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Shane’s head fell onto the keyboard with a groan.
“Are you ok, Shane?”
“Urgh.”
He picked his head up, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes and squinting under the bright fluorescents of the emergency department. Shane turned his head towards his coworker Rose, who was looking at him with a smirk.
“Not built for nights, RN Day Shift?” she laughed.
“It’s not that. I mean- the whole staying up thing does suck, yeah. But I have five patients because Jackie called out last minute, and one of the techs has been on ‘break’ for the past hour so she’s MIA, and I think one of my patients has C. diff-”
Rose laid a comforting hand on his back. “Shane. Breathe. The shift is almost over and you have tomorrow off, right? Just relax. We got this.”
Shane glanced at the clock on his computer, under the patient notes he was updating. 0632. About half an hour left. He was so ready to take a hot shower and crawl into bed.
Shane had transferred from his first job at a smaller, local community hospital to a bustling Level I Trauma Center in Boston. Although he missed his coworkers there, the pay was much better here; especially with the night shift differential. Besides the culture shock of a bigger hospital, Shane was not used to night shifts whatsoever. When he worked days, he would wake up early, get a good workout in, go to work, come home, do his nightly routine, and start fresh the next day. Now not only is his whole routine messed up, but the patients coming in have become more… eccentric, one could say (his first ever patient shoved a hairdryer up his rectum. Shane still couldn’t figure out how the older gentleman got it up there). Thankfully Rose was there to help him out. They had gone through nursing school together, and she helped show him the ropes of the hospital.
A tablet smacking the counter broke his train of thoughts. Irritated, Shane looked up from where he was sitting.
A gorgeous Russian man stared back.
“You are RN Hollander, yes? New nurse. Have not seen you before.” The paramedic- I. Rozanov, Shane quickly read from his nametag- said, the words rolling off his tongue. He gave Shane a big, toothy smile, looking like a predator who trapped his prey. “I have a gift for you. Patient in Room 5”
As the medic walked away and Shane began to get up, Rose leaned in close. “Watch out for Rozanov. He’s a real piece of work.” He hummed in acknowledgement as he started down the hallway towards the patient’s room, ID badge hitting against his stethoscope.
Shane walked into the open door of the room where Rozanov’s partner was putting the hospital bed’s railing up, the patient having already been transferred from their stretcher. The lady in the bed was knocked out cold, snoring.
“We bring you a 57-year-old female. Found on the side of the street by police. Stated she had some cocaine. Stable vitals. Here, take my chart to sign.”
Before he could object, the tablet was shoved into Shane’s hands and he scribbled out a messy signature.
“Ah, and I need your first name as well, S. Hollander.”
He cleared his throat. “Shane. It’s… it’s Shane.”
“Well, it was very nice to meet you, Shane,” Rozanov said in a low, rumbling voice. His hand ghosted over Shane’s arm as he took the tablet back. He felt heat creep up his face.
The other paramedic was already moving out the door with the stretcher. Before Rozanov left the room, he looked up, seemingly deep in thought. “Ah, forgot to mention. She was very combative. Almost bit my partner Kip’s ear off. We gave intramuscular ketamine in the field. Terrible veins.”
“She almost- wait. How long ago did you give her that? And the dose?”
Rozanov smiled innocently. “Oh, you know. The usual. In the protocol. Would you look at that, she’s waking up now.”
He turned on his heel and left the room. Shane stood there dumbfounded.
“Wha- what the fuck am I doin’ ‘ere?” a raspy female voice slurred from behind him. Shane gave his nicest, plastered smile and looked back at the woman. “Hello ma’am, my name is Shane and I’ll be your nurse-”
He managed to call in security before she could bite his ear off, too.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Shane. God, he really is terrible.”
Shane grunted in agreement. It had been a week since the ‘Rozanov Incident’ as Rose had dubbed it. He had soon learned from other nurses that Rozanov was a notorious dickbag. He would drop off patients with the bare minimum amount of information and leave the nurses fending for themselves. Unfortunately, he was both a very good paramedic and firefighter at his company. He was close with the administration over there as well, making him basically untouchable.
“It’s whatever. On to the next one, right?”
Rose seemed to ignore the way Shane’s eye twitched for the sake of his pride.
“Hey aren’t you going on vacation in about a month?” she cheerily said. “To that cottage, right?”
Shane perked up. “Oh, yeah. My parents own a cottage on Lake Muskoka in Ontario. It’s beautiful up there, especially in the summer. One whole week away from this place.” He sighed dreamily, resting his hands behind his head and leaning back in his seat. He closed his eyes. “Man, do I need a break.”
As if on cue, the sliding doors to the ambulance bay opened. “If it isn’t Hollander. My favorite nurse.”
Shane groaned internally. He really didn’t need this at three in the morning. He cracked an eye open to look at Rozanov. Stupid Rozanov with his stupid blonde curls, and perfect teeth, and stupid sharp jawline-
“What do you have now?” is what he eventually settled for.
“You should come see for yourself. Take the first look!”
Rose looked at Shane with sympathy. You got this, she mouthed. He gave her a weak smile.
When Shane walked into the ambulance bay, the first thing he noticed were the two vomit bags filled to the brim on the stretcher. The second thing he noticed was how green Rozanov’s partner- Kip, he reminded himself- looked. The third most important thing was the absolutely wasted college student slumped against the cot, completely out of it.
Kip spoke up. “Twenty-year-old male coming from Boston University. Had too much to drink at a frat party. His friends called it in after he was found in a bush. Stable vitals, but in the back he was-”
“That is enough to report Kip. Good job,” Rozanov interrupted.
Kip bit down any retort he may have had and stepped aside to let Shane through. Rozanov stood to his right. Shane rubbed the student’s sternum with his fist, waking him. “Good morning, sir. Do you know why you’re in the hospital-”
Shane couldn’t finish before the patient started projectile vomiting. Unfortunately, the direction he chose just so happened to be where Shane and Rozanov were standing.
The two of them stood together in shock as the student’s spew slowed before Rozanov cracked a smile. “Ah. Apologies. Should have mentioned that this one was… vomiting quite a bit. In a projectile manner”
Shane opened and closed his mouth several times. Before he could chew into Rozanov right in the ambulance bay with both of them covered in vomit, Rose and the attending physician walked in.
Dr. Hunter’s eyes narrowed when he saw Rozanov. “Of fucking course,” he sighed. “Couldn’t have just been you, right? Had to take one of the nurses down with you.”
“RN Landry, could you take these two to decon?”
His gaze softened once it landed on Kip. “And you. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Rose glared at Shane and Rozanov. “You two. With me. Now.”
She strode down the hallway, leading the two men through the hospital. “I can’t fucking believe it. Now I have to cover your patients until you come back, and Lord knows what they’re about to bring in next.”
The nurse stopped suddenly in front of a solid white door, not far from where they originally came. “There’s the showers. Go decon there.”
Before Shane could say anything, Rose interrupted. “And be thankful Kip was your partner, Rozanov. Or else Dr. Hunter would’ve ripped you a new one right there.”
Rozanov muttered something under his breath and practically pushed Shane into the room.
Once inside, Shane looked around. There were multiple shower heads spaced throughout the white tile. The only issue was that there were no curtains dividing them.
“Like a high school locker room,” Rozanov smirked.
“Ok, so if you want to go first you can, or I could-”
The paramedic had already started to strip right in front of him. Shane looked away, grumbled over the lack of privacy, and followed suit. By the time he turned around, Rozanov was already staring at him. Shane couldn’t help the way his eyes traveled down to-
“Like what you see?” he purred.
Shane began to sputter, a hot blush making his way down his neck. “Don’t make it awkward. Let’s just get this over with.”
Rozanov hummed in amusement. “Whatever you say, Hollander.”
As they showered, Shane could feel Rozanov's eyes occasionally wandering to his figure. Shane wished he could say he didn’t do the same, but those toned muscles had an effect on him. He could only imagine what they would look like when Rozanov was on top-
He abruptly shut the water off, embarrassed that he let his mind wander like that. Rozanov seemed to be finished with his shower as well, eyeing Shane hungrily. They proceeded to put on matching shitty hospital-issued scrubs.
As Shane began to make his way out, Rozanov stopped him.
“You know, Hollander. Shane. I think we both went through something terrible. What do they call it… ah, ‘trauma bonded.’ So therefore, we must exchange phone numbers.”
Shane chuckled. Despite how much of a dick Rozanov was, he sure had tact. “If you wanted to be my friend, you could have asked like a normal person. Here, put your contact information on my phone.”
He gave his phone to Rozanov, who typed quickly, handing the phone back to Shane with a wink before making his way to the ambulance bay.
Shane looked down at the contact card screen. Rozanov. Ilya Rozanov.
Shane thought that it was a beautiful name.
Hollander looked down at his unread messages from Rozanov, smiling at some stupid photo of a polar bear he sent. It has been three weeks since the ‘Rozanov Incident Vol. 2’ (Don’t worry, there will be many more to come, Rose reassured him). At first, Rozanov was the only one to initiate conversations over text. But as the days went on, something changed. Shane, unfortunately, found that as insufferable as a paramedic as he was, Rozanov was great to talk to. He found all the ways to make Shane laugh and genuinely wanted to listen to how his day was at work (Another hairdryer up the same old man’s ass? He didn’t learn from the first time?). Eventually, they started calling. And perhaps, besides Rose Landry, Shane had made another friend in the hospital’s healthcare system.
“You’re smiling, Shane. At work. What a rare sight,” Rose teased. She paused for a moment. “You leave tomorrow, right? For the cottage?”
Shane took her rationale and ran with it. He would rather be caught doing anything else than texting the number one enemy of the emergency department. “I can’t believe I survived to see the day.”
Rose laughed, drawing the attention of several other nurses.
“What’s so funny over here?” Jackie said casually, strolling up to the two of them.
“Not too much, Jackie. RN Day Shift is just more than ready for his vacation.”
Jackie looked at Rose. “Oh, how nice. Where are you going?”
Shane cleared his throat. He didn’t know Jackie that well, but was pretty good friends with her husband, Hayden, who in contrast wanted nothing to do with the medical field and felt queasy at even the mention of blood.
“I’m going up to the cottage. Taking a week off, relaxing, reconnecting with nature. All of that good stuff. Just have to get through this shift.” He took a look at his watch. 1912. He had just clocked in and was already counting down the hours.
The charge nurse that night, who was an older no-nonsense lady, quickly broke up their conversation. “A firefighter with smoke inhalation is coming in about five minutes. Hollander, get to resus. The rest of you better stop yammering and get to work.”
Shane scrambled out of his seat. “On it.”
He moved down the long hallway with a purpose, going through a large set of double doors to the resuscitation bay where their most critical patients came in to get stabilized. Hollander trembled with anticipation, not having been in there before. The worst patient he had in the community hospital was a woman with a gnarly infected abdominal wound. Even with all of the new trauma cases he saw or heard about during the night shift, it wasn’t the same. This time he got to be in with the patient and directly involved in their care. By the time he got to the resus bay, it was packed with the doctor, nurses, medical students, techs, scribes and a whole bunch of other people Shane couldn’t recognize.
The double doors slammed open and the two medics pushed the patient along in the stretcher, looking worried. “This is a 26 y/o male, awake and alert to person, place, and event, who was inside of a residential home fire. His partner fell through the wooden stairs to the basement and he went after him. He dragged him out of the structure, but not before noticing that his partner was running out of air. He decided to give him some of his own, resulting in the smoke inhalation. Singed nose hairs and some black around the nostrils were observed. Vitals have remained somewhat stable, only concerns being his high heart rate, blood pressure, and slightly low oxygen level.”
“No intubation?” the doctor asked.
“Negative. The patient refused intubation and became agitated when we attempted. He was oxygenating well on 15L with a nonrebreather.”
The doctor gave the medic a curt nod. “Alright. Let’s transfer him over.”
On the count of three, Shane and several others moved the patient over to the hospital bed. Most of his turnout gear had been removed, leaving only the boots and pants. As Shane moved towards the patient’s head, his breath caught.
“Ilya?”
The man’s eyes cracked open from around the oxygen mask, clearly annoyed at whoever was interrupting his rest. But once he saw who it was, Rozanov smiled wide. “Shane,” he breathed, coughing soon after.
“Don’t speak,”
“Hollander, always so strict,” Ilya chuckled weakly.
Everyone paused to look at the two.
“Ilya, you need to listen to me. The doctor is going to want to intubate you because of your oxygen. You’re tachycardic and hypertensive. Is that ok?”
Rozanov grumbled something. Shane leaned in closer to hear, and Ilya palmed his cheek.
“Tachycardic…” he muttered. “Tachycardic for you. Because you’re in here. Make me go crazy”
You could hear a pin drop. Some of the medical student’s jaws hung wide open. Even the scribe stopped writing.
“Enough of this,” the doctor eventually interjected, equally absorbed in the current events as everyone else in the bay. “Prep for intubation.”
The intubation went flawlessly. And if anyone noticed Shane holding Ilya’s hand throughout the whole process, nobody said anything.
When Ilya opened his eyes for the first time in God knows how long, the first thing he noticed was a beautiful freckled man sitting in the seat next to him in civilian clothing, gripping his hand like a lifeline. The second thing he noticed was the plastic tube in his throat, which he promptly began to gag on.
“Hey, hey, Ilya, it’s me. Shane. You have to calm down. I’ll- wait- I’ll go get someone to take it out.”
Not even a few minutes later, Rozanov was breathing the stale hospital air by himself.
“Hollander-”
“Just relax, ok? I’m here, don’t worry”
He proceeded to prop the pillows up behind him and lay the other man back down.
“Why… are you here?”
Shane’s shiny eyes widened, tears threatening to spill like a hurt puppy. “You could have died, Ilya. I was there. I don’t know what I would have done, I-”
Ilya shushed him and clumsily tried to wipe away the tears streaming down his face. His thumb traveled between his freckles, taking careful note of each one.
They both stayed like that for a while. Just the two of them in that hospital room, their presences being enough for each other.
“I’m taking you to the cottage. After you’re healed, which the doctor said shouldn’t be more than a week. You were very lucky, there was no substantial damage.”
“You… did not go now? To the cottage? This week?”
Shane shuffled awkwardly in the plastic hospital chair. “I, uh… decided to move my vacation. Postpone it. I wanted to be here with you.
A genuine smile grew across Ilya’s face. “You would rather go with me?”
“I- uh, yeah, I mean, I thought I should it was quite an easy decision-”
“Thank you.”
Shane looked surprised. Despite how much they got to know each other in only over a month, he couldn’t believe that the Ilya Rozanov, renowned asshole paramedic, said thank you.
“Come… come in my bed. Lay down.”
He moved carefully, slotting himself between Ilya and the hospital bed’s railing.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Hollander chuckled.
“Not on the clock. Who cares”
Ilya sighed contentedly, wrapping his arms around Shane.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”