17: Quentin

Quentin liked the night shift. A lot of people considered it unsocial, but there was nothing else he would be doing otherwise, not these days. There was a lot less hassle late at night. Mostly. He could get through the paperwork uninterrupted, sneak some study time for the exams he was taking in the summer. It was quiet.

Of course, when things went wrong they tended to do it big time. If a patient was going to go, the early hours were the preferred time. It wasn't called the graveyard shift for nothing.

Sometimes Quentin had to watch four or five people die in a single night. Not often, but enough to leave scars. He tried not to get attached, tried not to care, but death had a way of getting its claws in anyway. A way of worming its way into your heart.

There was none of that tonight. No-one was critical, no-one was on the brink. No-one was even insomniac. The ward was dark and quiet. Ventilators whirred and clicked, the heating ticked over. People snored. It was blissfully uneventful.

Quentin allowed himself to focus on his textbooks for awhile, trying to get a handle on ordinary least-squares regression. He thought he'd grasped it in the lecture, but now the words and symbols on the page wouldn't slot into place. The more he stared at the scatter graphs and the regression lines, the more random they seemed, just an elaborate practical joke at his expense.

He rubbed his eyes. It was time for a break. Time to do the rounds; to do some work. It wouldn't take long.

And it didn't.

Peaceful sleep. Laboured breathing. Tossing and turning. There were four dorms and four single rooms in Quentin's ward, and every one was quiet. He checked each patient. He tucked Mr Galbani's flailing arm back under the covers. Wiped the drool from Mr Robinson's cheek. That was the nearest he came to be being needed. Nobody's drip was backed up, nobody was bleeding or choking, nobody needed any attention at all.

But since Quentin had some attention to spare, he lingered in the last of the rooms, watching Mr Hickox. Watching Adam.

It would probably be his last chance. Adam was going home tomorrow. He still looked pretty battered, would be wearing bandages -- not to mention the plaster cast -- for some time, but he was on the mend. Ready to face the world.

Ta ta.

Quentin was happy about that, but still, he would miss Adam. He was one of those ones Quentin connected with, despite himself. He wished he couldn't relate to what had happened to the boy, but he could; it pushed every one of his buttons. The thought of him hunted down on the street, caught, beaten into a bloody pulp... Well, it was upsetting.

It wasn't the same, but it reminded him of some things in his past, things he usually preferred to forget. People he preferred to forget. Though perhaps people was overstating it. Perhaps they were things after all.

But he wouldn't think about that. Wouldn't think about the beatings and punishment, the bruises or the scars. Wouldn't run his tongue over the bridgework that filled in those missing teeth. Especially wouldn't think about the deep seams of emotional sadism that had been mined back then, so much richer and more rewarding than mere physical injury. No.

Instead, he would just watch.

Adam was sleeping quietly, his chest rising and falling in gentle rhythm. His eyelids fluttered a little. Perhaps he was dreaming.

Quentin stood beside the bed for a couple of minutes, almost paternal. Watching tiny expressions flicker across Adam's face, listening to the little murmurs. He was probably a handsome man when he wasn't swollen and bruised, but Quentin wasn't attracted to him that way. He just wanted to wrap him up and protect him from the evils of the world. He just wanted to imagine that was possible.

Adam started to move a little more, head nodding a tiny bit. His lips parted and he whispered something Quentin couldn't hear. He leaned down to listen closer, but couldn't really make out the words. Something about "night" and "day"? He had no idea.

Whatever the dream was, it soon passed, and Adam sank back into a deep and apparently placid sleep. He started to snore quietly. He smiled.

Quentin smiled too. He was surprised and slightly embarrassed to find himself giving Adam a tiny kiss on the forehead. Then he went back to his books.
Posted by matt at November 21, 2004 02:33 AM