Under the Needle
Benny's first patient was a shaggy-haired brunette by the name of Jody Mills.
His immediate response was to sweep the woman in an arm burrito, but seeing as she was hooked up to an IV, it was probably better to humor her with an air-blown kiss. Jody captured the sentiment with her free hand and gave the RN a true smile of champions. Jody was a jack-of-all-trades kind of gal—at middle-age (but shh, don't tell her boyfriend Bobby), the kinder-year teacher was volunteering at local animal shelters and children's hospitals, along innumerable food drives and charity benefits. Heck, just last year she collected the most box tops in her school district's history. Growing up penniless in the heart of Allen (aka "Poor Man's Home"), South Dakota turned Jody Mills into the most altruistic woman in the county in spite of her fit-for-a-miser income.
The inamorata was Superwoman in every sense of the matter. He had three years' worth of on-file documentation that validated Miss Mills' unwavering commitment to Sioux Falls' Annual St. Patrick's Day Blood Drive.
"Shall I polish your throne, my Queen?"
Jody's lips crowned at the pseudo offer. Benny Lafitte was a man beyond men—chivalrous, genteel, and, for someone whose job entailed knowing the true essence behind the coined phrase "burning the midnight oil", highly accommodating to his ill-starred clientele. He wasn't Superman, but he had the childlike charm of Clark Kent that made him famous with everyone.
"Thank you kind jest, but the only throne I'll be glad to sit on is the porcelain one down the hall." She made sure to mime his put-on English dialect. Her adoptive teen daughter Alex was a natural-born thespian, putting her one step ahead of all the Volvo-driving soccer moms in the vicinity.
"Patience youn' grasshopper," he kidded, tapping his wristwatch for emphasis, "by my time, you're about two hundred seconds ahead of schedule."
Benny's second patient was a rampant fire of unknown origin.
A lot of people tend to be a little alarmed going under the needle, but this guy—heck, this guy was actually encouraging the idea. He nearly burst through the double doors, yelling at the other medical assistants on duty to "just stick the damn syringe in my arm". Unceremoniously, Benny hailed the RNs to bring him to his station. His coworkers favorably obliged, muttering indecencies under their breath as Benny carted him away from the commotion.
Once he got the guy to sit down without busting a nut, he went over the preliminary numbers—age, weight, and signature on the physical documents—only, he would've had better luck talking to a wall. The man just held out his arm, practically yelling to jam the needle inside him. It wasn't until the front desk receptionist, Missouri, irately held up the indicated paperwork, clearing him for the procedure.
Benny moved quickly, sterilizing the slab of skin stretched before him (which actually wasn't much of a slab as it was layers of spherical boulder tanned sunnyside up and laid over easy but there was no way he was writing that in the report). Once the needle was in, the guy went completely silent.
Having done this particular procedure a thousand times over, after fastening the instrument in place, Benny could've sat back or gone and helped another Jolly Green patient, but instead, and much to everyone's surprise, remained by the man's side. Where the gentleman had salient features—handsome, tall, well-framed—he also had some cowardice to him. He kept his sealed shut like a Ziploc bag and was recoiling under his purple flannel like a newborn pup.
Benny had his hand on the inside of his bicep, both distracting and soothing the guy with the steady back-and-forth of his thumb.
Luckily, there was no bloodshed other than what was being pumped through the IV. That was always a nice liberation when you were a two-hundred-year-old vampire.
(But shh, don't tell his boss.)
That simple action seemed to ease most of his nerve-induced symptoms and Benny breathed a contagious sigh. He thought he would drop dead he was so anxious.
During the man's shifting consciousness, he swore he heard him say something about taking the bag down to his "Sammy" in urgent care, but it could've been the caffeine talking. Around his last minute, he (albeit reluctantly) withdrew his calloused fingers and let him ride the remainder of the tide on his own. Not before long, emerald eyes unsheathed and it felt like the world, once hanging in the balance of a twenty-something man, was back in alignment.
The two sat in the waiting room now, Dean—or, if you asked the dallying staff, Mister One Flew Over One Too Many Times—with an Ace bandage wrapped snug around the crook of his arm and a juice box in the other. He wore a small smile, glancing every so often from the latter object to the practitioner's apprentice.
"I kinda feel like a kid again."
"There's nothing wron' with that."
"I'm sorry."
The graveness in his tone made Benny cringe. He met delirious green eyes once more and held his gaze despite Dean's turning away. "You don't have to apologize."
"But I do," he replied almost out of practice. "And I'm sorry."
From his side silhouette, he could make out the tightness in his jaw just before he hung his head on his rung-out sleeve. Working in a hospital, Benny grew immune to the whole heavy-eyed, lost puppy expression, but Dean had a particular candidness to him that made it all the more unbearable to watch.
As he witnessed him struggling to ascertain whether or not to tell the whole crazy story, Benny reached inside his scrub pocket to pull out a crumpled Kleenex. Dean accepted the gesture, using it to lightly dab the imminent tears crusting around his eyes.
Before Benny could second guess his judgment, he said, "I'll make sure it gets t'him."
Another smile, this one much wider than the previous, flooded Dean's pale features and doused the nurse's soul in kerosene. Before either of them could imbibe in the small action, Dean was drowning his sorrows in the bottom of a Capri Sun pouch—something Benny presumed he did a lot of with hardcore, liver-crushing liquor. "I must be pretty loopy from all these sugar painkillers."
Benny shook his head and smiled as he went on to say, "No, jus' incredibly human."