Title: Cabin Fever
Author: Rube (rube@vitreoushumour.com / www.vitreoushumour.com/~rube )
Pairing: Benton/Carter
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Don't sue. For the love of god, don't sue.
Notes: Set, I suppose, at the beginning of season seven, and a total AU. According to "Homecoming" (season seven, episode #137), Benton left Atlanta because it wasn't allowed for him to stay with Carter. I say fuck canon and the uppity horse it rode in on. Dedicated to Krissy, although she isn't typically down with the Peter/John.
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Chapter One
Benton kept eyeing him at admissions, or whatever the hell rehabilitation centres called their front desk. John tried to ignore it, rubbed at his eyes, at his temples, tried to ignore it just as he ignored the twinging pain in his back. He was on the verge of saying something, but his exhausted brain couldn't procure one coherent thought to spit out.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but you have to sign here."
Dazed, John glanced down at the paper and blinked at it, trying to find his focus. "Ah, where?"
Benton wordlessly pointed to a rather obvious dotted line and stepped back again, seemingly aware of John's standoffish need for personal space. It was usually Peter who cared about boring limits and boring regulations (not that John was unfamiliar with them, come to think of it), but John felt a pressing, claustrophobic urge to be alone. Totally alone.
John couldn't help but be remember the constant visitors since the 'incident.' They came in rows, first to his hospital room, with plastic smiles and constantly ticking watches that they checked every three minutes on the dot. Sometimes with new magazines, patient updates, the occasional soda. Generic, the kind that burned on the way down. Someone brought flowers when he was asleep. Roses. Roses were for funerals and weddings and first dates. Not for John Carter, victim of multiple stab wounds and a fucking catheter.
He had hated that fucking catheter. Just knowing that it was there, he felt like it was slowly sucking the blood from his heart and pumping it out through that long plastic tube. Even though he knew better. He was a doctor, and he knew better than to get paranoid over some flimsy plastic tube stuck up his ass.
Benton mumbled something, and John floated back to present. "Uh, okay," he mumbled, and bent his head over the paper. After scribbling something that looked vaguely like his signature, he pushed it back to her. John went to tuck the pen he'd used back into his vest pocket, but was reminded by the cheap plastic of it that the pen was bulk-made and certainly not his. He apologetically put it down.
The nurse scanned his admittance papers and punched something into a computer with the tips of her poorly manicured nails.
"That's it then," she chirped with false brightness, setting down his papers in a neat stack. "You're all set?"
John nodded and automatically glanced back at Benton for some sort of support, as he figured this would be the hard part. It was finite now, cast in stone. Benton made a move as if to put a comforting hand on John's shoulder, but seemed to think better of it, and stopped. He let his hand linger in mid-air, completely aimless, until he finally patted John's forearm awkwardly.
"Uh…" John trailed off, itching lazily just above his ear and then above his eyebrow, a nervous habit.
"Oh, sir," the nurse began, when he didn't find the appropriate words yet again. "You'll want to say goodbye to your friend now."
John blinked. "Sorry? I was…" he shot another panicked glance at Benton over his shoulder. "I was…"
The nurse stared at him tolerantly, and looked a lot like an owl. "I beg your pardon?"
"Can't he stay with me?" John blurted, and then tried to steady himself by dragging in a deep, ragged breath. "I mean, I was sort of hoping that…"
Benton stepped forward, and John's heart suddenly decided to amble down through his chest and broke a few ribs in the process for absolutely no reason whatsoever. "Man, let me – " he started softly, but the nurse cut him off.
"I'm sorry sir, but that's completely against policy. We do allow visitors, though, and I'm sure you friend could – "
"How much?"
She started, eyes wide. "Pardon me?"
"How much? Or do I have to sign in for treatment too?" Benton's voice was gruff, determined. John winced.
"I'm not sure that I understand." She looked between them, obviously gobsmacked. Surely, though, someone at some point had requested to undergo treatment with a friend, or relative, or lover close at hand? "You want to undergo treatment as well?"
Benton was either doing some very impressive quick thinking, or he was just naturally brilliant and scheming. John was willing to bet it was somewhere in the middle. "Lady, I just want to make sure my friend Doctor Carter here does go postal with cabin fever." He gave his ever charming half-smile and a breathy sort of chuckle, and John felt faintly sickened.
It hadn't occurred to him at first that Benton would have to leave. Now, of course, when the facts were pointed out in all of their obviousness, he felt like an idiot. A brash instinct to have someone familiar close at hand in such new and… delicate territory was one thing, but Benton manipulating the system? Did he feel obligated to stay? Or was it some paranoia that John was going to split at the first available opportunity? He glared even though Benton wasn't paying much attention to him, and then at the nurse who was readily buying it.
"Well, this is certainly unconventional."
"I'm sure it is." Benton flashed milk-white, perfectly straight teeth with the next smile. John's glare intensified, and he furiously yanked the strap of his duffle bag up higher on his shoulder for lack of something better to do. "But these are special circumstances."
"I suppose we could give you a double room, provided one is free." The nurse was speaking slowly, ostensibly trying to find a loophole in practically airtight protocol.
"Double room?"
"Two twin beds. It will cost a great deal extra, but I'm sure that the staff will be more than pleased to have a surgeon in residence." She looked at Benton pointedly, imploringly. Totally ignorant of her own idiocy.
"Of course. I'll probably get a chance to write that article on how people recovering from surgery might cope in these sorts of institutions. First-hand experience, you know."
It was such utter bullshit. Those sorts of articles, for one, had already been done many times over, and anyway, you needed studies for that. Lots of them. Legitimate studies. John doubted that playing shadow to your fucked up pal counted as legitimate in any universe.
"I'm sure you'll be doing the medical community a great service. Sign here, please. And here. I'll see that you two are taken to you room. Mr. Carter, your interviews should start tomorrow morning, as it's late. You've had the necessary checks and paperwork, and so on behalf of all of us, I hope you enjoy your stay." John nodded, strangely unnerved by her polite manner, and tried to forget about the "Mister" slight.
Benton handed the nurse back her papers, and she pushed some sort of a buzzer. Another orderly who dressed in street clothes walked through a set of doors to their left. Their cue, he supposed.
She smiled and made small talk as she lead them both away. The centre seemed an impossible labyrinth of doors, hallways, and staff. John had seen the insides of treatment centres before, more times than he could count, visiting friends or patients or the like. Somehow, they'd never seemed so impossibly big and sterile before. They seemed almost homey, almost comfortable, and John had never given it thought beyond that. He never realised how tacky the small paintings were, or how stagnant the smell.
He was going to be lucky if he got any sleep here.
Apparently they were at their destination. The orderly left them outside of what he assumed was their room, and Benton and he stood in silence for a few moments. At length, Benton studied the white walls, the tiled hallways, the many doors. Overhead, garish florescent lights illuminated the blue flecks of the white tile they were standing on, and bounced off of the shiny material of John's bag. Benton smiled furtively at John, who turned his head and opened the door to their double room.