Archive of Our Own ^beta

The needle easily pierces the skin, the plunger descends, injecting the sedative into the meaty deltoid. The patient’s body tenses for a long, anxious moment, then slackens abruptly, like a marionette with cut strings.

“Hah!” Dr. Santos exclaims triumphantly, extracting the syringe. “At least we know that Midazolam still works on them.”

“You didn’t think it would?” Cassie glances up at her, frowning. “You gave him enough to tranq a work horse.”

Santos bends down to lift the man’s upper lip gingerly with a gloved fingertip. “Only in this case, less a horse and more like –“ She grimaces. “ – a wolf?”

Cassie tries to suppress a wince herself as she studies the patient’s excessively long canines, protruding by a good two inches from his upper jaw. It’s certainly easier to get a good look now that he’s unconscious, but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling.

“How many is that now?” She starts to fasten the restraints around the man’s left wrist and ankle, taking extra care to make sure they are tightened properly.

“I counted up to eight,” Santos says, copying her motions on the patient’s other side. “But that was before this guy here tried to make a light lunch out of us.”

“Christ,” Cassie sighs. “That’s definitely well beyond a weird fluke.” She lifts her forearm to brush strands of damp hair out of her face. “And it’s barely even noon. I always thought werewolves were supposed to be, like, a full moon midnight kind of thing.”

“Depends,” Santos shrugs, pressing her stethoscope to the man’s chest. “Are we talking True Blood werewolves or Michael Jackson Thriller werewolves?”

“Well, this guy is certainly no Joe Manganiello,” Cassie huffs, dumping her used gloves into the trash. “Also he reeks.”

“He does smell pretty ripe,” Santos agrees, her nose crinkling. “And yes,” she continues, slinging the stethoscope over her shoulders, apparently satisfied with the patient’s heart. “It’s not exactly the kind of craziness I’d expect during dayshift.” She steps a little closer, lowers her voice. “Plus, to be honest: if someone had asked me who’d be best equipped to fend off a werewolf invasion in this place, my money would have been on Abbot and Shen.”

“God, just don’t let Robby hear you say that,” Cassie snorts, amused despite herself. “He is already stressed out enough as –“

She flinches violently when the curtain behind her is pushed aside without warning, then exhales a shaky breath of relief when she recognizes Mateo slipping through the gap, Whitaker following closely behind.

“We are back,” Mateo announces the obvious, dropping a pile of padded cuffs onto the counter. His curls are a mess, and there is a suspicious-looking stain on the front of his scrub top, but even in the midst of insanity, he manages to look dashingly handsome. More importantly, he looks to be still in one piece.

“What took you so long?” Santos asks impatiently, although Cassie knows her well enough by now to detect the relief in her voice, carefully buried as it might be. “Did you walk all the way to Philadelphia to get those extra straps?”

Whitaker shakes his head. “Not quite,” he says, and sets a plastic container onto the surface next to the restraints. He looks nervous and frazzled, but his tiny smile is oddly self-satisfied. “We did need to take a little detour though.”

“What kind of detour?” Cassie asks, trying not to get too distracted by Mateo’s fingers combing back his stubborn curls.

“The prayer room,” Mateo says, hand still buried in his hair, and Cassie blinks at him, bewildered.

“Seriously?” Santos throws up her hands in exasperation. “I know you two were raised to hold Jesus in your hearts or whatever, but we do have an actual emergency situation going on here, and unless you can convince the man himself to drop in and work some miracles, I don’t see how praying – “

“No praying,” Mateo cuts her off. He gestures toward Whitaker, who is in the process of pouring clear liquid from the mystery container into one of the small plastic spray bottles they keep in the cabinets. “We went for supplies.”

"You -" Cassie looks at him. Looks at Whitaker, who is now screwing the lid onto the bottle with singular focus. Looks back at Mateo’s pleased little grin. “ – stole the holy water from the chapel?”

“Like Trinity said,” Whitaker shrugs, turning back around with the spray bottle in hand. “It’s an emergency. God will understand.”

“You do realize that holy water is just a gimmick, right?” Santos narrows her eyes at him. “It’s not some kind of magical potion. And we are not actually starring in a horror movie.”

“But did you tell that to the hairy guy with the fangs?” Whitaker asks sardonically, looking down with clinical interest at the unconscious patient before poking him very gently in the ribs. The man doesn’t stir a bit.

“What did you give him?” Whitaker asks, curiously.

“More Midazolam than is strictly recommended,” Santos answers wryly. She scratches the back of her neck. “So if it turns out that he just has an extremely rare medical condition, I am probably going to get sued.”

“Hm,” Whitaker hums, thoughtfully. “Let’s find out.” He raises the bottle and covers the man’s bare arm in a mist of holy water.

The water sizzles. Steam rises from the damp skin. An anguished groan tears itself from the man’s chest  – more a howl, really. For a brief moment, he twitches in his restraints, then he goes limp again.

“Madre de Dios,” Mateo says slowly. “It’s actually working.”

“Looks like it,” Santos nods, reluctantly impressed. “I got to hand it to you.” She pats Whitaker on the back. “Good thinking, Huckleberry.”

“Thank you,” Whitaker smiles, obviously pleased, then whips around to squirt liquid into her face.

“What the fuck, Dennis,” Santos sputters, wiping holy water out of her eyes. “What was that for?”

Whitaker raises his shoulders. “You said something nice, and it wasn’t ironic,” he says defensively. “I figured I should make sure you are not possessed. Besides,” he adds hastily. “If this actually works, it should give you some protection from whatever is out there at least.”

“Aww,” Santos drawls, “that’s almost sweet.” She tugs the bottle from his grip and soaks him in water before he has a chance to react. Whitaker gapes at her, water dripping down his nose.

“There,” she says smugly. “Now you are protected too.”

“Fair enough,” Whitaker sighs heavily, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He drags a hand through his wet hair, then glances at Cassie. “What now, Dr. McKay?”

Cassie opens her mouth, but before she can even decide how to answer that, she is interrupted by a sudden loud crash and a scream echoing from behind the curtain. “Go get her,” Dana shouts, somewhere on the other side of the floor. “I’m fine, I’m fine, she didn’t bite me, just don’t let her get on the elevator.”

“Well,” Santos says dryly. “I guess that means we are up to number nine.”

“At least.” Cassie inhales deeply and straightens her spine. “Looks like they might need our help out there. Let’s fill some of those bottles and hit the floor.”

“Already taken care of, boss.” Standing by the counter, Mateo lifts his arms, showing off the bottles he is clutching in both hands.

“You really are the best, Mateo,” Cassie says emphatically, and feels a prickle of heat low in her spine when Mateo winks at her before he tosses one of the bottles at Santos, who catches it easily out of the air.

Nodding a silent thank you at him, Santos reaches into an open cabinet and grabs a handful of vials, shoving them swiftly into the pocket of her coat.

“Still bringing some of that good old sedative too,” she says, dropping another fistful into Whitaker’s open palm. “Just in case.”

“Integrative medicine, yes,” Whitaker nods approvingly. He slides the vials into his pocket with one hand and reaches for the bottle Mateo is offering him with the other.

“Ready, roomie?” Santos raises a fist, and Whitaker grimly bumps it with his own. “Ready,” he confirms, and ducks around the curtain.

Santos looks back over her shoulder. “See you out there!” she says, brimming with a determination bordering on glee, and then she, too, is gone, leaving Cassie with the choice to either look at the unconscious wolf-man or at Mateo.

She opts for the latter.

“Well,” she says, and now that it’s just the two of them, she finds that her voice is trembling the tiniest bit. “We better get out there too.”

“Of course,” Mateo nods, but he doesn’t make any move to follow Santos. “How are you holding up?” he asks instead, studying her from dark, warm eyes. His lashes are really ridiculously long.

“Ready for this shift to be over,” she sighs. “But really, I'm alright.”

“Did you hear from Harrison?” he asks seriously, and Cassie is not sure whether to bless or curse him for knowing her so well, but she is never going to be mad at him for caring about her son. 

“I did," she says. "My parents took him to Legoland this weekend. I texted them earlier, and everything is fine. Apparently this Halloween werewolf extravaganza is a Pennsylvania thing only, imagine that.”

“Typical,” Mateo sighs. “As if we need to give New York any more reasons to feel superior. They’ll probably blame it on our lower MMR vaccination rates. But I’m glad Harrison’s fine.” He offers her a smile, the soft and private kind that makes her feel a little dizzy whenever she's on the receiving end of it. “Now we just need to make sure his mom stays safe as well.”

She frowns, not sure whether to feel offended or touched. “I can take care of myself,” she says pointedly, and Mateo laughs easily, not at all deterred by her brusque response.  

“I know,” he says. “Believe me, I know,” and then he puts a hand against her cheek, leans in, and kisses her once, carefully.

“What –” Cassie reflexively licks her lips. She tastes Mateo’s vanilla chapstick, feels the phantom imprint of his touch on her skin. Her heart is beating rapidly, and it has little to do with the monsters invading the ER. “What was that for?”

Mateo huffs softly, and Cassie immediately wishes she could take back her question, because she is suddenly struck with the fear that he might say something horribly dramatic, like This might be my last chance or Who knows if we’ll make it to tonight, and she isn’t sure how she’ll get through this day with that kind of answer echoing through her mind.

But: “Just for luck,” Mateo smiles, near-amused, as if he knows exactly what she’s thinking. “And, well,” he adds, his expression sliding into something more bashful: “I know you said this thing between us would be too much of a risk, but I figured maybe a werewolf invasion could help put things into perspective.” He wrinkles his nose. “Or at least you might not have the bandwidth to get too terribly mad at me.”

“Can’t really argue with that logic,” she says, and, Christ. It’s probably a bad idea – hell, she knows it’s a bad idea, she’s been telling herself that for years – but. The emergency department is full of werewolves, they are armed with nothing but holy water and Midazolam, the night shift won’t show up for another seven hours, and life is really too short to keep saying no to the guy with the gorgeous eyes who makes her look forward to work every morning and actually likes hanging out with her kid.

“When this is over,” she says firmly. “You. Me. That tequila bottle you keep in your locker for emergencies. And the lockable on-call room on the fourth floor.”

Mateo blinks at her in shock, as if that’s very much not the answer he expected, but then her words seem to sink in abruptly, and he smiles, widely, delightedly.

“It’s a date,” he nods, and throws back his hair. “So let’s get this over with,” he adds, grimly determined, and disappears through the curtain in front of her.

“Let’s do it,” Cassie agrees, even if no one can hear her anymore, and keeps her index finger firmly on the trigger of the spray bottle as she follows Mateo through the curtain to face the chaos on the floor.