The Bar




Carter was drunk.

He was sober enough to be aware of that fact. Aside from that one
coherent thought though, the rest was starting to become pretty
blurry.

He didn't have a clue how long he'd been sat there, but he knew it
had been a while. Originally he'd come in with Malik, Haleh, Chuny
and Jing-Mei just for an after work drink, but one by one they'd up
and left him, all gone home to partners, families and somehow he
hadn't felt like leaving.

Not just yet.

He snorted.

Three months ago he'd been in the same position. He'd had Abby.
Partner, girlfriend, whatever you called it. But now. Nothing. He
sighed and took a sip of his whiskey.

He hadn't come in with the intention of getting drunk. That had just
sneaked up on him. Hadn't intended to sit here like a depressed
alcoholic, staring at the bottom of his glass and getting
steadily 'unsteadier'. He felt sad; looked sad, he knew. He wasn't
even sure why he was feeling so...., depressed was the only word for
it. It wasn't as though he'd been feeling all that bad really.

Both he and Abby had parted on fairly amicable terms. As amicable as
you can be after almost six months of an fairly intense and serious
relationship. But still, when Abby had transferred out to Lakeside a
month after they had parted, he'd felt sad, felt lonely, felt torn
apart; but he'd got over it. Moved on and wished her all the best.

Now he just felt empty.

He sighed again.

Maybe it was him. He was twenty nine and still single. Only one or
two really serious relationships behind him, but a plethora of failed
attempts littered his past. Maybe there was something wrong with
him.

Something. Wrong. With. Him.

He rolled the words around in his head and decided he liked the way
they sounded.

He was still silently musing on his general self loathing, self-
pitying and knocking back another whiskey when he felt someone sit
down on the bar stool next to him, feeling the gentle waft of air as
a coat was placed across someone's lap. Bleary eyed, he turned his
head expecting to find some woman parked next to him in an attempt to
pick him up. It had happened three times already that night since
he'd been on his own, each time he'd politely but firmly let them
know he wasn't interested. He might be on his own, drunk and
depressed but a one night stand with a complete stranger was not the
way he wanted his night to end.

Focusing his eyes, he was startled then to find Luka Kovac gazing
back at him.

"Luka?" He managed to croak. He cleared his throat and tried
again. "What are you doing here?" Hey, score one, he thought, no
slurring. He mentally grinned to himself.

"Same as you by the looks of it." The accent had deepened slightly
more, the only real indication that Kovac had also been drinking.
The melodic drawl rolled off his tongue and for a moment or two that
was all Carter could seem to focus on. Kovac lifted his own glass to
his lips and took a long swallow. Bourbon, Carter's slow brain
managed to inform him, the smell wafting across in the close
space. "I was sat over in the corner for a while but then I spotted
you and I thought, why not drown my sorrows with some company. If
that is okay with you?" He added at the end, eyebrows raising
slightly in inquiry.

"Sure." Carter quickly replied, inbred politeness running on
instinct. It was only after the words were out that he suddenly
remembered that technically he and Luka were enemies. Over Abby.
Nothing had ever been resolved since all that hoo-har months ago, but
since he and Abby were no longer an item and Luka looked about as
happy as he did, he couldn't seem to come up with any other argument
and his confused and over worked mind decided to forget about it.
Luka apparently had by coming across and speaking to him. He
couldn't remember a time when they had spoken at all without it being
work related or publicly necessary.

"So what are you trying to forget?"

There was that accent again. John closed is eyes momentarily before
kicking his brain into gear. "Nothing special. Just feeling a bit
sorry for myself is all." He shrugged.

Luka nodded. He stared at his drink, swirling the ice around
lazily. He was slumped slightly in his seat, elbows resting lightly
on the bar. "I think I know what you mean." He spoke carefully and
slowly.

Carter turned to look at him steadily. "What about you? You look
about as cheerful as the average patient."

Luka snorted softly. "Just...doing some thinking."

"Always a dangerous thing to do that." Carter smiled and waved his
glass at Luka knowingly.

Luka smiled back, though it didn't seem to reach his eyes. "Fatal."
He paused for few moments as thought weighing what to say. Carter
however, engrossed in ordering another drink, didn't notice. Sitting
back with a fresh whiskey, a-la-on-the-rocks, Carter took a small
sip, savouring the rich taste. "I saw you earlier, sending those
women away." His tone was light, almost casually light, but there
was a questioning air about it.

"What women? Oh those..." His memory suddenly kicked in. The ones
who'd tried to chat him up. "What about them?" He suddenly had a
thought. "Hey, how long were you watching me?" The first woman had
been over an hour ago, not long after Malik had finally left. He
frowned at Luka, blinking to keep him in focus

"Not long." Luka shrugged it off. "I was just curious."

"Curious?" Carter frowned again, brown eyes slitted in confusion.

"Why you send them away?" He paused. "I....have not been," he
searched for the right word," as gentlemanly as that. In the past."

"Gentlemanly?" Carter repeated again and then, realising how much
like a parrot he was sounding, closed his mouth.

"Yes." Luka sighed, knocking back the rest of his own drink and
signalling the bartender for another. "You did know that at least
one of them was a prostitute, no?"

Carter blinked.

"You didn't?"

Carter shook his head and then turned back to his drink. "Wow." He
smiled slightly. "My lucky night. At least I wasn't hurting
anyone's feelings then. Always hate that." He took a drink.

Luka watched him. "You are an amazing man," he said at last.

Carter turned and looked at him in frowned confusion, a smile
hovering at his mouth. "Huh?"

"Your depth of consideration for other people. Even when you are in
the midst of your own personal depression."

Carter watched the man for a moment deciding if the Croatian was
being sarcastic. Seeing nothing but honesty in the dark eyes, he
shook his head. "Oh this isn't depression. This is just me feeling
sorry for myself. I can't even blame it on a bad day at work."
Carter ran his thumb over the polished wood of the bar. "No, this is
just a personal pity party thrown exclusively by me, fuelled by
alcohol and a bit of loneliness."

"Abby?" The quiet word startled Carter for a moment. He turned to
Luka, seeing the other man staring at the bar.

"Yeah. Maybe." He shrugged again. "Maybe not. Maybe its just
general loneliness. Not having someone there. Anyone there."

Luka found himself nodding unconsciously. After a few long moments,
he held up his drink. "Here's to being single, being lonely and
being...."

"...a man," Carter finished for him. Luka threw him a questioning
look to which Carter just laughed, shrugged and clinked his glass
against Luka's. Luka broke into a grin and clinked back. Together
they drained they glasses.

***

An hour later and both men were a lot more unsteady than they had
been when Luka had first sat down. Carter, already half a sheet to
the wind when the Croatian had joined him was now happily pissed.
Luka although not as gone as his colleague was definitely passed the
point of more sensible thought.

He felt the laughter roll out of him as something Carter had said,
set them both off and he realised he hadn't felt as good as that in
years.

Literally.

He'd come to the bar earlier for the same reason he had for the past
few months. Searching for someone. Anyone. A woman to satisfy his
physical urges. Urges that had seemed to get more intense and more
difficult to ignore as the weeks went by. He had no idea when or why
it had started. A small part of his brain told him distantly, it was
some kind of reaction to his past, to Croatia, to his own loneliness;
his inability to find anyone to connect with on any sort of level. A
plea for companionship, a plea for comfort. The other part of him
just knew that it was getting out of control.

Sat here with Carter though, he felt as though a part of him had
lifted. Watching Carter, listening to and talking with the man on a
level he had never achieved in the past. They own differences,
admittedly mostly Abby, getting in the way and preventing them from
engaging in any sort of friendship.

Sat here now he wondered at that.

He had always held a grudge against Carter for taking Abby away.
Always felt an animosity towards the man that he had never really
understood properly. Now that Abby was out of the picture he
couldn't understand why he had never got to know the man better. An
vague idea was tapping away at the back of his mind but in his
drunken state he ignored it.

Carter was hunched over his drink almost protectively. A small smile
still played at the corners of his mouth and Luka stared at it.
Moving his arm suddenly, almost jerkily, Carter knocked over the
drink of the man stood the other side of him.

"Oh God, sorry," he slurred, mortified. He struggled to stand and
only proceeded to stumble into the man and push him out of his
seat. "Sorry. Sorry, I......."

"Okay, mate time for you and your pal to go home I think." The
bartender moved towards them, putting a hand out to Carter.

"Really, I don't think...." Carter started but Luka, seeing the look
on the bartender's face and the guy who's drink had been lost,
intercepted swiftly.

"Carter, come on. We can go back to yours, or mine if its nearer."
He tried to enunciate his words as carefully as he could, knowing
from experience that the more drink he had the deeper his accent
became. He threw smile at the guy who was still rubbing down his
coat. "Sorry, he can't hold his drink very well you know."

"Hey," came an indignant voice from behind his left ear as he
manoeuvred them both away from the bar. "Yes I can. I've just been
sat down too long, that's all."

The man and the bartender just threw them a look as he managed to get
them both to the door of the bar without further incident. Luka had
pulled his own coat on and was now helping a rather co-ordinationally
challenged Carter to do the same. Once Carter was done and with his
scarf firmly wrapped around his neck, Luka laid a steadying hand on
Carter's shoulder and steered them down the street.

"Where do you live?"

"Huh?" Carter's voice was slightly muffled against the scarf
protecting him against he bitter chill of the Chicago night air. It
had snowed yet again, the whole of the city covered in a blanket of
whiteness.

"Where do you live. I want to make sure you get home okay."

"I'm not that drunk, Luka." His statement was followed by a rather
ungainly trip at which Luka just sniggered. Carter glared, stuffing
his hands further into his pockets. "You're not much better yourself
anyway."

Watching the slightly out of balance world shifting around him, Luka
had to concede Carter was right. Although he had been drinking as
long as the other man, he was bigger built and taller and therefore
able to hold his drink better. Well almost. When he tripped he
found Carter's hand gripping his arm to steady him, its owner in
peels of laughter.

Carter rattled off his address whilst adjusting his grip on the other
doctor's arm and leaving it there, feeling Luka's hand rest on his
own shoulder. When at last they reached the front of his building,
he paused and started to dig in his pockets. Luka waited patiently
as Carter fumbled in first one pocket and then another, finally
delving inside his coat to his trouser pocket where with a flourish
and a grin he found his keys. He stumbled up the steps, slipping
slightly on the snow that was stuck to the surface.

"Are you coming up?"

Luka paused. He'd only meant to get Carter safely back to his place
and then negotiate his way back to his own apartment, which by
coincident was only a couple of blocks down. Gazing for a moment at
Carter's back and feeling the biting chill of the air around him he
hesitated for only a moment before climbing the steps after him.

Once inside, the warmth of the apartment hit him immediately and he
smiled to himself as Carter threw off his coat onto a nearby chair
and weaved unsteadily across the hallway towards the kitchen.

"Make yourself at home," he waved a hand behind him in the general
direction of the living room. Luka did as he was told and removing
his own coat, lay it on the back of the same chair. He sat down on
the couch and looked about him, ignoring the way the world was still
slanting slightly.

"It was all I could find."

He turned and saw Carter come back into the room brandishing two
glasses and a bottle of red wine.

"I don't tend to keep much alcohol in the apartment," he paused his
eyes sliding off to the side, "old habits I suppose."

Luka thought back to Abby and her alcoholism and nodded
slightly. "No problem. Red wine is my favourite anyhow." He smiled
back at Carter who returned it with a radiant smile of his own. Luka
caught his breath suddenly and started, but before he could wonder at
his reaction, Carter had moved forward and plopped himself down on
the floor in front the couch. The corkscrew hovered over the top of
the bottle and after the fifth attempt to get it lined up had failed,
Luka reached over and took it from Carter's unresisting hands.

"Sorry," Carter grinned.

Luka just smiled as the screw sank into cork and resting the bottle
between his knees, proceeded to wind it in. He glanced over to
Carter who was watching the operation with great interest. Wide
clear brown eyes watched with rapture as the corkscrew went down and
then was pulled up.

The glasses were passed up to him and between the two of them they
poured two full glasses of red wine. Clinking them together they
toasted each other before tasting.

"Good." Luka complimented Carter.

Carter just shrugged. He sighed and leaned back against the couch,
his shoulder just inches away from Luka's leg. They sat and drank in
companionable silence, neither man feeling the need to fill in the
quiet, but after a while Carter pushed himself up and walked on his
knees over to a small stereo and hitting a button filled the room
with low music. Luka didn't recognise it but it was a woman's voice,
haunting and soft. He sat back and let the notes and melody roll
over him.

"So what were you really doing there?"  Carter's question took Luka by surprise, breaking the stillness that had settled around them.  Carter turned his upper body towards Luka, his arm resting along the cushion.  "At the bar?  You weren't there when we went in, so you must have come in afterwards and if you saw us there why didn't you join us?"

Luka stayed quiet for a moment, trying to form his answer carefully.  "I go there a lot.  Have been for a few weeks now.  It's a good place."  He paused, not sure how Carter would react.  "To pick people up."

Carter raised his eyebrows.  "Which is how you would know about the prostitute right?  She tried to pick you up?"  When Luka didn't answer his eyes widened.  "You picked her up?"  His voice was incredulous.  "Did you?"

Luka just nodded, draining his whole glass in one go.  "I....I was....," he said haltingly.  "I don't know.  I can't explain it or justify it."

Carter was shaking his head.  "You don't have to.  I'm not judging you.  If the worst thing you do is pick up a hooker, then good for you."  He took a drink of his own wine, relaxing into the cushions against his back.  

"I'm not very proud of it, but these days I just seem to need," he paused again, not sure how to word it, "intimacy."

Carter glanced at him, watching his profile and nodded, turning back to his drink.  "I can empathise with that."

"Can you?"

Carter nodded again.  "Yeah.  I mean, I know you've been.." he made an abortive movement with his hand, "enthusiastic lately."  He cast a look at Luka and was relieved to see the other man smiling at his choice of words.  "I don't pretend to understand what you've been dealing with, but I'm not going to judge you for something unless its hurting someone else."

"I did though."  Luka's voice is quiet.  "Husbands, the families.  Every action has a consequence.  Some are more selfish than others."  He looks up at Carter and they link eyes for a long moment, before Carter looks away, suddenly intimidated by the intensity in the other man's eyes.  It makes him feel strange.  Strange in a way he can't decipher.  Certainly not when he's had this much to drink.  

"Can we change the subject do you think?"  Carter says suddenly.  He grins up at Luka, waving his glass.  "I know I was becoming a depressed drunk tonight, but I've changed my mind."

"Of course."  Luka smiled back and reached to pour himself another glass.  "So in celebration of our new found friendship, tell me about John Carter.  We've only known each other for what, three years."

"New found friendship?" Carter chuckled.  "You think we're friends now?"  He grinned to let Luka know he was joking.  "Mere drinking buddies, buddy."

"Well isn't this the times when we're both supposed to spill our guts about ourselves.  Drunken confessions and pleas for absolution?"  He paused and grinned. "Oh, sorry, we've already done that part."

Carter chuckled.  "Okay, you want to know about John Carter?"  And with that they both spent the next hour sat demolishing the bottle of wine and talking about anything and everything that came to mind.  Families, places and people from their past.  Painful things such as Luka's family and Carter's attack were mutually and silently agreed as avoided topics, but everything else was fair game.  

In their drunken state, topics ranged freely and opinions were often loud and fairly rude.  Carter saw a side of Luka that he had never thought existed.  He saw the man relaxed and happy.  Saw a wicked sense of humour, a kind and gentle manner, an intense and passionate personality with a strength that he already knew existed in the dark haired man.  Luka saw a less serious but more mature side of John Carter, recognised the strength of character he already knew was at the heart of the young man, saw it combined with a comic sense of humour that lifted his face when he laughed.  

He hadn't realised until this moment how much he enjoyed seeing Carter laugh.  He decided there and then, he didn't do it often enough.  It brightened his whole face and impossible made him seem younger than he looked already.  The American Doctor was only three or four years younger than himself but at times it felt more.  Luka felt the whole world on his shoulder sometimes and in John Carter he recognised the same weight.  

Was that what he was searching for?  A fellow sufferer?  No, not a sufferer, that was the wrong word.  But he wondered if he was searching through all the women he'd been with for that one elusive person who could understand.  Because after just one night with Carter he was feeling more happy than he had been after all of the women he had slept with.  And he hadn't slept with Carter.

That thought made him pause.  

Carter and sex in the same thought.

He pondered the thought and the reaction it gave.

Homosexuality wasn't something he was overly concerned with.  He'd realised that he was bisexual when he'd been a teenager, realising that his hormonal urges had been aimed towards both genders.  Of course then he'd met and married his wife and after that there had been no one.  When he'd left Croatia he hadn't been in any fit state to ponder the state of his sexuality.  Any sexuality. When he'd arrived at County, he'd only seemed to be drawn to women.  He'd never questioned or pondered this.  Until now he'd wondered if his hormonal urges as a teenager had been just that.  Now though, sat here next to Carter feeling startlingly aware; he knew they hadn't been.  

He watched his hair, the curve of his jaw and neck.  Watched the play of light against his hand as he enthusiastically emphasised some point.  He had no idea where Carter stood on this.  As far as he knew the man was straight.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, in his past behaviour since he had known him had indicated that he was even remotely bisexual.  

Luka sighed, not realising it was out loud.

"What's the matter?"

"Sorry?"  Luka turned his head, startled out of his thoughts. 

"Am I boring you?"  Carter slurred, is head leant back on the couch cushions, his neck straining at an angle.  

"No."  Luka smiled.  He'd leant back across the back of the couch, his head rested on one palm.  

Carter mock glared and with one swift movement, impressive given his current alcoholic consumption, pulled out one of the cushions he'd propped behind his back and whacked it across Luka's shoulder and head.

"Hey," Luka spluttered, laughing.  After the second and third barrage rained down on him he reached out for the cushion under his legs and fought back.  Luckily they were very soft cushions, almost pillows.  Ones that Carter kept on his couch and used when he ended up sleeping there.  Soon the high pitched and quite unmanly sound of laughter could be heard amongst the dull sound of material hitting flesh.  Luka had twisted on the couch to try and get a more upright position whilst Carter had turned round to get a better leverage.  Having found a gap in his opponent's defences, Carter plunged through and started to tickle.  Long slim fingers found their target and soon Luka was almost howling with both pain and laughter combined.  

Upping the intensity with his cushion, Luka fought back.  Considering the use of strategy Carter had employed he struck back.  Sneaking a hand through and he began a little tickling of his own.  The reaction was immediate as Carter instantly went into a frenzy of giggles, trying to roll himself away from Luka.  Luka laughed at Carter's antics as he soon discovered that Carter was about as ticklish as a person could get.  Clawing at the couch Carter pulled himself upright from where he's fallen on the floor to try to escape, pulling himself onto the couch and away from his tormentor.  

"No...no, please..." he hiccuped through the tears of laughter.  He fell back against the far corner as Luka advanced over him, still fighting him with the cushion in one hand and tickling with the other.  He kicked and pushed feebly and managed a few well aimed blows with the cushion but it was clear who was the winner; in that round anyway.  

When at last a calm settled over them, Carter was lay back prone on the couch, Luka leant over him almost lay on top of him.  Limbs had tangled together, pushed deep into the soft fabric of the couch.  Luka was so close that Carter could feel his breath on his neck and jaw.  The soft waft of warm air with the scent of alcohol on it brushing past his senses.  He closed his eyes.  His whole body was pinned.  It was a strangely and unexpectedly comforting feeling.  Luka felt firm.  Warm and firm, all over.  

Strong.

He found it strange that he liked that.

He'd always thought that as a man he would hate having that feeling of loss of control, of feeling someone stronger than he was being in a position of control over him.  But lay there with the fairly substantial weight of Luka resting on him he found he didn't so much not mind it, as relished it.

Wanted it.

Some part of his mind knew that if he had been sober that particular strain of thought would not have only been clearer and the context more obvious but would have been much more scary and very unnerving.  As it was, Carter accepted and processed the thought as only a drunk person could.  With acceptance and a certain degree of detachment. 

He shifted his weight to ease the pressure on his hip and was somewhat startled to hear a low gasp.  Opening his eyes he found himself staring into the deepest and most intense pair of brown eyes imaginable.  His forehead creased slightly in query but then the origin of the hardness pressed against his thigh was prcoessed by his rather slow brain.  Licking his suddenly dry lips he watched as Luka's eyes flickered from his own to his mouth.  His own answering hardness was pressing into Luka's hip and he knew the other man must feel it.  Arousal, excitement and sudden inexplicable desire swept threw his body at a eye watering speed, slamming into his brain with no apologises. 

When Luka's mouth started to descend towards his, he meet him half way in a intense open mouthed kiss of urgency.  There were no preliminaries, just hot urgent naked need.  Tongues were thrust into mouths, teeth clashed and lips were bruised in a desperate attempt to crawl inside the other.  Hands clawed at clothing, buttons popped and zips were yanked with no finesse in a desperate need to feel the other man.  To relieve the sudden build up of tension and fire that coiled in their stomachs and groins.  

Loud moans were barely controlled, along with gasps and the odd sound of torn material as it lost it battle to remain in the way.  Neither man disrobed completely, only the material that covered chest and groin was attacked until skin could rub against skin. Chest against chest and finally hard cock against hard cock.  Carter's slim hand wound its way down to grip Luka in a firm but gentle grasp.  Though having never held another man's cock in anything other than a medical fashion, the eroticism of the act was not lost on him. Luka thrust once then twice unconsciously, feeling and needed the friction.  His own slightly larger hand caught Carter in a equally firm grip, rubbing his thumb over the tip, feeling the precum there already.  Carter groaned and threw back his head.

He thrust his hips up against Luka, pleading.  Needing more.  Breathing harsh, his eyes screwed tightly shut, he pushed up, his body dictating what he desired.  Luka met him thrust for thrust as their cocks lined up against each other, hands finally pushed out of the way.  Luka's one hand went to balance his weight against the couch, the other to rest around the back of Carter neck and head, almost cradling the other man.  Carter had rested both of his on Luka's hips, raising one after a moment to stroke along Luka's back as the man pressed down against him.  

It didn't take long for either man to reach their climax, even with the amount of alcohol they had consumed that night.  A fire had been lit in both of them that was burning out of control, emotions and desires were running free of all conscious thought, reason or control.  Caught up in the feel and scent of the man on top of him Carter gripped Luka's shoulder tightly and resting his forehead on his, scrunched up his face as he came silently, hips jerking against the tight grip Luka had them in.  Luka, feeling Carter's climax shuddering against him, the jerky breathy pants of air across his cheek, opened his eyes to watch Carter's face.  That was all it took.  Letting out a low moan, he felt his own climax shoot through him, starting in his toes and exploding out through him in a shower of bright lights.  

When he came to, his face was buried in Carter's neck, unconsciously nuzzling the warm damp skin there.  He had no energy, his limbs loose and limp.  He could feel the still rapid heart beat of the man lying under him.  Worried he might be crushing him, Luka tried to shift his weight off to the side, towards the back of the couch.  Carter shifted with him, moving out from under him, but made no other move to get up.  Luka cracked open his eyes to see sleep heavy brown eyes gazing back at him from only inches away.  A pale hand reached up to touch his face gently before the eyes closed in obvious fatigue.  They rallied again for a moment before fluttering shut.  Luka raised his own hand up to caress a strand of damp hair from Carter's temple before lowering his head to rest on the cushion below, his one hand remaining on Carter's shoulder feeling it's firm warmth, the steady beat of his heart beneath it.  

Within a few moments he too was asleep.  

******

When Luka woke in the morning, the first thing that he was aware of was that the inside of his mouth felt like the bottom of a gravel pit, or a garbage truck.  He grimaced and pushed himself up from where he had been lying.  Opening his eyes and grimacing once again at the harsh light that stung his eyes, he pushed himself backwards until he was in a more upright position and slowly opened his eyes again.  

It took him a moment to remember and then recognise where he was.  John Carter's living room.  He ran a hand over his face, memories of the night before coming flooding back.  He and Carter getting drunk together in the bar before coming back to Carter's and getting even more drunk, an importune pillow fight, then a ticking match and then.....

He closed his eyes again, reliving the moment when he'd had Carter writhing under him in what had been almost utter abandonment.  He'd been amazed, intrigued, excited, relieved and so incredibly happy.  Never in his wildest dreams had he entertained the idea that Carter would feel that way about him, that he would ever have the young man in that position; with him.

Although, as Luka looked around him, he had to accept that he still may not.  Carter's apartment was deathly quiet, apart from the soft ticking of a clock on the side table.  Carter had obviously gone.  He still called out though.

"Carter!"

Nothing.  He swung his legs over the side until they were resting on the floor.  A glass of water on the table next to him caught his eye as did the packet of painkiller.  There was no note, but just that small gesture gave Luka's heart a gentle flutter.  It wasn't much, wasn't a sign on commitment, or even a sign of where they stood now.  But for some small reason it gave him hope.  

******

Arriving at County that night, he knew Carter was on the same shift as he was.  That was the reason both of them had been able to go out the night before and not worry about getting so drunk.  Walking into the lounge, he removed his coat and grabbed his stuff out of his locker, nodding a hello to the various members of staff who were on their way out.  

He cast a glance over at Carter's locker but, of course there was no indication of whether the man was in yet.  Slinging his stethoscope round his neck he walked out to the reception area.  

It was ten minutes later that he caught sight of the familiar brown tousle of hair from one of the cubicles down the hallway.  Luckily he had just finished the conversation he'd been in and walked slowly down towards the main desk.  He was perusing the main board when he heard Carter's voice approaching from behind.  

"So let me know when the results come in, I've got another patient in two, but I want to know the levels involved before I can recommend her to Dr. Ritkin.  Okay, so who's next...."

He heard Carter's voice trail off and turned round to see brown eyes staring at him.

"Carter?"  Chuny sounded confused.  "You okay?"

"Yeah.  Sorry."  He seemed to snap out of it and smiling, grabbed one of the charts from the pile and glancing at the name, checked it against the board.  "I'll take Mr Perkins next."  He paused.  "Evening, Dr Kovac."

"Evening, Carter."  Luka returned.  

Carter seemed to pause again for a heartbeat before walking out from the main desk and down the hallway.  Luka watched him for a moment, unsure, before smiling somewhat falsely at Chuny, grabbing his own chart and walking off to find the patient who went with it.  

It wasn't until much later that he managed to corner Carter anywhere where he could speak to the man without an audience.  He walked into the Doctors lounge and with relief saw him at his locker.  

"Hey."

Carter jumped visibly and turned round.  "Hi."  

"Look, Carter, about....."

"I just want to forget it, okay."

"What?"

Carter shut his locker and made to walk past Luka, but the other man put his arm out and barred the way.  "Wait."

"Let me past."

"No."

"Luka...."

"You can't just ignore what happened last night."

"Will you keep your voice down."  Carter hissed, looking around him nervously.  "I can and I will."  He looked at Luka.  "Last night was just...it was a mistake...a drunken mistake."

"I know we'd both had a bit to drink..."

"A bit!"  Carter laughed softly.

"I know it wasn't planned or anything, but..."

"But what?"

Luka stayed silent, words escaping him.  

Carter grinned with no humour in it at all. "Look, okay, it happened.  I'll admit.  But that's as far as it goes.  I'm not....." he stopped and started again his voice going quieter, "I'm not gay, okay.  That was.... I'm not into that, alright?"  He took a breath as if to steady himself.  "I don't care if you are, I'm not homophobic or anything and I'm not going to tell anyone about last night."  He paused again. "I just want to forget about it."  He took a step back and seemed to relax when Luka made no move to follow him.  He stepped past to get to the door, seemed to hesitate for a split second before pulling it open and disappearing through.  

Luka stood motionless for a moment.  It wasn't like he was expecting anything else, any other reaction really, but to hear the words spoken out loud was a kick to the guts that hurt more than he had expected it to.  


Down the corridor, Carter had stopped and looking around him, ducked into a empty side room.  Moving over to the window he rested his hands on the sill taking a deep silent breath.  His mind was going a hundred miles an hour still and although he knew he had done the right thing, a part of his mind still kept nudging him, needling him.

It was only now, after he has left the other man stood there, that he realised he hadn't even waited to see what reaction Luka himself would have to last night.  Whether it was the same as his; shock, fear and not a little confusion.  Or whether Luka was more at ease with what happened than he was.  More than at ease, familiar maybe.  It was the latter that his brain had decided on and he'd run with his emotions and his instincts, had wanted it know right from the start that he wasn't that at ease with it.  Wasn't okay.  That *that* wasn't what usually happened when he got drunk and went home with a friend.  A *male* friend.

But that was it.  No more.  

What happened last night would stay there.  

In the past.  

He could blame it on being drunk.  Hell, isn't that was most men did when stuff like this happened between friends, *buddies*.  It was loneliness, drink, the wrong place and the wrong time.....Physical comfort when both were at a low.  Nothing more.

Letting out a breath and mentally shaking himself now that he had got everything sorted out, he stood up straight and headed for the door.  

Out in the corridor, he headed to his left and pretended he didn't see the still figure stood down the hallway, their brown eyes haunted with an emotion he didn't want to examine.

The End.