Who?
nickthewarbler and
warble_on_jeff (with Rory Matheson)
What? "Oh, I wish you'd open up for me, cause I wanna know you..."
When? Late Sunday night
Where? Nick and Rory's apartment
It had been a hell of a long shift for Jeff. One of those stupid nights when everything that could go wrong did, short of, thank God, losing a patient. He'd been about to shower and change when his pager had buzzed. They were shorthanded in the OR on an emergency surgery, and they needed him to come help out. Jeff figured he had nothing better to do, other than go home and sleep, so he headed right back into surgery to lend a hand.
What he hadn't anticipated was the doctor running into complications, though he wasn't sure why. Surgeries always seemed to go off without a hitch in the middle of his shift, and then hit every complication in the book when it was time for him to leave. The patient had made it, though, and Jeff had quickly caught a shower and changed, fully intending to go home and sleep for a day and a half or something, since he was about to start his off days. But when he decided to check Facebook before walking out the door to his car, Jeff noticed the post from Nick, timestamped only a few minutes earlier. He wasn't sure why, but he'd somehow ended up planning to head over to Nick's, and it was probably for the best, given that Nick's place was closer to the hospital than his own, and he was fucking exhausted.
He followed his GPS's directions to the apartment complex where Nick lived, and parked his silver Civic, climbing out of the car and walking toward Nick's building. He couldn't deny that it was nice to have his former best friend so close again. He found himself really hoping that he and Nick would have a chance to rebuild what they'd lost over the years, and work things out again. No matter how good things were, Jeff couldn't deny that it had always felt like a piece of him was missing without Nick in his life for the past several years. Maybe this would finally be his chance to regain that.
When he got to Nick's door, he could hear his friend's son through the door, obviously feeling quite miserable. Jeff felt for the kid, and for his dad, and he hoped like hell it didn't make anything worse when he knocked gently. "Nicky, it's me," he called out through the door, hoping he wasn't being too loud.