Hello all! Okay, so this is my first venture into the fandom but I have to say I'm unashamedly addicted to this show! Oh my God, its sooo good! Hopefully this isn't too OOC for anyone, I'm trying to base this about a year or so before the show begins O.o This story should be about 4-5 chapters long, so be sure to let me know what you think! ^.^
Author's note: Just clarifying a bit because I've gotten some confused reviews lol. I know Josh is an Orderly but I'm setting this story back at least a year from the series right now and since he moved to a new hospital I'm making him start as an intern. To me it just leaves it a bit more open because if he had worked there for a while, I'm pretty sure Aidan would at least know his name O.o So that's my train of thought...odd as it is sometimes lol!
I own nothing!
There's a lot you can accomplish when you don't have to worry about aging or dying. You could travel to every country on Earth and learn to speak thirty languages fluently. You could watch the world change around you, see the passing of time, watch as each year brought something new and interesting. You could have countless lovers, friendships, relationships, and watch as they all ended the same way. Time could be your best friend and your worst enemy, it could mean everything and nothing at the same time. Time was something you tried to forget about when you realized that you had more of it than everyone else on the planet.
Aidan had done a lot since he'd been turned; hell, he'd done more in the first year than he had in his entire life leading up to it. There was a certain level of exuberant freedom that came with being immortal. All the ties of normality had been severed and he was completely free from the mortal coil known as life. He could be anyone, go anywhere, and do anything. It was paradise for a while. Still, there comes a point where normality was all he wanted, being human again and feeling like he was at least close to same plane as them. He wanted to be like them again; feel like them, die like them, be them. He wasn't, he knew it, but it helped to pretend sometimes.
He was working at a hospital again (for the second time actually); a different state, different city, different back story. He'd changed his name and his childhood so many times he couldn't really remember where the truth ended and the lies began. As far as the other nurses and doctors were concerned, he'd finished medical school at 23 and moved to Boston when he was 27. He had a glowing letter of recommendation from a hospital he'd worked at in California (no one needed to know it was from 1981) and enough references to back up his claims. The hospital administrators asked why he didn't pursue a career as a surgeon or anything that required more skill than a nurse. He was a brilliant young man, more knowledgeable than some of the nurses that had been there for three times as long as he had. They called him a prodigy. Aidan called it time; its easy to master a subject when you've been alive for almost 200 years.
He'd been drawn to medicine for years but it wasn't until recently that he'd been able to control himself enough around the bleeding, already weakened patients. It wasn't easy, he still had days when it was all he could do to literally not lick the blood up off the floor rather than finding a mop, but it was getting better. He preferred hospitals to his other jobs because it made him feel like he could make a difference, help to ease the pain and suffering he no longer felt. It also helped that there was a blood bank downstairs that provided a ready supply of blood bags he could get access to. No one really looked twice if a nurse was sent to retrieve a bag of blood so it made sneaking a few home here and there that much easier.
He'd been at this hospital for a little over two years now, long enough to become friends with some of the doctors that worked on his floor. They were nice enough, they invited him out for beers and Sunday afternoon football parties. They treated him like he was human and for now that's all Aidan could really ask for.
The older nurses loved having him around because it gave them an excuse to ogle him when he wasn't looking. There weren't many male nurses on this floor, only about three at any given time, and Aidan was definitely the most attractive. The nurses were cute and he had to admit he liked the attention so he didn't complain. One of them, a pretty redhead named Rebbecca had even begun to casually flirt with him here and there. All in all, Boston wasn't such a bad place to live; he'd definitely lived in worse cities than this. He'd stay here for about ten years and then move on to a new town and a new occupation and a new name. Ten years was usually how long it took for his coworkers to notice that he didn't eat or sleep or age or do any of the other things humans were supposed to do on a regular basis. Humans were kind of oblivious that was
There was a clatter down the hall and he was pulled from his reverie, looking up from his charts and his eyes falling on a startled intern who had just knocked over an entire cart of bedpans and a partially opened trashbag onto the floor. One of the older nurses stood above him, a look of irritation and annoyance clearly etched into her expression. The intern was scrambling to pick up the bedpans, quickly stuffing them back onto the shelves on the cart and trying to avoid her gaze.
Aidan had seen him before, popping in and out of the rooms and appearing whenever a particularly unpleasant job needed to be done. He'd been here for a couple of months now but Aidan had never really had a reason to talk to him. The nurse's usually picked a whipping boy out of every fresh batch of interns that came wandering through the hospital and this kid looked like he'd drawn the short straw in that lottery. Some of the nurse's had even started to call him Bambi (partially because he possessed a passing resemblance to the doctor from Scrubs but mostly because he always had this startled, deer-in-the-headlights look). Aidan almost felt sorry for him in reality. He'd managed to skip the nurse-hazing because of his charm and good looks. He wasn't above using that to his advantage when the time called for it.
He watched from the corner of his eye as the young man finished carting the bedpans and stood quickly, brushing himself off and nearly taking the entire cart down again with his elbow. The nurse shot him another annoyed look and the intern ducked his head, turning and walking down the hall toward one of the storage closets to get a broom. Both Aidan and the nurse watched him go, though Aidan was pretty sure the nurse wasn't nearly as amused as he was. The young man reappeared a few seconds later, glancing between her and the mess on the floor before quickly beginning to sweep it up. Aidan smiled a bit and went back to his charts. Interns were always an interesting addition to the hospital staff; like a bunch of lost puppies anxious to make the big dogs proud. It was kind of cute really. If you were into that sort of thing.
OOOOO
The rest of his shift passed by rather uneventfully, he didn't see the intern again for the rest of the day and the incident from this morning was almost completely forgotten. Interns come and go and that one in particular was probably only a few months away from being transferred to a different floor a different hospital all together. Judging by the death glare the nurse had given him earlier, he guessed the latter was more of a possibility. He had settled himself on the fact that it was nothing he should concern himself with when he ran into the younger man on his way out the door. Literally ran into him.
Aidan was nearly to the parking garage when said intern came crashing around the corner and into his chest. He bounced off of Aidan, then the wall, and finally the floor where he landed in an awkward heap. The collision had less of an effect on Aidan, who simply stumbled back a step and looked down at the younger man in surprise. "Whoa, little late to be running around through the halls, don't you think?" He asked, leaning down to offer the intern his hand.
The younger man looked at his hand hesitantly before accepting it, bouncing to his feet in a nervous ball of energy. "Sorry...I just...Its late- I mean, I'm late! I need to get home...I need to go...I just...in a hurry..." He looked flushed, his hair sticking up in wild angles, and Aidan wasn't sure what he was late for but it must have been important to get him so worked up. He frowned, something not sitting quite right with him. Aidan could smell anxiety on him, apprehension and a bit of fear and something else, something he couldn't place. It would be silly to say it smelled inhuman but that's exactly what it brought to mind. It was an odd combination, not something he was used to smelling on anyone he worked with or humans in general for that matter. The was a kind of neurotic, nervous energy bursting from the young man in front of him. In fact, he looked like his skin was the only thing keeping him from going everywhere at once.
Aidan frowned, looking at him carefully. "Are you alright? You seem a little...frantic." 200 years of observing the world around him had helped him hone in on his people-reading skills and something was definitely not ringing right with this guy. He was acting like an addict coming down from a high but Aidan couldn't smell any drugs on him. Curiouser and curiouser...
"I'm fine!" The younger man answered a bit too quickly, a flash of panic coloring his face. He doubled over for a split second, one arm wrapped around his middle protectively. He looked like he was about to be sick.
"Are you sure? I mean, I can call someone if you need to-"
"I said I'm fine!" Came the desperate cry and Aidan was taken slightly aback. "I'm sorry...I just...I gotta go!" And with that, the younger man staggered past him and raced into the parking garage, disappearing behind a row of cars and leaving a very confused and troubled Aidan in his wake.
The other man's scent lingered for a few seconds after his departure, hovering in the air like a fog. It seemed vaguely familiar for some reason, something he couldn't place at that moment in time but something he'd definitely experienced before. It was like trying to remember a dream, a memory from a time so far away it was nothing but blurry edges. He frowned, digging into his pocket for his keys and walking out into the parking garage. Something was off about him and now Aidan was intrigued.
He slid into his car, the entire front seat bathed in the silver glow of the full moon beginning to rise just over the tops of the buildings. He figured the best thing to do would be to find the intern in the morning and have an honest to God conversation with him instead of trying to interrogate him in the parking garage again. He didn't even know the younger man's name. It was the only way he'd be getting any answers anytime soon. With a sigh, he shifted into reverse and pulled out of the parking garage, turning onto the main street and driving away from the hospital, his thoughts still lingering on the panicky intern.
So is it okay? Horrible? Should I continue? Let me know what you think! Reviews are love! :D
