Bedside Manner (Law x Reader)

12. One Hundred Sixty-Two

Heat: Will you try talking to him again?

Heat: We've missed having you around.

You dropped your phone onto the break room table, moving to massage your temples. You should have just called them off of Kid's cell. Now, they had your new number and you didn't have the heart to block them.

All the clinic hours you had originally picked up to avoid Law were now serving a new purpose. It gave you a reason not to go down to visit Kid. You were too busy.

If you weren't making rounds with Sachi, you were sitting in on a surgery. You had been quieter- enough to have been noticed. You weren't arguing with the attendings or even butting heads with Law.

Even Trafalgar had acted out of what everyone had come to accept as your normal. He would redirect questions to you, seeking out your opinion. He had even took your side just the day before and it was probably because of that, that the situation didn't escalate further.

You were no longer biting his head off for simply glancing your way. That old agitation had been replaced with something unfamiliar. You hadn't had time to dissect it and give it a name.

Your phone began to violently vibrate across the break room table. You set your jaw, endeavoring to ignore it. But each time it stopped, it would just start up again.

"Persistent punks." You shut your phone off without even so much as glancing at the screen.

"You haven't loaded your clinic hours onto someone else yet- yoi?" Marco teased as he made a beeline for the pot of coffee. His favorite mug already in hand.

You huffed. "No one would take them."

The blond settled into the seat across from you and was quiet for a few moments that seemed to drag on forever. He studied your features with such an intensity that it felt like you were sitting in on a session with Kureha.

Finally, he leaned back and chuckled at your expense. "You haven't exactly made any friends around here."

"We get along just fine. And I guess Sachi is alright."

You shrugged in time for the nurse to poke his head into the break room.

"Hey boss man, taking my thirty outside." He informed with a grin, perking up further when he noticed you. "Oh hey, you're here. Law was asking after you."

With those words, he was gone-- off to meet up with Penguin from radiology, you presumed. You shook your head and went to take a drink from your coffee only to realize the mug was empty. You sighed.

"Seems like you could add Doctor Trafalgar to that short little list of yours." Marco mused. "You two seem to be getting along lately."

"What would you know of how I get on with the other residents over in the hospital wing?"

"Avoiding the question, are we?" He smirked. "The nurses all talk."

Ugh, nurses.

"A guy grows on you after you've been stuck in an elevator with him."

A dull beep sounded, turning your attention away from the man to the pager in your pocket.

Room H312.

"You're working a clinic shift while on call at the hospital?" Marco asked.

You swallowed past the lump in your throat, lips parting to say no, but no sound came out.

"y/n?"

-

Heat and Wire had been pushed out into the hall. They had already removed Kid from the room, but they couldn't bring themselves to go back inside. They leaned against the wall to remain out of the way of staff moving throughout the hall, keeping a lookout for any of the staff that had been with Kid.

You hesitated to approach, but one good look at the fear in their eyes and you were closing the distance. "What happened?"

"He was fine and then all of a sudden he was confused, agitated." Wire shook his head. "His injured ass even tried taking a few swings at us, trying to leave."

"He was struggling to breathe when they rushed him out." Heat added. "No one's told us anything."

"I'll see what I can find out." You reached out and squeezed their upper arms. Were they always that much taller than you? "He'll be fine because if he isn't, I'm going to bring him back just to kick his ass myself."

You thought you might have seen Wire's lips twitch upward, but you couldn't be sure. You were already on your way to figure out which operating room they had taken your hot-headed brother to.

-

You watched the surgery through the window, unable to scrub in and be right at the man's side. Your eyes were fixed on the monitors, watching his vitals as they worked. You had never asked who was leading the surgery and it was hard to tell when they were all wearing their proper protective gear.

His pulse remained steady and his oxygen looked good. He was stable for the moment.

Time was something that no longer existed in those one hundred and sixty-two minutes that it took them to complete the operation. You were counting each pulse on the monitor, every muted tick of the clock on the wall. Counting kept you from regretting that you never went back to talk to him sooner. Maybe you would have noticed something amiss before it got to the point it was now.

A good knock to his head like when you were kids would straighten him out. You wouldn't care if he continued to place the blame onto you-- you did that yourself. You just missed him.

When they were finally tugging that last stitch into place, you let your forehead fall against the glass.

The tension seemed to melt away, but your fingers still twitched at your side before curling into a tight fist.

"l/n-ya." Law's even tone greeted you. "Eustass-ya is stable. We'll be monitoring for a while yet, to be certain."

You nodded against the glass; you felt glued to that spot. "What went wrong?"

"They missed some things the first time they stitched him up." The man's brow twitched in annoyance. "There was some extensive internal bleeding."

"Dumbasses."

"I was just on my way to deliver the update to those two."

You straightened out with a distracted hum. You looked to the dark haired man and part of you expected to see him in dirtied scrubs, splashed with Kid's blood. You were surprised to see that you had stood there so long, he had already changed out of the soiled scrubs and cleaned himself up.

"It was you that paged me, wasn't it?" You asked.

Law didn't provide you with a verbal confirmation. His eyes cast over your form briefly before he turned on his heel to leave.

"Are you coming or not?"