by Céindreadh
ceindreadh@eircom.net
(An alternative universe fic featuring Dave and Carter)
Previously on ER
Carter finished his shower and wearing Dave's bathrobe, wandered back into the living area only to find Dave searching his jacket. Dave explained that he was trying to find Carter's stash of booze and revealed that he suspected Carter to be an alcoholic. Carter denied this, claiming that the 'confrontation' Kerry had referred to had been about his reluctance to seek treatment for PTSD. Still unconvinced, Dave had persuaded Carter to stay with him and go without drink for twenty-four hours. Although realizing that this would mean he'd be unable to take any morphine for his pain, Carter agreed.
After a good meal and a few hours of watching TV, Carter was craving a cigarette. Dave reluctantly agreed to let him smoke one.
Dave held the jacket out of Carter's reach. "I'll get it...not that I don't trust you," he said with a grin as he plunged his hand into one of the more bulging pockets. "But..." The words died on his lips and the grin faded as he felt a familiar shape in the pocket.
Pulling out his hand, he stared at the bottle of morphine and the syringe.
"Oh shit," thought Carter as he saw the expression on Dave's face change.
"What the hell are you doing with this?" asked Dave accusingly as he held up the morphine.
"It...it's for my back...for the pain," said Carter, quickly. "Actually, I was going to take some soon...my back's been aching for a while now."
"You're taking morphine...you're *injecting* morphine," said Dave in a neutral tone.
"Yeah," said Carter, frowning slightly. "I know that most patients aren't given it...but I'm a doctor...I'm perfectly able to handle it." Carter was unsure what Dave was thinking...which was unusual in itself...normally Dave's face was an open book...but now...there was a calmness in his expression that Carter found quite unnerving. He had expected Dave to react the same way as everyone else...hurling accusations at him.
"You were prescribed this?" asked Dave, trying to keep his tone neutral as his mind struggled to absorb the implications of what he had just found. Drugs and a syringe...Dave could think of only one reason why Carter would be carrying this stuff around with him...he hoped he was wrong...he prayed that there was a logical explanation for this...and not the one that had immediately jumped into his mind. How could he have been so stupid as to imagine that Carter had a drinking problem? It was all so obvious now...
"What? You think I just lifted it from the drug lock-up?" asked Carter indignantly. "What the hell do you take me for? Of course it was prescribed...I'm not a junkie or anything...I just need a strong prescription for my back pain...that's all."
Carter was indignant with good reason...the morphine had been obtained by prescription...granted his name had been down as the attending physician, and not the patient...it was still a legitimate prescription. Not that he'd have had to resort to such measures if his doctor had given him enough Vicodin in the first place...he'd *had* to write prescriptions himself to ensure that he didn't go short.
"You can't need something this strong," said Dave. "Shit, if your back was that screwed up then you shouldn't be able to work...hell, you shouldn't be able to walk..."
"What are you saying?" asked Carter, with a trace of anger on his face. "You think I'm lying to you?"
"I think you've been lying to everyone...Dr. Weaver wasn't talking to you about any PTSD stuff, was she? And she doesn't think you're an alcoholic either...she thinks you're on drugs...and by the looks of things I'd say she was right."
"Of course I'm on drugs," snapped Carter. "But they're just pain medication...I'm not an addict for Christ's sake. I just have some residual pain from my back. In case you didn't hear, some psycho stuck a butcher knife into me...twice...and it hurt like hell. It still hurts...but you know what hurts even more? The fact that people take one look at a syringe and automatically scream 'drug addict'. Dammit Dave, do you think I *like* sticking myself with a needle? Well, I don't...I do it because I have to...because there's no other way for me to work...and I have to be able to work."
Dave looked at the morphine again, weighing it in his hand. What Carter was saying sounded plausible enough...but Dave had heard it all before...the denials...the justifications...but this was Carter, he reminded himself...not some bum off the street...Carter would know better than to overmedicate himself...wouldn't he? On a sudden impulse, Dave dropped the morphine and syringe on the couch and started rummaging through the rest of the jacket pockets. A pack of cigarettes...keys...a wallet...all found their way onto the couch.
"What...what are you doing?" asked Carter a little nervously. He didn't like the cold, determined expression on Dave's face.
"Something I should have done earlier," snapped Dave, as his fingers closed over the shape of a pill bottle. Pulling it out, he held it up to Carter accusingly.
"I knew it...pills *and* morphine...Goddammit Carter, what the hell are you playing at? Don't you know it's twice as easy to OD when you're using two lots of meds? And don't tell me your doctor prescribed morphine *and*..."
Dave turned the bottle around to see the label properly. His eyes widened and a look of anger came over his face as he read the patient name. "B. Knight? You son of a bitch...you used Lucy's name to get drugs..." Angrily he flung the bottle against the wall. "You sick bastard."
Carter's mouth opened and closed as he tried to think of something to say...some way of making Dave see reason. "I...I had to use her name...my doctor...my doctor wouldn't give me enough pain medication...I needed my meds...I couldn't work without them..."
"Geez, and did you ever stop to wonder *why* he wouldn't give you more meds? Cause he was afraid of you turning into a junkie...and I guess he was right...look at yourself man, can't you see what's happening to you?"
"Nothings 'happening' to me," snapped Carter. "I just need a little bit of help to get me through the day...once my back has healed up properly, I'll be fine...I won't need to take any drugs."
"So you'll just stop...just like that...no problems, right?"
Carter nodded. Of course he'd be able to stop...he wasn't a junkie for crying out loud. Once he didn't need his medication any more, he'd stop taking it...simple as that...he honestly didn't know what Dave and the others were so worried about. "I can stop any time I want to," he said, with an air of smugness.
Dave's heart sank as he heard those words. Shit...once someone started saying that...and worse yet, believing it like Carter obviously did, then that was it... Dave was regretting his earlier impulse to dry out Carter himself...if he'd known that drugs were involved...shit...alcohol was bad enough, but he had figured that he'd be able to handle Carter's withdrawal...but drugs...this was way over his head. The sensible thing to do would be to call the Chief...tell her where Carter was and then let her handle it...after all, she was Carter's boss...she'd be able to make him see sense...but then...she hadn't exactly succeeded earlier...and Dave was pretty certain that Carter wouldn't just stand idly by and wait for reinforcements to arrive...somehow Dave was going to have to persuade Carter to seek the help he so obviously needed.
"How long since your last fix?" asked Dave, quietly.
"My last 'dose of medication' was a few hours ago," said Carter calmly. "And if you're waiting for me to start 'climbing the walls', then you'll be waiting a while...the worst that'll happen if I don't take any more is that I'll start to have a really bad back ache...you want to watch me in pain? Fine...you want me to suffer just to prove to you that I don't have a problem, then I'll do it... but I thought you were my friend..."
"It's because I'm your friend that I'm doing this," said Dave, biting his lip. "Look...all I'm asking is for twenty four hours...one full day without taking anything...that's all you'll have to do." With a flash of inspiration, he added, "And it'll prove everyone wrong...that's what you want, isn't it? You want people to know that you don't have a problem...well here's the best way to prove it to them."
Carter had the sinking feeling that he'd just let himself be maneuvered into something he really didn't want to do. He knew that he could survive a day without any medication...at least he was pretty sure that he could...he'd never had to try and cope without even a couple of Vicodin to get him through the day...of course there weren't going to be any withdrawal symptoms for Dave to notice...there was just going to be the pain...the pain that he had been living in fear of since February...waking up on the table in Trauma one had been the most agonizing experience of his life...ever since then he had lived in fear of being in that much pain again. "It's only for a day," he told himself. "Just twenty-four hours...less than that cause it's been a few hours since your last shot...you can do this...you can cope..."
"Okay," said Carter finally. "But after this you'll stop hassling me about my medications?"
"If you go the full day without any withdrawal symptoms then I'll write you a script myself," said Dave. Inwardly he was hoping that Carter wouldn't hold him to it...even if he wasn't overdoing the meds...mixing them like that couldn't be good for him...Dave just hoped that Carter would come to his senses about this before it was too late.
Grabbing the drugs and syringe, Dave stuck them in his pocket before giving the jacket back to Carter. "I'm gonna make some coffee," he said, quietly. "You want some? Or I could heat youze up some milk...it'll help you sleep...that is if you want to."
"I'm not thirsty," said Carter as he gathered up his belongings, "but I think I'll try and sleep...what about you?"
"I'm gonna stay awake," said Dave pointedly. "The couch folds out into a bed...you'll be more comfortable that ways."
Carter nodded; unsurprised that Dave was going to keep watch over him...although in a strange way it was sort of comforting, knowing that he wasn't going to be left alone with his pain.
As Dave left the room to get a blanket, Carter unfolded the bed from the couch and lay down on it, trying to make himself comfortable. The mattress had obviously been well used...probably by one or more of Dave's girlfriends thought Carter sourly as he felt a spring poke into his leg. Shit...this wasn't going to help his back at all, he thought as he shifted position. His eyes fell on the container of Vicodin that Dave had thrown against the wall in anger. "He must have forgotten about it," Carter told himself as he wondered if he'd have time to take a pill before Dave came back. "He can't have forgotten it," a voice in his mind said. "He's just left it there to see if you'll try and take some...he doesn't trust you...nobody trusts you..."
Carter bit his lip as he slowly started to push himself off the couch. The tablets were only a few yards away...he could easily take a few and leave the bottle where it was for Dave to retrieve it when he remembered it...Dave would never realize that there were less tablets in it than there had been earlier...just a few tablets...hell, even just one would ease the pain...just one tablet...
To be continued