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Alec followed a limping Jace into the waiting room of the ER, shaking his head at the bizarre situation he found himself in.
When he first got the frantic call from his brother requesting an emergency ride to the hospital, Alec was sick out of his mind with worry. Jace was adamant to be taken to the ER and was infuriatingly tight lipped about the actual medical issue he was experiencing, and Alec had made at least three traffic violations on his way to Jace’s apartment where he’d found his brother looking a little pale and cagey, but seemingly okay.
Alec will never forget the wild look in Jace’s mismatched eyes as he confessed, voice cracking, just how badly he’d fucked up, how he’d really done it this time and if anyone found out, he’d be the laughing stock of their friend group forever. He was genuinely upset, and Alec had vowed to take his secret to the grave and promised he wouldn’t laugh - which was a very difficult promise to keep once he found out that the reason Jace had to go to the hospital was the fact that he’d put a very sizable dildo up his ass.
And it was not coming out.
“How?” Alec had asked, flabbergasted.
“Internet told me to use lots of lube,” Jace had explained, far too defensive for a someone who couldn’t even stand straight without wincing. “So I did, but then everything was so wet and slick and it just kind of… slipped all the way in?”
Alec had shuddered at the mere thought. Jace swore up and down that he’d been careful, that the website that he’d purchased the toy from assured him it was perfectly safe to use, made from the best quality materials. The copious amount of lube must have been his downfall, if that was the case, making it easy for the toy to slip out of his grasp and to the place he never intended it to go to.
Well, not that far deep anyway.
“And you really can’t get it out?”
The look Jace had aimed his way at Alec’s perfectly innocent question was so sharp Alec nearly took a step back. “If I could, do you think I’d call you here to witness the most humiliating moment of my life?”
Yeah, point taken. Calling Alec for a ride to the ER – and not asking him to help fish the damn thing out, thank fuck – seemed to be his last resort. Alec still couldn’t comprehend why Jace would ever do anything to put himself in this situation in the first place, but that was beside the point. His endless list of questions could wait until after Jace’s far more pressing issue was sorted out.
When Alec told him to grab his things, Jace’s shoulders had slumped in relief and he thanked him profusely for his willingness to help. As if there was any scenario in which he wouldn’t. Jace might be a bit of a dumbass sometimes, but he was still both his brother and his best friend, and there wasn’t anything that Alec wouldn’t do for him.
The ride to the hospital had been awkward, to say the least. Jace was sprawled out on the backseat of Alec’s car, making pained noises at any sharp movements that Alec tried his best to tune out. Thankfully, the morning New York traffic took mercy on them for a change and they made it to the nearest hospital in no time at all. And now here Alec was, walking towards the nurse’s station and trying to figure out a way how to explain their situation while Jace tried to find the least painful way to sit down at one of the available chairs in the waiting room without much success.
“Um…hi,” Alec said, unsure of how to continue now that he had the nurse’s attention. “I’m here with my brother. He found himself in a bit of a situation.”
The nurse nodded, listening, but when Alec offered no more information, she asked, “What kind of situation?”
“Well, you see,” Alec tried, then paused, cursing himself for not thinking through how he was going to explain this on the way to the hospital. “He- uh. He seems to have misplaced one of his toys. Well, not really misplaced, because he knows where it is, but he can’t really get it out.”
“How old is your brother?”
“23.”
“Ah,” the nurse said, catching up with what Alec was trying to say. “I’m assuming that he didn’t stuff said toy into his nose then?”
Alec shook his head with a grimace. “No, he did not.” This conversation would probably be a lot more pleasant if he did.
The nurse regarded him with narrowed eyes for a moment, then sighed and asked, “And how is your brother feeling right now?”
Alec frowned at her emphasis of the word brother, because it sounded like she didn’t quite believe his story of a brother who had a toy stuck in him and oh. Oh, she probably assumed that Alec was the one with the problem, and was now trying to fabricate a story about a nonexistent brother who probably fell onto the toy or something equally as stupid and nonsensical.
“I do actually have a brother,” Alec insisted. “I’m not just trying to covertly talk about myself.”
“Right,” she said, though it was clear she was only indulging him. “Whatever you say, sir.”
Before Alec could defend himself once again, Jace walked up to him and muttered a rather annoyed, “For fucks sake, Alec.” He leaned against the nurse’s desk and aimed his charming grin at her. “Hi. I’m Jace and I’m the one who currently has a dildo stuck in his ass. And I’d really like to get it out sometime soon, if that’s in any way possible.”
The nurse didn’t look phased at all at Jace’s crude admission and Alec admired her no-nonsense attitude now that it was no longer aimed at him. “You’re in luck. The ER’s been pretty slow this morning, so you won’t have to wait long for the doctor to see you. And,” she said, gesturing for them to follow as she rounded her desk, “you’ll even get your very own private room.”
“Great,” Jace said, though judging by the way he was looking at her now, Alec doubted he’d mind if the nurse told him to bend over and drop his pants right then and there. It was mostly Alec who was grateful for the privacy, because Jace’s waddling walk was starting to attract attention and he was pretty sure the few people that were in the waiting room knew exactly what was going on.
The nurse led them down the hallway and into the room, where she checked Jace’s vitals while Alec stood to the side and rolled his eyes at his endless attempts to flirt with her. How he had the will or the energy or even the guts to try and get with her while his guts were currently occupied by the giant dildo he’d shoved up there barely an hour ago, Alec will never understand. At least the nurse – Maia, according to her nametag – didn’t seem to mind it much. If anything, she found the whole thing very amusing.
It seemed that Jace, despite his current predicament, still had it in himself to charm the ladies.
“Dr. Bane will be with you soon,” Maia said after she finished her preliminary exam, handing Jace one of the hospital gowns and instructing him to change into it while they waited for the doctor. Then, she was gone, leaving the two of them alone to wait.
“Do you want me to wait outside?” Alec asked, because if he were in Jace’s position, he wouldn’t be comfortable with an audience witnessing what was bound to be a very intimate exam.
Jace, of course, didn’t share those reservations. He shook his head as he picked up his gown and started stripping without any hesitation. “Stay. I could use some moral support.”
Not having the heart to leave Jace all on his own – even though the whole thing was bound to be insanely awkward and he might never be able to look him in the eye again – he dragged one of the two chairs in the room closer to the bed and plopped down on it with a sigh, averting his eyes away from Jace and the clumsy strip show he was putting on.
So much for his weekend off. Alec had been looking forward to it for weeks, hadn’t planned on leaving his bed until the noon at the earliest and now he was going to be stuck in the ER for hours instead. Even if it all went well, Alec doubted they’d be out by nightfall.
“Couldn’t you have at least waited until the evening?” Alec asked, deep in mourning over his warm, cozy bed and the perfectly brewed cup of coffee that he had to leave behind on his nightstand in his rush to help Jace.
“You know how impatient I can get,” Jace said, placing his neatly folded clothes onto the side table. “The package arrived this morning and I couldn’t resist trying it out straight away.”
Alec sighed, not surprised in the least. “What are you doing now?” he asked as Jace, impatient as ever, started fiddling with everything he could get his hands on in the room, since pacing was out of the question, before his eyes narrowed down at the door leading to the tiny attached bathroom.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” Jace said. The duh wasn’t said aloud, but it was heavily implied, and Alec rolled his eyes. It was still fairly early in the morning, but he was quickly filling up his eye roll quota for the entire weekend. What else could he do, when knowing Jace, he was mostly likely in there to fix his hair. You know, just in case the doctor that came to see him was hot, too.
The door of the bathroom was shut, but the room was small enough that Alec was sure Jace would hear him when he asked, “What the hell were you thinking?” It was a question that had been bugging him since he first got the call, and he figured he’d held off on asking it for long enough.
For a moment, he thought that Jace was going to ignore him, but then he said, “Do you remember how I said that I think I might be bi?”
Alec nodded. “Of course.” How could he possibly forget? Jace had been so nervous when he first approached him with his confession and it was a true bonding moment for them. Despite being gay, Alec wasn’t exactly experienced when it came to being with other men so he couldn’t offer him any practical advice, but it meant a lot that Jace still chose him to confide in.
“Well, I figured that I might as well do some experimenting on my own before I involved other people into it.”
If he was being honest, Alec was a tiny bit jealous of his brother’s straight approach. Jace had a suspicion that he might be into guys, and he’d taken immediate steps to check for sure - why and how that meant sticking a dildo up his ass, Alec still couldn’t figure out, but at least he did something about it. Unlike Alec, who might have officially opened the closet door for all to see years ago, but was still lodged deep inside it.
“And what’s the verdict?” a new voice said, and Alec, startled from his thoughts, turned to the doorway.
A man who Alec assumed was Dr. Bane was nothing like Alec was expecting. For one, he seemed to be around his age and he was drop dead gorgeous, from the blue tinted tips of his perfectly styled hair to his warm brown eyes lined with black eyeliner. He was wearing dark blue scrubs that had no right to look as flattering for his clearly muscular body as they did, with a white doctor’s coat over them, along with a single ear cuff to complete the look.
He was absurdly stunning and Alec was instantly smitten. Shit. Maybe Alec should have gone ahead and fixed his hair, too.
“It’s not looking good, doc,” Jace called out from the bathroom, bringing Alec back from his daze.
Dr. Bane chuckled, no doubt well aware of Jace’s mishap already, and made his way towards the exam table. He gestured for Alec to get on it. “Why don’t you change into your hospital gown so we can get started with the exam. I’m sure you must be eager to get this over with.”
Alec looked at him, wide eyed for a whole new reason, and managed to stutter out a very shocked, “No. I mean, it’s not- I would never-“
Dr. Bane gave him a very indulgent smile, one that said that he clearly wasn’t buying his denial, just like nurse Maia had before. “It’s okay. These things happen.” When Alec continued to gape at him like one very unattractive fish, he leaned forward and told him, in a low, unfairly sexy tone, “Between you and me, I’ve done this same exact procedure last night. There’s really no need to be embarrassed.”
“Really?” Alec asked, skeptical.
“Really,” Dr. Bane confirmed. “This happens a lot more often than you might think, especially at this time of the week.” He shrugged. “I guess people like to start their weekends off with a bang.”
Alec didn’t know whether to feel reassured or horrified by that new information, but considering that the hottest guy he’d ever seen in his life just assumed that Alec was dumb enough to get a sex toy stuck inside him on an early Saturday morning – and was extra stupid to deny it straight to his face – he settled on firmly horrified.
Alec did have some similar plans for the weekend, but without the toy and the ER part, so he figured Dr. Bane wasn’t just giving him empty platitudes to get him to comply quicker so he could get out there and focus on the rest of his waiting patients. But still. He couldn’t just let him think that he was one of them.
“Jace!” he called out, far louder than necessary to get Jace’s attention, because the fucker had to have heard exactly what was going on and had elected to stay away to let Alec stew in his unnecessary shame. “The doctor is here!”
Jace finally came out of the bathroom, wearing nothing more than a flimsy hospital gown and one of his infuriatingly smug smirks.
Dr. Bane took in the folded clothes and Jace who was donning the hospital gown and turned his big, brown eyes to Alec once again. “Oh, I’m sorry for assuming,” he said, looking genuinely apologetic. “You just looked-“
“Constipated?” Jace offered.
“- embarrassed.” Dr. Bane looked between them, Jace awkwardly climbing onto the exam table, the gown fluttering open behind him without any self consciousness to be found and Alec, blushing up a storm and squirming uncomfortably in his chair. “Usually, it’s the other way around.”
Once he was situated on the table, Jace glanced at Alec and rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Alec? I’m the one with a dildo stuck up my ass,” Jace pointed out, sticking his feet into the stirrups at the doctor’s instruction with only a single wince at the shift in position. “Why are you blushing?”
“Because you have no shame, so I’m ashamed for both of us.”
Jace narrowed his eyes, looking Alec over, trying to decipher the true source of his embarrassment. Maybe there was such a thing as knowing someone a little too well, because in what felt like seconds, Jace’s eyes widened in realization as he took in the way that Alec couldn’t keep his eyes away from the handsome doctor as he went about washing his hands and pulling on a fresh pair of gloves in a way that shouldn’t be in any way attractive, but that got him feeling a bit hot under the collar.
“Oh,” Jace said aloud as the realization hit. Alec wasn’t embarrassed about Jace’s idiocy and how it reflected on him. He was embarrassed that it had to happen in front of his brand new crush. “Oh.”
Alec cleared his throat. “So, Dr. Bane,” Alec said loudly, trying to prevent Jace from sharing his newfound realization with the new subject of all of Alec’s upcoming fantasies. “In your professional opinion, how bad is it?”
“Yes,” Jace said, finally focusing at the problem at hand. “Do you think you can get it out, or will it be stuck there forever?”
Dr. Bane hummed in thought as he picked up a bottle of lubricant. “I wouldn’t call it stuck, but rather not easily retrievable. Most people panic in these types of situations, which only makes things worse. Being relaxed is key, and with some patience and creative maneuvering, in most cases, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get it out.” He glanced briefly at Alec and asked, “Did you and your partner attempt to take it out yourselves?”
“What?” Jace asked, bewildered. “You think Alec and I-“
“God no,” Alec blurted out, horrified at the mere thought. “We’re brothers.”
Jace glared at him, offended. “You didn’t have to sound so disgusted. I’m a fucking catch.”
Dr. Bane’s eyebrows jumped high on his forehead and Alec quickly clarified, “He’s adopted. No blood relation whatsoever. This,” Alec gestured vaguely around the room, “is all on him.”
“Well, at least I’m not afraid to take risks and go after what I want,” Jace said, acting far too high and mighty for someone in his position. “When was the last time you even went out on a date with someone? Two, three years?”
“I’m busy,” Alec said, arms crossed over his chest, a picture of defensiveness.
It wasn’t even a lie, though one could argue that his overloaded schedule was entirely self inflicted. As a firefighter, long shifts were the norm, but even when he had the time off, he was constantly signing up for extra shifts and all the overtime he could get. It wasn’t even that he needed the money, or that he loved his job, which he did. But all those extra shifts meant that most of the time, he was too busy to think about his nonexistent dating life.
He might have been out and proud, but getting over years of repression wasn’t as simple as everyone made it seem. And finding a guy he clicked with, someone gentle and patient and who wanted more than just a quick hookup that Alec had never been interested in and that was okay with his dangerous, time consuming job? Sometimes it felt like he was looking for a goddamned unicorn.
“Right,” Jace said sarcastically. “Busy.”
But just because Alec was hesitant to start a relationship didn’t mean that any of his urges went dormant. If anything, years of repression and loneliness left him aching for someone’s touch and his mind was overflowing with all sorts of horny fantasies. And as he watched Dr. Bane spread a generous amount of lubricant over his long, gloved fingers, he couldn’t help but imagine him doing that for Alec for a lot more fun reason.
Which was objectively fucked up and extremely inappropriate, considering the context behind it now and the fact that the doctor whose first name he still didn’t know was about to medically finger his brother, adopted or not. He had to take deep breaths and look away to curb his arousal and get a fucking grip before he embarrassed himself even further.
Thankfully, after Dr. Bane’s fingers were thoroughly slicked up and he started his exam, all sexiness evaporated and Alec could finally breathe. Even Jace couldn’t help but wince and squirm as the doctor conducted his exam, and Alec was just starting to feel sympathetic for him when he once again decided to open up his big mouth.
“Do gay guys really do this all the time?” he asked Alec directly, without any subtlety whatsoever and now it was Alec’s turn again to roll his eyes.
“How the hell would I know?” he responded without thinking, then snapped his mouth shut when the words finally registered. Shit. He’d practically just admitted to the hot doctor that he was a virgin, too, on top of being a general human disaster personified. God, when would this nightmare end?
“A man doesn’t have to be gay to enjoy anal play,” Dr. Bane said, completely focused on his task of probing around deep in Jace’s ass for the elusive toy. “In fact, there’s plenty of gay men who aren’t interested in anal play at all.”
“According to Alec’s search history, he’s not one of them,” Jace said with a smirk and Alec contemplated throttling him.
“Jace,” he hissed, outraged and beyond embarrassed. He was pretty sure that after today, his cheeks might be permanently stained red from all of the blushing he was doing. He didn’t even want to know if Jace had actually taken a peek at his search history or if he was only bluffing, but it wasn’t like he was wrong. And Alec’s firetruck red cheeks and his obvious mortification were doing nothing to deny his claims.
Alec glanced up at the ceiling and prayed for patience. He loved Jace, he reminded himself. He was only using humor to distract himself from his current predicament which couldn’t be comfortable. He just wished he wasn’t making him the butt of the joke in front the doctor that he clearly knew Alec was already interested in a sad attempt to set them up.
Why he thought that making Alec look like a repressed virgin was the perfect way to endear Alec to the doctor – even if it was true – he couldn’t quite figure out. But at least he had good intentions, however misguided they might be.
Dr. Bane pursed his lips, no doubt to hide his amusement, but was nice enough not to acknowledge any of Jace’s unhelpful commentary. “My point was that if this was your way of trying to confirm your bisexuality, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I’m starting to get that,” Jace said with a wince. “You’re a very attractive man, doc, but you poking around my ass is definitely not doing anything to me, sexually speaking.”
Dr. Bane paused and cocked his head to the side, giving Jace a very confused look. “It wasn’t supposed to?”
“No, I know that,” Jace said, as if anything he was saying made any kind of sense. “I’m just saying, if that cute nurse from before was the one doing this instead, with her nice, tiny fingers,” he said pointedly with another wince, “it would be a far more pleasant experience.” Jace bit his lip, as if hesitating, then folded and asked, “Is there a law preventing doctors and nurses to go out with their patients?”
Dr. Bane chuckled, pulling out his hand out of Jace’s body and standing up. “It seems you’re in luck. The toy isn’t lodged too far up, which means that it won’t require surgery to remove it. You’ll most likely be released by the end of the day, and once you’re no longer a patient here, you can ask out whoever you want. Though I can’t guarantee that they’ll say yes.”
Jace didn’t appear deterred by that in the slightest, and he was probably already planning out how to ask the nurse out at the first available opportunity, barely listening to Dr. Bane as he explained that he’ll administer some type of muscle relaxant before he started the removal procedure. He only came back online when the doctor pulled out a long needle and settled back onto his previous spot, and Alec had to bite back his smirk.
Finally, the karma for what he’d put Alec through today had come to bite Jace right on the ass.
Dr. Bane disposed of the needle and gave Jace a reassuring smile. “We’ll wait for a few minutes for the injection to kick in and then we’ll get this toy out of you, alright?”
Jace nodded. Alec was hoping that whatever the doctor gave him would help shut him up, but this was still Jace and Alec really should have known better.
“So, Dr. Bane,” Jace started, and Alec immediately braced himself for the worst. “Are you seeing anyone?”
Alec sighed. “Jace, you can’t just ask that.”
“Why not? I’m pretty sure that we’re past pleasantries at this point,” Jace said, turning to raise a questioning eyebrow at the doctor.
Dr. Bane raised one right back. “That depends. Am I the one you’re trying to ask out? Because I hate to disappoint, but you’re really not my type.”
Jace scoffed. “Please. I’m everyone’s type.”
Dr. Bane shook his head. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Jace waited for all of ten seconds for Dr. Bane to answer his initial question, but when he didn’t say anything, Jace sighed and said, “Fine. If you have to know, I was asking for a friend.”
He pointedly glanced in Alec’s direction and Alec’s hands itched to grab the nearest pillow and smother Jace to end this madness once and for all.
Instead of ignoring Jace’s feeble attempts to get them together like he’d done so far, Dr. Bane turned to Alec and gave him a very thorough once over. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he smiled, eyes glinting with something Alec couldn’t name and said, “In that case, I’m very much single.”
“Are you allowed to hit on your patients?” Alec managed to ask despite the sudden dryness of his throat.
“Technically, you’re not my patient.” Dr. Bane paused and assessed him once more, though in a far more playful manner than he used when he was assessing Jace. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Jace snorted, grinning at the doctor. “I doubt it. Alec here is clenched up so tight that I’d be shocked if he could fit anything up there in the first place.” Before Alec could even begin to process that statement, Jace gave the doctor his very own onceover and added, way too flirty for comfort, “Though I suppose you are a professional.”
Dr. Bane stared at Jace, looking like he couldn’t figure out if he should laugh or cry – or both – at the fact that his patient was flirting with him on the behalf of his own brother, with both legs in the air, his naked ass on full display. Ass that Alec thankfully couldn’t see from his position next to Jace’s head. That was one boundary he was not willing to ever cross.
Then, Jace’s composure finally broke and he burst out laughing, while Alec buried his face in his hands and groaned, loud and long and utterly miserable. How was this his life? He saved people for a living on a daily basis. Surely, he didn’t deserve this torture.
Laughing turned out to be a bad idea for Jace, and his discomfort was enough for them all to finally return back to the main event, which was removing the toy from Jace as quickly as possible. When Dr. Bane picked up a pair of menacing looking forceps, Jace’s confident facade finally cracked and he gulped.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Bane asked. Jace reached for Alec’s hand, squeezed it hard and gave the doctor his nod of approval. “Alright. Here we go.”
As a firefighter, Alec had seen and done some rather strange things. But this, he could confidently say, was one of the most bizarre situations he’d witnessed in his entire life.
“Deep breaths,” Dr. Bane was saying, encouraging Jace to relax one moment, then to bear down the next and Jace soon devolved into a panting, sweating mess.
“Is this what giving birth feels like?” Jace asked, frowning in concentration and discomfort alike.
Alec fought down a hysterical laugh while Jace did his best to crush his hand and Dr. Bane only hummed in thought, still focused entirely on his work, twisting his hand this way and that as he tried to coax the stubborn toy out of his brother. “I imagine it’s the closest you’ll ever come to it, yes.”
Fortunately, the whole process didn’t take nowhere near as long as most childbirths would, and within a few minutes, this nightmare was finally over.
“Congratulations,” Dr. Bane announced as he pulled out the toy – a ridiculously oversized, bright pink monstrosity covered in a variety of fluids that Alec would rather not think about – and lifted it up in the air for Jace to see. “It’s a dildo.”
Jace looked like he was about ready to cry from sheer relief of finally having this thing out of him, and having seen the size of it, Alec couldn’t blame him.
“How long is that thing?” he asked, morbidly curious. “Seven inches?”
“Eight,” Jace corrected, then shrugged at Alec’s incredulous look. “I was fully committed to the cause.”
Human body was a resilient thing, but that just seemed excessive. Where did it even fit?
Dr. Bane, on the other hand, didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. “At least it wasn’t a vegetable again,” he said, putting the toy in one of the metal trays. “Or a lightbulb.”
At this point, Alec was over the weirdness of the whole situation, his curiosity winning over. “A lightbulb?” Alec asked and Dr. Bane sighed.
“Two lightbulbs, actually,” he said, continuing his exam now that the toy was out, probably to make sure that it didn’t cause any damage while it was still inside Jace. “One was successfully removed. The other one broke during the procedure.”
Alec grimaced, both appalled and mildly impressed by the dedication of someone who would do that. “What is the weirdest thing that you pulled out of a person?”
“Oh, I’ve seen all sorts of things over the years,” he said. “From remotes, dolls, a variety of food items and homemade toys, to brooms and deodorant cans and one time, a full bottle of wine. Red.”
“I once pulled out a 7-foot-long tapeworm from a guy on the way to the hospital,” Alec couldn’t help but share. “I haven’t been able to stomach sushi since.”
Dr. Bane’s nose wrinkled in the most adorable way as he said, “And I’ll never be able to look at a Barbie doll the same way again.”
Jace groaned. “Can you save your bonding over your weird work stories for a later time? I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”
Dr. Bane cleared his throat and returned back to finishing his exam. “Of course. I can’t really see any damage, but I’d still like to keep you here for observation for the next few hours, just to be safe.” He stood up and removed his gloves with practiced ease. “For future reference, if you decide to do this again, please get a toy that’s been designed specifically for anal use to prevent this from happening again. Cutting corners on sex toys is never a good idea.”
“The website said that this toy was perfectly safe to use,” Jace insisted again, though Alec was far less inclined to believe him this time around now that he’d seen it. “And I’ll have you know that it wasn’t cheap, either.”
“It’s a very common mistake made by inexperienced users,” Dr. Bane assured him. “But the truth is, not all toys are made for the same purpose. For anal use, you want something with a nice flared base to prevent it from fully slipping inside. So just keep that in mind for next time.”
Jace raised his hand and gave the doctor a thumbs up. Then, he turned to him and said, “Alec, take notes.”
Alec rolled his eyes, for what felt like the hundredth time today. “Unlike you, I already knew that.”
“Of course you did,” Jace muttered, shaking his head at Alec as if he was the unreasonable one here. He turned back to Dr. Bane and said, “Alec is very anal about things. I bet he has a whole spreadsheet worth of research about sex and toys and-“
His speech was interrupted by a yawn and when he blinked his eyes open again, he couldn’t seem to remember what they were even talking about.
“I think the excitement of the day is finally catching up with you, so I’ll leave you to rest,” Dr. Bane said, helping Jace back into a seating position. “Nurse Maia will keep an eye on you, and I’ll come see you in a few hours, okay?”
Jace nodded, and with a final smile, Dr. Bane turned around and left the room. Alec itched to follow him, though he had no idea what he would even say to him if he did. But then Jace punched him in the arm and said, “What are you waiting for? You’re going to miss your chance,” and Alec was up on his feet and leaving the room before he could think twice about it.
“Dr. Bane!” he called out, half hoping that he’d go ignored and he could return back to the hospital room to keep Jace company and silently stew over yet another missed opportunity. But then Dr. Bane turned around and stopped, waiting for Alec to catch up with him and all thoughts of escape vanished from his mind.
“Magnus,” Dr. Bane said, and Alec couldn’t help but repeat the name, just to see how it sounded from his own mouth.
“Magnus,” he said softly, meeting the doctor’s expectant look. Right. He should probably say something now that he had his attention. “I- uh. I’m sorry about Jace,” he settled on saying, because Jace certainly never would. “He can be a little pushy and inappropriate, but he means well. Most of the time, anyway.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Manus said. “But, just out of curiosity, was anything he said wrong?”
Alec considered lying, but what would be the point? “No,” he reluctantly admitted, averting his eyes to the floor. “And trust me, I’m well aware just how pathetic that makes me sound.”
Magnus reached out and placed one of his warm hands onto his forearm. “You’re not pathetic.” Alec glanced up at him and watched as Magnus’ gentle smile turned into something slightly predatory. “And if you are actually interested in me outside of your brother’s good intentioned meddling, well.” He bit at his lip and Alec’s eyes tracked the motion with hungry eyes. “I do love a challenge.”
“Yes,” Alec breathed out, far more worked up than he should be considering that they were both still in a very public place and that Magnus was literally just inside of his brother a few minutes ago. “I’m- yes. I’m very interested.”
Magnus let out a pleased little laugh that was like music to Alec’s ears and reached for the pen in his pocket. He pulled up Alec’s sleeve and wrote down his number in neat, cursive handwriting while Alec fought not to shiver in delight.
With great difficulty, he stopped himself from tracing the numbers as soon as Magnus was done writing them. The last thing he wanted was to smudge the ink and lose the number before he got a chance to use it. “I thought most doctors had their own business cards,” he said.
“We do,” Magnus said, stepping away and putting away his pen. “But isn’t this more fun?”
Magnus winked as he started walking away backwards, looking more than a little pleased by the way Alec instantly turned into a flustered mess and stuttered out a, “I’ll call you. Tonight?”
“Tonight,” Magnus agreed, then turned around and walked away to go save some more lives.
Alec stared at him like a besotted creep that he was until he rounded the corner, then sighed and made his way back to Jace’s hospital room. He paused in the doorway when he heard nurse Maia ask, “Do you want to keep the toy?”
“Do I need to?” Jace retorted, back to his flirting ways.
“I do have a few of my own at home,” she said casually. “I guess I could be convinced to share one if you ask really nicely.”
Shaking his head, Alec slowly backed away from the room to give them some privacy. He’d already learned far more about Jace today than he ever wanted to know, and he had to draw the line somewhere.
The last thing Alec ever expected when he and Jace walked into the hospital today was that both of them would leave it with dates. But when Magnus showed up at his door later that night with a bottle of wine in hand, looking somehow even more attractive out of his work uniform than inside it – and even better fully naked – he definitely wasn’t complaining.
(In the end, Alec didn’t end up needing any muscle relaxants or sedatives to unclench. All it took was a nice dinner, a few fantastic kisses and another one of those devastatingly genuine smiles for Alec to open right up under Magnus’ gentle, coaxing touches that very same weekend. Twice.
The only downside of meeting the love of his life were the circumstances in under which they’ve met. Jace, having long gotten over any shame he might have felt over the sex toy incident, would never stop being smug about being the one to bring them together.
Though, Alec couldn’t help but think as he woke up on yet another morning with Magnus wrapped in his arms, Jace’s insufferable smugness was a small price to pay for lifelong happiness. Even if he had to listen to him wax poetics about Maia’s amazing strap on far more often than he’d like. Which was never, thank you very much.
But, he supposed, at least this time, Jace was stuffing himself with toys under the close supervision of a medical professional. And the next time disasster struck, at least he wouldn’t be the one taking him to the ER. One time, as memorable as it turned out to be, was more than enough for him.)