I

Dean slammed his hand down on the snooze button of his alarm and groaned. Monday. No – Tuesday. It had been a long weekend, which meant a short week. Briefly cheered by the prospect, Dean threw off his covers and made his way to the shower.

Tuesday. Dean scrunched his eyes shut as the hot water ran down his face. Who were the doctors on Tuesdays? Definitely Angeles, and probably Cage – Dean was willing to bet he'd be in one of their rooms. With a strange pang it occurred to him that Dr. Novak wouldn't be back in the operating room for another week; he wondered why he cared.

Even after years of routine, Dean found it difficult to be truly awake at such an early hour. It wasn't until he'd pulled his car into the parking space at the surgery center that he shook his head and felt truly alert, and even then he still felt like a zombie as he shambled up to the third floor to the locker room and, more importantly, the boards.

"Angeles," he said aloud after staring at them, bleary-eyed, for several moments. He groaned at the list of procedures; they almost seemed to be hand-picked to make for the most sleep-inducing morning possible.

"What's wrong?"

Dean looked to the side. "Morning, Kevin." In response to Kevin's question, he jabbed his finger at the list of cases for Dr. Angeles's room that day. "Two – not one, but two ESWLs, a TURP, and then three bladder biopsies."

"I haven't done an ESWL yet," Kevin said thoughtfully.

"If they ever ask if you'd like to do one, tell them you'd love to, but you have some paint you need to watch dry," Dean said wryly. "You'll enjoy yourself more."

II

"Pamela Barnes, circulating nurse. I have Brian Foster here today who has signed, witnessed, and dated a consent for Dr. Gabriel Angeles to perform an extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy on his left side. He did not need any pre-op antibiotics, his warming blanket is on, and his SCDs are on and running. Dean?"

Dean took a deep breath. "Dean Winchester, surg tech. We've also got Ash here from radiology. There is no instrumentation required for this case, no medication or fluids required for this case, and no supplies to count for this case. Ezra?"

"Ezra Moore, CRNA," the nurse anesthetist drawled. "Brian's healthy with some hypertension that's well-controlled and has no allergies. We'll do some Toradol for the pain at the end. I don't have any other peri-op concerns. Doctor?"

"Dr. Gabriel Angeles," Dr. Angeles announced in a booming voice. "I'm a Taurus, and I enjoy Yahtzee and a good martini…" He looked around the room at the pained expressions. "Tough crowd. Dr. Angeles, surgeon. I – by which I mean Ash – is going to be performing an extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy, no blood loss, nothing unusual, he'll go home, and that's all she wrote. Shall we begin?"

"Ready when you are, doc," the radiology tech said with a lazy salute.

"Well then, let us begin." Dr. Angeles stepped up to the giant C-shaped machine that curved around the bed. "Can I push the button?"

Ash gestured expansively at the control unit of the machine, and with exaggerated glee, Dr. Angeles pushed the button. The machine began clicking loudly at a measured pace, and Dr. Angeles lifted his arms in a celebratory gesture. "All right! I'll be in my office."

He did not, of course, leave the room – even if the machine was technically doing all the work of the ultrasound surgery, and it would be the radiology tech who would take over if anything went wrong, the surgeon still needed to be in the room, as did the surgical technologist. To Dean's surprise, the surgeon did not plant himself in front of the computer to busy himself with his email, but pulled up a rolling stool next to Dean's and seated himself.

"So I hear you butted heads with Cas the other day," Dr. Angeles said smugly.

"Cas?" Dean asked blankly, before the name clicked. "Oh. Dr. Novak. Uh, yeah, we…had some friction."

"And not the good kind." Dr. Angeles chuckled. "He's a nice guy, when he gets the stick out of his ass."

"You know him?" Dean asked.

"Oh yeah. Cas and I go way back. We were frat brothers."

Dean blinked. "Say that again?"

Dr. Angeles chuckled. "Phi Delta Epsilon, baby. I was Pledgemaster the year he pledged. Tough little son of a bitch."

"Dr. Novak was in a fraternity?" Dean asked in disbelief.

"Kind of skews your perception a bit, doesn't it?" Dr. Angeles grinned. "But allow me to make your world view more comfortable: PhiDE was a professional fraternity. Pre-med. I think we may have thrown a party once while I was there, and it was by accident."

"That…makes more sense." Dean, of course, had never been in a fraternity, but he'd seen movies, and fitting the quiet, stodgy Dr. Novak into any of those roles made his head hurt.

"Don't let that throw you off, mind you." Leaning back and crossing his arms, Dr. Angeles smiled in fond reminiscence. "Cas tended to get in over his head at times. Like the time he woke up half-naked in a sorority house."

Dean turned his head to look sharply at the surgeon. "What?"

Dr. Angeles snickered. "Oh, it confused the living hell out of him until he slowly remembered – it was the LGBT house, and the girls next to him were gayer than he was – they just wanted to make sure he didn't die from alcohol poisoning. They even washed his clothes for him after he got sick all over them." Dr. Angeles shook his head, clearly amused. "We still gave him a hard time about it for weeks. It was more action than most of us got, after all."

Dean realized his eyebrows had climbed to previously unforeseen heights. "I'm…having trouble believing you," he said. "In other words: I call bullshit."

"Oh," Dr. Angeles said, leaning forward and rubbing his hands together. "We've got forty minutes left of this ESWL. I'm just getting started."

III

"Doc," Dean asked, eyes scanning the sheet of orders for the next case, "why did you order a flexible ureteroscope for a stent removal?"

"Oh," Dr. Angeles said with relish, "let me tell you about this patient."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Okay?"

"This patient – actually, I think you might have scrubbed his stent placement. Back about two years ago."

Dean's other eyebrow shot up to join the first. "Two years?"

"And you have reached the crux of the story in record time. Yes. Two years." Dr. Angeles tapped a key on the keyboard, and a set of x-rays appeared on the screen. "He was supposed to come back in two weeks. He had an appointment. But instead, he went to Jamaica for three months, and then ignored every attempt to get him to come back in. Now, two years later –" he pointed at the very clear outline of the stent on the x-ray. "His stent has not only migrated most of the way up into his kidney, but it also has essentially become a calcium-encrusted, spiral-shaped kidney stone with a smooshy silicone center." Dr. Angeles shook his head in disgust. "Short of going to his home with a tranq gun and removing the stent in his living room, there was literally nothing more I could do to get him to come in. So. We're going to shoot some ultrasound at him and hope it loosens up the calcium deposits enough for me to get the stent out."

Letting out a long breath, Dean shook his head. "So what you're saying is that you're finding your career in urology to be gratifying."

"You know the clincher that makes me so honored to be sharing my medical knowledge with this man?" Dr. Angeles asked as he stared at the x-ray. "Getting this stent out is going to cause some severe ureteral trauma. Which means I'm going to have to insert another stent and have him come back to the office in two weeks."

Dean's jaw dropped. "You're kidding."

Dr. Angeles shook his head. "I'm considering installing a bungee while I'm in there, so he doesn't get too far without me being able to make him come back."

The x-rays were even more unsettling up close. Dean winced; he wasn't trained to read x-rays, but even he could see that the stent did not look like it should. "Why would anyone sabotage themselves like this?"

"Dean," Dr. Angeles said seriously, "when you've been doing this for as long as I have – and I haven't even been doing it for all that long – you learn one thing very quickly." He pointed at a particularly sharp-appearing protuberance on the x-ray. "Sometimes, patients are just downright stupid."

IV

"So I go to meet him," Dr. Angeles said, eyes focused on the video screen to the side of him where the scope displayed the inside of the patient's bladder. "He's got a twit-grin three miles wide and he shoves an envelope at me."

"Acceptance letter," Dean guessed.

"Bingo. First choice, University of Washington Department of Medicine – same as me. I of course offer to buy him a drink."

"Of course."

"This turns into – fuck. Biopsy forceps."

Dean grabbed the elongated forceps from the table and handed them to Dr. Angeles, who fed the scope through the channel in the forceps and threaded the entire apparatus back into the patient's bladder.

"Anyway. This turns into several drinks. And – you may have noticed that Cas is not an ugly individual." Dr. Angeles glanced away from the screen and turned to shoot a brief, arch look at Dean.

Dean coughed. "I have the right to remain silent."

Dr. Angeles smirked as he turned back, and the conversation paused as he maneuvered the forceps into position to collect a piece of suspicious tissue growing from the bladder wall. "He was no uglier with a baby face, either. Ladies and gents alike were willing to celebrate with him in the traditional method of exchanging ethanol in various forms." He withdrew the forceps; Dean reached forward and collected the tiny piece of tissue on a piece of wet gauze. "Left anterior bladder wall biopsy," the surgeon said, and the nurse hastened to scribble down the name of the specimen. "It can go in formalin. Cautery?"

Dean snatched the electrocautery wire and handed it to the surgeon, who threaded this down into the patient's bladder and began the arduous process of stemming the bleeding that taking the biopsy had caused.

"Next thing I know, we're back at my place. It's nearly one in the afternoon, my arm hurts like hell, and I've got this bandage." Dr. Angeles indicated a spot on his bicep. "I take the bandage off and –"

"No," Dean said, suddenly catching on to what this story was.

"Oh, yes. I will admit, I've grown fond of my little coyote tattoo in the intervening years. Cas, though…"

"He didn't."

"Not only did he," Dr. Angeles continued, squinting at the video screen. "But he went whole fucking hog. The outline covered half his back. It was big enough –" Dr. Angeles stopped to laugh. "It was big enough that the tattoo artist couldn't finish it in one night. So Cas spends three weeks trying to decide whether to pay to get it removed, or pay to have it finished and end up with a giant tattoo all across his shoulders." He watched the screen intently for a few moments before nodding in satisfaction. "We're done here. We ready to debrief?"

Pamela, who had been hanging on every word of Dr. Angeles's story, blinked. "Bladder biopsy, one specimen in formalin, bleeding controlled, patient going home. Sound right?"

"Sounds good." Dr. Angeles peeled off his gown and gloves. "I will bet every dollar in my wallet right now that Dr. Novak still has that tattoo. He might even show you if you ask really nicely." He winked outrageously at Dean, who shook his head in amusement as he gathered the various wires and cords that connected the cameras and light sources to the scope and coiled them carefully, eyes downcast to hide the inexplicable flush that bloomed suddenly at the back of his neck. It was warm in the room, he reasoned. That was all.

V

"Do you think he's telling the truth? About Dr. Novak?" Pamela asked Dean near the end of the day, pulling tubes from hanging saline bags to make it possible to remove the drapes from the last patient.

"Dr. Angeles is the king of tall tales," Dean said in a practical tone as he wadded up the blue plastic table drape and turned to begin pulling the surgical drapes off the patient. "And he knows he can bullshit with the best of them. I'm telling you, I talked with Dr. Novak for hours yesterday. I'm more of a party animal than he is."

"No, about the –" Pamela lowered her voice. "About him being gay."

"That much is true," Dean admitted. "He point-blank told me. He's not exactly shy about it."

"Damn." Pamela shook her head. "That's a shame. I wouldn't mind asking to see his tattoo."

"Hon," Ezra said as she removed the clips that held the surgical drapes to the IV poles at the head of the bed, "I wouldn't mind asking to see his tattoo, and I'm old enough to be his mother. I say we ask him anyway. Maybe he'll be kind."

Silence, Dean decided, was the best option for responding to this particular exchange, and he busied himself with bunching the armful of drapes into a ball to shove into the garbage while, thankfully, Pamela and Ezra returned to their duties to the patient.

Nothing more was said about Dr. Novak, but Dean's mind insisted on lingering over the unlikely stories long after he'd traded his scrubs for his street clothes.