"What exactly are you doing?"
Peter looks up from the newspaper in his hands to see Leight standing on the other side of the table, hair still wet from the shower, as he buttons up his shirt. Too much flesh is visible; Peter's resolve flickers. He swallows—hard. "I'm reading."
"I can see that," Leight returns in monotone. His customary eyebrow raise is conspicuously absent. "What exactly are you reading?"
"An article about the rice blight in Myanmar." The lie sounds clean and confident in Peter's ears. He is, he congratulates himself, definitely getting better at this whole lying thing.
"Liar." Leight clearly disagrees. "Unless something has changed in the last 24 hours, I sincerely doubt there's an article about the Burmese rice blight in the local section of our local paper."
"Yes," Peter deadpans, "there was a memo on the front page of the international section. We've annexed Myanmar."
"Good to know." Then Leight plucks the newspaper out of Peter's hands. He turns the paper around so that he can read the pages Peter was reading. His eyes skim the spread, and his smirk fades. "I take it," his brow furrows, "you weren't scouring the obituaries for a potential case."
"No," Peter says softly, "I wasn't." His chest is tight, his stomach is seasick, and his mouth is desert dry. He feels broken. He is fairly certain that his resolution to cut Malcolm Leight out of his life is killing him—and he has barely started. "I was looking at the apartment listings."
"And why exactly," Leight peers over the top of the newspaper, his eyes hard, "would you want to do that?"
Peter breaks eye contact. His gaze pans around their warzone of an apartment. Of course he doesn't want to leave. What he wants consists of a spectrum of minor impossibilities—events that either can not or will not come to pass.
He wants to give up this façade. He wants to forget the Wilson case. He wants the Pleasure Factory to vanish off the face of the Earth. But most vehemently and impossibly of all, he wants Leight to take him in his arms and make this right.
Peter shakes his head to clear it of these tired fairytale fantasies. Quietly, he answers with a heavy sigh, "I think you know why, Mal."
"You can't leave, Peter."
Peter almost spits out the sip of coffee he has just taken. He swallows it, but it's bitter all the way down his esophagus. Whatever regret he was feeling turns to indignation. "Oh really?" his nostrils flare in the slightest. "Why not? Are you going to forbid me to leave?"
"No." Leight compresses the newspaper pages into a small ball. It rests, crinkled, on his outstretched palm. He smiles with fake amiability. "Our lease is paid through the next five months." He drops the newspaper ball onto the floor. "Come along now, and stop pouting. We have a case."
"No, you have a case, Mal." Peter takes a deep draught of his coffee. It's cold now, but he doesn't care. "I have an appointment."
Incredulously, Leight echoes, "An appointment?"
"A medical appointment."
"Peter—"
"No, Mal."
For once, Leight is the one left standing in the kitchen as Peter stands up, grabs his coat, tucks the remainder of the newspaper under his arm, and marches out the door.
It was only a little (off-white) lie, but Peter is still surprised that Leight didn't question it. On second thought, he supposed he didn't really give Leight a chance to challenge him.
He does, in fact, have an appointment; it is, in fact, with a medical professional. It is not, however, the sort of appointment that would involve wearing a hospital gown and sitting in an examination room; on the contrary, it is the sort of appointment that has him wearing a gray pinstripe suit and a jade green tie (that brings out the color of his eyes, or so he's been told) and sitting in a glass-walled office across from a stony-faced hospital administrator.
Peter's nervous, but he swallows the emotion down. It's getting easier to put on his poker face. Or maybe it's just getting easier to pretend it's getting easier.
He says, "Thank you for meeting with me, Dr. Ye."
Peter meets her eyes, briefly, because he knows it's the right thing to do, but his gaze keeps shifting (of its own accord) to the potted daffodils sitting on a table behind Ye and her desk.
Dr. Kimberly Ye is the chief administrator of Crick University Hospital. Peter knows plenty about her (and not because he read her Wikipedia article twice last night). He has followed her research since his first year of medical school, which was when she first made headlines.
She pioneered a number of low-cost treatments for the diseases that plagued her home country (of Myanmar, coincidentally). Two years later, she accepted an administrative position, to the great disappointment of Peter Grayson and starry-eyed doctors-to-be everywhere. And here Peter is, a full-blown not-so-starry-eyed doctor, meeting her in the flesh.
She is only a few years past forty, and she is in impeccable shape. She is tall, lean, and lithe and wears a pencil skirt flawlessly. Her light brown skin is only just beginning to wrinkle.
She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Grayson. I've heard good things about you—but none more recent than two years ago. What have you been doing since you left St. Mary's?"
Suddenly Peter's confidence plummets. He hoped they could make it through at least ten minutes before this came up, but clearly, the stars are not aligning in his favor. He carefully monitors his facial expressions; he refuses to lose this soon. Evenly, he answers, "I've been working with the police. The homicide division, to be exact."
"You're on payroll? As a medical examiner? Coroner?"
"Not exactly." Peter most definitely does not grimace; he is far too in control of this conversation to be involuntarily grimacing. "I work with Malcolm Leight."
"The so-called brilliant detective? The one everyone calls an arrogant ass? You actually work with him? As his partner?"
"Yes," Peter nods before he can stop himself. "On all counts." They're only little (off-white) lies, he tells himself, of no consequence. "I provide medical consult, which Leight finds more useful than the official coroner's reports."
"I take it Leight only works the most perplexing of cases."
"That's correct."
"It must be exciting. Plenty of adventure."
"Plenty, yes. Rather too much."
Ye appraised him over her tented fingers. "Is that why you want to give it up, then?" Her tone hints at her skepticism.
Peter blinks. "No, not exactly." He pauses for a moment. His thoughts are unordered, much like the papers lying about their living room floor. "What everyone says about Leight—it's all true. He's brilliant, yes, but he's impossible. He is an arrogant ass, and honestly, I've had enough."
"Is that so?" Ye purses her (mauve-lipsticked) lips.
Peter doesn't know how or if he's supposed to respond to that. All the same, he nods. He can't tell if it is or isn't a lie. This doublespeak is unintelligible. He's had enough, hasn't he? Why can't he just walk away?
"Well," Ye says suddenly, signaling a conversational shift. "Why here?"
"I've lived in this city for the past two years. I've made a life here," even if it's been too full of Leight, "and I don't want to leave. That, and I heard about the opening here."
"In the ER."
"Yes."
"Dr. Grayson, you seem to be forgetting that, according your CV, you're a cardiologist by training."
"I'm not forgetting," Peter replies, thoroughly unfazed. "There aren't any openings in cardiology."
Ye clucks her tongue. "We may be able to find one."
Peter blinks as he steps outside. The sun in shining; it is a brilliant day. It may even be the first day of the rest of his (lightless) life. He should feel happier than he does (which is not happy at all). As it is, he sets off walking toward the nearest subway station with his hands in his pockets.
He and Leight always take cabs, and come to think of it, he really doesn't know why. They don't make enough to warrant the cost-ineffective extravagance, and it isn't any more convenient. Leight likes the eccentricity. Peter resolves never to take a taxi again.
And that's precisely when he crashes into someone heading the opposite direction. He's spewing nonsensical apologies as he crouches to pick up the man's hat. It's a deerstalker, gray houndstooth, and Peter recognizes it instantly because this is the hat he has told Leight not to wear (for fear of being called a Sherlock Holmes impersonator) at least a thousand times.
"Mal," he sighs, looking up at Leight's opaque form, silhouetted against the harsh late morning sun, "what are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Leight replies, taking his hat from Peter and putting it on. "I thought you said you had a medical appointment."
"Hospital. Right over there." Peter stands up. He wobbles unevenly. He wonders if Leight didn't come here just to harass him. "I thought you said you had a case."
"Crime scene," Leight smirks. "Right this way."
And honestly, Peter can't help but follow when Leight starts walking away. He knows he shouldn't but he can't resist. Leight is like alcohol, chocolate cake, nicotine, or maybe heroin, and bad habits are hard to break. Peter knows he shouldn't, but he always does.
.
.