Chapter Text
SHIFT: Sun-Wed, 12:00-00:00
PARAMEDIC: S. Riley (FTO, RSI, TEMS)
EMT: J. MacTavish
[week 1, day 1]
John's day starts inauspiciously with Gaz flinging a set of ambulance keys at his head.
"What the fuck," he yelps, catching them.
On the other side of the dispatch office window, Gaz crosses his arms and leans back in his desk chair. "Good afternoon, Soap. Your shift started two minutes ago. I have twenty units on the road and zero currently available, four people have already no-showed this morning because they forgot about the new schedule, and one of my workstations is down. I need you in service, so please hustle."
John has always considered Gaz his favorite dispatcher (he would not admit this to Gaz on pain of death), but he's starting to question his own taste. "Alright, no problem. What truck are we on?"
"One-four-one. Congratulations."
"Isn't that the one that caught on fire a couple months ago? I thought it was out of service."
"Mechanics said it's probably fine. Just turn off the ignition if you smell burning."
Yeah, Gaz is definitely being moved down the list. "Fantastic, thanks. Have you seen, um, Ghost?"
"You lost him already?"
"I never had him."
"Well, he's kind of hard to miss. Go check the bay." Gaz scoots his chair back to his array of screens in the dispatch office, dismissing him.
"Okay, have a good day, buddy," John calls as he walks away.
"Good luck!" Gaz yells back ominously.
John hasn't officially met Ghost yet. He's only ever spotted the man from a distance before, lurking around base like some gigantic, malevolent ghoul in a black surgical mask.
As of the new schedule today, they're full-time partners.
Price, the mid-shift supervisor, did something funny with his mouth when he gave John the news last week, with the air of a doctor imparting a serious diagnosis. But to John, who, after graduating his training last year, spent several months on a double-EMT truck and then a couple more without an assigned partner, just a revolving door of whoever picked up an extra shift, a permanent spot with a notably competent paramedic sounds fantastic. It doesn’t matter that everyone is terrified of Ghost. A hardass, they call him. A nightmare to work with. Makes you feel like an idiot, they say.
That's fine. John already knows he's an idiot.
He heads over to pick up his truck, feeling vaguely silly as he peers into the murky corners of the cavernous ambulance bay like his new partner might be hiding in one of them. Despite Gaz's assurances, Ghost is living up to his name at the moment.
Several minutes later, John is sitting in the back of 141, inspecting their equipment and worrying that Ghost might have called out sick after learning who his new partner is, when the huge fucker just materializes out of thin air at the open door. He's carrying a drug box, a travel mug, and a profound air of menace.
“MacTavish?” he asks. He has a nice voice. Deep.
“That’s me. Nice to meet you, sir.” John scoots down the bench seat and holds out his hand. “You can call me S—”
From the overhead speaker, Gaz’s voice interrupts: “One-four-one, please call in service as soon as possible. We’re holding calls.”
Gaz is actually his least favorite dispatcher and also a bastard, John decides.
Ghost is motionless, staring down at John's outstretched hand like he's trying to recall on which page of How to Behave Like a Real Human in Polite Society he’s previously seen the gesture.
Before things can get awkward, John turns the aborted handshake into a jovial, manly sort of punch to Ghost’s shoulder. It's rather like how he imagines it would be to hit an adult moose, both in the physical sensation and in the frisson of anticipated danger it elicits. Gamely, he says, “Truck’s just about set, sir. Glad to be working with you.”
Ghost’s eyes flick up to John’s face, and then higher, to his hair. He frowns. Then he nods and disappears around the side of the truck.
Alright, that's fine. They can work up to the talking part.
The overhead speaker clicks on again. “One-four-one, please don't make me beg.”
"Do we have a gurney and a monitor?" Ghost calls from the passenger seat.
John hastily zips the jump bag closed. "Yeah, I'm just checking—"
"Good enough." Ghost keys up on the truck radio. "One-four-one in service. Where do you need us?"
"Thank you, one-four-one. It's going to be a red response—"
Oh, for fuck's sake. John hurtles out of the back of the truck, slams the door shut, and jogs to the driver's seat. "Sorry, I didn't catch the dispatch," he says, flinging himself inside and grabbing for his seat belt. "What's the address?"
"Head north."
John has several clarifying questions he wants to ask, but he refrains. He flicks on the lights and sirens and navigates to the nearest main road that runs north-south, all the while sneaking little glances over at Ghost.
Ghost is huge even sitting down, and his posture reads both alert and perfectly relaxed in the way only apex predators can pull off. The black surgical mask is in place, of course, and he's wearing a black ball cap pulled low over his eyes. The latter definitely isn’t uniform-compliant, since it has a goofy skull where an agency patch should be, but John is already getting the impression that Ghost does whatever he wants and nobody dares tell him otherwise. Price probably has the balls, but he isn’t particular about much apart from good patient care.
Then again, Price also wears a stupid hat.
John clears his throat. "What's the call for?"
"Fall."
"Hm. So probably bullshit, then."
"Take a right at the next light," says Ghost, bending down to grab a handful of nitrile gloves from his backpack. Black, unlike the standard blue ones provided at base. Must buy them specially, the absolute nerd.
Ghost stuffs the gloves into his pocket and sits back. "It's gonna be a code."
John snorts. "Ha ha, yeah."
It's a fucking code.
They step from the mild late-spring weather into the aggressive air conditioning of the auto parts store they were dispatched to (Ding dong! the electronic door chime screams shrilly), and sure enough, there’s a dead guy on the floor in front of the windshield wiper section. An employee in a bright red polo shirt is knelt over him, doing anemic sort of chest compressions, and several customers and fellow employees are watching from a respectful distance, although that might just be because of all the vomit.
Ghost doesn’t gloat about it. “MacTavish, let’s get some real CPR going,” he mutters, grabbing the monitor and drug box off the gurney.
There's a bit of trouble convincing red polo guy that he's allowed to stop CPR now that the professionals are here, and then quite a lot of confusion getting a story on what happened, because every single bystander tries to shout it at them simultaneously. As John does compressions, Ghost works around him seamlessly, cutting off the guy's shirt and applying defib pads to his chest.
"Alright, let me check this rhythm," says Ghost.
John lifts his hands. Ghost puts two fingers over the man's carotid artery and squints at the monitor for a few seconds before grunting disapprovingly and pulling a BVM out of the jump bag.
“Oh, right, fuck,” John says, resuming compressions. "I can ventilate too, if you need hands for your—paramedic stuff."
“Relax, MacTavish. He's already dead. There's no rush. Fire will be here soon, anyway.”
Their EMS agency is in charge of prehospital care and transport in the area, but the city fire department also shows up to potentially serious medical calls to help out as needed, and they're always extremely eager to do CPR.
John zones out for a little while, mentally pacing his compression rate, before he realizes something else. “Oh shit, we should update dispatch.”
“Already did,” says Ghost.
“When?”
“About thirty seconds ago.”
Frowning, John glances up. Ghost, who is apparently secretly a wizard, has somehow gotten an IV in between ventilations and is currently taping it off. He reaches into his drug box for a syringe of epinephrine, slams it through the IV, and pushes a button on the monitor.
Ding dong! A firefighter pokes his head in the door. "Hey, you guys don't need us, do y—ah, shit."
"Surprise," says Ghost, spiking a liter saline bag.
Ding dong! sings the door chime as the four-man crew piles inside. Ding dong! Ding dong! Ding dong!
John is cheerfully shoved out of the way by Firefighter One, who takes over compressions with a zeal that speaks of long hours at the station gym, quality nap time, and probably excellent work benefits. Firefighter Two grabs the saline bag from Ghost and stands over them, role-playing as an IV pole.
John shuffles up to the head of the patient to focus on ventilations. He usually loves this role—fingers clamped tight under a jaw, head tilted back, squeezing the bag in a steady rhythm, watching a chest rise and fall under his command—but he finds he can’t enjoy it right now. Between the beeping of the monitor, the acrid smell of vomit and new tires, the hum of chatter, and the crowing of the wretched door chime every time someone enters or leaves the store, he’s starting to feel distinctly overstimulated.
Ding dong! Ding dong! Now there's a cop on scene, leaning in the doorway while he chats with an employee. Ding dong!
"Jesus fuckin' Christ," John says under his breath. He turns to Firefighter Three, who's hovering at his shoulder, waiting to be assigned a task. "Hey man, can you go find a way to turn that thing off? I'm about to lose it."
"Sure thing, boss." He jogs away.
Moments later, John hears a dull thunk and a particularly vehement greeting from the door chime. Price bullies his way into the store, carrying a second drug box. “Sorry bud, didn’t see you there,” he says, clapping Firefighter Three on the shoulder. He peers back at the doorway. "What in the ever-loving fuck is that noise?" he asks pleasantly.
"Don't worry boss, I'm taking care of it," says Firefighter Three.
"Good man." Price comes over and crouches next to their little group, snapping on gloves. "Looks like you boys are having fun. What's the story, Ghost?"
Ghost slams another syringe of epinephrine through the IV. “Witnessed arrest, down time”—he checks his watch—“fifteen minutes. Bystanders started CPR, if you want to call it that. Been in PEA since I got him on the monitor. That was the second round of epi—”
DINGDONGDINGDONGDINGDONG!
Their heads all snap up simultaneously.
Firefighter Three gives them a sheepish look from the doorway. "Sorry, got too close. I found the off button, though!" He reaches up and jabs at it.
MEEEEEEP MEEEEEEP! carols the door chime.
Ghost stands up.
Firefighter Three instantly shrinks back against the wall, which is understandable. It's an alarming sight, like an eldritch horror unfolding into its true form.
Ghost stalks to the doorway, but he doesn't throttle the firefighter like John is half-expecting. He calmly wrenches the chime off the door frame, opens the door, and chucks the infernal object clear across the parking lot.
Price doesn't even blink as Ghost stalks back over. "Anyway, did we get a history on this guy?"
"Nobody here knows him," John says. “Sounds like he just came in looking pale, puked and went down." He glances at Firefighter One, who's maroon-faced and dripping sweat onto their patient. "Do you need a break?"
"Good for now," he wheezes.
"Don't be a hero," Price admonishes. He waves imperiously at Firefighter Three, who scurries back to take over compressions. "Your scene," Price says to Ghost. "What now?"
"I was about to get a tube. You wanna handle meds for me?"
"You got it."
John scoots over to make room at the head of the patient. Ghost kneels next him, opens the intubation kit, and quickly attaches a laryngoscope blade to its handle. Their arms brush; Ghost twitches away.
“Sorry,” John mutters, scooting further to the side. His boot clips something, and he turns to see a cardboard display of air fresheners teetering dangerously over his head. Firefighter Four lunges for it and sets it back upright. “Sorry,” John says again.
Fortunately, Ghost is getting into position for intubating and not paying attention to John. He drops down to his stomach, legs sprawled out in the aisle with the toes of his boots braced on the linoleum floor, laryngoscope and tube in hand, in a decidedly cocky manner. “Alright, MacTavish,” he says.
John takes the BVM away and leans back so he’s not blocking the light. Ghost tilts the man’s head back, slips the laryngoscope blade into his mouth, opens up his airway with a clever flick of his wrist, and seats the tube in one smooth slide.
It’s the fastest and cleanest field intubation John’s ever seen. “Fuckin’ beautiful, sir,” he murmurs.
Ghost grabs the BVM out of his hands without so much as a “please,” attaches it to the end of the tube, and gives a few experimental ventilations. Apparently satisfied, he holds the BVM back out to John, then clambers up to his knees and secures the tube with medical tape.
After a couple minutes and another round of epinephrine, Price says, “Been down a while."
Ghost looks up from the monitor. “Yeah.”
“One more pulse check before we call med control?”
“Yeah, hold CPR for a second,” says Ghost.
The firefighter lifts his hands, and John presses his fingers over the patient’s carotid artery. He feels around for a couple seconds, absolutely not expecting anything, except there, faintly—
“I’ve got one,” he says.
Price gives him an unbelieving look and checks for himself. “Well, shit,” he says. “I actually wasn’t expecting that.”
“Alright,” says Ghost, “let’s get rolling before we lose it again. I don’t wanna have to call it in a goddamn AutoZone, Christ.”
They pile into the ambulance like a clown car in reverse: Ghost first, taking up the whole damn frame with his bulk; then the patient on the gurney, while a firefighter (it might be Two, but John's lost track at this point) shuffles alongside to keep up ventilations; then an absurd amount of equipment, dumped onto the bench seat by Price. John climbs into the driver’s seat and cranes to look behind him.
“I’ll follow,” says Price from the open rear door. “And I’ll call ahead for you. Pull over if you need me.” He slams the door shut and slaps it.
John drives to the hospital.
He doesn’t get to do it often, but this is his favorite part of his job—driving lights and sirens with a patient in the back. They’re encouraged to avoid it when possible, since it isn’t particularly safe, and there’s always a hospital fairly close by when you work in the city. But the stress of it, the high stakes, the pressure not to fuck up—because if you do fuck up, you might kill the patient and your partner and yourself, and maybe even some other people on the road as a bonus—has some sort of paradoxical effect on John. It drops his heart rate, clears his mind, makes him perfectly relaxed in a way that probably means he needs to be medicated.
John glances in the rearview mirror as often as he safely can, given he’s weaving around cars and not abiding by a single civilian traffic law. While their borrowed firefighter ventilates from the jump seat, Ghost hangs a norepinephrine drip, does a twelve-lead, and then starts setting up for a second IV, calm as you please.
“Watch the potholes, MacTavish,” calls Ghost.
He is watching the potholes, but the suspension on this truck is god-awful. “Sorry, sir,” he calls back.
Ghost gets the IV on the first try, in about three seconds. In a moving ambulance, on a recently dead guy. It’s probably a fourteen gauge too. John is at once thrilled and oddly annoyed at his competence.
When they pull into the hospital, it’s business as usual. Another EMS crew, just about to leave, sees him coming in hot and jogs over to help unload the gurney. Inside, Ghost gives a perfect report to the doctor while they transfer the patient to a hospital bed in the critical care bay, nurses and techs swarming around.
Less than a minute after he’s off their gurney, the guy codes again. The ER works him for twenty-five minutes before the doctor calls time of death.
***
“Hey, Price,” calls John, jogging to catch up with his supervisor in the hospital parking lot. “Can we grab some restock from you?”
They load up with fresh supplies at Price’s fly car and head to the ambulance together. Ghost is sitting on the rear step, typing up his chart. He stands up at their approach and silently accepts a handful of meds from Price.
Price drums his fingers on the side of the ambulance. “Hell of a first call together, boys.”
Ghost makes a snorting noise, possibly in agreement, and bends over his drug box.
“I blame Gaz,” says John as he haphazardly shoves supplies into cabinets. “I know he did it on purpose somehow.” It wasn’t actually Gaz’s fault, because they were the only crew in service, but it’s an unspoken rule that you’re supposed to blame dispatch for any and all inconveniences, no matter how far-fetched.
“Speaking of Gaz,” says Price, “I think we’re holding calls again, if you gents are all set.”
“Yeah, thanks for the help, boss,” says John. Ghost just nods once, and Price fucks off to drive around in his fly car or whatever it is supervisors do.
Once they’re buckled up in the front of the truck, John says, “Sorry about the potholes.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Ghost, squinting down at the EKG strip he has spread across his knee. “This truck is a piece of shit.”
“Was it okay other than that?”
“What.”
“I mean, did I fuck anything up? I haven’t been on that many codes, and I don't know how you like to work yet, so…”
Ghost raises his head and stares at him for a moment. Or glares, maybe?
“You were fine, MacTavish.”
“Okay. Good.”
“You good?”
“Yep.” John picks up the radio and calls back in service.
“One-four-one, you’re back in service,” echoes Gaz. He manages to make the words sound like an extremely deep sigh. “It’s going to be a red response, seventy-one Almas Avenue, your crosses are Spruce and Chestnut, for the flu-like symptoms, coded as sickness with trouble breathing.”
John thunks his head back against the seat and keys up. “Seventy-one Almas, on the way.”