TJ was in the infirmary when Rush walked in. It was mid evening, blessedly quiet after the nightmare of the previous day and she was reading. She saw him hovering near the doorway and stood.
"What's wrong?"
He held out a hand, swollen with a frankly hideous dark bruise blooming across the back of his hand. She frowned at him.
"What did you do?" she asked him.
"Hit my hand on a wall." He said sourly.
She was looking into his face and he knew it must be twisted a little in pain, his hand throbbed and his self control was insufficient to keep it impassive.
"When will any of you learn that in a fist versus a wall contest the wall always wins?"
"I didn't…"
"Ah!" she cut him off.
He went to explain further but she forestalled him with a raised hand.
"Don't try and deny it." She said with irritation. "Come over here. Now, do you want to explain why you've taken at least a couple of hours to bring that hand to me?"
"No." he said shortly.
She pressed him down on a gurney with a hand on each shoulder and took his wrist gently, looking at his hand. She had him try and grip her hand, then started to bend his fingers carefully and he tensed at the excruciating pain. Despite him gritting his teeth and clenching his other hand, there were tears squeezing from his eyes as she manipulated his hand.
"You haven't completely broken it, though I think, and my opinion is the best you're going to get without an X-ray I don't have, that you've fractured your fourth metacarpal. That one." She pointed at the bone running up to the knuckle of his ring finger. "Wait here. Don't even think about leaving."
She was gone for several minutes before she came back with a bowl of ice, which he realised must be from the freezer room. He watched her put some in a plastic bag and wrap it in a towel.
"This will hurt, but we need to get the swelling down." She said, more gently. She put the ice pack on the back of his hand. "Leave that in place."
The order sounded completely non-negotiable. It did hurt, quite a lot, although not as much as when she had been moving his fingers around.
"Okay, there's not much that I can do except ice it to get the swelling down and splint it. Though I can clean up your knuckles."
She used some alcohol on his knuckles which, a small mercy, actually hurt less than the rest of his hand. He sat with the ice on his hand for what seemed like hours. She came back intermittently to check on his progress, but appeared to be working with something at her desk which looked like hard work. He could not see entirely what it was.
"Fine." She said. "As good as it's going to get."
She came over with three pieces of metal on a tray and a steaming cup.
"What's that." He asked suspiciously.
Two were longer and had a significant curve at one end. The other was short and straight.
"Your splints." She said. "I have no proper splints Doctor, and nothing to cast your hand with. This is it. This," she gestured at the cup, "is your painkiller. Drink it."
He took the cup with his uninjured left hand and sniffed it. It smelled acrid and herbal and was yellow, not the green tea he had been given previously.
"Drink it." She repeated.
He drank it.
"Why didn't you give it to me earlier?"
"Because it's going to make you really dopey in a while and I don't want to have to carry you to your bed or have you in here."
"You could have told me." He snapped.
"You wouldn't have drunk it. Now at least you'll get some sleep."
She rested his hand on a pillow across his lap and started to tape it up, running some tape over his hand and wrist before starting to tape the splints in place, the two long ones holding his wrist and hand straight, the curve curling his fingers down, tape binding his fingers between them. The short straight one went across the other two over his knuckles acting as a spacer and stopping the other two sliding in.
"This stays on." She instructed him. "It comes off when I say and not before. You will not use this hand for anything until I say you do."
He scowled at her. "Just hold on, I am not some child!"
"Then stop acting like one." She snapped. He scowled and went to move but she grabbed his upper arm. "No, you don't get to go yet. Now I'm assuming this is because you've argued with Everett."
Rush went to pull away, giving her an aggressively unfriendly look. She did not seem cowed by this.
"No." she said more forcefully, taking a firm grip on his shirt. "I don't get involved in other people's relationships, until it starts to impact on my job as your medical practitioner, particularly if you end up in here, and this completely comes into that scenario."
"I am not in a relationship with Young." Rush growled.
She gave him a long look, not releasing his arm. He weighed the idea of yanking away and walking out, but he suspected she would prevent him until she had said her piece and he was beginning to feel a little giddy.
"And I'm obviously not the person who walked in on you two curled up in bed together?" She asked pointedly.
"It's none of your damn business."
"You made it my business when it resulted in this idiocy." She gestured with her free hand to his splint. "In fact you made it everyone's business as you are now one handed, using your off hand for everything."
He went to slide off the gurney, but her hand on his shoulder prevented him moving. He gave her a flat glare.
"Let me go."
"Not until you've heard me out." She snapped.
He froze and stared at her.
"You need to talk to him and sort out whatever it is that made you do this." She said. "This…" a gesture at his hand, "is impacting on your effectiveness as a member of the crew. Whatever you two had before you got to the place that caused this seemed to be improving it. Fix it."
He gave her the flat glare again.
"You don't have much choice." She said. "Let me put it this way. Firstly you're walking round with a splinted hand. He is not stupid, foolish at times, thoughtless occasionally, but not stupid. You also have until tomorrow morning to talk to him before I pass the accident report writing up the treatment to your hand to the officer in command. Him."
"You won't."
"I do for every single injury or emergency treatment that I undertake, it's standard procedure." She let him go. "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon to check it's not swollen up again."
He looked at her darkly for a moment then slid off the gurney. The drugs, herbs, whatever she had given him, was beginning to kick in and the pain was receding but he was feeling really out of it, and sleepy. He stared at her while he gathered the momentum to leave.
Impulsively she stepped forward and gave him a brief hug. He stiffened, then relaxed a little, it was hard to stay tense with the brew she had poured into him. She let go and squeezed his shoulder.
"What was that for?" he tried to snap, but it came out as a slightly weary question. "Not very professional."
She smiled.
"I thought you needed it. My medical opinion."
He stepped back. "When does your report land on his desk?"
"Tomorrow morning, though I can make it later in the morning. It won't say how you did it, but I suspect he'll put two and two together." She stepped back and regarded him. "Shoo. Go to bed, before you pass out in my infirmary and I have to get someone to take you there. Come back tomorrow for a check up or I'll come find you."
Rush left.
xxxoooxxx
Rush was feeling really woozy as he left the infirmary. His initial intention had been to get some treatment for his hand and to disappear again, but that was looking to be less of a potential option now that Lieutenant Johansen had drugged him. Probably her damn intention. At least his hand had stopped hurting. He made his slow and rather unsteady way to his quarters. Half way there, the room started to spin a little and he stopped to lean his shoulder against a wall for a moment. Maybe he should have mentioned to Lieutenant Johansen he had not eaten anything since he had had half a bowl of something at lunchtime.
There were footsteps behind him. He turned, rolling his shoulder blades back against the wall.
Young was looking at him, his gaze dropping to Rush's splinted hand.
"You are an idiot," Young said.
"TJ grassed me up." Rush said in tired irritation.
"TJ said nothing about that." Young spat the word out. "I asked her if she'd seen you and she said she had and you were just on your way to your quarters. Now what the hell is this."
He gestured at the splint.
"I hit ma hand on a wall." Rush said. He folded at the knees and slid down the wall.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Young demanded.
"Was Lieutenant Johansen's evil yellow jollop."
"Want to run that by me again in English?"
"She drugged me."
Young looked at Rush. "Yeah." He drawled. There was a significant amount of disbelief in his voice
"She gave me some stuff for the pain." Rush muttered.
Young looked down at him, then pulled out his radio.
"TJ, this is Young, can you come to the corridor past Chloe's quarters to check on your patient?"
Young squatted down next to him. Rush rubbed his face and scratched at his beard slightly clumsily with his left hand. It was itching. He focussed on Young with some effort.
"Well at least you don't have to worry about not being able to shave." Young told him facetiously.
Rush looked up at him and scowled. "Think Ah've had just about as much of you as I can take." He muttered slightly drunkenly, struggling to keep the slurring out of his voice.
Young snorted.
Footsteps on the decking echoed down the empty corridor and TJ walked up, squatting next to Young.
"Wow." She said.
"You drugged me." Rush accused her.
"I wasn't expecting it to work this fast." She said to Young. "He should have been in bed by the time it kicked in."
"What is it?" Young asked.
"Strong dose of spiky yellow leaf painkiller tea."
"What's he done?"
Rush gave a slightly fuzzy growl irritated that TJ was telling Young everything, but TJ answered Young anyway.
"Fractured fourth metacarpal. Broken his hand. He'll need the painkiller if he's going to get any sleep tonight." She turned back to Rush. "Did you eat dinner?"
He did not answer, just scowled. She shook her head and turned to Young.
"He'll be fine, just take him off to bed. He's going to act pretty stoned until he goes to sleep, but he'll be fine. You need a hand getting him there?"
Young looked at Rush.
"Yeah, just to the door."
He moved around to Rush's good side, Rush tried to track him with his eyes, failing as Young moved out of his field of vision. As TJ counted, they lifted on three. Rush came up unsteadily between them, the corridor swimming a little as he was lifted upwards too fast to focus.
"Bastards." He told them, trying for anger and failing.
"You mind your language, Doctor," TJ told him, "That's Lieutenant Bastard to you."
Young just laughed at him.
"Fucking..." Rush started, and gave up at a look from TJ.
He swayed between them. Young put Rush's good arm over his shoulders and TJ took the elbow of his bad arm and grabbed hold of the back of his pants. He gave a last desultory attempt to twist free but gave up as they gave a shove to get him moving and walked him to his quarters.
xxxoooxxx
Young could see Rush was pretty out of it, and even more so by the time they arrived at Rush's quarters, by which point the smaller man was almost totally reliant on Young and TJ to hold him up. He reached out, letting TJ take most of Rush's weight for a moment, and hit the door release.
"I suggest you stay with him." TJ said seriously. "My medical opinion. You have stuff to sort out, although in the morning when he's sober." She helped him get Rush over to the bed, and sit him down on the edge. "I'll have a word with the bridge crew, and tell them I've taken you off duty tonight, Scott's on anyway. No-one will bother him."
"You don't need to..."
"You need a good night's sleep, and to make sure this doesn't happen again." She countered walking to the door.
"I'm not sure that's not abuse of your position." Young said.
"I am responsible for the health and wellbeing of the crew," she replied firmly. "That includes you two."
"Stop talkin' about me like I'm not here." Rush said from the bed, trying to roll over.
"Shut up." Young said looking down at him.
TJ gave him a warning look. "Deal with it." She said seriously. She looked down at Rush. "I'll see you tomorrow to check your hand."
She walked out.
"Let's get you in bed." Young said resignedly. "Then maybe you can explain why you tried to hit me then went off and punched a wall."
"Di'n't say I punched a wall and nor did she." Rush corrected him. "Anyway, you know what you did." He kicked off his shoes, sending them tumbling across the floor.
Young sighed and pushed Rush backwards carefully, so he was forced to lay back on the bed, then he undid Rush's pants and taking hold of them at the ankles, pulled them off. There was a note of protest from Rush.
"You can't sleep in your jeans." He told Rush.
"Doesn't mean I want you strippin' me."
"I'm not stripping you, and if you think you could stand up and get them off stoned and one handed then be my guest."
He pulled off Rush's socks, dropping them on the discarded pants then stood, looking down at him. Rush blinked at him, God the man really was stoned. He sat down next to Rush and grabbing him under the arms hauled him up the bed.
"'S that really necessary?" Rush grumbled.
"Can you even sit up?"
"O' course."
Rush sat up. Just. Young pulled the covers out from under him, and pushed them over him, settling himself down on top of the covers next to Rush. Rush gave him an odd look, and slipped down, laying back and sliding under the covers. Young slid off his shoes and lay down next to him, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on his elbow to look at Rush.
"What happened?" He asked him.
Rush scowled.
"I broke my hand." He said with some concentration. "That's it."
Stoned Rush was not as successful at lying as Rush usually was. He had an evasive look about him, slightly shifty and the concentration face had really given the game away.
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
"Because I kissed you?"
Rush said nothing, but his whole expression closed down and he looked away, staring up at the ceiling.
"I'm sorry." Young said, looking away himself and not making eye contact. "I didn't mean to…I wanted you to know I cared how you felt and didn't blame you, I didn't know how to say it. I didn't realise you'd be offended…I didn't think…" he paused and stuttered around the words he wanted to say, "I mean, you're straight, most guys don't appreciate being kissed by another guy. Hell, I'm straight." Young shifted uncomfortably on the covers. "I'll back off okay, we can go back to sleeping on our own…"
"No."
The sleepy voice surprised him, woozy but vehement.
"Get in the bed."
Young looked at Rush's face.
"Want you in here." Said Rush. "Don't leave."
He was definitely drunkenly sleepy now.
"You're stoned." Young told him. "Anyway, I told TJ I would stay, I'm not leaving." He said gruffly.
"'S what they all say. 'M cold. Get in an' come here."
Young paused.
"Take ye damn trousers off and get under the covers." Rush's accent was thick.
"Are you sure?"
"'M cold an' 'm tired, m'hand aches an' I just want t' sleep."
"You're stoned on painkillers." Young said. "I'm not doing anything either of us will regret tomorrow."
"'S not the gay thing." Rush said.
Young watched as Rush struggled his hands, one good, one splinted, out from under the covers, and damn he was really wrecked.
"Look if I do it to you will y' just get into bed?"
And clumsily he rolled towards Young, grabbed him one handed round the back of the neck and pressed their lips together. It was badly aimed, a little damp, catching the side of Young's mouth and Rush managed to clash noses and press Young's lips into his teeth.
Young turned into the kiss, lips softening under Rush's, fingers tightening into his palms, trying not to give in to the impulse to take Rush by the shoulders. He could not help the way he sank into the kiss slightly though, and that in itself felt strange, for the five seconds Rush pressed his lips to Young's.
Rush rolled back drunkenly and Young stared at him.
"Okay." Young said uncertainly, unsure what to say. He rolled onto his back.
"Will ye come in now." Rush said, sounding tired.
Young unbuttoned his pants, lifted his hips and slid out of them, dropping them next to the bed on top of Rush's pants before sliding into the covers, facing Rush.
"What do you want Rush?" Young asked him directly, reaching out to place a hand on Rush's shoulder.
Rush didn't answer. Young looked at him, squeezed the hand holding Rush's shoulder and finally Rush spoke, voice fuzzy and thick.
"They dosed me straight up wi painkillers in the hospital and left me in A 'n' E, th'emergency room, for an hour and I was drifting in and out and there was a man yellin' and shoutin' near me. They didn' know who I was, the rest o' m' friends had legged it when the police an' ambulance turned up an I was too out of it to tell 'em."
There was a long pause. Young realised it was the end of the story of his scar Rush had started telling him months ago.
"In the end they gave up an took me in to operate on me anyways. I woke up in the ward, but they kept me dosed up an I didn' know where I was, kept comin' in an out of consciousness. It hurt all the time, where I'd been stabbed."
"Did your parents visit?" Young watched Rush, whose gaze was vague and unfocussed.
"Police in th'local station said to m' parents had to wait forty eight hours to report me missin' as I'd been reported missin' so many times before. Took two days for them to be told where I was. I was two days stoned out of m' head on morphine too doped up to say m' name, not knowin' where I was or what were going on. 'S almost forty years an' I still hate hospitals and bein' doped up."
Young expected Rush to close up, to put the blank mask back on, but Rush's face was miserable, the drug stealing his usual alertness and snap, and he seemed to be having trouble focussing on anything.
"I'm not going anywhere." Young assured him. "TJ's orders" He put an arm out, over Rush.
Rush rolled awkwardly in Young's arms, sliding back so Young was spooned around him, head resting on Young's arm. Young slid his other hand round Rush's waist, sliding it under Rush's shirt to lay over the old injury, scar cupped in the hollow of his palm. Rush shuddered briefly, then his muscles relaxed and he leaned back into Young.
"Seriously Nick, you never do anything by half measures do you?" He muttered. "Can we try the crazy mood swings a little slower next time? So I've got a bit better idea of what the hell's going on in your head?"
There was an answering mumble, nothing coherent. Young could feel Rush's cheek pressed into the skin of his inner arm, beard rough and scratchy as he shifted slightly before quite quickly he relaxed, muscles soft, dead weight in Young's arms.
Young wondered briefly why Rush never just asked for what he wanted. Still, it was interesting he seemed more inclined to share the story. Evidently recent events had brought it up in his mind again.
Young had understood the message though. He settled himself closely behind Rush, cradling him, tucking his face into the back of Rush's neck, moving till the long hair settled and did not tickle and let himself drift, arms wrapped round the other man.
This was simple, warm, comfortable, just the two of them, no conflicting demands, no decisions to make. Young relaxed and slept.