A/N: Very excited to be sharing this first part of the story as part of the Bokumono Big Bang 2021 event! Shout out to the moderators for creating a fun fandom event to bring artists, writers, and then some together. And a very special thank you to my partner in the event, Catssautumn (check out her Twitter and AO3,) who created the cover art and put up with my ass. Your piece will continue to inspire mine!

Please see my profile for my preferences regarding contacting me off-site, creating transformative works, and/or concrit.

Chapter 1: In Reserve

The traffic lights shone in every raindrop that beaded the taxi's windows. Red, yellow, green—it didn't matter what color, the taxi did not budge. Its backseat passenger sat bathed in red brake lights, rubbing at his tired eyes and listening to the evening rain over the squealing, honking traffic jam.

It wasn't that the city's sounds didn't soothe Trent. It was just that the stress-reduction pamphlets he passed out to patients like some hypocritical missionary had recommended "mindfully" listening to gentle rainfall. Perhaps he should have done more than skim the pamphlets. Well, too late now.

He had long tuned out the cabbie's attempts at small talk. He had long tuned out small talk in general. Why waste energy on the busywork of human behavior? And so the cabbie had exchanged one pretense for another—he feigned adjusting the rearview mirror every few minutes to steal an anxious look at his passenger. Trent first pretended he didn't notice, and then he didn't.

Unable to drive the taxi, the cabbie drove the windshield wipers to maximum speed instead. They obliterated the raindrops and drowned out the pattering with a heartbeat's rhythm.

Ventricular gallop, Trent wryly identified. So much for relaxing. He turned to the sound, and his eyes met the cabbie's in the rearview mirror. There was something wide-eyed about them. New. Why a taxi, then? Did he get some illusion of freedom driving the same routes day in and day out?

Trent fiddled with the paperboard package in his coat pocket.

The cabbie seized his opportunity to interrupt Trent's musings. "Radio—" His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat as quietly as possible. "Ah, radio says this goes for a dozen blocks or so."

"I see." Trent turned toward the window. Hardly breaking news. The avenue was not only a hectic shopping district but one of the only routes between the tunnels leading in and out of the city. Any native knew to avoid it if possible. Now the lanes were as congested as the taxi's theoretical heart.

"Yep, it's a jam. No other route, neither." The cabbie's finger tapped against the climbing meter. "Better luck walkin', maybe."

If the cabbie's general nervousness, route choice, and entirely too passive way of switching lanes hadn't already made his inexperience apparent, this suggestion would. What cabbie didn't love running the meter at a standstill?

The seat groaned as Trent adjusted legs too long for the backseat. Outside, silhouettes blended as they passed glowing storefronts, only the tourists made distinct by the umbrellas they carried. They easily outpaced the cars. It would be faster to walk, but Trent was in no hurry.

"Or there's the train too. Y'know, if the rain bugs ya. Beats just starin' out the window and waitin'."

Trent didn't stare out the window, as the cabbie had assumed, but rather at the strangers' fingerprints smudged on its glass. These could not be washed away by the rain outside—they smeared the interior, remnants of oily passengers who had already reached their destinations. The idea of cramming into a tube with a hundred oily bodies was less appealing than knowing the same number had marked this backseat before him.

"I have the fare," Trent said without turning from the window. He often confused helpfulness with doubt.

The cabbie let out a sheepish laugh, then directed his concern to the console. In the relative silence, Trent's thoughts again took over his senses. He knew exactly the route the cabbie had foolishly made to land them in this traffic jam, but the path that placed him in this taxi was less clear cut, though perhaps equally foolish.

He had thought how he lived up until a few weeks ago was always well-informed, well-advised, well-planned—exceptionally well-planned. There were never any stops, just constant forward momentum to the next achievement. And each achievement felt good, with the characteristic rush of dopamine to reward the brain and motivate it to repeat the actions that earned its reward, building and strengthening its wiring. The more steps one takes toward reaching their goals, the more motivated one becomes to keep the dopamine flowing. And, as with all things, the harder it is to keep the dopamine flowing. Tolerance develops, and the brain must jump through ever-heightening hoops in search of the reward.

There was university. As graduation had drawn closer, he had fantasized more and more about going on a long hike. He'd studied multiple guides, taken rock climbing courses, learned how to tie enough knots to raise a few eyebrows, toiled on treadmills and stairclimbers with a weighted pack, even bought crampons and an ice ax when his fantasies turned particularly intrepid. Each day, being alone in the wilderness for months sounded more and more tempting. He'd even gone so far as planning his first trek; he'd start off-trail in the mountains bordering Mineral Town—a rural getaway his family had once canceled a vacation at—and work his way down the coast solo. Imagine the achievement of that? Instead, he opted to become a doctor, though the mountaineer fantasy resurfaced at a few low points throughout the years.

Medical school had been filled with depressing calculations throughout—how many more years until he became an independent practitioner, and what would he do then? The first question was easy to answer. The second, not so much, which is why it was a relief to add another five years to the calculations when he was matched with his dual residency. Knowing it was highly competitive made the achievement somewhat more enjoyable. It had, at least, felt like more of an accomplishment than being elected chief resident, a title that earned him a slightly longer white coat and a litany of administrative duties that had served him so well in fellowship applications and interviews. And the fellowship —he tried to stretch his legs again, squirming in his seat—well, it hardly counted now and never provided any sort of dopamine rush regardless.

He had long been achieving without the intrinsic reward, and the extrinsic had been gone for longer than he could remember. It seemed his brain had developed an extreme tolerance with each success. But why waste time musing over a painfully oversimplified view of neurochemistry anyway?

Because you want a painfully oversimplified explanation for being a complete imbecile.

"Here we are," the cabby announced with undisguised pride.

Trent caught his reflection in the smudged glass and quickly looked past it to his destination. When had the taxi started moving again? It was hard to feel the difference between inching forward and staying stuck when he was so lost in his head. With a glance at the meter—he would be twenty minutes late and worth nearly sixty dollars shorter—he paid his fare and stepped out onto the street, ignoring the light rain. The heights of the towering buildings enclosed him before he disappeared inside.

Cheaper restaurants always seemed brighter in the city—the tube fluorescent bulbs, maybe? But this restaurant used ambient lighting to hide its carefully curated style. Fine dining attempting to appear casual was always remarkably more expensive than run-of-the-mill fine dining, and this was particularly true for this establishment. It couldn't be easily afforded by someone who had just finished their residency and took leisurely taxi rides in rush hour. Still, he needed to speak with his parents in person, and making reservations at their favorite restaurant was the method with the highest success rate in getting them to show up.

A near-genuine smile from a blonde hostess momentarily disarmed him. She delivered a practiced greeting before asking, "Do you have any reservations?"

It was all he had lately.

"Under 'Wick,' thank you."

Her eyes fell to a list of names on her podium, and as her finger passed over each name, he noticed she had beautiful hands.

"Trent Wick?"

And there went all thoughts of beauty. Hearing his full name made him inwardly cringe without fail. Everyone at the hospital had called him Dr. Trent Wick. Trentwick. That was how it sounded to him every time—like one horribly pretentious name.

The hostess sat him at a table with three place settings. Dinner began with the obligatory pity for the waiter stuck with such unpunctual patrons. It was a rather time-honored tradition for his parents to arrive late, but he hated the waiting; he had hoped his own late arrival would have skipped all that unpleasantness. But there he sat among the murmuring and the clinking silverware, waiting and worrying and determined not to appear as if he were doing either. On the other hand, he was grateful for a few moments longer to prepare his case, imagining each objection his parents might volley at him. Money, location, prestige, underachievement—would his father be angry? Trent still remembered the time he had mentioned considering a DO rather than an MD with some humor.

You're almost thirty—you've grown out of those pathetic attempts at gaining their attention by now, he told himself without fully believing it. He reached absentmindedly for his coat pocket before remembering it was hanging in coat check. Probably for the best. Before long, he needed to stretch his legs again.

"Right this way, ma'am—ma'am?"

Trent turned as his mother breezed ahead of the hostess and swept past him. Even after her decades in administration, she still walked like a nurse—silent, purposeful, and quick. He jumped up from his seat to properly greet her just as she sat in the chair across from him. For someone arriving so late, she was already a step ahead.

"No need for that," she said and gestured to his seat, inviting Trent to join her table as if he were the late arrival.

It had been some time since Trent and his mother had seen each other face-to-face, but she looked precisely the same—sartorially streamlined to get to the point of things. People often told Trent he resembled her—dark hair, imperious height, and especially her steely staredown, though he had not fully mastered it. While Trent's hair inevitably grew disheveled over the day, his mother's was always meticulously constructed into a bun. The hairstyle originated from her time working directly with patients as a clinical nurse researcher and hinted at her workstyle: strict and immovable. They were perhaps not entirely desirable traits in a mother but made her a highly trusted colleague. Trusted, not necessarily liked, and that was how she preferred it. Despite her intimidating reputation, she was politically astute enough to work her way to serving as the director of nursing at one of the city's major hospital systems.

She listened to the waiter—an impressive act of restraint considering her penchant for interrupting—before ordering a glass of wine without a glance at the menu.

"And clear this setting, please," she said. The waiter lifted each dish, successfully hiding any possible relief or annoyance. Trent also held his face blank, but his shoulders slackened.

"Did you tell him how important it was?" he said and immediately regretted it. He sounded fifteen years younger.

"Bad timing. The grant—"

A familiar bitterness burned in his throat. Trent tried to put it out with a drink of water as he tuned out the standard explanation.

The bitterness was something that occasionally surfaced, much to his annoyance. His father, Dr. Wick—no first name necessary—had made a distinguished career in academic medicine, teaching and researching at the medical school Trent had not-coincidentally attended. Sure, it had been more than a little frustrating for Trent to see the warm relationships his father cultivated with his colleagues and student mentees, all carefully selected. Professional ethics dictated he could never choose his son as a mentee. Still, Trent always tried to bolster his resume in the off-chance ethics could be ignored in the shadow of his academic and clinical greatness. Another fantasy, more embarrassing than mountaineering. He thought he would have abandoned the jealousy and hoop-jumping years ago, but it was a strange hook. A full-time job that always gave you something to do was hard to walk away from. Well, not anymore, at least.

His mother opened her menu. "I assumed Rachel would be joining us."

Trent paused. "Rachel?"

"The redhead."

"You mean Renee." He straightened his fork—it did not need straightening. "She ended things a few months ago."

"Ah. When you said you had an announcement…." Her thought appeared to have gotten lost somewhere in her menu. "She had excellent style."

"She did."

"I'm sorry," she added.

"Don't be." Rachel-Renee hadn't even been the latest entry in a long list of girlfriends to part ways with him throughout his training. Expectation had long inoculated him against any heartbreak. He couldn't blame them. 24-hour shifts and 80-hour workweeks—not counting the extra hours attendings gladly overlooked—meant not much time for them. He still wondered how some in his cohort got married, even had children.

"Anyone now?"

"No."

"Better for your focus. For your fellowship."

"Mmm." He pretended to contemplate descriptions of dayboat fish, but instead, he read and reread the restaurant's taunting slogan at the top of the menu: Food that takes you somewhere.

The waiter returned, palate cleansers and wine in hand. After he disappeared with their dinner orders, the pair sat in silence for a second too long.

"Let's not waste time," his mother ruled, an ironic statement in a fine dining restaurant, Trent thought. "What's this announcement?"

She almost sounds curious. Motherhood was typically an ambivalent state of affairs for her, but this situation was not typical. He'd pictured they would have entrees between them when he broke the news, and now he didn't even have a menu to shield himself. But what was the point in delaying any longer?

"Well… I've accepted an offer."

He held his hand steady and reached for a slice of bread. He knew he'd want an excuse to silence himself soon.

"I thought you already accepted the critical care fellowship?" She sipped at her wine.

"I did. I withdrew my acceptance last week."

She paused mid-drink, then slowly returned her wineglass to the table. Her steely eyes were now secured to her son's—the staredown.

Trent bit into the bread.

"A match violation?" she said calmly.

Trent swallowed and began his speech.

"I'm aware how unprofessional it is to leave an obligation unfulfilled. But even this late, it won't be a struggle for the program to find my replacement, especially here. There are hundreds of doctors in this city vying to specialize—"

"A match violation?" she repeated.

Trent pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, technically."

Despite being bound by a code of conduct to serve his fellowship, Trent had withdrawn. Without adequate cause, the violation letter had read. A succinct phrase to end his career as he knew it. Yet those three words said a lot: You have broken the integrity of the program. You cannot be trusted to fulfill your duties. You will never get another fellowship again.

But his mother had never been one for dramatics. "What offer did you take?" She didn't say, "it had better be worth it" aloud, but Trent heard it nonetheless.

He smoothed his tie. "I'll be directing a rural hospital—well, a clinic, in Mineral Town. I—"

"Mineral Town?" Her face went tight around the name. "Is this about that hiking trip again?"

"No," he insisted too quickly and too coolly because, yes, in a way, it was.

She grasped for her wineglass.

"I know what you're thinking," Trent launched into rehearsed counterarguments against his own doubts. "You think it will be a waste of my skills. On the contrary, it requires a greater depth of knowledge. I'll be the sole physician in the community and will need to maintain a variety of skills that specialists lose. In fact, I'm uniquely prepared given my training in emergency medicine and family—"

"You withdrew your fellowship to be a general practitioner?" The researcher's disdain for the clinician was undisguised in her voice.

He nodded matter-of-factly.

She regained her composure from a sip of wine. "That requires a wider range of knowledge, not a greater depth—jack of all trades, master of none."

"That's dependent upon your definition of—"

"Trent, why? Why apply for this? What about your research?"

He addressed her last question because it was easier to answer.

"Rural medicine is woefully underserved and under-investigated." He faltered when he realized that fact was not a selling point. "There's a vast research potential, and a skilled researcher can contribute meaningfully regardless of where he's located. There are two patients I've been advised may make for an interesting case series."

"The lowest level of evidence."

"Yes." It was true, so what else could he say?

The wineglass stem rolled between her fingers as her eyes bore into his. She almost appeared concerned, Trent decided.

"What does it pay?" she asked.

He strained to maintain eye contact as he avoided her question. "I've received a signing bonus for agreeing to a three-year contract. It includes debt forgiveness."

"A public service project?" She leaned closer over the table. Yes, she was concerned. "Trent, you can pay your debts in less time than that with a real position."

"It is a real position." His tone was as measured as hers despite the tension settling in his jaw. "Research shows rural practitioners generally enjoy a life of greater affluence than urban practitioners."

"Cost of living," she dismissed with a sharp wave of her hand. "This isn't right for you."

He resisted the urge to cock his head to the side. Why she suddenly acted invested this late in his life defied reason. There had been an unspoken agreement to leave him to his own devices since he was a teenager, and not exactly an agreement before that. It just so happened his own devices generally involved meeting every obligation of achievement and success he felt he had. Yet doing what they wanted got him nothing he wanted—if it was what they wanted. Perhaps it was simply what was expected.

"It will pose certain challenges, I'm sure, but I'm confident I can manage—"

"You don't have the heart for this kind of medicine."

He scoffed. "Excuse me?"

The wine glass at her lips prevented her from elaborating, but her eyes said it all.

His sore jaw tightened further. It was one thing to critique the job—he of all people understood its shortcomings. But to critique his abilities was another matter—he of all people understood his shortcomings.

"The public official who contacted me seemed to think I am more than qualified," he said, opting not to mention it was only the town mayor. "I was hand-picked, and I'm told the position was highly competitive. Besides, I've already signed the contract."

She raised an eyebrow. You've signed a contract before, her expression said.

"It's decided."

Her gaze broke from her son to her dwindling glass of wine. "Alright."

"Alright," he echoed with more finality.

"When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow."

"I see."

She reached for a palate cleanser, though not because of the hors d'oeuvre the waiter carefully presented shortly after—the first of a six-course tasting. It would be a long evening, and Trent's mind turned to his coat pocket once more.

Trent and his mother walked out under the restaurant awning. She had called her town car service at the end of the fifth course, and the black sedan waited against the curb as anticipated. The chatting of passersby and whining of vehicles filled the distance between them.

"Do you need a ride to your apartment?" she offered as he walked her to her car door.

"No, thank you. I think I'd like one last walk in the city." He eyed the current of strangers flowing through the sidewalk but hesitated to join them. With a hard swallow, he slowly retrieved a slip of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to her before he talked himself out of it. "Here."

She politely nodded and added it to her pocketbook without reading.

"It's my new address and phone number. I should be there tomorrow afternoon if Dad wants to call. Tell him I said goodbye."

"I will."

Both mother and son realized they were expected to say goodbye themselves. Her heels uncharacteristically clacked against the sidewalk as she took a hesitant step closer to him.

"No need for that," said Trent, offering a slight smile and his hand.

She shook it as if it were a door handle she was ensuring was locked.

"Take care of yourself," she ordered before ducking into the backseat.

He cautiously shut the door, hiding her behind tinted glass that displayed his dark reflection instead. Before he registered his expression, the sedan quietly rolled down the wet street and disappeared at the next light, driving her to wherever she was going next. He never asked.

Trent joined the current of strangers, careful not to bump into other bodies. The moment he felt sufficiently hidden among them, he reached into his coat pocket and retrieved his lighter and fresh pack of cigarettes—his second that week. He wouldn't buy another one, he vowed. A practiced flick later and the flame briefly warmed his palm from the drizzle. He breathed deeply for the first time that night as cool menthol masked and numbed the heat in his throat.

With a smoky sigh that wasn't entirely relieved, his jaw relaxed.

A/N: Yes, Trent is a bit neurotic. 😅 Bear with me.

It wouldn't be a fic of mine if I did not mention a song inspiration! For this chapter, one of my favorites would be "Marquee Moon" by Television. (I recommend reading the story on AO3 if you would like easy access to links, gifs, etc I reference in A/N.) The city imagery and lyrics are very on point, plus the guitar at the start of the song sounds like a car horn, haha. I also associate each character with their own music genre, and for Trent, it's punk and new wave, lol. I promise it has a character and story purpose for me as a creator!

This is the first time I've ever given HM characters last names, and I chose "Wick" for Trent for its multiple meanings: a type of absorbing wound dressing, to be quick/active, a small town, and of course, a candlewick, whose surroundings dictate whether it burns out quickly or not. "Trent" also has multiple translations of its origin: "trespasser" being among them. 😉

Thanks for reading! Next chapter, we see what an average evening with Elli's family looks like!

10/10/2022: Edited this chapter! Thank you to the readers and Redditors who've given me constructive criticism (concrit) in the comments below! You've helped me improve immensely as a writer in just 5 months, and the difference astounded me when I came back to look something up in this chapter while working on Chapter 11! Thank you! For current readers, you may notice some POV issues and past-participle abuse happening until around Chapter 5, but I'll be going back and editing those in my free time, too. In the meantime, hope you enjoy the story, and if you ever want to drop some concrit, it's always welcome!