It wasn't until Dean got to the bar that he realised one of the few texts he had gotten that day wasn't from Sam. He wasn't that worried, Sam had probably shoved the note in his back pocket before he left and completely forgotten to actually text his brother. He probably hadn't forgotten to rat Dean out about the whole 'drinking the night before his first shift' thing to their mom. He was fully expecting a long and ranting message from Mary left on his answering machine when he got home.
All the more reason to sit in a bar with a pretty blonde, though he had a feeling that if he called Jo pretty she would punch him in the lip.
The bar was a homey looking place, the kind of place that Dean would have spent countless nights in back at med school with friends and he could see why Jo chose this place. The pair found seats at the bar and Jo order two bottles of beers.
"So princess, what made you want to come to Illinois?" Jo asked raising her bottle of beer to salute Dean.
"The hospital has one of the best surgical internships in the country, asshole residents aside, and why am I a princess?" Dean asked.
"It's freaking cold here and if the tiara fits…"
"I'm sort of used to the cold by now." Dean said with a shrug. Kanas winters could be a pain in the ass and it pretty much dumped snow in Connecticut as soon as winter came. "And I'm not a princess." He added.
"Dude you went to Yale, that's like one of the best medical schools in the country not to mention one of the most expensive…you're kind of a princess."
"How the fuck did…did you go through my records?"
"I like to know things about people." Jo said shrugging her shoulders with a huge grin on her face. "Plus the records office has a terrible lock on it, it was too easy to get in there. Did you know that Charlie has a genius level IQ? She's a member of MENSA and was top of her class at Dartmouth. She got an MCAT score of 36.5. Then again I know that probably doesn't impress you that much seeing as you got a 38.4 and were the top of your class…at Yale."
"Do you know practically everything about me?" Dean asked with annoyance.
"Only what was written in your file." Jo said shrugging. Dean was swiftly learning that Jo Harvelle was a dangerous woman and he was going to have to try and make sure he never got her bad side for as long as they were at the hospital together.
"You should know that I worked every single summer since I was twelve to save up for my tuition. I worked nearly every night at a crappy bar when I was in college and both my parents saved up all the money they had so I could go to Yale so it's not like I'm a freaking princess." Dean said cocking his eyebrows because he had the feeling that Jo was going to call him a princess for the rest of the year. He could barely handle a day of Novak calling him 'Budweiser', he couldn't handle Jo calling him 'princess' as well.
"Someone's touchy, Novak really pissed you off today didn't he?"
"It's not…we've just gotta put up with the guy for a year and I can't have him hate me."
"Probably shouldn't have yelled at him in the OR then." Jo pointed out.
"Yeah well I'm starting to regret that now." Dean said with a shrug.
"If we're going to be friends then you need to suck it up already and get over the fact that you yelled at Novak. Sure he's gonna be pissed at you but what's the worst he can do? Sure he can stick you on scut duty but he knows you're smart and he's not going to waste you brain on charting." Jo said bluntly. Her honesty was something that Dean could get used to. Jo was smart, he'd seen as much during their first shift together and she was the good mix between sarcastic and just a bit devious. Yeah, Dean could see the two of them easily becoming friends.
When Dean finally got home, clutching a pizza box like his life depended on it, he was met by the same empty apartment he'd left nearly 48 hours previously but with the addition of the blinking light on his answering machine. Sure enough one of them was from Mary, though it turned out Sam hadn't ratted him out about the drinking thing because the message was just a general 'hope your first shift went well' and 'please call as soon as you can' message instead of a life lecture. Sure Sam had gotten him drunk, drooled on his couch then never text him back but there were worst younger brothers out there.
Sorry for not texting when my flight got in. Phone died then mom and dad wanted to hear all about Chicago. Come on Skype when you can.
He would never get his brother's fascination with Skype but if it meant that they could have a decent conversation Dean wasn't going to complain too much.
"I don't know why you can't just text or call like a normal person." He said as soon as Sam's face popped up onto the screen.
"Normal people Skype and you can't see my judging looks via texts so shut up." Sam said with one of his patented bitchy looks. The damn kid had been perfecting those since he was about six years old.
"It just doesn't make sense to me." Dean said repositioning himself so Sam was able to see him properly while not dropping take-out pizza down himself. It was a freaking talent.
"You got into medical school and passed all your exams with stupidly high marks, how can you not get Skype?" Sam said shaking his head in disbelief.
"Because knowing what to do if a pancreas ruptures doesn't mean I know how the fuck Skype works." Dean shot back feeling like that was a small victory.
"Someone is pissed off." Sam pointed out with a huge smirk on his face.
"Yeah well my resident is an asshole and I'm stuck with him for a whole year...if he doesn't kill me." Dean grumbled before taking a huge bite out of his pizza. Sam snorted loudly and rolled his eyes like the judgemental little shit he was.
"What did you do to him?" Sam asked because it always Dean's fault apparently. This time it really wasn't…technically at least.
"Nothing, he's just got this crazy scary reputation for being a hard ass and it's true. He dude is a genius but a total douche face." Dean said before taking another bite out of his pizza.
"You yelled at him didn't you?"
"No...ok maybe I did but the dick had it coming Sammy." Dean said. Cue bitchy look number two. "He was being an asshole! He spent the whole shift calling me Budweiser." Dean said trying to justify himself. Sam snorted loudly because he was that much of a little shit. "Oh shut up bitch."
"Fine, fine. I've got to go, I've got some packing to do before we go to California. You better ring mom sometime this week telling her that you're actually sleeping and eating something not fried or covered in cheese. If she doesn't hear that you're surviving on your own she'll freak out."
"Dude I survived college and med school. There is no need for her to freak out."
"She sent you a care package every week."
"Hey I appreciated those cookies and pies!" Dean said with a grin. Sam rolled his eyes again because he was that much of a jerk. "You go get your beauty sleep Samantha and try texting me once in a while." Dean added with a smug grin once he saw Sam's 'completely done' face. Dean logged off not long after he said goodbye to Sam and made a mental note to ring Mary during his lunch break the next day before he went to bed, praying to himself that his next shift didn't end up in him camping out in the intern's locker room again.
The following morning was very much like Dean's first morning at the hospital, minus the hang over though. He filled a travel mug full of rich, dark coffee in his tiny kitchen in the vague hope that it would make up his still sleeping brain. He took a cautionary sip and decided to add another spoonful of instant granules so his coffee was even stronger. He'd learnt during his first year at college that when in doubt caffeine would always help.
"Mornin'" he said once he spotted Jo and Adam in the intern's locker room. Jo gave him a beaming smile with just the hint of a smirk. Sarah was sat down next to her and guzzling down the coffee Charlie had just handed to her.
"Good morning princess." She said pulling her sneakers on and throwing her street shoes into her locker. If Dean wasn't relying on his coffee to keep him awake he would have pour it down Jo's back and Adam snorted. "Ready for a day of scut duty?" Jo asked as Dean could barely suppress a groan. He had managed to spend the remainder of the previous shift either hiding out in the locker room, with his ass slowly going more and more numb thanks to the wooden bench, or sneaking into the nurse's lounge to use their coffee machine. Today he would have to face Dr Novak and it was safe to say that he wasn't remotely looking forward to it.
"Blake and Harvelle, you're scrubbing in with me today on my ARVC case." Novak said walking up to the interns without so much as a hello. Several files in one hand and a large coffee cup in the other. It was probably full of the blood of past interns he kept locked away in his freezer.
"ARVC?" Sarah whispered across to Dean to address Charlie.
"Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy." Dean said without skipping a beat. Castiel Novak looked up from the file in his hand and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Winchester, you're with Bradbury in the ER with Lafitte." He said. The monotone of his deep, resonating voice did nothing to give away his surprise but Dean had clearly stumped him with knowing what ARVC was. To be honest Dean was even more stumped that he wasn't being put on scut duty. "And Milligan is on charting seeing as he never actually finished yesterday during patient work up and rounds." Novak added with a slight snap as he handed Adam a stack folders much to Adam's dismay. Without saying another word Novak motioned for Jo and Sarah to follow him as he took off down the hallway.
"This fucking sucks ass." Adam said looking down at the files in his hands like they were covered in pee. "Winchester you were right, the guy is an asshole." He said with a groan. Charlie gave him a pitying look as he went to sit down at the nearest desk to work on the stack of folders.
"Ready to be the McCoy to my Chapel?" Charlie asked with an expectant smile.
"Lead the way ma'am." Dean said in the worst McCoy impression Charlie had ever heard by the look on her face.
During his time in med school Dean had spent plenty of time in the ER in his life. Both he and Sam had spent countless hours being bandaged up after falling out of trees, off bikes or, during that memorable year when they both got roller blade, hurtling into the patio door. Later when studying at Yale he'd spent more time than he cared to think about doing scut work or observing the trauma team do their job but it was entirely different standing there as a qualified doctor.
"Winchester!" A deep southern voice called out making both Dean and Charlie jolt where they were stood. Dr Lafitte, Head of Trauma at the hospital, came marching down the corridor flanked by two interns, one being Ruby. "So you're the one that called Novak out in the operatin' room huh? That took guts man." He said giving Dean's hand a hearty handshake. "You need guts to work in trauma, literally sometimes, so I'm glad Novak's given you to me for the foreseeable future." Dean's stomach dropped at Lafitte's words because if Castiel Novak had handed him off to another service then it meant he was probably more pissed than he'd seemed the day before. "We like all our doctors to have trauma training here. Normally we don't do it until they're a first or second year resident but Novak and myself like our interns to be prepared so welcome."
"It's a pleasure to be here sir." Dean and Charlie both said. From Charlie's slightly lost expression she was about as apprehensive about this as Dean was. Trauma was quick and bloody, you never knew what was going to come through the doors in an ER, so you didn't really have time for nerves.
"Pleasure ain't got nothin' to do with it. Both of you grab a gown and get ready to get your hands dirty." Lafitte said with wide grin. Sure trauma was a messy specialty but Dean had a feeling that it was where Dr Lafitte belonged.
Eleven hours later and both Dean and Charlie were ready to drop. They had seen more broken legs, fractured wrists and bones sticking out of places were bones should stick out of than they had in a full month at medical school. The ER had been full of people who were clumsy, not paying attention on the road or just down right stupid which was why they had worked through lunch. Dean managed to grab a bag of potato chips and stationed himself at an empty desk while Charlie pretended to look busy so no one would bother her while she ate a box of fruit salad. They were soon joined by a severely pissed off looking Adam and incredibly tired looking Jo and Sarah.
"This ARVC case of Novak's is actually going to be the death of me. My brain feels as though it's been pulled out of my nose with a pair tweezers, then scrambled into mush and served as mystery meat in the cafeteria." Jo groaned into her large cup of coffee Sarah had just handed to her. Adam's face paled and he pushed his own cup of coffee away from him with a look of disgust. "Sorry but it's true. I thought I had paid decent enough attention to all things cardio related but clearly I was wrong. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong and think Novak's close to killing himself or one of us."
"Can it be me? I can't handle him glaring at me anymore." Sarah said pleadingly.
"What's the patient like?" Dean asked picking up the coffee Adam had abandoned. If he wasn't going to drink then Dean wasn't going to let it go to waste.
"Circling the drain." Sarah said bluntly. "He's a twenty-eight year old guy and he's going die if Novak doesn't figure out what to do."
"Is he on Sotalol?" Dean asked. Sarah nodded while Jo looked like she was contemplating going to sleep despite her coffee. "What about an ICD?"
"A what?"
"Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator. I remember reading about them back in med school. Has Novak thought about it?"
"If he has then he hasn't told us. He mentioned a catheter ablation but he doesn't think it will work." Jo mumbled between a yawn.
"ICD's are kinda a risky though aren't they? Maybe that's why he didn't suggest it?" Charlie offered with a shrug. "It's a good idea though." She added with a smile in Dean's direction. Dean returned Charlie's smile appreciatively. At least someone knew what he was talking about and seemed to be on his side.
"Suggest an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator and see what he says." Dean said to Jo who quickly tapped out a note on her phone, probably to relay the information back to Novak. "Don't mention my name though or he'll shoot it down, the guy hates me."
"Probably shouldn't have called him a dick then." Sarah offered unhelpfully.
"Anyone got a calculator?" Adam asked.
"Why?" Sarah asked looking over to where Adam was sat. "Have you still not finished Novak's charts? He's going to kill you."
"Don't judge me, the guy writes in freaking calligraphy. I can hardly understand half the things he writes." Adam said defensively. "Now what's 67.97 multiplied by 7.5?" he asked. Before Jo had even pulled out her phone Charlie piped up.
"509.775" she said confidently. Sarah, Adam and Jo looked over at her in surprise but Charlie just shrugged. "I like numbers and math, they make sense to me."
"Why did I want to become a surgeon? Actually scratch that, why don't I have a calculator for a brain or a genius IQ?" Adam grumbled.
"Stop complaining and finish those notes before Novak kills you." Sarah said before nudging Jo. "Come on, we should run the ICD idea by Novak and see what he says."
"Tell me what he decides to do ok?" Dean asked. Jo nodded as Sarah dragged her off while Adam was still muttering under his breath about how he should have become a pizza delivery boy or something. Dean couldn't help but notice the keen way Charlie was looking at him but she didn't say anything until they were walking back to the ER. Dean was sending a quick message to Mary to give her an update on what he was doing when Charlie nudged his arm.
"How did you know about ARVC and the ICD?"
"How did you multiply Adam's mini freak out before Jo could even whip out her phone?"
"Because I'm a genius." Charlie said proudly.
"Yeah well I did a research paper on ARVC back when I was at med school so I've always been interested in it." Dean said with a humble shrug because he had the feeling Charlie was about to call him a genius when he was anything but. "Don't make a big deal out of it ok? Novak is probably going to shoot it down without even hearing Jo and Sarah out 'cause he seems like that kind of guy."
"Maybe or maybe you've just saved a patient's life." Charlie said with a warm smile.
"Winchester!" Jo called practically skipping into the intern's locker room near the end of their shift. The shift spent in the ER with Lafitte had been a learning curve even if it had been exhausting. How Jo could be skipping at the end of a shift was entirely beyond Dean. Charlie looked like she was contemplating sleeping on one of the wooden benches instead of actually having to move. "Winchester I could kiss you if you didn't stink of the ER."
"I wanna ask why but I'm just gonna roll with it." Dean said with a shrug. Jo rolled her eyes and gave him a small whack on the arm. "Ok, why do you wanna kiss me?"
"Novak went with the ICD and he got us to scrub in! My second shift and I've seen two heart surgeries! Two!" Jo said grinning from ear to ear. "He totally went with the idea and he let us scrub in!"
"That's cool. It's a good Novak listened to you guys." Dean said slinging his jacket on over his shirt. "The patient doing ok?"
"Yeah, he's doing well but we'll know more tomorrow. I'm going for a drink to celebrate. Sarah is staying to keep an eye on the patient for Novak but I think Adam is coming with me so you should join us. You were right about today so you deserve it." Jo said pulling out her street clothes from her locker.
"You sure?" Dean asked. Jo scoffed loudly and nodded her head.
"I'm sure, you were kind of a genius today so you deserve it." Jo said. "Charlie, you up for a drink? If you're awake that is."
"What?" Charlie asked blearily.
"Do you wanna come for a drink with us?" Jo asked smiling at Charlie's almost delirious look.
"Sure, I saw a guy's tibia snapped in two with the bone sticking out the flesh today so you better believe I need a drink…as long as someone carries me."
"You're tiny Charlie but I ain't gonna carry you to the bar." Dean said with a snort.
"Damn, just gonna have to use my legs then." Charlie groaned.
"We're meeting downstairs in a bout fifteen minutes after Adam gives Novak all the charts he did today. The guy is probably going to need the strongest drink ever."
"No doubt about that." Dean snorted. "I'll meet you two down there in a bit, I've got a few phone calls to make." He said nodding down at his phone. Jo nodded and took her street clothes with her to the changing room. There were unanswered text messages and he needed to speak to his mother before she got Sam to yell at him for her. Dean was walking out the intern's locker room, too busy looking down at his phone's screen to notice anything around him, someone stopped in front of him. Dean nearly walked right into whoever it was, dropping his phone in the process. "Watch where you're- shit sorry." Dean muttered when he realised it was Castiel Novak. Castiel bent down and handed the phone back to Dean before speaking.
"I'm sorry about that Winchester." Novak said quickly which was something of a surprise.
"No…no I should have been looking where I was going." Dean said just as hurriedly.
"I was actually coming to find you, I hoped you were still here." Novak said. Dean's stomach dropped because Novak was probably going to say a number of things and Dean doubted that they were be remotely generous. "I wanted to come to you and thank you for what you did today."
"Huh? I didn't really do anything today." Dean said.
"The idea that Blake and Harvelle came to me with was yours wasn't it? You were the only one to correctly name ARVC this morning and I have a feeling that the idea for ICD also came from you." Novak said raising his eyebrows expectantly.
"What? No…no it was-"
"Winchester I would prefer it if you didn't try to act humble when we both know it was your idea." Novak said holding up a hand to cut of Dean's babble.
"Yeah…yeah it did. I told them about it at lunch." Dean said because the strong stare Castiel Novak was giving him was more effective than a lie detector.
"That was a risky thing to do if it didn't work but for your sake it did. I'm having Blake keep an eye on the patient for me as I've got research to catch up on but like I said, you took a risk but it paid off. I hear Lafitte was impressed with you and Charlie Bradbury today as well. I'm glad to hear it." Novak said giving Dean a curt nod of his head. "Have a good evening Winchester." He added leaving Dean feeling incredibly confused as to what Castiel Novak was up to. Novak headed off down the hallway as Dean turned back to his phone which suddenly bleep loudly with a new message. Like before it was from an English phone. He couldn't put reading the message off for ever, in fact he wasn't ever sure why he was putting them off, and he knew that by doing so he was acting like a huge jerk. Taking a deep breath, and feeling like an anxious fourteen year old in the process, Dean open the message and quickly scanned the screen.
Wanted to know how your first few shifts went. Text back when you can.
He stood there staring at the text message for several minutes, his finger hovering over the tiny trash can icon, before he hit the reply button instead.
My resident is worse than half the doctors at Yale put together but the other interns seem cool. Trauma is just as crazy here as it was back at school. Hope London is treating you well.
It seemed the right mix between familiarity and distance, the kind of message you would send to someone you still cared about but knew it wasn't right being close to anymore. It was the kind of text message you sent to an ex-boyfriend.
Trips to the bar became a part of Dean's routine after that first week. Occasionally Dean and Jo were joined by Charlie and Sarah and even more frequently by Adam. It had taken a while for Dean to make friends when he was at KU and Yale but here in Chicago he felt like it needed friends more than he had needed them before. Maybe it was because he was far from home or maybe it was because he felt like a different person now but having Jo and the others around him made him feel less out of his depth. Nights spent in the bar, laughing and joking along with Jo over her spot-on impression of Castiel Novak, debating which Star Trek captain kicked the most ass with Charlie or finding mutual ground with Sarah over Dr Sexy, became a routine that Dean could get used to.
After being the last two standing Dean soon learnt that Jo was able to handle her beer so well because she'd grown up in a bar owned by her mother and step-father. Most of the time their conversations were light, mainly about tales from medical school but mainly how much of an ass Castiel Novak could be, and it wasn't until nearly a month into their internship that Jo asked Dean if he left a girlfriend back home.
The question had come about after Jo's lengthy rant about her tool of an ex-boyfriend who broke up with her when she was in med school because the pressure of dating a future surgeon became too much for him. Dean should have seen the question coming but when Jo asked him he felt his cheeks grow red under the bar's dim lights.
Heat flared up in his stomach as Jo shot him a questioning look. "Um no...I was with someone but we broke up a few months ago." Dean said cagily. He'd known Jo a month at best and he didn't feel like getting into his past relationship when it was still so fresh in his mind.
"Did the pressure of exams get too much or something?" Jo asked after yet another shot of Johnnie Walker Black label.
"No it wasn't anything like that, we were both at med school together so we were both under the same amount of exam stress and shit like that." Dean said.
"You're damn lucky there then." Jo said with a snort after she drained her own whiskey. Like Dean said, the girl was small but she could pack away her booze like a pro. "So why'd you two break up?" Jo asked. "Or is that gonna need another shot?"
"Are you just getting me drunk so I'll tell you all the personal shit you couldn't find out in my file?" Dean asked rolling his eyes.
"You caught me. I like knowing shit 'bout people, you can't blame a girl for that." Jo said shrugging. "Plus we're friends you listened to me rant away about my shitty ex without complaining." Jo calling them friends threw Dean for a loop. They were friends, heck they worked together for about a hundred hours a week and that would make anyone friends with someone in the end. Dean could probably do with talking to a friend about this sort of shit seeing as he never really spoke to Sam or his friends at Yale about it.
"We broke up because I got the placement here in Illinois and he got one in London." Dean let out before he realised what he'd actually just said. He'd meant to say 'they' not 'he'. Shit. He looked over to Jo who was just nodding her head. "I'm not...he...he was the first guy I dated. The only guy I've dated."
"Does it look like I'm judging you?" Jo asked. "I kinda guessed you weren't 100% super heterosexual seeing as you and Charlie had a two hour conversation about the latest season of Dr Sexy when we were watching the pericardiocentesis Adam scrubbed in on last week. No guy knows that much about the show and can still call himself a completely straight man, no offence."
"None taken I guess...you haven't mentioned it to anyone else have you?"
"What, my theory on Dr Sexy? It's kind of a given that most of the viewers are either gay men, bored housewives or medical junkies too scared of killing someone to study medicine."
"No, that you thought I wasn't straight."
"No." Jo said with a loud, throaty sounding scoff. "It's your business not mine so why would I?"
"You're not a bad friend you know that?" Dean said.
"Wait until you discover I can make cocktails, you'll want to slap a ring on my finger and never let me go." Jo said with a wide grin. "I make a mean Gunslinger." She added proudly. "Do...do you still talk to him? The ex?"
"Yeah, occasionally. We stayed friends afterwards but he's in England now so I haven't spoken to him for a while. We text each other from time to time though."
"Do you miss him?" Jo asked.
"Sort of I guess but we ended things on good terms and like I said, we're still friends."
"You're lucky, I never stayed friends with any of my exes...though it probably had more to do with my mama threatening to bust their knee caps for hurting her precious baby more than my personality flaws."
"Remind never to piss you off enough for you to call your mama." Dean said with a soft chuckle. Jo burst out with laughter that rang clear across the bar.
"Ellen Harvelle would whoop your ass clear across the state without even breaking a sweat." She said grinning brightly. As he watched Jo smile and order two more shots Dean felt the weight in his chest lift slightly. Moving away and accepting this job had changed a lot of things and it had ended a relationship but it all seemed for the best even. Sure Dean was still convinced that Castiel Novak was plotting his murder, along with Adam's seeing as the charting was never done on time, but Dean had friends and a job he actually loved so maybe, just maybe things were looking up for him.
AN: Sorry for the lack of Dean and Cas interaction in this but this is mainly just establishing the story so far. The next chapter (which shoudl be posted on Wednesday) is chock full of Dean and Cas interaction, I promise.
Medical Related Footnotes:
ARVC (The case Castiel had Jo and Sarah work on with him) stand for Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. ARVC is an inherited heart disease. It is caused by genetic defects on parts of the heart's muscle.
Sotalol(the drug Dean mentioned) is a drug used to help ARVC.
ICD (The idea to treat ARVC that Dean offers to Jo and Sarah) stand for Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator and it is a small battery-powered electrical impulse generator that is implanted in patients who are at risk of cardiac realted death.