DEE KNEW it was going to be a bad day when the first call they got was about a guy half out of his mind on bath salts, with several severed toes. He was holding most of them, so reattachment was a possibility, but first the cops had to talk him off the roof.
He and Shep stood by, emergency kits ready, quietly talking between themselves. They had hypos loaded with Ativan and the most powerful anesthetic they had in the rig, because guys on bath salts were worse than people on angel dust. The fact the guy was standing on a roof with a handful of his own toes spoke to that. According to his wasted but otherwise coherent girlfriend, he thought his toes were full of bugs, and he’d cut them off with their one good knife. Judging from the state of those toes, the knife wasn’t very sharp at all, and he’d really gone in for the hack and slash. The fact he’d remained conscious for three toes, and the pain was so negligible he could actually pace the roof on his mangled foot, spoke to how genuinely psychotic bath salts could make a person. Much like its spiritual cousin, meth, it could vary in its effects and toxicity, depending on what kind it was and who made it with what, as there were variations on basic recipes.
While one of the cops tried to talk the guy off the roof, the other cop came over and asked if there was anything they could do. They were limited in how they could help, as neither he nor Shep were going to climb a ladder and get on a roof with a guy having a violent psychotic episode, but he was bleeding pretty copiously, and while the bath salts were keeping him free of pain and in a good psycho ramble, eventually his lowered blood level was going to knock him out. They were just curious how much blood he was going to lose before his brain finally dropped him.
Dee and Shep timed him, and it was 26.7 minutes from their arrival on the scene until the guy finally stopped ranting, paused, and keeled over as though a sniper had just taken him out. They expected to find him dead when they got up to the roof, because he’d been bleeding out for almost a solid half hour, but nope. Even though the roof looked like someone had hosed it down with pasta sauce, he was on his back making blood angels, twitching and moaning as the drugs were still fighting with his consciousness.
They shot him full of sedatives, applied a tourniquet, and managed to get him down and into the back of the rig. Even as they strapped him down, he was still making noises. It seemed to be a violation of every physical law they knew, but that actually happened a lot. Look at Roan. When he took down that gunman, he’d gotten shot what, five times, six? Dee hadn’t been on that day, but Shep had, and he’d seen to Roan. Not only did he never lose consciousness, but none of the bullet wounds were serious. What had almost killed him was the aneurysm he’d started having before he even got shot at. Meaning he’d taken on a crazy gunman midaneurysm. He should have been dead about two times over before he was even shot. But that was Roan for you. So contrary he wouldn’t even die when he was supposed to.
After crazy bath-salts guy, the rest of the day seemed relatively tame, even though they had a woman with a breach birth, a drunk man with a skull fracture and a gushing head wound, and a five-year-old who had been accidentally shot by his ten-year-old brother. It was one of those days when he could totally understand why someone would drop out of being a paramedic. You helped people, but there was no getting around the fact it was a sad job. And bloody. After bath-salts guy, it looked as though he and Shep had been slaughtering buffaloes with their bare hands. (And bath-salts guy did survive. But most of his toes were too damaged to reattach, so he was just going to have to live with a mutilated foot.)
When their shift was finally over, it was night and starting to drizzle. Dee was both exhausted and hungry, but he had yet to figure out a way to eat while taking a nap. If he ever did find a way, he had to patent it, as he’d make a million dollars from night-shift workers alone.
There were several places open, but he made his way to Gracie’s all-night diner, for the familiarity if nothing else. Also, they did really good greasy classic diner food, and he felt like a cheeseburger. He might skip the ketchup tonight, though.
He slid into a back booth with a tired sigh, and Wanda, one of the night-shift waitresses, recognized him and came over with a glass of orange juice before he could even order. That was one of the great things about being a regular. Dee ordered the cheeseburger with almost everything and the fries, even though he knew he shouldn’t have fries. They tasted great but were so bad for you. The problem was, most things that tasted great were horrible for you.
For some reason, that reminded him he wouldn’t have Roan to break up the tedium of his day anymore. Roan and Dylan were moving to Canada. And while moving was usually a pretty long process, they were escaping like thieves in the night. It seemed drastic, but also, it totally made sense. Roan couldn’t have much time left, and if he wanted to spend any quality time with his husband, he had to get out of here. Otherwise the temptation to shift, to help people, would be too much for Roan. He’d know he was shortening his life every time he went on the cat hunt, but he’d still do it. Roan couldn’t help himself. His savior complex was an addiction he had to quit cold turkey. The Seattle PD would miss him just as much.
He actually felt sad about this. Never mind that Dee had his private e-mail, the one Roan rarely shared with anyone, and that Roan promised to call as soon as they had their phone set up. Roan had been his friend so long he’d almost forgotten he’d briefly been his intense, frustrating boyfriend. They had turned out to be much better friends than boyfriends, and maybe in hindsight, that made total sense. Roan was really not Dee’s usual type: he was extremely pale—Dee did not, as a rule, find gingers sexy—he was a cop, and he seemed to be one of those hypermasculine types who Dee always assumed were compensating for something. But to write Roan off as any of those things was severely underestimating him.
Dee had first noticed Roan on the job, as he was not a squeamish cop. That had led to Dee really seeing him, his somehow exotic green eyes and dark hair that was red but still sometimes looked black or brown. He had an air about him that was alluring yet hard to quantify, and later on, Dee would recognize that was probably some of Roan’s lion side bleeding out into human him. It did make him seem slightly regal, and so very dangerous, which could be its own form of sexual catnip. Dee had told Roan he was unlike any cop he’d ever met, which was true but was also a lie of omission, because Roan was unlike anyone he’d ever met, period. That was still true. He was rough and ready, lived for a good fight, but he was deeply nerdy and was as happy as hell getting lost in a book for several hours. He was a mass of contradictions, not the least of which was being a sexy redhead. (No, seriously, gingers were not a draw for him.) How he had become his best friend was one of those things Dee couldn’t explain, not even to himself. And for a best friend, Dee wanted to punch him in the face so much, it was unbelievable.
Of course, he never did. He wasn’t that type of guy. Also, Roan totally could have kicked his ass, so that was a fight he never wanted to start. But he was surprised by how much he was going to miss Roan. He would not miss his frustrating ability to attract the hottest guys you could think of, though.
Mentally, he tried to unwind as he sat back in the booth and closed his eyes. He concentrated on the sizzling noises from the grill and the faint sounds of the Spanish-language radio station coming from the back and did his best to ignore the rambling, possibly drunken conversation between two hipsters at the counter. Dee never liked beards—although he wasn’t averse to a good bear from time to time—and he was glad he was too tired to get up and see if he could pull them out the door by their beards alone. But then again, Shep had a beard. A very close-cropped one, and not because he was a hipster, but because, as he said, he had no chin. The beard was just to indicate where his face stopped.
Dee opened his eyes to find an Asian guy standing by his table. Seeing his eyes opened, he waved. Dee guessed he was in his late twenties, and he was wearing a blue button-down shirt and jeans, as well as glasses that were neither dorky enough nor chic enough to be a hipster affectation.
“Uh, hi. I’ve seen you in this place the same time as me so many times I thought I’d finally come over and say hello. You work at the hospital?”
Dee slowly realized he vaguely recognized the man. He’d seen him at the far corner booth or at the counter last week, and the week before that. He was a guy who had sort of blended into the background for him, one of the late-night regulars. “Sort of. I’m a paramedic. You?”
“Dispatch,” he said, briefly pulling his security badge out of his pocket. Dee saw his name was Barrett Chang before he put it away. “Would, uh, would it be okay if I joined you? I mean, if you’d rather not, that’s cool—”
“Why not?” Dee said. He wasn’t sure he wanted the company, but anything to get his mind off today. Besides, his stammering nervousness was kind of charming.
Barrett smoothed down his slightly unruly black hair before sliding into the bench seat across the table from him. He’d remembered to bring his glass of soda with him. “Thanks. I didn’t mean to be forward, it’s just… I thought it might be fun to meet someone who works my terrible hours but isn’t a coworker.”
Dee shrugged with his hands. “Here I am. If you want gross stories, I’m your guy.”
He smiled faintly, holding his cup in both hands. Barrett seemed really nervous. Was he going to pitch a religious conversion to him or ask him out? Dee was kind of curious. “Yeah, I know it’s not an easy job. I actually thought about being a paramedic for, like, five minutes. Then my roommate cut his hand, and I realized lots of blood makes me kinda nauseous.”
“Yeah. It’s not a job for the squeamish.” He almost mentioned bath-salts guy, but Wanda came back with his cheeseburger, and he decided to save the story until he needed it. If the guy was trying to convert him, the details should scare him away.
While Dee chowed down on his grease bomb, Barrett talked nervously, mainly about his work at the dispatch center and his coworkers, while Dee chewed and nodded and decided he was kind of cute. Maybe younger than he thought? Hard to say. His hands showed all the signs of nervousness, and he hadn’t sprung any God talk on him yet. When Barrett finally stopped talking, Dee put down his burger, wiped his hands on his napkin, and said, “So, are you trying to ask me out or what?”
Barrett gawped at him for a moment. “N-no, I’m just—it wasn’t—I’m not—”
“I am gay, in case you were curious.”
“Oh, good. I mean—” Barrett hid his face in his hands. “I’ve screwed this up, haven’t I?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t told me your name yet. Or asked me mine.”
His eyes grew wide behind his glasses. “I haven’t?”
“No. But I saw your badge, and I know your name is Barrett. Mine’s Diego.”
“Oh, uh, hi. I really was gonna get to it, I swear. I’m bad at this.”
Dee gave him a kind, amused smile. “Bad at what? Talking? Or asking guys out?”
“Um, yes?” He attempted to laugh at his own joke but failed. “Believe it or not, I’m pretty good at my job. I’m just hopeless when it comes to asking out hot guys.”
“Hot guys, huh? Nice touch.” Judging by the way Barrett glanced down at his own clenched hands, it wasn’t a slick line. Barrett was kind of adorable, in a dorky way, and it had been a while since he’d been asked out by anyone. Lately his life had been work, a few stress-relieving video games, and nothing much else. Dee realized with a cold shock he was becoming what he always feared he’d become: boring. Roan had moved on with his life in any number of ways, including shifting into some sort of half-human superhero thing, but Dee was still the same damn guy he’d always been. That was unfair. Also, wrong. So damn wrong. Wasn’t he the more outrageous one of them? He was the one who thought relationships were a joke and life was to be enjoyed. He was hardly enjoying himself, was he? Without realizing it, he’d fallen into a rut.
Goddamn. No wonder he was starting to feel sorry for himself.
Even though Dee was kind of tired, he said, “I know of a coffee place that opens early and makes their own pastries in house. After I finish my burger, wanna get over there? See if we can find some trouble along the way?”
The look Barrett gave him through his charmingly nerdy glasses was surprisingly hopeful. His posture had been scrunched, as though he was waiting to be dismissed. Barrett was so terrified of rejection it was kind of cute. And it made Dee push his age down even further. What was he, like twenty-five? “What kind of trouble?”
Dee shrugged, picking up his burger. “I dunno. We can play it by ear.”
Barrett smiled crookedly, as though he wasn’t quite used to such kindness. “I’d really like that.”
To his surprise, Dee realized he would really like that too.