Chapter Text
“We need to stop doing this.”
“Mhm.”
“Garcia, this can’t happ- oh god.”
Baran’s head hit the shelf behind her, a few boxes of gloves falling to the ground. The surgeon’s mouth was latched on her neck, sucking what was going to be a pretty hard to conceal hickey into her skin, while one of her hands, the one not busy holding on to the metal bars near Al-Hashimi’s head, had swiftly travelled inside the attending’s bottom scrubs, expert fingers pushing aside her underwear without missing a bit and starting to rub her folds lightly, barely touching her, earning herself an annoyed groan from Al-Hashimi.
She really couldn’t stand her. Garcia was cocky, sarcastic, brash, her constant remarks and stupid nicknames annoying, if not slightly offensive. Unfortunately though, she was also hot as sin, extremely skilled with her hands - both in surgery and in bed -, and had a smile that - though not often present - could light up a room. And Baran was only a woman, after all.
Garcia seemed to be everywhere all at once, her mouth on her jaw, the shell of her ear, her fingers inside of her, on her clit, scratching her thighs, palming her breasts.
The only thing Baran was able to do in that moment was holding on to the surgeon's shoulders, fingers maybe a touch too rough, hoping in some part of her to leave marks with her nails on the surgeon’s perfect skin, a reminder that she was the one Garcia couldn't seem to stop coming back to, that it was Baran who got her to her knees. It takes two to tango, and all that.
Baran came with a moan that would’ve been much louder if it wasn’t for Garcia’s hand shooting up and roughly covering her mouth. She kept up her movements, fucking her through the spasms, before stepping back in a sudden movement and leaving the attending almost sprawled against the shelf, with trembling legs and scrubs half undone. Humiliation and anger touched her cheeks as Garcia looked her up and down once, a small cruel smile on her lips, and left her there with a “Nice talk, doctor” thrown over her shoulder.
Baran sighed, head hitting the metal bars behind her, a hand covering her eyes, just for a second. Then she straightened her scrubs, let down her hair to cover any unwanted sign, and rushed to the bathroom to clean herself, luckily finding it empty.
A quick check in the mirror uncovered two purple hickeys on her neck, one dangerously close to her jaw and almost impossible to cover with her hair.
“I’m going to fucking kill her.”
They needed to stop, to put an end to whatever that whole mess was once and for all. They were going to stop, actually, because the next time Baran would tell the surgeon ‘no,’ tell her to piss off, and end this ridiculous predicament. Too bad she had been telling herself that over and over again, and in the end, she never did.
That’s also what she told Garcia right at the beginning, and look what that got them.
The first time it happened, they were both exhausted after a particularly hard shift.
Baran had been at the PTMC for two weeks at that point, and with Robby gone she had taken the reins of the ED, with more or less success if you asked the specific doctors under her guidance. She had worked hard in those first weeks, and by that point most people seemed to look at her with varying levels of respect, and listened to what she had to say; some were harder to charm, but she was working on it.
A bad car accident and a bunch of injured people had kept the whole department busy for the last two hours, and with fresh clothes and face washed clean of the sweat and the tiredness, the attending thought about going home and the long, hot bath that awaited her. But a bunch of her colleagues were going to the bar a few blocks from the hospital, and she was already straining to keep all her work relationships smooth and positive, and fill a pretty annoying Robby hole, and so she said yes, and found herself half an hour later sitting at the counter nursing a martini and listening to Dr. Shen tell a convoluted story about a patient and a litter of rabid skunks to a confused audience. Baran found her mind wandering, the chatter becoming background noise as her eyes glassed over, her head going through all the things that had happened during the shift and the things she had to do once she got home.
Then, a voice and a few laughs right behind her caught her attention and she turned sharply, almost crashing straight into Garcia, who regarded her with an unimpressed stare and passed her with a “Watch it, Algorithm”. Baran rolled her eyes and huffed, turning back towards the counter and trying to ignore Garcia’s confident voice as she chatted with a bunch of fellow surgeons at a table not far from her. Her martini tasted awful. She wasn’t even thirsty, anyway.
The surgeon had been a pain in the ass since that first shift together, when she had wasted no time before mocking her for her suggestions, and had afterwards ignored her for the whole day shift. Garcia was as competent as she was snarky, and Baran hated that, as far as her job was concerned, the surgeon was unfortunately extremely skilled.
Dr. Garcia has a hard time expressing her feelings.
That’s what Robby had told her the first time she had met the surgeon, and Baran had tried to be friendly, she had really tried, especially during those first days at PTMC. But the only things she had gained from that were a constant headache and the incessant desire to slap Garcia in the face whenever she regarded her with eyes filled with mockery and a smirk on her lips, or even worse - thought she would never admit it - whenever she worked by Baran’s side without so much as a glance at her. She didn’t know what it was about the surgeon that managed to cut through the carefully constructed facade she had built in all those years of dealing with all kinds of people all over the world, she didn’t know why Garcia in particular irritated her that much, why she couldn’t just ignore her and go on with her days, and instead fumed and seethed and replayed all their interactions in her head more times than she felt comfortable admitting. And that was a whole other problem, one that Baran liked to push so deep inside her head that she could almost pretend it never existed.
She was once again shaken out of her thoughts by some movement to her right, and only then did she notice that the surgeons had moved to the counter and joined the conversation, which was now revolving around the strangest cases they had ever handled, with Walsh in the middle of a witty recountment that had people around her snort and laugh.
“A whole corn-cob, I’m not joking!”
A chorus of “stop it” and laughs followed, and Baran allowed herself to relax, smiling at the people around her, as they kept asking Walsh details, laughing in that tired way of people who had just spent 12 hours working their asses off. She was aware of Garcia standing a few steps from her, of course she was, even though the woman kept fairly quiet, only stepping in to make some casual comments on the stories from time to time.
“What about you, Dr. Al-Hashimi?” It was Mateo asking, slightly drunk and grinning at her. She could understand why many patients seemed to be charmed by the nurse, he did have a killer smile. “Any fun stories from your time at the VA?”.
It was disorienting to suddenly find herself at the center of attention like that (perhaps Mateo wasn’t the only one who was tipsy), and it took her a moment to gather her thoughts, a small embarrassed smile on her lips while she considered what would’ve been the best story to tell. She wasn’t given much time, more like half a second, before a voice rose from the side.
“Hard to find something that’s not about spreadsheets or predictive models, I fear.”
Baran turned to glare at Garcia, but she wasn’t even looking at her, absorbed in whatever Walsh was showing on her phone, grinning. Like it wasn’t more than a passing thought, not worth more effort than that. Baran felt a flash of anger at that smile, at the easy banter Garcia seemed to have with so many people at PTMC, but not her.
“Actually I was-” The attending’s sentence was cut short, though, when Shen offered everybody a free round of shots, and the people’s attention switched focus.
Baran’s eyes met Princess’ ones, and she gave the nurse a tiny self-deprecating smile, that Princess reciprocated before tapping her lightly on the arm and joining the free shots crowd.
Baran shot a look at her martini, abandoned on the counter, before joining herself.
All in all, she was glad she had decided to accept the invitation to go out, especially after the good half an hour she spent deep in conversation with Abbot, sharing stories about their time abroad. He was an interesting man, difficult to read and with a specific type of charm, and the way he talked about his time in Iran made her a bit chocked. Baran was looking forward to spending more time with the doctor.
Well into the tipsy territory, and sweaty in the overcrowded too small bar, Baran excused herself and went to the restroom, going straight for the sink, hoping that some cold water would work the miracle and give her some sort of reprieve.
She was still smiling, thinking about the conversation with Abbot and about the nice turn the evening took, when one of the stalls’ doors opened and Garcia exited, looking way more flawless than she had any right to, given the late hours and the alcohol going around.
The woman gave her a hard once-over, an unimpressed look in her eyes, and then went to the other sink without a word. Baran took a breath, then two, and then she thought screw it and turned around.
“Okay, what is your problem?”
The surgeon stopped in her tracks and turned around, regarding her with a raised eyebrow.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me the first time.” Baran could feel the irritation in her bones, the desire to put the surgeon in her place once and for all, irritation that only grew at the words that came out of her mouth next, her wryly tone only irking her further.
“Care to enlighten me, Dr. Protocol?”
“This. This is what I’m talking about,” she bit out. She was quickly losing every bit of patience she had left, helped along by the alcohol she’d had, and she marched forward till she was only a breath away from Garcia. “The name-calling. The comments,” she started to enumerate, frowning, but the other woman just laughed, looking at her like she was being ridiculous, before shaking her head.
“I didn’t know ED attendings were so touchy. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Baran will never really know what spurred her into action, but when Garcia sidestepped her, shaking her head, she didn’t stop long enough to think before grabbing the surgeon’s arm, stopping her in her tracks and spinning her around.
The shocked look on Garcia’s face lasted for just a second before turning to irritation, and Baran could’ve sworn she could feel it rolling off the other woman’s body.
“I didn’t mean to-” Baran let go, realizing what she had just done. Her hand was tingling where her fingers had held onto the surgeon’s bare arm, and her breath felt labored.
She cleared her throat, color touching her cheeks even though her voice remained steady and severe. “What I mean to say is that this needs to stop. I’m an an attending, we work together, and I expect to-”
“Or what?”
“-receive the same amount of respect I giv- ..What?” She stopped short in her tirade, furrowing her brows, trying to make sense of the surgeon’s words. Then Garcia stepped closer invading her space, confrontational, all sharp edges. Her eyes were pitch black, the expression in them almost scary, and Baran could feel her heart beating like crazy in her chest - certainly not good for her blood pressure -, all the pent up frustration making her hands tremble.
“I said, or what?” Garcia enunciated, and her breath smelled of something sour mixed with cigarette smoke, and she was mean and challenging, and Baran was fuming at her pretentiousness, at her attitude, and she was still sweating and the stickiness was bothering her so much.
In the blink of an eye, they were kissing. Hard. Teeth clashing, biting. The next blink and they were staggering blindly towards one of the stalls. The next and they were inside, the door locked, Baran’s hands inside the other’s tight black shirt, palming her breasts on top of her bra, and one of Garcia’s hands was on her ass, while the other tried to make quick work of the zip of the attending’s pastel jumper, a look in her eyes that was hungry and vicious in equal measures. It was only when Garcia’s fingers started circling one of her nipples and a whimper left her lips that she realized the situations they were in, and broke away from the kiss with a gasp, staggering away till she hit the wall behind her, her eyes big and fixed on other woman, who was breathing hard and was staring at her as if she were a mouse, and Garcia the bird of prey.
“What are we doing?”, she whispered.
“What do you think we are doing?”
Garcia was inching closer, still staring at her, unblinking, and Baran felt her insides tremble at the sight. She needed to put a stop to whatever the fuck that was, and she needed to do it immediately. But Garcia had her cornered, and her hands were still trembling, and she could feel the wetness between her thighs with every movement, and she wanted and wanted and wanted. And so, though in just a second she had the whole scene planned in her head, how it was supposed to go, from Baran telling the surgeon to stop to walking away with both pride and sanity intact, she didn’t wait for the other second it would’ve taken Garcia to reach her, and instead grabbed her by the sides of her face and smashed their lips together again.
Garcia groaned, she honest to god groaned, and the sound went straight to Baran’s pussy, her hands leaving the surgeon’s face to go back to her breasts, pinching and caressing, hoping to burn as much as she was getting burnt. Their mouths parted again, and Baran started biting and licking at Garcia’s neck, stopping just enough to turn them around with a swift movement that earned her a huff from the surgeon when her back impacted with the wall. Good. Baran’s hands travelled to Garcia’s belt, undoing it and then moving on to the button of her black jeans, giving her no warning before pushing one hand inside, going straight for the woman’s underwear. She was soaked, and Baran almost felt bad for the swell of revengeful pride that burned in her at that moment. Almost. Garcia had her head against the wall, breathing hard through her nose, her hands still moving, everywhere, on her breasts and on her back and then back to her breasts, and she needed to calm down or Baran risked losing all train of thoughts, and she had a goal in mind.
She was almost ashamed of the desire to win, to control, to dominate, so far from the way she usually felt, but she was still angry, and irritated, and Garcia seemed to be so in control all the time, even then, with Baran’s hand inside her pants, her fingers between her folds, caressing and pinching and, finally, entering her in one swift motion that made the surgeon grit her teeth for a moment. Baran didn’t know where to look, torn between the hypnotic image of her hand disappearing inside the other’s pants, one perky breast naked and uncovered, and Garcia’s face, her eyes closed and her jaw locked. She might have been sleeping, if not for the sweat on her forehead and the puffs of breath coming from her nose, if not for the trembling in her thighs and the slightly heaving chest. Baran kept the pace up, fucking her hard and deep, the other hand reaching her breast, wanting more than anything to hear another sound coming from her lips, a moan or a groan or a breath, something. But Garcia’s lips were shut tight, as were her eyes, and when she came she had one hand locked on the back of Baran’s neck, grip so tight that Baran was sure she was gonna have half moons all over. Baran withdrew her hand, slightly overwhelmed by the whole situation, the stink of a public restroom mixed with sweat and sex, her sticky fingers, still hot from being inside the other doctor, the sounds of the bar reaching her ears from the other room.
But then Garcia righted herself, pushed the other woman against the wall again, and with a scowl in place didn’t waste a second before undoing her pants and pushing them halfway past her thighs.
Baran gave her a hard look, breath short. “This is the only time. This is not happening.”
A derisive chuckle left Garcia’s lips, her eyes shining and her pants still undone.
“As if I’d ever want you again.”
And then she dropped to her knees.