Carter was drunk.
He was sober enough to be aware of that fact. Aside from that one
coherent thought though, the rest was starting to become pretty
blurry.
He didn't have a clue how long he'd been sat there, but he knew it
had been a while. Originally he'd come in with Malik, Haleh, Chuny
and Jing-Mei just for an after work drink, but one by one they'd up
and left him, all gone home to partners, families and somehow he
hadn't felt like leaving.
Not just yet.
He snorted.
Three months ago he'd been in the same position. He'd had Abby.
Partner, girlfriend, whatever you called it. But now. Nothing. He
sighed and took a sip of his whiskey.
He hadn't come in with the intention of getting drunk. That had just
sneaked up on him. Hadn't intended to sit here like a depressed
alcoholic, staring at the bottom of his glass and getting
steadily 'unsteadier'. He felt sad; looked sad, he knew. He wasn't
even sure why he was feeling so...., depressed was the only word for
it. It wasn't as though he'd been feeling all that bad really.
Both he and Abby had parted on fairly amicable terms. As amicable as
you can be after almost six months of an fairly intense and serious
relationship. But still, when Abby had transferred out to Lakeside a
month after they had parted, he'd felt sad, felt lonely, felt torn
apart; but he'd got over it. Moved on and wished her all the best.
Now he just felt empty.
He sighed again.
Maybe it was him. He was twenty nine and still single. Only one or
two really serious relationships behind him, but a plethora of failed
attempts littered his past. Maybe there was something wrong with
him.
Something. Wrong. With. Him.
He rolled the words around in his head and decided he liked the way
they sounded.
He was still silently musing on his general self loathing, self-
pitying and knocking back another whiskey when he felt someone sit
down on the bar stool next to him, feeling the gentle waft of air as
a coat was placed across someone's lap. Bleary eyed, he turned his
head expecting to find some woman parked next to him in an attempt to
pick him up. It had happened three times already that night since
he'd been on his own, each time he'd politely but firmly let them
know he wasn't interested. He might be on his own, drunk and
depressed but a one night stand with a complete stranger was not the
way he wanted his night to end.
Focusing his eyes, he was startled then to find Luka Kovac gazing
back at him.
"Luka?" He managed to croak. He cleared his throat and tried
again. "What are you doing here?" Hey, score one, he thought, no
slurring. He mentally grinned to himself.
"Same as you by the looks of it." The accent had deepened slightly
more, the only real indication that Kovac had also been drinking.
The melodic drawl rolled off his tongue and for a moment or two that
was all Carter could seem to focus on. Kovac lifted his own glass to
his lips and took a long swallow. Bourbon, Carter's slow brain
managed to inform him, the smell wafting across in the close
space. "I was sat over in the corner for a while but then I spotted
you and I thought, why not drown my sorrows with some company. If
that is okay with you?" He added at the end, eyebrows raising
slightly in inquiry.
"Sure." Carter quickly replied, inbred politeness running on
instinct. It was only after the words were out that he suddenly
remembered that technically he and Luka were enemies. Over Abby.
Nothing had ever been resolved since all that hoo-har months ago, but
since he and Abby were no longer an item and Luka looked about as
happy as he did, he couldn't seem to come up with any other argument
and his confused and over worked mind decided to forget about it.
Luka apparently had by coming across and speaking to him. He
couldn't remember a time when they had spoken at all without it being
work related or publicly necessary.
"So what are you trying to forget?"
There was that accent again. John closed is eyes momentarily before
kicking his brain into gear. "Nothing special. Just feeling a bit
sorry for myself is all." He shrugged.
Luka nodded. He stared at his drink, swirling the ice around
lazily. He was slumped slightly in his seat, elbows resting lightly
on the bar. "I think I know what you mean." He spoke carefully and
slowly.
Carter turned to look at him steadily. "What about you? You look
about as cheerful as the average patient."
Luka snorted softly. "Just...doing some thinking."
"Always a dangerous thing to do that." Carter smiled and waved his
glass at Luka knowingly.
Luka smiled back, though it didn't seem to reach his eyes. "Fatal."
He paused for few moments as thought weighing what to say. Carter
however, engrossed in ordering another drink, didn't notice. Sitting
back with a fresh whiskey, a-la-on-the-rocks, Carter took a small
sip, savouring the rich taste. "I saw you earlier, sending those
women away." His tone was light, almost casually light, but there
was a questioning air about it.
"What women? Oh those..." His memory suddenly kicked in. The ones
who'd tried to chat him up. "What about them?" He suddenly had a
thought. "Hey, how long were you watching me?" The first woman had
been over an hour ago, not long after Malik had finally left. He
frowned at Luka, blinking to keep him in focus
"Not long." Luka shrugged it off. "I was just curious."
"Curious?" Carter frowned again, brown eyes slitted in confusion.
"Why you send them away?" He paused. "I....have not been," he
searched for the right word," as gentlemanly as that. In the past."
"Gentlemanly?" Carter repeated again and then, realising how much
like a parrot he was sounding, closed his mouth.
"Yes." Luka sighed, knocking back the rest of his own drink and
signalling the bartender for another. "You did know that at least
one of them was a prostitute, no?"
Carter blinked.
"You didn't?"
Carter shook his head and then turned back to his drink. "Wow." He
smiled slightly. "My lucky night. At least I wasn't hurting
anyone's feelings then. Always hate that." He took a drink.
Luka watched him. "You are an amazing man," he said at last.
Carter turned and looked at him in frowned confusion, a smile
hovering at his mouth. "Huh?"
"Your depth of consideration for other people. Even when you are in
the midst of your own personal depression."
Carter watched the man for a moment deciding if the Croatian was
being sarcastic. Seeing nothing but honesty in the dark eyes, he
shook his head. "Oh this isn't depression. This is just me feeling
sorry for myself. I can't even blame it on a bad day at work."
Carter ran his thumb over the polished wood of the bar. "No, this is
just a personal pity party thrown exclusively by me, fuelled by
alcohol and a bit of loneliness."
"Abby?" The quiet word startled Carter for a moment. He turned to
Luka, seeing the other man staring at the bar.
"Yeah. Maybe." He shrugged again. "Maybe not. Maybe its just
general loneliness. Not having someone there. Anyone there."
Luka found himself nodding unconsciously. After a few long moments,
he held up his drink. "Here's to being single, being lonely and
being...."
"...a man," Carter finished for him. Luka threw him a questioning
look to which Carter just laughed, shrugged and clinked his glass
against Luka's. Luka broke into a grin and clinked back. Together
they drained they glasses.
An hour later and both men were a lot more unsteady than they had
been when Luka had first sat down. Carter, already half a sheet to
the wind when the Croatian had joined him was now happily pissed.
Luka although not as gone as his colleague was definitely passed the
point of more sensible thought.
He felt the laughter roll out of him as something Carter had said,
set them both off and he realised he hadn't felt as good as that in
years.
Literally.
He'd come to the bar earlier for the same reason he had for the past
few months. Searching for someone. Anyone. A woman to satisfy his
physical urges. Urges that had seemed to get more intense and more
difficult to ignore as the weeks went by. He had no idea when or why
it had started. A small part of his brain told him distantly, it was
some kind of reaction to his past, to Croatia, to his own loneliness;
his inability to find anyone to connect with on any sort of level. A
plea for companionship, a plea for comfort. The other part of him
just knew that it was getting out of control.
Sat here with Carter though, he felt as though a part of him had
lifted. Watching Carter, listening to and talking with the man on a
level he had never achieved in the past. They own differences,
admittedly mostly Abby, getting in the way and preventing them from
engaging in any sort of friendship.
Sat here now he wondered at that.
He had always held a grudge against Carter for taking Abby away.
Always felt an animosity towards the man that he had never really
understood properly. Now that Abby was out of the picture he
couldn't understand why he had never got to know the man better. An
vague idea was tapping away at the back of his mind but in his
drunken state he ignored it.
Carter was hunched over his drink almost protectively. A small smile
still played at the corners of his mouth and Luka stared at it.
Moving his arm suddenly, almost jerkily, Carter knocked over the
drink of the man stood the other side of him.
"Oh God, sorry," he slurred, mortified. He struggled to stand and
only proceeded to stumble into the man and push him out of his
seat. "Sorry. Sorry, I......."
"Okay, mate time for you and your pal to go home I think." The
bartender moved towards them, putting a hand out to Carter.
"Really, I don't think...." Carter started but Luka, seeing the look
on the bartender's face and the guy who's drink had been lost,
intercepted swiftly.
"Carter, come on. We can go back to yours, or mine if its nearer."
He tried to enunciate his words as carefully as he could, knowing
from experience that the more drink he had the deeper his accent
became. He threw smile at the guy who was still rubbing down his
coat. "Sorry, he can't hold his drink very well you know."
"Hey," came an indignant voice from behind his left ear as he
manoeuvred them both away from the bar. "Yes I can. I've just been
sat down too long, that's all."
The man and the bartender just threw them a look as he managed to get
them both to the door of the bar without further incident. Luka had
pulled his own coat on and was now helping a rather co-ordinationally
challenged Carter to do the same. Once Carter was done and with his
scarf firmly wrapped around his neck, Luka laid a steadying hand on
Carter's shoulder and steered them down the street.
"Where do you live?"
"Huh?" Carter's voice was slightly muffled against the scarf
protecting him against he bitter chill of the Chicago night air. It
had snowed yet again, the whole of the city covered in a blanket of
whiteness.
"Where do you live. I want to make sure you get home okay."
"I'm not that drunk, Luka." His statement was followed by a rather
ungainly trip at which Luka just sniggered. Carter glared, stuffing
his hands further into his pockets. "You're not much better yourself
anyway."
Watching the slightly out of balance world shifting around him, Luka
had to concede Carter was right. Although he had been drinking as
long as the other man, he was bigger built and taller and therefore
able to hold his drink better. Well almost. When he tripped he
found Carter's hand gripping his arm to steady him, its owner in
peels of laughter.
Carter rattled off his address whilst adjusting his grip on the other
doctor's arm and leaving it there, feeling Luka's hand rest on his
own shoulder. When at last they reached the front of his building,
he paused and started to dig in his pockets. Luka waited patiently
as Carter fumbled in first one pocket and then another, finally
delving inside his coat to his trouser pocket where with a flourish
and a grin he found his keys. He stumbled up the steps, slipping
slightly on the snow that was stuck to the surface.
"Are you coming up?"
Luka paused. He'd only meant to get Carter safely back to his place
and then negotiate his way back to his own apartment, which by
coincident was only a couple of blocks down. Gazing for a moment at
Carter's back and feeling the biting chill of the air around him he
hesitated for only a moment before climbing the steps after him.
Once inside, the warmth of the apartment hit him immediately and he
smiled to himself as Carter threw off his coat onto a nearby chair
and weaved unsteadily across the hallway towards the kitchen.
"Make yourself at home," he waved a hand behind him in the general
direction of the living room. Luka did as he was told and removing
his own coat, lay it on the back of the same chair. He sat down on
the couch and looked about him, ignoring the way the world was still
slanting slightly.
"It was all I could find."
He turned and saw Carter come back into the room brandishing two
glasses and a bottle of red wine.
"I don't tend to keep much alcohol in the apartment," he paused his
eyes sliding off to the side, "old habits I suppose."
Luka thought back to Abby and her alcoholism and nodded
slightly. "No problem. Red wine is my favourite anyhow." He smiled
back at Carter who returned it with a radiant smile of his own. Luka
caught his breath suddenly and started, but before he could wonder at
his reaction, Carter had moved forward and plopped himself down on
the floor in front the couch. The corkscrew hovered over the top of
the bottle and after the fifth attempt to get it lined up had failed,
Luka reached over and took it from Carter's unresisting hands.
"Sorry," Carter grinned.
Luka just smiled as the screw sank into cork and resting the bottle
between his knees, proceeded to wind it in. He glanced over to
Carter who was watching the operation with great interest. Wide
clear brown eyes watched with rapture as the corkscrew went down and
then was pulled up.
The glasses were passed up to him and between the two of them they
poured two full glasses of red wine. Clinking them together they
toasted each other before tasting.
"Good." Luka complimented Carter.
Carter just shrugged. He sighed and leaned back against the couch,
his shoulder just inches away from Luka's leg. They sat and drank in
companionable silence, neither man feeling the need to fill in the
quiet, but after a while Carter pushed himself up and walked on his
knees over to a small stereo and hitting a button filled the room
with low music. Luka didn't recognise it but it was a woman's voice,
haunting and soft. He sat back and let the notes and melody roll
over him.
Copyright Footer', 'This site is not affiliated in any way with "ER", its writers or production company, or NBC, and makes no profit from the show. The ERROS skin is by Brihana. The script is eFiction version 3.4.2© Tammy Keefer, http://efiction.org\r\n