Quick note: Modern au but they all work at a hospital in some capacity. Oh and I should clarify that for the purposes of this fic, Elliot Vincent (and sadly therefore Sylvie) does not exist.

Deception helps sometimes

The notice is pinned lopsidedly on the staff room board:

WINTER BAR CRAWL: ALL STAFF WELCOME, FIRST DRINK FREE BEFORE 8

'Right, Tom, we're going.'

'What? No. I don't want to go. I hate those kinds of things. I'll only cramp your style.'

'Ooh I forgot, you don't need to go out and find a lady now you've got one. When do I get to meet her then?'

Tom sighed. Telling Miles that he had a girlfriend had seemed like a good idea at the time but now the relentless teasing about the lack of romance in his life had turned to relentless chatter about his 'relationship'. In about two weeks he was planning on announcing their break-up but until then he just had to grit his teeth and ignore any comments Miles made.

'Well, as you're spoken for, you'll have to come along and be my wingman. The ladies will fall for your dazzling sapphire eyes and then when I inform them that you're actually spoken for and you're just a terrible flirt, they'll fall into my arms.'

Tom raises an eyebrow at that but says nothing. Maybe if he just ignores Miles then he won't be dragged to the bar crawl but really he knows it's a forlorn hope.

'Kitty, get a move onnnn,' whines Flora.

'You go on ahead, it's only the pub down the road after all.'

'Fine, but you better turn up soon or I'll come back and get you. I might even bring that cute doctor you've been eyeing up, or is it his friend you'd like? Maybe I should being you both?'

'Flora!'

Rosalie's scandalised gasp makes Kitty laugh so hard that her lipstick misses her mouth and paints a gash up her cheek.

'Look what you've made me do now,' she exclaims as she poses in the doorway of her room. 'You'd better go, you're only distracting me. I'll be there in about five minutes, you could even get me a glass of wine if you want.'

She returns to her mirror and tries to remove the lipstick without mucking up any of the rest of her makeup. The other two leave in a clatter of high heels and jangling keys and without them there chattering like magpies (well really that's only Flora) she is finished in no time at all. The advantage of only going down the road is that she can wear her least comfortable shoes and not have to worry about having to walk very far. She has no intention of staying for the actual pub crawl part, she'll just have a few drinks and then when they move on, she'll go home.

As soon as she enters the pub she can see that most of the people there are from the hospital. There's a disgruntled set of regulars in the far corner and then everyone else is at least vaguely familiar from whole staff meetings and things. Being on the admin side, she does get to see more of a cross section of the hospital staff than most anyway so it's likely she'll recognise more people than not.

'Hello gorgeous,' she hears, 'can I get you a drink?'

The speaker is a consultant surgeon known by all female staff as 'Reginald the creep' though sadly they have to call him Doctor Yelland to his face. Perhaps if he was told his nickname his behaviour might improve? But she suspects not, he'd probably regard it as a badge of honour.

She moves back so that he can't peer down her top and looks around for an escape. She can't see Flora or Rosalie anywhere but over by the bar there are the two nice doctors she occasionally exchanges nods with. She usually sees them together and sort of suspected they were together until she heard the posh one teasing the Scot about his lack of a girlfriend a few months ago. She'd felt a guilty sense of relief that she wasn't lusting after an impossibility after that and then in a drunken mistake she still regrets, she'd confided in Flora, leading to comments like the one earlier being a regular occurrence.

In the second it takes for her to sweep the room for potential rescues, Reginald the creep has slunk up to her again and she swears that his oiliness is creeping over her skin even though he isn't touching her yet. His gaze moves down appraisingly and she cracks.

'I'm just, yeah, boyfriend,' she gabbles as she moves speedily away from him and to the relative safety of the nice doctors. She brushes past the posh one who is going towards the bar and goes straight to the Scot.

'Just go with it, please,' she mutters, incredibly close to his face, just before she seals her mouth over his.

Yes I've done the evil thing and left it on a cliffhanger! Don't worry, I've written the second part so you'll only have to wait for a day ;)

Reviews are magical and they might make me post the next bit earlier...