“It’s been a relatively quiet shift.”
Jack’s eyes fly open at the word. He wasn’t even aware that he’d shut them in his small moment of bliss, but he had. Now they’re locked on Shen after he turned his head slowly to find his target.
Shen stands behind the nurses station not looking the least bit bothered as Jack thinks of a million and ten ways to murder him while making it look like an accident. He should be lucky Shen had the foresight to move away from him before saying that. Otherwise Jack would have strangled him in front of everyone.
“Shen,” Jack beckons him over with two fingers. “Come here.”
Lena watches with wide eyes while Crus takes a whole two steps back despite being on the other side of the nurses station and twice the size of Jack. Joy silently gets her phone out, a beep coming from it to signal its recording.
Shen has the cognitive awareness to pick up on the mood shift in the room, taking a step back from Jack much like Crus did. “I think I’m good.”
“Yeah, come here, Shen.” Ellis commands, face neutral but Jack knows her better than that.
Shen takes a step in her direction. “You going to protect me?”
“No, I’m going to slap the shit out of you.” Ellis corrects him and in a swift move Shen is stepping behind Lena for cover.
“Why is everyone so superstitious!? You can’t tell me that all of you believe that crap.” Shen tries to defend himself, clinging to his half empty Dunkin for dear life.
There’s an uproar of disagreement from the small crew as they all verbally reprimand Shen for his ridiculous comment. Even Lena who moves away, leaving him undefended as she collects papers to sort.
“Lena–” Shen tries.
“Don’t look at me, Kid. I’ve been doing this since Dana and I were still in nursing school and even then everyone knew not to say the ‘Q’ word.” Brushing a red strand of hair from her face Lena looks to Jack.
He scrubs a hand over his face and counts backwards from twenty, trying to listen to the little voice in his head that sounds an awful lot like Samira and not murder his fellow attending. Naturally she’s the angel on his shoulder. But the little devil that’s cursing on his other shoulder is terribly persuasive and preying on Jack’s thinning temperament.
That little devil is Robby.
“I should bust you in the mouth for that.” Jack grounds out, jaw working. “You’re with Joy, go discharge strep throat in ten. And Shen,” Jack demands his attention before the attending can duck out. “Stay six feet away from me until shift change.”
“It's for the best, it's when the old man sees his wife.” Lena consoles a stuttering, dejected Dr. Shen. “We still love you, dear.”
Shen leaves with his Dunkin and Joy in tow to go discharge and Jack rolls out his shoulders at the tension starting to grow between them.
“Make sure he doesn’t say anything else fucking stupid, Kwon!” Jack calls after them.
“On it, Cap.” She calls back, typing away on her phone.
Jack has no doubt that the video she took is going to end up in the group chat later.
Read the rest here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/83020306
