Tirades
And go!
After dealing with Kingsman’s drunk would-be-almost confessions, a hungover Chloe, a pissed off then naive Kingsman, the even more insufferable elder Kingsmans, a crying and possibly endangered patient, and then goddamn Kingsman again, Justin just wanted to go home, drink a few beers and pass out watching shitty television reruns. The longest consult of his career, almost two hours of a woman being terrified over her otherwise perfectly healthy husband needing a small stint, did not help matters any. He didn’t have any consults for the rest of the day, but he knew Bob would chew him out for leaving early, regardless of the fact that his patients were fine, so he flicked the lights off and laid down on the couch that was often neglected during time of rushing between patient’s rooms or rushing out of the hospital when he could leave.
Of course he’d only just shut his eyes when the door swung open, bouncing loudly off of the wall, and the blinding light came back on. “Well, fuck you too,” Justin mumbled, rolling over to face the back of the couch, in an attempt that he knew would be ignored, to try and silently tell her to leave him alone.
“Sorry not my type,” came what had become her automatic response since the first time he’d drunkenly yelled the words at her back in college after they had crashed a particularly boisterous frat party, during which she’d managed to cockblock him at least three times. Or at least, she’d told him that she had, for his own good. He couldn’t remember anything past the fourth game of beer pong. Or fifth, maybe. He hoped that would be the end of it, and she would just leave, but an insistent hand was tugging at his shoulder trying to get him to roll back over.
“Goddamnit, Chloe. Just let me sleep. I’m tired of dealing with people’s shit today,” he snapped at her.
“Yeah well, there’s more shit going on to deal with, so get up,” Chloe snapped back at him.
“Why?” He demanded petulantly, looking over his shoulder to glare at her.
“Because someone needs to go fuck some sense into the good doc, and I’m missing a vital body part.”
Justin rolled his eyes and returned to his attempted sleep position on the couch. “He’s getting married, get over it,” he mumbled, the words tasting strange even as they came off his tongue. Kingsman, married. The same guy, the only guy since his college boyfriend, that had spent more than one night in his bed. That Chloe had attached herself to and befriended, that Justin even found himself—not caring for, just being protective over. The same way that he was protective over his hospital. It wasn’t Justin’s fault that Kingsman’s parents had the kid whipped, but he damn sure wasn’t going to let his patients of his hospital suffer because of it. If they wanted to threaten his patient, or take one of the few competent doctors in the hospital away, they’d have to deal with him first.
“No, he’s not. We have to stop it. You didn’t hear how this guy talked, oh my god. He’s insufferable,” Chloe whined.
“Sounds like someone else you enjoy complaining about,” Justin said, earning a sharp swat on the back of his shoulder.
“Not like your kind of insufferable,” she said. “You’re insufferable, but it’s okay, because you’re brilliant and you save lives. Even if you’re not nice to people, you keep them alive. He’s just— horrible. He thinks he’s like, god’s gift to the world or something.”
“Also sounds familiar,” Justin noted.
“Justin, will you please be serious?”
Finally sitting up, Justin turned to face her, hands rising as if he was going to make a point, then just dropping to his knees. “What do you want from me? This isn’t some stupid rom-com, alright? I’m not going to go running after an idiot doctor that fucking agreed to an arranged marriage. I don’t care, Chloe. He can do whatever he wants. And you just—You have to let him. He’s a doctor. He’s not your child. What Kingsman wants to do, he can do. As for me, I just want to take a nap, make my rounds tonight, then go home. I want to drink a beer, and watch whatever movie or stupid reruns you want to watch, if you decide to join me. But that’s it. No complaining about the dumbass doc, or his matador fiancé. Can’t you just let this go?”
Chloe pressed her lips together, and he knew she wasn’t going to let it go, but she nodded anyway. “I will let it go for tonight.” He could tell she wanted to say something else. She was biting her lip in a way that he’d told her once in college made her look like she was holding back literal word vomit. That was fine with him. He’d have to listen to all of her rants, her anger at him and at Kingsman later. But he didn’t want to now. It was just too…weird. For the five hundred and thirty seventh time that day, his brain decided to unhelpfully replay Kingsman’s drunken words from the beach about missing him. Not just the sex, but actually him. Followed by him telling Justin the next morning—this morning? fuck, it had been a long day—that Justin had successfully ruined other men and sex for him for the rest of his married life. Which some small part of Justin took pride in, but the larger part of him just wanted to bleach the last twelve hours from his brain. With any luck, Chloe would bring enough alcohol to his place tonight that he could make a spectacular effort at accomplishing that.














