#pre international rescue
Miscalculated- a sibling fluff snippet because I desperately needed to write one.
In which John picked a movie to watch with Alan. John didn’t pick well.
Running footsteps registered first, then his door banged open and a small figure bolted into his room, all but flew under the blankets and huddled up against him. Scott was awake enough to drape an arm over the trembling lump curled against his chest and look towards the open door as he became aware of a second set of running footsteps that heralded John, the second born looking sheepish.
“John?” Scott squinted against the light from the hallway. “Why is,” he paused to lift the blankets and check which small blond it was, “Alan in my bed?”
“I, uh, may have miscalculated.” John came in and crouched beside the bed to add his contribution to the comforting pats currently being delivered to the youngest.
“…miscalculated how?” Scott looked at him suspiciously.
“I, uh, may have let Alan watch Alien with me.” Was the reluctant admission.
Scott mentally face palmed. “Which Alien?” He asked. It’d been a pretty popular movie title over the years, but knowing his brother’s tastes as a classic sci-fi movie buff, he had suspicions.
“The 1979 one.” John admitted, looking down.
“The one with the facehuggers!?” Scott actually face palmed this time. “John! Why?”
“I forgot how bad it was!” John tried to defend himself. “We stopped before they got back on the ship.”
“John, you’re an idiot.” Scott sighed and pointed to the lump under his covers. “Did you forget this one is Alan who is seven. Se-ven. Gordon is the older one.” He shuffled back to make room, tugging Alan to move with him. “In. Help me fix this.”
“Understood.” John nodded and climbed in to help calm and comfort the understandably freaked out child.
In honour of Friday 13th and the fact that it’s almost a full moon, please enjoy this little fic @the-original-sineater encouraged me to write throwing pre-IR John into experiencing a trifecta- Friday (because drunks) + Friday 13th (weirdness) and full moon (more weirdness and busy)
All the cases that John referred to are real ones that either I’ve attended or a friend of mine has attended.
The Trifecta
“You’re not going to have time to eat that.”
John rolled his eyes and finished packing his dinner- leftover lasagna- into a container and put it into his insulated lunch bag. “I’ve told you already, it’s all confirmation bias and superstition, just like the ‘Q’ word. It’ll be fine, just like any other Friday night shift.”
“John, we’ve got the trifecta tonight. Friday night shifts in the city are bad enough, but it’s not just a Friday, it’s a Friday 13th and a full moon.” Scott got up off the couch, dug a handful of muesli bars out of the pantry and filled a thermos flask with coffee. “Look, just humour me, okay?” He said as he put them into John’s backpack. “If it’s all situation normal you can be smug, tell me ‘I told you so’ when you get back and I’ll never mention Friday 13th weirdness or the full moon crazy ever again. Deal?”
“Deal.” John nodded as he folded up his high viz vest and checked his small torch had a full charge before clipping it to his uniform shirt.
He, Scott and Virgil were in Auckland, New Zealand, finishing up a block of shifts as part of their paramedic studies. They were basing themselves out of the penthouse apartment on the Viaduct that Dad had bought years ago for when he had TI meetings here. Right now Virgil was on day shift at Rosedale Station, Scott was packing for his 8pm-8am shift in New Lynn and John had taken the 6pm-6am at Pitt St Station, right smack bang in the middle of the main nightclub area and bordering the red light district.
While he’d heard tales from his brothers, his lecturers and pretty much every paramedic and paramedicine student about full moon weirdness and Friday 13th chaos, the most pure-science minded of the siblings had chalked it all up to the strange things the human brain does in order to make sense of the irrational world around it. When he’d explained as such, citing studies that proved crews didn’t report more violence on full moons than on a standard Friday, in response almost everyone had asked if he’d ever worked a Friday 13th night shift or a Friday and full moon night shift. When he’d answered in the negative- until very recently he’d been needing full moons to make observations for one of his papers and had planned his shifts accordingly- they’d all smiled knowingly and uttered words to the effect of ‘wait and see’.
Tonight was the night he’d get to prove his claims.
“I might see you at Auckland ED.” John said in farewell as he pulled on a civilian coat to cover his green St John Ambulance uniform and swung his backpack over his shoulder. “Otherwise, see you in the morning.” He said as he went for the door.
“See you.” Scott waved, making up a second thermos of coffee for himself- unlike John he’d worked several Friday night shifts on a full moon- there was a very good reason he’d let John take the city shift and he’d taken the suburbs.
0o0o0
Two thirds of the way through the night, Scott was listening to the radio as he tidied up the back of the ambulance after their most recent patient. He paused as he heard the dispatcher sending City 1- John’s ambulance- to back up Fire at Aotea Square in the middle of the city, and grinned when he heard the note of dismay in his brother’s voice as he answered the dispatcher with ‘Responding.’
All the City trucks had been in high demand tonight, to the point where City 1 had two broken meal breaks before they got to have their first half hour break and dispatch had pulled ambulances in from Mt Wellington and the North Shore to meet the demand in town.
For a moment Scott considered texting John with ‘I told you so’, but decided against it.
It would be far more satisfying to say it in person.
0o0o0
It was quarter to ten by the time Scott made it back to the apartment- a late call at 7:34 am, before day shift arrived- took them deep into the Waitakere Ranges. It’d been a complicated call, extricating the patient down two flights of stairs had eaten up a lot of time and it’d taken quite a while to get the patient into a bed at Waitakere Hospital ED.
He knew Virgil wouldn’t be there, he had his second day shift, but to his surprise John was still up when he got inside, sitting sprawled on the couch and staring off into space.
“You okay John?” Scott asked as he dumped his bag and took off his boots (their ambulance boots never went further than the door- bodily fluids.)
“…I get it now.” John managed to scrape together enough brain cells to respond. “That… that thing. I get it now.” He shook his head and leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees and rest his face in his hands. “We were so busy and so many cases were just…weird! There isn’t an option on the form to log ‘patient is weird’!” He shifted to peer at Scott from between his fingers. “That one in Aotea Square? Drunk woman who got stuck up a tree. And then we went to a guy with an eyelash stuck in his eye, the way he was carrying on you’d think he had a two by four through his head! And we got called to a guy with a blocked nostril! Just one! He called and said ‘I can’t breathe in and I can’t breathe out!’ and he insisted that he had to go to ED for that! Then someone wanted his toenails cut at three in the morning!” John made a noise of dismay and dragged his hands down his face. “Just… a whole night of that… no let up. I just…ugh…no. Not doing that again.”
“Told you so.” Scott couldn’t help himself as he reached down to help John to his feet. “Come on, go have a shower and sleep, you’ll feel better after a nap.”
“Yeah, I deserve that.” John ruefully accepted the help and let Scott shepherd him off to the nearest bathroom.
