet.

John returns his hands to Ghost’s hair, trying to keep his movements slow and gentle while retaining an extremely chaste air. Even so, because Ghost is letting him and because John’s a bit selfish, he spends longer than he would for himself, thumbing slow circles over Ghost’s temples and behind his ears. 

Ghost’s posture softens by degrees as John works. His shoulders relax first, and then his head begins to droop. By the time John has worked through his hair twice over, his limbs are loose, almost languid. John thinks he might be on the verge of falling asleep.

He nudges Ghost sideways into the spray of water, shielding his eyes with one hand while he rinses his hair with the other. It’s an odd feeling, illicit and dream-soft, to let Ghost’s silky hair slip through his fingers, to trace over the base of his skull, to watch the soapy water run down the back of his neck.

John represses a shiver. “Conditioner?” he asks. His voice sounds low and rough to his own ears.

“Nah.”

“Just this soft naturally, huh?”

Ghost doesn’t say anything, but John thinks he's probably rolling his eyes.

Because he can’t help himself, he gently brushes Ghost’s wet hair back from his forehead. He leaves his hand there, cupping the crown of his head. “How are you doing?”

Ghost takes a deep breath in, like he’s steeling himself for something. “I’m okay,” he says on the exhale, subdued and heavy. Then he leans back against John’s legs.

John’s chest does something painful.

This feels even less platonic than the half-dream of the other night, but maybe it doesn’t matter. You can’t help blurring the lines in a situation like this, when you go from strangers to partners and roommates and friends in the span of six weeks. Six weeks is hardly more than a heartbeat, but a lot can fit into that space where the blood rushes in: sweat and warm sheets and shoulders jostling over a dying stranger, such a relentless closeness that you sometimes forget you’re not a single creature with too many limbs. Maybe the lines are irrelevant.

Daringly, he strokes his thumb through Ghost’s hair. Ghost doesn't pull away, so he does it again, and then again. Ghost sighs and leans further into him. He breathes against John's legs, slower and slower still, and his damp, chilled skin grows warm where they’re pressed together.

It’s already been more than a week. Ghost will be out of his apartment soon. 

It’ll feel like being torn asunder, but it’s only the beginning. They won’t be partners forever. Even if John doesn’t get into a nursing program this round, anything could happen. Maybe Price will split them up, or Ghost will want to move to a different agency, or maybe he’ll get hurt again, this time in a permanent, career-ending way.

It wouldn’t be such a bad life, John thinks, to follow Ghost around for the rest of it. Roommates, or friends, or anything at all. Ghost could take exactly what he needed and John would never ask for anything in return. He’d happily be collared and leashed to sit at Ghost’s feet, and he’d only ever turn his claws and teeth outward.

Eventually, when the water has gone from lukewarm to decidedly cool, John says, “Should get the rest of you washed up.”

“Mm,” says Ghost.

If John were a better man, he wouldn’t take advantage of this opportunity to touch Ghost as much as he’s been wanting to. But he isn’t. As he soaps up the washcloth and starts to scrub Ghost's shoulders, he leans a little too far into him. He lets Ghost slip back between his legs, knees bracketing his torso, the wet slide of skin on skin facilitated by the soapy water dripping down over Ghost’s back. 

He lingers a little too long, close to a caress, marveling at the faint freckles peeking out from under the lather of soap and at the soft creases of skin that form on the top of Ghost’s shoulder when John lifts up his arm. He scrubs down it slowly, working him all the way to his fingers, pressing a thumb gently into his palm, mapping out the divots between his knuckles. He washes the other arm, then spreads his legs a bit wider to wash Ghost’s back. 

John soon begins to notice, though, that the hard-won ease he coaxed out of Ghost while washing his hair is starting to evaporate. His shoulders are creeping back up around his ears, and he’s holding his head stiffly. 

As John washes over his chest and moves down to his stomach, Ghost makes a small sound and abruptly pulls his knees in toward himself. 

“Sorry,” John mutters. He pauses, then slides off the edge of the tub to reach Ghost’s legs instead. He scrubs over one shin and down to his foot, then shifts to the other side. 

When he moves up to his thigh, Ghost stiffens and grabs his wrist.

Quietly, warningly, he says, “Johnny.”

John realizes, suddenly, just how near he is to Ghost: leaned right over his back, so close he can feel the heat of him through his shirt. So close he could turn his head a little and mouth at the back of Ghost’s neck. 

He doesn't do that, obviously. Instead, he says, “I’m not trying to—feel you up, or anything. Haven’t been looking, either. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not,” says Ghost, voice odd.

“Did you want to do the rest yourself?”

“Probably should.”

“I don’t mind.”

Ghost shifts. “You might.”

John sits back enough to get a good look at Ghost. He’s curled in on himself, and the back of his neck is pink.

Understanding comes, vertiginous and air-stealing.

“Oh,” John says faintly. “Got it.” There’s a staticky feeling in his hands. Then he hears himself add, without any control over the words coming out of his mouth, “Yeah, I definitely don’t mind that.”

The next silent moment stretches out to the span of several lifetimes.

Well, nice job ruining everything, John thinks. “I'm so sorry,” he yelps, pulling away. “That wasn't—”

Ghost’s grip on his wrist tightens. “Wait,” he says roughly.

John freezes. The staticky feeling is creeping in toward his chest now; he’s dizzy with it. “Are you—am I being fuckin’ stupid right now or—”

“Probably not.”

“Okay,” says John, because he is stupid, actually. He’s not sure either of them is breathing. “If you want me to—keep going, I will. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Ghost releases his arm and ducks his head even further. “I. Yeah.”

John throws down the washcloth. “Just to be clear, we’re on the same page about what I'm offering, right?” To make his point, he tentatively palms the inside of Ghost’s knee.

Ghost shivers. “I want—”

“This what you want?” John slides his hand up, stroking along Ghost’s soft inner thigh. Then, going by feel alone, he moves higher. 

He has to swallow a moan. This isn't a half-chub situation; Ghost is fully hard, hot and thick and huge in his hand.

Ghost’s cock twitches. Soft, almost confused, he gasps, “Oh.”

Every single one of John's nerve endings is instantly set alight.

He gently thumbs over the head, then gives him a long, easy stroke. Ghost shudders, one foot twitching out to slide along the floor of the tub. “Fuck,” he says, on a punched-out breath.

“Okay, I’ve got you,” says John. He moves closer still, until he’s knelt right behind Ghost in an embrace, knees around his hips, face pressed into his shoulder. The slide of his hand is a bit too rough and chafing, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He works Ghost firm and slow enough to be teasing, and Ghost clutches at the sides of the tub, breath unsteady.

He’s not sure when it happened, but John is so hard he’s aching. He has to fight the urge to rut against Ghost’s lower back. He loops his other arm around Ghost to cup his balls, gently massaging him. 

“Johnny, God,” Ghost pants. “I’m not gonna last—”

“Yeah. That’s alright.”

Ghost makes a little aborted moan. He’s leaking into John’s hand, making the way slicker with every stroke.

“You get pretty wet, huh?” John murmurs. “Fuck, I wish I could see you.”

Ghost goes quiet and, for a brief moment, John thinks he said the wrong thing. But Ghost is tense all over, drawn up, legs quivering, and John realizes no, he likes that, and oh, that knowledge is going to be the death of him.

He picks up the pace a bit. Ghost gasps and makes another stifled moan.

John decides to push his luck. Softly, close to Ghost’s ear, he asks, “Are you gonna come for me?”

Almost immediately, Ghost does. He goes perfectly silent and jerks in John’s grip, and John has just enough time to cover the head of his cock before Ghost is spilling into his hand. He works him through it until he starts twitching with overstimulation, then releases him.

He wants to lick his hand clean, but in the interest of not immediately revealing to Ghost exactly how much of a degenerate he is, he opts to wipe it on his damp shirt instead. Then he becomes aware that he’s nuzzling into Ghost’s neck, and backs off a bit.

Ghost sucks in a breath. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

Oh, that doesn’t sound good. “Don’t be sorry. You okay?”

Ghost clasps his hands on the back of his neck. “I just—”

“Hey, it's alright,” John says, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze. “Do you want—should I give you a second to finish up in here?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, no problem.”

John awkwardly clambers out of the shower and goes to lean on the sink, avoiding eye contact with his reflection. Like a scattered flock of birds, several thoughts fly through his head simultaneously—I may have fucked up—I don’t think he’s used to that—he’s fucking beautiful—starting to feel really queasy now—Jesus Christ, why am I still so fucking hard—and he’s just starting to plan escape routes from the apartment or perhaps the country when he hears Ghost slap the water off and wrench the curtain open.

John has the sudden, wild conviction that he is about to get punched in the face. That would be a pretty severe manifestation of post-nut clarity, but it’s possible he deserves it.

He turns around. “Are you—” mad at me, he’s about to say, but he stops dead at the sight of Ghost standing there, framed by the shower curtain, staring at him.

Ghost's gaze drops to where John is very obviously tenting his boxers, then slowly climbs back up to his face. His eyes are darker than ever, engulfed in pupil, liquid.

John might generally be an idiot, but there is no misinterpreting that look.

Soaking wet, Ghost steps out of the tub and drops to his knees in front of John. He leans forward and presses his mouth to the juncture of John’s thigh over his damp boxers, cheek barely brushing against his stiff cock.

John’s soul attempts to climb out of his body. “Oh, fuck, okay,” he breathes. “You don’t have to—”

“I know,” says Ghost. He draws back and yanks John’s boxers down his thighs.

“Jesus fuck,” says John, as Ghost takes him in his mouth. 

He is instantly overwhelmed; he can’t breathe properly. He white-knuckles the counter behind him and throws his head back to the ceiling. 

John needs to rethink his assumptions, because for all Ghost’s apparent crisis over a handjob in the shower, he’s definitely done this before, or at least he’s made a very thorough academic study of it. But he can’t think at all right now, because this is Ghost. This is actually happening in real life, and no daydreaming could ever do justice to the reality of Ghost’s hot, wet, ravenous mouth around him, or the way his hands run roughly over John’s thighs, up his hips, under his shirt. He takes John down fast and sloppy and relentless right from the start, giving him no time to adjust.

John doesn’t want time to adjust. He wants to be subsumed. He’d let Ghost eat him, possess him, stick a fucking gun in his mouth.

Ghost’s damp curls are wrapped in a tight grip around his fingers; he doesn’t remember moving his hand. It’s probably been less than a minute, but he feels like he’s been edging himself for hours. This isn’t going to last long.

“Your mouth is fuckin’ perfect,” he gasps out.

Like he wants to prove him right, Ghost bottoms out, pressing John all the way to the back of his throat. 

John lets out an embarrassing noise, and then, unmoored by the hot tide of pleasure washing through him, he makes the mistake of looking down. 

Ghost wields eye contact like a weapon, and John is empty-handed, helpless against it. He unexpectedly meets Ghost’s wet, challenging gaze, sees his mouth stretched wide around the base of his cock, and that’s that. He comes harder than he ever has in his life, clenching his fist in Ghost’s hair and possibly making several more embarrassing noises. Ghost swallows every bit of him down, anchoring John’s shaking thighs under strong hands.

When John has control over his limbs again, he pushes Ghost back a little bit, to finally get a good look at him.

Naked, Ghost kneels before him—eyes downcast, cheeks flushed, mouth abused—like he awaits a benediction. John’s eyes travel over his broad chest, dusted with sparse blond hair, then down to the soft creases where his stomach meets his thighs, and then to his cock, flushed and half-hard and heavy between his legs. 

John must stare for a bit too long, because Ghost releases him and starts shifting away.

“Where are you running off to?” John asks, grabbing for him.

Ghost looks up. “I—” he starts, then cuts himself off, glancing away. His hands hover uncertainly.

John drops to his knees. “Hey, come here,” he says, and draws Ghost into his chest. 

Ghost briefly hesitates, then he wraps his arms around John and collapses into him. They hold each other like that for a while, catching their breath.

Ghost runs a hand up John’s spine. “Johnny.”

“Yeah?”

“Is this still gay chicken?”

“Oh, fuck off.” John gives him a little shove. 

Ghost huffs out a laugh.

John thinks about that for a second longer and is abruptly anxious. Addressing Ghost’s shoulder, he says, “Are you, actually?”

“Am I what?”

“Into guys? I mean,” he adds quickly, “that sounds stupid, and no complaints about your skills, obviously, Christ. But, I don’t know, you’re hard to read. Is this—is this a one-off thing, or—”

“No, it’s not a fuckin’ one-off thing.”

“Okay, just checking. You know, with the emotional distress and all.”

“Emotional distress makes straight guys suck dick?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know.”

The exhaustion of the day is hitting both of them now. John drops his head onto Ghost’s shoulder; Ghost slumps against him.

“Let’s get you to bed,” John says eventually, nudging him. He heaves himself up, helps Ghost to his feet, and hands him his clean clothes from the counter.

“Thanks,” Ghost mutters, a bit awkward. He yanks the shirt over his head, emerging rumpled and adorable.

Ghost's knees are red from kneeling, John notices. He turns away, fighting down both a grin and the overpowering urge to ask What are we? like he’s a goddamn teenager or something.

Ghost gets in bed first and rolls toward the wall. John follows. Tentatively, he scoots forward to tuck himself against Ghost's broad back. “Is this alright?”

“Yeah,” murmurs Ghost.

John tucks in even closer and snakes an arm around Ghost’s stomach. Ghost sighs, a contented little sound.

We'll talk about it in the morning, John thinks. And then, as he presses his face into the back of Ghost’s neck and breathes in the warmth of his skin: I should have kissed him.

Chapter Text

[week 6, day 4]

They don't talk about it in the morning, because John forgot to set an alarm and they wake up all of twenty minutes before their shift is due to start.

“Fuck, fuck,” John says, rolling over for his phone. “I'll call Price and let him know we're gonna be late.” He fumbles the phone and drops it on his face. “Fuck, ow.”

“Just get dressed, Johnny,” says Ghost, giving him a little shove out of bed. “We won't be late.”

They do, in fact, make it on time, due to some highly illegal driving on Ghost's part. I'll bring it up later, he thinks in the car as he clings to the grab handle for dear life, and then he thinks it again as they rush to check out their ambulance, and then again as they immediately get sent to a diabetic emergency after calling in service.

Except he’s not even sure what it is, let alone how to bring it up, and now they’re three hours into their shift, sitting on post in the parking lot of a dollar store, and it’s starting to feel like the window for broaching the subject has passed.

Ghost, meanwhile, is kind of just…acting like yesterday never happened. 

John wasn’t exactly expecting him to suddenly get cuddly or anything, and he’s glad he doesn’t seem upset, but it would be nice to have something to work with. He’d even take painful awkwardness.

Is this how it’s going to be now? Are they going to do the work-partners-with-benefits thing, messing around after rough days just to blow off steam and never acknowledging it in the light of day? Or, it’s possible Ghost regrets what happened and he’s just playing it cool for now, but he actually never wants to see John again and is planning to put in a shift swap request as soon as they get back to base tonight.

It’s probably not that. He decides to follow Ghost’s lead and be incredibly chill about it.

His phone vibrates; he yanks it out of his pocket, eager for a distraction. The notification is an email from a nearby university that he’s very familiar with. Oh fuck, he thinks, with a strange sort of anticipation in his gut that isn’t quite excitement. Before he can think about that further, he opens the email.

Dear John, it reads, Congratulations! Welcome to—

“Oh,” he says. “I got into school.”

Ghost looks over. “The nursing program?”

“Yeah. Just got the acceptance email. It starts in the fall.”

“That’s great, Johnny. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. It was my top choice, too. Wasn’t really expecting that. Guess I won’t have to wait to hear from the other—”

“One-four-one?”

Ghost reaches over for the radio. “Posted.”

“It’s going to be a red response, forty-six Chicago Avenue, for the person shot.”

When they arrive, the whole street is blocked off. A police officer tears down the crime scene tape to let their ambulance in, but soon they can't drive any further due to the approximately one million police cars parked haphazardly along the street.

“Here's fine,” Ghost says. “We can take the gurney the rest of the way.”

Another officer meets them at the ambulance and leads them through the maze of cars to a second crime scene tape barrier blocking off a smaller area in front of one house. The street is splattered with blood. There are several small yellow evidence markers scattered around, and, as John watches, a cop crouches down in the street to place another. Beyond him, a crowd of officers and civilians is gathered over something near the sidewalk. 

“Over there,” says the officer, lifting the tape for them. “We’re thinking it was a drug deal gone bad. Watch out for the markers.”

“What are they?” John asks.

“Bone fragments.”

John’s not usually squeamish, but he avoids looking down as they wheel their gurney over to the crowd. 

“Alright everyone, back the fuck up!” he shouts, but Ghost doesn’t wait around. He simply muscles his way forward as he pulls on a pair of gloves, and the crowd parts to reveal the patient.

It’s a woman, which surprises John, even though maybe it shouldn’t. She’s lying supine on the patchy grass of the verge, face ashen, dragging in quick, pained breaths, and she looks so horribly young that he’s taken aback. One of her hands is clawing into the ground at her side, and the other is clutching her phone to her chest. Its case is covered in worn stickers and smeared bloody fingerprints.

Her left knee is obliterated. It’s a crater of flesh and ripped connective tissue, blood bubbling up and oozing down to soak into the ground under her.

Three police officers are at the front of the crowd, holding the rest back. They’re all looking remarkably out of their element, considering dealing with violent crime is a fairly significant part of their job.

Ghost gives them a dangerous look. “None of you thought bleeding control was a good idea?” he snaps, pulling a CAT tourniquet out of his right thigh pocket. He crouches in front of the patient and says in a gentler voice, “Hi, darling. We’re gonna get this bleeding stopped. I won't lie to you, it’s gonna hurt like a bitch.”

She raises her head off the ground to look at him.  “No problem,” she gasps. “I can handle it.”

While Ghost eases the tourniquet around her thigh, John swiftly clears off the gurney and pulls a splint out of the jump bag. Then he crouches next to Ghost and grips the girl’s leg in both hands to stabilize it, trying not to look too closely at the way her lower leg wobbles, almost entirely disconnected from the upper half. Ghost pulls down tight on the tourniquet strap and starts turning the windlass rod.

“Motherfucker,” the girl bites out, tearing up clumps of grass in her clenching hand.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” says Ghost. “I’ll get you something for the pain as soon as we’re in the ambulance.”

“I’m fine,” she pants.

“I know you are,” says Ghost, tucking the windlass rod into its clip and glancing at his watch. He pulls a permanent marker out of his shirt pocket, uncaps it with his teeth, and writes the current time on the tourniquet.

They do a quick pat down to make sure she doesn’t have any other injuries, then they splint her leg, gingerly lift all one hundred-ish pounds of her onto the gurney, and roll her back through the labyrinth of police cruisers, moving as quickly as possible while avoiding all the bumps and potholes in the street.

A cop jogs alongside them. “Hey, man,” he says to Ghost, attempting an undertone that nonetheless carries clearly to John, “can you try to get her to tell you who did it? She won’t talk to us.”

Ghost shoots him a brief, annoyed glance and turns away.

The cop blinks and says, “Okay, uh, just let me know.” He stops jogging and falls back.

“Nah, I don’t think I fuckin’ will,” mutters Ghost. Louder, he says, “Johnny, let’s roll as soon as we get her loaded. I’ll get a line on the way. Take it green for now, but use your discretion if we get stuck in traffic.”

“Understood,” says John.

They load her in the ambulance, but just as John is about to close the back door behind Ghost, a middle-aged woman in a purple bathrobe and untied sneakers comes running up to him.

“Can I ride with you?” she pants, clutching the robe closed.

“Who are you?”

“I’m her mom. Please, I need—” Her voice breaks.

“Uh,” says John. He pokes his head into the ambulance, raising an eyebrow at Ghost. Ghost gives him a “figure it out” look as he reaches for an IV set.

He turns back to the woman. “You can come if you’re not going to freak out, okay? I know you are freaking out, but I need you to pretend you’re not for a little while, so we can get to the hospital safely.”

She sets her shoulders. “Yes, I can do that. Thank you.”

Once John gets her situated in the passenger seat, he hops into the driver’s side and navigates them back out to the open street. In the rearview mirror, Ghost gets a quick IV, loads the girl up with pain meds, and hangs a saline bag. After taking a manual blood pressure, he pulls out his phone and taps it a couple times before tucking it between his ear and shoulder.

“Hi. Yeah.” He fiddles with the saline drip rate roller. “Coming in with a nineteen-year-old female, GSW to the left knee. Looks like close range, significant bone and tissue damage. Tourniquet placed, GCS fifteen, heart rate one twenty-eight, pressure ninety-two over sixty. I’ve got a fourteen in her left AC, fifty mics of Fentanyl and two hundred mills of fluids on board. We’ll see you in about—”

“Five minutes,” John calls back.

“Five minutes. Yep. Thanks.” He puts the phone down.

There’s a tiny gasp from the passenger seat. John looks over. The patient’s mother is staring straight ahead, hand pressed over her mouth, silent tears tracking down her face.

He grips the steering wheel tighter. “You’re doing really great,” he says. 

She takes her hand from her face and twists it in her bathrobe. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Nothing to be sorry for, ma’am.”

In a thin voice, she says, “She’s supposed to go to basic training next month.”

His stomach drops out. He doesn’t know what to say.

Her hand flutters up into the air, rests on the dash for a second, drops back into her lap.

After a moment, he reaches a hand out toward her. She grabs for it and clutches it like a lifeline. He drives one-handed all the way to the hospital.

***

The rest of the day is absolute shit.

John's seen objectively worse shootings before. Last fall, he found an older guy lying in the street with a gaping hole right in the center of his forehead, gasping and twitching like an insect when they arrived, brainstem clinging to life after all higher processing tapped out. But the calls that affect you aren’t always the ones you expect. 

He can’t stop thinking about it. The mom holding his hand. All the little yellow markers pointing to the bone fragments in the street. The stupid stickers on the girl’s phone. Nineteen years old, and the life she could have had—was supposed to have—is over. She’s not going to basic training. She’s not going to leave the hospital with two legs.

The worst part, though, is Ghost.

He doesn’t know if Ghost is feeding off his own sour mood or if the perfectly-normal vibe at the start of the day was just a good act, but he’s certainly not cheery anymore. He’s not snippy or rude, just vacant. No jokes, no teasing, no responses that use more than the bare minimum number of syllables. No “Johnny.” This Ghost, the untouchable one in the mask and uniform, is an entirely different being from the Ghost of last night, naked and raw, who came in John’s hand when he asked him to. It’s impossible to reconcile the two.

John gave being incredibly chill his best shot, but, frankly, he's feeling emotionally overwrought by this whole goddamn day. He hasn’t even had a chance to be excited about being accepted to school. Everything is fucked up and it feels like it’s his fault, but he doesn’t know what he did wrong.

He experiences a brief surge of hope when they get in the car at the end of their shift and Ghost removes his mask, but under it, his mouth is a hard line. There’s no sudden shift to a flirtatious mood, no lingering looks, no suggestive hand on his thigh.

Then, as they pull onto the highway, Ghost makes everything even worse by saying, “I heard from my landlord today. My apartment’s all set.”

John feels physically ill. “Oh,” he says, and turns to look out the window. “Okay.”

“I can drop you off and grab my stuff, or….”

“It's late. You should just stay tonight.”

“Okay.”

John looks out over the glimmering lights of downtown as they zip along the empty highway and silently has a breakdown.

He’s found the limit of what he can bear, and it’s this: everything he’s dreaded coming to pass at once, right on the heels of getting what he most wanted. And it’s not like they’re in a functional relationship—they can’t even talk about their most basic feelings, apparently. A single late-night hookup is far too fragile to hold up against what’s coming, especially when the day after feels like this, and he can already feel it disintegrating between his fingers.

Their partnership has an expiration date slapped on it now, and once that day comes, there’s not going to be a reason to see each other every day, or every week, or at all, really. 

He can already see how it’ll go.

He’ll start texting Ghost, tell him about his classes, ask him for advice. It might take a while, but Ghost will always reply. He’ll tell some bad jokes, make fun of John for messing up his EKG interpretations, give him a rundown of any particularly good calls he’s had lately. He won’t say anything about how he feels. He won’t tell John he misses him.

After a month or so, when they both have a free day, he’ll ask Ghost out to lunch. It’ll be as friends, because he doesn’t think he knows how to get Ghost into bed in the normal way, as opposed to the kind of fucked-up situation that precipitated it last night, and even if he did, he couldn’t bear any sort of casual arrangement. They’ll sit across from each other, but it won’t feel like a date this time. John will laugh and carry the conversation and pretend like he’s not bleeding out.

Later, he might even do a ride-along with Ghost for his clinicals. Ghost will have a new partner. They’ll be sitting up front together, and John will be relegated to the jump seat in the back. Maybe Ghost will hook up with his new partner, too.

***

They get ready for bed mechanically, a pall of crypt-like silence cast over the whole apartment.

When John comes into the bedroom, Ghost is sitting on the edge of the desk in the low lamplight. He’s fully dressed, all the way down to his socks, like he’s about to walk out the door. Dread settles in John’s gut.

Ghost says, “I can take the floor if you want. So you have space.” He doesn’t look at John.

“No,” John says, “I don’t want you to sleep on the fucking floor.”

“My back’s fine.”

John realizes, with horror, that he’s close to tears. “We don’t have to—just—come to bed.”

Ghost briefly lifts one hand, then drops it. He slides off the desk and stands up, still avoiding eye contact. “Might make more sense if I just go, actually.”

John bypasses crying and progresses straight into rage. 

He steps in front of Ghost. “Hey,” he barks, “can you fucking look at me?”

Ghost stops in his tracks. He looks right at John, and he almost regrets demanding it because that awful expression so perfectly mirrors what he’s feeling, except Ghost is trying to leave, so that doesn't make sense at all.

“What the fuck is your problem?” John says, louder than he should. “Why are you being such an asshole right now? If you’re upset about last night, can you fucking tell me that instead of just fucking leaving?”

“What are you talking about?” Ghost says in a strange voice. “You’re the one acting upset about it! And you’re the one who’s fucking leaving.” 

John stares at him; his anger ebbs as quickly as it came. “What?”

“What do you mean, ‘What?’”

“I—first of all, how am I the one who’s leaving?”

“Aren’t you going to school in a couple months? Pretty sure we just had that conversation today.”

Yes, he thinks, and the withdrawals from you are going to kill me. “I’ll have to quit, yeah. I can’t work and do nursing school full time. I wish I could, but—is that why you’re being weird? Because we’re not gonna be partners anymore?”

Frowning, Ghost opens his mouth, then closes it. He opens it again, but no sound comes out. That seems like an odd reaction to what John thinks was a pretty clear statement, but—

Realization slaps him in the face.

“Wait. Did you think I was leaving leaving? Like, moving away?”

“...Are you not?”

“I’m going to school here. I only applied to programs in the city. I’m not even moving apartments.”

“Oh,” says Ghost. He crosses his arms. “Well, you made it sound like you were.”

“What could I possibly have said to imply that?”

“You said, and I quote, ‘It'll be nice to get out of here eventually.’ How the fuck was I supposed to interpret that?”

“Ah, fuck. I meant our agency, not the—the geographical area.”

“Oh,” Ghost says again.

“You didn't even ask me about it, asshole!”

“You didn’t tell me, either.”

“Yeah, well, I’m fuckin’ stupid too!”

“Yeah,” says Ghost. He uncrosses his arms and lets them drop at his sides.

An enormous feeling is flooding John, impossible to name. He clears his throat. “I, uh. Thought maybe you were upset because you regretted last night.”

“No,” says Ghost. There’s something vulnerable around his eyes now. “I didn’t. I don’t.”

“Okay. Good. Neither do I, if that wasn’t obvious.”

Ghost looks away at an empty stretch of wall. “Wasn’t sure. Kind of seemed like it.”

“Sorry. It was just a weird day. That call and…it wasn’t you.”

Ghost turns back to him, frowning. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, I'm fine. Better now.”

They look at each other.

In perhaps the greatest understatement of all time, John says, “Well, glad we got that cleared up. Uh, sorry for yelling at you.”

Ghost shrugs a bit self-consciously, but the corner of his mouth is starting to twitch up. “Yeah, well. Understandable.”

God damn it, he thinks. I’m going to have to tell Gaz he was right. In spite of this distressing prospect, he feels himself breaking into a grin. 

He steps into Ghost’s space. “So.”

Ghost moves his feet wider to accommodate him. “So what?”

“All this drama was because you thought I was moving away? Were you gonna miss me or something?”

“You know what, I think I’m already changing my mind.”

John gives his shoulder a little shove.

Ghost grabs his arm, drags him into an embrace, and clutches at him like gravity has stopped working. John wraps his arms around him in return, and sighs deeply into his chest. 

Pleasantly cocooned in the warmth and sweet smell of Ghost, he summons up the courage to ask, “Does this mean we’re still gonna see each other after I start school?”

“Mm,” says Ghost, nuzzling into his neck and rucking up the back of his shirt to run a hand along his spine. “Maybe if you ask nicely. You were pretty rude just now.”

John pulls back to glare at him. “Hey, fuck you. I’ll be so fuckin’ nice.”

The smile is back at the corner of Ghost’s mouth. 

John reaches up and traces his thumb over it. Ghost watches him intently, eyes dark, mouth slightly parted.

He wants to pull Ghost down, but he can’t quite work himself up to it. It’s stupid to be nervous about this, but it suddenly seems very important not to fuck it up.

The smile spreads across Ghost’s whole face. He pulls John closer and cups the back of his neck.

He has known, of course, that Ghost gets a bit cocky sometimes. He’s only just starting to understand, though, that this is Ghost’s default state, his true self, and all he needs is some solid ground to stand on. John’s been doing a shitty job of providing that stability, but he’s going to try his very best from now on, so he can always see Ghost smile like this, with just a little bit of an edge to it, a little bit of arrogance, and oh, he’s starting to think he has a word for this enormous feeling.

Ghost bends his head and kisses him. 

He does it casually, like they’ve had decades of practice to wear down the vertigo-inducing edges. Like it’s perfectly normal.

It is not perfectly normal. This is the least normal John has ever felt in his life. He’s been spending days and weeks and years not kissing Ghost, and that was a terrible mistake, because Ghost’s hot, gentle mouth is all at once a forest fire and a corner taken too fast and a forgotten scent of childhood and a plunge into a winter sea, and it’s the soft anguish of coming home after a long time away.

John parts his mouth and lets Ghost’s tongue flick in, tentative at first. Molten heat spills through his veins and settles in his groin. He bites down on Ghost’s lip, licks into his mouth in return, and Ghost makes a pleased sound. 

Ghost’s hands grow urgent along with his mouth, grasping and kneading John all over as they kiss, as if he’s making a catalogue of his skin, or perhaps trying to press the atoms of them together. John pushes him back against the desk and crowds into his space; Ghost bullies a knee between his legs, grinding his thigh against where he’s hard and straining. He’s already so worked up that he could probably come just like this, fully clothed, riding Ghost’s leg with his tongue in his mouth.

Before he can get too close, he breaks away, gasping. His shirt is bunched and twisted from Ghost’s roaming hands. He rips it off, which causes Ghost’s hands to roam with renewed vigor.

John holds him back. “Why are you wearing all these fuckin' clothes?” he asks, yanking Ghost’s sweatshirt up over his head. Ghost obligingly lifts his arms. He pulls off the T-shirt underneath and adds, “Do you own anything that isn't black?”

Ghost grabs him by the ass and drags him back in. “Our uniforms are blue.”

“Oh, of course.” 

Now that he's allowed, John starts working on the backlog of everywhere he’s been wanting to kiss: across Ghost's huge, freckled shoulders, up the pale column of his neck, along the underside of his stubbled jaw.

Ghost strokes the buzzed side of his head, then tangles his hand in his mohawk. “This thing is ridiculous,” he says, tugging on it.

John stops kissing his neck and scowls up at him instead. “Oh, yeah? Have you seen your tattoos?”

Ghost wrenches his head back. “Watch your mouth, MacTavish.”

“Yeah, I'll watch it on your fuckin’ c—”

Ghost kisses him again. 

He allows it for a few seconds before he makes good on his promise by sliding to his knees, taking Ghost’s shorts with him on the way down. Ghost looks huge from down here—not just his cock, but all of him, broad and towering and staring down at John with predatory eyes, hands flat on the desk behind him.

He licks over the head of Ghost’s cock.

“Jesus,” moans Ghost, tilting his head back.

He goes slow at first, not even taking Ghost into his mouth, just kissing and licking over his head, down the underside of his shaft, over his balls, back up to taste the salty precum beading at his slit. Ghost must not hate his hair all that much, because he certainly seems interested in keeping it wrapped around his fingers. 

Then he pushes Ghost against the desk and takes his cock all the way down in one fell swoop. Ghost makes an almost pained noise and clenches his fist in John’s hair; something clatters off the desk to the floor. John sits back, pulling Ghost’s hips with him, and by means of a few gentle shoves back and forth, urges him to fuck his mouth. Ghost thrusts forward hard, making his eyes water. He grips Ghost by the ass and pulls him in a few more times, choking as he bottoms out at the end of each stroke.

Ghost gasps sharply. “Fuck, stop,” he says, pulling him off.

John clears his throat. “You okay?”

Ghost sucks in another breath and shifts his hips away. “Yeah, just. Gonna—”

“You don't want to?” He chases Ghost's cock with his mouth.

Ghost holds him back by the hair like a misbehaving dog. “You fuckin’ demon—not in like twenty seconds, no. Christ.”

“Can’t go a second round? I guess that's understandable, at your age.”

“Come here, you little shit.” Ghost drags him up to his feet, shoves him into the wall by his shoulders, and sets to devouring his mouth, presumably in order to prove his youthful virility.

It works; John’s knees actually go weak. He’s more accustomed to being the one doing the manhandling, but he could get used to this. Taking advantage of his temporarily addled state, Ghost grabs the backs of his thighs and hitches him right up around his waist, causing John’s brain to blank out entirely.

Then Ghost hauls them both around and honest to God throws John onto the bed. John is not a light man by any reasonable definition of the word, and the bed frame makes a horrible screeching noise in agreement.

“Christ,” he says, a bit winded. “You're a danger to this whole apartment. You want us both sleeping on the floor?”

Naked, Ghost advances on him, putting one knee on the bed between his legs. “Maybe you could replace it with a normal-sized bed.”

John tries to sit up, but Ghost shoves his shoulder back down, caging him in. John glares at him. “You trying to wrestle me or something?”

Ghost grins, feral. “I don’t think you want that.”

That sends a shiver of anticipation through him. “Oh, I absolutely do.”

Ghost obliges him.

John likes to think he’s stronger than the average guy, but he fully understands just how outclassed he is here when, after about thirty seconds of putting up his best fight, he’s pinned on his stomach with Ghost straddling him. He writhes and throws an elbow back, trying to get a jab in. Ghost avoids it, but he lets him struggle, just grinding down against him and huffing out a laugh.

“Taking it easy on me?” John pants, grinning.

Without warning, Ghost wrenches his arms up behind his back. He knees John’s legs apart and pins them at a useless angle, then transfers his grip on his wrists into one hand and, with the other, none too gently shoves the side of John’s face into the bed. Crushed under Ghost’s whole body weight, he can’t move an inch.

Right next to his ear, Ghost says, “Yeah, I was.”

John goes rock-hard in an instant. 

He’s never felt this helpless, and it’s as arousing as it is terrifying. Ghost’s cock is pushing insistently against his ass and he wonders if Ghost is going to just strip his boxers down and fuck him into the mattress right here and now, arms pinned behind his back, no prep or anything. He decides he’s thoroughly alright with that, actually.

Ghost releases John’s head and puts his fist on the bed to push himself up. Big mistake. John lunges and bites down hard on his forearm.

“I need to fuckin’ muzzle you,” says Ghost, yanking his arm away.

“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

With some of the weight eased off him, John manages to flip onto his back. There’s another brief period of grappling before he gets his legs around Ghost’s waist and, employing some serious effort from his abdominal muscles, rolls them both over so he’s on top, straddling Ghost.

As soon as Ghost is on his back, all the fight goes out of him. He sinks back into the bed and lets John take both his wrists to restrain his hands over his head. Pinned and utterly pliant, he looks up expectantly with liquid eyes, chest rising and falling slowly.

The mood shifts all at once, dissolving like honey in hot water.

“Oh, fuck,” John breathes. 

Something slides home in his chest: a piece of Ghost he didn’t quite know the shape of before, revealed for the first time in all its terrible, exquisite rawness.

He kisses Ghost, soft and languid and molten, pulling a small sound of pleasure from him. He releases Ghost’s wrists and traverses a path down his body, kissing and licking his collarbones, his nipples, his belly. Ghost's legs come up around him.

He buries his face in the sparse blond hair below Ghost’s navel and murmurs, “I think about this whenever you drive.”

Ghost says, “Pervert,” but John can hear the smile in it.

He gently bites the inside of Ghost’s thigh and moves inward, mouthing at his pale, delicate skin. He takes Ghost’s cock into his mouth and starts to move over him, wet and unhurried and worshipful, not attempting to work him toward completion. Even as Ghost’s breaths come faster, his whole body softens, and he runs his fingers absently through John’s hair.

He moves his hand down to cup Ghost’s balls, eliciting a little half-moan from him, then travels lower.

Ghost visibly tenses.

John pulls his hand away. “No?”

“No—yeah. It's okay.”

He gives him a moment to relax, mouthing at the head of his cock. He moves his hand back down slowly, circles him, and presses the pad of his finger just barely inside. Ghost shudders and inhales sharply.

John gets the sense they might be in uncharted territory, but given Ghost’s varied track record of reactions to being touched, he doesn’t want to assume. Keeping his voice casual, he says, “You done this before?”

Ghost arches his neck against the pillow. “Not with another person.”

The curl of lust down John’s spine hits almost before the mental image does.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” He snatches his hand away and grinds the heel of it into the base of his cock. “Are you—do you want—?”

Ghost throws an arm over his face. Into his elbow, he says, “Yeah—fuck. Yeah.”

“Okay,” John says, in his best attempt at not sounding hysterical. “Or, wait. Would you prefer topping?”

“I don't think so,” says Ghost. “Haven't done that, either.”

John is going to lose his mind. “Okay,” he says again, because he’s having a hard time remembering other words. “Gimme just a sec.” He stands up, strips off his boxers, and goes to rummage in the top drawer of his desk. Then he thinks of something and turns back to Ghost. “Not that it matters, but. Last night. You’d done that, right?”

Ghost props himself up on his elbows and draws his knees in, looking a little defensive. “Yeah. Been a while. Just—nothing you can’t do in a hurry behind a bar, I guess.”

“I’d do a lot to you behind a bar, but I take your point. Not a problem.” He tosses a bottle of lube onto the bed next to Ghost and follows it with a condom.

Ghost looks down and raises an eyebrow slightly.

“What’s that look for?” John asks.

“What?”

“Don’t you ‘what’ me when you're the one giving rude looks to condoms. Does it mean I misunderstood and you don’t actually want me to fuck you, or does it mean you want me to fuck you raw?”

Ghost goes pink; he looks away.

“Oh, yeah?” says John, suddenly feeling insupportably fond. He crawls back on top of Ghost and buries his face in his stomach to hide whatever embarrassing expression must be on it. “I can. If you’re sure. I’m—good.”

Ghost pulls on his hair. “You’re obnoxious,” he says. “Yes.”

John sits back and flicks the condom off the bed. He grabs the lube, then stops. “How about you get on your stomach? You can just lie there and look pretty.”

Ghost rolls his eyes, but he turns over in rather a hurry, cheeks still pink. John positions himself between his legs, pushing them a bit wider with his knees. 

He wants to put his tongue inside Ghost immediately, but he suspects jumping into that without preamble might be beyond the limits of intimacy Ghost can endure without combusting into ash. Instead, he starts by tracing soothing patterns over Ghost’s back and following them with kisses.

Now that they're both unburdened of the dreadful ordeal of eye contact, John decides to go all-in on making a fool of himself.

“Just so you know,” he says in between kisses along Ghost's spine, “I’d never go to school somewhere you aren’t. Not now. I would have reapplied if I had to.”

“Sounds like you’re an idiot, then,” Ghost says.

“Yeah, probably.”

“I mean it, Johnny. You won’t—I’m kind of fucked up.”

“Oh, really? Could have fooled me; you seem perfectly well-adjusted.”

“Have I ever told you how annoying you are?”

“A couple minutes ago, yeah. Look, we're already getting better at communicating.”

Ghost reaches back and attempts to swat him. John dodges it.

“I mean it, too,” John says. “You think I give a fuck? You think I don’t know you? I spend almost every waking hour with you, and then I go to sleep next to you.” He runs his mouth down Ghost’s tailbone, over one cheek, to the back of his thigh. “And you know what? It’s still not enough. I miss you all the time. When you're at the gym. When you're in a different room. I miss you when you’re five feet away in the back of the ambulance.”

Into the pillow, Ghost mutters something that might be, “Sappy fuck.” His ears are pink.

“You have no idea what I’ve suffered,” John adds, sitting up and squirting lube into his hand. “Gotten myself off so many times imagining this, I think I'm permanently fuckin' chafed.”

Still muffled, Ghost says, “I did in the hospital bathroom once.”

John convulsively grips Ghost’s ass. “Oh my God. You what? When?” 

“Right after we dropped off what’s-his-name. Frank.”

“Okay, you know, I’m starting to think it’s actually the bathrooms that do it for you. We can move in there if you’d be more comfortable.”

“Johnny, can you shut the fuck up.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He slides a slick finger right over Ghost’s hole, drawing a gasp out of him. 

He barely breaches him at first, just stroking and pressing and tugging, letting him get comfortable. Once Ghost has relaxed, he gently pushes in all the way and searches around until Ghost abruptly shifts his hips and whimpers.

Pleased, John strokes him there again, and then again, until Ghost's breaths are coming quick and uneven and he's grinding his hips into the bed. 

He has added a second finger and is curled right over Ghost with his face against his shoulder blade, catching his little shifts and inhales against his parted mouth, when Ghost says, apropos of nothing, “I wanted to kill that guy.”

John freezes. “Fuckin’—who?”

“That asshole we had to sedate. When he grabbed you.”

He knows Ghost means it literally. He wouldn't have said it otherwise. Maybe they’re both collared dogs, tied up to each other. 

He says, “Probably for the best that you didn’t. Price would have been annoyed.”

“Don’t talk about Price while you’ve got your fuckin’ hand inside me, Christ.”

“You brought it up! And if you think that’s my whole hand, I have bad news.”

“Maybe you just have small fingers—”

John withdraws the offending fingers and slaps Ghost on the ass. “Alright,” he says, “that’s enough out of you.”

He slithers down Ghost’s body, spreads him open with both hands, and buries his face in his ass.

As a method for shutting Ghost up, it’s pretty effective. At the first firm, wet swipe of John’s tongue over his hole, Ghost lets out a single breathy “fuck” and then stops forming words.

He grabs Ghost by the hips and eats him out mercilessly, circling his hole with his tongue, then running long strokes up him. Ghost’s breath hitches; he clenches and unclenches under John’s mouth. John stretches him even wider and shoves his tongue right inside. Ghost moans, and the sound goes straight to his cock.

“Fuck,” he says, pulling off to compose himself. He bites down hard on Ghost’s asscheek and watches the blood rush back into the blanched skin.

“You’re a fuckin’ menace,” Ghost mutters.

“You wouldn’t be able to resist if you had this view,” John says. He spreads Ghost open to get a good look at him and runs a thumb over his hole, slick and pink and swollen with his attentions. “Fuck,” he says again. “You’re doing a fantastic job of looking pretty.”

John returns to his work, slipping a finger inside along with his tongue. He soon adds a second finger, and then a third, using more lube each time. He licks and sucks along Ghost’s rim, trying to squeeze his tongue in alongside as he pushes his fingers in deep, crooking them, stroking Ghost’s hot, silky insides. Ghost is unsubtly rutting against the sheets now, panting into the pillow, shifting his legs around ineffectually.

Keeping his fingers sunk inside all the way to the first knuckle, John pulls his mouth off and looks up. Ghost has the headboard in a tight grip with one hand, and his other arm is curled around to hide his face, fist clenched. The back of his neck is flushed a deep pink. He squirms around John’s fingers.

“How are you doing?” John asks.

Ghost exhales unsteadily. “Close.”

That’s great news, because John is going to last five seconds inside him, max. He gently pulls his fingers out and crawls up Ghost’s body to blanket him. “You still want me to fuck you?” he asks softly.

“What do you fucking think?” says Ghost, but it sounds more like a whine than anything.

John bites the overhot back of his neck, then kisses over the tooth marks.

His cock is about as hard as it’s ever been in his life, even with no attention paid to it in the past several minutes. He pushes himself into the cleft of Ghost’s ass and slides until he catches, thrusting just enough to barely stretch him open. They shudder in unison.

John withdraws, then does it again. Ghost cants his hips, trying to guide him in. 

“Nuh uh,” says John, pulling back. “Not like this. Not even with that slutty little move, you minx.”

“I’m gonna find you a nursing program on the opposite side of the fuckin’ country,” says Ghost.

“You wouldn’t. Turn over, I wanna see you.”

Ghost obeys. He settles himself back against the pillows, tosses his arms over his head, and gives John a look that clearly says, Well? Get on with it.

For all this apparent nonchalance, he's given away by his cock—hard against his belly, angry-red and smeared with precum over the tip. John bends to lick it off. Ghost swears and grabs his bicep to yank him away.

Grinning, John heaves him up by the hips and stuffs a pillow under him. “God, you're fuckin’ heavy,” he grunts.

Ghost halfheartedly kicks him in the side. “You like it.”

“Yeah, true.”

John slicks himself up with lube, then hitches Ghost’s knees up over his elbows. “You good?”

“I’ve been fuckin’ good.”

“Yeah,” John says as he presses in close, not knowing what he means by it. “You have.”

Ghost stares right up at him, dark and hungering. He shivers and drops his gaze. He nudges the head of his cock against Ghost's wet hole and then he’s pushing in, watching as Ghost’s body yields easily to the intrusion.

“God,” he chokes out, looking away before he accidentally cuts this event extremely short. He looks back to Ghost's face instead, but that's almost worse. Ghost mercifully has his eyes closed now, but as John pushes in deeper, his perfect mouth parts softly; he clutches at John's forearm.

Ghost takes him all the way in with no sign of discomfort. He’s so hot and tight and perfect and he’s made for this, made for him—or maybe it’s the other way around and John is made for Ghost; he can’t tell the difference—and John is inside him, and he realizes, with a surge of joy, that he’s finally close enough to Ghost not to miss him.

He doesn’t move yet, both to give Ghost time to adjust and also to get himself under control. “You feel so fucking good,” he breathes, head bowed, running his hands along Ghost’s thighs. “Fuck. Ghost.”

Voice tight, Ghost says, “You ever gonna call me by my name?”

John stills. Of all the things he might have expected Ghost to say upon his first time with a cock in him, that wasn't on the list.

“Like—your real name?”

“Yeah.”

“Nobody calls you that.”

“You could,” says Ghost. “If you want.”

Embarrassingly, that almost makes John come. 

Simon, he thinks. Simon, Simon, Simon, Simon—

A little strangled, he says, “I’ll try. Might have to work up to it.”

He grabs Ghost by the hips, pulls almost all the way out, then slides home in one long, smooth motion that raises all the hair on his arms. Ghost shivers and wraps his legs around John’s waist. He takes a few steadying breaths and starts to move slowly, watching Ghost’s face, adjusting his angle.

“Fuck,” says Ghost, grip tightening around John's arm. 

He pushes in again at the same angle, harder this time. Ghost makes a choked-off noise.

John grins. “Yeah?” 

“Fucking—insufferable.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re suffering right now, actually.”

A few more thrusts and Ghost is pink-cheeked, biting his bottom lip as he breathes hard through his nose. His hand creeps up toward his cock. 

“Hey, that’s my job,” says John, knocking his hand away. Ghost huffs at him wordlessly.

John squirts more lube into his palm, even though they’re both bathing in it at this point, and takes Ghost in hand, gliding over his cock in light strokes as he fucks him, aiming for his prostate with every thrust. Ghost whines, then whips his hand up to his mouth and bites his knuckles.

John asks gently, “Want me to do that for you, too?”

“What?” Ghost croaks.

In answer, he removes Ghost’s hand and replaces it with his own, palm over his mouth. Then he thrusts into him hard.

Ghost moans into his hand, loud, and his legs tighten around John’s waist. Thrilled with this discovery, he picks up his pace until he’s fucking Ghost in long, powerful strokes, one hand clamped over his mouth and the other around his cock.

Ghost comes completely unraveled. He digs his heels into John’s ass and his hands are everywhere: clawing at the sheets, gripping the headboard, scratching at John’s back. He’s moaning and panting open-mouthed against John’s palm, even louder than the thud of the headboard against the wall every time John bottoms out inside him.

John grits his teeth and wills away the heat building in his groin. He needs to make Ghost come first, to treat him right, because Ghost trusts him enough to let him do this, to let himself be wholly overpowered. It’s an unimaginable gift and he feels wild with it—possessive and voracious and monstrously tender.

All at once, not seeing Ghost’s face is unbearable.

Breathing hard, he stops and takes his hand off Ghost’s mouth. He gently tugs Ghost’s hands out of the death grip they currently have on the sheets, intertwines their fingers, and pins his arms up next to his head.

“Can I look at you?” he whispers.

Ghost opens his eyes. There’s such a softness in them that John thinks he might die. 

Ghost is all softness, really, when you get him stripped down. Soft, defenseless eyes, gorgeous mouth, pale freckles, ruffled hair. He doesn’t know how he ever thought anything different.

John fucks him slowly now, moving his hips in a relentless, rolling grind, watching Ghost’s face to chase his pleasure. Ghost is quiet, mouth parted to draw in small, uneven gasps in the scant air between them, while his neglected cock drips onto his belly. All the while he looks up at John, never breaking eye contact, pupils blown, wet and sea-dark and bewildered.

John drowns in him.

He didn’t think this would happen at all, but he never could have imagined it would be like this: soft and vulnerable and full of delicate, agonizing feelings that are threatening to burst forth into words, not a confession—for how could Ghost not know, as it brims out of him?—but a plea, a vow, a glorious cry. Instead of saying any of them, he crushes himself down against Ghost and, into his neck, he whispers, “Simon.”

Ghost’s breath catches. He slides his arms around John.

“Maybe I’ll save it,” John murmurs, mouthing against the underside of his jaw. “Just for when you’re like this. When I’m inside you.”

“Fuck,” Ghost gasps. “I need—” He breaks off, biting into the meat of John’s shoulder and panting wetly.

John knows what he needs, from the way Ghost’s cock is twitching and leaking between them, not getting quite enough friction. He’s on the brink too, but he doesn’t want this to be over yet. He wants to feel Ghost writhing under him for days. He wants to live inside him.

So John just fucks into him, honey-slow and reverent, face buried in his shoulder, pulling Ghost’s hips in to meet his own as hot pleasure climbs up his spine. Ghost squirms, but he lets it happen; he clutches at John’s sweat-slick back and waits for him, doesn't put a hand on himself. He's so good, he's so perfect— 

“Simon Riley,” John breathes, an incantation.

Ghost goes tense and silent for a second, and then he chokes out, “Please—Johnny.”

It turns out they're a perfect, pathetic match for each other, because that sends John right over the edge. 

His hips snap hard into Ghost, once, twice, out of his control. He shoves his hand between them, but he barely has time to wrap it around Ghost’s cock before he’s coming inside him, shuddering and gasping.

That’s not important, though. The only thing in the world that matters is Ghost beneath him, on a knife’s edge, clawing into his back, body so taut he’s not even breathing. So John keeps moving in him past his orgasm, now torturously hot and slick as he fucks his own cum deeper, and he strokes Ghost’s cock with long, firm pulls.

Scant seconds later, Ghost comes. It’s completely soundless again: his strong thighs tighten on John’s waist, and then he’s clenching hard around his cock and spilling over into his hand.

John keeps going, fucking both of them into overstimulation, delirious with it, until Ghost finally breathes again, one great big gulp of air, and says, “God—Johnny—fuck.” It’s only then that he stills, gasping against Ghost’s collarbone.

Eventually, he pushes himself up to look at Ghost. He’s breathing hard, arms thrown over his head. His neck and shoulders are scattered with love bites that John doesn’t remember leaving, and he’s flushed all the way down to his chest. 

He's the most breathtakingly beautiful thing John's ever seen.

He thinks: I’m going to do this for the rest of my life, if he lets me.

He puts a steadying hand on Ghost’s lower stomach and gently pulls out. Ghost shivers, his whole body erupting in goosebumps. He bends to lick Ghost’s cum off his stomach while he runs soothing hands up and down his flanks, and Ghost trembles under him.

After a minute or so, when Ghost hasn’t shown any inclination to move, John flops down next to him. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Ghost, a little hoarse. He slowly rolls over and puts his head on John’s chest.

Delighted, John wraps his arms around him and pets his sweaty hair. “Was it alright?”

“Are you fishing for compliments?”

“Are you gonna give me one?”

“Not anymore,” Ghost says peevishly, but John can feel him start to smile against his skin.

He continues petting Ghost. Ghost traces a finger down his hip bone. His sheets are a disaster, he thinks idly. Instead of getting up to find a towel, he tangles their legs together. 

Ghost presses closer. He's still in his socks, now bunched and sagging around his ankles, and that makes John feel like he's going to explode with joy for some reason.

He says, “Mary thinks we make a lovely couple.”

“Who the fuck is Mary?” says Ghost.

“You forgot about Mary? I can't believe you.”

“Oh, right, Mary. She also thought I was a big boy.”

“She has no fuckin’ idea.”

“That’s what you think.”

“And you called me a pervert, Christ.”

Ghost shifts. “Hey, Johnny.”

“Oh no, don’t you dare.”

“Why did the—”

“I knew it! I don’t wanna hear—”

Somewhere nearby, a phone rings. Then a male voice, clear as day, says, “Hey, man. Thanks for calling me back.”

They both freeze.

“Oh my fucking God,” whispers John.

In a low voice, Ghost says, “Is that your landlord?”

“Yep.”

“You forgot to mention you were keeping him under your fuckin’ bed.”

“I didn’t realize—fuck.” He chokes down a hysterical laugh. “I’ve never heard him down there. He's barely ever home. Oh my God. Do you, uh, think there’s a chance he didn’t hear anything?”

“...No.”

“Fuck. Looks like I'm getting evicted.”

“For what, lewd acts?”

“Well, your wall demolition certainly won’t help my case. Won’t be able to look him in the eye anymore, either way.”

In a perfectly casual tone, Ghost says, “Guess you’ll have to move in with me, then.”

John’s heart rate shoots up considerably. Ghost can probably feel it in his chest. “I hear it’s bed bug free now.”

“Yeah, and the walls aren’t made of toothpaste.”

“Ghost.” He gives him a little nudge.

Ghost looks up at him; his cheeks are pinker than ever.

“Are you asking?” says John.

Ghost ducks his head back into his chest. “Uh. Yeah?”

John kisses his hair, beaming. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah.”